Sheriffs storm Capitol Hill to demand border wall, ICE funding

Angered with efforts by House and Senate Democrats to cut funding for President Trump’s border wall and ICE facilities that hold criminal illegal immigrants, dozens of U.S. sheriffs are storming Capitol Hill Monday to more money to enforce immigration.“We are at wits end on this,” said Bristol County, Mass. Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson. “This really is a catastrophe,” he said of the anti-Trump proposal backed by Democrats including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Hodgson is one of 60 key sheriffs meeting with the House Freedom Caucus on the steps of the U.S. Capitol today before hitting individual House and Senate offices to lobby for wall and ICE funding. He spoke to Secrets from the bus transporting him and sheriffs from Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts and Ohio to the Hill. Over the weekend, Secrets reported that two national sheriffs groups, the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Major County Sheriffs of America, delivered letters to House and Senate immigration negotiators to warn against Democratic efforts to put a cap on the number of criminal illegal immigrants that can be held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.The groups said that about 8,300 criminal aliens would have to be immediately released if the cap went into effect. They also said that about 90 percent of all illegal immigrants held by ICE in the nation’s “interior,” versus border facilities, have criminal records...MORE