H.Res. 1227

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1227 and ask for its immediate consideration.

For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the distinguished 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 have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

House Resolution 1227 provides for consideration of eight measures: H.R. 8369, H.R. 7530, H.R. 7343, H.R. 8146, H.R. 7581, H.R. 354, H. Res. 1213, and H. Res. 1210. The rule provides for H.R. 7343 and H.R. 8146 to be considered under structured rules with 1 hour of debate each, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their designees, and provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule further provides for consideration of two measures, H.R. 354 and H.R. 7581, under closed rules with 1 hour of debate each, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their designees, and provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule further provides for consideration of H. Res. 1210 and H. Res. 1213 under closed rules, with 1 hour of debate each, equally divided and controlled by the Chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their designees.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.R. 7530 under a closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their designees, and provides for one motion to recommit.

Finally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 8369 under a closed rule with 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs or their designee and provides for one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.

The rule before us provides for consideration of three measures to support our Nation's law enforcement in the face of the Biden administration's disastrous immigration policies.

H.R. 7343, the Detain and Deport Illegal Aliens Who Assault Cops Act, would bring real consequences on the heads of those in our country illegally. This legislation would require the immediate detention and deportation of any illegal alien who chooses to assault the men and women who keep our communities safe.

Additionally, H.R. 8146 would require that the Attorney General provide a full accounting of how this historic and dangerous border crisis has truly impacted the health and the safety of our Nation's law enforcement.

Finally, H. Res. 1210 condemns the Biden administration's failed border policies that have resulted in 9.3 million illegal alien encounters along our borders in less than 4 years--and that doesn't include those that have evaded Border Patrol.

America's law enforcement officers are on the front lines of the Biden border crisis, bearing the brunt of this President's open-borders policies that are threatening the security of our Nation and laying waste to our communities.

We have yet to fully know the true damage done to our national security by 4 years of flinging the doors open for those breaking our laws. One thing is certain, it is falling on our Nation's law enforcement officers--our police officers in big cities and small towns across America--to contend with the consequences of this administration's open-borders policies.

The Biden border crisis is only one challenge facing our Nation's law enforcement officers. As we witness an alarming surge in criminal activity thanks to the left's antipolice, soft-on-crime policies, it is imperative that we confront a harsh reality. Our law enforcement officers are under attack both physically and politically. They are being targeted by the radical left simply for doing their jobs, for upholding the rule of law, and for protecting our communities.

To that end, the rule today before us provides for consideration of several measures that stand with our law enforcement officers in the face of these asinine policies that seek to vilify them and prevent them from doing their jobs, including H.R. 7581, the Improving Law Enforcement Officer Safety and Wellness Through Data Act; H.R. 354, the LEOSA Reform Act; and H. Res. 1213, a resolution condemning violence against our law enforcement officers.

H.R. 7581 would require the Department of Justice to report to Congress about violent attacks on law enforcement officers and the response of Federal, State, and local governments to these attacks.

Additionally, H.R. 354 would fix a discrepancy under current law to ensure that qualified active or retired law enforcement officers are not prohibited from carrying a concealed firearm in public settings. There is no good reason why the men and women who put their lives on the line for us every day should have their Second Amendment rights curtailed as they are under the current law.

Finally, H. Res. 1213 expresses a sentiment that I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle can fully embrace and get behind: full, unequivocal support for our law enforcement officers and strong opposition to any movement that seeks to defund the police.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a matter of statistics or headlines. The soft-on-crime policies that the radical left have championed have only left American families in more danger. Years of Democrat-elected officials, including some right here in Congress, calling to defund the police have vilified our law enforcement officers, preventing them from doing their jobs, leaving the people that they serve less safe.

Nowhere is this displayed more vividly than right here in our Nation's Capital, and the rule before us today also provides for consideration of a bill to combat the District of Columbia's anti-law enforcement, pro-criminal policies: H.R. 7530, the D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act.

D.C. law enforcement remains understaffed and overwhelmed by soaring rates of violent crime. In 2023 alone, homicides increased 29 percent from 2022, violent crime increased 37 percent, and robberies increased 65 percent.

What has the D.C. Council done?

Well, in 2022, it passed the Revised Criminal Code Act, which reduced penalties for violent offenders, and in that same year the Council passed the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, which targeted D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers and their ability to combat rising crime.

If the D.C. Council will not heed the concerns of the District's residents, police officers, and visitors from this country and around the world, then it is Congress' job to step in. This mess only encourages lawlessness and puts lives at risk. We have had one of our own colleagues, a Member of Congress, carjacked and a staffer stabbed, among many other horrifying and violent crimes. If we can't get a handle on crime in our Nation's beautiful Capital, how does that fare for the rest of the country?

H.R. 7530 changes the maximum age limit for youth offender status from 24 years old to 18 years old. It requires the District's attorney general to establish and update a public website containing juvenile crime statistics in the District and prohibits the D.C. Council from enacting any changes to criminal sentences.

Youth criminal activity has skyrocketed along with every other manner of violent crime in our Nation's Capital. A soft-on-crime approach is simply just not working, putting the lives of innocent residents and visitors in danger, and hamstringing the ability of our cops to do their jobs.

Residents of D.C. have the same rights as other Americans to be secure in their homes and to be protected against crimes committed against their lives and their property. It is heartbreaking to see the crimes committed by children and young people in D.C., and we need real solutions to address them. Children in our Nation's Capital deserve better than antipolice policies that lead them to a life of crime.

It is our duty as Members of Congress, as laid out in the D.C. Home Rule Act, to step in when the District's own policies so clearly threaten the safety of the residents of our Nation's Capital as they do today.

Finally, the rule before us provides for consideration of H.R. 8369, the Israel Security Assistance Support Act.

Mr. Speaker, it is frankly shocking and disgusting to hear that President Biden is purposely withholding our Nation's arms shipments to Israel as they are fighting to defend their right to exist.

At a time when Israel is under assault, facing attacks from Hamas and Iran, the decision to withhold these critical munitions is not just a failure; it is a betrayal of our greatest ally in the Middle East, and it goes directly against the will of this Congress and the will of the people.

We cannot let political games endanger lives. H.R. 8369 would ensure that America stands with Israel in its darkest hour, despite this administration's disgraceful actions to block such vital support. The legislation will ensure that any defense articles and defense services for Israel are delivered expeditiously, without obstruction from an administration that is willing to play games, unfortunately, with such necessary shipments, and we will prevent them subverting the will of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, America must stand with Israel and send a message to the world that we will not falter. I urge my colleagues to support this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague on the other side of the aisle likes to talk about the fact that these bills today that we are going to consider this week, these pro-police measures, don't have a future in the Senate or getting to the desk of the President. Yes, that is because his party controls those two branches. The Senate leadership will do nothing with this because they don't support the underlying legislation. They don't support law enforcement.

I would like to point out that it was Democrats who have for years pushed the defund the police rhetoric in cities, States, and right here in Washington, not House Republicans. In fact, it was Democrats who took the defund the police rhetoric and made it viral. They turned it into concrete policy that demonizes our men and women in blue while letting violent criminals back out on the street.

Madam Speaker, do you think the American people are really going to buy that Democrats weren't the ones who wanted to defund the police?

Madam Speaker, we could rewind the tape back to 2020 if you want to. We can show you the footage of our cities burning while they were chanting to defund the police and watching weak mayors of cities down on one knee begging for forgiveness for standing for law and order. We could go back and rewind the tape and get a little instant replay if you like. The footage is there. It is in black and white. It is a matter of historical fact that my friend's party supported the defund the police movement.

What I just heard from the other side of the aisle couldn't be any more laughable. Democrats in New York City, certainly not Republicans, cut the NYPD's budget by $1 billion with more cuts to come. We have some of those brave NYPD officers here with us this week for Police Week.

