PROTECT Our Children Act of 2022

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, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 4834) to reauthorize the National Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 4834.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 4834, the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2022, a critical piece of bipartisan legislation that would reauthorize the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, or ICAC, which has worked tirelessly for 14 years to protect our children from online predators.

It is no exaggeration to say the internet today is one of the most dangerous places for our Nation's children, many of whom spend hours online each day. Predators use social media and other online resources to groom and entice children to commit sexual acts.

The internet makes it easy for sex and labor traffickers to gain clandestine access to children and teens, recruit them into their organization, and exploit them. The internet is also the primary vehicle for distributing child sex abuse material and committing criminal acts of extortion against minors. It also provides an open forum for cyberbullying and online harassment, which can lead victims of such conduct to withdraw, become depressed, and even commit suicide.

To combat these monstrous crimes and to protect our youth from exploitation, ICAC task forces work with Federal, State, and local law enforcement to develop an effective holistic response to cybercrimes against children. Their programs include forensic and investigative components, training and technical assistance, victim services, and community education.

This network is made up of 61 separate forces, three of which are in my home State of Texas. These task forces are created and authorized by the original PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008, which expired this past September at the end of the fiscal year.

Online threats to children and the need for ICAC task forces are only growing. Between 2008 and 2021, the number of these arrests rose from 2,500 to more than 10,000 each year. This agency's work resulted in more than 137,000 investigations and 90,300 forensic exams in 2021 alone.

Earlier this year, the southern Texas task force received significant funding, its first, authorized by the PROTECT Our Children Act allowing it to provide substantial investigative, prosecutorial, and victim services and to utilize tips from the ICAC database and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a longstanding agency that has been fighting for missing and exploited children to identify and rescue child victims.

The work of these task forces nationwide will not be able to continue unless we fund this critical law enforcement initiative. It is, therefore, essential that we reauthorize the ICAC program by passing the bipartisan PROTECT Our Children Act of 2022. The act would extend funding for these task forces and programs through 2024.

Without this crucial legislation, our children will remain vulnerable to those who seek to exploit and hurt them in the most horrific of ways with the ease and anonymity that the internet provides.

I commend my colleague, Representative Wasserman Schultz, for her work on the PROTECT Our Children Act as far back as 2008, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record: ``Houston ICAC Task Force Records Nine Arrests for Child Exploitation'' showing that there is true evidence that this program works.

[From the Texas News, July 7, 2022]

Houston ICAC Task Force Records 9 Arrests for Child Exploitation

(By Amy Gordon)

During the weeks of June 2022, the Montgomery County

District Attorney's Office (MCDAO) Cybercrimes Against

Children (ICAC) Division, part of the Houston Metro ICAC Task

Force, conducted a multi-day interagency operation targeting

individuals who were actively children sought sexual

exploitation via the Internet in Montgomery County. Multiple

law enforcement agencies were involved in the operation

including the Montgomery County Attorney's Office, Federal

Bureau of Investigation, Texas Department of Public Safety,

Houston Police Department, Conroe Police Department,

Montgomery County Pct. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3 and pt. 5 Police

Departments, Humble Police Department, Ft. Bend County

Sheriff's Office, Missouri City Police Department and the

Spring Branch Independent School District Police Department.

The Houston Metro ICAC Taskforce is part of a national

network of 61 coordinated task forces representing over 4,500

federal, state and local law enforcement agencies dedicated

to investigating and prosecuting those who attempt to

sexually exploit children via the Internet.

During this multi-day operation, the Montgomery County

District Attorney's Office ICAC section, moderated by

Constable Ryan Gable and Montgomery County Constable's Office

Precinct 3 deputies, conducted a proactive chat operation in

southern Montgomery County. Task Force members also obtained

an arrest warrant for Thomas J. Manno of Clarion County,

Pennsylvania, and provided local authorities with essential

information to execute a search warrant on his home.

