At a House Rules Committee meeting, Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-MA) criticized the Trump administration’s recent actions in the Middle East and questioned ongoing funding for certain Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies. McGovern stated, “America is less safe under Donald Trump. That is the simple truth.”
Referring to military operations initiated over the weekend, McGovern said, “The war he launched over the weekend—and it is a war, by the way; he calls it a war, Pete Hegseth calls it a war, so according to them it’s a war—this war has made America and the world less safe.” He attributed an increase in threats to homeland security to what he described as a “recklessly misguided regime-change war in the Middle East.”
McGovern expressed frustration with Republican-led efforts to revisit DHS funding legislation. He noted that “it is the same Republican DHS funding bill we voted on a couple weeks ago. The same one that the House already passed and sent to the Senate.” He criticized procedural redundancies and questioned changes made between versions of the bill.
He voiced strong opposition to additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP), stating: “It’s the same lousy, rotten bill that does not put any guardrails or constraints on ICE or CBP after federal agents shot American citizens in the streets. So, speaking for myself, I will not give another penny to ICE or CBP.” McGovern further claimed that Republicans had previously allocated $75 billion into ICE through their “Big Ugly Bill.”
McGovern raised concerns about national security appointments within DHS and related agencies: “Donald Trump put a 22-year-old with no national security experience in charge of terrorism prevention for the entire country.” He also referenced personnel changes at other federal agencies: “Just last week, Kash Patel fired a dozen members of an FBI counter-espionage team with a specialty in tracking Iranian threats in the United States.”
Additionally, McGovern accused Trump administration officials of weakening U.S. cyber defense capabilities by reallocating resources away from agencies like CISA toward immigration enforcement tasks.
He called on Speaker Johnson to have convened Congress earlier in response to recent developments: “Speaker Johnson should have called Congress back on Monday. We should have held an emergency meeting in this committee to bring a war powers resolution to the floor immediately.”
McGovern concluded his remarks by criticizing both legislative delays and broader policy decisions: “It’s a disgrace. Come back when you have a plan to rein in the lawlessness of ICE and CBP. Until then, we’re not going to rubber-stamp more money for agencies that defy judges and violate court orders—while this President makes America less safe by the hour with his new forever war.”
