On Wednesday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Beat,” House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that the DHS shutdown is the fault of Republicans while also stating that “We need to get the Department of Homeland Security reopened, in terms of every other part of it that doesn’t relate to Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine,” and there are “reforms that need to be put into place before ICE gets another dime in taxpayer dollars.”
Guest host Melissa Murray asked, “Speaking of ICE, there is now a measure that is likely — that has gone through to continue funding DHS, although there is an exemption for the provisions that would fund ICE and Customs and Border Patrol enforcement. What was the process like for that? Are you and your caucus happy with this resolution to what has been a standoff with the administration?”
Jeffries answered, “Well, what we’ve made clear to Donald Trump and Republicans during this entire Trump Republican shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, is that we should fund TSA, fund FEMA, fund the Coast Guard, fund our cybersecurity professionals, and make sure that there are actually dramatic, bold, meaningful changes to ICE so that ICE is brought back under control, because we know they’re conducting themselves in a violent and extreme fashion. Immigration enforcement in this country should be fair, just, and humane. We need to get the Department of Homeland Security reopened, in terms of every other part of it that doesn’t relate to Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine, and that’s a positive outcome [for] the American people, while we continue to fight the battles that need to be fought, in terms of the type of reforms that need to be put into place before ICE gets another dime in taxpayer dollars.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
