Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) sent a letter Tuesday renewing a meeting request with President Donald Trump to discuss immigration and border security issues in the wake of the Minneapolis shootings.
Fitzpatrick and Suozzi, co-chairmen of the Problem Solvers Caucus who both sit in competitive congressional seats, are making a bipartisan effort to reach a solution following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis by immigration enforcement personnel.
“If we work together, there will be dramatically less need for enforcement, and we can focus on those violent criminals that must be deported, and on the positive contributions of the millions of immigrants who work hard, raise families, work together with law enforcement, and who contribute so much to our nation, as have so many generations of immigrants who came before them,” the two wrote in the letter to the president.
The co-chairmen are proposing five legislative priorities: permanently securing the border consistent with Trump’s executive action, fix the “broken” asylum system, provide legal protection to immigrants, ensure federal law enforcement officers only engage in actions they are trained for, and require all federal law enforcement-involved shootings be subject to an independent investigation.
The fatal shootings of Pretti and Good have called into question the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, with Democrats denouncing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in particular, calling for her removal.
Fitzpatrick and Suozzi are not the only ones making a call for bipartisan change.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) called for a pathway to legal status for long-term noncriminal migrants, among other things, in an op-ed in the New York Times. Lawler said both parties need to come together to make a “new comprehensive national immigration policy” that addresses concerns from the public.
Along with these calls for reform, a handful of Republicans have also called for a full investigation into Pretti’s shooting.
“Now is the time to come together: to lower the temperature, reject reckless rhetoric, condemn violence and hatred in all their forms, and lead with respect, restraint, and above all, humanity — for one another, and for the rights and institutions that hold our society together,” the letter concluded.
This letter comes as many House Democrats, including leadership, have vowed to make an effort to impeach Noem.
“The violence unleashed on the American people by the Department of Homeland Security must end forthwith,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wrote in a statement Tuesday. “Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives.”
In the upper chamber, Democrats are demanding changes to the DHS’s operations in exchange for their votes to pass a tranche of government funding bills ahead of the Friday deadline.
Thus far, Trump has stayed in Noem’s corner.
HOUSE DEMOCRATS TELL TRUMP TO FIRE NOEM AND THREATEN IMPEACHMENT
“I think she’s doing a very good job, the border is totally secure, you know, you forget, we had a border that I had inherited where millions of people were coming through, now we have a border where no one is coming through,” Trump said Tuesday.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment.
