Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act

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

Mr. Speaker, let me set a couple of things straight.

The border is not open. Now, maybe some people think it is because my Republican colleagues every day for the last 2 years have come to the floor screaming, ``The border is open. The border is open. The border is open.''

However, the border is not open, and that is just a fact. Today, there are approximately 38,000 people in immigration detention, which is 4,000 more than what DHS is funded for and roughly what the Trump administration averaged in fiscal year 2018.

The Biden administration has also significantly increased removals in ways that many on our side of the aisle are concerned violates due process. Since the end of title 42 last year, the Biden administration has removed or returned to Mexico close to 500,000 individuals. The total is nearly equivalent to the number of people removed in all of fiscal year 2019 under the Trump administration.

Please, please, stop making things up and stop claiming the border is open. It is not.

Do we have a problem at the border? Absolutely. Absolutely, we do. However, listening to the gentleman, he seems to have no solutions. I mean, I think he thinks this is Beetlejuice, if you say ``crisis'' three times, the problem goes away. No; you have to take some action. You have to work to try to address the issue.

Democrats and President Biden want to find real, comprehensive solutions to fix it. What we need is Republicans to stop playing political games, and that is the exact opposite of what is happening here and what has been happening under this Republican-controlled House of Representatives. It is shameful.

I know that because we called their bluff. Democrats said, yeah, we care about border security, too. Let's get to work. Now Republicans tell us that they would rather wait until after the election. They don't actually want the thing they have been talking about for the last year. It is all a big lie. It is all a big lie.

Why? Why would they want to wait? Why don't they want to work with us to fix the border right now? I think we all know the answer. Trump called--the guy they all worship, the guy they are all frightened to death of. He called, and he is demanding that they do nothing. No action at all on the border, that is what he said because he wants to campaign on it. I mean, what the hell is wrong with them?

The Senate is working on a bipartisan border security bill, and Republicans tell us here in the House that they don't care what is in it. They will oppose it no matter what. From what I hear, I am not sure that I can even support the bill they are working on over in the Senate. It has things in it that cause me a lot of angst, but Republicans are sure that they are against it because Trump told them to be against it.

That is because, at the end of the day, all he wants is to be able to scare people by demonizing immigrants and whipping up hate and fear and appealing to racism and bigotry. It is disgusting. It is that simple. I mean, I am not surprised. This is the guy who says: ``Immigrants poison the blood of America,'' echoing the words of Adolf Hitler. We can't get anyone on the other side of the aisle to try to disassociate themselves with those remarks. That is who the Republicans listen to. That is who is calling the shots here. Trump says no action on border security, period.

Please, spare us the outrage and indignation. It is all theatrics. It is all for show, all so you can go on FOX News and blame President Biden for something that they refuse to fix. Republicans tried to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel. They rejected President Biden's request for $106 billion in funding to fix this problem, and they have consistently voted against funding for border security.

You can't make this stuff up. They say we don't need more money. We just need a President who follows the law. We hear that again and again. We heard that last night in the Rules Committee. I hope that they are not implying that the former President--a rapist who was just ordered by a jury to pay $83 million for defaming his victim--follows the law.

He has been indicted 4 times with 91 felony counts. I mean, this guy has been indicted more times than he has been elected. Give me a break. That is who is calling the shots around here? It is shameful.

The bottom line is that they simply do not want to fix the border crisis. House Democrats, Senate Democrats, President Biden--hell, even Senate Republicans, some of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, have been working together in a bipartisan way to solve this country's problems.

We acknowledge we need to address our problems at the border, provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, fix our broken immigration system, and address the root causes of migration.

What does the extreme MAGA clown show in this House care about? Not fixing the border. They care about Trump, about bending over backwards for his campaign and turning this place into a circus. What a shame. What a waste of time. What an embarrassment.

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

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

I missed a lot of what the gentleman from Texas just screamed because I couldn't follow it all.

Mr. Speaker, it is being intimated that this bill that is being worked on in the Senate somehow does nothing.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a CNN article titled: ``GOP Senators seethe as Trump blows up delicate immigration compromise.''

