To prevent the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program unlawfully created by Executive memorandum on August 15, 2012.

Mr. Speaker, some Members have asked whether this bill terminates deferred action for DREAMers with DACA. This question was put to Chairman Goodlatte at the Rules Committee today, and he answered, as I saw on TV, that the text speaks for itself. He is right. The text does speak for itself. And on lines 5 through 7 on page 1, the text clearly terminates DACA by prohibiting DREAMers from applying to renew their deferred action, which they must do after a 2-year time period.

It also prevents future deferred action to ensure that we continue to deport the parents of the DREAMers and parents of U.S. citizen children, sending those children, by the way, into foster care, or prevent DREAMers who have not yet filed for deferred action from doing so.

So basically, this bill will have the effect of removing DACA from the DREAMers and making them deportable.

Now, there has been a lot of discussion about the role that DACA has had, and I will put into the Record a report from the Cato Institute, titled, ``DACA Did Not Cause the Surge in Unaccompanied Children.'' If you do statistic analysis, you can see that it is impossible that DACA has been the cause of these children coming from the three war-torn countries, as the report reports.

[From the Cato Institute, July 29, 2014]

DACA Did Not Cause the Surge in Unaccompanied Children

(By Alex Nowrasteh)

In June, 2012 the Obama Administration announced that it

had authored a memo deferring the deportation of unauthorized

immigrant childhood arrivals in the United States, a program

known as deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA). The

memo directed then Secretary of the Department of Homeland

Security to practice prosecutorial discretion toward a small

number of unauthorized immigrants who fulfilled a specific

set of characteristics. In essence, some unauthorized

immigrants who had come to the United States as children were

able to legally stay and work--at least temporarily.

Did DACA Cause the UAC Surge?

Some politicians contend that DACA is primarily responsible

for the surge in unaccompanied child (UAC) migrants across

the border in recent years. A recent House Appropriations

Committee one-pager stated that, ``The dire situation on our

Southern border has been exacerbated by the President's

current immigration policies.'' Proponents of this theory

argue that DACA sent a message to Central Americans that if

they came as children then the U.S. government would legalize

them, thus giving a large incentive for them to come in the

first place. Few facts of the unaccompanied children (UAC)

surge are consistent with the theory that DACA caused the

surge.

First, the surge in UAC began long before the June 15, 2012

announcement of DACA. It is true that DACA had been discussed

in late May 2012 but the surge was underway by that time.

From October 2011 through March 2012, there was a 93 percent

increase in UAC apprehensions over the same period in Fiscal

Year 2011. Texas Governor Rick Perry warned President Obama

about the rapid increase in UAC at the border in early May

2012--more than a full month before DACA was announced. In

early June 2012, Mexico was detaining twice as many Central

American children as in 2011. The surge in unaccompanied

children (UAC) began before DACA was announced.

Second, the children coming now are not legally able to

apply for DACA. A recipient of DACA has to have resided in

the United States continuously from June 15, 2007 to June 15,

2012, a requirement that excludes the unaccompanied children

coming now.

Third, if DACA was such an incentive for UAC to come from

Central America, why are so few Nicaraguan children coming?

They would benefit in the same way as unaccompanied children

from El Salvdaor, Honduras, and Guatemala. The lack of

Nicaraguans points to other causes of the surge.

The timing, legal exclusion of the UAC from DACA, and lack

of Nicaraguans indicate that DACA was not a primary cause of

the surge. Of the 404 UAC interviewed by the United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees since 2011, only 9 mentioned

that U.S. laws influenced their decision to come to the

United States. Other American laws could have influenced the

unaccompanied children to come but DACA is not the main

culprit.

