Carson Signs letter in Support of Funding DHS

The Honorable John Boehner
Speaker
H-232, The Capitol
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

With appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set to expire at the end of this month, we write to strongly urge you to bring a clean bill to the House floor that fully funds DHS for the remainder of the current fiscal year, like H.R. 861 introduced by Congresswoman Roybal-Allard and Congresswoman Lowey.

It is clear that the House-passed DHS funding bill will not be approved by the Senate or be signed into law by President Obama. Earlier this week, Senate Republicans attempted to move forward on the House-passed bill and, as expected, failed to produce the votes necessary to invoke cloture. Furthermore, the President has repeatedly stated that he will veto any funding bill that rolls back the Administration·s executive actions on immigration.

Given the dire threats America faces both at home and abroad, now is not the time to be playing political games with our national security. The House should move forward immediately with a vote on a clean funding bill that would provide certainty and stability to the frontline DHS personnel who protect our nation.

The Republican Majority has had ample time and numerous opportunities to bring legislation to the floor to reform our broken immigration system. Instead of working constructively to address this critical challenge, House Republicans are holding hostage funding for the very Department that guards our borders and enforces our nation·s immigration laws.

The American people deserve better. When it comes to issues of national security, they expect us to set partisan politics aside and ensure our government has the resources it needs. We urge you to up to responsihility by bringing a DHS funding bill to the floor a vote as soon as possible.