In Case You Missed It, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) headlined The Daily podcast by the New York Times today. In an interview with award-winning host Michael Barbaro, she explained her vote against funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the needed reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the chaos that ICE agents are sowing in Nevada and across the country.
Senator Cortez Masto was one of only three Senators who caucus with Democrats to consistently vote against the government shutdown in October, but this year, she has been one of the leading voices in the Democratic Party opposing DHS funding without significant reforms to ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In her interview, Cortez Masto walked through what has changed and why this is a moment for Democrats to draw a line, stand up for law and order, and protect immigrant communities.
Cortez Masto emphasized her law enforcement background, underscoring her credibility as a leading voice in the DHS funding debate: “Most of my career has been in law enforcement. When Homeland Security was created, I was working in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., as a federal prosecutor. And my husband was a Secret Service agent. I continued that work and became attorney general in the state of Nevada for eight years. I worked with law enforcement and prosecutors my entire career, and understand the benefits and what we are trying to achieve when we keep our community safe around policing.”
She went on to describe the horrific abuses by ICE and CBP that she has seen under the Trump Administration: “Now they’re sending numbers of agents into our communities that are not normally assigned in those communities. We’re seeing excessive deportation force. And they’re just roving patrols. They are knocking on doors. Sometimes, they are not even knocking, they’re going in without a judicial warrant or pulling people out of their cars. They are following people. I know this because this happened in Las Vegas — following people with masks home from church.”
Ultimately, she explained why this fight is so important for the American public: “I think this administration thrives on chaos and uncertainty and constantly moving the goal posts. That’s how this president has succeeded in the past. That’s he will continue to operate. But it’s not how you govern. And it is not what the American people want. […] We cannot see another community being brutalized by these lawless ICE agents and C.B.P. under this administration. We just cannot.”