Senate Democrats’ ICE Proposals Are a Huge and Inexcusable Whiff

That proposal should have been joined by a long list of substantive demands. Most immediately, there is no way that Democrats should sign onto DHS funding until Customs and Border Protection and ICE personnel are completely gone from Minneapolis. The killings of Renee Nicole Good and Pretti and the siege of Minneapolis are the immediate cause of this crisis. Trump fully withdrawing forces from the city would be an important acknowledgment that his administration’s policies in the Twin Cities have been autocratic and deadly. The Senate Democrats’ demands are so meager that ICE and CBP could likely remain in Minneapolis even if the party’s conditions are met.

Second, Democrats should be doing much more to stop ICE from terrorizing communities and creating a climate of fear for not only illegal immigrants but legal ones too. Banning ICE from enforcement actions at houses of worship, day cares, courts, and hospitals is essential. A proposal from House Democrats to bar ICE from detaining American citizens should have been included in the Senate proposal too.

Third, Democrats should use this funding fight to limit Trump from using CBP and ICE as a national police force and, really, a standing army. Democrats should insist that Customs and Border Protection agents, whose job is to defend the border, are never be sent to nonborder areas like Chicago and Minneapolis. After all, it was CBP agents, not ICE, who killed Pretti. As law enforcement journalist Jessica Pishko explained in a recent episode of TNR’s show Right Now, CBP agents are even less trained in policing in urban settings than ICE agents and are more violent toward civilians. And combining CBP personnel with ICE gives the Trump administration the ability to send hundreds or even thousands of law enforcement personnel to a city without involving the National Guard, which usually requires the sign-off of a governor.