U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat, said she will vote against an appropriations package this week that includes over $64 billion for funding the Department of Homeland Security, with $10 billion for ICE.
Her announcement comes after Saturday’s killing of Alex Pretti, 37, an ICU nurse at a Veterans Administration hospital, by agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol in Minneapolis. Pretti’s killing is the second in Minneapolis by ICE agents, coming less than three weeks after the killing of Renee Nicole Good, 37, a mother of three.
In a statement, Slotkin said that as “all Americans can see with their own eyes, ICE and those under their command are not acting as responsible law enforcement agencies.”
“They are recklessly inciting violence at the whims of the President,” Slotkin said, “and they must be reined in before there is more killing.”
Slotkin said the two killings are “part of a continued, coordinated assault on our Constitutional rights — with specific focus on individuals and groups who disagree with this president.”
“This is what President Trump meant when he said he wanted to go after ‘the enemy within.’ “At every opportunity, he’s escalated violence against the people of Minnesota,” Slotkin said. “Now, two American citizens have been killed by their own government as part of this operation.”
It appeared lawmakers would be completing their funding work after the House passed its final four appropriations bills last week, but key Democrats began pulling their support to fund the Department of Homeland Security after Saturday’s killing. Republicans want to pass the funding as a single vote, which would include DHS funding with bills funding the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor and Education, and Transportation, all of which have broad support. The package will need 60 votes in the Senate to pass.
U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat, said he, too, will be voting against the appropriations package.
