GOP Ready To Shut Down Homeland Security

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In a hostage-taking move, the Republican led House of Representatives voted to fund and keep Homeland Security open through September 30th of this year — on the condition that President Obama throw out his executive action to protect immigrants.  If the president does not comply with Republican demands, they are prepared to risk America’s safety by closing the agency responsible for protecting the U.S. from foreign and domestic threats.  The move is particularly puzzling, since Citizenship and Immigration Services is the department responsible for carrying out Mr. Obama’s executive orders and not Homeland Security.

Of Homeland Security’s approximately 230,000 employees, roughly 30,000 DHS workers could be affected and would go unpaid, including 80% of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers who are currently supporting U.S. communities struggling with an onslaught of winter snowstorms.  According to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, if Congress fails to agree to a new budget for his department by the end of Friday, the U.S. will be deeply disadvantaged to protect against extremist groups such as ISIS.

“If we are going to shut down, we are greatly compromised,” Johnson said during a briefing at the National Governors Association. “This is not the time to be shutting down the Department of Homeland Security by failure to act,” Johnson added, citing new challenges from global terrorism, cybersecurity threats, the potential spike in illegal migration on the Southwest border and a recent terror threat against the Mall of America in Minneapolis by the Africa-based al-Shabab terror group.

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However, Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina disagreed, saying he believes letting the agency run out of funding was “probably” worth it to defend the Constitution (a veiled attempt to suggest Mr. Obama’s executive actions were unconstitutional).

Although Johnson agreed Congress should debate the topic of immigration, he made it clear lawmakers should not play politics with America’s security by allowing a dispute with President Obama to strangely affect a complete shut down of a department as essential as Homeland Security.