#Dems’ #AbolishICE wing is winning

Democrats’ #AbolishICE crowd is running the show on the House Appropriations Committee, which just OK’d plans to slash the budget for Enforcement and Removal Operations, the key border-control portion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The plan also orders ERO to focus on handing illegal immigrants over to nonprofit-run shelters, rather than ones run by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The overall ICE budget would drop slightly from the $7.97 billion it received last year but ERO faces a cut from $4.1 billion this year to $3.79 billion, less than the Biden administration requested — despite the flood of migrants, which is setting a new record every month.

The cuts likely won’t hold: Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), the No. 2 Democrat on Appropriations’ Homeland Security subcommittee, vows that “these problematic funding shortfalls will be corrected.”

Cuellar’s a straight shooter who recently called out President Joe Biden’s boast about fewer migrants being held in ICE custody by noting they’d simply been moved to HHS facilities.

But the policy changes are ominous, too: This means a windfall for the nonprofits chosen to house the migrants, and New Yorkers know all too well how often politically connected “charities” can fail to deliver decent services.

Most important: This move suggests that Biden’s plans to “reform” ICE are losing out in the party to the AOC wing’s “Border enforcement is evil” priority.