Despite months of outrage over ICE agents terrorizing communities, shooting civilians, and rounding up U.S. citizens, Democrats just backed a bipartisan spending bill that hands the agency $10 billion in funding—keeping its budget flat while the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown intensifies.
WHAT’S GOING ON: The $64 billion Department of Homeland Security funding bill passed with Democratic support this week. Party leaders defended the move by pointing to what they called “modest constraints” on Trump’s immigration enforcement and warning that a shutdown wouldn’t actually stop ICE anyway.
“ICE must be reined in, and unfortunately, neither a continuing resolution nor a shutdown would do anything to restrain it, because, thanks to Republicans, ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), noting the $75 billion Republicans already gave ICE last year through their reconciliation bill.
THE DETAILS: So what did Democrats actually get? The bill includes $20 million for body-worn cameras for ICE and CBP officers, some de-escalation training requirements, and—get this—training reminding officers that Americans have a right to record them. You know, the constitutional right that’s been on the books for centuries.
The bill also cuts Customs and Border Protection funding by $1 billion below what Trump requested and adds some oversight provisions. Democrats celebrated these as wins.
BUT BUT BUT: Immigrant advocates aren’t buying the “our hands are tied” defense. Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, called it “imagined helplessness.”
“There’s nothing in the text of this bill that meaningfully puts constraints on what agents are actually doing in the street, which is engaging in lawlessness and violence,” Altman told HuffPost. “We’re plunging toward authoritarianism and the DHS budget is allowing it.”
Her rhetorical question cuts deep: “Why don’t members just toss up their hands and close down their offices and go home?”
OF COURSE: This comes just weeks after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis—the same city where viral videos have shown agents aggressively confronting people who dare to record them. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called ICE “unconstitutional, unlawful, cruel…rogue, racist, and terrorizing communities.”
And yet here we are.
WHY IT MATTERS: Democratic leadership’s strategy is clear: avoid a shutdown, keep the government running, and focus on attacking Trump’s economy ahead of 2026 midterms. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) warned that a funding lapse would hurt TSA agents, delay FEMA assistance, and harm the Coast Guard—”all while ICE continues functioning without any change.”
The argument makes a certain cynical sense. But it also means Democrats are now co-owners of the machinery enabling Trump’s immigration crackdown—body cameras or not. When ICE agents terrorize the next community, the funding that made it possible will have Democratic fingerprints on it.