The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is that people like Senator Thom Tillis--I didn't think he was a liberal Democrat. Unless I missed something, he is a pretty conservative Republican--said: ``Don't pretend that the policy isn't strong. If you want to admit you're just afraid to tell President Trump the truth, that's fine. But for you to take a look at this framework and say it's a half measure, either you're not paying attention or you're not telling the truth.''

That is Senator Thom Tillis, a very conservative Republican Senator, saying that. It is not me. I would say that to the gentleman from Texas.

Senator Lankford, is he now a Democrat? Is he now a traitor to the cause? We heard some Republicans at a press conference yesterday talk about those who were supporting a compromise. He said the other day on ``Face the Nation,'' and I quote, House Republicans actually do not want a change in the law because it is a Presidential election year.

I mean, this is ridiculous. This is all theatrics. Shame on them for exploiting this issue. Shame on them for ginning up all this hate and all this vitriol and not wanting to be part of the solution, not wanting to do anything to fix it.

I am also puzzled. I think I need to go to the Capitol's attending physician to see if I can get a neck brace because I have whiplash following the logic of some of my Republican friends.

We heard all year that we need to pass a bill in order to fix the immigration crisis at the border, and then last night in the Rules Committee we are told we don't need a bill, we don't need a law. Then here we are today dealing with four more bills that, by the way, most of which is already covered in existing law.

What is it? Do we need a law, or don't we need a law? If we don't need a law, what the hell are we here for?

Why are we wasting our time? This is not a debate club, right. We are here to actually get things done. If the gentleman wants to be part of the solution, then be part of the solution.

If the gentleman just wants to complain for the sake of complaining, then just do it in the press conferences. Don't waste time here.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 16, the American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, temporary protected status holders, and deferred enforced departure recipients.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Barragan), to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, you need a map to follow the logic of that last speaker. First of all, the border is not open. We have more people in detention right now than we have funding for. My Republican friends continuously vote against more funding, so figure that out.

To the listening audience here, I am a little bit confused by the debate on the other side of the aisle. The gentleman from Missouri just talked about, oh, we are serious about securing our border. We passed

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

Mr. Speaker, to illustrate the point that I made earlier that my Republican friends are not serious about governing or about getting anything done, I point out to people in this Chamber maybe something that they don't really know.

I have served on the Rules Committee for a long time, and the Rules Committee used to be a place where people showed up to try to get things done, where we would discuss big and pressing issues facing the country, and where we would debate how each side thought these problems should be solved. We would pass consequential legislation to improve the lives of Americans.

It has been difficult to be on the Rules Committee lately to just deal with messaging bills--bills that don't do anything, that don't mean anything,

that don't help anybody, and that don't solve any problems.

This is a Judiciary Committee bill that we are dealing with right now. I ask this question of my colleagues here in the House: Do you know how many bills the Judiciary Committee has brought before the Rules Committee that have become law in the last year?

The answer to that question is zero. Zero.

It seems like the Judiciary Committee is up in the Rules Committee every other day. Not a single Judiciary Committee bill that has come before the Rules Committee that has come to this floor has become law. That is absurd.

Now, you may say I am cherry-picking, but do you know the last time the Rules Committee met on a bill that actually was brought to the floor that got signed into law?

Eight months ago. That is when we met on the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Even that moved forward because Democrats came to the rescue and voted for the rule to avoid a debt ceiling disaster.

That is 8 months, more than half of our time in this Congress, wasted on messaging bills. At this point, I am not sure if that is a bug or a feature for this Republican majority, but what is clear is this: None of these bills that we are talking about here today will address our border challenges.

None of these bills that we are dealing with today are going to ever become law. Republicans don't really care because they don't want to do anything real to solve problems at the border.

The economy is getting better. Their presumptive nominee for President is ethically challenged. He has more legal problems than--I don't even want to compare him to anybody. We have never seen anything like this before.

He was just ordered to pay $83 million for defaming a woman who he sexually abused, and this is just the beginning.

They are not interested in solving problems or governing. What they are interested in is trying to hold on to a campaign issue. I am tired of it, the American people are tired of it, and frankly, it is just sad.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire from the gentleman how many more speakers he has?

