Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 2) to secure the borders of the United States, and for other purposes, and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1163) to provide incentives for States to recover fraudulently paid Federal and State unemployment compensation, and for other purposes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the child deportation act. This cruel, inhumane, and unworkable bill was written in an extreme MAGA Republican echo chamber.

Considering H.R. 2 today under a closed rule is a cynical move on the part of Republicans to exploit the operational challenges associated with the lifting of title 42 public health restrictions.

Republicans have a short memory. Just in February, they voted to lift title 42 when they voted to lift the COVID-19 health emergency. It sets Customs and Border Protection up for failure by shifting all processing to ports of entry without providing any additional resources.

To make matters worse, it would bar CBP from leveraging technology to process migrants in an orderly way. H.R. 2 doesn't fund a single new officer at our ports of entry, where more than 90 percent of fentanyl is interdicted.

In committee, we tried to get an additional 1,700 officers to build greater capacity, but Republicans refused to do it.

Furthermore, this xenophobic bill would strip DHS funding from any community or religious organization that helps migrants. The language is so broad that an organization that places water in a remote area of the desert or provides a pregnant mother with a safe place to sleep would be ineligible for DHS funding. It is so broad that they may be refused homeland security grants to help protect their facilities.

Denying assistance to nonprofits is just plain shameful, particularly after what we saw in Brownsville this past weekend. There is reporting that a man who rammed his SUV into a crowd outside a migrant shelter, killing 8 and injuring at least 10 others, was fueled by invasion and alien rhetoric. My heart goes out to everyone hurt by this senseless act of violence.

The language in this bill is so far-reaching that it would force the American Red Cross to verify every person's immigration status before providing lifesaving services. Can you imagine if they had to say, ``Show your papers,'' before evacuating people? That is just inhumane.

Get this: H.R. 2 is so broadly written that it would actually impede detention and deportation.

Mr. Speaker, FOX News viewers who support deporting migrants should take a look at section 115(c) in division A. If enacted, it would prohibit DHS from contracting with any nongovernmental organization to transport or shelter ``inadmissible aliens.''

This language would prevent ICE from contracting with private companies to facilitate deportation or provide detention space because these companies are nongovernmental organizations. Yes, you heard that right. This bill is so poorly written that it could actually prevent ICE from deporting people.

Over the next 2 hours, Democrats will discuss many other problematic provisions of this extreme MAGA bill that Republicans cobbled together and that we learned yesterday would blow a $6.1 billion hole in the budget.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this child deportation act, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the extreme MAGA Republican default on America act, which the last speaker voted for, would result in an across-the-board cut of 22 percent for the Department of Homeland Security, which would undermine border security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

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

Mr. Speaker, Republicans want it both ways. First, they vote to reduce the number of Border Patrol agents in the field by 1,400 under their default in America act, and now all of a sudden, they want to do something different. So either you are for it or you are against it, but you can't have it both ways.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

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

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Budget Office says the child deportation act would ``decrease the population of the United States by about 600,000 people, mostly by reducing the number of unaccompanied children present in the country.''

Republicans claim to be concerned about exploitation and abuse of unaccompanied children, but their answer is

to slam the door shut and deport them from the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman).

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

Mr. Speaker, on March 15, Border Patrol Chief Ortiz told the Homeland Security Committee that ``cartels control an awful lot of the southern border south of the United States.''

Last time I checked, south of the United States meant Mexico and not five of the nine U.S. Border Patrol sectors.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).

Mr. Speaker, at some point you have to correct the Record. We had a debt ceiling budget vote several weeks ago. The Republican-approved debt ceiling budget would cut the DHS budget by 22 percent.

So you can't be for something, but you don't invest in what you say you are for.

I will step back a little further and say that if Republicans are really serious about border security, then they would have joined Democrats in passing last year's government funding bill. It provided more than $17 billion to Customs and Border Protection alone and a 17 percent increase in the Border Patrol budget, but unfortunately, Speaker McCarthy voted against that, too.

Democrats have been to the border. In April of this year, I took nine Members to the border. We talked to a lot of people. I have been on the committee quite a while. I have gone to the border a number of times to see, so one visit I didn't go to is not the end of the world. I was on the border before the Speaker was in Congress, so there is history here that we just need to make sure that we all understand.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

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

Mr. Speaker, the extreme MAGA Republican default on America act, which the last Speaker voted for, would result in CBP not being able to seize nearly 900 pounds of fentanyl because of the draconian cuts to its budget.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Robert Garcia).