Details on DACA

The DACA beneficiaries, at the time of the memo, would have

to fulfill all of these requirements to have their

deportations deferred: under the age of 31; arrived to the

United States before reaching their 16th birthday; entered

the United States without

inspection or overstayed a visa prior to June 15, 2012;

continuously resided in the United States from June 15, 2007

to the time of the memo; physically present in the United

States on June 15, 2012, as well as at the time of requesting

deferred action from United States Citizenship and

Immigration Services (USCIS); been in school at the time of

application, or have already graduated or obtained a

certificate of completion from high school, or have obtained

a general education development (GED) certificate, or are an

honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard or the

U.S. Armed Forces; not been convicted of a felony,

significant misdemeanor, or three or more other misdemeanors,

and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or

public safety.

Beneficiaries of DACA were also allowed to apply for

employment authorization according to the Code of Federal

Regulations. There is a debate amongst legal scholars over

whether the administration's grant of deferred action was

legal. Those who argue that DACA was illegal contend that the

President overstepped his constitutional authority to defer

the deportation of some unauthorized immigrants. Those who

argue that DACA was legal point to the general power of the

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to defer

enforcement action. They argue that the Supreme Court has

ruled that decisions to initiate or terminate enforcement

proceedings fall within the authority of the Executive--an

enforcement power used since the early 1970s. Here is more of

their argument. This disagreement has not been settled.

By the end of September, 2013, 580,000 requests for DACA

were accepted by the U.S. government and 514,800, or 89

percent, were approved. Seventy-six percent of the requests

came from Mexicans. Twenty-nine percent of the requests were

filed from California, 16 percent from Texas, and 6 percent

from Illinois.

Read the Full Article: DACA Did Not Cause the Surge in

Unaccompanied Children

Now, we know that this bill would eliminate DACA for DREAMers and make them deportable, but few in this body may know that the bill also returns to our bitter 2-year fight about reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. It took this House 2 years to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act at the beginning of this Congress, and when we did it, we did it over the strong opposition of the majority of House Republicans.

Today's bill undermines the basic premise of that act, that victims of domestic violence should be empowered to leave their abusers. It does that by denying the ability of battered immigrant spouses who have left their abusers and successfully self-petitioned for a VAWA visa the ability to work for the months it may take for a visa number to become available. This one change will prevent countless battered immigrant spouses from ever leaving their abusers and will drive others right back into the hands of their abusers.

Now, we have heard a lot of discussion about the law, but I think it is important to recall that the ability to make prosecutorial decisions is well-grounded in the law. In fact, in 1999, I recall well the letter sent by then-Chairman Henry Hyde, signed by 28 bipartisan Members of Congress, to the Clinton administration asking for the use of prosecutorial discretion. And most recently, the Supreme Court in the Arizona case recognized the broad authority of the administration to make decisions about whom to prosecute. The Arizona case reaffirmed the legality of the deferred action program.

So all this discussion to the contrary is really nothing more than legal nonsense.

What does this bill do?

It deports the DREAMers. It reinvigorates the Republican war on women by forcing women with VAWA visas back to their abusers. This is bad policy. It is an outrageous bill. It is being done in the worst possible process, and I wish so much that the Republicans had reached out, taken the offer of our leaders to sit down and work together to come up with a solution that really works for our country instead of deporting the DREAMers who are so much the hope and future of our great American Nation.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 710, I call up the bill (H.R. 5272) to prohibit certain actions with respect to deferred action for aliens not lawfully present in the United States, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 5272.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5272 prohibits Federal funding or resources from being used to adjudicate any application for the President's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program; and it prohibits the President from issuing employment authorization documents to unlawful immigrants in the United States.

This bill differs from the bill the House was set to consider yesterday in that it prohibits funds from being used for adjudication. The prior version of this bill was a simple prohibition on the President's actions.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez, the President's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has already allowed over 714,000 unlawful immigrants, who claimed to have arrived as minors, to remain in the United States and seek employment. DACA is a major reason for the unprecedented influx of minors and family units along our southern borders.

This deferred action program was announced by the President and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on June 15, 2012.

It is a usurpation of the plenary authority over immigration law that article I, section 8, clause 4 of the United States Constitution confers on the legislative branch.

And the President knows that it is a usurpation of congressional authority. In fact, in March of 2011, he stated: ``With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed. The executive branch's job is to enforce and implement those laws. There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore these congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.''

