On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) responded to a question on the expiration of DHS funds harming TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard while ICE would still have lots of money by stating that “we’re representing our constituents by saying no. We know that, through the big, beautiful bill that they passed to give ICE essentially unlimited amounts of resources and give huge tax breaks to billionaires, at the cost of health care for working people, we know they did that last year, but what we’re saying is we’re not going to give them a penny more to do what we’ve seen over the last year.”
Host Kaitlan Collins asked, “Obviously, ICE funding and the Department of Homeland Security funding overall has become a huge sticking point on Capitol Hill. They have $75 billion for the next four years because of a bill — legislation that’s already passed. I think, given that, some people might ask, how do you explain a vote that doesn’t actually block that ICE funding, because they already have it? It would block money to pay TSA agents, FEMA workers, Coast Guard members. Obviously, people that would be indirectly or directly affected, not intentionally so, but they would be directly affected by this. How would you justify your vote to those people?”
Frost answered, “Well, number one, in the House of Representatives, the Republicans don’t need my vote to pass a bill that they want to pass. If they want my vote, they’re going to have to go with the demands that we put forth to help change what’s going on with DHS and ICE. If we want to talk about consequences, Alex Pretti, Renee Nicole Good, people who are being shot and killed across this country, and our neighbors who are being terrorized in our communities as we speak, those are the consequences about what’s — of the recklessness of DHS and ICE right now. And House Democrats are using our power and the power of the purse to say, enough is enough. The people have spoken, we see poll after poll that people say this administration [has] gone way too far, as it relates to this, I don’t call it mass deportation, it’s a mass kidnapping campaign of our own neighbors. And so, we’re representing our constituents by saying no. We know that, through the big, beautiful bill that they passed to give ICE essentially unlimited amounts of resources and give huge tax breaks to billionaires, at the cost of health care for working people, we know they did that last year, but what we’re saying is we’re not going to give them a penny more to do what we’ve seen over the last year.”
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