| Home / College Guide / Q&A: Rep. Jake Auchincloss on ICE, the midterms and wind farms |
| Posted on Tuesday, February 03 @ 00:01:59 PST |
As another chaotic year of the Trump administration enters its second month, Brookline.News sat down for an interview with Representative Jake Auchincloss, who represents Brookline and the rest of the Massachusetts 4th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Much of the conversation in his Newton district office focused on his approach to challenging and reforming federal immigration law enforcement, after a year of violent immigration raids and recent killings by federal officers in Minnesota. We also asked him about the midterms, the state of congressional Democratic leadership, offshore wind and New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Brookline.News: The government funding situation is in flux, but it looks like there will be a negotiation over the next couple of weeks about DHS funding. Where do you come down on what Democrats’ goals should be during that negotiation?
Rep. Jake Auchincloss: ICE has morphed into a presidential paramilitary. It’s not an arm of the law. It’s an instrument of fear.
Last year, on a party line vote, the GOP gave it $75 billion over four years, a blank check that tripled its budget and gave it more money than every other federal law enforcement agency combined.
So all efforts on crime, drugs, guns, corruption, counterterrorism are dwarfed by the one effort on immigration detention. That effort has been not just a failure, but a lawless and reckless one. It has resulted in the death of American citizens and an environment of fear for our neighbors, both immigrant and native born.
I voted against the appropriations for ICE. One, if anything, we should be taking back the $75 billion and repurposing it for community health center funding, for education funding. And two, there were no policy riders in there that would address the worst abuses, masking, lack of body cams, warrantless searches, dragnet operations, derelict standards for use of force and training.
I’m not going to weigh in on a negotiation that hasn’t happened yet, and that I’m not in right now. I’m going to look at every piece of legislation that comes on its own merits. But for an agency that already has too much money, any bill that would grant it more money has to be paired with root level reforms to its conduct. As I said, masks off, body cams on. An end to warrantless searches and to dragnet operations. Accountability for all the ICE agents who were involved in the shootings.
A clean house for ICE leadership and DHS leadership.
And then at a broader level, we need to redeploy ICE’s functions, CBP functions, to border security and to the detention of criminals. There’s 29,000 individuals with convictions for murder or rape who do not have documentation in this country. ICE has detained, as far as I can tell, not surprisingly, they’re not very transparent about this, less than 5% of them. So they’re shooting US citizens in the face. Meanwhile, you’ve got murderers and rapists that they have yet to knock on their door.
Brookline.News: So looking forward, if Democrats gain back control of Congress and the White House, there are a range of positions that people take about what should be done to ICE, basically from retraining to abolishment. Where do you fall on that spectrum?
Auchincloss: I think it’s helpful to talk about verbs, not nouns. I think if we talk about nouns, you actually miss some of the point of the whole thing. Let’s talk about verbs.
So we need to secure the border. It’s a necessary function of the federal government, and we need interior immigration enforcement. Otherwise, you can’t secure the border. The two things are not just related.
They are, in fact, two sides of the same coin, because individuals who, for example, request asylum or who otherwise have immigration proceedings are released into the interior of the country, sometimes for four to six years on average.
So if you don’t have any interior immigration enforcement, you functionally have open borders, because you’re releasing them and you can never detain them again. So I don’t believe in open borders. I believe in secure borders. Hence, you have to have interior immigration enforcement that needs to be done humanely, needs to be done lawfully, and it needs to be done with the due process fitting a free people.
I think when my constituents, when the typical American thinks about immigration enforcement in the interior of the United States, they’re thinking they’re prioritizing individuals who are a threat to public safety. That’s what Barack Obama did. That was the basis of the deal in the Senate in 2013 and that’s where I think the common sense of the typical voter is at. They are not seeking ICE to prioritize individuals who are showing up to their own immigration hearings at courthouses, immigrants who are going to church, immigrants who are dropping their kids off at school, immigrants who are waiting at a Home Depot to go work.
These are individuals who are contributing to their economy and society. This runs against the grain of common sense and decency in the American public.
So those functions have to exist. That’s how they have to be done, whether that is accomplished through root level reforms and clearing house of ICE, or through replacing it with a new agency, because the existing agency has broken trust with the American public. I think that’s a debate that we can have. But that debate is, I think, obscured, if you’re just talking about nouns.
Brookline.News: Turning away from policy for a second, as a human but also as someone who helps run the federal government, what do you feel when you’re watching things like these shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, or the detention of five-year-old Liam Ramos? What’s your human reaction to that?
