Sen. Peters caves on ICE funding and Slotkin wants ICE to act like cops

On Friday, the US Senate voted 71 – 29 for a spending package to keep the government open, which included funding for the Department of Homeland Security and by extension ICE.

According to an article on Truthout:

The deal represents a major concession from Democrats — by allowing spending for most of the government to be approved, they give up a large bargaining chip to ensure their demands, however milquetoast, are taken seriously.

Michigan Senator Gary Peters voted for the seriously compromised bill and released a statement which included these comments:

“While we continue to negotiate DHS reforms like requiring body cameras and clear identification of federal law enforcement, I’m glad that we were able to pass funding for the remaining government agencies with bipartisan support.”

Senator Slotkin voted no on the bill that included funding for ICE, which was fairly meaningless, since 22 of her fellow Senate Democrats voted for ICE funding. In addition, Senator Slotkin wrote on her Facebook page:

“My sincere hope is the White House and my Republican colleagues in Congress hear the chorus from the American people, and use the next two weeks to put the appropriate limits on ICE. The model should be our state and local police officers, who adhere to a set of standards every day while protecting our communities.”

First, Slotkin left out Democrats in this statement, since the overwhelming message from the American people has been to Abolish ICE, not make it a kinder, gentler systems of state carceral violence. Second, for Slotkin to suggest that ICE should model themselves after state and local police means she not only is not interested in abolishing ICE, the Michigan Senator is denying two major factors about state and local police – that they use massive amounts of public tax dollars, which do not actually keep the public safe, plus cops across the country killed 1,314 people in the US in 2025, which has been the average number since 2020.

The votes from Senators Slotkin and Peters are representative of the majority of Democratic Party members in Congress, which is to keep voting to fund ICE, but with some mild reforms like no masks and body cams. The fact of the matter is that even without masks and wearing body cams, ICE will still be arresting, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.

This is why I believe that the Democrats are equally complicit in the state carceral violence that ICE inflicts on affected communities, since they only want to make some mild reforms around the edges, while funding the separation of immigrant families and perpetuating trauma and pain on affected communities.