Joint Leadership Statement on Homeland Security Funding Bill

Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar issued the following statement:

Donald Trump promised the American people that his deportation policy would focus on violent felons who are in the country illegally. Instead, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has aggressively targeted American citizens and law-abiding immigrant families.

Kristi Noem and ICE are out of control. Taxpayer dollars are being misused to brutalize U.S. citizens, including the tragic killing of Renee Nicole Good. This extremism must end.

For weeks, Democrats have pushed House Republicans to adopt strong guardrails and accountability measures, including a judicial warrant requirement, prohibition on the detention and deportation of American citizens, use of excessive force restriction, enhanced training, body camera mandate and mask ban. These common sense measures are designed to ensure that ICE conducts itself like every other law enforcement agency in America.

We have a broken immigration system that should be fixed in a comprehensive and bipartisan manner. Democrats fought for meaningful, reasonable and necessary reforms meant to protect everyday Americans and immigrant families from the administration's reckless and violent tactics.

Unfortunately, House Republicans have rejected the effort to address the serious concerns raised by the American people about the lawless conduct by ICE. For this reason, we are voting No on the Homeland Security appropriations bill.

###