Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries just unveiled 10 demands to defang ICE – including stripping agents of their masks and forcing judicial warrants that would grind deportations to a near stop.
That announcement landed the same month ICE posted a video that made every one of those demands feel like a gut punch to every American family who lost someone they loved.
ICE's message was three sentences long, and it named the people Schumer's party has decided don't matter.
The Faces Behind the Mission
"Thousands of American families have been torn apart because of criminal illegal alien violence," ICE posted to social media Tuesday.
"American citizens raped and murdered by those who have no right to be in our country."
"This is who we fight for. This is our why."
The video showed their faces.
Laken Riley – 22 years old, nursing student, University of Georgia, murdered on a morning jog by a Venezuelan illegal who had already been arrested for child endangerment in New York and released.
Rachel Morin – mother of five, raped and murdered on a Maryland hiking trail by an illegal from El Salvador.
Jocelyn Nungaray – 12 years old, raped and murdered by two Venezuelan illegals in Houston.
Kayla Hamilton – 20-year-old autistic woman from Maryland, raped and murdered by a 17-year-old MS-13 gang member the Biden administration let in after he claimed to be fleeing gang violence.
Kate Steinle – shot dead on Pier 14 in San Francisco in 2015 while walking with her father, killed by a seven-time felon who had been deported five times and chose San Francisco specifically because it was a sanctuary city.
Officer David Lee – struck and killed on Interstate 70 in St. Louis while helping a stranded motorist, by an illegal who had already been arrested for assault and drunk driving.
While Democrats Fight for the Killers
Every single one of those deaths was preventable.
Kate Steinle's killer had been in San Francisco police custody just months before he shot her – and ICE had already filed a detainer requesting custody so they could deport him again.
San Francisco released him anyway.
Laken Riley's killer had been arrested by New York police and flagged by ICE, and was still walking free in Athens, Georgia when he beat a nursing student to death on her morning run.
The man who murdered Kayla Hamilton passed through the Biden DHS system without anyone bothering to check whether he had gang tattoos – a fact Aberdeen police uncovered in minutes by simply calling El Salvador.
The pattern is not complicated: Democrats put sanctuary city politics above American lives, and American families paid for it in blood.
Now, in February 2026, Schumer and Jeffries are demanding that ICE agents be stripped of their ability to conduct effective operations – requiring judicial warrants that would grind deportations to a near halt, banning masks, and forcing agents to display their names and ID numbers to anyone who asks.
Senate Republicans tried to pass legislation this month abolishing sanctuary cities and imposing criminal penalties on local officials who refuse ICE detainers – the exact policy failure that got Kate Steinle killed.
Democrats blocked it.
The Accounting America Deserves
ICE Director Todd Lyons named the mission clearly when his agency launched Operation Angel's Honor last December – a nationwide sweep that pulled more than 1,000 criminal illegal aliens off American streets.
"This operation serves as a solemn reminder of the profound impact that immigrant violence can have on victims and their loved ones," Lyons said.
DHS data shows nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of crimes – and that number doesn't include gang members, foreign fugitives, or terrorists who haven't yet accumulated an American rap sheet.
The Democrats calling ICE agents thugs and demanding their names and addresses know those numbers.
They just don't care about the people in that video.
Laken Riley's killer is now serving life without parole.
The families in that ICE post are still waiting for the party that runs sanctuary cities to acknowledge them by name.
They're still waiting.
Sources:
- Margaret Flavin, "This is Who We Fight For," The Gateway Pundit, February 19, 2026.
- ICE Director Todd Lyons, "Operation Angel's Honor," ICE.gov, December 22, 2025.
- DHS, "ICE Arrests Criminal Illegal Aliens Convicted for Murder, Sex Crimes Against Children, and Drug Trafficking," DHS.gov, February 12, 2026.
- Rep. Eli Crane, "Laken Riley Act Passes Out of the House," crane.house.gov, January 7, 2025.
- Sen. Lindsey Graham, "Graham Pushes Legislation to Abolish Sanctuary Cities, Blocked by Democrats," lgraham.senate.gov, February 13, 2026.
- Brady Knox, "Schumer and Jeffries Condition DHS Funding on 10 Demands for ICE Reform," Washington Examiner, February 5, 2026.
- John Binder, "Laken Riley Becomes Latest American Woman Killed by Illegal Alien," Breitbart News, February 25, 2024.
- Fox News Opinion, "Sanctuary City Democrats Resist Trump Deportation Plan at Their Peril," Fox News, December 3, 2024.
- Joseph Chalfant, "Democrats' Demands for DHS Funding Would Destroy ICE As We Know It," Townhall, February 4, 2026.
