Tuesday on FBN’s “Mornings with Maria,” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) called on his Senate counterparts to return to Washington, D.C. and pass a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
He applauded House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for rejecting the earlier-passed Senate bill, calling it “garbage.”
“Where is this going?” host Maria Bartiromo asked. “Do you think anyone will come back early?”
Jackson replied, “Well, the Senate better get back and do something. I mean, this is ridiculous. This has been going on way too long. And honestly, we sent over a bipartisan bill that they could have acted upon, and this would all be over with. But they sent us a bill back, and you mentioned that it zeroed out the funding for ICE and for Customs and Border Protection to some extent. But not only did it do that, Maria, it limited their authorities. That’s one of the big reasons why we could not pass what they sent over. So, we passed a continuing resolution for eight weeks to give us some more time to negotiate with them and come up with something that the Senate can accept.”
“But I was really proud to see Mike Johnson step up and call the Senate out on this, even the Republican leadership on this,” he continued. “He said that the bill that they sent over to us was garbage, and it was garbage, and we have an obligation to the American people to make sure that we don’t take any steps backwards with regards to what’s happening with the immigration enforcement in this country right now that the American people ask for. And the Democrats want open borders. They want these people to be able to stay here. They want, ultimately, them to be counted in census, and they want them to be able to vote. That’s what this is all about. So, we have to get ICE up and running.”
“This is a horrible time,” Jackson added. “We have people that are dying at the hands of illegal immigrants, criminal illegal immigrants that are here, and we have terror threats that are ongoing right now. So, this is not a good time for CBP, for Customs and Border Protection, for ICE and for DHS to be defunded.”
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