In its first year, the second Trump administration unleashed a campaign of terror in cities and neighborhoods across the United States. Social media has been flooded on a daily basis with videos of masked federal agents outfitted for war, smashing windows, dragging people from their cars, and pointing guns at protestors. Across the country, people now regularly drive through checkpoints where they are at risk of being detained based on the color of their skin, the languages they speak, or what accent they have.
Then on January 7, in Minneapolis, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent named Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a wife and mother of three, at point blank range in broad daylight. The very next day, Customs and Border Patrol agents shot two people in Portland, Oregon. These acts of violence did not happen in a vacuum. In the last five months alone, immigration officers have shot at least nine people, and 2025 is on record as the deadliest year for immigrants in ICE custody in more than two decades.
For the millions of people horrified by ICE and CBP’s violence, we have a critical window to demand accountability. The House and Senate appropriations process is currently underway, which means that our elected representatives can and must leverage budget negotiations to rein in out-of-control agencies.
After all, they helped pave the way to our current crisis.
The Horrors of H.R. 1
Last year, Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security an unprecedented and obscene windfall to supersize its deportation force and detention network. As a result, ICE gained a larger budget than most countries’ militaries.
To help make this paramilitary nightmare possible, H.R. 1 slashed funding for basic safety net programs like Medicaid and anti-poverty programs, redirecting more than $150 billion of taxpayer dollars towards Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
As detailed in our recent post, since H.R. 1’s passage, the number of people in immigration detention has skyrocketed. Predictably, private prison companies are reaping record profits. In a November financial report, George Zoley, Geo Group Executive Chairman, shared that the private prison titan had entered new or expanded contracts that represent over $460 million in new annualized revenues or “the largest amount of new business we have won in a single year in our Company’s history.”
What Can be Done?
Congress now has an opportunity to use the power of the purse for good. It can and must use the appropriations process to bring these agencies to a heel. This means:
- Refusing to vote for any FY2026 appropriations bill that includes increased funding for ICE or CBP, including funds for detention.
- Refusing to vote for any appropriations bill for DHS beyond January 30 unless it
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- Strengthens restrictions on ICE and Border Patrol’s ability to conduct dragnet arrest operations and target people based on their race, language or accent, place of employment, or location at the time of the apprehension.
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- Ends border patrol deployment to our cities and rejects its ever-expanding mandate in immigration enforcement.
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- Limits DHS’s reprogramming and transfer authority, including specifically preventing reprogramming and transferring funds for detention.
To be clear, these are the bare minimum reforms needed to protect our communities from escalating militarization and violence. The stakes are extremely high and urgent.
The Trump administration has made clear that it will increase the speed and ferocity of their attacks. In fact, just hours after Renee Good’s killing, Vice President J.D. Vance took to Fox News to boast of 10,000 new ICE agents going “door to door” throughout our county, using personal data harvested by private contractors.
Regardless of political party or citizenship status, members of the public need to take these plans very seriously and ask themselves:
Does this sound like a democracy? If you heard the knock on your door, would you feel safe opening it?
If not, then now is the time to contact your Congressperson and urge action.
Tell Congress: No More Tax Dollars for ICE & CBP. We Demand Accountability.
Congress cannot give ICE and CBP another dollar while they continue to visit terror on our communities. We demand real limits, strict accountability, and an end to this violence.
SEND A MESSAGELucy v. Skrmetti
This lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of H.B. 1704, a Tennessee bill that unlawfully usurps federal control over the U.S. immigration system.
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