Rep. Ilhan Omar's Make ICE Pay Act would gut immigration enforcement funding and funnel the money to communities that have clashed with federal agents, a proposal Republicans are calling "un-American."
Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, introduced the legislation Thursday, pitching it as accountability for what she described as the damage caused by Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in her state. The bill would redirect ICE and Customs and Border Protection funding, a figure Omar herself pegged at $140 billion, away from enforcement and toward schools, healthcare providers, nonprofits, small businesses, and local governments in areas affected by federal immigration sweeps.
The money would come from funds allocated under President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provided $70 billion to fund ICE and CBP through 2029. Omar's bill would reroute that enforcement money into a grant program run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, overseen by HUD's inspector general, and set to expire three years after its creation.
Put plainly: a sitting member of Congress wants to defund the agencies enforcing immigration law and hand the cash to the very communities where illegal immigrants have been sheltered from federal authorities. The reaction from the right was immediate and sharp.
Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, posted on X with a blunt assessment:
"This bill is un-American. This bill defunds law enforcement and gives their funding to the communities harboring criminal illegal aliens. Democrats fight for everyone except the American people."
Banks zeroed in on the core problem with the proposal. The bill does not merely cut enforcement funding. It channels that money to communities Omar describes as harmed by enforcement, communities that, in many cases, have resisted cooperation with ICE. The incentive structure is unmistakable: obstruct federal immigration law, then collect a federal check for the trouble.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders weighed in on X as well:
"Defund ICE. Weaken the border. Then expect safer communities? That math isn't mathing."
Sanders distilled the contradiction at the heart of the proposal. Omar frames the bill as community protection, but it would achieve that protection by dismantling the agencies tasked with removing people who entered the country illegally, including those with criminal records.
Omar's own language left no ambiguity about her view of ICE's mission. She posted on X:
"ICE has been tearing through our nation, devastating our neighborhoods, our cities, and our businesses. Our communities deserve accountability. My Make ICE Pay Act will redirect ICE's $140 billion budget to the communities they've hurt the most."
Her press release cited "Operation Metro Surge" in Minnesota as the specific trigger for the legislation. The bill's text, as described in her congressional office's announcement, would direct funding toward "local recovery efforts," including psychological services, school support, increased local-government expenses, and what the release called "investigations and memorialization efforts."
"Memorialization efforts" is a striking line item in a bill about immigration enforcement. Omar's framing treats ICE operations not as law enforcement but as something closer to a natural disaster, or worse, a deliberate act of harm requiring a memorial. That framing asks taxpayers to fund a narrative that casts their own government's enforcement of existing law as an atrocity.
The dollar figures in the proposal are worth noting. Omar cited $140 billion in her X post. Her press release described "nearly $140 billion" in ICE and Border Patrol funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Elsewhere, the figure was characterized as "over $100 billion." The discrepancy was not explained.
John Nagel, a Republican running against Omar in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, posted on X that Omar's "entire existence is on crippling the United States," adding that she is "anti-police and pro communism." The conservative influencer account LibsofTikTok called the bill "the definition of America last" and added two words: "Denaturalize and deport."
That last phrase carries extra weight given the other headline hanging over Omar. White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed to Fox News last week that the Department of Homeland Security is looking into allegations involving the congresswoman. Homan described it as an "ongoing criminal investigation."
When asked directly whether he was confirming an investigation involving Omar, Homan said:
"I'm confirming that ICE is, yeah, look, I said months ago that there's something that's been reported and needs to be looked at."
Homan declined to disclose specifics and would not confirm whether the federal government has evidence that Omar committed immigration or naturalization fraud. Omar dismissed the allegations in December as "bigoted lies," writing on social media that Trump was obsessed with her. Fox News Digital reached out to Omar's office for comment on the Make ICE Pay Act; no response was noted.
The Make ICE Pay Act has no realistic chance of becoming law. Republicans control Congress, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Omar wants to gut is the centerpiece of the administration's border agenda. The bill will not advance out of committee. It will not receive a floor vote. Omar knows this.
That makes the bill a statement of priorities rather than a serious legislative effort. And the priorities it reveals are clarifying. Omar introduced a bill to defund immigration enforcement at the same moment federal investigators are reportedly examining her own conduct. She framed lawful enforcement operations as acts of destruction. She proposed funneling enforcement dollars to communities that have actively resisted cooperation with federal agents. And she wrapped the entire package in the language of victimhood, "communities they've hurt the most", as though enforcing duly enacted immigration law is itself a form of abuse.
The bill's administrative design underscores the intent. HUD, a housing agency, would run the program, not the Department of Justice or DHS. The money would flow through states to nonprofits and local entities. The inspector general oversight and three-year expiration clause give the proposal a veneer of accountability, but the underlying mechanism is a transfer of law-enforcement funding to organizations that may have no obligation to cooperate with immigration authorities.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, in a separate Fox News segment, highlighted the broader pattern: Democrats attempting to defund border protection while sanctuary cities release illegal immigrants with felony charges back into communities. Omar's bill fits that pattern precisely, it would codify the defunding into statute and reward the jurisdictions that made enforcement harder in the first place.
When elected officials propose stripping funding from the agencies that enforce the law and handing it to the people who resist enforcement, the word for that is not accountability, it is encouragement.
