Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015 -- Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. I will be speaking on the bill before us.

Madam President, we are just days away from an unthinkable government
shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. A government shutdown
of the Department whose mission is to protect the citizens of this
country is reckless and dangerous while we are under threat of attack
by terrorist groups.

What kind of message does it send to ISIS, to cyber criminals, and to
criminal drug gangs if Congress can't keep the Department of Homeland
Security open?

This weekend we learned that a terror group from Somalia, al-Shabaab,
released an online video calling for attacks on the Mall of America in
Minnesota, as well as malls in Canada and England.

Just yesterday we learned that three Brooklyn, NY, men were arrested
for plotting to travel to Syria to join ISIS. If they weren't
successful in getting to Syria, they allegedly planned to commit an act
of terrorism in the United States, and one even offered to kill
President Obama if ordered to do so.

The role of the Department of Homeland Security in protecting our
country from these threats and from so many others cannot be
overstated. It is DHS that is working with State and local officials in
Minnesota to coordinate a response to the Mall of America threat, and
it is DHS and the Secret Service that help provide the counterterrorism
and intelligence-gathering efforts that led to the arrests of the
Brooklyn men who wanted to do harm in this country.

Referencing yesterday's arrests in Brooklyn, New York City Police
Commissioner Bill Bratton said that this is not the time to engage in
activities that would threaten our counterterrorism capabilities and
effectively hold our counterterrorism agencies hostage to political
machinations. This is not the time to be engaging in political rhetoric
and political grandstanding.

I think Commissioner Bratton is right. Our Nation is already on high
alert for terror threats after attacks in Sydney, Australia, and
Ottawa, Canada, and in Paris. The Mall of America threat and the
Brooklyn arrests reinforce the fact that we need our law enforcement
community operating on all cylinders. Sadly, these aren't isolated
threats.

A few weeks ago I spoke with the deputy commissioner of the New York
City Police Department. He told me about the many terror attacks that
have been thwarted in New York City since 9/11. He credited DHS, the
funding, and programs that are coordinated through DHS and the
personnel there for helping New York to prevent attacks from happening.

I have heard the same thing at home in New Hampshire from our law
enforcement and first responders. I was in the town of Hampton, which
is a coastal community, on Monday of this week. They talked about the
importance of DHS support in developing a unified command for all of
law enforcement in New Hampshire. They talked about the importance of
the fusion center that is funded through the Department of Homeland
Security because of the intelligence-gathering they do there and how
they share that information with law enforcement agencies all across
New Hampshire. Then they took me in and showed me a diagram of a human trafficking case that they are working on with the help of the
Department of Homeland Security.

So this is not just about the big cities in the United States, it is
about our rural communities, and it is about States across this country
that rely on the Department of Homeland Security to help with their
internal security. Yet here we are, less than 2 days away from shutting
down the Department of Homeland Security because of unrelated
ideological disagreements.

I am, however, very encouraged by recent developments here in the
Senate, with yesterday's 98-to-2 vote to allow the Senate at some point
in the future--hopefully sometime today--to pass a clean, full-year
funding bill for DHS. I again applaud Senators McConnell and Reid for
their efforts to get us to this point. I think we need leaders who are
willing to work together, who are willing to encourage us here in the
Senate. We saw that in the last few days with Senators McConnell and
Reid.

Once the Senate acts, however, we will need the House of
Representatives to join us in putting aside our ideological and
political differences and passing a bill without controversial riders,
a bill that will fund the Department of Homeland Security.

As we have discussed in this Chamber, there are disagreements about
immigration and about the President's Executive action. I am certainly
happy to have debate about that. I know there are others who are happy
to have a debate. But first we need to fund the Department of Homeland
Security. We need to put safety and security ahead of our ideological
differences. We are just 2 days away from a devastating shutdown of
DHS. We do not have time to waste. I certainly hope that we will act
quickly here and that the House will also act quickly.

I yield the floor.

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