WASHINGTON—Finally moved to action by public outrage over another ICE killing in Minnesota, the usually vacillating Sen. Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic opposition in the Senate, is threatening to filibuster—or talk to death—the latest money bill passed by House Republicans.
The spending measures the GOP passed to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year include a doubling of spending on Immigration and Customs Enforcement—on top of the tripling of the ICE budget that already happened last summer.
Trump’s troops continue terrorizing the Twin Cities. In less than two weeks, agents have killed two people during its “Operation Metro Surge” deportation sweep. This weekend, nurse Alex Pretti joined Renee Nicole Good on the victims list.
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling—and unacceptable in any American city,” Schumer said Saturday after the shooting of Pretti. He added that “because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE.”
While pumping more money into ICE, the money bill simultaneously takes aim at the budgets for agencies that enforce workers’ rights, including the National Labor Relations Board. That priority pleases President Donald Trump and his corporate campaign contributors just fine but spells continuing exploitation and repression for workers.
The $400 million allotment for ICE was part of a money bill for the Homeland Security Department, which the House passed 220-207, including several Democratic votes. It now goes to the Senate, with only days to go before current funds run out for ICE and much of the rest of the government at midnight Jan. 30.
Schumer says his party will filibuster the bill unless the anti-immigrant strike force is reined in. A battle in the Senate would stall funding for the rest of the government, too.
Double dollars for deportations
The House decided ICE’s funds would more than double from its current $175 billion rate for this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Most of the additional cash would go to hire more agents to carry out the violent and vicious attacks—lauded by Trump—on Latinos, regardless of whether they’re citizens or undocumented, Somali immigrants, and on native U.S. citizens, too.
Trump and officials from his administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino, have insulted the two citizens killed by ICE troops so far and made false accusations against them.
“ICE believes it can act with impunity and is behaving accordingly,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro D-Conn., during House debate on the funding bill.
When lawmakers worked earlier in the year on details of the money bill for ICE and the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., was more caustic. She spoke out at the height of ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago and said the agents were “out of control.”
DHS is “illegally spending hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars, flagrantly violating constitutional rights, and putting America’s security at risk,” said Underwood.
“Under this administration, due process and the limitations the Constitution puts on our government are being ignored. This bill fails to protect American citizens from being deported. It fails to protect American citizens from being confronted in their homes and offices, or having their property seized, as this administration’s deportation policies ignore the boundaries of our laws.
“It shamefully allows” ICE agents “to continue snatching people off the street, at church, at schools, without requiring proper identification or due process. And it punishes immigrants who are following our laws, all while rewarding for-profit detention centers with billions of taxpayer dollars and lax oversight.”
Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., who chairs that House panel which actually is supposed to help dole out dollars for ICE, and the rest of the Homeland Security Department, declared: “We advance the America First promise of empowering our frontline agents to uphold our laws, deport criminal aliens, confront bad actors, and protect our country.”
No money for working class priorities
While ICE got more money, many domestic programs and agencies got less from the GOP-passed House money bill for the departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services.
The National Labor Relations Board’s funding was cut from the current $299 million rate for the rest of this fiscal year down to $200 million. That’s its lowest level in more than a decade in regular dollar terms, before inflation.
The DOL office that’s supposed to ensure federal contractors—and their subcontractors—don’t discriminate by race, gender, religion, or in other ways was cut from a $111 million annual rate to zero.
The Women’s Bureau was zeroed out, too. That would kill its program to help women workers train for traditionally male jobs, such as in the building trades.
Lawmakers cut $57 million (9%) from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s spending rate for this fiscal year, to $582 million. They cut 10% from the spending rate for the Mine Safety and Health Administration, to $348.2 million. All but $90 million of MSHA money will go for enforcement.
The committee also wants MSHA to shift away from its traditional enforcement emphasis on inspecting coal mines, particularly the deep ones in Appalachia. That’s because those mines are being shut down, despite Trump’s promotion of coal and denigration of alternative energy sources, such as wind, water, and solar power.
Trump tried to take out his spite against the Bureau of Labor Statistics by virtually eliminating the agency. Earlier this year, the president fired the former BLS commissioner, a non-partisan statistics professional, when her jobless rate report didn’t produce the rosy numbers he keeps touting. He then nominated a right-wing ideologue to head BLS, but had to withdraw that man under bipartisan flak.
So Trump proposed cutting its budget instead from the current rate of $703.95 million to $68 million, basically enough money to close it down. The lawmakers rebelled, setting BLS’s budget for the rest of this fiscal year at $713.95 million. But they noted Trump’s demand came too late in the spending cycle for Congress to evaluate his real scheme: Merging BLS with other federal numbers crunchers, notably the Bureau of Economic Analysis in the Commerce Department.
Nuke the filibuster?
Republicans—from Trump on down—are responding to Schumer’s threat with one of their own: They are all unanimously signaling their intention to “nuke the filibuster,” meaning scrapping the parliamentary procedure from Senate rules completely.
Identical messages have been posted by GOP accounts and the bots associated with them on X, saying: “Senate GOP is HOLDING THE LINE on DHS funding, DARING Chuck Schumer and the Democrats to trigger a government shutdown this week. No way we let these clowns weaponize the Minneapolis shooting to gut ICE funding. NUKE THE FILIBUSTER and keep our troops funded!”
But as the right piled on Schumer, progressives in Congress applauded him for finally taking a solid stand. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said the Democratic leader was showing the “strength of response we need.” But she gave the people protesting ICE actions in the streets of Minneapolis and across the country the credit for this turn.
“People’s calls and organizing worked,” she said. “No action is ever too small. This is why we never give up.”
C.J. Atkins contributed to this story.
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
