The fight over ICE is heating up.
Democrats in both chambers are escalating their push to overhaul U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. They’re doing so by vowing to oppose legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless it includes tougher rules governing the conduct of ICE officers.
“That is the leverage,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), head of the Congressional Black Caucus: “You have this rogue organization out there, [and] they need to be identified; they need to get off those masks, and they have to be able to be held accountable when they maim, injure or kill somebody.”
Entering the government spending debate, some liberal Democrats were already demanding those changes in response to President Trump’s immigration enforcement surge, but party leaders weren’t on board. They wanted to stage a series of votes — bipartisan and drama-free — on all the outstanding spending bills to prevent a shutdown Jan. 30, and felt they were on track to do it.
That changed dramatically in the wake of last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, by an ICE officer who said Good had threatened his life with her car. Since then, a growing chorus of furious Democrats has threatened to withhold support for DHS funding to insist on new ICE guardrails. And party leaders — who have struggled all year to convince base voters that they’re fighting the good fight against Trump — endorsed that strategy this week.
“Taxpayer dollars are being used by the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to unleash extremism on the streets of America by individuals who are showing depraved indifference to human life,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday.
“That’s what we’re seeing,” he continued. “And the American people don’t want their taxpayer dollars used in that fashion.”
The heightened opposition derailed the initial plan of bipartisan appropriators to vote on the DHS bill as part of Wednesday’s minibus spending package, which passed easily without it. It’s also raised new questions about how Republican leaders intend to pass DHS spending ahead of the Jan. 30 shutdown deadline.
Jeffries, for one, said the ball is in the GOP’s court.
“You’re going to have to ask House Republicans what they plan to do relative to funding in this particular area, if they continue to take a ‘my way or the highway’ approach,” he said.
The early strategy is to combine the DHS bill with the other three outstanding spending proposals, covering the Pentagon, transportation projects, and the Labor and Health departments. That minibus package is expected to hit the floor next week, and GOP leaders are hoping there are enough sweeteners to bring at least some Democrats on board.
“We’re moving forward,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Thursday. He added that there are no talks with the Senate about an emergency stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, in the event Congress fails to pass one or more of the remaining bills.
Complicating Johnson’s task is a long and growing list of Democrats who say they’re prepared to oppose the four-bill minibus if the ICE reforms aren’t included in the DHS portion.
“I’m not going to vote for that funding,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the former head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Trump agitated the debate further Thursday when he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to send military forces into Minneapolis, where ICE and other federal agencies have clashed with protesters since Good’s shooting.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Republicans have defended Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, with many accusing the protesters of “interfering” with federal operations.
“They need to get out of the way and let law enforcement do their job,” Johnson said. “You have local and state leaders in Minnesota who are urging on the mobs and encouraging violence. And it’s out of control.”
Democrats have disputed that narrative, arguing the protests have been largely peaceful. They’re blaming Trump and ICE for inflaming tensions in Minneapolis just by being there.
“There are no insurrectionists; these are just people peacefully protesting and exercising their First Amendment rights,” Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) said.
Ivey is among the many Democrats backing Jeffries’s strategy of withholding support for the DHS spending bill as a lever in the push for ICE reforms.
“There’s stuff in there that you want to have done, like FEMA,” he said. “But it’s just so out of hand, at this point, we have to really use this opportunity to push back on this — not just push back, fight back.”