Build up Illegal Line Defenses with Assets Lawfully Lifted Act of 2021

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Madam Speaker, during my Special Order tonight, my colleagues and I will address the inaction by the Biden administration and House Democrats to address this major crisis that we see on our southern border, this humanitarian crisis. And, yes, that is the right word. It is a crisis by any objective measure.

We are also going to address tonight the President's so-called infrastructure plan. That is a lot for us to talk about. So we will squeeze it into this hour.

When President Biden was inaugurated, the American people will remember, Madam Speaker, that he called for unity. He promised to work across the aisle, to work with Republicans in Congress. But so far those words have been completely empty promises.

Everyone can acknowledge and everyone can see on television that there is a real crisis at the southern border,

and it is a crisis of the administration's creation.

President Biden has stopped construction of the border wall. He reimplemented the catch-and-release policy of the Obama administration. He reversed the remain in Mexico policy of the Trump administration. And he selectively is enforcing immigration laws.

The results are not surprising. Our Border Patrol is now completely overwhelmed, and the southwest border encounters have reached a 15-year high. I want you to look at these numbers, Madam Speaker. This is the border crisis. The first column here is January of this year. We had 78,323 southwest border encounters. The next month, in February, it goes up to 100,441. Last month, in March, it was 171,700. This is a crisis. We all know the numbers for April are going to be staggering.

I know that there are Members on both sides of the aisle here--I know there are Members, our Democrat colleagues, who want to join us to take action to fix this. But we can't do it without the administration.

Look, here are five simple steps that we can take that would help end the border crisis:

Number one, finish the wall;

Number two, reinstate the remain in Mexico policy;

Number three, turn away high-risk individuals at our border. These are dangerous folks, some of them, coming across, and we know that.

Number four, require negative COVID tests before releasing migrants, illegal immigrants, into the U.S.;

Number five, let's send a clear message to the whole world to discourage illegal immigration.

What a concept. These aren't difficult things. The Trump administration had it all figured out, but now politics has gotten in the way of good policy.

In addition to finally solving the border crisis, there is another item in the news that Americans desperately want us to address, and that is the need for an infrastructure package. That could be a bipartisan solution that we could all work on together. It should be nonpartisan, but because it impacts every single congressional district in every State, all of us, every American, wants this to happen.

But the plan that the White House introduced isn't really about infrastructure at all. In fact, only 6 percent of the $2.5 trillion proposal would go towards bridges, highways, and roads. The rest goes to fund Democrat Big Government priorities, like the Green New Deal, and payoffs to liberal special interest groups. What an outrage.

The facts are that the House majority is the slimmest of any House majority since World War II, and the Senate is divided 50/50. Given these facts, we just want our Democratic colleagues and President Biden to end this partisan agenda for the sake of the American people.

I look forward, Madam Speaker, to hearing from my Republican colleagues tonight about both of these issues.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman), who represents the Sixth Congressional District of Wisconsin.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for that dire warning. I guess if you subscribe to modern monetary theory, none of this is a concern, but it is for those of us who live in the real world.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Fallon), who represents the Fourth Congressional District of Texas.

I thank the gentleman from Texas.

We came here to drain the swamp, but it is really difficult during the current administration. We will get back to it soon, though, I am confident of that.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), who represents the Fifth District.

I thank my friend for that compelling eyewitness account. Anyone who is looking at the evidence cannot deny this is a problem.

I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko). Being from a border State, she knows a whole lot about this.

I thank the gentlewoman for that passion. She is right, she has been there, and she sees it herself.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Nehls), who represents the 22nd Congressional District and will bring another border State perspective. He also knows a lot about law enforcement.

I am so grateful for those comments and for the gentleman's expertise. This passion that you see, Madam Speaker, is deserved. We are so concerned that the President doesn't share it, and that is what you are hearing echoed over and over tonight.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Taylor), who represents the Third District.

I thank the gentleman for that perspective from Texas again. So we've got Texas and Arizona. Madam Speaker, we are going to move a little further west, all the way west to California.

I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garcia), who represents the 25th District there.

I thank the gentleman for that compelling testimony from a first-generation American. That is meaningful. We prize immigration, the legal kind. We believe in the rule of law, and that is what maintains order.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Cawthorn), the youngest Member of Congress, but he is wise beyond his years.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Cawthorn for that perspective.

Madam Speaker, I will move briskly because we have a lot of Members, as you can see, who are passionate about these issues and want to weigh in tonight.

