Northwest lawmakers weigh in on ICE conduct as impasse leads to Homeland Security shutdown

WASHINGTON – Before senators and House members left the Capitol on Thursday with funding for the Department of Homeland Security guaranteed to lapse at week’s end, Northwest lawmakers illustrated just how tough it could be to bridge the gap between the parties over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

With roughly 96% of the government already funded through the end of September, the partial government shutdown is limited to DHS, a department that includes the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration and other agencies. But the parts of DHS whose conduct Democrats oppose – Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol – won’t run out of funding because Republicans gave the agencies an unprecedented $140 billion in extra funds when they passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last July.

“Thinking about this from a Republican standpoint, where’s the Democrat leverage?” Rep. Russ Fulcher, a Republican who represents North Idaho, said in a brief interview on Wednesday. “Nobody wants to see anything shut down, but ICE is funded for now, right? So really, it becomes a question of what else goes down while this gets ironed out.”

As the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for negotiating funding bills, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington has been at the center of talks between the White House and Senate Democrats over the conduct of ICE and Border Patrol agents. Murray struck a deal with GOP senators in January that would have required federal immigration agents to wear body cameras and uniforms following the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, but after Border Patrol agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in the city two weeks later, the Washington senator vowed to block funding for DHS until Republicans agree to further accountability measures.

“It is clear to just about everyone in every part of this country that ICE and CBP are out of control and must be reined in,” Murray said on the Senate floor Thursday, using the acronym for Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol.

Pointing out how GOP lawmakers have opposed Democrats’ efforts to give the IRS more funding to crack down on tax evasion – something Republicans often describe as an abuse of government power – Murray insisted that she wouldn’t help give DHS additional funding unless Republicans agree to rein in the department’s aggressive pursuit of immigrants, which has resulted in the detention of U.S. citizens based on their accents or the color of their skin.

“The truth is, the government tyranny Republicans long warned about is here, and many of them are just silent,” Murray said. “They enabled it by cutting a $140 billion blank check for Secretary Noem to deploy masked ICE and CBP agents to terrorize our communities.”

Murray and her fellow Democratic leaders have made 10 demands of Republicans in exchange for funding DHS. They include barring agents from indiscriminately arresting people in roving patrols or entering homes without a warrant signed by a judge; halting raids in “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools and hospitals; requiring agents to show their faces and identify themselves; and mandating that all agents wear body cameras.

Republicans and Trump administration officials have expressed support for the use of body cameras, which was part of the deal Murray negotiated before Alex Pretti’s killing in January, but GOP leaders have said requiring agents to take off their masks is a nonstarter.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Sunnyside, sits on the House Appropriations Committee and the panel’s Homeland Security Subcommittee. But despite being in a position that would typically be involved in negotiating with Democrats on the funding bill, Newhouse said in an interview on Thursday that the talks have been between Senate Democrats and the White House.

Newhouse said he personally supports some measures, such as requiring immigration agents to wear uniforms, “to give the public more confidence that this isn’t just a bunch of rogue officers out doing whatever they want.” But the GOP congressman said that although he agrees that the “optics” of masked agents patrolling the streets may be bad, he doesn’t support requiring them to show their faces.

“People can pretty much determine your identification pretty easily. I would have to think about the concern for them, their safety, their families’ safety,” Newhouse said of ICE and Border Patrol agents, adding that “what they’re tasked with is not an easy thing to do.”

In an interview on Feb. 4, Fulcher said he understands concerns that immigration agents could be identified and targeted if they show their faces, but he said he would support barring their use of masks.

“Part of the price that I pay – or anybody in public office pays – is that, yes, you are known and you’re subject to criticisms and protests and the things that come with that job,” he said. “Nobody deserves to be threatened, but I personally struggle with the masks.”

Congress won’t return to the Capitol until Feb. 23, after a weeklong recess for President’s Day. In a move that may change the negotiating dynamics in the meantime, Trump border security chief Tom Homan announced Thursday he was ending what ICE and CBP call “Operation Metro Surge,” in which the agencies sent more than 3,000 officers to the Twin Cities.

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Spokane Republican, said he would like to see “a less militaristic and tactical approach” from federal immigration agents and more cooperation from state and local law enforcement agencies to turn over violent offenders and people who have violated immigration laws to federal officials.

“I think if we can get that kind of cooperation, then the temperature can be brought down and communities can be kept safe,” Baumgartner said in an interview on Tuesday.

Baumgartner praised Trump’s decision to put Homan in charge of the immigration crackdown in Minnesota, replacing Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino. Both Bovino and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared immediately after the killings of Renee Good and Pretti in January that they were “domestic terrorists.”

“I think the – for lack of a better term – more theatrical approach of Secretary Noem and Bovino has been counterproductive,” Baumgartner said. “I think, when the secretary was posing with firearms and giving the impression that she was ready to tactically roll out with law enforcement, I think that was counterproductive to the seriousness of the moment.”

Polls broadly show majorities of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the U.S.-Mexico border, where illegal crossings fell dramatically last year, but think his administration’s immigration enforcement inside the country has gone too far. An Associated Press-NORC poll released on Thursday shows that each party has the trust of only about 30% of Americans on the issue of immigration.

After Good and Pretti, two 37-year-old U.S. citizens, were shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, Baumgartner sent a survey to people who subscribe to his email newsletter asking how they viewed the killings. In results he posted on X on Jan. 26, nearly 54% of respondents said the agents “used excessive force and should be held accountable,” while about 19% said the agents “acted appropriately.”

“I work for the people of Eastern Washington, and it’s important that I hear their views,” Baumgartner said in an interview Jan. 28, noting that the survey didn’t use a random sample. “I think the results of the poll showed that the people of Eastern Washington have a sense of unease about what happened in Minnesota, and do want some of those same questions that I would like to have answered, you know, answered as well. They have similar concerns about what is the administration’s prioritization of immigration cases.”

Asked how he thinks the administration should prioritize immigration enforcement, Baumgartner said it should target drug traffickers, sexual predators and other violent offenders first. He added that “sanctuary” policies like the Washington state law that limits state and local law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE makes it harder for the agency to do that.

In addition to the deadly shootings of Good and Pretti, federal immigration agents have detained U.S. citizens and legal residents in Minnesota and other states, taking advantage of a Supreme Court decision in September that has – at least temporarily – allowed them to detain and question people based on their race, accent, job or location. While ICE has traditionally targeted immigrants who have committed serious crimes or have been ordered by a judge to leave the country, the Trump administration has taken a different approach, arresting people with pending asylum claims and seeking to strip legal status from immigrants who have been in the country legally.

More than 100 refugees – people who had already gone through a rigorous vetting process before entering the United States and were in the country legally – have been arrested as part of the administration’s policy of “re-vetting” people from other countries, the New York Times reported. Meanwhile, the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program has been effectively closed with the exception of white South Africans whom Trump claims are the victims of genocide – a claim based on a misrepresentation of a crime problem that affects all South Africans.

It has been nearly 40 years since Congress last overhauled the nation’s immigration laws, when then-President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act into law in November 1986. Baumgartner, Newhouse, Fulcher and Simpson all said it’s time for Congress to pass immigration reform legislation. The challenge is what Republicans and Democrats could agree on in an election year when few members of either party want to be seen as giving in to the other side.