This certainly looks … awkward. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) took a moment between courses at a Detroit fundraiser this past weekend to complain about her party leadership and her treatment in Congress as a Palestinian-American. Her main point, however, was her determination to shut down Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a goal which Tlaib claimed Congress won’t do, but insisted that Americans could shut down ICE by staging hunger strikes.
Note well the tableau of this clarion call. Do I see silverware on the tables?
Tlaib, headlining a Detroit fundraiser this past weekend for the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, complained of colleagues who are constantly “policing” what she says and lack willingness to embrace bold stands such as abolishing ICE. She called on her activist audience to join her in a hunger strike at the border.
“It’s going to take movements outside the halls of Congress,” Tlaib told the crowd, according to video captured by America Rising, a conservative group.
“I want you all to shut them down, we can shut them down,” Tlaib said to applause. “Don’t wait for this Congress to act, shut them down.”
“I know what they’re going to say, they’ll go, ‘What do you mean Rashida?’ Well I’ll tell you. There are some people that are using hunger strike, all these other things, going to the border, and I plan to.”
Does that mean that Tlaib herself will stop eating? The Free Beacon asked Tlaib’s office for clarification, but as yet have received no response. Perhaps everyone should keep planning their meals for a while until after we find out what’s on Tlaib’s plate — in more ways than one.
The dinner-club setting for a hunger-strike call would be hilarious as a satire, but the demand is almost equally ludicrous. The reason why Congress won’t shut down ICE is because ICE enforces existing federal law, and on more than just immigration. Democrats spouted this nonsense in the 2018 cycle until they started getting asked what would replace ICE if they succeeded in disbanding it. We’ve already done this before when we rebranded Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to ICE. The issue isn’t the agency — it’s the laws enforced by it.
If Tlaib wants to work on that, she’s in a perfect position to do so as a Congresswoman. She’s just sore because few in Congress share her radical ideas. Wait until she finds out how few people outside of Congress plan to skip a meal on her behalf.
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