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Congressional Daily Record
This section captures a floor statement or debate entry. It mentions members such as Charles Ellis Schumer.
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April 20, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextMr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, what does this majority choose to spend our time on instead?
that adds tens of billions of dollars to the national debt and pumps colossal sums into ICE and Border Patrol without any reforms, all while doing absolutely nothing to lower costs for hard-working Americans.
well-functioning Congress, the majority focuses on solving people's problems, not constantly cleaning up their own messes and shoveling tens of billions more into unaccountable rogue Agencies.
Remember, last year, in Donald Trump's “Big Ugly Betrayal,” Republicans rammed through $75 billion for ICE and tens of billions more for Border Patrol, with virtually no guardrails, minimal training standards, and no real idea of what they were unleashing. Well, that led to disaster, as could have been predicted.
American citizens in broad daylight, triggering a reckoning across the country. After the murders of Alex Pretti
and Renee Good, the American people wanted change.
to rein in ICE and Border Patrol and prevent this kind of violence from happening again. We put forth commonsense reforms modeled on guardrails law enforcement already follows in the States: no masked agents in unmarked vehicles, no bursting into people's homes without warrants, and body cameras for all agents.
Republicans were not serious about reform. Instead of listening to the people, Senate Republicans listened to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. Even when Democrats offered to narrow the reforms to a small, targeted set of proposals in exchange for funding, Republicans, afraid of Trump, afraid of Miller, said no.
the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, while leaving ICE and Border Patrol aside, as negotiations on reform continued. Democrats unanimously supported this bill. It was something we had been pushing for weeks because we believed FEMA, the Coast Guard, CISA, TSA, and the other four Agencies of DHS must be able to serve the American people.
But that agreement is now collecting dust in the House. Speaker Johnson and House Republicans refuse to move it.
And that brings us to where we are today. It is Republicans who have chosen to keep FEMA, the Coast Guard, CISA, TSA, and all other DHS Agencies shut down. It is Republicans' own divisions and their own inability to govern that have led to the longest shutdown of an Agency in American history.
waste even more time by going it alone through reconciliation. Any moment now, they are expected to release a budget resolution that would tee up more than $75 billion over 3 years for ICE and Border Patrol through reconciliation, while doing nothing—absolutely nothing—to lower costs for hard-working Americans.
Let's be clear. What the Republicans are doing is not how a well- functioning Congress should be spending its time. We should be debating legislation to help people pay for groceries, afford the rent, and bring down electric bills. We should be focused on outrageous gas prices and on retiring Donald Trump's costly military endeavors. Instead, Republicans are preparing to spend precious time bogging the Senate down by partisan bickering.
or daycare, Republicans somehow think that we can give ICE and Border Patrol a blank check. Isn't that amazing? People are suffering because they can't pay for their healthcare needs, and, instead, the Republicans want to send more money to ICE and Border Patrol.
One thing is clear—one thing is very clear: Americans cannot afford the cost of Republicans' continued chaos.