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By Guy Page and Paul Bean
The White House has responded sharply to Wednesday, June 25 remarks by Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, in which she described U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as acting like “vigilantes” and questioned their legitimacy, saying, “How can we even trust that these are government officials?”
Balint’s remarks, delivered Wednesday during debate over immigration enforcement policy, sparked immediate backlash from the White House, with a statement calling Balint’s comments “deeply irresponsible and dangerous.”
“Our ICE agents are career law enforcement professionals who put themselves in harm’s way every day to keep Americans safe,” the RapidResponse47 White House social media statement read. “Equating them with vigilantes or kidnappers is not only factually wrong, it contributes to a climate of hostility that is already putting these agents at increased risk.”
According to data released by the Department of Homeland Security, assaults on ICE personnel have risen by over 500% in the past year—a trend administration officials say is exacerbated by incendiary political rhetoric.
In her speech, Balint had referenced recent high-profile immigration enforcement operations that she claimed lacked transparency and targeted vulnerable communities.
“When individuals are snatched from their homes in unmarked vehicles, when families are broken up without warning or due process, how can we even trust that these are government officials and not vigilantes acting with impunity?” Balint said.
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Categories: Law Enforcement
Balint is a disgrace. She is on the wrong side of every issue that is good for Vermont and America. Time to vote her out!
You are so right. She is an embarrassment. I cringe whenever she opens her mouth, and I ask myself, “Is this the best we can do?” Very sad.
Balint needs more toilet paper, going to Bernie home to get more, who’s paying!!
Balint’s comparing ICE agents to “vigilantes”, And I could compare her to a responsible representative of her constituency, but that would not be accurate either.
Just think of it; this woman represents the majority of our neighbors. Disturbing isn’t it.
Curt, I think you are right. We need to understand the what and the why. Understanding is not acceptance- it is the beginning of positive communication.
Re: “the beginning of positive communication..”
I’m afraid this is not the case with Vermont’s progressive crowd, Guy. Communication, especially ‘positive’ communication, is a two-way street. I’m afraid these folks are one way, all the way. And if the majority of their constituents (yes, our neighbors) continue to wear the same blinders, they’ll more likely bankrupt us, morally and financially, before they indulge in any ‘positive’ communication with us. As Trump’s policies succeed, even marginally, the more they claim he’s a failure. It’s some of the strangest mass psychosis I’ve ever seen. And they think we’re part of a cult because we won’t follow them over that cliff. Go figure.
Take a look at the recent Mayoral race in New York City – if that didn’t stiffen a number of spines, I don’t know what will. Our own Bernie behind that coup of the NYC DNC – he’s getting his revenge one way or another. The old guard of Clinton/Cuomo socialites is being overthrown by white, mega-liberal femme fatales. A 30% turnout in a NYC mayoral primary signals apathy on one side and a well organized, well funded machine looking to topple the old guard Dems – they are gaining ground and control. They methodically co-opted the youth and ideological sycophants – no different than here in Vermont. Rest assured, the blue-dog Democrats are feeling the pain and the fire burning down their party.
It’s a bad sign and it is really bad for moderates and independents. The Right is no better as they too are seeing the neo-cons and billionaires steering the USA into a quagmire of an economy built on bombs, bombers, regime changes, and AI technocracy for one and for all.
Both sides want war and steering us all into it – whether here or over there – doesn’t matter – it benefits them and devours the rest.
Waving her hands around as if she is important. Reminds me of something I heard once:
Oh, her hands are connected to her arms,
Her arms connected to her shoulders,
Her shoulders are connected to her body,
Her body is connected to her head,
And her head is connected to…NOTHING… which explains a lot!
Balint is an utter embarrassment. The ICE agents are doing their job. She is attacking them for enforcing US law.
Critical thinking is apparently out of fashion in Vermont.
SCRAPPY LITTLE DYKE is making quite a name for herself and really it is all about herself.
The SCRAPPY LITTLE COMMUNIST will be elected over and over again because the people that vote for her are too stoopid to know they are communists.
I just think its not bad enough in Burlingrad yet. They haven’t woken up yet. Apparently its gotta get worse before that happens.
Exactly!
What a dingbat, using words like “snatched” to describe lawful detainments and arrests. This is the same kind of treatment that would be afforded to any lily white Vermonter who is stopped for a burned out taillight and then refused to provide identification, roll down their window or is generally uncooperative with legitimate law enforcement actions. People in Vermont (I hesitate to call “Vermonters”) who cast a vote for her should all hang their heads in shame.
