1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

I urge you to hold firm: do not fund ICE enforcement and removal operations until the reforms you have already put on the table are enacted into law. The facts demand nothing less: 23 people have died in ICE custody since October — the deadliest period for immigration detention in over 20 years, following 32 deaths in 2025. One was ruled a homicide after witnesses said guards choked a man to death. Others are pending. At least 8 people have been fatally shot by ICE and CBP agents since January 2025, including U.S. citizens Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Ruben Ray Martinez. At least 19 more have been wounded. DHS hid the Martinez killing for months. More than 170 U.S. citizens were detained by immigration agents in just the first 9 months of this administration — dragged, beaten, tased, held for days. Nearly 20 were children. That number has only grown. DHS does not track these civil and human rights violations. 400 federal judges have ruled more than 4,400 times that ICE is illegally detaining people. ICE continues to defy those orders! 73.6% of the nearly 70,000 people in ICE detention have no criminal conviction. They are being warehoused in massive industrial facilities with documented failures in medical care, food, and sanitation. They are nothing but for-profit concentration camps — deport and transport them or free them. These are not policy disagreements! ICE agents are instructed to enter homes without judicial warrants. They profile and detain people — including citizens — based on appearance, ethnicity, and language. (“Kavanaugh Stops.”) They have suppressed the right to record them. They have defied court orders, obstructed investigations, and deported people all in direct violation of 4,400+ judicial rulings. The proposal to fund DHS while excluding ICE enforcement operations is the right approach. TSA workers and DHS employees most certainly deserve to be paid — using them as pawns is reprehensible Trumpian cruelty. But ICE must not receive a blank check to continue operating outside the law. To Democrats and Independents: Do not weaken your demands. Do not cave. Hold the line. And THANK YOU. (To Republicans: How dare you violate the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Find your spine and soul. It’s just a job. And Winter is coming this November.)