[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 32 (Wednesday, February 25, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H1154-H1160]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE FUTURE FORUM
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Allen). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, tonight is the inaugural
Special Order hour of the Future Forum. Today young people across
America are asking themselves how they are going to afford their
education. And if they are even lucky enough to get an education, how
they are going to be able to afford to pay off that education, how they
are going to find a well-paying job that can help them pay off that
education, buy their first home, start a family, and send their own
kids to school. That is the issue that the Future Forum is going to
address. We are going to address this issue, the American Dream of
homeownership, and something very important to millennials, diversity
and equality.
Millennials make up about 75 million people of the American
population. It is the most diverse generation in America's history. We
believe in the Future Forum that we are uniquely suited for this
because we are a part of the future too, and it is time that the party
of the future starts talking to the future. We will be taking time on
the House floor and at events around the country to meet with and
listen to younger Americans about how we in government can better
ensure that younger Americans have the opportunities that will allow
them not only to dream but to achieve. This is a two-way conversation.
We will use technology and a collaborative approach in our
communications and in our outreach.
Our policy priorities are very simple: college access and
affordability, job security and entrepreneurship, and equality and
diversity. Many of the members of the Future Forum were called to
public service because of what happened on September 11. A recent
Center for American Progress survey found that the defining issue for
millennials is September 11.
[[Page H1155]]
As I stand in this well, we are just 3 days from the Department of
Homeland Security being shut down. I have invited members of the Future
Forum to share their own personal story about how they were called to
service and what homeland security means to them and their
constituents.
I would first like to invite down a freshman Member. I yield time to
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan F. Boyle).
Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I would like to
thank the previous speaker for exercising tremendous leadership in
helping to forge this, the Future Forum. I am proud to join him in
being a founding member of this important caucus, one that I hope will
go out and touch the lives of many young people throughout the country.
In having a conversation with the previous speaker about what brought
him to public service and what brought me to public service, I was
relaying my personal story, and that happened to involve September 11.
I was not one of the heroes by any means, just one of the ordinary
Americans working in the private sector straight out of college,
attempting to pay off a ton of student loans, and right here in the
Washington, D.C., area, just a couple miles from the Pentagon, that
bright blue-skied beautiful morning when the world suddenly changed.
Mark Twain had said a long time ago that America's two best friends
in the world are Miss Atlantic and Mr. Pacific. September 11, 2001,
proved that that was no longer the case, that we were not a separate
fortress unto ourselves and completely removed from the problems around
the world. That was, as the previous speaker mentioned, such an
important event in my life and in the lives of so many people in their
thirties and younger.
As a member of this September 11 generation, I decided right then
that I would devote my life to public service. The very next year,
actually, on September 11, 2002, I began my graduate program in public
policy and embarked on a path that about 14 years later has led here to
serving in the Halls of the House of Representatives, attempting to
make a difference, solve problems, and do so on a bipartisan basis.
I know there are many people on the other side of the aisle, good
Republicans, who feel the same way I do; that we can have our
legitimate debates, that we can have our debates on public policy, but
that when it comes, of all things, to the security of the American
people, we need to put the nonsense aside and actually focus on
protecting our people.
So, Mr. Speaker, when we had come down here and planned to speak
about the Future Forum, I had expected that my speech would be about
the student loan debt crisis, something that is deeply affecting our
generation, a generation that is more indebted than any other in our
Nation's history. But, instead, we are here to talk about the fact we
are just 3 days away from seeing the Department of Homeland Security
completely shut down, seeing the furloughing of 35,000 employees of the
Department of Homeland Security.
On the very same day that information was released, three American
citizens attempted to join ISIS, which should be called Daesh, the so-
called Islamic State, who truly are evil and would do whatever they
could to harm any one of the 310 million of us living in this country.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman
from Pennsylvania, you talk about your call to service and after
September 11, and you think back to that day, and I don't know if you
remember, but I remember Members of Congress, Republicans and
Democrats, standing on the stairs of the Capitol, on the steps of the
Capitol and singing ``God Bless America'' and ``America the
Beautiful.'' It was such a moment of collaboration. Every day since
that day, up until now, homeland security and our Nation's security has
always been about collaboration and bipartisanship. I just wonder, to
hear that the Department of Homeland Security could be shutting down,
hearkening back to what you thought about collaboration back then, does
that gel, is that the collaboration that you had in mind and you always
thought of around our Nation's security?
Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. The gentleman asks a great
question. Actually it is the exact opposite of the sort of spirit that
was invoked on September 11. I remember seeing the pictures of--I
believe it was a spontaneous gathering of both Democratic and
Republican Members serving in Congress at that time who came together
on the Capitol steps to sing ``God Bless America.''
I think it is a sad commentary that just a decade and a half later
that we are here at an incredibly dangerous time, mind you, in some
ways actually more dangerous than the days immediately following
September 11, and instead of talking about how we can come together in
an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion, pass this what should be
noncontroversial bill to fund our Department of Homeland Security, the
fact that we are right here caught up in a partisan fight over this is
deeply disappointing and does not at all jibe with the spirit of
September 11, and I think the spirit of a generation that was called to
serve in the wake of those events.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. I yield to the gentleman from California
(Mr. Ted Lieu), someone who has served our country not just in
California's Legislature and not just in the Congress but also in our
armed services, and is currently serving in the Air Force Reserves.
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, let me start off by saying
elections have consequences. I respect the American voter. I respect
what the voters in our Nation did last November when they gave
Republicans control of the United States Senate and control of the U.S.
House of Representatives. My sincere plea and request to my Republican
colleagues across the aisle who control Congress is: Please do not shut
down the Department of Homeland Security.
The Republican leader in the U.S. Senate is now poised to delink the
issue of funding for security for our homeland from immigration reform.
I hope my colleagues across the aisle will do the same. That is because
immigration reform has very little to nothing to do with protecting our
homeland. I would love to have a debate on immigration reform. I think
we need to do that. I would love to vote for bills on immigration
reform. But they are not linked to funding for Homeland Security.
Let me just give you an example. Let's talk about DREAMers who came
as children to our Nation and who can serve in the United States
military. I served in Active Duty in the Air Force, and I am still in
the Reserves. So DREAMers can serve in the U.S. military. To say that
we are going to deport them because they are a homeland security risk
and we are not going to fund Homeland Security because of that is
ridiculous. There is no reason to link those two issues. If you don't
like DREAMers, if you want to deport DREAMers, fine. Let's have a
debate on that. But they are not a homeland security risk. To link
these two issues doesn't make any sense. The Republican leader in the
United States Senate has figured that out. I hope that this House does
it as well.
There are some grave consequences to this. In my State of California
alone, nearly 27,000 employees of Homeland Security will either be
furloughed or will get no pay and cannot come to work.
{time} 1800
These folks are folks that protect our homeland. It is unacceptable
that this is going to happen.
The other way Homeland Security works is they provide grants to local
first responders across the Nation to law enforcement, to firefighters.
On Friday, if Homeland Security shuts down, those grants stop, and
these local responders stop.
This is a very real issue, and we, in Congress, our first priority is
to protect the American public. Shutting down Homeland Security will be
the exact opposite of that. I really hope that the Republicans who
control both Houses do not shut down Homeland Security.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. I also wonder, Mr. Speaker, what the
gentleman from California thinks, as somebody who is serving in the
Reserves right now and serving shoulder to shoulder with some young
DREAMers, what would it do to the morale of
[[Page H1156]]
the ranks if DREAMers who are putting themselves on the front lines,
willing to go serve the country they call their own, the United States,
in battle, if the House GOP had their way and those DREAMers were
removed and deported from our country?
What would that do to the morale of our troops?
Mr. TED LIEU of California. That is a great question. Let me just
explain a little bit what are some of the professions that the DREAMers
do in the military.
Because of their language skills, the U.S. military needs some of
these language skills, so that the U.S. military knows what these
terrorists are doing in other parts of the world.
To have the language skills that DREAMers possess, that is one reason
that we have them serve in the U.S. military. They have a direct effect
on trying to prevent terrorist attacks into our homeland. To say that
``we are not going to fund Homeland Security because we want to deport
you'' is ridiculous.
Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield for another question?
There are a few categories that the DREAMers are able to serve in the
military. You mention their language talent.
As somebody who, himself, is in the military, don't you think we are
missing out on a lot of potential among kids that have already gone
through the DACA program, but we are still not admitting as regular
enlistees or no less given the chance to become officers?
