What Has André Carson Done On ICE and Immigration Enforcement?

It Took a National Headline, Democratic Leadership Permission, and a Primary Challenger to Get Him There. Carson is a Follower, Not a Leader.

Thursday, April 30

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Indianapolis, IN — ICE arrests in Indiana increased 80% in the first six months of 2025 compared to the same period the year before.

 

Of the 300 arrests made in June 2025 alone, 55 of the people taken into custody had no criminal charges or convictions. Families torn apart not because anyone did anything wrong, but because the enforcement machine needed bodies and Indiana provided them.

 

This is the context in which André Carson's record on immigration enforcement should be evaluated. Not the statements. Not the tweets. The timeline.

 

When over 100 House Democrats co-sponsored articles of impeachment against then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Carson's name wasn’t on the list. It took a public callout from this campaign the following day for him to join as a co-sponsor. When Hakeem Jeffries eventually gave the green light for the Democratic caucus to support defunding DHS, Carson came out in favor after leadership cleared the way. In the weeks following the murder of Alex Pretti by an ICE agent, Carson tiptoed toward the idea of reform—carefully, intentionally avoiding the word abolish—eventually landing on "reform it, and if we can't reform it, then eliminate it as we know it."

That’s not conviction. He’s navigating.

 

Leadership on a moral crisis doesn’t wait for national headlines. It doesn’t wait for permission from caucus leadership. It doesn’t wait for a primary challenger to apply pressure. It arrives early, clearly, and with a governing framework behind it rather than carefully parsed language designed to avoid political risk.

 

On the substance, there’s no meat behind Carson's position. Saying ICE should be reformed or eliminated "as we know it" isn’t a plan. It’s not legislation. It’s not a framework. A member of Congress with a seat on the Intelligence Committee and 18 years of seniority has the tools to propose something real—to outline what responsible, narrowly scoped border and immigration enforcement actually looks like, to legislate the decentralization of ICE's functions into agencies better equipped to handle them, to draw a clear line between the militarized enforcement apparatus that has lost the trust of the American people and the legitimate functions that any responsible government must maintain.

 

That work hasn’t been done.

 

When this campaign called Carson out for his absence on the Noem impeachment and his reactive posture on ICE, his response wasn’t a governing framework. It wasn’t a defense of his record. He called George Hornedo a "modern-day slave master", claiming that expecting a member of Congress to lead on a moral crisis was somehow demanding that a Black man report to him.

 

That response is telling in two ways. First, it’s a deflection—the instinct of a congressman who can’t defend his timeline and so attacks the person asking about it. Second, it reveals a fundamental confusion about accountability. Carson may not report to George Hornedo. But he reports to the constituents of this district , including the immigrant families living in fear, the advocates who have been demanding leadership, and the voters who sent him to Washington to fight for them. Somewhere along the way, he appears to have forgotten that. That forgetting is part of why this race exists.

 

Indianapolis's immigrant community doesn’t need a congressman who arrives at the right position after the headlines force him there. They need one who gets there first because conviction, not permission, is the animating force of real leadership.

 

"It shouldn't take national headlines, caucus leadership permission, or political pressure from a challenger to have the clarity and conviction to do the right thing and do it early," Hornedo said. "That's what leadership is. When I pushed André Carson on ICE, he called me a slave master and said he doesn't report to me. He's right that he doesn't report to me. But he reports to the constituents of this district and they deserve a congressman who shows up for them before the pressure arrives, not after. That's part of why I'm running."

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This is part of the Hornedo campaign's daily accountability series, What Has André Carson Done?, running through May 1st. Learn more at georgehornedo.com.

 

Indianapolis deserves more than a vote in Washington. It deserves a congressman who uses the full platform of the office to fight for federal resources, to force the conversation at every level of government, and to show up for this community before the cameras arrive. That's the standard. That's what's been missing.

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RECORD CHECK: The Center for Effective Lawmaking ranks Congressman Carson 197th out of 220 House Democrats in legislative effectiveness. Of his claimed 22 bills signed into law, 2 are standalone enacted bills—the Ariel Rios Federal Building naming and the Kennedy-King National Commemorative Site Act. 

 

73% of Congressman Carson's campaign funding comes from PACs, much of it from corporate PACs including AES Indiana, BlackRock, and defense contractors. Only 7% comes from small-dollar donors.

 

When Julia Carson held this seat, Indianapolis was a competitive Democratic stronghold that helped power statewide wins. Under André Carson, the 7th Congressional District has become the worst in Indiana for voter turnout and Democrats haven't won statewide since 2012.