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

Mr. Speaker, here is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats want to work to get things done. We want to work with Republicans in a bipartisan way to fix our problems at the border. Republicans, well, let me just use their own words. Last night in the Rules Committee, we heard from the other side that we aren't going to fix the border crisis with laws. I mean, that is what was said in the Rules Committee last night.

I mean, what the hell are we even doing here then?

Why even pass any laws at all?

Why try to fix any problems?

Republicans say that Joe Biden and Democrats are single-handedly responsible for the crisis at the border. That is just not true. That is just not true. It is simply not true.

Look at the facts. Democrats voted to increase border funding by 17 percent. Democrats provided $65 million for 300 new Border Patrol agents, $60 million for 125 new personnel at points of entry, and $230 million for technology, like autonomous surveillance towers.

Republicans--Republicans--voted ``no'' every single time. Why? It is simple. Because Trump calls the shots around here, and Trump wants a crisis at the border. Somehow he thinks it helps him politically.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of courage on the other side of the aisle in this House to stand up to the bully and to do what is right. In fact, we have our House leadership standing up and saying no to a deal that the most conservative Republicans in the other Chamber are saying is a good deal, is a tough deal. And they are saying no. Why? Because all of a sudden, Trump doesn't want it. How pathetic. How pathetic. What a cynical, rotten thing to do.

This is a serious problem that requires a serious solution, but they don't want to solve it. They don't want any action to secure the border. That is their strategy for November.

Well, guess what, it is going to look a lot less strategic when they lose the next election because the American people see through their BS and vote them out of office.

I mean, we have an opportunity here to potentially do something that will actually address the problems at the border: something meaningful, not messaging bills that are going nowhere, not talking points, not press conferences where people have meltdowns, but actually do something meaningful. All they can say is no, no, because Trump doesn't want us to do it.

You know, I don't know how we progress here. I am hoping that there are some sensible Republicans who will stand up to Trump and stand up to their leadership who seems to have caved on trying to work together. I point out, again, that we have a divided government. I wish the Democrats were in control of everything. I am sure my Republican friends wished the Republicans were in control of everything. But the fact of the matter is, they are not, and they continue to act like they are, but when they behave that way nothing gets done.

So the way this is supposed to work is that we work across the aisle, we try to come up with some areas of commonality, and we move forward, and we work with the Senate, and we work with the White House. That is what the Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats are doing right now.

I mean, Mr. Speaker, I say to my Republican friends: You are not in control of everything. You don't have a dictatorship--at least yet. I know that is what the former President would like, but that is not what we have right now. If we want to get something done, we are going to have to compromise. We are going to have to give and take. We have to listen to each other. We have to try to move something forward.

For the life of me, I can't understand why we are wasting so much time coming to the floor with stuff that is going nowhere that serves no purpose, other than to get people all riled up and maybe continue to appeal to the worst instincts in people: hate, racism, and bigotry. Enough. Enough.

Mr. Speaker, if they want to solve the problem, then we are willing to work with them. If they don't, then please go away.

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

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

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 980 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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, last night, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 980, providing for consideration of four measures: H.R. 5585, H.R. 6678, H.R. 6679, and H.R. 6976.

The rule provides for consideration of all four measures under structured rules with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee of jurisdiction, or their designee. The rule provides one motion to recommit for each measure.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and support of the underlying bills.

Today, we are here to address an ongoing crisis, not a new concept to this body. The word ``crisis'' has been a hard one for my friends on the other side of the aisle to absorb when it comes to our current situation on the southern border.

Let's just put a few things into perspective:

In 2023, Customs and Border Protection encountered over 2\1/2\ million illegal migrants attempting to cross the southern U.S. border.

In December alone, Customs and Border Protection encountered 302,000 illegal migrants--that is just in the month of December--attempting to cross the U.S. southern border, the highest number of unlawful migrant crossings in a single month in recorded history.

In 2023, Customs and Border Protection confiscated almost 230,000 pounds of drugs, including 22,000 pounds of illicit fentanyl, being smuggled across the southern border.

If this doesn't sound like a crisis to you, I don't know what would.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, I was at the southern border to witness firsthand the challenges faced by Texans and to hear directly from Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officers who are on the front lines of this crisis.

Magically, either by order of President Biden or by order of the cartels, the Eagle Pass area was completely cleared out that day. If that is possible when Members of Congress are visiting on a certain day, it is possible every single day.

