Have the Democrats finally grown a spine?

That’s what some commentators are asking in the wake of the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on January 24.

What they mean is that leading Democrats are finally taking action beyond issuing “strongly worded letters” and holding press conferences to stand in the way of the Trump administration’s rule of ruin. They appear to be using what leverage they have to exact concessions from Trump.

At the time of writing, Democrats in the U.S. Senate have refused to provide the votes necessary to pass the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CPB). Temporary funding for DHS lapses on February 13.

Democrats announced a list of 10 demands that they say are essential to include in any appropriations bill for them to vote for it. These range from requiring agents to wear body cameras to limiting arrests only to those for whom ICE/CBP obtained a judicial warrant.

Perhaps this shows that Democratic politicians are not complete zombies, as they try to catch up with their base voters, who have been clamoring for them to put up more of a fight against Trump. After all, it is an election year. But it’s a long way from saying the Democrats have become an opposition force against Trump.

Since the outrage at the Renée Good and Pretti murders erupted, the Trump administration is attempting a public relations reset around what liberal pundit Josh Marshall calls ICE “wilding sprees” in Democratic-controlled cities. Trump cashiered CBP chief Gregory Bovino, replacing him with “border czar” Tom Homan in Minneapolis. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said she was ordering federal agents besieging the Twin Cities to wear body cameras. Homan announced the withdrawal of 700 of the total of 3,000 federal agents in Minneapolis.

We owe these small victories to the thousands of ordinary people in Minnesota who have rallied to defend their immigrant neighbors to have pushed the administration to make even these cosmetic changes. Opinion polls show that two-thirds of Americans oppose ICE and Trump’s mass deportation regime. Polls are increasingly finding majority support for “abolishing ICE,” a demand that most Democrats still consider politically toxic.

But there’s another way to look at the administration’s shifts. And that is to change the media narrative, without changing the substance or level of the attacks on the people of the Twin Cities. The administration is hoping to create the sense that Homan has reined in the marauders. That will provide the Democrats the alibi they will use to vote to fund DHS. One should ask: If Noem is so quick to agree that DHS agents should wear body cameras in Minneapolis, just how effective a reform demand is that?

And let’s not be confused about what the Democrats are up to. They’ve essentially told Republicans that they are willing to vote to fund DHS if the Republicans agree to a set of modest changes to current practice: no masked agents, allow local police to investigate ICE lawbreaking, and enforce only judge-approved warrants, among others.

Republicans could agree to all of these, and, at best, (assuming federal agents don’t flout them…which they will) this might produce a more professionally managed reign of terror in Minneapolis and other cities to be invaded. But it’s doubtful the GOP would even agree to these modest changes at the start. They know that if this is the way the Democrats play the hand that mass opposition to ICE predations gave them, it’s only a matter of time before the Dems cave in.

The Democrats are playing the role they almost always play when masses of people go into the streets to protest intolerable conditions. (With the exception of protests against genocide in Gaza!) They mouth platitudes that sound like they are on the side of the movement, but they use those platitudes to cover negotiations to tamp down protest. With some notable (and rare) exceptions, most Democratic politicians—and certainly those in the leadership of the party—don’t conceive of politics outside of narrow electoral and parliamentary maneuvering.

This was why, for most of last year, as Democratic politicians concluded that Trump was too strong to challenge on immigration, 46 voted for the so-called Laken Riley Act, passed on the day Trump became president. To the extent there is any law underpinning what Trump’s immigration thugs are doing today, this law is it. Under this law, immigrants can be arrested and deported simply on the grounds of an accusation of criminal conduct, rather a criminal conviction.

A June 2025 Republican-sponsored resolution expressing “gratitude” to ICE for “protecting the homeland”—proposed when National Guard troops occupied Los Angeles— won the votes of 75 House Democrats. This vote is less egregious than the support for the Laken Riley Act, since it doesn’t allocate funds or authorize federal thuggery. Instead, it shows how many elected Democrats are either fools or cowards. And the roster of supporters conspicuously includes ambitious pols like California Rep. Eric Swallwell and Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, both of whom are seeking higher office on the back for their anti-Trump and anti-ICE bona fides.

Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig, who voted for both bills, is trying to avoid talking about them as she attempts to recast herself as someone who will stand up to Trump and ICE as she campaigns for the Democratic nomination to be U.S. senator from Minnesota.

