Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is denying that she is calling for fully defunding the Department of Homeland Security. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar denied calling for full defunding of the Department of Homeland Security on Sunday, after tweeting what had appeared to be just such a demand.
The Minnesota Democrat, who has been a harsh critic of DHS, and particularly its Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm, tweeted Friday, “#Not1Dollar for DHS.”
But, after Fox News reported that she had called for cutting funding to DHS, she subsequently claimed her tweet had advocated a freeze in the DHS budget, not a cut.
She tweeted Sunday afternoon: “@RepPressley, @RepRashida, @RepAOC and I are calling for #not1dollar more in new funding for Trump’s abuses under DHS.”
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Omar and other first-year left-leaning liberal congresswomen — Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. — earlier this month penned a letter to lawmakers on the bicameral, bipartisan conference committee tasked with drafting new legislation to address border-security and DHS funding under the Trump administration, amid growing calls from Democrats to abolish (ICE) Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They claimed DHS has “promulgated an agenda driven by hate — not strategy.”
“Cut, do not increase funding,” they wrote, urging lawmakers to follow “critical” guidelines to protect immigrant families. “The deal reached by the Conference Committee should not allocate any additional funding to this department or to the ICE and CBP agencies. The upcoming FY 2020 budget process will be a critical opportunity to take up conversations about reforms to the agency. In the meantime, not another dollar.”
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Omar has posted several controversial tweets since being elected to Congress, including when she accused Trump of wanting a “coup” against Venezuela and insisted that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was “compromised.”
She also has posted several tweets attacking Israel, including one in which she agreed with a liberal activist that current-day Israel is similar to the U.S. South during the era of racial segregation.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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