Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said he would not vote to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Partial transcript as follows:
JONATHAN KARL: On Minnesota, you have said that you won’t vote for a single dollar to fund Trump’s ICE operations until there are reforms.So, what are you demanding? And is that leverage that can actually work?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, what — it — what I’m saying is exactly as you quoted, that I am not going to cast a vote, not one dime, to support this lawless, brutal Trump ICE operation. So, what I’m saying is unless there are significant reforms to rein in this lawless ICE operation and there was a federal judge that just this week said that ICE agents were violating people’s constitutional rights, right? They were preventing them from engaging in protected peaceful protest. So, my view is there has to be dramatic change. I don’t foresee this administration doing that at this moment. So, I’m saying I won’t provide any funding.
KARL: I don’t hear you saying what I’m hearing from a lot of others in the party, and the protesters certainly, to abolish ICE, but we are hearing those calls.
And I want to read you what your colleague Ruben Gallego said about this. He said, ‘Clearly, ICE is an absolute problem. They’re out of control, moving way too fast. The last thing we need to do again is to make the same mistake when it comes to defund the police rhetoric’ Are you worried that these calls to abolish ICE could be problematic for — for the party? I mean, people might not like what they’re seeing ICE doing, but they think our immigration law should be enforced.
VAN HOLLEN: Well — well, yes, but what’s happening right now is the ICE agents are the ones breaking the law, not the peaceful protesters. So, I believe we should not be funding an ICE operation that is completely lawless. It needs dramatic reform. You know, Donald Trump said he was going to go after the, quote, worst of the worst. If you look at their own data, 80 percent of the people they’re apprehending around the country posed no public threat whatsoever. Instead of addressing that problem, they pulled down the data so we can no longer see it.
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