Congress locks in a DHS shutdown as lawmakers leave Washington

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"Congress has ensured a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown starting Saturday due to a failed Senate vote on a funding bill. While ICE and Customs and Border Patrol will remain operational due to existing funds, agencies like the TSA and FEMA will be affected. Democrats are demanding changes to ICE practices, including a requirement for judicial warrants, which remains a sticking point in negotiations.

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Negotiators are “very far apart” on an ICE overhaul, Sen. Chuck Schumer said. A DHS shutdown begins Saturday.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, left, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune depart following a news conference at the Capitol on Oct. 3, 2025.Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg via Getty Images

With lawmakers in both chambers leaving Washington on Thursday, Congress has all but guaranteed a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security. The big questions now are how long will it last — and how disruptive will it be.

A failed Senate procedural vote Thursday sealed the deal, ensuring that DHS funding will lapse after Friday night’s midnight deadline. 

Senators voted almost entirely along party lines, 52-47, on a motion Thursday to advance a bill to fund DHS — short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation.

While GOP leaders continue to project progress in the negotiations, there apparently wasn’t enough movement to keep lawmakers in town — in either chamber.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., both sent members home on Thursday, after the White House sent an offer for changes at DHS late Wednesday — and Democrats said it fell well short of their demands.

“The proposal is not serious, plain and simple,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday. “It’s very far apart from what we need.”

Democrats want an end to roving patrols, a ban on masked agents, a requirement for immigration enforcement officers to turn on body cameras, and a requirement for judicial warrants, rather than internal administrative warrants ICE has used to enter homes.

Democrats took White House border czar Tom Homan’s announcement that the administration was ending the surge of immigration agents in Minnesota as a victory, but they said it wasn’t enough to secure their support for more money for the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Republicans were hopeful that the gesture might be enough for Democrats to accept a short-term stopgap for DHS, which would have extended funding for another two weeks. But Democrats weren’t having it.

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. — the lead Senate Republican negotiator on Homeland Security funding — asked for unanimous consent to pass the two-week continuing resolution for DHS. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., objected, saying Republicans had already had enough time to negotiate.

The shutdown, which officially starts Saturday, will have an uneven effect across the Department of Homeland Security. ICE can tap a $75 billion fund, enacted as part of last year’s Republican tax-and-spending law, to largely keep that agency running as usual. Customs and Border Patrol similarly got a $65 billion pot of money that’s accessible during a shutdown.

But the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency don’t have a rainy day fund like ICE and CBP.

That arrangement, in which TSA workers will wait on a paycheck while ICE agents continue as normal, has caused some angst for Democrats. 

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., joined Republicans in voting to advance DHS funding on Thursday, noting that a shutdown wouldn’t slow down ICE and CBP.

Other lawmakers have downplayed the severity of the partial shutdown, which only affects about 4% of the annual discretionary budget for federal agencies. About 90% of DHS’ employees are also considered “excepted” or “essential,” meaning they’ll continue to work, without pay, during a shutdown.

“The government’s not shutting down,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told MS NOW Thursday. “This is 4% of the government, many essentials.” 

Still, she said, it wasn’t “fair to the workers or the Coast Guard to be under this pressure.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.. echoed that sentiment, saying DHS is already “awash in so much money.”

“I don’t think you’ll notice much,” Paul said of the shutdown.

Although lawmakers are leaving town, Thune warned senators that he could ask them to return to Washington within 24 hours if there’s a breakthrough in negotiations.

The Democratic demand for judicial warrants — rather than administrative warrants, approved within DHS — is a sticking point for the Trump administration, though Thune said there’s been progress on other demands.

“You all know the issue of warrants is going to be very hard for the White House or for Republicans,” Thune said.

House Democrats are just as skeptical as Schumer. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters on Thursday that he would review the latest White House offer, but that he personally hasn’t seen much progress.

“My preliminary assessment of it is that it falls short of the type of dramatic changes necessary in order to change ICE’s out of control behavior,” Jeffries said.