I know a kid in my district, his whole life, he wanted to be in the
military. He didn't even find out that he wasn't American until he was
15. He went through DACA, he did everything right, and they are still
not letting him join the military.
What kind of talent are we missing out on by not letting these DACA
kids enlist in the regular manner?
Mr. TED LIEU of California. That is a fantastic question. Having now
been in the military for 19 years, it is very clear that their main
criteria for military service is: Can you complete the mission?
How good you are at completing the mission has nothing to do with
whether or not you have a piece of paper that says if you are
documented or not. The U.S. military is losing out on a significant
amount of talent, people who otherwise would do great things for our
military to protect our homeland and so on.
Again, it makes very little to no sense to link these two issues,
which really shouldn't be linked; really, that is what this is all
about. Let's just have separate debates on both issues. The U.S. Senate
is about to do that.
I hope the House can do that as well.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. I thank the gentleman from California.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to invite to join our conversation another
freshman Member from Massachusetts, somebody who has also served our
country very honorably in the Marines, Seth Moulton.
Mr. MOULTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Swalwell.
I think our Republican colleagues have a point, which is that we need
to have a debate about immigration. This is an issue facing our
country, it is a serious issue, and in many respects, it has reached
crisis proportions. We need to talk about it, we need to have that
debate, but it cannot be at the expense of our Nation's security.
I just returned from a weeklong trip to the Middle East--to Iraq, to
Afghanistan, to the UAE, to Kuwait, and to Jordan--to try to understand
the situation on the ground and especially the threat that ISIL or
Daesh poses to the United States of America.
I can tell you that that threat is serious and severe. There are
those who think that this will just be a Middle Eastern problem, that
it won't ever come to infect our homeland. I don't share that view. I
think it is a serious threat. ISIL has brutally killed Americans abroad
and made clear their intentions to kill Americans here at home.
That is the kind of protection from threats like that that the
Department of Homeland Security provides. We cannot put our Nation's
security at risk for a debate that is critical, that needs to happen,
but that is separate from keeping Americans safe.
Our most sacred responsibility as Members of Congress is to protect
our homeland. Right now, the partisan brinksmanship around funding the
Department of Homeland Security is putting that safety at risk.
I served my country for four tours in Iraq. I was proud to serve, I
was proud to go every time, but I don't want to see Americans have to
keep going back to that part of the world because we can't provide for
our security here at home.
We have a lot of work to do in this Congress, and a lot of it
requires bipartisan cooperation. Immigration is one of those issues. It
is an issue that we need to debate on the floor of the House.
We need to take up the Senate bill for comprehensive immigration
reform, debate its merits, and decide whether it does enough to ensure
the safety of our borders and the future of those who aspire to be
Americans, but none of that should happen at the expense of our
Nation's security.
The crisis that we are facing today is the result of partisan
politics that places the safety and the lives of the American people at
risk.
Last week I returned from a trip to the Middle East, and I learned
that the threat of a terrorist attack on the United States is real.
Terrorist organizations including ISIL pose a serious national security
threat and have made clear their intentions to commit acts of terrorism
both abroad and here at home.
Our number one responsibility as members of Congress is to prevent
that from happening and keep Americans safe.
Holding hostage the funding for the Department of Homeland Security
over the President's executive action on immigration is a disservice to
the men and women who put their lives on the line everyday both at home
and abroad to protect us all.
There is no doubt that Congress needs to address immigration reform.
It is an issue that is deserving of a debate and I look forward to
participating in that discussion with both Democrats and Republicans.
However, attaching immigration policy to this appropriations
legislation is simply irresponsible and hijacks the intellectual debate
that should take place on this Floor.
If you disagree with the President's actions, then let's have that
debate.
However, with such threats to the security of the American people,
now is not the time to play political games with an agency that is
charged with protecting the homeland from acts of terrorism.
If Congress fails to fund the Department of Homeland Security,
agencies and grant programs critical to the safety of Americans will no
longer be able to carry out the responsibilities that they were created
to uphold, including the TSA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and
the United States Coast Guard. 85% of all enlisted Coast Guard
personnel do not live on base--they cannot afford to miss a rent or
mortgage payment on their homes. Many Americans don't realize this, but
not only are Coast Guardsmen important to the safety of fishermen in my
home state of Massachusetts and to all coastal states, but they are
also deployed globally alongside our military in support of critical
national security missions.
