Access to Counsel Act of 2021

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 330 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, today the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 330, providing for three measures.

First, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, under a closed rule. It provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform and provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1333, the NO BAN Act, and H.R. 1573, the Access to Counsel Act of 2021, both under closed rules. The rule provides an hour of debate on each bill equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary and provides one motion to recommit on each bill.

The rule deems as passed H.R. 316, providing for the expenses of certain committees, and H. Con. Res. 30, providing for a joint session of Congress to receive a message from the President of the United States. The rule also restricts former Members' access to the House floor during the joint session.

Additionally, the rule provides authority through April 22 for the majority leader or his designee to move to en bloc postponed votes on any suspension bill considered on April 19 or 20 on which the yeas and nays were ordered.

Finally, the rule provides for recess instructions, same day, and suspension authority through May 20.

Madam Speaker, Tocqueville wrote in ``Democracy in America'' that in our country voting rights and democracy are always either contracting and retreating and shriveling away or voting rights and democracy are growing and expanding.

What a proud day for the United States Congress when we get to keep the trajectory of American democracy moving forward by voting to admit a new State to our beloved Union.

America began with 13 original States, and we in Congress have exercised our powers under Article IV, Section 3 37 different times to admit 37 new States to the Union, which means that nearly 75 percent of the States in America today were admitted after the original 13.

Today, we can keep the dynamics of democratic political growth and inclusion going in America by beginning the process of admitting Washington, Douglass Commonwealth to the Union by passing H.R. 51.

We have the opportunity to do something that hasn't happened here since 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union in January and in August of that year.

We can vote to admit a new State to the Union, and what a State it will be: A community of 712,000 taxable, draftable, law-abiding American citizens who actually pay more Federal taxes per capita now than do the people of any State, more in hard dollars than the people of 22 States combined. It is a community of people who have fought in every war that the Union has ever fought, going all the way back to the American Revolution.

And it was a community, significantly, that came to the aid of democracy, that came to the aid of the Union, that came to the aid of this Congress when we called on January 6, 2021.

More than 850 officers in the Metropolitan Police Department came and fought shoulder to shoulder with our Capitol officers in what has been described as waves of medieval violence by insurrectionists and Fascists attacking them with bats and sticks and American flagpoles and Confederate flagpoles and Trump flagpoles. They sent more than 150 National Guardsmen from Washington, D.C., 154 D.C. National Guard, 850 Metropolitan Police Department to come and defend a democracy that they are not yet a part of.

Now think about that. We had people who came and stormed the Capitol, laid siege to the Congress of the United States with fictionalized claims about a denial of their right to vote, and right in this city there are 712,000 American citizens who we know have their voting rights denied every single day, their rights to representation denied every single day, and they came to defend us against those who would have torn down the very citadel of democracy.

Think about that when we are deciding how to vote on H.R. 51.

The current status of the people in Washington, D.C., subjects them to two different forms of political domination and exclusion.

On the one hand, all of their locally adopted laws ultimately can be overturned by a Congress which they are excluded from, and it has happened many times throughout the history of the District of Columbia, as Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, the nonvoting Delegate, will tell you. Congress has tampered with the laws of adoption, laws of marriage, criminal justice laws, and voting laws in the District of Columbia.

But it is not just that. It is not just that the rights of democratic self-government are subject to the will of other people. It is also that this community of taxpaying, draftable American citizens is excluded from participating in Federal legislation because they don't have voting representatives in the House and in the Senate.

That means on matters relating to war and peace, the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justices and other Federal judges, the development of Federal budgets, the regulation of commerce domestically and internationally, Federal criminal law, and Federal civil law, the people of Washington, D.C., are dealt out. They are excluded. And they want in. They want to enter the Union.

Most of us in Congress represent communities that were not part of the original 13 but then came in later. Now, I come from Maryland, which was one of the original 13, but most of the people in Congress represent States that came in later.

So, this is an act of fundamental democratic and civic self-respect on their part to be asking for equality and inclusion, and it is a matter of basic constitutional patriotism and democratic respect that we vote to admit them today.

I am very happy that we are kicking this process off by bringing this rule to the floor.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me address a couple of the specious constitutional objections that have been raised by our colleagues on the other side.

To begin with, it would be unconstitutional to turn the District of Columbia into a State. It would almost certainly be that, but that is not what the proposal is. The proposal is to redraw the boundaries of the District of Columbia to cede the residential lands to the new State to admit it. For that, there is both sound constitutional and historical precedent.

For one thing, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 says that Congress shall ``exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever'' over the district that is to become the seat of government, meaning that Congress has the authority to modify the boundaries of the District of Columbia, which it has done.

It did that, actually, in 1791. Not long after the original boundaries were set, James Madison and 13 other Founders themselves voted to alter the boundaries. But our colleagues seem to believe that the boundaries of the District can't be altered by Congress.

In 1846, most significantly, Congress gave one-third of the District of Columbia to the Commonwealth of Virginia at the behest of slave masters, who correctly anticipated that the slave traffic would be abolished within the District of Columbia. It was given back, demonstrating that the authority of Congress to change the boundaries of the District exists.

If Congress can alter the boundaries of the District of Columbia in 1846 in order to serve the slave masters and to protect their institution, surely the Congress in 2021 can modify the boundaries of the District of Columbia in order to admit a new State and empower hundreds of thousands of people to live in political equality in the country.

My distinguished colleague from Pennsylvania invites us to believe that the 23rd Amendment is a constitutional impediment to adopting statehood for Washington, D.C. He doesn't explain why it is unconstitutional. He just asserts it would be unconstitutional.

The 23rd Amendment was adopted in order to give people living within the seat of government the possibility of voting for President and to have electoral college votes in a manner decided by Congress and then, in Section 2, requiring Congress to act in order to organize the electoral college in the manner of a State legislature organizing the electoral college for the State.

As I understand H.R. 51, introduced by Congresswoman Norton, this problem is taken care of at the moment of statehood admission because it repeals the statute which organizes the electoral college for the District of Columbia.

In other words, the moment the new State comes into being, the current statute that organizes the Presidential electors is repealed, so there is nothing to worry about. I agree that there is a certain kind of messiness in still having the 23rd Amendment on the books, but Congresswoman Norton has said she will be the first to introduce a formal constitutional amendment to repeal the 23rd, and who would oppose it?

Our colleagues have not been able to find a single person who would oppose it. Everybody would agree it would be simply nonsensical to keep it within the Constitution once the 712,000 people have negotiated an exodus from the Federal seat of government in order to become their own State.

So, I think that that is a red herring. It is an irrelevant distraction to this journey toward statehood and political equality that we are on.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia an additional 1 minute.

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

I thank the gentlewoman very much for her comments, and I want to reemphasize the point that she made at the end, which is that Congress has the exclusive authority to admit new States.

Congress has admitted 37 new States. None of them have ever been struck down by a court, despite serious constitutional objections being raised against almost every State.

