John Katko

The budget simply fails to reflect the priorities that are critical to the defense of the homeland.

I am pleased the Biden administration is doing the hard work necessary to address the situation at the border for the long term.

I want to commend the administration's release this week of the first-ever National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.

The President has submitted the largest budget request, by far, in the history of the United States--$6 trillion dollars.

This budget proposal manages to somehow be incredibly bloated, while at the same time, lack the funding we need to protect the homeland.

Unfortunately, ransomware attacks are becoming a more pervasive threat and I feel that we, as a country, continue to fall further and further behind.

I believe that CISA needs to be a $5 billion agency in 5 years, and that is not going to happen with meager increases like you propose in this budget.

That is completely unacceptable, and Homeland Republicans will continue pressuring the administration to reverse its disastrous Executive Orders.

There is enough fentanyl that crossed the border this year already to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States.

This fiscally irresponsible budget is enacted, our children and our children's children, at a minimum, will be paying for it.

The President has submitted the largest budget request by far in the history of the United States, $6 trillion.

The President's budget proposal allows for not a single additional Border Patrol agent, despite a 20-year high in migrant numbers.

I am troubled that the Biden administration has reportedly removed important protections related to vetting the sponsors to whom unaccompanied children are released.

I have now taken 2 trips to the Southern Border in the last couple of months to see the situation first-hand.

The stories my colleagues and I heard from the front-line men and women of Homeland Security about the dueling humanitarian security and public health crises were incredibly disturbing.

Like I said, I have taken 2 trips to the border and that is something that has not been done by either President Biden or Vice President Harris.

Increasingly, drug cartels use children as pawns to distract Border Patrol agents as illicit drugs are smuggled across the border.

Some of these children arrive alone and afraid with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

I am pleased that the subcommittee is holding a hearing today on a topic all of us care deeply about, the welfare of children crossing the Southwest Border.

I think the one question I have for you, Director, and most Americans have for this President and this Administration, is just how long will you be ceding the southern border to the cartels?

Without the funds, infrastructure, technology, and support for our brave CBP and law enforcement, the cartels win and human beings suffer.

I am a business owner. You don't pay people for not doing the work.

Even our border patrol agents have no problem admitting that this is a manmade crisis by this Administration.

This is a very, very important hearing, and not just for what happened at Colonial Pipeline, but what we can do going forward to protect our critical infrastructure and our computer systems Nation-wide.

We must mature the relationship between CISA and the Nation's lead civilian cybersecurity agency.