Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at the Full Committee Markup of the 2025 Homeland Security Funding Bill

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Committee's markup of the fiscal year 2025 Homeland Security bill:

Thank you, Chairman Amodei, Ranking Member Underwood, and Chairman Cole for holding this markup today. We have two new faces leading the Homeland subcommittee, and I thank you both, Chairman Amodei and Ranking Member Underwood, for your work on this bill. I also thank the subcommittee staff in the majority and minority for their efforts, especially Bob Joachim and Shannon McCully.

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 end 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 on arrival” without any debate, and when the President asked for additional resources to secure the border – my colleagues across the aisle ignored that too – even after they told us that we had to “take care of our own border first” before we could provide any funding to Ukraine and our other allies.

Well friends – we provided that 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and other law enforcement the resources needed to stop our communities from being overwhelmed by a disorderly and outdated immigration system.

Democrats were ready to take-up and 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 it could no longer support securing our border as part of the national security package – they would not even let us debate the bill. Think about that.

And let me point out what policies were in that bipartisan solution that the other side of the aisle rejected and left on the table: establishing a Border Emergency Authority to shut down the border when our system gets overwhelmed – which the President is attempting to do on his own now; 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 – and providing the resources needed to accomplish this; closing loopholes in our asylum system that are exploited by criminal cartels; funding 50,000 detention beds – look at what the majority’s bill today does – it funds 50,000 beds; funding additional agents and officers for Customs and Border Protection – which again, this bill today does; and the list goes on.

Why did the majority refuse to consider a bill with these provisions just a few months ago, only to include them in this bill today?

And let me remind everyone, 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. The majority’s alternative, H.R. 2, is unserious and inhumane and has no path to becoming law.

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 Patrol operations by $2.1 billion – a 25 percent cut from fiscal year 2024.

The bill once again wastes taxpayer money on impractical border measures and ineffective barriers, rather than focusing resources where we need them most. 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 cities? Why would we withhold resources from the very places 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 inhibits the government’s ability to counter disinformation campaigns, which are increasingly being used by global adversaries and foreign actors seeking to undermine our elections.

And, like the other appropriations bills we have considered thus far, 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 the final version of this bill will require bipartisan negotiations to make sound investments. But once again, the majority’s process is driving Congress towards further chaos, dysfunction, and shutdown threats.

This bill’s anemic and misplaced investments are standing on a house of cards, built upon drastic cuts to the funding bills that keep teachers in classrooms, keep rooftops over families, keep our nation secure, and ensure a fairer economy for working class Americans.

We should not consider this Homeland bill until the majority abandons their harmful and partisan process and provides all 12 bills with funding levels that can gain the agreement of Democrats and Republicans in the House, be accepted by the Senate, and become law.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act provides for, and Democrats will accept nothing less than, a one percent increase for all domestic and nondefense programs. Increasing funding for the Homeland Security bill – just to waste it by not securing the border – does nothing to help Americans with what they care about most.

Last month, we received a letter from dozens of stakeholder organizations already frustrated by the House majority’s stance. It reads:

“We ask that you take the opportunity in fiscal year 25 to restore some normalcy by rejecting these extreme and polarizing provisions and cuts, which are as damaging as they are unrealistic.”

Again, I ask that the majority reconsider the path it is 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 yield back.

###