Homeland Security said a Democratic congressman took part in “a violent mob” that tried to stop ICE agents from executing a criminal search warrant at a marijuana farm in California.
Rep. Salud Carbajal said he was on site last week to monitor “federal operations.”
But U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said he was part of the mob that hurled rocks at agents, leaving a press aide bloodied. The congressman also “doxed” that employee by sharing his business card with the mob, the agency said.
“May the congressman’s constituency always remember he chooses violence over the rule of law,” ICE wrote on social media Sunday.
On Monday Homeland Security released a photo of the employee’s hand with blood trickling from a gash. The employee was sent to the emergency room for stitches, the department said.
The ICE action took place at Glass House Farms, where authorities said they arrested 319 illegal immigrants and “rescued 14 children from potential forced labor, exploitation and trafficking.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said ICE had “bullets fired at them” during the operation.
When the congressman approached the press aide, he gave Mr. Carbajal his business card. Homeland Security said the congressman then showed the card “to the mob, making a target out of him.” He was then hit with the rock that delivered the hand wound.
Mr. Carbajal posted his version of events and the headline from a local news story about the incident, where he denounced the “militarization of our streets.”
He said he saw ICE agents “using unnecessarily aggressive and militarized tactics against local farm workers and peaceful protesters.”
“It was appalling. This is not how we keep our communities safe,” he said.
He said he was at the marijuana farm to find out what was going on.
Mr. Carbajal told ICE employees he is a member of Congress, but was still denied entry to the operation.
The Santa Barbara Independent reported that Mr. Carbajal shared the business card of an ICE press aide with a reporter.
The newspaper said Mr. Carbajal reported that ICE used smoke grenades and a flash grenade that sent out a fragment that “injured a young girl.”
The congressman, in the news article, urged more “people to protest” ICE’s actions.
In response to ICE’s claims Sunday, the congressman said they were “a blatant attempt to distort what occurred.”
He said he responded to a “flood of calls” to his office about “aggressive behavior” by ICE in his community.
“ICE’s claims of ’doxxing’ and ’violent mobs’ are familiar deflection tactics designed to distort public perception and to evade accountability for their aggressive actions in our community,” he said.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, pointed out that he never mentioned the wound the ICE press aide sustained.
“The actions by Representative Carbajal are downright un-American,” she said.
Democrats have taken an increasingly anti-ICE stance as the agency has ramped up arrests to meet President Trump’s mass deportation goals.
A New Jersey congresswoman has been charged with assaulting an ICE employee after she scuffled with agents during a surprise visit to a detention center in her state.
Anti-ICE activists, meanwhile, have been ramping up efforts to disrupt arrests, posting rumors of impending actions on social media and trying to release personal information about ICE officers, who have taken to concealing their identities with masks.
Releasing personal information is known as “doxing.”
ICE said the anti-ICE sentiment has led to a 700% increase in assaults on the agency’s officers.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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