Sen. Jon Husted backs Trump border policy as Sherrod Brown has record of voting against border funding

U.S. Senate candidates Jon Husted and Sherrod Brown have expressed opposing views on border policy and the use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and their diametrically opposed positions are a preview of what is likely to come this election season.

Husted has expressed support for the Trump administration’s border and immigration policies, as well as for members of ICE.

“ICE agents are moms and dads, our neighbors,” he said, according to WOSU. “They’re part of law enforcement that are there to keep people safe, and by and large, they do a really good job in accomplishing that.”

The incumbent Republican encouraged his constituents not to interfere with federal law enforcement in a virtual press conference, according to a Jan. 13 report by the Statehouse News Bureau.

“Do not interject yourself into the process of law enforcement,” Husted told listeners. “Do not try to intervene in an ICE operation because then you get tragedies like we saw in Minneapolis.”

Husted visited the border in early January as part of a press conference, along with US Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republican representatives and candidates, according to a Jan. 9 report from Fox News.

The attendees highlighted issues related to border policy, including the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, passed in July 2025.  In addition to tax cuts, the act also provides increased funding for border security.

Husted has cosponsored legislation in the Senate related to border security and drug trafficking, including the No Fentanyl on Social Media Act, introduced on January 13, and the HALT Fentanyl Act, passed in July 2025.

Brown, who served as a US senator from 2007 to 2025, has a history of opposing legislation related to border security.

During his time in the Senate, he voted against Graham Amendment No. 548, legislation that would have funded fentanyl scanning equipment for Border Patrol in 2022.

He also voted against Young Amdt. No. 1383, an unpassed legislation that would have provided funding for Border Patrol to expand opioid and narcotics detection, in 2021.

The Democratic candidate has also been associated with anti-ICE and anti-law enforcement groups and individuals.

Brown staffer Kevin Oyakawa was shown saying “open the f—ing border, I don’t give a s— who comes in here,” and attributing Ohio voters’ opinions on border policy to “people’s pure racism” in leaked 2024 video footage first reported by ohio.news.

The staffer said that he was hired by the Ohio Coordinated Campaign to “re-elect Sherrod Brown, Congresswoman Emilia Sykes, and other down-ballot Democratic candidates” in a social media post, according to an October 2024 report from Fox News.

Brown donated royalties from his book, Myths of Free Trade, to a pro-union group, Cleveland Jobs with Justice, led by Deb Kline, who describes herself as a “far-left progressive activist” and advocates abolishing ICE and defunding the police, according to a November 2023 New York Post report.

In addition to serving as the president of CLEJWJ, Kline also volunteers for the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, a group that opposes ICE.