Dick Durbin called ICE’s Chicago operation “a racist effort.” Six days later he voted for the stopgap that kept all of government, ICE included, funded.
- 3 NOV 2025≠ SAID
- 9–10 NOV 2025VOTED
- 10 NOV 2025EXPLAINED
≠ He called ICE’s Chicago operation a racist effort, then voted for the stopgap that kept ICE funded along with the rest of the government
1 · ≠ SAID · 3 NOV 2025
“This is a racist effort. I use that word advisedly. It is a racist effort. It is not about terrorists and murderers and rapists.”
On the Senate floor, about ICE’s operation in Chicago and Evanston over Halloween weekend.
2 · VOTED · 9–10 NOV 2025
| Measure | H.R. 5371: a stopgap (continuing resolution) for all of government to 30 Jan 2026, DHS and ICE included, plus full-year Agriculture, MilCon-VA and Legislative Branch bills |
|---|---|
| Questions | Cloture on the motion to proceed (roll 610), cloture (617), passage (618) |
| Result | Each 60–40 |
| Durbin | YEA on all three |
| Later | 2026: Nay on all 7 cloture votes on the full-year DHS bill (H.R. 7147) |
3 · EXPLAINED · 10 NOV 2025
“I share their opinions of this administration but cannot accept a strategy which wages political battle at the expense of my neighbor’s paycheck or the food for his children.”
On the Senate floor. His reasons: paychecks, SNAP, reversing shutdown layoffs and a promised health-care vote. The speech does not mention ICE.
HOW WE CHECKED THIS
Quotes were transcribed from the Senate floor video, cut at sentence boundaries and matched to the Congressional Record. All three roll calls were read on senate.gov on 21 Oct 2026. Eight Democratic-caucus senators voted yes; the bill was a government-wide stopgap, not an ICE bill. Spot an error? Tell us, and we’ll correct it in public.