Democrats in Los Angeles, not Republicans, cut the LAPD's budget by hundreds of millions of dollars with more cuts to come.

Democrats in Chicago, not Republicans, cut the Chicago PD's budget by $1 billion only to embarrassingly and quietly reverse further plans for cuts in recent years after crime spiraled out of control.

Right here in our Nation's Capital it was Democrats, not Republicans, who passed legislation to make it more difficult than ever for cops to do their jobs and keep D.C.'s communities and residents safe. Let's not forget that at the height of the defund the police movement, it was House Democrats, not House Republicans, who attempted to completely defund the Department of Justice's Project Safe Neighborhoods program, a nationwide initiative that empowers law enforcement to work with community leaders and stakeholders to directly identify the most pressing violent crime problems in a community. I am talking rapes, armed robberies, gang violence, and much, much more.

Nonetheless, that didn't stop House Democrats from defunding this program to appease a radical base. The radical left has bought hook, line, and sinker into the defund the police movement, and Americans in New York, in Washington, in Chicago, in L.A., and everywhere else where Democrat leaders hold sway are reaping the consequences of these dangerous policies.

Madam Speaker, the family of slain NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller told New York Governor Kathy Hochul that she had blood on her hands. They see, as Americans across the country see, that it is the Democrats and not the Republicans who have abandoned law enforcement. They have vilified them, and they have made it harder than ever for them to do their job and keep their people safe.

The legislation under this rule today is a step in the direction of supporting our law enforcement officers and empowering them with the tools to keep our communities safe in spite of the defund the police movement and in spite of the Biden border crisis.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), who is the chairman of the Rules Committee.

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

Madam Speaker, it is great to see that my colleague, the ranking member, has looked into Jamestown, New York, and read some of our headlines. Yes, we have Republican leadership right now, a brand-new elected Republican mayor. There was a Democratic mayor up until this last election, but I don't blame the outgoing Democratic mayor.

I do blame the State of New York's leadership for destroying the criminal justice system in the State of New York, eliminating cash bail, and creating discovery reform. Creating a revolving-door criminal justice system in the State of New York is the reason that the police officers, many of which are at our Capitol this very week to celebrate Police Week, can't do their jobs.

They have been put in handcuffs while the criminals walk free with an appearance ticket for many of the same crimes that the gentleman just rattled off from the Jamestown Post-Journal. That is fact. That is fact in the State of New York because Democrat-run policies, a Democratic Governor, a supermajority in the State senate, and a supermajority in the State assembly have destroyed my State's criminal justice system. They have blood on their hands and have destroyed towns, villages, and cities across the once-great Empire State.

The gentleman has found a few headlines, and we hope to get some restoration of common sense back to the Empire State once again, but it has to start right here in our Nation's Capital. It starts with the legislation under this rule.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley), my friend.

Madam Speaker, my friends across the aisle are making some wild claims that somehow crime has gone down. It is like President Biden taking a bow for gas prices going from five bucks a gallon to four bucks a gallon when they were far less than that just before he was sworn in.

My colleague's claims rest on cherry-picked data that does not present a full picture of the crime problem in our major cities, so let's revisit some of the facts.

Violent crime has skyrocketed with year over year increases in violent crime in the millions. Carjackings have spiked by as much as 93 percent in many major cities and 18 percent more homicides were committed in 2023 than in 2019.

It is no coincidence that many of these major cities that have been the epicenter of the wave in violent crime also happen to be run by Democratic politicians with leftwing DAs that have made it their mission not to prosecute perpetrators but to put dangerous criminals back on the streets and to facilitate a revolving door criminal justice system.

My colleagues need only to venture beyond Capitol Hill to see what these policies have done to our Nation's Capital. To recap here, according to the Metro Police Department's own data, crime in D.C. increased 30 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year.

In 2023 alone, homicides increased 29 percent compared to 2022. In fact, since 2012, the rate of homicides in D.C. has doubled. Violent crime has increased 37 percent and robberies increased 65 percent from 2022 to 2023. Motor vehicle thefts increased 107 percent between 2022 and 2023.

This surge of criminal activity is a direct result of the D.C. Council's soft-on-crime sentencing policy and refusal to back up its law enforcement officers with real support, resulting in resignations of police officers. We have heard it directly in the Oversight Committee from the union officials.

Madam Speaker, despite my colleague's refusal to wake up to the reality, the fact remains that we are at this point today with crime soaring in many of our major cities and Americans are feeling less safe because of the disastrous policies the Democratic leaders, at the behest of the radical left that governs their party have imposed on residents of our communities.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I think it is important that we don't forget all the other legislation in this bill, as we have had a spirited debate today about law enforcement.

It is really important to remind my colleagues today about the situation in Israel and the Israel legislation that is being considered this week. We need to talk about how this conflict began. On October 7, it was Hamas and not Israel that launched a horrifying terror attack that took thousands of lives and innocent people hostage.

It was Hamas terrorists who murdered approximately 1,200 people, including Holocaust survivors, the elderly, babies, and beautiful young people attending a music festival. It is Hamas who, to this day, has over 100 innocent people held hostage, including American citizens who we cannot forget are being held hostage. Americans are currently being held hostage in Gaza.

Hamas is responsible for this war. Hamas, a terrorist organization, has for decades now used civilian structures and innocent people to shield their terrorist operations. However, Madam Speaker, none of that stopped anti-Israel protesters from taking to the streets just a day after the horrific attacks and the butchery of Israeli civilians to chant ``from the river to the sea.''

There are some people that serve in this building that take their time and like to chant ``from the river to the sea,'' and they need to be held accountable for that, which we know is synonymous language for the extermination of the Jewish people in Israel.

Madam Speaker, by holding these arms shipments, President Biden is just not flouting the will of Congress and the American people, but he is also kowtowing to the radical left that, frankly, has embraced the anti-Israel movement wholeheartedly. It has become practically a platform plank over there.

We are learning more and more about the leftwing groups and donors that are bankrolling the anti-Israel/anti-Semitic protests that have erupted across the country. We noted that it is the far left, including Members of the House, that have fully endorsed this message to turn against our ally Israel in their hour of need and to isolate them and to ultimately support their destruction.

Madam Speaker, I am done hearing the false equivalencies of a morally bankrupt movement. Anyone who remembers the true reason why Israel is defending itself today should support the legislation under this rule.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I wish my colleague from Massachusetts well with his Trump derangement syndrome.

Madam Speaker, the rule before us today is about standing up for the safety and well-being of our neighborhoods, our families, and our way of life. It is about standing up for what is right and defending those who risk their lives every single day to keep our communities safe.

In my own district in the southern tier of New York, a Chemung County Sheriff's investigator, Michael Theetge, was critically injured when he was hit by a shoplifter's getaway car and has since been fighting to recover. Our prayers and wishes for a speedy recovery are with him and our whole community.

Sadly, Investigator Theetge's case is not an isolated incident. It is emblematic of the dangers to law enforcement officers and what they face every time they put on their uniforms.

In my own State of New York, we have lost some of our very finest recently. We have recently laid to rest Lieutenant Michael Hoosock of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department, Syracuse Police Officer Michael Jensen, and NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller.

We don't want other families to have to go through what their families are facing right now and to be able to expect that their loved ones will come home at the end of their shifts safe and sound.

What is happening in America's major cities in too many States and right here in our Nation's Capital is simply unacceptable, and it needs to be addressed now and is with this legislation before us.

This rule, Madam Speaker, is also about standing up for our closest friends and allies. Since October 7, Israel has been in a struggle for self-defense against a terrorist organization that seeks nothing but violence, destruction, and extermination of the Jewish people.

