ICE Becomes Central to 2026
Democrats debate how best to push back against the rogue agency and its leaders.
EARLY LAST YEAR, as many Democrats became election-converted hardliners on immigration, a faction of the party preached caution. To them, the 2024 results were being overinterpreted. It was inevitable that the Trump administration would do something so brazen, so wrong, so illegal that the politics of immigration—forever on a pendulum—would swing back their way.
And it has. The deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador in defiance of a court order, the deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles, the shipping of Venezuelans like Andry José Hernández Romero to a torture prison, the prolonged Chicago assault, not to mention the more than 170 U.S. citizens detained by federal agents—all gradually chipped away at the public’s trust of Trump on his signature issue.
Now, Democrats believe a chunk of the foundation may fall apart, too. The shocking shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a white woman and a U.S. citizen, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, has been a Rorschach test for much of the political class, with each side drawing a narrative that fits their beliefs. But in conversations last week, Democrats said they believe that actual voters are processing the scandal far differently, recoiling at the callous response from the Trump administration and disturbed by video images of ICE agents appearing unconcerned with helping a visibly bloody Good slumped over in her car. They note that those colleagues who rushed to adopt a hardliner visage are showing no such impulse now.
“There’s a deep level of outrage, even from colleagues that I have not heard directly talk about [constraining ICE] before, and we need to seize this moment,” Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez said in an interview with The Bulwark, arguing that the killing of Good has shifted the conscience of her congressional colleagues toward considering ways to rein in ICE and DHS.
The grassroots energy within the party has picked up too. Groups like Indivisible are ramping up pressure on Democratic leadership to take action to restrain the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, especially with a government funding fight coming at the end of the month. Hundreds of “ICE Out for Good” protests took place around the country over the weekend urging lawmakers at the federal and state levels to respond to Good’s death. Organizers told The Bulwark that they wanted members of Congress to put DHS funding at the center of this month’s government-funding debate and said they supported attempts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—even if it was a mostly symbolic move. They also called on more states with Democratic trifectas to pass legislation banning ICE agents from wearing masks to protect their identities (so far California is the only state to pass such legislation).
“It is very clear to me that Democrats have cards to play in the leadup to the funding cliff,” said Ezra Levin, cofounder of Indivisible. “Are they going to vote for more money for Noem’s secret police force? That’s going to be on them. They can draw a line in the sand and say ‘No.’ They can make demands, and I believe they should.”
But while the thirst for direct confrontation with the White House on immigration may reflect a tectonic shift for the Democrats from just twelve months ago, there are (as always) internal divisions over how best tactically to do it.
In our conversations with party officials since Good’s killing, some lamented the lack of levers they possess to hold the administration accountable or slow down ICE operations given that they do not control either chamber of Congress. They stressed that the best remedy may simply be to turn Trump’s use of ICE into a liability for Republicans in the midterms.
But other party leaders said Democrats needed to be more pugnacious, more willing to take risks. Some Democratic officials have called for an immediate investigation into the Good shooting and demanded that Noem come before Congress to answer questions. Illinois Rep. Robin Kelly announced that she would file articles of impeachment against Noem. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy have suggested that they will not vote for a DHS budget that does not place restraints on the use of law enforcement for immigration enforcement operations. On an emergency Voto Latino call Thursday night, Murphy urged attendants to phone their Democratic senators and demand they join his and California Sen. Alex Padilla’s efforts to hold the line.
More quietly, there are conversations within party ranks over whether Democrats should threaten another government shutdown at the end of the month unless limitations are placed on ICE. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already indicated he has little appetite for another shutdown. And there are concerns among moderates that if Democrats push too hard on the issue, it could have the effect of shifting public attention from ICE’s specific actions onto the need for immigration enforcement and border protection more broadly. In other words, if not handled carefully, it could reignite the debate about whether Democrats are tough enough on immigration, crime, and law and order—not what Democrats want to be discussing in a midterm-election year.
These intraparty tensions are very likely to crest soon. Several House and Senate candidates have resurfaced calls to “Abolish ICE” since Good’s killing. The list includes Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Kat Abughazaleh, who is running for Congress in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District.
“ICE should be disbanded,” Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro told The Bulwark. “It has become a completely rogue operation arresting U.S. citizens, engaged in racial profiling, and deporting people out of the country without telling their families where they’re sending them.”
But, again, not everyone in the party is comfortable with calling for ICE’s abolition, noting that a similar movement during Trump’s first term came back to haunt Democrats in 2024.
“[Abolish ICE] is a virtue-signaling effort that does resonate well with the very online left and signals to most normie voters that you don’t believe in immigration enforcement,” said Matt Bennett, senior vice president of the Democratic centrist organization Third Way. “Stopping ICE thuggery is a goal that all Democrats share. The question is how best to bring that about? And our view is, win elections and throw these bums out and reform the agency.”
LOOMING OVER ALL THIS is the fear among Democrats and immigration advocates that the situation in the country is only going to worsen. The Trump administration has signaled that it is going to ramp up its presence in Minneapolis in the wake of Good’s killing. And the amount of federal funding going to ICE is growing.
“We have to define the stakes of this fight,” Kristian Ramos, a Democratic consultant, told The Bulwark. “If this current crop of ICE agents is the lowest number of ICE agents we’re going to have for the next five years, the next crop, with no real government oversight, will be chillingly worse, and we can expect more of these shootings again.”
Beyond the politics, there is also the morality. For many Democrats, the current moment, and how officials react to it, will define the party. And the absence of action now—the ducking of a real fight—would represent a dark signal of how impotent Democrats would be should they win the House majority in November.
“The Democratic party in Congress is not going to be any braver in the majority than it is in the minority,” one House member told The Bulwark. “If people are not willing to put up a real fight about DHS funding in the minority they’re less likely to be willing to draw a red line in the majority, because the whole point becomes maintaining the majority so you never take courageous and sometimes necessary positions.”
“The country has to get angry and draw its own line because MAGA people are pushing the limits,” the House member said.
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“The shocking shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a white woman and a U.S. citizen, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, has been a Rorschach test for much of the political class, with each side drawing a narrative that fits their beliefs.”
Good grief. This is not about what each side believes. There are videos and witnesses. This was murder. The Administration is engaged in an Orwellian attempt to convince people that they can’t believe what they see. Stop your toxic both-sides fiction.
With all due respect — I mean it — slow your roll. There’s no central issue. There’s ICE. There’s the Epstein Files, there’s unapproved military action, there’s serious fitness for office questions.. it’s *all* important. There is no “the big issue here” discussion with this filthy excuse for a presidential administration.