House Judiciary Republicans Rubberstamp Trump’s Lawless Assault on America, Spend $81 Billion in Taxpayer Funds to Hand Trump More Unchecked Power
Republicans Refuse to Discuss Their Own Bill During Markup, Remain Totally Silent as They Vote to Deport U.S. Citizens, Including Veterans and Children with Cancer
Washington, D.C. (May 1, 2025)— Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, led Committee Democrats in opposing Republicans’ bill to enact Donald Trump’s massive tax cuts for billionaires and corporations and bankroll his mass deportation agenda while defunding healthcare, food assistance, veterans’ services, domestic violence programs, and other programs that serve the American people. In addition to spending an astonishing $81 billion in taxpayer funding, the Republicans’ bill also included provisions to strip courts of their power to hold the Administration in contempt when the President violates court orders and gut the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Democrats prepared amendments to eliminate these dangerous provisions, and secured a victory when Republicans were forced to remove the latter provision from the bill following bipartisan pushback.
Complicit in Trump’s assault on Americans’ freedoms, during the course of the nearly 9-hour markup, Republicans remained completely silent and refused to provide any justification as they tanked 30 commonsense amendments seeking to protect the people from abuses of executive power.
“Here in the House Judiciary Committee, House Republicans want to help Donald Trump use power in complete violation of the Constitution we have all sworn to uphold and defend against enemies foreign and domestic. […] We urge our colleagues to walk back from the brink here to support many amendments we plan to offer today that will save us money, that will actually address the real problems of the country, and that will protect the constitutional rights and freedoms that we cherish so much in America. This is a test: Are we going to stand up for the majority of the American people, for our Constitution and our Bill of Rights and the freedoms we fought for? Or are we going to stand with the President who wants to throw it all away?” said Ranking Member Raskin in his opening remarks.
Indeed, Judiciary Republicans resoundingly failed the test, and stood with the President who wants to throw away the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Americans’ hard-fought freedoms.
Republicans voted down 30 commonsense Democratic amendments to protect the rights and freedoms of the people amid Donald Trump’s reign of chaos and lawlessness—and remained silent even when asked to defend their votes to their constituents.
Republicans rejected an amendment requiring the government to abide by the Constitution and provide due process before removing anyone from the U.S. and sending them to a torture prison in El Salvador. Read the amendment Republicans refused to support.
Ranking Member Raskin, the amendment sponsor, said: “The last several weeks provide vivid evidence of the profound and dangerous miscarriages of justice that can and will take place if we abandon due process. […] Without due process, no one is safe from being falsely accused of being a gang member or a terrorist and summarily disappeared to a foreign gulag or dungeon.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the amendment sponsor, said: “Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, I hope we can all agree that U.S. citizens should never be detained by ICE or any agency conducting civil immigration enforcement. They certainly should not be deported. This should not be a partisan issue. It’s about protecting the most basic constitutional rights of U.S. citizens.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the amendment sponsor, said: “The idea that we would essentially tax people who are willing to take in a child that’s been abandoned is contradictory to what our goals are as a decent nation.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell, the amendment sponsor, said: “This amendment plainly says, the Department of Justice will not fire veterans. So, if you vote for this amendment, you’re going to stand up for our veterans who work at the Department of Justice. If you vote against it, you’re going to really screw them over.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the amendment sponsor, said: “Absent extraordinary circumstances when a person is removed from this country, they should be returned to their country of origin, free to resume their life there. But the Trump Administration is rounding people up and sending them to a foreign prison without even the barest hint of due process. […] President Trump has now hinted that even American citizens could be subject to detention in foreign countries.”
Republicans voted to defund courts’ power to hold Administration officials in contempt for violating court orders and the rights and freedoms of the American people. Read the amendment Republicans refused to support.
Rep. Hank Johnson, the amendment sponsor, said: “MAGA Republicans are trying to use this spending bill to keep Americans from using the courts to constrain Trump’s illegal actions. They’re saying that unless you can hand over a lot of money when Trump and his administration violate your rights, they can just keep on violating them. It’s just one more way that MAGA Republicans in the Trump Administration want to trample on your rights unless you’re rich.”
Rep. Lou Correa, the amendment sponsor, said: “Since 2011, ICE has barred enforcement actions at sensitive locations like schools, places of worship, that is churches, and shelters for surviving domestic or sexual violence survivors. Under this administration, that is no more, that is no longer the policy. […] By adopting this amendment and ensuring that ICE stays out of elementary schools, we’re going to make sure that students study and can learn in a safe environment without fearing ICE raids.”
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, the amendment sponsor, said: “After repeatedly failing to convince the American public or to get the votes to support ending birthright citizenship, our Republican colleagues have stooped to cheering from the sidelines as this president attempts to do an end-run on the Constitution with a tortured reading of more than a century of legal analysis. […] It’s the absolute antithesis of the promise of America.”
Republicans voted against allowing just .05% of the funding provided under their bill to be used to conduct oversight and root out waste, fraud, and abuse. Read the amendment Republicans refused to support.
Rep. Lucy McBath, the amendment sponsor, said: “Federal funds are not abstract. They’re not theoretical numbers, whether allocated to law enforcement, victim services, crime prevention, or immigration enforcement. They are real taxpayer dollars. And taxpayers expect to see how their hard-earned money is being spent. […] It’s a very simple amendment.”
Rep. Deborah Ross, the amendment sponsor, said: “The Trump Administration is turning university campuses into places of fear. Using immigration enforcement as a weapon to stifle free speech, restrict due process and attack legal immigration is an attack on knowledge and progress. […] Congress should have a say here.”