Israel needs the tools to defend itself and defeat Hamas. We need to send a message to the world that America will not falter in our commitment to our allies. We need to send these munitions to Israel now. Our future and their future depend on it.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, Republicans have us here today considering eight measures that aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Six of the eight measures that are being brought before this House are being brought forth under completely closed rules, which means nobody, not Democrats and not Republicans, can offer any amendments to change or improve those bills.

So much for Republican promises of a more deliberative process or more openness or more fairness. That just went out the window.

I don't think I have ever seen a group of people do so much and yet accomplish so little.

Seven of these measures are supposedly about law enforcement.

Madam Speaker, do you know how many of them will actually do something to help keep people safe?

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Just a piece of free advice to my Republican friends: It is probably not the best idea to take direction on law and order from a guy who, as we speak, is a defendant for covering up hush money payments to a porn star for political gain. That is not even to mention the other three criminal felony prosecutions that he faces.

Look at the cover of today's New York Times, Madam Speaker. This is unbelievable. Here is a picture of the Speaker of this House of Representatives, second in line to the Presidency, standing in front of a courthouse acting as a prop for Donald Trump trying to interfere with a criminal trial because, apparently, Republicans like law and order unless it applies to them.

It is unbelievable. Madam Speaker, you can't make this stuff up.

I will say to my colleagues that this stunt of the Speaker and Republican Members of Congress going to this courthouse diminishes this House of Representatives. Their candidate for President has been indicted more times than he has been elected.

I didn't think I was.

Somehow, Madam Speaker, they have the nerve to tell us about the criminal justice system?

Give me a break.

Their credibility on this issue has evaporated. It is pathetic. I could go through these bills one by one, but I think the American people would rather watch paint dry because none of these bills do anything. None of these bills will be passed by the Senate. None of them will do a damn thing to help the police. None of them will keep our communities safe. We have a ton of BS bills going out to immigrants. Let me just remind everyone: It was Republicans who killed their own bipartisan border security bill in the Senate, and it is Republicans in the House who refused to even bring it up for a vote.

Why?

It is because they are afraid it might pass. They are afraid they might lose a talking point.

We have a nonbinding resolution about defund the police.

Isn't it ironic that they all talk so much about defunding the police, but despite their rhetoric, Republicans are the ones who want to defund the police.

Republicans support cutting the COPS program, which hires police officers in every State in America.

Get this, Madam Speaker: Republicans voted against awarding police officers who protected all of us on January 6 the Congressional Gold Medal. Let that sink in.

Republicans voted to fire 2,000 Customs and Border Protection police officers. Republicans voted to cut Federal support for local law enforcement agencies in September of 2022.

Republicans have called to abolish the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the ATF.

At every single juncture, when Republicans have had a chance to put their money where their mouth is, they have shown that all their pro- police rhetoric is just that: rhetoric.

They will say whatever they need to win political support from police and then hope the cops don't notice when they vote to cut their budgets.

The eighth bill this rule would bring to the floor is the so-called Israel Security Assistance Support Act. This bill is a disaster. It basically gets rid of human rights checks and balances already in place on arms transfers, and it would interfere with any administration's ability to comply with U.S. obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.

I think it is absurd that my Republican friends don't understand the difference between supporting Israel and writing Prime Minister Netanyahu a blank check to do whatever the hell he wants with U.S. weapons with no regard for civilian lives or for human rights.

That is not even just the Democratic position, by the way. Three U.S. Presidents have threatened to pause military aid to Israel under similar circumstances.

Who were they?

They were Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. They were all Republicans, Madam Speaker. They were all Republicans.

Please don't give me this partisan BS. Please. Please, spare us that.

U.S. military assistance doesn't come with no conditions. If our taxpayers are paying for it, then they ought to have some level of assurance that it is not being used to indiscriminately bomb civilians or block the delivery of humanitarian aid to starving people.

The bombs that the President is withholding, these 2-ton bombs, have a blast radius of one-quarter of a mile. That means, I would say to my friends, if you were standing in front of this Capitol and the bomb were dropped on the Republican congressional campaign headquarters or the Democratic congressional campaign headquarters, then we all would be dead if we were standing in front of the U.S. Capitol.

The President is concerned that 2-ton bombs are being dropped on Rafah, a heavily populated area with over 1 million people. He believes that the civilian casualties are unacceptable. We all should care about the civilian casualties, especially if we claim to be a friend of Israel, because the more civilian casualties that are incurred, then the more difficulty Israel has in getting to a lasting peace.

It is a real shame that this is what Republicans have decided we should spend our week doing, Madam Speaker. I had hoped, Madam Speaker, that after the Democrats bailed out Speaker Mike Johnson last week that maybe, just maybe, we would see a change in the tone of this place. Maybe there would be more of an acknowledgment that we need to put people over politics and that we need to get stuff done, because that is what the American people want.

I am disappointed to see that this week it is just more of the same old same old from this incompetent Republican leadership that has wasted away their time and power and accomplished nothing, not a single damn thing, during their time in their slim majority. The American people deserve a hell of a lot better than they are getting from my friends on the Republican side.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, it is rich to be lectured by the chairman of the Rules Committee about the need to support our police officers and to help do more to recruit and train them.

I will say to my friend, the distinguished Member from Texas (Mr. Burgess), and to all of my Republican friends: Stop cutting COPS grants. Continue to adequately fund the COPS program so that we can actually have our local law enforcement recruit and hire more police officers.

My Republican friends don't like to admit a desire to cut the COPS grants. I would say to everybody who is watching to look it up for themselves.

The Republican Study Committee, which is the largest caucus in the Republican Conference, actually put out a report titled: ``Fiscal Sanity to Save America.'' If my colleagues go to page 148, and I urge people to look it up for themselves, it says: ``Reduce funding for Community Oriented Policing Services,'' or basically what we call the COPS grants.

Republicans want to cut money for our local police. It is in their budget document. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to cut the money and then come here and make believe somehow that Republicans support our local police officers. Come on. Enough.

Additionally, sometimes I wonder whether the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy) really believes the stuff that he says. The gentleman keeps talking about crime in Democrat-run cities. By the way, it is Democratic-run cities. The last time I checked, we don't have Democratic cities or Republican cities in this country. We have American cities.

I took the liberty of looking up some of the headlines from New York's 23rd Congressional District, which Mr. Langworthy represents, and, in particular, Jamestown, New York, the largest city in the area and the location of his district office. Jamestown has a Republican mayor, a Republican city council, a Republican supermajority on the county legislature, a Republican State representative, a Republican State senator, and a Republican Congressman.

Let's look at some of the recent headlines from the Republican stronghold of Jamestown, New York: April 22, 2024, ``Jamestown man accused of killing 16-month-old child charged with manslaughter''; March 2024, ``1 dead, 2 injured in Jamestown homicide''; January 2024, ``Investigation Underway in Jamestown Homicide Case''; May 2023, ``Three Accused Of Stealing A Vehicle In Jamestown''; June 2021, ``Two teenage girls charged with arson in connection with Jamestown furniture manufacturer fire''; and February 2024, ``Six arrested after robbery, assault leads to standoff in Jamestown NY.''

I could go on and on. Madam Speaker, none of this is to disparage the wonderful people who Mr. Langworthy represents, but if the gentleman wants to come down here and read off RNC talking points about crime, I think the gentleman should at least try to be intellectually honest.

I know the other side wants to play the blame game. I know Republicans are all about stunts and not solutions, but maybe, just maybe, the majority ought to look in the mirror first instead of playing to the cheap seats.

Madam Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to include in the Record a Salon article titled: ``Republicans like to talk tough on crime--but they're the ones with a real crime problem.''

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

Madam Speaker, I am not familiar with the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley), but let me say to the gentleman that, rather than just denounce the slogan of defunding the police, maybe the gentleman should go to the Republican Study Committee and tell them to not defund the police because, again, if one goes to the Republican Study Group document, page 148, it is clear that the Republicans want to defund the COPS program.

