The Future Forum

Floor Speech

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Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, let me start off by saying
elections have consequences. I respect the American voter. I respect
what the voters in our Nation did last November when they gave
Republicans control of the United States Senate and control of the U.S.
House of Representatives. My sincere plea and request to my Republican
colleagues across the aisle who control Congress is: Please do not shut
down the Department of Homeland Security.

The Republican leader in the U.S. Senate is now poised to delink the
issue of funding for security for our homeland from immigration reform.
I hope my colleagues across the aisle will do the same. That is because
immigration reform has very little to nothing to do with protecting our
homeland. I would love to have a debate on immigration reform. I think
we need to do that. I would love to vote for bills on immigration
reform. But they are not linked to funding for Homeland Security.

Let me just give you an example. Let's talk about DREAMers who came
as children to our Nation and who can serve in the United States
military. I served in Active Duty in the Air Force, and I am still in
the Reserves. So DREAMers can serve in the U.S. military. To say that
we are going to deport them because they are a homeland security risk
and we are not going to fund Homeland Security because of that is
ridiculous. There is no reason to link those two issues. If you don't
like DREAMers, if you want to deport DREAMers, fine. Let's have a
debate on that. But they are not a homeland security risk. To link
these two issues doesn't make any sense. The Republican leader in the
United States Senate has figured that out. I hope that this House does
it as well.

There are some grave consequences to this. In my State of California
alone, nearly 27,000 employees of Homeland Security will either be
furloughed or will get no pay and cannot come to work.

These folks are folks that protect our homeland. It is unacceptable
that this is going to happen.

The other way Homeland Security works is they provide grants to local
first responders across the Nation to law enforcement, to firefighters.
On Friday, if Homeland Security shuts down, those grants stop, and
these local responders stop.

This is a very real issue, and we, in Congress, our first priority is
to protect the American public. Shutting down Homeland Security will be
the exact opposite of that. I really hope that the Republicans who
control both Houses do not shut down Homeland Security.

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Mr. TED LIEU of California. That is a great question. Let me just
explain a little bit what are some of the professions that the DREAMers
do in the military.

Because of their language skills, the U.S. military needs some of
these language skills, so that the U.S. military knows what these
terrorists are doing in other parts of the world.

To have the language skills that DREAMers possess, that is one reason
that we have them serve in the U.S. military. They have a direct effect
on trying to prevent terrorist attacks into our homeland. To say that
``we are not going to fund Homeland Security because we want to deport
you'' is ridiculous.

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Mr. TED LIEU of California. That is a fantastic question. Having now
been in the military for 19 years, it is very clear that their main
criteria for military service is: Can you complete the mission?

How good you are at completing the mission has nothing to do with
whether or not you have a piece of paper that says if you are
documented or not. The U.S. military is losing out on a significant
amount of talent, people who otherwise would do great things for our
military to protect our homeland and so on.

Again, it makes very little to no sense to link these two issues,
which really shouldn't be linked; really, that is what this is all
about. Let's just have separate debates on both issues. The U.S. Senate
is about to do that.

I hope the House can do that as well.

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