Task Force members contributed to the following arrests

during the operation:

Thomas J. Manno--39--Shippenville, Pennsylvania--Promotion

of Child Pornography (F2)

Robert Clarence Clayton--27--Channelview, Texas--Online Ad

by a Minor (F2)

Isaac Anthony Marino--30--Houston, Texas--Online

solicitation by a minor (F2)

Francisco Xavier Garza--29--Spring, Texas--Online

solicitation by a minor F2) // Possibly with intent to

supply--Methamphetamine (F1)

Elijah Charles Lewis--24--Houston, Texas--Online

Solicitation by a Minor (F2)

Ahsan Shah--36--Houston, Texas--Online solicitation by a

minor (F2)

Lawrence Clayton Hopkins--55--Baytown, Texas--Online

solicitation by a minor (F2)

Edward Stewart Geddes--42--Houston, Texas--Online

solicitation by a minor (F2) // Evidence tampering (F3)

Clinton Brian Harvey--44--Dickenson, Texas--Soliciting a

Minor Online (F3) // Unlawful Carrying of a Gun (MA)

The above accused are still under investigation and

additional charges may be brought at a later date. All

accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

During the investigation of Lawrence Clayton Hopkins,

officers learned that Hopkins may have worked as a youth

pastor in Midlothian, College Station and Baytown, Texas

prior to his arrest.

During the investigation of Clinton Brian Harvey, officers

learned that Harvey worked as an officer at the Montgomery

County Juvenile Detention Center.

As our children are more exposed to the internet than ever

before, the ICAC section of the Montgomery County District

Attorney's Office and the Houston Metro ICAC Task Force

encourage parents to be diligent in monitoring their

children's online activities and raise concerns with law

enforcement agencies and the National Center for to report

Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Concerned parents and

guardians should contact local law enforcement in the event

of an emergency by dialing 911. Parents and guardians can

also contact NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or

through their website at CyberTipline.org for more

information and resources.

Lt. Michael Atkins, Montgomery County Constable's Office

Precinct 3, shared: ``The Internet provides criminals with an

often unsupervised avenue to exploit child sacrifice. As

parents, we need to carefully monitor our children's online

activities and talk to them about the dangers they may face

online.''

Shanna Redwine (MCDAO), Head of Special Victims Division,

stated: ``We know the internet can be a dangerous place for

children. The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and

the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office are

committed to making it legally dangerous for adults who seek

to harm them. We ask parents and carers to support us in this

effort by closely monitoring children and speaking with them

about online risks, of which there are many.''

Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to this legislation passing. Again, I emphasize that anything to protect our children is crucial.

Mr. Speaker, there are thousands of children exploited on the internet each and every day. As the global online community continues to grow, so do the very real dangers facing our Nation's children.

I do want to state that Ms. Wasserman Schultz has really developed this legislation and worked very hard on it. We have applauded her work starting in 2008. This will be a major, if you will, addition and asset to fighting the scourge that goes against our innocent children.

So we have developed a vast and effective program that has continued to evolve and improve our fight against online child exploitation. Let's continue this program. We cannot allow this program to die. We must pass the PROTECT Our Children Act to reauthorize these task forces and to allow them to continue their brave and crucial work that keeps our children safe.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) who has worked so hard on this legislation since 2008.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support S. 4834, PROTECT Our Children Act of 2022.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 4834, the ``PROTECT Our Children Act of 2022,'' a critical piece of bipartisan legislation that would reauthorize the Internet Crimes Against Children task force program, or ``ICAC,'' which has worked tirelessly for 14 years to protect our children from online predators.

It is no exaggeration to say the internet is today one of the most dangerous places for our nation's children, many of whom spend hours each day online. Predators use social media and other online resources to groom and entice children to commit sexual acts. The internet makes it easy for sex and labor traffickers to gain clandestine access to children and teens, recruit them into their organizations, and exploit them.

The internet is also the primary vehicle for distributing child sex abuse material and committing criminal acts of sextortion against minors. It also provides an open forum for cyberbullying and online harassment, which can lead victims of such conduct to withdraw, become depressed, and even commit suicide.

To combat these monstrous crimes and protect our youth from exploitation, ICAC task forces work with federal, state, and local law enforcement to develop an effective, holistic response to cybercrimes against children. Their programs include forensic and investigative components, training and technical assistance, victim services, and community education.

The ICAC network is made up of 61 separate task forces--three of which are in my home state of Texas. These ICAC task forces were created and authorized by the original PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008, which expired this past September, at the end of the fiscal year.

Yet online threats to children, and the need for ICAC's tasks forces, are only growing. Between 2008 and 2021, the number of ICAC arrests rose from 2,500 to more than 10,000 each year. ICAC's work resulted in more than 137,000 investigations and 90,300 forensic exams in 2021 alone.

Earlier this year, the Southern Texas ICAC task force received significant funding--its first--authorized by the PROTECT Our Children Act, allowing it to provide substantial investigative, prosecutorial, and victim-centered services, and to utilize tips from the national ICAC database, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to identify and rescue child victims.

