Appropriations Committee Approves Fiscal Year 2020 Homeland Security Funding Bill

Statement

The House Appropriations Committee today approved the fiscal year 2020 Homeland Security bill on a vote of 29 to 20. The legislation provides annual funding for the Department of Homeland Security and its related agencies.

The bill provides a gross total of $63.8 billion in discretionary appropriations, $2.2 billion above the fiscal year 2019 enacted level and $1.9 billion below the President's request. When excluding offsetting collections and a cap adjustment for disaster response activities, the net discretionary total for the bill is $49.7 billion.

"I am proud to have drafted this smart, effective, and humane Homeland Security funding bill," said House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security Chairwoman Lucille Roybal-Allard. "This bill presses forward with our commitments to keeping American families safe and secure, and supporting the important work of Department of Homeland Security personnel. We are taking a balanced approach to border security and immigration enforcement, including vigorous efforts to address the humanitarian crisis at our southern border, and to ensure fair and humane treatment for everyone in our government's custody. Our bill also makes crucial investments across the spectrum of homeland security missions: we are protecting our physical infrastructure and our cybersecurity; we are securing our territorial waters and airspace; and we are helping our state and local governments get ready to face terrorist threats and disasters."

"The bill provides strong investments in disaster relief and anti-terrorism grant programs while putting a check on the cruel immigration enforcement of the Trump Administration," said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey. "Restrictions in this bill would tighten the reins on the Administration's practice of transferring funds for purposes other than those intended by Congress, including the dramatic expansion of interior immigration enforcement. This bill makes critical investments in our national security infrastructure while curtailing inhumane policies that have threatened many of our most vulnerable."

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