DHS Shutdown Will Cost California Millions

Washington, D.C. – House leadership’s failure to gain a majority of votes for a three week extension means that the short-term funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which passed in December will expire tonight at midnight. Approximately, 30,000 DHS employees are now on the verge of being furloughed while another 169,000 will be required to work without pay.

“The Department of Homeland Security is too important to be a chip in a political game. This shutdown was manufactured in December so that Republicans could use DHS funding as a hostage in order to block the President’s executive action on immigration. This strategy attacks the millions of immigrant families who are finally able to come out of the shadows and live in dignity. And now that this artificial deadline has arrived, they lack any plan to keep our nation’s top security agency functioning. All this just to placate an extreme anti-immigrant wing of the Republican party. This is completely unacceptable. DHS needs the certainty of year-long funding. Congress does not fund agencies weeks at a time. That kind of short sighted strategy makes any long-term planning almost impossible.

“In addition to the millions in grants that California stands to lose, it is our dedicated DHS employees who are being asked to – literally – pay the cost for the Republicans’ anti-immigrant obstructionism. Until this shutdown is over, these public servants will be asked to work without compensation which hurts morale and imposes serious financial burdens on those who depend on their regular paychecks.

“The Senate overwhelmingly passed a clean bill. Every House Democrat supports a clean bill. The President wants a clean bill. It is time to end these games and fund the Department of Homeland Security for a full year.”

Failure to fund DHS will have a severe impact on border patrol, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service. A DHS shutdown will also halt state and local grants that are used for emergency management and security. Last year, California received more than $87 million in Emergency Management Performance Grants and State Homeland Security Grants alone.

The three week extension failed by a vote of 203-224.