Mr. Speaker, the President has every tool that he needs right now to stop the overwhelming flow of migrants to the border. The proof of this is that immediately upon taking office, President Biden dismantled the immigration policies that were put in place by the Trump administration. He did that by executive order. He can undo them by executive order.

President Biden halted the construction of the border wall, ended Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the remain in Mexico program, and restarted the dangerous catch and release program with the simple stroke of a pen.

Now the consequences have been stark: record numbers of migrants crossing the border and increasing each month; record numbers of illegal migrants being released into the United States; an open season for drug smugglers, human traffickers, and Mexican cartels; and social support systems stretched to the breaking point, not only in my home State of Texas, but places across the country like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Denver.

Mr. Speaker, this is not an immigration problem; it is a national security problem. We have a responsibility to make certain that the laws of this land protect Americans and ensure their safety.

Earlier this Congress, we passed H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, to combat illegal migration and ensure operational control over the southern border, but the Senate has refused to even debate or have a vote on the bill.

Today, we take up four additional bills that will help undo the chaos caused by this administration to ensure that law enforcement, particularly the agents of Customs and Border Protection, Federal agents are supported in their mission to keep our communities safe. This means closing loopholes that allow illicit behavior to go without punishment, which is exactly what the following four measures will do.

Last year, Customs and Border Patrol Agent Raul Gonzalez was tragically killed in pursuit of illegal migrants fleeing law enforcement in a motor vehicle. High-speed chases started by those breaking our laws are not uncommon.

In fact, any of us who have been down and visited the border, whether it was several years ago or recently, have been shown the films, the dash cam videos collected by Customs and Border Protection of these very high-risk, high-velocity chases which frequently end up with a crash, with people hurt, or people simply bailing out on the highway and running away.

Currently, fleeing law enforcement in a motor vehicle does not carry immigration consequences for the perpetrators, even in situations that result in the death of an officer, like the one involving Agent Gonzalez.

H.R. 5585, the Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act will change that by adding specific criminal and immigration consequences for individuals who operate motor vehicles while fleeing Border Patrol and law enforcement agents.

The penalties instituted by this bill include prison time and ensure that perpetrators can be deemed inadmissible to this country and deported from the United States.

Preventing deadly accidents that endanger lives is also the focus of H.R. 6976, the Protect Our Communities from DUIs Act.

With a simple turn of a key, an intoxicated driver commits a crime and illegal migrants are no different. Tragically, many of these incidents involve individuals who should not be in the country at all. Illegal migrants who have committed this offense are evaluated under the crimes involving moral turpitude standard, a difficult and complex legal analysis that results in long delays and lengthy legal proceedings.

H.R. 6976 will change this and provide immigration consequences for driving under the influence, rendering illegal migrants who have committed this offense inadmissible to this country and deportable without a lengthy process.

In a similar vein, with identification and fraud on the rise, H.R. 6678, the Consequences for Social Security Fraud Act will ensure that criminal or illegal migrants who commit Social Security and ID fraud can be removed and barred from this country.

Finally, we will take up H.R. 6679, the No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act. In October, the world watched in horror as Hamas, a designated terror organization, committed a vicious and evil attack on Israel. Twelve hundred Israelis, including American citizens, were murdered. Another 240 were taken back to Gaza as hostages where many remain today.

Terrorists who participated in, planned, or otherwise supported the October 7 attacks should not be admissible to the United States, full stop. There is no reason for a member of Hamas to ever be admitted into the United States. H.R. 6679 will make that a reality and ensure that we can prevent these deadly and evil people from

ever entering our country, thereby protecting our citizens.

Taken together, eradicating these gaps in our legal recourse will deter criminal activity and ensure that bad actors face appropriate punishment for their crimes.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans have demonstrated that we are committed to governing for the American people and that the American people have spoken. Their message to their elected Representatives is: ``Enough.''

Enough with sending their tax dollars to process migrants that should not be in this country in the first place instead of enforcing the law; enough with putting law enforcement both at the border and across America in harm's way; enough with the fearmongering and lies.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong support of the rule and the underlying bills. I urge my fellow Members to support the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 45 seconds just to answer some of the charges flung against me.

