WASHINGTON – When members of Congress saw the chaos surrounding immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, they didn’t like what they saw, opening the door to reforms.
In a rare rebuke to President Donald Trump, lawmakers are considering putting guardrails on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, two agencies that last year received a massive infusion of funding – $75 billion – in the president’s “big, beautiful” bill.
Now, additional money for those agencies, as well as the entire Department of Homeland Security, is at stake as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is under scrutiny for her handling of immigration enforcement.
Trump told reporters last week that his administration would “deescalate a bit” in Minnesota. He replaced hard-line Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino with his more conciliatory border czar Tom Homan, who said Wednesday that 700 federal law enforcement agents would exit Minnesota, leaving about 2,000 agents in place.
Related: As Minnesota legislative session nears and Operation Metro Surge drags on, lawmakers ready response to ICE
While Congress was able to end a four-day partial government shutdown by approving five appropriations bills that will fund the Pentagon and Labor and Transportation Departments and other agencies until Sept. 30, funding for DHS will only last until the end of next week.
So, the clock is ticking on Congress to negotiate how ICE and Border Patrol agents execute the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
Reforms under discussion include de-escalation training, a ban on masks, requiring judicial warrants to enter a home, a mandate to wear body cameras, the establishment of a code of conduct governing the use of force, and the end of roving patrols to pick up migrants.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-4th District, supports all of those proposed reforms, as well as others, including requiring labeled uniforms or vests that clearly identify the agency a federal agent belongs to and “clear standards” on investigations into misconduct.
She said the FBI has routinely cooperated with local law enforcement, yet it has failed to do so after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In addition, the Justice Department decided against investigating Good’s shooting.
“And there’s more to talk about,” McCollum said.
Some Republicans are also open to some changes.
“The tragedy and chaos the country is witnessing in Minneapolis is shocking,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said on X. “The killing … of Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen, by ICE agents should raise serious questions within the administration about the adequacy of immigration-enforcement training and the instructions officers are given on carrying out their mission.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he was open to some changes.
“Some of these conditions and requests that they’ve made are obviously reasonable and should happen. But others are going to require a lot more negotiation,” he said Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
‘They have enough money’
There’s also a debate among Democrats about the funding of ICE and the Border Patrol.
None of Minnesota’s Democratic House members voted Tuesday for the package of spending bills, even though the bill for DHS would fund the agency for only 10 more days.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-5th District, wants to “defund” ICE. Rep. Angie Craig, D-2nd District, said she would fight to keep ICE from receiving more money than it did last year.
“We only have so many leverage points in Congress and this is the last one we have,” Craig said.
McCollum, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, said the $75 billion appropriated for ICE and the Border Patrol last year can fund those agencies “for five or six years.”
“They have more than enough money,” McCollum said.
McCollum also said she “has colleagues who want to claw back some of the funding” that has greatly expanded the number of ICE and Border Patrol agents and detention facilities. “But I don’t know if we can,” McCollum said.
The debate over immigration enforcement came to a boiling point after the killing of Pretti. Before that lethal shooting in Minneapolis, Congress was set to approve a package of appropriations bills on a bipartisan basis.
But, with the help of eight Republicans, that effort was derailed last week. Instead, the DHS appropriations bill was killed and the department funded only temporarily.
Even before “Operation Metro Surge” claimed the life of Good and Pretti and unleashed a flood of videos on the internet showing federal agents abusing immigrants and protesters, the nation was becoming wary of immigration enforcement operations.
Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Politics said immigration is a “thermostatic” issue. Public opinion on the issue turned against former President Joe Biden because of fears of unchecked immigration, Rubashkin said, but after Trump convinced a lot of the public that he had secured the border “people thought the issue was resolved.”
So, polls showed Trump losing ground on the issue even before “Operation Metro Surge.” But that loss of support has recently escalated.
A recent Ipsos poll showed that a majority of respondents say current efforts by ICE officers to deal with unauthorized immigration go too far (62%), compared with 13% who say current efforts do not go far enough and 23% who say current efforts are about right. The share saying these efforts go “too far” has increased slightly compared with a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Jan. 23-25, 2026 (58%).
The poll also determined that the number of Republicans who say ICE officers are going too far (30%) is up 10 percentage points from the previous poll.
Meanwhile, a new Pew Research Center poll determined that by wide margins the public says it’s not acceptable for federal immigration officers to wear face coverings that hide their identities, or to use people’s appearance or language as a reason for checking their immigration status.
However, both polls show that a vast majority of Republicans still support Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement.
A different view
While Minnesota’s Democratic lawmakers want reforms and cuts to ICE and Border Patrol funding, the state’s Republican members of Congress have a different view.
Like other Republicans, Rep. Pete Stauber, R-8th District, said the protests against Operation Metro Surge were born of bad policies by Democratic officials.
“This mess was created by the disastrous policies of Joe Biden and Tim Walz that defended and freed criminals,” he said in a post on X. “Let’s make Minnesota safer, not a sanctuary for lawbreakers, fraudsters, and dangerous criminals.”
And while Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-7th District, said she was “deeply saddened” by Pretti’s death, she blamed Walz and other Democrats for the tragedy.
“We must reject rhetoric that limits cooperation with federal authorities and instead focus on the rule of law to ensure the safety of all Minnesotans,” Fischbach said.
Related: Flanagan, Craig take fight to precinct caucuses roiled by ICE operation while Tafoya makes her political debut
Because there is still strong support for Trump’s immigration policy among Republican lawmakers, some have insisted that the DHS funding bill strip federal money from “sanctuary” jurisdictions that they say don’t cooperate with federal immigration agencies.
Meanwhile, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, introduced his own hardline immigration bill this week.
The SCAM Act, co-sponsored by the other three Republicans representing Minnesota in Congress – Stauber, Fischbach and Rep. Brad Finstad, R-1st District – would strip U.S. citizenship from any naturalized citizen who, within 10 years of their naturalization, is convicted of fraud against the government, found to have joined or affiliated with a foreign terrorist organization, or is convicted of an aggravated felony or espionage.
“If you come to this country and lie, cheat, and steal after becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, you clearly do not appreciate the opportunities you were given and you should be denaturalized and shipped back to where you came from,” Emmer posted on X. “That’s why I introduced the SCAM Act.”
The post Alarm over ‘Operation Metro Surge’ prompts Congressional efforts to rein in ICE and the Border Patrol appeared first on MinnPost.
