During the Trump years some on the left issued calls to “abolish ICE,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially over over White House senior advisor Stephen Miller‘s program that separated young migrant children, even infants, from their parents and siblings.
Liberals were not the only ones – groups like the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, have published papers like “How to talk about defunding ICE and CBP—and investing in communities.”
Republicans took the “abolish ICE” calls and used them to attack Democrats as weak on unlawful immigration, but on Monday one far-right House Republican, U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, essentially agreed with those calls – albeit for different reasons.
After falsely criticizing President Joe Biden’s trip to the Southern Border as a “show trip,” Congressman Roy promised House Republicans will defund the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Roy declared, “it’s time right now for the House majority to do our job and we’re going to have stop funding a Dept. of Homeland Security that refuses to secure the border.”
“We’re gonna do that this year,” Rep. Roy pledged.
The Dept. of Homeland Security, a massive umbrella federal agency, includes about two dozen agencies and offices, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP), and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
It also includes the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), United States Coast Guard, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the United States Secret Service.
Russell Foster, a Texas 2020 Democratic congressional candidate, blasted Roy over his remarks.
“Texans are struggling because of GOP policies that have turned our state upside down in the last 8 years,” Foster tweeted. “Our healthcare system is close to third-world country status, our education system is shit, & the majority of Texans can’t make ends meet while people like Chip Roy get rich.”
Watch Congressman Roy below or at this link.