Target leadership, alongside executives from 60 major corporations in Minnesota, responded by publishing a letter calling for the “immediate de-escalation of tensions.” Advocates pushed back, arguing that de-escalation isn’t enough. Instead, they say corporations must take concrete action by refusing to cooperate with ICE and Border Patrol and demanding their removal from communities.
These protests are unfolding as Congress negotiates funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the department that oversees ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), after popular opposition to ICE and CBP killings arose during budget negotiations.
Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that passed last year pumped $170 billion into DHS for MAGA’s mass deportation agenda — including $75 billion for ICE and $58 billion for CBP through 2029. This funding comes on top of the agencies’ annual budgets, roughly doubling their joint annual budget and enabling abuses like those seen in Minneapolis and across the country.
With so many Americans struggling right now, that money could go to so many better uses.
My colleagues and I at the Institute for Policy Studies found that the $170 billion for mass deportations and detentions could fund nearly 400,000 living wage jobs for single-parent families with two children over four years.
Senator Bernie Sanders also pushed a measure, which only narrowly failed in the Senate, to put ICE’s extra $75 billion back into Medicaid instead — where it would have helped 700,000 Americans who will lose health care under the “Big Beautiful Bill” keep their insurance.
Immigrant groups and advocates are clear about what they want next: to get ICE out of our communities and stop funding it, including clawing back the $170 billion already allocated. We also need real accountability measures that would finally end the violence and abuse carried out by these agencies.
In the meantime, it may be time for some of us to rethink where we shop.
It isn’t a question of whether Target is affordable or convenient. It’s whether a trusted household brand should be allowed to enable harm behind its familiar red-and-white logo.
This piece was originally published by the National Priorities Project.