Flashback: Jeffries called failing to fully fund DHS an 'abdication of responsibility'
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., once said that failing to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was "legislative malpractice" — a position he is now rejecting in...
By Fox News · Fox News
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., once said that failing to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was "legislative malpractice" — a position he is now rejecting in the current funding standoff with Republicans. "We are here today to do a single job, and that should be to fund fully the Department of Homeland Security," Jeffries said during a 2015 speech on the House floor. Jeffries, near the start of his congressional career, urged the Republican-controlled House to pass a "clean" DHS bill that year when the department was on the brink of a partial government shutdown. "Anything else is an abdication of our responsibility. Anything else is an act of legislative malpractice," Jeffries said at the time, referring to providing full-year appropriations to the department. REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: GOP EYES DHS DEAL FUNDING ICE PROBES, BUT NOT REMOVALS, AS SHUTDOWN DRAGS A decade later, Jeffries has reversed that position, arguing that fully funding DHS would be a failure of Congress. He and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have withheld their votes on a full-year DHS funding bill as they demand various reforms to rein in immigration enforcement. "Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not brutalize or kill them," Jeffries said in February. "The American people know ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is out of control." The 39-day funding standoff has snarled air travel across the country as passengers face hours-long wait times at airport security checkpoints due to a shortage of TSA workers. Tens of thousands of DHS employees — including TSA agents — are reporting to work without pay during the shutdown, leading some to call off work or quit altogether. Some TSA personnel are sleeping in cars and selling blood plasma to make ends meet, Acting Deputy TSA Administrator Adam Stahl said Tuesday. Jeffries is expected to vote against a full-year DHS measure with a majority of House Demo…