Top immigration officials answer amid longest-ever shutdown : NPR

Rodney Scott (left), Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Todd Lyons (center), Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Joseph Edlow (right), Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, testify before a House Appropriations subcommittee April 16 in Washington, DC.

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Top officials from the Department of Homeland Security spoke to lawmakers in the House of Representatives about what the agency needs for the next fiscal year — even though it is in the midst of a record shutdown.

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard and others testified about the impact of the current funding shortfall on their workforce and programs. Several agency leaders asked for money to increase staffing, while expressing concern that not all of their employees were back in the office and received their salaries.

Some lawmakers called Thursday’s hearing “absurdity” and the process “frustrating.”

Lawmakers have been deadlocked for more than 60 days over funding for the entire department, which includes agencies overseeing immigration enforcement, disaster relief, cybersecurity and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Senate Democrats refused to fund DHS as part of their regular appropriations for the current fiscal year after immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in January. This meant that the ministry ran out of money to operate on February 14; it has now been without funding for over 60 days. The previous longest shutdown, in November, lasted 43 days, although it affected all government agencies.

But Democrats have failed to rally Republicans around their demands for changes to how DHS law enforcement operates. The White House and congressional Republicans have instead been successful in finding other sources of funding to pursue immigration control.

This includes the 75 billion dollars Congressional Republicans provided ICE last summer as part of a partisan tax-and-spend package that also included money for Customs and Border Protection. ICE tapped into this funding during the last two government shutdowns to continue paying its agents.

During the current lockdown, President Trump signed a memo to pay Employees of the Transportation Security Administration, and later extended it to all DHS employeeswithout specifying where exactly the money came from.

Here are some takeaways from the hearing:

1. Longest shutdown ever recorded dominates testimonies

In an opening statement, Rep. Rosa DeLauro said she highlighted “the absurdity of holding a hearing on funding these agencies” for next year — when the two parties are divided on how to fund the agencies even for this year.

Republicans, for their part, are considering whether they could fund the department for three years, or the remainder of Trump’s term, through a partisan process called reconciliation — the mechanism also used for immigration-focused funding passed last year.

All three DHS officials expressed support for the plan and urged Republicans to pass a reconciliation measure by June 1.

Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, expressed skepticism about the plan, saying it was “phenomenally interesting” that agency officials were pushing for a bill without any changes to immigration oversight.

“It’s like saying, ‘We’re going to abolish Article 1 for three years,’ with no disrespect,” he said later in his closing remarks, referring to the section of the U.S. Constitution that established Congress. “We want to deliver your products to you consistently, predictably, and sustainably – that’s our job. Just pre-finance me for three years. Really? What if you paid me up front for three years. You’d be dumber than hell to do that.”

2. Conditions of detention, deaths and expansion plans examined

Texas Democrats questioned Todd Lyons, acting head of ICE, about the agency’s plans to turn warehouses across the country into processing or detention facilities.

Reps. Henry Cuellar and Escobar asked about plans to install warehouses in their states and argued that communities were chastising the effort and lacking infrastructure to support the projects.

Lyons said a facility in San Antonio would need to be a processing center for 500 to 1,000 people and could include an immigration court. Other projects, such as a facility in McAllen, Texas, are under consideration.

“Secretary [Markwayne] Mullin is looking at the entire detention plan and he’s going to make an informed decision about where he wants to move forward and the locations,” Lyons said.

Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., asked Lyons about the record number of deaths in ICE custody. Lyons noted that the FBI was not investigating the death of a man at Camp East Montana Detention Center in Texas, which a coroner determined was a homicide.

“Zero deaths, that’s what we want. We don’t want anyone to die in custody,” Lyons said, adding that the agency spent “nearly half a billion in the last fiscal year … to make sure people get the proper care.”

But when asked, he could not say how many people still worked at the Detention Monitoring Office, which would investigate those deaths and broader detention conditions and standards.

3. USCIS seeks funds for an enforcement unit

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow said his agency wants to create a new law enforcement branch and hire and train 200 agents separate from those who work for ICE and CBP.

Under Trump, USCIS has more and more turned to anti-immigration policing, which traditionally focuses on the means by which people can legally migrate and stay in the United States.

“What I’m trying to create here is a very narrow criminal investigative branch that will focus specifically on immigration fraud and entitlement fraud,” Edlow said, adding that each special agent would undergo nine weeks of USCIS-specific training.

Republicans and Democrats questioned Edlow about the growing expectations for people to get an answer on their work permit or naturalization application.

“I recognize that processing times for some applications have increased over the last fiscal year,” Edlow said. “I view this as a short-term pain, which is really going to lead to long-term gains in the fair and proper processing of immigration.”

USCIS is not directly affected by the department-wide shutdown since it is funded by the fees people pay when they submit their applications. Edlow said last year the agency collected $7.5 billion in fee revenue, exceeding its goals.

4. Other DHS agencies, including TSA and Coast Guard, are speaking out

Officials of non-immigration agencies under DHS testified on the need for financing.

Nick Andersen, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said the shutdown has hurt his agency’s work, with only about 40% of staff working consistently.

Karen Evans, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the lack of funding delays reimbursements to local governments to deal with disasters.

“We know that reimbursements are crucial,” Evans said, noting that the agency and other parts of DHS are currently responding to several disasters, including one super-typhoon in the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.

And U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Kevin Lunday said there were more than 500 unpaid utility bills due to the shutdown, “threatening to cut off power and water to Coast Guard stations” and a delay in processing 18,000 Merchant Marine Certificates, a standard certificate required to work on U.S. ships.

5. Upcoming national events pose national security and personnel concerns

Sean Curran, director of the US Secret Service, warned that the next few years, until 2028, promise to be very difficult for the agency. Curran noted that the current roster is not large enough to handle the FIFA World Cup, the 2028 Olympics and the 2028 presidential cycle.

His agency is requesting funds to hire 852 new positions and he noted that the Secret Service also helps train local law enforcement for events, which also requires funding.

“I discovered that [Los Angeles Police Department]”They’re not ready for drone detection and mitigation, so we’re going to train them,” Curran said.

Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, also said a lack of funding has put training on hold for staff related to World Cup matches this summer.

The agency is also unable to pay for border maintenance, contractors and some planes and boats.

Ha Nguyen McNeill, the acting TSA administrator, said the agency is poised to lose more staff as the shutdown drags on.

The TSA’s understaffing caused hours-long delays at airports across the country last month, before Trump announced the executive branch would pay for them.

“We are less than two months away from the FIFA World Cup and it takes us 4-6 months to train a new officer, so with any increase in attrition it is going to put us in a difficult position this summer,” said Nguyen McNeill.