Senator Says His Visit to Texas Laid Bare the 'Dystopian World' Trump and ICE Have Created

Sen. Chris Murphy recently took a trip to inspect federal immigration detention facilities in San Antonio, Texas, and also took a detour to a local courtroom where he saw up close how federal agents are working to detain families who have been obeying the law while trying to apply for asylum.

Writing on Substack on Friday, Murphy (D-Conn.) detailed being in court with an immigrant family during a scheduled asylum hearing as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents waited outside to apprehend them.

At the end of the hearing, Murphy decided to walk with the family outside the courtroom and past the agents, betting that they would not want to risk a confrontation with a US senator.

"Our hunch was right," Murphy wrote. "The ICE officers made a half step toward us but then froze, and the family safely left the building."

The senator then said that this story was symbolic of the lawlessness of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during President Donald Trump's second term, which he described as a "dystopian world."

Among other things, Murphy found that ICE had taken over the San Antonio courthouse's room designated for pro bono attorneys and was using it for interrogations; an immigration judge had been fired "because she insisted on implementing the law and not ruling against every single" application; and ICE officers who openly admitted their goal wasn't to target criminals who happen to be undocumented, but anyone who isn't a US citizen, including immigrants legally in the country.

Most ominously, said Murphy, most immigrants detained by ICE officers at the courthouse are sent to Pearsall Detention Center, which he noted has only four rooms for legal consultations despite being built to house 1,800 detainees.

Murphy said this essentially guarantees that "most migrants never see a lawyer before the expedited fake legal process inside the jail results in their deportation," with the result being "effectively a campaign of disappearances."

"What I saw in Texas was utter lawlessness: an agency out of control, making up its own law—with no respect for the actual law or the Constitution," he explained. "DHS is terrorizing children and families because it can. They act like they are unaccountable."

Murphy emphasized that it was time for Senate Democrats to draw a line in the sand when it comes to funding ICE—writing a day after seven party members in the House of Representatives voted with the GOP to give the agency billions more dollars.

"Democrats have no obligation to vote for a budget that funds a runaway, immoral agency just because Republicans are so beholden to Trump, they refuse to agree to any reforms," he said. "We shouldn’t pretend we are powerless; we aren’t."

Murphy encouraged Democrats to demand that federal immigration officers obtain judicial warrants before carrying out arrests, mandating consequences for officer misconduct, and suspending funds to DHS until it granted members of Congress the access to immigration facilities.

"These reforms aren’t cure-alls," he acknowledged, "but they would save lives."