On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) responded to questions on what the DHS shutdown accomplished by blaming Republicans and saying that “what we have shown the American people is, we want obvious, commonsense reforms to ICE and [CBP], and the Republicans don’t.”
Co-host Pamela Brown asked, “So, this plan that just passed in the Senate does not include the reforms to immigration enforcement operations that Democrats had, not only demanded, but even used as reasons to withhold their votes for DHS funding when all of this began more than a month ago. What did your party actually accomplish with this shutdown?”
Schumer responded, “Well, first, let me say that the Republicans are hardly unified. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), for the second time, rejected a proposal made this morning by Sen. John Thune (R-SD), with unanimous consent support of all the Republicans, to fund the DHS agencies like the Coast Guard, like FEMA, like CISA, which we need. This is now clearly the Johnson shutdown. It’s a Republican shutdown. All he had to do was put that bill on the floor, and it would have passed overwhelmingly. So, the Republicans are hardly unified. They’re squirming about. Democrats, for three months — or three weeks, rather, have been trying to fund all of the other agencies. We’re not going to fund a lawless ICE or [CBP], but we’ve been trying to fund TSA. We’ve been trying to fund Coast Guard. And the Republicans have blocked it repeatedly. So, this shutdown is on their back and the failure, their failure to want to reform DHS — sorry — to reform ICE and Border Patrol, which are now doing things that — all we want them to do is what every police department does, use warrants, okay? Don’t mask, cooperate with local authorities. [The] American people want that. Everyone wants that. But a group of right-wing Republicans who just like ICE and [CBP] as it is, as much as we all abhor it, and it’s on them.”
Brown followed up, “Well, you’ve heard the new DHS secretary say that there will be reforms, particularly to warrants and in other areas. But just to follow up on my original question, look, ICE and CBP, they are funded, with billions of dollars from last year’s budget bill for the next few years. So what did Democrats actually accomplish with this shutdown, where you saw many government employees really struggle?”
Schumer answered, “Well, again, we were ready to fund the rest of DHS. It was the Republicans who blocked it over and over again. So, that’s on them. But, second, the bottom line is, what we have shown the American people is, we want obvious, commonsense reforms to ICE and [CBP], and the Republicans don’t. If they want to fund it with the same kind of chaos, the horror we’ve seen in Minneapolis, in Portland, and in other cities with an ICE and [CBP] that are lawless, it’s on their back.”
Later, co-host Wolf Blitzer asked, “What do you say to those critics who argue that both ICE and Border Patrol are already set with funding, millions and millions of dollars, because of President Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill that passed months ago, so Democrats just held up this legislation for what, for political posturing, is that right?”
Schumer answered, “Well, that’s not fair at all. We held it up because we wanted, as I mentioned before, to reform ICE and [CBP], which are lawless. The American people are totally on our side, I think by 2:1 or close to that. They want it reformed. And that’s what we’re pushing for. We’re not going to fund a lawless ICE and a lawless [CBP], and the American people are overwhelmingly on our side on that.”
Blitzer followed up, “But they’re already funded, right?”
Schumer responded, “Well, if they put funding in from their other bills and want to keep funding a lawless ICE, a lawless [CBP] that creates chaos in our cities, it’s on their back. We’re not going to participate in that.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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