Please, enough with the rhetoric. If my colleagues are serious about supporting the police, then don't cut the COPS program, period. How hard is this?

I remind the gentleman that the hometown of the former Republican Speaker of this House, before the Republicans threw him out, Kevin McCarthy, which is Bakersfield, California, has a higher crime rate than San Francisco. I don't even know where my friends are coming from.

I have to say that I have never heard anybody denounce their home State as much as I have heard the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy) denounce New York. I think New York is a great State. It is not as good as Massachusetts, but I think it is a great State.

I get it. The gentleman just explained it all to me. If it is a Democratic-controlled area, all the crime is blamed on the Democrat. If it is a Republican-controlled area, then the majority finds the nearest Democrat, and Republicans blame it on the Democrat. That is their rationale.

I mean, come on. This place has to get more serious in terms of supporting initiatives to actually not only support law enforcement but protect our communities instead of one sound bite after another that does absolutely nothing and the blame game that we hear constantly.

Madam Speaker, my Republican colleagues this week claim to want to focus on public safety but have chosen to put misguided measures and messaging bills on the floor. Here is their chance to actually do something of substance that will make police officers safer, make our streets safer, and make our children safer.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 715, a bipartisan bill to require a background check for every firearm sale.

There were over 42,000 firearm deaths last year, with the annual total of mass shootings increasing from 414 in 2019 to over 650 in 2023. Eighty-six percent of homicides in this country involve a firearm, and of the States that saw their gun homicide rate decrease between 2022 and 2023, States with the strongest gun laws decreased their homicides by a rate nearly triple their lax gun law counterparts.

This is common sense. It is not a partisan issue. In fact, H.R. 715, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, was introduced--hold on to your seats here--by a Republican.

I know that, like me, many of my colleagues have children and all of them have elementary schools and middle schools in their districts. I know Members see the toll this is taking on our Nation's children, our most vulnerable. Nearly 60 percent of teachers are worried about a shooting happening in their school, and one in four had a gun-related lockdown during the last school year. According to the Pew Research Center, one in five parents was extremely concerned about their child getting shot, and Republican leadership wants to do nothing.

This is barbaric. It is past time, Madam Speaker, and we are ready to work in a bipartisan way to end the epidemic of gun violence in this country.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ivey) to discuss our proposal.

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland.

Madam Speaker, the gentleman keeps on talking about crime in D.C., crime in D.C., crime on the rise. I can tell you one thing; the crime is definitely down in the White House right now and I can understand why the gentleman is confused.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from the Washington Post, entitled: ``Crime is down, though FOX News viewers might not be aware.''

The article notes: ``The reality is that crime surged in 2020--when Trump was President. That surge continued into the Biden administration but has since waned.''

Madam Speaker, in the lead up to the 2022 midterms, FOX News invested immense resources in promoting stories about surging crime, despite lacking evidence. While crime is down, it appears the conservative ecosystem is trying to fearmonger the issue of crime, once again, because, you know, that is all they have.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from The Guardian, entitled: ``Crime coverage on FOX News halved once U.S. midterms were over.''

Madam Speaker, so after a frenzy of coverage about violent crime in September and October 2022, the conservative media giant FOX News actually decreased coverage of violent crime stories by 50 percent in the weeks following the 2022 elections.

Crime stories have long been used by Republicans to fearmonger for cheap, electoral victories, and it seems like this old tactic is being utilized, once again, in 2024, all while 80 percent of Republicans support cutting the COPS grant program.

Madam Speaker, I urge my friends who don't believe me to go to the Republican Study Committee FY 2025 Budget proposal--this is the most recent one--and go to page 148. You will see under the heading, Reduce Funding for Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), it is my Republican friends--for all the talk about defunding the police--that are leading the way because there in their Republican Study Committee, which is the largest caucus in the Republican Conference, they have put out a report highlighting their budget priorities, which talks about eliminating the COPS program. You can't make this stuff up.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I am unable to rebut all the nonsense I just heard, and I am exhausted by this debate. Let me touch on two things. First, we haven't heard a single word from our colleagues across the aisle acknowledging the very real challenges civilians in Gaza are experiencing every day under this war. We have not heard a single word.

If we send massive 2,000-pound bombs to Netanyahu without any assurances on how they will be used, it could mean unprecedented, catastrophic civilian casualties. I mean, these are people that we are talking about, innocent people--boys and girls, brothers and sisters, moms and dads, grandparents, babies.

Where is our humanity? Where is our humanity? These are people who are already struggling with shortages of food, water, shelter, medical supplies, the basic things that humans need to survive. They fled to Rafah because that is where Netanyahu told them to go to escape the bombing of Hamas. Now, Netanyahu is saying he is going to bomb them anyway, and there is no plan to safely evacuate them to any other place.

I don't care whether there is another country that does it. Killing civilians is wrong. It is always wrong. You can be a friend of Israel, a strong ally of Israel, and also be a critic when it comes to the Netanyahu government.

You can be a strong friend of Israel and say that more massive civilian casualties will undercut Israel's security. This is not the way to go.

You can feel as I do that what happened on October 7, the horrific attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians. It was unconscionable. There aren't enough adjectives to describe how horrific that was.

The taking of hostages is a war crime. We want them released. You can feel that way, but also understand that we have an obligation to protect civilian lives in Gaza.

I am grateful to President Biden for taking the step that he did, and I wish he would do more, quite frankly. It is disappointing for me to see that so many of my friends across the aisle seem indifferent to it.

Madam Speaker, coming down here to get lectured about crime from the party whose leader is a criminal is really something else.

My friend from New York not once rebutted our contention that Republicans have advocated cutting the COPS grant because it is here in print. Anybody can see it.

For those who want to know why this program is good, it is because it provides money to help local law enforcement be able to hire and recruit police officers, especially in areas where budgets are tight.

It is a lifeline for so many communities, rural and urban, all throughout this country, and they are advocating eliminating it. Give me a break.

None of the measures the House of Representatives are putting forth this week do a single thing to protect Americans, secure our communities, or improve law enforcement.

Madam Speaker, the real shame here is that if Republicans were willing to set their partisanship aside and work across the aisle, maybe we could get something substantive done because the reality is that Democrats want to keep people safe, and we know how to do it.

We need to invest in programs that get at the root causes of crime, and we need to address gun violence in our schools and make sure police aren't put in situations that they aren't trained to handle. We know the key to improving safety in our neighborhoods is not to use our law enforcement officers like political pawns.

At the end of the day, the Republican commitment to chaos, extremism, and politicking over legislating is hurting our ability to improve people's lives. I have to be honest: I think it is going to backfire on them.

Even one of our Republican colleagues took to the floor and said as much last year: ``Nothing but empty promises.'' He went to say: ``We haven't done anything,'' meaning Republicans. ``One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing--one--that I can go campaign on and say we did--one--anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done.''

That is a Republican saying that. They know they are getting nowhere in this Congress.

All I can say, Madam Speaker, is the American people deserve better, and they certainly deserve better than the Speaker of the House spending his time trying to influence our justice system at a courthouse in New York City. How pathetic. When we have real problems that we need to deal with here in this country, he is in New York trying to explain away, like a staffer, all of Donald Trump's problems, quite frankly.

I am trying to think of a way to stay within order here with the new rules. It is pathetic. It is pathetic. That is where the Speaker of the House is spending his time, trying to rationalize all of the former President's crimes. Give me a break.

Madam Speaker, the American people, as I said, deserve better. I urge a strong ``no'' vote on this rule. This is just a waste of time. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I start by humbly suggesting that the majority needs someone new working on legislative acronyms for these messaging bills. This is the DC CRIMES Act, which stands for the D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act of 2024.

``Immediately make everyone safe.'' That doesn't sound like legislation. It sounds like a Penn & Teller magic trick to me.

