Ranking Member Henry Cuellar Statement at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request Hearing

Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's hearing on the fiscal year 2024 budget request for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security:

**As prepared for delivery**

Thank you, Chairman Joyce. I appreciate you holding this hearing this morning, and I'd like to echo you in welcoming our witness Secretary Mayorkas.

Mr. Secretary – thank you for being here with us today. I look forward to a productive discussion with you this morning.

The FY24 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security includes important investments for Federal cybersecurity and maritime security to counter increasingly complex threats facing our country, as well as initiatives to help DHS combat the flow of illicit drugs.

This includes deadly synthetic opioids such as fentanyl being trafficked into the United States, and initiatives to disrupt and dismantle the transnational criminal organizations responsible. FY24 is also an important planning year to ensure the security of the 2024 Presidential Election.

Finally, the FY24 request continues support for the Transportation Security Administration's workforce by maintaining an effort we began last year to align the pay of the TSA workforce with other Federal Government employees.

It is no secret that there will be large bills to pay in FY24, and while I am concerned that the Administration continued its strategy to assume budgetary offsets that have historically not been enacted by Congress, I look forward to working with you on ensuring DHS has the resources it needs to succeed in its vital mission of securing the nation from the many threats we face.

Providing the resources our frontline officers and agents need to do their job has long been a top priority for me. In the past few years, I have helped secure funding increases for:

• DHS personnel, including its officers, agents, intel and data analysts, and processing coordinators;
• Technology to support the frontline at and between our ports of entry;
• Investments in process improvements to gain efficiencies in migrant processing and the flow of legitimate trade and travel;
• Grants to shelter operators to decompress Border Patrol processing centers; and
• Two joint processing centers – facilities with dedicated space for multiple agencies and organizations to operate, co-located, to provide a whole of government approach to processing those we encounter along the southern border. I look forward to hearing more about the Department's request for a third permanent center.

Funding DHS operations should be a bipartisan priority – and an important step toward that is to provide Congress with fact-based, data-driven modeling that supports your request for resources. While this may not change the differing views on various border policies, we need to stop working with a different set of assumptions if we want to have meaningful conversations about what DHS needs are.

This is why the promising work we have been doing with DHS on projecting encounters and building that into resource and policy planning is so important.

I am concerned, though, about the level of funding for border-related operations in the FY24 request.

For example, the proposal includes funding reductions to base operations throughout the request, such as the operations and sustainment of the border technology we currently have deployed – like the aerostats and the surveillance towers.

It is critical that we continue investing in smart, forward-thinking technologies when it comes to securing our borders.

Also, the Administration's proposal for a border contingency fund rests upon the premise that the federal government can immediately contract and execute over a billion dollars to provide the resources they need after a predefined level of encounters has been realized at the border.

The reality is under this new structure the funding would not be available until well into the execution of the fiscal year.

Reactive strategies that leave our workforce without the help and resources they need are wearing on them and their well-being.

We cannot continue to play defense on the one-yard line using these types of tactics.

They need our support to maintain a proactive posture in border security strategies.

These are very difficult topics, but I know we can make progress together. I am eager to hear the Secretary's testimony today and how Congress can help DHS better accomplish its complex mission. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.