Crockett's Pastor Calls ICE 'the New KKK' at Talarico Rally. Talarico Thanks Him for His 'Kind Words'

Five days before Texans pick their next U.S. senator, the warm-up act at James Talarico's Dallas rally stood in front of a giant Texas flag and told the crowd that the federal agents who enforce America's immigration laws are the Ku Klux Klan.

"I was a stranger and you transformed ICE into the new KKK and brought about terror in this nation," said the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, the Democratic nominee for Texas's 30th Congressional District. "It's time to melt ICE. It's time to abolish ICE." Then he turned to the man at the top of the ticket: "James Talarico, I stand with you."

A few minutes later, Talarico walked out to the same microphone. He did not push back. He led the room in a cheer. "Give it up for your next congressman, Dr. Freddy Haynes," Talarico said. "Thank you, Dr. Haynes, for those kind words and for your service to this community."

Who Haynes is

Haynes is the longtime senior pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in southern Dallas and the pastor of Rep. Jasmine Crockett, whose House seat he is now running for after she gave it up to chase the Senate nomination. Crockett lost that primary to Talarico. The district is deep blue, so Haynes is all but certain to be in Congress in January. In other words, this was not some random guy with a bullhorn. This is the man Democrats are about to send to Washington, introduced from the stage as "your next congressman for Texas Congressional District 30."

The Washington Free Beacon's Chuck Ross first reported the exchange. We went to the tape. The full rally aired Thursday on Roland S. Martin's livestream, and Martin's channel also posted Haynes's complete 10-minute speech, which is where both clips above come from.

What the full speech shows

Most write-ups give you one line. The whole speech is worse, because the KKK line was not an off-the-cuff slip. It was the climax of a sermon built around the Book of Matthew.

Haynes spent the first half hammering what he called "the treacherous trifecta of Trump, Abbott, and Paxton," a phrase he repeated over and over. Then he gave the crowd his own "remix" of Jesus's parable of the sheep and the goats, the passage where the nations are judged on how they treated the hungry, the thirsty and the stranger. In Haynes's version, the goats are Republicans: "I was hungry, but you cut SNAP benefits because of your big stupid ugly bill," he said, a jab at the One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump signed last year. "I was thirsty and you poisoned water in Flint, Michigan." And then: "I was a stranger and you transformed ICE into the new KKK."

So the pastor took Scripture, cast the President, Gov. Greg Abbott and Senate nominee Ken Paxton as the damned, and cast the men and women of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the Klan. That is the speech Talarico called "kind words."

Why the comparison is obscene

The Klan was a terror group that lynched black Americans and burned crosses on their lawns, outside the law and against it. ICE officers do the opposite: they carry out immigration laws passed by Congress and signed by presidents of both parties, under court orders and warrants, as part of the Department of Homeland Security that Congress created after 9/11. Calling them the KKK is not a policy argument. It paints a target on officers who already work in the middle of hostile crowds, and it insults every black Texan whose family lived through the real thing.

And "melt ICE" is not a slogan about paperwork. Abolishing ICE means nobody is left to arrest and deport illegal aliens already ordered removed by a judge. Think of firing every referee and still calling it a football game.

The Talarico problem

Talarico has worked hard to sell himself as the moderate, faith-talking Democrat who can win Texas. He spent this rally quoting Friday Night Lights and telling the crowd that billionaire super PACs are spending "more than $200 million" to stop him. But when the preacher he shared the stage with called for abolishing ICE and compared its officers to the Klan, Talarico had a clear chance to say, "Not me." He picked "thank you" instead, and he called the man "your next congressman."

That matters in a state where border security is not an abstract issue. Texas voters will decide between Talarico and Paxton on Tuesday, and Friday was the last day of early voting. Talarico now owes those voters a straight answer: does he agree with Haynes that ICE is "the new KKK," and if not, why did he thank him for saying it?

What happens next

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Haynes is expected to win the TX-30 seat easily. Talarico faces Paxton for the Senate seat, and the question for him will not go away on its own: Was "thank you" the answer he meant to give?