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congressional progressive caucus
House Progressives Press Trump as Israel's Illegal West Bank Annexation Accelerates
"Trump said he's against it but does nothing as Netanyahu destroys the prospect of a two-state solution."
Feb 19, 2026
Progressive US lawmakers on Thursday joined more than 80 countries in condemning Israel's de facto annexation of the West Bank, while urging President Donald Trump to exert pressure on the key Mideast ally to stop stealing Palestinian land and recommit to the moribund so-called two-state solution.
"The Israeli government is moving toward illegally annexing the West Bank," the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) said on X. "Trump said he's against it but does nothing as Netanyahu destroys the prospect of a two-state solution. We need real US pressure to deliver a just and peaceful outcome for both Palestinians and Israelis."
CPC was responding to a Wednesday Washington Post article examining how "Israel has moved aggressively in recent days to deepen its control over the occupied West Bank, unilaterally adopting policies that analysts say represent a major shift toward annexation."
Earlier this week, the Cabinet of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved measures making it easier for Jewish settlers to purchase land stolen from Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by resuming land registration procedures in Area C, the approximately 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli military and civil control.
Responding to the move, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Tuesday that "accelerating the dispossession of Palestinians and expanding Israeli settlements will do nothing to bring long-needed stability and peace to the region."
More than 80 UN member states have condemned Israel's plan to steal more Palestinian land.
“Such decisions are contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law and must be immediately reversed," Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said on behalf of the countries. "We underline in this regard our strong opposition to any form of annexation."
“We reiterate our rejection of all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem,” he added.
Netanyahu—who once displayed a map of the "New Middle East" in which there is no Palestine—last year promised that "there will be no Palestinian state."
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and other officials have also vowed to annex either some or all of the West Bank.
Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the ongoing Gaza genocide. The ICC has also reportedly weighed arrest warrants for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich over the far-right officials' plans to expand illegal settler colonies in the West Bank and annex the occupied territory.
Smotrich—who denies the existence of Palestinian people—said Sunday that "we are continuing the revolution of settlement and strengthening our hold across all parts of our land."
While Trump has publicly stated that he "will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank," he has done nothing to stop Netanyahu's government from proceeding with de facto annexation. To the contrary, Trump reportedly assented to recent Israeli land grabs.
Smotrich called Trump's reelection a "great opportunity" to normalize Israel's occupation and eventual annexation of Palestine.
Some prominent US officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have erroneously claimed that the West Bank is part of Israel.
Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem along with Gaza during the Six-Day War in 1967, subsequently ethnically cleansing around 300,000 Palestinians. Many of these forcibly displaced people were survivors of the Nakba, the terror and ethnic cleansing campaign that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee or be forcibly expelled from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding colonies there. Settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to around 770,000 today.
Both Israel's occupation of Palestine and the colonization of Palestinian lands by Jewish apartheid settlers are illegal under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law.
As the world’s attention focused on Gaza following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,053 Palestinians—at least 230 of them children—in the West Bank, according to UNRWA. Some settler pogroms have compared to the ethnic cleansing during the Nakba.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report Wednesday warning that "intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighborhoods, and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift."
"This, together with forcible transfers, which appear to aim at a permanent displacement, raise concerns over ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank," the report states.
Although not a CPC member, Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) last week reintroduced HR 7545, which would prohibit Israel from using US taxpayer funds for the seizure or destruction of Palestinian property or any support for annexing Palestinian land.
Earlier this month, a group of Democratic US senators urged Trump ahead of his February 11 meeting with Netanyahu to "clearly reinforce the opposition of the US government to Israeli government actions that set the conditions for irreversible annexation.”
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7 House Democrats Vote With GOP to Give ICE More Money Despite Deadly Invasions of US Cities
"The billions in funding in this bill will only embolden ICE and CBP to continue arresting our neighbors—immigrant and US citizen alike," warned one ACLU attorney.
Jan 22, 2026
Seven Democrats in the US House of Representatives voted with nearly all Republicans on Thursday to pass a Department of Homeland Security funding bill despite growing calls from across the country for Congress to rein in the Trump administration's deadly immigration operations, which are led by DHS agents.
Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (NC), Laura Gillen (NY), Jared Golden (Maine), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), and Tom Suozzi (NY) joined all Republicans but Rep. Thomas Massie (KY) for the 220-207 vote that sent the legislation to the Senate—where the GOP also has a majority, but it's so narrow that most bills need some Democratic support to pass.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) notably refused to pressure members of his caucus to oppose the bill, even though voters clearly oppose federal operations featuring violence and lawlessness by agents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) everywhere from California and Illinois, to Minnesota and Maine.
Jeffries and other Democratic leaders have faced growing public pressure to use a rapidly approaching deadline—if Congress doesn't pass legislation by January 30, the federal government shuts down again—to freeze ICE funding. The bill that advanced out of the House on Thursday would give ICE $10 billion and CBP $18.3 billion.
"I just voted HELL NO to giving ICE a single penny," declared Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who's part of the progressive Squad. "Congress should not be funding an agency that has terrorized our communities, kidnapped our neighbors, and killed people on the street with impunity. We must abolish ICE and end qualified immunity for ICE agents NOW."
Two weeks ago, ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old US citizen and mother of three, in the Twin Cities, where President Donald Trump has sent thousands of federal agents. Videos, eyewitness accounts, analyses of the shooting, and an independent autopsy have fueled calls for Ross' arrest and prosecution.
Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), whose district includes Minneapolis, said ahead of the vote: "Deporting children with cancer. Using a 5-year-old as bait. Shooting moms. ICE is beyond reform. And today the House is voting to bankroll more terror. Hell no."
