Congressional progressives vow to block DHS funding without reforms | US domestic policy
Progressives in the US Congress on Tuesday vowed to oppose legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless it includes significant reforms to immigration enforcement following the killing of a US citizen in Minnesota last week.
The declaration from the Democratic-aligned Congressional Progressive group comes as the Senate and House of Representatives struggle to meet an end-of-month deadline to approve a series of funding bills or risk a partial government shutdown.
The debate over DHS funding was rocked by the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis last week after the Trump administration ordered federal officers to flood the city amid a mass deportation crackdown.
“Our caucus members will oppose all funding for immigration enforcement in any appropriations bill until meaningful reforms to end militarized policing are enacted,” Ilhan Omar, vice chair of the caucus that represents most of Minneapolis, said at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol.
“We cannot and must not continue to fund organizations that operate with impunity, escalate violence, and undermine the freedoms this country claims to protect.”
Pramila Jayapal, the top Democrat on the House judiciary subcommittee on immigration, said the group wants to include provisions in the homeland security appropriations bill that would prevent ICE agents from wearing masks, require permission to make arrests and end the use of private detention facilities that have been criticized for keeping detainees in squalid conditions.
“Because abuses are so common and occur in so many different places, we need to address all of these,” Jayapal said.
Opposition from progressives, who number about 100 members and all but one of them are in the House, could complicate passage of the homeland security funding bill, which is still under negotiation between appropriators in the House and Senate. The legislation is one of 12 bills Congress must pass to fund the government and is usually signed into law with bipartisan support.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, echoed progressives’ demands at a news conference Monday, saying: “Obviously, there are some common-sense measures that need to be put in place so that ICE can at least act consistently with other law enforcement agencies in the United States.”
In the Senate, Democrat Chris Murphy supported including reforms to immigration enforcement in the DHS bill, pushing for Congress to reassert its authority over the department amid reports that police officers are being pulled from other law enforcement jobs to initiate immigration enforcement.
“We appropriate millions of dollars for the sole purpose of Homeland Security Investigations, and they are completely violating the intent and intent of Congress by taking all these people away from those jobs and sending them to Minneapolis and Chicago,” Murphy told reporters Monday.
Good’s death came after DHS agents expanded into the Minneapolis area in an operation initially aimed at the Somali community. Minnesota’s attorney general filed a federal lawsuit Monday to halt the operation, while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced hundreds more agents from ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies would be sent to the area.
While administration officials defended Good’s killing, Noem accused him of “an act of domestic terrorism.”
Democratic congresswoman Robin Kelly announced that she will file articles of impeachment against the secretary of homeland security, charging him with “obstruction of justice, violation of the public trust, and self-dealing.”
Delia Ramirez, a member of the progressive caucus whose Chicago area was targeted by an ICE campaign last fall, said she supports impeaching Noem but advocates going further.
“We need to prosecute masked criminals. We need to defund ICE as natural consequences of DHS’s disregard for the rule of law and violation of our rights,” he said.
“We must use every tool, including the power of the purse, to end the campaign of terror.”
