STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
All right. We mentioned a confrontation in Congress. Lawmakers face a deadline Friday to fund the government or see a partial shutdown. Senate Democrats are demanding changes before they give their votes to the Department of Homeland Security. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois is one of those Democrats, and she's on the line. Good morning.
TAMMY DUCKWORTH: Good morning, Steve. How are you?
INSKEEP: I'm doing fine. Thanks for joining us. I know that one of the things you're demanding is new rules on the use of force by DHS agents. What sort of rules do you mean?
DUCKWORTH: Well, there's several things. One is that we want to make sure that if there's any force or - involved with a DHS agent that there's independent investigation. So if they start to use force, whether it is a shooting, something like that, then especially when a member of the public is harmed, there should be independent investigation of those ICE agents.
INSKEEP: I want to make sure I understand what you mean by independent. In the case of Alex Pretti, who was killed the other day, federal agents denied state prosecutors access to the crime scene. You're saying that you would want state authorities to investigate a case like this? Or what do you mean by independent?
DUCKWORTH: Well, several - over a hundred days ago, I sent their inspector general a request saying, let's form a task force. Let's form a task force with both local police, but also justice and DHS investigators that are independent of ICE, to do - to look into the violence involving ICE agents. And remember, this is after what they did in Chicago, which is when I put in the request. And they denied my request. And then, within the language of the budget bill for ICE that came out of the House, they inserted language that says there will be no independent investigation of ICE. And that, for me, was the last straw.
INSKEEP: Meaning that rather than making it a matter of law that there should be, it's actually a matter of law that it should not be independently...
DUCKWORTH: Correct.
INSKEEP: ...Investigated.
DUCKWORTH: Correct. Correct.
INSKEEP: You also, as I understand, want ICE to end what are described as roving patrols. I think I understand what you mean, but why don't you describe it to me? What is going on?
DUCKWORTH: So ICE is allowed under current law to basically rove around the streets of our cities, of our towns, as long as it is within 100 air miles of a - of our nation's borders. So 100 air miles from the border with Mexico, a border air - you know, 100 air miles on the border with Canada. In my case, in Illinois, they count the Lake Michigan as a border.
INSKEEP: OK.
DUCKWORTH: So that is a long way for ICE to have unfettered access. I think that if they're going to do their border mission, then it should be reduced to one air mile, 'cause right now they can range all the way through halfway across my state if they want.
INSKEEP: And when we talk about roving patrols, these are guys going around on the street saying, you look kind of foreign to me. You have an accent - which is actually described in a Supreme Court ruling, by the way. You have an accent. You look like not from here, and we want to ask you some questions. That's the kind of thing you want to forbid except very near the border. Is that right?
DUCKWORTH: That's correct. Now, remember that they also in Chicago, in these roving patrols, did things like saw people going in and out of a Latino grocery store and deployed smoke grenades outside the store so that people would run out. And then they would grab people.
INSKEEP: Senator, I want to ask about a bit of news we have in the last 24 hours or so involving the killing of Alex Pretti. There's now a new video moving around. Republicans are making a lot of it. It is not from the day in which Pretti was killed last weekend. It's 11 days earlier. But somebody who looks a lot like him is out on the street, having some kind of confrontation with federal agents. And he gets upset, and he kicks a vehicle and breaks a taillight of a federal vehicle. This, in the eyes of Republicans, shows that he was more violent than people imagined. What, if anything, does this add to the picture for you?
DUCKWORTH: Well, this adds for me that my Republican colleagues are on the blame-the-victim bandwagon. We're talking about an incident, captured on video, where it was clear that all he was doing was holding a cellphone and trying to protect a woman from ICE officials when he was brutally murdered. So let's talk about that. I mean, if the - any court, if you were to bring this into court and say, well, you know, this guy was out there protesting before, the judge would throw this out. And so we need to stop blaming the victim, and we need to focus on ICE. And - but that's what my Republican colleagues want to do. They are too afraid to confront Donald Trump and the fact that this brutality is not something that Americans want on their city streets.
INSKEEP: OK. And just to be clear here - we've got about 10 seconds left - the deadline is tomorrow. Do you think you'll have an agreement with your Republican colleagues on this bill?
DUCKWORTH: I hope that they will agree to something. But my - you know, my hopes are not that high.
INSKEEP: Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, thanks so much. Really appreciate it.
DUCKWORTH: Thank you.
INSKEEP: We've asked Trump administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress to join us for interviews. Those invitations remain open. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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