Everyone knew that Hawaii and Alaska could not be admitted because they were not contiguous. Everyone knew that Texas couldn't be admitted because it was a separate republic, and there was no authority to admit a republic to the Union. It was said Utah couldn't be admitted because they were practicing polygamy there. And so on.

There have always been constitutional objections made, but the courts have always deemed this to be a political question, which means that, in the juridical context, it is up to Congress to decide. And Congress has always been guided, in the final analysis, by the overriding dynamic of American political history, which is democracy has to govern for people who live here.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to say a word in response to my colleague about the national political logic of statehood.

There is both powerful constitutional principle and national political logic that infuses every statehood admission going back to the very beginning of the Republic.

The constitutional principle is simply that of no taxation without representation and the consent of the governed. People who are part of the American Nation should be able to participate equally as complete citizens.

That is why Thomas Jefferson set out in the Northwest Ordinance that once a community got to be of a certain size--60,000, which, of course, is less than 10 percent of the size of Washington, D.C., today--that it would be eligible to come into statehood, to petition for statehood. The only real constitutional prerequisite is a republican form of government, that is the Republican Guarantee Clause.

That is the high-minded political ideal of constitutional principle, but it is also the case, as I have tried to argue with my colleagues across the aisle, that there is a hardcore political logic that is operated, and we see it in their arguments that they don't want to admit two Democratic Senators to the Republic, which is what former President Trump said in objection to D.C. statehood. He said there is no way we would accept two new Democrat Senators.

Actually, although I consider it a degradation of the process and a sort of tawdry form of argument, nonetheless, it has been very much part of American political history, which is why States have tended to enter the Union in pairs, like animals boarding Noah's Ark together.

That was the situation with Kansas and Nebraska, in the Kansas- Nebraska Act; that was the situation of Missouri and Maine in the Missouri Compromise; that was Vermont and Kentucky; that was Alaska and Hawaii back in 1959.

So, I say to my friends, okay, they don't see the problem of taxation without representation in Washington. They don't see the problem of governance without representation. They don't see the irony or the paradox or the contradiction of people putting their lives on the line to defend this Congress, this Union, on January 6 who don't get to vote for voting representatives in Congress.

They don't want to see that, fine. But they can at least see this: It has been in the Republican platform since 1940 that Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State. Every 4 years, they have said that the millions of people, American citizens, who live in Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State. It was in the platform in 2016. It would have been in 2020 if they had had a platform. They decided not to have a platform for the American people in 2020. But in any event, they have taken a very strong position--Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, you name it.

In fact, the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico is a Republican who has introduced statehood legislation in this Congress, who is fighting for statehood.

So, fine, there is the basis for common ground. Let's get together. The Democrats have been arguing for statehood for Washington, D.C., for a long time. The Republicans have been arguing for statehood for Puerto Rico for a long time. I assume everybody means it. Let's get together and do it the way this has happened periodically, systematically, throughout American history. That is the national political logic of allowing both of these states to come in together.

Not everybody gets everything that they want, and I do think that it is antithetical to the democratic form of government to say you don't want people to be represented because you don't like the way they are going to vote because they disagree with you on issues. I think that is fundamentally undemocratic and un-American.

Madam Speaker, in any event, we have the grounds for a compromise, and I am still looking for some colleagues across the aisle to stand up and say they will stand for the position

that they have embraced for decades, to say these two states should come in together.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon).

Madam Speaker, the gentlewoman invites us to return the District of Columbia to Maryland, which, of course, debunks the argument that Congress cannot modify the boundaries of the District of Columbia.

But, in any event, that is not what the people of Washington, D.C. have asked for. They have used their rights as American citizens under the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution to organize a new State and to petition Congress for admission to the Union. Neither has the Maryland General Assembly asked for a return of the land to Maryland. So that certainly answers a set of political conditions that don't exist in the real world.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the majority leader hardly needs me to defend him, but I know that he was a strong supporter of the D.C. voting rights constitutional amendment where there was actually bipartisan support.

In those days, Republicans understood the grievous injustice being perpetrated against the people of Washington, D.C., and they supported granting people in D.C. two Senators, or what my colleague would call two ultraliberal Senators, as well as the Representatives in the House to which they were due.

There were certainly people who were saying there were other ways of accomplishing it. Now, unfortunately, that bipartisan consensus collapsed even though it passed the Senate and the House back in the day. I don't hear any of my colleagues saying they are for it now.

Mr. Hoyer, the majority leader, is supporting the only viable vehicle for getting equal rights for people in Washington, D.C., that exists today, which is statehood, which is how 37 new States entered the Union with Congress' exercise of its powers under Article IV of the Constitution.

The gentleman waxed eloquent about the vision of a great Capital City, but being a strict textualist, I assume that he wants to pay some attention to the text of the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, the District Clause, sets a maximum, a ceiling that the District may be no more than 10 miles square, but there is no minimum there. It didn't say it must be at least 6 miles square or 2 miles square or 3 miles. No, that is up to Congress. In other words, it is a political question within congressional power, our plenary power, over the District of Columbia.

Finally, the gentleman, I suppose, gets to the heart of the matter when he says that, for him, it is all about two ultraliberal Senators. I would ask every Member of this body to think about that for a second, reflect on that. In America, I don't think we deny people voting rights based on how they are going to vote. I don't think we deny entire States and political communities representation based on predictions of who they might elect.

In fact, there is a Supreme Court case about that called Carrington v. Rash. When armed services members in Texas were disenfranchised because it was suggested they would vote in a way more identified with the national government than with local cultural values in Texas, the Supreme Court struck it down and said that, in American democracy, we do not allow government to disenfranchise people based on predictions of how they are going to vote or who they are going to elect.

That is precisely what the gentleman invites us to do here, to deny 712,000 taxpaying, draftable U.S. citizens, who came to our aid on January 6, to deny them their equal rights under the Union, under the flag, because he predicts that they are going to elect people whose policy views are contrary to his own.

Madam Speaker, I would suggest that is totally antithetical to the meaning of American constitutional democracy. Everyone should take a walk around Washington. You will see flags in the yards of all the people here, yards that we pass by every day when we come to Washington, and they say, ``D.C. 51.'' They want their statehood. Let's listen to the people of Washington.

If you can't quite stomach that, then read the Republican Party platform itself, which calls for Puerto Rican statehood, and let's see if we can do it together. Let's bring in millions of disenfranchised people in America.

Still, I get radio silence from my colleagues on that. Not a single one will opine about whether or not the people of Puerto Rico should be admitted as a State.

Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and the previous question.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Reschenthaler is as follows:

Amendment to House Resolution 330

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 8. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the

House shall resolve into the Committee of the Whole House on

the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.

2321) to direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to

establish a plan to respond to irregular migration surges at

the border, to establish an irregular migration surge border

response fund, and for other purposes. The first reading of

the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against

consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be

confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally

divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority

member of the Committee on Homeland Security. After general

debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the

five-minute rule. All points of order against provisions in

the bill are waived. When the committee rises and reports the

bill back to the House with a recommendation that the bill do

pass, the previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without

intervening motion except one motion to recommit. If the

Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to

no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day

the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of

business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the

Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.

