John,
Cruelty toward immigrants and their communities is a defining feature of the Trump regime. But this violence does not occur in a vacuum. Every ICE raid, every detention contract, every armed operation sent into neighborhoods is funded, authorized, and overseen by Congress.
What we are witnessing is not the neutral enforcement of law. It is a federally financed campaign of fear, violence, and dehumanization that Congress has the power -- and the duty -- to stop.
The Trump administration has abandoned even the most basic standards of humane treatment. Armed ICE agents are being deployed into immigrant communities with tactics that escalate fear, invite violence, and treat human beings as expendable. When Congress continues to appropriate funds without limits, conditions, or consequences, it becomes an enabler of those abuses.
The killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis is not an isolated tragedy. It is the foreseeable result of reckless enforcement strategies that Congress has allowed to continue unchecked. Her death, alongside the growing number of people injured or killed during ICE raids and in detention, demands immediate congressional action -- not statements of concern after the fact, but real constraints before the next life is lost.
Send a message to your Senators and Representative to demand they stop negotiations on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill until Congress investigates and is able to rein in the reckless tactics of Secretary Noem, ICE Acting Director Lyons, and their underlings.
Across the country, from Chicago to California, immigrants and protestors have been killed during ICE traffic stops and raids over the past year. Nationwide, there have been at least eleven shootings by ICE and Border Patrol agents, including two new victims in Portland, Oregon. These are not accidents. They are the predictable outcomes of policies that reward the most aggressive interventions.
ICE’s expanding detention facilities have become so brutal that 2025 became the deadliest year in ICE custody in more than two decades. Thirty-two people died in detention last year alone. Congress paid for every prison cell, every guard, and every contract that made those deaths possible.
Families and neighborhoods are terrorized and destabilized, because Congress has failed to use the strongest tool it has: the power of the purse. Right now, Congress is negotiating funding bills for DHS and ICE. Approving those funds without first investigating lethal force and abusive tactics, and without imposing binding standards, would make Congress complicit.
Congress cannot just cross its fingers and hope that ICE and DHS use their funding humanely. Funding is authorization for the agencies’ actions, no matter how reprehensible.
Congress must halt negotiations on DHS funding until it reins in the reckless tactics of Secretary Noem, ICE Acting Director Lyons, and their chain of command. It must condition funding on humane standards, transparency, and accountability. Congress must say: No More!
Tell your Senators and Representative: stop funding terror and death, and use your fiscal responsibilities to protect human values.
Thank you for insisting that Congress must not fund cruelty.
– DFA AF Team
