Seventy-five House Democrats voted on Monday in support of a resolution that praised President Donald Trump’s deportation regime.

The vote came as Trump deployed more than 1,700 National Guard members and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to crush protests against increased U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and mass arrests.

Sponsored by Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., a pro-Israel Republican, the bulk of the resolution was dedicated to condemning the attack last month in Boulder, Colorado, against pro-Israel demonstrators calling for the release of hostages in Israel.

Tucked into the text was a line praising ICE, expressing “gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland.”

While some Democrats are busy joining Republican colleagues to praise ICE, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is seeking to pass a law that holds police accountable for violence against protesters. Her bill, introduced in late May, would apply penalties to law enforcement for using force in response to a demonstration.

“Now, more than ever, it’s important that we’re doing everything we can to protect Americans’ right to free speech and peaceful protest,” Omar said. “That’s why I introduced legislation to make law enforcement violence against protesters a federal crime.”

The military response to the protests is not just about immigration, said Omar, but represents another step in Trump’s efforts to crush dissent.  

“In my district and across the country, we’re seeing the Trump Administration use militarized force to silence, intimidate, and brutalize, not just protestors for exercising their First Amendment right, but also members of the press,” Omar said in a statement to The Intercept. “This appears to be part of a broader more sinister and deeply un-American agenda to surveil and criminalize individuals for their political views.”

While the bill praising ICE got 75 votes from Democrats and 205 Republicans, with seven co-sponsors, Omar’s bill has only garnered three co-sponsors. Another resolution Omar introduced late last month that condemns police brutality, especially in response to protests, has no cosponsors.

Of the handful of bills related to protests introduced in Congress this session, the vast majority are aimed at increasing penalties for protesters; restricting people convicted of federal or state crimes in relation to protests from receiving federal student aid; and designating some forms of protest as domestic terrorism. Few bills, on the other hand, seek to introduce new protections. There are currently only two Democratic bills this session related to protecting protesters — both have been introduced by Omar.

Even when bills seek to shore up protesters’ rights, some are aimed at defending Trump supporters, not protesters in general. One from a far-right member of Congress seeks to bar detention for nonviolent political protesters in the name of a man who participated in the January 6 attacks on the Capitol and, following his conviction, died by suicide in custody.

Omar is one of several progressive members of Congress who denounced Trump’s use of state force to quash dissent and affirmed the rights of protesters. On Monday, Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, called Trump’s actions a distraction and described them as illegal and authoritarian.

“Trump’s threats have nothing to do with keeping people safe — it’s about political theater. He’s scapegoating immigrants to distract from the GOP’s real agenda: ripping health care away from millions to pay for tax cuts for the ultra-rich,” Casar said in a statement. “We stand with Angelenos, and we stand with immigrant families everywhere. The President must return command of the National Guard to Governor Newsom.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., said the arrival of the military in Los Angeles was “evidence of our country’s descent into fascism.”

“It’s an abuse of power and a dangerous escalation that will only destabilize our communities,” Tlaib wrote. “I stand with those defending our immigrant neighbors and our fundamental rights.”

Denouncing Whose Violence?

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called on protesters to remain nonviolent.

“Dr. King defeated racist government officials & ended segregation through disciplined non-violent resistance,” Sanders tweeted. “Defeating Trumpism, oligarchy & authoritarianism requires that same level of discipline. Violent protests are counterproductive and play right into Trump’s playbook.”

Comments like Sanders’s that blame protesters for violence justify Trump’s response, said California attorney Thomas Harvey, who has worked with student protesters demonstrating against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Trump has “falsely characterized resistance to these ICE abductions as insurrection and rebellion to justify federalizing the National Guard in CA and authorized Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth to use the military on U.S. soil anywhere he decides,” Harvey said. “To make matters worse, the armchair quarterbacks in the Democratic Party and punditry, most of whom have never organized a protest or dealt with the kind of state violence we’re seeing today, dare to admonish protesters for engaging in what they call violence.”

Sanders’s comments were “incorrect and completely ahistorical,” Harvey added.

“King himself changed his views on violence, especially riots, as the Civil Rights Movement went on and the U.S. government resisted meaningful change. But any serious person knows that civil rights protesters fought the police in the streets in the 1960s, just as anti-ICE kidnapping protesters are willing to do today,” he said.

People protesting in Los Angeles responded to an already violent situation, said Ricci Sergienko, an attorney and organizer in Los Angeles.

“Is our current situation ‘peace’? Why would anyone be shocked at this response by the people?”

“Our current situation is a complete provocation by the state — tearing families apart and throwing people into concentration camps is violence,” Sergienko said. “They are kidnapping people and locking them in the LA federal detention center basement without food or water. This, on top of the violence already faced against every day Angelenos. From seven unhoused people dying on the streets every day to rent and evictions to continuous police harassment. How do you expect people to act? Is our current situation ‘peace’? Why would anyone be shocked at this response by the people?”

The protests in Los Angeles should come as no surprise given its history of mass action, Sergienko said. Riots broke out in 1992 after police brutally beat Rodney King. In 1965, the Watts Rebellion came in response to widespread racist police abuse. Protests in 2020 against police brutality and in 2024 against Israel’s genocide in Gaza are part of that same thread, he said.

“There is a long history of this kind of action in Los Angeles,” he said. “Politicians don’t dictate how people in this city are going to respond.”

The post As 75 Democrats Vote to Praise ICE, Ilhan Omar Wants to Hold Police Accountable for Protest Abuses appeared first on The Intercept.

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