Trump moved to cut funding for ICE body cameras and reduced oversight

Donald Trump’s administration opposed efforts to expand the use of body cameras by immigration officers and sharply cut oversight staffing as it surged officers into US cities, including Minneapolis, where agents have fatally shot two American citizen protesters in January.

Footage from bystanders of the two fatal shootings, including one by the border patrol that killed the ICU nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday, has underscored the power of video in checking official statements that have portrayed people who have been shot as provoking violent encounters with immigration officers.

Cameras worn by officers have long been central to police reform efforts for this reason. The Trump administration, however, moved last year to slow-walk a pilot program to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers body cameras, urging Congress in June to cut the funding by 75% and bucking a nationwide trend of cameras for law enforcement. Officials in 2025 also placed on paid leave nearly all staffers working for three internal watchdogs conducting oversight of immigration agencies, undermining their capacity to investigate abuses.

Darius Reeves, who was the director of ICE’s Baltimore field office until August, said a body-camera pilot program rollout had been slow in 2024 under the presidency of Joe Biden, a Democrat, and “died on the vine” under Trump, a Republican.

In response to a request for comment, the White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said ICE officers “act heroically to enforce the law and protect American communities”.

At least three of the eight or more border patrol agents at the scene of Saturday’s shooting were wearing body cameras, a Reuters view of verified video showed. Reuters could not determine if the cameras were activated or if any agents involved in the physical encounter were wearing them.

When federal officers have engaged in acts of violence, including the fatal shootings of Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent on 7 January, top Trump officials have been quick to label the deceased as aggressors rather than call for thorough investigations. Trump started ramping up immigration enforcement after Republicans in Congress passed a bill in the first year of his second presidency that provides $170bn for the crackdown, a major funding surge expected to transform the way ICE and border patrol operate.

Pretti’s shooting has galvanized some Democratic senators who say they will oppose a spending bill to fund the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unless it reins in immigration enforcement. US Customs and Border Protection – the border patrol’s parent agency – had 13,400 cameras for about 45,000 officers as of June, according to a congressional aide.

ICE launched a body-camera pilot program in 2024 and deployed cameras to officers in five cities: Baltimore, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington DC.

While the Trump administration kept the program, it called on Congress to freeze its expansion and slash funds to run it in its budget request for fiscal year 2026.

The proposal called for maintaining ICE’s 4,200 body-worn cameras but cutting the 22-person staff to three employees and running the program in a more “streamlined” approach.

The DHS says there are about 22,000 ICE officers, but a federal workforce database suggests the figure is lower.

A homeland security spending bill passed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives recently rejected that proposal, instead providing $20m for ICE and border patrol cameras.

Still, the bill – which now faces a challenging route to passage in the US Senate – did not require either agency to use the devices.

A top ICE official under Biden, Scott Shuchart, said officers do not bring the cameras with them when detailed to other locations outside their normal operating area – an issue that has been more relevant as officers have been surged to cities around the country.

The DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration placed about 300 workers in three separate DHS oversight offices on paid leave in early 2025 as it redirected thousands of federal agents from across government to assist its crackdown, a move that drew criticism from Democrats and civil rights groups.

A lawsuit over the reductions argues the Trump administration effectively eliminated the offices, something only Congress would be authorized to do – and left no way to address abuses.

In May, a career federal employee, Ronald Sartini, was tasked with top roles at three of the oversight offices, including the one that handled allegations of abuse in immigration detention.

As of December, there were only a few employees per office. The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO) had three full-time employees and two detailees, compared with more than a hundred in March.

In 2023, the OIDO received more than 11,000 complaints in person and received 282 complaints via its web portal, court documents show. Between March and December of 2025, OIDO received 285 complaints in total, court documents show.