Trump ties DHS funding deal to approval of voter bill, NewsNation reports

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, March 22 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday there should be no deal on any funding for the Department of Homeland Security “until Democrats in Congress pass a bill that would require people to register to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.”

“Trump doesn’t think there should be any deal on this until Save America is passed,” a NewsNation reporter on Sunday X quoted Trump as saying in an interview.

The bill requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration is called the Save America Act. He currently lacks the 60 votes needed to overcome Democratic opposition in the 100-member Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats.

Trump also said he was prepared to deploy agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of DHS, at airports “as long as it takes,” according to NewsNation. Trump said this weekend that he would station ICE agents at airports until Democratic lawmakers agree to fund DHS.

Trump was quoted as saying, “Now that I’ve done this, the Democrats want to make a deal. And I don’t think there should be any deal on this until they approve Save America.”

Proponents of the bill argued it would help deter voter fraud. Republicans repeated Trump’s baseless claim that large numbers of people in the country voted illegally in the US election.

Democrats and other critics of the bill argued it could disenfranchise Americans who lack access to passports, birth certificates and other identification information.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non and Stephen Coates)