Senate Advances Bill to Fund Homeland Security

***Click here for audio.***

WASHINGTON, D.C. - After a roughly six-week shutdown, the Senate passed legislation to reopen the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ensure funding is restored to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The measure now heads to the House for consideration.

U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) issued the following statement applauding the bill's passage:

"For the last 40 days, we've been voting a lot to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. My Republican colleagues and I voted to restore funding 15 times and the Democrats, in that same time, repeatedly put politics ahead of the safety and security of the American people-the highest priority of the federal government. As Americans stood in long airport lines in some cases for many hours, the Democrats continued to block fully funding homeland security. Instead of standing with the hardworking TSA officers and their families, the Coast Guard, Border Patrol-they chose to instead prioritize policies that protect violent criminal illegal aliens. That's who they put their priority in-unbelievable to me.

"I certainly hope the House can pass the bill as soon as possible so that we can get the department back to full strength. Fortunately, Donald Trump took unilateral action on behalf of the American people, on behalf of the federal employees at TSA, and on behalf of the travel industry. But it's so profound what Democrats have chosen to do and so important what President Trump decided to do-unilaterally take control and issued the executive order. Now we'll come back and immediately Republicans will go to work to pass hopefully a very large homeland security budget reconciliation without a single Democrat having to help us because clearly, they don't have the guts to do the heavy lifting. They're scared to death of their left wing, crazy fringe element of their party, that's running their party, and at the same time Republicans have been able to maintain the very important filibuster which gives small states like North Dakota so much more power than if we ever lose it. But Democrats brought us to the brink of destroying the United States Senate, once again. I just hope we can put it all together."