WASHINGTON — As they seek to curb President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, congressional Democrats are looking to formalize some guidelines previous administrations used.

Of the 10 policy proposals Democratic leaders offered in negotiations to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which has been in a funding lapse since Feb. 14 in the midst of widespread uproar over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by immigration officers in Minneapolis last month, seven have been employed in at least some form by previous administrations.

Democrats are asking the Trump administration to reinstate policies it has rejected in its controversial push to carry out mass deportations. Prior policies Democrats want to formalize include use-of-force standards, allowing unannounced visits by members of Congress to facilities that detain immigrants and obtaining judicial warrants before entering private residences.

“Many of the things the Democrats are asking for are to revert to prior policies,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a senior DHS official during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. “Some of them are responding to the ways this administration is carrying out its operations that previous administrations did not.”

Formalizing the policies in law, as part of a deal to pass a fiscal 2026 funding bill for the department, would make them more permanent.

“Policies and guidance … apply as the current leadership applies them,” Cardinal Brown said. “They’re not absolutes, and they can be changed much more frequently.”

But an agreement between congressional Democrats and the White House on changes to immigration enforcement appears elusive. The White House’s response to the proposals was “incomplete and insufficient,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Feb. 9 statement. 

No recent movement on negotiations

Democrats late Monday sent over a counterproposal to Republicans and the White House, but did not make public what those changes were, according to a statement from party leaders.

While there is bipartisan support for some of the proposals, like requiring body-worn cameras, others, such as barring immigration agents from wearing face coverings and requiring judicial warrants to enter private property, have been rejected outright by the Trump administration.

A White House official said the “Trump Administration remains interested in having good faith conversations with the Democrats.” 

“President Trump has been clear – he wants the government open,” according to the White House official.

Even with the department shut down, immigration enforcement will continue, due to $170 billion in funding in the massive tax cuts and spending package Trump signed into law last year. 

Democrats’ proposals do not include consequences if DHS doesn’t comply, which raises an issue of effectiveness, said Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group that aims to provide free or low-cost legal services for immigrants.

“When Congress is negotiating policy measures, are they also putting teeth to those policy measures, and are they yanking away the funds that we know ICE and CBP will use to violate guardrails to begin with?” Altman said.

Changes demanded after Minneapolis deaths

After Renee Good was shot and killed by immigration officer Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7, lawmakers amended the Homeland Security funding bill to add guardrails, such as appropriating $20 million for body cameras and adding a requirement for DHS to report how funds from the tax cuts and spending package are being spent.

But a second death in Minnesota, that of intensive care unit nurse Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, spurred Democrats to reject funding for DHS without stronger policy changes to the enforcement tactics used by immigration officers at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. 

Only three of the 10 proposals from Schumer and Jeffries, both of New York, would be entirely new. 

They are: prohibiting ICE and other immigration enforcement agents from wearing face coverings, barring racial profiling after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the practice last year, and standardizing uniforms of DHS agents.

The heads of ICE and CBP rejected Democrats’ request to have their immigration officers forgo face coverings when asked during an oversight hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee last week. 

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, along with congressional Republicans, have argued that masks and face coverings prevent their officers from being doxed. 

Local cooperation

Other proposals, including barring of immigration enforcement of so-called sensitive locations such as religious places, child care facilities, hospitals and schools, would expand previous DHS guidance that restricted enforcement in such places.

The Democratic proposal calls for enforcement to be prohibited at those sensitive locations. Prior guidance allowed for the practice on a limited basis.

Then-acting ICE Director Caleb Vitello rescinded the policy shortly after President Donald Trump took office in January last year. There are several lawsuits brought by religious groups challenging the move by the Trump administration.

A requirement that immigration officials gain permission from local and state governments before undertaking large enforcement operations like the one in Minneapolis would build on previous policies of federal-local cooperation.

But that measure would be a long shot, Cardinal Brown said.

“I think that’s going to be a hard one,” she said. “The federal government has the authority to enforce immigration law anywhere in the country it wishes.”

She said a more realistic option would be for the federal government to inform or coordinate with local authorities for large-scale immigration operations. 

Another proposed requirement that DHS officials present identification also builds on a previous policy.

Another proposal builds on DHS policy of targeted enforcement by ending “indiscriminate arrests,” without warrants.

Under current immigration law, if an officer encounters a person believed to be in the U.S. unlawfully and can escape before a warrant is obtained, a warrantless arrest is lawful.

Democrats want to increase standards on the forms ICE uses to authorize an arrest. These administrative forms are not signed by a judge but instead by an ICE employee.

Judicial warrants

The remaining proposals would revert DHS policies to those in place under prior administrations’ guidance. Those include use-of-force standards, use of body cameras when interacting with the public, allowing members of Congress unannounced oversight visits at detention centers that hold immigrants and requiring a judicial warrant to enter private property.

An internal ICE memo, obtained by The Associated Press, showed that Lyons instructed ICE agents to enter private residences without a judicial warrant – a departure from longstanding DHS policy.

“This judicial warrant issue is so disturbing,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, or AILA.  

He said the question of whether a warrant is needed to enter private property was already decided under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. 

“The fact that it’s being discussed now is really frightening,” Johnson said.

Body cameras

Providing funds for DHS to acquire body cameras for immigration officers is one proposal Democrats and Republicans seem to have agreed on.

Earlier this month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that body cameras would be provided to all immigration agents in Minneapolis, and said that as “funding is available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide.”

During an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill, Lyons said about 3,000 ICE officers currently have body cameras with another 6,000 cameras on the way. Scott said  roughly 10,000 Border Patrol agents, about half the total force, have body cameras.

But body cameras are not a guarantee against misconduct, Altman said.

CBP officials were wearing body cameras when Pretti was shot and killed. Scott said that footage would be released after the investigation is over.

“We see officers in the field right now wearing body-worn cameras engaging in abuse and violence on the daily,” Altman said. 

Oversight visits

One of the proposals would also end a DHS policy to require members of Congress to provide seven-day notice of oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants, despite a 2019 appropriations law that allows for unannounced visits.

Since last summer, several lawmakers have been denied oversight visits at ICE facilities prompting them to sue in federal court. 

On the day funding for DHS lapsed, Feb. 14, the Department of Justice submitted a brief, noting that because of the shutdown, unannounced oversight visits by lawmakers can be denied. 

The administration argued that during the shutdown, immigration enforcement has been funded by the tax cuts and spending bill, which does not include language allowing unannounced visits, rather than regular appropriations. 

“There is no lawful basis for the Court to enjoin Defendants’ conduct so long as the restricted funds have lapsed,” according to the document.

WASHINGTON — The second partial government shutdown in 2026 began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, after lawmakers left the nation’s capital without reaching a deal on changes to immigration enforcement tactics at the Department of Homeland Security. 

The department’s shutdown is also likely to go on for some time. With Congress out next week for the Presidents Day recess, lawmakers are not expected back on Capitol Hill for votes until Feb. 23. 

A procedural vote to approve funding for the Homeland Security bill for fiscal year 2026 failed Thursday to gain support from Senate Democrats because constraints to immigration enforcement were not included, such as an end to agents wearing face coverings. 

Even with the president’s border czar Tom Homan announcing Thursday  the withdrawal of the thousands of federal immigration officers from Minneapolis, Democrats argued it’s not enough. 

“Without legislation, what Tom Homan says today could be reversed tomorrow on a whim from (President) Donald Trump,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Asked by the press pool Friday about cutting a deal on the shutdown,  Trump said, “We’ll see what happens. We always have to protect our law enforcement.”

After the Senate vote failed 52-47, members of Congress emptied out of Washington for the recess. Some were off to Munich, Germany for a major security conference. 

ICE still has cash at hand

While the agency Trump tasked with carrying out his mass deportation campaign of immigrants will shut down, enforcement will continue because Congress allocated a separate stream of money, about $75 billion for U.S. Immigration and Enforcement Services. 

During last fall’s government shutdown, which lasted a record-breaking 43 days, immigration enforcement continued.

The other agencies within DHS that will be shut down but continue to operate because they include essential workers include the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, among others.

In general, any employees who focus on national security issues or the protection of life and property would continue to work through a shutdown, while federal workers who don’t are supposed to be furloughed. 

Neither category of employees will receive their paychecks during the funding lapse, though federal law requires they receive back pay once Congress approves some sort of spending bill. 

Democratic mayors call for GOP to accept proposals

Democrats have pushed for policy changes after federal immigration officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, where a deportation drive is set to wind down after the city faced more than two months of aggressive immigration enforcment. 

Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer on Jan. 7, which prompted a bipartisan agreement to enact some guardrails, such as $20 million in funding for immigration agents to wear body cameras. 

But a second killing by federal immigration officers, that of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, prompted the Senate to decouple the Homeland Security measure from a package of spending bills, as Democrats floated proposals meant to rein in enforcement tactics, and prompted a four-day partial shutdown. A two-week funding patch was set for negotiations and it expires at midnight Friday.

Democratic mayors hailing from the major cities of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans and Portland, Oregon, Friday issued a letter that called on the top Republicans in Congress, Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, to accept the proposals before DHS entered a shutdown. 

“When federal agents operate in our streets without identification, without warrants, and without accountability, that trust is shattered,” they wrote. “All of us agree that for so long as the agency exists, new funding for the Department of Homeland Security must be conditioned on the comprehensive 10-point framework released last week.”

Those policy suggestions include requiring immigration officers to not wear masks and identify themselves, which has drawn strong opposition from Republicans and the leaders of ICE and Customs and Border Protection who argue the face coverings prevent their agents from being doxxed. 

Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., sent the proposals over to the White House, but said the Trump administration’s response was “incomplete and insufficient in terms of addressing the concerns Americans have about ICE’s lawless conduct.” 

According to the contingency plan for DHS, the agency expects about 20,000 employees out of 271,000 to be furloughed in the event of a government shutdown.

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress on Thursday sought a ruling from a federal judge to block yet another Department of Homeland Security policy that required a notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits to immigration detention facilities.

The policy is the third from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the subject, and it is nearly identical to the previous two. 

Noem’s policies put in place a new requirement that members of Congress must give DHS seven days notice before conducting an oversight visit at a facility that holds immigrants, despite a 2019 appropriations law that allows for unannounced visits by lawmakers. 

On Feb. 2, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb blocked a seven-day notification policy ordered by Noem one day after the deadly shooting of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. 

On the same day as Cobb’s ruling, Noem issued a nearly identical policy, after Democrats said they would refuse to approve new DHS funding unless changes in enforcement tactics were made following a second deadly shooting of Alex Pretti by two Customs and Border Protection officers.

With disagreement between both parties, and Thursday’s failed vote to move forward on funding the Homeland Security bill for fiscal year 2026, the agency will be shut down beginning early Saturday. 

However, even if DHS is shut down, Immigration and Customs Enforcement still has $75 billion in funding due to the tax cuts and spending package signed into law last year.

Agency shutting down

Department of Justice attorneys on Thursday argued because DHS will be shut down, the appropriations law will expire by the end of the week and therefore the unannounced oversight provision for members of Congress will no longer be in effect.

An attorney for the members of Congress, Christine L. Coogle, rejected that argument and said just because the funds expire does not mean the law, which is a rider in the Homeland Security funding bill, does as well. 

“The law itself does not expire,” she said. “And so the oversight rider remains on the books.” 

Cobb said she would extend her temporary restraining order until March 2, or until she rules, whichever comes first.

Visits denied

Under a 2019 appropriations law, any member of Congress can carry out an unannounced visit to a federal facility that holds immigrants, referred to as Section 527. But in June, multiple Democrats were denied visits to ICE facilities, so they sued. 

“What we’re really seeking here is a return to the status quo,” Coogle said in court Thursday. 

In December, Cobb granted the request to stay Noem’s policy, finding it violated the 2019 law. 

But in the second policy Noem issued on Jan. 8, she argued because the ICE facilities are using funds through the Republican spending and tax cuts law, known as the “One, Big Beautiful Bill,” and not the DHS appropriations bill, those facilities are therefore exempt from unannounced oversight visits by members of Congress. 

Cobb earlier this month, rejected that argument from the Trump administration and temporarily blocked the policy for the plaintiffs in the case. 

The House Democrats who sued include Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Kelly Morrison of Minnesota, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

After White House officials announced Thursday they will be ending the federal immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said she would not vote for a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, saying she hopes to prevent some other community from being victimized next.

On Thursday afternoon, Senate Democrats blocked the DHS funding measure. A procedural vote to advance the funding bill failed in the Senate, 52-47. Baldwin joined with all Senate Democrats except Sen. John Fetterman in voting against the measure. 

Baldwin said at a virtual news conference Thursday that her office has received more than 40,000 phone calls demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement be reined in. 

“The Trump administration claimed that they are winding down their invasion of Minneapolis, but I’ll believe it when I see it, and the truth is that is not even close to enough,” she said. “What is stopping them from just going to another American city and causing the same chaos? We need to put in law some serious guardrails and rein in ICE, and that’s exactly what I’m fighting for.”

Baldwin said she wants ICE to be held to the same standards as local police officers, which includes not wearing masks, carrying identification and wearing body cameras. She also said she wants to stop “chaotic, roving bands of federal agents” storming across communities as they have  done in the Twin Cities and to make sure the investigations into the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, are conducted independently and transparently. 

But Baldwin said congressional Republicans and President Trump have been unwilling to work with Democrats to put up “common sense” guardrails for ICE operations.

“I am still hopeful that we can find compromise, but negotiations are a two-way street,” she said. “Democrats have put forward some common sense measures that Americans overwhelmingly support, and so it’s up to my Republican colleagues if they want to get serious about negotiating with us. I’ve been clear for weeks that unless serious measures are added to this legislation that serve to rein in ICE, I am not going to be a signatory to a blank check for this administration to wreak havoc on communities and endanger our neighbors.”

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WASHINGTON — Leaders from several agencies within the Department of Homeland Security testified before a U.S. House panel Wednesday about how a shutdown would affect the programs they oversee, though Democrats argued the hearing was a “show” that wasn’t going to get lawmakers any closer to agreement on constraints to federal immigration enforcement. 

Congress has until Friday at midnight to pass a stopgap spending bill or reach bipartisan agreement on the department’s full-year funding bill, which was held up by Democrats after the killing of two U.S. citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis. Otherwise, the department will begin a shutdown. 

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said it was unacceptable that neither Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem nor any leaders from Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection were at the hearing. 

“Democrats requested that they be present. Why are they not here?” DeLauro said. “That should tell you everything you need to know about what this hearing is really all about. It is not to address the real concerns of millions of Americans over the unchecked brutality of officers within those agencies, brutality that has left two Americans dead and countless others seriously injured.”

DeLauro countered that Republicans held the hearing to imply Democrats don’t care about consistent funding for the many agencies within DHS, including the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.

“In fact, it is the Republican leadership that has chosen to hold your agencies hostage to avoid implementing reforms that they know are necessary to keep our community safe from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Patrol,” DeLauro said. 

Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said he opted not to invite Noem because he wanted to “talk to the operational people” and that he decided not to invite leaders of ICE and CBP since they testified in front of a separate House committee Tuesday.  

Amodei said enacting a DHS funding bill before the Friday midnight deadline seemed “like a very tall order.” 

“A shutdown has gone from a distinct possibility to a probability,” Amodei said. “But not all components will equally share the pain during a Homeland shutdown.”

Amodei said that ICE and CBP’s “missions will be largely unaffected by a shutdown,” in part, because Republicans provided the two agencies with more than $150 billion in the party’s “big, beautiful” law. 

Most Homeland Security workers will stay on duty

A government shutdown this time around, unlike the one last year, would only affect the Department of Homeland Security, since Congress has approved the other 11 annual government funding bills. 

The other agencies housed within DHS would sustain varying ramifications. In general, any employees who focus on national security issues or the protection of life and property would continue to work through a shutdown, while federal workers who don’t are supposed to be furloughed. 

Neither category of employees will receive their paychecks during the funding lapse, though federal law requires they receive back pay once Congress approves some sort of spending bill. 

Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said the “reality is that nearly 90% of the department will continue operating, even if Congress fails to complete its work by the end of the week.”

Leaders urged to give up recess next week

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., urged GOP leaders to cancel the recess scheduled for next week, when many lawmakers plan to travel to Germany for the Munich Security Conference.

Cole argued that members should stay on Capitol Hill to negotiate an agreement on Homeland Security funding if a deal isn’t reached before the deadline. 

“I will tell you personally, I think it’s unconscionable if Congress leaves and does not solve the problem,” Cole said. “I’m sure Munich is a great place. I’ve been there many times. The beer is outstanding. But we don’t need to go to a defense conference someplace in Europe when we’re not taking care of the defense of the United States of America.”

Cole said he “would be embarrassed to walk past a TSA agent that wasn’t getting paid so I could go someplace else. And that’s my personal opinion.

“That’s not necessarily the opinion of my leadership or anybody else, but we should stay here and get this resolved. We should make sure that men and women that we have already put in a terrible position once for 43 days don’t have to go through it again.”

Missing paychecks for the Coast Guard

Admiral Thomas Allan, vice commandant for the U.S. Coast Guard, told lawmakers “a funding lapse has severe and lasting challenges for our workforce, operational readiness and long-term capabilities.”

“A lapse lasting more than a few days will halt pay for the Coast Guard’s 56,000 active duty, reserve and civilian personnel,” Allan said. “This is not a distant administrative issue. The uncertainty of missing paychecks negatively impacts readiness and creates a significant financial hardship for service members and their families.”

Shutdowns, he said, “cripple morale and directly harm our ability to recruit and retain the talented Americans we need to meet growing demands.”

Ha Nguyen McNeill, acting administrator at the Transportation Security Administration, said during the 43-day government shutdown that ended in November, she heard stories about “officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma and taking on second jobs to make ends meet.” 

“Many were subject to late fees from missed bill payments, eviction notices, loss of child care and more. All the while, expected to serve their country and perform at the highest level when in uniform,” McNeill said. “Twelve weeks later, some are just recovering from the financial impact.”

McNeill testified that “TSA’s critical national security mission does not stop during a shutdown; around 95% or 61,000 of TSA’s employees are deemed essential and continue to work to protect the traveling public during a shutdown, while not getting paid.”

Matthew Quinn, deputy director at the United States Secret Service, said agents will continue to report to work though he emphasized a shutdown would still have consequences. 

“To the casual observer, there will be no visible difference,” Quinn said. “However, gaps in funding have a profound impact on our agency today and into the future.” 

Gregg Phillips, associate administrator in the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA, said a shutdown “would severely disrupt FEMA’s ability to reimburse states for disaster relief costs and to support our recovery from disasters.”

