COVID–19 Border Protection (CBP) Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kelly).

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much those observations. It is so important for everybody to understand, the IRS is feared, and we learn through people like Lois Lerner that it is not always honest, and yet nobody has been held to account. I am hoping that at some point that will occur. I am so grateful to my friend from Pennsylvania.

At this time I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Bentz, and I have to give a shout-out to Bruce Westerman as the ranking member on the Natural Resources Committee. This very morning, we had a Republican group, but we couldn't get the whole committee to do it on that very issue of forest fires and maintaining healthy forests.

Hopefully, we will get the majority to understand it is not enough to just let nature take its course. You trim the undergrowth. You have fire lanes so you can stop a fire when it gets started. There are so many things that Republicans understand is just good forest management.

So whether it is lightning or something else that starts a fire, we don't have to see 400,000 acres go up in flames. This administration is determined not to do proper management of the forests, and so many people get hurt.

I am proud to have a colleague like Mr. Bentz that will stand up for what is best for forests, for nature, and has a lot of common sense in the process.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Georgia so much for making the effort to stand up for the constitutional rights of Members of Congress not to be detained from getting onto the House floor. We have metal detectors still at each entrance. We didn't used to have them at the Speaker's lobby. Those have been added.

We are co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit that will, hopefully, result in those being removed so that we won't continue to have Republicans miss votes because they get detained, even for the short time, when the Speaker has full discretion as to when to bring down the gavel. We have had a number of Republicans who have missed votes that they would not have missed were there no metal detectors, and especially since there is no intelligence from any source of any Member being a threat to another Member then this totally unprecedented subjugating of House Members below what their roles are and being sent by the same number of people that sent the Speaker.

It is time to get rid of the metal detectors, get rid of the subjugation and get back to the Nation's business.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am so excited about the freshman class that came in this Congress. We just heard from three freshmen, and these are folks, especially including my friend from Florida, Kat Cammack, that has been added, and I am thrilled. I have been so reassured by the freshman class that has come in and the common sense that came with them.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Cammack).

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend, Member of Congress, Kat Cammack. She has expressed so articulately what I have seen, what I have experienced so many times spending the night on the border, going down those dirt roads along the Rio Grande. It is incredible.

And some would think, Oh, well, isn't it compassionate to encourage people to come to the United States. It is the most unneighborly, uncompassionate thing that we could do. These are people who--other than the gang members, those who are part of the cartels, those coming from groups in the Middle East and other places that don't have U.S. interests at heart, but so many of them, they are looking for a better way of life.

Why do they not have a better way of life where they are, including, especially, Mexico? Well, it is because of the unsecured border we have that allows the Mexican drug cartels to make tens of billions of dollars every year coming from America for the drugs, for the fentanyl that kills, for the sex trafficking, for the human trafficking. We are funding the corruption in Mexico.

Mr. Speaker, when my wife and I had our honeymoon, we didn't have much money at all; $300 got us 5 nights, 6 days in a fabulous place in Mexico. But we don't go back because the drug cartels no longer say hands off of the tourism.

Mexico is being devastated by the drug cartels. And it is America and administrations like this that are allowing them--actually making it possible--not just allowing, making it possible. Some might say they are truly accessories to the corruption, to the criminality that is going on.

And in fact, evidence of that comes from the fact that as border patrol had told me before, before this administration when they used to talk to me and never ever tried to prevent me from getting to the border and seeing exactly what is going on--that has all changed now. This administration did not allow me, two nights in a row, trying to get to the border, as I have done countless times before--wouldn't let me get there. In fact, used the place where normally you get down from the embankment, go through the wall that is being constructed by the Trump administration, go down through the flat area, and then you come up to the levee road, and then that allows you to get miles and miles down the dirt roads along the Rio Grande where thousands of people are coming across.

And they didn't allow it this time. They used the wall, not to keep out illegal aliens, but to keep me from seeing the outrageous travesties and tragedies that are going along our border, because people are being lured to their detriment. In tort law, it would be called an attractive nuisance; like having a swimming pool and having no fence so that a child is drawn in and then drowns.

