WASHINGTON, (Sputnik) — The US national security will be jeopardized by the Islamic State (IS) if US Republican-controlled Congress fails to pass a comprehensive Department of Homeland Security funding bill, US Senator Bob Menendez said in a press-release.
“I call on our Republican colleagues to join us in passing a clean funding bill for [US] Homeland Security…We must focus on preventing ISIS-trained terrorists from coming back from Syria to do us harm,” Menendez was quoted as saying in a press release on Monday.
“This is not the time to hit a pause button on our efforts to prevent terrorism,” Menendez said in the release.
Last week, Menendez joined other US Democrats in sending a letter to US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to pass a clean DHS funding bill for the rest of the year. Currently, the department is being funded by continuing resolutions, which caps spending at 2014 levels.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson stressed that funding of DHS is particularly crucial and cannot be treated as “political volleyball” after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Ottawa and Sydney, where some terrorists are believed to be associated with the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.
IS, a radical Sunni group also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has captured vast areas in Iraq and Syria. They have committed a number of atrocities, such as public beheadings of captured prisoners, including journalists and aid workers.
