WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton filed a bill this week that would defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid heightened national tensions surrounding immigration enforcement tactics and the shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota.
Moulton introduced the Healthcare Reinvestment Act Wednesday with fellow Democratic U.S. Reps. Andre Carson of Indiana, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, and Darren Soto of Florida to revert ICE’s funding levels back to the roughly $10 billion per year the agency operated under before the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year. The passage of that bill along party lines provided ICE with an additional $75 billion in funding over four years, or another $18.7 billion per year.
The significant increase in ICE’s budget comes at a time when Moulton said “American families across the country are facing higher healthcare premiums due to the [Affordable Care Act] premium tax credits lapsing.”
“Congress should first find the money to keep healthcare affordable before it wastes tens of billions of dollars to expand ICE and its lawlessness,” Moulton said in a statement announcing the bill. “This bill makes a clear choice: to invest in healthcare and the wellbeing of Americans everywhere, not wasteful government overreach and state-sponsored violence in our streets.”
Through the bill, the funding clawed back from ICE would be reallocated toward the ACA tax credits, which expired at the start of the new year, resulting in significant increases in health insurance bills for more than 20 million Americans. The Healthcare Reinvestment Act would also require the Treasury Department to put out a report with data showing how many Americans were able to keep their health insurance costs down as a result of the bill.
The bill faces a steep upward climb if it is to pass with Republicans holding narrow majorities in both the House and Senate, and would almost certainly require a veto-proof majority to pass without President Donald Trump blocking it.
The filing of the bill comes as nationwide tensions surrounding ICE tactics continue to rise, with the focus of Trump and ICE currently being Minnesota. Protesters and federal agents have clashed in that state after the killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Good by veteran ICE agent Jonathan Ross earlier this month.
On Thursday, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to stop the protests in Minnesota, a seldom-used federal law that would allow the president to deploy the U.S. military or federalized National Guard troops for purposes of domestic law enforcement.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said on social media Thursday morning.
The Insurrection Act has been invoked by U.S. presidents more than two dozen times since it was enacted in 1807, most recently by late former President George H.W. Bush during the Los Angeles riots of 1992.
Closer to Greater Lowell, rumors began swirling in the last week about a potential surge of ICE activity in Massachusetts after two-dozen brand-new white SUVs were delivered to the ICE field office in Burlington Jan. 7. The field office in Burlington has been the center of ICE activity in the state for most of the last year, ever since the new Trump administration began a dramatic increase in immigration enforcement.
Moulton, who represents the Massachusetts 6th Congressional District but is running for a Senate seat in the midterms this year against incumbent Ed Markey, has been inside the ICE facility twice in the last year, and left the building both times with stories of poor conditions for detainees within.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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