House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Wednesday that he would reject a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year over concerns that it did not sufficiently curb Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
The announcement came in a closed-door meeting with Democratic caucus members, following continued ICE violence in Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge.
“We’ve heard our members speak loudly that ICE isn’t doing enough, these reforms aren’t doing enough. This lawlessness has to stop,” Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) told reporters after the meeting on Wednesday. “They are only doing this because they can. They are only doing this because the president of the United States wants to use them to terrorize communities, to terrorize U.S. citizens.”
But, according to NBC News, Democratic leaders did not state they would whip a vote to push all members to follow their “no” vote. This leaves the door open for Democrats, many of whom are facing close elections this year, to vote in favor of the appropriation bill.
The time to do that and have significant public support behind them, has passed. Like I said, they shouldn’t have passed that $75 billion in the first place and kept the government shut down until every item they wanted was included, AND they had the public support to do so!
Now? Republicans will hammer them for not funding FEMA when there’s a massive snow storm getting ready to hit 3/4 of the country, or whatever bullshit they’re scheming up this round. When other crap is loaded into a bill, their public support for not supporting it faulters, i wish this wasn’t the case.
I want Democrats to win, and i don’t think this is the battle to do so. Safe Dems can vocally opposed this all they want, but until we start seeing immigration polls swinging 20-30+ instead of 5-10, Southern Dems in tight races will continue playing that “Middle”.
Such pathetic analysis. Just the unending excuses and fear as if anything Republicans do is based on reality at all. The idea that Republicans would even make a FEMA attack, let alone take it would be more damaging than both supporting ICE when half the country wants them abolished and abandoning any line of attack about ICE against a Republican is just such worthless fear-based trash.
You people aren’t good at politics. You retreat from fights and lose and then decide the answer is retreating further. Time after time you choose cowardice over standing for anything and then are surprised when Democratic turnout suffers. This isn’t even a Democratic issue, it’s a 2-1 issue with independents too! And way way way more salient and emotionally impactful than fucking FEMA funding. Something that’s already been sabotaged and denied by Republicans.
Jesus fucking Christ.