WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the Secure America Act, which funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the end of his term.
Congressional Democrats, who blocked funding for DHS seeking reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for over three months, have lost a key point of leverage through the rest of Trump’s term now that the legislation is law.
The Secure America Act, which passed both chambers of Congress with no Democrat support, directs $38 billion to ICE and $26 billion to CBP.
“For more than 100 days, Congressional Dumocrats tried to block all funding for the Department of Homeland Security in a reprehensible attempt to throw open the borders of the United States of America,” Trump said in the Oval Office, flanked by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Sen Rand Paul (R-KY), and other GOP lawmakers. “They want to drag us straight back to chaos and crime.”
Trump later said that by opposing the bill, Democrats “voted with the cartels, the terrorists, the gang members, the drug dealers, the human traffickers, the child predators, and our great Republican majorities voted to protect law-abiding American citizens.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who was sworn in in March while Democrats held up funding, said the bill becoming law marks a major victory for President Trump and DHS.
“Well, first of all, we’re able to pay everybody. This is super exciting for all of us. We have employees at ICE and CBP that have been, well, let’s say in South and Central America that haven’t been paid since February,” Mullin told Fox News Channel’s America Reports. “This is amazing that they were still showing up and working every single day.”
Mullin stressed that the Secure America Act strips away Democrats’ leverage to block funding to ICE and CBP and lauded Trump’s “forward thinking.”
“Now we won’t have the Democrats threatening to shut down Immigration Custom Enforcement, which is ICE, or shutting down our Custom and Border Protection, which is, you know, protects our borders. They can’t do that anymore,” he said
“They can’t use that as a leverage against the American people and against President Trump,” he added.
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