A top priority for Democrats if they get more power in Congress in November: Forcing the Trump administration’s controversial and unpopular immigration crackdown back in the headlines.

And one of the people they plan to go after hard is Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin — the former lawmaker who was brought into the role in part because he was seen as someone who could play well with Congress, unlike former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

A House Democratic aide said that committees plan to look at how DHS under Mullin has failed to deploy body cameras to many immigration agents, allowed dismal conditions at immigration facilities and failed to cooperate with the department’s Inspector General.

“He owns that,” the aide emphasized. They were granted anonymity to speak freely about evolving legislative preparations ahead of November.

Other Democrats plan to take him to task over the Oct. 12 ICE raid on the D.C. residence of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

Even if Democrats are only able to issue subpoenas and produce reports, that could be enough to force DHS back into the headlines — undermining a major goal of Mullin’s: Keeping unpopular immigration enforcement operations away from public attention.

That would likely worsen the political pains the White House is experiencing on immigration. Voters in both parties have soured on the president’s ambitious immigration crackdown after a series of controversies, including the deaths of several American citizens following encounters with immigration officers.

“We will investigate the administration weaponizing DHS against Americans, its out-of-control immigration policies, and its blatantly corrupt self-dealing. The American people expect nothing less, and we will deliver,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who is poised to chair the House Homeland Security Committee in the next Congress.

While Democrats want to investigate the full breadth of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including changes to immigration courts and efforts to throttle legal immigration to the United States, multiple aides and lawmakers told POLITICO that much of the action on Capitol Hill will center around deportations that appear to have happened without due process, aggressive practices in arrests and conditions at detentions facilities.

Democrats also plan to review how DHS has spent a historic influx of funds from a series of reconciliation bills — including controversial purchases of jets for use by Noem, warehouses intended to operate as detention facilities and other department acquisitions that may have benefitted administration allies. As part of this push, they plan to also pull in a raft of lower-level and former officials for testimony.

At a Monday press conference in Long Beach, California, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, stressed that investigations into “abuses of ICE and DHS” will rank high among committee priorities — alongside investigations into the Trump family’s business dealings, disgraced deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and “corporate corruption.”

“What has been happening is horrific,” Garcia said. “But folks like Stephen MIller, Donald Trump and the horrific people they have in power to do this harm think they can get away with frankly these crimes and this inhumanity … you will be held accountable, you will be held investigated.”“There is no moving forward without justice,” he added.

Other potential House committee chairs are also homing in on immigration enforcement as a top area for immediate congressional oversight after the midterms. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as well as the House and Senate Judiciary committees also have jurisdiction over immigration operations. Aides say the incoming chairs of all of these committees are planning on working together to conduct oversight of DHS.

“This is a team sport,” said the House Democratic aide. “One of the Democratic campaign’s overwhelming themes has been accountability, and committees have an appetite to do more oversight work. So this is going to be a multicommittee effort.”That said, the number of committees that are planning immigration investigations could result in a morass of similar probes if House Democratic leadership fails to manage committee chairs with differing priorities and personal styles. Republicans already experienced this during the Biden administration, when the chairs of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees did not clearly coordinate in their oversight of immigration policy and often held similar hearings with limited results.

Much of Democrats’ final approach will depend on the outcome of the midterm elections. While it is expected that Democrats will retake control of the House, if they also take back the Senate they could exert even more pressure on the administration by throttling the confirmation of nominees and leverage more resources for investigations.

But even just Democratic control of the House, which is seen in Washington as an all but certain outcome, would give Democratic committee chairs the ability to issue subpoenas for administration officials to testify before their committees and produce documents of import for committee investigations. The House could also always move to impeach the president and other top officials, though Democrats across the party’s ideological divides have for now ruled out a third impeachment of Trump, since it would likely fail to secure enough Republican Senate votes to result in his removal from office.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said that “political attacks will not deter DHS from carrying out its lawful mission.”“Congressional oversight should not be used as a vehicle to obstruct the department’s ability to secure the border, remove dangerous criminal aliens, disrupt transnational criminal organizations, and defend the homeland,” DHS added.

House Democrats also plan to focus on Noem’s tenure. Garcia confirmed in an interview on MS Now last week that his committee will be scrutinizing her tenure, even though she and former DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski have both left the department.

But many Democratic lawmakers are incensed about actions taken under Mullin’s tenure, including the raid on Omar’s residence.

“We are going to drag Markwayne Mullin into the Judiciary committee and give him the full Jack Smith treatment as a result of these raids,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview earlier this month on MSNow, referring to the former special counsel who led federal prosecutions against Trump.

Her comments indicate that some Democratic lawmakers want to make a spectacle out of Mullin. Republicans regularly dragged Smith to testify before congressional committees as they sought to tar investigations into the president’s alleged criminal conduct.

Democrats are also eager to use their subpoena and investigative powers to compel testimony from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who wields considerable influence over the administration’s immigration policy, and border czar Tom Homan, who is accused of taking a cash bribe from a major government contractor.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that “Democrats have no agenda to improve the lives of Americans — their only agenda is to continue to demonize ICE law enforcement and continue their decade long witch hunt against President Trump and his administration.”Homan has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Oversight work is a hallmark of divided government, especially since the party in control of Congress is often unlikely to secure presidential support for major pieces of messaging legislation. But parties have at times squandered those opportunities.

Committees are trying to put resources in place ahead of the elections to speed up this work, since investigations inherently take time as staff interview witnesses and pursue relevant documents and records. As the midterm elections approach, Democrats poised to lead committees with relevant jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security have begun staffing up in anticipation of a change in control of Congress.

New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan, is poised to take the gavel of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee should her party prevail in November. Hassan, who already began probing contracting decisions at DHS from her more limited perch as the top Democratic senator on the Joint Economic Commission, is hiring staff and preparing to continue her oversight work atop the Senate Homeland Security panel in the next Congress.

For now, House Democrats — mainly Garcia and Rep.Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who is poised to take over the Judiciary Committee — are vowing they will coordinate their efforts and work together.

“We view this as a responsibility that belongs to every committee and every member of congress … this is just an overwhelming mountain of corruption and authoritarianism that we face,” Raskin said.