Radley Balko: The Constitution is not a bargaining chip for a budget negotiation

https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-constitution-is-not-a-bargaining

Funding for the Department of Homeland Security expired on Friday. That means the country’s third largest federal agency — and its most powerful domestic agency — is now in a partial shutdown. The point of contention is a list of 10 demands that Democrats have made to rein in Trump’s surge of deportation forces into U.S. cities.

The shutdown does not mean ICE and Border Patrol will cease operations. They’re amply funded through the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.” It does mean that the TSA, Coast Guard, and other DHS staff are now working with no pay.

On one hand, it’s encouraging to see the Democrats finally putting up a fight. Manipulating Congress’s complex budget rules to exercise the power of the purse is one of the few weapons they have right now. It’s not exactly a profile in courage — or even real leadership. Their actions come only after polls have shown overwhelming anger over Trump’s “reckoning and retribution” in Minneapolis and other cities. But it’s a start.

But we need to be clear about something. The Democrats’ demands aren’t “common sense reforms,” as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described them. All but a few are already the law — and most of the others are either longstanding norms in U.S. policing or the foundational principles of any free society. The “demands” are really just restatements of what most people already expect from law enforcement and democratic government: No secret police. Immigration officers shouldn’t be arresting and incarcerating U.S. citizens. Cops can’t threaten, beat, and arrest people who are for exercising their First Amendment rights. Cops can’t kill people with impunity.

This is basic stuff.

*snip*