Q&A of the Day – The Ten Democrat Demands for a DHS/ICE Funding Deal
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: @brianmuddradio Please breakdown the ten Dem demands for an ICE deal. I haven’t seen or heard anyone do this and it’s likely to highlight how unserious they are about getting a deal done.
Bottom Line: The federal government is fully funded through the end of the fiscal year in September with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security. We’ve seen a rapid move towards the hard left on DHS funding by congressional Democrats in recent weeks. Preceding Alex Pretti’s ICE-involved death in Minneapolis, congressional Democrats had agreed to continue with DHS/ICE funding and standard operating procedures. Following the death of Pretti Democrats backtracked with a list of three demands. Over the past week plus, as the previous partial government shutdown was in focus, the demands grew to ten.
The growing demands and thus the greater divide between Democrats and Republicans has led to the expectation that the funding deadline of midnight Friday night/Saturday morning won’t be met. For example, Polymarket currently shows a 71% likelihood of another partial shutdown this weekend.
As for the demands... Democrat congressional leaders House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Republican leadership outlining 10 specific demands for reforms to "rein in" ICE. These demands were presented as conditions for Democrats to support DHS funding legislation.
Here is the full list of the 10 Democrat demands:
- Targeted enforcement: DHS/ICE officers cannot enter private property without a judicial warrant.
- No masks: Prohibit ICE and immigration enforcement agents from wearing face coverings (masks) during operations.
- Require ID: Require DHS/ICE officers conducting immigration enforcement to display their agency, unique ID number, and last name prominently; require them to verbalize their ID number and last name if asked.
- Protect sensitive locations: Prohibit funds from being used to conduct enforcement actions near sensitive locations, including medical facilities, schools, child-care facilities, churches, polling places, courts, etc.
- Body cameras: Mandate the use of body-worn cameras for ICE agents, with restrictions on footage use (e.g., to address privacy/surveillance concerns like facial recognition on protesters).
- Codify use-of-force policies: Establish and enforce clear, codified standards for use of force within DHS/ICE, with accountability measures.
- End racial profiling: Outlaw racial profiling (or profiling based on appearance, language, ethnicity, or location) as a basis for immigration stops, arrests, or enforcement.
- Verify citizenship before detention: Require agents to verify that an individual is not a U.S. citizen before holding them in immigration detention.
- No roving patrols: Prohibit or restrict indiscriminate roving patrols and dragnet-style operations in communities.
- Additional accountability measures: Include provisions for independent investigations, de-escalation requirements, and other guardrails to prevent abuses.
Of these demands – one, body cameras, isn’t controversial and is actually already being implemented throughout ICE. Body cameras had already been in use by ICE, though Homeland Security Secretary said DHS will ensure all officers have cameras and use them during operations. Codifying that into law won’t be an issue. All of the others present varying challenges that would significantly limit ICE’s ability to enforce immigration law. On that note...
Only being able to target illegal aliens with an arrest warrant would mean that first a local judge would issue one in the first place, which commonly wouldn’t happen by local leftist judges in blue cities. Not being able to conceal identities would lead to extensive doxxing, leading to threats and additional harassment for ICE officers and their families. Not being able to obtain illegal aliens at many locations would effectively create sanctuary destinations within sanctuary jurisdictions in what would be a clear violation of the Supremacy Clause to the constitution.
As for potential restrictions on the use-of-force, the devil is in the details. ICE is a federal law enforcement agency; there should be no reason why their use-of-force protocol would be significantly reduced from standard law enforcement policies. The current policy reads like this:
ICE agents are authorized to use force only when no safe, effective alternative exists, and the level of force must be objectively reasonable under the circumstances. Deadly force is permitted only when there is a reasonable belief that the person poses an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others. The use of force must be based on the facts and circumstances of each situation, and officers are expected to use de-escalation techniques whenever possible.
It’s hard to see how there could be a reasonable change to that protocol. Racial profiling is a widely used and highly effective law enforcement tactic, and any effort to end the use of it in immigration enforcement is absurd. The notion of verifying citizenship before detention is a concept that in theory may have merit, but in practice could be more complicated. For example, how long might it take to attempt to verify citizenship status of someone who claims they’re legal but aren’t? Tactics could be used to attempt to grind enforcement down to a halt. Trusting illegal aliens to tell the truth about immigration status to law enforcement is clearly a non-serious demand that’s made to sound good on the surface to non-thinking people.
The effort to end roving patrols is an effort to kneecap the most effective aspect of the Trump team’s immigration enforcement thus far... Self-deportations, as we’ve had 4.4 self-deportations for every ICE involved deportation. And as for additional accountability measures, it all comes down to the details of specific demands during the debate...to be determined.