Oversight Hearing – Potential DHS Shutdown Impacts
House Subcommittee on Department of Homeland Security
2026-02-11
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Source: Congress.gov
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Good morning. Thank you all for being here. For the rest of you that are here, I don't know why you're here. It's a Homeland hearing, but I guess you didn't have any better offers, so welcome to you too. The Subcommittee on Homeland Security will come to order. I'm pleased to be joined by the subcommittee's distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cuellar, as well as the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Cole, and the full committee ranking Member, when she gets here, Ms. Deloro. Welcome to our distinguished panel. I sincerely thank you for being here, especially on short notice. I'm going to do something out of character for me, so I hope it doesn't jinx everything. I'm going to do a brief opening statement. The focus of this hearing is fairly straightforward. Absent the passage of a continuing resolution by Friday night, the Department of Homeland Security will shut down. We have already passed the deadline when bill text should have been shared with members in accordance with the 72-hour rule in the House. At this point, finalizing the bill before the 13th seems like a very tall order. A shutdown has gone from a distinct possibility to a probability, but not all components will equally share the pain during a homeland shutdown. Congress made a historic investment in border security and immigration to the tune of $191 billion last year, but outside of ICE, most of this funding is long-term investments, not day-to-day operations. So while my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, most of whom didn't vote for the Homeland Bill when it was being considered in the House last month, They all played a very important part in putting that legislation together, and rightfully so. So we will not focus on ICE and CBP. Those agencies' missions will be largely unaffected by a shutdown. For those of you that just got into town, the Policy Committee for Homeland, Mr. Garbarino's committee yesterday held a hearing which talked about ICE and Border Patrol. So the policy issues associated with those agencies in an ongoing sense
had an opportunity for a full hearing yesterday in the policy committee. Instead, the pain here will be felt by the men and women of TSA who will once again work to keep our airways safe without a paycheck. There will be uncertainty for the Coast Guard men and women who have no choice but to show up for work. It will slow down shipbuilding. It will reduce the amount of funding in the disaster relief fund just weeks after massive winter storms affected wide swaths of the country. It will show up for Secret Service agents who put their lives on the line to protect the nation's elected leaders, and their families will likely work without pay. It will increase the workload and pressure on our frontline cybersecurity defenders at CISA who will work with less staff and without pay. And of course, the dedicated civil servants across the department who are furloughed will not receive a paycheck. So if we shut down, the department over ICE and CBP enforcement actions minneapolis and my colleagues lists of policy demands here's what will happen immigration and remover removal operations will continue wall construction will continue anything funded by reconciliation dollars will continue the good work of the department does outside of immigration the good work that the department does outside of immigration enforcement will come to a screeching halt And that's what today's hearing is about, money to agencies that will be affected by a shutdown. I'll now turn to my colleague, Mr. Cuellar, for his opening remarks. The floor is yours, sir. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. Let me begin by saying how much respect I have for you and for the way you led this subcommittee. Homeland Security is never an easy bill, and it never should be. It deals with real risks. Real people, real consequences. And I appreciate the seriousness you brought to this work, and I appreciate the bipartisan spirit that has allowed this subcommittee to function even at times, very difficult moments like now.
We're meeting today at a very important time. In just a few days, if Congress doesn't act, the Department of Homeland could face a shutdown. And while the American people may hear the word shutdown and think of Washington politics, what that really means is delayed disaster response, weakened cyber defenses and uncertainty for the men and women who show up every day to keep this country safe. This is not theoretical. Every member here represents transportation security officers and they work long shifts to keep our airport secure. Every member relies on FEMA when disaster strikes their state or their district.
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