Housing for the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor this morning having just listened to the minority leader talk about the Department of Homeland Security, which the Democrats once again refused to fund.

How can the minority leader from New York have forgotten about why we have a Department of Homeland Security in the first place? It was set up after 9/11, after the Twin Towers were hit, so that it could never happen again. Yet to sit here and listen to him talk about this component of it or that component--this was a program fundamentally set in place to protect our Nation and our citizens from the terror that was rained upon us on 9/11. That is why the entire Department was brought together and funded. Now we hear the minority leader--well, he wants to peel off this part and that part and take the Department apart as we are trying to protect the country.

He said something about what the American people are wondering. What the American people are wondering today is why the Democrat Party continues to stand up for illegal immigrant criminals against law- abiding citizens. That is what I hear about in Wyoming: Why in the world are Democrats wanting to stand up for illegal immigrant criminals and not hard-working American citizens?

So for the last 27 days, the Democrats have shut down the entire Department of Homeland Security lock, stock, and barrel. TSA agents are missing their paychecks. Our Nation's infrastructure is more vulnerable to cyber attacks. There have been two attacks by terrorist sympathizers in the last 2 weeks.

The minority leader--you listen to his comments--is completely out of touch with the American people and what people are worried about all across this country. And there they go again. Here we have it.

Less than 5 months ago, Democrats shut down the entire government. The government stayed shut for 43 days. Now we have gotten most of the government funded, but they continue to shut down the Department of Homeland Security for one reason and one reason only: because they want to protect illegal immigrant criminals. When you listen to what he is saying, when you listen to the comments by the minority leader, he wants to stand side by side with illegal immigrant criminals, not with the American people. Democrats want to defund law enforcement. They want to abolish ICE. They want to turn our Nation into a sanctuary nation.

Yesterday, once again, Democrats blocked Republican efforts to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. Now, the White House and Senate Republicans have made offer after offer. We negotiated in good faith. Democrats in the Senate have not.

What we are doing here is critical. It is critical to the safety and the security of our Nation. This is what we are doing: We are trying to fund America's Department of Homeland Security. When this was set up after the 9/11 attacks and the terrorism, what did they want to include in that? TSA, the Coast Guard, Secret Service, America's cyber defenses. It is the Department that stops smugglers, drug traffickers, human traffickers.

The Department of Homeland Security was created to protect us as a nation, and since 9/11 of 2001, this Department has been on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism and securing the border. That is the part the Democrats hate. They want an open border. They want people to come in indiscriminately from all around the world. And Joe Biden and the Democrats allowed it, with over 10 million illegal immigrants coming into this country in the 4 years of the Biden administration.

The people that work for the Department of Homeland Security--they are the silent heroes of the Nation. They are the ones engaged in the battle to keep our communities safe and secure. They shouldn't be forced to miss their paychecks because Democrats continue to choose to play politics. Right now, 50,000 TSA agents all around the country are missing their paychecks. For the third time in 6 months, Democrats have forced the TSA agents to work without getting paid.

A veteran TSA officer in Phoenix, AZ, was very clear. He said:

We are fed up. We've had enough.

I believe he is right. All Americans are fed up and have had enough of this political posturing and gameplaying by the Democrats.

A CBS News report this week explains what is happening. Absences by TSA agents have doubled--doubled since February 14 when the Democrat- caused shutdown began. More than 300 TSA agents have left the job entirely, and lines at airports continue to grow. In some airports, the lines stretch out of the terminal and into the parking lot. Spring break travel is picking up all around the country. Families are paying the price. That is the price of Democrats' political obstruction.

It is the same and concerning story with regard to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. This is the Agency put in place after 9/11, under the Department of Homeland Security--the entire Department--that protects our Nation's critical infrastructure, and that includes our energy infrastructure.

Since the Democrat shutdown began last month, only one in three staffers at the Agency is working. Why? Because the others have been furloughed because of the Democrat-caused shutdown. And those who are still on the job are working without pay.

America is continually under attack in the cyber world--24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is energy, banking, financial institutions, water, utilities, and our military. After the strikes in Iran, the pace of cyber attacks against us accelerated. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps made their intentions clear. They said Americans ``will no longer have security anywhere in the world, even in their own homes.''

Imagine the damage that Iran could do if they hacked our critical infrastructure--because they are trying. But because of the Democrats' shutdown--and we just heard the minority leader talk about it. The shutdown is continuing, he is saying. Because of that, vulnerability scans are on pause. That shouldn't happen. We need to get these open and running. Protective guidance for our critical networks is not being issued. We need that.

Democrats don't seem to care because they want to protect illegal immigrant criminals, and we just heard it from the minority leader of the U.S. Senate, the Senator from New York, who ought to be more concerned than anybody about threats to our Nation. Our energy grids, our hospitals, our State and local governments--they are all more exposed.

It is not a question of if the Democrat shutdown is hurting the American people; it is a matter of public record. Democrats are each and every day endangering Americans on the ground, in the skies, and even in cyber space.

The American people expect their government to take our Nation's security seriously. Democrats don't seem to be thinking that way at all. The American people expect Congress to fund the Agencies that keep them safe, not that keep safe illegal immigrant criminals. And that is what we heard from the minority leader--what we could do differently to protect illegal immigrant criminals, not protect the American people.

The American people expect us to pay the people who protect us, who protect our airports, who protect our borders, who protect our networks, who protect our communities. That is what the American people want. They expect us to confront the threats at home and abroad and do it with urgency.

Mr. President, the Department of Homeland Security must be funded fully and immediately, and I am tired of excuses from the Democrats because that is all they are--excuses.
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Mr. BARRASSO. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

The result was announced--yeas 89, nays 10, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 53 Leg.] YEAS--89 Alsobrooks Baldwin Banks Barrasso Bennet Blumenthal Blunt Rochester Booker Boozman Britt Cantwell Capito Cassidy Collins Coons Cornyn Cortez Masto Cotton Cramer Crapo Curtis Daines Duckworth Durbin Ernst Fetterman Fischer Gallego Gillibrand Graham Grassley Hagerty Hassan Hawley Heinrich Hickenlooper Hirono Hoeven Husted Hyde-Smith Justice Kaine Kelly Kennedy Kim King Klobuchar Lankford Lujan Lummis Markey Marshall McConnell McCormick Merkley Moody Moran Moreno Mullin Murkowski Murphy Murray Ossoff Padilla Peters Reed Ricketts Risch Rosen Rounds Sanders Schiff Schmitt Schumer Scott (SC) Shaheen Sheehy Slotkin Smith Sullivan Thune Van Hollen Warner Warnock Warren Welch Whitehouse Wicker Wyden NAYS--10 Budd Cruz Johnson Lee Paul Schatz Scott (FL) Tillis Tuberville Young NOT VOTING--1 Blackburn

The bill (H.R. 6644), as amended, was passed.

(Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina assumed the chair.)

(Mr. HAGERTY assumed the chair.)

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