End Qualified Immunity, Abolish ICE, Defund DHS

ICE did not exist before 2003. The Department of Homeland Security did not exist before 2003. These agencies were created in the panic after September 11th, when twenty-two different federal departments and agencies were merged into a single cabinet-level department with sweeping authority over immigration, border security, and domestic surveillance. ICE was born out of that merger, combining functions from the old Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service into a new enforcement agency with almost no institutional memory, no established culture of restraint, and virtually no accountability mechanisms.

In the twenty-two years since, these agencies have grown into a sprawling apparatus of detention, deportation, and domestic enforcement that now operates with the kind of impunity we associate with authoritarian states.

The Budget Explosion

ICE’s budget has nearly tripled in a single year. In fiscal year 2024, ICE had roughly ten billion dollars. This year, after Congress passed the reconciliation bill in July, ICE now has twenty-eight point seven billion dollars at its disposal. Congress handed ICE seventy-five billion dollars over four years, including forty-five billion specifically to expand detention capacity and build new ICE prisons.

The broader Department of Homeland Security received one hundred seventy-eight billion dollars in supplemental funding—the largest single package of DHS appropriations ever put before Congress. For fiscal year 2026, DHS is requesting over one hundred fifteen billion dollars through the regular appropriations process, plus an estimated forty-five billion from the reconciliation funding. ICE alone has doubled its workforce, hiring twelve thousand new agents in under a year.

This is not border security. This is the construction of a deportation-industrial complex, funded by Congress at levels that dwarf what we spend on housing, mental health services, or anything that might actually help communities.

Congress Votes to Thank ICE

In June 2025, seventy-five House Democrats voted for a resolution expressing “gratitude” to ICE for “protecting the homeland.” Representative Jake Auchincloss was one of them.

The vote happened while ICE was conducting raids across Los Angeles that had sparked mass protests. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the resolution a political stunt designed to give cover to the Trump administration’s deportation machine. One hundred thirteen Democrats voted against it. Auchincloss sided with Republicans.

When reporters contacted Massachusetts representatives who voted for the resolution, some at least tried to explain themselves. Bill Keating’s office dismissed the ICE language as “filler.”

Auchincloss said nothing. He has never spoken publicly about that vote. He has never said whether he would vote differently if given another chance. He cast his vote to thank an agency that kills people in residential neighborhoods and then went silent.

The Doctrine That Shields Abuse

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violate constitutional rights, they must face consequences just like any other person. Yet qualified immunity—a judicially created doctrine that shields government officials from civil liability—protects ICE agents from being held accountable for abuses of power, civil rights violations, and even deadly force.¹ This legal protection for bad actors creates a system where agents can violate the law with impunity, knowing they face no personal consequences for their actions. Victims of abuse find themselves unable to seek justice through civil lawsuits, as courts dismiss cases before reaching the merits based on qualified immunity defenses.

Congressman Shri Thanedar of Michigan introduced H.R. 4944, the Ending Qualified Immunity for ICE Agents Act, in August 2025 to strip federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of their qualified immunity protections, allowing individuals to sue agents who violate constitutional rights.¹ The bill would bar ICE agents from invoking qualified immunity in lawsuits alleging constitutional violations, eliminate the “clearly established law” doctrine that has shielded agents from accountability, and apply the same legal standards to ICE agents that apply to civilians who break the law.¹

As Representative Thanedar stated, “If an ICE agent violates the law, it only makes sense they are held accountable just like civilians.”¹

The Crisis of Death and Abuse in ICE Custody

The year 2025 has become the deadliest for people held in ICE custody in two decades, with at least twenty deaths recorded—more than any year since 2004.² These rising fatalities stem from multiple interconnected failures: acute overcrowding straining facility capacity beyond breaking points, abysmal detention conditions with inadequate sanitation and nutrition, medical neglect that kills people whose treatable conditions go undiagnosed, and mental distress that soars in detention environments designed to punish rather than humanely house human beings.³ The Trump administration increased the number of people detained in ICE facilities by almost fifty percent in less than one year, exacerbating all of these problems.²

A comprehensive report found that ninety-five percent of deaths in ICE detention could likely have been prevented with adequate medical care.⁴ This statistic reveals systemic medical neglect, not isolated incidents or unavoidable tragedies. People are dying because ICE fails to provide the basic healthcare that could save their lives.

ICE operates the largest immigration detention system in the world, incarcerating over thirty-seven thousand individuals as of July 2024.⁵ Abuse has been repeatedly documented since the early 2000s in forms that include medical neglect, sexual abuse, unsanitary conditions, retaliation against detainees who file complaints, and prolonged use of solitary confinement—particularly targeting mentally ill and medically vulnerable immigrants.⁵⁶

Deadly Force by Border Enforcement Agents

Between 2010 and 2024, three hundred thirty-four people were killed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, ICE’s sister agency within the Department of Homeland Security.⁷ Children under eighteen years old comprise eight percent of all victims killed by CBP agents, while approximately fourteen percent of victims fell between ages eighteen and twenty-nine.⁷ Victims included one hundred ten Mexican nationals, fifty-two U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, thirty-one Guatemalans, and fifteen Hondurans.⁷ That U.S. citizens and legal residents account for more than fifty deaths underscores how enforcement violence affects not only undocumented immigrants but anyone who encounters armed border agents.

Reports document that ICE has detained American citizens with impunity and committed civil rights violations, with qualified immunity protecting agents from accountability.⁷ While the Supreme Court has recognized that federal officers are not immune from prosecution if they break state or federal law,⁸ qualified immunity makes it extremely difficult in practice to hold agents accountable even when they clearly violate constitutional rights.

Systemic Oversight Failures

ICE’s oversight system has comprehensively failed to prevent persistent abuse and inhumane conditions.⁵ The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within the Department of Homeland Security carries formal responsibility for oversight but often fails to hold ICE accountable in any meaningful way.⁵ Institutional secrecy has limited CRCL’s impact and allowed systemic problems to fester unaddressed.⁵ Many confirmed issues only become public through litigation, often roughly a decade after initial allegations were made.⁵

ICE’s failure to engage in meaningful self-oversight forms part of a larger detention and enforcement apparatus designed to cover up abuse and stifle accountability.⁵ The agency resists transparency, fights document requests, and creates bureaucratic obstacles preventing effective external scrutiny. When oversight offices within DHS do investigate and confirm abuses, their findings gather dust rather than prompting systemic reform or individual discipline.

What We Must Demand

I am calling for three things.

First, end qualified immunity for ICE and CBP agents. When federal agents violate constitutional rights, the people they harm should be able to sue them in civil court. Qualified immunity makes that nearly impossible, and it has to end. We must pass H.R. 4944 to establish that government officials who violate constitutional rights face civil liability just like any other person.¹

Second, abolish ICE. This agency is twenty-two years old. It was created in a moment of national panic, and it has operated as an unaccountable enforcement arm ever since. The functions that ICE performs that are actually necessary—investigating human trafficking, financial crimes, smuggling—can be transferred to other agencies with established oversight mechanisms. What cannot be reformed is an institutional culture built on terrorizing immigrant communities.

Third, defund the Department of Homeland Security. Congress just gave DHS the largest supplemental appropriation in its history while families struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and childcare. We do not need to triple ICE’s budget. We need to redirect those resources toward agencies and programs that actually serve the public interest.

---

References