A protester waves a red cloth as hundreds gather after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good through her car window near Portland Avenue South and East 34th Street in Minneapolis on Wednesday, January 7, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The top two Democrats in Congress laid out their proposal Wednesday for restrictions on immigration enforcement, including body cameras and a mask ban, although they could not provide details about when actual negotiations would begin.
Lawmakers from both political parties have less than two weeks to find a solution before the stopgap bill funding the Department of Homeland Security expires on Feb. 13, which could result in the shutdown of all its components, including the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement still has access to $75 billion in funding contain involved in the massive tax cuts and spending package signed last year.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said the offer he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., made to Republicans was the result of “a very productive discussion.”
“Dramatic changes are needed at the Department of Homeland Security in its enforcement activities so that ICE and other agencies behave like any other law enforcement agency in the country and do not act in so many cases in fraudulent or unlawful ways,” Jeffries said.
Democrats will insist that federal immigration authorities:
- Wear body cameras
- Wear masks only in “extraordinary and unusual circumstances” to conceal their identity.
- Do not conduct hiking patrols
- Do not detain people in certain places, such as places of worship, schools, or polling stations
- Do not engage in racial profiling
- Do not detain or deport American citizens
Jeffries said judicial, not administrative, warrants should be required “before everyday Americans are forcibly torn from their homes or torn from cars.”
“The Fourth Amendment is not an inconvenience, but rather a requirement enshrined in our Constitution that everyone should follow.”
The the change states that the government shall not violate the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and that arrest warrants may be issued only upon reasonable grounds.
Administrative orders are not signed by a judge but are approved by ICE officers themselves. Under US immigration law, ICE also has the authority to make arrests without a warrant if an immigration agent encounters a person suspected of being in the country illegally and believes that person will flee before a warrant can be obtained.
Accountability measures
Democrats will also push Republicans to agree to what Schumer called “real accountability.”
“There must be external, independent oversight by state and local governments and by individuals,” Schumer said. “And there has to be a right to sue, there has to be a right to go to court and put an end to this.”
Schumer criticized Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for saying immigration officers should be allowed to wear masks, calling them “secret police” who “need to be identified more than any other group.”
“I bet that when Speaker Johnson goes to Louisiana, the sheriffs and police officers will be well identified, like in almost every city,” he said.
When I pushed to say Johnson Republicans wouldn’t agree Jeffries said the speaker “expressed unreasonable positions” in calling for judicial arrest warrants.
“He actually supports the idea that masked and lawless ICE agents should be deployed in communities across America,” Jeffries said. “Mike Johnson called the Fourth Amendment an inconvenience. It is not an inconvenience. It is part of the fabric and DNA of our country, just like the First Amendment, even the Second Amendment, the 10th Amendment, the Fourth Amendment.”
“We stand up for all of these constitutional privileges that have been part of our identity from the beginning.”
Schedule for the negotiations
Schumer said during the press conference that Democrats in the House and Senate were willing to begin negotiations with Republicans but would insist on changes “to rein in ICE in a very serious way.”
“If they are not serious and are not making real reforms, they simply should not count on our votes,” he said.
Schumer seemed somewhat skeptical that Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, whom Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had proposed as her top negotiator, had any real authority to negotiate a deal on behalf of every Republican senator.
Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, told reporters Wednesday that she expects lawmakers will have to approve another stopgap bill for the department, signaling that she doesn’t expect an agreement in the next two weeks.
“We need a little more time, so hopefully (Democrats) will see the good efforts we’ve put in … and we’ll have another CR,” she said, referring to the technical name for a short-term funding bill, a continuing resolution.
Britt did not say how long this momentary funding measure for the Department of Homeland Security would last.
Any spending bill, compact or long, needs Democratic support to get through procedural votes in the Senate.
Congress has approved 11 of the 12 annual funding bills, so DHS would be the only part of the federal government that would shut down if lawmakers can’t approve its full-year bill or another stopgap measure before the funding expires.
