Democrats Must Seize the Opportunity to Control ICE

Use the spending fight to defend Americans’ lives

Untrained ICE agents ready to use force at the slightest provocation (or none at all) have been brutalizing Americans, with hundreds more undisciplined thugs ready to deploy in Minneapolis and elsewhere. The epidemic of government-initiated violence goes far beyond a few isolated incidents in blue cities.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

The Wall Street Journal has identified 13 instances of agents firing at or into civilian vehicles since July, leaving at least eight people shot with two confirmed dead. According to court records and lawyers, only one civilian was armed—with a concealed weapon that was never drawn—and at least five of those shot were U.S. citizens. Several federal officers reported injuries, including bruised ribs, a dislocated finger and a bite wound.

The lack of training and shoot-first-ask-no-questions-later mentality have turned our streets into something out of 1930’s fascist Europe. ICE and other federal agents disregard accepted, safe law enforcement practices. “The Minneapolis shooting shares characteristics with others the Journal reviewed: Agents box in a vehicle, try to remove an individual, block attempts to flee, then fire,” the Journal reported. Despite decades of research to develop “accepted standards” for conducting traffic stops, ICE agents feel empowered to fire at civilians who tick them off. When tragedy strikes, the Trump regime smears and investigates the victim.

Illinois and Minnesota have had enough. The two states filed lawsuits on Monday against Department of Homeland Security, ICE, the Border Control, and specific officials including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and CPB agent Gregory Bovino; challenging the violent, abusive actions of the immigration agents.

The complaint in page after page meticulously lays out incidents of abusive conduct, violation of First Amendment rights, and lawlessness. The states seek relief based on, among other grounds, the First and Tenth Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act. Their demands include halting the surge of agents in their states (which interfere with states’ health, education, and safety powers); barring arrest of those who have not violated immigration law (unless there is probable cause they committed a crime or threaten others); limiting certain biometric data gathering; protecting the feds from, in essence, overtaking local and state policing; allowing ICE to operate in sensitive places (e.g., schools, hospitals) only in limited circumstances; and preventing use of physical force to disperse crowds engaged in First Amendment-protected activity. The states also want to stop agents from pointing firearms at individuals who pose no threat to others and/or masking their identities.

The federal probe is so corrupted that federal prosecutors at Main Justice and in Minnesota federal prosecutors have quit. “At least five senior prosecutors in the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced their resignations this week, believing that the Trump administration has undermined the work and mission of the section, according to four people familiar with the personnel moves,” the Washington Post reported. On Tuesday, another batch of federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned, reportedly over directions to investigate the victim and freeze out state investigators. The whitewash is so blatant and clumsy that no one will believe the results of the phony “investigation.”

Frankly, it is stunning that lawsuits are necessary to bring about such basic restraints that, until now, most federal and state law enforcement officials have widely followed. And given the extent of Trump regime violence and public outrage, it is inconceivable that Democrats would miss the opportunity to use the upcoming the spending deadline to halt unrestricted flow of hundreds of billions to a rogue DHS.

Democrats should rally around proposals such as those from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and from Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Cal.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Tex.) in the House to condition spending on increased oversight of ICE and on requirements that agents have warrants, wear body cameras, do not mask themselves, and stop using force indiscriminately. Democrats can bring the same attention and pressure to bear on Republicans as they did in the healthcare fight:

Get on the right side of the issue or face the wrath of voters.

That strategy is entirely doable, if Democrats maintain their nerve. They must remember that the political landscape has changed dramatically since the end of the Oct.-Nov. shutdown: Trump is far weaker than he was even a couple months ago.

Trump’s approval ratings have continued to plummet, and both Houses have rebelled against Trump (with a War Powers Act vote in the Senate, an ACA vote in the House, and on votes to release the Epstein-Trump files in both). Even Republicans have begun denouncing him on the malicious prosecution of Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell. (At least two Republicans said they would oppose confirming any Fed nominee until Trump backs off a malicious prosecution of Powell.)

Trump is not the only one with diminishing leverage. Contrary to legacy media punditry, Senate Republicans now face loss of their majority. Even before the latest Powell and ICE debacles, I have argued — based on Democrats’ November sweep, the sinking popularity of “concerned” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Democrats’ recruitment of key candidates (e.g., Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Roy Cooper in North Carolina), and key Republican retirements (e.g., Iowa Sen. Joni “We are all going to die” Ernst) — that Democrats’ chances to win back the majority have been underestimated. On top of the latest Trump blunders, former congresswoman Mary Peltola announced she is running to challenge Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).

No one should doubt that the Senate is in play. Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and Alaska are winnable; Iowa and Texas are competitive; and Democrats’ defense of Minnesota, Michigan, and Georgia look far safer. Republicans could very well lose both the House and the Senate, bringing Trump’s reign of chaos, terror, and lawlessness to a screeching halt.

Accordingly, while the country is in an uproar about ICE’s brutal onslaught (and getting hit with enormous healthcare insurance premium hikes), Dems should use the pending funding deadline to turn up the heat on both the ACA extension and ICE restrictions. (Trump is already in trouble on his unilateral, forever wars, so war powers resolutions on Greenland, Iran, etc. can be dealt with separately.) Pro-democracy voters need to keep the pressure on Democrats to press their advantage and to warn Republicans that siding with Trump will result in their wipe-out in November.

Democrats can increase their chances for success if they begin to tie the disastrous results to individual senators. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) could have voted to prevent you from losing healthcare. He refused. Sen. X voted to allow ICE to run wild, killing Americans on the street, so hold her responsible for the deaths that followed. Stressing specific members’ responsibility for Trump’s horrors will both encourage them to join Democrats on the ACA and ICE as well as lay the groundwork for the midterms.

The first two weeks of 2026 have put on display Trump’s crazed desperation. His frenzy to secure his authoritarian rule in the face of plunging popularity suggests he understands that a blue wave midterm will bring his regime to a screeching halt.

Therein lies the danger of an unhinged, vengeful narcissist enabled by sycophants and morally vacuous toadies in Congress, the press, business, and universities. His actions become more outrageous, his lies more outlandish. But in his absurd overreach — going to war against Venezuela, defending the stone-cold killing of an American mom, prosecuting the Fed chairman — he also has demonstrated to anyone outside his cult that the midterms are not just about healthcare and high prices.

Trump has made this about chaos, insanity, war, violence, and simple decency. Republicans need to decide whether they want to be complicit in Trump’s descent into depravity. Democrats must force them to make that choice in full view of voters.