Well, this administration is luring people to their detriment. And I have been there many nights, it is not on the list of questions that is required to be asked, but so often the border patrol asks, How much did you pay, basically, to drug cartels to bring you into the United States? And it was usually between $5,000 and $8,000.

And then often they would say, You don't have that kind of money. Where did you get that money? And they would indicate, Here and there; get this much here, this much there. Friends in the U.S. sent this much.

So what about the rest of the money? The drug cartels, they are going to let them work it off when they get where they are going.

How do they get where they are going? Well, at that point, it is either Health and Human Services or ICE. Border Patrol, their job is along the border. They don't, once they transport to a facility, that is usually the end of their transporting. But ICE, Health and Human Services, and now we have the military that is also providing transportation. But as the Border Patrol officer said, cartels call us here in the U.S.--Federal Government. There are logistics. They get them across the border, and then--they don't use UPS or FedEx or even the U.S. Post Office--

they use the Federal Government and taxpayer money to ship these indentured servants of the drug cartels all over the country to cities all over the country wherever the drug cartel want them to be selling drugs, sex trafficking, human trafficking. The U.S. Government actually makes that happen. They facilitate that.

We have had so many Border Patrol--again, before this last visit to the border when this administration wants to hide what they are doing at the border--they say, Oh, well, if you give us enough notice, then we will put somebody--and this is effectively what--they want to put somebody--I am suppose to supervise--over me to watch what I am doing, prevent me from doing proper oversight down where they are supposed to be doing their job, prevent that from happening so that America does not see how absolutely tragic this invasion is.

Yes, they are gang members, but so many people are coming in, and the cartels know taxpayers in the U.S., who are funding the drug cartels, are also going to pay for the education, all the needs of those coming in.

This administration doesn't care. What they are looking at are future Democratic voters. But they have to act quickly because the longer the people are here, the more they realize, ``You know what? I am for hard work, and I am for making my own way. I don't want to see babies killed in the womb. I believe in working a full day. I do believe in marriage and strong family, devotion to family. I believe in God,'' and they start thinking, wait a minute, that sounds more like a Republican than a Democrat. They don't believe in abortion, most of the folks, and they do have faith in God and devotion to families.

If you read what BLM said they believed in, destruction of what they call Western-style marriage is one of their biggest tenets. Why? Because they are Marxist.

To get to Marxism, you have to create chaos. As Paul Harvey used to talk about, one of the best ways, and a critically important way, to create enough chaos so that you can move toward Marxism is to destroy the family, the nuclear family.

Of course, BLM has it wrong. It is not Western-style marriage. It is not something that North America or South America or Central America came up with, what is typically called the West. It didn't come from this side of the planet or this hemisphere, except in the Middle East.

A man named Moses had a revelation from God and let people know here is what God says: A man shall leave his father and mother, a woman shall leave her home, and the two will become one. That would be marriage, not Western-style. I guess Middle Eastern-style.

It didn't originate here. It has been found throughout history to be the best building block of a very strong society.

That is why surveys continue to find that although, of course, there are people that excel coming from broken homes and other avenues, the best chance a child has of succeeding in life is coming from a two- parent home and a strong nuclear family.

I have seen firsthand what Marxism does. I have heard the director of what we would now call daycare in the old Soviet Union bragging that these children don't belong to their parents: They are just temporary caretakers. We monitor what parents tell their children. If they ever say anything negative about the government, we immediately take the child away and give them to a more deserving caretaker.

I thought, at the time, thank God I didn't grow up in the Soviet Union. Thank God I grew up in east Texas, and I had a mother and father, and they cared deeply about me. I was so grateful for the blessings that I had had.

Wow, the Soviet Union. It failed because it was destined to fail. Marxism is always going to fail. People think: Oh, but it sounds so wonderful, share and share alike.

Now, you have a very small ruling class, and then you have everybody else.

I have been in those stores. Toilet paper so often, no, it was not available. But I learned, and I saw. Real luxuries, like real toilet paper, the store would get those in and put those in the back. If you were a government official, then when you came in, they would get you some toilet paper.