A demonstrator waves a red cloth as hundreds gather after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good through her car window Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026 near Portland Avenue South and East 34th Street in Minneapolis. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

WASHINGTON — The top two Democrats in Congress on Wednesday outlined their proposal for restrictions on immigration enforcement, including body cameras and a ban on masks, though they had no details to share about when actual negotiations would begin.

Lawmakers from both political parties have less than two weeks to find a solution before the stopgap law funding the Department of Homeland Security expires Feb. 13, which could force all of its components, including the Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency, into a shutdown. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement still has access to $75 billion in funding included in the massive tax cuts and spending package signed into law last year.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said the offer that he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were sending to Republicans was the result of “a very productive discussion.”

“Dramatic changes are necessary at the Department of Homeland Security with respect to its enforcement activities so that ICE and other agencies are conducting themselves like every other law enforcement agency in the country, not in so many instances in a rogue or lawless manner,” Jeffries said. 

Democrats will insist that federal immigration agents: 

• Wear body cameras
• Only wear masks to conceal their identities in “extraordinary and unusual circumstances”
• Do not undertake roving patrols
• Do not detain people in certain locations, like houses of worship, schools, or polling places
• Do not engage in racial profiling
• Do not detain or deport American citizens 

Jeffries said that judicial, as opposed to administrative, warrants should be required “before everyday Americans are ripped out of their homes or snatched out of cars violently.

“The Fourth Amendment is not an inconvenience, it’s a requirement embedded in our Constitution that everyone should follow.”

That amendment states the government shall not violate the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and that warrants can only be issued with probable cause.  

Administrative warrants are not signed by a judge, but approved by ICE officers themselves. Under U.S. immigration law, ICE also has some authority to conduct warrantless arrests if an immigration officer comes across a person suspected to be in the country unlawfully and believes that person will escape before a warrant can be obtained. 

Accountability measures

Democrats will also press Republicans to agree to what Schumer described as “real accountability.”

“There’s got to be outside, independent oversight by state and local governments, by individuals,” Schumer said. “And there’s got to be a right to sue, there’s got to be a right to go to court and stop this.” 

Schumer criticized Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for saying that immigration agents should be able to wear masks, referring to them as “secret police” who need “to be identified more than any other group.”

“I would bet when Speaker Johnson goes down to Louisiana, the sheriffs and the police deputies are well identified, as they are in almost every city,” he said. 

When pressed about Johnson saying Republicans wouldn’t agree to require judicial warrants, Jeffries said the speaker had “articulated unreasonable positions.”

“He’s actually supporting the notion that masked and lawless ICE agents should be deployed in communities throughout America,” Jeffries said. “Mike Johnson called the Fourth Amendment an inconvenience. It’s not an inconvenience. It’s part of the fabric and DNA of our country, just like the First Amendment, yes even the Second Amendment, the 10th Amendment, the Fourth Amendment.

“We’re standing up for all of these constitutional privileges that have been part of who we are since the very beginning.” 

Negotiation timeline

Schumer said during the press conference that Democrats from the House and Senate were prepared to begin negotiations with Republicans, but would insist on changes “to rein in ICE in very serious ways.”

“If they’re not serious and they don’t put in real reform, they shouldn’t expect our votes, plain and simple,” he said.

Schumer appeared somewhat skeptical that Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, whom Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., put forward as their top negotiator, was truly empowered to cut a deal on behalf of every GOP senator. 

Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, told reporters Wednesday that she expects lawmakers will need to approve another stopgap spending bill for the department, signaling she doesn’t expect a deal within the next two weeks. 

“We need a little more time, so hopefully (Democrats) see the good effort that we’ve made … and we’ll have another CR,” she said, referring to the technical name for a short-term funding bill, a continuing resolution. 

Britt did not say how long that temporary funding measure for the Department of Homeland Security would last.

Any spending bill, whether short or long, will need Democratic support to move through procedural votes in the Senate. 

Congress has approved 11 of the 12 annual funding bills, so DHS would be the only part of the federal government to shut down if lawmakers cannot approve its full-year bill or another stopgap measure before its funding expires.

Brent Ganger, far left, and Luke Ganger, second from left, brothers of Renee Good, watch a forum on Department of Homeland Security use of force organized by congressional Democrats on Feb. 3, 2026. Good was killed by a federal immigration officer Jan. 7. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Renee Good’s family, distraught and in disbelief over her killing, took some comfort in the past few weeks thinking her death might prompt change in the country, her brother Luke Ganger said Tuesday. 

“It has not,” Ganger told congressional Democrats at a forum on the disproportionate use of force by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. “The deep distress our family feels because of (Renee’s) loss in such a violent and unnecessary way is complicated by feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation for change.”

Brent Ganger, another brother of Good, also appeared at the forum, saying Good “had a way of showing up in the world that made you believe things were going to be okay.”

Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by a federal agent Jan. 7 in Minneapolis. 

Her death prompted widespread outcry over the immigration enforcement tactics of President Donald Trump’s administration. 

“The completely surreal scenes taking place on the streets of Minneapolis are beyond explanation,” Luke Ganger said. “This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents — these encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours, forever.” 

Backlash over the administration’s immigration efforts grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti, also a U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. 

Administration officials have defended the immigration crackdown, including the aggressive tactics used in Minneapolis and other cities.

“The president is never going to waver in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws and protecting the public safety of the American people in his ardent support of” Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

First-hand accounts

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Robert Garcia of California hosted the forum. More than 20 Democrats in the House and Senate joined them. 

The unofficial forum is one of several events put on by congressional Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers, over the past year to protest a host of actions from the administration. 

Three witnesses across Illinois, Minnesota and California — all U.S. citizens — offered harrowing accounts of their encounters with immigration agents in recent months, detailing the trauma, fear and mental distress as a result. 

Marimar Martinez was shot five times by an immigration agent in Chicago. Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident with autism and a traumatic brain injury, was dragged out of her car by agents while on her way to a doctor’s appointment and said she was later refused medical care in DHS detention. And Martin Daniel Rascon was shot at by agents while traveling in a car with family members. 

“Why do we continue to wait for more public executions when we have already seen the evidence in our TVs and computer screens?” Martinez asked the panel. “We have heard the testimonies, we have watched the pain unfold in real time — how many more lives must be lost before meaningful action is taken?”

The meeting came the same day the House passed, and Trump later signed, a funding package that includes a two-week stopgap measure for DHS, as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following Pretti’s death. 

Many Democrats in Congress have vowed not to support a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that does not include such restraints. Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security, made that explicit Tuesday.

“Some day we should have a truth and justice commission to investigate the systematic failing,” he said. “But for right now, I can promise that I will not support another dime for the Department of Homeland Security unless there is this fundamental, far-reaching reform and restraint in effect — a rebuilding of the agency.” 

Report blames DHS tactics for fatalities

Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released a report ahead of the hearing Tuesday on Democrats’ findings regarding the deaths of Good and Pretti.

The report claims that the administration’s “extreme policies, violent tactics, and culture of impunity led to the killings.”

The report also argues that “the available evidence suggests that the Trump Administration is attempting to cover up misconduct” and is also “continuing its cover-up by impeding thorough and impartial investigations into the shootings.” 

“We’re seeing ICE, CBP, other parts of DHS, all across our country, terrorize communities,” Garcia said at the forum, pointing to warrantless searches, arrests and detainments of individuals with no prior criminal history and people being sent to detention centers and released without explanation. 

“Now, American citizens — innocent people — have been brutalized … and to be clear, we’ve seen people dragged from cars, beaten, gassed, attacked with crowd-control weapons, blinded, like back in my home state of California, left with broken ribs, run off the road, beaten, injured, disfigured and shot,” he said.  

Federal agents take a man into custody in Denver, in a photo posted to social media by the Denver field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Feb. 5, 2025. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston advised peers at a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting to think about how to help their constituents while navigating federal pressure on immigration enforcement. (ICE)

WASHINGTON — As federal immigration enforcement agents continue to clash with protesters in cities around the country, U.S. mayors gathering in Washington, D.C., this week said they’re anxious about what might be coming next. 

At a nonpartisan forum of mayors, elected officials identifying as Democrats and Republicans described an escalating situation among municipalities, their residents and the Trump administration over immigration enforcement, sanctuary policies and the threats of revoked funding for cities that don’t comply with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s deportation efforts.

Fresno, California, Mayor Jerry Dyer, a Republican and a former police chief, expressed support for President Donald Trump’s immigration policies at the border, but he said agents lack training for city operations and are being rejected by communities because of their policing tactics. 

Suburban leaders from Minnesota, where agents have killed two community members and shot a third this month, echoed his sentiment. Edina, Minnesota, Mayor Jim Hovland, whose city of about 53,000 lies a few miles south of Minneapolis, said that ICE has also trickled out to suburbs and exurbs to conduct operations, spreading unease.  

“We were told the actions would be precise. They were not.” said Hovland, a Democrat, speaking on a panel before a crowded room of mayors and city staffers at the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“Fear has not confined itself to a single household or status,” Hovland said. “Immigration enforcement without coordination does not just remove individuals … it damages communities.”

Another Minnesota mayor, Elizabeth Kautz, a Republican who represents Burnsville, said that ICE has not reduced crime during its operations and has caused mayhem for residents.

Tim Busse, a mayor from nearby Bloomington, Minnesota, described an incident in which an Hispanic off-duty police officer was pulled over by immigration enforcement agents and nearly detained until she identified her occupation. 

“This is throughout the state of Minnesota and through our suburbs, including Edina and Burnsville and Bloomington, and quite simply retribution is real,” said Busse. 

