Rep. Derrick Van Orden stands out among vulnerable House Republicans: He has not softened his rhetoric on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics, despite public outcry over the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota.

The Wisconsin Republican, whose seat is one of Democrats’ targets in the 2026 midterms, supported an investigation into Alex Pretti’s killing, but said his “support for federal law enforcement” would remain “unwavering.”

Van Orden told NOTUS he is holding firm in his support for the Trump administration’s deportation efforts because of the crime committed by unauthorized immigrants.

He cited a video posted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week alongside the caption, “American citizens raped and murdered by those who have no right to be in our country.”

“That’s why I back ICE,” Van Orden said. “Watch that video, and then you would never ask me that question again.”

“If you can look at that thing and see all these people that have been brutally murdered and the families that have been destroyed because of these criminal, illegal aliens, and you’re willing to turn your back to it, that means you have an alternative purpose or an alternative objective,” Van Orden said.

Van Orden’s hard-line position in support of the president’s mass deportation agenda in one of this year’s most competitive races will test the Trump agenda in the very part of the country that helped secure the president a second term in the White House.

His district includes the farmland and exurbs of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, spanning Wisconsin’s border with Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Van Orden won by a margin of 2.8 percentage points in 2024. Trump won the district by more than 7 percentage points. In a midterm cycle that favors Democrats, and at a time voters are losing trust in Republicans’ immigration agenda, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as a “toss up.”

“We’re not a border state. It’s not something that was on the agenda prior to Trump. And obviously, people like Derrick Van Orden have taken the most extreme possible positions on an issue that I’m not sure was top of mind for most Wisconsin voters,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative political commentator and Wisconsin resident.

Van Orden has shown his MAGA bona fides through issues like immigration and trade, where he has defended the president’s actions.

He followed the administration’s lead, expressing support for body cameras on immigration officers, a reform that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she would implement after Pretti was killed. Democrats want to standardize that policy in a DHS funding bill.

“It allows good cops to be good cops, and it holds police officers that may not be doing what they should do accountable publicly,” Van Orden said. “And that makes the force better, that makes the American population trust law enforcement more.”

He said he will await the results of a full investigation into Pretti’s death, but has laid the blame for the rise of political violence squarely with Democrats, as many in the administration and Trump’s circle have done.

“This is unfortunately true for many Democrats. They’re willing to put those American lives, throw them into the garbage can for political power, which means they have no business being in power,” Van Orden said.

There are issues where Van Orden has broken with the conservative mainstream. In January, he voted to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies to prevent coverage loss, though he is opposed to the program. He has advocated for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which he used as a child, though he voted for cuts to the program in the budget reconciliation bill.

Faced with a frustrated agricultural industry, Van Orden introduced a bill to create a path to temporary worker status for immigrant agricultural workers who self-deport and pay a fine. Wisconsin farms employ a large immigrant labor force.

“He has this interesting dichotomy of picking some of those softer issues that might appeal to independents and some others, versus his very strong pro-Trump issues where, obviously that’s going to settle well with the MAGA voters and the pro-Trump Republicans,” said independent political strategist Brandon Scholz, who formerly ran the Wisconsin Republican Party.

In contrast, other House Republicans facing heated reelection bids this year have moderated their positions on immigration enforcement, calling for a reassessment of the country’s immigration policy.

“Congress and the president need to embrace a new comprehensive national immigration policy that acknowledges Americans’ many legitimate concerns about how the government has conducted immigration policy,” Rep. Mike Lawler wrote for The New York Times.

Van Orden declined to comment on other Democratic demands for DHS reforms, which include a ban on masks and identification requirements for immigration agents, until the party funds the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and the U.S. Coast Guard.

It is these nonimmigration agencies within DHS that Van Orden’s constituents are affected by during the partial government shutdown, which has left some without paychecks and blocked others from receiving their boating licenses to go out on the district’s many lakes, he said.

That message may work with his constituents, Scholz said. While Republican voters in Wisconsin may be concerned about immigration, the issue has not historically been top of mind for them.

“There are other issues for them that may be more critical to making a decision on what they’re going to do, i.e. economic issues,” Scholz said.

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Vulnerable House Republicans have softened on immigration. Derrick Van Orden hasn’t. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Editor’s note: This is a static version of the interactive story found at this link.

Part 1: A struggling regional carrier

The legacy network

Air Wisconsin Airlines has not been spared by the nationwide decline of regional air service. The 60-year-old carrier laid off hundreds of employees in Appleton and Milwaukee last year after terminating a contract to provide aircraft, crews and services to American Airlines in January 2025. The airline’s planned pivot to charter service and federally subsidized connections to underserved airports didn’t pan out, prompting another round of layoffs by the spring.

But the company’s troubles didn’t entirely ground its fleet. Flight tracking data indicate that Air Wisconsin continued to provide regional air service through the end of 2025, primarily connecting its Wisconsin hubs to mid-sized Midwestern airports as it had for decades.

The sale

In January, Harbor Diversified Inc., the Appleton-based parent company of Air Wisconsin, sold the company’s operations and 13 of its jets to CSI Aviation, a New Mexico-based air charter company and longtime federal contractor owned by former New Mexico Republican Party chair Allen Weh.

Air Wisconsin sent recall notices to the company’s furloughed flight attendants after the sale to CSI Aviation, and the Association of Flight Attendants — the union representing the furloughed workers — negotiated an immediate raise for returning members. In a January press release announcing the recall notices, the union noted that only a third of the furloughed flight attendants opted to return.

Neither CSI nor Harbor Diversified responded to requests for comment.

CSI is central to the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown.

It has provided charter services for ICE since 2024, transporting detainees and deportees both directly and through subcontractors.

The company entered its current $1.5 billion contract with the Department of Homeland Security in November of last year.

Demand for private charters surged after 2010, when the Obama administration moved away from relying solely on the U.S. Marshals Service.

Air Wisconsin isn’t alone. Avelo Airlines began deportation flights last spring, but backed out last month following intense public backlash.

A transformed network

CSI’s acquisition of Air Wisconsin transformed the airline’s flight patterns within a matter of weeks. The airline’s website no longer lists passenger routes, but flight data collected between Jan. 9 and mid-February indicates that the airline has largely ceded its role as a Midwestern regional carrier.

Instead, the airline increasingly looks south: Destinations in Louisiana and Texas replaced the mid-sized Midwestern airports that were, until recently, the airline’s most frequent destinations.

Flight data indicates Air Wisconsin planes made at least 125 trips in January 2026, up from roughly 60 in December 2025. Thicker lines on the map indicate more frequent routes.

Part 2: Air ICE

Many of Air Wisconsin’s new destinations are within easy reach of ICE detention facilities in Texas and Louisiana, including some of the agency’s largest.

The Minnesota operation

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is among the busiest in the country, but Air Wisconsin rarely provided service to the Twin Cities in the final months of 2025.

That changed in January, just weeks after the Trump administration dispatched thousands of federal agents to Minnesota for an immigration enforcement offensive dubbed Operation Metro Surge.

Hundreds of immigrants detained in the operation have since departed the airport in shackles, loaded onto charter flights bound for ICE detention facilities farther south.

Alexandria

The modest airport in Alexandria, Louisiana, is now the epicenter of ICE’s deportation flight operations. Air Wisconsin has flown to or from Alexandria at least 30 times since the airline’s acquisition by CSI, on par with the airline’s service to Madison and outpacing service to Appleton, home to the airline’s corporate headquarters.

