'A Surrender to Trump's Lawlessness': Democrats Warned Against Giving ICE More Money

As congressional negotiators on Tuesday released a proposed spending bill for the US Department of Homeland Security, with the January 30 funding deadline rapidly approaching, critics of President Donald Trump's deadly immigration operations renewed calls for Democrats to oppose any new money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"You can't count on Dem leadership to do much, but you can for sure trust these warriors for democracy to hustle like hell to pass a bipartisan deal to fully fund the Gestapo currently attacking our cities, rather than using this one moment of leverage to try to stop them. Bravo!" quipped progressive organizer Aaron Regunberg on social media.

Since an immigration agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this month, congressional Democrats have faced mounting pressure to significantly rein in DHS and its agencies, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). While some progressive lawmakers have embraced such calls, neither Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) nor House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) has shown serious interest in using the appropriations process to that end.

Both Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) tried to frame the DHS bill released on Tuesday as taking "several steps in the right direction," in the words of DeLauro, who also acknowledged that "it does not include broader reforms Democrats proposed."

"I understand that many of my Democratic colleagues may be dissatisfied with any bill that funds ICE. I share their frustration with the out-of-control agency," DeLauro said, while also stressing that the bill "is more than just ICE." She specifically pointed to funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration, and the US Coast Guard.

As a bill summary from Murray's office states, the legislation funds those and "other critical programs Americans count on" while cutting "funding for CBP by $1.3 billion relative to fiscal year 2025, providing $18.3 billion in total."

It also "flat-funds ICE at $10 billion, preventing any growth to ICE's annual budget, and it cuts ICE's enforcement and removal budget," the document details. "The bill provides $949 million (-15%) less in funding for ICE enforcement and removal operations than House Republicans' and $708 million (-11%) less than Senate Republicans’ proposed bills—and $114 million less than the fiscal year 2025 level."

Taking aim at the DHS secretary, Murray said in a statement that "what we have seen from Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security is frankly sick and un-American. ICE is out-of-control, terrorizing people, including American citizens, and actively making our communities less safe."

Sometimes, when members of Congress can't strike a deal before a funding deadline, they'll pass a continuing resolution that provides short-term funding to prevent a federal government shutdown and keep up negotiations. However, Murray suggested in a Tuesday statement that a CR is not a viable option because of the $75 billion for ICE included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed last July.

"ICE must be reined in, and unfortunately, neither a CR nor a shutdown would do anything to restrain it, because, thanks to Republicans, ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund it can tap whether or not we pass a funding bill," Murray said. "The suggestion that a shutdown in this moment might curb the lawlessness of this administration is not rooted in reality: Under a CR and in a shutdown, this administration can do everything they are already doing—but without any of the critical guardrails and constraints imposed by a full-year funding bill."

Murray also nodded to Republican control of Congress that the November midterms, arguing that "the hard truth is that Democrats must win political power to enact the kind of accountability we need... "If you believe that we should be putting more of our taxpayer dollars towards healthcare and that our immigration enforcement should be focused on actual criminals instead of tear-gassing American children, then we need to speak up again and again—and we must take our fight to the ballot box."

Other Democrats in Congress swiftly rejected the proposal. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that it "puts no meaningful constraints on the growing lawlessness of ICE, and increases funding for detention over the last appropriations bill passed in 2024."

"I understand Democrats in these negotiations had a hard job—no new budget for DHS is going to cure all the rampant illegality happening within the department. But this bill doesn't put CBP agents back at the border where they belong and doesn't put checks on ICE’s out-of-control arrest and enforcement operations," he explained. "Democrats have no obligation to support a bill that not only funds the dystopian scenes we are seeing in Minneapolis but will allow DHS to replicate that playbook of brutality in cities all over this country."

The leadership of the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus last week vowed to "oppose all funding" for US immigration enforcement in any upcoming appropriations bills without substantial reforms. CPC Chair Emerita Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) made her personal opposition to Tuesday's proposal clear, declaring that "it simply does not meet the moment we face in this country with the lawlessness" of ICE and CBP agents.

"We have seen ICE and DHS descending on cities across this country, racially profiling, and rounding up immigrants and US citizens alike—many of whom have committed no crimes," said Jayapal, an immigrant herself. "We have watched in horror as they have dragged people out into the snow and as they have shot and killed US citizens. As they foment this terror and chaos on our streets, 37 people have died in ICE custody since Trump came back to office."

"Meanwhile, across the country, over 70,000 people are being incarcerated in immigration jails run by private, for-profit prison contractors and being denied due process and bond hearings in Trump's mass detention effort that dozens of judges have said is not lawful," she stressed. "All of this is dangerous—not just for immigrants but for every single American worried about the erosion of Constitutional rights."

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of several Democrats expected to run for president in 2028, also spoke out against the bill, telling NBC News that "it is a surrender to Trump's lawlessness. I will be a strong no and help lead the opposition to it."

The progressive group Indivisible has urged voters across the country "to light a fire under Democrats to demand they use their leverage on the DHS appropriations bill to rein in ICE and deny the Trump regime one penny more for its mass deportation machine."

"While most Republicans continue to rubber-stamp Trump's atrocities, some are becoming bolder in criticizing ICE's lawlessness and pattern of shredding constitutional protections," notes the group's webpage on reining in ICE. "The louder we are and the more we organize our communities to take action, the harder it will be for Republicans to continue backing Trump's terror campaign."

"Democrats need to stop whining about the limits of minority power and start fighting as hard as their constituents are to stop this regime’s mounting atrocities," the Indivisible page adds. "We're not accepting excuses, and we will hold every member of Congress accountable who chooses complicity and cowardice over courage."

Some critics of recent immigration actions have suggested that any Democrat who still supports funding ICE should be primaried. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch made that case Tuesday, writing that "the lack of appetite for utterly dismantling the DHS regime—despite its culture of violence and disrespect for law-abiding refugees—reminds too many voters of the cowardice that branded the Dems as losers in the first place."

"Dismantling the ICE regime needs to be the floor, not the ceiling" he added, "and any Democrat in Congress who doesn't get with the program can—and should—be replaced in the primaries to avoided another debacle with alienated or apathetic voters in November."