Department of Homeland Security Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, it is good to follow my good friend, the chairman of the Committee on Rules and Administration, on which I am ranking member. I don't agree with him, but he is a fine man.

Now, I rise to dispel attempts by the other side of the aisle to dodge responsibility for funding the Department of Homeland Security in a responsible way. Here is what is happening. The rightwing of the Republican Party is risking a Department of Homeland Security shutdown to get their way on immigration. They are saying: Take our hard-right stance on immigration or we won't fund national security.

Most Americans don't agree with that view. Most Americans are for a rational immigration policy. A large majority in this body--bipartisan, led by Senator McCain and myself--voted on that in 2013. But we have a small group, led by the junior Senator from Texas, who say: It is our way or we are going to shut down one of the premier agencies dedicated to our security.

As I said when I engaged in a colloquy with my good friend from Texas, our Republican colleagues have the majority. They can debate immigration any time they want. In fact, we welcome that debate. We think the American people are on our side. We are willing to have that debate. We are eager to have that debate but not with a gun put to the head not only of us but of the American people. Do what we, a narrow minority, want or we are going to shut down the Department of Homeland Security--at a time when security is of utmost importance given what has happened around the world and what we just saw happen to the Jordanian pilot yesterday.

This strategy makes no sense. The junior Senator from Texas is leading his party at best into a cul-de-sac, and at worst over a cliff. We are not going to be taken hostage. If my good friend the majority leader, Senator McConnell, thinks that by bringing this bill up again and again it is going to change what happened yesterday, it is not. So we are saying to the other side: Now that you have seen the vote, now that you have shown Speaker Boehner that we can't pass his bill in the Senate, get real. I say get real, to my friend the majority leader and to the Speaker of the House.

Let's roll up our sleeves, and let's work out a Department of Homeland Security bill and pass it. Let's not hold that agency hostage. Let's not just renew them every couple of months. As the Secretary of DHS said yesterday, that is like getting a car and only giving it five miles of gas at a time. It just doesn't work. So get real. Let's negotiate a DHS spending bill.

I know our Senator from Maryland, the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations, and the Senator from New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Committee on Appropriations, are eager to sit down and pass a bill that we can all agree on in terms of funding Homeland Security, and then we can debate immigration. Then we can debate immigration--but no hostage taking and none of this bullying. None of this: If you don't do it my way, I am going to hurt a whole lot of innocent people. That didn't work in 2013 when Republican numbers plummeted after they tried to shut down the government, and it won't work today.

We will not allow a government shutdown. We will not allow hostage-taking. We will ask our colleagues to get reasonable, do things the way they used to be done, debate each issue on the merits. They have the floor. They can debate any issue they want and move forward.

I will say one other thing to my Republican colleagues: The junior Senator from Texas has you tied in a knot. I say that to Speaker Boehner as well: Speaker Boehner, the junior Senator from Texas has you tied in a knot. Now you are going to have to find a way to untangle it. We will not be bullied. We will not be told we have to negotiate because you seek to hurt innocent people and hurt our security. We will move forward.

So let me suggest the way to go forward: Let's put a good, clean Homeland Security bill on the floor. Let's make America secure. Then, separately, we are happy to debate immigration to the Republican Party's heart's content, but let's stop this govern-by-crisis mentality, especially when national security hangs in the balance.

So I urge Speaker Boehner, I urge Senator McConnell to come to their senses, end this wild goose chase and let us vote on a clean bill forthwith.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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