Steering Committee taps Garbarino to serve as Homeland Security chair

Chris Johnson, CQ-Roll Call on Jul 22, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

WASHINGTON — The House Republican Steering Committee late Monday recommended Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York to succeed Mark E. Green to chair the House Homeland Security Committee.

Garbarino, who currently chairs the committee’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection subcommittee, beat three other candidates who sought the gavel: Michael Guest of Mississippi, Carlos Gimenez of Florida and Clay Higgins of Louisiana.

Though seventh in line in GOP seniority, Garbarino is considered a close ally of Speaker Mike Johnson. He’s also a member of the steering committee.

He was selected on the second ballot. The full GOP conference will need to ratify his selection.

Garbarino, 40, whose district includes Long Island, is a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a group equally split between Republicans and Democrats, as well as the Republican Main Street Caucus, a 60-plus member bloc of center-right lawmakers.

He has served on the Homeland Security Committee since his freshman term and was almost immediately elevated to the top Republican slot on the Cybersecurity subcommittee. He got the subcommittee gavel at the start of the 118th Congress when Republicans took over the House majority.

As subcommittee chairman, Garbarino focused on cyber attacks in critical sectors, including one that affected hospitals in several states in summer 2023. In 2024, he was one of the managers appointed by the House to conduct the impeachment proceedings of then Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas.

His predecessor as chairman, Green, a Tennessee Republican, announced in June that he would resign from Congress after the House vote on the reconciliation package. In a coincidence, Garbarino’s predecessor in Congress, Peter T. King, was also a previous chairman of the committee.

The new chairman takes the gavel just weeks after Congress infused the Trump administration with $170 billion as part of the reconciliation law to implement its immigration enforcement priorities.

The chair will be charged with oversight of the executive branch on immigration enforcement, as well as consideration of new legislative language tightening border security rules.

The committee was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a select committee tasked with oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. It was made a permanent committee in January 2005.