If it is a shoe store, when they got good shoes in, they kept those in the back for government officials. Why? Because they were sucking up to the government officials.

In Russia, it was called blat, political pull. You wanted to have some, so you kept the best of whatever you got in to sell for people that had power. You would do favors for them so that you might have a little power.

As one Soviet told me, a college student: In your country, you can get ahead. No matter who you are, you can get ahead by hard work, making more money, and then money will help you make your way up in society. Here, there are only two ways to move up in society. One is to suck up to people who have political power, and I guess maybe it is a subheading of that, but it is also by ratting out other people.

As he told me: You can get ahead by working hard and making more money here. The best way to move up is to step on other people. If you see them do something inappropriate, then you rat them out and that will allow you to move up.

Except for the very top people that have everything they want, the other people mostly get the same amount of income. That was also tried in Venezuela; it failed. It will always fail.

Anybody that was so stupid that they could not foresee what was emerging, and that is a very strong, powerful middle class in the United States and part of Europe, Marx couldn't see that coming. He was too blind. He couldn't foresee the formation of labor unions that could stand up to greedy Democrats, billionaires, such as we have here, the billionaires that, by the way, paid hundreds of millions of dollars to affect the election, who was able to vote, and how ballots were gathered.

Well, over in the Soviet Union, you don't have to worry about that. As Stalin pointed out, he didn't care who voted. He just cared about who counted the votes.

We will be seeing evidence continue to emerge from Arizona and Georgia, and, I think, eventually Pennsylvania. But to hear anybody say that there was absolutely no evidence of fraud, it is like John Fund said when he wrote the book about fraud in elections some years back: The biggest fraud about elections is the statement there is no fraud in elections. There has always been.

Lyndon Johnson certainly knew about that, as did people who tried to research allegations of voting impropriety, and the courthouse burned down, destroying evidence. These things have gone on.

Cook County, Chicago, you think there has not been fraud in Chicago? You would have to be either crazy or dishonest to say there has never been fraud in elections in Chicago.

It goes on. The trick is to try to minimize the fraud so you don't disenfranchise so many people.

But there is evidence of fraud. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of affidavits, sworn testimony, about fraud in the last election.

I know there is plenty in the media to say it didn't happen. Because they are saying that, out of either ignorance or dishonesty, others feel comfortable, including people right here on the floor, saying that it is totally debunked, that there was no fraud in the last election. That is a statement out of ignorance or out of being deceptive.

But we have to clean up the elections. We have to quit being a joke in the eyes of foreigners who have paper ballots.

Even as bad as things have gotten in Iraq, there for a while, they had free and fair elections. In 2005, having been over there right after the first election, talking to one of the chiefs of police there, he was telling about how--of course, the voters, when they voted, to avoid fraud, you dipped your finger into purple ink that would last for a couple of weeks so you couldn't vote a second time. If you didn't dip your finger in there and have proof of who you were, you didn't vote the first time.

He was telling me that a policeman who was monitoring the election saw someone suspicious. Upon checking, he saw that he had a bomb, a suicide vest. He threw the man down, jumped on top of him. Both of them were killed. I said, wow, I guess that sent all the voters scurrying, fleeing. He looked surprised and said, no, that they knew if

they got out of line, the policeman would have died for nothing.

The policeman died trying to secure the fair opportunity to vote. Yet, nowadays, that is being belittled: We shouldn't even utilize voter IDs. You shouldn't have to have an ID.

Well, that is the best way to ensure that there is not fraud in the election, just like it is the best way to ensure that someone is not illegally getting a gun or getting a cigarette or getting alcohol. People produce those all the time. Let's quit disenfranchising so many people that are voting lawfully by creating the ability to have people vote illegally.

We keep hearing about: Oh, gee, that is not true. We need to censor people and not allow them to speak or submit things online if they are not in conformance with what the liberal Democrat high-tech industry or the liberal Democrat media say is true or not true.

