Border Chief: GOP Shutting Down DHS Would Be a 'Significant Mistake'
Border chief warns shutdown would harm border security
The head of Customs and Border Protection said Thursday that the agency's ability to monitor the southwest border would be significantly diminished if Congress can't figure out a way to fund the agency.
CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske said several technological improvements that help track people and cargo crossing the border would have to be put on hold in the event of a shutdown. Congress is fighting over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which runs out of funding Feb. 27.
"I've had an opportunity to see the threats that are posed to this country, both by people and groups that would wish to do us harm, and to think that we would not be harmed ... with the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security through the budget is a significant mistake," Kerlikowske told USA Today on Thursday.
On Thursday, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo…how significant a shutdown would be on national security…"This is a debate about funding part of the government that is so essential that if funding is not there, almost all the employees show up anyway," Blunt said on the Senate floor. "They're considered essential."
Kerlikowske said Blunt and other Republicans leaders who have echoed that argument "could not be more wrong."…He said the 30,000 people who would be sent home perform critical tasks that won't be done during a shutdown. From reviewing international shipments to conducting auctions of seized property, he said the agency and private companies would lose money in any shutdown…Along the border, a shutdown would also put on hold several proposed contracts that Kerlikowske said are critical to monitoring the nearly 2,000-mile border.