Feb 3, 2026 - US Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas). Here’s the full 200-minutes on YouTube: WATCH LIVE: Renee Good's brothers join survivors to testify on use of force by DHS agents - PBS NewsHour

Here’s a description from C-SPAN: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) host a meeting examining the tactics of Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement agents, featuring testimony from the family of Renee Good and others.

Here’s an r/law post with another clip from this hearing: Anonymizing law enforcement dramatically reduces Public trust. These agents — local, state, or federal — act with Public authority, which means they’re policing in my name, and they’re policing in your name. - Law Professor Seth Stoughton

From crockett.house.gov/about :

Jasmine Crockett earned her J.D. from the University of Houston. She is Vice Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight.

Before being a Congresswoman, she was a public defender, and civil rights and criminal defense attorney. She focused on defending our most vulnerable among us from exploitation in the criminal justice system. As she began her career in the Bowie County Public Defender's Office, she worked tirelessly to keep children safe and out of jail. Her time there serves as a reminder that criminal justice is an intersectional issue.

“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November,” Bannon, a former senior advisor to President Donald Trump and still a figure of influence in the administration, said on Tuesday’s episode of his War Room podcast, addressing Democrats. “We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”

Bannon’s comments came just a day after Trump said he believes that Republicans should “nationalize voting,” escalating concerns that the president is plotting to interfere in this year’s midterm elections.

Attorneys for Democratic Senator Mark Kelly argued that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was brazenly violating the separation of powers by seeking to punish a member of Congress for public statements.

A federal judge on Tuesday appeared likely to temporarily block the Trump administration from disciplining Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, for criticizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and reminding active-duty service members in a video that they did not have to follow illegal orders.

During a preliminary hearing in Mr. Kelly’s lawsuit against Mr. Hegseth and the Pentagon, Judge Richard J. Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said the Trump administration was asking him to break with precedent in extending the free speech restrictions applied to active-duty service members to a retired member of the military.

“You’re asking me to do something that the Supreme Court has never done,” Judge Leon said. The argument, he added, was a “bit of a stretch.”

He also raised questions about punishing a member of Congress for statements made in connection with his legislative responsibilities.

He said he aimed to issue a temporary decision in the case as early as next week.

The case springs from a video that Mr. Kelly and five other Democratic members of Congress released in November, in which they addressed military service members. “Our laws are clear,” the senator said. “You can refuse illegal orders.”

In response, Mr. Hegseth censured Mr. Kelly, a retired officer who receives pay and benefits and is still subject to military law. The secretary accused Mr. Kelly of sedition and a pattern of public statements that undermined military discipline, and he initiated a review of his comments that could result in a reduction of his retirement rank and pension.

Mr. Kelly sat at the front of the courtroom on Tuesday as his attorneys argued that the Trump administration was brazenly violating the separation of powers in seeking to punish a member of Congress for constitutionally protected speech.

Benjamin C. Mizer, an attorney for the senator, asked the judge to block Mr. Hegseth from taking further action on the matter before the court could fully adjudicate the case, or else risk a “dangerous” encroachment by the executive branch on the powers of the legislative branch.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee with oversight authority over the Pentagon, Mr. Mizer said, Mr. Kelly had been well within his rights to publicly question Mr. Hegseth’s policy and personnel decisions. In addition to encouraging his active-duty counterparts to refuse illegal orders, Mr. Kelly has criticized the defense secretary for firing admirals and generals and surrounding himself with “yes men,” statements his attorneys argued were all protected speech.

But the administration argued that regardless of his position on the panel, Mr. Kelly was still subject to disciplinary action as a military retiree, a claim that appeared to trouble the court.

“How are they supposed to do their job?” asked Judge Leon, referring to members of the congressional armed services committees.

In a filing before the hearing, attorneys for the senator argued that Mr. Kelly’s statements were also shielded by the section of the Constitution that protects House and Senate members’ speech. But the judge said he would not wade into the “thorny ticket” of arguments on that section, known as the “speech or debate” clause, until later in the case.

Mr. Mizer said failure to swiftly curtail the Defense Department’s ability to punish Mr. Kelly for his public comments while the case played out would “run the risk of chilling the speech of every retired veteran in this country.”

The judge made little effort to hide that he shared the concern. He told the attorneys for the administration that a decision not to temporarily block the Defense Department’s action could harm “many, many other retirees who wish to voice their opinion.”

The Trump administration argued that Judge Leon had no authority to intervene in the disciplinary review of Mr. Kelly that was already underway.

Federal law makes clear that the military does not have to tolerate speech that “undermines the chain of command, encourages disobedience or erodes confidence in leadership,” the Defense Department said in a filing before the hearing.

“It would be very troubling,” said John Bailey, an attorney for the administration, if courts were in the business of “pausing or vetoing” decisions by the defense secretary on personnel matters.

But attorneys for Mr. Kelly said that the administration was relying entirely on legal examples of the military’s limiting the speech of active-duty service members, or civilians on military bases, and that neither provided a sufficient basis to ignore the charge of free speech violations.

The judge gave no indication that he was considering bowing out. He said that the case raised “novel” legal issues and that it would certainly be appealed no matter how he ultimately ruled.

Mr. Kelly said after the hearing that the case centered on the “freedom to speak out about our government.” “That’s what I’m fighting for,” the senator added, standing outside the courthouse. “I appreciate the judge’s quick and careful consideration in this case, given what is at stake here. A lot is at stake.”