Kevin Frey, Mychael Schnell and Peggy Helman contributed to this report."

 

Aftermath video of latest ICE shooting involving a man officials say assaulted an officer contradicts officials’ account

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“Newly obtained videos of an ICE shooting in Minneapolis contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the incident. The videos, including a Facebook livestream, suggest that the shooting victim, Julio Sosa-Celis, was inside his home when he was shot, contradicting DHS’s claim that he was outside and resisting arrest. The videos also raise questions about the identity of the person being pursued by ICE agents and the circumstances leading up to the shooting.

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Newly obtained videos of the moments right after the Wednesday incident in which an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot a Venezuelan man in the leg in Minneapolis appear to contradict at least some of ICE’s claims about events leading up to the shooting.

In a statement Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said the agent targeted, chased and then shot the man in self-defense as the agent was being “ambushed” by three people. But accounts in the videos contradict the identity of the person DHS says federal agents chased, and the details of the shooting itself.

According to DHS, federal agents were conducting a “targeted traffic stop” when, they say, Julio Sosa-Celis, an undocumented Venezuelan national, resisted arrest and started to “violently assault” one of its officers. During the struggle, DHS said in the statement, two additional people came out of a nearby apartment and attacked the officer using a snow shovel and a broom handle.

According to DHS, Sosa-Celis “got loose” and began striking an agent “with a shovel or broom stick.” DHS says the agent then “fired a defensive shot,” which hit Sosa-Celis in the leg.

The three people who allegedly assaulted the officer ran into the apartment building and barricaded themselves before agents arrested all three, DHS said.

But videos from Sosa-Celis’ family appear to tell a different story. One of them shows a video call made by Sosa-Celis’ partner and reviewed by CNN, frantically describing to family members what she says happened, according to Alicia Celis, the mother of Sosa-Celis, who spoke to CNN.

The call appears to contradict ICE’s claims in DHS’ Thursday statement. There, ICE said it was Sosa-Celis who was driving a vehicle that crashed, and Sosa-Celis who fled on foot before agents struggled with him on the ground.

In the call, Sosa-Celis’ partner seems to say the driver of the car was not Sosa-Celis, but Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna — another man ICE detained during the same raid.

“Julio arrived first. They were chasing Alfredo — he had to jump from his car,” Sosa-Celis’ partner says during the call. “He ran and they threw themselves on top of him. After, Julio threw open the door, and they shot.”

The incident marks the second time in a week an immigration agent shot someone while on the job, sparking heated clashes in Minnesota and prompting President Donald Trump to threaten to use the Insurrection Act. Exactly one week earlier, an ICE agent in Minneapolis shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, in her vehicle.

Sosa-Celis was taken to an ambulance and hospitalized; the city of Minneapolis confirmed he had non-life-threatening injuries. CNN has contacted city officials to determine whether he is still hospitalized.

In a statement to CNN on Saturday, DHS stood by its initial statement that the subject of the raid on Wednesday was Sosa-Celis and that he was driving the vehicle.

Facebook livestream footage challenges DHS account

The family’s version of events, heard in a livestreamed Facebook video when family members frantically called 911 to ask for help, also differs from DHS’ statement.

In the video, the family tells a 911 dispatcher that agents shot Sosa-Celis as he tried to enter his home.

“They were following my husband for about 30 minutes. They were trying to crash into him. He arrived at home and because we closed the door on them, they shot him!” a woman can be heard telling the dispatcher. It’s not clear who is speaking or whether Sosa-Celis is the person referred to as being followed.

Throughout the initial video, several family members can be heard pleading with the dispatcher for help.

“Where did they shoot your cousin?” a 911 dispatcher asks the family over the phone. “In the leg! The leg! Please help us! We have kids!” a man responds.

“We have a small child in the house!” one woman says in the background. “And if they shoot?” another woman asks.

“Do you know who shot them?” the dispatcher asks the group. “The ones from ICE! The ones from ICE!” a man replies.

The stream ends with the family continuing to speak with the dispatcher on the phone.

