A vulnerable Democrat senator met with a group on Capitol Hill that supports “halting expansions of immigration detention and deportation” and whose members claim police “kill people of color” and “often for no reason.”
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., according to the senator’s public schedule, met with representatives of Voices for Progress on May 16, 2024, which is a group that has a controversial stance on immigration, law enforcement, the prison system and employs members with radical views on police and the GOP.
New figures reveal there are 7.4 million migrants on ICE’s non-detained docket as a result of the open southern border under the Biden administration, with Tester’s own state seeing direct effects of drug trafficking after reporting a 1,900% increase in fentanyl-related overdose deaths in Montana from 2017 to 2023. Additionally, there were reportedly 7.87 kilograms of fentanyl, or 106,500 pills seized in Montana during calendar year 2023, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Despite the direct impact on the Big Sky State, the group Tester met with advocates for “halting expansions of immigration detention and deportation.”
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Sen. Jon Tester is seeking re-election in 2024. (Drew Angerer)
Voices for Progress also advocates for “ending the money bail system,” a move which the Constitutional Accountability Center says “could let criminals roam free.”
Additionally, the group voices support for “enacting ultra-wealthy taxation” and “ending discrimination against transgender individuals in health care and during incarceration,” according to their website.
The issue of transgender-identifying inmates being housed in prisons based on gender identity was recently brought under the national spotlight after a California biological male, Tremaine “Tremayne” Deon Carroll, was transferred to a women’s prison but was later removed after being charged with raping a female inmate.
When asked about the meeting, a spokesperson for the senator said the focus of the meeting was “ensuring the ultra-wealthy and massive corporations pay their fair share in taxes.”
“Senator Tester meets with a wide variety of groups with a wide variety of viewpoints, all of which can be viewed on his public schedule,” a spokesperon told Fox News Digital. “The main topic of Senator Tester’s meeting with this group was ensuring the ultra-wealthy and massive corporations pay their fair share in taxes.”
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) speaks to reporters as he walks through the Capitol Building on Feb. 5, 2024 in Washington, D.C. The Senate is working on bringing a bipartisan border security and immigration bill to the floor later this week for a vote. The bill, that also provides funding to Ukraine, Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza, has received criticism from House Republicans, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) calling it “dead on arrival.” (Anna Moneymaker)
Members of the group Tester met with also have individual histories of vocal opposition to the GOP and law enforcement.
One of the representatives reportedly in the meeting with Tester, Bella D’Alacio, posted a photo to Instagram in August 2020 holding a sign that read “F— Trump” with a caption that read, “I am tired of seeing black people killed by highly militarized, improperly trained police.”
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The president of Voices for Progress, Sandra Fluke, has also made several statements regarding law enforcement, claiming officers “kill people of color” and “often for no reason.”
“Police kill people of color at higher rates – and often for no reason,” Fluke wrote in a June 2018 post on X.
Fluke rose to prominence in 2012 after delivering remarks in front of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, where she claimed Georgetown University, where she was studying law, should provide birth control to students as part of student aid.
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Fluke praised the passing of California’s AB2119 in September 2018, a bill signed by the state’s then Governor that expanded access to gender-related medical practices for transgender-identifying minors in the foster care system.
Bob Fertik, president of Democrats.com, co-founder of act.tv, Vote-Pro Choice, Swipe Blue, and named representative for Voices for Progress on the Senator’s public schedule of the meeting, wrote that pro-life Republicans are “fanatical MAGA forced birthers.”
“There are no sane Republican “pro-lifers” – just fanatical MAGA forced birthers,” he wrote on X in April 2023.
Fertik also wrote that Trump is a “Racist. Rapist. Fascist. Crook” on X in May 2023, and posted a picture of him holding a poster with the former president on it that read “lock him up.”
