DHS Shutdown

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, well this week in Congress it is deja vu all over again.

Last week, instead of bringing up a clean, long-term funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, the House again kicked the can down the road. We know that we need to keep open and keep funding the operations of the Department, and we certainly can't make this yet another manufactured political crisis this week.

We know, and everybody in this Hall knows, that there is support in the House, bipartisan support, for a clean Homeland Security bill. I don't know precisely what the numbers are, but more and more we hear from our friends on the Republican side that they would like to see a vote to fully fund DHS for the remainder of the year, and then take up in regular order the process of determining what immigration policy ought to look like in this country.

We have big problems in this Nation. We have big challenges across the globe. We need to focus our attention on getting an economy that works for everyone and not continue to fight battles over manufactured political crises intended to pander to the smallest minds in this body. That is not the way the American people want us to work. We need to get back to the business of the American people.

Source