Democrats' call to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] agency are "reckless and dangerous," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said Tuesday.
"It's a very reckless, dangerous policy to abolish an agency created after 9/11 to protect Americans from dangerous people, criminals, drug dealers, and potential terrorists," McCaul told Fox News' "Outnumbered Overtime."
"I just think it is very irresponsible. It's a political move on their part."
McCaul's committee introduced a 2016 spending measure Tuesday to provide funding for a southern border wall and additional funding for border security, including increasing the ICE budget by $328 million over fiscal year 2018, including $78 million to hire 400 additional ICE agents and support staff.
Democratic leaders are urging party lawmakers to vote "present" on the measure, reports Roll Call, rather than voting for or against the measure.
"[That's] not exactly a profile in courage," McCaul said of the "present" vote. "ICE does a lot more than what you see down on the border now with the unaccompanied minor children. They stop a lot of bad things from coming into the United States including fentanyl and opioids."
McCaul said when he was a federal prosecutor after the 9/11 attacks, the immigration laws were used to get suspected terrorists out of the country.
"My bill to authorize ice for the first time into law passed last year overwhelmingly with nearly every Democrat voting for it, including Nancy Pelosi and the author now of the bill to abolish ICE," McCaul said, referring to a rival Democratic bill that GOP leaders have scrapped.
"Less than a year ago, they were all in favor of ICE and voted to authorize it into law. This is a complete hypocrisy, and it's pure politics."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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