Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) released the following statement on the Senate vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This vote comes after Republicans voted to block 11 funding bills offered by Senate Democrats to pay Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers. Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked the passage of Schiff’s and Padilla’s bill to renew funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and reopen the agency.
“Early this morning, the Senate passed legislation funding TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, cybersecurity, security at the border, and other critical components within the Department of Homeland Security. As Republicans refused to reform ICE, the bill provides it no funding.
“The House must now take this up without delay. For six weeks, we have seen growing chaos at our airports, as Republicans refused to fund TSA unless they could force more money on an out-of-control ICE and CBP. We urged them to take the deal they accepted last night and for weeks they refused. As a result of their inability to govern, TSA workers went unpaid and the public suffered.
“For weeks, Democrats made it clear that we would not support funding for ICE without significant reforms, given the chaos in our streets. We kept that promise.
“Democrats also put up 11 different bills to fund TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard and other parts of DHS to stop the chaos of another Trump shutdown. Had they accepted the deal we offered weeks ago — instead of this morning — all of this could have been avoided.
“While we continue to push for much-needed guardrails on Trump’s immigration agenda, we are finally funding the critical agencies that Republicans have held hostage while dragging their feet on our push for a simple commonsense reform: holding federal immigration agents to the same standard as other law enforcement agencies.
“This fight is not over and we will keep pushing for these reforms. But as soon as the House acts, we can finally end snarled airport security lines, and get TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard and other critical federal workers their overdue paychecks.”
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