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← Signal: State & Power

House Democrats Introduce Bill to Strip ICE Immunity in Wrongful Detention Cases

Confirmed1 source · Oct 19, 2026

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández introduced legislation citing ProPublica's reporting on over 500 U.S. citizens detained in warrantless arrests during the second Trump administration.

House Democrats Introduce Bill to Strip ICE Immunity in Wrongful Detention Cases
Image via ProPublica

What happened

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-New Mexico) introduced the Justice for Citizens Wrongfully Detained by ICE Act with co-sponsor Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-New Jersey). The bill would reduce federal protections from lawsuits that ICE agents and the federal government currently possess, establish minimum compensation levels for successful plaintiffs, extend the statute of limitations for such cases, and redirect unspent ICE funding from Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Leger Fernández credited ProPublica's recent reporting documenting over 500 U.S. citizens detained in warrantless arrests as the catalyst for the legislation.

Context

Federal officers currently enjoy broad immunity from civil lawsuits and state charges, and can move cases to federal court—making it difficult to hold immigration agents accountable for wrongful arrests or excessive force. The legislation responds to documented cases in which immigration agents detained U.S. citizens without warrants, including at least 70 children and teens; ProPublica's count identified more than 100 citizens held after agents questioned their citizenship. Congressional Democrats previously investigated this issue after ProPublica found over 170 citizens detained by immigration agents. Leger Fernández argued that legal consequences could deter future violations, noting that "bad actors start behaving better because they don't want to face those consequences." Previous Democratic efforts to change detention immunity have not succeeded legislatively.

What's disputed

The Department of Homeland Security denies there is any pattern of immigration agents detaining U.S. citizens and characterizes its immigration operations as "highly targeted," contradicting ProPublica's documented count of over 500 such detentions.