Jim Beam column:Time to change way ICE looks
Published 6:05 am Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Perhaps it’s time to remind Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents about the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Nancy Keegan of Baton Rouge said in a letter to The Advocate that in response to outcries against ICE brutality, the President Donald Trump administration recently informed ICE agents that they have “absolute immunity” in pursuit of their duties.
Protect Democracy, which is described as a nonpartisan organization dedicated to preventing the decline of U.S. democracy into authoritarianism, said those agents don’t have absolute immunity.
“Federal agents can face state criminal penalties, including prison time, for violent, illegal conduct on the job,” according to protectdemocracy.org.
“Absolute immunity.” Just think about that,” Keegan said in her letter.
Keegan added, “So it should be no surprise to anyone that, in recent weeks, ICE agents have detained children as young as 5 to serve as bait, that they have been filmed smashing pregnant women to the pavement, dragging elderly people out of their homes naked, beating people unconscious, pepper-spraying peaceful protesters and shooting American citizens in the head.”
OK, here is the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.”
Keegan said, “Our country is treating human beings, our brothers and sisters under God, more cruelly than we could legally treat animals.”
The Associated Press said ICE agents are reportedly using disguises and dummy license plates in Minneapolis. It said Luis Ramirez “had an uneasy feeling about the men dressed as utility workers he’d seen outside his family’s Mexican restaurant in suburban Minneapolis.”
During ICE’s sweeping immigration crackdown in Minnesota legal observers and officials say they have received a growing number of reports of federal agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ICE activists.
When the agents came back to his restaurant, Ramirez filmed his confrontation with the two men who hid their faces as he approached and appeared to be wearing heavy tactical gear beneath their yellow vests.
“This is what our taxpayer money goes to: renting these vehicles with fake tags to come sit here and watch my business,” Ramirez shouted in the video.
While all of this unusual ICE activity is taking place, Democrats in Congress are holding up funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.
The AP said Congress is trying to renegotiate the DHS spending bill after Trump last week agreed to a Democratic request that it be separated from a larger spending measure and extended at current levels for two weeks while the two parties negotiate.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “We need to press forward aggressively and ensure that there are legislative changes enacted as part of any DHS spending bill because that’s the way that you change behavior.”
Jeffries added, “ICE is completely and totally out of control, they have gone way too far, and the American people want them reined in because immigration enforcement should be fair, it should be just and it should be humane.”
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune R-South Dakota, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Jeffries listed 10 restrictions they want placed on ICE and Border Patrol.
The demands include prohibiting DHS officers from entering private property without a judicial warrant, verifying individuals aren’t U.S. citizens before detaining them, requiring agents to wear body cameras and identification badges, and preventing them from covering their faces.
“It’s about people’s basic rights, it’s about people’s safety,” Schumer said. If Republicans do not like the ideas, he said, “they need to explain why.”
For officers conducting immigration enforcement, Democrats say that in addition to officers taking off their masks and showing identification, DHS should regulate and standardize uniforms and equipment to bring them in line with other law enforcement agencies.
Those being picked up by ICE and Border Patrol deserve to be confronted by individuals who look like the law enforcement officers they are used to seeing. Yes, that creates some risk, but state police, city policemen, deputy sheriffs and other law enforcement agents face those same risks every day.
Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than six decades. Contact him at jim.beam.press@gmail.com.