Despite this admission, just over a year later, the President implemented the DACA program. And today it stands as a beacon for any unlawful immigrant to simply cross into the United States illegally because word has gotten out that they will be given permission to stay. I heard this again and again from unlawful immigrants in Border Patrol custody when I visited the Rio Grande Valley earlier this month.

So let's be clear: the President's administrative policies abandoning immigration enforcement and his promises about future administrative legalizations continue to encourage unlawful immigrant parents to smuggle their children into the United States. These policies and promises put money directly into the pockets of human smuggling and drug cartels and put children at risk of perilous, illicit journeys to the United States. And they undermine the fundamental constitutional principles that Congress creates the laws and the President is bound to enforce them.

H.R. 5272 sends the vitally important message that minors tempted to come here in the future will no longer be rewarded by a President who chooses to use his pen and cell phone to legislate. They will have absolutely no opportunity to receive DACA benefits.

I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) for introducing the bill and urge my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will now yield to both the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) and the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority leader, for purposes of a colloquy. And I will begin by yielding to the gentleman from Texas.

That is correct.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say that this bill does not deport anyone. This bill simply freezes a program that violates the United States Constitution.

So now, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Barr).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

At this time, its my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the brand-new majority whip of the United States Congress.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Labrador), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman.

Will the gentleman yield?

I know you said that is just the way it is, and I agree, but I just want to make an added point.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman if he will yield to me.

So 50,000 coming across the border, that is 50,000 unaccompanied minors coming to the border, and they are a small percentage of the total number of people. Eighty-five percent of the people coming to the border right now--and all categories are up. Children are up most, but all categories are up, and 85 percent are not unaccompanied minors.

So the gentleman makes a very valid point about the crisis at our border and the cause of that crisis. The President caused it. The President can solve it. The President should act now, and we need to send a strong message that America is not open to people who violate our laws.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Speaker, I also only have one speaker remaining and am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say that DACA is more than just abuse of prosecutorial discretion. It also creates benefits that are not provided for under the law.

At this time, it is my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the chief sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I hope the Speaker says that word from Texas very loud because I listened earlier today of all of the relief in the appropriations bill given to Texans down at the border, $594 million.

Let me tell you that there are people in Texas who are ready to serve and help the unaccompanied children. There are people in Texas who recognize that we are the good Samaritans. Don't label us with wanting $594 million, and don't label us with standing against the DACA children, the DREAMers, who have come to this country and been here for 5 years.

Mr. Speaker, these children ran into the arms of the Border Patrol. There is no criminal or legal crisis at the border, but the DACA bill that is here on

the floor of the House is a disgrace to the words of the Star-Spangled Banner. We are the home of the free and the brave. We are free enough to be able to welcome those in need.

This body knows that DACA has nothing to do with the unaccompanied children, and it is a disgrace that we would undermine the hardworking students like Juan Jesus in my office this summer, that we would undermine it with a disgraceful bill--a disgraceful bill. It is disgraceful. Pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 5272, a bill brought to the floor at the eleventh hour by the House Republican leadership to placate its extreme right-wing Tea Party faction and one of the most hypocritical, irresponsible, and mean-spirited legislative proposals brought to the House floor this year.

H.R. 5272 seeks to prohibit the Administration from exercising its administrative discretion to focus resources on identifying and apprehending those aliens who are present in country illegally who pose the most serious danger to our national security and the safety of our citizens.

This cynical bill is hypocritical because the vast majority of its proponents have been claiming for years now that the reason they refuse to compromise on budget issues, support for sequestration, and voted to shut down the government is because of their belief in the importance of setting spending priorities.

Yet, H.R. 5272 would deny ICE the ability to use its limited resources in the most efficient manner to achieve its highest priorities which is to apprehend, detain, and remove aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety.