Sec. 9. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H.R. 2321.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for next week. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Madam Speaker, I know, just yesterday, one of the Members of the House Democrat leadership team, Chairman Nadler, introduced a bill to pack the Supreme Court.

This is a proposal that we have seen in other countries. Unfortunately, it is in mostly socialist countries. If you look at some of the examples, in 2004, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez packed his court, and the result was totalitarian dominance for his socialist regime. Congressman Gimenez, who himself fled Cuba, fled a communist regime, said just recently on court-packing:

Packing the courts is a tactic used by brutal dictatorships

to consolidate the socialist power, which resulted in tens of

thousands of court rulings in its favor, basically destroying

the country.

I wanted to ask the gentleman, is that court-packing bill a bill that the majority is going to be bringing to the floor or even marking up in committee? I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Madam Speaker, I haven't read the Constitution of Venezuela, but I know in the Constitution of the United States, it actually gives the Senate the advise-and-consent role, the responsibility, as it relates to Supreme Court picks. Obviously, that has been kept.

The borking incident was probably the most embarrassing, egregious abuse that started this back-and-forth, where individual Supreme Court picks became more personally scrutinized. That process has been abused in cases like Bork.

Even the Kavanaugh hearing got out of control, where disgraceful false allegations were made.

But in the end, the Senate's advise-and-consent role is part of the United States Constitution. I don't know if the gentleman is suggesting that that

should be changed. I don't see it. Even with a Democratic majority right now, I wouldn't suggest changing that process that is in our Constitution.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding back. This is the bill. It is not even a page and a half, but the real change in law by the Member of House Democratic leadership Chairman Nadler, says, ``A Chief Justice of the United States and 12 Associate Justices, any eight of whom shall constitute a quorum.'' So in essence, a hostile takeover of the United States Supreme Court, not going through the traditional process that has been in place for over 100 years.

And I think the gentleman knows, if you go back historically, the President in power when the Senate was led by a different party--I can't recall a case in generations where if in the election year there was a vacancy in the Supreme Court it was filled.

And everybody in the country knew that that was an issue in the election of 2016. In fact, it was probably one of the deciding issues that helped elect President Trump, was that there was that vacancy and the public wanted to be engaged in the direction of the country, as well as the direction of the court. It was absolutely a heavily debated item in the 2016 Presidential election and President Trump won that election.

But, again, I have never heard anybody suggesting changing the Constitution to take away the Senate's advise and consent role. But we do see here a bill that was filed just this week by a leader in the Democratic Party to have a hostile takeover of the Supreme Court, similar to what has been done in socialist countries. And I think it is important to point to who has proposed those kinds of changes in the past, and what it has led to. And I know President Biden himself is on the record many times criticizing heavily the idea of packing the Supreme Court.

Now, that was before he was President. Now that it would be him that would be able to appoint these extra judges, I don't know if his position has changed. But it is a dangerous precedent. It is the kind of precedent that exists in Soviet-style nations. I sure hope it is not here.

But Mr. Nadler did just say yesterday when asked about Speaker Pelosi's position, he said, ``Speaker Pelosi and others will come along.'' So I was just wondering if that was something that the gentleman was planning on bringing to the floor that would be a divisive issue as opposed to things that we could work together on, like infrastructure, that would be unifying.

And obviously, there is a lot of talk about infrastructure. This is something that there is tremendous interest in on both sides of the aisle. I know Chairman DeFazio, as well as Ranking Member Sam Graves, have had a lot of conversations about things that we could agree on. And I would hope that would be the approach that we take, unlike the bill that over 90 percent of which had nothing to do with the COVID-- the $1.9 trillion spending bill, which was hyper-partisan.

Madam Speaker, I hope we approach this in a bipartisan way. Because as I said, there are clearly Members on both sides that want to agree on an infrastructure bill and have lots of areas of agreement if we are talking about infrastructure. And by infrastructure, I think most Americans--if you asked them what they thought was infrastructure, they would say roads, bridges, ports, waterways, and broadband.

Once you get into social policy and Green New Deal-type policies or tax hikes that would make America the highest rate above Communist China in terms of tax policy--the National Association of Manufacturers said that the kind of proposal that is being floated in the partisan approach would kill over 1 million American jobs.

So I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland talking about jobs. Why would we want to approach this in such a partisan way that we would threaten millions of jobs, that we would make America uncompetitive again, and Communist China would have a lower tax rate than America? Hopefully, we do the bipartisan approach and not a partisan approach.

And I yield to the gentleman to enlighten us on what direction is being approached right now.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Finally, I want to bring up the crisis that our Nation is facing at our southern border. And this has been a crisis that has been brewing for months. It is not an overnight problem, but it is an executive order-created problem when President Biden on day one got rid of some policies that were working incredibly well.

And every border patrol agent that I have talked--and I was on the border last week, Thursday and Friday, in McCollum, Texas, and in Donna, Texas, at the Donna processing facility--every border agent said the same thing. They said getting rid of the remain in Mexico policy, that one action alone opened up the floodgates to a surge, thousands of people a day crossing our border illegally.

Then you couple that with the deterioration of the Northern Triangle agreements. And, yes, it was President Trump who negotiated those agreements with Mexico, with Honduras, with El Salvador, with Guatemala. And maybe President Biden just doesn't like the fact that President Trump did

something that was working well. Why doesn't he renegotiate those agreements and call them his own? But they were working.

Madam Speaker, now today, it is so out of control that we have, for example, at the Donna processing facility, a facility designed for about a 250-person capacity--when I was visiting that facility last Friday, there was over 4,000 people--young kids, primarily--crammed into that facility, in those holding cells like sardines.

In fact, yesterday, we had a committee hearing with Dr. Fauci and CDC Director Walensky. And I asked them specifically about what is going on down at our southern border; showed them some of the pictures that have been taken.

And if you look at the CDC guidance that is out there on how we, as American citizens, have to conduct ourselves--if you own a restaurant, for example, whether it is in Baltimore, New Orleans, or anywhere else, if there is a capacity limit, and if that limit was 250 people, if there were 4,000 people in that restaurant, it would be shut down today. And I asked both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky: Would that facility be in violation of CDC guidelines? And both of them said, Yes, in testimony under oath.

And then I talked to them about what is happening at our southern border. And I asked them: Are these conditions in compliance with CDC guidance? Both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky said: No, this is not.

We talked about the Donna detention facility and the inhumane treatment of these young children by the Biden administration in that facility. And I asked Dr. Fauci: Is that facility, the conditions in which they are treating those young kids by the Biden administration in compliance with the CDC guidance? And Dr. Fauci said: No. And Dr. Walensky, the CDC director, testified the exact same way, that: No, those are not in compliance. And in fact, as we know, they are coming across from Mexico.