Trump has threatened to cut off funding beginning Feb. 1 from sanctuary cities and states that refuse to participate in immigration enforcement, which is a federal responsibility. Some mayors said they won’t let the threat deter them.

Department of Justice opens civil rights investigation into killing of Alex Pretti

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, told the room that his city has one of the highest concentrations of Venezuelans in the country. 

Johnston said it was a moral imperative for mayors to think of their constituents, harkening to the parable of the Good Samaritan – a biblical story about a man showing kindness to an injured stranger, no matter his status.

“And that’s a question that many of us are asking a lot right now, because there’s a question of … what happens to my city?” Johnston said. “Well yes, you could lose federal funds, you could be targeted for prosecution by the Department of Justice. You could see ICE agents deployed in the streets of your city. All of those are possible.”

Several mayors said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations are disrupting construction, health care, hospitality and food sectors. Others said that ICE operations have led to reduced 911 and emergency calls as residents fear possibly being detained. 

For some mayors, the battle over immigration enforcement is deeply personal. Berkeley, California, Mayor Adena Ishii, a Democrat, had Japanese-American relatives who were forcibly put in internment camps during World War II following an executive order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

“My family was incarcerated by the United States government during World War II as U.S. citizens. We cannot repeat history,” said Ishii. “This is our opportunity to stand up and protect our people.”

Mayor Adrian Mapp was born on the island of Barbados before migrating to the United States at the tail end of the 1970s, and received his citizenship en route to being elected as a three-term mayor of Plainfield, New Jersey. 

“Sometimes as politicians you can choose to take an issue, but when the issue is your life, you don’t really get the choice,” Mapp told Stateline. “We have a very large immigrant community in Plainfield and a large undocumented community that is very fearful right now. In our downtown, a number of businesses are suffering because people are afraid to be seen in public.”

Mapp said that mayors should bring in faith leaders from all denominations and members of the legal world to provide information to the community about how to respond amid federal immigration enforcement, and the threats of ICE coming to their neighborhoods.

“There is a sense that this is what the community wants from us — to know that we’re standing up,” Mapp said.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks with reporters and editors in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is preparing a response should the Trump administration surge federal immigration agents into the commonwealth, he said Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Recent deadly shootings of two Minneapolis residents by federal agents compelled the Democratic governor “to let the good people of Pennsylvania know my views on this, where I stand, and also let them know that I’m going to protect them,” he said.

Shapiro declined to provide details, saying it would “not be prudent” to share specifics on whether a response would be a law enforcement operation or confined to challenging the administration in the courtroom.

“We’re prepared on every level now. If the president of the United States seeks to impose his will, and the federal will, on our commonwealth, there may be some things that we can’t stop, but I can tell you, we’ve learned from the good example in other states,” Shapiro said, citing actions by other Democratic governors in California, Illinois, Minnesota and Maine.

D.C. stop for presidential hopefuls

Shapiro delivered the comments during an intimate brunch with the Washington press corps hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. The Monitor routinely hosts press events with elected officials and newsmakers, and has historically been a stop on the circuit for presidential hopefuls.

Shapiro brushed aside questions about a possible presidential bid in 2028, instead saying he’s running for reelection this year and believes that “no one should be looking past these midterms.”

“I don’t think we should be thinking about anything other than curtailing the chaos, the cruelty and the corruption of this administration, and the best way for voters to do that is by showing up in record numbers,” Shapiro said.

The Pennsylvania executive also expressed he is “deeply concerned” about the administration’s efforts to undermine the election.

“The administration demanded that I turn over all of the voter rolls for our commonwealth. We have roughly 9 million voters. … I have a legal responsibility to protect that information. I also do not trust this administration to use that for anything other than nefarious purposes, and so I refuse to share that information. They’ve sued us, and we’ll see them in court,” he said.

The Trump administration has sued more than 20 states to date for voter roll data, including personally identifying information, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The administration has said it plans to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security to search for noncitizens. 

Among the states targeted alongside Pennsylvania: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

New book

Shapiro told reporters he attended Thursday’s event to promote his new book, titled “Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service,” which features stories about his faith, the process of being vetted as a potential 2024 vice presidential candidate for Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, and the “dark moment” in April 2025 when a lone man set fire to the governor’s mansion in an attempt on Shapiro’s life.

“We have to acknowledge political violence has been an issue for generations. I think it is also true that over the last several years, we’ve seen a rise,” he said, citing the recent attack on U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., the killings of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, as well as the assassination attempts of President Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

Elected leaders, he said, have a “responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and to condemn that violence regardless of who’s targeted.”

“I must say, when the president of the United States fails to condemn acts of political violence because they’re targeting someone that he dislikes or disagrees with, that makes us all less safe,” he said.

The governor has been on a media blitz promoting his book, including an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” earlier this week.

He told the host it’s a “sad day in America that a governor of a commonwealth needs to prepare for a federal onslaught where they would send troops in to undermine the freedoms and constitutional rights of our citizens.” 

In response to a request for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said assaults on federal immigration agents are on the rise because of “untrue smears by elected Democrats.”

“Just the other day, an officer had his finger bitten off by a radical left-wing rioter. ICE officers act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities and local officials should work with them, not against them. Anyone pointing the finger at law enforcement officers instead of the criminals is simply doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens,” Jackson said in a written statement.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 28, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate could vote as soon as Thursday night to approve a government funding package after Democrats brokered a deal with the White House to strip out the full-year spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security. 

That bill will be replaced by a two-week stopgap for programs run out of DHS, which includes the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency — at a time when the agency is responding to a major winter storm — and the Secret Service. 

The change is intended to give Republicans and Democrats more time to reach agreement on restrictions to federal immigration enforcement after the deadly shooting of a second U.S. citizen by immigration agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.

President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post that he wanted lawmakers to send him the reworked package in time to avoid a partial government shutdown, which would likely begin this weekend after a stopgap spending law expires. 

“I am working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government, without delay,” Trump wrote. “Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before). Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ Vote.”

The package, once through the Senate, will need to go back to the House for final approval, though GOP leaders in that chamber haven’t announced if they will bring lawmakers back before Monday, when members are scheduled to return to Capitol Hill from a weeklong break. 

Once the House clears the package, it will head to Trump for his signature.

Senators did not change or remove the Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Labor-HHS-Education, National Security-State and Transportation-HUD appropriations bills from the package.

Congress previously approved half of the dozen annual spending bills, so once this package becomes law, the Department of Homeland Security will be the only division of the federal government without its full-year funding bill.

List of Democratic demands

Democrats and Republicans reached consensus on some changes to the Homeland Security appropriations bill after the Jan. 7 shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, including funding for body cameras and additional oversight of detention facilities. 

The House approved that bill last week and sent it to the Senate as part of the larger package.  

But Border Patrol agents’ shooting and killing of Alex Pretti led Democrats to call for the DHS spending bill to be pulled to give lawmakers time to negotiate additional guardrails on federal immigration actions. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., outlined a list of proposed changes Tuesday that included: 

• The end of roving patrols;
• Tightening the rules governing the use of warrants;
• Requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement to coordinate with state and local law enforcement;
• Implementing a uniform code of conduct that holds federal law enforcement to the same set of standards that apply to state and local agencies;
• Barring the wearing of masks;
• Requiring the use of body cameras; and
• Mandating immigration agents carry proper identification. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday morning that “there’s a path to consider some of” the changes to federal immigration during bipartisan negotiations.

But he expressed doubt later in the day that a two-week stopgap bill for DHS would give lawmakers enough time to find agreement on changes to immigration enforcement, saying there’s “no way you could do it that fast.”

“At some point we want to fund the government,” Thune said. “Obviously the two-week (continuing resolution) probably means there’s going to be another two-week CR and maybe another two-week CR after that. I don’t know why they’re doing it that way.”

Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Katie Britt, R-Ala., also expressed doubt a two-week stopgap would provide enough time for negotiators to broker a bipartisan deal and hold votes in each chamber. 

“I think, obviously, four weeks would be much better when you’re looking at what’s in front of us,” she said. 

Britt said she’d decide on any counter-proposals to Democrats after the government was funded. 

“We’re going to land this plane and then we’re going to figure it out,” she said. 

Homan comments please Tillis

In response to immigration agents killing Pretti, the president directed his border czar, Tom Homan, to head to Minneapolis. 

Homan said during a morning press conference that immigration enforcement would only end if state officials cooperate and aid the federal government in the Trump administration’s immigration campaign. States and localities are not required to enforce immigration law, as it’s a federal responsibility. 

Homan did not specify how long he would remain in Minnesota, only “until the problem’s gone.”

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said in the afternoon that he had messaged Trump to express his appreciation for sending Homan to Minneapolis, saying it led to a “sea change.”

“I texted the president and said, ‘great job,’” Tillis said. “You know, I can’t imagine we would be in this place if he’d been there to begin with.”

Tillis said he thought Homan’s press conference had been “perfect.”

“He said at least twice he wasn’t there for a photo op and he was there to de-escalate,” Tillis said. “That’s what happens when you put a professional law enforcement officer in the role versus people who have no experience in it.”

Demonstrators gather outside of the Henry Whipple Federal Building, shouting at federal vehicles and recording their plates Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

A Minneapolis-based human rights group is suing the Department of Homeland Security, accusing DHS officials and agents of illegally and systematically preventing detained immigrants from meeting with their lawyers.

The proposed class action lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court of Minnesota, was brought on behalf of the Advocates for Human Rights and a St. Paul woman referred to by the initials “L.H.M.”

