U.S. Representative Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, released a statement Thursday criticizing congressional Republicans for continuing to refuse to fund the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, excluding Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“It is maddening that my Republican colleagues continue to hold the paychecks of our hardworking TSA agents hostage. For 41 days, Republicans have refused to fund TSA, demanding that Democrats agree to give more money to ICE and help pass Trump’s election takeover bill. Republicans’ political games have threatened the livelihoods of the TSA personnel who keep our skies safe. Their manufactured crisis has caused chaos for travelers everywhere,” Sewell said.
“Democrats have put forward a clean bill to fund TSA, FEMA, CISA and the U.S. Coast Guard. Republicans could end this shutdown today by passing that bill. Instead, they continue to take orders from Donald Trump. The American people deserve better,” she said.
Sewell signed a discharge petition to force a House vote on legislation to fund all Department of Homeland Security agencies except ICE.
Congressional Republicans already have tripled ICE’s annual budget, providing a historic $75 billion in supplemental funding to the agency in the “Big Beautiful Bill.” ICE is now the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the United States, with a budget that exceeds the military expenditures of numerous individual nations.
After the killings of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents and the targeting of law-abiding immigrants, Sewell said she would not support additional funding for ICE without—at minimum—“common sense guardrails to rein in the agency’s rogue and unlawful actions,” according to her press release.
In a recent Fox News appearance, Senator John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, said President Trump instructed Senate Republican Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, to abandon an agreement with Democrats to fund all Department of Homeland Security agencies except ICE.
Trump instead suggested congressional Republicans should not “make a deal on anything” until Democrats agree to pass the SAVE America Act, which could block 21 million eligible Americans from voting.
