Department of Homeland Security Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I stand to discuss what has been discussed
by the previous two Senators, the urgent need for a clean bill to fund
our Department of Homeland Security.

I wasn't part of this body during the 9/11 attacks. I was living in
Newark, NJ, and watched, as many in my city did, with a view clearly to
the World Trade Center and saw that attack. What moved me afterward was
the incredible unity of our country. There was no partisan politics.
People pulled together. First responders from New Jersey, all over New
York, and all over the country came together.

What we did after that as a nation was we began to prepare to ensure
we could prevent those attacks and have better systems in place should
emergencies, crises, disasters or attacks happen again. What happened
from that unity is evidenced by this body joining together not just to
sing patriotic songs on the Capitol steps but to work in unison to
create the Department of Homeland Security.

That agency is tasked with the urgent need to prepare our country to
meet crises if they come. This is not a partisan issue and should not
fall prey to political fights between congressional Republicans and the
President of the United States over immigration. There is way too much
at stake.

Let me cite a few examples. Something we have learned from past
attacks is the urgency of coordinating between different layers of law
enforcement and first responders. If we do not pass a clean DHS bill,
resources for that coordination, getting everyone working together,
will be put at risk.

Let me cite another example. It is critical in this day and age that
we stay on the cutting edge of technology, one step ahead of those
people who seek to do us harm. We see clearly if we do not get a clean
bill passed, we will not be able to stay on that technological edge. We
see that in many areas. One great example is at our ports. New Jersey
has one of the third busiest ports in America, and we need that
critical technological equipment for upgrades that can help us to
detect nuclear devices or harmful materials coming into our country.
Without a clean bill, we will not have those resources.

We also see the headlines from just the past few months about cyber
attack after cyber attack. A critical agency that must be funded
appropriately to protect our businesses and our infrastructure and our
first-responding capabilities against cyber attack is coordinated and
led from the DHS. Not to fund this agency adequately so they can
prepare for those attacks is unacceptable.

We are Americans and this idea of unifying together is our strength.
We stand united against attacks. If we do it right, as we have learned
not just throughout our country's history but in every aspect of our
society--my college--high school coach used to talk about the five Ps:
Proper preparation prevents poor performance. This, unfortunately, will
so undermine our ability to secure ourselves, it is almost an insult
that it will not even give proper funding to meet the weaknesses to the
Secret Service, as we have seen their weaknesses exposed. As we go into
a Presidential election, we must provide adequate security and
protection for the next potential President.

This also harms our businesses as well. Take for example the E-Verify
system. This makes sure people who are hired by our companies do not
have things in their background that would undermine our security.
Those systems are harmed as well.

This is an example where petty politics and recklessness is being
placed above people, policy, and reason. We as a nation have stood in
unity after the most horrifying of attacks. We live in a world where we
have seen diseases such as Ebola, where we have experienced cyber
attacks, and where we have had to recover from vicious weather events
such as Sandy. We live in a world where people seek to do us harm, and
we should do nothing to weaken our ability to respond, to prepare, to
make ourselves more resilient for any such occurrences. The urgency is
upon us. We cannot be a reactive nation unified after the fact. We must
be a proactive nation, working together, above politics, to do what is
right for the strength and the security of our country.

I call for a clean bill in the critical, most important part, of our
government to provide for the common defense. This is a time that
should bring us together, not have us fall prey to every bit of
Washington that people have grown tired and sick of. Let us pass a
clean bill, as a bipartisan group of former Secretaries of Homeland
Security has called for. This is not a time for recklessness; it is a
time for reason. It is not a time for petty politics; it is time to put
people first.

I yield the floor.

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