Mr. Speaker, on February 1, the last speaker voted against the public health emergency that served as the legal basis for the use of title 42 at the southwest border.

My colleagues want to have it both ways, which is why, I guess, he supports H.R. 2, the child deportation act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, if Republicans were serious about border security, they would have joined Democrats in passing last year's government funding bill, which paid for an increase of 300 Border Patrol agents, the first increase since the Obama administration.

Not only did the last speaker not support it, she voted to have 1,400 Border Patrol agents fewer in the field under the extreme MAGA Republican default on America act.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Thanedar).

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2 squeezes Customs and Border Patrol officers working at ports of entry by failing to provide resources to cover the increased workload that will result from the bill.

If Republicans were serious about border security, they would have joined Democrats in passing last year's government funding bill, which appropriated $60 million to hire an additional 125 CBP officers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2 does nothing to combat illicit narcotics like fentanyl. If Republicans were serious about border security, they would have joined Democrats in passing last year's government funding bill, which provided $70 million for intrusive inspection technology at ports of entry where most dangerous drugs are interdicted.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Salinas).

Mr. Speaker, while the imposition of a nationwide E-Verify on all businesses found in this bill is not part of the Homeland Security division, it still affects me as a Member of Congress from a rural part of the country.

I cannot overstate how damaging this language is to the agriculture labor in my district. Many of my rural Republican colleagues know this, too. To put it bluntly, if enacted, this bill will force American farmers to go out of business.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters of opposition against the child deportation act from the AFL-CIO; SEIU, Service Employees International Union; and the Agriculture Workforce Coalition.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the child deportation act provision requiring DHS to negotiate with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to return unaccompanied children will result in 550,000 children being deported back to the violence they fled from over a 10-year period.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2 is an anti-immigrant and un-Christian bill, just as legislation previously introduced by Representative Roy was. That is why nearly 150 community and religious groups oppose it.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters in opposition from 136 community and religious groups, including Bethany Christian Services, Catholic Charities, and Union for Reform Judaism, Sojourners, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Jesuit Conference.

May 8, 2023.

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Vote Recommendation Opposing H.R. 2 Secure the Border Act of 2023

Dear Representative: The undersigned state, local, and

national immigration, civil rights, public health, education,

religious, labor, climate justice, and other organizations

write to respectfully request that you VOTE NO on H.R. 2, the

Secure the Border Act of 2023, set to receive a vote on the

House floor on May 11. The bill would dismantle the asylum

system and cause immeasurable harm to immigrant communities.

The newly elected majority is driving an intentionally

divisive agenda to amplify anti-immigrant animus without

moral and effective policy solutions. We ask you to oppose

this anti-immigrant bill that would:

1. Deport Unaccompanied Children. The bill would end Health

& Human Services funding for legal representation of

unaccompanied children in immigration proceedings, depriving

children of the attorneys their safety depends upon. It would

also provide only a cursory screening process for children at

the border, risking children's summary return to human

trafficking and other dangers. The bill subjects all

unaccompanied children to an accelerated removal process

worse than what currently exists, and allows for detention of

unaccompanied children in jail-like border facilities for up

to 30 days--ten times longer than permitted under current

law.

2. End Asylum. The bill would effectively shut down our

current asylum system by adding dozens of new restrictions on

asylum, including eliminating the right to seek asylum for

those who cross the border between ports of entry and barring

asylum for those who transit through a third country. It

would make it nearly impossible for migrants to seek asylum

in the U.S. and significantly easier to deport asylum

seekers, including families and children, into harm's way.

This will only sow chaos at the border, rather than

ameliorating it.

3. Restart `Remain in Mexico'. The bill would restart the

failed and dangerous Remain in Mexico program for all

migrants, including unaccompanied children who were

previously exempted under the Trump administration. Seeking

to unilaterally return asylum seekers to other countries

without consulting the receiving country nor the migrant

results in refoulement of the migrant to danger and

problematic foreign policy implications.

4. Jail Immigrant Families. The bill would require family

detention for any families attempting to enter the U.S. to

seek asylum, as well as any families who previously entered

the U.S. without visas. Like all immigration detention,

family detention centers have a well-documented history of

abusive conditions, including inadequate medical care and

mental health deterioration for asylum seekers, survivors of

trauma, and children.

