"We're going to get answers": Texas Democrat presses ICE over an avowed "fascist" in its ranks

Yahoo

17-04-2025

As President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown rears its head, filling federal courts across the country with cases of immigrants caught up in his effort to carry out mass deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been at the center, carrying out in high numbers the arrests, detentions and removals the administration has sought.
But a February investigative report uncovered that among the agency's ranks is a Dallas-area prosecutor alleged to operate a racist social media account. Months later, a lack of information about the prosecutor's standing has pushed federal lawmakers to press the agency for a definitive response.
"We're going to get answers from ICE on this situation," U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, told Salon. "It's not 'if' we're going to get answers. We're going to get answers from ICE on this, and we expect for the answers to be timely, and we're going to continue to push if they don't."
In February, a Texas Observer investigation found that an ICE prosecutor working in the state's immigration courts has likely been operating X account GlomarResponder, which has made a number of openly racist, xenophobic and pro-fascist posts on the platform since the account went live in 2012.
'America is a White nation, founded by Whites. We are the historical and majority population, and it was founded for our benefit. Our country should favor us," GlomarResponder said in one January 2025 post. Other posts include one from last September stating, 'All blacks are foreign to my people, dumb f***,' and another from May where the account owner professed to be a "fascist."
GlomarResponder also authored a number of anti-immigrant posts, including one from August last year that said, ''Migrants' are all criminals.' Two months later, the Observer reported, the account posted an image that read, "It is our holy duty to guard against the foreign hordes." In January, he made a separate post evoking violence against immigrants.
After cross-referencing biographical details shared on the profile with other social media accounts, public records, interviews and court hearing attendance, the Observer linked the account to James Joseph Rodden, a Dallas-area assistant chief counsel for ICE who represents the agency in removal cases. The account, now private, had nearly 17,000 followers as of Tuesday.
Following the report, Rep. Veasey wrote to ICE Acting Deputy Director Kenneth Genalo on Feb. 24 requesting a "full and transparent account" of the actions the agency is taking to investigate the claims within 30 days. Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., joined Veasey in demanding a response from the Trump administration in a separate Feb. 24 letter addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
"ICE prosecutors play a crucial role in enforcing our nation's immigration laws," Veasey wrote. "Any association with white supremacist ideology by an ICE official not only undermines public trust but also raises legitimate concerns about bias in prosecutorial decision-making."
In a phone interview, Veasey said it was important for him to seek accountability from the agency because the notion that a federal employee who largely interfaces with people of color from outside the U.S. is operating a "KKK-equivalent" social media page is "absolutely alarming."
That he even made it through any sort of background check is even scarier, Veasey added. "It calls into question just all sorts of things: How was he vetted before he was hired? How are they vetting people that worked at the agency or potential hires? It's scary to think about the fact that someone like him was ever working at this agency in the first place."
Veasey would receive a response from ICE on March 6, with the agency acknowledging the media report and stating that the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility will "ensure the allegations are addressed appropriately, fairly, and expeditiously," according to the Observer. The letter also noted that OPR typically completes those administrative investigations within 120 days.
That response, Veasey said, though appreciated, was wholly insufficient. But it was all the response he and his colleagues would get.
Now more than a month removed from his last correspondence with the agency, the congressman said he still has yet to receive any updates on the agency's investigation into the allegations or information on Rodden's standing with it.
"This should have been something that they should have been able to get back with me two weeks at the latest," Veasey said, calling a 120-day response time for a situation like this "ridiculous."
"I've been doing this a long, long time," he added. "You're not going to fool me at all. I know how long it takes for agencies to respond to people and to get back with people. I understand what sort of case work inquiries and what sort of findings take longer than others, and this is not one that should take 120-plus days. It's just absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary, and they should get back to us immediately."
ICE did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
At the time of the initial report, an ICE spokesperson declined to confirm Rodden's employment to the Observer or release personnel records for Rodden without his consent. The spokesperson also insisted that the agency "holds its employees to the highest standards of professionalism and takes seriously all allegations of inappropriate conduct."
Whether Rodden remains employed at the agency is also unclear, a point of contention Veasey called "ridiculous."
"We don't understand why ICE won't just be transparent," he said. "But it also begs the question, too: How long is it going to take for them to find out whether or not he acted in malice, and whether or not he was racist in handling many of these different cases that most likely he touched at one time or another?"
That lack of transparency demonstrates that the Trump administration believes its "running some sort of strongman, authoritarian, backwards country" and that it doesn't have to be accountable to Congress, he said. But the current Congress has a permissive dynamic with the administration that enables that behavior, he added.
"We have a very subservient U.S. Congress, led by Republicans that, quite frankly, are not exercising their authority as a coequal branch of government in holding this White House accountable," Veasey said. "Obviously, you want to be able to work with the president, particularly if you control the House of Representatives. Democrats wanted to work with Joe Biden, and I'm sure that Republicans want to work with Donald Trump. But what I will also tell you is that it's our job to check the administration when they think that they've gone too far."
Veasey said he worked to hold former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden accountable several times over the course of his 15-year tenure.
"It's their job to stand up and to show courage and to demand that these agencies be ran with transparency and that we exercise our congressional oversight when things go too far like they have with this Rodden situation," he said. "But right now, Congress is a very compliant Congress led by these reckless, radical Republicans, and it's not good for the country."
Veasey said that he and his colleagues are continuing to press the agency — and the Trump administration — for answers about the investigation. Their hope, he said, is that they will soon receive a decisive answer. At the very least, he said he expects ICE to be more responsive, transparent and prompt in addressing his inquiry.
In the interim, he said they will continue to demand that ICE turn over information regarding Rodden, the results of its investigation and what disciplinary actions it may be taking, and will take further actions to ensure they comply if they continue to be resistant.
"They have a responsibility to give us answers," Veasey said. "Again, we have coequal branches of government, and the executive branch has the responsibility — and it's their duty, by law — to give us answers to questions about how these agencies are run. There's a reason why Congress has oversight, and these inquiries are a form of oversight, and I continue to plan on exercising that oversight."
In conducting oversight when government officials or agencies are reluctant to produce information, Congress normally launches special inquiries into alleged misconduct, which involves gathering testimony and calling witnesses to obtain answers.
"I'm not worried about if I'm going to get it," Veasey added. "We're going to get it, and if they think that we're just going to go away and not talk about it anymore, they're wrong. We're going to keep pressing it."