Republican Rep. James Comer said Democrats are to blame for the ongoing DHS shutdown and praised President Donald Trump for sending ICE to provide assistance at airports across the country.
Speaking on Fox Business, Comer said "Republican Rep. James Comer said Democrats are to blame for the ongoing DHS shutdown and praised President Donald Trump for sending ICE to provide assistance at airports across the country."
Agents were deployed Monday to more than a dozen airports, including Chicago, Houston, New York and Philadelphia. Officials said their role would focus on support tasks such as managing exits rather than conducting immigration enforcement.
Comer went on to say that he is happy about the deployment of ICE officials to airports because it will "drive the Democrats crazy."
"At the end of the day, somebody's got to step up and ensure that our air travel continues, or you are going to see further damage to our economy, which again, in my opinion, is what the Democrats want," Comer claimed.
However, Republicans don't seem to have a cohesive message on the matter. Republican Senator John Kennedy said he and colleague Ted Cruz came up with a plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, but Trump rejected it as part of a broad refusal to reach deals with Democrats.
Speaking to Fox News, Kennedy explained that the plan had two steps: accepting Democrats' offer to reopen all of DHS but ICE and then fund the latter agency through reconciliation, where the GOP wouldn't have needed votes from Democrats.
"It would have worked. We could have had TSA paid by the end of the week," Kennedy said, noting that Trump ordered party lawmakers to refrain from reaching deals with Democrats.
The impasse comes as almost 12% of all TSA workers did not show up for work on Sunday, according to Reuters. More than 400 employees have quit since the shutdown began over a month ago.
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