WASHINGTON, D.C. – The President approved Congress’ $70-billion dollar immigration enforcement bill after a months long standoff with the Democrats. The House narrowly passed the GOP immigration enforcement bill to fund ICE and Border Protection. All Democrats opposed the bill.
This bill will fund those agencies for the next three years. It finally hit the President’s desk after a months-long standoff from the Democrats, who withheld funding in pursuit of policy changes following the shooting deaths of two US citizens during federal immigration enforcement operations in January. The passage of the bill is a victory for Republicans in Congress who have been eager to finalize this ahead of midterm elections.
“The Secure America Act provides $38-billion dollars to ICE, $26-billion dollars to border patrol to ensure these critical law enforcement agencies have the necessary resources to do their jobs, protecting our borders and getting criminal aliens out of the country,” said the President during the signing ceremony.
Republican lawmakers did not include the President’s requests to include a billion dollars in funding for his White House ballroom project in this funding measure. The President’s proposed $1.8 billion-dollar fund to compensate his allies who claim they were targeted by previous administrations also became a politically toxic proposal with the funding. The administration said they were no longer pursuing that funding but Democrats are pushing legislation to forever ban the fund.
“In the House we’re going to work incredibly hard to permanently ban it legislatively,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D- NY). “The notion that anyone who violently beat police officers on January 6 should get a dime of taxpayer dollars is so abhorrent to the American people.”
