WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) renewed his call for Congress to pass legislation that fully funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the rest of the Fiscal Year:

“More than anything, last Friday’s close-call should really be a wake-up call: Congress needs to stop playing games with the DHS budget and put an end to these manufactured crises that only hurt our country and sow further distrust in this institution,” Senator King said. “Let’s do what common sense dictates: fund the Department of Homeland Security – the department charged with defending the safety and security of Americans here at home – and then let’s have a vigorous debate about immigration reform, including the President’s executive actions.”

Today, Senator King voted to oppose and then table a procedural motion that would send the Senate and House of Representatives into a Conference on the DHS funding bill passed by the Senate last Friday, which would, in effect, put the House of Representatives in a position to once again attach extraneous provisions to the bill.

Senator King has called on Congress several times to pass a clean bill – without any provisions related to the President’s executive immigration actions – and then proceed to debate of S.534, a bill to prohibit funds from being used to carry out the President’s November 2014 executive actions as an avenue to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform.

Senator King has been a proponent of immigration reform, voting last year in favor of the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate by a wide margin but which died in the House.

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