Washington state Democrat Pramila Jayapal has doubled down on an eyebrow-raising social media post she made on Tuesday. The progressive congresswoman came under fire earlier in the week after calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ‘a terrorist force’ during a town hall event, then posting the quote to her Instagram account.

‘ICE is acting like a terrorist force. People across the country of all legal statuses — including U.S. citizens — are being kidnapped and disappeared off the street by masked men,’ Jayapal wrote. ‘No oversight, no accountability. Completely lawless,’ the Democrat representative added in her I nstagram post.

Jayapal’s remarks came as the Trump administration is touting historic success in border enforcement. President Donald Trump wrote in a Wednesday evening social media post that ‘the June Border Statistics … are the Lowest Recorded Numbers In United States History.’ ‘The U.S. Border Patrol reported Zero releases of Illegal Aliens into the Country,’ Trump added.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson fought back against the congresswoman’s remark, noting that ‘Jayapal’s disgusting comments warrant an immediate apology. 

Heroic ICE officers are simply doing their jobs and enforcing federal immigration law, with the utmost professionalism.’ Jackson alleged that Jayapal’s comments have contributed to assaults against ICE agents, which the White House says are up by 500 percent this year.

‘That number will go even higher if Jayapal doesn’t stop with her smears,’ Jackson also noted. On CNN, Jayapal replied that ICE agents are working without identification, wearing masks and ‘kidnapping and disappearing people on the streets of the United States.’

‘I never in a million years thought that that is something that I would see here in America,’ she told the network. ‘And so I think it is the administration that has to apologize to U.S. citizens that have been rounded up to legal, permanent residents, to people with legal statuses across the country who are getting swept up, people who have been here for 20 years and committed no crimes, getting swept up by masked men who are kidnaping them and deporting them.’

Asked about Jayapal’s statement on the air, the white house spokeswoman simply called her a ‘deranged leftist.’ The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also published on Monday a one pager debunking myths and detailing how ICE officers are being targeted in the line of duty.

In it, the department noted that lies are ‘being spread to demonize our brave ICE law enforcement who risk their lives to remove criminal illegal aliens including suspected terrorists, gang members, murderers, and rapists from American communities.’

In the current ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill working its way through Congress, there is $45 billion dollars in additional ICE funding allocated. Those funds are split between a number of areas including deportation and removal, hiring additional enforcement agents, and modernizing the force’s technology.