Republican urges Trump administration to ‘step back’ and rethink immigration agenda

Senator Jim Justice of West Virginia criticizes immigration crackdown as ranchers’ associations condemn ICE activity

Arrest and charges

A close political ally of Donald Trump has broken from the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda and recommended it “step back” to evaluate what it could do better.

“To get better, the first thing you got to do is admit you’re doing something wrong,” Jim Justice, a Republican senator of West Virginia, told Politico.

“And in this situation, with all that’s going on and all the stuff, we probably got to step back from it and say: ‘Maybe we’re doing something wrong here or there,’ and then adjust to that.”

Justice, who also sits on the Senate agriculture committee, made his comments after three rancher associations condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity for negatively affecting agricultural communities.

“Before you know it, you get people that get carried away in their job and whatever it may be, and all of a sudden, then you’re dragging people away that have lived on your street corner for 15 years, and I don’t know that we need to be doing that stuff,” Justice told Politico.

Charges and court proceedings

But his comments also come after an ACLU of West Virginia investigation found that about three-quarters of the more than 593 arrested by ICE in the state during “Operation Country Roads” in January had no criminal record.