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

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, everyone agrees that our immigration
system is broken. The immigration system we have now hurts our economy,
and it hurts our national security. The Senate passed a bipartisan
immigration bill; the House of Representatives chose not to act. Again,
the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill. That is why I
supported the Executive action by President Obama to address our
immediate immigration crisis. We cannot wait for the House of
Representatives' Republicans to act, and that is because immigration is
one of our country's greatest strengths. Immigrants are a vital part of
the fabric of Massachusetts and of our country. They start businesses,
they create jobs, and they contribute to our communities.

The President's Executive order recognizes the value of immigrants to
our country. President Obama's Executive order will bring millions of
law-abiding immigrants out of the shadows and help to keep those
families together. The order allows law enforcement to focus its
resources where they belong: reinforcing security at our borders and
prosecuting and deporting dangerous criminals who pose threats to
public safety. This Executive action cannot and should not be viewed as
the final word on the matter of immigration reform. It is the beginning
of an effort to permanently fix our broken immigration system.

What unites us in Massachusetts and all across America is the
unshakable belief that no matter where you come from, no matter what
your circumstances, you can achieve the American dream. The immigration
system we have now doesn't reflect those values.

Unfortunately, instead of working to fix the problems with our
immigration system, the majority of the Senate has been manufacturing a
government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, even as our
Nation faces real threats to our safety and to our national security if
we don't fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. The majority
seems more interested in undermining President Obama's border policy
than funding actual border protection in our country.

Let's look at what could happen if Homeland Security funding lapses.

No. 1, FEMA efforts. FEMA is a part of the Department of Homeland
Security. FEMA efforts in Massachusetts to develop a preliminary damage
assessment for disaster relief funding may be interrupted.

The people in my home State of Massachusetts are suffering from the
second snowiest winter in our history. We have endured more than 8 feet
of snow. Those snow piles are climbing even higher. Seawalls that
protect our shores are crumbling. Roofs are collapsing. Homes are being
destroyed. Small businesses are shuttered while owners struggle to make
ends meet. Cities and towns across the Commonwealth have overspent
their budgets by tens of millions of dollars responding to one
snowstorm after another.

But instead of the relief that should come with the assurance that
FEMA assistance is on the way, the people of Massachusetts have to
worry that this Republican-manufactured government shutdown threat is
jeopardizing this critical assistance. The last thing the people of
Massachusetts should have to worry about is whether their disaster
assistance will be delayed by the politics of immigration reform. This
is absolutely outrageous. Massachusetts needs the disaster relief
today.

No. 2, an estimated 30,000 Homeland Security employees would have to
be furloughed, including those who process Federal grants for local
police, fire, and other first responders. Firefighters might not get
the best oxygen masks. Bomb squads might not get the right equipment
they need. These are hard-working people who help protect our Nation
and help our first responders do their jobs.

No. 3, a Department of Homeland Security shutdown would compromise
our national security by stopping command and control activities at
Department of Homeland Security headquarters, disrupting important
programs such as detecting weapons of mass destruction. Homeland
Security employees remaining on the job will not get paid, and those
who are furloughed will be left to wonder whether they will ever be
paid for the work they missed. This uncertainty hurts morale and puts
families in financial jeopardy.

It is time for Republicans to end this brinkmanship and help pass a
clean Homeland Security budget free of unrelated policy riders. Then we
should get to work on comprehensive immigration reform. The immigration
system we have now doesn't reflect our time-honored values as a melting
pot of diversity and innovation. It hurts our economy and national
security. In short, our immigration system is broken.

But for millions of immigrants who are living in the shadows, who are
working every day to support their families, who have been brought up
here from a young age, who are serving our country in the military or
pursuing the dream of higher education--these people deserve a path
that allows them to earn citizenship. That is why we need to work
together on comprehensive immigration reform. It will give more
families and individuals a real shot at the American dream. It will
encourage immigrants who are educated here to innovate here.

This is an important debate, and we should have it, and we should not
have it at the expense of the safety and the security of our Nation.

I call on my Republican colleagues to bring forward a clean
Department of Homeland Security funding bill, free of unrelated policy
riders dealing with immigration. Let's give the people of our country
the confidence that the Department of Homeland Security is going to
protect against al-Shabaab launching a successful attack against the
Mall of America, that a terrorist group cannot now be put together,
thinking, perhaps erroneously, that the Department of Homeland Security
has taken its eye off the ball while worrying about the funding levels
that are necessary in order to secure our country.

I lived through this in Boston. Mohamed Atta and the other nine who
hijacked the two planes on September 11, 2001, thought they could find
an opening--and they did--in our airline security. In 2013 the Tsarnaev
brothers thought they could find a hole in our security, and they
attacked again in Boston.

We should not have any question raised about the Department of
Homeland Security being on the job protecting our citizens and
providing the security our country needs. That is where we are right
now, and the Republicans are holding up the funding of this vital
agency under the misguided notion that they are going to be able to
write the entire comprehensive immigration bill inside a Department of
Homeland Security budget. It is not going to happen. Everyone in this
country knows it is not going to happen. The Republicans are playing a
dangerous game with the security of our country.

I ask all who make the decisions in the Republican Party to please
tell their most radical Members that the Department of Homeland
Security must be funded. It must be funded this week. We must not only
pay those who work for us, but we should thank them every day for the
security they provide to our country.

I yield the floor.

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