Senate Democrats are ready to shut down part of the federal government over ICE—and it’s about damn time.

With funding for the Department of Homeland Security and several other agencies set to expire Friday at midnight, Democrats are demanding concrete reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement before they’ll provide the votes Republicans need to pass the spending bill.

The ultimatum comes as the country reels from the fatal shootings of two protesters—Alex Pretti and Renee Good—by federal agents in Minneapolis.

WHAT’S GOING ON: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer laid it out plainly: “The American people support law enforcement, they support border security, they do not support ICE terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens.” He claims Democrats won’t budge until ICE is “reined in and overhauled.”

THE DETAILS: The Democrats’ demands are actually pretty basic stuff that most local police departments already follow: end roving patrols in cities, coordinate with local law enforcement, require proper warrants for arrests, establish an enforceable code of conduct, and make agents take off their masks, wear body cameras, and carry proper identification. You know, the bare minimum for accountability.

“Boil it all down, what we are talking about is that these lawless ICE agents should be following the same rules that your local police department does,” said Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith. “There has to be accountability.”

BUT BUT BUT: Republicans are crying foul about the shutdown threat. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas called it a “political stunt,” while the far-right House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to Trump pledging their support for ICE.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis—who actually blamed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for “tarnishing” ICE’s reputation—still opposes requiring agents to show their faces, citing safety concerns for officers’ families. Of course, Tillis doesn’t seem too worried about the safety of immigrant communities being terrorized by masked federal agents with no accountability.

ZOOM OUT: There are signs the White House might negotiate to avoid another shutdown—the government just came off a 43-day closure in December over health care subsidies.

But House Republicans have made clear they won’t accept any changes to their bill, and it’s unclear whether any deal could satisfy Democrats demanding real reforms to Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

BOTTOM LINE: After months of watching ICE agents operate like an occupying force in American cities—masked, unidentified, unaccountable—Democrats finally have some leverage to demand change. “It is truly a moral moment,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct). “I think we need to take a stand.” Whether they can hold the line is another question entirely.

Newly released footage shows Alex Pretti yelling at ICE agents and kicking a vehicle tail light eleven days before Border Patrol agents shot the unarmed ICU nurse ten times in the back—and right-wing media is calling the earlier confrontation “damning.” Of course, being loud and angry around federal agents isn’t a death sentence, and nothing in this video justifies killing an unarmed man who was released without arrest after the first incident, his family’s attorney (the prosecutor who convicted Derek Chauvin) says flatly. Read the full story and watch the video.

Sex trafficking monster Ghislaine Maxwell—who is currently serving 20 years fin prison—just claimed the DOJ secretly settled with 29 men connected to Jeffrey Epstein, effectively shielding them from prosecution. Meanwhile, the Justice Department continues to defy Congress by refusing to release the Epstein files, despite a legal deadline that’s now two months overdue. The DOJ’s stonewalling raises the obvious question—who are these 29 protected men, and what is the government so desperate to hide? Read the full story.

In a chilling authoritarian move, the FBI raided a Georgia election office Wednesday to seize 2020 ballots—five years after Trump lost the state, lost every legal challenge, and watched his criminal case collapse. Of course the people who tried to overturn the election faced zero consequences, while Trump now uses federal law enforcement to validate his Big Lie and intimidate officials who dared count votes accurately. Read the full story.

Trump’s brutal immigration crackdown—which has now left two people dead in Minneapolis—is turning into an electoral nightmare for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms. GOP strategist Jason Roe summed up the panic: “The administration has lost control of the narrative. We can’t get out from underneath what’s happening in Minneapolis.” Democrats are “really, really mad” and motivated to vote, while Republican enthusiasm is tanking—on the one issue that was supposed to WIN them elections. Read the full story.

Amazon just axed 16,000 corporate jobs (after cutting 14,000 three months ago), UPS is eliminating up to 30,000 positions, and layoffs are ripping through every sector from tech to food production—but executives are still cashing record paychecks while workers’ job confidence crashes to its lowest level since 2014. Companies claim “economic uncertainty” and blame tariffs, inflation, and AI for the bloodbath, yet their balance sheets tell a different story: record profits, massive AI investments, and zero accountability for the workers suddenly competing for vanishing jobs in a rigged labor market. Read the full story.

Yesterday we asked, should Stephen Miller be fire? 99% of you said YES.

KM said: “He should also be charged for war crimes.”

Keith said: “They all should be held accountable from the President on down”

Viking said: “Everyone in the Republican Party should be fired. The corruption is unbelievable. Every word is a lie and a lunatic for a president. How he talks is beyond. Anything I ever seen in my life.”

Here are some stories the algorithms may be keeping out of your feed.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent an internal message to employees this week saying ICE is “going too far” with its immigration crackdown. Apple CEO Tim Cook told staff he was “heartbroken” by events in Minneapolis. More than 60 corporate CEOs signed a statement calling for “de-escalation.” Over 450 tech workers from Google, Meta, Salesforce and OpenAI signed a letter urging their bosses to cut ICE contracts and speak out against ICE violence.

Cool. Where the hell were they three weeks ago?

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