Bennie Thompson

We want to get it right. FEMA is the last line of defense to help the American people.

FEMA must do its due diligence to ensure that companies selected for advance contracts can meet the contract terms.

Emergency response is improved by having qualified vendors in place to provide goods and services reliably.

Without these advance contracts, the Government risks taxpayer money by spending more than is necessary for goods and services.

In the absence of permanent leadership, FEMA is likely to get even further behind with preparing its disaster contracting initiatives.

I want to make sure, if there is something we are missing in this process to speed it up, that we fix it.

Contracting is incredibly important to how we as a Nation prepare for and respond to disasters.

Since Hurricanes Katrina exposed gaps in FEMA's disaster contracting practices in 2005, the agency still has not managed to make the necessary adjustments.

FEMA is the last line of defense to help the American people.

Disaster contracting is a central component of disaster preparedness and an issue that I have been following for quite some time.

Border security is more than building a wall.

Funding for ICE's Homeland Security Investigations...would be diverted to fund interior immigration enforcement arrests and deportations instead.

The request for $81.7 million for more detention space for migrant families illustrates that the administration refuses to acknowledge or does not care that detention is harmful to children.

There is a humanitarian crisis on our Southern Border, and this situation has been unfolding for nearly a year.

The President's fiscal year 2020 budget proposal continues to illustrate that the Trump administration's priorities are skewed, short-sighted, and cruel.

I urge you to do so without further delay.

No matter the motive or ideology behind these heinous attacks, the fact that Americans are being targeted and killed by deadly bombs, within our homeland and in your own backyard, demands attention from this Committee.

Failure to act as innocent people continue to be terrorized, harmed, and killed by domestic terrorists puts American lives in peril.

Unfortunately, it has become clear we cannot count on President Trump for action.

This heinous, cowardly act was terrorism, plain and simple.

It is time for our Committee to act.

In February, a former Coast Guard lieutenant was indicted after stockpiling weapons and drugs and planning attacks targeting prominent Democratic politicians, including a Member of this committee, Ms. Jackson Lee.

For those of you in the hearing room, what you see on the monitor screens are the images and headlines of the domestic terrorist attacks that have torn through our Nation while the Republicans were in charge of this committee and the House…

The few pieces of Government data that we have seen confirmed that domestic terrorism is an urgent and growing threat to the homeland.

Today is a new day--and this committee's silence on domestic terrorism ends now.