Do you know that the CDC guidance designates Mexico as the most dangerous nation right now? Along with probably a few others, but they are the most dangerous in terms of COVID transmission.

So CDC guidance encourages American citizens not to go to Mexico, but they say if you do come back from Mexico, you are mandated by the CDC to show a COVID-negative test before you, as an American citizen, can come back into the United States.

Do you know that not one of these people are being tested for COVID when they come in illegally across the Rio Grande from Mexico? And then many of them are being put on airplanes, without ID, being paid for mostly by the taxpayers--put on airplanes to fly off into cities all across the country. Border patrol agents have told us at least 15 percent of these people that crossed illegally are COVID-positive.

So I asked Dr. Walensky and I asked Dr. Fauci: Does that process by the Biden administration violate CDC's guidance on travel from Mexico? And they both testified that, yes, in fact, it does. That if they are getting on an airplane, they should be testing negative for COVID. None of them are, and in fact, some of them are known to be COVID-positive, being put on airplanes, flying to cities all across this country.

It is going on right now. It was going on Friday. About half the plane that I was on when I flew from McAllen back home had people with folders that said: I do not speak English, and it had a city on it. And it was multiple cities.

But this is what the Biden administration is doing in violation of CDC guidance that you and I have to follow, that our constituents who are seeing their livelihoods crushed, their restaurants closed down-- many that won't open again ever--because they have to play by the rules that CDC and their States issue. And yet, the Biden administration is exempting themselves from this.

Madam Speaker, now we have legislation, I would like to bring up to the majority leader, that would fix this:

My colleague, Mrs. Miller-Meeks, requires that a COVID test be done before someone is released from CPB custody.

Ms. Herrell wants to prohibit DHS from ceasing title 42.

There is a bipartisan bill by Mr. Katko and Mr. Cuellar, which establishes a regular migration surge border response fund.

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman if he would bring those bills to the floor to address this crisis at the border that is not only a humanitarian crisis and a national security crisis, but it is a Biden-created crisis that is violating the very CDC guidance, according to Dr. Fauci, that American citizens have to follow.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

As we talk about asylum, let's be clear, America has laws on how someone can seek asylum. I haven't seen anybody suggest that those laws are just repealed, and you just take somebody's word that if they say they want to come to America to seek asylum, to come in today and jump ahead of everyone else.

I think we ought to obey America's laws on immigration across the board. If you look at the asylum laws, there is a process to seek asylum.

In fact, every year, people are granted that asylum if they prove their case. That is where the law comes into play, which is being ignored right here.

What President Trump did when there was a surge in 2019, he confronted it, as a leader should do. He talked to people on the ground. He talked to our Border Patrol agents, who are the ones who have to deal with this crisis on a daily basis.

In fact, 40 percent of our Border Patrol agents tonight at midnight, like Thursday night at midnight last week, when I was with those Border Patrol agents, 40 percent of them were pulled off of guarding our border, where their primary mission is to stop drug cartels from smuggling fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin into our country, which they are doing now at much higher levels, killing Americans all across the country.

Forty percent of them pulled away because they are going to be changing diapers in the Donna detention facility tonight because that is what they are being tasked to do by the Biden administration. That is not their job. It is not why they signed up. Their morale is incredibly low.

Well over roughly 90 percent of people who say they are coming here to seek asylum, those cases are rejected by the courts. Rejected. In fact, it is kind of hard to make an asylum claim here when the parents of many of these kids you are seeing here paid thousands of dollars to the drug cartels to smuggle their kids and themselves into the United States. It is hard to claim economic asylum, which is the case many of them plead, when you paid $4,000 to try to come here illegally when there is a legal process to come here, not just the normal legal process where you can wait to come into America legally, where we let a million people into our country every year, the most generous nation in the world, America. But when they go around that system, that is where it overwhelms our system. That is what is going on right now.

President Trump confronted it, not by saying no one can come in, but by saying you have to follow our laws if you want to come here. If you want to seek asylum, you have to request it like everyone else. They allowed them to even come through South and Central American countries but stay in Mexico. Mexico agreed with this, and there was an orderly system. You got to hear your claim in a very expedient way.

Today, they are given a piece of paper when they come across the border illegally, saying: Come show up maybe 5 years from now.

Good luck with that. Then, they are given a free plane ticket, without an ID, to just be sent off to some other State. I saw manila envelopes, and once you got below the ``I do not speak English,'' Dallas was on one, Philadelphia was on one, New Jersey was on one.

I don't know what is going to happen to them when they land in New Jersey if they can't speak English. What school system are they going to be placed in? Who is then going to be responsible for this breakdown at our southern border, which was created by President Biden, which he could fix today?

I have urged President Biden to go down to the border and see this for himself, to see how inhumane he is treating kids, in violation of his own CDC guidelines, which Dr. Fauci verified yesterday.

If you read the child abuse and neglect laws of the State of Texas where this facility is, this is a violation of the child abuse and negligent laws at the President Biden-run facility.

Again, President Trump went and negotiated with Mexico, went and negotiated with those Northern Triangle countries to resolve the surge. This could be resolved as well, and you don't need to reinvent the wheel because there was a method for how to resolve it legally, using the legal system that America has.

Sure, I would agree it needs reforms, not an amnesty reform, where you send a magnet not only across South and Central America but around the world that America's borders are open, because that is the message today. As the gentleman knows, there are at least six people on the terrorist watch list who have come across America's southern border. I am not talking about from South and Central American countries, but from Middle Eastern countries, from Eastern European countries. Those are just the ones we know of that we have caught, and the Biden administration won't share that data with the media. The Biden administration wouldn't even let the press into this facility, which is a national disgrace.

I could imagine what the press would have said if the Trump administration was housing kids in a 33-person facility. There are over 400 crammed into a 33-person cell in the middle of a pandemic.

Again, Dr. Fauci said this violates every protocol there is when we are trying to get our economy reopened. Other countries have to control COVID, too, but in America, we are trying to control it.

Here is where the double standard and hypocrisy are driving people nuts. If any American citizen ran their business in America like this, they would be shut down by the Federal Government today. Yet, people can come here illegally, and the Biden administration is running this facility in violation of those very same guidances.

Do you know what happened to them? They are given a free airplane ticket, put on an airplane, possibly with COVID, and sent into some interior State of America. We don't even know where they are going. The Biden administration won't share that.

We have asked for a meeting, by the way. Our leadership team, Leader McCarthy and I, have asked for a meeting with President Biden to talk about this crisis, and he refuses to meet with us about it. Just ignoring a problem will not make it go away. If we are going to find a solution to this--again, I listed a number of bills, including some that are bipartisan, that would start solving this problem.

President Biden doesn't even want to go. He put Vice President Harris in charge of this mess, and she won't even

go down to the border, maybe because she doesn't want to be associated with President Biden's debacle.

She was put in charge of it. She is the Vice President of the United States. She has a responsibility to go down there. She should have gone there weeks ago, but she still hasn't been.