If the gentleman from Florida can actually immediately make everyone safe, the gentleman should not only be Donald Trump's running mate, as I keep hearing about, but the gentleman should be the Mayor of the District of Columbia.

The D.C. Criminal Reforms to Immediately Make Everyone Safe Act is the fourth bill that the majority has brought to the floor to vilify, heckle, and micromanage the elected Mayor and Council of the District of Columbia on the appalling conceit that the distinguished Members of the Republican Conference from Florida or Kentucky or Arizona care more about public safety and public welfare in Washington, D.C., than do the 700,000 people who

live there and their elected officials on the D.C. Council and the Mayor.

This one is even more sweeping and radical than their prior bills. It doesn't simply overturn one specific current D.C. law. It permanently strips D.C. of authority over any of its criminal laws, making this legislation, perhaps inadvertently, I concede, the largest proposed rollback of D.C.'s authority to govern itself in nearly 30 years.

Our colleagues may be shocked to learn during this debate what exactly it is they are being asked to vote for today. At the Rules Committee meeting yesterday, I asked the Republican Members whether they understood what this bill actually does if you take the time to read the language. None of them seemed to know.

Let me explain. The bill amends the D.C. Home Rule Act to say that the D.C. Council may not ``enact any act, resolution, or rule to change any criminal . . . sentence in effect on the date of the enactment of the DC CRIMES Act of 2024.''

In other words, if this bill becomes law, the D.C. Council could never increase criminal penalties again without Congress acting first, nor could it create any new criminal offenses at all.

This is their big tough-on-crime package the majority offers the Congress: No increases in criminal sentences indefinitely in the District of Columbia, and no new offenses can be passed at all.

Say the D.C. Council wanted to create a new criminal offense for directing an organized retail theft ring. Mr. Donalds' bill would prevent them from doing it.

Say D.C. wanted to make it a crime to possess a firearm with a removed or altered or mutilated serial number. Under Mr. Donalds' bill, they would be barred from doing so.

In fact, that is precisely what D.C. just did a few months ago. My Republican colleagues seem blissfully oblivious to the fact that, earlier this year, responding to the spike in crime occurring across America--not just in Washington, D.C., of course--the D.C. Council passed a 63-page law called the Secure DC Omnibus Emergency Amendment Act of 2024, which dramatically increased criminal penalties for nine different crimes and created six new criminal offenses.

The D.C. bill, which was passed unanimously by the council and signed into law by the Mayor, does what Republicans have so eloquently been orating about on the floor. It increased criminal penalties, including for gun crimes, violence in parks, violence committed against vulnerable people, and violence committed against rideshare drivers, Metro drivers, and transit workers.

The Secure DC Omnibus Emergency Amendment Act also created a host of new offenses, including directing a retail theft ring, strangulation, firing bullets in public, possessing a firearm with a removed or altered serial number, and unlawful discarding of firearms or ammunition.

They addressed the actual problems that they are experiencing in their city, something our colleagues seriously know nothing about and don't care about. If Mr. Donalds' bill had actually been law at the time, the D.C. Council would have been barred from enacting all of these tough-on-crime penalties altogether, and they will be barred in the future from responding to the kinds of spikes in crime that they experience.

Amazingly, the gentleman proposes this naked power grab against Washington, denying them the crime-fighting tools they need, despite the fact that they have done a good job and total crime in D.C. is down 16 percent in 2024 compared to the same period last year, which was conceded by the Republicans in the Rules Committee yesterday.

There has been a 26-percent reduction in violent crime in 2024, which they conceded in the Rules Committee yesterday, and a 22-percent reduction in homicides.

In other words, local democracy works. Let the local governments respond to the problems they are having, but our colleagues insist that crime is still spiking in D.C., despite the evidence to the contrary.

What is their big tough-on-crime solution? The bold solution Republicans offer us to combat crime in the Nation's Capital is to prohibit the D.C. Council from ever increasing any criminal penalties and blocking the D.C. Council from ever creating any new crimes.

If that is not what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle intend to do, then I think my colleagues need to go back and try again with some new legislation.

In any event, for my Republican colleagues who love to castigate the people of D.C., who I concede voted more than 90 percent against Donald Trump in the last election, I would respectfully suggest that the majority considers the following fact: D.C. has higher maximum criminal penalties than many Republican States do. Let's compare.

The maximum penalty for armed robbery in D.C. is 30 years. In Kentucky, represented by the chairman of the Oversight Committee, the maximum is 20 years, 50 percent less. In North Dakota, it is 10 years, or 66 percent less.

In D.C., criminals can receive a 40-year sentence for armed carjacking. In Kentucky, represented by the chairman of the Oversight Committee, carjacking is not a separate independent offense. You have to charge somebody with armed robbery, but even then, you can only get half the sentence you can get in D.C. for carjacking.

Despite all of the fine election-year rhetoric we have heard, there is something profoundly antithetical to our system of government in what the gentleman is proposing. If you read the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson set forth a bill of particulars against King George and the Parliament, and one of the central allegations of it was that they were denying the colonists the right to define criminal offenses for themselves. People over in England were dictating to people in our country what the criminal offenses should be, and that is like, with all due respect, the gentleman from Florida dictating to the people in Washington, D.C., how they should order their affairs when it comes to the criminal law.

Jefferson would have understood very well the situation that we are in, and our friends in Washington, 713,000 taxpaying, draftable U.S. citizens, have petitioned for statehood because they no longer want to be kicked around by other people's Representatives. They want to have an equal say in this body and an equal say in the U.S. Senate. They don't want other people's Representatives telling them that they can't pass the criminal offenses or the increased criminal sentences that they want for their crimes.

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

Mr. Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Arizona invites us to believe that the people of Washington, D.C., don't want to respond to spikes in crime in their own city. It is only in response to hearings called by Republican Members of Congress. I think that is an affront to our fellow citizens who obviously care deeply about what is going on in their own city, and I daresay a lot more than those of us who represent other jurisdictions, because we care principally about the places that we represent.

Mr. Speaker, I will say before yielding to my friend from the District of Columbia that you don't have to look like a monarch or a tyrant to act like a monarch or a tyrant.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), the distinguished, nonvoting delegate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

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

Let's see, no one on the other side has contradicted the plain, commonsense interpretation of this bill, which is that the District of Columbia Council will now be disabled from ever increasing a criminal penalty again, a criminal sentence again, and the District of Columbia Council will never be able to create a new criminal offense like the one they just created for running a retail theft ring, which has become a problem across the country in a lot of places. A lot of States have legislated on that. I know Maryland has legislated on that.

I am just wondering whether anyone on that side would yield for a question whether this is the deliberate intention of this legislation or it is just a mistake or whether they don't accept that plain, commonsense reading of the language of the bill because we are voting on something far more drastic and sweeping than what was represented by the sponsor's original statement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop), momentarily, so that he can answer my question.

Are we interpreting it properly?

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

Before the gentleman leaves the Chamber, I thought I might note, I am going to give him some examples, some anecdotes and data since he appears to be legislating by vignette: In Summerville, South Carolina, last week there was a severe armed carjacking by three teenage suspects. In April, a man wanted for murder in Rock Hill was captured following another carjacking at a Huntersville QuikTrip.

I could give you a dozen of those. I don't think that the answer to any of that would be to disenfranchise the people of South Carolina or to have Congress usurp the State legislative authority or the local authority there.

My friend from Florida describes the District of Columbia as a Federal enclave, which of course it is not. A Federal enclave is a Federal property or land, like in Rockville, Maryland, which is my district, where we have the NIH. That is a Federal enclave.

This is the District constituting the seat of government set forth in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution.

Now, both of my friends over there say, well, we are going to take just a small step in the right direction.

How is it the right direction to deprive the people of the District of Columbia the power to have control over their own criminal sentencing, including the power to increase criminal sentences? If they had passed this legislation at the beginning of the year, they would have foreclosed the ability of the District of Columbia to increase criminal penalties across the board on a whole range of offenses and perhaps even to create new criminal offenses in the District.

