Mayorkas warns of

Washington — Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned Friday that his company might undergo “critical” penalties if Congress didn’t move laws funding federal companies and avert a authorities shutdown. The warning got here earlier than the Home handed a last-minute stopgap funding invoice with bipartisan help Friday evening, sending it to the Senate forward of the deadline. 

In an interview with “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Mayorkas stated many parts of the Division of Homeland Safety can be affected by a lapse in funding, together with the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), FEMA and Border Patrol.

The homeland safety chief added {that a} failure by lawmakers to move a stopgap spending invoice earlier than Saturday would additionally imply workers on the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Workplace can be redirected to different components of his division.

“The implications and the results are critical, particularly on the subject of Homeland Safety,” Mayorkas stated.

He urged Congress to approve laws that will preserve authorities companies working earlier than midnight, when a short-term extension enacted in September will expire.

Home Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled earlier this week a legislative package deal negotiated with Democrats that will have prolonged authorities funding by March 14, supplied greater than $100 billion in catastrophe help for states impacted by excessive climate occasions, and given members of Congress a pay increase, amongst different provisions.

However the proposal was swiftly met with pushback from some conservative Republicans, who balked on the dimension and scope of the 1,550 web page deal. Crucially, it was additionally criticized by billionaire Elon Musk, an ally of President-elect Donald Trump, after which by the incoming president himself.

Trump and Musk torpedoed the package deal, with Musk taking to X, the social media platform he owns, to lambaste provisions of it. The president-elect additional upended negotiations over a funding deal when he known as on Republicans to handle the debt restrict — which is about to be reinstated Jan. 1 — of their plan.

Johnson unveiled a second measure Thursday, which might have funded the federal government for 3 months, suspended the nation’s borrowing restrict till January 2027 and supplied $110 billion in catastrophe reduction. The extra tailor-made laws, which Trump backed, additionally included well being care provisions, a one-year renewal of the farm invoice and funding for rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed in March.

However that package deal didn’t move the Home with the mandatory help after it was opposed by most Democrats and greater than three dozen Republicans.

That defeat despatched Johnson and GOP leaders again to the drafting board, with the prospect of a shutdown rising with every passing hour. 

Mayorkas informed “Face the Nation” {that a} shutdown simply earlier than the vacations — when tens of hundreds of thousands of Individuals are touring — would imply TSA workers at airports all through the nation can be pressured to work with out pay. Nonetheless, they might doubtless obtain backpay after a shutdown ends, as has occurred earlier than after earlier funding lapses.

“We’ll have tens of hundreds of TSA workers working an extremely excessive quantity of passenger visitors all through our airports throughout the nation, and they are going to be doing so retaining the American public secure with out pay,” he stated.

The Homeland Safety secretary additionally stated these impacted would come with U.S. Border Patrol brokers stationed alongside the U.S.-Mexico border. 

“There are individuals in authorities service who’re dedicating their expertise and their power to the well-being of the American individuals, who depend on their paychecks to make ends meet, and it’s the vacation season, in any case, however our women and men on the border shall be guarding the border of the USA at no pay if funding does not come by,” Mayorkas stated.

The $110 billion in catastrophe help that can doubtless be included in a spending deal contains cash for FEMA, which has been responding to the hurricanes that devastated the southeast this fall.

Mayorkas stated that inaction by Congress would impression these states hit by the storms, together with North Carolina and Florida.

“What FEMA might want to do, one other important impression of the failure to fund the federal authorities, is they’ll now have to delay — they’re going to placed on pause sure contracts, sure tasks which might be really repairing communities devastated by excessive climate occasions, by tornados, by hurricanes, by fires, and that can delay the rebuilding of communities and actually delay the power to ship for individuals who have suffered a lot,” he stated.

Mayorkas stated a shutdown occurring over the vacations would power the Division of Homeland Safety to “make tough selections now to delay tasks.”

Lawmakers representing these storm-ravaged states have pushed for catastrophe reduction to be included in any legislative package deal funding the federal government.