WATCH: Chris Pappas Highlights the Need for Holding ICE Accountable, Stakes of NH’s Senate Race on MS NOW’s The Last Word

MANCHESTER, N.H. — In case you missed it, Congressman Chris Pappas joined Jonathan Capehart, standing in for Lawrence O’Donnell, on MS NOW’s The Last Word to discuss the stakes of New Hampshire’s Senate race, which Democrats must win if they want to retake the Senate majority, and the need for heightened accountability around ICE following the shooting in Biddeford, Maine.

Watch the interview HERE and read more below:

On the Stakes of New Hampshire’s Senate Race

“This is a moment where people are feeling great pain across my state and across the country. We’ve got a war of choice that’s incredibly reckless in Iran, that’s surging gas and energy prices for families in New Hampshire. We have these tariffs that last year added $1,700 worth of extra cost to every family in my state. We’ve got health care cuts that are going to devastate Medicaid and hospitals and community health centers, and raise premiums for everyone across the board. People are feeling it right now, and the president and Republicans in Congress are thumbing their noses at the American people. They think they don’t have to answer to the voters. Donald Trump barely brought himself to address the housing issue. He didn’t even sign a historic bipartisan bill that we put on his desk because he wants to rig the elections instead. At every turn, they’re about centralizing power and corrupting government. They’re ignoring the will of the people of this country. That’s why we need checks and balances restored, and why we’re fighting to hold this tough Senate seat in New Hampshire and flip the majority in the Senate. If we do that, we’ve got accountability. We can put the people’s agenda right on the table.”

On Holding ICE Accountable

“There are deep questions that need to be answered here, and that’s why there must be a full, impartial investigation to put all the facts on the table. And we have to put ICE under the microscope in Congress. We’ve been working to try to do this, just to try to insist on some accountability measures and ensuring that we’re taking the best practices and standards from law enforcement and applying that to the federal government. But Republicans have resisted us every step of the way. I think this reporting raises serious questions about the hiring process, as ICE and Homeland Security has rushed to hire thousands of agents. We need to be continuing to insist on better standards, training, body cameras. There are 40% of ICE offices, apparently, that haven’t implemented body cameras, despite the fact that ICE is sitting on tens of billions of dollars of extra funding that’s been given to them by Republicans in Congress without any strings attached. So, this is all deeply concerning. This shouldn’t be how things work in the United States of America. We need the law to be followed. We need justice for this family, and we need full accountability here.”

###