When I was in Iraq, I needed to focus on the mission. For Coast Guard
personnel performing high-risk drug cartel interdictions or patrolling
the Persian Gulf, we needed their 100% focus on the mission at hand. So
last summer when an Iranian boat aimed a 50 caliber machine gun at
American Coast Guardsmen deployed in international waters in the
Persian Gulf, those are the American men and women in harm's way who
would still be required to put their lives on the line despite not
receiving a paycheck so that their families at home can put food on the
table and pay rent.
In my home state of Massachusetts, we recently experienced a series
of historic snow storms that resulted in record-breaking snow
accumulation and caused millions of dollars in damages to homes,
business and roadways. Without the support of funding from FEMA,
Massachusetts will have to bear the brunt of the clean-up and repair
costs in spite of the likelihood that Massachusetts will be eligible
for federal disaster aid relief.
Further, failure to pass an appropriations bill for DHS would
furlough or deny payment to the 4,735 law enforcement officials,
disaster response officials and many other homeland security personnel
in Massachusetts.
Republicans know that the right thing to do is to fund the
department. This is why, earlier today, the Senate passed a clean bill
to fund the department.
This is not a partisan issue. This is an American issue. I implore
the Republicans to have the debate on immigration, and have it soon.
Talk about our differences there, but let's not put our citizens, our
country, and our allies at risk by holding funding for the Department
of Homeland Security hostage.
[[Page H1157]]
I'd like to thank my friend from California again for the opportunity
to speak this evening.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. Actually, I have a question for the
gentleman from Massachusetts. I know you are active on social media, I
follow you, and I see you are very in touch with your constituents,
particularly those on social media.
I am wondering: What are you hearing from young people about the
House GOP's inability to fund the Department of Homeland Security? What
do young people think about the inability to separate an important
immigration issue, as you talked about, and something so critical and
as important as homeland security?
Mr. MOULTON. What I hear from young people is they want the Congress
to get things done for the American people. Our job is to come here and
debate the important issues of the day, but, ultimately, it is to get
things accomplished, it is to pass bills, it is to make laws, it is to
fund important institutions of our government.
What people say is they want us to get it done. They want us to have
that debate on immigration reform, they want us to do that, too, but
they need funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
My generation has grown up under the threat that we came to face on
September 11. Many of my friends were in New York on that perilous day
and watched the planes crash into the World Trade Center towers. It is
a remarkable testament to the success of the Department of Homeland
Security that, over the past decade, we have not had another attack. It
is a remarkable achievement. We should not put that achievement at
risk.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts,
and I invite to join the conversation a leader in our party, someone
who serves on the House Rules Committee and also the House
Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis).
Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for
getting this time for this important message and to just talk with
people. That is really what this body, at its very best, does: we talk
amongst ourselves, we solve problems.
What you are hearing about today, namely, that we are 3 days away
from shutting down our own national security, is an example of this
body not solving a problem--in fact, causing a problem.
You think: Who is causing this? Why is our security going to shut
down in 3 days? Who is doing this? Who is shutting down the Department
of Homeland Security?
The sad answer is that we are doing it to ourselves. There is no
reason for this manufactured crisis.
I want to share my story from 9/11. 9/11 is something that, in our
generation, we all remember where we were. It is like the Kennedy
assassination to our grandparents' generation or like the Moon landing.
Everybody knows exactly where they were and what they were doing when
we heard about the Twin Towers.
I was at a conference near Washington, D.C., here. Like anybody who
was near one of the sites, it was scary because we didn't know what was
going on. The rumor was: all planes are flying into buildings, we are
under attack.
They thought there were bombs at one point. It was a madhouse to try
to escape the area and get out of the city. We drove all the way back
to Colorado, and I never got to see what was happening to the towers in
realtime or the immediate aftermath because, for the next 25 hours, I
was just listening to it on the radio in the car, and my friend and I
took turns driving.
That was a unique moment when people came together. It didn't matter
if you were Democrat or Republican. Our petty differences melted by the
wayside as we came together around a national response.
