Federal agents stand at the main gate as Reps. Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Republican Angie Craig, all Minnesota Democrats, try to enter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional headquarters at the U.S. Federal Building. Bishop Henry Whipple in Minneapolis on January 10, 2026. House members were briefly granted access to the facility where the Department of Homeland Security is headquartered in the state. (Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – In an attempt to curb President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement, congressional Democrats want to formalize certain guidelines used by previous administrations.
With 10 political proposals Democratic leaders proposed in negotiations to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which had been in limbo funding expires February 14 Amid widespread confusion over the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by immigration officers in Minneapolis last month, seven people were employed at least in some form by previous administrations.
Democrats are asking the Trump administration to restore policies it scrapped in its controversial push for mass deportations. Past policies Democrats want to formalize include use-of-force standards, allowing members of Congress to make unannounced visits to immigration detention centers and obtaining court orders before entering private residences.
“A lot of what Democrats are asking for is a return to past policies,” said Cardinal Theresa Brown, a senior DHS official under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “Some of them are responding to the way the current administration is conducting its operations, unlike previous administrations.”
Formalizing the policies as part of an agreement to adopt the department’s funding bill in fiscal year 2026 would make them more enduring.
“Rules and guidelines[…]they apply as the current leadership applies them,” Cardinal Brown said. “They are not absolute and can be changed much more frequently.”
But an agreement between congressional Democrats and the White House on changes to immigration enforcement appears elusive. The White House’s response to the proposals was “incomplete and inadequate,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Feb. 9 statement.
No recent movement on negotiations
According to a statement by party leaders, Democrats sent a counterproposal to Republicans and the White House slow Monday, but did not make public what these changes were.
While some proposals, such as requiring body-worn cameras, have bipartisan support, others, such as banning immigration agents from wearing facial coverings and requiring court orders to enter private property, have been rejected outright by the Trump administration.
A White House official said that “the Trump administration remains interested in good faith discussions with Democrats.”
“President Trump has been clear – he wants an open government,” a White House official says.
Even after the department is closed, immigration enforcement will continue thanks to the $170 billion in funding in the form of massive tax cuts and a spending package that Trump signed last year.
The Democratic proposals do not address the consequences of failing to comply with DHS, which raises questions of effectiveness, said Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group that aims to provide free or low-cost legal services to immigrants.
“As Congress negotiates policy measures, is it also undermining them and is it taking away funds that we know ICE and CBP will use to breach security barriers to begin with?” Altmann said.
Changes demanded after death in Minneapolis
After Renee Good was shot and killed by immigration officer Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7, lawmakers amended the Department of Homeland Security funding bill to add guardrails such as allocating $20 million for body cameras and adding a requirement for DHS to report on how it spends funds from the tax cuts and spending package.
But the second death in Minnesota, of critical care nurse Alex Pretti, on Jan. 24 prompted Democrats to defund DHS without making stronger changes to the enforcement tactics used by immigration officials at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
Only three of the 10 proposals by Schumer and Jeffries, both from New York, would be entirely up-to-date.
These include: a ban on ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies wearing facial coverings, a ban on racial profiling after… The Supreme Court paved the way into practice last year and standardizing the uniforms of DHS agents.
The heads of ICE and CBP rejected Democrats’ request that immigration officers stop wearing facial coverings at their request. during the review hearing last week before the House Homeland Security Committee.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott joined Republicans in Congress in arguing that masks and face coverings prevent officers from being robbed.
Local cooperation
Other proposals, including a ban on immigration enforcement in so-called sensitive locations such as places of worship, child care facilities, hospitals and schools, would expand on previous DHS guidance that restricted enforcement in such places.
The Democratic proposal calls for banning law enforcement in these sensitive places. Previous guidelines allowed for restricted practice.
Then-ICE director Caleb Vitello he withdrew from the policy shortly after President Donald Trump took office last January. There are several lawsuits filed by religious groups challenging the Trump administration’s move.
Requiring immigration officials to obtain approval from local and state authorities before taking broad enforcement actions like the one in Minneapolis would build on previous policies of federal-local cooperation.
But such a solution would be far-sighted, Cardinal Brown said.
“I think it will be difficult,” she said. “The federal government has the authority to enforce immigration laws anywhere in the country as it sees fit.”
She said a more realistic option would be to inform or coordinate with local authorities on large-scale immigration operations.
Another proposed requirement that DHS officials provide identification also builds on previous policy.
Another proposal builds on DHS’s policy of targeted enforcement by ending “mass arrests” without warrants.
Under current immigration lawif an officer encounters a person suspected of being in the U.S. illegally and is able to escape before a warrant is issued, a warrantless arrest is lawful.
Democrats want to tighten standards on the forms ICE uses to consent to arrest. These administrative forms are not signed by a judge, but by an ICE employee.
Court orders
The remaining proposals would restore DHS policy to that in place under the administration’s previous guidance. They belong to them standards for the operate of force, operate of body cameras in contacts with society, allowing members of Congress to make unannounced monitoring visits in detention centers where immigrants are held and requiring a court order to enter private property.
Internal ICE memo, obtained by the Associated Pressfound that Lyons instructed ICE agents to enter private residences without a court order, a departure from longstanding DHS policy.
“This injunction issue is very concerning,” said Ben Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).
He said the question of whether a warrant was needed to enter private property was already settled in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
“The fact that this is being discussed now is really scary,” Johnson said.
Body cameras
Providing DHS with funding to buy body cameras for immigration officers is one proposal that Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on.
Earlier this monthDHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that body cameras would be made available to all immigration agents in Minneapolis and stated that “as resources become available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide.”
During a surveillance hearing on Capitol Hill, Lyons said about 3,000 ICE officers currently have body cameras and another 6,000 are on the way. Scott said about 10,000 Border Patrol agents, or about half of the total force, have body cameras.
Altman, however, said body cameras do not guarantee that misconduct will be avoided.
CBP officials were wearing body cameras when Pretti was shot and killed. Scott said the footage will be released once the investigation is complete.
“Right now, we see officers in the field wearing body-worn cameras engaging in harassment and violence on a daily basis,” Altman said.
Follow-up visits
One proposal would also end a DHS policy requiring members of Congress to provide seven days’ notice of surveillance visits to facilities holding immigrants, despite the 2019 appropriations bill allowing unannounced visits.
Since last summer, several lawmakers have been denied screening visits to ICE facilities prompting them to turn to federal court.
On the day DHS funding expired, February 14, the Department of Justice released a briefing noting that unannounced monitoring visits could be denied due to the legislative shutdown.
The administration argued that during the suspension, immigration enforcement was funded by tax cuts and a spending bill that did not include language allowing unannounced visits, rather than regular appropriations.
“There is no legal basis for the Court to order the conduct of the defendants after the expiry of the limited remedies.” according to the document.
