Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan told legislators that he wasn’t aware that ICE officers this week detained a 5-year-old Soldotna kindergartener, two teenage siblings and their mother during his annual address today, but he affirmed his broad support of the president’s immigration crackdown.
News of the violent capture of Sonia Arriaga and her three children at her home in Soldotna on Tuesday has swept the state, with members of the faith community raising alarm that the action and treatment of children presented a “moral crisis” in the country, but it was apparrently new information to the state’s junior senator, who will be facing re-election later this year.
“Yeah. I mean. I’m not aware of that one,” he stammered during a brief question-and-answer session following his address. “But give us the information. We, I think, get information from you guys on a whole host of issues, and we’d be glad to look at it.”
The husband of Arriaga says she was in the country legally, seeking asylum based on threats of violence in Jalisco, Mexico, and had the legal authorization to work. Still, she and her three children were seized on Tuesday and transported to Anchorage, where her 18-year-old son was put in jail. The rest of the family has been detained in a hotel, and additional information about their case and what might happen next isn’t clear.
While Trump and Sullivan have stood behind the immigration crackdown, arguing that they’re focused on violent criminals, the case targeting Arriaga, who has no criminal record, is one of many that show that’s not entirely true. The news was met with horror by some Alaska legislators and is set to be the subject of a hearing next week.
During the question and answer session, the typically cheery Anchorage independent Rep. Alyse Galvin asked Sullivan about the case.
“I can promise you, she’s not a rapist, she’s not a murderer. Apparently, there’s not any evidence of even a criminal record. The question is, how can you help us work together to help our families here know that we’re going to have a safe place? Apparently, they didn’t,” Galvin said, choking back emotion. “There’s no prison here or detention center for the children, and so I’m hoping you can help us work on this issue together.”
While Sullivan said he wasn’t aware of the case, he did use it as an opportunity to tout his record of “getting things done with the federal government, whether it’s funding or, you know, other issues on immigration even.”
His answer about Arriaga stood in stark contrast to his earlier praise for the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up spending on ICE and other law enforcement agencies.
“Keeping all communities throughout our state safe requires standing firmly with law enforcement and giving them our full support,” he said, pointing to the Big, Beautiful Bill that made ICE the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the country. “We’re cracking down on the open border policies of the Biden administration, which are fortunately a thing of the past. When the Trump administration returned to Office, illegal border crossings dropped by 99%, and for eight consecutive months, zero illegal immigrants have been released into the country.”
Sullivan also declined to answer questions from either legislators or reporters about his position if the Trump administration decided to deploy ICE to Alaska, akin to the recent Minneapolis deployment, which resulted in the extrajudicial killings of two American citizens. Instead, he was able to muster some glancing criticism for ICE’s training policies, but ultimately turned the blame for the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good on local law enforcement’s refusal to work hand in hand with ICE.
“What happened in Minnesota, as I mentioned in my remarks, you know, I weighed in with the administration. I put out statements, but also, importantly, weighed in with senior folks in the administration, saying, look, it’s really important to bring the temperature down on both sides, by the way, and which ended up happening,” he told reporters. “It was horrendous, regardless of you know, the situation, in my view, that two Americans were killed, horrendous, and that should not have happened.”
He also argued that you haven’t seen the same kind of violence against Americans in other states because other states’ law enforcement has been more willing to work with ICE.
“I strongly, as I mentioned in my remarks, I strongly supported, I strongly support our law enforcement. And one challenge that you did have in Minneapolis is that there wasn’t good cooperation between the state and local law enforcement officials and ICE, as in other states,” he said.
He also centered blame on Democrats — a common thread throughout his remarks on Wednesday, spanning from oil development to health care and social safety nets — for their recent efforts to block funding for ICE over Republicans’ refusal to enact meaningful transparency measures. Sullivan noted that the measure would have put about $20 million into equipping ICE with body cameras and “a couple of million dollars” for de-escalation training. Democrats had asked for more, including an end to officers concealing their identities.
Instead, Sullivan seemed to strike a more conciliatory tone.
“ICE can learn from these tragic — and, look, I didn’t agree with any of the statements about these people or domestic terrorists or whatever those were,” he said. “You know, American citizens have the right to their First and Second Amendment rights, and I don’t think they should be targeted for that reason.”
Attempts by reporters to follow up on his comments — including the part about what, if anything, he would do if Trump were to deploy a heavy-handed ICE presence to Alaska — were blocked by the senator’s press team.