The GEO Group, an international private prison operator, runs an ICE detention facility on the airport’s tarmac. A dozen other ICE facilities sit within easy reach. Among them is the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi, where Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, a 39-year-old Nicaraguan national, died in custody on Dec. 14, 2025. ICE acknowledged the incident in a press release four days later, though the agency did not specify the cause of Rodriguez’s death.

El Paso

Camp East Montana, ICE’s largest detention facility, sits just east of El Paso International Airport. Air Wisconsin flights took off from or landed in El Paso at least 32 times in January and early February, second only to Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport.

The camp drew national attention in early January after Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban national, died by asphyxiation after guards pinned him to the floor of a cell. The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled the death a homicide.

Lunas Campos’ death came a month after Francisco Gaspar-Andres, a 48-year-old from Guatemala and detained at Camp East Montana, died in an El Paso hospital; ICE attributed Gaspar-Andres’ death to liver and kidney failure.

Another detainee, 36-year-old Victor Manuel Diaz of Nicaragua, died at the camp on Jan. 14 in what ICE described as a “presumed suicide” — an explanation his family questions. ICE agents detained Diaz in Minneapolis only days before his death.

Back at home

Air Wisconsin hasn’t entirely withdrawn from its home state hubs. Many of the airline’s remaining pilots, flight attendants and ground crew are still Wisconsin-based, and Milwaukee remains the airline’s primary hub.

The airline is now hiring for more than a dozen Wisconsin-based positions — including legal counsel.

About the data

Wisconsin Watch used FlightAware AeroAPI data (Sept 2025 – Feb 2026) to reconstruct patterns before and after the Jan. 9 sale to CSI Aviation.

Hubs on these maps represent the 10 airports most frequently used. While the routes align with ICE operations, the data does not confirm if specific flights carried detainees.

Air Wisconsin turns to ICE (static version) is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Air Wisconsin turns to ICE is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told governors Friday during a meeting at the White House he has no plans to surge federal immigration operations in states where it’s not wanted. 

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said during an afternoon press conference with several other governors that Trump was asked during the closed-door meeting about what lessons he learned from immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, where federal officers killed two U.S. citizens. 

“The president said, ‘We’ll only go where we’re wanted.’ And said, for example, ‘I won’t go to New York unless Kathy calls and says she wants me to come to New York,’” she said. “I took that as a very positive outcome from this meeting. And I would want to hold him and the administration to that statement.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, vice chair of the National Governors Association, said Democratic governors were able to express “how problematic” actions by immigration enforcement officials have been, especially after Republicans in Congress drastically increased funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection in their signature tax and spending cuts law.  

“We were actually encouraged to hear the president say that one of the takeaways from Minnesota was that he only wants to go places that he is welcomed. So we were very glad to hear that,” he said. “I want to be very clear that until we can have an accountable agency, the type of surge that we saw in Minnesota is not welcome in the state of Maryland.”

Louisiana Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said during the press conference at the NGA’s winter conference there have been “no problems” with federal immigration enforcement actions in his state. 

“Why? Because it was a completely integrated operation under which local, state and federal partners worked together,” he said. “We did not allow people to break our laws and get in the way and impede law enforcement in doing their lawful duty.” 

Landry said Trump “made it very clear, if you don’t want our help, we won’t give you any help.”

Tariffs ruling interrupts meeting

Governors from throughout the country traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to attend their annual winter conference and meet with Trump at the White House, though that meeting was diverted somewhat after the Supreme Court ruled on tariffs. 

Trump is scheduled to host a black tie dinner for some of the governors this weekend, though he decided not to invite certain Democrats to that event, provoking controversy throughout the lead-up to the governors’ meeting. 

Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, chairman of the National Governor’s Association, said during the afternoon press conference the morning meeting with Trump included 12 GOP and 10 Democratic governors. 

“It was overall a really productive meeting and a great show of ‘Hey, here is how the governors can come before the president and bring up issues that affect all of us,’” he said. 

Moore said the White House meeting was “productive” and “a chance for us to be able to share our thoughts and our perspectives and our ideas with the Cabinet secretaries and the agency heads and with the president himself.”

“We had a chance to talk about the things that matter to the people of our states. We had a chance to speak with Cabinet secretaries about energy prices and how we have to have a singular focus to bring energy prices down,” he said. “We had a chance to speak with the Transportation secretary about transportation issues. In the case of Maryland, it was the American Legion Bridge and the Francis Scott Key Bridge.”

Moore added the meeting was an important opportunity to “speak truth to power” and show that bipartisanship still exists on certain issues.

Sewage spill, Gateway Tunnel 

Moore said he didn’t bring up Trump blaming him for a sewage spill that began with a discharge into the Potomac River in the District of Columbia, opting instead to use the meeting to focus on talking with Cabinet secretaries on infrastructure, natural disaster relief and housing. 

“I am here to focus on helping the people of my state,” he said. “I am not going to spend a second talking about a petty attack that the president of the United States had.”

Hochul said she appreciated the Cabinet secretaries were at the meeting and that governors were able to talk with them about several issues. 

“I was able to talk about the Gateway Tunnel and keeping the funding on for the largest infrastructure project in America today,” she said, referring to a project to build new rail track between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River. “We’d like to keep our offshore wind on and not have to go to court constantly to get that turned back on.”

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said he was able to speak directly with Trump about the state’s ongoing recovery needs from Hurricane Helene.

“We’ve got to rebuild houses. We’ve got to rebuild roads and bridges. We’ve got to rebuild businesses. And we cannot do that in North Carolina without the partnership of the federal government,” he said. “We have a $13.5 billion request with (the Office of Management and Budget) and with the Congress. And I asked the president and he said that they are eager to talk about that. 

“So I came away very encouraged that he will bring renewed focus from this administration to help western North Carolina recover from Hurricane Helene.”

Landry said the Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs, which was released during the meeting, “completely overshadowed, which, in my opinion, was getting ready to be a very productive meeting with the president.”

“It was unfortunate that the Supreme Court came out with a bad ruling at that time because I think we were going to have a great meeting,” he said. 

Trump vowed to keep the tariffs in place under other authorities he believes he holds during an afternoon press conference at the White House, where he also rebuked the six Supreme Court justices who wrote “that (the International Economic Emergency Powers Act) does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.” 

Hochul disagreed with the assertion the Supreme Court’s decision wasn’t the right one. 

“I think the Supreme Court, many of whom are appointees by the president, sided with supporting the Constitution and doing what’s right,” she said. “So we support this decision and hope that we can continue to find ways to work together to drive down costs, not do the opposite as we saw tariffs do in our states.”

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.

Criminal justice has emerged as one of the most wide-ranging and politically charged areas on lawmakers’ agendas in this year’s state legislative sessions. Across the country, legislators are weighing proposals that affect nearly every part of the criminal justice system, including policing, gun policy, solving crimes, sentencing, prison oversight and reentry support.

The breadth of legislation reflects how deeply crime policy intersects with daily life, shaping public safety, civil rights, state spending and the scope of law enforcement. It also comes amid a shifting national conversation about crime itself. While violent crime rose during the pandemic, recent data shows declines in many categories, despite continued public concern.

According to Gallup’s most recent annual crime poll, Americans’ perceptions of crime improved in 2025. Approximately 49% of adults now say crime is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in the United States, and the same share believe crime has increased in the past year. Both figures are down significantly from 2024 and are at their lowest levels since at least 2018.

Still, crime remains a top political issue, particularly in statehouses where lawmakers may face pressure to respond to high-profile incidents and constituent fears.

Gun policy

Firearm-related legislation has moved quickly in several states, with lawmakers pursuing sharply different approaches that reflect regional politics and partisan control.

