Congress Must Resist Trump’s Bullying Tactics, Reject Voter Suppression Bill

For Immediate Release: March 23, 2026

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Sunday night when faced with the realities that both Senate Republicans and Democrats now support moving legislation to pay off TSA workers and fund the other non-ICE components of the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, Donald Trump reportedly responded, saying “no deal should be made until they pass the Save in America Act.”

Public Citizen Co-President Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement: 

“As Trump treats ICE like his personal dystopian police force and deploys agents to airports to inspire fear, Senators have had enough. Congressional phones are ringing off the hook calling for both pay for TSA agents and reforms for ICE, and the logical solution is to pass TSA pay first and continue to negotiate ICE reforms to halt their terror and abuse across the country. However, instead of supporting that straightforward, (and now bipartisan-supported), solution, Trump has chosen to prove the need for ICE reform by using ICE agents with no training in airport security to double down on a crisis he caused.

“Still worse, he claims he will not remedy this appalling situation until an unrelated voter suppression bill is passed. The confluence of authoritarian overreach of this moment is striking. A president functioning like America is a police state in service to making our elections less representative. The writing on the wall could not be any clearer. These abuses of power by a wanna-be dictator must stop.”