A different video obtained by CNN shows what was happening outside the home while the family waited inside.

In the video, agents are seen approaching the home and setting off a flash-bang. Smoke can be seen, and ramming sounds are heard as someone says, “They’re in! There’s more than a dozen of them.”

Mothers of detained men dispute DHS statement

Alicia Celis also told CNN she has spoken to her son only once, briefly, from the hospital after the shooting. Celis said she had not asked her son about ICE’s claim he attacked agents with a broom or shovel.

“(Julio) only called me to tell me that he is fine, for me not to worry, and for me to stay calm and not cry,” Celis said.

In the Thursday statement from DHS, ICE said the agent who shot Sosa-Celis did so after chasing him on foot after Sosa-Celis crashed into a parked car. DHS also described the agent as “fearing for his life” when he fired the shot. But in an interview with CNN, Mabel Aljorna, the mother of Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, disputed both of those claims on the basis of her conversation with her son immediately after the shooting.

Aljorna said her son told her he was the one being pursued on foot by ICE, and that Sosa-Celis was already inside the home when the agent shot him — not outside, where ICE says the agent fired the shot.

“He told me, ‘Mom, ICE was chasing me. Once we were inside, they shot at Julio.’”

After ICE shot and then detained Sosa-Celis, Sosa-Celis joined a Facebook livestream while in the hospital. In that video, he says there was a physical confrontation between him and agents before the shooting as he tried to help Aljorna get inside the home.

However, he also claims he was inside the house and the ICE agent was outside — and the two were separated by a closed door — when the agent shot him, while Sosa-Celis was locking the door and Aljorna was already inside.

“What happened was that ICE had been chasing my cousin from far way. He came over here, and he tried coming to the house,” Sosa-Celis said. “He got there and he was able to escape. We struggled with them. We were successful in helping my cousin get inside. And as I tried shutting the door, ICE shot me in the leg.”

“The shot that was fired happened when my cousin managed to escape, and he entered inside,” Sosa-Celis said on the livestream. “I closed the door. And as I was locking it, I heard the shot, and that’s when I realized I had been shot in the leg.”

CNN visited the home Friday. The front doorway was boarded up and there was no evidence to be found about the condition of the front door at the time of the shooting.

CNN has been unable to directly reach Sosa-Celis and Aljorna for comment.“

Pam Bondi gets the news she FEARED MOST

 

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BREAKING: Judge blocks Hegseth’s bid to reduce Mark Kelly’s military rank

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Jasmine Crockett Goes Off on Pam Bondi

 

Lawrence: Ignoring Epstein survivors, Bondi showed a Trumpian level of heartless, soulless depravity

 

Rare audio of enslaved people connects history to the present

 

Trump Live Updates: Bondi Faces Anger Over Epstein Files in Combative Hearing - The New York Times

Trump Administration Live Updates: Bondi Faces Lawmakers’ Anger Over Epstein Files in Combative Hearing

Attorney General Pam Bondi testifying at the Capitol on Wednesday.Eric Lee for The New York Times

What We’re Covering Today

• "Bondi Hearing: Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to apologize to survivors of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who attended her testimony at a lengthy House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. Ms. Bondi faced anger from Democrats and at least one Republican, Thomas Massie, who criticized her handling of the release of files related to Mr. Epstein, including redaction errors that revealed the identities of victims. Read more ›

• Netanyahu Meeting: President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel met for two and a half hours at the White House. Mr. Trump wrote on social media that “nothing definitive” was decided beyond a commitment to continue negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, which Israel considers an existential threat. Read more ›

• Trump’s Tariffs: For a year, Republican leaders in the House have blocked challenges to Mr. Trump’s major trade strategy, tariffs, but dissent within the party has set up a vote to rescind the levies on Canada." 

