Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3648) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the per-country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrants, to increase the per-country numerical limitation for family-sponsored immigrants, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 7946) to provide benefits for noncitizen members of the Armed Forces, and for other purposes; and for other purposes.

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

Mr. Speaker, DHS Secretary Ali Mayorkas has repeatedly asserted, including in sworn testimony to multiple committees of this House, that the southern border is secure. This, of course, is a lie, and not even a subtle one.

We know the numbers--a stunning 4.1 million encounters since inauguration day, when Joe Biden reversed the Trump administration's enforcement measures. In the same period, another 1 million known got- aways have entered the country while the border patrol has been overwhelmed changing diapers and arranging for transportation for thousands of illegal crossings each day.

So how do our Democratic colleagues react to this unprecedented illegal immigration they have unleashed?

Do they call on the Biden administration to stop the releases?

Do they call on the President to actually enforce U.S. immigration law or at least stop incentivizing this mass illegal immigration?

No. Instead, they produce this bill, that readmits immigrant veterans who were later deported, mainly for committing criminal offenses.

This needs to be clearly understood. A noncitizen who joins the military promising to defend our country, and instead commits crimes against the citizens of our country is subject to deportation, and rightly so.

This bill adds a political advisory committee, handpicked by Mr. Mayorkas that, in effect, can override our deportation laws, and it invites criminal offenders who have already been deported back into our country. It presumes they are of good moral character despite their criminal offenses simply by producing a green card. This is astonishing.

Let's be very clear, that the vast majority of legal immigrants who enlist in our military do so because of patriotism toward our country, and they are exemplary citizens and exemplary members of our Armed Forces. In recognition of their service, we offer them special avenues for naturalization under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

That is as it should be. About 3 percent of U.S. veterans today are foreign-born, and many of them have chosen to become U.S. citizens. But that is not what this bill is about. This bill is about the bad apples who have been ordered deported for breaking our laws.

Since its creation in 2002, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has naturalized over 148,000 members of the U.S. military.

If an alien servicemember or veteran is removed from this country, it is only after that alien has had their due process in immigration court and an immigration judge has issued a final order of removal.

Alien servicemembers and veterans are also afforded a special process upon encounter by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, under which, through a totality of the circumstances approach, ICE agents determine whether arrest and placement in removal proceedings are the appropriate actions to take.

However, in this bill, the Democrats have decided that an advisory committee of people chosen by Secretary Mayorkas is better equipped to determine whether an alien's actions warrant removal than a trained ICE official.

Yesterday in the Committee on Rules, the chair of the subcommittee even indicated that these random people chosen by the Secretary would be better than a trained immigration judge at determining whether an alien should be able to stay in the U.S.

During the Committee on the Judiciary markup, my Republican colleagues offered an array of amendments aimed at ensuring alien servicemembers, veterans, and their family members who committed serious crimes would not be able to benefit from the provisions in this bill that prevent removal and allow green cards to be issued.

We tried to prevent individuals with convictions for things like drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, explosives trafficking, perjury, domestic violence, obstruction of justice, and even illegal voting from being able to benefit from the bill's provisions, but the Democrats rejected nearly all such amendments.

They did reluctantly agree to exclude murderers, rapists, and child sex abusers as beneficiaries of this bill. I suppose we can claim some progress.

They couldn't even bring themselves to accept an amendment to preclude aliens who have DUI convictions from benefiting from this bill. They decided that five DUIs were too many. So, ridiculously, the bill allows aliens to have four DUI convictions and still benefit from this bill.

Democrats in committee also opposed an amendment to ensure that alien veterans who benefit from the bill were honorably discharged from the military. Right now, as the bill stands, it only requires that the alien have been discharged under other than honorable conditions.

Democrats also rejected a Republican amendment that would have given the victims of a crime committed by the alien servicemember a say in whether or not the alien should face immigration consequences.

This bill once again lays bare the true objectives of the Democrats. First, ignore the 4.1 million illegal aliens encountered by Border Patrol and the 1 million got-aways as well, blurring the distinction between legal immigrants who obey our laws and the millions of illegal immigrants that the Democrats are now happily allowing to stream into our country. Then, they introduce bills like this that blur the distinction between the many legal immigrants who have honorably served in our Nation's Armed Forces and the handful of bad apples who have broken our laws and have been ordered deported for doing so.

This is the woke insanity that grips the Democratic Party today. Thank God the voters have just broken their grip on the House of Representatives.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Bost).