According to the complaint, L.H.M., who has lived in Minnesota since 2019 and has a pending asylum claim, was arrested Monday after a routine check-in at ICE’s Office of Intensive Supervision in Bloomington.

After L.H.M.’s family contacted her attorney, the lawyer immediately travelled to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building but was unilaterally refused access to L.H.M.

L.H.M. recently underwent cranial surgery, the lawsuit states, and “has significant medical needs that may be severely adversely affected by detention conditions or involuntary transfer out of state.”

According to the claim, federal agents at the Whipple Building — and at least one ICE attorney — have repeatedly told frustrated lawyers that “no visitation between detainees and attorneys is or has ever been permitted at Whipple.”

“This is false,” the complaint continues. “Whipple has rooms labeled ‘ERO Visitation,’ where attorneys have met with clients held at Whipple for years.”

Nowadays, when lawyers attempt to arrange visits at Whipple, phone calls and emails allegedly go unanswered.

According to the suit, one lawyer was recently threatened with arrest at the Whipple Building, despite having received prior permission from agency officials. Another attorney attempting to speak to a client was “confronted by six armed security personnel, one of whom said, ‘We’re not having a debate here, turn your car around and get the hell out of here.’”

The lawsuit asserts claims under the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Administrative Procedures Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act. 

A spokesperson for Homeland Security responded: “Any allegations people detained by ICE do not have access to attorneys are false. Illegal aliens in the Whipple Federal Building have access to phones they can use to contact their families and lawyers. Additionally, ICE gives all illegal aliens arrested a court-approved list of free or low-cost attorneys. All detainees receive full due process.”

(Homeland Security has a burgeoning record of providing false information to the public, as detailed in a recent Stateline story; after the recent killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol, a Homeland Security spokesperson claimed Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement” even though he never drew his gun, for which he had a permit.)

This is not the first time DHS has been sued for impeding detainees’ access to counsel. Similar suits in New York and Illinois have resulted in court orders.

DHS also has a recent history of defying court orders.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, chief judge of the Minnesota district, issued an order in a habeas petition in which he identified 96 court orders that ICE has violated since January 1 – a tally that he said is likely an undercount because it was assembled in haste.

“This list should give pause to anyone — no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law,” wrote Schiltz, who was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush and clerked for Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice and conservative icon.

“ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” Schiltz wrote.

Hundreds gather around a growing memorial site at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue South in Minneapolis, where federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026 earlier in the day. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is facing mounting criticism, including from some congressional Republicans and moderate Democrats, for her response to a second killing by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.

President Donald Trump reiterated his confidence in Noem Tuesday, but several Republican senators, a group that overwhelmingly voted last year for Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security, are pushing for an independent investigation into the Saturday killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents and calling for her to testify before Congress.

And Democrats who are generally not among their party’s most aggressive members in opposing the Trump administration have joined a call to impeach Noem and restrict her department’s funding.

Trump told reporters, though, that the former South Dakota governor had done a good job, especially on controlling border crossings.

“No,” he said, when asked if she would step down, according to White House pool reports. 

He made a similar statement to Fox News’ Will Cain during an afternoon appearance in Iowa. 

“She was there with the border,” he told Cain. “Who closed up the border? She did.” 

GOP calls for investigation

The calls for an independent investigation signaled something of a loss of confidence in Noem from some Republicans in the wake of missteps following Pretti’s killing. No Republican senators voted against her confirmation last year.

Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, criticized Noem Tuesday for not placing the agents involved in shooting Pretti on administrative leave.

“That should happen immediately,” Paul wrote on social media Tuesday, adding that “for calm to be restored” an independent investigation needs to happen.

Within hours of Saturday’s shooting Noem labeled Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse, as a “domestic terrorist” who intended “to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement.”

Noem used similar terminology after federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good on Jan. 7. 

Both Good and Pretti’s shootings were widely caught on camera, contradicting claims by Noem that both posed a threat.

Multiple videos show that Good was driving away when Ross fired three shots into her windshield. 

Video analysis by the New York Times shows Pretti wrestled to the ground by multiple agents and, while pinned down, two officers fired 10 shots. The analysis also showed that an officer took away a handgun from Pretti, which he had a permit for, while he was pinned down.

The contradictions hurt Noem’s standing with some Republicans.

“I can’t recall ever hearing a police chief immediately describing the victim as a “domestic terrorist” or a “would-be assassin,’” Paul said, taking aim at Noem as well as White House senior advisor Stephen Miller, who called Pretti a “would-be assassin.”

Hearings

Noem also said that because Pretti had a handgun, he inherently posed a danger to DHS agents, a claim that has divided Republicans.

Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho took issue with Noem’s criticism of Pretti’s possession of a gun. 

“His family, law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment right and the trust of the American people deserve a fair process,” he said on social media Monday.

Sen. John Curtis, Republican of Utah, criticized Noem for her handling of Saturday’s shooting.

“Officials who rush to judgment before all the facts are known undermine public trust and the law-enforcement mission,” he wrote on social media Monday. “I disagree with Secretary Noem’s premature DHS response, which came before all the facts were known and weakened confidence.”

He also called for an independent investigation. 

Paul on Monday called for several leaders of agencies within Homeland Security to testify before his committee – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Those same agency leaders are scheduled to appear before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Feb. 10.

Dems ramp up impeachment talk

Democrats are calling for Noem’s removal, along with pushing for changes to the Homeland Security funding bill, increasing the chances of a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday. 

In the House, 162 Democrats had co-sponsored articles of impeachment against Noem by Tuesday afternoon, a number that climbed throughout the day. The articles were first introduced shortly after Good’s death.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other House Democratic leaders issued a joint statement Monday calling for Noem to be fired. If she’s not, Democrats would move forward with impeachment, the leaders said. The effort is unlikely to move in the House-controlled GOP.

“Dramatic changes at the Department of Homeland Security are needed,” Jeffries said. “Federal agents who have broken the law must be criminally prosecuted. The paramilitary tactics must cease and desist.”

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called for Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio to begin impeachment proceedings into Noem, noting that masked agents of her department “brutally killed two American citizens.” 

“Far from condemning these unlawful and savage killings in cold blood, Secretary Noem immediately labeled Renée and Alex ‘domestic terrorists,’ blatantly lied about the circumstances of the shootings that took their lives, and attempted to cover-up and blockade any legitimate investigation into their deaths,” Raskin said.

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, a moderate Democrat who voted to confirm Noem, made a direct appeal to Trump to fire her.

“Americans have died,” Fetterman said in a statement. “She is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy.”

Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, another moderate Democrat, also called for Noem to be impeached.

Trump pivots

Facing mounting pressure, Trump has softened his tone with state and local officials and walked back his administration’s aggressive immigration operations in Minnesota that Noem has overseen.  

Trump directed border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to take over ICE operations, effectively sidelining Noem, who in December deployed 3,000 federal immigration officers to the state after right-wing media influencers resurfaced reports of fraud in the state’s social service programs. 

By Monday evening, top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino was removed from his position as at-large commander and sent back to California, according to multiple media reports. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the decision to send Homan to Minnesota, arguing that Noem is occupied with managing FEMA operations as a winter storm covers much of the country. 

Funding bill

In the wake of Saturday’s shooting, Senate Democrats quickly opposed the Homeland Security spending bill the chamber was set to pass this week. 

Instead, Democrats argued the measure must be stripped from the government funding package of six bills and renegotiated to include more constraints on federal immigration enforcement.

The funding package passed the House this month, but a majority of Democrats opposed any funding for ICE, which would maintain a flat funding level of $10 billion. 

Even if there is a partial government shutdown, DHS still has up to $190 billion it can spend from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the president’s signature tax and spending cuts package signed into law last summer.   

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem at a roundtable discussion with local ranchers and employees from U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Jan. 7, 2026 in Brownsville, Texas. (Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A growing number of U.S. House Democrats are pushing for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s impeachment after another fatal shooting of an American citizen by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis this month.  

At least 164 members — more than three-fourths of all House Democrats, who total 213 — backed an impeachment resolution against Noem as of Tuesday afternoon, according to the office of Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly, who authored the measure. 

“Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said in a statement Tuesday.

Kelly’s three articles of impeachment against Noem accuse the secretary of obstruction of Congress, violation of public trust and self-dealing. The resolution came after the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by a federal agent in Minneapolis.  

Democratic calls for Noem’s impeachment grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis Jan. 24. 

President Donald Trump’s administration has taken heat for its immigration enforcement tactics and appeared to dial down its rhetoric following the shooting. 

Republicans control the U.S. House with a narrow 218-member majority.

In a statement shared with States Newsroom on Tuesday, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the department, said, “DHS enforces the laws Congress passes, period,” adding that “if certain members don’t like those laws, changing them is literally their job.” 

“While (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers are facing a staggering 1,300% spike in assaults, too many politicians would rather defend criminals and attack the men and women who are enforcing our laws and did nothing while Joe Biden facilitated an invasion of tens of millions of illegal aliens into our country,” McLaughlin said. “It’s time they focus on protecting the American people, the work this Department is doing every day under Secretary Noem’s leadership.”

