Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver asks acting ICE director if he’s ‘going to hell’

Rep. LaMonica McIver challenged the head of ICE on Tuesday, asking him how he thinks he’ll fare on judgment day.

“Do you think you’re going to hell?” the New Jersey Democrat demanded of Todd Lyons, acting director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

She also wondered how “you think judgment day will work for you with so much blood on your hands.”

That produced a scolding from House Homeland Security Committee Chair Andrew Garbarino, New York Republican, who said Ms. McIver’s point was out of bounds.

“I’m just asking a question,” the congresswoman replied. “You’re always talking about religion here.”

Mr. Lyons declined to answer her challenge.

The hearing marked the first time the Trump administration’s immigration agency chiefs have faced Congress since the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota last month amid a major immigration enforcement operation.

It quickly became an outlet for vicious attacks on Mr. Lyons and his agency.

One Democrat compared ICE to the Ku Klux Klan and “slave patrols.” One demanded that Mr. Lyons apologize to the families of the two citizens killed.

Several lawmakers said the agency had “blood” on its hands.

“People are dying, and you don’t seem to care,” Ms. McIver said.

She has a personal beef with ICE. She faces criminal charges stemming from a confrontation last year during an inspection of a migrant detention facility in New Jersey.

She has pleaded not guilty.