The US Senate approved a major government funding package on Friday, after the killings of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis upended spending talks and gave out-of-power rare leverage over Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign. In a 71-29 tally, the Senate overcame last-minute opposition from a handful of Republicans to rally behind a deal the president struck with Democrats, an unusual display of bipartisanship as tensions rise nationally over the presence of ICE in American cities.
Speaking out on Thursday, the two members of Congress reflected a national Democratic leadership that-finally, belatedly-seems to have found its collective voice in responding to what Donald Trump has unleashed on America since returning to office a year ago. Some of the President's most fervent opponents now believe, as the never-Trump conservative Charlie Sykes wrote on Thursday morning, that the recent news out of Minnesota marked a breaking point for 'patriotic, non-political normies.'
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) has come out swinging in favor of abolishing ICE and blocking funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), demanding that Democrats use their leverage to do so after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) released a tepid set of demands for a funding vote in the coming days. In a short video posted to social media on Wednesday evening, Markey said that Democrats "have the power" to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and must use it.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND on Monday issued a statement condemning the conduct of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which DHS oversees, following the fatal shooting by Border Patrol agents of nurse Alex Pretti at a Minnesota protest last week, the second protest shooting in a month. Gillibrand, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she could not back a contentious federal agency funding bill currently making its way through Congress in light of recent events.
Schumer's office said he urged Trump to release federal funding for the $16 billion Gateway tunnel during the meeting, which they said the president requested. Trump last year said he was withholding federal funding from the massive public works project - which includes the construction of new rail tunnels under the Hudson River -after Democrats picked a government shutdown fight.