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct that the legislation emanating from the Judiciary Committee doesn't have anything to do with the border because the Democrats, having created this monumental crisis, refused to do anything to address it.

Instead, we are left with bills like this that set distractions on the most important question facing America today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, we can now plainly see the effect of the Democrats' open border policies on communities across our Nation; the strain on our schools, our hospitals, our public safety, working class wages and opportunities, and social services.

No civilization has ever survived the magnitude of illegal mass migration that the Democrats have unleashed upon our country in the span of just 23 months; and Gallup warns us there are another 42 million people living in poverty just in Latin America and the Caribbean who intend to come here now that they can.

When Secretary Mayorkas appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, he couldn't tell us how it benefits the American people to have their classrooms packed with non-English-speaking students, their emergency rooms flooded with illegals demanding basic care, how their families will be safer with increased gang activity and fentanyl inundating communities, or how working families will be made better off by flooding the labor market with cheap illegal labor, or how taxpayers are served by footing the bill for supporting a largely unskilled, uneducated, and dependent population.

Now, where is this bill taking us? Well, we already know because we have already had a taste of it. For a while, we allowed aliens on temporary visas and even illegal immigrants here under DACA to enlist so that they could claim a fast track to citizenship. It was called the MAVNI program.

One MAVNI enlistment, Ji Chaoqun, was found to be a Chinese spy. A number of foreign nationals who enlisted in our military were subsequently deported for committing crimes. That program was such a debacle that the Obama administration, the architects of DACA, had to suspend it in 2016 because of the danger it posed to national security.

Now, foreign nationals who come to America legally, who obey our laws and seek to serve our country because of a love of it and of the principles upon which it is founded, are one of our greatest strengths.

Eleven years ago, I spoke at the funeral of Corporal Gurpreet Singh, whose family had emigrated from India legally 11 years before.

Let me tell you a little bit about Gurpreet Singh. His father described him this way. He said Gurpreet ``was always a very patriotic man for the U.S. From the time he was a little boy, he knew he wanted to serve in the U.S. military. Gurpreet was very proud of his service with the Marines.''

Corporal Singh was wounded in combat, chose to return, overstayed his assignment in order to relieve a friend, and was killed in action in Helmond Province, June 22, 2011.

Yet, the Democrats are either unable or unwilling to tell the difference between a Chinese spy like Ji Chaoqun and an American hero like Gurpreet Singh. It appears the Democrats are attempting to equate the heroism, devotion, and fidelity of heroes like Gurpreet Singh with the convicted criminals that a court has ordered to be deported from our country, or the lawless, illegal mass migration the Democrats are not only ignoring, but actively aiding and abetting with their policies.

Now, even if every convicted criminal the Democrats are trying to benefit with this bill were meritorious, wrongly convicted of crimes and exemplary in every way, we are still talking about an infinitesimal fraction of those who are being allowed into our country every day by the dangerous policies of this administration. That includes 120 known terrorists we have intercepted, and God only knows how many more among the 1 million got-aways who have entered our country on Joe Biden's watch.

The Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee has done nothing to address this crisis; the Judiciary Committee has done nothing to address this crisis; and the House has done nothing to address this crisis, a crisis that literally began on Inauguration Day when Biden reversed the policies of the Trump administration that had finally secured our borders.

I can assure the American people that 28 days from today, all of that is going to change.

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

Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind my friend that every alien who serves in our military has the right to naturalize; but that does not give them a right to commit crimes against our country, and that is what this bill does.

This amendment sets 90 days as the deadline for promulgating regulations to implement this bill, a bill that overrides the laws governing deportation of aliens who commit crimes in our country if they have enlisted in the Armed Forces. It raises some disturbing questions.

Why is it that the bill surrenders legislative prerogatives to the executive? If you are going to write the law, then write it in its entirety in the open.

Yes, we have been granting these powers to the executive branch for a very long time. The point is that 10 times more laws are written by the bureaucracies than by the body solely vested with lawmaking authority, but we will save that discussion for another day.

Ninety days is an absurdly short period of time to write the regulations, publish the regulations, allow for full public input for the regulations, rewrite the regulations in light of public comments, and publish the final version. It begs the question: Why?

Is it possible that the supporters of this law know exactly what they want to do and have no interest in listening to the public? That has been the history of the left's approach to defending the public safety and the Nation's sovereignty, so it would not much surprise me if this is the case.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that it is clear that the supporters of the amendment are simply trying to rush a bad bill into implementation without the public having any opportunity to see the ramifications of this bill's provisions.