We listened to 4 years of lies about the Russian dossier when it was produced by a former MI6 agent in England, who even admitted: Yes, my sources, they could have been working for Putin.

It was a manipulation paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The FBI was in cahoots and, in fact, even lied to the FISA court.

It really got my attention, having been a judge, to see that FISA court judges had so little regard for their own status, their own courts, that they would not take action to hold in contempt people who held the court in contempt by lying, by defrauding the court, in order to spy on a Presidential political campaign. My goodness, there has never been a Presidential campaign treated as the Trump campaign was.

It even had a Democrat official on tape admitting: We are the ones who paid for violence to get started at Trump campaign events so that we could claim that Trump was stirring up violence.

That was in 2016.

For heaven's sake, we needed a Justice Department that would be just, and we don't have it right now. For heaven's sake, I heard from a constituent 2 days ago who that day was shocked to have two FBI agents show up at her place of work in east Texas. She had not come to Washington on January 6. She was at work in east Texas.

The only reason those FBI agents could have showed up at her place of work was because her nephew texted her a picture of someone who was here on January 6 in Washington and asked: Do you see anybody you recognize? Because it looked like his aunt.

She said: Wow, I thought that was me.

Then jokingly she said: Don't turn me in.

Unless the FBI were monitoring these text messages which was either by the grant of a warrant from a FISA court that, in my opinion, was breaking the PATRIOT Act and was breaking the law to grant such a warrant, or they were committing a crime and spying on people's text messages without authority.

This is getting out of control here. Of course, we don't hear any stories about the people who were looting and creating insurrections in cities around America last summer. We don't hear about them being arrested or having their homes wrongfully broken into by police or Federal officials. No. But we are hearing about it, and the illegality and the brownshirt tactics of the Federal Government needs to stop.

Mr. Hoyer says he was shocked 8 months was all somebody got for disrupting an official proceeding. Well, that also happened on June 22, 2016 for 26 hours on this floor, and I am surprised that Mr. Hoyer wants to see his fellow Democrats going to prison for more than 8 months for obstructing an official proceeding.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding. It is an honor and a privilege to serve alongside Representative Gohmert, and I look forward to many more conversations on so many different topics, and I thank him for allowing me to be part of this Special Order today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to stand up for and in support of our Border Patrol agents, our National Guard, the officers of the Texas Department of Public Safety, our local law enforcement officers protecting our hometowns, and all those that have made securing our border their mission.

In fact, my own Florida National Guard and several of our Florida officers and deputies have become part of the mission to secure our southwest border. For our Border Patrol agents, they have been trained to do a job that this administration will not let them do. They have dedicated their lives and careers to upholding the rule of law, something that this administration will not do.

They have continually put themselves in harm's way, keeping their heads down and continuing to follow orders. And their reward to date? Well, just look at the facts. Look at the numbers.

Approximately 40 percent of our Border Patrol agents are babysitting and processing, not patrolling, not securing, and certainly not defending the homeland because that is not their mission today.

Eleven agents are currently in the hospital fighting COVID from contact with untested migrants, three of whom are in the ICU today; two are intubated.

Just last month, the month of June, Border Patrol agents apprehended 188,829 migrants. Let me repeat that: 188,829 migrants. That is the highest number in over 21 years. It is staggering. It is shocking. And it should frighten every single American today.

And that doesn't even include the got-aways. The got-aways are the people actively seeking to avoid detection by Border Patrol or National Guard or Texas DPS or any number of resources and assets that we have on the border.

The got-aways right now are about 200,000. And these are just the folks that have been seen by an agent or caught on camera running away. These are the people who are criminals, registered sex offenders, gang members, cartel members. These are people who are now in our country and we don't know where, doing God knows what.

And, of course, let's not forget the drugs, the narcotics that have been seized at the border but also the ones that have made it across. You know, just in the month of June the fentanyl seized--keep in mind, only 20 percent is what they estimate is caught coming across the border--the amount of fentanyl in pounds, over a thousand, is enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the State of Florida 10 times over. And that was just in the month of June. And that was just fentanyl. That doesn't include the cocaine, the heroin, the meth, the weed, and any other narcotics that come.

