Tell Congress: No more funds for ICE, CBP; fund TSA, FEMA

We cannot support legislation that expands or sustains enforcement practices without adequately addressing their consequences for families and communities. A DHS budget that prioritizes detention and removal - while lacking strong safeguards for family unity, due process, and accountability risks entrenching harm rather than promoting justice or public safety. Recent responses to peaceful protest and public dissent have only intensified concerns about the disproportionate use of force and the erosion of civil liberties.

—300 U.S. Catholic leaders, incl. 15 bishops; open letter to Senate; 28 January 2026

Tell Congress: No more funds for ICE, CBP; fund TSA, FEMA

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues in its partial shutdown. Legislation has been introduced in both chambers of Congress to fund DHS agencies that did not receive bonus funding in the 2025 reconciliation bill, agencies like TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Meanwhile, abusive agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) continue unabated in terrorizing our neighbors due to excessive funding from that bill that will allow them to operate with impunity for years to come.

In an effort to force accountability and an end to violence being perpetrated by ICE and CBP, annual appropriations for DHS have been stymied by some members of Congress. While this blockage is necessary to make ICE and CBP violence stop, it also affects TSA, FEMA, and other agencies, forcing some agents to work without pay and all of them to pause in providing the full spectrum of their services. But congressional fortitude to hold out could be waning under current circumstances. After the nominal draw-down of forces in Minneapolis (but an increase of more subtle violence in the suburbs), the reassignment of former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and the news of profoundly long waits in airport security lines, the resolve of some legislators could waver.

Please use the draft email in the grey box at right (below on mobile devices) to urge your members of Congress to vote AGAINST any funding for the entirety of DHS that doesn’t hold ICE and CBP accountable and install substantial, necessary safeguards against agents’ violence and human rights abuses. Instead, they should vote FOR bills that fund TSA, FEMA, and other essential efforts for travel, safety, and disaster response.