Republicans face crowded field in race to lead House Homeland Security panel

The Hill

2 days ago

Four GOP candidates are battling to lead the House Homeland Security Committee, vying for a job that will put them at the center of President Trump's immigration agenda.
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) threw his hat in the ring Wednesday, joining a crowded field with Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) and Clay Higgins (R-La.) all running for the top spot on the panel.
The Republican Steering Committee will make a decision Monday night on who will fill the vacancy left by Rep. Mark Green's (R-Tenn.) exit from Congress.
'They all have their attributes,' Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the most senior member of the committee, told The Hill.
'Michael Guest was a prosecutor like myself. He's very intelligent, very good temperament. I think Gimenez has a passion for the job. Certainly, Clay Higgins has a lot of passion,' he said with a laugh. 'And he's closer to the border, so he gets the border issues.'
McCaul noted that former New York representative and committee Chair Peter King encouraged Garbarino to run, saying the sitting lawmaker 'brings the New York, 9/11' perspective in a committee with a broad reach.
Garbarino has stressed the committee's roots in addressing terrorism as well as many other nonimmigration policy issues central to the committee, like disaster response. Gimenez, a former mayor and firefighter, has called for 'nuance' in some Trump immigration policies. Guest is a former prosecutor who now chairs the House Ethics Committee. Higgins, a former police officer, is the most senior member of the group.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the group had created 'quite a horse race.'
Whoever leads the committee will be in charge of oversight of the sprawling Department of Homeland Security, which must contend with immigration issues as well as cyberattacks, disaster planning, transportation security and more.
As the race comes down to the wire, Higgins and Guest are both stressing their years of service on the panel.
Guest has served in a number of leadership roles on the panel, including as a vice chair and subcommittee chair, and he has also spent three years serving as Ethics chair — a role he'd relinquish if selected for the Homeland Security Committee.
He also noted he has '25 years of prosecutorial experience before coming to Congress, where I had the opportunity during that time to work with law enforcement to deal with many of the issues that the committee will be addressing for the remainder of this Congress,' he told The Hill.
A pamphlet distributed by Guest notes that he was an impeachment manager when the House panel initiated the process against former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which was swiftly rejected by the Senate.
It also stresses that if selected, Guest would intend to serve for years — perhaps a nod to Green's exit after just a few years as chair.
'If chosen to lead on Homeland, I intend to serve for multiple congresses to implement my vision of improved member retention, hard-hitting investigations, and a more effective CHS that serves the priorities of the House Republican Conference,' he wrote.
The pitch also said the border must be secured 'full stop' and that the panel must 'keep our foot on the gas' with Trump immigration policies. It also highlights the need to protect cybersecurity, respond to foreign terror threats, and close supply chain vulnerabilities with China.
Higgins said he has passed along a prospectus to the Steering Committee, and he quietly highlighted his experience to colleagues in a June letter sent shortly after Green announced his intentions to leave Congress.
His pitch to the Steering Committee notes he has gone from 'street cop to Congress' and says he is regarded as 'one of the most conservative Members of Congress.'
Higgins said the panel must work to enshrine much of President Trump's executive orders into law, and he called the committee's work under Green as 'our starting point.'
'We will work closely with President Trump, Vice President Vance, and their top advisors to advance the administration's priorities. This includes seeking opportunities to codify many of President Trump's executive actions, a necessary step to ensure lasting security for America's citizenry,' he said.
'I'm nine years on the committee — this is my committee, and I'm very dedicated to it,' Higgins told The Hill.
Higgins could face some resistance in the race given the large number of Louisianans already within House leadership ranks, including Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R).
Gimenez and Garbarino — both elected in 2020 — are each starting their third term on the panel but stressed they have the experience to lead a committee with such a wide scope.
It's not unprecedented to have a third-term lawmaker helm the panel, as Green was also in his third term when he was selected for the role.
Gimenez, a former mayor, said the role left him responsible for emergency planning in the hurricane-prone region.
'I've been here. They know who I am. I know I'm a team player, but some of them may not know the full breadth of my experience before I got here. And so I make sure that they understand exactly who I am, what I've done, how it's dealt with FEMA and homeland security before I got here. And I think that that makes an impression,' he told The Hill, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Gimenez has been largely complimentary of Trump's border policies but has broken with the president on some issues.
Gimenez, alongside fellow Florida Republican Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar, called on the Trump administration to rethink plans to end Temporary Protected Status as well as parole for those from countries including Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti — all groups with established communities in the Miami area.
'Nuance would be that instead of having wholesale deportations, it needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, and really go back to the way it should have been to be allowed in the country in the first place,' Gimenez told The Hill in May.
While he was mayor, however, Miami law enforcement cooperated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and, speaking to The Hill on Tuesday, Gimenez said the country was still recovering from Biden immigration policies.
Gimenez compared immigration to a swinging pendulum, saying the Biden administration 'took us to a complete extreme' that has not yet been corrected, but he said the country is getting to a place where some reforms could be examined.
'I've always said that we can't have a discussion about immigration reform until we secure the border — well we've just secured the border,' he said.
Garbarino stressed the wide variety of issues the committee must address beyond migration, rattling off a list of key policy priorities and upcoming deadlines the panel will have to contend with.
'The committee has a lot of different jurisdictions. Border has been something we've been focusing on the last two and a half years. It's important, and that's something we had to focus on, and we still have to focus on it, especially with oversight of the money and the authorizations' included in the 'big, beautiful bill,' he said.
'Making sure that … all that moves ahead is very important, but this committee was started after 9/11 — I'm from New York. This was focused on counterterrorism, and we have to get back to that.'
Garbarino said a terrorism focus is especially important after the U.S. bombing of Iran and concerns that any other number of issues could motivate lone-wolf attackers. He emphasized the need for the Homeland Security Department to play a role in facilitating communication between state and local law enforcement and providing the necessary authorizations to do so.
Garbarino, who now chairs the panel's subcommittee on cybersecurity, said 'our southern border was weak but I think our cyber border is probably our weakest border now.'
He said he's stressed about a looming Sept. 30 deadline for the Cyber Information Sharing Act.
'We need to make sure we have people working on cybersecurity. Eight percent of our critical infrastructure is by the private sector. So that partnership between the private sector and government, that open communication, that sharing information, we have to make sure that it was all there and all authorized,' he told The Hill.
'That is probably the number one goal that we have to get done within the next two months. There's just a lot that we haven't done as a full committee that we now need to get focused on again, because there is a lot that we touch.'