The gentleman said he wants solutions. There are solutions. The solutions are to undo the executive order the President put in place in his first 5 minutes in office, end catch and release, cease the exploitation of parole authority, reinstate remain in Mexico, expand expedited removal authority, and renew the building of a wall.

Mr. Speaker, it is sheer fantasy that $106 billion will fix this problem. Of course, it won't. The gentleman knows it won't.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford) for his comments.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am ready to close.

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

Mr. Speaker, the bill being considered over in the Senate is a bill that sets a floor, not a ceiling, a bill that guarantees 2 million people illegally come into this country every year. Mr. Speaker, that is on top of the 1.2 million people that are admitted legally every year--and not to mention the people who come in under the radar. Yes, I am going to be against that bill, and I will be happy to join my friend from Massachusetts in a bipartisan fashion and vote against that legislation because it is bad legislation; not because someone else told me it is bad, but because I know it is bad, and my constituents know it is bad.

When we were down in Eagle Pass, Texas, a few weeks ago with the Speaker of the House, the deputy chief of the Border Patrol spoke to us the first evening down there, and he said, we are faced with a raging flood. And when you are faced with that, it is not that I need bigger buckets, I need someone to turn the water off. So is there a way to turn the water off? And he told us there was.

Simply reinstituting the remain in Mexico policy, the Migrant Protection Protocols that President Biden undid with an executive order on his first day in office, would reduce the flow by 70 percent and would allow our very beleaguered Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement the ability to actually maneuver and do what their job calls for; that is, to protect American citizens.

As it stands right now with the massive ingress of people, all they can do is process people. It becomes a question of throughput. So that is not an answer, and don't pretend that it is because the American people see through that.

I will just address one other thing. I am not running for reelection. I am bulletproof. You can't hurt me. But I support the former President and his approach to border control because I saw it work for the 4 years he was in office. He was the best President of the 21st century, and, yes, I would like to see him back in office; not because someone told me, but my constituents support the type of leadership that he provided for those 4 years.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, this country is being invaded at the southern border--invaded to the extent that Governor Greg Abbott in my home State of Texas has officially declared an invasion. This administration has done nothing to help, nothing to help Texas, and has, instead, decided to take Texas to court to sue Texas just for trying to get the smallest bit of relief for its citizens and for its law enforcement officers.

The Republican majority has, once again, demonstrated that our agenda will be devoted to improving the lives of American citizens. Our governing majority will continue to focus on the issues that matter most to the American people: rising energy costs, sky-high inflation, rampant crime, and, yes, fixing our porous southern border.

These are issues that the American voters rightfully demand their elected Representatives to address. The Republican majority is committed to solving the many crises that this President and the minority have inflicted on our Nation.

Today, we begin the most basic duties of stopping and punishing criminals who come across our southern border illegally.

I would like to thank Representative Juan Ciscomani from Arizona; Representative Tom McClintock from California, with whom I serve on the Budget Committee; and Representative Barry Moore from Alabama, for their leadership on these important pieces of legislation.

I, again, stand in strong support of the rule and the underlying bills, and I urge my fellow Members to support the rule.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill is just another page from the majority's tired old playbook of inventing perceived gaps in the law and providing overly broad legislation to fix them.

DUIs are a serious problem. Over 13,000 people died in alcohol impaired driving traffic deaths in 2021, and all of those deaths were preventable. However, instead of working on proven solutions like improving access to public transportation and ride-sharing programs so that people have an alternative to driving drunk, Republicans are laying the blame for this problem at the feet of immigrants.

Let me be clear. No one here wants to see individuals who are true threats to public safety eligible for immigration benefits. However, our immigration laws already exclude public safety threats from being able to get visas or legally remain in the country. Under our current laws, this includes those who have committed serious DUI offenses.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a noncitizen who is convicted of or admits to committing a crime involving moral turpitude, or a CIMT, is generally inadmissible. Likewise, a noncitizen who is convicted of a CIMT, where a sentence of 1 year or longer may be imposed, is deportable.

There is substantial case law demonstrating that serious DUI offenses are considered CIMTs under current law. DUI where the maximum possible penalty is a year or more and where there is serious bodily harm; hit- and-runs; an aggravated DUI; and a DUI involving driving with knowledge of an invalid, suspended, or revoked license are all CIMTs and are, therefore, already deportable offenses.

