Republicans and Democrats in Congress are in a showdown over immigration enforcement in American cities as the Friday deadline approaches to fund the Department of Homeland Security. Last week, Democrats released a set of 10 “guardrails” they said were needed “to rein in ICE and ensure no more lives are lost.”
Polls show that while many Americans say they support President Trump on immigration, a growing number believe his administration’s enforcement tactics have become too aggressive. Two U.S. citizens who were protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by federal officers in Minneapolis last month. ICE and Border Patrol officers have also stopped people who have an accent or a dark complexion, pulled citizens out of their cars and pointed guns at protesters.
Republicans say that the Democrats’ proposals go too far. “You can’t in any way lighten the enforcement requirement of federal immigration law,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement last week.
Many of the Democrats’ proposals lack specifics. And civil rights advocates and some ICE officials from previous administrations are questioning how much difference the measures would make on the ground.
Here is a rundown of some of the main proposals and what impact they might have.
Ending Roving Patrols
A number of the Democrats’ demands are aimed at stopping the sweeps that have made many families afraid to leave their homes. Democrats want to return to the days when immigration officers primarily targeted specific people who had evaded a final deportation order or had been convicted of serious crimes. (Targeted operations can result in so-called collateral arrests of others at the scene.)
What the Democrats are proposing: Democrats want to prohibit enforcement near sensitive locations, including hospitals, schools, child care facilities, churches, polling places and courts, mirroring a restriction that existed before the current administration.
Democrats would also like to prohibit immigration officers from conducting stops based on individuals’ presence at certain locations, their job, their spoken language and accent or their race and ethnicity.
Will it have an impact? Several experts applaud the proposal to bar immigration enforcement in schools and churches. “Protecting these sensitive locations is good for communities as a whole,” said Deborah Fleischaker, who was a senior ICE official in the Biden administration.
Stopping racial profiling has proved to be a challenge for law enforcement generally, in part because officers “can easily circumvent such limitations” by claiming another pretext for suspicion, according to a critique of the Democrats’ proposals by Campaign Zero, a research and advocacy group that has helped craft laws and policies to limit police misconduct.
Government officials have argued that ICE agents do target specific individuals, and have said they should not be hobbled in their enforcement efforts.
Protection from Search and Seizure
One of the biggest points of contention has been whether federal agents need to obtain warrants from a judge as they pursue unauthorized immigrants. Federal law allows officers to execute administrative arrest warrants, which can be issued by ICE officials, or to make warrantless arrests if they have probable cause to believe a person is in the country illegally and is “likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.” Last month ICE expanded its definition of “likely to escape.”
Beyond that is the question of what authority is needed to enter a private home. ICE long maintained that officers needed a judicial warrant, signed by a judge, to do so, and many legal experts agree that a judicial warrant is a basic Fourth Amendment protection. But the Trump administration has argued that an administrative warrant is enough.
What the Democrats are proposing:
The Democrats’ proposal says that immigration officers should not enter “private property” without a warrant issued by a court. “Private property” was intentionally broadly worded so that it could include cars, according to a Democratic aide familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak about the talks.
In addition, Democrats have said they want to “improve warrant procedures and standards,” On that point, the Democrats’ proposal is vague, leaving open the question of whether they want ICE officers to obtain a judicial warrant to make an arrest on the street.
Republicans have seized on that uncertainty to criticize the plan. “Adding a whole new layer of judicial warrant requirements is an unworkable proposal,” Mr. Johnson said.
Will it have an impact? Even if the Constitution requires a judicial warrant to enter homes, spelling it out in law might not be a bad idea, experts said. “If you, in law, reiterate that the interpretation they’ve been using to expand warrantless entry is not allowed by law, they either have to follow that or they can be held responsible in court,” Ms. Fleischaker said, referring to ICE.
Masks and Body Cameras
The identity of immigration officers is another area of controversy. Many cover their faces with masks during enforcement operations, and Republicans have insisted that masks are necessary to prevent officers from being identified and then harassed or doxxed. Many officers have been operating without body cameras to document their interactions, but have said they are identifying and tracking protesters and observers, some of whom have claimed that they experienced retaliation.
What the Democrats are proposing: The Democrats want to require ICE officers to use body cameras “for accountability, not tracking.” Democrats are also seeking to prohibit officers from covering their faces, ending what they have said was, in effect, a secret police force. Critics have said that allowing officers to wear masks makes it too easy to impersonate them. The Democrats’ proposal would require officers to display their agency, unique I.D. number and surname, and to state their I.D. number and surname if asked.
The Democrats also want to stop ICE from collecting information about critics and protesters. Advocates have said that the agency should go further by ending contracts with technology companies.
Will it have an impact? Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, has already said that body cameras will be issued to officers. Heidi Altman, the vice president for policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group, said that body cameras might not reduce misconduct. “Agents are out in the field wearing body-worn cameras and engaging in violence all the time,” she said, noting that the officer who killed Ms. Good was recording video with his cellphone during the encounter.
John Sandweg, who led ICE during the Obama administration, said that allowing the public to identify ICE officers was necessary to ensure accountability. But he was also sympathetic to concerns about doxxing and suggested a compromise: Agents could display an identifying number but no name.
Alternative Ideas
ICE officials have blamed a lack of cooperation from local officials for causing chaos, although Mr. Trump said that the agency could use a “softer touch.” Former immigration officials and civil rights groups have offered other ideas to bring calm:
Cap the number of ICE officers. Campaign Zero argues that there would be fewer debates over masks and tactics if ICE had not drastically increased the size of its force. The group has proposed cutting the agency to the size needed to focus on violent criminals.
Send the Border Patrol back to the border. In an opinion piece on what steps Congress should take, two former ICE officials, including Ms. Fleischaker, and an immigration lawyer suggested restricting Border Patrol operations in American cities and reducing the size of the zone where those agents typically work, currently set at 100 miles from the border.
Hold federal agents accountable. A federal statute known as Section 1983 offers a much-used pathway to sue state and local officials — but not federal officials — for civil rights violations. A growing chorus of legal experts has called for Congress to expand the law.
Publishing monthly data. ICE used to publish statistics on arrests, including how many people detained had criminal records, but the agency has stopped doing so under the Trump administration. “The administration sits there and says Minneapolis is necessary,” Mr. Sandweg said. “Necessary because we have to get the worst of the worst. Necessary to protect America. Necessary for public safety. OK, let’s see the data.”
Whatever Congress may agree on, it has always been difficult to restrict law enforcement without leaving room for discretion — meaning that much depends on the tone set by the agency’s leaders.
For the Democrats, Mr. Sandweg said, “it’s going to be incredibly difficult to rein in the things that bother them without winning the White House.”
Shaila Dewan covers criminal justice — policing, courts and prisons — across the country. She has been a journalist for 25 years.
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