Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday questioned the Department of Homeland Security's training of immigration officers, calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement a “rogue force.”
"They're almost trained, it looks like, to be nasty and mean and cruel and go way beyond what ordinary police departments do,” the New York Democrat told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“They need to be reined in and they need to stop the violence,” Schumer added.
Schumer’s comments come after Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security without extensive changes to ICE and Customs and Border Protection following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month. Their demands include strengthening warrant requirements, unmasking federal immigration officers and ending roving patrols.
Congressional Republicans and the White House have largely rejected the demands, arguing things like unmasking agents could lead to an increase in doxxing officers.
But Schumer on Sunday said the argument “makes no sense.”
“Every other police department in America is unmasked. ICE can do the same," he told host Jake Tapper.
Still, the partial government shutdown won’t immediately impact some parts of the Department of Homeland Security, like ICE and CBP. Both agencies received billions last summer as part of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
White House border czar Tom Homan said in a separate interview with Tapper that while immigration efforts will continue, “ICE officers won't be getting paid. But they're getting used to that."
Part of that immigration crackdown could be seen at polling places this year. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday said the department would “make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders.”
Schumer on Sunday issued a sharp rebuke of Noem’s statement.
“That's a lot of bull,” he said. “They show no evidence of voter fraud. They show there's so little in the country and to have ICE agents, these thugs, be by the polling places, that just flies in the face of how democracy works, of how we've had elections for hundreds of years very successfully.”
He added that Democrats’ legislation would include language forbidding ICE agents being anywhere near polling places.
Still, Schumer on Sunday vowed that if Republicans agree to Democratic demands, “We'll fund the whole Department of Homeland Security bill."
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