Judiciary Democrats Expose Trump Administration’s Dangerous Immigration Dragnet And Republican Threats To Defund Local Law Enforcement

September 1, 2026

DHS Has Used Its $240 Billion For Immigration Enforcement To Arrest Children, Crime Victims And U.S. Citizens, Instead Of The “Worst of the Worst”

Now Republicans Are Trying To Force Local Cops To Do ICE’s Job And Threatening To Defund Those Who Refuse

Washington, D.C. (September 1, 2026)—Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, led Subcommittee Democrats in exposing how the Trump Administration is using unprecedented immigration enforcement resources to conduct sweeping raids on American communities instead of targeting the “worst of the worst”—while Republicans threaten to defund state and local law enforcement unless jurisdictions divert their own limited resources to carry out the federal government’s chaotic mass deportation agenda.

The hearing included testimony from: David Bier, Director of Immigration Studies and the Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration Policy at the Cato Institute; Marcus Coleman, father of Dalilah Coleman; Patricia Fox, mother of Carissa Aspnes; and Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler, Harford County, Maryland.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are using their unprecedented funding to attack American communities instead of going after the “worst of the worst.”

Ranking Member Raskin said: “Instead of targeting criminals, ICE has pounced on parents in the school pickup lane, arrested people at daycare centers and in churches, thrown tear gas outside elementary schools and under cars with children seated inside, smashed the windows of cars and dragged the passengers out, arrested students for writing op-eds, and held U.S. citizens against their will in immigration detention without bothering for days or weeks to verify their citizenship status. And that happened to one of my constituents. Just last month, in Texas, a five-year-old child was detained with his father while on their way to a soccer game. They’re beating people up. They’re no longer going after ‘the worst of the worst’—they are acting like the worst of the worst.”
Ranking Member Jayapal said: “Federal agents have killed people who are simply driving home after celebrating their birthdays, like Ruben Ray Martinez, or driving towork, like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Guerrero, or exercising their constitutional rights, like Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Not a single ICE or CBP officer has been held accountable for any of these fatal shootings.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler said: “Of the nearly 5,000 people per month that the Trump Administration is arresting, a majority have not been charged with or convicted of any crime. Those who committed a violent crime constituted just 4% of those arrested last month.”
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon said: “No one is safer when DHS agents are threatening or pointing guns at American citizens, making warrantless arrests, and executing people in the streets. No one is safer when the administration is prioritizing arrest quotas and arresting people who are showing up at ICE offices or immigration hearings because they are following the rules.”

Immigration enforcement is a federal government responsibility. However, instead of taking responsibility for their failure to go after the “worst of the worst,” DHS and ICE are trying to shift the blame to states and localities.

Rep. Summer Lee said: “Republicans came claim to care about law enforcement, but they’re not making their jobs any easier by pushing them to work with ICE. Community safety is built on trust, but trust can’t be built when these officers are busy doing the dirty work for the least reputable agency in the federal government right now. [...] What kind of long-term impact does going after victims and witnesses of crime have, and how can those communities possibly build trust?” Mr. Bier explained: “It is doing extraordinary damage. Before this Administration, non-citizens and immigrants in the United States actually did report crimes and violent crimes against them at a higher rate than the U.S.-born population, in part because they think highly of American police. But now that they see them as an extension of ICE, in many cases, it is undermining the trust that is required topursue these cases. And it is a problem.”
Rep. Scanlon said: “I regularly meet with our local police, and they are always scrambling to get more resources to do their jobs, to keep their communities safe. They do not have the billions of dollars that DHS has, but when DHS forces local police departments toparticipate in their activities to detain folks who have not committed any crimes, they have less ability to set up a drunk driving checkpoint on the Labor Day holiday, or to go out and investigate a local drug trafficking ring.”
Rep. Deborah Ross said: “This Administration is slashing desperately needed funding for state and local law enforcement officers while pulling law enforcement officers off complex criminal cases just to pursue filling up these prisons. And now they want to force state and local law enforcement to carry out the same agenda.”
Rep. Lou Correa said: “In 2025, in Orange County, where I live, 323 individuals were turned over to ICE for pickup. 52 of them were never picked up. So, we talk about the worst of the worst [...] these were not picked up. It’s no excuse.”

Judiciary Republicans have already passed a bill out of Committee that threatens to defund state and local law enforcement to coerce states and localities to divert their own resources away from state and local crimes and toward federal immigration enforcement. They have failed to bring this bill to the House floor.

Ranking Member Raskin said: “Our colleagues keep holding these hearings because they want the public to believe that they somehow have policies backstage that they haven’t unveiled yet, that they will reveal in the next Congress to make us safer. But they don’t. Their policies are so divisive, so toxic, so purely symbolic and off point that even Speaker Johnson won’t put them on the floor.”
Ranking Member Raskin asked: “I believe this is the fifth or sixth hearing we’ve done, designed to get legislation passed from the Committee that was passed back in March. Why do you think this has not been brought to the floor of the House of Representatives?” Mr. Bier explained: “Well, I think it’s because the legislation that’s being discussed is unconstitutional, and it’s unpopular with sheriffs.”

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