[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 24 (Thursday, February 12, 2015)]
[House]
[Page H989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                FUND DHS

  (Mr. ISRAEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I want to start by reading a quote from 
today's Politico:

       A faction of House and Senate conservatives is pushing 
     Republican leaders to take the battle over the Homeland 
     Security Department to the brink, arguing the party would win 
     the public relations war with Democrats if a standoff over 
     immigration led to a shutdown of the agency.

  A public relations war. This is about the war on terror. In 16 days, 
the people who protect us from that war will lose their jobs or have to 
work without pay. We are 16 days away from a shutdown of the Department 
of Homeland Security and instead of planning how to protect us from our 
enemies, DHS is preparing contingency budgets in case this Republican 
Congress decides to shut them down.
  To protect themselves from their political base in a fight on 
immigration, Republicans are willing to disrupt the protection of the 
American people in our communities, at our airports, our ports, and our 
borders.
  Mr. Speaker, the bad guys have to be watching this and saying: Are 
you serious?
  We should be serious about our homeland security and our economic 
security.

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