Another Squad member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), said: "DHS is using our tax dollars to terrorize our neighbors and detain 5-year-olds. It's shameful. ICE must be abolished. Kristi Noem must be impeached. And not one more penny should go to this rogue agency."
The entire Congressional Progressive Caucus opposed the bill. CPC Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) said in a video posted to social media after the vote that "this mass deportation machine is out of control: detaining and deporting US citizens and veterans, arresting little kids, ripping up families, killing innocent people. It's got to stop."
"Our taxpayer money does not need to got to Donald Trump's out-of-control mass deportation machine," Casar added. "We should be sending it to our schools and to childcare, and to bringing down the cost of living for everyday people."
MoveOn Civic Action spokesperson Britt Jacovich said in a Thursday statement that "Americans want healthcare and lower costs, not masked ICE agents kidnapping kids from playgrounds and schools. The House just failed their latest test to hold Trump and his dangerous ICE street gang accountable for killing innocent people like Renee Nicole Good and many others. Senate Democrats need to step up for the American people and block any funding bill that gives another dime for ICE to abduct 5-year olds and kill citizens."
Kate Voigt, senior policy counsel at the ACLU—which has been involved in multiple lawsuits over recent DHS operations—similarly stressed that "the House vote in favor of excessive funding for ICE with no meaningful accountability measures is wildly out of touch with polling that shows the majority of voters oppose ICE and Border Patrol's attacks on our communities."
"The bill fails to rein in ICE and Border Patrol at a time when they are engaged in an unprecedented assault on our rights, safety, and democratic way of life," she continued. "The billions in funding in this bill will only embolden ICE and CBP to continue arresting our neighbors—immigrant and US citizen alike—no matter the costs to our communities, economy, and integrity of our Constitution.
"While the House narrowly passed this bill, we thank the members of Congress who held the line and voted against this harmful legislation," Voigt added. "Now we need our senators to hold firm and refuse to be complicit in fueling ICE's reckless abuses in our communities."
Every representative who voted yes voted for more brutalization of our neighbors, more kidnapping of our children, more trampling of our rights, and more murder from this government.
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— Indivisible ❌👑 (@indivisible.org) January 22, 2026 at 6:53 PM
The group Indivisible emphasized that "the House had an opportunity to impose meaningful restrictions on ICE and it failed. As the regime terrorizes our communities with masked federal agents and unchecked violence, Congress stood quietly by and passed a DHS funding bill that continues to funnel taxpayer dollars into ICE's slush fund."
"Passing this bill without any meaningful check on this lawless agency is beyond the pale," Indivisible added. "In an egregious failure of leadership, House Democratic 'leaders' personally opposed the bill while declining to whip against it."
The DHS legislation advanced alongside a three-bill appropriations package, which passed by a vote of 341-88. According to the Hill: "The House will combine the four bills with a two-bill minibus it passed last week and send the full package to the Senate. The upper chamber is expected to take up the bills when it returns from recess next week ahead of a January 30 deadline."
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Progressive Caucus Vows to 'Oppose All Funding' for ICE Without 'Systematic Reforms'
"We want this terror to stop," said Rep. Ilhan Omar, deputy chair of the CPC.
Jan 14, 2026
The leadership of the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus said Tuesday that it will "oppose all funding" for US immigration enforcement in any upcoming government appropriations bills without substantial reforms, a position laid out as federal agents unleashed by President Donald Trump continued to terrorize communities across the country.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), deputy chair of the CPC, said during a press conference alongside other caucus members that "demanding accountability is not radical." Omar represents the district where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross last week.
"Calling for systematic reforms is not extreme," Omar continued. "This is the bare minimum required to restore safety and justice back to our communities."
Omar, a frequent target of Trump's bigotry, said the CPC's official position is to "oppose all funding for immigration enforcement in any appropriation bills until meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices."
"We cannot and we should not continue to fund agencies that operate with impunity, that escalate violence, and that undermine the very freedoms this country claims to uphold," the congresswoman said. "ICE has no place in terrorizing Minneapolis or any American community."
The CPC's press conference marked an intensification of a fight over Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding that erupted in the wake of Good's killing in Minneapolis last week. ICE, which is part of DHS, currently has a larger budget than that of a dozen national militaries, thanks to a massive infusion of funding approved by congressional Republicans and Donald Trump last summer.
NBC News reported Tuesday that "Democratic opposition has already frozen a DHS measure that was slated to be added to an appropriations package getting a Senate vote this week."
"Congress may have to fall back on a stopgap bill to prevent a funding lapse for DHS," the outlet added. "That’s where things get trickier for Democrats. If House Republicans pass a continuing resolution on their own, which would keep DHS running on autopilot, Senate Democrats would again have to choose between accepting it and forcing a partial shutdown."
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriator in the House, said Tuesday that she does "not support increasing funding for ICE" and is "looking at policy riders in the homeland security funding bill to rein in ICE."
"ICE is terrorizing our communities, and I have called on masked, armed ICE agents to leave our towns," DeLauro added.
An Economist/YouGov poll released this week found that, for the first time, more Americans support abolishing ICE entirely (46%) than oppose it (43%). Democratic support for abolishing ICE is currently at 77%, according to the survey.
In an appearance on MS NOW, Omar said that "we want this terror to stop."
"People are angry. People are frustrated. They're confused. They don't understand why this chaos is necessary," said Omar. "And they certainly do not want this level of militarized ICE and border agents just roaming the streets, harassing and terrorizing their neighbors."
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