During an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) said that Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) “is a respected person in the Senate, and I’ve worked with him for a good, long time,” but he won’t support Mullin’s nomination to run DHS because “I’m not going to be able to support anybody, including him, for Homeland Security, unless there’s an absolute reset on what our immigration policy is.”
Welch said, “There’s an opportunity here for a new person — and this is going to be the real test for Mullin — to have a pause. Let’s not do the mass deportation. The border is secured, the president has a right to be proud of that. Criminals are being deported, and we support that. I absolutely object to this mass deportation where you’re doing raids on farms, you’re doing raids at churches, you’re doing raids at housing construction sites. This is where there’s got to be a question of changing our immigration policy with the opportunity that we’ll have with the new person.”
He continued, “Mullin is a respected person in the Senate, and I’ve worked with him for a good, long time, but I’m not going to be able to support anybody, including him, for Homeland Security, unless there’s an absolute reset on what our immigration policy is. We’ve got to end this mass deportation and this violence and this rampage that we’ve seen by ICE.”
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