Bennie Thompson

If it is a bad policy, then change it.

Are we still putting children in cages?

Unfortunately, not one of my Democratic colleagues voted for that.

By any metric, the spate of mass shootings in the last many years has killed more Americans than ISIS or any other group.

We should not be wasting resources on fabricated threats such as a fake National Emergency.

The practice of impeding or metering persons outside of our borders in Mexico undermines the enforcement of immigration law.

Real border security cannot be achieved by building a wall on the Southern Border, blocking asylum seekers, or separating children from their parents.

No amount of verbal gymnastics will change that she knew the Trump administration was implementing policy to separate families at the border.

Clearly, oversight of the Trump administration's border policy is long overdue.

What the American people have heard from the Trump administration is misleading at best.

Let me be clear--I am prepared to use the tools at the committee's disposal to obtain the information if the Secretary fails to comply.

I was extremely troubled by a report GAO released last year showing that first responders and emergency planners are still not getting the information they need to respond to an incident at a CFATS facility.

I look forward to hearing from the panel today about how we might improve CFATS and make sure we give DHS and the regulated community the civility and certainty of a long-term reauthorization program.

So we need to close that loophole because as a volunteer fireman myself, those public-spirited first responders did not know what they were going to until it was too late.

However, I do not plan to let reauthorization become an excuse to water down regulatory requirements or diminish the overall security value of the program.

As Chairman, I do not intend to let that happen again.

Unfortunately, that did not come to pass, and we once again found ourselves with no alternative but to pass another short-term extension.

I had hoped to work collaboratively in the last Congress, as we did in 2014, to give CFATS a long-term reauthorization.

I am concerned that we have not sufficiently protected this sector against cyber threats.

This hearing today is very important, the cyber threats facing the U.S. surface transportation sector.

I would also like to express my sympathies to Ranking Member Katko on the loss of his father.

Thank you very much, Chairman Correa; Ranking Member Lesko, on your maiden voyage as Ranking Member, welcome.

That is why I am very disappointed that election security, an issue where we had an opportunity to work together to move bipartisan legislation, has gotten caught up in this partisan political power grab.

Election security is a National security issue that must transcend party politics, because it requires a unified effort to protect America's elections.

The voter ID law is a purge, because what we're doing is we're--we're doing--essentially doing away with voter registration and changing it to driver's licenses or Texas IDs.