President Trump has had enough of the Democrat Party’s antics. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown has now lasted over 50 days, during which many employees have gone unpaid due to the actions of the Democratic Party. Their base is advocating for the defunding of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and the dismantling of DHS. It is crucial that this agency remains operational, particularly with the heightened threat of terrorist retaliation following Operation Epic Fury.
TSA (Transportation Security Administration) agents are finally receiving their pay, thanks to an order from Trump, which covers their salaries using funds from last year’s tax cut bill. Despite congressional Republicans struggling to finalize a spending measure to reopen DHS before the Easter recess, Trump has issued a memo instructing that all DHS employees are to be compensated, citing national security concerns:
President Donald Trump on Friday directed the Department of Homeland Security to pay all of its employees amid a record-long shutdown at DHS that’s lasted nearly 50 days.
The presidential memo authorizes paychecks for workers who have gone without pay since DHS funding stopped on Feb. 14.
“More than 35,000 employees, including Coast Guard civilians, Federal Emergency Management Agency employees helping to prepare the Nation for disaster response, and cybersecurity professionals at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, have gone without a paycheck for nearly 2 months because of congressional Democrats,” Trump wrote in the memo, a day after indicating he would take action.
Trump has repeatedly blamed the partial government shutdown on Democrats, who are demanding significant changes to immigration enforcement tactics before lending their support to legislation that would fully fund DHS.
The president signed a similar memo last week that directed DHS to pay TSA workers, who had also gone without paychecks, as passengers endured significant delays at airports across the country. Those funds starting hitting employees’ bank accounts this week.
Senate Republicans passed a partial funding measure for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) before the recess, which excluded the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. They did this at 3 a.m. by a voice vote and then left town. This was what the Democrats wanted, although there was some drama surrounding the motion because Chuck Schumer indicated there might not be enough votes. Republicans were manipulated in a way they shouldn’t have allowed. This move complicated things for the House, which was required to act that day. Ultimately, the House opted for a 60-day continuing resolution, but that measure lacks enough votes to pass in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson have since stated that they will support the Senate’s plan to fund DHS without ICE and CBP, and later address the rest of the agency’s funding through reconciliation. This approach would provide funding for ICE and CBP for three years without requiring any concessions from the Democrats regarding policies on de-masking or judicial warrants.
President Trump has stepped up – again – to ensure that the staffers are paid. While ICE and CBP agents continued to receive their pay, their civilian support staff had not been compensated.
Democrats have made it their full-time job during Trump’s second term to smear every aspect of his immigration agenda — and especially the men and women of ICE and the Border Patrol who actually keep this country secure.
But few have been louder or more reckless than Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who seems to wake up every morning looking for a new way to demonize federal agents. He’s repeatedly labeled ICE the “Gestapo” and “fascists,” language so deranged and irresponsible it has helped fuel a surge in violent attacks against ICE personnel — including a shooting at a Texas ICE facility that left at least two migrants dead.
But apparently, even that level of hysteria isn’t enough for Walz. Now he’s straight-up inventing stories about ICE arresting American citizens:
He’s right about one thing: it is about stoking fear. But it’s not ICE doing it — it’s Democrats like Walz, whipping up panic over the perfectly legal, entirely reasonable enforcement of U.S. immigration law.
They want Americans terrified of the very agencies standing between this country and total border chaos. It’s manufactured fear, weaponized for politics — and it’s as cynical as it gets:
A 55-year-old woman who is an American citizen was arrested early Tuesday after confronting ICE officers over the arrests of three of her neighbors in the Willard-Hay neighborhood of north Minneapolis. She appears to be the first observer arrested by federal law enforcement officers since the agency launched an immigration surge in the Twin Cities last Monday.
ICE spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment or confirm the arrests.
Susan Tincher was awakened a little before 6:30 a.m. by alerts on her phone that an ICE arrest was happening in her neighborhood. She walked over alone and asked one of the officers across the street from the home that was being raided if they were ICE. She said the officer told her to “get back.” Tincher refused, and said multiple agents approached her.
Tincher was interfering with law enforcement, plain and simple. And the very article Walz cherry-picked even spells it out: federal law makes it a crime to “forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere” with a federal law enforcement officer carrying out their duties.
Notice something? Nowhere does the law say you have to be able to bench-press an ICE agent for it to count.
But the article bends over backward to portray Tincher — a “slight woman,” as they put it — as somehow incapable of interfering with ICE. As if physical force is the only way to obstruct an arrest. It isn’t. Interference can be verbal, disruptive, obstructive, or simply refusing lawful instructions. Anything that slows or prevents ICE from doing its job qualifies.
So yes, Tincher allegedly broke the law. And yes, ICE acted appropriately.
Walz’s thoughts are about as deep as a splash pad, of course — all noise, no substance.
Democrats are perfectly free to introduce a bill to defund ICE or repeal our immigration laws if they’re so outraged by enforcement. They won’t, because they know it would be political suicide, but they could. That’s how the system works.
But until they muster the courage to actually change the law — and get it through Congress — President Trump is not only allowed but obligated to enforce the laws on the books. That’s literally why voters put him back in the Oval Office.
Democrats can whine, shriek, and invent scare stories all they want. Trump is doing the job they refuse to do.