This means that under current law, the people who are drinking and driving and putting people at risk of harm are already removable. Nonetheless, the majority is not satisfied with this. They want to deport everyone who has ever received any conviction for any DUI offense. Here is the problem with this approach: every State has a different standard for how they define and prosecute DUIs. Some States will charge people with a DUI even if they are not actually driving a car.

For example, prosecutors in Virginia convicted a man of DUI who was inebriated and asleep in the driver's seat of his car with the keys in the ignition so he could listen to music in his driveway. This case, in which the driver never even left his driveway or even turned his car all the way on, went all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court. We cannot rely on prosecutorial discretion in this type of case.

Under case law, the man in this case would not ultimately be subject to removal based on this conviction if he was a noncitizen. Nevertheless, if this bill were to be enacted, such a conviction would lead to the deportation of even a longstanding green card holder.

Remember, Mr. Speaker, we are talking here about longstanding green card holders, not illegal aliens. These are people who entered the country legally, who may have been here for 20 or 30 years, who have American citizen spouses and children.

If this bill were enacted, such a conviction of sleeping in your own car inebriated in your own driveway going nowhere would get you deported.

If this bill fixed a serious gap in the law, I would be supportive. Nevertheless, this bill doesn't do that. It puts people who are here legally at risk of removal for making even a minor mistake that harmed no one, all at a time when immigration courts have historic backlogs and the Republicans are refusing to provide DHS with the resources it needs to enforce the laws currently on the books.

This is purely for show, but I would expect nothing less from a party that has admitted they would rather wait to fix the problems in our immigration system so that President Trump can preserve the issue for his campaign than actually work toward meaningful reform now.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to oppose this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the distinguished gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), the ranking Democrat on the Immigration Subcommittee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the last few speakers on the Republican side spent most of their time not addressing this bill but addressing the general crisis at our southern border.

The fact is there is a crisis. We all know that. The fact is that one of the major problems--and Republicans say this all the time, and they are right--is catch and release.

Someone is caught or more usually turns themselves in to a Border Patrol officer, claims asylum, and is given a court date 4 years, 5 years down the road. Why? Because we do not have enough asylum officers. We do not have enough asylum judges.

President Biden requested $14 billion to increase the number of Border Patrol men and women and to increase the number of asylum judges and immigration judges so that you wouldn't have catch and release; so that people who claimed asylum would have their cases adjudicated in weeks, not in years.

Those who are entitled to asylum would be admitted to the country and could work and those who are not could be swiftly removed, deported from the country.

Do our Republican colleagues want to do that? No. They don't want to give the President the means of alleviating this problem. They want a campaign issue, and they are very open about it.

You have in the Senate a painstakingly negotiated and extraordinarily conservative--so we hear, I haven't seen the text yet--strong immigration bill negotiated by such liberals as Senator Lankford and Senator Graham, and they are going to pass it, in all likelihood.

The Republicans in the House say we won't even look at it. Why? Because the former President, President Trump, said don't pass anything. I want a campaign issue.

They don't want to solve the problem. They want to keep the problem going as a campaign issue, and they said it themselves.

Don't get up here and talk about the problems on the southern border when you won't give this President any of the authority or the means that he seeks to deal with it when you say, as Speaker Johnson said, you are not going to even look at the bill from the Senate because it isn't perfect. Since when do we insist on perfect legislation?

Now, Mr. Speaker, let's get to this bill. DUIs are a serious problem, and no one who poses a threat to public safety should be eligible for immigration benefits, but that is already the case under current law.

This legislation is a gross overreach that would lead to absurd consequences and deportation for people who pose no threat to our country, such as the examples we heard of someone who, rather than driving drunk, is in his own car inebriated with the key turned on, listening to music in his own driveway, posing a threat to no one.

Even for people who have been here many years, with American citizen spouses and children, that would lead to automatic deportation while doing nothing that our laws do not already do to deter people from driving under the influence--driving under the influence as opposed to sitting in their driveway under the influence.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to oppose this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 980, I call up the bill (H.R. 6976) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed an offense for driving while intoxicated or impaired are inadmissible and deportable, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials on H.R. 6976.