Trump Live Updates: Bondi Faces Anger Over Epstein Files in Combative Hearing - The New York Times

(966) 'I believe you just lied under oath': Dem Rep. asks Bondi about Trump's mentions in Epstein files - YouTube

(966) 'I believe you just lied under oath': Dem Rep. asks Bondi about Trump's mentions in Epstein files - YouTube

Bondi dodges Rep. Jayapal's ask for her to apologize to Epstein survivors

 

Raskin slams Bondi: 'You're running a massive Epstein cover-up right out of the DOJ'

 

How ICE defies judges’ orders to release detainees, step by step

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A POLITICO review reveals a pattern of ICE noncompliance with court orders to release detainees, causing frustration among judges nationwide. Even when complying, ICE delays releases, leaving detainees without belongings or proper coordination. Judges are increasingly frustrated with ICE’s actions, citing constitutional violations and unnecessary burdens on the court system.

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A POLITICO review of hundreds of cases brought by ICE detainees shows a pattern of noncompliance that has frustrated judges across the country.

Kyle Cheney

The Justice Department said in a statement that it is complying with court orders and enforcing federal immigration law: “If rogue judges followed the law in adjudicating cases and respected the Government’s obligation to properly prepare cases, there wouldn’t be an ‘overwhelming’ habeas caseload or concern over following orders.”

When detainees win release, ICE delays 

The most acute concern from judges has been a recent surge of violations that occur after judges have ordered ICE to release people. In a growing number of cases, ICE has taken days or weeks to comply, sometimes requiring emergency motions by detainees’ lawyers and contempt threatsfrom judges.

“Detention without lawful authority is not just a technical defect, it is a constitutional injury that unfairly falls on the heads of those who have done nothing wrong to justify it,” U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell, a Biden appointee based in Minnesota, said during a hearing Tuesday. “The individuals affected are people. The overwhelming majority of the hundreds seen by this Court have been found to be lawfully present as of now in the country. They live in their communities. Some are separated from their families.”

The Justice Department has repeatedly cited failed efforts to communicate with their ICE counterparts to carry out court orders and the fact that they are drowning in habeas cases driven by the Trump administration’s mass deportation strategy. But the delayed releases also add to the burdens on the court system and lawyers for detainees.

Minnesota’s chief federal judge, Patrick Schiltz, cited these delayed releases in a public rebuke of the Trump administration’s conduct. The George W. Bush appointee had threatened to haul ICE chief Todd Lyons into court on Jan. 30, only to rescind the demand once the administration released a man he had ordered released a week earlier.

Detainees released without belongings, devices or documents

In recent days, judges in Minnesota have expressed frustration that even when complying with their orders, ICE has been doing so in bad faith. Detainees that the agency had whisked to Texas, for example, were being released far from home with no way to contact loved ones or lawyers, and sometimes without their phones, documents or other possessions.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, a Minnesota-based Clinton appointee, recently included a requirement that a released detainee should not be “left outside in dangerous cold” and emphasized that ICE should coordinate the release with a detainee’s lawyer to “ensure humane treatment.”

Frank recently required that if ICE ultimately released a detainee, they must do so: “(1) in Minnesota; (2) with all personal documents and belongings, such as his driver’s license, passport, other immigration documents, and cell phone; (3) without conditions such as ankle monitors or tracking devices; and (4) with all clothing and outerwear he was wearing at the time of detention, or other proper winter attire.”

Administration officials “may not shield their unlawful arrest of Petitioner by hiding behind an [immigration judge]’s conclusory, two-line determination of flight risk,” U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen, a New York-based Obama appointee, wrote in a Feb. 4 decision.

U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn, an Obama appointee based in Charlotte, ruled Wednesday that a bond hearing he ordered in December turned out to be constitutionally deficient. The immigration judge in the case, he said, failed to permit the detainee to offer evidence in support of his release and relied on uncorroborated claims to support his continued detention.

Cogburn ordered a new bond hearing for the man, saying his original order had “presupposed that this hearing would be conducted in accordance with Petitioner’s due process rights. It was not.”

And U.S. District Judge John McConnell, an Obama appointee in Rhode Island, ordered a man freed Monday after concluding that two bond hearings conducted by immigration judges were constitutionally deficient — including one in which a judge ordered the man detained as a danger to the community over an uncorroborated report that the man drove 90-mph in a 55-mph zone.