I yield to the gentleman from the First District of the great State of Alabama (Mr. Carl), who will take the podium here.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for her remarks, and we do call out the administration. That is what this Special Order is all about.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee's Second District (Mr. Burchett).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for those bold words, and he is right. I think that expresses the sentiment of a lot of Americans.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gimenez), who knows a lot about immigration as well as infrastructure because he is a former fire chief and mayor and now a Member of Congress.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for speaking with such authority.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania's Ninth District (Mr. Meuser).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for mentioning just one of the many Republican ideas we have. And as he said, we are not there at the table.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee's Sixth District (Mr. Rose).

Madam Speaker, it is a con job, indeed.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan's First District (Mr. Bergman), who is the highest ranked military officer ever elected to the United States Congress and also my dear friend and classmate.

Madam Speaker, I thank the general. I appreciate that so much.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Baird), Fourth District, another American hero, another hero of mine, a gentleman who sacrificially served his country and deserves to speak here tonight and has great insight for us.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend. It is so sad that broadband needs are not being met because politics are in the way.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for that.

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to go back across the country again to the great State of California's Eighth District. I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that California perspective.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), the Republican leader of the House Agriculture Committee.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. That went so well, I think we will stay in the State of Pennsylvania, going to the 12th District.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. And he has indeed been in Washington too long.

Madam Speaker, there is a common denominator tonight. The crisis at the border and the problems with the infrastructure package were both entirely created by the Biden administration.

They were both thus completely avoidable, completely predictable, and they have done and are doing an extraordinary disservice and real damage to the American people.

We ask, again, of all of our Democrat colleagues and President Biden and his administration, please, please, for the sake of our country, put the partisanship aside. Let's govern with common sense, let's fix these problems before they become so great that we are unable to do so.

Madam Speaker, we end the Special Order, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to address the Chair with regard to the upcoming infrastructure bill. I am going to talk about some numbers. I don't mean to bore you with numbers.

When you put together a bill, you don't want to be an outlier. I am going to address two areas in which I think this bill makes this an outlier in very, very serious ways.

The first one is, you have changes in the tax law. And when you look at the taxes that a business pays in this country, a corporation, you have to look at kind of a double taxation. They will tax you at a corporate rate when the business earns the money; and when the business gives the money to its shareholders, you will be taxed at a dividend rate.

There is a graph here comparing all of the OECD countries around the world as to where they stand on this combined tax rate. The lowest countries, the Baltic countries, Latvia and Estonia, are 20 percent.

Right now, the United States, even after the last tax cut, at 47 percent, is middle of the pack. Actually, a little bit higher. If the tax hikes are put in effect that are published right now, you are going up to 62.7 percent. In other words, of the over 20 countries here, the United States will have the highest combined dividend, plus corporate tax rate. That is an outlier and a dangerous place to be an outlier.

There are a lot of things that go into a decision as to where you put a manufacturing facility, but taxes is certainly one of them. And given one of our goals should be to bring manufacturing back to the country, it is a bad place to be as the highest combined corporate tax rate, plus dividends.

The next area I am going to address is the money supply. To a certain extent, because of previous bills passed during the COVID crisis, we have had a rather dramatic increase in the money supply.

I would suggest you google ``M1.'' You will see that, in the last 6 months, the amount of dollars floating around has gone through the roof. Some people, including me, would say M2 would be a better measurement. But even if you look at M2, we have a 27 percent increase in the money supply over the past year. That is just screaming we are going to have a lot of inflation in the very near future.

It is certainly not the only reason, but we already see the rapid increase in the cost of housing construction. We see an increase in food prices and an increase in energy prices. This is given what we have already done.

Now, you are going to tell us--or some people are going to say that we are going to raise enough taxes to pay for this spending. But we are going to be raising enough taxes over the next 10 or 15 years. We know around here that when we say we are going to make a pay-for the next 10 or 15 years, a lot of times that pay-for never materializes.

So I am afraid we are going to have another big increase in the money supply when we have already had a 27 percent increase in the last year, and this is going to come back and cause serious concern. I beg the majority to look at a graph of the combined tax rates, us compared to the other OECD countries, and I beg them to look at the money supply and don't make us any more of an outlier on either.

Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Johnson for yielding. It is an honor to be here on the floor with him tonight.

Our country recognizes leadership at all levels, regardless of party ideology,

and I see here on the floor real leadership, committed leadership.

I rise today to express deep concern for the state of our Nation's southern border. Words matter, and it is time we start calling this situation what it really is: a crisis. In simple words, it is what it is. Don't try to paint it in many different ways.

President Biden has invited this crisis through his words and in his executive actions, including terminating construction of the wall on our southern border.

We need real leadership now. Now is not the time to be hiding. We need the leaders to step out and step up. It is time to put up and put out the political gamesmanship, put that all behind us and take a serious look at what is happening on the southern border. When I say a serious look, I mean that literally.

