Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) defended on Sunday her vote against a $4.6 billion emergency border funding bill that President Donald Trump signed into law on Tuesday.
On June 25, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought the Senate-approved bill to a vote in the House. Tlaib, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) were the only Democrats who voted against the bill.
When “This Week” host Martha Raddatz asked Tlaib about her vote, the congresswoman pointed to House Democrats’ recent visit to the migrant detention centers in Texas.
“Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues and said, ‘More money is not going to fix this.’ That they were not trained to separate children,” Tlaib said.
The congresswoman said the agents told her that “this is a broken system. This is inhumane.”
“Let’s be honest here Martha, in the ’80s it was more that was coming across the border and we didn’t do this,” Tlaib said. “We allowed the asylum seekers to go through the legal process.”
Tlaib explained that when she, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Pressley voted against the bill, it was because “we knew this was not the choice that we needed our country to move forward on.”
“There is a better choice. We’ve seen it in the ’80s,” she said. “We need to do better than what we’re doing now at the border.”
Ocasio-Cortez also defended her vote on Saturday night.
“I don’t believe it was a good idea for Dems to blindly trust the Trump admin when so many kids have died in their custody,” the New York Democrat tweeted. “It’s a huge mistake.”
I don’t believe it was a good idea for Dems to blindly trust the Trump admin when so many kids have died in their custody. It’s a huge mistake.
This admin also refuses to hand over docs to Congress on the whereabouts of families. People’s lives are getting bargained, & for what? https://t.co/h7gP8Wous1
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 7, 2019
Watch Tlaib below:
Rep. Rashida Tlaib on why she voted against the House immigration bill: "This was not the choice that we needed our country to move forward on." pic.twitter.com/AdDYQ4ju2j
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) July 7, 2019