In Democratic-led states, lawmakers have advanced proposals aimed at tightening restrictions on firearms.

Virginia House Democrats approved a sweeping package of bills this month that would restrict access to assault-style weapons, tighten firearm storage and transfer rules, limit where guns can be carried in public and expand civil liability for the gun industry. The bills are now being considered in the Senate.

Maryland lawmakers are debating a measure that would prohibit the manufacture, sale, purchase or transfer of certain handguns that can be converted into automatic weapons using an illegal accessory known as a pistol converter.

The bill doesn’t name specific firearm models, but it would effectively ban secondhand sales of some popular discontinued guns. In urging its members to oppose the bill, the National Rifle Association’s legislative arm says on its website, “These conversion devices are already illegal, yet this proposal targets responsible firearm owners rather than criminals who ignore existing law.”

But sponsors noted that the measure would exempt current owners of the affected firearms and argued that it doesn’t punish responsible firearm owners. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott led a rally last week in favor of the bill, saying it would reduce homicides. And a high school student testified to lawmakers about her fears of a school shooting.

Other states have focused on regulating firearm sales.

New Mexico senators passed legislation restricting certain firearm transactions, while lawmakers in New York and Washington state have proposed measures that would prohibit the production and possession of 3D-printing files used to manufacture gun parts to build so-called ghost guns.

Gun control advocates say 3D-printed guns are becoming more common, especially among young people. Just this week, a ghost gun was recovered after a student was shot inside a Maryland high school. The student’s injuries weren’t life threatening, and a suspect has been charged with attempted murder.

But some gun rights advocates say those measures go too far.

“We believe that making your own firearms, if you have the skills to do it, is an American tradition. It literally dates back to the founding of our country,” said Chris Stone, the director of state and local affairs for Gun Owners of America, one of the country’s largest gun advocacy groups. The group opposes bans on 3D-printing firearms.

Republican-led states are pushing in the opposite direction, removing specific firearm regulations, limiting local regulation, strengthening legal protections for gun shops and dismantling “gun-free” zones, such as areas near schools or inside government buildings.

South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden signed a bill into law this week that deregulates gun silencers, or suppressors. These devices will be removed from the state’s definition of a controlled weapon.

In Georgia, lawmakers approved a ban that would keep local governments from adopting gun storage requirements. The bill has not yet been sent to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp for consideration.

In South Carolina, legislators have proposed a measure that would protect gun shops from being held liable in lawsuits when crimes are committed with products they sold, as long as the original sale was lawful. That bill remains in committee.

Florida lawmakers advanced legislation last month to lower the age to purchase long guns to 18. The West Virginia Senate also passed a bill that would allow 18- to 20-year-olds to carry concealed weapons without a permit, removing current training and licensing requirements for that age group.

New Hampshire and Wyoming legislators are considering proposals that would prohibit public colleges and universities from regulating whether students, faculty or visitors are able to carry concealed firearms and nonlethal weapons on campus.

Immigration and policing

Questions about the role of law enforcement — particularly in immigration enforcement — have become a flashpoint in state legislatures, as lawmakers debate how closely local and state agencies should cooperate with federal authorities.

In some states, lawmakers are moving to require or expand cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bills in Alabama, Arizona, Iowa and Kentucky would encourage or mandate that state or local law enforcement agencies collaborate with ICE or expand officers’ authority to question or detain people over their immigration status. Supporters argue the measures are necessary to enforce federal law and improve public safety.

Other states are taking the opposite approach. In Virginia this month, Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger ended a 287(g) agreement with ICE that allowed state police and corrections officers to assist the agency with certain federal immigration enforcement functions. Spanberger, who has a background in law enforcement, had promised in her campaign to end the agreement, saying she wants policing agencies to focus on their core duties.

The move drew sharp criticism from state Republican leaders, with GOP lawmakers arguing that the decision prioritizes politics over public safety and could expose the state to retaliation from the Trump administration.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, introduced a similar proposal last month that appears to be gaining more support from police and elected officials.

The Maryland House and Senate this month also overwhelmingly approved bills that would prohibit 287(g) agreements between local police and federal immigration agencies. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore is expected to sign them. Several local law enforcement officials across the state have urged the governor to veto the measures, arguing that ending the agreements would lead to more federal immigration enforcement activity and higher crime rates.

Beyond immigration, legislatures also are grappling with broader questions about policing authority and accountability.

In Indiana, lawmakers approved legislation expanding the role of the National Guard’s military police in certain law enforcement functions, giving the governor authority that some Democrats say could be abused.

Iowa lawmakers are considering a proposal that would eliminate affirmative action and anti-bias training requirements for police officers.

A bill in Utah would create the Violent Crime Clearance Rate Fund, which would provide grants to law enforcement agencies to support efforts to improve the rate at which violent crimes are solved.

Sentencing and prison conditions

State legislatures also are revisiting what happens after arrest, with several states considering tougher penalties for certain crimes.

Iowa Republicans have proposed a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for some repeat offenders.

Alabama lawmakers are considering a bill that would raise the base penalty for fleeing from police from a misdemeanor to a felony, with harsher penalties for repeat offenses and other aggravating factors.

The Kentucky House advanced a bill aimed at cracking down on street racing. It would impose penalties of up to 30 days in jail and $1,000 in fines, and allow vehicles used in the offense to be destroyed or auctioned to support the state’s crime victims compensation fund.

Other states are pursuing more rehabilitative approaches.

Lawmakers in Washington state are considering legislation that would give people serving long sentences a new pathway to release.

Oklahoma lawmakers have proposed a measure that would eliminate the requirement that a prison inmate serve a set amount of time before becoming eligible for good-time credits, which would also allow people awaiting transfer to prison to earn these credits sooner.

Last month, Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Clean Slate Act into law, paving the way for an estimated 1.7 million adults with nonviolent criminal records to have them automatically sealed beginning in 2029.

Juvenile justice debates also have been unfolding alongside these efforts.

States including Colorado, Utah, Missouri, Maryland and Kansas are reconsidering when young people can be charged as adults, how long they can be detained and what role rehabilitation should play.

In Kansas, for example, lawmakers are considering expanding judges’ authority to send youths to juvenile prison and increasing detention limits, moves that opponents say would reverse a decade of changes designed to keep low-risk youths out of custody.

In recent years, poor prison conditions and lax oversight have emerged as a bipartisan concern, driven in part by staffing shortages and the rising costs associated with incarceration.

Florida legislators are considering proposals that would create an independent ombudsman to monitor prison conditions. Alabama and Arizona lawmakers have filed measures that would address oversight of food services in prisons and fund the state’s independent prison oversight office, respectively.

Several states are working to expand death penalty options, both for crimes and for execution methods.

Alabama legislators passed a measure this month that would expand the death penalty to include child sex crimes. The bill is now awaiting the signature of Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, who expressed her support for the proposal last month.

In Indiana, lawmakers considered a proposal that would add firing squad and gas as execution methods.

In New Hampshire, lawmakers are considering two Republican-backed bills that would reinstate the death penalty — nearly seven years after the state voted to abolish it. One bill would bring it back for homicide or sexual assault offenses against children under 13, while the other proposal would reinstate it for capital murder, which would combine the murder with aggravating circumstances.

Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte told reporters last fall she would like to see capital punishment restored in the state.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

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 — The Department of Homeland Security is headed for a shutdown as lawmakers on Capitol Hill remained stuck Thursday over bans on face masks and other immigration tactics. 

The department’s funding expires Friday night.

A procedural vote to advance a funding bill failed in the Senate, 52-47, with Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., the only Democrat to join Republicans on the measure. Senate Majority Leader John Thune changed his vote in a maneuver to recommit the bill and bring it up again later. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did not vote.

