House Republicans Prepare to Surrender Oversight and Hand Trump Control of Immigration Enforcement for the Rest of His Term
WASHINGTON — Third Way released the following statement from Sarah Pierce, Director of Social Policy, ahead of House consideration of legislation that would provide the Trump Administration $70 billion for immigration enforcement:
“Today, House Republicans are readying to decide whether Congress still has any meaningful role in overseeing immigration enforcement—or whether they are ready to surrender that responsibility to Trump entirely.
“This bill is a gross abdication of Congress’s most basic responsibilities. It would hand the Trump Administration $70 billion for immigration enforcement—appropriations for the remainder of Trump’s time in office, on top of the nearly $140 billion Republicans already gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) just a year ago. These agencies are flush with taxpayer dollars. And at a time when families are struggling to afford food, childcare, housing, and energy, Republicans are choosing to prioritize President Trump’s politicized and excessive mass deportation campaign above everything else.
“And despite all of their supposed concern about the $1.8 billion slush fund President Trump created for his political allies—including criminals who attacked police on January 6—Senate Republicans still passed this bill with overwhelming support and no limits on that fund. Republicans know President Trump has made it all too clear that he intends to keep pursuing it. And they’re moving forward anyway.
“This bill does more than fund ICE and CBP. It funds them for the next three years, stripping Congress of its last meaningful tool for overseeing agencies that have repeatedly shown they cannot be trusted to police themselves.
“For years, because immigration legislation is so difficult to pass, Congress has quietly used appropriations bills to restrain and focus ICE and CBP on protecting Americans. These bills have required CBP to report deaths in custody, expanded non-intrusive inspection technology to detect fentanyl at ports of entry, required regular reporting to correct errors in ICE budgeting practices, mandated CBP reporting on family separations, pushed ICE to focus on egregious human rights abuses, improved conditions in ICE and CBP detention, and more. Quietly, these appropriations bills have created at least some measure of accountability for agencies with enormous power over people’s lives.
“House Republicans are preparing to throw all of that away.
“They are not just writing a check. They are giving President Trump a blank check for the remainder of his time in office that is insulated from accountability and enables this Administration’s worst instincts. Republicans are owning this Administration’s excess, lawlessness, and corruption.
“So far in this presidency, Republicans have shown almost no appetite for standing up to President Trump when he abuses power, endangers Americans, or uses the federal government to reward allies and punish enemies. If this bill passes the House, Republicans will own what comes next. They will own the abuses, the violations, and the corruption. They will own every taxpayer dollar that is used to make Americans less safe, less free, and less protected from the whims of a corrupt President and his reckless Administration.”