Holding on to a narrow, fragile majority in the U.S. House, Republicans were scheduled to hold a procedural vote today, Tuesday, to end the partial shutdown.
Attempting to hold his coalition together, House Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford one Republican lawmaker to flip and bolt, Fox News reported.
The pending vote is a political hot potato for both sides, however, since Democrats are split on demanding so-called “reforms” for Homeland Security and ICE.
"If they’re not going to make any serious reforms, there’s just a sense in the House that we’re not co-signing on that," Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told reporters Monday.
A day before the vote, Rep. Tim Moore (R-NC) told the Washington Watch program the vote will likely pass despite the objections of radical Democrats who want ICE defunded.
“They want us to ignore the enforcement of immigration law,” Moore, referring to his Democrat colleagues, said. “And I hope and believe the American people are paying very close attention to that.”
After two fatal shootings in Minneapolis, and their livid voting base demanding they “abolish ICE,” Democrats in Congress are demanding changes to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE in order to avoid a prolonged government shutdown.
A vote in the U.S. Senate funded DHS for two weeks, through February 13, after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reached a deal with the White House that angered his Trump-hating base.
After the Schumer deal, Democrats in the House are now making more demands to punish ICE to get their shutdown vote.
One demand from some Democrats in Congress is to force ICE agents to work without masks, which Democrats compare to criminals hiding their faces, but radical activists are openly trying to identify the ICE agents to locate their homes and to even harass their families.
“Do not compare ICE or Border Patrol agents to the Nazis. That’s an unfair comparison. The Nazis were willing to show their faces,” Late Show host Stephen Colbert stated in his recent monologue.
Reacting to that demand, Moore said the radical activists are the ones behaving like terrorists.
“The amount of doxing that's been happening with our law enforcement,” the GOP lawmaker complained, “is something that I don't know that I've ever seen in the history that I've been following politics, or that I've even been an adult.”
The fact that some in Congress condone it, he added, is “absolutely shameful.”
The congressman later told show host Tony Perkins some Democrats he has talked with recognize the “crazy train” their political party is riding on.
“Democratic members, when there aren't any cameras,” Moore said, “they acknowledge that the ultra radicals of their party have tried to hijack messaging for their side. A lot of them even understand the need that we fund our law enforcement, that we fund for immigration enforcement.”