The Senate then left for a scheduled recess over the Presidents Day holiday, and will not return for votes until Feb. 23.

Democrats have so far rebuffed counter proposals from the White House and a Republican offer to further extend temporary DHS funding while negotiations continue. 

The vote came just hours after President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan announced immigration officers will retreat from Minneapolis, which has become ground zero for the administration’s aggressive and deadly escalations that sparked mass protests and sinking approval numbers for the president.

Thune said the administration’s exit from Minneapolis is “certainly a demonstration of good faith.”

Demands for warrants and more

The fatal shootings in Minneapolis by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, has prompted Democrats to demand immigration officers obtain judicial warrants to forcibly enter homes, wear and actively use body cameras, remove face masks, wear identification and undergo additional training.

The department, which houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is the remaining part of the government for which Congress has not passed full-year funding. In addition to ICE and Customs and Border Protection, the department also includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration, otherwise known as TSA.

Short-term stopgap funds for the department expire Friday at midnight, though ICE will likely continue operations on an influx of cash earmarked for the agency in Republicans’ massive tax and spending cuts law enacted in July.

TSA agents, Coast Guard personnel and other essential government workers will continue their duties without pay until lawmakers strike a deal. Others will be sent home, also without pay, though all will receive back pay once the shutdown ends.

Red lines

Thune said Democrats “don’t seem to want to play ball” and consider his party’s “reasonable efforts and requests.”

“There’s some obviously red lines that Democrats have and that the White House has. I think Republicans, as I told you before, are very interested in making sure that law enforcement officials continue to be able to do their jobs in a way that is safe and that we aren’t in any way enabling, you know, dangerous illegal aliens, or disallowing them being detained and deported from the country,” the South Dakota Republican said following the failed vote.

Thune said the White House is “giving more and more ground on some of these key issues” but declined to provide further detail on the administration’s proposal.

He added he did not plan to cancel the Senate’s planned recess next week but has let members know they’ll need to be available if a deal emerges.

“I’m encouraged to hear that they’re actually going to put together another counterproposal. I think if people are operating in good faith and actually want a solution … this can get done,” he said.

Following the failed vote for full-year funding, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., asked for unanimous consent to keep Homeland Security open with another stop-gap measure.

“Let’s keep talking, let’s keep working. Don’t let anyone miss a paycheck,” Britt, the chair of the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, said.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, objected, saying the Democrats want “to rein in  ICE’s lawlessness.” 

Democrats want GOP to get ‘serious’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer doubled down on Democrats’ demands following the failed procedural vote. 

“This vote today asked a simple question: Will you rein in ICE’s abuses, or will you vote to extend the chaos?” he said. “Republicans chose chaos and the Democrats, we refused — Republicans chose to put a bill on the floor that ignored the abuses, ignored the outrage, ignored what the American people want, overwhelmingly, and they failed to get the votes to avoid a shutdown at DHS.” 

The New York Democrat called on Republicans to get “serious” if they want to keep DHS funded. 

“They need to sit down, they need to negotiate in good faith, produce legislation that actually reins in ICE and stops the violence,” Schumer said. 

Both sides have complained that the other did not work fast enough during the past two weeks to find a deal.

“I wish our Republican colleagues in the White House had shown more seriousness from the start, but Senate Democrats have been clear that we have all taken an oath, an oath to uphold the law of the country and this Department of Homeland Security, this ICE, is out of control. They are tear gassing our children’s schools. They are killing American citizens. They are disappearing legal migrants,” Murphy said. 

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Murphy said Democrats would not fund the department until an agreement is reached with the White House to “reform abusive practices of ICE.” 

Murphy told reporters the White House is “obviously trying to get us to fund the department,” pointing to the announcement of immigration officers soon leaving Minneapolis. 

“If we fund ICE, because we believe that the drawdown is meaningful, they’ll just pocket that money and show up in another city two weeks from now,” he said. “We need statutory changes to stop them from the abuse, or they will be quiet for a couple of weeks and show up in Philadelphia on April 1.” 

Thune said “the ball is in Democrats’ court,” during remarks on the Senate floor Thursday morning. 

“Are they going to shut down the Department of Homeland Security — which would be their second shutdown this fiscal year — or are they going to allow for the time to negotiate with the White House and get agreement on a final bill?” he said.

Gov. Tim Walz proposed $10 million in forgivable loans for Minnesota businesses affected by the surge in federal immigration activity starting in December.

The incursion of around 3,000 federal immigration agents in Minnesota in what the Trump administration called “Operation Metro Surge” led to revenue losses for businesses, especially those in major immigrant corridors, as employees and customers stayed home out of fear of being detained by federal immigration agents.

The one-time forgivable loan proposal was announced Thursday at a Capitol press briefing, moments after U.S. border czar Tom Homan announced the end of the surge and claimed success in making the Twin Cities and Minnesota “safer.” The unprecedented federal incursion ignited massive resistance and resulted in two killings of American citizens, among other high-profile incidents.

The damage from Operation Metro Surge is still being assessed, Walz said. Minneapolis businesses are estimated to have lost $10 to $20 million a week in sales, the Star Tribune previously reported.

The relief package would apply to businesses that can demonstrate substantial revenue loss tied to the surge with revenues between $200,000 and $4 million annually. The loans would be between $2,500 to $25,000, with an opportunity to apply for 50% forgiveness after a year.

Walz acknowledged that the $10 million relief proposal is “a very small piece of” the recovery. He said that the upcoming legislative session, which starts Feb. 17, “needs to be about recovery of the damage that’s been done to us.” The prospects at the Legislature aren’t great, however: Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who is also a frontrunner for the GOP nomination for governor, is likely disinclined to support anything that could even implicitly be viewed as a criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

Henry Garnica, the owner of CentroMex Supermercado in St. Paul’s East Side, a grocery store that caters to the Hispanic community, spoke at the briefing. Federal agents visited CentroMex without a judicial warrant in December, where they faced off with residents who quickly arrived at the scene and formed a chain outside the entrance. The incident ended in the federal agents leaving.

Garnica, who immigrated from Colombia over 20 years ago and is a U.S. citizen, said that his sales have been down 30 to 40% during the federal immigration enforcement surge. He spoke wearing a whistle and showed reporters his passport that he’s been carrying: “Hopefully we don’t have to do this anymore.”

Garnica said he expects that recovering from the loss in sales will take at least three to six months.

Before Operation Metro Surge sent thousands of armed federal agents into Minneapolis, terrorizing families and spreading chaos and violence in formerly peaceful residential neighborhoods, local parent organizations were already setting up networks to provide mutual aid and safely transport children of immigrants to and from school.

“My school group of friends formed our first network of communication in October, after we saw what had happened in Chicago,” the mother of an elementary school student in South Minneapolis named Elizabeth told me in a phone interview Wednesday. She asked that her last name not be published, because of the danger of reprisals. 

The encrypted neighborhood chat started chiming for the first time on Tuesday, Dec. 9, she recalls, when “there were two people abducted early in the morning within blocks of my kid’s school.” When her child asked what was going on, “I said, you know, people are concerned about the safety of coming to school today,” Elizabeth recalls. “And like a good Minnesotan, my child realized that it was foggy outside and said, ‘Well, fog creates ice, and so the roads are probably slippery …’ And I said, yeah, they’re worried about ice on the roads. And I really had hope in that moment of naivety that that would be the last time we’d have to have that conversation. But it wasn’t.”