This bill is irresponsible because it seeks to prevent trained, experienced, and professional agents and prosecutors from exercising their discretion and acting on the basis of what everyone knows to be true: that there is a vast difference between a terrorist bent on harming America and a DREAM Act kid studying hard in school so he or she can graduate, join the Armed Services and willingly risk his or her life to defend the country, or go to work to support his or her family.

This inefficient use of resources wastes taxpayer dollars and does nothing to keep America safe.

This bill is mean-spirited because it would have ICE target its limited resources on innocent, law abiding, young people who were brought to this country as children and would have them deported to a foreign land even though America is the country they may know as home and the only one to which they may have ever pledged allegiance.

Mr. Speaker, I traveled many times to Iraq and Afghanistan and always the highlight of my visit was meeting the young men and women who were willingly risking their lives to defend the country they love more than life.

More than 5,000 of the soldiers who fought for us in Afghanistan and Iraq were not yet American citizens but DREAMers who dreamed that one day they might become citizens of the nation they gladly risked their lives to defend.

Instead of honoring their service, this heartless bill before us crushes their dream by forcing ICE agents and prosecutors to pretend that there is no difference between one of these veterans who came to this country as an undocumented immigrant and an alien engaged in or suspected of espionage or terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5272 also wastes the money of hard-working taxpayers and does nothing to make America safer, and eliminates a fair and just policy legal under the President's executive authority which allows for relief for young children who have been in America for a certain number of years, follow certain requirements and may be deferred from deportation to serve in the U.S. military, go to school and contribute to America.

And, just as bad, it is inconsistent with American values of justice and fair play.

We must address our broken immigration system through comprehensive reform rather than extinguish Ms. Liberty's lamp of freedom or close her Golden Door.

We are better than that and I urge all Members to join me in rejecting this terrible legislation.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my parliamentary inquiry as to the bill that is on the floor, is this not the bill dealing with deferred action for juveniles or young people who have been in this country for 5 years, graduated from high school, going to college or working, and in actuality is not dealing with the unaccompanied children? But more importantly, is it not true that this bill is destined for a veto, will not be passed in the Senate, and in essence, we are here passing a bill that has no future?

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of a bill I introduced to prevent the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that was unlawfully created by executive memo on August 15, 2012. H.R. 5160 is the House companion to legislation introduced by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and would freeze DACA by defunding it.

DACA promotes amnesty by using prosecutorial discretion to allow illegal immigrant children and those who came here illegally as children a deportation deferral to remain in the country for up to 2 years. The deferral period is subject to renewal.

DACA also permits illegal aliens to obtain work authorization, despite the fact that they are not in the country legally. This takes jobs away from hardworking American taxpayers and hurts our economy. According to ICE, remittances from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are estimated to cost the U.S. taxpayer $10 billion a year.

Last month, DHS Secretary Johnson announced that DACA would be extended and that those who have been protected from deportation would have a chance to renew their applications.

Democrats say that DACA is irrelevant because it only applies to illegal immigrants who have been here since 2007, but let me tell you why DACA reform does matter.

First, the administration will expand DACA. President Obama has instructed DHS Secretary Johnson and Attorney General Holder to come up with a list of executive actions to address immigration reform. DACA is going to be on that list.

Second, DACA has given Central American children false hope that they will be able to obtain amnesty as those before them have done.

DACA began in 2012, and the numbers tell the story. In fiscal year 2013, there was a 305 percent increase in the number of unaccompanied alien children that came to the U.S. That figure is expected to increase by 1,381 percent in fiscal year 2014. Yes, you heard me right: 305 percent in 2013; 1,381 percent in 2014. Those numbers are evidence of the correlation between DACA and the influx of unaccompanied alien children coming to the U.S.

Just recently, I learned that the administration secretly placed 760 unaccompanied alien children into Tennessee. This was done despite assurances I had received from the administration that alien children were not in Tennessee. Indeed, the administration appears extremely organized and eager when it comes to resettling the illegal immigrants in this country. I wish they were as eager and organized about addressing the concerns of our veterans, some who have died while on the VA waiting list.

