Our nation's firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical response teams, and other first responders serve as our true front lines of defense against threats in our communities, and are often the first to the scene when disasters strike. As the senior Democratic member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I have championed programs to ensure that state and local first responders are equal partners in the federal government's homeland security efforts and receive the resources they need to respond to new and complex threats on the home front.

One of the primary ways the federal government supports first responders is through Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant programs, which fund a range of emergency preparedness and response activities at the state and local level, from helping fire departments hire staff and purchase equipment to helping increase security at our nation's ports. As Chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee from 2007-2010, I worked to provide robust funding for these important grant programs, increasing funding for FEMA first responder grants by a billion dollars between Fiscal Year 2007 and Fiscal Year 2010.

Unfortunately, these programs are now under threat from the current fiscal and partisan realities in Congress. Since 2010, funding for FEMA grants has been cut by nearly 50 percent, to a total level of 1.3 billion for fiscal year 2012. I believe these cuts are short-sighted and dangerous, and I have continued to fight against them in the annual appropriations process.

Related Information

• Click here for more information about DHS support for state and local first responders.
• For a comprehensive listing of grant programs for first responders, visit firstresponder.gov.
• For information about Department of Justice grants for law enforcement, visit the Community Oriented Policing Services or Bureau of Justice Assistance websites.
• For more about North Carolina's law enforcement and first responder programs, you can also contact the N.C. Department of Crime Control & Public Safety.

Nobody needs to convince North Carolinians of the value of disaster preparedness. Our state's experience with hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, and other severe weather events has driven home the importance of effective countermeasures against natural disasters, as well as the need for effective coordination of disaster response efforts among local, state, and national officials.

The most effective disaster preparedness begins at home, by preparing your property for severe weather, stocking up on essential emergency supplies, and developing an emergency plan with your family and neighbors. As the frontline of defense against all types of threats facing our communities, state and local first responders also play a critical role in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from natural disasters. But the federal government must also provide leadership, coordination, and material support during major disaster events – and when it fails to do so, the results can be tragic, as we witnessed when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005.

As the former Chairman and current senior Democratic member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I have pushed to rebuild the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) disaster response capabilities from their pre-Katrina low, through robust investments in disaster mitigation and response programs and reforms to improve coordination between the federal government and local first responders. I have also worked to ensure that FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund, which provides assistance directly to individuals and communities in the wake of disasters, is adequately funded, and have fought against recent partisan efforts to require this funding to be offset by cuts to other critical programs.

As a nation, we can never know exactly when or where disaster might strike. But we can ensure we have done everything possible to prepare for it, and the federal government has a responsibility to be an equal partner in this effort.

Related Information

• Find out how to better prepare for natural disasters at ready.gov or readync.org, or visit the American Red Cross.
• If you are a disaster survivor in need of assistance, visit FEMA's disaster survivor website.
• To contribute to disaster relief efforts, visit http://www.ncdisasterrelief.org or http://redcross.org.

Our nation's immigration system is broken and in dire need of repair. In recent decades, the legal immigration system has failed to meet the demands of our economy, while avenues for illegal immigration have become increasingly sophisticated and widespread. As a result, there are now well over ten million undocumented individuals in the United States who live in a state of legal limbo, unable to become full participants in society, while the inefficiency and inadequacy of employer-based immigration programs acts as a drag on the economy.

The outlines of comprehensive immigration reform are clear: to be truly effective, our immigration policy must simultaneously address border security and employer accountability, create legal avenues for workers to enter the country to meet the legitimate needs of employers, and offer opportunities for adjustment to legal status—on a case-by-case basis—to those undocumented individuals who are already firmly established in our communities. Yet we appear further away today from enacting comprehensive immigration reform than at any time in the past decade. Congress's continued failure to approve the DREAM Act, which would establish a path to legal status for young people, brought here as children, to attend college or serve in the military, is a sad reflection of just how far away we are from the bipartisan support required to address this difficult issue.

Until we have a comprehensive solution to illegal immigration, the federal government must seek to use existing enforcement resources as effectively as possible. As the senior Democratic member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I have worked to move our immigration policy in a constructive direction, away from the Bush Administration's "one-size-fits-all" approach and towards a policy that prioritizes resources to address the greatest threats to society. The Obama Administration has embraced this new direction, implementing several far-reaching reforms to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies designed to prioritize the removal of serious criminals and to improve rights and conditions for those who do face deportation. As a result of these reforms, 90 percent of individuals deported by ICE in the last year were either criminals, repeat immigration offenders, or others determined to pose a threat to society.

Ultimately, however, we cannot continue to address the complicated and interconnected challenges of immigration to the United States by working around the margins. We must enact a comprehensive, pragmatic program that gets to the heart of the problem. I know that President Obama is committed to a comprehensive solution, and I will be continuing to work with him to address the pressing problem of illegal immigration.

Related Information

• More information about the Obama Administration's reforms to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement immigration enforcement policies.
• Price Op-Ed in The Hill: "Enforcement Only is an Incomplete Solution"
• If you need help with US Citizenship and Immigration Services, please visit my Constituent Services page.