Democrats seeking to defund the Department of Homeland Security "want to shut down the safety and the security of the homeland," former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told Newsmax on Friday.
Appearing on "Wake Up America" with co-hosts Sharla McBride and Marc Lotter, Wolf blasted Senate Democrat leaders for conditioning funding for the agency he once led on sweeping reforms to immigration enforcement — a stance that has helped push the DHS to the brink of a partial government shutdown this weekend.
Wolf said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., are leveraging critical homeland security funding to press for changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy.
"ICE will continue its operation," Wolf said, referring to prior funding that keeps the agency running even if the broader department lapses.
"But TSA screeners, Coast Guard personnel, FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] disaster relief teams — they'll be forced to work without pay because of this political brinkmanship."
Many of those frontline agents are exempt from shutdown furloughs, meaning they will stay on the job even as Congress fails to act.
The current impasse stems from Democrats' demands for new restrictions on federal immigration agents after enforcement actions that included "Operation Metro Surge" in Minneapolis.
That campaign by ICE and Border Patrol led to thousands of arrests but also sparked sharp backlash after the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in the Twin Cities.
Senate Democrats rejected a White House funding proposal they called "incomplete and insufficient," arguing it lacked enforceable protections such as body-camera mandates and stricter warrant requirements.
Wolf also addressed testimony before Congress this week when Minnesota Democrat Attorney General Keith Ellison likened ICE's operations to colonial oppression — comments Wolf dismissed as "propaganda" that obscures the real crime threats that federal agents are targeting.
Currently executive director and chief strategy officer for the America First Policy Institute, Wolf credited previous local cooperation with ICE for removing dangerous criminals from the streets and criticized state leaders for undermining public safety when they refuse that cooperation.
He further noted the heartbreaking human cost of open-border policies, citing government data showing more than 500,000 unaccompanied children have crossed U.S. borders with hundreds of thousands still unaccounted for.
Wolf praised efforts by former ICE leadership to locate and secure those children.
Republicans have derided the Democrats' demands as overly broad and likely to cripple effective immigration enforcement, warning that Democrats are willing to imperil agencies like TSA and FEMA to achieve political priorities.
With a shutdown looming and funding stalemated, GOP lawmakers have highlighted the contrast between prioritizing national security and what they frame as Democrat posturing.
As Wolf put it: "This isn't about reforming DHS — it's about defunding our defenders."
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Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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