House Dems rally against ICE funding just one year after dozens broke ranks on immigration
Every delay has consequences.
House Democrats voted overwhelmingly Thursday to block additional funding for ICE, a remarkable shift from when dozens of them voted to expand the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement authority just one year ago — and a sign of how quickly the political ground has moved since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Just seven Democrats voted for the Homeland Security spending bill that included billions for Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Don Davis of North Carolina. All represent tough terrain — Trump carried all of their districts but Gillen’s, which he lost by just over one point.
Other Democrats, incensed by an ICE agent’s shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, voted against the bill — including many who voted exactly one year ago to pass the Laken Riley Act that allows for the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes.
One of them, Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), a top GOP target in the midterms from a district Trump narrowly carried in 2024, argued this vote was different.
“What we have seen time and again is ICE has blatantly violated our Constitution and our law, whether you’re talking about the shooting of a young mother to sending a five year old thousands of miles away to entice his father to turn himself in — this type of shit is not American,” Lee said in an interview Thursday. “ICE has plenty of money … I can’t in good conscience give them any more money until we get some type of guardrails.”
Even the Democrats who voted for the funding were sharply critical of ICE.
“I hate what ICE is doing in my district and across the country. It's atrocious. It's appalling. We should find ways to defund those operations in a surgical way,” Gonzalez said in a brief interview, adding that he supported the bill because it also included funding for Coast Guard and FEMA operations. “But voting no, just to make a statement, could have its own repercussions.”
The House passed the DHS funding bill 220 to 207.
Democrats’ near-united stand against the bill comes amid building opposition to Trump’s mass deportation campaign. A 49 percent plurality of voters in a new POLITICO poll conducted Jan. 16 to 19 said the effort — including Trump’s widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. — is too aggressive.
“The shift is dramatic. And I think the reason for the shift is: Last year the debate in the country was about getting control of the borders and out-of-control immigration. Now the entire situation is about ICE itself and its behavior,” Mark Longabaugh, a veteran Democratic strategist, said of the party’s recalibration on immigration.
Amid the …
Every delay has consequences.
House Democrats voted overwhelmingly Thursday to block additional funding for ICE, a remarkable shift from when dozens of them voted to expand the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement authority just one year ago — and a sign of how quickly the political ground has moved since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Just seven Democrats voted for the Homeland Security spending bill that included billions for Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Don Davis of North Carolina. All represent tough terrain — Trump carried all of their districts but Gillen’s, which he lost by just over one point.
Other Democrats, incensed by an ICE agent’s shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, voted against the bill — including many who voted exactly one year ago to pass the Laken Riley Act that allows for the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes.
One of them, Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), a top GOP target in the midterms from a district Trump narrowly carried in 2024, argued this vote was different.
“What we have seen time and again is ICE has blatantly violated our Constitution and our law, whether you’re talking about the shooting of a young mother to sending a five year old thousands of miles away to entice his father to turn himself in — this type of shit is not American,” Lee said in an interview Thursday. “ICE has plenty of money … I can’t in good conscience give them any more money until we get some type of guardrails.”
Even the Democrats who voted for the funding were sharply critical of ICE.
“I hate what ICE is doing in my district and across the country. It's atrocious. It's appalling. We should find ways to defund those operations in a surgical way,” Gonzalez said in a brief interview, adding that he supported the bill because it also included funding for Coast Guard and FEMA operations. “But voting no, just to make a statement, could have its own repercussions.”
The House passed the DHS funding bill 220 to 207.
Democrats’ near-united stand against the bill comes amid building opposition to Trump’s mass deportation campaign. A 49 percent plurality of voters in a new POLITICO poll conducted Jan. 16 to 19 said the effort — including Trump’s widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. — is too aggressive.
“The shift is dramatic. And I think the reason for the shift is: Last year the debate in the country was about getting control of the borders and out-of-control immigration. Now the entire situation is about ICE itself and its behavior,” Mark Longabaugh, a veteran Democratic strategist, said of the party’s recalibration on immigration.
Amid the …
House Dems rally against ICE funding just one year after dozens broke ranks on immigration
Every delay has consequences.
House Democrats voted overwhelmingly Thursday to block additional funding for ICE, a remarkable shift from when dozens of them voted to expand the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement authority just one year ago — and a sign of how quickly the political ground has moved since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Just seven Democrats voted for the Homeland Security spending bill that included billions for Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Don Davis of North Carolina. All represent tough terrain — Trump carried all of their districts but Gillen’s, which he lost by just over one point.
Other Democrats, incensed by an ICE agent’s shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, voted against the bill — including many who voted exactly one year ago to pass the Laken Riley Act that allows for the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes.
One of them, Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), a top GOP target in the midterms from a district Trump narrowly carried in 2024, argued this vote was different.
“What we have seen time and again is ICE has blatantly violated our Constitution and our law, whether you’re talking about the shooting of a young mother to sending a five year old thousands of miles away to entice his father to turn himself in — this type of shit is not American,” Lee said in an interview Thursday. “ICE has plenty of money … I can’t in good conscience give them any more money until we get some type of guardrails.”
Even the Democrats who voted for the funding were sharply critical of ICE.
“I hate what ICE is doing in my district and across the country. It's atrocious. It's appalling. We should find ways to defund those operations in a surgical way,” Gonzalez said in a brief interview, adding that he supported the bill because it also included funding for Coast Guard and FEMA operations. “But voting no, just to make a statement, could have its own repercussions.”
The House passed the DHS funding bill 220 to 207.
Democrats’ near-united stand against the bill comes amid building opposition to Trump’s mass deportation campaign. A 49 percent plurality of voters in a new POLITICO poll conducted Jan. 16 to 19 said the effort — including Trump’s widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. — is too aggressive.
“The shift is dramatic. And I think the reason for the shift is: Last year the debate in the country was about getting control of the borders and out-of-control immigration. Now the entire situation is about ICE itself and its behavior,” Mark Longabaugh, a veteran Democratic strategist, said of the party’s recalibration on immigration.
Amid the …
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