1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

I am writing to demand that you use your leverage in the upcoming Department of Homeland Security funding negotiations to place immediate and enforceable limits on ICE’s actions. Congress cannot continue funding an agency that is inflicting deliberate harm on children and families under the false justification of public safety. This week in Minneapolis, ICE agents detained a five-year-old child named Liam while he was arriving home from school with his father. Agents pulled the child from a still-running car, walked him to his front door, and ordered him to knock—using a preschooler as bait to see who else might be inside the home. Despite another adult offering to care for the child so he would not be detained, ICE refused and disappeared with both the child and his father. Liam has no criminal record. His father has no criminal record. They are not undocumented. They entered the United States legally through a port of entry and have an active asylum case. They were following every rule that has been laid out by the federal government. Detaining a five-year-old under these circumstances is not law enforcement—it is cruelty. This case is not an aberration. Four children in the same school district have been detained by ICE in just the past two weeks. According to ICE’s own data, nearly three-quarters of people booked into custody since October had no criminal convictions, and only five percent had any violent conviction. The administration’s claim that ICE is focused on the “worst of the worst” is demonstrably false. These actions are the predictable result of arrest quotas that prioritize volume over safety—policies that incentivize ICE to target children and families because they are easy to detain, while genuinely dangerous criminals require time and investigation. This is not a failure of oversight. It is a policy choice. The consequences are devastating. Schools in Minnesota report students staying home in fear. Districts are shifting to virtual learning—not due to a public health emergency, but because parents are terrified to send their children to school. Children are witnessing armed, masked agents detain their classmates and parents in their neighborhoods. The trauma inflicted will last far beyond any detention. Congress must not be complicit in this abuse. DHS funding bills require 60 votes in the Senate. That leverage must be used. I am asking you to make this clear and public: no DHS funding without binding restrictions on ICE, including an end to detention of children, clear limits on arrests of individuals with legal immigration claims and no criminal history, and the elimination of arrest quotas. History will not look kindly on those who shrugged while preschoolers were taken from their homes by the federal government. Please choose to act now.