1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

As you may know, the murder of Alex Pretti, an American VA nurse, by a border patrol agent in Minnesota on Saturday has upended the path forward for a government funding package pending before the Senate. The Senate plans to consider one package consisting of the six remaining funding bills. But sufficient Democratic support for the current funding package evaporated when a Border Patrol agent killed Alex Pretti this weekend—the second American citizen killed by a federal agent in Minnesota in less than three weeks. As a Republican in Congress, you have the power to keep the government open and respond to immigration agents’ violence. If you and your party refuse to work with Democrats on the latter this week, you could still agree to remove DHS funding from the current appropriations package and pass the other five bills while DHS talks continue. The resulting DHS funding lapse would mean TSA agents working without pay, long airport delays, and more—all due to Republicans’ refusal to rein in ICE and CBP.  But if you and your fellow Republicans don’t allow for a separate vote on DHS funding, you will likely prompt a much broader government shutdown—again, all to avoid placing any new checks on the immigration agencies that have unleashed weeks of violence on the people of Minnesota.  Your constituents see what is happening here, and we know who to blame if another shutdown occurs. Rein in ICE and CBP. You said yourself that “We live in a Constitutional Republic where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are enshrined in our founding documents,” but those founding documents are meaningless when armed federal agents ignore them and believe themselves to be above the law.