Catherine Cortez Masto

Nevada Democratic U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen want to redirect a portion of funding allocated for immigration enforcement as part of the GOP-backed multitrillion-dollar domestic spending and tax cut package passed last year toward local law enforcement.

Their proposal comes a day after Congressional Progressive Democrats vowed to oppose any funding for ICE after a Minnesota woman was killed by an immigration officer. The push comes amid recent polling that indicates growing support for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Nevada Democrats’ proposal also came on the same day as the centrist Searchlight Institute, founded by a staffer for the late Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, pleaded with congressional Democrats not to fall into a “trap” by allowing themselves to be accused of wanting to “defund” ICE, the Bulwark reported.

The massive spending bill signed by President Donald Trump last summer allocated $175 billion to immigration enforcement over several years. Cortez Masto and Rosen said on Wednesday, Jan. 14 they were sponsoring legislation that would reallocate $75 billion to law enforcement, according to Nevada Current.

“The Trump Administration’s actions are not making our communities any safer, in fact they’re doing just the opposite,” Cortez Masto said in a statement. “Instead of giving ICE $75 billion extra dollars to hire untrained ICE agents to patrol American communities, let’s invest that money where it will actually help – in hiring local police officers who are trained to fight crime in a way that earns community trust.”

Many local police agencies work with ICE to conduct enforcement. The ACLU found in the first eight months of Trump’s second term “the number of local agencies opting to act as deportation force multipliers has grown by 600 percent.”

Funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, is expected to be debated as the U.S. Senate takes up appropriations bills ahead of a Jan. 30 deadline.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday, Jan. 13 that ICE funding is “one of the major issues that the appropriators are confronting right now.”

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which Rep. Steven Horsford is the only Nevada member, said this week it would oppose any federal funding going toward immigration enforcement.

Their announcement follows the death of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was killed last week by an immigration officer. Her death has sparked nationwide protests, including some in Nevada.

The Trump administration has spent the first year back in office carrying out a campaign promise for more aggressive immigration enforcement and a pledge for mass deportation.

Both Cortez Masto and Rosen noted in their announcement Wednesday that 73% of individuals held in ICE detention didn’t have a criminal conviction while less than 5% had a violent criminal conviction. They also pointed to a ProPublica analysis that found more than 170 U.S. citizens had been detained by ICE.

“The Trump Administration’s mass immigration enforcement is causing chaos and instilling fear in our communities because they are going after law-abiding immigrants and even U.S. citizens,” Rosen said in a statement.