New York Senator Chuck Schumer is demanding the reinstatement of the Department of Homeland Security’s school safety board after President Donald Trump disbanded it on Jan. 24.
Schumer called on Trump Sunday to restore the Federal Safety Clearinghouse Advisory Board, which was created under a bipartisan gun bill passed in 2022 following mass shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, Yahoo News reports. The board aimed to advise federal agencies on preventing and responding to school shootings.
“The Trump administration cannot bow down, yet again, to the likes of the NRA,” the Senate minority leader said in a statement. “We’ve seen them do it before, but this most recent action of shutting down the school safety board and its work to try and prevent school shootings is just pathetic.”
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While the board was created in 2022, the Biden administration did not pick its members until July 2024. The board consisted of school and security leaders, civil rights advocates, community and school leaders, and parents of school shooting victims. The board only had one meeting in October before it was disbanded.
“They are shutting it down before you even see what It does,” said Schumer.
According to a memo obtained by Newsweek, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman said the decision was made as part of the agency’s commitment to “eliminating misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security,”
“This board was one of the best things we had to combat gun violence in schools,” Schumer told the Daily News. “To just abolish it makes no sense whatsoever.”
Schumer said it is unlikely that the Trump administration and incoming Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would agree to reconvene the board, noting, “I think a lawsuit would definitely succeed” in compelling Trump to follow the law.