As we move closer to the February 13 deadline for a Senate vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), it is tempting to view incremental changes by DHS prior to the vote as the direct result of citizen surveillance efforts related to two tragedies in Minneapolis, or the sizeable weekend crowds in so many cities protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in general, or the polls that indicate a majority of Americans think that ICE has gone too far.
It’s important to remember that DHS contains not only ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but also the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Coast Guard. So effecting any form of change in a budget document is challenging with such considerations.
Congressional Democrats have this past week offered up a list of ten immigration reforms for the bill, but negotiations are so far non-existent. Republicans point out that the reforms have grown from three initially, to ten as of last Wednesday. The list below is verbatim from an article in The Guardian.
1.Targeted enforcement
DHS officers cannot enter private property without a judicial warrant. End indiscriminate arrests and improve warrant procedures and standards. Require verification that a person is not a US citizen before holding them in immigration detention.
2. No masks
Prohibit ICE and immigration enforcement agents from wearing masks and other face coverings.
3. Require ID
Require DHS officers conducting immigration enforcement to display their agency, unique ID number and last name. Require them to verbalize their ID number and last name if asked.
4. Protect sensitive locations
Prohibit funds from being used to conduct enforcement near sensitive locations, including medical facilities, schools, childcare facilities, churches, polling places, courts, etc.
5. Stop racial profiling
Prohibit DHS officers from conducting stops, questioning and searches based on an individual’s presence at certain locations, their job, their spoken language and accent, or their race or ethnicity.
6. Uphold use-of-force standards
Place into law a reasonable use-of-force policy, expand training and require certification of officers. In the case of an incident, the officer must be removed from the field until an investigation is concluded.
7. Ensure state and local coordination and oversight
Preserve the ability of state and local jurisdictions to investigate and prosecute potential crimes and use-of-excessive-force incidents. Require that evidence is preserved and shared with jurisdictions. Require the consent of states and localities to conduct large-scale operations outside of targeted immigration enforcement.
8. Build safeguards into the system
Make clear that all buildings where people are detained must abide by the same basic detention standards that require immediate access to a person’s attorney to prevent citizen arrests or detention. Allow states to sue the DHS for violations of all requirements. Prohibit limitations on member visits to ICE facilities regardless of how those facilities are funded.
9. Body cameras for accountability, not tracking
Require use of body-worn cameras when interacting with the public and mandate requirements for the storage and access of footage. Prohibit tracking, creating or maintaining databases of individuals participating in first amendment activities.
10. No paramilitary police
Regulate and standardize the type of uniforms and equipment DHS officers employ during enforcement operations to bring them in line with civil enforcement.”
In her opinion piece in the New York Times, titled “ICE Is Watching You,” Tressie McMillan Cottom suggests that we should pay as much attention to the phone as to the gun.
“The phone represents greater power, one that could outlast Trumpism. ICE knows that it cannot shoot us all. But the Department of Homeland Security is close to being able to track us all.
Trump’s signature domestic policy bill gave ICE $75 billion in new funding and four years to spend it, making ICE the highest funded federal law enforcement agency.”
Cottom goes on to note that “12,000 new officers and agents have been hired…and cutting-edge military weaponry [is available] to use on American streets.”
Time is still available to us to call or email our senators about the DHS budget and the proposed Democratic reforms, though I am unsure how effective a lobbying campaign at this point will be. There are so many obfuscating legislative rules at play before a vote can be taken that it’s entirely possible the list of ten will be negotiated back down to the list of three.
It’s also possible that the list of reforms will be set aside to keep DHS funded because of other important agencies like FEMA and TSA that, if shut down, would wreak havoc across the country for travel and/or emergency funding for those devastated by the terrible winter storms. In that last scenario, the country becomes even more of a surveillance field with ample federal budget and tools to collect even more data on its citizens.
Whatever scenario prevails, we must keep trying to get the real story in readers’ hands. The firing of 300 Washington Post staff this past week, and the more recent resignation of its publisher/CEO makes this work even more important for those left in the trenches, to step up coverage of Vice President Vance and whether or how he influences President Trump and the Congress.
The key to all of this is clear recognition that, in the current administration, cruelty is obviously the point. No matter if the list of proposed reforms is three or ten – what has to stop is the now prevalent view that immigrants are enemies and “regulation” cannot, must not, hinge on the view that our neighbors, wherever they came from, can or should be brutalized.
Originally Published in ASA News & Notes on February 9, 2026
Below are short commentaries on publications or news stories that executives and board members may find useful.
It seems that our major journalistic institutions are finally stepping up to cover urgent questions with respect to the multitude of executive orders that allow the president so much latitude. Here’s one from the now defunct section of the Washington Post: “The grave risk of Trump’s Kennedy Center shutdown.”
The press is also stepping up to profiles of Trump leaders. Witness “Pete Hegseth Delights in Violence” in the Atlantic; or “Inside Kash Patel’s FBI: Meltdowns, Chaos, Vendettas” in the New York Times; or the Wall Street Journal’s “How Stephen Miller Stokes Trump’s Boundary-Pushing Impulses.”
Finally, another example of the press standing up to Trump, in an editorial titled “Trump Could Interfere With the Midterm Elections.”
Annie Searle
Searle is an Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington. She is founder and principal of ASA Risk Consultants, a Seattle-based advisory firm. She spent 10 years at Washington Mutual Bank, most of them as a senior executive. Annie is a member of the CISA 10 Regional Infrastructure Security Group. She was an inaugural inductee in 2011 into the Hall of Fame for the International Network of Women in Homeland Security and Emergency Management. She writes a column monthly for ASA News & Notes and is the author of several books or book chapters. She is also a member of the emeritus board of directors for the Seattle Public Library Foundation.