Auchincloss: Visceral disgust, to watch masked agents kill people. I’d add a third dimension to that. It’s not just as a person, it’s not just also as a policymaker. My office and I interact with immigrants constantly in the Massachusetts Fourth. There’s a Haitian population here. We have a Brazilian population. We have an Ecuadorian population here, Portuguese, Israeli, Russian.
It’s a polyglot district, and we feel the fear from our constituents. I was just speaking earlier this week with a woman whose sons are in high school and she’s terrified of dropping them off for the bus. She’s a legal immigrant, but she has given them passports to take with them every day. We hear that throughout the district. I met in Milford with a priest who serves a parish that is predominantly Ecuadorian immigrants, and they’re scared. They are scared. We had ICE agents who were circling around their church on Sunday. I mean, that’s not, that’s not what we do in America.
Brookline.News: Again looking forward, a lot of our readers were interested in how you think about both when it comes to ICE, but also other things that people consider crimes or wrongdoing by the Trump administration, in a bunch of different areas. As one reader put it: “What truth and reconciliation process is proposed to handle the large number of crimes being committed with the support of the federal government? Some people have talked about big trials like Nuremberg, others more about policy committees. Is that something that is on your mind, or are you more trying to get through the day to day of your job?
Auchincloss: That’s an important set of questions, for sure.
I think that the January 6 Commission was one attempt at doing that. Republicans have attempted to discredit and defame it, but it was important in putting out a fact pattern. Jack Smith’s prosecutions have been an attempt to do that, and again have been discredited and defamed, and now he’s under attack.
What’s important to me is that the individuals who are breaking the law now understand that while in the short term, politics might protect them, the arm of the law is long and it will reach them. If Democrats are able to take back the House, we need to demonstrate that for sure. What I don’t want to have happen is we try to demonstrate that across dozens of examples and are not successful in any of them. I would rather demonstrate that with a few well chosen examples that then inspire some good old fashioned fear in others.
I think the other priority for me, as it regards the law-breaking, is the integrity of the 2026 elections. One thing that Biden did effectively against Putin, right before he invaded Ukraine, was Biden pre-bunked Putin’s lies. So Putin was massing troops at the border of Ukraine, and they were clearly trying to wait for a pretext. They were trying to do a false flag operation, where he then invaded Ukraine under a false pretext.
And what Biden did, that really was kind of unprecedented, was he declassified tons of intelligence and said there, this is what they’re going to do. They’re going to do a false flag operation. Here’s what’s actually happening. Here’s the troop alignment.
And it worked. It really woke NATO, and actually a lot of OECD countries, including our East Asian allies, up to the threat. And then it happened, and it was an enormous boost of credibility in global public opinion against Russia.
Now for a lot of reasons, that has been more challenging in recent years. We’ve got to do something similar with that. I think there needs to be election war games where we basically set up, if you’re the Trump administration, how do you try to steal the ‘26 midterms? What are the actual processes that you would go through in Texas and in Iowa, wherever? What are the phone calls you’re making? How do you get them discredited?
Because he tried to do it in 2020, but that was a presidential election. The midterms are very different because there’s no electoral college. You can’t do alternative slates of electors. You get to do different tabulations of results at the local and state level.
It’s actually very different. So run through publicly how they would do it, and then by doing that, you can start to pre-but the claims and assertions that they would make. And if we do that this summer, in ‘26, I think you can change the groundwork going into the fall.
Brookline.News: We had a lot of readers who wanted to know about Democratic leadership, and in particular, I think a lot of our readers were bothered by the fact that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries opposed the DHS funding bill in the house, but decided not to whip votes against it, and it ultimately passed the House. Do you feel the leaders in your party are doing everything they can to meet the moment? Do you feel that Democratic Party in Congress is responding effectively to all these issues?
Auchincloss: I’m in the house, so I’ll speak to Hakeem. I think Hakeem has the confidence of the caucus. He has navigated the healthcare issue, the ACA premiums and the shutdown. I think he navigated that effectively, or as effectively as he can in the minority. In putting a clear and compelling question in front of the American people and then keeping discipline within the party. And I think you saw where Democrats stand on ICE in the house with that vote count.
Certainly Brookline residents saw where I stand on it. I can control my vote.
Brookline.News: Briefly on that point, I did want to ask about this previous vote you had taken that was on a resolution ostensibly regarding an antisemitic attack, but it also involved thanking ICE. You voted yes on that resolution, and you’ve been criticized by some for that, because it also included a provision expressing gratitude to ICE.
