The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been shutdown for a week now, and so far, there’s no end in sight.
Congressional Democrats have blocked funding for the agency, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, after ICE officers shot and killed two protesters in Minnesota last month. U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. 5th District, told Missourinet that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement needs to be reformed.
“No one should be able to just knock down your door. And I don’t appreciate the racial profiling,” he said. “And so, it’s not like the Democrats are demanding some things that are unreasonable. They’re not.”
Cleaver said that ICE needs to be “reengineered,” not eliminated as some of his Democratic colleagues have called for.
“I think that we are in a desperate need for reform,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo. 7th District, calls the fight over Homeland Security funding “ridiculous.” He told Missourinet that ICE funding was already secured in last year’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.
“So what they’re really threatening is TSA. They’re really threatening Coast Guard and FEMA,” Burlison said. “So, when the Democrats are blocking the passage of the appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security is really only impacting the TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA.”
He also said that he does not expect the Homeland Security shutdown to last much longer.
“I think that (Democrats) know that they are on a really bad position here, but they’ve got to demonstrate to their base that they’re fighting,” Burlison said. “I think that (Border Czar Tom) Homan withdrawing some of the ICE agents from Minnesota is probably going to give them enough of a win that they’ll walk away from this, so I don’t expect this shutdown to last too long.”
Cleaver, meanwhile, said that he believes there could be some sort of congressional action this week to try and reopen Homeland Security, but there are no guarantees.
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