Pay Our Homeland Defenders Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Oklahoma, the great chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of Congressman Ciscomani's bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
Madam Speaker, this is a bill that should have passed weeks and weeks ago. In fact, today will mark the third time that this House has voted to fully fund the Department. In case you want to know how that vote went, Madam Speaker, there has been a record vote twice already in the House. You can see who is voting ``yes'' to fund TSA agents, to fund the people at the Department of Homeland Security who work every day to keep us safe here in America. All the Republicans, almost every Republican, voted ``yes.'' On March 5, almost every Democrat voted ``no,'' voted to shut the Department down. The Democrats shut this down, Madam Speaker.
Then, we brought another vote, Madam Speaker, and you can see January 22 was the first vote, almost a party-line vote, Republicans voting ``yes'' to fund the Department and Democrats voting ``no.''
March 5, same thing, Republicans voting ``yes'' to fund the Department and Democrats overwhelmingly voting ``no'' to shut it down.
Now, today is a day where they can seek redemption and stand up for those workers, the TSA agents, who are showing up for work and not getting paid.
Do you know that if you are a TSA agent in America this fiscal year, Madam Speaker, you have gone 49 percent of this year without a paycheck?
That is disgraceful. It is disgraceful that Democrats have voted time and time again to deny pay for those especially who are showing up to do this hard work.
You have Americans waiting in line for hours and hours, 3 hours, 4 hours. At my home airport in New Orleans, people were sleeping overnight there so they would have a chance to make their flight. There are people waiting over 3 hours and still missing a flight, Madam Speaker, to go maybe on a family vacation, maybe they have to go to a funeral or a wedding.
This is disrupting the lives of real people.
Let me tell you what the TSA chief testified to yesterday, just yesterday. The TSA chief told lawmakers that their agents ``have received eviction notices, lost their childcare, missed bill payments and been charged late fees, damaged their credit, defaulted on loans, and have been unable to even qualify for a loan to help ease the financial burden during the shutdown.'' That was testimony given yesterday, and it is totally avoidable.
That kind of pain should not be inflicted on our Federal workers, and yet you can see the party-line vote time and time again, like today when we bring a bill to say let's just give these people paychecks for the work that they are doing.
We can all have disagreements over how government operates. Go look at the changes President Trump has already made at the Department of Homeland Security. This week we got a new Secretary. There have been dramatic changes to the Department. In fact, changes both sides have made or have asked for have been made.
Yet, Democrats don't want to take ``yes'' for an answer, Madam Speaker, because they want chaos. Let's just call it for what it is. They want open borders. They want chaos. We are going to give them an opportunity to do the right thing because the American people are sick and tired of it, and they should be.
There is going to be a moment of accountability real soon. In about an hour, you will be able to see, America will be able to see who is voting ``yes'' to fund these people who are working so hard, and who is voting ``no'' to keep the chaos going, to keep the long lines going.
Now, I would like to say I am going to read you some good news. I want to read you a quote from Hakeem Jeffries, Madam Speaker. I think this is an important quote that everybody should listen to right now. This is Hakeem Jeffries: ``We are here today to do a single job, and that should be to fund fully the Department of Homeland Security. Anything else is an abdication of our responsibility. Anything else is an act of legislative malpractice. So we are playing political games at a time when the safety and the security of the American people is being threatened.''
That is Hakeem Jeffries, Madam Speaker. Unfortunately, that was Hakeem Jeffries from February of 2015. What happened to that Hakeem Jeffries?
How will Hakeem Jeffries of 2026 vote? The previous two times we know, Madam Speaker, the vote was ``no.'' However, in 2015, he said it would be an act of malpractice to shut this Department down.
Let's talk about what times we are in. Some people want to think that we are at a September 10 mentality, a pre-September 11 mentality. We are at a heightened state of alert right now. We have actually had, Madam Speaker, four terrorist attacks on our American homeland in the last month.
This Department is more critical than ever, and this is when Democrats choose to shut it down, to put Americans at risk? It is dangerous.
It is not just cruel to these workers who are going without pay. They testified yesterday that there are some TSA agents sleeping in their cars because they can't afford rent. That is cruel, but it is also dangerous to this country to shut down this Department at a time like this.
Don't go back to a pre-September 11 mentality. This Department was created for a reason, to protect the homeland so we don't ever have a September 11 again.
``Never forget,'' remember that mantra? It seems like some people want to forget, have forgotten. Maybe they have amnesia. Maybe they need to remember that quote from the Democratic Leader back in 2015 who said it would be political malpractice to vote to shut this agency down.
Let's do the right thing. Let's everybody--not just Republicans today--let's have Republicans and Democrats join together and do what is needed to protect America's homeland. Vote ``yes'' on Congressman Ciscomani's bill to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, get this back open. Bring common sense back into this country.
Madam Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote.
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