Washington — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned Friday that his agency could face “severe” consequences if Congress fails to act pass legislation that funds federal agencies and averting a government shutdown in the coming hours.
In an interview with “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Mayorkas said many parts of the Department of Homeland Security would be affected by a lack of funding, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), FEMA and Border Patrol.
The homeland security chief added that if lawmakers fail to pass an emergency bill before Saturday, it would also mean that Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office personnel would be redirected to other parts of his department.
“The implications and consequences are serious, especially when it comes to homeland security,” Mayorkas said.
He urged Congress to pass legislation that would keep government agencies operational before midnight, when a short-term extension passed in September expires.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson unveiled earlier this week a legislative package negotiated with Democrats that would have extended government funding through March 14, provided more than $100 billion in disaster relief for states hit by extreme weather events, and gave members of Congress a pay raise, among other things .
But the proposal quickly faced resistance from some conservative Republicans, who objected to the size and scope of the 1,550-page deal. Crucially, it was also criticized by billionaire Elon Musk, an ally of newly elected President Donald Trump, and then by the new president himself.
Trump and Musk torpedoed the packagewith Musk taking to X, the social media platform he owns, to criticize its provisions. The president-elect further heated up negotiations on a financing deal when he called on Republicans to do so tackling the debt limit – which will be reinstated on January 1 – into their plan.
Johnson unveiled a second measure on Thursday, which would have funded the government for three months, suspended the country’s borrowing limit until January 2027 and provided $110 billion in disaster relief. The more tailored legislation, which Trump supported, also included health care benefits, a one-year extension of the farm bill and funding to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which March collapsed.
But that package failed to pass the House with the necessary support after most Democrats and more than three dozen Republicans opposed it.
That defeat sent Johnson and Republican leaders back to the drawing board, with the prospect of a shutdown growing by the hour. Republicans are now separately discussing votes on three provisions of the package, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News: a clean expansion of government funding; billions of dollars in disaster relief; and assistance to farmers.
Mayorkas told Face the Nation that a shutdown just before the holidays — when tens of millions of Americans are traveling — would mean TSA employees at airports across the country would be forced to work without pay. However, they would likely receive a backpay after a shutdown ended, as has happened before since previous financing expires.
“We will have tens of thousands of TSA employees serving an incredibly high volume of passenger traffic at our airports across the country, and they will do so to protect the American public without pay,” he said.
The Homeland Security secretary also said those affected would include U.S. Border Patrol agents stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“There are people in government service who dedicate their talent and their energy to the good of the American people, who depend on their paychecks to make ends meet, and after all, it is the holidays, but our men and women at the border will protect the border of the United States free of charge if funding is not secured,” Mayorkas said.
The $110 billion in disaster assistance likely to be included in a spending deal includes money for FEMA, which responded to the hurricanes that devastated the Southeast this fall.
Mayorkas said congressional inaction would impact states hit by the storms, including North Carolina and Florida.
“What FEMA is going to have to do, another major impact of the inability to fund the federal government, is that they’re going to have to delay now – they’re going to have to suspend certain contracts, certain projects that are actually restoring communities that have been devastated by extreme weather events. by tornadoes, by hurricanes, by fires, and that will slow down the rebuilding of communities and the ability to get results for people who have suffered so much,” he said.
Mayorkas said a shutdown during the holidays would force the Department of Homeland Security to “make difficult decisions now to delay projects.”
Lawmakers representing storm-ravaged states have pushed for disaster relief to be included in any legislative package the government funds.
