After the Trump administration followed through on a campaign promise to deport illegal aliens, Democrats have predictably targeted Customs and Border Enforcement, or ICE, since its hated masked agents are the most visible symbol of that nationwide crackdown.
Interviewed about that political fight, Ira Mehlman of FAIR told American Family Radio the Democratic Party has unhappily witnessed President Donald Trump clamp down on illegal immigration one year and four months into his second term.
“Essentially, what [Democrats] wanted to do was go back to the policies of the Biden administration,” Mehlman warned. “The policies that brought us 10 million people crossing the border illegally over the course of four years.”
The speculation or “why” behind a wide-open border ranges from traditional liberal sympathy for foreigners to a more dubious plan to overwhelm the immigration system and “reform” it with new U.S. citizens and loyal Democratic Party voters.
Trump deserves credit for stopping that runaway illegal immigration, Mehlman said, by securing the U.S.-Mexico border and by letting ICE do its job of finding and deporting illegal aliens.
Despite political opposition from Democrats, the Trump administration has announced 675,000 illegal aliens have been deported and another 1.5 million voluntarily left on their own, Mehlman told show host Walker Wildmon.
ICE has attempted to comply with the White House goal of finding and arresting 3,000 illegal aliens a day, a goal first announced a year ago this month.
That goal has been met with opposition among some Republicans, including Trump himself. Because of its success, the business-friendly GOP heard grumblings from farmers, home builders, and the tourism industry over losing their fruit pickers, carpenters and roofers, and hotel housekeepers.
“We can’t let our farmers not have anybody,” Trump, describing a “touchback” program for deported illegals, told CNBC last year.
Asked by Wildmon about the number of illegal aliens in the United States, an estimate that varies greatly, Mehlman said FAIR estimates that number was 18.6 million before Trump’s deportations.
On the topic of funding ICE, which has been a political fight on Capitol Hill for two months, Mehlman credited Trump for urging Republicans to meet a June 1 deadline for a budget reconciliation bill on his desk.
“This would fund ICE and Border Patrol through the remainder of this administration,” Mehlman said. “So we wouldn't have to go through this again.”
Claiming a political victory, President Trump signed a Republican-led spending bill April 30 that ended a 75-day partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security. That legislation restored funding at DHS for several agencies, such as TSA and FEMA, but the bill left out funding for ICE.
A related Fox News story, which updates the funding standoff this week, says Republicans are using budget reconciliation to bypass Democrats who are refusing to vote for ICE funding after Republicans refused their so-called “reforms” they demanded.