The gentleman from South Carolina lectured the people of Washington, D.C., about criminal incidents taking place here, and of course there are criminal incidents taking place also in South Carolina in the exact same way.

However, how about something that took place even closer to home? How about the violent mob insurrection where a mob incited by the ex- President violently assaulted Capitol Police officers and Metropolitan Police Department officers who were forced to deploy to the Capitol, and nearly 150 of them ended up brutalized, wounded, and hospitalized after being hit over the head or in the chest or stabbed or speared by steel pipes, Confederate battle flags, Trump flags, and American flags, shamefully?

Yet, we have the ex-President and a number of people who are his sycophants over on that side of the aisle describing people who are in jail for that, a majority of them having pled guilty

for those offenses, the others convicted after due process of law, calling those people hostages.

A hostage is someone who has been illegally abducted by a terrorist or criminal entity, like Hamas, and held for a financial or political ransom. Yet, shamefully, there are people on that side of the aisle who call the prisoners who have been convicted after having been given every aspect of American due process and right to counsel, they are calling them hostages or political prisoners, like Alexei Navalny or Nelson Mandela. That is what they have come to.

They want to denounce a criminal event that happened six blocks away. What about the massive criminal event, the most massive criminal event in the history of the Nation's Capital that came right into this Chamber, forcing the Senators and Representatives to flee, and they won't say a word about it. Yet, they get up and they denounce lawlessness, and they won't even denounce lawlessness that comes right into the Congress and the Capitol of the United States.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for pointing out that I accurately cited the statistics for all of the declines in crime and violent crime and homicides in the District of Columbia in 2024.

Alas, I do have to correct my friend in his history because there might be some students watching this. Thomas Jefferson never signed the Constitution. He was, of course, on a diplomatic mission when the Constitution was being signed in Philadelphia, but he did write the Declaration of Independence.

The other side says, bizarrely, that the District of Columbia Council and the Mayor should be denied the authority to increase criminal sentences forthwith because they have shown no inclination to increase criminal sentences.

Leaving aside the absolute illogic of the argument, it is also false because the District of Columbia in the secure D.C. act, passed just 2 months ago, increased criminal sentences across the board, which I am afraid my friends were completely oblivious to when they started this legislation. They weren't aware of it.

The people who claim to be speaking for the populous of Washington, D.C., didn't know that the Council had just acted to dramatically increase criminal penalties in the city. They denied them the right to further increase criminal penalties in the city because they say they haven't shown any inclination to do so which, of course, makes no sense and is also completely false.

All of this is pure political theater. It is bad political theater. Somebody decided a long time ago that it works for people who would never try to kick around their own State legislatures, their own county councils, or their own city councils to kick around the people of Washington, D.C.

My friends think that they have scored some kind of huge rhetorical coup, pointing out Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution, which indeed says that Congress shall exercise exclusive legislation over the District, constituting the seat of government from land that is ceded by various States.

Nobody on this side of the aisle, including the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, has denied that for a second.

What we have said is this is a massive assault on home rule, and it is also an embarrassing one because it cuts completely against all of the rhetoric that we are hearing from our colleagues across the aisle.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think we have made some progress in this conversation because a plain reading of the distinguished gentleman from Florida's legislation indicates that what he is telling the District of Columbia is you may never increase criminal penalties again. The only time there can be an increase in criminal penalties in the District of Columbia is if Congress does it.

Unfortunately, this Congress has a hard time even keeping a Speaker in place without them trying to vacate the chair and topple the Speaker.

This Congress, as the whole country knows, has been absolute chaos and dysfunction and disorganization from the beginning.

I don't blame the people from Washington, D.C., who sent us these letters; the Mayor, the Council, and the Attorney General of D.C. saying thanks, but no thanks. We will take it from here.

The people in D.C. are perfectly able to decide what criminal offenses they need in the District of Columbia and how the sentences should be set and fixed.

They have courts in the District of Columbia, they have a legislature, the Council for the District of Columbia, which is elected from their eight wards and four at-large members and the chairman of the Council, and they have a Mayor. They have advisory neighborhood commissions.

I wonder if any of my colleagues over there are active in any of the wards or advisory neighborhood commissions where they live. I tend to doubt it.

The people of D.C., I understand from Congresswoman Norton, are actually involved in the governance of their city and the management of their local affairs.

Yet, in this totally ham-handed and almost comically dysfunctional attempt to score points against D.C., they come up with legislation which says D.C. can never increase criminal penalties, again, when they are accusing D.C. of being too soft on crime, despite the fact that we are able to show that D.C. has tougher criminal sentences than many of the States represented by the Members who have been speaking about this over the last several days.

All of it feels a lot, to me, like a silly election-year stunt. I don't think anyone thinks that this is serious legislation, but I am glad at least that the other side has conceded that the bill means what it says.

They want to strip the District of Columbia of any power to increase criminal sentences in their city. I simply think that that is a terrible form of public policy and is a major inroad against home rule over the last several decades when, in fact, what we should be doing is giving the people of D.C. greater political self-government and giving them the rights to equal representation which, of course, was the aforementioned Jefferson's ideal for the country.

If you go back and read the Northwest Ordinance, he thought that every part of the country would eventually attain a level of political equality by admission to Statehood through Article IV of the Constitution.

That is the spirit of the Constitution, not kicking around people, our fellow citizens, because we think we have more power than them, and we can score some political points off them.

Why don't we have a hearing about Statehood for the District of Columbia, and let's keep the engines of democracy, freedom, and political equality in the country moving.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this overly broad and unnecessary legislation. Supposedly, this bill would subject any undocumented immigrant to mandatory immigration detention if they commit an assault on a law enforcement officer.

To be clear, that is already current law.

However, this bill goes far beyond that. It would subject even those individuals with lawful status, like DACA and temporary protected status, to mandatory detention if they are merely arrested or charged with assault on a law enforcement officer.

There are no provisions to protect those who are mistakenly arrested and are released without charges. In addition, the definition of ``assault'' varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Nevertheless, this bill adopts the definition of ``assault'' used in the local jurisdiction to subject somebody to mandatory detention.

That means that conduct that people would not normally think of as an assault, like literally touching an officer, could result in an arrest and mandatory detention. Furthermore, people are mistakenly arrested for assault on a police officer far more often than we would like to admit.

When this bill was introduced, it was clearly in response to an incident earlier this year in which some recently arrived migrants allegedly assaulted a group of law enforcement officers in Times Square.

That incident sparked outrage across the country, but our Republican colleagues directed much of their ire at one particular individual who flipped off TV cameras as he left his arraignment. The image was plastered all over FOX News and was promoted by former President Trump as a symbol of everything that is wrong with the Biden administration's approach to immigration.

There was only one problem, Mr. Chairman. As it turned out, that specific individual, who everyone was so quick to demonize and attack, had the charges dropped against him. Despite being arrested and initially charged, he was not even present when this crime occurred.

We also see this in protests, where one person gets unruly and the police arrest everyone in the crowd.

Let's be clear: Violence is never the answer and should never be used in a political protest. It was wrong for people to assault the police right here in the United States Capitol on January 6, just as it is wrong for people to assault the police or anyone else during any protest, regardless of their politics.

That is why U.S. law already makes assault a crime. Admitting to or being convicted of a serious assault on a law enforcement officer already results in immigration consequences under current law, including mandatory detention and deportation.

This bill doesn't change that, doesn't make anybody safer, and doesn't fix any problems in the immigration system. Instead, this legislation deems everyone guilty until proven innocent.

It serves only to further the Republican agenda to fearmonger about immigrants and keep immigration in the news during an election year while, at the same time, bankrolling the private, for-profit prison companies.