Here’s a list of the Democratic co-sponsors, as of Tuesday afternoon, per Kelly’s office: 

Alabama

• Rep. Terri Sewell
• Rep. Shomari Figures

Arizona

• Rep. Yassamin Ansari
• Rep. Adelita Grijalva

California

• Rep. Nanette Barragán
• Rep. Julia Brownley
• Rep. Salud Carbajal
• Rep. Judy Chu
• Rep. Lou Correa
• Rep. Mark DeSaulnier
• Rep. Laura Friedman
• Rep. John Garamendi
• Rep. Jimmy Gomez
• Rep. Jared Huffman
• Rep. Sara Jacobs
• Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove
• Rep. Doris Matsui
• Rep. Dave Min
• Rep. Kevin Mullin
• Rep. Luz Rivas
• Rep. Linda Sánchez
• Rep. Brad Sherman
• Rep. Lateefah Simon
• Rep. Eric Swalwell
• Rep. Mark Takano
• Rep. Mike Thompson
• Rep. Norma Torres
• Rep. Juan Vargas
• Rep. Maxine Waters
• Rep. Sam Liccardo
• Rep. Scott Peters
• Rep. Raul Ruiz
• Rep. Robert Garcia
• Rep. Mike Levin
• Rep. Gil Cisneros
• Rep. Zoe Lofgren
• Rep. Nancy Pelosi

Colorado

• Rep. Diana DeGette
• Rep. Brittany Pettersen
• Rep. Joe Neguse
• Rep. Jason Crow

Connecticut

• Rep. John Larson
• Rep. Joe Courtney
• Rep. Jahana Hayes
• Rep. Rosa DeLauro

Delaware

• Rep. Sarah McBride

District of Columbia 

• Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton* 

Florida

• Rep. Lois Frankel
• Rep. Maxwell Frost
• Rep. Darren Soto
• Rep. Kathy Castor
• Rep. Frederica Wilson
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Georgia

• Rep. Nikema Williams
• Rep. Hank Johnson

Hawaii

• Rep. Jill Tokuda

Illinois

• Rep. Nikki Budzinski
• Rep. Sean Casten
• Rep. Danny Davis
• Rep. Chuy García
• Rep. Jonathan Jackson
• Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi
• Rep. Mike Quigley
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky
• Rep. Eric Sorensen
• Rep. Bill Foster

Indiana

• Rep. André Carson
• Rep. Frank Mrvan

Kentucky

• Rep. Morgan McGarvey

Louisiana 

• Rep. Troy Carter

Maine

• Rep. Chellie Pingree

Maryland

• Rep. Sarah Elfreth
• Rep. April McClain Delaney
• Rep. Kweisi Mfume
• Rep. Johnny Olszewski
• Rep. Steny Hoyer

Massachusetts

• Rep. Bill Keating
• Rep. Stephen Lynch
• Rep. Jim McGovern
• Rep. Seth Moulton
• Rep. Lori Trahan
• Rep. Jake Auchincloss
• Rep. Ayanna Pressley
• Rep. Richard Neal

Michigan

• Rep. Haley Stevens
• Rep. Shri Thanedar
• Rep. Rashida Tlaib
• Rep. Debbie Dingell

Minnesota

• Rep. Angie Craig
• Rep. Betty McCollum
• Rep. Kelly Morrison
• Rep. Ilhan Omar

Mississippi

• Rep. Bennie Thompson

Missouri

• Rep. Wesley Bell

Nevada

• Rep. Dina Titus
• Rep. Steven Horsford
• Rep. Susie Lee

New Hampshire 

• Rep. Chris Pappas

New Jersey

• Rep. LaMonica McIver
• Rep. Rob Menendez
• Rep. Donald Norcross
• Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman

New Mexico

• Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández
• Rep. Melanie Stansbury
• Rep. Gabe Vasquez

New York

• Rep. Yvette Clarke
• Rep. Adriano Espaillat
• Rep. Dan Goldman
• Rep. Tim Kennedy
• Rep. Jerry Nadler
• Rep. Paul Tonko
• Rep. Ritchie Torres
• Rep. Nydia Velázquez
• Rep. Laura Gillen
• Rep. Gregory Meeks
• Rep. Grace Meng
• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
• Rep. George Latimer
• Rep. Pat Ryan
• Rep. John Mannion

North Carolina

• Rep. Alma Adams
• Rep. Valerie Foushee
• Rep. Deborah Ross

Ohio

• Rep. Joyce Beatty
• Rep. Shontel Brown
• Rep. Greg Landsman

Oregon

• Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
• Rep. Maxine Dexter
• Rep. Val Hoyle
• Rep. Andrea Salinas
• Rep. Janelle Bynum

Pennsylvania

• Rep. Brendan Boyle
• Rep. Madeleine Dean
• Rep. Chris Deluzio
• Rep. Dwight Evans
• Rep. Summer Lee
• Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon
• Rep. Chrissy Houlahan

Rhode Island

• Rep. Gabe Amo

Tennessee

• Rep. Steve Cohen

Texas

• Rep. Greg Casar
• Rep. Joaquin Castro
• Rep. Jasmine Crockett
• Rep. Lloyd Doggett
• Rep. Veronica Escobar
• Rep. Sylvia Garcia
• Rep. Al Green
• Rep. Julie Johnson
• Rep. Lizzie Fletcher
• Rep. Vicente Gonzalez

Vermont

• Rep. Becca Balint

Virginia

• Rep. Suhas Subramanyam
• Rep. James Walkinshaw
• Rep. Bobby Scott
• Rep. Don Beyer
• Rep. Eugene Vindman
• Rep. Jennifer McClellan

Washington

• Rep. Pramila Jayapal
• Rep. Emily Randall
• Rep. Adam Smith
• Rep. Marilyn Strickland
• Rep. Suzan DelBene

Wisconsin

• Rep. Gwen Moore
• Rep. Mark Pocan

*Norton is the non-voting delegate who represents Washington, D.C., in Congress. 

Federal agents block in and stop a woman to ask her about another person’s whereabouts on Jan. 19, 2026, in south Minneapolis. Cellphone video taken by bystanders has contradicted the Trump administration’s account of some recent immigration enforcement incidents. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

PORTLAND, Ore. — Keith Ellison held up his cellphone. The Minnesota attorney general was onstage in an Oregon theater in front of hundreds of people, accompanied by four of his Democratic peers from other states, to mark a year of coordinated legal strategy to resist the Trump administration’s expansive use of executive power.

“Can I just note, real quickly, that we need everybody to use these things?” Ellison said to the audience, which earlier had greeted the out-of-state attorney general with a standing ovation. “They have been remarkably helpful.”

Ellison and his fellow Democratic attorneys general were sitting onstage last week at Revolution Hall, a music venue most evenings. Over the past year, AGs have emerged as unlikely rock stars of legal resistance to President Donald Trump, who has made broad use of presidential authority on immigration enforcement and a wide range of other issues, unchecked by the majority-Republican Congress.

Cellphone video has emerged as a powerful rebuttal to Trump’s version of events, at a time when the federal government has restricted state and local investigators from accessing potential evidence to pursue their own investigations into excessive force and fatal shootings by immigration agents in their jurisdictions.

On Saturday, witnesses with cellphone cameras recorded federal agents in Minneapolis shooting and killing Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who, like many in the city, was recording how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents interact with the public during enforcement activity. The video evidence of Pretti’s killing was captured by coordinated but loosely organized bands of ordinary citizens using their cellphones.

The images, shared widely on social media, directly contradict official accounts, including claims by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who accused Pretti of attacking agents. Bystander video shows Pretti filming with his cellphone before multiple agents tackled him to the ground, beat him, and then shot him to death after taking his gun. Pretti, who was licensed to carry a gun in public in Minnesota, never drew his weapon.

Two weeks earlier in Minneapolis, cellphone cameras captured from multiple angles the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an immigration agent. A week after that in nearby St. Paul, Minnesota, cellphone video showed armed immigration agents forcing ChongLy Scott Thao, a middle-aged naturalized U.S. citizen, from his home and into subfreezing temperatures while he was wearing only underwear and sandals.

There are “a whole lot more stories,” Ellison said, many caught on mobile phones or dashboard cameras, and all demonstrating the forceful tactics being used by some of the more than 3,000 federal immigration agents in his state. One image Ellison didn’t mention: the photo of a 5-year-old from Ecuador in federal custody, wearing a blue bunny hat and his Spider-Man backpack.

In Minnesota, the state has set up an online tip portal to capture citizen-generated evidence of federal misconduct or unlawful behavior, including cellphone images, after the U.S. Department of Justice refused to share evidence in Good’s death with county prosecutors and Ellison’s office. Similar evidence-gathering portals or federal accountability commissions are in place in Colorado, Illinois and Oregon.

When ordinary people capture aggressive federal tactics on video, Ellison said, they’re also helping make a case in federal court that the mass federal deployment of immigration agents to their states is unconstitutional and violates state sovereignty. Minnesota has sued to end ICE’s aggressive enforcement action in the state, officially known as Operation Metro Surge.

Such evidence could also be critical if the federal government continues to resist investigating or pursuing federal criminal charges against the unidentified agents who killed Pretti, as well as Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who killed Good. In a separate case, a federal judge issued an order after Pretti’s death blocking the Trump administration from destroying or altering evidence related to the shooting.

Constitutional limits make it difficult, although not impossible, for states to prosecute federal officers for violations of state law, said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. But there are some successful cases in which states have pursued officers who are alleged to have gone beyond the scope of their federal duties or have acted unreasonably in carrying out those duties, she said.

Such cases arise most frequently during periods of considerable friction between states and the federal government, Godar said, including disputes over enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, Prohibition, and integration and desegregation policies. Another such test of federalism and state sovereignty may be upon us, she said.

“It seems like we’re potentially entering another period or in another period of increased friction between the states and the federal government in a way that could lead to these cases again,” Godar said.

