Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in favor of my amendment, No. 60, which would prohibit the Secretary of Homeland Security from traveling outside of the United States.

Mr. Chairman, under Mr. Mayorkas, the Department of Homeland Security is a disaster by every single metric, and he has utterly failed at protecting our country, securing our borders, adhering to the rule of law, and protecting the constitutional rights of the citizens of this country.

The southern border is in chaos. We are being invaded by military- aged men from hostile countries from around the world and our cities are being overwhelmed by a mass of humanity and level of migration most likely not seen in world history.

At the same time, the Committee on the Judiciary continues to expose Mayorkas' role in creating, implementing, and enforcing the censorship industrial complex. The list of failures goes on and on and on and on.

Despite Mr. Mayorkas' direct and intentional involvement in the destruction of the borders, boundaries, security, and integrity of the United States of America, he has had the audacity to travel overseas to praise--yes, praise--the importance of the borders in other countries and the benefits of having an orderly transfer of people and goods across the same.

Yes, while ignoring the invasion on our southern and northern borders, an invasion that he has facilitated, Mr. Mayorkas actually traveled to a border between Poland and Ukraine to praise ``the use of U.S. technology that has been deployed to ensure the safe transfer of people and goods between Poland and Ukraine.''

That is right, even while our border has become a raging inferno, Mr. Mayorkas traveled to view another nation's border crossing, to view and judge their operations while also meeting and speaking with their border enforcement officers. If only he had the same such care for what is happening right here in the United States of America.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of amendment No.

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, with all due respect, I do not believe Mr. Mayorkas was traveling to other countries to learn how best we can secure our border.

In fact, I don't think there is any evidence whatsoever that he has ever traveled to another country and asked them to stop sending their poor to our country to invade our country.

The fact is that Mayorkas and his boss, Joe Biden, are the largest human traffickers and drug smugglers in U.S. history. We receive absolutely no benefit whatever from Mr. Mayorkas traveling to other countries to observe their functioning borders while ours is burned to the ground.

There is no basis, rationale, or benefit for Secretary Mayorkas to travel outside of the United States to enjoy the fruits of an ordered society. He has failed to do his job and should not be rewarded for such failure by traveling the world at the taxpayers' expense. He needs to leave the visitation and discussions with foreign nations to the State Department. He needs to secure our border and reform his corrupt Department.

My amendment would prohibit Mr. Mayorkas from traveling outside of the United States while acting as the Secretary of the DHS.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment No. 61 to H.R. 4367, which would prevent the DHS from implementing its ``climate literacy strategy.''

Mr. Chair, it seems that there is nothing that Mr. Mayorkas and his Department won't do to distract from carrying out their central mission of defending the U.S. homeland, a mission at which they have failed miserably.

The climate literacy strategy states its objective is `` . . . to develop a climate literate DHS workforce, ensuring all employees across the Department have a sufficient and up-to-date understanding of climate change and its relevance to the DHS mission.''

That is flatout hogwash.

The DHS states it will develop and administer this climate literate workforce through its program for climate change professionals, which DHS calls the ``CCP'' for short. No, I am not making that up.

It will also have a Department-wide website for sharing climate change information, have climate change trainings, and develop a community of practice to champion and share climate discussions.

I will use the word again: This is hogwash.

There are no resources to build a wall, no resources to apprehend illegal aliens, which have numbered over 10 times the population of the State of Wyoming since Joe Biden took office, no resources to stop terrorists from crossing our borders, but, of course, under Mr. Mayorkas' so-called leadership, there are vast sums of money available for promoting climate hysteria to ensure access to the newest climate propaganda and developments.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of amendment No. 61.

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, again, with all due respect, it is not the DHS' responsibility to deal with climate. In fact, the DHS has absolutely no capacity to do that whatsoever.

What the DHS' responsibility is is to protect the homeland from the invasion that we are seeing on the southern and northern borders.

My constituents are sick and tired of this. Not a cent of money should go to distracting the DHS employees from their jobs of defending this country.

I urge all of my colleagues to support my amendment, strip every last penny from this bone-headed initiative, and force the DHS to actually do its job.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment No. 62, which would prevent the DHS from carrying out its environmental justice strategy, whatever that nonsensical word salad means in today's parlance.

Similar to the climate indoctrination boondoggle I addressed when addressing my prior amendment, this is yet another angle being taken by Secretary Mayorkas and the DHS to worship at the altar of the so-called climate change instead of actually focusing their attention and resources on the gross incompetence that this administration calls border security.

While this administration continues to use newspeak to extol the virtues of this so-called environmental justice agenda, the reality is that Joe Biden, Mayorkas, and others in this administration are responsible for vast amounts of energy poverty around the world.

What this administration is not pursuing is environmental justice. It instead, has an affirmative goal of universal government-imposed wretchedness. This is what happens when you staff an entire administration with people who have never held a job in the private sector--a collapse of your supply chain, your energy resources, and ultimately, your prosperity.

Environmental justice isn't any such thing. It is an Alice in Wonderland level of gaslighting that is destroying our ability to produce energy, grow food, and provide affordable housing.

Congress' power is in the purse, and we must exercise that power by ensuring that there are no funds going to anything that doesn't secure our border. For my colleagues across the aisle, 11,000 illegal border crossings a day does not count for border security.

I urge my colleagues to support amendment No. 62, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Again, Mr. Chair, I think that I have made my point with these three amendments. The purpose of the DHS and Mr. Mayorkas is to secure our border and protect the homeland. He has failed. There is no other thing that our DHS should be doing except specifically that.

For that reason I urge that my colleagues support amendments 60, 61, and 62, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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