As of today, a two-week political stalemate on Capitol Hill shows no signs of stopping after the Senate failed to pass H.R. 7744, which is funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
More than 100,0000 federal workers at the DHS are affected, many of them the so-called “Gestapo” ICE agents who were finding and deporting illegal immigrants on orders from the White House.
The stalemate comes after Democrats made several demands for so-called “reforms” to ICE, such as forcing agents to work without masks. That demand risks agents being targeted, however, by crazed activists who are convinced ICE agents are dangerous, Nazi-like agents and have threatened them and their families, vowing to learn where they live.
Another demand from Democrats is requiring ICE agents to obtain a judicial warrant, a second and time-consuming step, for a deportation arrest. ICE agents currently use what is called an administrative warrant, a DHS document, that declares an illegal immigrant has a final court order for removal from the U.S.
Republican lawmakers have pointed out the new demand for a judicial warrant has never been made by Democrats even when the Obama administration was overseeing a record number of deportations.
Beyond punishing masked ICE agents, the political punishment for ICE also affects airport screeners at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Secret Service agents at the White House, Coast Guard rescue swimmers, and disaster relief workers at FEMA.
Describing the current funding standoff, Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) told “Washington Watch” that Democrats are so “consumed” with defunding ICE they don’t seem to care about other departments at DHS.
“They defunded the office that handles weapons of mass destruction,” he warned. “That's what they're holding back funding for.”
After two fatal ICE-involved shootings in Minneapolis, where the victims have been described as political martyrs, Democrats in Congress were heavily lobbied by their side to “defund” ICE as punishment.
A recent email from Indivisible, the left-wing group behind the “No Kings” protests, demonstrates the radical push for political punishment. The email told Indivisible supporters that Republicans are demanding “that ICE stay masked, gets to enter hospitals and schools at will, and can continue unconstitutionally snatching people off the streets and from their homes without a warrant.”
Allowing that the far-left base is the source of the defund-ICE movement, Lankford said Democrats on Capitol Hill are to blame, too. That’s because they are openly calling for an end to deportations and an unguarded southern border, which would allow for more fentanyl shipments and more human trafficking from the drug cartels, the GOP senator warned.
“It’s just not rational,” Lankford said.