Republicans endorsed detaining and deporting students at U.S. colleges and universities for holding views the Administration dislikes under a Cold War-era statute so extreme Donald Trump’s own sister called it “unconstitutional…on its face.” Read the amendment Republicans refused to support.
Rep. Becca Balint, the amendment sponsor, said: “Today I offer this amendment to ensure that no taxpayer dollars are used for illegal abductions. […] Donald Trump and his enablers are attacking the rule of law under the guise of immigration enforcement. Whether or not you agree with the political views of Mahmoud [Khalil] or Mosen [Mahdawi]. Their kidnappings should terrify you. We, Congress, we have a duty to act.”
Rep. Chuy Garcia, the amendment sponsor, said: “Several ICE raids at or near churches […] have sowed fear in many religious communities, particularly Christian communities. Some churches have even moved their services online because people fear going in-person. […] I urge my colleagues to respect the freedom of religion, to respect houses of worship, and to support this amendment.”
Republicans voted to allow the ICE to hire January 6 rioters who beat cops as they breached the Capitol and attempted to overthrow an election by force. Read the amendment Republicans refused to support.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, the amendment sponsor, said: “You cannot break into the Capitol, beat police officers and then apply for a government job enforcing immigration law. Full stop. This amendment is about protecting the integrity of our institutions.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, the amendment sponsor, said: “Fox News asked the White House press secretary […] ‘Would the president ever arrest a Supreme Court justice?’ […] She could have just said no, but she didn’t answer the question. She left the door open, so I thought that this would be an opportunity for some bipartisanship, to close the door on that possible question. […] This is your opportunity to clear that up, that we’re not going to arrest, you know, Justice Thomas.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the amendment sponsor, said: “This is a very simple amendment that is actually about the public safety of everyone involved—ICE agents as well as the community at large, as well as those that potentially are going to be apprehended by ICE—and simply it would require that ICE identify themselves and ensure that they do not wear a mask except if medically necessary or if necessary to preserve the integrity of undercover operations.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the amendment sponsor, said: “It was always a bad idea to hold people secretly in offshore prisons without due process. And now we have a chance to do something about it. We should not be wasting another penny holding migrants on this base.”
Republicans rejected an amendment to prevent the use of tax returns filed with the IRS to round up and deport taxpaying, law-abiding individuals. Read the amendment Republicans refused to support.
Rep. Dan Goldman, the amendment sponsor, said: “For a party that talks so much about reducing the deficit, it seems odd to me that you, the Republican Party, would want to engage in conduct that will inevitably lead to much less revenue from taxpayer payments. Maybe we can agree that we can lower the deficit by agreeing to this amendment so that undocumented immigrants can trust that their identification information will be kept private as they were promised.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the amendment sponsor, said: “Allowing funds to be used for mass deportations of farm workers is going to drive up costs for American families, and it will increase our deficit, it would deprive agricultural businesses of critical labor, raise prices at the grocery store […] If we have a food shortage in this country, it’ll be because be because we don’t act on something like this.”
Rep. Hank Johnson, the amendment sponsor, said: “This amendment just makes sense. […] Unaccompanied children without lawyers are almost 100 times less likely to have a good outcome than unaccompanied children who have lawyers. Plus, providing representation leads to an orderly judicial process which is sorely needed in our backlogged immigration courts.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the amendment sponsor, said: “This provision would overturn the Flores Settlement Agreement, which has helped protect children in government custody for nearly 30 years. The Flores Settlement Agreement’s principal purpose is to ensure that children are released from immigration detention as quickly as possible, recognizing the harm to children. […] But this bill actually makes a very important policy change: it gets rid of that requirement.”
Rep. Lou Correa, the amendment sponsor, said: “What my amendment will do is make sure ICE and/or an immigrant judge do consider a veteran’s length of service, awards, honors, disability, or health status related to their military service, and of course, their family and community ties, before they are removed.”
Republicans refused to require DOJ to reinstate critical grants that support law enforcement, crime prevention, opioid addiction treatment, and victims of violent crime. Read the amendment Republicans refused to support.
Ranking Member Raskin, the amendment sponsor, said: “As we race to spend more than $81 billion in this bill primarily for ICE and deportation, the Department of Justice just terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to groups working in all of our communities. […] I want to warn all of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, that there will be danger back home if you do not vote to restore these grants that have just been categorically cut.”
Rep. Chuy Garcia, the amendment sponsor, said: “This amendment should be an easy yes for every member of the Committee. All it says is ICE cannot use this funding to detain or remove DACA recipients—people who have DACA meet a long list of requirements. […] These are people who have protection against deportation. They go to school, they work, they pay taxes.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, the amendment sponsor, said: “In the spirit of DOGE, I present to you four amendments that have over $900 million […] in savings for the American people. […] You have $858 million—almost a billion dollars—of money to give out bonuses to people […] That’s like a $40,000 bonus to every employee in all of ICE. […] What is the average bonus for the American worker in this country? It's $2500.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, the amendment sponsor, said: “I want to be very clear: my amendment doesn’t prevent DHS from requesting a kid’s criminal record or having HHS evaluate that kids aren’t a danger to themselves or others. What this is about is preventing kids from unnecessary strip searches and being traumatized in the process.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the amendment sponsor, said: “One of the very first actions that the Trump administration took was to cancel a policy that had been put in place in 2011 […] that prohibits ICE from conducting enforcement actions in domestic violence shelters. […] Nobody is speaking up for these women who are so terrified that if they confront their abusers that they are going to be deported. And that just makes it impossible for law enforcement to gain the trust of victims, and it allows violence against women to proliferate and make our communities less safe.”