Ellison said that state and county investigators were proceeding carefully and deliberately with their own investigation.

“It’s true that the feds are denying us access to the investigative file,” Ellison said. “It’s also true that there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

Noem has repeatedly insisted that ICE agents and other officers are the actual victims of the increased violence. She also has argued that protests and scrutiny of their enforcement tactics has not only interfered with their operations, but also has provoked the aggressive federal response.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche said Jan. 16 that the Justice Department will provide all resources necessary to support immigration enforcement, and will prosecute anyone they determine has attacked, impeded or obstructed federal efforts. The Justice Department issued subpoenas last week to multiple Minnesota Democratic officials in an investigation into whether those state leaders have impeded the enforcement surge.

In Minneapolis last week after meeting with immigration agents, Vice President JD Vance suggested the cellphone activism is causing the violence. He blamed “a few very far-left agitators” for the aggressive federal response, saying federal agents were “under an incredible amount of duress” and that state and local authorities had failed to cooperate. Following Good’s death, Vance described it as “a tragedy of her own making.”

“A lot of these guys are unable to do their jobs without being harassed, without being doxed, and sometimes without being assaulted,” Vance said, flanked by federal immigration officials working in Minnesota. “That’s totally unacceptable.”

Often, bystanders capture photos and video at great personal risk, as neighborhoods are swarmed by heavily armed federal agents in unmarked cars smashing car windows and dragging drivers to the ground, ramming doors at private residences and spraying protesters and observers in the face with chemical irritants. The bystanders’ videos frequently counter official, federal accounts of events.

The citizen-generated evidence aids in accountability and in making their case of federal overreach, said Ellison, who in 2021 led the successful prosecution of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the 2020 death of George Floyd. Chauvin’s conviction relied in part on 10 minutes of cellphone footage filmed by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier.

Ellison and the other Democratic attorneys general encouraged people to continue bearing witness and posting to social media.

“Much of the evidence we’ve been able to generate is because of you,” Ellison said. “You have to fight in a courtroom. We absolutely have to. But ultimately, this country will be saved by the people of the United States. And so that means you’re protesting, you’re gathering evidence, you’re sharing with us … is actually how we’re going to win.”

Since their first lawsuit targeting Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order at the beginning of his term in 2025, the Democratic AGs have filed 77 cases. They’ve won 43 of the 53 resolved cases, according to a tracker from the Progressive State Leaders Committee.

It’s not that they want to file so many lawsuits, but they know they must, said Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who hosted Ellison, Rob Bonta of California, Anne Lopez of Hawaii and Aaron Frey of Maine. Oregon hadn’t even been to the U.S. Supreme Court to argue a case in a decade, Rayfield said, until the state took the lead last year on behalf of a coalition of a dozen states that sued over Trump’s sweeping tariff policy on most goods entering the United States.

“We’re not backing down,” Rayfield said. “We aren’t going to let this president continue to chip away our rights and our democracy at this time. We’re going to continue to fight for this entire term and do our job as attorneys general.”

Beyond the AGs, individuals, businesses, labor unions, professional associations, universities, local governments and other entities have filed 593 cases against the president’s expansion of executive branch powers since the beginning of his term, according to the daily digital law policy journal Just Security.

“The unlawfulness has only escalated,” Bonta said. “It’s gotten worse.”

Hundreds gather around a growing memorial site at 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue, where federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Alex Pretti Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026 earlier in the day. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

The federal killing of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis this month, captured from multiple angles by witnesses recording on their cell phones, kicked off a dizzying day here and in Washington. Democratic politicians and ordinary Americans reacted with a mix of outrage and incredulousness, backfooting the Trump administration as the federal operation Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has called an “occupation” approached its third month.

By late Saturday, a Trump-appointed Minnesota federal judge had ordered the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to refrain from “destroying or altering evidence.” 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said his party would block a must-pass government appropriations package — and partially shut down the government next week — if it contained additional funding for the Homeland Security Department. 

As it did earlier this month after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good, senior Trump administration officials worked swiftly on Saturday to blame the incident on the victim. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Alex Jeffrey Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” echoing language used by Vice President JD Vance to describe Good. Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said Pretti appeared eager to inflict “maximum damage” on the federal agents assembled near the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and 26th Street Saturday morning. Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s chief domestic policy advisor, called Pretti an “assassin.” 

Videos taken at the scene — as well as what’s known about Pretti’s background — belie the Trump administration’s claims. Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a concealed carry permit and no criminal record, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara. 

Moments before he was shot, Pretti could be seen on video with his phone — not a gun — recording federal officers, as has become standard practice among anti-ICE activists. 

A cell phone video shows a gaggle of Border Patrol agents wrestling him to the ground and beating him; an agent removes Pretti’s holstered gun, and Pretti appears to pose no threat to the officers surrounding him. Moments later, about 10 shots ring out. 

In a sworn affidavit filed Saturday evening, a physician who lives nearby said Pretti had no pulse when they arrived at the scene. The physician, whose name and identity were not made public, said agents did not appear to be rendering lifesaving aid and initially refused the physician’s offer to help. Pretti was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later.

Pretti’s name had emerged in media reports by early afternoon. It’s unclear whether federal, state or local officials attempted to notify his next of kin beforehand. Michael Pretti, his father, said he first learned of the shooting from an Associated Press reporter.

“I can’t get any information from anybody,” Michael Pretti told the AP, detailing a runaround with the Border Patrol, local police and area hospitals. He said the Hennepin County Medical Examiner eventually confirmed they had Alex Pretti’s body.

“We are heartbroken but also very angry,” Pretti’s parents said in a statement released later on Saturday that described Pretti as a “hero” who “wanted to make a difference in this world.”

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” they said. “Please get the truth out about our son.”

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said DHS officials blocked their investigators from the crime scene even after they returned with a judicial warrant. The details of the warrant are unclear, as is the BCA’s recourse if Homeland Security continues to stymie its efforts. Federal officials said Saturday that Homeland Security — not the FBI or the Minnesota BCA — would lead the investigation.

The names of the agents involved in the shooting have not been released. Bovino told CNN on Sunday that he did not know whether more than one agent fired shots.

Minnesota officials questioned Homeland Security’s handling of the shooting’s aftermath and indicated they did not trust the department to conduct a fair investigation. 

The Minnesota Department of Corrections unveiled a new website this weekend to combat “ongoing misinformation” from Homeland Security. In a lengthy statement on Saturday, the department called into question Bovino’s initial explanation for the operation that led to Pretti’s death. The statement said the individual named by Bovino as the target of the operation did not have a significant criminal history, as Bovino alleged, and was previously released from immigration custody in 2018 — during the first Trump administration.

A recent article by Stateline, which is a States Newsroom outlet like the Reformer, found that eyewitness testimony and other evidence often contradicts DHS’ initial description of incidents involving its agents.

On Sunday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he expects Homeland Security to heed Saturday’s court order to preserve evidence to support the state’s own investigation.

“We’ve had to threaten them with contempt a few times, but open defiance of court orders is not something that we’ve experienced,” Ellison told the Star Tribune.

Signs had emerged by Sunday that at least some elected Republicans and gun rights groups were uncomfortable with the official line that Pretti posed a clear and present danger before his death. Few elected Republicans wholeheartedly endorsed the administration’s narrative, and even some right-wing influencers who typically hew to the party line recoiled.

Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who faces a primary challenge from his right this year, called Saturday’s shooting “incredibly disturbing.”

“The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake,” he said on Sunday. “There must be a full joint federal and state investigation.”

The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus also issued a statement calling for an independent investigation.

“Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms — including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights. These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed, and they must be respected and protected at all times,” the group said.

Kevin Stitt, the outgoing Republican governor of Oklahoma, hinted in a Sunday interview with CNN that the administration should rethink its immigration enforcement efforts.

“And so what’s the goal right now? Is it to deport every single non-U.S. citizen? I don’t think that’s what Americans want,” he said. “We have to stop politicizing this. We need real solutions on immigration reform.”

Dozens of Minnesota business leaders released an open letter that gently called for a change in approach by the federal government, risking the ire of Trump, who is known for his retribution against those who oppose him. 

“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the CEOs wrote. 

Among them were top officers of Medtronic, 3M, Target and the sports franchises. This is notable because as the Reformer previously reported, the state’s biggest companies had been publicly silent until now. Business leaders, the chamber letter asserts, have been “working behind the scenes” since the federal siege began. 

Some in the Trump administration may be looking for an escape hatch, even if on their terms.  On Saturday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Minnesota could end the federal law enforcement surge if it repealed pro-immigrant “sanctuary” policies and turned over its voter rolls to the federal government. (Minnesota is not a “sanctuary state”; an effort to pass a sanctuary law the last time Democrats controlled the Legislature went nowhere.)

That Bondi made such an offer at all is notable. But it’s unlikely to lead to a resolution. On Sunday, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon brushed off the idea of providing state voter information to the federal government in a caustic statement.

“The answer to Attorney General Bondi’s request is no. Her letter is an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. Citizens in violation of state and federal law,” Simon said.

False claims of voter fraud have become a staple of the Trumpist political movement. A group of right-wing activists led by Mike Lindell — the pillow mogul currently running for governor as a Republican — claimed widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election. But as part of the state’s usual election auditing process, a random group of precincts in every congressional district were chosen for review, totaling roughly 440,000 votes after the 2020 election, spanning more than 200 precincts. The hand tallies were virtually identical to the machine tallies.

