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Attendee criticizes Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing for focusing on sanctuary cities over economic issues
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Summary
An attendee of a Senate Committee on Appropriations budget hearing said the panel's first hearing of the year focused on sanctuary cities instead of topics such as job losses, inflation and federal debt, and urged lawmakers to prioritize costs, services and tax policy.
An attendee who said they had just left a Senate Committee on Appropriations budget hearing criticized the panel for holding its first session of the year on sanctuary cities rather than on economic issues.
"It was on sanctuary cities," the meeting participant said, adding they expected the hearing to address matters such as "100,000 jobs lost last month," manufacturing job losses, rising consumer prices and "$4,700,000,000,000 in new debt." Those figures were presented by the participant as examples of issues they said deserved attention from the committee.
The participant also said Republican members at the hearing "are pushing to give ICE even more control over our streets," and argued that sanctuary policies do not stop immigration enforcement officers from arresting or deporting dangerous people. "What that word actually means is that local law enforcement are empowered to focus...on local law enforcement, rather than being conscripted as assistant ICE officers," the participant said.
The remarks were offered as criticism of the hearing's subject selection and priorities. The participant said Republicans were "choosing to stoke fear" instead of focusing on lowering costs, ending wars, reversing tax breaks for wealthy individuals and funding healthcare, housing and education to support families.
The transcript contains claims made by the attendee about job and debt figures and about the hearing agenda; the article attributes those claims to the meeting participant and does not verify the numbers independently. The hearing's formal agenda items, witness testimony, or any motions or votes related to the sanctuary-city discussion are not recorded in the provided excerpt.
