Washington, D.C. (July 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 the Trump Administration’s effort to coerce states and localities into carrying out its dangerous and chaotic mass deportation agenda—despite the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) already having record-high funding (Republicans gave DHS $240 billion this Congress alone), vast resources, and the responsibility for immigration enforcement. The hearing included testimony from: Ms. Jessica Gorman, Mother of Sheridan Gorman; Mr. Joe Abraham, Father of Katie Abraham; Ms. Sarah Pierce, Director of Social Policy, Third Way; and Sheriff Gary Redman, Amador County, California. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has record-high funding and unprecedented resources. Yet, the Trump Administration is attempting to force states and localities to use their own limited resources and budgets to conduct the federal government’s mass deportation agenda. - Ranking Member Raskin said: “DHS has a quarter of a million employees and a budget larger than that of 150 countries on Earth. It has over 80,000 sworn law enforcement officers, more than the number of officers in New York, Chicago, L.A., Houston, D.C., Las Vegas and Dallas combined. But despite all of that, our colleagues think that state and local jurisdictions should be using their money and their funds to do the Department of Homeland Security’s job for them.”
- Ranking Member Raskin asked Ms. Pierce “Will you help us understand the different resources that are available to the federal government and then to local government police forces?” Ms. Pierce answered: “This Congress has provided Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with $113.5 billion to do their job to enforce immigration law in the United States. And that is more than the combined annual operating budget of every single local law enforcement jurisdiction in America. We’re talking about local police departments that have a limited amount of resources, and their primary duty is public safety. Their primary duty is not immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, we have a federal agency that has a budget larger than all but four militaries in the world and their primary duty is civil immigration enforcement.”
Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government. Many states, cities, and localities do not want—or are unable—to spend their limited budgets and resources doing the federal government’s job for them, particularly in light of the Trump Administration’s chaotic, impractical, and lawless policies. Doing so undermines public safety and community trust in local cops. - Rep. Jerry Nadler said: “Republicans want to coerce states and localities into furthering the Trump Administration’s extreme anti-immigrant agenda. But with masked agents murdering American citizens in the streets and tearing children away from their parents, and detention facilities that have their highest death rate in decades and fail to meet the basic medical and sanitary needs of detainees, it is no wonder that many states and localities have chosen not to use their limited resources to aid and abet the Trump Administration’s reckless, chaotic and inhumane mass deportation campaign.”
- Ms. Pierce explained: “Police departments have limited resources, and they use those to decide how much and what level of cooperation they’re going to give to the Trump Administration. Not only that, they need to look at their relationships with their communities. Is a certain level of cooperation with ICE going to harm the trust that they have established with their local communities? Is it going to redirect the priorities that they’ve decided are best to keep safety in their communities? Those are the things that these local jurisdictions need to decide before they decide what level of cooperation they’ll give ICE. And unfortunately, this administration doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge that. They would rather bully these jurisdictions into that full cooperation.”
- Ranking Member Jayapal asked: “Why is it dangerous to have policies in place that prevent huge swaths of the community, both undocumented folks as well as family members or friends of undocumented people who may live in the same household, from feeling secure in calling 911? What happens in that situation to the safety of all community members?” Ms. Pierce explained: “So police can’t be everywhere, right? They rely on community members to be their eyes and ears, to report crimes, to be witnesses, to provide testimony. And when those individuals are no longer willing to cooperate with the police, when they think that a call to 911 is going to make their lives worse, that means that those police—their reach into that network, into the community—is then limited.”
Republicans are attempting to coerce states, cities, and localities to use their own shrinking resources to do the Trump Administration’s job for them. They are threatening billions in further cuts to federal funding for police, public safety, and national security if states don’t comply with their demands. Forcing state cops and prosecutors to prioritize federal immigration enforcement diverts resources away from combating state and local crime and undermines their ability to investigate and prosecute state criminal cases. - Rep. Deborah Ross asked Ms. Pierce about public safety grants slashed by the Trump Administration. Ms. Pierce explained: “Every single state in the United States is missing public safety grant funding that should have been given to them more than nine months ago. [...] Funding from the Office of Justice Programs goes to a wide variety of resources that help protect local safety. They go to law enforcement officers to help with hiring, to help with officer training, to help with officer wellness. They also go to organizations out in the community that help represent individuals. It also goes to organizations that help prevent gun violence, a variety of issues, all designed to increase public safety in the United States.”
- Ranking Member Raskin said: “They are deporting crime victims, as well as key witnesses and informants, without any notice to state or local police and prosecutors. As a result, criminal investigations are being thwarted, criminal trials are being thrown into disarray, and American communities are less safe. House Judiciary Democrats put out a report, “Acquittal by Removal: How Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda Abandons Crime Victims and Allows Perpetrators to Avoid Justice,” that details how communities around the country are being harmed by these egregious practices.”
- Ranking Member Jayapal said: “The Trump Administration has diverted over 28,000 officers from their critical law enforcement activities to work on immigration enforcement instead. This has led to non-immigration criminal prosecutions falling to their lowest point in decades. Gun prosecutions have fallen more than 10%. Investigators worked 33% fewer hours on child exploitation cases. Nearly one in every five FBI agents has been reassigned to arrest immigrants instead of conducting complex criminal investigations of corruption, espionage, terrorism, cyber-attacks and transnational gangs—all things that are necessary to keep Americans safe.”
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