Congressional progressives vow to block DHS funding without reforms

[Uncle Joe]

Ilhan Omar said her caucus will ‘oppose all funding’ for immigration enforcement unless militarized policing ends

Progressives in the US Congress on Tuesday vowed to oppose legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless it included significant reforms to immigration enforcement, amid a widening roar among Democrats following the killing of a US citizen in Minnesota last week.

(snip)

The debate over DHS funding has been rocked by last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent after the Trump administration ordered a surge of federal officers into the city amid its push for mass deportations.

“Our caucus members will oppose all funding for immigration enforcement in any appropriation bills until meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices,” the caucus’s deputy chair, Ilhan Omar, who represents most of Minneapolis, told a press conference at the US Capitol.

“We cannot and we should not continue to fund agencies that operate with impunity, that escalate violence and that undermine the very freedoms this country claims to uphold.”

(snip)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/13/dhs-funding-congress-progressives

[Martin Eden]

1. "militarized policing practices"

Are these militarized agents actually "policing" -- a term that carries the imprimatur of upholding and enforcing the law?

Their "practices" might accurately be called policing if they were apprehending and deporting undocumented immigrants with no legal status by utilizing judicial warrants and Constitutional due process.

In some cases they might have warrants, but they have been videotaped busting into people's cars and homes without first showing warrants, as required by law. They are also arresting and deporting without due process immigrants who have legal status, sometimes at scheduled court appearances in their lawful course to become citizens.

Beyond that, they are racially profiling people just going about their daily lives -- often brutalizing US citizens. From Trump to Noem and down the chain of command, part of their mission now is to intimidate and instill fear in American citizens engaged in their rights of free speech and protest in opposition to the cruel and illegal "practices" terrorizing their communities.

DHS and ICE have become a political arm and private army serving the interests of an utterly corrupt president using the powers of his office to enrich himself and his cronies while punishing political opponents and any organization which doesn't adequately bend its knee -- utilizing the Justice Dept and FBI headed by those he appointed to do his bidding.

In a larger sense, the "policing practices" most needed to safeguard the American people and the Constitutional rule of law upon which our freedom and prosperity depends would be to remove this lawless president by Constitutional means and bring indictments against those who have committed crimes in his behalf.