Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer isn't working with the House, and as a result, has been "holding the budget process hostage" while House Speaker Mike Johnson has been trying to pass a continuing resolution by Sept. 30, Rep. Greg Lopez, a member of the House Budget Committee, said on Newsmax Sunday.
"The House has approved some appropriation bills and Sen. Schumer has ignored that," the Colorado Republican told Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "This is how he likes to negotiate, is to look at things from the very last day, the last the very last possible time that we feel that we can pass a budget because of the fiscal year ending in September."
Johnson, meanwhile, is attempting to push through legislation that combines the continuing resolution with the SAVE Act, proposed legislation to keep noncitizens from voting.
Lopez said Johnson is trying to ensure that Americans have a "true faith" in that only U.S. citizens are voting.
"Why is that such a difficult question to embrace?" said Lopez. "But the Democrat Party is trying to use the shutdown like the boogeyman that everybody wants to be afraid of. However, the responsibility falls on their shoulders as to why we might potentially be facing a shutdown.
"It's not what the Republicans are doing because we've been doing our job. It's the Democrats and the Senate that are dragging their feet and this is where we find ourselves today."
The Democrats also "do not like the fact" that the legislation would stop non-Americans from voting.
"They truly believe that if you are walking on American soil, regardless of whether you're a citizen or a noncitizen, you should be able to vote," he said. "We have illegal aliens voting in elections in Colorado. Now, they may not even know that they're not allowed to vote, but they are voting. And I think what the message we should remind all these illegal aliens that if you do vote, you're violating our laws."
Lopez added that there is plenty of time to pass a budget, but there is also time to protect the nation's elections.
"The strategy of the Democrats is to have an omnibus bill in December so that they can throw everything in the kitchen sink onto this bill," he said. "They're going to try again to use this so-called boogeyman of the shutdown and they're going to try to blame the Republican Party."
But Schumer has "done nothing," Lopez said. "He's abandoned his entire responsibility and the American people need to hold him accountable for that."
Lopez Sunday also addressed the news that Venezuelan gangs are taking over areas in Aurora, Colorado.
"These are members of prison gangs that are coming into America, and they're destroying our communities," he said. "This is what's happening specifically in states like Colorado where the governor declares it a sanctuary state, where the mayor of Denver declares it a sanctuary city."
And once the criminal element takes over "they will breed, they will spread, and they will continue to create chaos," said Lopez. "It's time for us to round them up, deport them, and take them back to their country of origin, which is Venezuela."
Aurora's mayor has downplayed the issues in his city, and Lopez said that's because they are trying to cover matters up "with optics," he said.
"It's clear to me they don't have the hand on the pulse of what's happening in the state or within their community," Lopez said. "I'm a former mayor. I understand exactly what's happening here. And I understand that the only way to resolve it is to bring them all together … let's go out and aggressively, arrest them, detain them, and deport them."
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