Since December, when Operation Metro Surge began, Elizabeth said her child’s class has shrunk from 25 students to just five. The school district has offered a remote learning option to immigrant families who are afraid to let their children leave the house. Meanwhile, the neighborhood chat group, which began with five families whose children played soccer together, has connected with hundreds of volunteers, many of whom don’t have kids in the school.

Because most of the families at the school are people of color, “we really had to start relying on our neighbors around us to help us, because we don’t have enough families that are not in danger,” Elizabeth said. Residents of nearby neighborhoods joined to form a group of 200 people who patrol the playground in the morning and afternoon and during recess, guard the nearby bus stops, and drive children from home to school and back again. 

In addition, volunteers pick up laundry every other week from families that are shut inside, and bring groceries, shopping for food at local Hispanic markets, which have taken a heavy hit after losing employees and customers during the immigration enforcement surge. 

There are many similar mutual aid groups throughout the area, each doing things in different ways. “There are a lot of micro projects happening everywhere,” Elizabeth said. And things are constantly changing. “It’s a living process,” she said. “No two days are the same.” 

While she tries to avoid contact with federal agents, ICE is everywhere in their neighborhood, Elizabeth said. She no longer allows her child to walk to the corner store alone. 

“ICE is constantly driving through our neighborhoods. They’re not obeying traffic signals. They’re not obeying traffic laws. They’re running through stop signs. They’re going the wrong way on one-ways,” Elizabeth said. While she isn’t afraid that her child, who is white, will be snatched and sent to immigration detention, she worries about the possibility of her child stumbling upon a violent action, “or they could get tear-gassed, very easily.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s rationale for the federal immigration enforcement surge is to enhance public safety. But it’s very clear from talking to people in Minneapolis that armed agents speeding through neighborhoods, smashing car windows and dragging people out of their homes has shattered the sense of safety residents used to have. 

Elizabeth does not claim that her neighborhood group can overcome that, or effectively deter ICE. Instead, she describes its purpose as offering comfort to immigrant parents. And for the children, she says, “I really make sure that I’m there every day so they can see the same faces, so there’s some stability in their day.”

“We’ve got families that have been in hiding for nine weeks now,” she adds. “… I want them to know that we were here for them.”

As for her own child, “I have to be really honest,” she said. She’s had to give up her hope, before the surge, not to have to talk about the sickening danger all around them. “They live in a community, and they need to be part of their community,” she said. “Right now, their community is under attack, and so I think it is my responsibility as a parent to make sure that they see that, and that they understand that this is not how you treat your neighbors. That, like I said, our community needs love, help and support right now. And so we have lots of conversations about it.”

Her child misses the friends who aren’t coming to school, and makes an effort to stay in touch and fill them in on what is happening. And there are the daily car rides with the handful of kids Elizabeth drives to school and home again. 

Those car rides are important, she said. She has a bag of snacks and a playlist the kids get to curate. “We’ve listened to a lot of K-pop,” she said. “We try to have as much joy and fun as we can for them, and to create those safe spaces and make sure that there’s laughter.”

As Wisconsinites worry about whether we will be next, I asked Elizabeth about the reluctance of some public officials to make concrete community defense plans, for fear it might put a target on our so-called sanctuary communities, and draw the very ICE surge they dread. 

“It comes back to being a good neighbor,” she said. “I’m not sure that any organizing that we’ve done or did or will do is necessarily a flag calling attention to us. It’s just we’ve got neighbors that are hungry. How are we going to feed our neighbors? We have neighbors that can’t pay their bills. How are we going to help? … To some degree it’s somewhat selfish, right? Like, I need, in order for my child to succeed in school, there needs to be continuity … I care about my community.”

“I would recommend people not be scared and not think of it as organizing against the government, but organizing for the people in your neighborhood,” she added. “And if it’s not your neighborhood, if it’s a neighborhood next to you, know where those neighborhoods are that might be impacted, and find ways that you can support that neighborhood.”

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.”

WASHINGTON — Five days after federal immigration enforcement agents killed the second of his constituents, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had a message for his peers: Speak out.

“Mayors, we do not back down to bullies. We stand up for democracy,” Frey said in a speech last month in Washington, D.C., at a gathering of hundreds of mayors from around the country.

Frey left the U.S. Conference of Mayors and rode to Capitol Hill to meet members of Congress, and five days after that, President Donald Trump said that he’d pull 700 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of Minneapolis. Some 2,300 would remain.

Frey, a liberal mayor governing a predominantly liberal city, illustrated his way of responding to Trump’s increasing encroachment into city limits and city business, and he urged that way — public, loud, strong — for others too.

But his path isn’t the right one for all mayors, who hold mostly nonpartisan jobs in an increasingly hyper-partisan political environment. Their jobs are primarily to pick up trash, fill potholes and keep people safe. While some view confrontation with the White House as the right approach, others are opting for accommodation — or just keeping their heads down.

Cities rely on federal money, and Trump has made it clear that more ICE agents and fewer federal dollars will flow to cities that don’t respond to his requests.

Plainfield, New Jersey, Mayor Adrian Mapp, the son of immigrants, said in an interview at the conference that some disagreements with the federal government, such as those over immigration raids, can feel like a personal and political battle. Residents expect their mayor to fight for them, he said, especially against unpopular policies or federal overreach.

“There is a sense in our community that this is what people want from their mayor — to know we’re standing up, putting resources together and doing everything we can to support those who are affected,” Mapp said.

Boots on the ground

Chris Jensen, a two-term mayor of Noblesville, Indiana, told Stateline that city leaders are often insulated from Washington’s partisan battles, and that unless those issues get local, they’re not worth engaging in.

“Mayors don’t get to go on cable news and just repeat talking points,” Jensen said. “We have to do the work every single day. Snow has to be plowed. Roads have to be built. Trash has to be picked up. That’s not partisan, that’s just governing.”

A registered Republican who used to work for former Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, Jensen said mayors must embrace bipartisanship so they can get resources for their constituents. And federal leaders, he added, could better utilize mayors by asking them for on-the-ground data and feedback from their constituents.

“We’re the boots on the ground,” Jensen said. “If you want to talk about housing, we know how many permits we pulled. If you want to talk about mental health, we know how many crisis calls we ran. Rely on us and get out of the way when we need to move faster.”

At last month’s conference, several mayors described tensions with the Trump administration — often not naming the president directly — as having intensified in recent months, particularly around immigration enforcement, federal deployment of National Guard troops and threats of revoked federal funding.

Much of Trump’s ire, they pointed out, has been aimed at big cities with large Democratic populations. The African American Mayors Association has noted that the cities Trump has decried as lawless and in need of National Guard troops — Chicago; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tennessee; Oakland, California; and Washington — are all led by Black mayors. All have seen significant declines in violent crime.

Trump has also threatened to send troops to New Orleans, despite its falling crime rate. Mayor Helena Moreno, who took office in January, was among the mayors visiting Washington. She told constituents in an Instagram message that she grabbed a moment with Trump at another event — and worked to shift his attention to other city needs.

“I thought it was very important for the president to hear directly from me on what the city of New Orleans actually needs from the federal government,” she said in the video. The city’s homicide rate is at its lowest in 50 years, she said, and she told Trump of the city’s infrastructure needs.

“I think he was receptive,” Moreno told constituents. “I’ve always said this: That even though I might not be politically aligned with someone, that if they are in a position of power, and have the ability to help the city of New Orleans, then I want to make sure that our needs are being told … so that we can figure out if there’s a path to being able to work together.”

Pushing back

Trump had told mayors that if they didn’t agree to drop sanctuary status, which bars local police agencies from working with ICE on immigration enforcement, their federal dollars would be cut off Feb. 1.

