Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin says she needs to see guardrails for immigration agents in order to vote for funding the Department of Homeland Security. She said she supports a separate effort to divert billions of dollars from ICE to other law enforcement.
On Thursday, Democrats in the U.S. Senate reached a deal with President Trump to pass a package of five spending bills and avoid a partial government shutdown, leaving funding for DHS to be negotiated separately after a stopgap extension.
But with time winding down before the Friday night deadline, Senate leaders are still working to secure votes to pass the deal. The House would also need to approve any successful funding bills.
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This comes as Democrats and some top Republicans raise concerns about immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and have called for stricter oversight after VA nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents last weekend.
“Alex Pretti grew up in Wisconsin. He attended Green Bay Preble High School. He should not be dead right now at the hands of the Department of Homeland Security,” Baldwin said in an interview on WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
“I have never gotten more calls from constituents in Wisconsin than over the past four days since Alex Pretti was killed by ICE and border patrol agents,” she said.
Baldwin and others have called for an independent investigation into Pretti’s killing.
“In Wisconsin, if there is an officer-involved shooting, it is investigated by an outside agency,” Baldwin said. “That’s standard operating procedure, and that needs to be the standard operating procedure for the Department of Homeland Security and their armed agents that have been fanned out across the United States.”
On Wednesday, Democrats in the Senate laid out changes they want to see before voting on DHS funding. The list includes putting an end to warrantless broad sweeps, which Baldwin believes have gotten “out of control.”
“We have to put an end to these roving patrols,” she said. “They’re just combing the streets, going door to door, outside our schools.”
“Instead, they should be getting warrants, having targeted arrests, working with local law enforcement around those operations,” she continued.
Baldwin and her Democratic colleagues in the Senate also want to require federal agents to operate without masks and to wear body cameras, the practice for many police departments around the country.
“Think about the standards that local law enforcement have to achieve. They have to have a name badge on. They have to have a marked car,” Baldwin said. “Those masks need to come off.”
Democrats also want to see the Department of Homeland Security formalize a code of conduct for federal immigration and border patrol agents that includes more robust training and a complaint process for instances of overreach.
“This is a rogue agency that is operating without accountability, and that needs to change,” Baldwin said.
The amount of DHS funding was not part of Democratic demands this week. The reconciliation bill that Congress passed in July included an additional $75 billion for Immigrations and Custom Enforcement to use over four years, on top of a $10 billion annual allocation from DHS — making ICE the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency.
Rep. Chris Pappas, a Democrat from New Hampshire, has introduced a bill that would reallocate that $75 billion to state and local law enforcement. Baldwin said she supports this effort and would like to see the money go toward a program called Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS.
“The COPS program for many years has helped local police departments be able to hire more folks, have them in their neighborhoods,” Baldwin said. “That’s exactly where I think those funds should be directed, not to this rogue agency.”
Speaking to “Wisconsin Today” earlier this week, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said he would not support splitting out DHS funding, accusing Democrats of wanting to defund the agency entirely. However, he joined several Republicans in voting against the funding package in a preliminary vote on Thursday.
Despite the heated debate, Baldwin believes ICE and border patrol reform can be a bipartisan issue.
“Our accountability measures that we’re proposing right now are common sense, and I can tell you that the vast majority of Americans support them,” she said.
