Ted Lieu

Mr. TED LIEU of California

Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, let me start off by saying elections have consequences. I respect the American voter. I respect what the voters in our Nation did last November when they gave Republicans control of the United States Senate and control of the U.S. House of Representatives. My sincere plea and request to my Republican colleagues across the aisle who control Congress is: Please do not shut down the Department of Homeland Security. The Republican leader in the U.S. Senate is now poised to delink the issue of funding for security for our homeland from immigration reform. I hope my colleagues across the aisle will do the same. That is because immigration reform has very little to nothing to do with protecting our homeland. I would love to have a debate on immigration reform. I think we need to do that. I would love to vote for bills on immigration reform. But they are not linked to funding for Homeland Security. Let me just give you an example. Let's talk about DREAMers who came as children to our Nation and who can serve in the United States military. I served in Active Duty in the Air Force, and I am still in the Reserves. So DREAMers can serve in the U.S. military. To say that we are going to deport them because they are a homeland security risk and we are not going to fund Homeland Security because of that is ridiculous. There is no reason to link those two issues. If you don't like DREAMers, if you want to deport DREAMers, fine. Let's have a debate on that. But they are not a homeland security risk. To link these two issues doesn't make any sense. The Republican leader in the United States Senate has figured that out. I hope that this House does it as well. There are some grave consequences to this. In my State of California alone, nearly 27,000 employees of Homeland Security will either be furloughed or will get no pay and cannot come to work. These folks are folks that protect our homeland. It is unacceptable that this is going to happen. The other way Homeland Security works is they provide grants to local first responders across the Nation to law enforcement, to firefighters. On Friday, if Homeland Security shuts down, those grants stop, and these local responders stop. This is a very real issue, and we, in Congress, our first priority is to protect the American public. Shutting down Homeland Security will be the exact opposite of that. I really hope that the Republicans who control both Houses do not shut down Homeland Security.

Mr. TED LIEU of California. That is a fantastic question. Having now been in the military for 19 years, it is very clear that their main criteria for military service is: Can you complete the mission? How good you are at completing the mission has nothing to do with whether or not you have a piece of paper that says if you are documented or not. The U.S. military is losing out on a significant amount of talent, people who otherwise would do great things for our military to protect our homeland and so on. Again, it makes very little to no sense to link these two issues, which really shouldn't be linked; really, that is what this is all about. Let's just have separate debates on both issues. The U.S. Senate is about to do that. I hope the House can do that as well.

Mr. TED LIEU of California

Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 720, the Gerardo Hernandez Airport Security Act of 2015, and in tribute to the bill's namesake. On November 1, 2013, a gunman opened fire in Los Angeles International Airport, killing TSA Officer Gerardo Hernandez and wounding three others before being apprehended. Mr. Hernandez's death was the first time a TSA officer had been killed in the line of duty since the agency's creation following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The tragic shooting at LAX jolted the city of Los Angeles and underscored the need to increase airport preparedness throughout the country. I believe the legislation we are voting on today is an important step in meeting that need. H.R. 720 is a bipartisan bill that will direct the Department of Homeland Security to identify best practices for airport incident planning and to give necessary technical assistance to all airports under TSA's security supervision. The bill aims to verify that each of these airports have individualized working plans for responding to security incidents, including active shooters, acts of terrorism, and incidents that target passenger-screening checkpoints. The Department will be required to submit a report to Congress detailing its outreach findings so that Congress can continue its oversight role on this issue. We owe it to Mr. Hernandez and his family to ensure that our airports are prepared and passengers protected. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 720.