I’m not buying the most recent statement from Rep. Scholten regarding Department of Homeland Security funding

On Friday, Rep. Hillary Scholten released the following statement on her Facebook page:

I’m relieved my Republican colleagues have come to their senses and allowed us to fund critical DHS programs, including TSA, FEMA, CISA and the Coast Guard, while we continue to negotiate much-needed reforms to ICE and CBP. This is a HUGE win for us. But let’s be real – we could have, and should have – done this months ago! Let’s get down to work on implementing much needed reforms to ICE. I won’t vote for another penny to ICE until those reforms are in place.

While some people might be celebrating this statement by Rep. Scholten I am not fooled into think that she is a champion of immigrant justice. On the contrary, as I have written about previously, Rep. Schoten has voted in favor of several critical bills that have essentially criminalized immigrants, such as the Laken Riley Act. More importantly, there are three solid reasons why Rep. Scholten’s state about ICE and the Department of Homeland Security is deeply problematic.

First, up until the current Trump Administration, Rep. Scholten had no problem funding ICE and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) during the Biden Administration. During the Biden Administration ICE and CBP were arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants. The largest difference is that under the Trump Administration ICE has a much larger budget and has hired lots more agents. Since ICE was created in 2003, ICE has always terrorized immigrant communities, which has included the Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump Administrations.

Second, since the Democrats do not have a majority in the House, voting against any issue that the Republicans are putting forth is not really an opposition vote. It might appear as an opposition vote, but this brings us back to my first point about Scholten voting for DHS programs, including ICE and CBP.

The third issue – which is interconnected to my other two points – is important in that Rep. Schoten is making it clear that she will vote for funding of ICE and CBP if there are “needed reforms.” The so-called reforms to ICE and CBP are really about making white liberals feel better about those two agencies. Here are the so-called reforms that Rep. Scholten and her fellow Democrats are calling for:

• Requiring a judicial warrant to enter private property (as the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment already requires) – this sounds nice, but ICE tactics have been to wait til people they are after leave their house/apartment and then apprehend them and send them to a detention center.
• Verification of non-citizenship before detention and banning racial profiling and profiling based on job, language, and accent – again, this sounds nice, but immigrants from the global south have been racially profiled ever since the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. US immigration practices is rooted in racial profiling and simply verifying non-citizenship will not stop ICE from racial profiling.
• Prohibiting immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and requiring them to wear ID and body-worn cameras – this is all about optics and does nothing to stop ICE from terrorizing immigrants. Making ICE have badges and not covering their faces makes white people feel better, but will do nothing to prevent ICE from arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants.
• Prohibiting arrests at hospitals, schools, daycares, churches, polling places, and courts – a nice sentiment, but why limit ICE from arresting immigrants at just these locations? Terrorizing immigrants at their homes, their workplaces or when they are out shopping and going to the pharmacy are equally cruel. Again, this demand is about optics and makes white people feel better about ICE .
• Allowing states to investigate potential crimes committed by DHS and to sue DHS over detention conditions, and requiring state coordination for large-scale operations – This isn’t a bad idea, but how will this be enforced? Also, we know that local police are cooperative with ICE all around the country, so will people/communities be able to sue local police departments for assisting ICE in their terrorizing of immigrants?
• Safeguards including immediate access to attorneys for detainees, allowing states to sue DHS for violations, and unlimited congressional access to ICE facilities – also not a bad idea, but why didn’t Democrats demand this during the Biden and Obama Administrations? Immigrant detainees were being mistreated and many of them died under those administrations as well.
• Prohibit tracking and databases of individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment – Again, these activities have happened under Democratic Administrations, plus government surveillance of people in the US has been happening for a very long time regardless of who sits in the White House.
• Codification and enforcement of a use of force policy – Use of force policies by ICE and local law enforcement always protects the cops. This is why groups like Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE use the phrase – ICE and Cops go hand in hand. The carceral state has always used the threat of force to manage populations, especially BIPOC populations, so simply codifying use of force policies will provide even greater legal protections for ICE and local cops.

We don’t need to return to the “good old days” of ICE, the pre-Trump ICE, especially since ICE was created to criminalize and terrorize immigrants. You can’t reform state carceral violence, not matter what agency we are talking about. Instead, we have to take the following steps to fundamentally change the so-called immigration crisis.

1. Provide all undocumented immigrants a clear path to obtaining legal status.
2. Abolish ICE, which is exactly what immigrant-led groups and immigration focused groups are calling for. Here are some those groups – Mijente, United We Dream Network and Movimiento Cosecha, Other groups calling for the abolition of ICE are: ACLU, American Friends Service Committee, NAACP, Amnesty International, Detention Watch Network and CASA.
3. US Foreign Policy needs to drastically change, since so much of US military spending/intervention and economic policies, like NAFTA, have been part of the root causes for the displacement of so many people, especially from Latin America.

Until we adopt make these three strategies, we are going to continue to criminalize immigrants, engage is white supremacist/xenophobic practices, and rely on state carceral violence to deal with immigration. We also need to stop being fooled by the rhetoric of politicians like Rep. Scholten that do not practice authentic solidarity with those being targeted by ICE.