James Lankford: “DHS has a quarter-million Federal employees--a quarter-million. ICE has 20,000 of that quarter-million. And the argument…”

“DHS has a quarter-million Federal employees--a quarter-million. ICE has 20,000 of that quarter-million. And the argument has been about those 20,000 somewhat, but the problem is those 20,000 also do a pretty vital job for the country. Let me give you an example. Homeland Security investigators are part of ICE. Those Homeland Security investigators are the Federal agents that actually investigate human trafficking. They are the Federal agents that do drug smuggling across the border. Homeland Security investigators are the investigators that actually prohibit American arms sales going out of the country to foreign nationals. These individuals are very important to us. Now, a fraction of ICE is what they call ERO, which is actually doing the arrests here, but a large portion of ICE, of those 20,000 folks, are actually doing a lot of our drug smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking--all those functions. So to be able to say 'I am defunding ICE' is one thing, but you are also defunding all those Federal entities that are homeland security entities on it as well. That is our challenge in this. As I have said to my colleagues before, when they defund ICE, at what point does it ever turn back on?”