Osborn, Ricketts navigate ICE stances with funding debate on horizon

A masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent knocks on a car window in Minnesota on Jan. 12, 2026. (Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

LINCOLN — A national fight over funding immigration enforcement offered a look into an emerging dynamic in Nebraska’s heated U.S. Senate race. 

Dan Osborn is running as a registered nonpartisan against Nebraska Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, a former two-term governor, in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats roughly 2 to 1 and registered nonpartisans like Osborn make up a growing share of the electorate. 

Both Osborn and Ricketts have talked tough about the border and immigration. During his 2024 campaign against Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, Osborn ran an ad offering to help President Donald Trump build his border wall. Osborn has said Trump is doing a good job of securing the border.

Ricketts visited the Texas border with Mexico early this year with a group of fellow GOP U.S. senators to praise Trump’s border policies. But how Trump has enforced immigration law within U.S. borders has been a bone of contention since his return to office, as he pushes mass deportation. 

Osborn, referring to the Trump administration’s decision to increase the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents in Minnesota, told Norfolk radio station WJAG on Jan. 21 that “he hates to see this division of people.” He said he is “not taking sides” on the issues that pull people apart.

Ricketts defended ICE’s enforcement tactics days after the killing of writer and mother Renee Good, saying, “President Trump was elected to secure the border and clean up the mess that President Biden made.”

Then, the killing of Alex Pretti happened.

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A day after Pretti was shot by immigration agents in Minnesota, Ricketts released a statement that he expected “a prioritized [and] transparent investigation,” saying his “support for funding ICE remains the same.” He called Pretti’s death a “horrifying situation.”

Osborn said he was “angry” about the killing of Pretti, and “for the sake of our Constitution and for the country to move forward,” the country needed an “unbiased” investigation. Osborn said he “supports the mission of law enforcement to protect and serve the communities where we live.”

The past week of Nebraska’s U.S. Senate campaign, when Congress and congressional candidates fought over a partial federal government shutdown, left Osborn trying to maintain a significant share of Democratic and nonpartisan support while also attempting to not alienate Republicans. 

Team Ricketts, as reported by political news site NOTUS, said early last week that Osborn had taken no stance on the funding package’s approach to the Department of Homeland Security. The package was part of a deal with Senate Democrats and Trump that set up a two-week timeline for lawmakers to negotiate new constraints on immigration enforcement. 

Osborn told NOTUS that he’s “not in favor of a shutdown,” as he wants to get federal spending under control. The former Omaha labor leader released a statement about the federal debt after a Senate vote in which eight Republicans joined Senate Democrats to block broader legislation to fund the federal government. 

He told KFAB last week that he would have voted with those eight Republicans.  

More recently, Osborn told Examiner that the mission of law enforcement is “to protect and serve, but that is not what we saw happen in Minneapolis.” 

He said Congress needs “to pursue comprehensive immigration reform that works for everyone with urgency” and that ICE “needs to operate under “common sense” and use “consistent standards” that other law enforcement entities follow. 

Ricketts said Osborn was “dodging questions and talking out of both sides of his mouth.” His campaign has criticized the support Osborn receives from notable Democrats and previous support from Senate Democrats.

“[Osborn] says he opposes a shutdown but would have voted to shut down the government,” Ricketts said. “Osborn refuses to take an actual position because he is afraid of upsetting his out-of-state liberal donors.”

The Osborn campaign said the Ricketts campaign’s critiques are not serious. Osborn campaign manager John Dolan questioned the “mental acuity” of whoever wrote the statement.

ICE is already funded through 2029 under President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill that passed last year. It is the highest-funded U.S. law enforcement agency, but Democrats see the funding bill as an opportunity to rein in ICE and the Border Patrol.  

Much of the push is tied to what Minnesota has seen over the last month, where immigration agents have shot three people, killing two; racially profiled people, asking them to produce proof of legal residency; detained legal immigrants and shipped them across state lines, including young children; caused numerous car crashes; deployed chemical irritants on public school property; smashed the car windows of observers and arrested them before releasing them without charges; and threatened journalists, among other high-profile incidents. 

Trump has made some recent changes, including sending U.S. border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota in place of Gregory Bovino. The president also said he would look into reducing the number of agents sent to Minnesota.

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