Homeland Security Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentleman has just said about those challenges and threats, along with the undermining of our national security, but it is further at risk this week by our own hand; that is, the Congress of the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security will not be funded. There are 230,000 people who work at that Department, and 30,000 of them, mostly administrative personnel, will be laid off. The others, known as critically important--essential employees who are on the front line--will work, but they won't get paid.

We can lament what others have done to undermine our national security and share--I think in a bipartisan way--the conclusion that we ought not to further those enterprises, but as I said, Mr. Speaker, by our own hand we are about to shut down the Department of Homeland Security. We have but 4 days to pass a bill continuing its funding.

I will say with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, to my friends on the other side of the aisle, shutting down the government is a strategy they have employed on a number of occasions. In 1995, we shut it down twice, for almost a month, maybe a little longer.

Just a few months ago, we shut it down again as a strategy--not as a happenstance, but as a strategy.

Again, Mr. Speaker, there are those who are saying in this House: Well, it won't matter if we shut down the Department of Homeland Security. Some of the folks are funded on fees, others will be required to work anyway, so let's just keep playing this Russian roulette with America's security and the safety of Americans.

Mr. Speaker, we are approaching the eleventh hour, and the House has not yet been given the opportunity to vote on a bill that, essentially, was agreed to by the Republican Appropriations Committee and reported to this floor, and we essentially passed it, but we passed it for a short period of time.

There was no debate on funding levels, Mr. Speaker. There was no debate on whether this provision and that provision should or should not be in the bill. We passed it.

Then the Republicans, Mr. Speaker, to accomplish another objective, have done what they said in the pledge to America they would not do, and that is put two different issues in the same bill. Well, they have put a poison pill in this bill.

If we fail to act and send the President a bill he can and will sign, a bill free from partisan policy riders, then thousands of our Homeland Security agents will be furloughed, and almost--as I said--200,000 others will be forced to work without pay.

Is that what America has come to? Surely not--the impact on our border security, law enforcement, and homeland security will be serious and make our country more vulnerable to threats.

I came to the rostrum after a gentleman on the other side of the aisle correctly expressed concerns about the threats that confront us. I would hope he would join me in advocating and urging the Republican leadership to bring to the floor a clean--and by clean, I simply mean a bill on which both parties have essentially agreed.

Chairman Mike McCaul, the Republican who leads the House Committee on Homeland Security said yesterday--Mr. Speaker, this is the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee: ``I fully believe we should not be playing politics with the national security agency like the Department of Homeland Security, particularly given the high threat environment that we're in right now.''

What American would say it makes sense to play politics with Homeland Security in light of what the gentleman has just referenced and which all of us know to be the case?

We have people who want to harm us as a people and as a nation. Mr. Speaker, this body has a responsibility to the American people to do everything we can to make them as secure as we can and to make our country as secure as we can.

Senator Lindsey Graham, with whom I served in this body who now represents South Carolina and is a Republican Member of the Senate and an expert on national security, he told his Republican colleagues this--and, again, I quote: ``The worst possible outcome for this Nation is to defund the Department of Homeland Security, given the multiple threats we face to our homeland, and I will not be part of it.''

None of us ought to be part of it. 435 of us ought to vote to fund the Homeland Security Department starting on Friday. I urge the Republican majority to heed this advice of Mr. McCaul, of Mr. Graham, and, frankly, countless other Republicans in the Senate and some in the House to do the responsible thing and let this House work its will on the single subject of our national security.

If a clean Homeland Security appropriation bill were to come to the floor, I am confident--and I tell my friend and the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, every Democrat will vote for it. We are 188 strong.

Surely, there are 30 responsible Republicans who care more about our national security than their politics who would join us in voting for that bill--I am confident of that--many more, I think, than 30, but at least 30 would be needed, with 188, to get to the 218, and we would fund the Department of Homeland Security, and we could do it tomorrow.

We could probably do it today by unanimous consent--well, no, I don't think we could do it by unanimous consent because there are some who continue to play politics with our national security.

If the majority is dissatisfied with our immigration policy which they articulate and legitimately can have an alternative view to express and to try to enact, that is the democratic process.

Offer a bill to change that which they do not like, not hold hostage the Department of Homeland Security until hopefully, from their standpoint, the President is bludgeoned into signing a bill that he does not agree with and he does not believe is good for our country and believes is bad for our economy.

If the majority is dissatisfied, bring a bill to the floor. Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, also a Republican with whom I have served when he was a Representative from Pennsylvania, subsequently the Governor of Pennsylvania and then our first Secretary of Homeland Security, I want to quote him as well as I have quoted the other two Republicans that I have quoted.

``Political folly'' and ``bad policy,'' that is Tom Ridge, former Republican Governor and mentioned for President. He went on to say: ``I think the political repercussions could be severe. And, on top of that, the men and women of Homeland Security deserve better.''

Who wants to work for an employer that simply takes them hostage every few months and says to them: You may or may not get paid, you may or may not be able to come to work, you may or may not be able to do your job. It depends upon whether or not our political ends are served.

I urge Republican leaders to keep the pledge they made to the American people to consider issues one at a time. Bring a comprehensive immigration reform bill. If you don't like what the President has done, bring a bill that changes that. We have the power to do that. Do it.

We can work in a bipartisan way to change our immigration policies through legislation and fix what everybody in this body believes is a broken system.

Bring a clean appropriation bill to the floor to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and then, as well, bring a bill to the floor on comprehensive immigration reform or the bill that our Republican friends think is the appropriate bill to fix a broken system, and we will vote and debate on that.

But let the Department of Homeland Security do its job for America, for Americans. Let's exercise responsible, adult legislating this time.

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