Two days before money for Homeland Security is set to expire, Congress is seemingly helplessly snared in debate over often brutal tactics of masked federal agents in the national deportation campaign, including two shooting deaths of citizens by agents.
Top immigration officials faced sharp questions yesterday at a congressional hearing about aggressive immigration policies, but little seemed to point to compromise about tactics. Heads of the three immigration enforcement efforts did not even acknowledge problems, whether in anonymity, lack of warrants or training.
Even the prospect of withholding money from the department does not seem to be stalling enforcement efforts or prompting much activity that looks like trying to resolve outstanding budget issues. Indeed, from the silence of administration officials, the plan for partial government shutdown seems to be that ICE agents continue full bore while other functions slow or shut in the 260,000-employee agency.
Skepticism about the efficacy of Congress aside, it seems absurd that our government cannot handle a conversation better about holding ICE to the same standards as any local police department or even lift this debate an inch over partisanship.
Even with the “drawdown” of 700 agents from the 3,000 deployed to Minneapolis, the roundups are continuing. Reports of federal officers near schools and homes continue to circulate on social media and many immigrant families remain hidden at home. So, too, are the protests continuing, including one this weekend in which, incongruously, sex toys were being thrown around outside the federal building and 40 were arrested.
Residents still brave the cold to observe federal officers, honking horns and blowing whistles to alert neighbors, volunteers are shuttling immigrants to jobs and delivering food and diapers.
ICE agents were active in a small town in Idaho, where local authorities were not consulted, while being cut back in Maine after Republican Sen. Susan Collins complained to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
A national boycott of big companies that have remained silent about immigration enforcement excesses is gaining a toehold, even as Donald Trump and his administration holler about disloyal Americans who question his policies on the street, among Olympic athletes or public events. We also saw street protests in Milan from Italians upset about ICE agents being deployed to the Olympics as security consultants.
In Washington
Time is running out for any bipartisan deal on passing the remaining Homeland Security budget bill. Bills to fund the rest of government for the year have been passed. Even proposals for stopgap efforts for more time seemed doomed by the Senate math needed to secure sufficient votes.
Despite some exchange of proposals on Monday, the basics have not changed: Democrats, appalled by scenes from Minneapolis, want legislation to require ICE drop masks and eliminate warrantless searches in homes and businesses, all included in a list of proposed changes to ICE. Republicans, including Trump, have issued an outright dismissal, and, indeed, want legislation to ban “sanctuary” cities that limit cooperation by local police with immigration enforcement. A unreleased White House counterproposal to Democratic demands “included neither details nor legislative text” and does not address “the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct,” said Democrats.
At this stage, a Homeland Security shutdown can only be averted if all 100 senators agree to hold a vote before Thursday night when several senators are scheduled to depart for the Munich Security Conference. Republicans note that ICE already has funds by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, so a shutdown will affect critical agencies like FEMA, TSA and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Instead, Republicans are pushing the SAVE America Act which requires voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship in federal elections despite laws that already bar non-citizens from federal voting. It also requires states to remove undocumented immigrants from voter rolls, though non-citizens now can vote legally on local elections in several states. Despite all the noise, there is little evidence that voting by undocumented immigrants has had any impact on federal elections, and the proposal will not pass in the Senate.
While voting is related to immigration enforcement, Democrats see Trump’s efforts to “nationalize elections” among a series of actions to tilt results of the November elections.
In Minneapolis and Beyond
The daily drumbeat of legal and political cases arising from deportations continues.
–The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says it “remains committed” to working with the FBI and the Department of Justice, but there are no plans for how a joint homicide investigation will proceed in the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. The Pretti family has gone to court to get access to the names of the border patrol agents who shot him, though journalists have identified them.
–A review by Politico of hundreds of cases brought by ICE detainees across the country shows judges increasingly furious and exhausted by the Trump administration’s tactics of delaying, avoiding or outright ignoring their orders. Homeland Security responded by criticizing “activist judges” who “thwart President Trump from fulfilling the American people’s mandate for mass deportations.” The statement didn’t directly address judges’ complaints about their orders being violated.
–A federal appeals court in California ruled that the Trump administration legally may lift Temporary Protective Status it had awarded for 60,000 refugees from Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua after a similar Supreme Court ruling on Venezuelans. A separate ruling has temporarily blocked lifting the status for Haitians.
–A district court disallowed a California law requiring federal agents to unmask, but said it could require agents to carry identification. The case turned on whether state law enforcement officers also faced the requirement.
–An immigration judge ended removal proceedings against Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts graduate student from Turkey was had been detained by border police for her wriitings in graduate school.
–Democratic U.S. Representatives Angie Craig and Betty McCollum of Minnesota said they were denied entry to ICE holding facilities in Minneapolis in violation of law,
–White House officials say at least 4,000 arrests have been made in Minnesota since Dec. 1, and federal authorities were moving to reinstate deportation proceedings against the Ramos family, whose five-year-old boy in a bunny-hat has become a national symbol, after a court ordered their release.
–Even as Trump and Noem continued to thunder about criminals taken off the street, a CBS reported obtaining an internal Homeland Security memo detailing that fewer than 14% of those arrested nationwide in 2025 had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses.
Your government at work.
