Dick Durbin: “I have been trying to understand what has been holding up the funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The…”

“I have been trying to understand what has been holding up the funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security is the agency we created after 9/ 11 that merged 22 different agencies of our government to make sure that 9/11 never happened again. We created this new Department, and we said to them: Keep America safe. Use our tax resources and your best efforts to keep America safe. Thank goodness that we have not had a repeat of that terrible tragedy of 9/11 since--under either Republican or Democratic Presidents. When we started debating about funding the agencies of government in December with an omnibus budget bill, the House Republicans said: We will fund the entire Government of the United States, but we will not give regular budget appropriations to the Department of Homeland Security. They singled out the one department responsible for our safety and security and said: We will give them temporary funding. In fact, the funding for this round ends February 27, in 15 days. So we are in an almost impossible-to-explain situation where the agency with the premier responsibility of keeping America safe is not being adequately funded to do its job. Now, we know we live in a dangerous time in the world's history. Evidence continues to be shown of the ruthless, barbaric tactics of extremist groups such as ISIS. Kayla Mueller, this magnificent young woman--I believe 26 years old-- taken captive by ISIS, was killed by them.…”