Maybe if they saw that, if they looked into the eyes of these young kids--one of the first girls we ran into might have been 10 years old, a girl in one of these cells, and she was crying. We asked her: Why are you crying? And she said: I don't want to be here.

She is an orphan. The gentleman talked about orphans. All of these kids, there are no parents with them. They don't want to be here. Many were crying because they are jammed into these cells for 20 hours a day, at least 15 percent with COVID, 6 inches apart, not 6 feet apart. That is what the Biden administration is doing right now.

President Trump fixed this problem. Again, if President Biden just doesn't like President Trump, call it his own name. We don't care. The template, if he doesn't want to do what actually worked, then do something else that works. But just doing this, it is not only a national disgrace, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky said it is a violation of the CDC protocols that every American taxpayer has to follow. And they don't. Exempting themselves from a problem, but making everybody else comply with it, is no way to instill confidence in the American people.

I hope the President goes down there. I hope the President resolves this issue. He should meet with us. He said he wanted to unify the country. He said he wanted to work with everybody. It is time he starts following through on those promises.

Madam Speaker, these are children being thrown to the wolves, and it is not President Trump who is doing it. It could end, and I hope we can work together to solve this problem.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Maryland for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, the rule before us today provides for consideration of three pieces of legislation.

The first bill, H.R. 1333, limits the President's existing authority to restrict entry of foreigners into the United States.

Border Patrol is encountering more than 5,500 individuals per day at our southern border. Let me say that again. They are encountering 5,500 individuals per day at the southern border.

Over the weekend, President Biden finally acknowledged the situation for what it is--not a challenge but a crisis. Yet, House Democrats are moving forward with a bill that does nothing to stop the surge of migrants at the southern border and, instead, actually weakens our national security.

Along the same lines, House Resolution 330 provides for consideration of H.R. 1573, which requires access to counsel for all travelers referred to a secondary inspection at airports and other ports of entry.

Again, this bill does nothing to address the Biden border crisis. It would

actually complicate the job of Border Patrol agents while costing taxpayers $825 million over the next 5 years.

With a 233 percent increase in fentanyl seizures at our southern border, it is a shame that my liberal colleagues across the aisle are actually creating more work for Border Patrol. Instead, we should provide these brave men and women with much-needed resources to address the national security and public health consequences of the Biden border crisis.

Lastly, this resolution makes in order H.R. 51, legislation admitting the present District of Columbia as the 51st State and authorizing special elections for two Senators and one Representative.

This is nothing more than an unconstitutional power grab by Democrats to gain two ultraprogressive D.C. Senate seats and force radical, far- left policies on the American people.

Our Founding Fathers never intended for D.C. to become a State. In Federalist No. 43, James Madison argued that if the Capital City were situated within a State, the Federal Government would be subject to undue influence by the host State. As such, Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution establishes a neutral district for our Nation's representatives to meet and vote on equal ground.

Further, the 23rd Amendment grants three Presidential electors specifically for the District. The original meaning of the ``district'' in the Constitution, and the necessary repeal of the 23rd Amendment, requires an amendment to the Constitution in order for D.C. to even become a State.

Just don't take my word for it, though. Since 1963, every Justice Department, Republican and Democrat, that has addressed the issue of D.C. statehood has concluded that Congress does not have the authority to alter the status of the city legislatively.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy thought it was inconceivable that D.C. would be granted statehood without repealing the 23rd Amendment and that the result would ``produce an absurdity.'' Again, those are the words of RFK.

Finally, the legislation before us today does nothing to address the financial implications of D.C. statehood. According to a 2020 study, D.C. ranked 150th out of 150 of the largest cities for its lack of operating efficiency--150 out of 150.

The Federal Government provides billions of dollars to D.C. each year for everything from the judicial system to the pension system. Yet, House Democrats are so desperate to jam this measure through that, under H.R. 51, the Federal Government will remain responsible for funding many of the new State's functions.

There is absolutely no incentive for the new State to work toward financial self-sufficiency, meaning Americans in other States would be forced to fund D.C. Democrats' priorities.

Again, House Democrats are pushing ahead to admit a new State to the Union purely for partisan gain while ignoring the constitutional, practical, and legal challenges in doing so. That is why I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague may have said that these are merely my assertions. They are certainly my arguments, but they are also supported by others, particularly well-known members of the liberal party.

The former Mayor of D.C. himself, Mayor Walter Washington, said: ``I would have problems with statehood in terms of exacting from it some enclaves, or little enclaves all around the city. Ultimately, it seems to me that would erode the very fabric of the city itself and the viability of the city.''

Again, that was the former Mayor of Washington, D.C., who was talking about the enclaves that are being called for in this bill.

Additionally, the former D.C. Delegate Walter Fauntroy himself said that a bill like this would be in direct defiance of the prescription of the Founding Fathers.

As far as the constitutional argument, it is not just me making the assertion that this would be unconstitutional because there is an issue, and that is the 23rd Amendment. Don't take it from me. Look at the Carter administration DOJ. They said that to provide statehood for the District would have to be by constitutional amendment. Otherwise, it would ignore the Framer's intent.

John Harmon, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Carter administration, said that this would have to be accomplished through constitutional amendment.

Further, RFK, Robert Kennedy, said that Congress likely did not have the authority under Article I, Section 8, clause 17 to shrink the Federal district to essentially the same size that is being discussed.

The argument that the Federal district constituting the seat of government is a permanent part of our constitutional system is substantially strengthened by the adoption of the 23rd Amendment. Thinking that we can merely repeal an amendment through legislative action, that is not how the Constitution works; otherwise, you wouldn't have had the 21st Amendment, which was needed to repeal the 18th Amendment. We could have just merely repealed it.

Additionally, there are talks about this not being a political exercise. My colleague has been quoted, actually, in The Washington Post saying that ``there is a national political logic for it''--``it'' being D.C. statehood. Because the Senate has become the principal obstacle to social progress on a whole range of issues--not my words; my colleague's words--this issue is all about a power grab.

We are talking about another issue that is on this rule, immigration.

Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to immediately consider H.R. 2321, the Border Surge Response and Resilience Act. For far too long, Democrats denied the crisis caused by Biden's open-border rhetoric. This bipartisan bill will ensure that DHS develops a plan and has the resources it needs to address migrant surges and secure our border. Something is clearly missing from the current administration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Katko), the lead Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security, my good friend and colleague, here to explain the amendment.

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

Madam Speaker, we hear a lot about no taxation without representation. But there is representation. We forget that D.C. has three electoral votes. That is the 23rd Amendment. They have a Delegate in Congress. They also have local government and a mayor. They have the Home Rule Act.

But taxation does bring up a serious issue because D.C. would need to raise taxes if it were to become a State. It simply is not self- sufficient economically. In fact, D.C. takes more from the Federal Government than any other area in the United States; $73,000 per capita, to be exact. That is astronomical when you think about it. The second highest State is Virginia at $16,000 per capita, followed by Maryland at $15,000 per capita. Again, D.C. takes $73,000 per capita.