As I said earlier, we tried to get into the bill a provision that would allow the victims of these criminal aliens to testify as to the impact of the crimes on their lives, and the Democrats rejected it.

Notice and comment periods themselves require 30 to 60 days after the notice of proposed rulemaking is published for the public to submit comments about the proposed rule. After that, the agency has to comb through and respond to all of the submitted comments. There is simply no way to comply with Executive Order 12866's economic analysis requirement for a significant rule, and that is certainly what this is, within a 90-day period of enactment.

It is apparent that the Democrats are trying to rush out an interim final rule on this bill before the American public has any opportunity to see what they are doing. We can only conclude that the Democrats know that the American people are not going to like what they see.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment and a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1508, I call up (H.R. 3648) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the per-country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrants, to increase the per-country numerical limitation for family-sponsored immigrants, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. 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 H.R. 3648.

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

Mr. Speaker, today the House is considering H.R. 3648, the EAGLE Act, a bipartisan bill that raises the per-country caps on family-sponsored immigrant visas and phases out the per-country caps on employment-based immigrant visas. The bill also includes significant improvements to the H-1B visa program that add protections for U.S. workers.

Our immigration system has not been significantly updated since 1990, and it really just follows the basic outlines for the bill that was enacted in 1965. The failure to evolve the immigration system has significantly damaged America's ability to compete in an increasingly global economy. The system is supposed to encourage immigration based on an individual's family ties to the United States or their ability to contribute to our economy. It often falls short.

For example, there are backlogs for families seeking reunification. That could be legal residents of the United States trying to get their spouse a legal residence visa. There are backlogs in some countries but none for Western Europe. In addition, in the employment-based context, before a foreign national can apply for a green card--here is the process--their employer has to advertise and demonstrate that there are no U.S. workers who are here who can do the job that they are being offered. This is to make sure that green card applicants are providing services and skills that are not readily available in America.

But after this initial test, which is merit-based, the per-country caps kick in. For example, under current conditions, an individual from Western Europe, a Western European country, applying for a green card in the employment-based second preference category based on a bachelor's degree would be able to gain their permanent residency in about a year. In contrast, an Indian national with a Ph.D. and potentially superior skills might have to wait approximately 200 years. That doesn't help America.

I would note also that the individuals who would ultimately benefit from the elimination of what amounts to a racist system of allocating visas, 95 percent of those individuals are already in the United States legally working on a temporary visa, but in limbo. As that limbo continues, their children who have been raised in the United States age out, and when they hit 21, they have to go back to the country their parents are from, but their parents remain legally in the United States.

We are losing individuals who we need in America, including physicians--25 percent of the MDs in the United States are foreign- born; many of them are from India. I have personally met physicians whose children have aged-out who decided they have to move to Canada where they can get a green card equivalent in under 6 months.

Now, the disparity, as I mentioned, in the family-sponsored context, there are some family-sponsored immigrants from Mexico whose wait time is over 200 years before they are eligible to receive a green card.

That doesn't make any sense at all, and in fact, it is a fraud on those applicants.

We have been trying to change this system for over a decade. The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, an earlier version of this legislation, first passed the House in 2011 and again last Congress. Iterations of this bill have been led by both Democrats and Republicans, received over 350 ``yes'' votes in the House, and passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

The EAGLE Act is based on a bill that passed the Senate last Congress, with additional restrictions to protect American workers and a longer transition period to ensure that no country's nationals are excluded from receiving visas while the per-country caps are phased out.

Why is this important? People base their expectations on the situation as it exists. The Congressional Research Service has analyzed this bill and stated that no one currently in line is negatively impacted by this legislation.

I thank Representative John Curtis from Utah for working with me to introduce the EAGLE Act. I appreciate my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have previously supported this legislation, and I urge that we, once again, vote in favor of this bill.

A system that is based on where you are born instead of what you can do is not what serves America well. A system that is designed to advantage someone born in Western Europe over the entire rest of the world doesn't really recognize merit, which is what this bill is all about. We should have a system based on competitiveness, not the country where you were born.

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

Mr. Speaker, before I recognize my colleague from the Judiciary Committee, I would just like to note that the issue about the EB-4, which is the children, is not correct.

Under current law, if you are a minor and have been abandoned by your parent, you can go to State court, and the State court will make a finding that you have been abandoned by your parent. Then, you can become eligible for legal permanent residence in the EB-4 category.

By the way, you are not, under law, able to then petition for a parent once the parent abandons you. They are out of the picture. That is backlogged right now from Central America. This bill will have the effect of easing those backlogs for orphans from Central America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a distinguished member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).