This bill is going nowhere fast, just like the very similar bill that House Republicans passed last Police Week.

The American people aren't stupid. They see what House Republicans are doing. They want meaningful reforms to the system, and they know that bills like this would do absolutely nothing toward that end.

House Republicans refuse to negotiate on immigration, and the majority fails to do anything that would actually solve some of these problems we face, only to turn around and complain when those problems get worse.

This is political theater at its worst, and I urge all of my colleagues to join with me to oppose this legislation.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Chairman, assaulting a law enforcement officer is a serious offense that deserves both criminal and immigration consequences. That is why serious assaults on law enforcement officers are already immigration violations that require detention and deportation.

The bill before us today would do absolutely nothing to change that. This legislation instead would dramatically expand the type of conduct that would subject somebody to mandatory detention, to include people who may not have even committed a crime at all.

That is not a good use of our limited law enforcement resources. Instead of wasting our time on these bills that do nothing to fix our immigration system and stand no chance of becoming law, we should be talking about how to create a workable immigration system that allows Americans to reunite with their families and allows American businesses and universities to attract the best and the brightest, essentially creating a workable process so that people wouldn't be forced to go to the border as the only way to come to the United States.

We should be talking about the fact that immigrants are good for the country and good for our economy. One in four American doctors were born abroad, and roughly 45 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Seventy percent of agricultural workers are immigrants.

Immigrants feed us, heal us, and help ensure that this country remains an economic powerhouse. We could be embracing the positive impacts of immigrants rather than demonizing them.

The Congressional Budget Office recently announced that new immigrants will add $1 trillion in previously unexpected revenue to our country's GDP between 2023 and 2024. Similarly, the Department of Health and Human Services found that, over a 15-year period, asylees and refugees contributed nearly $124 billion more in revenue than they received in services from the government. Documented and undocumented immigrants paid tens of billions of dollars in taxes each year.

The majority insists on scapegoating and fearmongering immigrants. It is true that the immigration system has deep problems, but they cannot be solved through an enforcement-only approach. We have been trying that approach for 30 years, and it has failed.

The truth is that the immigration system is all connected. People are coming to the border because the legal immigration system has not been updated in over 30 years, and they cannot find any other pathway to come in.

The majority often talks about legal immigrants. Let me say that the wait time for some permanent residents to bring their families into this country is over a century-long--a century for legal permanent residents to bring their family members into the country.

Employers are begging us to modernize the employment-based immigration system because the limits on high-tech visas were set when floppy disks were the height of technology. These companies cannot hire the people who they need.

Additionally, the small number of immigration judges that we have are absolutely crushed under a massive backlog of asylum cases so extensive that it is now taking people over 8 years to even get a hearing.

Why doesn't the majority just help us put more money into immigration judges so we can resolve that backlog? Why not open legal pathways for people who are trying to come here legally?

I know this, Mr. Chairman, because I came here, and it took me 17 years to navigate the immigration system and become a U.S. citizen, but that was several decades ago. Now, you can't even get through the process.

I hope that one day we can get back to actually governing, to passing real bills that can make a difference in the lives of the American people. I fear, Mr. Chairman, that today is not that day.

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

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chair, this amendment requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study and report to Congress on the number of undocumented immigrants detained for committing an assault against a law enforcement officer over the past 5 years.

It is important for us to take a step back and remind ourselves what the underlying legislation is about. This bill would subject even those individuals with a lawful status like DACA or temporary protected status to mandatory detention if they are merely arrested or charged with an assault on a law enforcement officer. There are no

provisions to protect those who are mistakenly arrested and are released without charges. This is an unnecessary expansion of the law, which already subjects people to mandatory detention and deportation if they admit to or are convicted of such assault.

In fact, I imagine that this report would demonstrate that the underlying legislation is wholly unnecessary because it would show that under current law people who commit assaults on law enforcement are already subject to detention. Therefore, I see no reason to oppose this amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, this legislation has absolutely nothing to do with the border. It doesn't do anything to secure our border. It doesn't do anything to fix the broken immigration system. I don't oppose this amendment because I actually think it is going to make my point at the end of the day with the report. I don't oppose this amendment.

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

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment would expand the scope of this already bad bill to include campus police and school resource officers under the term ``law enforcement officers.''

Unfortunately, this amendment makes a bad bill even worse while highlighting one of the many flaws in the bill.

First, the fact that Mr. Norman felt the need to file this amendment to begin with just highlights the lack of clarity around this bill. As we have discussed, this bill will subject any inadmissible immigrant to mandatory immigration detention for merely being arrested or charged with assault on a law enforcement officer or first responder, but the bill lacks any definition for what is considered a first responder. Mr. Norman was clearly concerned with this as well and felt the need to make sure that campus police and school resource officers were included.

Unfortunately, Mr. Norman's amendment does not bring any additional clarity to the definition of first responder, and it even adds another undefined term, ``school resource officer.''

Now, Mr. Norman could easily have remedied this by choosing the definition that exists in title 34 of the U.S. Code, but for some reason he did not. States all over the country use different definitions for school resource officers. They have different duties and functions depending on the State, so this amendment raises far more questions than it begins to answer.

On top of the poor drafting, this amendment expands an already bad bill and makes the bill worse. As I discussed during general debate, it is quite common during protests for law enforcement to arrest an entire group of people after one person in the crowd gets unruly.

After the largely peaceful protests that we have seen on college campuses over the last month, protests made up largely of young people and teenagers, it would be a mistake to extend this definition to include campus police.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, none of us are condoning violence on campuses. All I said is that the vast majority of protesters on campuses have been peaceful. What happens when one person does something and the entire group is arrested is relevant for this amendment. I don't think anybody believes that that should be the case.

I am not really sure why the gentleman felt the need to clarify exactly what the definition was in this underlying legislation except that it wasn't clear, which is the point that I have been making all along. The problem is that the amendment actually makes other terms unclear, as well.

Mr. Chairman, as I said, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment requires that the Department of Homeland Security provide an annual report to the Judiciary Committee of the House and the Senate containing the number of immigrants the Department detained as a result of this bill in that year.

Under this bill, that report would include people being detained even if a person is merely arrested and never charged or after the charges against them were dropped. It is important to remember that this bill does not include any waivers or provisions to exempt people who were mistakenly arrested or found not guilty.

I really hope that this report, if requested, will contain a breakdown of the number of people detained by category so that we could see how many innocent people were subject to mandatory detention under this bill. Right now, the amendment doesn't get into that level of detail, but I hope my colleagues across the aisle will work with me to make sure that we get all of the data that is provided, including that breakdown.

Nevertheless, while this amendment does nothing to improve the underlying legislation, it doesn't do anything to make it worse, and so I therefore see no reason to oppose it.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am not opposed to the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1227, I call up the bill (H.R. 7581) to require the Attorney General to develop reports relating to violent attacks against law enforcement officers, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

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. 7581.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to be the lead sponsor of H.R. 7581, the Improving Law Enforcement Officer Safety and Wellness Through Data Act, and I rise in support of it.

The bill would refine and expand the gathering and analysis of data about attacks on law enforcement officers across the country, our current-day scourge. Its sponsorship is bipartisan and bicameral. I am grateful for the leadership in the Senate of Senators Grassley, Tillis, and others, and the support of 25 bipartisan cosponsors in the House.

The justification, Mr. Speaker, is obvious. Just yesterday, the FBI forecast the release of its annual report on officers assaulted and feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2023, reporting that ``from 2021 to 2023, more officers were feloniously killed (194) than in any other consecutive 3-year period in the past 20 years,'' and 2024 is on track to be the worst year of any, other than 2021, because a repeat criminal who should have been in jail gunned down four heroes in Charlotte 2 weeks ago and injured five others. Criminals killed 10 cops nationwide in April alone. Until the full 2023 report is released, the latest data is that over 66,000 officers were assaulted in 2022.

