A CNN host asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries Friday whether the government shutdown was truly about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or simply a negotiating tactic.
The Senate failed to end the partial government shutdown last week as Democrats again withheld their votes, leaving Transportation Security Administration employees unpaid. During an interview on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” guest host Phil Mattingly pressed Jeffries with a direct question about ICE policy and its role in ongoing negotiations, as Jeffries avoided a direct answer.
“Is this about ICE, or is this purely a negotiating mechanism, a vehicle, to get the negotiation that you want on ICE restrictions?” Mattingly asked.
Jeffries responded by attacking the previous Republican Congress and saying ICE has billions in slush fund.
WATCH:
“ICE has a $75 billion slush fund that was part of the Republican One Big Ugly bill. That was enacted by Republican-only votes last year, where at the same time they ripped Medicaid away from the American people and stole food from the mouths of hungry children, seniors, and veterans with a $186 billion cut to nutritional assistance. So there’s a continuing fight about policy priorities,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries also said that Republicans leverage TSA operations and air travelers in the immigration debate.
“House Democrats believe that taxpayer dollars should be spent to make life more affordable for the American people, not to brutalize and kill American citizens or violently target law-abiding immigrant families. At the same period of time, we want Republicans to stop holding TSA agents and air travelers hostage to their extreme immigration [policies],” Jeffries added.
Democrats filibustered Department of Homeland Security funding to push new restrictions on ICE operations, citing the January shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis during protests against federal immigration enforcement. Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman was the only member of his party to back the full-year appropriations bill for the DHS, supported Elon Musk’s offer to pay TSA agents’ salaries and criticized Democrats for leaving workers dependent on food pantries and community donations.
“I was the only Democrat through this entire thing to refuse to shut our government down. This is wrong. Now you can want to reform ICE. That’s reasonable, now, but it has no impact on that directly,” Fetterman told Greta Van Susteren.
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