Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment, with all due respect to my colleague, the former sheriff, as my brother is a former sheriff on the border. I ask that if we have differences in opinion, instead of just eliminating this office of civil rights, I would remind our colleagues that this Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties covers the 260,000 personnel who work for DHS. That is, it covers the 43,000 U.S. Coast Guard employees and the 59,000 CBP personnel. That includes Border Patrol and OFO, who are the men and women in blue. It covers 16,800 ICE personnel, including HSI agents and immigration enforcement officers; 58,000 TSA personnel; 19,300 FEMA employees; and 6,300 Secret Service personnel. All of those employees are under Homeland. Again, I do understand we might have some differences, and I will be the first one to say let's sit down and have a bipartisan conversation to address those concerns. To eliminate the office, I would say that would not be the right policy. Again, I remind folks, at 10:23, that we passed the Homeland appropriations on June 21. We should have been doing this at 10:23 on June 22 instead of doing this tonight. I don't think there is a conference committee on the Senate side. We ought to be focusing on how to keep the government open.…”