When the funding threats from the president didn’t materialize, newly sworn-in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration “will continue to stand up for the city” against efforts to restrict federal funding for cities based on politics and ideology.

But Mamdani, like other mayors, has looked for ways to connect with the president, meeting with Trump in the Oval Office shortly after his election last fall.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Browser, who finishes her third term next year, has said that whoever succeeds her in office will have an especially tricky job, because of the city’s unique circumstances — the federal government can overrule local laws.

Bowser pushed back strongly against Trump in his first term, but has been more pragmatic in his second term — looking for common ground over his National Guard deployment, accelerating homeless encampment sweeps and erasing a block-long “Black Lives Matter” mural that had been painted onto the street as protest in front of the White House. At the same time, Bowser has warned that such measures could limit city autonomy.

Similarly, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie persuaded Trump in a phone call last fall to hold off on surging immigration agents to the city, telling the president that the city was doing well. Trump told reporters he was giving San Francisco a chance.

But sustained pushback may have been what led to the scaling back of ICE operations in Minneapolis.

Portland, Oregon, Mayor Keith Wilson has been hoping for a similar reduction in immigration enforcement in his city as he calls for ICE officers to leave the city.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who noted at the conference that mayors are facing “headwinds” at the federal level when it comes to funding, recently joined regional mayors to announce a slew of accountability measures for ICE officers.

Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor James Solomon are both advocating for state lawmakers to pass legislation limiting how much state officials and local police can cooperate with ICE agents.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order to expand the city’s investigation into possible misconduct by ICE officers.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said during a panel session at the mayors conference that the administration’s use of partisan politics — and the scope of the federal government’s powers — has profoundly changed the job for mayors.

“It’s absolutely affecting trust at every level,” he said.

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

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.

President Donald Trump signs a government funding bill in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2026. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The partial government shutdown that began this weekend ended Tuesday when President Donald Trump signed the funding package that both chambers of Congress approved within the last week. 

“We’ve succeeded in passing a fiscally reasonable package that actually cuts wasteful federal spending while supporting critical programs for the safety, security and prosperity for the American people,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

The House voted 217-214 earlier in the day to clear the package for Trump following a tumultuous couple of weeks on Capitol Hill after it had stalled in the Senate. Democrats demanded additional restraints on immigration enforcement in reaction to the shooting death of a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis. 

Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., reached agreement last week to pull the full-year appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and replace it with a two-week stopgap measure.

That is supposed to give leaders in Congress and the administration a bit of time to find consensus on changes to how immigration officers operate.

Trump did not say if he agreed with any of the proposed changes to immigration enforcement floated by Democrats. 

“I haven’t even thought about it,” Trump said. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a morning press conference he wants negotiations to address local and state governments that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement activities, often called sanctuary cities. 

“What must be a part of that discussion is the participation of blue cities in federal immigration enforcement,” he said. “You can’t go to a sanctuary city and pretend like the law doesn’t apply there. It does and so we are going to be working through all that.” 

Administrative warrants debate

Johnson said GOP lawmakers would not agree to require federal immigration agents to secure judicial warrants in order to detain people, one of several proposals Democrats have put forward.

“We are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants because it is unimplementable,” he said. “It cannot be done and it should not be done and it’s not necessary.” 

Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, said those administrative warrants are “sufficient legal authority to go and apprehend someone.”

When pressed if that type of warrant is enough to enter someone’s home without violating the Fourth Amendment, Johnson said that a “controversy has erupted” over what immigration agents should do when someone they’re trying to detain enters a private residence. 

“What is Immigration and Customs Enforcement supposed to do at that point? ‘Oh gee whiz, they locked the door. I guess we’ll just go on.’ So there is some logic and reason that is to be applied here,” Johnson said. “Some have complained that the force has been excessive or what have you. I don’t know. We’re going to figure that out. It’s part of the discussion over the next couple weeks.”

Johnson said GOP negotiators will also make sure Congress maintains “important parameters” on immigration law and enforcement.  

“We can’t go down the road of amnesty, you can’t in any way lighten the enforcement requirement of federal immigration law,” he said. “That’s what the American people demand and deserve.”

Senators ‘ready to work’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said during an afternoon press conference that Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, would lead negotiations for Republicans in that chamber. 

“Katie Britt will lead that on our side, but ultimately, that’s going to be a conversation between the President of the United States and (Senate) Democrats,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said. 

During an afternoon press conference, Schumer said that “Thune has to be a part of these negotiations.” 

Schumer said that Democrats are going to detail their proposals to Republicans in the House, Senate and White House.

“If Leader Thune negotiates in good faith, we can get it done,” Schumer said of the Homeland Security funding bill. 

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who serves as ranking member on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said Senate Democrats are “ready to work.”

“We have a proposal ready. We’re going to start moving no matter who they (pick) at the end of the day, and the White House needs to be involved,” Murray said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said there are “a whole bunch” of proposals.

“The House had to do what they had to do … which is great. And what we now have to do is figure out what’s this universe of reforms that we can come to consensus on,” said Murkowski, who issued a statement last week declaring her support for “meaningful reforms” for ICE.

‘Most basic duty’ of Congress

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said during floor debate on the government spending package that clearing the legislation was the best way to move into negotiations about immigration enforcement.

“We will be in the strongest possible position to fight for and win the drastic changes we all know are needed to protect our communities — judicial warrant requirements, no more detentions or deportations of United States citizens, an enforceable code of conduct, taking off the masks, putting the badges on, requiring the body cameras, real accountability for the egregious abuses we have seen,” she said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said funding the government “is not an optional exercise, it’s the most basic duty we have in Congress.”

“Shutdowns are never the answer, they don’t work,” he said. “They only hurt the American people. So today lawmakers in this chamber have an opportunity to avoid repeating past mistakes.”

In addition to providing two more weeks of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the $1.2 trillion spending package holds full-year appropriations bills for the departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, Transportation and Treasury. The Senate voted 71-29 on Friday evening to send the package to the House.

Congress had already approved half of the dozen annual appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began back on Oct. 1. 

(Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Gracias, Minnesota.

Gracias, America.

While Minnesota is where much of the resistance has been happening, my gratitude spills beyond its borders because the resistance has been virtually everywhere ICE brutality occurs.

Even before two citizens were killed by immigration authorities in Minneapolis recently, the country responded with a collective “ugh” to federal agents’  tactics.

It hasn’t escaped notice that this purge’s purpose, according to abundant evidence from the Trump administration, is to prevent the “civilizational erasure” white supremacists believe will be triggered by non-white immigrants. 

The deportations have gone far beyond the stated mandate of removing undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes. Undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, legal immigrants and citizens have been routinely ensnared as if relentless quotas are at work.

The U.S. Supreme Court gave immigration authorities permission for their campaign of terror against all immigrants, whether they are in the country legally or not. Justice Brett Kavanaugh undid an order by a lower court that barred immigration authorities from using ethnicity as cause to arrest and detain. This is now appropriately called the Kavanaugh Stop.

Americans, even those who believe immigration really is a problem, are saying, enough.

Protests and polling tell us as much. 

Trump supporters are turning on key architects of the purge, advocating a purge of their own. They are urging throwing Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem under the bus to appease voters as the congressional midterm election begins in earnest. The administration sent the guy who led the crackdown in Minneapolis, Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, packing and replaced him with Border Czar Tom Homan.

This is progress.

Gracias, America, but the work won’t be done until Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller are effectively neutralized. They created and cheered on pedal-to-metal deportations that feature traumatizing children to deport them.

