The League sent a letter to congressional leadership to keep ICE, CBP, and immigration detention funding out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding legislation.
The Honorable John Thune The Honorable Chuck Schumer
US Senate US Senate
The Honorable Mike Johnson The Honorable Hakeem Jeffries
US House of Representatives US House of Representatives
Re: Reject Funding for ICE and Support American Families
Dear Leader Thune, Leader Schumer, Speaker Johnson, and Leader Jeffries,
The League of Women Voters of the United States (the “League”) remains steadfast in our demand that Congress not appropriate any new funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and immigration detention expansion in your attempt to reopen the other vital functions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Once again, the American people are paying the price for political gridlock with their paychecks, safety, and peace of mind. This is exacerbated as the Administration weaponizes the shutdown in its latest deployment of ICE agents to at least 14 airports. Further, the Administration is choosing to compromise the well-being of the American people to codify an anti-voter policy that would fundamentally change the way Americans register to vote and cast a ballot: the SAVE Act.
In the wake of the One Big Beautiful Bill granting more than $170 billion, an unprecedented amount of funding, to expand immigration and border enforcement activities to DHS and the Department of Defense, the request for the allocation of additional taxpayer funding is at best, grossly fiscally irresponsible. With this previous funding, communities across the country are still reeling from the harm done by federal immigration enforcement agents who’ve surveilled, detained, arrested, disappeared, injured, and killed civilians. Agents have denied people their constitutional rights by denying them due process, searching vehicles and homes without consent or the appropriate warrants, and attacking and arresting people peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.
DHS has been shut down for more than a month, and families are experiencing the same manufactured crisis as during last year’s historically long shutdown. This partial shutdown has led to the withholding of paychecks from an estimated 100,000 people, significant Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staffing shortages and longer airport security lines, limited the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster relief aid, and more. For most Americans, missing paychecks threatens to force them to dip into their savings, take on credit card debt, work extra jobs, struggle to meet their families’ basic needs, or leave their job for alternate sources of income. This is simply unacceptable.
In November 2025, LWVUS wrote to you about our appropriation priorities, and our central call still stands: engage in good- faith negotiations to ensure that the government remains focused on delivering for the people and the Constitution it serves. We have a long way ahead to imposing meaningful oversight and accountability on federal immigration enforcement agencies, protecting the civil rights and safety of civilians, ensuring accountability to individuals and communities harmed, and restoring the American people’s faith in the US government. However, today, the League urges you to put aside partisan politics and come together to pass legislation that prioritizes American families by rejecting future funding of ICE and CBP, but putting TSA, FEMA, and other vital DHS agencies and services back to work.