Sadly, the President and the Democrats have moved from the party of ``yes, we can'' to the party of ``because we can.'' DACA provides another example of how the President is using executive action to circumvent Congress.

Soon, if he continues on this path, we won't need legislators or the courts. The President will make the law, interpret the law, and then, if he chooses, enforce the law. The Obama doctrine of lawlessness is cracking the foundation of our democracy. It is shredding the Constitution and consolidating power within the executive branch.

Mr. Speaker, I ask, if the President has the power to tell illegal immigrants that they can stay in the country, does he have the power to tell legal citizens to leave the country? If the President can delay part of a law, does he have the power to delay the entire law? Where does his authority begin and end?

The President's immigration policies are causing every town to be a border town, every State to be a border State. And not only is it turning America into a country without borders, it is turning it into a country without laws.

Mr. Speaker, President Obama's inability to secure the southern border is also placing America's national security in a pre-9/11 posture. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 90,166 unaccompanied children will arrive in the U.S. in 2014. If 90,000 unaccompanied children can sneak into our country, how difficult will it be for a terror cell to infiltrate America and plan an attack?

We need to be concerned about securing our borders. We must secure our border. We must end the cruelty of providing children with false hope, and we must stop the lawlessness of this President.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia, Chairman Goodlatte, for yielding. There are a lot of people in this Congress that I appreciate a great deal tonight, but I have listened to the anger and the fury over on the other side, and I have never seen the Sergeant at Arms have to come and clear the floor like we have seen here tonight.

I am wondering what is this about? I would take this back to the State of the Union Address when I watched the President of the United States here on the rostrum speak, and he said, essentially, the summary of what he has delivered to America a number of times: Congress, I am going to tell you what to do, and if you don't do it, I am going to use either my cell phone or my ink pen, and I am going to do it. Here it goes again, Mr. Speaker.

What I saw was this, our Founding Fathers set up this balance in our Constitution between the three branches of government, articles I, II, and III, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branch of government.

They drew as fine a line as they could between the three, but they always knew that there would be a gray area, and they anticipated that each branch of government would jealously protect the constitutional authority that is vested within it within the Constitution, the supreme law of the land.

When the President said, I am going to usurp your legislative authority, I am going to take over article I, and I am going to legislate if you don't do what I tell you, what happened? The people that are applauding now applauded then, and they said, Mr. President, take the power that is in the Constitution, take it from me, take article I, too, take your pen, take your cell phone. You run this country as if you were a king, rather than only the President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, that is what this debate is about here. This is about the DACA language that the President has introduced 2-plus years ago, and I said then when we had Hill hearings before the Judiciary Committee and Janet Napolitano--I said that we will take you to court on this, this will be litigated.

It will be litigated because the President does not have legislative authority. He is only the President of the United States. If the President wants to somehow grant amnesty to one person, he has some prosecutorial discretion to do that, but they argued in the Morton Memos, and they argued in the DACA memos--seven times in the Morton Memos--on an individual basis only, on an individual basis only, prosecutorial discretion on an individual basis only.

They put it in there seven times because they knew they were wrong, and they knew it was going to be litigated. You don't do 700,000 people on an individual basis only. You don't suspend the law. If the President wants the law changed, he knows to come to Congress, ask us-- and ask us, and when you take an oath to uphold the Constitution, you had better believe that it means what it says.

Why would you just throw your authority over the side and say, Mr. President, take this from us? That is not what you pledged to your constituents. That is not the oath that you take.

So what this says is that the DACA language says this: Mr. President, stop violating the Constitution from this point forward. As the chairman said, it does not deport anybody. It just restores constitutional article I authority.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, this just restores the constitutional authority of the United States Congress, and it says: President Obama, don't continue to violate this Constitution. President Obama, when you waved your ink pen at us a week and a half ago and you said you were going to legalize 5 to 6 million people, it is unconstitutional.

He knows it. He has many times given the lecture that he knows it. He gave his word, and he needs to keep it. I want to remind him, it won't go cheap if you try this, Mr. President. I urge the adoption of this bill.