Former GOP Homeland Security Secretaries to House Republicans: Stop Holding DHS Hostage

Today, former Republican DHS Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff had some choice words for House Republicans about playing politics with national security. Both former agency heads urged the GOP to pass a clean measure to fund DHS and then debate immigration policy separately. Our Republican friends have heard it from us over and over again, but maybe this time it will finally resonate. From The Hill:  

“Ridge argued that there are other legislative ways to express dissatisfaction with the president's actions, including sending the president immigration legislation. ‘You have to engage it in the right form,’ he said. ‘Send the president some measures to elevate the debate. But you don’t elevate the debate and you don’t send the message by refusing to compensate the men and women who go to work every single day in a uniform of public service when their mission is to keep us safer and more secure.’”

“Chertoff, who followed Ridge at the agency under Bush, said that while there are some deep concerns about the immigration order, ‘what I don’t think makes sense is to hold the entire set of operations of the Department of Homeland Security in abeyance as a hostage as the legislative branch starts to play game of chicken with the president.’”

“‘At this particular moment, given what is going on in the world and even in this country in terms of the security challenges we face we cannot afford to be distracting the men and women on the front lines of our homeland security with concerns about whether they will get administrative support they need, the equipment they need and their salaries and their paychecks,’ he added.”

“He said a shutdown would ‘cause a lot of pain and a lot of difficulty for American citizens as well as the hundreds of thousands of people who work for DHS.’”