Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced legislation that would redirect up to $140 billion in immigration-enforcement funding to communities she says have been harmed by ICE operations, and Republicans from Congress to the governor's mansion are calling the proposal un-American.
Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, unveiled the Make ICE Pay Act in a press release and an accompanying post on X, framing the bill as a direct answer to federal enforcement actions in her home state. The measure would pull ICE and Border Patrol funding allocated under President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act and funnel it instead toward what Omar's office describes as "local recovery efforts" for communities affected by immigration enforcement.
The bill stands no realistic chance of becoming law. Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House. But the proposal lays bare a policy vision that conservative critics say amounts to rewarding jurisdictions that resist federal immigration law, and punishing the agents who enforce it.
Omar's press release identifies the legislation as a response to "Operation Metro Surge" in Minnesota, a federal enforcement campaign that has drawn heated opposition from progressive lawmakers in the state. She attended a field hearing at the Minnesota Senate Building in St. Paul on January 16, 2026, where the operation was discussed under a title that cast it as an assault on the state's residents.
On X, Omar wrote:
"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."
The bill's mechanics, as described in Omar's press release, would route nearly $140 billion from ICE and Border Patrol allocations through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD's inspector general would oversee the program, which would expire three years after its creation. States would distribute the money to nonprofits, small businesses, schools, healthcare providers, and other entities Omar's office classifies as impacted by enforcement activity. The bill also earmarks funding for "psychological services," "investigations," and what the press release calls "memorialization efforts."
Put plainly, the bill treats lawful immigration enforcement as a harm requiring taxpayer-funded compensation, and hands the check to the communities least cooperative with federal authorities.
The funding figures cited in connection with the bill vary. Omar's X post references "$140 billion." Her press release, as described by Fox News Digital, uses "nearly $140 billion." The article body elsewhere describes "over $100 billion." A video segment on the same page references "$70 billion" as the total in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for ICE and CBP through 2029. The discrepancy is not explained in the reporting.
Conservative reaction was immediate and blunt. Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana posted on X:
"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."
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders kept her response shorter and sharper. "Defund ICE. Weaken the border. Then expect safer communities?" she wrote on X. "That math isn't mathing."
John Nagel, the Republican running against Omar in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, went further. "Her entire existence is on crippling the United States," Nagel posted. "She is anti-police and pro communism."
The conservative influencer account LibsofTikTok summed up the mood on the right in six words: "The definition of America last. Denaturalize and deport."
Fox News Digital reached out to Omar's office for comment on the backlash. No response was noted in the reporting.
The bill arrives against a backdrop that makes Omar's positioning even more striking. White House border czar Tom Homan recently confirmed to Fox News that DHS is looking into longstanding allegations involving Omar, describing it as an ongoing criminal investigation.
Homan told Fox News:
"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."
He declined to disclose details about the investigation and would not say whether the federal government has evidence that Omar committed immigration or naturalization fraud. Omar has long faced allegations that she married a man critics allege is her brother as part of an immigration scheme. She has repeatedly denied the claim, and it has not been proven in public records.
In December, Omar dismissed the allegations as "bigoted lies" on social media, writing that Trump was obsessed with her. The federal probe's specific focus remains unclear based on available reporting, and Homan's confirmation left the scope deliberately vague.
So the timeline runs like this: a sitting member of Congress who is the subject of an active federal immigration investigation introduces a bill to defund the very agency conducting that investigation. Whatever one thinks of the allegations, the optics are difficult to miss.
Legal analysts have explored whether the longstanding allegations could ever lead to deportation proceedings against a sitting member of Congress, a question that raises thorny constitutional and procedural issues. The legal barriers are significant, regardless of what investigators ultimately find.
No one in Washington expects the Make ICE Pay Act to receive a committee hearing, let alone a floor vote. Republicans hold the majority. The president just signed the very funding bill Omar wants to gut. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has publicly highlighted the administration's zero-tolerance approach to illegal immigration and called out Democrats for attempting to defund border protection.
But the bill is not really about passing. It is about positioning. Omar is staking out the furthest-left pole on immigration enforcement at a moment when her party's national leadership has largely avoided the "defund ICE" language that cost Democrats credibility in previous cycles. She is telling her base, and her progressive allies in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, with whom she appeared at a January 13 news conference on DHS funding, that she will not back down.
For Republicans, the bill is a gift. It confirms the argument they have made for years: that a meaningful faction of the Democratic caucus does not merely want to reform immigration enforcement but wants to dismantle it and redirect the money to the same communities that shelter illegal immigrants from federal law.
Banks put it most directly: "Democrats fight for everyone except the American people." Whether or not that line is fair to every Democrat in Congress, Omar's bill makes it harder for her colleagues to argue otherwise. Omar's own denial of federal contact regarding the investigation adds another layer of tension to a story that keeps building.
When a lawmaker under federal investigation introduces a bill to defund the investigators, the proposal tells you less about policy than about priorities.
