ICE Mistakes Happen—And Republicans Just Voted to Keep Their Deportations Legal
While most of America was distracted by headlines and influencer drama, something alarming unfolded in the halls of Congress. During a House Judiciary Committee meeting on April 30, 2025, Republican lawmakers quietly voted against a Democratic amendment that would have prohibited ICE from using federal funds for deportations of U.S. citizens.
The amendment, introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), was clear-cut: ICE should not be detaining or deporting American citizens. “Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, I hope we can all agree that U.S. citizens should never be detained by ICE,” Jayapal said during the markup, according to Newsweek. But every single Republican on the committee voted no—and did so in silence.
Why this matters: Deportations aren’t just targeting undocumented immigrants
This isn’t hypothetical. There’s already a pattern. As Jayapal pointed out, ICE has mistakenly detained U.S. citizens before. Including a 2-year-old girl deported alongside her mother to Honduras, without what a federal judge described as “meaningful process.”
According to Forbes, Democrats on the committee shared several similar examples. Like a family in Oklahoma, all U.S. citizens, who were raided by armed ICE agents and treated like criminals. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called the Trump administration’s efforts “a template to violate and erode our rights and liberties.”
The Supreme Court has already ruled that deporting anyone—citizen or not—without due process is unconstitutional. Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor sounded the alarm. She wrote: “The Government’s argument… implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence.”
Republicans didn’t explain their vote, and they didn’t have to
According to Forbes and Politico, Republicans offered no counterargument during the nearly 9-hour markup. When Democrats pressed them for answers, they remained silent. Not a single Republican lawmaker on the Judiciary Committee gave a reason for voting against the due process amendments or the amendment to prevent ICE from deporting citizens.
Democrats introduced over a dozen amendments, including one from Raskin that read: “None of the funds… may be used to detain or remove an alien in violation of their rights under the Fifth Amendment.” Republicans rejected each one, without comment.
Trump’s “beautiful bill” could supercharge deportations
This vote came as part of a broader effort to push through Trump’s so-called “big, beautiful bill”—a massive budget and policy package that would expand immigration enforcement in unprecedented ways. According to Politico, the proposal includes $45 billion in detention funding (enough to detain up to 5 million people), $14 billion for transportation, and fees as high as $3,500 for sponsors of undocumented children.
Trump himself has floated the idea of sending U.S. citizens convicted of crimes to prisons in El Salvador. “If we could get El Salvador or somebody to take them, I’d be very happy with it,” he said on April 5, as reported by Newsweek. Even his own press secretary admitted they’re unsure of the legality but said it’s an “idea he has floated.”
What happens next?
The GOP-led Judiciary Committee’s bill is expected to pass Congress, thanks to reconciliation rules that bypass the Senate filibuster. If enacted, it would dramatically reshape immigration enforcement—and could test the constitutional limits of how far a U.S. president can go.
According to AP-NORC and ABC News polls, over half of Americans disapprove of Trump’s immigration policies. But for now, the administration—and its silent enablers in Congress—are moving fast, with very few checks.
Because, as Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) bluntly put it: “The fact that we even need to say ICE shouldn’t deport U.S. citizens is bats**t crazy.”
