The American Immigration Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown stretches into its 40th day, the pressure to reach a funding agreement is intensifying. Airport security lines are growing longer and thousands of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel have missed paychecks.
With new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin stepping in to lead the agency, members of Congress and the Trump administration are engaged in a new round of talks to try to reach a deal.
The shutdown started when Democrats voted against annual funding for DHS in response to Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota. Members of Congress and the White House have been negotiating for weeks on potential reforms to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) enforcement practices that Democrats argue are necessary before DHS’ annual budget can be approved.
This week, a proposal from the White House and GOP leaders emerged to fund substantial parts of DHS, including TSA, but without any of the ICE and CBP reforms. According to public reporting, the deal would withhold about $5 billion from ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) while providing ICE’s other components, including Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and CBP nearly $22 billion in appropriated funds for fiscal year 2026.
This comes shortly after a White House proposal last week with reforms that largely restate existing policy or law.
Below is a closer look at reforms that could increase accountability in immigration enforcement.
Substantial funding cuts to immigration enforcement – not just at ICE ERO
In addition to any funding the agencies receive in these negotiations, DHS still has nearly $150 billion from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This includes nearly $75 billion for enforcement and detention operations in addition to the annual funding the agency receives, which is seven times ICE’s annual budget. DHS has wide discretion in how it decides to spend this money. So far, ICE already has more than doubled its number of deportation officers and proposed a $38-billion-dollar transformation of the immigration detention system to more rapidly detain and deport noncitizens.
For reforms to ICE and CBP to be truly meaningful, they would need to be coupled with reforms to funding reductions to better focus agency activities. Focusing on simply cutting funding from one sub-agency within DHS, such as ICE ERO, fails to acknowledge that other DHS subagencies have been used to expand civil immigration enforcement in the interior. For example, last year the CATO Institute found that ICE’s HSI, which traditionally focuses on criminal investigations, had nearly 87% of its agents diverted to low-level immigration arrests. And CBP’s Border Patrol agents have been instrumental in the enforcement surges across U.S. cities. Indeed, Alex Pretti, was shot and killed in Minneapolis by two Border Patrol agents.
Without reductions in funding for ICE and CBP (not just ICE ERO), elected officials and the public can expect the Trump administration to maintain significant discretion in maintaining its mass deportation agenda.
Any funding cuts must include meaningful reforms
Limit Enforcement at “Sensitive Locations” — Without Broad Exceptions
Under this administration, DHS’ immigration enforcement practices in and around health care and school settings across the country have led to patients foregoing care and children not attending school. In Chicago, “Operation Midway Blitz,” led to a drop in school attendance in half of all school districts. In Minneapolis, even after a draw down in aggressive immigration enforcement, immigrant community members hid at home, avoiding public spaces and institutions. While DHS has long maintained internal guidance prohibiting most immigration arrests at sensitive sites such as schools, medical facilities, houses of worship, and churches, the Trump administration rescinded this guidance in its first days in office. A negotiated funding deal for DHS should prohibit immigration arrests in these sensitive locations. Any list of areas that are off limits must also include those vulnerable to political influence, such as polling sites.
Such a list should not include vague exceptions that can be easily manipulated. Any proposal that allows ICE and Border Patrol to retain wide discretion to override protections for sensitive locations will allow agents to continue to operate as they have been.
Visible Officer Identification
Meaningful accountability requires clear and consistently visible identification standards that allow communities to know which agency is acting and who is responsible for specific enforcement actions. Current law is insufficient to ensure that this happens.
While regulations already require agents to identify themselves, it applies only to the person arrested, sometime after arrest. Similarly, ICE’s agency policy requires its agents to carry badges and credentials and to identify themselves but only “when required for public safety or legal necessity.”
Across American cities, in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Charlotte, ICE agents have consistently refused to identify themselves, causing panic on the streets and an increase in criminal ICE impersonators. However, ICE and CBP agents should be required to use visible identification in lieu of face masks, so that officers are evade accountability. Just as other law enforcement agents use clear identification, immigration agents should follow these same best policing practices.
Enforce and Strengthen Warrant Requirements
The U.S. Constitution requires DHS agents to obtain a judicial warrant to enter a home without consent, but for months DHS agents were told by supervisors they could enter homes without judicial warrants in violation of the Fourth Amendment. DHS agents also have violated immigration law by failing to meet the statutory requirements for issuing “administrative warrants.” Unlike other law enforcement agencies that are required to obtain approval from a judge for an arrest warrant, DHS agents can investigate, issue, and sign their own administrative warrants prior to arresting noncitizens. Without a third-party judicial officer to determine whether there is sufficient legal basis for an immigration arrest, ICE and CBP are permitted to make their own decisions on who they should arrest. This has led to the agencies abusing their arrest authority and making seemingly unlawful immigration arrests.
Congress should make reforms to DHS arrest authority and strengthen the requirements for administrative warrants including specific consequences for DHS agents’ failure to abide by any new requirements.
Independent Investigations Over Agents’ Misconduct
DHS has demonstrated an unwillingness to address misconduct by its own agents. It has refused to cooperate with state and local investigators in Minnesota following the killings of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, and its leadership has obstructed the internal Inspector General’s work for months. To ensure accountability for officer abuse and overreach — including excessive force and incidents resulting in death — Congress must establish strong independent accountability mechanisms, including external investigations and congressional inquiries.
What’s next?
The president’s mass deportation agenda has had devastating consequences — including the highest number of deaths in immigration detention in decades—and fueled aggressive tactics that most Americans oppose.
While the path forward remains unclear, any final deal must make funding cuts to ICE and CBP and implement legal reforms that address the systemic failures and lack of accountability that currently exist across DHS.