Other features of this purge:

• Harsh mass detention used as a cudgel to get immigrants to stop their claims for lawful stays.
• Inviting undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens and who are pursuing legal status to come in for interviews where they  are then arrested and detained for deportation.
• And the jack-booted tactics generally of masked immigration agents who trample rights and deny due process.

The protests grew after immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, white U.S. citizens who  had empathy for the scores of non-white victims of this purge.

They didn’t have to step up. And they haven’t been alone. 

Minnesota doesn’t have a large undocumented immigrant population relative to other states such as California, Texas, New York and Florida, but its citizens, armed only with whistles and cellphone cameras, have put themselves on the frontlines.

Empathy lives.

Enter hope.

U.S. history’s lesson: When injustices have been overcome, it is because people who don’t directly bear the brunt of the injustice have risen up. Good and Pretti were two of them.

More than 77 million people voted to reelect Trump in 2024. They knew exactly who and what they were getting.

It’s difficult to not give in to despair when your fellow Americans reelect venality and cruelty, Trump’s trademarks.

No, despair doesn’t quite capture the feeling. It is a gnawing pain in the soul that makes one feel so desolately alone. Cynicism and hopelessness beckon.

Gracias, America, for giving me and others hope that MAGA may not ultimately speak for America.

But, for now, it is a hope that requires nurturing. We’ve been disappointed before.

The midterm election and then the 2028 election will tell the tale. The first could make Congress a truly co-equal branch of government with the power to check this imperial presidency. The second will send an even stronger message if candidates who follow Trump’s playbook of nativist division are trounced at the polls.

It will take both those events to signal course correction.

Undocumented immigrants live in the crosshairs. It is part of their existence. They’ve always known that arrest, detention and deportation could happen. They’ve always known the risk but brave it to escape persecution and poverty in their native countries and to secure brighter futures for their children.

What’s different now is the brutality.

The broadening pushback is a signal that America may be at yet another turning point – that the direct targets of injustice are not alone, that others stand and fight with them because humanity counts and citizens feel called to stand up when they see American values betrayed.

From the son of people who were once undocumented, a heartfelt gracias.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., answers reporters’ questions after holding a press conference on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House is expected to vote as soon as Tuesday on the government funding package that will end the ongoing partial government shutdown once it becomes law. 

The Senate voted Friday evening to approve the legislation after President Donald Trump and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., brokered a deal to remove the full-year appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and replace it with a two-week stopgap. But the partial shutdown began early Saturday morning because the House had not yet acted on the same measure.

The additional time is supposed to give Republicans and Democrats more leeway to broker a deal on constraints to immigration enforcement after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota within the last month. 

Trump wrote in a social media post that lawmakers in the House need to accept the package cannot change further. 

“I am working hard with Speaker Johnson to get the current funding deal, which passed in the Senate last week, through the House and to my desk, where I will sign it into Law, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote. “We need to get the Government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY. There can be NO CHANGES at this time. We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly — One that will not benefit Republicans or Democrats. I hope everyone will vote, YES!”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Sunday interview on the Fox News show “Fox and Friends” that he was confident lawmakers would approve the funding package Tuesday. 

“I don’t understand why anybody would have a problem with this, though. Remember, these are the bills that have already been passed, we’re going to do it again,” the Louisiana Republican said. 

The House voted in January to approve two separate bundles of appropriations bills and to pass the full-year Homeland Security bill before sending all six government funding bills to the Senate as one package. 

The other six annual government spending bills have already become law. 

Johnson added during the interview that negotiations between the president and Senate Democrats were an important step. 

“I think there’s some healthy conversations in good faith that’ll be had over the next couple of days, and I look forward to that,” he said. 

Some of those policy negotiations that Senate Democrats are unified on include the banning of unidentified and masked federal immigration agents, requiring the use of body cameras and the end of roving patrols, among other things. 

But House Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee on Sunday issued a letter, urging their caucus to reject funding for DHS.

“Democrats must act now to demand real changes that protect our communities before Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) receive another dollar in funding,” they wrote. “This is what our constituents elected us to do – to hold ICE and this administration accountable when they fail to adhere to the Constitution or follow the law.”

In the letter, House Democrats are pushing for the Trump administration to end the months-long immigration operation in Minneapolis and requiring immigration agents to get judicial warrants, among other things.

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.

A jury found a Wisconsin man guilty Thursday of forging threats against President Donald trump in an attempt to get the victim in a robbery case against him deported.

Online court records show the Milwaukee County jury found 52-year-old Demetric Scott guilty of felony identity theft and witness intimidation after deliberating for most of the day. He represented himself during the three-day trial and was immediately taken into custody after the verdicts were read, leaving no way to reach him for comment on Thursday evening.

According to court documents, Mexican immigrant Ramon Morales Reyes was riding his bike in Milwaukee in September 2023 when Scott approached him and kicked him off the bike. He stabbed Morales Reyes with a box cutter before stealing the bike and riding away.

Scott was arrested hours later. While he was in jail, Scott wrote multiple letters posing as Morales Reyes to state and federal officials threatening to kill Trump at a rally. Federal immigration authorities took Morales Reyes into custody in May after he dropped his daughter off at school.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blasted his photo on social media, along with an excerpt of a letter he purportedly wrote in English promising to shoot Trump at a rally. The White House and Trump supporters played up his arrest as a major success in the administration’s crackdown on immigration.

Investigators determined that Morales Reyes couldn’t have written the letters since he doesn’t speak English well, can’t write in the language and the handwriting in the letters didn’t match his.

Meanwhile, Scott was making calls from jail in which he talked about letters that needed to be mailed and a plan to get U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities to pick someone up so his trial could get dismissed. He admitted to police that he wrote the letters.

Scott was charged separately with armed robbery, battery, and reckless endangerment in connection with the bike incident. The jury on Thursday acquitted him on the robbery and battery counts but found him guilty on the endangerment charge.

Court records show prosecutors charged Scott in 2022 with being a party to burglary. He was out on bail in connection with that case when the bike incident happened and wrote the letters, prompting prosecutors to charge him with three counts of bail jumping. The jury on Thursday found him guilty on one of those counts but acquitted him on the remaining two charges.

All together, he faces up to 26 years in the state prison system when he’s sentenced on Feb. 27. The burglary charge is still pending.

The Noem news release with Morales Reyes’ photo touting his arrest is still posted on the DHS website but now includes a disclaimer stating that he’s no longer under investigation for threatening Trump but remains in ICE custody pending deportation. The release says he entered the U.S. illegally nine times between 1998 and 2005 and has a criminal record that includes arrests for felony hit and run, property damage and disorderly conduct with a domestic abuse modifier.

Morales Reyes was released on $7,500 bond in June and is currently residing with his family in Milwaukee, his deportation defense attorney, Cain Oulahan, said. He has applied for a U-visa, a document that allows crime victims and their family members to remain in the U.S., but Oulahan said it could take years to obtain one.

Wisconsin online court records do not show any criminal cases involving Morales Reyes. Oulahan, his attorney, said that all the background checks he has conducted on Morales Reyes have turned up nothing.

Morales Reyes moved to the U.S. from Mexico in the 1980s. He worked as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, is married and has three children who are U.S. citizens, according to his attorneys. He said Scott’s conviction is a huge relief for Morales Reyes and his family.

“He’s been traumatized by going through all this, all these different levels that feel like victimization,” Oulahan said. “He just wants to work and be with his family again.”

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Jury finds man guilty of forging threat against Trump to get robbery case victim deported is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Protesters gather in downtown Milwaukee to voice opposition to the actions of federal immigration agents. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Hundreds of people marched up State St. Friday from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to the Wisconsin State Capitol to protest federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota and across the country.