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

Mr. Speaker, I do want to address the issue of membership in the Communist Party. It has long been part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that if you were a member, you are not admissible. I will read the section. ``Any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible.''

Now, there are some exceptions, for example, if your membership was not willing. We do know that in some cases, and not just in China, Russia signed up, essentially, Boy Scouts as members of the Communist Party against their will, and they were 12 years old. So the consular officer can find exceptions based on that, and that is sensible.

Now, the one point that the gentleman did make in committee had to do with applying this Communist Party inadmissibility provision explicitly to H-1B applicants, and we did take him up on that suggestion. In fact, that is a reasonable thing to do. The gentleman made that point because H-1B visa applicants have dual intent. So the application is eminently reasonable when it comes to those dual-intent immigrants.

Although we did not draft the amendment at the markup, we did contact the gentleman's legislative director and went back and forth with the lawyers on the staff, so there was full knowledge of this provision, and I thank the gentleman for raising the issue.

There have been complaints that we haven't had hearings. We have had a lot of hearings on this issue. In fact, I can recall so well, physicians--a quarter of the physicians in the United States are foreign born. Most of those medical doctors were born in India, and they are providing medical services to underserved communities throughout the United States. I have met many of them. We have had testimony from them at our hearing in the Committee on the Judiciary.

To tell the people who are getting their medical care from these physicians that it doesn't matter, these physicians have to go to Canada and leave them without a doctor in their small town, that is not reasonable. Failure to act will result in that type of situation. In fact, it is already resulting in that type of situation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a note on the issue of nursing, which is very important. As you know, we have had a very tough time with nurses in America. They have been through COVID; the trauma has been enormous, and we have a need for more nurses while nurses are leaving the profession for understandable reasons.

Part of the answer is nurses who want to come to the United States and practice nursing. That is not the whole answer, but it is part of the answer, and so at the request and suggestion of Senators who we have been talking about, there is a carve-out of 4,400 visas for nurses and physical therapists during the transition period. We think once the transition is over, we will be adequately accommodated, but during the transition, that is included.

I would note that the Society of Hospital Medicine does support this bill.

We had three hearings in the Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee on this topic, and I think we had an understanding on the subcommittee kind of on what all the issues were.

This is our best effort at dealing with those issues. It has received broad support in the past, bipartisan support in the past, and I hope it would do so again.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, just a couple of notes. First, this bill does not add any additional visas to the visa system. There were efforts to do that, plans to recapture visas. That was never agreed to by the Senate, and so this is an allocation of existing visas. It doesn't add a single visa.

As I said before, 95 percent of the individuals who would be impacted are already here legally in the United States. They are legally working in the United States. So it is no new people coming in, either. It is people who are already here, no additional visas.

We asked the Congressional Research Service to do an analysis because people wanted to know--and they were right to want to know--is there any adverse impact on Africa or the Caribbean, and CRS told us there was no impact on Africa or the Caribbean.

Referring to the EB-5 category, I think those who are concerned don't realize that we actually changed the EB-5 Act through the Integrity Act earlier this year, and due to those changes, 32 percent of the green cards available every year for investments go to a new category. It is completely current. There is no backlog.

I just want to talk a little bit about what we are doing here. My colleague from California said we are talking about picking winners and losers.

In 1965, the Congress did pick winners and losers when they designed this structure. The winners were Western Europe, and the losers were everyone else. Now, that system, although not, I am sure, intended to be called racist, did advantage people from Western Europe to the disadvantage of the rest of the world, and we are still working on that system today.

I think it is time to change that system. It is time to move to merit, not to

race, not to the country you were born in. I am not accusing any critics of this bill, I am not talking about their motivation, but the fact is, if we don't change this system, we are supporting something that we did in 1965 that really has an effect of having race play a role in who gets a visa instead of merit on the employment side. I don't think that serves our country well.

Put aside for a minute our ideals just to discuss the economic impact. We do well economically when the very most able people who want to come here and be Americans, to start companies, to invent things are able to do so. The current system throws a wrench into that, and it is not good for the United States of America.

I hope, once again, that we can vote to approve this bill. It doesn't do everything I would like to do in reforming immigration law. As the gentleman knows, I have worked for many decades to do a variety of improvements, but this fixes something.

Let's not say we can't do anything unless we do everything. That is a path toward mediocrity.

Let's do what we can do to make this system work better, to move it away from its racist origins and have a system based on merit.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, ironically, this bill doesn't even serve the interests of immigrants from around the world except for two countries, China and India.

