Public Rage Against ICE Sends Democrats Scrambling for a Response

As protests against President Donald Trump’s brutal crackdown on immigrants grow nationwide, Democrats in Congress are scrambling for a unified response to the violence brazenly displayed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. Voters are demanding a response to the most recent deployment in Minnesota, where residents and local leaders say federal immigration patrols are disappearing people, brutalizing protesters and bystanders, and intentionally sowing chaos in the icy streets.

A pair of Democrats announced a bill on January 21 that would defund ICE’s rapidly expanding detention system and redirect resources toward repairing the damage caused by immigration raids on local communities.

The Melt ICE Act would remove the authority from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to incarcerate immigrants and dismantle the ICE’s rapidly expanding network of roughly 200 jails, privately run prisons, and makeshift detention halls holding at least 73,000 people on any given day. It was introduced by Rep. Delia Ramirez and Rep. Yvette Clarke, representing districts in Illinois and New York hard-hit by Trump’s so-called “immigration enforcement” surges.

Designed to hamper Trump’s mass deportation campaign as protests erupt nationwide, the bill comes as the House advances bipartisan legislation that would continue robust funding for ICE and deportations. Facing a January 30 deadline to fund the government, House Republicans advanced the DHS funding bill to a vote on January 22. If approved, the bill will be sent to the Senate.

While some Democratic lawmakers say the budget bill essentially keeps funding for ICE flat compared to last year, Rep. Pramila Jayapal said it effectively amounts to an increase when additional funding from 2025 is considered. Specific numbers aside, Jayapal said she could not vote to fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) without placing strict limits on the behavior of immigration officers to protect the public.

“The core issue here is that there really are no guardrails on ICE and CBP. I can’t vote for it,” Jayapal said in a video statement on January 20. “I can’t be complicit in continuing to allow them to violate the constitutional rights of people across this country.”

The House funding bill provides funding for ICE for more training and body-worn cameras, which critics say amount to optics rather than meaningful reforms designed to prevent violence by federal immigration officers. Immigrant rights advocates note that Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by a law enforcement veteran who was recording the interaction.

“Any realistic effort to rein in ICE and DHS’s lawlessness should start with the blank check they have enjoyed since Donald Trump retook power,” Clarke said in a statement on January 21 introducing the Melt ICE Act.

Since taking office, Trump has transformed ICE into the nation’s largest law enforcement outfit. At least 36 people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office. Along with viral videos of ICE agents acting violently in neighborhoods across the country, the fatal shooting of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on January 7 has struck a nerve far beyond Minnesota. The public is demanding accountability as backlash builds in the streets — and lawmakers are taking notice.

In Minnesota, some lawmakers are answering the call by joining constituents in protest.

“The answer to authoritarianism unfortunately is not in the halls of the statehouse, it is in the streets of our country, standing shoulder to shoulder with Americans resisting the violations of constitutional rights that we are seeing dozens and dozens of times every day now,” Rep. Aisha Gomez, a Minnesota state representative from Minneapolis, told Truthout in an interview.

The surge in Minnesota is among the largest and most recent invasions of major U.S. cities by newly emboldened immigration officers, who left a trail of death and disruption in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, and elsewhere. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, said the Trump administration has deployed 3,000 federal immigration officers to the Twin Cities, nearly triple the number of local police officers.

Ellison, who is challenging Trump’s immigration deployment in federal court, pointed to the recent arrest of an elderly U.S. citizen who was removed from his home in St. Paul in a bathrobe and underwear by federal immigration officers despite sub-freezing temperatures. The man’s family says his case was one of mistaken identity.

“The protesters are a living, breathing example that Minnesotans are not quietly going into the dark night.”

“Are agents of the state — that you don’t even know who they are because they are masked — can they kick your door in, beat you down, and kill you?” Ellison said during a press call on January 21, suggesting the Trump administration has crossed a line. “Once that happens, you know without any doubt that you are in a tyrannical society.”

ICE’s leadership continues to argue its officers are doing nothing wrong despite a growing pile of video evidence to the contrary. Following the playbook his agency has used in other cities, Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino blames local police and the residents of Minneapolis when asked about videos showing his agents assaulting people. Asked about tear gas and other crowd-control weapons deployed against protesters, Bovino accused Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz of colluding with “anarchists.” Both Democrats have repeatedly called for protests to remain peaceful.

“What we do is legal, ethical and moral, well grounded in law,” Bovino told reporters on January 20.

