A heated exchange erupted during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday after Rep. Steve Cohen (D‑TN) made outrageous remarks to Angel Families and immigration officials alike, Breitbart reports.
Addressing family members in the audience who lost loved ones to crimes committed by illegal immigrants, Cohen expressed sympathy but argued that statistical data show Americans are more likely to be harmed by fellow citizens than by illegal immigrants.
“For the folks that are here and your families, I’m sorry. It’s terrible what happened to your children and family members, but they are more likely, American citizens are more likely to be attacked by United States citizens who are not undocumented who came here and who were born here,” Cohen told Angel Families. “[Americans] are more likely to commit these crimes.”
The comment drew an immediate and fierce response from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which denounced Cohen’s words as dismissive and disrespectful.
“Rep. Cohen pointing to Angel Families in the audience: ‘I’m sorry for what happened to your loved ones, BUT…’ There is no ‘but,’ Rep. Cohen. Your comments here are reprehensible,” ICE officials wrote on X, calling his remarks “reprehensible.”
Among those present was Angel Dad Steve Ronnebeck, whose son, Grant Ronnebeck, was murdered in 2015 by an undocumented Sinaloa Cartel member in Mesa, Arizona. During a recent White House ceremony honoring Angel Families, Ronnebeck reiterated his belief that such crimes are preventable.
“All these deaths at the hands of illegal immigrants are preventable,” Ronnebeck said. “They could’ve been stopped, we could’ve done so much more, unfortunately … [under President Joe Biden], somebody took their foot off the brakes and put their foot on the accelerator to let these people into our country, and it wasn’t just regular people; it was criminals, murderers, killers, rapists,”
According to court records, the man convicted of Grant Ronnebeck’s murder, Apolinar Altamirano, had lived illegally in the United States for more than two decades before the fatal shooting. He shot Ronnebeck after a dispute over payment for a pack of cigarettes and later pleaded guilty to murder in 2022. Altamirano was sentenced to fewer than 40 years in prison and died in custody in 2023.
The exchange between Cohen and the Angel Families highlights continuing tensions in Washington over border security and immigration enforcement. For many families who have lost loved ones, the debate remains deeply personal as a matter of justice, not politics.