Social Storm: Fight Against New Funding for ICE/CBP
Since San Francisco and California members of Congress are already committed to opposing Reconciliation 2.0, we are asking our Indivisible SF members to use your social media right now to inform your friends, family, and followers about this legislative abomination and urge them to contact their members of Congress to oppose it.
Background
As we asked them to do, Democrats in Congress demanded that significant reforms and guardrails against ICE/CBP abuses and atrocities be included in any budget bill granting new or additional funds to those agencies. Republicans refused to rein in ethnic-cleaning immigration raids and detentions so Democrats blocked additional ICE/CBP funding in the annual appropriations bill.
Rather than rein in the MAGA regime's racially-motivated raids, sweeps, mass detentions, and rapid deportations, Republicans are now trying to use the reconciliation maneuver to circumvent the Democratic filibuster and jam through more than $70 billion in new ICE/CBP funding. If they succeed in excluding Democrats and passing major funding and policy laws entirely and only with Republican votes it will signal a major step towards one-party authoritarian rule.
Their Reconciliation 2.0 bill funds ICE/CBP until 2029 so that even if Democrats take back either the House or the Senate in the midterm elections, Congress won't be able to use its Power of the Purse to restrain or limit ICE/CBP abuses and atrocities. This will leave them free to resume and expand Minneapolis-style raids, sweeps, detentions, and abuses wherever they wish.
In the latest developments, the Senate parliamentarian disallowed some portions of the Republican's reconciliation bill, but she left the core of it intact. Republican leaders characterized the parliamentarian's actions as 'minor' and are currently working behind the scenes to draft language that maneuvers around her rulings. Or they may try to simply steamroll over her objections. But even if her rulings stand, the bill will still inject a massive infusion of cash into immigration enforcement for the next three years.
Our San Francisco members of the House and Senate will vote against Recon2. But their votes alone will not be sufficient. The only way to defeat the bill is to generate so much public opposition nationwide that either four Republican Senators vote against it, or two Republican House members do so. Those are not impossible numbers because almost that number voted against the BBB reconciliation bill last year. So the key to defeating Recon2 are the swing states and districts where Republican incumbents are facing re-election challenges.