Amodei Remarks at FY26 Homeland Security Bill Full Committee Markup (As Prepared)

The bill before us today provides $66.3 billion, an increase of $1.3 billion above fiscal year 2025, and $26.5 billion for major disaster response and recovery activities. 

What a difference a year makes. When we were marking up our fiscal year 2025 bill, the border was in disarray. We were spending billions of dollars on sole-source contracts for soft-sided tents to process and manage a Biden policy-driven crisis. 

And if that wasn’t bad enough, we were sending hundreds of millions to non-governmental organizations to facilitate the entry of illegal aliens into the country on a massive scale. The turn around that the Trump administration has orchestrated on the border has been profound.  What was once a border in chaos with record levels of encounters has quickly turned into the lowest numbers of crossings in recorded history. 

All it took was a President who actually enforces the law – no additional legislation required. You can never say mission accomplished in this business, but we are off to a strong start.

This bill makes investments to sustain the Trump Administration’s progress on border security and immigration enforcement.

To that end we fund:

• 22,000 Border Patrol Agents and provide flexibility for recruitment and retention bonuses.
• A record level of $346 million dollars for border security technology; and, perhaps most importantly,
• 50,000 detention beds and increases to transportation operations, so ICE can detain and deport all criminal and removable aliens.

And after years of neglect, we are appropriately funding an overlooked element of our border and national security – the United States Coast Guard. 

The Coast Guard operates 50-year-old ships, has a $7 billion dollar shoreside infrastructure backlog, and puts more hours on their helicopters than anyone else. It's time we give them the resources they desperately need to keep our coasts and waterways safe. To combat the growing threat of Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific, this bill provides funding for three additional Fast Response Cutters, a service life extension to deploy an additional Indo-Pacific Major Cutter, and increased funding for operations, staff, support, and maritime engagements in the region.

Now, I’m sure my Democratic colleagues will claim that we are gutting our cyber capabilities in this bill. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have responsibly trimmed CISA’s budget by eliminating duplicative contracts and non-mission critical positions, consolidating election security and chemical security missions into the existing critical infrastructure security framework, defunding equity positions, and returning the focus of CISA to its core mission of protecting Federal networks. 

We also took action to ensure that the days of censorship through labeling Americans’ speech as mis, dis, and mal information are over. We do nothing but refocus an agency that has strayed from its core mission – defending critical infrastructure and Federal networks against cyber-attacks. 

In terms of FEMA, the Democrats may complain about a projected shortfall in the Disaster Relief Fund by the end of the fiscal year.  I’ve been watching the numbers and the DRF appears to be in OK shape. It’s nowhere near as low as the original projections. And if it gets too low, the President can send forward a supplemental funding request for us to consider outside the regular appropriations process.

As the President has said, FEMA needs to be reformed. We need to empower the state and local governments who can make far better decisions for their communities than bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. Today, there are fewer people at FEMA due to voluntary staff departures and the elimination of equity focused positions.  So, we don’t fund salaries and benefits of those who no longer work there.

We do fund Community Projects for Members on both sides of the aisle in this very room to help their communities prepare for and respond to natural disasters. And we do include enhancements to Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces that deploy all over the country when disasters strike.

Finally, the Secret Service has an extraordinarily tough, and zero-failure mission, of protecting the President, Vice President and their families. 

Outside of election years, we reduce funding commensurate with the decrease in workload. However, this bill still appropriately funds increases in personnel and enhancements to technologies and facilities to ensure that the Service has the resources to protect the nation’s leaders. 

Overall, this bill ensures that we fund the missions of the Department that protects the Homeland, and refocuses where necessary, to make sure this Department is only doing the job that Congress has authorized it to do – keep the American people safe.

I yield back the balance of my time.