Weekly Columns and Op-Eds

Don't Blame GOP: Dems Want DHS Shutdown
By: Rep. Paul Gosar
Feb. 24, 2015
Published in the Arizona Republic

Last week, federal judge Andrew Hanen issued an injunction barring President Obama and his administration from implementing “any and all aspects or phases of” their November 2014 amnesty order. The president initially said he was going to comply with the federal court’s ruling. But then, almost in the same breath, declared he will ignore Hansen’s orders and defiantly stated, “We are doing the preparatory work because this is a big piece of business.”

To make matters worse, the president’s desire to circumvent the law and implement his amnesty plan includes spending nearly $50 million, without Congressional approval, on 1,000 new federal employees and a new facility in Crystal City, Virginia.

The arrogance of this administration is like nothing we have ever seen before, blatantly disregarding federal law and our Constitution. The time has come for the House to stand its ground and prevent funding for the president's illegal amnesty plan.

This week we face a so-called “shutdown” of the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol. The background to this problem is relatively simple: The House voted to fully fund all DHS operations, except for Obama's unconstitutional amnesty plan. Senate Democrats continue to use procedural tricks to prevent the upper chamber from voting on, or even debating, this legislation.

Under the Constitution, Congress controls the purse strings. We fund what is necessary, appropriate and constitutional. That is our core responsibility. Unfortunately, Senate Democrats once again insist on playing politics and trying to provide cover for the president by blocking the full funding legislation passed by the House. And in typical leftist fashion their refusal to vote on full funding is—you guessed it—the Republican's fault. Only in D.C. does such ignorance constitute logic. For the president to expect House Republicansto capitulate and forgo their only method of checking his vast overreach is simply laughable and flies in the face of centuries of American governance.

What really bothers me is when I hear House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues feigning outrage against Republicans for a crisis created by the president, while simultaneously ignoring the true reality of the state of our homeland security. As an Arizonan, I have visited our southern border on many occasions, and my response to Mrs. Pelosi is: If Democrats truly care about the security of this nation then they should start supporting efforts to secure the border.

I seriously doubt Congresswoman Pelosi has visited the towns I represent in rural Arizona and talked to the people living there. If she had, she would know that the failed policies of the federal government have resulted in a porous border that has not provided real security to Americans for a long time.

This administration has created an immigration crisis that has overwhelmed our border patrol and encouraged the mass immigration of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. From October 2013 to the end of May 2014, 162,000 people from countries other than Mexico entered the United States across the southern border. That is almost a 100 percent increase from the previous year.

The federal government’s failure to address our immigration crisis has forced cities in my district, such as Yuma, Arizona, to step up and prevent the massive flow of illegal aliens entering the country. Back in 2005, a combination of fencing, new infrastructure, no-tolerance zones and increased manpower drove down the number of apprehensions in the Yuma region nearly 95 percent, from 119,000 in 2006 to just over 6,000 in 2013.

Despite this remarkable success, the Obama Administration defied all logic and common sense by unilaterally crippling law enforcement and terminating Operation Streamline as well as other worthwhile border enforcement programs.

Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot was quite upset when he personally contacted me about one of these policy changes, stating such action “undermines the mission of local law enforcement agencies throughout Yuma County.”

The Democrats’ dirty little secret is that they want a DHS shutdown that they can blame on Republicans so President Obama can more easily ram through his unconstitutional executive amnesty plan.

The fight to stop the president's unilateral amnesty order is one worth having because, at its core, we are fighting to uphold our Constitution and enforce the rule of law. While last week’s court decision was a win for our system of checks and balances, we have a long way to go and must not relent in our pursuit of providing real security for the people of this nation.

The reality is that the failed security policies and lawlessness of this President and his administration have manufactured this crisis, and if a DHS shutdown occurs, they have no one else to blame but themselves.