President Biden’s nominee to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Harris County sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who's been critical of the agency he's been tapped to lead, advanced out of committee for a full Senate vote on Wednesday.
Gonzalez was approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in a party line 7-6 vote. At the same time, the Homeland Security Committee advanced Rob Santos’ nomination to lead the Census bureau in a 10-3 vote.
The sheriff, if confirmed, will be the first Senate-confirmed ICE director since the Obama administration.
Republicans have spoken out against Gonzalez, who leads one of the largest sheriff’s offices in the country that includes Houston, due to his combative record with the agency under President Trump. Gonzalez terminated a formal cooperation agreement with the agency known as 287(g), which deputizes state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law.
Gonzalez, pictured above at a Senate hearing, ended a voluntary cooperation agreement with ICE as sheriff
Migrants line up at a border facility to receive a coronavirus vaccine, as Republicans voice concerns that they are bringing the virus into the nation
‘His history with ICE, both his statements and his actions, regarding the agency he is nominated to lead, are deeply conquering to me,’ the committee’s ranking member Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said of Gonzalez during Wednesday’s meeting.
‘On numerous occasions during his time as sheriff he criticized ICE and said he only worked with them because he was compelled to do so under Texas law, a law that he openly and vocally opposed,’ Portman said.
Gonzalez said he made the decision so officers could maintain the trust of his diverse community.
'I had to consider obviously the local realities as well and the importance of local law enforcement also working with a diverse immigrant community. I also wanted to make sure that we continued to remain focused on having the avenues necessary to arrest serious