Auchincloss: It expressed appreciation for the law enforcement officers, including ICE, who had come to the scene. I would vote for it again. I think it’s such a bad faith criticism.
Brookline.News: Did you feel it was set up by Republicans on purpose to force you into these choices?
Auchincloss: I think that’s part of it. Let’s say this. It’s a resolution to condemn antisemitic terrorism. I’m going to vote yes to condemn antisemitic terrorism. Imagine if I had voted no. Imagine the opprobrium I would frankly, rightfully have received in my district for voting against that at a time when antisemitism, both in word and deed, is surging here in America and globally. So I just think that the criticism on that resolution online has really just been cherry picked in bad faith.
Brookline.News: You mentioned the midterms in terms of worrying about election integrity. What are you doing right now to work on trying to flip the house? Where are you focusing? Are there certain states or races you’re really supporting?
Auchincloss: I have a political action committee called Beyond Thoughts and Prayers, which is dedicated to a gun safety majority in Congress, which happens to look a lot like a Democratic majority in Congress given my Republican colleagues’ track record on gun safety. In the last two cycles, I’ve given a million dollars in financial resources to Democrats in tough races, either to flip a seat blue or to hold on to a seat when they’re facing tough opposition, and I’ll be very supportive again this cycle.
I’m also the chair of an initiative called Majority Democrats, which is trying to reinvent the Democratic Party by 2028 and part of that effort at ‘26 is we’re supporting about 10 candidates in tough seats, tough races. These are stretch races where we think we are able to put tough districts on the map in Pennsylvania and Texas and Michigan. I got to hang out with these ‘bench’ candidates, we call them, a couple weeks ago. It’s inspiring.
These candidates are authentic to their district. They’re running for the right reasons. It’s a minister in Iowa, it’s a Latin Grammy star in Texas. It’s a farmer in western North Carolina. It’s a Navy SEAL in Michigan. It’s a PTO mom in Colorado. These are the kind of people you want to see in Congress. They’ve got tough races, and we’re going to help them
Brookline.News: You have your own opponents this year. How seriously are you taking your reelection campaign?
Auchincloss: I take it seriously every time my name is on the ballot. It’s a privilege to be the voice and vote for 800,000 people and I will make a case again in ‘26 for why I deserve reelection.
Brookline.News: While we’re talking about politics, how seriously did you consider running for Senate? A lot of people talked about it last year. How did you make the decision to run for the House again?
Auchincloss: Yeah, as you said, a lot of other people talked about it. My view is that in this moment, in ‘26, where to me, the existential imperative is for Democrats to take back the House and turn this guy into a lame duck, I could be most useful staying in this seat, supporting battleground Democrats, chairing Majority Democrats and helping to reinvent the party to win and to govern better.
Brookline.News: One question from a reader asked, basically, what do you think of Zohran Mamdani? He’s someone who you’re not totally ideologically aligned with in some ways, but who’s been really successful in messaging as a Democrat in an important election. What did you make of his win in New York City?
Auchincloss: I wish you would have asked me about Abigail Spanberger, who just won governor in a Virginia seat that was held by a Republican. Because she won the same day, and that was a red to blue, and she won a different way than Zohran Mamdani. And yet, the entire focus, I mean, gallons of ink, were spilled on a victory in a bright blue city versus a victory in a purple state. And I wish Democrats would look at both as illustrative.
In terms of what do I think about Zohran Mamdani? Ask me when he’s governed for a couple of years. I know Abigail Spanberger. I served with her in Congress. I know how she’s going to lead. Zohran Mamdani, there has been tremendous amounts said and written about him, and he hasn’t been in the mayor’s office yet. So ask me in two years, let’s see if rents have gone down, see if the buses work.
Brookline.News: There’s a federal initiative to end offshore wind in Massachusetts and in other places.
A judge recently overturned that decision, but maybe temporarily. What are your thoughts on the conflict around that?
Auchincloss: I think just first to set the table, it’s important to recognize that Massachusetts is like the Permian Basin of offshore wind. That is, we have a tremendous offshore wind resource. The wind, for a lot of different geographic and hydrographic reasons, just blows really hard. And so it’s an important resource to be able to tap into at a time – and Massachusetts is an energy Island. A lot of folks don’t quite realize this, but Massachusetts, we are not efficiently integrated with national or global energy markets. It makes energy expensive here.