In many ways, it is sad to see our Nation go back to those same kind
of partisan divisions which, unfortunately, reduce our national
security. When we are talking about the Department of Homeland
Security--which I would point out was set up after 9/11. That was set
up to ensure that something like 9/11 doesn't happen again.
It coordinated agencies in a new way that didn't occur before,
encouraged intelligence sharing among the agencies about domestic
threats, and now, a lot of that work is just 3 days away from being
defunded over a totally different issue, one that we are happy to talk
about, by the way.
I mean, we talk about DREAMers and what a pathway to citizenship
could look like and immigration reform and what the President can do
and can't do, and those are all important discussions, and there are
many diverse opinions in this body about them.
I would hope nobody with any opinion, no matter how extreme, would
hold our national security hostage over this. I am reminded of what one
of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said, disappointed in
his own party over this particular strategy.
He said: ``Unfortunately, we have taken a hostage that we don't want
to shoot.'' I think that is very much the case. Yes, they are taking
our own security of our Nation and the Department of Homeland Security
hostage. Do they actually want to shoot that hostage?
Our friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they are
not bad people. They believe in protecting our country. I hope they
don't go through with it, but they have gotten themselves into this
predicament over rhetoric that threatens to jeopardize our national
security.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. I would ask my colleague, knowing that,
as we speak--and the gentleman from Pennsylvania pointed this out, Mr.
Boyle--three Americans are in custody right now because of their intent
and the steps they took to want to join ISIL. As we speak, our enemies
are plotting against us.
Although my colleagues across the aisle, the House Republican
leadership, wish to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, our
enemies do not intend on shutting down their efforts to attack America.
What do you think, knowing that Colorado is home to a large airport,
Denver International Airport, what is going to happen to the TSA
officers who are charged with detecting these hidden bombs that al
Qaeda has put out there that they would like to put on our airliners,
detecting people who are trying to come back to the United States after
fighting alongside with ISIL, what is this going to mean in places like
Denver and across Colorado?
Mr. POLIS. We had a young lady from our district--you mentioned
people--we had a young lady from our district, 19, from Lafayette,
Colorado, who tried to get over to Turkey and then to Syria to join
ISIS.
Fortunately, for her parents, for her family, frankly, for her own
life, thanks to the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security, it
was interdicted. Her travel plans were detected, and she was detained
at the airport and not allowed to join ISIS.
Thank goodness we had the Department of Homeland Security connecting
those difficult-to-connect dots. I don't even know how they did it to
this day because, obviously, people go to Turkey on tourism all the
time, but they used several points of information to figure out that
this young lady was trying to join ISIS, and, thankfully, they were
able to return her to her family.
That is the kind of thing that, unfortunately, happens every day
across our country. If in 3 days this Congress doesn't take action, we
are tying our own hands behind our back in our fight against terrorism,
which makes absolutely no sense.
Look, you and I, Mr. Swalwell, I am sure, were equally passionate
about our views on immigration. We would love to see DACA expanded, and
I would love to see a pathway to citizenship, but it would never cross
my mind, no matter how I want to see those things, that I would shut
down the security of the country just to get it.
I think most Americans don't think that way. I mean, here we are as
some of the young Members, I think that perhaps some colleagues on the
other side are acting even younger, like preschoolers and
kindergartners here, where they either get all the toys or they are not
letting anybody else play with them.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. We haven't named that generation yet.
Mr. POLIS. We haven't named them yet.
[[Page H1158]]
That is the approach here. If they don't get their exact way, well,
fine, we are not going to keep the Nation safe. I mean, that just
doesn't make sense in any deliberative body, like we all grew up
thinking that Congress was the lofty deliberative body.
That just doesn't make sense, that kind of reasoning.
{time} 1815
Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. Thank you, Mr. Polis.
Mr. Swalwell, I would just take issue. My wife, as you may know, is a
kindergarten teacher and is teaching that generation, and I think she
would take issue with you comparing Members of Congress to the kids she
teaches. I think she would say the kids she teaches are much better
behaved than many of us here in Congress.
But, you know, I do want to just circle back to a point that Mr.
Polis made, Mr. Swalwell made, a number of the speakers here tonight
have made. This is a false choice. We can have the necessary debate on
immigration and immigration reform. There has been a great American
tradition going back to the very beginning of, on the one hand,
praising the immigrants of yesteryear while simultaneously expressing
concern about the immigrants of the present day. That was the case in
the 1840s and in the 1880s and in the 1920s, and so it is today.
