Citing unspecified “reports” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents engaging in “excessive use of force and detention of United States citizens and other really abusive and potentially illegal tactics by ICE,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, announced that he is launching an investigation into ICE’s tactics utilizing his authority as ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Blumenthal indicated that he has authored and sent a letter to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, “which relates directly to specific incidents that have been reported and the increasing numbers of those incidents,” Blumenthal said, saying that flash bang grenades, “physical violence,” and tasers have been used by ICE in conducting their arrests.

Blumenthal was joined by Connecticut State Rep. Corey Paris, D-Stamford, who Blumenthal said provided the impetus for his investigation. 

Paris had posted a warning on social media that ICE was conducting operations in his district and encouraging people to share any observed ICE activity with local immigration advocacy groups. The post was picked up by the social media account Libs of Tik Tok saying he was “doxxing ICE’s live location,” and to “charge him” for “helping illegals evade arrest and impeding ICE.” 

ICE’s own social media platform on X reposted the call to “charge him.” Paris reportedly began to receive death threats, which garnered condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans in Connecticut. Blumenthal says he is seeking accountability for ICE’s social media post.

“Corey Paris was performing his responsibility as a public official when he urged his constituents to be safe and aware and to know their rights,” Blumenthal said. “Corey Paris was subject to a raft of violent, threatening posts, which was bad enough, but then ICE reposting one of the worst to the Department of Justice with the really threatening warning ‘charge him.’”

Paris said what he and his family experienced “pales in comparison to what so many immigrant families are going through across our state and across our country,” and said he thought often of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was held at a detention facility in El Salvador, garnering widespread news coverage before he was returned to the United States where he was charged with human trafficking. Garcia is now set to be sent to a facility in Uganda, but attorneys are fighting that deportation.

“It is not fair, nor is it appropriate – nor has it ever been appropriate in our country and our democracy – to simply disagree and target elected officials because of the dissent they hold against the federal government or the current administration,” Paris said. “Dissent makes our country stronger. In its absence we simply fall into a tyrannical and authoritarian government, which we cannot allow to happen.”

“My biggest concern right now is for the safety of all people who might be targeted, whether justly or unjustly. Yes, we should get rid of violent offenders in our country,” Paris continued, saying violent offenders are not just “brown folks” from South American countries. “We must also always remember they have rights under our constitution as well.”

Blumenthal’s announcement also comes on the heels of a large-scale ICE operation in Connecticut that resulted in 65 arrests of illegal aliens, “targeting transnational organized crime, gangs, and egregious offenders,” according to an ICE press release. Those arrests included 29 individuals who had been charged with or convicted of crimes in the United States, including kidnapping, drug offenses, and sex crimes.

The four-day operation was dubbed Operation Broken Trust in an obvious reference to Connecticut’s Trust Act, which prevents local and state law enforcement from sharing information with ICE or detaining someone who is on a federal immigration detainer, unless they have a judicial warrant for their arrest or have been convicted of a Class A or B felony. Legislation passed in 2025 expanded the number of crimes for which the Trust Act does not apply, but also allowed for individuals to sue for violations of the law.  

The Trust Act, however, has set off a back-and-forth argument between Connecticut leaders and President Donald Trump’s administration, which labeled Connecticut a “sanctuary state,” a designation that could affect Connecticut’s ability to receive federal funding and one which Gov. Ned Lamont and Attorney General William Tong dispute. 

Included in ICE’s press release on the results of Operation Broken Trust, was criticism of Connecticut’s Trust Act by Acting Boston Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde, who said the Trust Act only “endangers the communities it claims to protect,” and also labeled Connecticut a sanctuary state.

Connecticut Republicans have been speaking out against the Trust Act, claiming that Connecticut is, indeed, a sanctuary state, and similarly criticized Blumenthal’s announcement, saying Democrats are investigating law enforcement “while positioning criminals as victims.”

“Senator Blumenthal’s criticism of ICE’s handling of people he himself called ‘dangerous’ criminals is contradictory and misguided,” House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, and Rep. Greg Howard, R-Stonington, said in a press release. “Rather than undermining the men and women who enforce our laws, he should step away from the cameras and focus on solutions to the illegal immigration crisis he and his Democratic colleagues in Washington not only ignored but allowed to worsen throughout the Biden presidency.”

Rep. Paris, however, said that ICE and the federal government’s actions are stoking fear not just among immigrant families but also for those who exercise their First Amendment rights to speak out against the government.

“The attacks against elected officials, against immigrant families, against those who speak out simply for having a difference of opinion under this federal government and this administration; they are a coordinated effort that will ramp up more and more over the next four years,” Paris said. “We must remain completely solvent in our quest in ensuring that people have their right to First Amendment, that they have their right to speak up without fear of harm or fear of retribution, and above all else that we protect all our citizens, whether they be Republican or Democrat, no matter their race, no matter their creed, no matter their immigration status.” 

“The purpose is accountability. For people who want strong enforcement of our immigration laws, I’m with you. But strong enforcement of immigration laws does not involve abusive tactics in violation of fairness and due process rights,” Blumenthal said. “Those values and rules are important to preserve the democracy that all of us want to protect.”

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