Our swing supply is a ship that comes in from Trinidad and Tobago into the port of Everett with liquefied natural gas on it. It’s a ship. It’s just creaking in and disembarks it. That is not a sustainable way for a great economy to source its energy. So we need to invest in much more generation of energy. One way has been this Hydro Quebec line. So we built this transmission line up to Canada, and that just went online, and that’s already helping with prices.
There have been some good deep dives on, hey it turns out, when you add wind energy onto the grid, prices go down.
Offshore wind could do the same thing. 200,000 homes in just the first phase could be powered with these offshore wind turbines. I’m on the committee of jurisdiction over this. The Republicans are always claiming renewable is not reliable, like you’re trying to make everybody so that when the wind doesn’t blow, your refrigerator will turn off.
That’s literally just not what we’re doing, not how it works. The base load capacity of offshore wind is actually comparable to a lot of fossil fuels, and it’s also part of a portfolio of energy approaches. So it’s LNG, and it’s solar, and it’s whatever we have. By the arbitrary and capricious actions of this administration, they have put tremendous obstacles in our path.
I think ultimately we can vault over them. But at the end of the day, the punchline here is, it’s costing Bay Staters more money. More energy on the grid lowers utility bills. Utility bills have been spiking in this state, and what the president is doing is costing Bay Staters money, and it’s incredibly frustrating to me, and we’ve been fighting against this.
Brookline.News: I wanted to ask you about protests in Brookline. As in many other places around the country, there have been these big No Kings protests, there’s a group in Brookline who’s out there every Saturday, they’re at Citizens Bank because of its funding private prisons.
Do you think those are effective? Are there other ways that you would encourage constituents to get involved and impact what’s happening right now?
Auchincloss: Sure, I do think they’re effective. I myself joined protests after the shooting of Renee Good in Needham. I frequently speak at these rallies. They’re effective for a couple reasons. One is they demonstrate commonality. I think a lot of times, just seeing other people out there shows that what you might have thought was your own concerns or beliefs are, in fact, shared widely.
They also, though, in concert with other tools, create a shared reality. The most powerful tool of a would-be fascist is to declare himself the source of truth. I am the truth. The weather is what I say it is. And you all, as a projection of my power, you have to accept my truth. That’s actually why he’s so obsessed with the big lie about the election. I don’t think that he thinks actually that the election was stolen. Maybe, personally, I don’t know, but I actually think that the real source of it is, by making other Republicans say that the election was stolen when they know it wasn’t, he is making them debase themselves, and that’s a projection of power onto them.
And a real challenge that the opposition over the last decade has had is that while he has been projecting a unilateral, unitary source of a gaslit truth, we’ve been atomized because of social media. Because Democrats just like to debate things, we’ve just been very atomized and fragmented. And that’s a source that has made it hard at times. What’s important about what’s happened in Minnesota is there’s been a shared reality. Everybody has seen those videos, and I think that’s a big reason why the administration is backing down, is that it’s hard to gaslight an American public. Like, we saw the video.
Brookline.News: They certainly tried.
Auchincloss: They tried. They definitely tried. It wasn’t quite working.
I think a good example is Charlie Kirk. So Charlie Kirk was a horrific assassination. Those videos were also widely shared, right? But it was a very polarized reaction. Almost immediately, the feeds, whether you were left or right, were showing you very different things about Charlie Kirk, about the nature of Charlie Kirk himself, about the circumstances of his assassination, about the appropriate way to respond to it.
It was a very polarizing event. What happened in Minnesota? It was, to me, a depolarizing event.
It created a shared reality, a shared outrage. And that’s why the administration, unlike with Charlie Kirk, where they tried to capitalize on it and it sort of emboldened their lawlessness, I think, here in Minnesota, because they weren’t able to gaslight, it has weakened them
Brookline.News: What’s it like trying to work with Republicans on the Hill these days?
Auchincloss: My job is to represent the values and advance the priorities of my constituents. I often am in ferocious opposition to the Republicans, whether it’s the Medicaid cuts, whether it’s the ICE funding, whether it is the anti-vax crusade of RFK.
To advance priorities, I am often pushing bipartisan legislation on holding social media corporations accountable. I have two bipartisan bills to do that on expanding sources of clean energy. I have one forthcoming bipartisan bill to do that on lowering the cost of prescription drugs. So I think a good legislator needs to be able to do both those things, the values based and the priorities based.
Millie Amster contributed reporting.
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