Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Tuesday said that without a full appropriations bill for his department this year key border security initiatives will remain stalled.
“As long as this department is funded by a continuing resolution, there are a whole series of activities vital to homeland security and public safety that cannot be undertaken, Johnson said in a statement. “The public must be aware of the real impacts to homeland security as long as DHS is funded by a continuing resolution, or, still worse, if Congress were to permit our funding to lapse altogether and the Department of Homeland Security goes into government shutdown.”
The rest of the federal government is funded in FY ’15 through full appropriations bills but congressional Republicans are funding DHS through a continuing resolution in an attempt to get President Barack Obama to back off of a number of executive actions he instituted last November related to immigration. The resolution expires Feb. 27.
The White House has said Obama will veto any DHS appropriations bill seeking to block his actions on immigration.
Johnson said that as long as the continuing resolution is in effect, “our ability to strengthen border security, to include maintaining resources we put in place to respond to the surge in illegal immigration into south Texas last summer, is constrained.” The department surged resources to the southern border to cope with an unexpected rise in children, mostly from Central America, flocking to the border.
Without a full appropriations bill, Johnson said that investments are at risk in technology such as upgrades to fixed and mobile surveillance systems, in satellite data to improve situational awareness of illegal border crossings, enhancements to X-ray and other systems to scan vehicles and cargo entering the country, upgrades to the risk analysis system that targets high risk shipments arriving from foreign ports, and homeland security investigations of transnational criminal organizations.
After the House in January approved a funding bill for DHS that defunds Obama’s executive actions on immigration, Senate Republicans tried and failed three times to bring the bill up for consideration in their chamber. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said the bill won’t move forward in the Senate, leaving the House to consider the next step, according to a Reuters report.
Johnson’s statement on impacts to border security if a full appropriations bill isn’t approved follow comments he made last week that grants to state and local governments for counter-terrorism and hazard response are also at risk.