H.R. 7148

ORDERLY. REGULATED. SAFE. JUST NOT LIKE THIS.

America can hold two truths in the same steady hand.

Immigration should be orderly. Customs should be regulated. Borders should be safe.

Just not like this.

Right now, Washington is staring down a partial government shutdown—because the fight over the 2026 federal budget has become a fight over whether Congress will continue writing blank checks for a DHS enforcement posture that looks less like governance and more like fear.

This week’s standoff isn’t abstract. It is tethered to the DHS funding bill moving through Congress—H.R. 7148—and to whether lawmakers will attach real guardrails to federal enforcement before the next tragedy becomes the next “news cycle.”

THE QUESTION ISN’T WHETHER TO ENFORCE LAWS. IT’S WHETHER LAW WILL ENFORCE ITSELF.

In a functioning republic, law enforcement wears the law on its face: visible identification, clear authority, transparent rules, accountable outcomes.

But when the public sees masked agents, roving patrols, “show me your papers” encounters, and a reflexive denial of what videos plainly show—people don’t feel protected.

They feel occupied.

And here’s the hard truth: an enforcement system that cannot tolerate accountability is not a public-safety system. It is a power system.

BUDGETS ARE MORAL DOCUMENTS—BECAUSE BUDGETS BECOME TACTICS

Congress can say “we condemn violence” in a thousand press releases.

But the only language power reliably understands is: authorized / not authorized, funded / not funded, permitted / prohibited.

That is why DHS appropriations matter.

If a budget funds rapid expansion without requiring training standards, identification, independent investigations, and public reporting, then Congress is not simply paying for enforcement.

Congress is paying for impunity.

And when impunity is funded, it metastasizes.

WHY THIS SHUTDOWN FIGHT IS DIFFERENT

For years, immigration has been used as a political stage prop: hardliners perform toughness; opponents perform outrage; the machinery grinds forward.

But now the public is watching incidents unfold with a clarity that can’t be spun away.

Phones record.

Frames freeze.

And a country that was told “don’t believe your lying eyes” is beginning to believe itself again.

If Congress funds DHS without meaningful reforms, the message to the country is simple:

We have decided that the price of order is fear.

That is not order.

That is submission.

THE GUARDRAILS ARE NOT RADICAL. THEY ARE THE MINIMUM.

If lawmakers want the public to trust enforcement, then enforcement must be recognizable as law.

At minimum, any DHS funding package—including H.R. 7148—should require:

No roving patrols by agencies not trained for street policing.

Visible identification and limits on face-covering in routine domestic operations.

Independent investigations when serious harm occurs, with state and local participation.

Public reporting on arrests, detentions, errors, and outcomes—so “public safety” can be measured, not merely claimed.

None of that is “open borders.”

It’s open government.

A LINE IN THE SAND: “ORDERLY” IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR “CRUEL”

Every nation has the right to secure its borders.

But no government has the right to treat people as disposable—especially under the banner of “law and order.”

When enforcement becomes a spectacle—quotas, humiliation, intimidation, and the casual normalization of brutality—it doesn’t make a country safer.

It makes a country smaller.

Smaller in spirit.

Smaller in legitimacy.

Smaller in the eyes of history.

WHAT WE’RE CALLING FOR 

This is not a plea for chaos.

It’s a demand for competence, restraint, and constitutional accountability.

If Congress wants to avoid a shutdown, the path is not complicated:

Fund the government. Fund the border. Fund lawful, humane enforcement.

And refuse to fund anything that looks like a domestic “secret police” posture—because once a democracy normalizes that posture, it doesn’t easily return.