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

Mr. Speaker, every 45 minutes: that is how often someone in the United States dies in a crash involving an alcohol-impaired driver.

In 2021 alone, there were 13,384 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities. In the same year, drunk driving crashes led to 400,000 injuries. Those crashes don't discriminate. The victim could be me, it could be you, or it could be one of our family members.

This issue hits close to home for me. There was a newlywed couple from my hometown of Enterprise, Alabama, named Angel and Jeremy Seay. I knew them personally.

Angel and Jeremy were riding a motorcycle together when, out of nowhere, an illegal alien under the influence of alcohol collided into the newlyweds with his pickup. Their lives were cut dramatically short.

Sadly, tragedies like this are not uncommon across our country.

Consider this case from Missouri. Just 2 months ago, an illegal alien from Honduras was sentenced for driving drunk at 100 miles per hour and killing a man.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if you listen to my Democratic colleagues, you may think

that drunk driving is no big deal. In fact, at a Judiciary Committee markup in 2021, my Democratic colleagues voted down three Republican amendments that would have made certain aliens ineligible for green cards if they had 1, 2, or even 10 DUI convictions.

Despite that, that should come as no surprise.

In 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden said that illegal aliens with DUI convictions should be allowed to stay in the United States. Biden asserted that ICE should not arrest aliens with drunk driving convictions because: You only arrest for the purpose of dealing with a felony that is committed, and I don't count drunk driving as a felony.

Candidate Biden even called for ICE officers to be fired if they arrested aliens without felony convictions.

To President Biden and my Democratic colleagues, today we say: Absolutely not. If you are a guest in this country and you drive drunk, you should be removed from our country, period.

Instead of hearing agreement on this from Democrats, today we will hear these farfetched hypotheticals and accusations that this bill is cruel and too broad.

Instead of engaging in hypotheticals, let's again revisit the facts: Drunk drivers are involved in 31 percent of all crash deaths in the country.

On average, drunk driving has killed nearly 11,000 people in the United States every year from 2012 to 2021. Yet, immigration laws do not explicitly make aliens inadmissible or removable if they drive drunk and recklessly break our laws.

H.R. 6976 changes that, and it creates safer streets and safer communities for all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Protect Our Communities From DUIs Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats want to pretend that this bill is extreme, cruel, and harsh, as if imposing consequences on aliens for breaking our laws is somehow unheard of.

Yet, guess who also bar drunk drivers entry into ports?

Canada. That is correct.

In at least this one particular area, our liberal friends to the north get it right. Of course they do because it just makes sense. Mr. Speaker, if you are a guest in our country, and you drive drunk or impaired, you shouldn't be allowed to stay here as we wait for you to do it again or to kill or seriously injure someone.

Mr. Speaker, let's pass H.R. 6976 today and make these sensible changes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), a former law enforcement officer and a good friend of ours.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Curtis).

Mr. Speaker, in response to my colleagues on the left. First, my colleagues across the aisle say that it is a campaign issue, that we are trying to make this is a campaign issue.

It is not. They made it a campaign issue when Joe Biden came in day one and did away with the remain in Mexico policy, when they started this catch and release program, and now they are saying they need more money. It is the executive orders that have created the problem on the U.S. southern border.

I have been there a number of times--three times, to be exact--and

Sheriff Dannels told us the best he had ever seen the border in 2018 was under Donald Trump. The worst he has ever seen the border was then, and that was before the recent 200,000 people came across last month.

To get up here and say that the administration needs more money or that they need some law--no. Biden has every tool in the toolbox to shut the U.S. southern border down, and he has continued to create crises for our communities. This government is so good often at setting the building on fire and then wanting to fund the fire department.

We don't need more money. We just need to apply the laws that are on the books and shut this flow down across this border before more and more people get killed and injured in these accidents we are talking about.

The Democrats would prefer to engage in these outlandish hypotheticals and make light of driving under the influence rather than protect American communities from dangerous drivers.

Again, here are some facts. According to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving: Most drunk driving offenders drive at least 80 times drunk before they are arrested.