5. Mandate E-Verify. The bill would require E-Verify for

all employers in the U.S., severely damaging our economy,

harming American workers, and resulting in billions of

dollars in lost government revenue. National implementation

of E-Verify raises concerns about efficiency, due process,

and racial profiling and decreased employment among Latinos.

6. Gut Programs that Work: The bill would strip funding for

the Alternative To Detention Case Management Pilot Program,

Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the vital

Shelter and Services Program, which has helped communities

around the country receive reimbursement for costs related to

humanitarian responses to migration. These programs have been

effective at providing services crucial to preventing more

deaths under CBP custody and immigrant detention and have

reduced impacts on receiving communities.

7. Burden our Local Communities by Making it Impossible for

Employers to Hire Asylum Seekers with Work Authorization.

This bill eliminates work authorization for asylum seekers

who cross between ports of entry and requires six month

renewal periods for asylum-based employment authorization.

Combined with USCIS processing time, this would effectively

make it impossible for businesses, even in the face oflabor

shortages, to employ asylum seekers. These provisions will

exponentially increase the backlogs at users and make it even

more difficult for USCIS to timely process applications. This

runs counter to bipartisan efforts to improve the employment

authorization process for asylum seekers and will create an

unnecessary burden on local communities.

8. Undermine Essential Partnerships with Humanitarian

Organizations. The bill would bar any and all DHS funding for

NGOs, including faith-based NGOs, that provide shelter,

transportation, food or legal assistance to vulnerable

immigrants, including those who arrive on a visa and later

become ``inadmissible.'' Congress should be investing more in

non-profit organizations providing respite care, legal

service providers, trauma-informed care and community-based

service providers, not subjecting them to the punitive

measures in this legislation. This measure would impact NGOs

across the country that receive DHS funding, including

organizations working with FEMA during an emergency-it's

``show me your papers'' for the Red Cross.

9. Resume Building Trump's Border Wall. The bill would

restart the construction of the border wall, a harmful waste

of taxpayer resources. It would allow DHS to exempt all

border infrastructure construction, development, operation,

and maintenance from any law except the Constitution, thereby

reducing the rule of law at our borders. The bill would also

restrict the ability for landowners, local communities and

tribes to assert legal challenges opposing the construction

of the wall, and thus pave the way for irreparable and

unchecked harms to the borderlands. We have already seen the

negative consequences from the Trump Administration era

resulting in: bulldozed Native American burial sites;

dynamited pristine mountain wilderness; segments of the wall

being constructed in flood plains; and the unjust seizing of

private ranches and farmlands.

10. Eliminate Parole Authority. The bill would decimate the

parole power that presidents historically have used to parole

individuals in response to humanitarian emergencies or in

furtherance of foreign policy objectives. It also precludes

the President's recent parole programs for Ukrainians,

Afghans, Cubans, Haitians, Nicaragruans, and Venezuelans, and

cuts work authorization for parolees.

11. Jail Any Person who Overstays a Visa. The bill would

jail and penalize immigrants who have violated any condition

of their visa or overstayed by 10 days or more, even for

violations that occur due to circumstances beyond the

individuals' control such as a medical emergency. This

provision would even make it a crime for anyone on a visa to

apply for asylum, given they would not have

left once their visa expired. Congress should focus on

solutions that regularize the status of long-term residents

and fix our broken immigration system.

12. Balloon Border Agents. The bill would require Border

Patrol to hire enough agents to reach 22,000 on board

(currently there are roughly 19,500) and restrict Border

Patrol agents from performing ``duties of processing

coordinators.'' Processing coordinators currently perform

duties such as transporting and processing migrants and

carrying out mandatory welfare checks. With only around 1,000

processing coordinators currently in the field, this

restriction would seriously hinder Border Patrol's efforts to

fairly and efficiently process asylum seekers and carry out

their law enforcement mission. CBP is overfunded with funding

streams that push resources towards enforcement and wasteful

surveillance, while humanitarian needs go underfunded.

We urge you to vote in ways that protect immigrants and

VOTE NO against H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023 in

the upcoming floor vote. We must oppose racist, xenophobic,

unconstructive proposals that add fuel to hate and present no

constructive and moral solutions. Thank you for your time and

attention.

