Senate Progressives Don’t Criticize Schumer’s ICE Compromise

Democratic leaders in Congress requested Department of Homeland Security reforms on Wednesday that would leave the agency’s budget untouched — and were immediately rebuffed by the GOP.

The requests, in a joint letter from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats, do not attempt to claw back funding for Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of the Border Patrol, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the two agencies at the heart of the political firestorm over their violent deployments to American cities.

Instead of cutting funding, Democrats focused on measures such as prohibiting ICE agents from wearing masks or entering homes without a warrant. Sen. Brian Schatz, D- Hawaii, the Democratic deputy whip, on Wednesday described the requests as “reasonable reforms that are 70-30 propositions with the public.”

“The urgency of the moment is about stopping the violence.”

That did not win them any points with congressional Republicans, who dismissed the reforms out of hand.

Progressives in the Senate, meanwhile, had not only become more strident in their rhetoric about ICE, they also called for clawing back increased ICE spending passed as part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Though some of these Democrats are sticking by their more robust demands, they nonetheless avoided criticizing their party leadership over the request for more limited reforms.

“The urgency of the moment is about stopping the violence,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told The Intercept. “If it were up to me, we would be rewriting the whole immigration laws and policies. But right now, we’ve got to get some constraints in place so that roving bands of ICE agents stop terrorizing American communities. That is our first priority.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, took a similar line, setting aside his stronger demands of ICE.

“I have a much longer list of things that I want to change in the Department of Homeland Security,” he said, “but we are trying to put a targeted list of reforms that will end the abuse on the table so that we can get something done.”

10 Demands

Schumer and Jeffries’s demand list has significant overlap with previous calls from progressive members of Congress such as Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

The progressives made their demands soon after the January 24 killing of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, which derailed a full-year funding bill for DHS and led to a brief shutdown of several government departments. The House voted to end the shutdown Tuesday by approving full-year appropriations for other departments while temporarily funding DHS through a new February 13 deadline.

The Democratic leaders unveiled their official list of demands ahead of the deadline on Wednesday, calling for ending indiscriminate arrests, prohibiting masking, requiring ICE and CBP officer identification, protecting sensitive locations such as churches and schools, halting racial profiling, upholding use of force standards, preserving the ability of states and cities to prosecute DHS misconduct, and requiring the use of body cameras when interacting with the public. (Schumer and Jeffries immediately began watering down one of their clearest demands, suggesting in public comments that they might allow agents to wear masks in some circumstances.)

The biggest split between what Schumer and Jeffries proposed and what more progressive Democrats requested was a reduction of spending on ICE and CBP.

Those agencies received $75 billion and $64 billion, respectively, in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act to be spent through 2029. That money came on top of the amounts already available to the agencies through their annual appropriations.

Clawing that money back has been a top priority for advocates, who note that it has been used to supercharge hiring and spending on surveillance technology.

“These demands MUST include cuts in funding,” Heidi Altman, the vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, said in an email last week. “The money pays for the violence. It has to stop.”

Last month, Sanders proposed an amendment to the DHS appropriations bill that would have redirected the additional ICE funding to Medicaid, which he estimated would prevent 700,000 Americans from losing their health care.

Sanders’s amendment drew the support of every Senate Democrat and two Republicans, but it failed on a 49–51 vote.

“Passing new laws is no assurance to me whatsoever that they are not going to continue this lawlessness.”

In negotiations with the White House, Schumer is likely to be able to offer the potential support of only a fraction of his caucus for a full-year appropriations bill for DHS.

Some Democrats in Congress have already ruled out the idea that they will vote for any more funding.

“When you have a reckless and out of control agency that is unwilling to follow the law, passing new laws is no assurance to me whatsoever that they are not going to continue this lawlessness,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told The Intercept.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have shown no willingness to negotiate on key Democratic requests, Booker said.

“There’s a lot of things I know my caucus would support, but clearly the speaker and the leader are not even interested in having those kinds of conversations,” he said, “even though most of their base thinks what’s happening with this agency is unacceptable.”

DOA With GOP

Democratic leadership figures like Schatz have described the latest demands as an attempt at reaching consensus.

“They are not a Democratic wish list. We are simply asking that ICE not be held to a different standard than every other law enforcement organization in the country — state, county, and federal,” he told reporters Wednesday.

The requests fell with a thud with Republican leaders, however. Johnson has already ruled out banning masks and requiring warrants.

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., the lead GOP negotiator, called the demands “a ridiculous Christmas list of demands for the press.”

Republicans have already floated the idea of another short-term extension of DHS funding to allow further negotiations.