A voter casts a paper ballot in Virginia. Despite two recent legal setbacks, the Trump administration has sued the Virginia elections commissioner in its quest to obtain sensitive voter data. (Photo by Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

The Trump administration has sued another state — Virginia — in its quest to obtain sensitive voter data, despite two recent legal setbacks in suits against other states.

The Justice Department on Friday sued Susan Beals, the elections commissioner in Virginia, after months of seeking a copy of the state’s voter registration lists, including individual names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers.

“Virginia becomes the next state sued for ignoring federal law!” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote on the social media platform X.

The Trump administration has sued more than 20 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, in what the administration frames as a quest to ensure that states are properly maintaining voter rolls, that ineligible people are kept off rolls and that only citizens are voting.

The U.S. Department of Justice is sharing state voter roll information with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizens, the Trump administration confirmed in September.

While election officials stress that well-maintained voter rolls are important, President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies have long promoted baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

In the Virginia case, the Justice Department claims it was reassured by the administration of former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin that it would hand over voter rolls. But that did not occur and Youngkin was term-limited. On Saturday, Democrat Abigail Spanberger was sworn in as Virginia’s 75th governor.

Beals, the elections commissioner, was appointed by Youngkin in 2022. The state election department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, similar federal lawsuits hit roadblocks in California and Oregon.

U.S. District Court Judge David Carter dismissed a lawsuit by the Department of Justice against California seeking voter information, calling the request “unprecedented and illegal.” Just a day earlier, a separate federal judge said from the bench he planned to dismiss a similar lawsuit against Oregon.

Democratic secretaries of state have criticized the federal government’s data requests, calling them an unwarranted attempt by the Trump administration to exercise federal power over elections. Under the U.S. Constitution, states administer elections, though Congress can regulate them.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

Minnesota Democratic U.S. Reps. Kelly Morrison, Ilhan Omar and Rep. Angie Craig arrive outside the regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Jan. 10, 2026. The lawmakers were denied entry to  the facility where the Department of Homeland Security has been headquartering operations in the state. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A Department of Homeland Security policy that barred unannounced visits for lawmakers seeking to conduct oversight at facilities that hold immigrants will remain in place, as ordered by a federal judge Monday.

District of Columbia federal Judge Jia Cobb issued an order that denied a request from a dozen Democratic lawmakers, on the technical grounds that an amended complaint or a supplemental brief must be made to challenge a seven-day notice policy instituted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this month for oversight visits.

“The Court emphasizes that it denies Plaintiffs’ motion only because it is not the proper avenue to challenge Defendants’ January 8, 2026 memorandum and the policy stated therein, rather than based on any kind of finding that the policy is lawful,” according to Cobb’s order.

Earlier this month, Democrats brought an emergency request to Cobb after a handful of Minnesota lawmakers were denied an unannounced oversight visit to a federal facility that holds immigrants following the deadly shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer.

Under a 2019 appropriations law, any member of Congress can carry out an unannounced visit at a federal facility that holds immigrants, but in June, multiple Democrats were denied visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. 

Those 12 Democrats sued over the policy that required a week’s notice, and in December, Cobb granted the request to stay Noem’s policy, finding it violated the 2019 law. 

Noem has now argued that the January incident does not violate Cobb’s stay from December, because the ICE facilities are using funds through the Republican spending and tax cuts law, known as the “One, Big Beautiful Bill,” and not the DHS appropriations bill. Noem argued that those facilities are therefore exempt from unannounced oversight visits by members of Congress. 

House Democrats who sued include Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

Ryan Patraw processes ballots at the Marion County Clerk’s Office in Salem, Ore., on May 16. Judges in Oregon and California have ruled against the Trump administration’s requests to turn over voter data. (Photo by Ron Cooper/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

The Trump administration hit two major legal roadblocks this week in its effort to obtain sensitive personal voter data from states.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter dismissed a lawsuit by the Department of Justice against California seeking voter information. The Trump administration has demanded that at least 40 states provide unredacted voter data, which can include driver’s license and Social Security numbers. The department has sued 21 states and Washington, D.C., that have refused to provide the data.

Carter, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, called the government’s request “unprecedented and illegal” in a 33-page ruling.

Just a day earlier, U.S. District Court Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said he planned to dismiss a similar lawsuit against Oregon. Kasubhai, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said his final written decision may be different.

“The federal government tried to abuse their power to force me to break my oath of office and hand over your private data,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in a statement about the tentative ruling, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle. “I stood up to them and said no. Now, the court sided with us. Tonight, we proved, once again, we have the power to push back and win.”

The Justice Department has framed its demands as necessary to ensure states are properly maintaining their voter rolls. It says it needs the information to ensure ineligible people are kept off rolls and that only citizens are voting. The department is sharing state voter roll information with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizens, the Trump administration confirmed in September.

While election officials say well-maintained voter rolls are important, President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies have long promoted baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. 

Democratic election officials have criticized the data requests, calling them an unwarranted attempt by the Trump administration to exercise federal power over elections. Under the U.S. Constitution, states administer elections, though Congress can regulate them.

In arguing for the data, the federal government cited the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, all of which were intended to protect elections and the right to vote. 

In California, Carter ruled that the federal government — and the court — are not authorized to use civil rights legislation “as a tool to forsake the privacy rights of millions of Americans.”

“There cannot be unbridled consolidation of all elections power in the Executive without action from Congress and public debate,” Carter wrote. “This is antithetical to the promise of fair and free elections our country promises and the franchise that civil rights leaders fought and died for.” 

The Justice Department did not immediately say whether it planned to appeal the ruling.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

Federal agents stage at a front gate as Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig of Minnesota attempt to enter the regional ICE headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on Jan. 10, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb Wednesday probed whether the Trump administration has violated her court order, after Minnesota lawmakers said they were denied an oversight visit to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility following a deadly shooting by an immigration officer in Minneapolis. 

Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison of Minnesota said they were denied entry to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis last weekend. 

An attorney representing the lawmakers, Christine L. Coogle, asked Cobb to make it clear to the Trump administration that her stay order is in place. 

Last month, Cobb issued a temporary block on a policy by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that required seven days notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits at ICE facilities.

Cobb found Noem violated a 2019 appropriations law, referred to as Section 527, that allows for unannounced oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants. 

“If the government is using 527 funds to exclude members of Congress from (ICE) facilities, that does run afoul of my order,” Cobb said during Wednesday’s hearing.

Dems eye DHS funding 

As the Trump administration has carried out an aggressive immigration campaign, and with Democrats the minority party in both chambers of Congress, unannounced oversight visits to ICE facilities are one of the few tools Democrats can use. The other way they could try to counter the enforcement push is through appropriations to the Department of Homeland Security.

For example, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is made up of nearly 100 Democrats, vowed on Tuesday to vote against any DHS appropriations bill unless major changes are made at ICE regarding immigration enforcement.

Separately, Democrats on Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Noem. One count is connected to the denial of oversight visits. 

New Noem policy after Renee Good killing

One day after federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, Noem issued a new memo for members of Congress who want to conduct oversight visits at ICE facilities. 

She required a seven-day notice, nearly identical to the policy that initially prompted the suit from Democrats last year.

Noem argued in her new policy that because those federal ICE facilities are using funds through the spending and tax cuts package, and not the DHS appropriations bill, they are therefore exempt from unannounced oversight visits by members of Congress. 

In an emergency request, Democrats argued the funds DHS is using apply under Section 527, and DHS is violating Cobb’s stay.

Cobb said on Wednesday she could not make a determination if her order was violated until she can get a clear answer from the Trump administration as to the source of the funds. She directed Department of Justice lawyers to determine what it is.

Funding stream question

In court filings, DOJ argued the facilities are funded through the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passed and signed into law last year, and that DHS does not need to comply with Section 527.

The OBBBA, passed through a congressional process called reconciliation, is allowed to adjust federal spending even though it is not an appropriations law.

Coogle said until OBBAA, the only funding for ICE came from appropriations, and argued the two funding streams can’t be separated. She said the Trump administration is trying to “make a game here” with appropriations law.

“Appropriations are not a game. They are the law,” Coogle said.  

The House Democrats who sued include Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

Exterior of the U.S. Department of State Harry S. Truman Building, in Washington, D.C., in May 2024. (Official State Department photo by Linda D. Epstein)

WASHINGTON — The State Department announced Wednesday it would suspend all visa processing for immigrants hailing from 75 countries because they are deemed likely to need governmental assistance in the United States, known as a “public charge.” 

The State Department did not answer States Newsroom’s inquiry as to when the policy would take effect or a list of the 75 countries in question. The State Department, in a social media post, listed several that would be affected, including Somalia, Haiti, Iran and Eritrea.

“The State Department will pause immigrant visa processing from 75 countries whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates,” the State Department wrote. “The freeze will remain active until the U.S. can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people.”

It will take effect Jan. 21 and other countries affected include Afghanistan and Russia, according to The Associated Press.

The Department of Homeland Security in November published a notice for proposed rulemaking that outlined major changes to how immigration officials assess whether certain immigrants are likely to become a public charge and if that constitutes grounds for inadmissibility, meaning a noncitizen would be ineligible for admission or adjustment of their immigration status.

During President Donald Trump’s first administration, he tried to broaden the definition of public charge to include any immigrant who had received certain public benefits for more than 12 months in a 36-month period. The move was tied up in the courts.

One of the earliest federal immigration laws is an 1882 law that barred the immigration of people to the U.S. if they were likely to become a public charge. The Clinton administration in 1999 formally defined public charge as those who were dependent on cash assistance, such as food assistance.