The anti-ICE protest was part of a day of action across the country organized in reaction to the recent killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal agents in Minneapolis, and the ongoing federal crackdown in Minnesota. Friday’s national shutdown — a day of no school, no work and no shopping — was called for by student groups and immigrant rights advocates in Minnesota.

“What do we want? ICE out. When do we want it? Now,” protesters bundled in coats, scarves, gloves and hats chanted as they marched in the 13-degree weather.

“This month, I watched our neighbors in Minneapolis fight ICE on days colder than this one with love and solidarity,” Halsey Hazzard, a co-chair of Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America and a UW-Madison library employee, told the crowd gathered on the steps of the Capitol. Hazzard said the Trump administration “fears” people “coming together, reaching out to one another and learning that love is stronger than fear.” 

Dozens of businesses in Wisconsin’s capital city showed solidarity by closing up shop or donating proceeds to advocacy groups in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

People carried signs expressing their opposition to the actions federal immigration agents have  taken in Minnesota and elsewhere, including detaining children. “Children aren’t criminals. Trump is,” one sign declared.

Recently, the Trump administration came under fire for its detainment in Minnesota of 5-year-old Liam Ramos and Vice President J.D. Vance defended the action. Ramos remains in a detention facility in Texas.

“No fear! No hate! No ICE in our state!” the Madison marchers chanted.

“Immigrants Make America Great,” another sign stated.

One sign called out the only Republican in the open race for governor of Wisconsin, stating “Tom Tiffany Likes ICE.” Tiffany, the congressman who represents the Northwoods, said in the wake of the shooting of Pretti, who was an ICU nurse from Green Bay, that he would work with local, state and federal law enforcement to “remove criminal illegal aliens.” He urged Minnesota leaders to do the same.

“Cooperation is how you avoid tragic consequences. Deporting illegal aliens is how you make America safer. And waiting for the facts is how you avoid escalating the situation,” Tiffany said.

Pretti’s death prompted protests across the country, including in Green Bay, last weekend. 

Once the group made it to the Capitol, a number of speakers criticized the Trump administration and called for the elimination of ICE.

“Today, we are standing together to demand defund ICE,” Hazzard said.

“Defund ICE,” protesters echoed. 

“Not another dollar for ICE to terrorize our communities. We must strip ICE of its funding for both enforcement and detention. Abolish ICE. End the occupation of Minneapolis and all other cities,” Hazzard said.

A big crowd descends on Milwaukee’s Cathedral Park

Hundreds of people raised their voices in Milwaukee on Friday in opposition to a federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Trudging through  a  fresh coat of snow,  protesters streamed into Cathedral Square Park by the dozens. Activists from various local groups charged the crowd with a short round of speeches before taking to the streets for a march. 

Chanting “move ICE, get out the way;” “no ICE, no KKK, no Fascist USA,” and the names of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — two Minneapolis residents who were killed in separate incidents involving federal agents — the marchers filled the streets of downtown. The crowd of people of all ages from  young children to older seniors, passed the Federal Building of Milwaukee and City Hall before returning to the park. 

No violence, conflicts, or destruction occurred. A single drone was seen hovering over the march, and police presence was minimal.

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., surrounded by snow and ice, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The federal government began a partial shutdown early Saturday, even though Senate Democrats and President Donald Trump reached a deal that allows lawmakers more time to negotiate new constraints on immigration enforcement. 

The Senate voted 71-29 on Friday evening to pass the reworked government funding package before a midnight deadline. But the earliest the House could clear it for Trump’s signature is Monday evening, when members return from a recess.

The scheduling problem guarantees the current spending law, which Congress approved in November at the end of the last shutdown, will expire without a replacement. 

However, the effects on the nation are not expected to be as dramatic as those during the historic 43-day shutdown last year. Since Congress has already passed half of the dozen annual appropriations bills, this shutdown will only affect part of the government, and possibly with moderate impacts since it may only last a few days until the House acts.

The unexpected hitch in progress toward passing the $1.2 trillion package came about after immigration agents killed a second person in Minneapolis and Senate Democrats demanded reforms be included in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill. Trump has agreed to two weeks of negotiations on the DHS bill, which includes funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and other immigration enforcement agencies.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the full-year measures are “fiscally responsible bills that reflect months of hard work and deliberation from members from both parties and both sides of the Capitol.”

“The package also continues funding for the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks to allow us additional time to evaluate further changes in ICE procedures beyond those that we have already included in this bill,” she said. 

Once the package becomes law, she said, 96% of government will be funded for the fiscal year that began back on Oct. 1. 

Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said approving the five full-year bills and a stopgap for the Homeland Security Department represented “a simple, commonsense path forward.”

“It is good news we have a deal to fund these key programs families count on while work continues on serious DHS accountability over the next two weeks,” Murray said. “It could not be more clear that ICE and CBP are out of control and that we cannot just wait for the same president who caused this mess to address it.”

Senators from North Carolina, South Carolina tangle

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a floor speech several hours before voting began that he would hold up quick consideration of the funding package until leaders agreed to schedule floor votes on two separate proposals. 

The first would establish some sort of criminal penalty for local or state officials who do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agents, often called sanctuary cities. The second would clear the way for conservative organizations to file lawsuits against former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith for his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. 

“What is the right answer when a state or a mayor says, ‘I don’t like this federal law, I’m not going to do it because there’s good politics for me.’ I think you risk going to jail,” Graham said. “We cannot live in a country this way, where you get to pick and choose the laws you don’t like.”

A spokesperson for Graham later confirmed to States Newsroom that the senator didn’t want the votes Friday but “just sometime down the road.” Graham released a statement later in the afternoon that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had agreed to schedule floor votes “at a time to be determined.”

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis spoke directly after Graham and rebuked him for delaying the entire funding package. 

Tillis called on senators from both political parties to start negotiations about “common sense sorts of ways to lower the temperature” on immigration enforcement.

He said officials should “hold people accountable when they’re harming ICE agents, and hold ICE agents accountable if they reacted in a way that’s not consistent with their law enforcement training.”

Tillis argued that Graham’s approach to pushing for amendment votes that are unlikely to succeed wouldn’t have any tangible, real-world impacts. 

“One senator has a lot of power. And if you use it judiciously, you can be productive and make a difference,” Tillis said. “But if you use it in the heat of the moment, you can make a point that not a damn person is going to remember a month later.”

Some departments, judiciary affected

The departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, Transportation and Treasury will all experience the funding lapse. The Executive Office of the President, Supreme Court and judicial branch will also be affected. 

All other federal programs will continue uninterrupted, since their spending bills have become law, including those at the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Interior, Justice and Veterans Affairs, as well as military construction projects and funding for Congress. 

A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts wrote in a statement earlier this week that “operations would continue using court fees and other available balances through Wednesday, February 4. 

“The following day, on February 5, the Judiciary would begin operating under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act. Federal courts would continue operating, but would be limited to activities needed to support the exercise of the Judiciary’s constitutional functions and to address emergency circumstances.”

House Democrats demand changes in DHS bill

A spokesperson for the White House budget office said the departments and agencies affected by the funding lapse can use their contingency plans from the last shutdown unless they had “big changes.”

Those documents detail how many employees continue working without pay during a shutdown and how many are furloughed. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats wouldn’t support the spending bill unless major reforms are made in the way immigration officers conduct enforcement.

“We’re going to have to evaluate what the real opportunity is to get dramatic changes at the Department of Homeland Security. It has to be bold,” he said during a morning press conference. “The Senate has to do its thing before we have anything to evaluate.”