If this were to go through, D.C. would need to raise revenue. Because of the massive amount of Federal land in the District, you would then have to have more taxation, presumably through two ways: One, a commuter tax, taxing people that come into the District from other areas; or, two, you would have to have tolling of roads leading into the District. Both of these are incredibly problematic.

The first one, a commuter tax, would actually create the problem my liberal colleagues are saying exists in the first place, no taxation without representation, because you would have the District of Columbia taxing people from, presumably, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, where have you, for commuting into the District. They wouldn't have representation here. That is actually taxation without representation.

Further, if you were to toll roads leading into the District, you would infringe upon people's constitutional rights to petition the government. Imagine how much a tour bus would have to pay if they wanted to come here in the District.

But I was talking about the Home Rule Act and I was talking about the 23rd Amendment, and it reminded me that there was an allegation that Republicans somehow don't care about this issue. It is actually the opposite. Republicans are the ones who have advanced more rights for the District of Columbia. Think about it.

It was actually the Kennedy and the Carter administrations, both their Departments of Justice concluded that, for D.C. to be a State, it would require a constitutional amendment. They were on our side of this argument. Historically, it was President Eisenhower who pushed through the 23rd Amendment to get D.C. three electoral votes. And just a side note, it was Republican, Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush, who was instrumental in passing the 23rd Amendment. They were both Republicans. And it was President Nixon who signed the Home Rule Act into law. This has been Republican-led since the very beginning.

There was also an argument about D.C. residents, that this is somehow a civil rights issue. Civil rights, that is an actual term of art. Civil rights is a violation when the rights are denied because a person is who the person is. D.C. residents don't have a lack of representation in Congress because of who they are, but, instead, of where they choose to live.

And this isn't just me making this argument. The late Democrat, Representative John Dingell, made a similar argument, and I will quote the late Representative Dingell: ``I have supported every single civil rights measure that has passed this Congress since 1955, but we have to look at the facts before us. No citizen in Washington, D.C., is chained to the pillars of the U.S. Capitol. They can leave any time they want. To say this is somehow a civil rights violation is insulting to actual civil rights violations.''

Then let's go back to the three electoral votes issue. If we do follow this course of action and not repeal the 23rd Amendment before enacting D.C. statehood, you are going to have, as my colleague from Maryland just admitted, a sloppy and messy situation where the new State gets three electoral votes, and then the Federal enclave gets three electoral votes.

Well, who lives in the Federal enclave?

It would be the First Family.

So you would, presumably, give the incumbent three electoral votes in the election, and then D.C. itself three electoral votes.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

Madam Speaker, there was talk about retrocession. There can be arguments that the former retrocession was actually unconstitutional. In fact, the House of Representatives tried to pass a bill to say just that. It passed, and it, unfortunately, sat in the Senate Judiciary Committee without passing and challenges to the Supreme Court were dismissed on procedural grounds.

Additionally, we have to remember the many reasons why the District is just that, a district. It is because the Founding Fathers did not want to create an imperial State that would have too much influence and control over the Capitol.

My colleague from Maryland actually wrote about this in 1990 in a law review article published in the Catholic University Law Review. ``The Representatives from the new State, likely living minutes from their offices, will theoretically devote more time to institutional and committee politics and less to constant travel back and forth across the country, increasing their importance and influence on Capitol Hill.''

That was my colleague from Maryland. That is not my assertion.

If D.C. does become a State, Madam Speaker, you will create almost by definition a super Congressman in this body and two super Senators that yield much more influence than others who have to travel back and forth to their district.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, it is interesting to hear my colleague from Maryland's newfound positions because, in the 1990s, I believe the majority leader actually had the opposite viewpoint and took the opposite vote. But then again, things can change, and so can opinions.

It is also interesting to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle use D.C.'s population as some justification for D.C. statehood. We know that the Founding Fathers knew that D.C. would grow into a large metropolis.

George Washington, when he was laying out the land use of the city, he actually used Paris as the example for the city, which was at the time 800,000 residents. They used one of the biggest cities in Europe as an example of the city because they knew the District of Columbia would grow into a thriving metropolis. Yet, they still wanted to carve out D.C. as an independent district, not as a State. The argument that there are now some 700,000 residents of D.C. is a nonstarter if you are going back to the historical intent of the Founding Fathers.

But let's talk about the border crisis. There has been a 400 percent increase in illegal border crossings compared to March 2020. Yet, today, we are considering a rule bringing up two immigration bills that do absolutely nothing to address this crisis.

Again, we are calling up a rule on H.R. 51 that is the Democrat's unconstitutional attempt to ram through D.C. statehood for their own political gain. What is that gain? It is very simple. It is bringing in two ultraliberal Senators. D.C. is the most liberal city, second only to San Francisco, and this bill bringing two ultraliberal Senators into the Senate with the idea of abolishing the filibuster is to what end? To pack the Supreme Court to ram through a far-left, radical agenda.

For those reasons, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and ``no'' on the underlying measure. I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning- hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes expected no earlier than 6:30 p.m.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Wednesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for legislative business.

On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business, with last votes no later than 3 p.m.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business today.

In addition, Madam Speaker, we will consider bills relating to justice and civil rights: H.R. 1333, the NO BAN Act, which prevents origin-based discrimination against those seeking to visit our country to do business, see family, or engage in tourism, rejecting the previous administration's policy of banning arrivals from predominantly Muslim countries; H.R. 1573, the Access to Counsel Act, which reaffirms key American principles of justice with regard to immigrants' rights to counsel during status hearings; and then lastly, H.R. 51, standing for the 51st State. H.R. 51 is the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, to admit the District of Columbia as a State and provide equal representation in Congress for its residents.

That will be our schedule for the week to come. The following 2 weeks in April will be our committee workweeks so that the committees can produce additional product for consideration on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I have not had a discussion with Mr. Nadler, but as the gentleman knows, we have a lot of work to do on the floor of the House of Representatives, and we intend to get that work done. We have not considered bringing to the floor the bill to which the gentleman refers.

Did the gentleman in his research find any instances in any authoritarian country where they refused to consider a constitutional appointee to their Supreme Court that the President, with 10 months on his term, sent down to the United States Senate or some other body in those countries?

Will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I don't know about the Nadler bill, but I do know that the Constitution says nothing about the Senate's ability to simply refuse to consider an appointee of the President of the United States. I don't think the Founders had any concept that that would be the case when they gave the power of appointment to the President of the United States.

And then when that occurred, when the present Attorney General was appointed to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell said, We are not going to consider it, ten months before the end of the term of a President of the United States. And then they said the reason being is because we have an election coming up in just a few months--in that case, it was 8 months--and the next President ought to appoint.

Madam Speaker, that deep principle enunciated by Mr. McConnell, by Mr. Graham, and others--who was the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, that deep principle was abandoned immediately when it became politically pragmatic for the Republican Party to do so and steal a Supreme Court justice.

