Concerns Mount as Homeland Security Shutdown Looks Likely

New York Times

By Ashley Parker

February 23, 2015

Concerns Mount as Homeland Security Shutdown Looks Likely 

The notion that Congress might actually shut down the Department of Homeland Security as part of a broader fight over President Obama’s immigration policies seemed laughable just a few weeks ago.

Literally.

A top Republican staff member laughed when asked if Republicans, who are usually security-minded, were prepared to shut down the agency in a political battle over Mr. Obama’s recent executive actions.

But now, with just days remaining until funding for the Homeland Security agency runs out on Friday, a shutdown of the department is looking increasingly likely.

The House speaker, John A. Boehner, has signaled that he is prepared to let financing for the agency lapse if the Senate remains unable to pass the spending bill that the House sent over last month. That bill, in addition to funding the agency, would gut the president’s legal protections for as many as five million undocumented immigrants, including children.

So, a little over a year after the entire federal government shut down for 16 days in October 2013, Homeland Security officials are preparing for another worst-case situation.

Lawmakers on both sides are already pointing fingers, with Republicans saying that Senate Democrats have prevented the Senate from even taking up the House-passed bill. Democrats say they will not support anything short of a “clean” spending bill that contains no immigration-related amendments.

Many congressional Democrats and Republicans say a shutdown would be devastating, yet others, especially some House Republicans, have expressed a willingness to let the agency run out of money.

If the agency is shut down, about 15 percent of its 230,000 employees — roughly 30,000 — would be furloughed. The rest, deemed essential, would be expected to continue working, but without receiving their regular biweekly paychecks. Transportation Security Administration officers at airports, Border Patrol agents, front-line law enforcement officials and members of the Coast Guard would be required to report to work.

But many administrative and front office staff members would be sent home, creating concerns about the day-to-day operations of the department. At the Transportation Security Administration, which screens 1.8 million passengers daily, roughly 5,500 — or about 10 percent — of its employees would be furloughed, forcing some of the security screeners and officials in the field to be diverted to help with those administrative tasks. Law enforcement officers serving in the Federal Air Marshal Service, however, would be exempt.

Representative Mick Mulvaney, Republican of South Carolina, said at a discussion among conservatives hosted this month by the Heritage Foundation that letting the agency run out of funding was “probably” worth it to defend the Constitution.

But he acknowledged that it was “an uncomfortable position to be in, to have to choose between border security and the Constitution.”

Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, said, “It’s not clear what the impact is because there are a lot of things that are supposedly funded anyway,” he said, “so the impact may be smaller than we think.”

Jeh C. Johnson, the Homeland Security secretary, said in an interview that it was “indulging in a fantasy to believe you can shut down the Department of Homeland Security and there be no impact to homeland security itself.”

“This is not the time to be shutting down the Department of Homeland Security by failure to act,” added Mr. Johnson, citing new challenges from global terrorism, cybersecurity threats, an exceptionally harsh winter in the Northeast and the South, and the possibility of another spike in illegal migration on the Southwest border.

He has spent recent days walking the halls of the Capitol, trying to persuade both Democrats and Republicans to keep his agency funded.

In the event of a shutdown, Mr. Johnson and other department officials said, about 80 percent of the staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be furloughed. (Those forced to leave their posts would be called back in an emergency, a situation that Mr. Johnson described as “not optimal.”)

The department would be unable to maintain and run its E-Verify program, which allows employers to check that newly hired workers are in the country legally. And most of the employees at law enforcement training centers would be placed on leave.

“If you have hired or are trying to hire new investigators or law enforcement types and they need to get through that course to get on the job, they won’t show up because we’ll have sent training instructors home,” said Chip Fulghum, an acting deputy under secretary for management and the chief financial officer at the Department of Homeland Security.

“I went through it last time,” he added. “Bills piled up, contractors were sent home, vendor invoices didn’t get paid, hiring stopped, and pending contracts didn’t go through.”

The uncertainty of a shutdown, from whether it will happen to how long it will last, can also be harmful.

“Shutdowns are very taxing in general on the agency, because all the staff that’s considered nonessential isn’t necessarily there for the purpose of supporting the essential staff, and that has a really disproportionate impact on the essential staff just doing their day-to-day operations,” said Noah Kroloff, a former chief of staff at the department who is now a partner at a security consulting and business advisory firm. “If the agency is constantly having to sit through thinking about managing a shutdown, then just by its very nature, it’s distracted and not able to focus on the primary mission.”

But Citizenship and Immigration Services — the part of the department that would carry out Mr. Obama’s executive actions — would remain largely untouched, because it is funded through application fees. (After a ruling last week by a Federal District Court in Texas, however, the Obama administration indefinitely postponed the president’s executive actions on immigration in order to comply with the court’s decision, which it is now appealing.)

Even a short-term funding measure, which would fund the department at the level of the previous fiscal year, would freeze new initiatives and have negative consequences, agency officials said.

Customs and Border Protection would not receive the $90 million it needs for both remote and mobile video surveillance in the Rio Grande Valley. And the roughly $2.5 billion that the department provides in grants each year would halt.

“Every police chief, major, and governor should be up in arms about that,” Mr. Johnson said.

The Secret Service would also experience a shortfall: the $21 million the agency needs to prepare for the 2016 presidential campaign; the $4 million for the security detail it is preparing for Mr. Obama after he leaves office; and the $25 million recommended to overhaul the agency after recent security breaches, including cases in which people jumped over the White House fence.

“We recognize we have a critical mission, and in order to accomplish those things and make the necessary improvements, it is going to require funding,” said Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service.

And, of course, the political brinkmanship has proved bad for morale at the agency. A department official who recently spoke to a group of 400 employees said the first two questions he received were “Is there going to be a shutdown?” and “Will we get paid?”

“You’re asking working men and women of this department to work without a paycheck,” Mr. Johnson said, “which is horribly unfair.”

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com