House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Wednesday that he would reject a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year over concerns that it did not sufficiently curb Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

The announcement came in a closed-door meeting with Democratic caucus members, following continued ICE violence in Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge.

“We’ve heard our members speak loudly that ICE isn’t doing enough, these reforms aren’t doing enough. This lawlessness has to stop,” Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) told reporters after the meeting on Wednesday. “They are only doing this because they can. They are only doing this because the president of the United States wants to use them to terrorize communities, to terrorize U.S. citizens.”

But, according to NBC News, Democratic leaders did not state they would whip a vote to push all members to follow their “no” vote. This leaves the door open for Democrats, many of whom are facing close elections this year, to vote in favor of the appropriation bill.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), a conservative who participated in negotiations with Republicans on the legislation as the lead Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, voiced support for the bill in the meeting,

    A conservative Democrat huh? Well don’t know much about this guy, but already having a hard time believing a conservative running as a Democrat is somebody I should trust to have anyone’s interest in mind but his own. I wonder what are some other tidbits about him that might be relevant?

    Dec 2025: Trump pardons Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar Cuellar and his wife were charged in 2024 with accepting $600,000 in bribes from foreign entities.

    Jan 2026: Congressman Henry Cuellar expresses support for U.S. military action in Venezuela

    Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge a conservative Democrat who has every incentive to help Trump overthrow democracy, and it’s actually me who’s been wrong this whole time for supporting democracy. 🤷‍♀️

    Or you know, fuck this guy, fuck Trump, and fuck all of his fascist enablers.

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      Fuck Henry Cuellar, he votes with Trump 95% of the time.

      Fun story: when he first ran, it was against a very promising young progressive woman Jessica Cisneros who was intent on stopping the border wall disaster in her district, among many other progressive priorities.

      Nancy Pelosi decided since Cuellar was more corpo friendly she would back him instead, and dumped millions of DNC money into his campaign so he could eke out a narrow win. Completely rat-fucked the primary, to basically elect a DINO Republican.