WASHINGTON — Leaders from several agencies within the Department of Homeland Security testified before a U.S. House panel Wednesday about how a shutdown would affect the programs they oversee, though Democrats argued the hearing was a “show” that wasn’t going to get lawmakers any closer to agreement on constraints to federal immigration enforcement.
Congress has until Friday at midnight to pass a stopgap spending bill or reach bipartisan agreement on the department’s full-year funding bill, which was held up by Democrats after the killing of two U.S. citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis. Otherwise, the department will begin a shutdown.
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said it was unacceptable that neither Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem nor any leaders from Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection were at the hearing.
“Democrats requested that they be present. Why are they not here?” DeLauro said. “That should tell you everything you need to know about what this hearing is really all about. It is not to address the real concerns of millions of Americans over the unchecked brutality of officers within those agencies, brutality that has left two Americans dead and countless others seriously injured.”
DeLauro countered that Republicans held the hearing to imply Democrats don’t care about consistent funding for the many agencies within DHS, including the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.
“In fact, it is the Republican leadership that has chosen to hold your agencies hostage to avoid implementing reforms that they know are necessary to keep our community safe from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Patrol,” DeLauro said.
Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said he opted not to invite Noem because he wanted to “talk to the operational people” and that he decided not to invite leaders of ICE and CBP since they testified in front of a separate House committee Tuesday.
Amodei said enacting a DHS funding bill before the Friday midnight deadline seemed “like a very tall order.”
“A shutdown has gone from a distinct possibility to a probability,” Amodei said. “But not all components will equally share the pain during a Homeland shutdown.”
Amodei said that ICE and CBP’s “missions will be largely unaffected by a shutdown,” in part, because Republicans provided the two agencies with more than $150 billion in the party’s “big, beautiful” law.
Most Homeland Security workers will stay on duty
A government shutdown this time around, unlike the one last year, would only affect the Department of Homeland Security, since Congress has approved the other 11 annual government funding bills.
The other agencies housed within DHS would sustain varying ramifications. In general, any employees who focus on national security issues or the protection of life and property would continue to work through a shutdown, while federal workers who don’t are supposed to be furloughed.
Neither category of employees will receive their paychecks during the funding lapse, though federal law requires they receive back pay once Congress approves some sort of spending bill.
Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said the “reality is that nearly 90% of the department will continue operating, even if Congress fails to complete its work by the end of the week.”
Leaders urged to give up recess next week
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., urged GOP leaders to cancel the recess scheduled for next week, when many lawmakers plan to travel to Germany for the Munich Security Conference.
Cole argued that members should stay on Capitol Hill to negotiate an agreement on Homeland Security funding if a deal isn’t reached before the deadline.
“I will tell you personally, I think it’s unconscionable if Congress leaves and does not solve the problem,” Cole said. “I’m sure Munich is a great place. I’ve been there many times. The beer is outstanding. But we don’t need to go to a defense conference someplace in Europe when we’re not taking care of the defense of the United States of America.”
Cole said he “would be embarrassed to walk past a TSA agent that wasn’t getting paid so I could go someplace else. And that’s my personal opinion.
“That’s not necessarily the opinion of my leadership or anybody else, but we should stay here and get this resolved. We should make sure that men and women that we have already put in a terrible position once for 43 days don’t have to go through it again.”
Missing paychecks for the Coast Guard
Admiral Thomas Allan, vice commandant for the U.S. Coast Guard, told lawmakers “a funding lapse has severe and lasting challenges for our workforce, operational readiness and long-term capabilities.”
“A lapse lasting more than a few days will halt pay for the Coast Guard’s 56,000 active duty, reserve and civilian personnel,” Allan said. “This is not a distant administrative issue. The uncertainty of missing paychecks negatively impacts readiness and creates a significant financial hardship for service members and their families.”
Shutdowns, he said, “cripple morale and directly harm our ability to recruit and retain the talented Americans we need to meet growing demands.”
Ha Nguyen McNeill, acting administrator at the Transportation Security Administration, said during the 43-day government shutdown that ended in November, she heard stories about “officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma and taking on second jobs to make ends meet.”
“Many were subject to late fees from missed bill payments, eviction notices, loss of child care and more. All the while, expected to serve their country and perform at the highest level when in uniform,” McNeill said. “Twelve weeks later, some are just recovering from the financial impact.”
McNeill testified that “TSA’s critical national security mission does not stop during a shutdown; around 95% or 61,000 of TSA’s employees are deemed essential and continue to work to protect the traveling public during a shutdown, while not getting paid.”
Matthew Quinn, deputy director at the United States Secret Service, said agents will continue to report to work though he emphasized a shutdown would still have consequences.
“To the casual observer, there will be no visible difference,” Quinn said. “However, gaps in funding have a profound impact on our agency today and into the future.”
Gregg Phillips, associate administrator in the Office of Response and Recovery at FEMA, said a shutdown “would severely disrupt FEMA’s ability to reimburse states for disaster relief costs and to support our recovery from disasters.”
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