Washington — Fatherland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned Friday that his company may endure “severe” penalties if Congress did not pass legislation funding federal agencies and avert a central authority shutdown. The caution got here ahead of the Space handed a last-minute stopgap investment invoice with bipartisan give a boost to Friday night time, sending it to the Senate forward of the closing date.
In an interview with “Face the Country with Margaret Brennan,” Mayorkas stated many elements of the Division of Fatherland Safety could be suffering from a lapse in investment, together with the Transportation Safety Management (TSA), FEMA and Border Patrol.
The place of birth safety leader added {that a} failure by means of lawmakers to cross a stopgap spending invoice ahead of Saturday would additionally imply workforce on the Countering Guns of Mass Destruction Place of business could be redirected to different portions of his division.
“The results and the results are severe, particularly in relation to Fatherland Safety,” Mayorkas stated.
He instructed Congress to approve regulation that will stay govt companies running ahead of middle of the night, when a temporary extension enacted in September will expire.
Space Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled earlier this week a legislative package deal negotiated with Democrats that will have prolonged govt investment thru March 14, supplied greater than $100 billion in crisis assist for states impacted by means of excessive climate occasions, and given participants of Congress a pay lift, amongst different provisions.
However the proposal was once impulsively met with pushback from some conservative Republicans, who balked on the dimension and scope of the 1,550 web page deal. Crucially, it was once additionally criticized by means of billionaire Elon Musk, an best friend of President-elect Donald Trump, after which by means of the incoming president himself.
Trump and Musk torpedoed the package, with Musk taking to X, the social media platform he owns, to lambaste provisions of it. The president-elect additional upended negotiations over a investment deal when he known as on Republicans to address the debt limit — which is ready to be reinstated Jan. 1 — of their plan.
Johnson unveiled a 2nd measure Thursday, which might have funded the federal government for 3 months, suspended the country’s borrowing restrict till January 2027 and supplied $110 billion in crisis reduction. The extra adapted regulation, which Trump subsidized, additionally integrated well being care provisions, a one-year renewal of the farm invoice and investment for rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which collapsed in March.
However that package deal did not cross the Space with the essential give a boost to after it was once antagonistic by means of maximum Democrats and greater than 3 dozen Republicans.
That defeat despatched Johnson and GOP leaders again to the strategy planning stage, with the possibility of a shutdown emerging with each and every passing hour.
Mayorkas informed “Face the Country” {that a} shutdown simply ahead of the vacations — when tens of hundreds of thousands of American citizens are touring — would imply TSA workers at airports all through the rustic could be compelled to paintings with out pay. Then again, they might most likely obtain backpay after a shutdown ends, as has came about ahead of after previous funding lapses.
“We are going to have tens of 1000’s of TSA workers running a surprisingly prime quantity of passenger visitors all through our airports around the nation, and they’re going to be doing so conserving the American public protected with out pay,” he stated.
The Fatherland Safety secretary additionally stated the ones impacted would come with U.S. Border Patrol brokers stationed alongside the U.S.-Mexico border.
“There are folks in govt provider who’re dedicating their skill and their power to the well-being of the American folks, who depend on their paychecks to make ends meet, and it’s the vacation season, finally, however our women and men at the border might be guarding the border of the USA at no pay if investment does not come thru,” Mayorkas stated.
The $110 billion in crisis help that can be integrated in a spending deal comprises cash for FEMA, which has been responding to the hurricanes that devastated the southeast this autumn.
Mayorkas stated that inactiveness by means of Congress would affect the ones states hit by means of the storms, together with North Carolina and Florida.
“What FEMA will wish to do, any other vital affect of the failure to fund the government, is they’re going to now wish to lengthen — they are going to placed on pause sure contracts, sure initiatives which can be in reality repairing communities devastated by means of excessive climate occasions, by means of tornados, by means of hurricanes, by means of fires, and that can lengthen the rebuilding of communities and in reality lengthen the power to ship for individuals who have suffered such a lot,” he stated.
Mayorkas stated a shutdown happening over the vacations would pressure the Division of Fatherland Safety to “make tough choices now to lengthen initiatives.”
Lawmakers representing the ones storm-ravaged states have driven for crisis reduction to be integrated in any legislative package deal investment the federal government.
