Chairman McCaul Statement on the Homeland Safety and Security Act

Statement

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) released the following statement on the Homeland Safety and Security Act, H.R. 5611, introduced recently by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

Chairman McCaul: "We are witnessing an unprecedented pace of terror--at home and around the world. The attacks in Orlando, Istanbul, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq are proof that radical Islamist terrorists have not lost their momentum but are actually accelerating their operations. The White House refuses to call the threat what it is, and their suffocating political correctness is putting America in danger. This bill forces the Administration and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for the first time ever, to prioritize their efforts to focus on the surge of radical Islamist terrorism, requires DHS to direct current grant funding towards countering the threat more decisively, and mandates that the Department find and close security gaps that might allow terrorists to infiltrate our country. The legislation revokes passports of U.S. citizens fighting in the Middle East with ISIS forces, preventing them from returning to attack the homeland. It also puts in place measures to make it harder for known or suspected terrorists to get their hands on firearms, while also protecting constitutional rights. We cannot afford to hide the truth or redact it from reality any longer, as the Administration has tried to do. It's time to define the enemy so we can defeat it, and that's exactly what this legislation does."

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