Now, when Democrats arguably have leverage to push the Trump administration into retreat, they are recalibrating as the “adults in the room”, that simultaneously have two goals: work with the administration to lessen “chaos,” and convince activists not to go “too far” to provoke Trump’s authoritarian dreams.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s January 26 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal is a perfect illustration of the Democrats’ approach. Walz spends the first half of the article touting Minnesota’s cooperation with ICE and the administration on “immigration enforcement”. He blasts ICE for “taking credit for arrests that state and local law enforcement made, activity that took place before this assault on our state even began.”

“Everyone wants to see our immigration laws enforced. That isn’t what is happening in Minnesota. . . . That isn’t effective law enforcement. It isn’t following the rule of law. It’s chaos.”

Walz continues: “I fear that [Trump’s] hope is for the tension between ICE agents and the communities they’re ransacking to boil over—that he wants you to see more chaos on your TV screens, protests turn into riots, more people get hurt.

“Minnesotans aren’t taking the bait. They are protesting—loudly and urgently, but also peacefully.”

This is Walz’s message to the courageous folks who are standing up for their neighbors. It’s admirable to protest—if protest stays within certain limits. Walz deployed the Minnesota National Guard. Not to defend Minnesotans against federal goons, but to defend ICE’s processing center from angry protesters. National Guard support freed up federal agents to continue their marauding assaults.

A similar dynamic played out in the government’s earlier assault on the Chicago area. Gov. JB Pritzker, who many liberals think is some sort of resistance leader against Trump, dispatched the Illinois State Police (ISP) to conduct crowd control against protesters at ICE’s Broadview, Ill., processing center. Under the guise of “protecting free speech,” the ISP moved protesters away from the center, and arrested those who insisted on exercising their rights to free speech and assembly. In other words, ISP provided material support for ICE and CBP, allowing its roving bands to attack Chicago and its suburbs.

Walz’s and Pritzker’s behavior is typical because the Democrats have never been an “opposition” party. The modern Democratic Party dates to the early 1800s. Since the post-Civil War period, the Democrats and Republicans have taken turns managing the U.S. state. At most, the Democrats represent the other choice on the ballot when the Republicans are in office. In the neoliberal era that began in the 1970s, the Democrats haven’t tried to put a stop to the ruinous free-market and repressive policies associated with Republicans and conservatives. Instead, they have helped to facilitate them.

Immigration policy provides a perfect case in point. As far back as the late 1990s, Democratic President Bill Clinton was bashing Republicans for weakness on “border security.” In the 1990s, the Clinton administration authored Operation Gatekeeper, a major step in the modern-day militarization of the U.S. border with México, and the 287(g) program that enlists local enforcement agencies for immigration enforcement.

The execrable Sen Joe Lieberman, the party’s nominee for vice president in 2000, championed the creation of DHS (along with ICE and CBP) and shepherded the legislation that established them. During its eight years in office, the Obama administration “removed” more than 3 million people, more than any previous administration. In 2015, Obama even awarded Homan, then ICEs’ official in charge of deportations, the Presidential Rank Award.

The Biden administration wasn’t to be outdone—even compared to the Trump I administration. According to the Migration Policy Institute, writing only five months before the 2024 election when Trump was flaying Biden/Harris for its “weak” position on “border security”:

Combining deportations with expulsions and other actions to block migrants without permission to enter the United States, the Biden administration’s nearly 4.4 million repatriations are already more than any single presidential term since the George W. Bush administration (5 million in its second term).

And Harris, of course, ran as a “border hawk,” essentially amplifying Trump’s anti-immigrant appeal in 2024.

Throughout, the Democrats supported legislation for something called “comprehensive immigration reform.” It envisioned spending more on militarization of the border, regularizing a “guest worker” program across the economy, and providing a “pathway to citizenship” for undocumented migrants. Yet, at every turn, bipartisan support for “border security” increased billions for repression while the promise of citizenship was left on the side of the “pathway” there.

If the Democrats have a vision of an immigration policy that they support, it’s likely to be very similar to the Clinton/Obama/Biden policy: a technocratic regime that efficiently deports people without the social media bombast and roving thugs that have become the hallmark of Trump’s. An irritated liberal Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the Democrats’ main budget writer in the House, declared “I will not vote to abolish ICE” when clergy member constituents of hers pressed her to do the “moral” thing.

Politics are fluid, and maybe the Democrats will sell out for a higher price. But their entire trajectory—from last year’s MAGA-lite to this year’s reluctant obstructionists—should disabuse anyone of the notion that they are true allies in the fight against ICE and Trump. That lesson is not lost on thousands of people who have become radicalized over the last year.