Homeland Security shutdown would slow pay for 3,000

If Department of Homeland Security funding runs out Friday, more than 3,000 Hawaii employees will still have to report to work without pay, or be furloughed without pay, according to U.S. Rep. Mark Takai’s office.

Repayment would likely come later, as it did with a 2013 government shutdown, but morale would take a hit.

"This affects people. This affects families. There are real consequences that are going to have an impact on Hawaii," Takai, a Hawaii Democrat, said last week as the political impasse over DHS funding ensued.

Those DHS workers deemed "essential," including about 1,300 active-duty Coast Guard personnel in Hawaii, would be among those working without a paycheck, according to Hawaii’s congressional delegation.

It wasn’t clear how many of the Coast Guard’s approximately 126 civilian workers would be required to work, and how many would be furloughed.

Senate Republicans and Democrats brokered a deal Wednesday to fund the department past Friday with a so-called "clean" bill that decouples $39.7 billion for the federal agency from President Barack Obama’s controversial executive orders on illegal immigrants.

How quickly the Senate can pass the measure is unclear. How the bill would fare in the House is another question.

The DHS is operating on a continuing resolution that expires Friday. Without continued funding, the vast majority — about 200,000 of Homeland Security’s 230,000 employees — would stay on the job as essential workers, albeit without pay, including Transportation Security Administration employees at airports.

Other frontline workers, including those at Customs and Border Protection and the Secret Service, also would continue to work.

Another 30,000 mainly administrative personnel, including headquarters staffs, would be furloughed.

Homeland Security is responsible for aviation, border, port, maritime and cyber security; protection of critical infrastructure and national leaders; and response to disasters.

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday at a gathering of agency chiefs that there are "serious consequences" for the men and women of the department "if they are required to come to work and try to make ends meet without a paycheck for themselves and their families."

It’s been more difficult to make the case for an emergency that would arise with a partial DHS shutdown.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft said that although the service’s men and women would "continue to protect life and property at sea and preserve national security interests," a lapse in funding would require the Coast Guard to curtail routine law enforcement patrols and facility inspections, as well as fisheries enforcement, mariner licensing and credentialing, and certain vessel inspections.

Federal Emergency Management Agency head Craig Fugate said at the Monday press event that "if we end up in a shutdown, I have heard this said — and I like to be factual — that the impact will not be that great because most of the people at DHS will still be at work."

With a furloughed staff, though, "we cannot continue to make any payments on outstanding disaster recoveries from any open disaster," he said.

The Republican-led House passed a bill last month that funded the DHS but also defunded Obama’s executive orders deferring deportation and granting work permits for some undocumented workers. Senate Democrats blocked the measure four times.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday’s agreement was reached to amend the House bill and fully fund DHS while addressing Obama’s immigration actions separately.

The fate of the DHS funding bill in the House is less certain. U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, a Republican from Alabama, said Wednesday he sent a letter to the House leadership "urging them to hold strong and force the Senate to act on the House-passed (DHS) appropriations bill that stops President Obama’s unlawful executive amnesty."

Democratic Hawaii U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said in an email that "Speaker (John) Boehner and Tea Party Republicans are substituting commonsense lawmaking with manufactured political crises. Jeopardizing our nation’s ability to thwart terrorism by shutting down the DHS is a dangerous step too far."