Additionally, a 2014 article detailed how more than one-third of the individuals who are convicted of driving under the influence are repeat offenders.

The Protect our Communities from DUIs Act ensures that aliens who drive drunk can be removed from the United States after their first conviction--not after the tenth, not after they kill or seriously injure a child of yours or mine or a grandchild--instead of spending time on a 50-State survey of DUI laws to formulate some farfetched hypotheticals.

I encourage my colleagues to grapple with the consequences of drunk driving and support this commonsense bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for his service. We will be missing him next Congress, but we still have some more time and work to do together.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to talk about the bills that are sitting here in front of them because they are going to vote against at least three of them. We know that because they did it in Judiciary Committee.

These bills are pretty simple. If you are here and you evade Border Patrol, you can't stay here or come here. If you are here and you have committed Social Security fraud, you can't stay here or come here. If you are here and you have committed a DUI, you can't stay here or come here. Judiciary Democrats voted against all three of those. Let's put aside that if you are here, illegally, you should be deported anyway.

Then there is if you are here and a member of Hamas, or participated in, or facilitated the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, you cannot stay here or come here. Now, on that, it was passed unanimously. We will see what happens when it comes to the floor when some of the folks not on Judiciary Committee look at the bill.

I find it interesting that a blanket statement is made that some of us take our orders from former President Trump. Well, if somebody has a phone line into Mar-a-Lago, why don't you give him a call? I think he would be surprised to hear that I take orders from former President Trump, in light

of the recent time I have spent around the country.

I would tell you this: I don't take orders from the former President. I know that we shouldn't make this a political issue. I know this is an issue we should solve, but I don't think that is what the former President was saying.

I think the former President was saying this bill in the Senate is garbage, that it will make the problem worse; that we have all the power we need now to secure the border, and that the current President and current administration are ignoring it, and, indeed, purposely avoiding the law in order to flood America, which is endangering Americans; fentanyl flowing in; empowering cartels; empowering China; terrorists coming into our country; and criminals coming into our country. That is the truth. What the former President knows is that the bill being negotiated in the Senate is not a good one. He is calling that out.

However, I can assure you, I don't take orders from the former President, nor do I take orders from Somalis in Minnesota, but some people do. That is the truth.

The fact here is, we have legislation before us right now to address real problems for the people that we represent. I can tell you we do in Texas. We have a bill being negotiated in the Senate that is being deemed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as, Oh, a reasonable solution. A reasonable solution, when we had a bill last year that would actually secure the border with H.R. 2, which would close loopholes being exploited by our Democratic colleagues.

I had witnesses in a recent hearing on the Constitution and States stepping into the breach. The first assistant attorney general of Texas and the former attorney general of Arizona, they all testified under oath that there is an invasion. They all came forward to say that it was the right of the Governors, the right of the States to step in.

I had the ACLU witness acknowledge to me: I said, Hey, if cartels are coming guns a-blazing, they come across the river, can you defend yourself?

He said, Well, if it is a violation of State law, sure.

I said, Oh, really? That is an interesting piece of information to hear from the ACLU, that the State, that the Governor can, in fact, do what is necessary to defend the people of his State based on the laws of that State and, frankly, based on every understanding of what a leadership of a sovereign would do, and that is the truth.

Right now what we have are Democrats in the Senate wanting to hide behind a bill they know has no chance of moving through because, frankly, if it were passed, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are concerned about us campaigning on this, making it a political issue.

If that legislation were passed, the issue would still exist because the legislation wouldn't do anything to stop it. It sets a floor, not a ceiling. It sets a standard of 5,000 a day. Come on in, 1.8 million folks. That is the truth, if you read the bill.

The reality is, the gentleman talks about, Oh, we have 38,000 people in detention. Well, the truth is, we had 900,000 people get released last year; 900,000 got released. That doesn't count the ICE releases, that doesn't count the 50,000 a month of got-aways. These are the numbers we are talking about, and they are on an extraordinary level.

I remind everybody that here before us is legislation that all it does is try to layer on a commonsense ability to remove bad actors, DUIs, those affiliated with Hamas, Border Patrol having to chase people in high-speed chases, and those committing Social Security fraud. My Democratic colleagues don't want to talk about it because they are not going to support those commonsense measures.