That debate will always be a part of who we are as a nation of
immigrants and as a nation of laws. I think that debate needs to
happen, and we need to have that here on the floor of the House, the
same way they did in the Senate where they passed the bill with 70
votes on a bipartisan basis.
So let's get to that debate. Let's not allow this sideshow over
holding up a Homeland Security bill that I think all of us agree here,
all 435 of us agree that we need. These are real, dangerous threats we
face, people who actually thought that al Qaeda was not extreme enough
so they wanted to go, instead, join an even more murderous, more
barbaric group. As the sign that Mr. Swalwell had up was showing, our
enemies are certainly not shutting down their efforts, nor should we.
I do want to ask Mr. Swalwell a question--and I think this is
important whether you are near the Denver Airport or the Philadelphia
Airport or the bay area--and that is: What message do you think it
sends to ordinary citizens who are looking to their Congress to just
get things done and protect them, the people who aren't necessarily
strongly ideological one way or the other, who just want to believe
that their government can work, what kind of message do you think we
are sending to them this week with this sort of behavior?
Mr. SWALWELL of California. It is a message of dysfunction.
And I know Mr. Polis, just like Mr. Moulton, is also very much in
touch with the doers and DREAMers who are defining the innovation
economy, whether it is in the bay area or Colorado or Philadelphia or
Boston and Cambridge. These folks, they see the shortest distance
between two points as a straight line. They don't see it as a partisan
line. They are problem solving by nature, and they can't understand why
politics would get in the way of something so simple as funding the
Department of Homeland Security.
My own personal September 11 story, as Mr. Polis was saying, is: I
was headed to Capitol Hill that morning. I was an intern for
Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher. I remember the gray suit that I was
wearing was the one I wore every day at that time as I was wracking up
my own student debt. As I got to the Capitol, I was turned around
because the building had been evacuated. What I do remember, though, in
addition to the color of the suit I wore and the phone call that I got
from the staff assistant telling me to go home, I remember those
Members of Congress singing ``God Bless America.''
I remember in the weeks and the months and the years afterwards the
bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report. I remember the creation of the
Department of Homeland Security, and I felt so honored when I was
elected to come to Congress to be asked to serve on the Committee on
Homeland Security. I felt so honored in my second term to be asked to
serve on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
I cannot believe that just 14 years later, after all this
bipartisanship and collaboration, while every other issue around us
seems to be mired in gridlock, we have always agreed that we fund the
Department of Homeland Security that was created out of September 11.
Today, to think that we are so close to shutting down that Department,
it really does defy the collaboration that came out of September 11.
I would ask my colleague from Colorado, who is in the Future Forum,
but he is one of the more senior Members of Congress in the Future
Forum--I think he is now serving his fourth term--what do you think
about the collaboration that we have seen around Homeland Security up
until now?
Mr. POLIS. As I like to remind my friend from California, there is
not really a strict age limit, per se, of the Future Forum, but I am
very proud to still be under the 40 number, at least for another half
year.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. We are all in our thirties here.
Mr. POLIS. Good. Good. We are all still in our thirties.
But look, I think that what is happening is that when people of all
ages, but particularly young people look at Congress and they look at
this kind of thing with, ``Well, you, yourselves, are shutting down
security?'' when they look at that, when they look at when the whole
government shut down, again, do we remember why? Not really. I don't
remember why the Republicans shut down government. There wasn't really
a reason. They gave up, and they reopened it. It didn't make sense.
When people see that, they lose faith in this institution; they lose
faith in democracy; they lose faith in themselves. We can't allow that
to happen.
The only way for this body to change, for the quality of government
to change, is for people to be invested in that change, to have that
same sense of solidarity that came after 9/11, not just around
disasters, but every day; when it is election day, to make sure to
vote; when it is time to write and call your Congressperson, if you
have a Congressperson who thinks it is okay to shut down the Department
of Homeland Security, call that Congressperson, show up at their town
hall meeting. Guess what. It is not okay to play games with our
national security.