When you talk about the money that is being made by the cartels every single month, last month, based on the number of apprehensions, that 188,829 that were apprehended, on average, each one of those paid the cartels $6,000. You do the math. That is over $1 billion in human smuggling. Human smuggling. That doesn't include the narcotics. And believe me, as those narcotics get across the border and into our communities, they get more expensive and more valuable, and the crime and violence that comes along with them gets bigger and tougher and scarier.

The numbers are pretty staggering, and as we stand here, I mentioned the agents that are currently in the hospital fighting for their lives because they came into contact with people who come from countries that don't test, don't vaccinate, and now today we have a 900 percent increase in COVID cases along the southwest border. 900 percent.

And you know what happens?

These people are not tested. They are checked for lice and scabies, and then on our taxpayer dime they are released into our country.

For all of our Border Patrol agents, I want to say, I am sorry. I am sorry that this administration does not have your back. I am sorry that those on the left don't have your back. But please know that my colleagues and I, we always will.

Let me be clear: This is not about legal immigration. This is about fighting against illegal immigration and the criminals who are profiting off of it.

Now, as we stand here laying down the facts of this crisis--and it is, in fact, a crisis, despite the fact that this administration cannot call it that--Americans around the country are probably wondering how this affects them. They are outraged, sure, but how are they impacted in their daily lives in their communities?

I have to tell you, every town in America is a border town. The nearly one million individuals apprehended to date for this year are coming to our hometowns.

In Florida, they estimate that 70 percent of the migrants that are coming across are coming to Florida. Seventy percent are bound for my home State of Florida. Yes, every town in America is a border town.

And you ask, how are they getting to our hometowns? On our dime.

The NGOs have government contracts. They buy plane tickets and bus tickets, and then they submit reimbursement from FEMA on our dime in our hometowns unchecked, unvetted, and coming to a town near you. Every town in America is a border town.

And as they are on these planes, do they have to show ID? No. No, they do not, because TSA has special guidance that these people are not subject to the same requirements that every other American is when they board an airplane.

They do not have to show photo ID. They do not have to prove who they say they are. Yes, every town in America is a border town now.

And you wonder what happens when these folks get to our hometowns? They use taxpayer-funded schools, taxpayer-funded medical facilities, public safety resources. The list goes on and on. It is about enough to make you sick.

Now when the left decides that taking care of unvetted, untested, and totally dependent illegals is totally more important than taking care of our veterans and some of our homeless veterans, I think that is when we, as

Americans, and particularly, ``us,'' my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, need to stand up and say enough. Enough is enough. The left's agenda is dangerous.

Clearly, they have turned every town in America into a border town and defunded our police along the way. The very people who are fighting to protect our hometowns. Drugs, crime--bring it on, they say. Never mind the 93,000 Americans that lost their lives to drugs just last year.

Mr. Speaker, I recently took about six sheriffs from my home State to the border. I wanted my sheriffs in my area, to see exactly what they were up against, because when there is a leak, you can mop all day long, but until you fix the leak, the water will just keep coming. And they saw firsthand really what is at stake. Our country is at stake. And they said, right out the gate, every town now I see is a border town. And let me be exceptionally clear, that you cannot protect your hometown if you cannot defend the homeland, and that starts with securing the damn border.

Yes, stopping this influx of crime and drugs and illegal activity starts with securing our border. But if the crime and the drugs, the negative impacts to our hometowns, our country, our society, our culture, our kids, if the lack of support for our agents isn't enough to convince every single one of my colleagues to take action, then perhaps the horrific humanitarian crisis unfolding is; the trafficking of children, maybe that is what it takes to inspire action from those on the left.

Next here to me today you see this photo. This is a photo of a 3- year-old little girl. I took this photo on April 11 at 1:46 p.m., standing just outside McAllen at the border. The man holding her told us--standing right there as he was being processed in the field--that that was his little girl. He couldn't tell me her name, and she was so scared, she couldn't even tell me her name, or anyone else with us. The man told me and my colleagues that he and his daughter had been traveling for 2 months.