By removing the per-country caps on employment-based visas, the practical effect of this bill is that, for the foreseeable future, the citizens of only two countries, China and India, will be admitted to work here. Workers from every other country will have to wait many years until that backlog clears.

Supporters contend that no one currently awaiting a green card will be adversely affected. That may be true as far as it goes. But what they leave out is that this bill will produce long delays for future applicants from every country except for China and India.

Even the liberal American Immigration Lawyers Association points out that ``many applicants will now face longer wait times.''

Now, supporters are fond of comparing the populations of various countries as an argument that uniform percentage caps are unfair. But what they forget is that when a country's allotment isn't reached, its vacant slots then spill over to higher-demand countries. India, for example, accounted for 35 percent of the green cards issued last year, five times their percentage cap. But that, apparently, isn't enough for the left.

The bill also threatens our national security. China has been stealing U.S. technology for years through programs like the H-1B visa.

According to The Washington Post, one such initiative resulted in ``the arrests of six Chinese researchers accused of lying on their visa applications about their ties to the People's Liberation Army'' and ``more than 1,000 researchers who had hidden their affiliation with the Chinese military'' fleeing the U.S. within months.

The supporters assure us that anyone with direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party is not eligible, but that completely ignores the fact that the CCP exerts coercive control over all Chinese nationals, whether or not they are CCP members, so this assurance is meaningless.

As currently drafted, this bill would also result in the immediate exclusion from green cards special immigrant religious workers from around the world for the next few years. Those cards will, instead, go to special immigrant juvenile green cards for unaccompanied alien children from the Northern Triangle countries.

It is precisely this provision that has been exploited by the crime cartels in trafficking unaccompanied minors into this country, and this bill makes it worse.

But the most pernicious provision allows certain temporary visa holders to file an application for adjustment for status despite the fact that no green card is available to them. That is the reason you have the long delays that the gentlewoman mentioned.

The result is that many temporary visas will essentially become permanent because the alien visa holders will be able to live and work in the U.S. as if they had a green card.

That raises an important question: What is it that the Democrats have against American workers?

This bill is a direct attack on their job opportunities and livelihoods. So much for the advice to unemployed fossil fuel workers: Well, just learn to code.

All this becomes a theater of the absurd in light of the mass illegal migration that the Democrats have aided, abetted, and encouraged since they reversed the Trump border measures that had finally secured our borders.

It was no coincidence that as the flood of illegal migration slowed to a trickle, working-class families saw their biggest wage gains in decades, and the income gap between rich and poor began to narrow.

Now that the borders have been collapsed by the Democrats, those wage gains have been wiped out as millions of illegal aliens are deliberately allowed into the country to compete with those struggling American families. The Democrats remain silent on this continuing crisis.

The American people had trusted the Democrats to look out for their interests, and they are now discovering how tragically misplaced that trust has been. That is the crux of this bill, a big fat middle finger to America's working families, and I am afraid that won't change until the people responsible for these policies are turned out of office.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. I think it is important to note why we have those per-country caps. Ours is a Nation of immigrants. Except for those descended from Native Americans, every one of us is an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant.

The American people are drawn from every country on this Earth; and from these disparate and diverse populations, we have created one great Nation, the American Nation. Here there is only one race, the American race.

This remarkable achievement is made possible by a single word-- assimilation. Our immigration laws were written specifically to accommodate that process. They were written to assure that as immigrants come to our country they bring with them a sincere desire to become Americans, to raise their children as Americans, to acquire a common language, a common culture, and a common appreciation of American principles. That is the only possible way to blend so many discordant, disparate, and diverse populations into a common people devoted to the same principles that have produced the happiest, most just, most prosperous, most free, most advanced, and most envied civilization in the history of mankind.

But assimilation is hard. As Winston Churchill said from that very rostrum: ``We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies because we are made of sugar candy.''

Becoming an American requires learning a new language, accepting and adopting new customs, adapting to a new culture, and accepting new beliefs. Assimilation breaks down if the concentration of immigrants from any single country reaches a level where assimilation is no longer necessary for that population. Instead of e pluribus unum, from many nations one great nation, from many people one great people, we instead see e unum pluribus: from one nation, many isolated, insular, and segregated communities that become foreign enclaves rather than an integral part of our national identity.

We have all heard the heartbreaking tales of American workers not only being displaced by foreign workers but being forced to train their replacements as a condition of severance pay. This bill assures a never-ending supply of foreign labor for American corporations.