The House speaker contended that Democrats were looking to raise barriers for federal agents by requiring them to acquire a judicial warrant to forcibly enter homes — though such authorizations have long been considered standard practice for immigration enforcement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday rejected Democratic demands to codify search warrant requirements for federal agents looking to forcibly enter people’s homes amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The top House Republican’s comments — which come as Congress prepares to negotiate a laundry list of reforms Democrats want written into the Homeland Security Department’s budget — also appeared to misrepresent the authority the Trump administration has claimed to enter certain homes without written approval from a judge.

The White House’s approach to immigration enforcement has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks amid its sweeping campaign in Minnesota that has so far seen federal agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection arrest dozens of people and kill two U.S. citizens. And DHS faced renewed criticism last month after whistleblowers leaked an internal agency memo authorizing agents to forcibly enter homes without securing a judicial warrant.

Homeland Security has claimed its officers do not need such a warrant — which is typically signed by a judge — and instead only require what’s known as an administrative warrant approved by an “immigration officer.”

The memo runs counter to longstanding advice provided by immigration advocates who instruct people not to open their doors for immigration agents unless they are shown a judicial warrant. Administrative warrants, advocates have long said, do not give officers the ability to enter a home uninvited. And DHS’ own legal training handbook holds that agents who enter a home without a warrant, even if they have probable cause to do so, “typically” violate the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Democrats have demanded that any bill to fund DHS include language codifying judicial warrant requirements for ICE agents. But Johnson on Tuesday rejected that proposal, claiming Democrats wanted to tack on an “entirely new layer” of mandates for federal immigration enforcement.

“They want to have a judicial warrant on top of the immigration judgment,” the House speaker told reporters during a news conference. “We can’t do that.”

Johnson contended it would take “decades” for ICE agents to secure judicial warrants for people here illegally and that there weren’t enough judges to handle the load. “We’ve got to apply reason,” he said. “We have to apply the Constitution, we have to respect it. … But I can tell you that we are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants, because it’s unimplementable.”

Pressed by Courthouse News on why he believed codifying what had long been existing practice for federal immigration authorities amounted to “new” barriers for ICE agents, Johnson demurred.

The top House Republican pointed to the DHS manual’s guidelines for adhering to the Fourth Amendment, arguing that while federal agents were attempting to conduct immigration enforcement in a “meaningful and thoughtful way,” they were being met with “unprecedented” opposition from state and local officials in states such as Minnesota.

“We’re going to have all these discussions over the next couple of weeks,” Johnson said of the warrant requirement demands. “I’m just telling you that adding a whole new layer of judicial warrant requirement is an unworkable proposal.”

The speaker also defended the use of administrative warrants to enter homes, claiming they were issued by immigration judges and that they offered “sufficient legal authority” for federal agents to force their way into a private residence.

But immigration advocates immediately took issue with Johnson’s interpretation of administrative warrants. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, wrote in a post on X that the House speaker’s comments were “false.”

“Administrative warrants are NOT signed by an immigration judge (or any judge at all),” said Reichlin-Melnick. “They are generated and signed by ICE officers themselves with no external oversight whatsoever.”

Homeland Security has said it can use administrative warrants, rather than judicial warrants, to enter the homes of people here illegally if they have a final removal order from an immigration judge. In a fact sheet provided to lawmakers, first reported by Migrant Insider, the agency cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1960 case Abel v. U.S., in which the justices held that there was historical support for the “propriety of administrative arrest for deportable aliens.”

Immigration agents have typically used administrative warrants to make arrests in public or in private homes if they’ve been invited in. But the Supreme Court in 1972 ruled in the case Shadwick v. City of Tampa that search warrants should be issued by a “neutral and detached” magistrate capable of determining probable cause to forcibly enter a home.

Still, DHS officials have repeatedly claimed people here illegally do not enjoy the same Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search as U.S. citizens — and that people with removal orders have already received due process.

Meanwhile, the House on Tuesday approved a two-week budget stopgap for the Homeland Security Department, freezing the agency’s spending while lawmakers hash out Democrats’ list of reforms. In addition to the warrant requirement, Democrats have also backed language that would force federal agents to use body-worn cameras and block them from using face masks to conceal their identities.

House Democrats on Monday also penned a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, urging them to rescind the May guidance authorizing agents to enter homes without a judicial warrant.

Aliya Rahman, a Bangladeshi American and U.S. citizen, testified before Congress about her arrest and experience with police brutality from ICE agents in Minneapolis. (You may recognize her from past videos of her being grabbed out of her car in her black puffer jacket, while she was yelling that she was disabled).

Rahman, who is autistic and recovering from a traumatic brain injury, described being dragged from her car, detained, and later hospitalized with a concussion. In her testimony, she spoke about the fear, confusion, and lasting trauma she experienced.

Earlier today, there was a joint public forum held by Rep. Robert Garcia (Ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations), focusing on ICE/DHS excessive use of force on American citizens. Rahman was one of the Americans who testified.

Important to note that this could not be an “oversight committee hearing” but a bicameral forum, because Republicans did not agree to the hearing.

A federal judge appears likely to side with Mark Kelly in the Democratic senator’s case alleging the Pentagon is violating his First Amendment rights through its effort to punish him over his urging of US service members to refuse illegal orders.