Spending cuts to hurt homeland securityNapolitano: "Sequestration would roll back border security, increase wait times at our nation's land ports of entry and airports, affect aviation and maritime safety and security, leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to attacks, hamper disaster response time"

By Jeanne Sahadi
CNN Money

NEW YORK — The $85 billion in spending reductions looming over the federal government will cut into the nation's homeland security department and affect how it carries out vital missions, a top Obama administration official warned Wednesday.

"Sequestration would roll back border security, increase wait times at our nation's land ports of entry and airports, affect aviation and maritime safety and security, leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to attacks, hamper disaster response time ... and significantly scale back cyber security infrastructure protections," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

A notable portion of the department's frontline law enforcement personnel would also have to be furloughed for up to 14 days, she said.

The sequester -- a series of blunt, automatic funding cuts across much of the federal budget set to begin on March 1 -- was never supposed to go into effect. Instead, the threat that it might was supposed to spur lawmakers to find a smarter way to reduce deficits over the next decade.

Full story: Spending cuts to hurt homeland security