Under this bill, any alien on an employment-based green card waiting list for more than 2 years could apply for adjustment of that status. Once an alien has filed an adjustment of status application, he or she is eligible for a work permit. However, unlike an employment-based green card, which generally requires a showing that the wages and conditions of Americans are not adversely affected, this work permit is considered an open-market employment authorization document, meaning the alien can take any job at any wage, and there are no protections for American workers.

So this bill essentially converts temporary visa holders to permanent status at the expense of American tech workers. This rewards the very same companies who for years have fired their American workers only to replace them with cheaper foreign labor.

American workers, particularly Black and Hispanic Americans, are going to be particularly hard hit. Pew Research estimates that each group only accounts for about 9 percent of the STEM workforce, and this measure assures that competition for those positions will become much greater and the wages much lower.

The per-country caps exist to assure that the population of no single nation can come to dominate the overall immigrant population coming to these shores. Thus, under current law immigrants from one nation cannot claim more than 7 percent of the visas, but under this bill, the employment-based limit is eliminated.

If this is allowed to happen, assimilation breaks down and the entire foundation of a nation of immigrants is shattered. As I said earlier, the practical effect of this bill is that the population of only two countries, China and India, will almost exclusively dominate the receipt of employment-based green cards for the foreseeable future at the expense of the people of virtually every other country in the world. Instead of an equitable distribution of green cards across all countries, they will in effect be limited to two.

In one employment-based green card category, EB-5, all the green cards will go to Chinese nationals for several years. In another category, EB-4, religious workers will be precluded from getting green cards. Instead, these will go to the alien juveniles from Northern Triangle countries who crossed our border illegally. This imbalance would undermine the fundamental mechanism of assimilation, and I fear that is the point.

Assimilation has become a dirty word to the left. They seek not unity, not one united people but, rather, a people divided into warring, racial, and ethnic factions, divided by language, culture, ethnicity, and ultimately grievances. No nation can survive very long tearing itself apart this way.

The collapse of our southern border and refusal of the Democrats to defend the sovereignty of our Nation from the unprecedented illegal mass migration that they have unleashed will spell the end of this Nation if it is allowed to continue much longer. This bill is a small part of that policy, and it is destructive in its effect if not its intent.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1508, I call up the bill (H.R. 7946) to provide benefits for noncitizen members of the Armed Forces, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 7946.

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

Mr. Speaker, today, this House will pass H.R. 7946, the Veteran Service Recognition Act 2022. This is a bill that recognizes and honors the commitment and sacrifices of our noncitizen servicemembers and veterans.

Noncitizens have served in our military in every conflict since the Revolutionary War. In tribute to their patriotism, our laws offer noncitizen servicemembers an expedited pathway to citizenship.

Unfortunately, this expedited path is not always known to the servicemembers themselves; sometimes there is confusion or lack of information. Not every legal permanent resident who could avail themselves of this opportunity has, in fact, done so; and we have found instances where servicemembers believed that just by serving they had become a United States citizen. Our bill does have some measures to make sure that that information is better communicated in the future and there is less confusion.

However--and unfortunately--the complexity of the current immigration system puts some unnecessary roadblocks to naturalization but also can have a terrible impact on veterans who have not availed themselves of the opportunity.

The traumas of war can have terrible effects on our veterans. Individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are far more likely to become entangled with the criminal justice system. When that happens, citizens merely avail themselves of the criminal justice system. For example, if they are arrested for drug possession, they might serve time in the county jail, and when they are released, they have paid their debt to society. But noncitizens who are in the same situation--people who fought for our country--might serve their jail time for drug possession, but then they also face immigration court because a crime that might lead to relatively minor consequences for a U.S. citizen could lead to deportation of a noncitizen veteran.

Now, noncitizen veterans' service records are meant to be considered during removal proceedings, but such consideration rarely occurs. Consequently, veterans who earned the right to citizenship decades ago have been deported.

H.R. 7946 corrects this problem by giving deported veterans the opportunity to apply for a second chance and obtain lawful permanent residency. Relief under this bill is discretionary--available only to those veterans whose return is in the public interest.

Additionally, the bill creates a review process for servicemembers in removal proceedings to ensure that their service records are taken into account by immigration judges. It has an advisory council to examine at length the veteran's record to see whether or not he or she was suffering from PTSD and the like. The information can then be given to the immigration judge, but the immigration judge retains the authority to make the decision.

