Schumer and Jeffries Refuse to Back Growing Democratic Calls to Defund ICE |
Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today!
The killing of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer in Minneapolis this week came as Republicans in Congress were planning to bring a homeland security spending bill to the House floor, deciding on whether the agency that’s surged thousands of armed agents into communities across the country should have increased funding — and progressive lawmakers are demanding that the Democrats use the upcoming government funding deadline to hopefully reduce the department’s ability to wreak further havoc.
“I just don’t understand how we provide votes for a bill that funds the extent of the depravity,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told CNN Thursday. “I know we can’t fix everything in the appropriations bill but we should be looking at ways we can put some commonsense limitations on their ability to bring violence to our cities.”
But the top Democratic leaders, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) both appeared to have little interest in discussing how their party can use the appropriations process as leverage to rein in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies that have taken part in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation.
Both Schumer and Jeffries sharply criticized Wednesday’s shooting and the Trump administration’s insistence that, contrary to mounting........