Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the bill. Let us face facts. The bill we are considering today has no chance of becoming law. It has already failed once. It will fail again.
Republican leadership is aware of this, but they still have chosen to waste our time on political theater, while President Trump's aimless, endless, and costly war with Iran puts American lives in danger.
Whether it is from crises abroad or masked agents at home, President Trump and Republicans are putting Americans at risk. Democrats are fighting to keep our communities safe, both from foreign adversaries and out-of-control Federal agents.
If the Republicans are actually serious about the threat that President Trump's war with Iran has caused, then they should move quickly to bring up my bill, which they rejected, which would fund FEMA, TSA, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, the Science and Technology Directorate, the Office of Inspector General, Federal Protective Services, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, while setting funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection aside as negotiations on those issues continues.
There is broad agreement on funding for these agencies. There is no controversy over funding disaster relief, aviation security, or making sure the men and women of the Coast Guard and the Secret Service are paid. What there is a significant controversy over, however, is how ICE and Customs and Border Protection have beaten, detained, harassed, and even killed law-abiding U.S. citizens with zero accountability.
I ask my colleagues across the aisle: Why not allow funding for the parts of Homeland Security over which we have no disagreements to pass? Allow the Disaster Relief Fund to be replenished. Allow TSA and Secret Service agents to be paid. Allow the Coast Guard to support its servicemembers and ensure our cybersecurity measures are in place while we continue to negotiate the reforms to ICE and Customs and Border Protection that the vast majority of Americans want to see enacted.
Republicans have called these reforms radical and unreasonable. I ask which reforms specifically they feel are out of line. Let me tell you where there is a broad support for these. Do they oppose prohibiting the detention or the deportation of U.S. citizens? Are they opposed to that? Are they opposed to requiring agents to get a warrant from a judge before kicking in someone's door? Are they opposed to removing masks, requiring badges and identification on uniforms? Are they opposed to prohibiting operations at sensitive locations, like schools, medical facilities, and houses of worship? Are they opposed to allowing independent investigations into wrongdoing? Are they opposed to ending racial profiling and ending roving patrols?
Those are the discussions that are underway. Let us continue to do that.
Are they really willing to block funding for the rest of the Department of Homeland Security because they believe so strongly that these armed Federal agents marauding our streets, armed and terrorizing our communities, should be allowed to hide their faces as they patrol our streets? Do they believe that that is the case?
Mr. Speaker, these reforms are fundamental. They are the same standards that law enforcement all across this country abide by. They protect our communities. They protect law enforcement. They protect our basic constitutional rights.
I encourage my Republican colleagues not to let their opposition to these necessary and overwhelmingly popular reforms stand in the way of funding the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, especially now as President Trump's war with Iran has put Americans at risk.
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Ms. DeLAURO. McCollum), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Defense.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman, about who is playing politics, his words are really disingenuous.
Fund my bill. Let's pay these Federal employees. Let's pay them all. That is what they deserve. They are working hard.
If you want to protect the American citizens, protect them from ICE, fund the alternative and pay people who are working hard.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, the Republican bill today has no chance. I have said this before, and I will say it again: It has no chance of becoming law. It failed before, and it will fail again.
On the other hand, my bill to re-fund FEMA, TSA, cybersecurity, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and other law-abiding components of the Department of Homeland Security while negotiations continue on ICE and CBP is the most viable path forward. It is the best way to respond to those hardworking Federal employees in those agencies.
If Republicans are serious about funding the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security as President Trump's open-ended war with Iran puts Americans at risk, then they must bring it up for a vote immediately.
For this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules had permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to the bill. My amendment would have replaced the text of the doomed Republican proposal with the text of my bill to fund the parts of the Department of Homeland Security over which there is no disagreement.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close as well, and I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot today about the Federal workers who are impacted by this lapse in funding. I have to say I am surprised to hear so many of my Republican colleagues suddenly express such ardent concern for the fate of Federal workers.
Where was this concern when President Trump and Elon Musk decimated the Federal workforce last year?
Where was the concern when they drove away close to 1,000 Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency employees? That is one- third of the staff out of our Nation's leading cybersecurity agency.
Where was the outrage when President Trump proposed slashing funding for that same agency by $500 million? That was part of the President's budget, and there was not a peep from my Republican colleagues.
Where were they when the Trump administration appointed a 22-year-old intern to head a key Department of Homeland Security's counterterrorism office?
I have no patience for the crocodile tears being shed by anyone who sat by as President Trump and Kristi Noem tried to eliminate FEMA entirely, people who said not a word when the White House hollowed out whole agencies without the consent of the Congress. They were silent when all of these things happened. Now, all of a sudden, they are ardent defenders of cybersecurity and others. It is nothing more, as I said, than political theater.
This kind of selective sympathy often betrays a partisan agenda. If Republicans were serious, then this week we could have funded every agency under the Department of Homeland Security except for ICE and for CBP. I will not vote for another dime for these agencies until we get the reforms that the American people want in stopping these agencies from terrorizing our communities.
By the way, we could have funded every agency under DHS except for ICE and CBP. By the way, my colleagues are sitting on $140 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Let's dip into those dollars and pay for these Federal employees.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues: Vote ``no'' on what is a cynical attempt to extract more funding for lawless agencies because of a crisis that the President has created without an imminent threat.
I call on the Republican leadership to stop blocking my bill to fund the parts of the Department of Homeland Security upon which we all agree, and let's continue negotiating on the parts that we do not agree on.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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