STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 The borough\u2019s lone congressional representative said Senate Democrats\u2019 attempt to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security in wake of the most recent ICE shooting is misguided.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Sen. Charles Schumer said that Senate Democrats will not provide the necessary votes to pass a funding bill for DHS following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happening in Minnesota is appalling \u2014 and unacceptable in any American city. Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans\u2019 refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no. Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included,” Schumer said.<\/p>\n
Democrats have said they will not approve the DHS bill unless it includes significant reforms to the department\u2019s immigration enforcement efforts, which have resulted in two fatal shootings in Minneapolis in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Party officials have urged Republicans to remove the DHS bill from a larger, six-bill appropriations package, which would allow the other five to pass while the DHS bill is reworked to include significant reforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimply put, ICE and DHS are out of control. They openly lie to the American people, disregard our constitutional rights, and undermine the trust law enforcement must have to serve and protect the public,\u201d said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat who represents New York. <\/p>\n
\u201cSeparating children from families, pepper-spraying pastors, and disrupting local residents and small businesses is unacceptable. The murder of American citizens is intolerable. I cannot and will not support further funding of DHS without increased accountability and reform of the agency,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican who represents Staten Island and parts of South Brooklyn, told the Advance\/SILive.com that ICE has \u201cno choice\u201d but to enter cities and states to find \u201cforeign criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen states and municipalities shield foreign criminals by releasing them onto our streets instead of turning them over to federal law enforcement, ICE has no choice but to go into municipalities to find them. In Minneapolis over the past week alone, ICE arrested two convicted murderers with orders for removal going back a decade, a convict who sodomized a 12 year old girl and a repeat offender with 24 convictions among other pedophiles, sex offenders and violent criminals,\u201d said Malliotakis.<\/p>\n
She went on to refer to the fatal shooting of Pretti as a \u201ctragedy,\u201d but said withholding funding as a result would have ripple effects that make the country less safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shooting of Alex Pretti is a tragedy and should be independently investigated as claims made by DHS officials do not match what is seen on video. However, the Senate\u2019s misguided attempts to stop funding the Department of Homeland Security would not only hinder law enforcement\u2019s ability to get foreign criminals off our streets, it would negatively impact TSA airport security, counterterrorism, cybersecurity and our Coast Guard operations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Malliotakis did not respond to questions as to whether she believes ICE agents acted appropriately during the shooting of Pretti or whether ICE is in need of reform or additional training to prevent future shootings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 The borough\u2019s lone congressional representative said Senate Democrats\u2019 attempt to block funding for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-115529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}