By TIM SPEARS
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
Demonstrators last Sunday gathered outside the offices of Indiana Republicans, protesting increased funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Dozens rallied outside Sen. Todd Young’s office in Carmel, Sunday, in response to increased funding for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the recently passed “One, Big Beautiful Bill” spending package, and controversial, high-profile detainments carried out by ICE agents.
“We’re here to say we want the government to invest in our communities, not in ICE, not in terrorizing our communities,” said Emily TeKolste, a protester. “That we deserve healthcare, we deserve housing, we deserve food, we deserve education, and that families deserve to live in peace.”
The Indiana State AFL-CIO, Indivisible Central Indiana, and the Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance organized the protest, along with simultaneous demonstrations outside Rep. Rudy Yakym’s Mishawaka office and Rep. Victoria Spartz’s office in Noblesville.
“It’s not politics. It’s a moral issue,” Brett Voorhies of Indiana State AFL-CIO said.
The White House says the “Big, Beautiful Bill” includes tens of billions of dollars of funding to pay for one million annual deportations, a minimum 10,000 new ICE agents, and detention centers capable of holding 100,000 people.
“The Congresswoman is a strong supporter of border security,” a spokesperson for Rep. Spartz told News 8 in an email. “She believes that while it is important to fix our legal immigration system, securing the border must come first.”
Sen. Young and Rep. Yakym’s offices referred News 8 to their previous statements lauding the bill’s added investments in border security.
This week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Indiana’s Camp Atterbury will serve as a detention facility for people in the country illegally, which drew immediate criticisms from Democratic U.S. Rep. André Carson.
The assembled group outside Young’s office called for investments in kitchen table issues like education, healthcare, and food access; areas where entitlement programs have been defunded or restricted under the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/local-news/demonstrators-protest-increased-ice-funding.