Congressional progressives vow to block DHS funding without reforms

Progressives in the US Congress on Tuesday vowed to oppose legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless it included significant reforms to immigration enforcement following the killing of a US citizen in Minnesota last week.

The declaration by the Democratic-aligned Congressional Progressive caucus comes as the Senate and House of Representatives race to meet an end-of-the-month deadline to approve a series of funding bills or risk a partial government shutdown.

The debate over DHS funding has been rocked by last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent after the Trump administration ordered a surge of federal officers into the city amid its push for mass deportations.

“Our caucus members will oppose all funding for immigration enforcement in any appropriation bills until meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices,” the caucus’s deputy chair, Ilhan Omar, who represents most of Minneapolis, told a press conference at the US Capitol.

“We cannot and we should not continue to fund agencies that operate with impunity, that escalate violence and that undermine the very freedoms this country claims to uphold.”

Pramila Jayapal, the top Democrat on the House judiciary subcommittee on immigration, said the caucus wanted provisions included in the homeland security appropriations bill that would prevent ICE agents from wearing masks, require warrants for them to make arrests and end the use of private detention facilities, which have been criticized for keeping detainees in squalid conditions.

“Because the abuses are so widespread and occur in so many different places, we have to address all of them,” Jayapal said.

The opposition from the progressives – who number about 100 members, all but one of whom are in the House – could complicate passage of the homeland security funding bill, which is still under negotiation between House and Senate appropriators. The legislation is one of 12 bills Congress must pass to fund the government, and is typically enacted with bipartisan support.

The top House Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, echoed the progressives’ demands at a Monday press conference, saying: “Clearly, there are some commonsense measures that need to be put in place so that ICE can conduct itself in a manner that is at least consistent with every other law enforcement agency in the United States of America.”

In the Senate, Democrat Chris Murphy has backed including reforms to immigration enforcement in the DHS bill, casting the effort as a way for Congress to reassert its authority over the department amid reports that officers have been taken off other law enforcement work and put on immigration enforcement.

“We appropriate millions of dollars for one purpose, like Homeland Security Investigations, and they just rip all those people away from those jobs and send them to Minneapolis and Chicago, completely violating Congress’s purpose and intent,” Murphy told reporters on Monday.

Good’s death came after DHS agents fanned out across the Minneapolis area in an operation that was initially directed at its Somali community. Minnesota’s attorney general on Monday filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop the operation, while Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, announced that hundreds more agents from ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies would be sent to the area.

Administration officials have defended the killing of Good, with Noem accusing her of “an act of domestic terrorism”.

The Democratic congresswoman Robin Kelly has announced she will file articles of impeachment against the homeland security secretary for “obstruction of justice, violation of public trust and self-dealing”.

Delia Ramirez, a member of the progressive caucus whose Chicago-area district was targeted by an ICE campaign last fall, said she supported impeaching Noem but argued for going further.

“We need to prosecute the criminals in masks. We need to cut and claw back ICE’s funding as natural consequences for DHS’s disregard for the rule of law and violations of our rights,” she said.

“We have to use every single tool, including the power of the purse, to end the campaign of terror.”