But the work of the task force, and that of the other ICAC task forces nationwide, will not be able to continue unless we fund this critical law enforcement initiative. It is, therefore, essential that we reauthorize the ICAC program by passing the bipartisan PROTECT Our Children Act of 2022.

The Act would extend funding for ICAC task forces and programs through 2024. Without this crucial legislation, our children will remain vulnerable to those who seek to exploit and hurt them in the most horrific of ways, with the ease and anonymity the internet provides.

I commend my colleague, Representative Wasserman Shultz, for her work on the PROTECT Our Children Act, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

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, I thank the sponsor and proponents of this legislation. It is so startling, stunning, shocking, absurd to even be standing here discussing the deportation of men and women who have worn the uniform and have offered to sacrifice their lives for the oldest democracy in the world.

Mr. Speaker, it is clearly an effort that is long overdue, and I am stunned by my friends on the other side of the aisle--I have said that word, stunned and shocked, that there would be any opposition to this. We know that immigrants have served in the United States Armed Forces in every major conflict, and there are now 45,000 immigrants serving in the armed forces in this country.

It is important that we fix the gap, the loophole, the calls that are gotten when immigrants are deported. This legislation, I am very grateful to say, is about fixing this problem.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 7946, that would require or would have DHS create and enforce a system for identifying noncitizen veterans and require their status as a veteran to be brought into consideration in the case of removal proceedings. Their service record will also be brought into it. Any of us can believe it, they could be heroic, and that doesn't even count in today's scheme.

It would also require DHS to provide the opportunity for eligible noncitizen veterans to be granted lawful permanent residence. Identification of their veteran status would halt any removal proceedings, and there would be a final administrative decision on the veterans' eligibility.

What I like also about it is that when you come into basic training, we can then naturalize these individuals, these servants who have offered themselves for training and to be part of this government by fighting, by wearing the uniform, by fighting for democracy to become citizens.

The Veteran Service Recognition Act is offered in response to DHS' and the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement's failure to consistently follow its own policies regarding deportation of those.

That means that we say on the floor of the House with great embarrassment that we have deported men and women who have served in uniform; and, yes, we have had challenges with the same kind of--how should I say it--detoured roads that our own veterans have had to fall to, substance abuse, or other incidences; but they have still worn the uniform.

Our veterans can get into the Veterans Court or get into services; but the other veterans, who have the same defaults, if you will, because of the conditions of war, have to be deported. That doesn't make sense.

More than 760,000 noncitizens have enlisted over the past century, with peaks in world wars and 9/11. There are approximately 45,000 immigrants, as I said, in active service.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that my county knows that there are 179,000 veterans who live in Harris County, and 1,567,000 veterans who live in Texas. Some of those are our immigrant veterans, and some are not citizens.

So my point is, here today, that we must find every available way to treat them as they treated this Nation: I am willing to die for America and America's values.

Mr. Speaker, I must raise this. Languishing in a Russian prison is a veteran, Paul Whelan, with bogus charges, a hostage. Alongside of him is Brittney Griner, and it has been determined that the conditions she is living in are just atrocious.

My point is, that any time an American needs America to fix the problem, as a democratic nation, we must stand with those who have stood with us; those who are citizens and those who are immigrants who fought for us.

I ask my friends and colleagues to support H.R. 7946.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7946, the Veteran Service Recognition Act of 2022 that would address immigration-related issues pertaining to noncitizen military veterans.

By enacting H.R. 7946, the Department of Homeland Security would be required to create and enforce a system for identifying noncitizen veterans and require their status as a veteran to be brought into consideration in the case of removal proceedings.

H.R. 7946 will also require the DHS to provide the opportunity for eligible noncitizen veterans to be granted lawful permanent resident status.

Identification of their veteran status would halt any removal proceedings until there is a final administrative decision on the veteran's eligibility.

The Veteran Service Recognition Act is offered in response to the DHS's and the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement's failure to consistently follow its own policies regarding deportation of those who served in our armed forces.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement already has policies that provides special consideration to veterans in light of their service, but has recklessly failed to follow them.

The Government Accountability Office reported that between 2013 and 2018, ICE did not consistently follow its own policies or maintain electronic data on the number of veterans placed in removal proceedings.

Investigators also found that a staggering 70 percent of cases involving the deportation of noncitizen veterans did not receive a review as required.

This means that veterans were not granted their right to due process. As a result, we do not even have an accurate measure of the number of veterans who have been unjustly deported.