The Justice Department is now investigating Frey, Walz, and other Minnesota Democrats who have encouraged residents to document and report abuses.

“We need people to keep standing up for the protesters,” Ellison said, addressing a national audience. “The protesters are a living, breathing example that Minnesotans are not quietly going into the dark night … and this effort needs to continue to be supported.”

Back in Washington, Democrats at the federal level are debating how best to hold ICE accountable while Republicans still control the majority. The Melt ICE Act is perhaps the most robust proposal from Democrats to block the rampage of federal immigration agents across the country. The bill is unlikely to gain traction in the GOP-controlled Congress but still offers Democrats an option for framing as they respond to the outrage over heavily armed, masked immigration officers patrolling the streets. It also responds to the increasingly popular demand to abolish ICE, which has the support of nearly half of the country.

Meanwhile, proposals from Democrats such Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and the measures in the House funding bill have been roundly criticized for suggesting that state violence can be prevented with “transparency” and providing ICE officers with better training.

In addition to continuing DHS funding, the House bill does not include reforms to ICE demanded by many activists and Democrats in Congress, including bans on detaining U.S. citizens and conducting immigration enforcement in the interior of the country.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, which released the budget package, said on January 21 that she shares the frustration of her fellow Democrats with “the out-of-control agency.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced his personal opposition to the funding bill but was criticized by progressives for failing to whip other Democratic votes against it.

“ICE must be reined in. There must be accountability for the countless abuses, acts of violence, and lawless behavior we have seen on our streets,” DeLauro said in a statement on January 20, encouraging fellow Democrats to base their vote on what is best for their constituents. “The bill takes several steps in the right direction … but it does not include broader reforms Democrats proposed.”

Lindsay Koshgarian, the program director at the National Priorities Project and an expert on federal appropriations, said the bill amounts to Congress giving ICE more money to “terrorize communities and break our laws.”

“ICE shouldn’t get one more penny, especially since the GOP took from healthcare and food programs last year to give billions more to ICE in their Big Bad Bill,” Koshgarian said in an email. “The immediate thing Congress needs to do is stop giving ICE more funding and legislate real accountability, like not allowing racial profiling and violence against protestors.”

With the funding bill likely to pass, local and state leaders are scrambling to offer their own legislative protections against Trump’s immigration forces. Lawmakers in multiple states are now pushing legislation known as “universal constitutional remedies” that would allow individuals to sue any official — local, state, or federal — when their constitutional rights are violated. Currently, Renee Good’s surviving wife and family have little legal recourse for holding Ross accountable for the deadly shooting that took Good’s life.

Cameron Kistler, a counsel at the watchdog group Protect Democracy, said state laws allow people to sue state and local law enforcement when their rights are violated, but there is no similar federal statute for holding federal officers accountable.

“Everyone needs to be organizing in their communities and building up that web of care for each other.”

“Ms. Good’s killing really drove home to legislators how unfair and frankly anti-constitutional that system is,” Kistler told reporters on January 21. “Whether Ms. Good’s family has a remedy for her killing should turn on whether her constitutional rights are violated, not what badge the officer had when he shot her.”

Kistler said Illinois has already passed a “universal constitutional remedies” bill into law, and similar legislation has been announced or introduced in California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Virginia. Kistler expects more states to take up similar bills as more lawmakers seek to close the “loophole” shielding ICE agents from lawsuits.

“These are not messaging bills, these are not stunts,” Kistler said. “State law has long been a critical source of protection [against] unconstitutional actions by federal officers.”

Representative Gomez said lawmakers in Minnesota are working on constitutional remedy legislation and other efforts to keep their residents safe despite the invasion of immigration officers, but that state and local leaders can only do so much when the federal government is openly violating the Constitution.

“The reality is that many people want state policy and local policy and law to protect us in the face of a federal government that is basically an authoritarian tyrannical regime on the march, so I understand the impulse,” Gomez said.

State lawmakers passing a ban on masking for law enforcement or opening up legal avenues for lawsuits alone will not stop Trump’s rampage. That is why Gomez is joining her constituents in the icy streets to protest ICE’s invasion of her city.

“We are not the first and we are not going to be the last,” Gomez said, referring to ICE operations in other cities. “Everyone needs to be organizing in their communities and building up that web of care for each other, which is the only answer to a regime that doesn’t care about the law and doesn’t care about the truth.”