Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy praised law enforcement and ripped Congressional Democrats on Monday after he toured a Colorado Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility that was recently desecrated by anti-ICE protesters.
“I saw the horrible news about what occurred and I felt like I needed to go over there and see for myself what was at this facility,” Roy said while appearing on “Fox & Friends.” “I went over and ICE was kind enough to give me a tour of the facility.”
“[I] walked through and I saw what any American would see which is a law enforcement entity that’s doing their job,” he continued. “A facility that is clean, a facility that has medical facilities, that has ping pong tables, it has TVs set up for 1,200 individuals, many of whom are criminals.”
Roy, who came to Colorado to attend the Western Conservative Summit, decided to tour the Aurora-based detention center on Saturday after hundreds of demonstrators protested the facility only a day prior.
The demonstration ignited a firestorm after protestors replaced an American flag with a Mexican flag outside the ICE facility. They also ripped down a “Blue Lives Matter” flag and spray painted “abolish ICE” before flying it upside down, symbolizing distress.
“To have a bunch of people go in and attack this facility, and rush this facility and pull down the flags, turn the American flag upside down, rise up the Mexican flag – that is offensive,” Roy said. “I was proud to see Americans who went by all day and dropped off American flags, I was proud to see the American flag flying.”
“Here’s the thing; it is the lack of funding for ICE that the leftist radicals in Congress, the Democrats, that refuse to give the funding to ICE that are causing the very problem they decry at the border,” he continued. “It’s offensive for them to support the kind of people that would do this to our law enforcement community.”
The Texas congressman temporarily derailed a disaster relief package in May by objecting to a unanimous consent vote, in part, over its lack of border funding. However, both legislative chambers passed legislation a month later, providing $4.5 billion in new border funding.
Four House Democrats, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Massachusetts Rep. Aryanna Pressley, voted against the funding bill stating that they would not vote for any legislation funding ICE or Customs and Border Protection (CPB), reported CBS News.
None of the four dissenting congresswomen have commented on anti-ICE protesters desecrating the “Blue Lives Matter” flag nor replacing the American flag with the Mexican flag. They did not return The Daily Wire’s request for comment.
“I’m a former law enforcement; I was a federal prosecutor; my grandfather was a chief of police in a small town in Texas – I stand with law enforcement,” Roy said. “I don’t know what my Democrat colleagues want to say, but I stand with American law enforcement; I stand for the rule of law and I’m not going to watch the American flag getting trashed by a bunch of people who do not respect the United States of America.”
Roy has long argued that Democrats are ignoring the immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. Prior to even taking office, Roy contended that Democrats “have blood on their hands” over the lack of border security.
“If they don’t like the United States of America they are, of course, free to leave it,” he continued. “I think it’s important for us to stand up and make that message clear.”
“Let’s remember that ICE is not the enemy; cartels are the enemy,” Roy added. “The radical leftists in Congress and the radical leftists throughout the country that support cartels and that would dare to attack ICE, they’re the problem — they’re the ones that we need to be challenging every day.”
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