DHS chief to Congress: ‘The clock is ticking’

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson ramped up efforts on Monday to pressure Congress to fund his department by the Friday deadline, stressing that a lack of new funding would harm national security.

“The clock is ticking. As I stand here, there is nothing from Congress to fund us from beyond that point,” Johnson said at a press conference at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Employees from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stood behind Johnson, who explained 75 to 80 percent of his workforce would be forced to work without pay if the department shuts down.

About 30,000 employees would also be furloughed, Johnson said, including staff who work at DHS headquarters who “stay one step ahead” of terrorist groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), threats to aviation security, illegal migration on the southern U.S. border and weather conditions.

{mosads}The headquarters staff would have to be “cut back to a skeleton,” he said.

“Overall, a shutdown of Homeland Security would have serious consequences and amount to a serious disruption in our ability to protect the homeland,” Johnson said. “To those in Congress considering punting or kicking the can a few weeks down the road, I must remind you that the consequences to this department if we remain on a continuing resolution (CR) are also severe.” 

DHS is currently operating on a CR based on outdated spending levels from 2014. Johnson called on Congress to pass a 2015 appropriations bill “free of amendments that attempt to defund our executive actions to fix the immigration system.”

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said at the press conference that a shutdown or another CR would be detrimental to emergency efforts at the state and local levels. 

Fugate said disaster recovery efforts would be threatened, noting that several thousand employees had to be furloughed under the 2013 government shutdown.

There would be consequences, he said, to recoveries from Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina and the Colorado floods. 

“You name it,” he said.

Emergency responders from around the country are also scheduled to travel to training centers this weekend, but can’t go without a DHS budget, Fugate said. He added that the training sessions can’t be rescheduled.

The press conference comes with less than five days remaining before the Friday deadline to fund DHS. While the Senate returns Monday evening, the House doesn’t return to Capitol Hill until Tuesday evening.

The Senate, however, stands at an impasse over the House-passed DHS funding bill that would roll back Obama’s immigration actions. Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked it from even entering debate.

Johnson said Monday that the original House bill, without the immigration riders, is a “good bill” that would allow DHS to fund most of its new initiatives.