The top Democrats in the House and Senate declined to say whether they would slash funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement after an agent in Minneapolis killed 37-year-old Renee Good.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, both of New York, held a press conference on Thursday. The Independent asked about whether Democrats would rein in ICE spending should they win back the majority in November.
“Let me first say that the killing of Renee Nicole Good was an abomination, a disgrace, and blood is clearly on the hands of those individuals within the administration who have been pushing an extreme policy that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement connected to removing violent felons from this country,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries also criticized Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who claimed that ICE agents in Minneapolis opened fire on Good as she drove her SUV because she “engaged in domestic terrorism.”
“There's no evidence at all that this was a justified shooting, so let's deal with the tragedy right now, she hasn't even been buried,” he said. “Her family is grieving.”
Schumer also criticized the shooting.
“Looking at the video, there seemed no justification to what these agents did,” Schumer said. “There needs to be a full investigation at the federal level, although I have little faith in the FBI is doing a fair investigation or DHS, but at the local level as well.”
But both Jeffries and Schumer declined to say whether they would use their authority to rein in ICE. Democrats hope to take back the majority in at least the House of Representatives in November.
Jeffries later clarified that he was focused mostly on extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace. Schumer avoided questions on his way out of the press studio.
If Dems take the House, it would give them the ability to control how much money ICE receives in the annual Homeland Security appropriations bill. When Republicans passed the One Big, Beautiful Bill last year, they included $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement operations, including recruiting 10,000 new agents. Altogether, ICE’s budget will balloon to $170 billion.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Democrats should push for reducing funding.
“This Congress, this Republican Congress, while they cut a trillion dollars to Americans’ health care, and they exploded the ice budget to $170 billion making it one of the largest paramilitary forces in the United States with zero accountability as they shoot U.S. citizens in the head, absolutely,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent.
The House and Senate are currently negotiating the bill that appropriates money to the Department of Homeland Security, which requires 60 votes. But Schumer and Jeffries did not commit to using the appropriations process as leverage.
President Donald Trump had dispatched ICE to Minneapolis last year as part of a crackdown on the city’s Somali-American community. The president has called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who is Somali-American, “garbage” and said her friends are as well amid an ongoing fraud scandal in the state.
Republicans, including those from Minnesota, have largely attacked the Somali community in Minneapolis.
“And I have three words regarding Somalis who have committed fraud against the American taxpayer and have refused to assimilate as Americans send them home,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said in a press conference on Wednesday hours before the shooting. “Our nation will no longer tolerate those who take advantage of our charity and refuse to assimilate into our culture.”
Shortly after the shooting, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) confronted Emmer on the House floor.
“Look, this administration has a big political stunt underway in Minnesota, and today it got a woman killed,” Craig, who is running for Senate, told The Independent. “You know, it's just stunning because, you know, our Republican colleagues have turned into something that I don't recognize anymore.”
Craig pointed to how in the past, Emmer co-founded a Congressional Somalia Caucus.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) put it more bluntly.
“When you give people with guns impunity, dangerous things take place,” she told The Independent.
But Ocasio-Cortez is not the only Democrat floating reducing funding for ICE. Rep. Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.), whose district includes Minnesota’s Twin Cities, told The Independent that there needed to be some accountability.
“A hundred percent that has to be on the table,” Morrison told The Independent. When asked if that meant reducing funding or accountability for ICE, she said “Perhaps both.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona–who once struck a more progressive tone on immigration, but has pivoted to the center– also told The Independent that there needed to be accountability measures.
“It just tells you that the ice these guys aren't really trained enough to actually be dealing with these dynamic situations, and that now it's more designed to be an arm of the president than it is to actually create law enforcement when it comes to deportations and the border,” Gallego told The Independent of the shooting.
When asked if Democrats would take measures to rein in ICE through appropriations or another process, Gallego said “Appropriations, whatever we can do.”
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