As my colleague from Pennsylvania pointed out, many kindergartners
are more mature than somebody who either wants to have it their way or
not at all and to send all the toys home. That is really what we face
here in this scenario. I think we have really hit upon one of the
reasons that people of all ages, but particularly younger people, are
losing faith not just in this institution, but as a part of the
democracy it represents and how it really is our role to try and
reinfuse that hope in not just, again, the competency of this
institution, but the institution of representative government and the
vision that our Founding Fathers put in place through the Constitution.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. Thank you, Mr. Polis.
Something we haven't really talked too much about yet, and we have
alluded to the fact that we are charging these transportation safety
officers with detecting these hidden bombs that al Qaeda is determined
to put on our airplanes, we are charging the Border Patrol agents to
protect our border and make sure that is secure, but if this shutdown
happens, they still have to do that job. The threats continue to
elevate and escalate, but those employees will not get paid.
I wonder what my colleague from Massachusetts, Mr. Moulton, someone
who flies home, logs a lot of miles going back and forth between
Washington and his district, flying into Logan, you look those
transportation safety officers in the eye every week when you are
coming to Washington and getting off the plane in Boston, what is the
morale going to be among our TSA workforce, among our Border Patrol
workforce if they still have to do the job as the threats escalate but
we are not going to pay them?
Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Swalwell.
There is no question that their morale and their mission
effectiveness will be hurt. In fact, it will hurt my own morale because
I am very proud to serve in the United States Congress, but I am not
going to be proud to walk through that security gate and have to
[[Page H1159]]
look them in the eye when they recognize that I am partly responsible,
as a Member of this body, for not giving them the basic pay that they
need for their families.
You know, another element of the Department of Homeland Security is
the U.S. Coast Guard, and many of us know that the U.S. Coast Guard
protects our shores. I represent the fishing community of Gloucester
north of Boston, and Gloucester has gone through some hard times and
has often had to rely on the Coast Guard to save its fishermen in the
worst storms. Those Coast Guardsmen not only protect fishermen in
Gloucester. They also work with our military and Department of Defense
overseas. There are Coast Guardsmen and -women stationed in the Middle
East today.
Can you imagine having to do such a difficult mission, to be in the
Persian Gulf defending American ships against the threat of an Iranian
attack and yet not knowing whether your rent will be paid back at home?
That is an unacceptable risk for us to take, and it is an unacceptable
burden for us to ask them to bear. You are absolutely right, sir, this
is going to severely impact their morale. When morale is impacted, it
hurts their ability to do this incredibly important job.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. While the workers are going to still have
to do the job and not get paid, much of the Department will shut down,
and an important part that will shut down will be Department of
Homeland Security grants.
I have had the opportunity in just the last few weeks to go and visit
about a half dozen firehouses. I call them firehouse chats. I just pop
in and meet with the brave men and women who are serving as
firefighters in our community. If this shutdown happens, for example,
we will see all of the assistance to firefighters' grants stopped. So
the men and women who are responding to car accidents, building fires,
God forbid, if a terrorist attack occurred, the people who are going to
run into the burning buildings, who rely upon these grants to hire
firefighters, to give them the equipment they need, that is all going
to be stopped.
So I am wondering if you have heard in your district or if you have
talked to your law enforcement and public safety officials about the
grants they depend upon and what it would mean if that funding just
went cold.
Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. It would be, in a word,
devastating.
I am proud of the fact that a part of the district I represent is the
city of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Fire Department, one of the largest
and oldest in our Nation, also a number of volunteer fire departments
in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. There are so many of them around
the country. To put them in this position is just deeply unfair.
I am also thinking, as I am looking to my friend to the right, fellow
freshman, Mr. Moulton, he happens to be from Massachusetts. They right
now are devastated with mountains of snow that fortunately most of us
in the rest of the country, while we have had snow, not nearly the way
they have had it in New England. It is important to note that a number
of those who work in FEMA are the officials who receive those grant
applications, those emergency applications that so many in
Massachusetts and Vermont and other parts of New England and other
parts of the country are applying for right now because they have been
so overstretched, given this incredible winter that we have had and
record breaking in terms of snow. So they can keep on doing the
applications and applying for assistance. The only problem is, come
Saturday, we shut down the Department of Homeland Security, there will
be no one on the other end to receive them.
I want to make one final point, and I think that this really strikes
at the heart of why we are here and why the Future Forum was created.