Errors abound in habeas cases

Above all else has been a parade of mistakes: crucial attachments left off court filings or filled with incorrect information, claims that detainees are being housed in one state only to learn they were in another.

But the mistakes are at their most severe when they lead to deportations in violation of court orders. Judge Jill Parrish, the chief federal judge in Utah, recently confronted this when the administration acknowledged shuttling a man to Wyoming and deporting him to Mexico despite her order to block his immediate deportation.

“When a court exercises jurisdiction over a petitioner’s claims, Respondents may not ‘deport first, litigate later,’” the Obama appointee wrote.

It’s happened a handful of times in recent months. And the administration has, at times, facilitated their return to ensure they receive due process.

In another recent case, the Trump administration told a judge that a man seeking release from custody had been deported — when in fact he had not. Because of the administration’s representation, U.S. District Judge Kyle Dudek, a Florida-based Trump appointee, tossed his habeas case, saying it was moot.

“There is no live controversy left to adjudicate, and the Court is powerless to grant relief for a detention that has already ended,” Dudek wrote.

But on Thursday, Dudek rescinded his ruling.

“The Court dismissed this habeas action as moot on the representation that Petitioner was deported. That fact turned out to be untrue,” he wrote.

Judges increasingly lose patience with ICE 

The incessant skirmishing between the courts and ICE has begun to wear on judges, who have made their fury known in increasingly pointed rulings and orders. They have, in some cases, personally rejected dozens of detentions as illegal and taken note as their colleagues around the country have done so in more than 3,000 cases — compared to just over 100 cases in which judges have sided with the mass detention strategy.

U.S. District Judge Jerry Edwards, Jr., a Biden appointee in Louisiana, said he was “fatigued” by the deluge. Chen, the New York-based Obama appointee, lamented “the toll Respondents have exacted on the judiciary by continuing to pursue their new mandatory detention policy, despite its near-universal rejection.”

But it was U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III, a George H.W. Bush appointee in Pennsylvania, who wrote most animatedly.

“These petitions are filed due to the illegal actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” he wrote. “Despite hundreds of similar rulings in this and other courts resoundingly in favor of the ICE-detainee petitioners, ICE continues to act contrary to law, to spend taxpayer money needlessly, and to waste the scarce resources of the judiciary.”

 

We Have to Look Right in the Face of What We Have Become

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“The article highlights the need for public investigation and testimony regarding the violent tactics and disproportionate use of force by federal immigration agents. It draws parallels to historical examples like the Klan hearings and the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, emphasizing the power of words and personal experience in moving public opinion and prompting change. The author argues that any serious reckoning with the actions of the government must include recompense and repair for its victims.

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Feb. 11, 2026

Paola Chapdelaine for The New York Times

On Oct. 4, Marimar Martinez, a teacher’s assistant in a Montessori school, was driving in Chicago when she observed federal immigration agents on patrol. She had begun to honk her horn to warn her neighbors about their presence when she collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Moments later, the agent in the vehicle, Charles Exum, fired multiple shots into Martinez’s car, hitting her again and again. (Later, Exum would brag to colleagues that he had “fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes.”)

Prosecutors for the government charged Martinez with assaulting a federal officer and accused her of trying to ram Exum with her car. The Department of Homeland Security described her actions as domestic terrorism, a charge the agency would repeat after the death of Renee Good in January at the hands of another immigration agent.

The government’s case unraveled, however, when it became clear that its story did not fit the evidence — evidence that officials with Customs and Border Protection tried to hide. The government dropped its case against Martinez a month later, and last Friday a federal judge authorized the release of the body camera footage so that the public could see the incident for itself.

Recently, Martinez joined with other Americans brutalized by federal immigration agents to tell their stories to a forum of congressional Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Garcia and Blumenthal convened the event to collect testimony on — and highlight — “the violent tactics and disproportionate use of force by agents of the Department of Homeland Security.”

