this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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They could start with traveling with armed guards, or more specifically, law enforcement under their own lawful command. Then they can start actually exercising their authority and right to inspect federal facilities such as ICE detention centers. This is the right of every member of Congress. Any ICE or other agents that try to stop them are violating state and federal law. If ICE agents try to stop them, then they should have those ICE agents arrested on the spot.
But really, what they should be doing is stop looking for excuses, like you seem to be doing here. Republicans manage to delay and wring concessions out of Democrats when they're out of power. But the Democrats were unwilling to use the debt ceiling or temporary budget bill earlier this year to demand concessions. They just said, "well, it would be really bad if the government shut down, guess we can't do anything!"
Or they could use other Congressional powers. For example, they should be reading banned books, censored scientific articles, and information deleted from government web pages directly into the Congressional record.
But beyond that, they need rhetoric that isn't cowardly. They should be in speech after speech, calling for the prosecution of ICE agents. They should be up there every day reminding everyone that there are no statutes of limitations for crimes against humanity. And in case of a pardon, they should be promising to ship ICE agents off the the Hague for trial.
And on and on. There are tons of things they could be doing. Many of these involve putting their actual persons at risk. But Democrats are leaders in name only. They have no interest in actually leading. They're just there to collect a paycheck. When they're out of power, they wring their hands and say, "we don't have a majority, what do you propose we do?" When they're in power, they wring their hands and say, "we only have a small majority, what do you propose we do?"
I really like this one. A "climate change report filibuster" would be an excellent way to obstruct and protest.
Where exactly is it written that members of congress can have political enemies arrested by private police on a whim, and that they can inspect any building at any time?
Hi! Good question!
In addition to it being their responsibility to be a check and balance due to being a co-equal branch of government, specifically the article 1 branch in charge of the nation's purse, they're also entitled to unannounced access to any DHS facility specifically from the Appropriations law passed by Congress itself as a condition to monies disbursed for the purpose of detention or housing of "illegal aliens" (legal wording, not mine).
In order to enforce this right of oversight, usually a subpoena or command would be enough, however anticipating an article 2 body preventing the exercise of legal oversight, the house would be within their right to have the US House Sergeant at Arms accompany them to the appropriate facility they were interested in accessing and could invoke detention for inherent contempt of Congress.
Your decision to witting or unwittingly strawman the argument is noted and ignored.
The thing is, the GOP majority Congress already passed their budget and once made law by the executive branch the treasury, the purse, disbursed the money. So on that front there's nothing Dems can do. Additionally, there is no "the appropriations bill" you didnt cite anything just now you just gestured in a vague direction. If your way to win arguments is to ask the other person to go search for read documents for hours then you will never convince anyone of anything.
The Seargent at Arms of Congress is William McFarland chosen by Republicans Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson.