Kennedy on DHS funding: “These men and women are running out of money”

Watch Kennedy's comments here.

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) urged his colleagues to get serious about funding the Department of Homeland Security before it runs out of money in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor.

Key excerpts of the speech are below:

"I want to talk about the issue, and the issue is this: Are we going to fund the Department of Homeland Security, or are we not? Part of DHS, as we call it, as you know, Mr. President, is funded. But a very important part is not: the Border Patrol and ICE. We are paying them as best we can out of another pool of funds that is about to run out of money. Why are they not funded? Because my Democratic colleagues have refused.

"At one point my Democratic friends agreed to fund Border Patrol and ICE. And then they changed their minds, and they said: No, we are not going to do it, which forced Republicans, if we want to see that portion of DHS funded, to proceed under what we call reconciliation where we don't need Democratic votes. I regret that that is the case, but we are doing what we have to do.

"Why are we having this controversy? I don't get it completely. I don't. Unless you are industrial-strength stupid, you know that illegal immigration is illegal. And that is what our Border Patrol agents and ICE agents do-they enforce the law."

. . .

"If you disagree with the law-this is America. You are entitled to disagree with it. I get it. Try to change it. Go change it. But you can't just ignore our immigration laws. They are not some second-tier statutes that you can ignore without consequence, that you can ignore when you think it is convenient. They are the law, and we have to enforce the law.

"And more to the point, we have to clean up the mess that President Biden and some of my Democratic colleagues in the [Graham] Platner wing, the [Rep. Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez wing, the [Mayor Zohran] Mamdani wing-whatever you want to call those Democrats who created it. And more even to that point, we have to have Border Patrol and ICE officers to do it. We have to."

. . .

"We need to vote to fund Border Patrol and ICE. These men and women are running out of money. . . . And I am ready to saddle up and ride. I am ready to get to it. I am tired of all the rhetoric and the tangential issues. I am tired of all that. Let's get after it. Let's do the right thing."

Watch Kennedy's speech here.