Senate Democrats demand DHS funding bill include reforms to ‘rein in ICE’

Key Highlights

• On Wednesday, he announced that Democrats had “united” on a “set of common sense and necessary policy goals that we need to rein in ICE and end the violence”. These include a prohibition on patrols by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and a mandate that they coordinate with local and state police; the imposition of a uniform code of conduct and requirement of independent investigations into violations; and a ban on mask wearing by federal agents, along with a rule that they wear body cameras and carry identification.“These are common sense reforms, ones that America Americans know and expect of law enforcement,” Schumer said.
• “If Republicans refuse to support them, they are choosing chaos over order, plain and simple.
• They are choosing to protect ICE from accountability over American lives.”At a press conference held shortly before Schumer unveiled the Democrats’ demands, Senate majority leader John Thune signaled openness to discussing reforms to ICE with Democrats, but no change in the GOP’s plans to begin voting on the spending bills Thursday.
• All six were approved by the House of Representatives last week.“Democrats have objected, and so we’re anxious to hear what their demands are, what their requests are, what their asks are.
• I think the administration is willing to sit down with them and have a discussion, perhaps a negotiation about how do we move forward,” Thune said.“But the one thing I do know… is that a government shutdown is not in anybody’s interest.”The Republican leader added that the DHS funding bill includes less money for ICE than what the Trump administration had requested, as well as funds for body cameras for agents and “de-escalation training”, which he called “things that Democrats have said that they wanted”. He noted that failure to pass the DHS bill wouldn’t stop ICE’s operations, since it received tens of billions of dollar from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year.