Dem senators call to fund DHS after voting to block it 4 times amid shutdown fight
Senate Democrats say they want to end the government shutdown but have repeatedly blocked GOP attempts to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as they push for immigration enforcement...
By Fox News · Fox News
Senate Democrats say they want to end the government shutdown but have repeatedly blocked GOP attempts to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as they push for immigration enforcement reforms. On Friday, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said at a news conference following an antisemitic attack on the Temple Israel synagogue in her state that "certainly" Congress must fund DHS. However, Slotkin and most Senate Democrats have voted four times to block DHS funding, including several attempts to temporarily reopen the agency while negotiations continue. Slotkin is just one of several Senate Democrats calling for an end to the shutdown. Republicans argue the votes are part of a broader Democratic strategy to blame them for blocking efforts to reopen DHS. DEMS VOTE TO KEEP DHS CLOSED DESPITE AIRPORT CHAOS, IRANIAN SLEEPER CELL THREAT Sen. Roger Marshall , R-Kan., accused Democrats of trying to shift blame for the shutdown. "Well, that’s what they do, right? And they're good at it. They're really good at it," he told Fox News Digital. "And the big difference is they have 90% of the legacy media backing them up." "So it's hard, but again, four times this afternoon, the Democrats voted against funding DHS," he continued. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Republicans of using the federal workers of a variety of agencies under DHS, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as "hostages." "I remind my Republican colleagues, we're going to be back here again and again, winning this debate and eventually winning the American people," Schumer said. But Slotkin and others are now signaling an openness to funding Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which many Democrats have sought to deny federal funding to, in addition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "We need, in my view, to cut away all the conversation on ICE, which is its own conversation," Slotkin said at the news confere…