So he can talk about socialism all he wants. What a distraction that is. A failure to want to discuss on the merits of the issues.

So what do they do, Madam Speaker? They talk about socialism or communism or dictatorship, none of which we have in the United States of America.

Now, we just lost a President of the United States that, in my experience--and I have served with many Presidents of the United States--was the most authoritarian-seeking President with whom I have served.

Madam Speaker, so I tell my friend that we are going to focus on issues important to the American people. We want to pass a jobs bill to make sure that America is competitive in the 21st century. We want to pass a jobs bill to make sure that families have good-paying jobs that they can support themselves and their families. We want to support bills that build America back better. I want an America that makes sure that everybody can ``make it in America,'' not only manufacture it in America but make it in America. That is what we are going to be focused on.

Madam Speaker, we hope that the debate is on the merits of those proposals, not some aspersion of some ideological tinge that they may think their supporters regale at.

The gentleman refers to Communist China, apparently wants to follow that example. A communist authoritarian government that owns most of the manufacturing capability in China--not all of it. It is ironic that in two different debates in less than 5 minutes that the gentleman would point to China as the example of what perhaps we ought to do, when their tax policy is approximately 100 percent, except what they want to allow their citizens to have.

Madam Speaker, let me just close on that point with: The Supreme Court has been packed.

Madam Speaker, we have a situation that is heart-wrenching and unacceptable. And it must be dealt with. In part, this situation comes because of the draconian policies of the previous administration.

It comes also because Republicans have refused, in both Houses, to come to agreement on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. So we have chaos as a result because our immigration system, as I believe almost every Member of your side of the aisle and every Member of my side of the aisle believes, is broken.

Now, unfortunately, what we see in that picture is broken systems causing great danger, apprehension, and fear among many people who are fleeing to America for refuge. It has, of course, Lady Liberty at the head of the harbor, the Hudson River, raises her torch and says, ``That is what America is for.''

Now, having said that, this situation is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for humanitarian reasons. It is unacceptable for the safety of not only those people that are in that picture, but for American citizens as well.

Madam Speaker, now it is my understanding that the CDC's existing pandemic public health order for closed borders is, in fact, being followed. In Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, unaccompanied children crossing the border are tested--are tested--by the Department of Health and Human Services. The migrants entering ICE facilities are tested, and they are quarantined if they test positive.

So protections are trying to be effective, and this administration is working very hard to ensure the safety of Americans and the safety of these many children who have come across the border.

None of them have been taken out of the arms of their parents. None of them have been made orphans by this administration.

I didn't hear the gentleman lamenting the fact that we had hundreds of children who had been taken out of the arms of their parents, and then they could not be found--that is, their parents. They could not be reunited with their parents.

This is a challenge. It is not a partisan challenge. It is a challenge for America. It is a challenge for us all.

This administration is working to try to come to a solution that is both humanitarian and effective. I am hopeful that they will proceed in accomplishing that objective.

The gentleman mentions the policies of the Trump administration, which substantially underfunded its own policies of trying to help the Northern Triangle countries. When I say help the triangle countries, unfortunately, the leadership of those countries, in too many instances, is not trying to help itself. So, we see panicked people fleeing.

Madam Speaker, I don't know whether the gentleman from Louisiana, my friend, Mr. Scalise, saw the pictures of two children being dropped over the fence--by the way, that very large fence, billions of dollars of fence. Smugglers dropped two children over the fence. That is how secure it was.

The tragedy of those children being dropped over that fence alone, I don't care where they are from or who they are, but my faith teaches me that they may be strangers, but they are brothers and sisters.

In that context, we need to come to grips, and I am hopeful that the gentleman will support the administration's desire to get a comprehensive immigration bill adopted in this Congress.

In 2013, the Senate passed, Madam Speaker, a bill which was supported by Democrats and Republicans, 14 Republican Members of the United States Senate. We pleaded with the Republican leadership to bring that bill to the floor. They will say they brought a

bill to the floor, and they did bring a bill to the floor, and almost nobody thought it was effective in accomplishing the objective of having an immigration system that would work.

So, I tell the gentleman, the pictures that he is displaying ought to concern us all deeply. We ought to urge all of our colleagues to cooperate and work toward making sure that we don't have scenes like that and that we have the ability to deal with this surge at the border in a humane way.

But no one in the previous administration can wash their hands of the responsibility of creating a situation which--the gentleman says Mexico is adjudged to be one of the most dangerous nations on Earth for COVID- 19. The previous administration said to people trying to seek solace and health and safety: Stay. Stay in the most dangerous nation on Earth for COVID-19.

I don't know whether that is a very humane policy. That is not a sanctuary for people who are in dire straits.

We said ``no'' to some people who came here from Germany. We said, no, you can't come in. Many of them returned in the 1930s and early 1940s and were slaughtered. They came here for sanctuary and found none.

That doesn't mean we can take everybody, but it does mean that we need to deal with it in a humanitarian way, in a way that honors our values and honors these people as our fellow human beings.

So, I tell the gentleman, in conclusion, that these are sad scenes, and we need to respond to them in a humanitarian way, but also a smart way. We need to respond to the cause as well as the effect.

Will the gentleman yield on the asylum issue?

Does the gentleman believe we ought to obey America's laws on asylum?

Donald Trump didn't fix the problem; he delayed the problem. That is what happened. That is what those pictures reflect.

He didn't fix the problem. He would say to those kids: Get out of here. Go back to Mexico. Maybe you have a parent there, maybe you have somebody who will take care of you, but get out of here.

That was one way to ``solve'' the problem, I presume. Those kids didn't go away. The fear that they have for being home didn't go away.

Now, I have said, Madam Speaker, this is something that we all need to deal with from a compassionate standpoint, from a legal standpoint, and from a human standpoint, which I guess is redundant to ``compassionate.'' But the fact of the matter is that President Trump did not solve this problem; he simply delayed it.

When he left, the pressure was so great because they did not believe that this President would simply throw them to the wolves, take them from their parents, treat them as refuse.

We need to deal with this, and, hopefully, we will. Hopefully we will get comprehensive immigration reform.

I will say again that one of the reasons that we have the problem of not adjudicating these people quickly is because we don't have enough judges. And the reason we don't have enough judges, which were included both in the 2013 bill and the subsequent reform bills, is because we haven't passed bills to provide the judges on the theory that if we don't provide the judges, then we won't be able to approve asylum and people won't be able to get in.

Madam Speaker, I am at the end of this circuitous argument.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for his leadership.

I thank the gentlewoman from the State of Washington for her grand and superb and astute leadership in understanding the Bill of Rights.

I have watched this debate, and I have seen people go to the microphone and talk about ``on the left.'' I didn't know the Constitution was on the left or the right. I thought the Constitution was a document that our Founding Fathers started with the language ``to form a more perfect Union.'' And in the Bill of Rights, citizens or noncitizens can have access to due process just because of the basic foundation of this Nation.

