Funding Law Enforcement Isn’t Optional

We need law enforcement officers to patrol our borders, to prevent criminals and illegal drugs from entering our country, and to take dangerous illegal aliens off of our streets. This may seem obvious, but unfortunately, my Democrat colleagues think funding law enforcement is optional – and right now they’re opting to defund Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Republicans will not allow that to happen. We’re moving forward with a bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol without assistance from Democrats, and once we pass this bill, we will ensure that Democrats cannot again jeopardize our nation’s security with their “defund law enforcement” agenda. Democrats are refusing to fund any physical presence at our borders. They’re refusing to fund operations to take criminal illegal immigrants off of our streets. And why? To ask the Senate Democrat leader, it’s because Democrats think nobody respects ICE and Border Patrol. Apparently, the fact that there are men and women putting their lives on the line to ensure dangerous individuals don’t enter our country does not merit respect from Senate Democrats. I suppose this comes as no surprise given Democrats’ history of failing to respect our immigration laws. The Biden administration clearly didn’t believe in enforcing our immigration laws, and the result was four years of record-breaking illegal immigration. Long before the Biden border crisis, Democrat-led cities and states implemented sanctuary policies that prevented their law enforcement agencies from working with federal law enforcement, and those policies have had tragic consequences. Democrats may want to return to this chaos and reopen America’s borders, but Republicans won’t allow that to happen. Last year, we worked with President Trump to secure the border. Now, Republicans are moving forward with a bill that funds ICE and Border Patrol through the rest of the Trump administration to ensure the border stays secure and to prevent Democrats from threatening our nation’s security by trying to defund these agencies in the years ahead. It wasn’t long ago that President Biden and Democrats allowed a crisis to rage on our southern border. Last year, President Trump and Republicans cleaned up that mess, restored order, and secured America’s borders. The police chief in Sioux Falls has said that “some of the measures taken within the southern border are paying dividends within our community.” That’s the case in Sioux Falls and in other communities around the country. That’s the kind of progress that Democrats want to reverse by defunding law enforcement. But Republicans will not let them.