I’ve spent the past twenty years advocating for immigrants’ rights and a humane immigration system, in California, Arizona and Vermont, most of that time with the ACLU. Looking back at the past year of escalating, violent attacks by immigration agents on American communities and in ICE detention centers, I share the anger and revulsion felt by so many people across the country and here in Vermont.
I’m also feeling deep frustration over the sheer predictability of it all—because what we are witnessing is in many ways nothing new. Experience has also taught me to be skeptical that our elected representatives will pursue meaningful solutions, at least absent sustained public pressure.
At the same time, I’m also finding inspiration, and some hope, in the way that our communities are responding to this moment, and in the growing recognition that ICE and Border Patrol cannot be reformed.
Looking back, I started my career providing legal services to people in detention centers in southern California. I represented asylum seekers and unaccompanied children, and my clients routinely reported verbal and physical abuse by Border Patrol agents—something that had been well-documented for decades.
A few years later, as an ACLU staff attorney in Tucson, I represented the family of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who was killed when Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz fired his weapon from the U.S. side of the border wall into Nogales, Mexico. Jose Antonio was sixteen, unarmed, and posed no threat to anyone at the time of his death.
In southern Arizona, I met many more people impacted by Border Patrol violence—communities surrounded by interior checkpoints, where agents would interrogate, threaten, and assault local residents. Many of these attacks occurred far from any border. Meanwhile, the systemic abuse of children and families in Border Patrol and ICE custody continued unabated.
All of this happened long before Donald Trump, during the Obama administration.
Almost as galling as Border Patrol’s culture of impunity is the indifference with which it has been met in the halls of power. I gave my first Congressional testimony on Border Patrol abuse in 2013, reporting many of the very same tactics now being deployed on city streets from Chicago to Minneapolis and beyond—as Vermont journalist Garret Graff recently did for Illinois Governor Pritzker’s “Accountability Commission.”
My own testimony was met with polite nods but no further action. Unfortunately, that has been the response of so many policymakers charged with agency oversight, both Democrats and Republicans, for decades.
Rather than rein in these agencies, lawmakers have increased funding for their abuses, year after year. Before last year, ICE and CBP budgets had tripled over the prior two decades —ICE’s budget hit $9.6 billion in 2024, CBP’s was $19.6 billion —with bipartisan support.
The last immigration “reform” proposal to gain momentum under the Biden administration included harsh restrictions on asylum and $20 billion in funding for thousands more agents and tens of thousands of detention beds —again, it had strong, bipartisan support.
Then came the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Over the next four years, taxpayers struggling to afford housing and healthcare will spend $170 billion on immigration agencies that are now actively recruiting right-wing extremists to their ranks.
And yet, despite all of that, I have some optimism that we may be approaching a turning point —that too many people have finally seen not only what these agencies are capable of, but what they fundamentally are.
A significant majority of Americans —62%—now believe immigration agents are making our communities less safe, an astounding number. One of the most remarkable things about this moment is how many people can plainly see that these agencies are simply beyond reform.
The question, now, is really what can we do about it? Vermont’s Congressional delegation deserves credit for opposing more DHS funding in the latest budget fight. Democrats and some Republicans backed Bernie Sanders’ proposal to repeal $75 billion in ICE funding to undo the recent, obscene cuts to Medicaid. That effort fell short, but it’s a start.
In the short term, we can unfortunately expect Congressional leaders to continue talking about the kinds of minimal reforms that won’t change a fundamentally toxic agency culture. Congress has essentially created a police reform problem from hell—the fact is, there is no real way to fix what law enforcement leaders openly refer to as “the Green Monster.” Body cameras and additional training mean little if an agency believes, essentially, that it is above the law and can do whatever it wants.
Ultimately, the only way to rein in ICE and Border Patrol and to address the threat they pose is to cut their funding and start over, from scratch, with something else. For that to happen, our elected representatives need to keep hearing from us.