This bill will deepen the available dataset in three ways: Reporting on the intentionality of targeting law enforcement officers because of their status as sworn officers; tracking aggression and trauma-inducing incidents that do not rise to crime; and cataloging the availability to officers of mental health resources to deal with the attacks they suffer.

One would expect unanimous support, and yet in the Judiciary Committee, Democrats amazingly sought to gut and replace the entire bill with the same old antipolice legislation to impair qualified immunity for police officers, create a national registry of police misconduct, and require implicit bias training, and so forth.

If reacting to unprecedented killings and assaults of cops by intimidating and undermining cops sounds backwards and astonishing to you, watch the vote on this bill.

The truth is that the strong impulse and desire among Democrats to demonize and delegitimize police remain powerful and just under the surface, even as many of them deny they ever uttered the words ``defund'' and ``abolish'' during the 2020 summer of love, which spawned mass riots and increased attacks and killings of not only police officers but also those most in need of their protection.

Especially here in Washington, D.C., the effects of this most irresponsible rhetoric in the history of American politics have been catastrophic.

Crime remains out of control, especially among juveniles, carjackings and assaults on Congressmen, a 20-year murder record.

Congress has disapproved with Joe Biden's signature the D.C. Council's radical rewrite of the District's criminal law that eliminated mandatory minimums and cut maximum sentences for most crimes.

Two D.C. Council members face recall efforts by citizens beset by violent crime, and the Metropolitan Police Department has lost almost 600 of its 4,000-member force and almost every month loses more than it hires.

Yet, some Democrats will vote against this little bill to collect more information about attacks on officers.

It must be considered under a rule because it might not get the two- thirds majority required to pass on suspension as many such little bills do.

Here, to my right, are the searing consequences of this unforgivable political division--the human cost of the worst attack on law enforcement since 2026.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Officer Joshua Eyer, North Carolina Corrections Officers Sam Poloche and Alden Elliott, and Thomas Weeks, Jr., United States Deputy Marshal, all lost their lives on April 29.

I have been to their funerals. I have seen and heard from their families. May their names long endure in our memory.

One could list the other lives taken from us longer ago but just as strong in our memories: Jonathan Diller, NYPD officer shot and killed in March during a traffic stop, leaving behind a wife and a 1-year-old son; Philip Dale Nix, Greensboro police sergeant killed at a Sheetz gas station interdicting criminals who wanted to steal mass quantities of beer the night before New Year's Eve; Ned Byrd, Wake County, North Carolina, sheriff's deputy, ambushed and shot to death by illegals in 2022; Ryan Hendrix, Henderson County, North Carolina deputy, lost his life in a shoot-out with a hardened criminal wanted in multiple states; David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired police captain, fatally shot interrupting a burglary in St. Louis during the George Floyd riots in 2020; and far, far too many others to name in the time allowed. Is it time yet to come around?

The former New York City Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton, said about that place: Don't hold your breath. The State and the city council have been captured by the progressive left, and it is unlikely that the voters are going to take them out of office anytime soon.

Let's prove that the same cannot be said of Congress one way or the other. Support our men and women in blue--the American people certainly do, the overwhelming majority of them.

Let's pass this little bill and develop the information necessary so that we can protect the officers who serve us, who risk their lives every day.

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

Mr. Speaker, as the comments to the gentlewoman from Washington developed, it became clear.

She said at first I mischaracterized what occurred in the Judiciary Committee, and then it became clear that I didn't mischaracterize anything.

What they offered to do was to, again, take this bill, which provides for additional data collection about attacks on law enforcement officers, to take the entire text of the bill and to gut it and replace it with, yes, indeed, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is the name, and that is the bill that I described as having attempted to impair officer qualified immunity, to require training on implicit bias, and to establish a database to impugn officers nationwide.

That is the bill that was a very top priority of Democrats when they were in the majority. It passed on the floor under their majority rule, and it went on to the Senate where it didn't advance, for good reason, because the last thing America needs--again, as demonstrated by the events in Washington, D.C., the last thing America needs is police officers to be brushed back from their jobs and to be intimidated from doing the very tough work of criminal law enforcement by legislation that antagonizes, demeans, and delegitimizes them. That is the last thing they need.

Here we are. It is remarkable. Is this the only reporting bill that has ever come up that Democrats find objectionable because of their interest in good and efficient government?

Is it that they are concerned about the possibility that the bill might not have excellent impacts or be efficient or advance the game or break new ground? What is the harm, after all?

Here is what the harm is: Democrats cannot abide by even the simplest of legislation that recognizes the burdens that are borne every day by police officers across this country on our behalf; that they are being subjected to greater and greater incidents and risk of attacks on their persons and of their deaths in the line of duty by people who intend to do them harm, and that there may be gaps in terms of the resources that are available to them to deal with the difficulties they confront.

The response that you need to do the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in lieu of this reporting bill is absurd. It is gaslighting in the highest degree.

This little reporting bill, there is just nothing to it, and, yet, for some reason, it sticks in the craw of the minority just to say to police officers: We are going to extend further efforts, further minimal efforts to learn the information that we need to find out, to see just how big this problem is and whether you are being afforded the opportunity to deal with it in your personal lives as it wreaks havoc on you.

Joshua Eyer, Sam Poloche, Alden Elliott, Thomas Weeks, Jr.: One of the worst attacks on law enforcement ever.

Shouldn't we go and find out what we need to know for their benefit? Is that not an appropriate way, that little bill? Would that not be an appropriate way to honor their memory?

Is the concern with efficiency and breaking new ground so profound that you have to replace the bill to find out information about the assaults on them with the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that was rejected last Congress? It is simply astonishing, and Americans aren't going to tolerate it.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me speak more directly to the circumstances in Washington, D.C., and what has transpired as a consequence of exactly the kind of policing bill represented by the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which the minority proposed in the Judiciary Committee to gut and replace this bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).

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

Madam Speaker, I think it bears repeating, in light of that extraordinary commentary, that right here in the District of Columbia, to the affliction of 700,000, roughly, local citizens and the 19 million who visit annually, exactly the kind of radical politicization that would say this reporting bill is beyond the pale and that you have to have the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. That is exactly what they did in D.C. That is exactly what they have done to lead to citizen-led recall petitions on two D.C. councilmembers, what they have done to see carjackings explode in ways that no one ever thought possible, to have a 20-year record of homicides last year, and to have one D.C. councilmember still touting that he managed, because of the budget politics, to take millions and millions out of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department so that their force has declined from 4,000 by 600 or more and continues to decline 3 years into the phenomenon.

How far will ideology go to take us beyond common sense to a point we can't recover? Let's do a little reporting bill and find out the details. Let's get a rich dataset about this scourge that we see across the Nation precipitated and encouraged by those who still cannot bring themselves to say that law enforcement officers are a needed quantity, that the Nation must have them, that law and order must prevail in order for the country to succeed.

How could we have come to a point in the country where that cannot be conceded readily by everyone in the political spectrum? I do not know. I do not understand, but that is where we are.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, cheap talk. That is what the gentleman from New York just said: cheap talk. Madam Speaker, there is nothing cheap about it. Behold the price.

That is why when this body, when this Republican House, undertook to disapprove the D.C. crime bill that would have radically rewritten criminal law in the District of Columbia, this body disapproved it with the support of over 30 Democrats. That is why Chuck Schumer and the Democratic majority in the Senate joined in disapproving that radical rewrite of the criminal law in the District of Columbia. That is why Joe Biden signed the law to disapprove the radical rewrite of the criminal law in D.C.

What is cheap talk is the concern that this would produce a duplicate report. That is the objection, that the report might be duplicative? Really?

I would take duplicative reports from here to kingdom come if there is the slightest chance that it will avoid this unspeakable price. Everybody in the Chamber should support the bill.

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

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