Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) and lawmakers in the Republican Study Committee (RSC) ventured to Reagan National Airport together, not to take a flight, but rather to shine a spotlight on what they called one of the stupidest shutdowns of recent history.
“I’m a United States History teacher,” Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R., Fla.) said during the press conference. “Why do you form a government? To protect life, liberty and property.” The government shutdown, he said, is “a shame on Congress for this simple reason: when we when we came into office in 2024 as one simple issue, we wanted to secure the border. We finally secured the border. Now we need to rid our country of folks who have broken the law once they got here, and then the Democrats now have the gall to actually gut the Department of Homeland Security. It’s just a fundamental responsibility of government to protect your life and property, and they are not stepping up.”
Haridopolos and several of his colleagues tied the need to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to the threats coming from Iran. “We have a real national security threat,” he noted, “as we’ve seen from recent incidents right here in America; Republicans have stepped forward and funded the government. It’s time for Democrats to simply meet their constitutional responsibility and their number one oath when they take the Oath of Office, and that is protect life and property. And we’re here to ask them a simple thing: pass the bill.”
Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R., Texas) told the Washington Reporter that her Democratic colleagues should “absolutely” be concerned about the uptick in Islamic terrorist attacks that have taken place across America in recent days.
DHS, she added, “was created after 9/11, specifically because we saw these terrorists had crossed into our home state. Right now, you’re seeing that in my home state. You saw it in Austin not too long ago. You’ve seen kids who are being targeted for murder by radical Islamists. Are Democrats being moved by that? No. Instead, they are choosing to keep folks in here who have unknown intents for our country because it means more power and more population in their congressional districts.”
Rep. Mark Alford (R., Mo.), the RSC’s messaging chair, explained why Democrats are to blame for the shutdown, which he called “the stupidest shutdown in U.S. history.”
“The DHS Bill was funded, and it was negotiated at the highest levels in the House and in the Senate, and agreed to by both sides. The Democrats reneged on this deal. We fully funded ICE through the reconciliation bill, and now the Democrats have been holding the American people hostage for more than a month…One Democrat said it best: ‘it’s not forcing any change. In the meantime, we’re making people hurt.’ Another admitted, ‘we’re just chasing our tail here. It’s good politics, but it’s not going to actually open DHS.’ Think about that. The Democrats know their plan is not working. They know Americans are hurting, and they are still doing it anyway.”
In contrast, he noted, “Republicans have already passed full funding twice. We’ve done our job, and it’s time for Democrats to do theirs. That’s why this week, we’re bringing forward the Pay Our Homeland Defenders Act of 2026; this bill does three simple things: it ends the Democrat shutdown. It guarantees pay for the men and women protecting our homeland, and it restores stability to our borders, our airports, and our national security.”
Rep. Dale Strong (R., Ala.), who serves with Alford on the House Appropriations Committee, emphasized that contrast, telling the Reporter that he wants to “give credit where credit’s due” to even the Democrats on that committee.
“Look at what Tom Cole did as Chairman of Appropriations,” Strong said. “12 for 12 [on appropriations bills]. But I want to also give credit to ranking member Rosa DeLauro. DeLauro, worked with Tom Cole and our entire committee. We gave a little. Everybody sacrificed. We approved 12 bills for 12 for the first time since 2018; that’s a pretty good accomplishment, with a very small majority, but it took people working together. The Senate agreed to it. We sent it over there, and look where we’re at today with these self-inflicted wounds.”
“The American people deserve better, and [the Democrats] need to own it. If you’re going to stand up and do this to the American people, own it. The Republicans are leading. 15 million came across the border. Everything ICE does, the Democrats are against. They’re carrying out law enforcement. They’re mad because they’re in the airports. You know what they’re doing? They’re law enforcement. They’re making sure that we’re safe in these airports. The big thing is it’s time to move forward. The American people are tired of Democrats talking. They’re tired of the talk. They’re ready to fund Homeland Security.”
Rep. Randy Fine (R., Fla.) expressed the frustration of many of his Republican colleagues in noting that “for four years, Democrats allowed anyone who could stream across the border to come into this country. There were no safeguards, there were no checks, there were no balances; some estimate more than 20 million people came here. And we were told we had to allow that because elections had consequences.”
“Then,” he noted, “Donald Trump got elected, and he said that stops, and now Democrats are using the same ruthless tactics to try to keep these people in the country. Their focus is on illegal immigrants. Our focus is on protecting the American people and making sure those whose job it is to protect the American people get paid.”
“Every” Democrat, he added, “when they fly up here have to go through security. They should look those people in the eyes and say, ‘I don’t want to pay you because I want illegal immigrants to be able to stay in this country.’ It needs to stop. It needs to stop today.”
Rep. Brandon Gill (R., Texas) suggested that the reason that the lawmakers gathered at Reagan was likely because “want to systematically weaponize mass migration to flood our communities with illegal aliens in order to rig American elections in their favor and against Republicans.”
“So much of Democrat policy is, in fact, based on flooding American communities with hostile foreigners, putting their interests above the interests of the American people, and weaponizing them politically for electoral gain,” Gill added. “It’s absolutely grotesque, and yet we deal with it every single day. What we are not going to do as Republicans is we’re not going to allow Democrats to defund ICE; we’re going to make sure that our ICE agents and immigration enforcement is funded properly, the way it should be, so that we can continue deporting illegal aliens, no matter what Democrats think about it.”
