Five 2020 Democrats have four united 2020 goals, and they have nothing to do with being president.
On Wednesday, presidential contender and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) sent a letter telling the Senate's homeland security and appropriations committees what she'd like to see deleted from the Department of Homeland Security's fiscal year 2020 budget. Her four demands aren't too shocking, but they did reveal that all the Senate Democrats running for president are united on at least one front.
Harris started the letter by rebuking how President Trump has led DHS, calling out his "reckless immigration enforcement and detention operations that are tearing families apart and harming the American economy." To reverse all this, she called on the committees to cut funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds by an unspecified amount. Harris would also like to see the committees reject Trump's request for funding to hire additional ICE agents. Next up, she asked the committee to bar any transfer of additional DHS funds to ICE beyond what it's eventually appropriated in the final budget. And finally, in keeping with last year's budget demand turned government shutdown, Harris doesn't want any funding for Trump's border wall.
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Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) all signed on to Harris' letter, along with another 14 Democrats not running for president — yet. The coalition isn't enough to block a 2020 budget from passing in the Senate, but it does tell formally tell congressional leaders that a small group is ready to fight come budget negotiation time.
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