Mr. Speaker, 12 hours later while standing in the Donna processing facilities, Border Patrol agents who had processed and conducted an interview with this man, told us that when they had threatened a rapid DNA test on him because red flags kept popping up in his story, that he admitted that that little girl--this little girl--was not his daughter.

She was someone else's daughter; someone who was willing to let their child be used, trafficked--and in this case, it is called recycling. Because this administration has policies that encourage children under the age of six to be recycled, where they get matched up with criminals so that they can be escorted across the border. That man--this man--was turned back.

This little girl today is somewhere in the United States in the custody of HHS away from her family, future unknown. Her story is not unique. This is a regular occurring event; the recycling of children.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues: Are you okay with the recycling of children? Is this administration okay with the recycling and trafficking of children?

It is disgusting.

As I said, there are stories like this that go on for days. I, myself, met a 9-year-old little girl who couldn't barely get the words out to tell me her name and where she was from, because her vocal cords had given out from screaming so loud, because she was being gang-raped by the cartels. If that doesn't make your stomach turn, I don't know what will.

President Biden, your administration has proven that while your words are dangerous, your actions are deadly. Your administration has turned every single town in America into a border town, and every American should be outraged at their carelessness, the lack of regard for public health, public safety, national security, and basic human decency.

Mr. Speaker, securing the border is not a Republican or a Democrat issue. This is an American issue, and it should be our top priority. We need to extend title 42. We need to reinstate the MPP policies. Put the politics and the egos aside and do what is best for our country for the first time in this administration.

Until then, for myself and my colleagues, who actually give a damn, we will continue to craft legislation and put the words into action, and do the thing that the majority and President Biden won't do, secure the border.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank my good friend from the State of Texas (Mr. Gohmert.) It is always a pleasure to be with him.

Today I want to talk about something that is near and dear to all of us. Maybe I am exaggerating when I say dear to all of us. But I am referring to a Federal agency that at one time former Senator Orrin Hatch described as the most feared Federal agency in our country. I am talking about the IRS; I am talking about right now the operations of the IRS.

In recent months we have learned that the agency has yet to process millions and millions of tax returns filed over the past 3 years. People across this country have been waiting to receive money that is theirs far longer than is reasonable. The agency should be working night and day to catch up.

I want to take this opportunity also to thank my friends on both sides of the aisle, because for most people in our districts, we are the IRS. We are the people answering those tough questions and helping them navigate in an almost impossible Federal agency in order to get things done.

Now, at the same time as this backlog persists, the agency is doing things that take us back to the last time that Mr. Biden was in the White House, and we have returned to those bad, old, dark days of the Obama administration when Lois Lerner and her cronies were targeting conservative, nonprofit organizations because of their political views.

Just weeks ago, the IRS was caught red-handed, once again. In a letter declining a nonprofit status to a Christian organization, the agency decried biblical teachings as a nonneutral, politically oriented form of speech. These bureaucrats had the audacity to say that the organization's Bible teachings about the Christian faith, which are shared by millions upon millions of Americans of all different political views, were too aligned with the Republican Party to warrant nonprofit status.

Now, upon learning of this shameful decision, my friend from Texas, Kevin Brady, and I joined Americans across this country to demand answers as to how the IRS could come to such an egregious conclusion. Thankfully, and only because of this oversight and the exposure to what happened, our legislative oversight and the public's righteous indignation caused this agency to reverse its course; but, again, only because of our oversight and the exposure to what was actually taking place within this agency.

This IRS needs more oversight and accountability if we are to expect it to do the right thing. But the one thing I want to explain to all of our citizens across the country, if you get a call from the IRS, understand that that call is not from the IRS. The IRS will only contact you by mail. When I go home, and I think all of my colleagues are the same, I hear people tell me, ``The IRS called me.'' I say, ``That is not the IRS. That is a scam.''

But you know what? There are things we have to do. We have not only an obligation, we have a responsibility to improve all Federal agencies.

