Ranking Member DeLauro Floor Remarks on Republicans’ 2025 Homeland Security Funding Bill

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks on the House Floor in opposition to the 2025 Homeland Security bill:

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the Republican majority’s Homeland Security bill.

First, I wish to thank the subcommittee staff in the majority and minority for their efforts, especially Bob Joachim and Shannon McCully. And thank you to the Ranking Member for yielding time.

This Homeland Security bill fails to secure the border and instead, stokes chaos and disorder – wasting hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars along the way.

The House majority has rejected every serious legislative effort to address and lessen the crisis at the border. They rejected one of the toughest bipartisan border bills in history that had a viable path to passage, pronouncing it dead without any debate.

When the President asked for additional resources to secure the border, my colleagues across the aisle ignored that as well – even after they told us that we had to, quote, “take care of our own border first” before we could provide any funding to Ukraine and our other allies.

Well friends, we provided the necessary funding to our allies, for which I am very grateful, but we failed our responsibilities to give Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement the resources needed to manage the crisis at the border, and to stop our communities from being overwhelmed by a disorderly and outdated immigration system.

Democrats were ready to consider the bipartisan solution that had been reached by Senate negotiators. But at the eleventh hour, it was the other side of the aisle that insisted that it could no longer support securing our border as part of the national security package – they would not even let us debate the bill.

And let me point out what policies the majority rejected and left on the table: one, establishing a Border Emergency Authority to shut down the border when our system gets overwhelmed; two, ending the widespread releases of recent border crossers by establishing and funding non-custodial government supervision for those eligible to remain, and a rapid consequence system for those who are not; three, closing loopholes in our asylum system that are exploited by criminal cartels; four, funding 50,000 detention beds; five, funding additional agents and officers for Customs and Border Protection; and the list goes on.

That bipartisan legislation was supported by the National Border Patrol Council – the Border Patrol agents’ own union; the Chamber of Commerce; and the South Texas Alliance of Cities.

As far as being serious about solving anything at all, the bill before us is simply a façade. In the midst of a crisis situation at our southern border, the majority’s bill cuts Border Security operations by $2.1 billion – a 25 percent cut from fiscal year 2024. Are they serious about border security, and cut $2.1 billion?

The bill wastes taxpayer money on impractical border measures and ineffective barriers. This bill withholds the resources needed to manage the border, to process and vet the increased number of people arriving in the United States, and to support border communities and cities who are receiving migrants across the country.

Why would we not want to help our border communities and our cities, the very places in our districts confronting this crisis?

This is a missed opportunity to support humane pathways and processes for people who require and are legally entitled to refuge in our country, and it is a missed opportunity to reinforce our security, our preparedness, and our response capabilities.

The majority’s bill weakens our national security with inadequate cyber and infrastructure security investments, and by failing to counter extremism.

The bill specifically restrains the government’s ability to counter disinformation campaigns, which are being used by global adversaries and foreign actors seeking to undermine our elections.

And, the majority’s Homeland Security bill has once again included dozens of pointless and cruel policy riders that harm women, divide Americans, divide the Congress, and create chaos.

We all know that final funding bills will require bipartisan negotiations to make sound investments. But the majority’s process is driving Congress toward further chaos, dysfunction, and shutdown threats.

I ask that the majority, please reconsider the path you are on. And when they do, I look forward to improving this bill so that we can manage our border responsibly and invest in programs that make our country more secure.

It is time for the majority to govern. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill. I yield back.

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