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On Tuesday, more than a dozen Homeland Security vehicles gathered for over two hours outside Chicago’s National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in Humboldt Park. Instead of using taxpayer dollars to make our communities safer or provide better healthcare to seniors, this administration is paying for ICE agents to needlessly frighten Chicago communities. I stand with Chicagoland’s entire immigrant community against these blatant intimidation tactics.

I firmly believe that years from now, we will look back in disbelief and shame at the United States Congress for passing such a harmful bill. Seventeen million Americans will lose access to healthcare. Nine rural hospitals in Illinois are at risk of closing. Over 200,000 Illinois residents will lose access to SNAP food benefits. Illinois families will pay $400 more a year for energy. All of this, while ballooning our national debt by at least $3 trillion.

Donald Trump's deployment of nearly 5,000 troops to Los Angeles this week was an alarming show of force. If it were Vladimir Putin deploying troops into Moscow, Congress would rightfully call it out. Simultaneously, Trump's ICE department showing up at courthouses and arresting individuals attending ICE-mandated check-ins here in Chicago only drives more people into the shadows and makes it less likely they will cooperate with law enforcement in the future. It’s bad for police, it’s bad for communities, and it’s bad for our nation.