Hours before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) runs out of funding midnight Friday, both chambers of Congress are still mulling over separate bills to extend funding for the agency. Friday morning, the Senate passed a bill that would fund the DHS through September 2015, the end of the fiscal year. But House Republicans are seeking to pass a stop-gap measure that would fund the Department for just three more weeks, setting up a future battle to hold up national security funding over amendments that would roll back President Barack Obama’s deportation policies for some undocumented immigrants.
In a letter to Congressional leaders Thursday, DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson warned that a continuing resolution would have negative impacts that exacerbate uncertainty for his workforce. Many programs are already impacted because DHS is currently operating on a continuing resolution from the spending package that Congress hashed out in December 2014. And Johnson reiterated that a three-week resolution would make things significantly worse:
“[O]ur $2.5 billion-a-year grant-making to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, to assist them in preventing, responding to or recovering from terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies, remains at a standstill (it has already stopped because the Department is currently funded by a Continuing Resolution),” Johnson said. “Of particular note, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Management Performance Grants, which contribute 50 percent of the salaries of state and local emergency management personnel, cannot be funded.”
In the event of a shutdown, about 30,000 DHS employees and headquarters’ staffs would be furloughed. But in the event of a short-term continuing resolution, the current fiscal uncertainty that is already weakening many DHS operations is likely to be exacerbated, particularly as staff continue to fear a looming shutdown when three weeks have elapsed. “What are we going to tell people that are keeping us safe?” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) asked during a press call Friday. “The loss could mean the difference between paying for groceries or paying rent. [DHS employees] shouldn’t worry about getting paid.”
Major offices like the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Secret Service would be affected. Here are some effects of a three-week continuing resolution to the DHS agencies involved:
Coast Guard. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft wrote in a blog post earlier this week that a continuing resolution would affect funding for “routine law enforcement patrols and facility inspections; fisheries enforcement; mariner licensing and credentialing; certain vessel inspection and waterways management activities; and recreational boating safety.”
FEMA. In a letter, the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) warned Congress that FEMA itself should be funded through the 2015 fiscal year even if they couldn’t come to a resolution over the DHS spending bill. “Fire chiefs are concerned that anything less than full-year funding for FEMA will jeopardize a number of federal operational and grant programs that emergency responders rely on to protect life and property,” the letter stated.
“Short-term funding creates uncertainties and delays in FEMA’s ability to perform its function,” the letter continued. “It needlessly delays grant application periods for fire departments and forces strategic initiatives to be postponed. Because FEMA is such a mission-critical agency with a role to assist the local fire and emergency service during national disasters, we strongly urge Congress to ensure that FEMA is fully funded for fiscal 2015.”
TSA. The uncertainty of a continuing resolution would have roughly the same effect as a lapse in funding for Vaughn Glenn, AFGE Local 778 Member and TSA Agent at the Detroit Wayne County Airport. During a press call Friday, Glenn said that TSA employees like himself are paid on a wage scale where the average agent brings in $400 a week. “We spend $45 a month just to park our car in the parking lot. … The average employee has to drive a 30-mile hike so we go to the gas station every other day. … We have a lot of single parents that can’t afford — if we don’t get paid, how do we support our household? For me and my wife, that means that we get our paycheck at the same time. If we don’t get paid, we can’t pay our babysitter so this has a Domino effect.”
Glenn’s concerns are shared with at least one other TSA union president who told ThinkProgress that employees face mental fatigue, which could slow down reaction time, lead to decreased performance efficiency, and that boredom and fatigue were the most common problems among airline screeners.
CBP. There would likely be a diminished southwest border presence due to a $200 million shortfall in pay and compensation for Border Patrol agents and CBP officers, a $90 million shortfall in funds needed for border surveillance technology such as remote and mobile video surveillance systems in southern Texas, and a $182 million shortfall in funds in response to the unaccompanied children and families who came across the southern border last year.
ICE. According to a press release from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), there would only be enough funding for “30,000 adult beds … and no family beds.” Since 2009, a Congressional directive known as the detention bed mandate has called to fill “34,000 beds in some 250 facilities across the country, per day, with immigrant detainees,” NPR reported.
Programs already affected by the existing continuing resolution include new border security programs like the Southern Border and Approaches Campaign Planning effort, a strategic framework to enhance security of the southern border; urban counterterrorism programs to provide funding support for security equipment to prevent and protect against the risk of a terrorist attack; businesses that won’t be able to check the legal staus of their employees through the E-Verify program; and delaying funding of the Coast Guard’s commissioned vessels, which could increase future cost.