She defends marginalized rapists and fentanyl dealers while condemning officers taking risks in service to their country. Meanwhile, she opposes federal cutbacks under Doge while slandering federal ICE workers. The woman is mentally unwell and a danger to our nation and state. I hope she never needs law enforcement to protect her from criminals — though maybe that is the lesson she yet will learn.
John Klar, calling people “mentally unwell” because you disagree with them is a step on the path to totalitarianism. Also, it obfuscates the issues.
Scott, the records shows by her own words she’s a mental case. For some reason when a chance to get notoriety via the world stage and the money that’s pouring in to her she thinks she’s another AOC and ready to join the Swamp. Anyone with sane minds can she what’s she’s about. She isn’t from VT or NY but Germany and has NO VT or USA values. Open your eyes and you might see the sun.
Guy raises the fundamental issue of how this person (and the other two for that matter) got electected. What were our neighbors voting for and why? I have some speculation: Folks are aware of others in need and have an impulse to help them. The awareness does not easily translate into effective actions because of our own limitations and the complexities of others personal problems. We have a political class that comes along with the pitch that they can alleviate our personal responsibility for these problems. We can pass them on to the commonweal and compel everyone to share the responsibility. They’ve also framed these personal problems as simply the result of greedy market place abuses of the successful [i.e. millionaires, billionaires, oligarchs]. These villains have taken more than their share. That’s why we see others failing to thrive. This world view is compelling; it provides an excuse network for our own shortcomings…it alleviates our personal burden to help others…it identifies the villains who are abusing us by exploiting a rigged corrupt system. Now who wouldn’t be seduced by such a vision and vote for those folks?
I encourage everyone to read Governor of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford’s account, as they considered how to deal with the Pilgrim’s pending starvation in 1623, only three years after they landed here.
“[T]o think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery…. that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves”.
“This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content.”
“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.”
In case anyone doesn’t recognize Bradford’s sentiments, they are the first instance of any government in the Americas initiating the practice of free enterprise. And little did these Pilgrims realize that, 165 years later, their descendants would conceive of a constitutional republic designed to cast free enterprise in perpetuity.
Ironically, today, here in Vermont, our politicians are doing everything they can to undermine that very same governance that saved the Pilgrims from starvation.
Spot on, Dr J.
Dale Carnegie, she’s not. (Look it up)
Balint is a waste of skin. She is nothing but a gay female version of Bernie; Communists to the core;And 2 of the 3 Vermont stooges. It is so embarrassing to be “represented by these 3 clowns”. Being a native Vermonter; I miss the conservative state I grew up in. So sad what has happened to this state.
I’m a 7th or 8th generation Vermonter that moved away 2 years ago. My Parents and Brother left 5 to 7 years ago. Our bloodline won’t return to the Green Mountains until something DRASTIC happens and all the Progressives are wiped from office. That’ll never happen so The South it is. Sad really. I’m 35 and even I remember a VERY different Vermont.
Notice part of a pattern here: The Left has distorted the concepts of “apartheid”, “genocide”, “Nazi” and other phrases. The Stalinist regime used such a tactic. Now the phrase “vigilante” is being co-opted.
It seems that a more truthful quotation by the Chronical of the Balint comments would have been:
“ICE agents without visible I.D.s, without any visible markings on them, with masks – they’re acting more like vigilantes than of agents of our government. How can we even trust that these are government officials? It’s nothing more than kidnapping and it needs to stop. No more secret arrests! No more plain clothes agents waiting outside of court rooms! This kind of thing does not happen in democracy! It doesn’t! The only way to protect Americans from these abuses is to provide due process to anyone facing deportation.”
Until VT voting machines gives the voter a print out of who they voted for, I won’t believe the outcome of who’s elected. These progressives are being installed!
The usage of the phrase “vulnerable communities” along with the idea that ICE is “breaking up” families is just absurd. The illegal immigrants who cross the desert to come here are well aware of what they are doing to come here, which includes knowingly collaborating with and paying the Mexican cartels in order for them to guide you across the desert. This is a premeditated crime as it is expensive ($12,000 ish to come from southern mexico to northern VT), thus requiring coordination and planning to aqcuire funds. They have the wherewithal to get here and then to pay document forgers to provide them with stolen SS cards- these are not helpless victims. And all the illegal men who come to the US and leave their wives and kids in their home country for years at a time? They break up their own families! Come on.