\n<\/p>\n
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, and acting ICE head Todd Lyons before the House Committee on Homeland Security, February 10, 2026.<\/span>Tom Brenner\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going<\/span> to speak about personnel actions,\u201d acting ICE director Todd Lyons said in response to a question from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) about whether ICE agents have been fired for misconduct during his leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI welcome the opportunity to speak to the family in private, but I\u2019m not going to comment on any active investigation,\u201d Lyons said again, this time to a question about whether the immigration chief was willing to apologize to Ren\u00e9e Good\u2019s family for the Trump administration calling her actions \u201cdomestic terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n Later in Rep. Swalwell\u2019s questioning, Lyons refused to say whether he agreed with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s justification of Good\u2019s killing on the same grounds.<\/p>\n This was the theme of more than three hours of <\/a>testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Tuesday, as Lyons and two other top immigration officials, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott and Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow, largely deflected questions on accountability and killings by ICE officers.<\/p>\n But they were not quite as laconic on other issues. The officials responded effusively to praise for their work in what they and some Congress members\u2014including committee chair Rep. Andrew Garbino (R-N.Y.)\u2014characterized as prioritizing \u201cthe safety of law enforcement and the communities they serve and protect.\u201d<\/p>\n The <\/strong>officials maintained that ICE agents were under attack in communities like Minnesota\u2019s Twin Cities, claiming without evidence that \u201cpaid agitators\u201d were actively trying to stop enforcement. Federal agents have been heavily armed during attacks, arrests, and removal of residents, while protesters have been overwhelmingly peaceful.<\/p>\n As my colleague Noah Lanard wrote<\/a> in October, ICE agents are objectively not in danger: Reviewing ICE\u2019s own data, he found that none of its agents have been killed by an immigrant in its more than two-decade history. The overwhelmingly leading cause of death was Covid-19, followed by cancers linked to the September 11 attacks. <\/p>\n And as Garrett Graff, an expert on the history of problems and corruption within ICE and CBP, wrote in a post<\/a> republished<\/a> by Mother Jones<\/em>, \u201cAmerica cannot survive as a free society if ICE and CBP continue to operate as they have over the last year\u2014let alone as both agencies are turbocharged and empowered with even more funding, more officers, more guns, and more arrests.\u201d For Graff, this means Congress must halt funding.<\/p>\n The other topic Trump\u2019s immigration officials appeared eager to talk about on Tuesday was body cameras. \u201cOne thing I\u2019m committed to is full transparency, and I fully welcome body cameras all across the spectrum and all of our law enforcement activities,\u201d Lyons said. \u201cBody camera footage will be released.\u201d<\/p>\n Lyons said previously during the Tuesday hearing that about 3,000 officers out of 13,000 wear cameras. Scott said roughly half of CBP\u2019s 20,000 agents wear cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n But body cameras do not guarantee transparency. As my colleague Rachel de Leon wrote<\/a> last week, additional body cameras do not mean public release, oversight, or accountability around the footage. (The Center for Investigative Reporting has filed a complaint<\/a> in federal court calling for ICE and CBP to produce videos and other records from Chicago and Los Angeles raids filmed by videographers likely contracted by the DHS.)<\/p>\n In other words, the Trump administration\u2019s promise of \u201ctransparency\u201d is unlikely to mean accountability.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n