Hoyer Floor Remarks During Debate on H.R. 7744

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05), Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered remarks on the House Floor during debate on H.R. 7744, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026. Below are a transcript and video of his remarks:

Click here to watch a video of his remarks.

"Mr. Chairman, ICE agents are being paid. Border Patrol agents are being paid. The representation to the American people that somehow, we've shut down the agents of ICE is not true. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I'm told. It - and the weeping and gnashing of teeth that I hear from some of your colleagues, they can fund right now through a unanimous consent, all of the people that you're lamenting are not being paid. You have it in your power - well, the Speaker has in his power - to agree to a unanimous consent to pass the gentlelady's bill. And everybody that you're wringing your hands about - not you, sir. Mr. Speaker, through you, the hands that are being wrung are totally without merit. We will vote for, and by the way, we did not vote for [funding] the Department of Homeland Security on our side. There were seven of us - the rest of us voted no because we didn't agree with what the Department of Homeland Security in ICE and - not TSA, not Coast Guard, not the other agencies, but ICE and CBP. We don't agree with what they're doing, but what you're doing, Mr. Speaker, on that side of the aisle, is to hold everybody else hostage for a bill that we did not vote for.

"So, stop saying we made some deal. Our deal was to separate it out and we were against it. That was the deal, and that's what I did. I voted for all the rest of the bills, as my side did, and I voted against [funding] Department of Homeland Security because we want what they're doing [to be] stopped to protect the American people. So, I say to my friends, who keep wringing their hands like Pontius Pilate, that somebody is not paying them. The people who are not paying everybody other than CPB and ICE, who are being paid out of a huge fund that they have available to them, are the people that you will not let go. We're for funding everybody but the two agencies we have mentioned, and we have a difference of opinion on. Pontius Pilate could not rid himself of the responsibility."