Democrats Plan To Block DHS Funding After Minnesota Killing. Republicans Should Join Them.

After federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, in Minneapolis on Saturday, Senate Democrats say they will block a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes appropriations for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

That doesn’t need to be a bipartisan effort—the bill will not clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold without some Democrats supporting it—but it ought to be. Members of Congress from both parties should recognize the political and moral imperative here, and they should demand changes in both policy and leadership.

The funding bill provides a timely bit of leverage for Congress. Government funding will lapse on Friday unless a series of appropriations bills are signed into law before then. Funding for DHS is included in a so-called “minibus” bill that also funds several other departments.

Hours after Pretti was killed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) said Democrats “will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.” Democrats hope to strip the DHS funding from the broader appropriations bill so that other parts of the government can be funded and a shutdown would affect only DHS. Though of course, Republicans could refuse to allow the bills to be separated and force Democrats to block the entire package.

So far, few Republican senators have indicated where they stand. Sen. Thom Tillis (R–N.C.) put out a statement on Sunday calling for a “thorough and impartial investigation into” Pretti’s killing. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) called for “a comprehensive, independent investigation” into the shooting and further action “to rebuild trust.”

This week is a critical one for Republicans in the Senate, most of whom have been unwilling to confront Trump directly. That should change now.

The best outcome here would be the abolition of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and the radical downsizing or elimination of DHS as a whole. But given the constraints of political reality, there are some more modest demands that both Democrats and Republicans should make.

First, they should refuse to allow the DHS funding package to pass without policy changes aimed at protecting constitutional rights and restoring public trust. That should include banning immigration agents from wearing masks or otherwise covering their faces during operations. It should also require accountability from the feds, including a clear commitment from the administration that local police and other authorities will be able to investigate crime scenes and prosecute agents who unlawfully harm people. 

The DHS funding bill that passed the House last week includes a few worthwhile provisions demanded by Democrats in that chamber, such as providing body cameras and having more independent oversight of immigration detention facilities (where several deaths have already occurred). But the bill does not require that immigration agents actually wear the body cameras. That must change.

Without more accountability for immigration officers who commit crimes, however, even body cameras do not help much. There was ample video evidence surrounding the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good—another U.S. citizen recently killed by the feds in Minnesota—but federal officials have protected the officers involved to an outrageous degree. It is impossible to believe that DHS will fully and fairly investigate either incident when top officials have prejudged the outcomes of those investigations and declared the shooters to be the victims.

Unsurprisingly, public trust in the Trump administration’s handling of immigration cratered in the aftermath of Good’s killing. Expect more of the same after this weekend.

Even Republicans who favor strong immigration enforcement and more deportations should want changes aimed at more orderly and constitutional enforcement of immigration laws. The chaos and violence on display in Minnesota are turning the public against those goals—as is the fact that Trump’s immigration crackdown, which was supposed to target criminals and gang members, has instead mostly captured individuals with no criminal records.

The eroding public trust points to the second set of demands that Congress should make: the removal of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino. Both have repeatedly misled the public and have lost the credibility necessary to do their jobs.

Noem, for example, claimed Good was engaged in “domestic terrorism” before being gunned down. On Saturday, Noem said Pretti was trying to harm immigration officers and was brandishing a gun. Neither of those things was true. He was trying to aid a fellow protester when several agents attacked him, disarmed him, and shot him in the back.

Bovino, who has adopted a thuggish aesthetic that should have no place in American law enforcement, claimed Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” Again, utterly untrue.

If the loss of public trust in Noem and Bovino isn’t enough to call for their jobs, the loss of confidence within their department ought to be. Fox News’ Bill Melugin reports that senior immigration officials in the administration are “uneasy & frustrated” with “DHS officials going on TV and putting out statements claiming that Alex Pretti was intending to conduct a ‘massacre’ of federal agents or wanted to carry out ‘maximum damage,’ even after numerous videos appeared to show those claims were inaccurate.”

Given their track records of lying to the American public, there is no way for Congress to trust that Noem and Bovino would implement any reforms that are promised in exchange for the DHS funding bill.

Tillis’ statement seems to reflect a growing sense that the administration needs new people leading its immigration efforts. “Any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins are doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy,” he said.

The Trump administration has the power to run its own immigration policy. But when those policies—and the officials responsible for them—have lost the public’s trust, it is incumbent on Congress to push for changes.