ICE fallout tests Democrats’ hard-won message discipline
Plus: Former Fed chairs come to Jerome Powell’s defense, former Steny Hoyer campaign aide launches bid to succeed him and Senate clears first hurdle on next bipartisan funding package.
First Things First
Much of the Democratic Party’s success in last November’s off-year elections and its ability to rally a House vote last week to extend the expired ACA premium subsidies stemmed from unusually disciplined messaging on health care and affordability.
But the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis—and the subsequent national backlash against Immigration and Customs Enforcement—has thrown the caucus’s position on immigration enforcement into turmoil.
Some Democrats are warning the party risks ceding the narrative to Republicans and reliving the kind of messaging backlash it endured over policing reform language earlier in the decade in the wake of the George Floyd murder.
Hill Democrats run the gamut on what they believe is the most effective strategy to rein in an agency that they say has operated with impunity since President Donald Trump returned to office last year.
Some members have called out what they view as the failure of Republican committee chairs to enforce their oversight authority on ICE. Others support withholding or restricting ICE funding. (House Republican leaders stripped the 2026 DHS appropriations bill from a package of measures to fund unrelated agencies after it became clear it lacked the votes to pass; they may attach it to the last minibus next week if Democrats can secure enough meaningful concessions to play ball.)
Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) is leading a push to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, while Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) has introduced legislation to dismantle ICE and end its current enforcement authorities, in response to the resurgence of grassroots demands to abolish the agency.
