What Can You Do About ICE?

The deportation sweep by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies of the Department of Homeland Security is both lawless and brutal. A few facts tell the story.  

Immigration agents have overrun communities. A contingent of 3000 agents – five times the size of the local police force – descended on Minneapolis in January. These agents have become increasingly violent and have killed two peaceful protesters.

Immigration agents are now regularly utilizing “Kavanaugh stops” to round up detainees. Named for the Supreme Court Justice who first justified them, these are arrests made by an immigration agent solely on the basis of a perception about the subject’s ethnicity. While ethnic appearance indicates nothing about whether someone is a citizen or otherwise lawfully in the country, it does indicate whether the subject looks “White.” Kavanaugh stops amount to the open practice of official racism.    

In conducting their sweeps, immigration agents wear masks and do not wear badges, making them difficult to identify. Administration officials wrongly claim that immigration officers have “absolute immunity” from prosecution no matter what they do.

The administration claims that those it detains or deports are the “worst of the worst,” but the conservative Cato Institute reports that 73% of those detained by ICE prior to possible deportation had no criminal record and only 5% had been convicted of a violent crime.

Immigration agents are currently holding some 73,000 people in detention centers around the county, a 75% increase since Trump took office. Among the detainees are at least 3,800 children under age 18, including 20 infants. In December 2025, the Department of Homeland Security claimed to have already deported 605,000 people since Trump’s second inauguration.

At least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, the most in over two decades. Six more died in ICE custody in January 2026. The January death of one ICE prisoner was found by the local coroner to have been a murder, apparently at the hands of ICE guards.

Immigration agents have frequently failed to comply with court orders arising from litigation filed by detainees seeking due process. A federal judge in Minnesota recently cited 96 such orders issued since January 1, 2026, that ICE had violated.

Trump has made border tsar Tom Homan the new face of ICE’s activities in Minneapolis. Homan is known for two things: accepting a bag of $50,000 in cash from FBI agents pretending to be businesspeople seeking government contracts with the second Trump administration; and being the architect of the child separation policy of the first Trump administration, under which families arriving at the southern border were separated and children were transferred to detention centers far from their parents. The purpose was to inflict such misery on the separated children and parents that other would-be immigrants would forgo any attempt to enter the country, even legally, rather than risk facing the same experience.

Far-reaching as the activities of immigration agents have been in the last year, under additional funding provided by Congress last year and even more funding proposed in pending legislation, DHS’ immigration enforcement agencies plan to vastly expand the scope of their activities. They increased the number of ICE agents by 120% in the last year and now plan to double ICE’s detention capacity in the coming year.

What can you do?

The good and brave people of Minneapolis have shown us the way.

1. Let your elected officials at all levels know that you oppose additional funding for DHS immigration enforcement, now pending before the U.S. Senate.

   
   

Tell Senators Kaine and Warner and Rep. Beyer that you support their opposition legislation that would fund DHS and ICE without significant restrictions on immigration officers’ behavior. They will face pressure to change their minds, and they need to hear that their constituents support their current positions.

Sample script:

Thank you for your opposition to the pending legislation to further fund DHS without the addition of strong controls to prevent continuing violent and criminal behavior by its immigration enforcement agents. Please do not waver in this stance. Our future as a free and decent country is at stake.

• Contact Sen. Kaine at https://www.kaine.senate.gov/contact

• Contact Sen. Warner at https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact

• Contact Rep. Beyer at https://beyer.house.gov/contact/

2. Record videos of any immigration enforcement activity you see, taking care not to physically interfere with or obstruct government personnel.

   
   

3. Make your opposition to illegal ICE activities visible through peaceful protest. Go to local demonstrations, bring a creative sign, and demonstrate peacefully.

3. Support organizations that assist immigrants, both legal and undocumented, with legal aid, financial support, or in other ways.

4. Talk to your friends and others about why you oppose illegal conduct by ICE and other immigration agents. Keep yourself informed so you can continue to bear witness.

   
   

5. Work to elect Democrats this year. We have a redistricting referendum that will be critical to taking back the House of Representatives in the midterms, and we have many Democrats across the country to support in November midterms.

   
   

   Democrats support a rational immigration policy that prevents criminals from entering or staying here while offering a path to citizenship to those who are law-abiding and become productive members of our communities. Democrats support the rule of law and the principle that government agencies must scrupulously respect constitutional protections.