The people who testified spoke to the terror of their confrontations with masked, armed and often trigger-happy federal agents. “I will never forget the fear, and having to quickly duck my head as the shots were fired at the passenger side of the car. Any one of those bullets could have killed me or two people I love,” said Martin Daniel Rascon, who was stopped by agents who broke the windows of the vehicle he was in and began firing when the driver, frightened, tried to escape.

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If democracy rests on mutual recognition, on our capacity to see each other as full and equal persons, then the power to speak and be heard lies at the foundation of democratic life. It is when we speak — when we argue, appeal, explain and testify — that we put into practice our belief in the ability of others to understand, reason and empathize. Or as Thomas Jefferson remarked in 1824, “In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.”

Thus far, growing public opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection has been a function of the power of the image — of videos of shootings and abuse — but the testimony of Martinez, Rascon and others should remind us of the power of words and personal experience to also move the public. Crucially, there is the power inherent in giving victims of wrongdoing a chance to tell their stories, not as one perspective among many but as part of the official record.

Two examples of this dynamic stand out in American history.

In 1871, Congress convened the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Conditions of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, better known as “the Klan hearings,” on account of its focus: vigilante violence against the formerly enslaved. The committee, the historian Kidada E. Williams writes in “I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction,” “traveled to hot spots of southern disorder, where they solicited testimony from officeholders, voters, accused participants and their victims.” Overall, the hearings “yielded thirteen volumes of firsthand testimonies, including from Black victims.” Hundreds of Black men and women spoke of terror, intimidation, wanton killings and sexual violence. “African Americans,” Williams writes, “told their stories of world-unraveling violence and asked federal officials and their fellow citizens to respect their rights.”

A little more than a century later, in 1980, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, an official federal investigation into the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The commission held 20 days of hearings in cities across the country and heard testimony from more than 750 witnesses, many of them on the West Coast, including “evacuees, former government officials, public figures, interested citizens and historians.” The evacuees, or rather victims, spoke in their testimony to deep feelings of injustice and a powerful sense that the federal government had robbed them of their dignity. “We took whatever we could carry,” said one person interned as a child. “So much we left behind, but the most valuable thing I lost was my freedom.” Victims also spoke about conditions in the camps that should sound familiar to anyone who has read recent accounts about ICE detention facilities. “The garbage cans were overflowing, human excreta was found next to the doors of the cabins and the drainage boxes into which dishwater and kitchen waste was to be placed were filthy beyond description.”

The public attention associated with the Klan hearings helped suppress anti-black vigilante violence in the South, but only for a time. Ultimately, the hearings did not produce the kind of legislation or federal effort that would have secured the promise of equal citizenship for the formerly enslaved. The more recent commission and hearings on Japanese internment, on the other hand, did lead to congressional action, and in 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed a law that acknowledged and apologized for the injustice of internment, which gave reparations to surviving internees or their heirs.

In her book, Williams observes that

Societies experiencing atrocities struggle to put a stop to and then meaningfully address them. Perpetrators want to advance their aims to the end and propagate baseless lies to do it. Victims want violence to stop, and they want justice. A small cadre of observers believes in justice and accountability. The rest, especially those who are safe from being targeted, and atrocities’ passive beneficiaries, simply want to move on and wipe the historical slate clean.

This was true of the violence suffered by Black Americans during Reconstruction. It has been true, in fact, for all manner of violence either committed or sanctioned by the federal government. But while the odds are somewhat against a serious reckoning with the brutality and wrongdoing of Trump’s mass deportation effort, it does not have to be true of the atrocities of ICE and the Border Patrol. If it is, it is because we made it so.

With that in mind, any serious push to account for the actions of this government — to abolish the president’s private army, restructure immigration enforcement and punish anyone responsible for wrongdoing — must include recompense and repair for its victims. And looking ahead to a Democratic-led House, or Senate or both, the first step in that journey must be more of the kind of public investigation and testimony we’ve already seen in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago and wherever else the administration has made its mark. The American people need to know the full story of what has been done in our name. And the people we’ve wronged deserve their chance to speak and be heard.

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Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va.“