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If you were told that in the year 2026, elected Democrats in Congress would get away with prolonging the longest partial shutdown in history \u2014 all to protect illegal aliens \u2014 would you believe it? You should, because it\u2019s happening.<\/span><\/p>\n Forty days in, and Democrats are holding the entire Department of Homeland Security hostage over a tiny fraction, 8.5 percent, of the agency. Not the TSA. Not FEMA. Not the Coast Guard. Just ICE \u2014 and apparently, that\u2019s worth burning the whole thing down.<\/span> Democrats did that. They own every single minute of it.<\/span><\/p>\n Luckily for Republicans, when political leverage fails, public animosity tends to move the needle. And right now, the public is not happy. TSA lines are seeing historic wait times, and Americans are on edge as terrorism threatens to run amok. And little girls are being killed<\/a> on Chicago streets by the very people Democrats are going to the mat to defend.<\/span>
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<\/span>Following the Minnesota shootings, Democrats have entered another frenzy to abolish, this time targeting ICE officers instead of police. Because \u201cabolish cops\u201d and demonizing a whole group of people whose job is to protect us went so well the first time. They want masks off <\/em>\u2014despite forcing them on everyone and their grandmother during Covid. Identification shown <\/em>\u2014 despite their open hostility to requiring ID at the ballot box. And operations paused<\/em>, unless ICE can navigate numerous legal hurdles to get judicial warrants.
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<\/span>All nonstarters for Republicans. So the shutdown drags on. <\/span>
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<\/span>Democrats are standing ten toes down on defunding ICE \u2014 and by extension, all of DHS \u2014 while Republicans and the American people plead with them to at least vote to fund TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and Cyber Security Intelligence. One would think these are reasonable requests, given that we are at war with the world\u2019s leading state sponsor of terrorism. But common sense left the building a long time ago.<\/span>
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<\/span>The consequences are not abstract. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, the directors of FEMA, TSA, and CISA testified about the devastating impacts this shutdown is having on their institutions. TSA: <\/span>\u201cWe are really concerned about our security.\u201d <\/span><\/i>Think about that \u2014\u00a0the people responsible for keeping bombs off planes are telling Congress they\u2019re scared. CISA: <\/span>\u201cThe threat environment is too dynamic to allow this shutdown to continue.\u201d <\/span><\/i>And FEMA: <\/span>\u201cWe are crippling our disaster response.\u201d <\/span><\/i>Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill put a number to it: over 480 Transportation Security Officers already gone, with airports running at 40-50% staff capacity, because officers simply cannot afford to show up. <\/span><\/p>\n
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<\/span>To make problems worse for the \u201cparty of love and tolerance,\u201d and in direct contradiction to the Democrats\u2019 broken record narrative, Americans are now seeing ICE agents as they shuffle through these historically long airport lines, not arresting and <\/span>kidnapping!<\/span><\/i> people, but <\/span>handing out water bottles and shaking hands<\/span><\/a> with the citizens they work to protect.<\/span>
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<\/span>The flame is burning at both ends for the Left: they\u2019re defending illegal criminals at the expense of Americans, while ICE gets a PR boost for dissolving an airport bottleneck that Democrats created. ICE deployed to Atlanta, Chicago, and Houston has drastically improved security wait times \u2014 and more importantly, Americans are meeting these officers in the flesh, share a laugh, and realize that maybe they aren\u2019t the Gestapo after all.<\/span>
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<\/span>While Democrats are busy mourning the fact that ICE is finally getting good press \u2014 press they manufactured \u2014\u00a0 Sheridan Gorman\u2019s family in Chicago is planning her funeral, a tragedy Democrats manufactured.<\/span>
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<\/span>If the very agency Democrats have tried to dehumanize, defund, and destroy were simply allowed to do their job, a young girl would still be walking the earth. Last weekend, Sheridan Gorman was shot in the head and killed by an illegal alien who was protected from ICE and released from prison because of Democrat sanctuary policies. This horrific tragedy, and the adjacent horrors like it, never seem to be enough to get Democrats to budge. They will keep the entire Department of Homeland Security defunded despite American loss. <\/span>
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<\/span>What will bring them to the negotiating table, apparently, is a streak of good PR for ICE. They can\u2019t have that going on.<\/span>
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<\/span>It\u2019s a sad day when the killing of a teenage girl at the hands of an illegal alien can\u2019t get Democrats to do their jobs \u2014 but footage of ICE agents smiling in an airport might.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n