Vice President Harris, let alone President Biden, has yet to visit the border since being charged with addressing the crisis there. The United States is and must always remain a free and welcoming Nation.

We are all immigrants. We are immigrants by generations who came here for one of two reasons, for an opportunity or fleeing persecution. That hasn't changed.

We are also, and by all standards measured, a Nation of law and order, and our laws must be followed.

Madam Speaker, I urge Congress to take up critical legislation, such as Representative Andy Biggs' Stopping Border Surges Act and Representative Jeff Duncan's H.R. 88, Build up Illegal Line Defenses with Assets Lawfully Lifted Act of 2021. These bills will begin to address the root cause of our immigration issues.

In addition, the bureaucracies here in D.C. can play a positive role, such as Department of Labor and DHS. They can help. Because when you look at those who seek to come here legally and work as guest workers, we can bring good people from around the world here through the H2B and H2A programs. They do not seek permanent status; they come here to work, and they go home. The bureaucracies can get involved to help good, legal immigration occur after you separate out the guest worker programs.

Madam Speaker, we can secure our border, protect those wishing to come here legally, and crack down on those who wish to do us harm--and I mean, crack down on those who wish to do us harm. It is time this body gets to work to address this critical issue immediately.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Louisiana, Vice Chair Mike Johnson, for yielding.

Madam Speaker, we can all agree our Nation's transportation and infrastructure system is in need of investment to improve our quality of life and economic competitiveness. Very unfortunately, the Biden administration has thus far chosen a go-it-alone approach in solving this problem with a $2.3 trillion proposal, whereby less than 8 percent would go toward improving our Nation's roads, bridges, highways, airports, ports, and waterways, traditional infrastructure.

The rest is filled with provisions that have nothing to do with traditional T&I as we all know it, including $173 billion for electric cars and car electrical ports for powering; $400 billion to expand Medicaid programs, which is not infrastructure; and hundreds of billions of dollars to implement provisions of the Green New Deal.

As a means to pay for it, the Biden administration and Democratic leadership plan to raise taxes by over $2 trillion. At a time when our economy is in recovery, and we are supposed to be on the side of American manufacturing and repatriating jobs, bringing these companies back to America, the idea of significant tax increases is another upside-down policy and will certainly not attract business but only export them.

Additionally, our infrastructure plan needs to be supplemented by private capital investment. That is where accountability comes from. That is why I plan to introduce the Infrastructure Bank for America Act, which would add to existing government funding with private investment, increasing access to capital for worthy infrastructure projects that deliver on R&I and deliver value to the American people at a fraction of the cost to the taxpayer.

Contrary to the Biden infrastructure plan, IBA investments would not be restricted and would help finance surface transportation projects, grid security, broadband, and revitalization of cities and towns across America and my district.

Thus far, the Biden administration has failed to reach across the aisle in a meaningful way to accomplish anything. We should unite to fix our roads, bridges, highways, airports, and other gateways to growth and innovation, not exploit this opportunity and pass a $2 trillion liberal wish list that will raise taxes, impose Green New Deal mandates, and add trillions to our national debt.

Madam Speaker, as I walked through rows and rows of children who had just made a long and dangerous journey to Texas' southern border sitting on cots in a crowded room three times the size of the room that we are in right now, it has never been more clear to me than right there that illegal immigration benefits no one.

I have witnessed the heartbreaking conditions inside these emergency intake sites. In the words of one facility commander, the volunteers and staff that were working there tirelessly, they were operating under a crisis level of care. A crisis level of care. There is no doubt that we are facing a humanitarian crisis, a health crisis, and a national security crisis, all of great proportions.

We didn't get here overnight. The Biden-Harris administration made a reckless decision, choosing to overturn policies implemented by President Trump. But those policies were working, and the Biden-Harris administration had no replacement policy, no strategy, no plan to replace it.

During my visit to this facility in north Texas, I listened to the stories of cartels and coyotes advertising that they could get your children across the U.S. border on television. That is right. The cartels are advertising on television that they can get children smuggled across our southern border.

By stopping construction and the strategic importance of the border wall and rescinding the remain in Mexico policy, President Biden and Vice President Harris are sending a clear message: If you come to the United States, we will let you in.

Currently, as cartels are exploiting this administration's irresponsible open border policies, the cartels are raking in roughly $14 million a day. That is right, you heard me correctly. $14 million a day going straight into the hands of criminals because of the reckless policy decisions of the Biden administration.

If that statistic isn't enough on its own, DHS is projecting 117,000 children without their parents will arrive at the border this year alone. That is a 45 percent increase over the highest we have ever had.

Madam Speaker, this is a crisis, and this administration and Democrats in

Congress need to call it just that and fix it.