WASHINGTON -- The possible shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security threatens the Obama administration's efforts to counter the extremist appeal of the Islamic State group within the U.S. and to respond with emergency aid to communities struggling with winter snowstorms, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Sunday.
In a round of appearances on network news programs, Johnson said that if Congress fails to agree on a new budget for his department by Friday's end, lawmakers' inaction would lead to staff furloughs that could hamstring U.S. response to terrorist threats and warnings, such as one late Saturday that names the Mall of America.
Johnson said that up to 30,000 department workers would have to be furloughed, including up to 80 percent of Federal Emergency Management Agency workers even as that agency contends with two months of devastating snowfall and cold from New England to the mountain states.
"It's absurd that we're even having this conversation about Congress' inability to fund Homeland Security in these challenging times," he said.
After a week's break, Congress returns to work today, just days before funding for the department's $40 billion budget ends. Lawmakers have until the end of the week to approve the budget and avoid shutting down the department, but no clear solution is in sight.
"The House has acted to fund the Homeland Security Department," Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said in an email Sunday. "Now it's time for Senate Democrats to stop blocking legislation that would do the same."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Boehner want to use a spending bill to force President Barack Obama to reverse his orders shielding undocumented migrants from being deported.
Today, McConnell will try for a fourth time to advance a House-passed Homeland Security spending bill, HR240, that would require Obama to abandon the immigration action he announced in November.
Democrats have blocked the measure three times. They say Congress should fund the Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for immigration and border enforcement, without setting new limits on immigration policy.
The bill would cover the department through Sept. 30.
The issue was further clouded last week when a federal district judge in Texas temporarily blocked the administration's plans to protect illegal-alien parents of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents from deportation. The decision came as part of a lawsuit filed by 26 states claiming Obama had overstepped his authority in taking the executive action.
Today, the administration will seek an emergency order allowing the president's plans to proceed during the appeal.
"We should have debate about immigration reform, but you should not tie that to funding of the department," Johnson said.
Two prominent Republican senators agreed.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he didn't support efforts to shut the government down and that the federal court system is the "best way" to resolve the impasse.
"But have no doubt I am angry, as are my constituents in a border state, that the president of the United States would unconstitutionally issue the executive orders he did," McCain said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina urged Republicans to fund the department and fight Obama's actions in court.
"I've never seen more terrorist organizations with more safe havens, with more money, with more capability to strike the homeland than I do today," Graham said. "The worst thing to do is add gasoline to the fire by having the Republican Party defund the Department of Homeland Security."
Of Homeland Security's approximately 230,000 employees, some 200,000 of them would keep working even if Congress failed to fund their agency. They would receive no pay, however, until Congress authorized funding. It's a reality that was on display during the 16-day governmentwide shutdown in the fall of 2013, when national parks and monuments closed but essential government functions kept running, albeit sometimes on reduced staff.
Department officials said the employees who might be furloughed would include 5,500 of the Transportation Security Administration's employees but would exclude federal air marshals.
Front-line divisions such as the TSA, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Coast Guard would continue to operate.
Terror alerts
Johnson linked the purported Mall of America warning from the Africa-based al-Shabab terror group and other recent terror alerts to what he described as a "new phase" of challenges by extremist groups abroad that have used alarming Internet videos and social media to gain adherents in the U.S. and potentially prod some to action.
He urged shoppers Sunday to be "particularly careful" in visiting the Mall of America after it was targeted for a terrorist attack in a video.
U.S. authorities said there was "no credible" evidence suggesting a mall attack was in the works.
The video purported to be by Somalia's al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab urged Muslims to attack shopping malls in the U.S., Canada, Britain and other Western countries.
The threat came in the final minutes of a more than hour-long video in which the extremists also warned Kenya of more attacks like the September 2013 assault on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in which 67 people were killed.
The masked narrator concluded by calling on Muslims to attack shopping malls, specifically naming the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis, as well as the West Edmonton Mall in Canada and the Westfield mall in Stratford, England.
In a joint statement, the Homeland Security Department and the FBI said, "We are aware of the reported call from al-Shabab for 'Westgate style' attacks against shopping centers around the world, to include in the United States." The agencies said they were working with "state and local public safety counterparts and members of the private sector, to include mall owners and operators, to prevent and mitigate these types of threats."
Royal Canadian Mounted Police are also investigating the "exact contents and authenticity" of the video reportedly from the terror group, Canadian Press reported.
The authenticity of the video could not be immediately verified by The Associated Press.
Asked about the specific threat against the Mall of America, Johnson said: "Any time a terrorist organization calls for an attack on a specific place, we've got to take that seriously. What we're telling the public is you've got to be vigilant."
Mall of America, one of the nation's largest, said in a statement that it was "aware of a threatening video which includes a mention and images of the mall," and said extra security had been put in place.
The complex in Bloomington, Minn., has more than 500 stores and attracts 40 million visitors a year, about 40 percent of them tourists, according to its website.
Shoppers seemed undeterred Sunday by the threat.
"I'm more afraid of the cold today than any terrorists," said Mary Lamminen of St. Paul, Minn.
While al-Shabab has carried out attacks outside Somalia -- in Kenya, Uganda and Djibouti, which all have troops fighting the extremists as part of the multinational African Union force -- it has never operated outside East Africa and the Horn of Africa.
Minnesota, home to the largest Somali population in the U.S., has been the target of terror recruiters in the past. Since 2007, more than 22 young Somali men from Minnesota have traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabab, and a handful of Minnesota residents have also traveled to Syria to fight with militant groups within the past year, authorities say. At least one Minnesotan has died while fighting for the Islamic State group.
Johnson said the U.S. and foreign allies have made progress in tracking thousands of Americans and Europeans who have streamed abroad to join the Islamic State and other militant fighters inside Syria. But he said Western countries still need to build better systems to track individuals under suspicion of backing Islamic State and other groups.
Graham was on ABC's This Week; McCain spoke on CBS' Face the Nation; and Johnson appeared on CNN's State of the Union, ABC's This Week, NBC's Meet the Press, Fox News Sunday and CBS' Face the Nation.
Information for this article was contributed by Stephen Braun, Andrew Meldrum and staff members of The Associated Press; by Mark Landler and Michael D. Shear of The New York Times; by Kathleen Miller, Ben Brody and staff members of Bloomberg News; and by William Douglas of Tribune News Service.
A Section on 02/23/2015