As a nation, we should be ashamed and alarmed by this lack of information which reflects a lack of concern for treating them fairly.

More than 760,000 noncitizens have enlisted over the past century, with peaks during the World Wars and 9/11 attacks. Today, there are approximately 45,000 immigrants in active service.

This issue is important to me because many of our nation's veterans who are not US citizens are among the 29,000 veterans who live in my district, the 179,000 who live in Harris County, and the 1,567,000 who live in Texas, the second most of any state.

The promise of naturalization is sometimes a military recruitment strategy that targets immigrant communities. Military service is supposed to qualify veterans for naturalization as U.S. citizens because honorable service satisfies the ``good moral character'' requirements, according to the 1940 Nationality Act.

But then, in 2017, a Trump administration policy restricted access to the expedited citizenship that was promised to veterans after 9/11.

This policy exacerbated the persistent problem of immigrant veterans not being given the proper guidance on how to complete the naturalization process.

In turn, this systemic failure leads to more than half of the eligible noncitizen veterans not completing their naturalization process, leaving them in a permanent limbo.

When we needed them the most, hundreds of thousands of noncitizens stepped up to fight for our wars.

And now when they needed us, our nation failed to even recognize them, let alone protect them.

``Leave no one behind'' is a common mantra followed by the United States Armed Forces. We must abide by that principle in support of our noncitizen veterans who served our country honorably, and make sure that they, too, are never left behind again.

We must do more to help our foreign-born veterans navigate the naturalization process. It is up to Congress to act.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Veteran's Recognition Act.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairwoman Lofgren for her leadership and Chairman Nadler for his staunch support to move my bill, the Veteran Service Recognition Act, through committee and to bring it to the floor.

As chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, one of my top priorities has been the prevention of undue noncitizen veteran deportations.

Most Americans would be shocked and in disbelief that we have deported people who have served in our military, have served in uniform, have even been in combat. They would be shocked to learn that we have done this, but it is true. We have actually taken American heroes who have served in our military and deported them.

While many would be shocked to learn that veterans who have served our country are being subjected to deportations, the number of these individuals is unknown because we have not kept adequate records on who these people are.

In 2019, Representative Vargas and I requested that the Government Accountability Office evaluate the scope of servicemember and veteran deportations and determine the state of and adherence to DHS policies on such deportations, DHS' own policies.

What the GAO found was significant gaps not only in the Federal approach to processing potentially removable veterans but also in how the government facilitated the naturalization of noncitizen servicemembers and veterans.

I was further dismayed by the additional findings that the number of these veterans was not being tracked; deportation often prevented these individuals from accessing their VA benefits and services or attending hearings to appeal VA decisions; and ICE did not consistently adhere to its own policies on removal proceedings involving veterans.

The GAO report made it abundantly clear that reforms are desperately needed across the Federal Government, and that is precisely what my bill endeavors to do today.

Despite being born in a different country, these veterans served in the United States for the promise of a better future. They put their lives on the line to promote our ideals and values because they believe in the American experience.

Often, these individuals, like many veterans, leave service with traumas or

ailments that impact their physical and mental health. This can lead to drug addiction, self-harm, or PTSD, which also can serve as a precursor to violence or criminal activity.

We must recognize these struggles that our veterans face and show greater compassion toward those who may have made a mistake, including those noncitizen veterans who are facing deportation due to their actions.

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, if there is anyone who deserves a second chance in our country, it is people who have worn the uniform of the United States of America.

The Veteran Service Recognition Act creates a pathway for us to recognize their service and prevent the undue deportation of servicemembers and veterans. The bill achieves this by making the naturalization process easier for Active-Duty servicemembers at basic training and establishing a military family immigration advisory committee to review the record of an individual being considered for deportation. This is not an automatic thing. This is about weighing the servicemember's record as part of those proceedings.

What American would deny that we should treat noncitizen veterans with fairness and compassion? We want veterans to be able to apply for green cards to return home, excluding the most egregious cases, and codify an administrative program for immediate family members of veterans to also obtain green cards consistent with existing administrative policy.

The number of eligible individuals under this legislation remains a very small subset of the veteran population. In fact, estimates are in the couple of hundreds.

Mr. Speaker, for my friends across the aisle, this is an opportunity to honor our brave veterans for their heroism, regardless of the country they were born in.

We commemorated Veterans Day last month, and I can think of no better way to honor our veterans than voting ``yes'' on the underlying legislation. We can and must do better by our immigrant veterans.