The legislation, as I mentioned earlier, makes needed changes to current laws to allow servicemembers to naturalize as early as possible, and we believe these changes will ensure that future veterans will not be at risk of deportation.

Finally, H.R. 7946 codifies the current Parole in Place for the immediate relatives of U.S. citizen servicemembers and veterans, making permanent an administrative program that began in 2007 under then- President George W. Bush. At the time, we had come across instances where an American soldier was killed in action, but his mother was subject to deportation, and that mother who was sent outside of the country could not even visit the grave of her deceased military son.

George Bush sought to change that. We have kept that change in place ever since, and this would codify it.

This bill is supported by numerous advocacy, labor, and veterans' groups, including The American Legion, the Nation's largest veterans service organization. We made a commitment to our noncitizen servicemembers when they joined our Armed Forces, and our laws really should reflect that commitment.

I am proud to have worked alongside my colleagues, Chairman Nadler, as well as Chairman Takano, and I would like to mention specifically other members of our caucus who introduced bills on this subject--they were all collected into this final product--including Congressman Correa, Congressman Ruiz, Congressman Vargas, Congressman Grijalva, and several others.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will note that the exclusion of those serious offenses was in the base bill. We didn't have to be convinced of that. We used the definition of ``veterans'' in the veterans code, and veterans who have an honorable or a general discharge are eligible for benefits, so that is what we used. Dishonorable discharges are not included.

I will just say this: These are discretionary matters. If you have multiple DUIs--let's say you have three DUIs, but they are 25 years ago, and you have a completely clean record. You might be able to seek administrative review of that matter. That is all this does.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee who has played such a key role in this, noting also that the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are supporting this bill and supporting Mr. Takano.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I would just note, once again, that those with dishonorable discharges are not eligible under the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a member of the Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa), who has served on the Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee. He served in this Congress. He is the author of one of the bills that was included in this bill and has visited with deported veterans across the border.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro), who has played such a useful role in the crafting of these measures.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), who is a proud member of the Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee and a long-serving member of the House Judiciary Committee.

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

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

This bill is an important step forward to making sure that those who served our country in the military are given every consideration. We know from the reports we receive from our vets how tough it can be.

I think it is important to note that Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are supporting this bill. They know better than I do the kind of trauma that can be experienced in these theaters and have been experienced by our brave men and women in the military. They also know that sometimes those traumatic experiences can lead to a path that is destructive for the veteran, a veteran who is suffering from PTSD.

Now, if a military member, a vet, was born in California and they use drugs because of PTSD, they might spend some time in jail, but then they would have paid their debt to society.

If, instead, their fellow soldier was a legal permanent resident of the United States, born in another country, but volunteered to fight for our country, after they pay their debt to society for the exact same circumstances, then they are booted out of the country.

That is why The American Legion is saying they support this bill, because we owe some kind of honor and stature to those who step forward to volunteer to fight for our country. That is what we owe them.

I will just close with this. I am going to represent a town called Salinas, California. I was there last month, and they have put up on every light pole on the downtown street pictures of people from Salinas who served in the military. It is so inspiring.

They had a little ceremony to unveil these photographs of the Salinas heroes. After that, one of the veterans organizers said to me, the worst experience of his life was driving his sergeant to the border to be kicked out of the country he fought for. It is not right.

This bill will change that, and I hope that we will all vote in favor.

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

Amendment No. 1 Offered by Mr. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1508 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach), 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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 1508, providing for consideration of two measures: H.R. 3648 and H.R. 7946.

The rule provides for consideration of both H.R. 3648 and H.R. 7946 under structured rules with 1 hour of debate each equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary, self-executes a manager's amendment from Chairman Nadler for H.R. 3648, makes in order one amendment for each bill, and provides one motion to recommit for each measure.

The rule provides the majority leader or his designee the ability this week to en bloc requested roll call votes on suspensions. The rule also provides that roll call votes on suspension bills considered on December 5 may be postponed through December 8. Lastly, the rule provides same-day authority for any rule reported through the remainder of the 117th Congress.

Mr. Speaker, today we will consider two bills to reform our immigration system. Our current laws that govern employment-based and family-sponsored immigration visas desperately need updates. Estimates suggest that more than 880,000 people are in the green card backlog because of how broken our system is.

H.R. 3648, the Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment, or EAGLE, Act of 2022 begins to address the extensive green card backlog.

The legislation eliminates per-country caps on employment-based visas and raises per-country caps for family-based visas to 15 percent.

