Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) had been a pleasant surprise since taking office.
Most of us were expecting him to be uber-progressive, but he has often been the lone voice of reason in the entire party.
He recently blasted the Democrat Party over the stance it has been taking on immigration, but now he is dropping the reality that DHS, as we know it, may be over.
Fetterman is one of the few Democrats who do not support abolishing ICE.
He recently stated, “And, again, I also, as a Democrat, [am] one of the rare Democrats saying do not abolish ICE…that’s just stupid, that’s outrageous to think those kinds of thing[s].”
He also backed up ICE on the deportations, having stated, “And I have also been mentioning, too, the latest statistics that I have seen, about two-thirds of those ICE is deporting are criminal[s]. And, again, I think we should talk more about that, too. I think that’s a good thing.”
This goes directly against the entire party narrative, so this was a risky thing for him to say.
The issue where Fetterman truly stands alone in his party is his feeling about sanctuary city status.
On Democrat cities not cooperating with immigration officials, he stated, “What I do believe is that, if there are law enforcement that have these people in custody that are [engaging] in criminal behavior, then, yes, they should cooperate with that.”
He continued, “And those individuals, if they’re convicted, should be deported.”
Ask someone like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and he will say the complete opposite. But again, I cannot stress enough that if Democrat mayors were cooperating with immigration officials, we would not be having these problems, and red states and cities are proof of that.
When Trump made his recent funding deal with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), there were many in the party who believed that Trump had given up whatever leverage the party had to keep DHS intact.
Fetterman seems to think that is true, stating, “At this point, there may not be a Democratic appetite to vote for ICE [funding].”
Now, Fetterman himself does not support this, but the fact of the matter is that the GOP does have the votes to get funding passed, and they may even come up short if they try to use reconciliation.
This is yet another reason to hammer voters for the 2026 cycle, as we simply cannot allow Dems to get a stranglehold on Congress because DHS and ICE will never get funded again. I know I usually have some advice for Trump or some snarky comment, but not this time. I don’t know how we fix this quickly enough to satisfy the bloodthirst that Democrats have for that agency right now.
