McConnell: I won’t be intimidated by protesters

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Friday that he wouldn’t be “intimidated” by protesters who have confronted him several times in public amid a heated immigration fight.  

“I’m not sure what about my career has led them to believe that I am easily intimidated. … This is all about intimidation. It’s not about persuasion but about intimidation. And I assure you I will not be intimidated by these groups of socialists who apparently prefer open borders,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. 

{mosads}McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, were confronted as they left an event in Washington, D.C., last month by protesters over the Trump administration’s then-policy of separating detained families who were caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. 

Protesters heckled McConnell at two restaurants in Kentucky over the weekend, according to the Courier Journal, about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The debate over nixing the agency has been catapulted into the national spotlight because of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which resulted in the separation of thousands of migrant children from their families. 

The policy drew widespread bipartisan backlash and sparked nationwide protests. Bowing to pressure, President Trump signed an executive order last month ending most family separations, though he made no provisions at the time for reuniting families who had already been separated.

“Honestly, I enjoyed my lunch and I’m just sorry that other people at the restaurant seemed to be inconvenienced by all of this. But it’s not about persuasion. It’s about intimidation. I will not be intimidated by these people,” McConnell added on Friday. 

He also took aim at the movement to abolish ICE, saying demonstrators were suggesting “having no one at all control the borders.”

“What I worry about is that that point of view seems to be moving into the United States Senate. There are three credible Democratic United State senators thinking of running for president who have come out for getting rid of ICE,” he added. 

Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), considered potential 2020 White House contenders, have backed the push to get replace the agency. 

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), another potential presidential hopeful, said late last month that it was time for the agency, which was formed in 2003, to be reexamined. 

A group of House Democrats introduced legislation this week that would create a commission to examine ICE’s responsibilities and then recommend transferring them to other agencies. But they said they would vote against the bill if House GOP leadership brought it for a vote, a move Democrats argue is for political gain. 

Meanwhile, dozens of GOP senators, including McConnell, are backing a resolution that offers support for ICE and dismisses calls to nix the agency as “an insult to the heroic law enforcement officers of ICE.”