Dems’ ICE reform puts sanctuary cities at center of shutdown debate | Opinion
On Wednesday, Democrats delivered a list of demands for immigration enforcement reform to Senate Republican leadership and the Trump White House that includes a poison pill likely to make those negotiations much more contentious. Hopes aren’t high among non-essential government workers in the Midwest as Kansas and Missouri’s federal public defenders prepare to go without pay for the second time this fiscal year.
Whether the Democrats’ demands derail efforts to avoid a shutdown, still up in the air with Trump saying he’s “hopeful” and Democrats signaling openness to a deal, they have set up a showdown over progressives’ beloved sanctuary cities.
After the needless shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Democratic proposals look more than reasonable — except they could give sanctuary cities and states a new tool to frustrate immigration enforcement efforts by the Trump administration..
According to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrats want to “enforce accountability,” including a “code of conduct” for ICE and Border Patrol officers and independent investigations into alleged abuses of strict use-of-force standards.
Schumer also told reporters that they want “masks off, body cameras on,” as well as visible identification. “No more anonymous agents, no more secret operatives,” he said.
Well there’s one more demand that’s just “common sense” according to the New York senator. We should “require ICE coordination with state and local law enforcement.” What could be more basic and innocuous, right?
Except in many places across the United States, such cooperation is hamstrung by state law or city ordinances that govern state and local police.
Take Minneapolis for instance. Its ordinances state that city police shall not “participate in the enforcement of federal civil immigration laws.” Does coordination require participation? It is unclear a local immigration attorney told me. Police officials aren’t likely to risk their jobs to find out.
The same problem exists across the state line in Milwaukee, where police are not allowed to “cooperate” with the civil enforcement of immigration laws. Coordination sure sounds like cooperation to me.
In California, Illinois and New York among others, state law gets in the way of local and state police coordinating with ICE. According to guidance from the attorney general of New York, “unless presented with a judicial warrant, (state and local law enforcement) should not provide sensitive information that is not generally available to the public” to federal immigration authorities. How do you coordinate between ICE and local police without sharing nonpublic information? The law restricts police in other ways as well.
No such problem will exist in Kansas or Missouri, where sanctuary jurisdictions are not allowed by state law.
The Democrats’ demand that ICE and the Border Patrol coordinate with state and local police will lead to the very kind of chaos that they say they want to avoid as some localities comply and others refuse. That leaves federal immigration authorities unable to enforce the law in the sanctuary cities and states where the contrast between Donald Trump’s desire for tough enforcement clashes most sharply with local opinion that such laws should not be enforced there.
Democrats aren’t dumb. It is unlikely that they are unaware of the conflict their “reform” effort sets up. Unless the new legislation nullifies state and local laws that prevent coordination, the “common sense” demand is something the Trump administration can’t sign onto. Democrats will balk at any such move.
Whatever happens with the shutdown, the Democrats have put the future of sanctuary cities at the center of the debate over ICE funding. That may have been a mistake. It is a subject Republicans are eager to take up and one where they are on the side of national public opinion, welcome news after Trump’s wildly unpopular effort to bring immigration “retribution” to Minneapolis.
David Mastio is a national columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Dems’ ICE reform puts sanctuary cities at center of shutdown debate | Opinion."
