Democratic South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn told MS NOW host Al Sharpton on Sunday that his party closed the government to force the defunding of federal immigration enforcement.
President Donald Trump secured $75 billion of funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out immigration enforcement operations, which have been bitterly opposed by Democrats. Clyburn claimed that Republicans’ refusal to agree to defund ICE was the reason the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remained unfunded.
“This is an issue about ICE,” Clyburn told Sharpton. “Not anything to do with TSA, not anything to do with FEMA, nothing to do with the Coast Guard. All of these are wrapped up in this bill that the Republicans are refusing to put on the floor. We will vote for that, but we are not going to fund ICE to continue killing people, to continue masking themselves so no one can identify them.”
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Senate Democrats have filibustered funding for DHS, demanding “reforms” to the agency that Republicans say would cripple its ability to remove illegal immigrants, including requiring the use of so-called “judicial warrants” for ICE to arrest illegal immigrants. Democrats have also said that the reassignment of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem would not be sufficient to convince them to fund DHS.
Multiple agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), are being subjected to “emergency measures” due to the shutdown of the DHS, according to a Feb. 22 release by the agency. TSA workers missed a full paycheck on Friday, while still having to work.
Democrats are demanding new restrictions on ICE after DHS officers were involved in the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in January during Operation Metro Surge, a deployment of hundreds of federal agents to Minnesota in response to reports about welfare fraud involving Somali migrants.
Following the announcement of increased federal immigration enforcement, Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis stated during a Dec. 7 interview with WCCO, a CBS-affiliated television station in the city, that local law enforcement would not coordinate with federal agencies involved in the operation.
During the Feb. 24 State of the Union address, when President Trump asked whether American citizens could be prioritized over illegal immigrants, Democratic members remained seated.
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