1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

Congress is now negotiating funding for the Department of Homeland Security under a short-term extension. This decision must be treated as a line in the sand. DHS — and especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement — must not receive further funding until these agencies are dismantled and rebuilt under clear constitutional, legal, and operational standards. Recent events make continued funding indefensible. Federal courts are now repeatedly intervening to stop DHS from acting unlawfully. This week, U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes halted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants, finding it substantially likely that DHS ignored statutory criteria and relied on ideology rather than facts and law. Congress created TPS specifically to prevent this kind of abuse — and DHS violated it anyway. At the same time, DHS enforcement has spiraled into open constitutional crisis. Masked federal agents conduct raids without judicial warrants. U.S. citizens and lawful residents have been illegally detained. People have been shot and killed by federal agents in public spaces. Families have been torn apart. Children have been jailed. Oversight has failed, and accountability is absent. The killings of civilians such as Renee Good and Alex Pretti are not anomalies; they are symptoms of an agency that operates with impunity. Investigations stall. Agents remain protected. Courts are ignored. This is not a failure of “training” or “messaging.” It is a structural breakdown. The system is now visibly collapsing under the weight of its own illegality. In Minnesota, a federal judge recently reprimanded the Department of Justice after ICE repeatedly ignored court orders to release unlawfully detained individuals. A federal prosecutor testified that forcing ICE to comply with basic judicial orders has required nonstop work in an already depleted office, describing a system so strained that compliance itself has become a crisis. Waves of resignations from U.S. Attorney’s Offices reflect the same reality: enforcing the law is becoming impossible when agencies refuse to follow it. Congress cannot continue funding agencies that defy courts, disregard statutes, and deploy armed agents who kill civilians without consequence. Short-term funding extensions and promises of incremental reform have not restrained this behavior — they have normalized it. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse for a reason. That power exists to stop executive abuse when other checks fail. This is that moment. Congress must refuse to fund DHS and ICE in their current form. Funding should resume only after these agencies are dismantled and rebuilt with enforceable limits, judicial oversight, transparent identification, lawful procedures, and real accountability. A shutdown will be disruptive. But permanently financing lawlessness is far worse. Do not fund illegality. Do not reward violence. Use the budget to force real change.