Congress can either rein in ICE or be complicit in the violence
A 5-year-old child detained and sent with his father to a Texas immigration detention facility.
Minnesotans shot – and even killed – at the hands of federal agents.
U.S. citizens arrested by masked officers in broad daylight.
These headlines should be enough to make anyone rethink their support of President Donald Trump’s immigration agencies.
The death of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti on Saturday – caught on camera from multiple angles — must finally shock this country’s lawmakers into action.
The country is horrified by abuses committed using hundreds of millions in tax dollars. According to a recent survey from Data for Progress, 55% of voters think any increased funding for immigration enforcement agencies is a bad use of taxpayer money. New York Times polling released on Friday, meanwhile, found that 61% of people believe ICE’s tactics have “gone too far.”
Voters who watched yet another American protester shot down in the middle of a Minneapolis street are looking to Congress to rein in ICE. And senators currently hold the fate of ICE and Border Patrol funding in their hands.
This week, the Senate is meeting to vote on six government funding bills ahead of a Jan. 30 government shutdown deadline. If Congress now renews the ICE budget with no strings attached, it will become complicit in the violence, violations of rights, and chaos ICE is fomenting every day.
Thankfully, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., seems to understand the urgency of this moment. The minority leader vowed on Saturday night to oppose any funding package that includes DHS funding. There can be no business as usual for DHS at a time when it is rampaging through communities, wreaking havoc and inflicting physical and constitutional violence.
Senators have worked hard to negotiate bipartisan compromise spending bills (no easy feat), and they should go ahead and pass the five bills funding other departments. But any bill that would fund ICE and Border Patrol without any meaningful limits is effectively endorsing the conduct of rogue agencies that are causing indelible harm to people across the country, including many U.S. citizens. No senator should want that on their record or their conscience. [Continue reading…]
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in interviews on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that they will not vote for Department of Homeland Security funding after the latest fatal shooting of an American by a federal agent in Minneapolis.
“When they’re killing two constituents in my state, and they’re taking 2-year-olds out of the arms of their mom, and they are taking an elder Hmong man out of his house and putting him out there in his underwear, and then figuring out they have the wrong man,” Klobuchar told moderator Kristen Welker, “no, I am not voting for this funding.”
Schiff said he was “not giving ICE or Border Patrol another dime, given how this agency, these agencies are operating.”
Several other Democrats announced that they would vote against DHS funding until restrictions on immigration enforcement operations are put in place after a federal agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, in Minneapolis on Saturday. The bill would need a handful of Democratic votes in order to pass, and the Senate is expected to consider the measure this week. If the appropriations bill does not pass, the government could enter a partial shutdown at the end of the month. [Continue reading…]