Now, it is sad to say that the only scandal entangling the IRS this year isn't the one I just talked about. In an outrageous criminal act, someone, either inside or outside the IRS, breached IRS systems and leaked the confidential tax records of thousands and thousands of Americans to a left-wing propaganda outlet, Pro Publica, which proceeded to publish these private financial details in pursuit of a political narrative on tax policy.

This is an astonishing breach of trust that should cause every American to wonder if his or her own tax information could be weaponized against them. It is not farfetched. When President Donald Trump's tax returns were leaked to The New York Times last year, I noted that if this could happen to the President of the United States, it could happen to any American.

Now, Mr. Speaker, here we are. In 2019, the late Representative John Lewis and I worked together to figure out how we could reform the IRS so that it would better serve our taxpayers. We worked as friends, set aside any political differences we may have had, and authored the Taxpayer First Act, which was passed with overwhelming support from this entire Congress and signed into law by President Trump 2 years ago in July of 2019.

The primary intent of this legislation was to make the IRS a customer-service-oriented agency. Our tax system is a voluntary system. After all, this is one of the few Federal entities that Americans will interact with consistently for their entire lives. From their birth until their death they will have actions within the IRS.

There are few things more intimidating than having to resolve a dispute with the IRS, so making it a resource rather than an adversary was our chief aim. That is what we were trying to get to.

But how can an agency that takes years to process tax returns, leaks private financial records to damage certain taxpayers, and wields its vast power to punish people or organizations with certain political or religious views be seen as anything other than an adversary?

The IRS is one of the most powerful forces in our lives. I have heard this so many times when I go back home, and I am sure you have heard it, and I am sure most Americans feel the same way: People tell me, ``I don't mind paying my taxes as long as those moneys that I put in get used the right way, but I do fear the agency with which I have to interact.''

Let's work together to hold this agency accountable. It is not all members of the IRS who we are criticizing or who we are looking at right now. We are talking about certain things that happen within that agency that absolutely are terrifying to the average American.

We, as a body, representing everyone in this country, need to take a look at where it is that we are failing and where it is that this agency has failed and why it has become such an intimidating agency.

If you want to restore the faith in any of our agencies or any of the things that we do in our life, you do it by actually working within the framework of that agency and looking at what we can do as the personal representatives of the American people to cure the situation as it is now and make the IRS a service-based agency and not one of intimidation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call the Nation's attention to a tragic event unfolding in my State of Oregon, the horrifically destructive Bootleg fire.

This fire, now the third largest in my State's history, has consumed some 400,000 acres. That is about 660 square miles of previously beautiful landscape, pine, fir, sagebrush, grass, and meadows. The fire has taken millions of board feet of timber, the lives of thousands of forest creatures, cattle by the dozens, if not hundreds, horses, fences, buildings, and homes. The fire has released hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon, which could have remained sequestered far into the future. The smoke plume created by this conflagration has reached across this Nation, more than 2,000 miles, to pollute the air across the U.S., reaching finally the East Coast, including the air right here in Washington, D.C.

I have spoken with people whose homes and ranches were in the path of this fire. It moved so fast they could not gather and remove their cattle in time to save them. They have been sending me pictures of animals that have perished and pictures of many others who had to be put down because of injuries they suffered from the flames from which they could not escape. These are truly some of the saddest photos I have ever seen.

How did we get here? Fires happen naturally in our Western forests. They have always been a part of the Western landscape. These fires used to burn low to the ground at relatively low temperatures. Underbrush, vegetation, and smaller trees would burn, and in what were normal times, larger trees would survive.

Then about 100 years ago, our Nation decided to put out and suppress these fires. For years the trees and brush that grew unabated by fire were reduced to some extent by logging activities then allowed in our forests.

In the 1970s, forests saw the beginning of a steep reduction in forest management, and our forests began to grow unnaturally dense. Federal regulations decimated the timber industry, leaving more and more trees and brush on our Federal lands. The fires, fueled by this huge amount of ever-increasing woody mass, grew in their ferocity and danger. And now, after years of fire suppression and woefully inadequate forest management, we are paying the price.