This is my first year in the House. I might end up serving one term,
might end up serving 10, who knows? For anyone who serves here, they
all talk about the fact that it goes by extremely quickly. We, right
now, are Members of a body with an approval rating of approximately 9
percent. I don't want to dedicate my life to public service in an area
that is so poorly regarded by the American people. That is not
something I want to do. I don't think that is something that other
Members on the other side want to do.
It is important to our American democracy that whatever your ideology
may be, whatever political positions you may have, we have to show the
American people that their institutions of government can work. The
American people, the overwhelming majority of Democrats and
Republicans, have lost confidence in us, in all of us. I don't think
this kind of a political fight, frankly, benefits either side. I think
it is only a race to who loses less. We can end this now. Let's do the
responsible thing, the mature thing, the right thing. Fund Homeland
Security, and then get on to the important debates that we must be
having.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. That is right, Mr. Boyle. Mr. Moulton
talked about this. We are taking an issue--immigration--that there are
two sharply different sides on in this House, and that is fine. That
debate needs to happen. Most people on our side, almost everyone on our
side wants a pathway to citizenship. But that debate must happen.
Because of that debate, what we are seeing is the one issue that we
have always agreed on since the Department of Homeland Security was
created is now as divisive as the immigration issue, meaning that the
Republicans would like to politicize an issue that has always had
bipartisan support and make that just as divisive as they have made the
immigration issue. I think that is, frankly, unfortunate.
Mr. Moulton, I would invite you to close here on just your overall
perspective on why we should or should not tie immigration to
Department of Homeland Security funding.
Mr. MOULTON. Thank you, Mr. Swalwell.
You are absolutely right, because immigration is a debate that we
need to have. It is a national security debate in and of itself. We
cannot hold the Department of Homeland Security hostage to that debate.
It needs to occur. We ought to have that debate. We ought to have it
here on the floor of the House. But our most sacred responsibility and
the present threat here is to make sure that our people are safe.
{time} 1830
I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, my friend and
colleague, Mr. Boyle, for bringing up the issue of FEMA grants. We have
been faced with unprecedented snowfall in Massachusetts, and it has put
our first responders to the test. They are providing for the security
of the people of Massachusetts right now, and we are all banding
together to make sure that we get the FEMA grants that we need and
deserve. In fact, it is a great example of a crisis that is bringing
Republicans and Democrats together. The Democratic delegation of
Massachusetts is working hand in hand with our Republican Governor to
make sure that we get these applications in so that we can get this
funding that we desperately need. Yet that is all going to grind to a
halt if the Department of Homeland Security is not funded.
Right here, today, we can see the effects that failing to fund the
Department, shutting it down, will have. Even worse would be if we had
to see the effects of another attack on our homeland. Having been to
the Middle East in the past week, having seen the unprecedented
challenges that our first responders face at home, we cannot afford to
put our Nation's security at risk. All of the young people out there--
those who are our age in the Future Forum--want a government that
works. They want a government they can believe in, and they want a
government that will make them safe.
Let's pass a clean funding bill. Let's fund the Department of
Homeland Security. And let's show the American people that our Congress
can do its job.
Mr. SWALWELL of California. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts.
I thank my colleagues from California, Colorado, and from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Speaker, I will close by saying, as Mr. Moulton alluded to, our
principal responsibility can be found in, literally, the first sentence
of the Constitution, which is: We the people of the United States, in
order to form a more perfect Union . . . to provide for
[[Page H1160]]
the common defense of the United States.
There is no agency that has a harder job or a job that is more
important in protecting our homeland than the Department of Homeland
Security. We should be here today, on our first evening of the Future
Forum, talking about the rising amount of student debt that millennials
carry. We should be here today talking about how hard it is to get a
job if you are a young person and if you have just finished college. We
should be here today talking about how hard it is to buy a home if you
are carrying all of this student debt. We should be talking about the
need for diversity and about having a pathway to citizenship for
immigration.
Instead, bizarrely, we are here talking about the real possibility
that the Department of Homeland Security, created out of a bipartisan
coalition in the early 2000s, could shut down and leave us more
vulnerable.
I hope that our better angels will guide us. I hope that the spirit
that those House Members had when they stood on the steps of the
Capitol after September 11 prevails, that we work more collaboratively,
and that we remember, at the end of the day, we are charged with
protecting the people.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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