We’ve told you that Senate Democrats are trying to use the DHS funding bill, currently in the Senate, as their basis for a government shutdown because they hate ICE. However even without the funding bill, deportations would continue right along because ICE was heavily funded in the OBBB.
The changes which Chuck Schumer and his Democrat misfits are going to demand to the bill are now being reported, and they would completely hamstring President Trump’s deportation effort:
Democrats are coalescing around a number of DHS bill changes:
-require judicial warrants for immigration arrests, overruling a recently disclosed ICE memo asserting they are not required
-mandate federal agents identify themselves
-require DHS to cooperate with state and local investigations
-limit the “mission creep of federal agencies.”
Democrats are coalescing around a number of DHS bill changes:
-require judicial warrants for immigration arrests, overruling a recently disclosed ICE memo asserting they are not required
-mandate federal agents identify themselves
-require DHS to cooperate with state and local…— Meredith Lee Hill (@meredithllee) January 27, 2026
The first change, of requiring judicial warrants for immigration arrests, would be devastating to Trump’s ability to deport criminal illegal aliens and Fox News reporter Bill Melugin explains why:
If reports are true that Dems are demanding judicial warrants for all ICE arrests as part of DHS funding bill, that will take a massive amount of targets off the board for ICE. They would only be able to go after illegal immigrants who have committed a new *federal* crime *after* entering the U.S. illegally.
State & local crimes would not apply. (Feds don’t enforce state & local).
For instance, if an illegal immigrant gets arrested in Minnesota for a DUI crash causing great bodily injury (state crime) and bonds out of jail, ICE would not be able to target him for arrest because there would be no judicial warrant (not a federal crime).
ICE would not be able to target anyone for just being in the U.S. illegally. They would have to wait for a federal crime to be committed, then a federal judge would have to sign off on probable cause for arrest.
It would cripple any hopes of “mass deportations” or widespread immigration enforcement.
Warrants are *not* required for ICE arrests under US law right now. They simply need probable cause that the target is detainable/deportable on immigration grounds and use I-200 and I-205 civil administrative warrants.
The most common judicial warrants ICE uses to target aliens right now is for illegal re-entry (8 USC 1326), a federal felony when a deported alien has re-entered the U.S. after deportation. But again, that is a limited population as most non-citizens haven’t been deported before.
ICE *does* need a judicial warrant to enter homes. Their administrative warrants do not allow them to enter private property. That’s why we often see them waiting for a target to go to or from work when they’re in public.
One ICE contact in a sanctuary city tells me: “If we need a judicial warrant for every arrest, we would maybe have 15 arrests in a year.” (In his city).
This would never pass the Senate because Republicans wouldn’t allow it. And honestly, as a basis for a government shutdown, it’s pretty damned weak in my opinion. Illegal entry should always be the primary reason for deportation and I think most Americans probably agree with that, even if they don’t like what’s going on in Minnesota.
But don’t doubt the ability of the garbage media to make this Dem proposal sound like nothing short of the greatest idea since the founding of the country.