The Republican Party, since the rise of Trump, has consistently been in favor of defunding the police. Trump’s defunding of the police has involved slashing federal grants to local law enforcement. Trump’s budgets have consistently called for lower police funding.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said that Trump is defunding the police in her state by refusing to release counterterrorism funds: “Let me translate that in real simple terms: Donald Trump is defunding the police.”
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The defunding goes far beyond withholding funds to combat terrorism.
House Republicans and Trump are being very specific. Either state and local police departments give ICE what they want, or they will be defunded by Republicans.
At a subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin said:
Judiciary Republicans’ solution this week is to rededicate themselves to this failing strategy. They have passed a bill to force underfunded state and local jurisdictions to use more of their own funds and resources to do the bloated federal government’s job of immigration enforcement. That means cities and localities would have fewer cops, less money, and fewer resources to protect their communities from violent crime, guns, drugs, or drunk driving.
What’s worse, my Republican colleagues have proposed defunding police departments across the country in any jurisdiction that decides state and local governments and not ICE should get to decide how state and local police departments are run.