The horrific infernos we are seeing out West are not the fires of centuries past. These terrifying, out-of-control wildfires become so immense, they often start burning from the top of the trees, not from the underbrush, leaping from treetop to treetop, causing the fire to travel faster and burn hotter.

The blame for our forests' deplorable and dangerous condition does not belong to any one person or group. However, I must call out the massive special-interest lawsuit industry that profits from the operation of the Equal Access to Justice Act by legally kneecapping almost every attempt to manage our Western forests.

So what is the long-term solution? We are seeing some early evidence that managed forests fared far better than did forests that were not thinned or otherwise treated in anticipation of the fires that are sure to come. Firefighters on the ground indicated that thinned areas slowed down the fires so that firefighters had a fighting chance to bring the fire in those areas under control.

This is good news because it means there is some hope. There is a way out of this if Congress can find the political will to work toward a solution.

I am pleased to report I am working with ranking member Bruce Westerman, whose Resilient Federal Forests Act will be a huge step toward giving the Forest Service the tools it needs to better manage our vast public lands.

In fact, today, I introduced legislation included in that package, the Commonsense Coordination Act. This bill will cut through some of the red tape that agencies must overcome to complete critical forest management activities.

I express my sympathy to the people suffering from the Bootleg fire and all the fires across the West. My staff and I have been on nonstop calls with local officials, county commissioners, and ranchers. The experiences they are sharing are incredibly sad and made more so by the fact that we could have done so much better when it came to protecting our Nation's forests and those that live in and around them. I will continue to do all I can here in Congress to help.

Lastly, I thank all the brave men and women who are out fighting the fires, including firefighters, farmers, ranchers, helicopter pilots and others. This is hot, dirty, difficult, and dangerous work, but their tireless efforts are saving lives, homes, forests, wildlife, livestock, and property.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Encounters at the southern border have reached a 20-year high of now over one million illegals trying to smuggle themselves into our country. This proves that the Biden administration's immigration policies are not working and that they have reignited a crisis at our southern border previously contained by the Trump administration.

In fact, the border crisis is getting so bad that States not even geographically connected to the border are feeling the effects.

Just last week I was traveling down I-24 East from Nashville, Tennessee, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and larger than day was this huge yellow billboard that said: ``CRISIS, Biden Fix the Border.'' The problems are drugs, cartels, and illegals. This was not some political party that put up that billboard, it was organic. It was homegrown right from the heart of the American people. The message is crystal clear, and America should stand up and take notice.

So why am I seeing this sign in Tennessee, a State that has no connection to the southern border? It is because the Biden administration is flying illegals to every State in the Union making every State a border State. This must stop.

Further complicating the crisis, the Biden administration is considering the elimination of title 42, a Centers for Disease Control public health authority that allows border officials to turn back illegal migrants due to the danger posed by communicable diseases.

By doing this, the Biden administration is not only preventing U.S. border officials from doing their jobs, but unnecessarily exposing American citizens to the dangers of COVID-19.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the Biden administration's reckless policies implemented by executive order have been exposing communities to COVID-19 by refusing to test every illegal migrant that is apprehended.

Even Secretary Mayorkas himself admitted to me in a committee hearing that his agency has released illegals into the interior of the United States who are known to be infected with COVID-19. Local communities are then forced to deal with it.

This is simply unacceptable.

For these reasons I introduced H.R. 2076, the COVID-19 Border Protection Act. My bipartisan legislation requires the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with Health and Human Services, to develop a comprehensive strategy to test illegals that are encountered at the border and quarantine those who test positive. With the rise of the new COVID-19 delta variant, it is critical that every illegal alien who crosses the border be tested.

H.R. 2076 has bipartisan support and 41 cosponsors, including the support of all the GOP Members of the House Homeland Security Committee.

I will continue to push this effort to safeguard the American people and will soon introduce an amendment to the fiscal year 2022 DHS appropriations that will help accomplish the goals of H.R. 2076.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation. I thank my good friend and colleague from Texas for holding this very important Special Order.