Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and fellow congressional freshmen on Friday urged negotiators trying to hammer out a border-security compromise and avoid another government shutdown to cut funding for the Department of Homeland Security, claiming the agency has “promulgated an agenda driven by hate—not strategy.”
Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., penned a letter to lawmakers on the bicameral, bipartisan conference committee tasked with drafting new legislation to address border-security and DHS funding.
“We write to you today seeking your solidarity and support to enter in to the DHS conference committee process with clear eyes,” they wrote, slamming agencies under the Department of Homeland Security, like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and urging lawmakers to follow “critical” guidelines to protect immigrant families.
“Cut, do not increase funding,” they wrote. “The deal reached by the Conference Committee should not allocate any additional funding to this department or to the ICE and CBP agencies. The upcoming FY 2020 budget process will be a critical opportunity to take up conversations about reforms to the agency. In the meantime, not another dollar.”
Any push to cut DHS funding, however, would likely run into Trump's veto pen and risk another shutdown.
The letter was sent one week after Congress passed a short-term spending package to reopen the government after a 35-day partial shutdown—the longest in U.S. history. The stopgap spending bill funds the government through Feb. 15, and did not include any funding for Trump’s long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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