Expressing the Support of the House of Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman who just spoke yield? Will the gentleman who just spoke, who is walking out, would you yield?

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Mr. HOYER. My time.

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Mr. HOYER. Excuse me.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman to whom I was addressing my question apparently doesn't want to yield and left the floor at the advice, probably, of somebody else.

You want to speak the truth? Even if you are new--and I have been here a little longer--there is a way to fund the TSA, to fund Secret Service, and it is no sham. We don't even have to sign the discharge petition. Your Speaker, Mr. Speaker, just needs to bring the bill to the floor. It funds everybody in the Department of Homeland Security, other than ICE and CBP. You know that.

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Mr. HOYER. I addressed the Speaker. I said, Mr. Speaker. That doesn't mean I can't look at other people, Mr. Speaker.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I addressed to you directly. I don't want this out of my time.

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Mr. HOYER. We are in the House.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the argument being made on the other side is not accurate. I will give them the benefit of the doubt because, perhaps, they don't know it is not accurate.

We have over 110 people who are prepared to vote for all of the funding in DHS other than both of the components who recently have snatched people off the streets of America, wearing hoods and no badges and putting them into unmarked cars. Yes, we are not for that.

The gentleman said he was--that I asked to yield--a law enforcement officer. I was going to ask him whether he ever wore a mask during the course of his duties, not a gas mask, a mask to keep him secret. I was going to ask him whether he ever went into a home without a warrant, inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. Yes, we want to defend the Constitution of the United States.

By the way, unless you missed it, when we passed the appropriation bills that have funded most of the government, we did so, and we took DHS out and told you we are not for that. What you continue to do is to bring to this floor something we have told you we are not for.

Mr. Speaker, if the Speaker of the House brought that bill to the floor to fund all of DHS' components, except those two agencies, it would pass overwhelmingly today, within this hour. I guarantee it as a former majority leader. Assuming that all of you say, oh, we want to fund TSA, we want to fund Secret Service, we want to fund Coast Guard-- assuming that you would follow your rhetoric, it could be done like that. I say that as a majority leader of this House for 8 years, and I know of what I speak.

Mr. Speaker, they talk about shutdowns. Under Ronald Reagan, there were eight shutdowns. They lasted for an average, Mr. Speaker, of 1.3 days. Nine of those were weekend days. Why? Because Ronald Reagan and we Democrats who controlled the House were prepared to go to the table and make an agreement. If we couldn't make an agreement, we nevertheless funded the government.

This President has said numerous times, Mr. Speaker, I would welcome a shutdown of the government, all of it.

Those of you who come to the floor and try to, like Pontius Pilate, wash responsibility away and blame it on Democrats because, yes, there are things on which we very strongly disagree, and that is the violation of the Constitution, the violation of statutes--and I would have asked my law enforcement friend--the violation of norms followed by every police department in America.

I am tired of hearing totally inaccurate information about some fraud bill. That is not the word that was used, Mr. Speaker, but that was implied. The bill that we want is no fraud. The bill we want would fund TSA, Secret Service, Coast Guard, CISA, and all other agencies in DHS tomorrow.

What is the majority bringing to the floor, Mr. Speaker? They are bringing a bill to the floor that has failed three times.

Why? The majority has done that because Democrats don't want warrantless searches. Democrats don't want people's doors being broken down without probable cause. Democrats don't want people apprehended by masked people. I grew up in an era when I was a young man where there were a lot of people wearing masks going around assaulting people. We didn't call them police.

Try to be honest with the American people. Mr. Speaker, we owe them that. Tell them, look, we are afraid that if we fund all of these components of which we all talk and support, if we do that, then we won't make as good a deal on DHS.

We won't keep them immune from following the Constitution. We won't keep them immune from following the laws of their State. We won't keep them immune from the norms that police follow.

Don't come to this floor and be dishonest and say Democrats are shutting down the government. We are not.

Democrats sure do want to raise the question and have a debate about whether we follow the Constitution in terms of law enforcement in this country.

Do you know why you have warrants? There are warrants because King George could go into any house at any time, every time that he wanted to, and the Founding Fathers thought that was wrong.

I see my chairman is standing, so he may want to speak himself and not have me take all the time.

I would plead with my Republican friends, Mr. Speaker, be honest. Republicans are holding off that bill because they think tactically it will undermine what ICE is doing, undermining that two, three, four-- five people were killed by officers not following the law. Don't come here pretending that Democrats somehow are shutting down the government.

By the way, when Joe Biden was President of the United States, do you know how many shutdowns there were? Mr. Speaker, the answer to that is zero.

Mr. Speaker, let's fund the important services that the American people deserve. Let's have the Speaker put the bill on the floor and have 10 Republicans sign the discharge petition. We will put it on the floor, and we will pass it overwhelmingly, I predict.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for giving me some time to try to correct the record that is being, unfortunately, made poorly on this floor.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman on the other side asked me to come back. I came back. He made a comment. I wanted to correct him. He would not yield for that purpose.

Mr. Speaker, 86 percent of ICE is being funded. There are no silos being undermined, except by not funding all the other agencies that we are prepared to support--no silos.

Mr. Speaker, 85 percent of CBP is funded. You funded it, Mr. Speaker, in reconciliation at three times, essentially, what the annual appropriation was for those two agencies.

There ought not to be, again, this Pontius Pilate hand-wringing that somehow we have shut down those two agencies. We have not. You provided for that, Mr. Speaker, and they are funded.

The question is: Do you still want to use as a political tactic shutting down all the other agencies?

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