Jim Justice urged the administration this week to dial back its immigration enforcement push, putting a public limit on the kind of ICE sweeps that have widened under Donald Trump. He said the tactic can go too far when people are pulled in after years in the same community.
Justice said, “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,”. He added, “I don’t know that we need to be doing that stuff.”
Jim Justice and Trump
Justice is described as a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, which makes his warning notable inside Republican ranks. The criticism lands while Trump has hired more ICE officers and launched sweeping raids in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles in the year-plus since the Laken Riley vote.
The administration’s enforcement push is not a single action but a broad interior effort: more officers, more raids, and more arrests tied to people living and working in communities rather than at the border. Justice’s comments put him among other red-state Republicans who have been pushing back on ICE lately, even as the party’s core message on immigration has remained tied to stronger enforcement.
Laken Riley Act in January
The shift is sharper because the law at the center of this debate moved quickly. The Laken Riley Act passed within days of Trump’s inauguration and was signed nine days into his second term, requiring ICE to detain undocumented immigrants who are merely arrested for or charged with theft-related crimes before any conviction.
Jon Ossoff, who voted for the law in January 2025, later said, “Laken Riley was my constituent and what happened to her should happen to no American, to no person in this world,”. He also said, “I think that immigration enforcement should be focused on those who are convicted or charged with serious crimes.”
Georgia and 2026
Ossoff is running for reelection in Georgia, and he has also been floated as a 2028 presidential candidate. That makes the politics around interior enforcement more than a one-off vote: Republicans and Democrats who backed the law are now being pressed to explain where they want ICE to draw the line.
For readers in communities touched by enforcement sweeps, Justice’s comments point to the main unresolved question in this fight: how far Trump wants ICE to go beyond people accused of serious crimes. Justice said he does not want people “dragged away” after years in one place, and that is where the next pressure point now sits.