For a moment, I am going to pause, but I rise to support enthusiastically the Access to Counsel Act, H.R. 1573. But let me pause, as a resident and citizen of a border State.

Oh, how interesting it is, the interpretation of those one-time visitors. What about those of us who have been at the border over and over again? What about those of us who stood in the dark of night and saw a 2-year-old or a baby come off the wall.

No, that was not what we wanted. But people fleeing persecution have always sought to come to the place where the Statue of Liberty stands in the harbor. As far as I know, she is not gone. There is an Office of Refugee Resettlement. We have been a refuge for refugees.

Madam Speaker, I can tell you that, in the last 4 years, I saw scenes that I had never seen in my life. Do I need to remind Republicans of the children who died in our custody? No, I don't blame those Border Patrol or others there, my neighbors. But I blame the policies of the previous administration that did not care and simply left them to their own devices, which was a crowded, unsanitized place with metallic blankets and people not able to move because their idea was: Move them out. Make it so horrible, short of losing their lives, they will leave.

Then, what about the MPP program? I went to Mexico and saw desperate people in the streets. They had no place to live. They were being taken advantage of. I don't fault Mexico that, in essence, made an agreement. Maybe they were intimidated by the last administration and didn't know what else to do. But the MPP program subjected people to very dangerous conditions.

So, besides the Biden administration's policy of a closed border, sending people back who are single adults, but for the ports of entry, obviously; and, as well, those families, still giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum, which was literally cut off--domestic abuse persons couldn't apply for asylum under the last administration-- fleeing bloodshed.

I would rather stand with President Biden and Vice President Harris, who are strategically trying to work on behalf of the American people, but they have not left their compassion and humanity at the front door of the White House.

This legislation is absolutely in compliance with the Constitution because what it says is that you have access to counsel. We don't pay for it. You have legal entry documents, and it is only when you are in secondary detention that this takes place so that little Ali, who I mentioned earlier on the floor, coming from Egypt with the appropriate documents, would have been able to call his father or his uncle, who was here in Houston, Texas.

Is that not simple humanity? Is that simple kindness? Is that recognizing the dignity of all people?

What about this New York City design gallery owner detained at an airport because of this ridiculous process? Of course, that was in 2017, the last administration, Juan Garcia Mosqueda, founder of the New York art-and-design gallery called Chamber and a decade-long legal permanent resident. I don't know how he got detained at the John F. Kennedy International Airport. Not only did he get detained, but he was shipped back to his native Argentina with no opportunity to talk to anyone ahead of his gallery art show that very day.

In an open letter titled ``The Visible Wall,'' released by Mosqueda, he called the experience dehumanizing and degrading. He had his documents and detailed his 36-hour-long detainment, questioning, and return to Buenos Aires.

We already know I was getting ready to speak in the last debate on the No BAN Act. Nigeria was added to the list. I co-chair the Nigerian Caucus. There are doctors, lawyers, teachers, and businesspersons who have served from Nigeria in this Nation.

I believe this is a right-thinking bill, the Access to Counsel Act of 2021. I rise to support this legislation, and I oppose all of those who think that the Constitution no longer exists. Support the bill, H.R. 1573.

Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I rise in strong and enthusiastic support of H.R. 1573, the ``Access to Counsel Act of 2021'', which would ensure that certain individuals who are subject to prolonged inspection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at ports of entry have the ability to communicate with and receive the assistance of counsel and other interested parties at no expense to the government.

The Access to Counsel Act does the following:

Allows individuals who already have legal status in the United States who are held in secondary inspection at airports or other points of entry for more than an hour with an opportunity to access legal counsel or an interested party, such as a relative or someone with a bona fide relationship, under certain circumstances.

Allows counsel or a covered interested party the ability to advocate on behalf of the individual by providing information or documentation in support of the individual.

Affirms the opportunity to access to counsel attaches no later than one hour after the secondary inspection process begins and as necessary throughout the process.

Invalidates any effort by CBP to persuade someone to relinquish their legal status (by executing a I-407 or Record of Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status) if that person has been denied access to counsel or voluntarily waives, in writing, the opportunity to seek advice from counsel.

In 2017, Juan Garcia Mosqueda, a decade-long legal permanent resident of the U.S., was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City and sent back to his native Argentina by a CBP agent who told him that, ``lawyers had no jurisdiction at the borders.''

This statement, made in the weeks following implementation of the former president's 2017 travel ban, lays bare the vulnerable situation faced by people upon their arrival to the United States.

Behind closed doors without a friend or counsel, people are subjected to prolonged questioning, coercion, extended detention, mistreatment and summary expulsion.

Many lose valuable rights, and sometimes more, as CBP agents interpret and apply complex immigration rules to decide people's lives without the benefit of a knowledgeable advocate.

While many within the agency interpret and apply the law competently, the position does not require more than a high school degree, and CBP inspectors continue to act as judge, jury and expulsioner without so much as a

whisper allowed during that decision making from an attorney representing the banished.

We are a country of laws, and we hold as a cherished tradition the concept of due process of law.

The need for this bill became apparent after the Trump Administration implemented the Muslim ban in early 2017, resulting in individuals being detained at airports, while others being barred from boarding flights and pulled off planes abroad.

In 2020, we saw additional instances of CBP officers unjustly detaining Iranian Americans for up to 12 hours at the northern border in Blaine, WA and detaining and deporting Iranian students who were attending U.S. universities and people from Iran traveling on valid visas.

Immigrants and civil rights activists have also raised concerns that CBP appears to target individuals for inspection based on racial profiling, and often holds U.S. citizens with proper documentation in secondary inspection without access to an attorney.

For example, three Black CBP officers recently filed a lawsuit against DHS, alleging CBP routinely targets and harasses Black travelers at the Blue Water bridge between Port Huron and Sarnia on the Canada-Michigan border.

A March 25, 2021 report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan examined CBP data on apprehensions at the Michigan-Canada border and corroborates these allegations.

The report found that between 2012 and 2019, over 96 percent of the 13,000 documented apprehensions involved people of color, and one-third involved U.S. citizens.

In another example, Tianna Spears, a Black U.S. citizen diplomat working at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico said that she was targeted regularly for inspection over a four month period, despite crossing the border daily, possessing a diplomatic passport and Global Entry approval, and having registered her car in the SENTRI system.

She states that during these encounters, she was unable to contact counsel or State Department colleagues who could verify her identity.

After four months of regular apprehensions, she began to develop symptoms of PTSD, and was forced to transfer to a different post. She later resigned from the State Department.

Madam Speaker, we must ensure that people are treated fairly during the inspections process, and to do so at the very minimum requires that CBP permit representation of counsel when requested during inspections.

I urge all Members to vote for H.R. 1573 and send a powerful message that this House stands firmly behind America's well-earned and long established reputation of being the most welcoming nation on earth.

[From Curbed, Mar. 2, 2017]

Owner of NYC Design Gallery Detained at Airports, Denied Re-entry to