Ranking Member Henry Cuellar Statement at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2025 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 2025 budget request for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Madam Chair, it is a pleasure and thank you for holding this hearing this morning. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here with us again – we all know you have a lot going on.

The Department of Homeland Security’s mission is very important to me and the people in my District. It may sound cliché, but like I always tell my friends – I don’t go visit the border, I live there. My family lives there, we work there, go to church there, buy our groceries there – it is our home.

Not only is securing the border very important to me, but so is finding that balance between providing security while also advancing cross-border trade and tourism, which are so important to our area.

Folks may not realize that in 2023, the Port of Laredo was the number 1 port in the nation among more than 450 airports, seaports, and border crossings with $320 billion in total world trade. This included over 2.9 million northbound commercial crossings and over 2.9 million southbound commercial crossings and averaging about 8 thousand commercial crossings each direction every day.

Smart investments to our border communities matter a lot to a district like mine. That’s why I focus a lot of time and effort understanding not only what we need between our ports of entry, but also at our ports of entry.

I was pleased we were able to make some investments in the fiscal year 2024 funding bill for our port of entry operations – such as increasing the CBP Officer workforce by 150 and investing in more technology at our ports. But we need even more CBP Officers, we need to modernize and expand our ports of entry, and we need to ensure that we have the intelligence and targeting capabilities necessary to combat the illegal flow of drugs, like fentanyl, from entering our country.

Likewise, I was happy we were able to include in the fiscal year 2024 funding bill significant increases above the request to support Border Patrol operations, including $125 million for agent overtime; supporting agent hiring to reach 22,000 agents; providing the necessary funds to sustain processing capacity; and providing additional funding to sustain prior year border technology investments and investing in new border technology.

Importantly, we avoided wasteful spending on additional miles of wall. The data has shown that these 14th Century “solutions” have no impact on deterring irregular migration. As I’ve shown before, you can see by looking at maps that overlay the number of migrants apprehended by Border Patrol and where we have wall, that walls do not deter migrants from crossing into the U.S.

Speaking of wall, I’m disappointed to hear about a recent injunction by a Federal Judge in my home state who is wrongly interpreting Congressional intent of funding provided for border barrier systems in fiscal years 2020 and 2021. One need only to compare the difference in language between 2019 and 2020 to understand that Congress was purposeful in choosing to use the broader “system” language, the intent was to fund a system, not just a vertical wall.

As a result of this harmful injunction, we now have several environmental mitigation, road construction, lighting, and border wall technology projects on hold – which could place a burden on Congress to reappropriate funding in the future to cover the costs of these projects if this injunction forces a lapse in funding. These projects are important to our frontline agents and some are anticipated to be required by court settlements.

Beyond investments we make at the border, and perhaps even more importantly, are the investments we make with our regional partners – especially Mexico. The number of migrants has dropped significantly since December, which I believe is due in part to the increased enforcement efforts made by Mexico. I look forward to working with you to see how we can not only sustain, but also expand those enforcement efforts in Mexico and with our other regional partners.

I know you have several other missions to worry about besides the border – from responding to disasters, to protecting our Federal cyber networks, to advancing maritime security and countering increasingly complex threats facing our country, combating forced labor, child trafficking, counterfeit goods, and the flow of illicit drugs. And you have the important responsibility of providing support to ensure the security of the 2024 Presidential Election.

We all have a lot of work to do this year to help the Department of Homeland Security succeed, and if we are able to focus less on our differences and more on where have shared interests, I think we can accomplish a lot.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here and thank you to the 268,000 folks across DHS who have dedicated their careers to serving our country. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you and I yield back.