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Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, every day the Democrats refuse to fund DHS, they choose politics over the safety and security of our Nation.

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, every day the Democrats refuse to fund DHS, they choose politics over the safety and security of our Nation. They continue to be the party of open borders and defund the police. To make it worse, they continue to refuse to meet. I am sitting here. It is like I am watching a divorce with two parents fighting over the kids. The Democrats say they want to meet, but they won't meet.

The White House sent them an offer 14 days ago. There has been no response. There has been no official response. There has been no communication back to the White House. I know that the chairperson of DHS Appropriations has reached out multiple times to her counterpart, but they refuse to sit down. It is the same way with the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. It is the same thing with our majority whip and our majority leader in that they have reached out through their counterparts and have asked to sit down. So someone is lying here, OK? Somebody is lying. I know that our appropriations folks would sit down this afternoon and work this out. I absolutely believe that they could.

That is why, in a moment, I am going to ask that we fund DHS for 2 weeks. That should be the goal. That should be the objective. I will almost guarantee, if calm minds sit in the same room and go through their asks on ICE, we will figure something out, but there are no negotiations if the other side won't sit down here. That is what America needs to know--that the Democrats have refused to respond to the White House. They have refused to negotiate person to person. So we are happy to have this debate right here and right now.

In a second, I am going to offer a clean 2-week CR to fully fund DHS. I am asking that we fund DHS for 2 weeks so as to protect American lives and then come back and talk, and let's work through our differences.

156, H.R. 4553. I further ask that the substitute amendment No. 4353 be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, again, we have asked to fund the DHS for 2 weeks. My colleagues have different ideas on what to do here, but I think that we absolutely owe it to our friends and neighbors back home in that our country is less safe today when we don't have DHS funded and that they ought to cooperate to keep us safe.

I am every bit as concerned about sleeper cells waking up today-- Iranian sleeper cells waking up today--and carrying out attacks on Americans. I am every bit as concerned about that as I am for the safety of our soldiers' lives.

So I appreciate the objector's concerns here, and I look forward to figuring out a way to get the DHS open.

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Mr. MARSHALL. I am not going to leave behind the TSA. I am not going to leave behind the Coast Guard. I am not going to leave behind FEMA. I am not going to leave behind ICE and the Border Patrol.

My colleague mentioned his experience in the State Department, which I have great respect for. He knows that, if one Agency is closed down, it impacts everybody else in the State Department. He also should understand--and I know he does; I know that he understands this--that if you shut down a part of DHS, it impacts everybody else and that there is a domino effect of problems.

There is no one on the Democrat side who could argue that we wouldn't be safer if all of DHS were funded. No one could argue that we wouldn't be much safer as a nation if all of DHS were funded. But, instead, with all due respect, my colleagues across the aisle are turning to politics. They acknowledge the danger that this country is in, but they continue to choose politics over the safety and well-being of our Nation. Carving this up--carving the bill into separate pieces--makes no sense. It is a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that they are putting American lives at risk every single day.

I would ask my colleagues who are pushing this piecemeal approach and who voted against full DHS funding a dozen times--so Democrats have voted against DHS funding at least a dozen times, and they are going to vote against it again several times today. I have got to go back. This is the one place where we probably disagree on the facts. Again, with respect to my colleagues, there is no negotiating happening if you won't sit down with us. There is no negotiating happening if you won't return or at least speak back to the White House and say: This is what we object to. This is what we want.

What do you all want?

I would ask my colleagues across the aisle to commit, as soon as our next vote is over with, to sitting down with our approps team and working this out. But there is no negotiating happening, right, America? There are no negotiations happening. The Democrats will not sit down with us. It is because they like this political argument.

I want to just draw the roadmap here.

Under the previous White House, they let millions of people come across our border, unvetted--violent criminals, known terrorists--and these sleeper cells are now starting to open. Republicans took over. We secured the border. We empowered the Border Patrol, and we empowered ICE. We stopped the flow of illegal aliens and started deporting those criminals. Because of that, America is a safer place today--America is a much safer place today--but now you are trying to unwind everything and defund the police. This is the theme here. Democrats defund the police. They want open borders. Republicans are the party of law and order. We want secure borders. We want ICE to do their job.

The Democrats are now doing everything in their power to obstruct ICE's efforts to deport those threats. They have shut down funding for the entire Agency--an Agency that also has critical Departments for identifying threats and keeping American lives safe, like cyber security. This Agency is a frontline in cyber defense. Most Americans don't understand what the cyber defense Agency is, but it is a frontline in cyber defense. It protects our grids, our hospitals, water systems, and more from relentless threats--from China, Iran, and criminals. I know my colleague who has worked in the State Department knows that those threats aren't just theoretical.

Every day, we are having thousands of cyber attacks, but the Cybersecurity Agency does not operate in a vacuum. They depend upon the CBP and the TSA and FEMA and the Secret Service and the Coast Guard to function. Funding one Agency while starving the rest is like funding Patrick Mahomes. It is like giving him a lifelong salary--the best deal ever--but not giving him a good offensive tackle. We saw how that worked out in the last Super Bowl. You have to fund the whole Agency. Again, the White House sent an offer 2 weeks ago--crickets from the Democrats.

Why don't you respond to what the White House sent you? Why don't you sit down with our approps team?

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, I would just ask my colleague to commit for your appropriations people to sit down face-to-face with our appropriations staff and our members this afternoon.

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