The other bill up for consideration today is H.R. 7946, the Veteran Service Recognition Act. It improves naturalization for noncitizens who served in our country's military. It seems straightforward to me. If you have risked your life to protect and defend this country, you and your family deserve every opportunity to become U.S. citizens, if desired.

Now, while these two bills offer important reforms to our immigration system, I still personally believe there are also other urgent immigration issues that need to be addressed before the 117th Congress adjourns.

We need residency for Dreamers, these young people who have known no other home but the United States.

We must provide secure, stable immigration for agricultural workers who ensure food reaches our tables.

We should recapture existing visas that have gone unused so we can really make a sizable dent in reducing immigration backlogs.

And we need to regularize the status of long-term TPS holders who have been here for decades and are important members of our local communities.

Republicans always talk about issues within our immigration system, but so far none have come to the table with any meaningful, realistic, or productive solutions that would help fix it. They can't get to ``yes'' on anything. They demonize immigrants. They scapegoat immigrants, and rather than fix the challenges of our system, they use immigration as a wedge issue.

Democrats, on the other hand, want comprehensive immigration reform. We are ready, willing, and able to work with anyone who seriously wants to get something done. It is time for our colleagues across the aisle to join us in this effort.

These bills today are just the start, and my hope is that we are able to make more progress on this front before the end of the year.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me just say that here is the problem: We just heard from my colleague from Minnesota that Republicans are more interested in gimmicky amendments and sound bites as a way to try to get people to do nothing. I mean, they are the party of ``no'' when it comes to immigration.

My colleague says somehow that the Democrats are blocking attempts to ban people associated with communist or totalitarian parties, that somehow we want to admit them into this country. Well, here is the reality, and this is the fact, and people can check this: Current law says individuals associated with a communist or totalitarian party are already inadmissible under section 212(a)(3)(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. That is the current law.

At some point maybe my friends on the other side will want to help fix the immigration system, rather than just demagogue the issue over and over and over again.

This is an issue, by the way, that is important to our economic well- being. Our business community wants these bills passed in part because they are having a tough time trying to fill current jobs.

So we can demagogue the issue, and if that is what you want to do, fine; or you can actually legislate and get something done.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, on traffickers and gun smugglers, and you name it, those things are already illegal, but whatever. It is not worth getting into it.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers on my side, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me remind all my colleagues that the Veteran Service Recognition Act is actually supported by the American Legion, one of our leading veterans' organizations in this country, but I guess that is not enough for some of my Republican colleagues again saying ``no'' to everything.

Mr. Speaker, the EAGLE Act and the Veteran Service Recognition Act provide necessary reforms that will improve our immigration system. I know so much more can be done--as I said before, we need to do more-- but these two bills are small steps that we can take now to help clear backlogs and ensure that those who not only have played by the rules, but have sacrificed in the service of our Nation can become citizens. They are important policies that should become law.

I read today that some of my friends on the other side of the aisle are urging their next leader--I don't know who it will be--to use the debt ceiling not only to cut Social Security and Medicare and a whole bunch of other programs that are vital, including nutrition programs, but they want to use it as leverage to go after immigrants to mess up our immigration system even more. What a rotten way to legislate, to use the debt ceiling as an excuse to try to derail government.

We already know what the Republicans are capable of doing. The last time they were in charge of the House and the Senate and the White House, they shut the government down and they left. That is their idea of responsible governing.

Well, we shouldn't be using the debt ceiling as leverage. We should actually be paying our bills that we have accumulated. If you don't like the spending--I didn't like Donald Trump's tax cut that benefited mostly wealthy people in this country; I nonetheless voted to increase the debt ceiling because we had accumulated all of that debt because of that terrible tax cut geared to the rich. It is the responsible thing to do. It really is kind of disturbing to hear some of the priorities of my Republican friends.

As I said before, their policy on immigration has been consistent. Demagogue, demagogue, demagogue. Fix nothing. They blame immigrants for everything. It is raining out today; they will blame immigrants. Having a fight with their spouse; well, it must be the fault of immigrants. Having a bad day; let's blame immigrants. That is their MO. That is what they have done,

and it really is offensive. It betrays the highest values of this country.

The two bills before us are modest. There is much more we need to do. As I said, we need to help the Dreamers. We need to fix the issue for our TPS holders. We owe that to them.

Mr. Speaker, let me close by saying that we are going to spend the next few weeks legislating and delivering for the American people, and I urge some of my colleagues to join with us in getting things done, or they can simply do what they usually do and complain and complain and demagogue and demagogue.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and on the previous question.

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

The previous question was ordered.