Sincerely,

National Organizations:

#WelcomeWithDignity Campaign, African Communities Together,

Alianza Americas, America's Voice, American Civil Liberties

Union, American Federation of Teachers, American Immigration

Council, American Immigration Lawyers Association, American

Psychological Association, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination

Committee (ADC), Asian Americans Advancing Justice

AAJC, Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence,

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would ``affect the legal status of about 4.4 million people who would be granted parole or asylum under current law.''

Parolees fleeing war in Ukraine and the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as those from Haiti and other failed countries in this hemisphere would be required to leave the United States, and CBO anticipates that ``half would reside unlawfully in the United States.''

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

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

Mr. Speaker, Republicans claim that the Biden administration's policies have led to open borders, but nothing could be further from the truth.

President Biden has, with little help from Congress, worked to dissuade migrants from taking the dangerous journey northward. The Biden administration is surging resources to the border. Even as it ramps down title 42 removals, it is using title 8 authorities to promptly remove and bar reentry from certain crossers.

At the same time, the Biden administration is working to make the asylum process more orderly through the CBP One app.

It has also stood up a parole process for certain Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Cuban, and Haitian migrants that in March were credited with a drop of 72 percent in the 7-day average from a high of 1,231 in January.

H.R. 2 would take those tools away from DHS.

Mr. Speaker, in the unlikely event that this cruel, extreme, and unworkable bill makes it to the President's desk, he has promised to veto it.

To quote the Statement of Administration Policy: ``H.R. 2 does nothing to address the root causes of migration, reduces humanitarian protections, and restricts unlawful pathways, which are critical alternatives to unlawful entry.'' It goes on to say: ``This bill would make things worse, not better.''

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the administration's statement.

Statement of Administration Policy

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is remarkable that Republicans are getting behind the child deportation act, a bill that would blow a $6.1 billion hole in our Federal budget at the same time that they are feigning concern about the Federal deficit.

Today, the other side has said a lot about how the Biden administration is

handling the ending of title 42, but remarkably, not one of them acknowledged that they voted to lift it in February.

Enactment of H.R. 2 would do nothing to keep fentanyl out of our communities or protect unaccompanied children.

Just for the record, in our section of the bill, fentanyl is not even mentioned. I would hope at some point the other two discussions tomorrow might talk a little more directly about fentanyl if it is in there. It is not in our section at this point.

For the record, the information that we have about 90 percent of the fentanyl coming into the country comes from the Chief of the Border Patrol. It is his information. We can only take him at his word.

Those five ports of entry that the chair talked about, that was not what he said. He said it was in Mexico, not in the U.S., in terms of being controlled by the cartels. I think we all will admit the cartels do not control the border within the boundaries of the United States. It is a play on words, but at least we can be accurate with that.

In terms of how we determine who comes, who is captured, and how the fentanyl is collected, I suggest that you talk to the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, or DEA. They are the persons who interview the people who are caught at our ports of entry.

More importantly, most of the people who we catch at our ports of entry are American citizens. They are not, for the most part, immigrants or aliens, or whatever you want to call them, trying to come into this country illegally. They are American citizens.

In terms of guns, the cartels are a violent operation. There is no question about it. We need to do everything that we can to stop them. We can't keep American guns from going to Mexico unless we come up with an enhanced policy to do that.

We have to acknowledge that the majority of the guns that the cartels are using are coming from the United States. As the record will reflect, there is only one gun store in the entire country of Mexico. It takes months for an individual to even get cleared to buy a gun. We just want the record to reflect the truth.

Enactment of H.R. 2, as I said, would do nothing to keep fentanyl out of our communities or protect unaccompanied children. What it will do is penalize communities and religious organizations that care for vulnerable people.

Section 115(b) is so broad that a nonprofit hospital that admits an undocumented migrant would be deemed as facilitating unlawful activities. Cartels and smugglers are champing at the bit to see this bill enacted into law.

H.R. 2 would create conditions where desperate people will be left with few options but to try to enter the U.S. illegally between ports of entry. It would be a boon for smugglers' illicit business.

We should be coming together to enact sensible border and immigration policies that support our communities and economy. We can do better than the child deportation act.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 383, I call up the bill (H.R. 2) to secure the borders of the United States, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 2.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023.

Last year, Republicans made a commitment to America to secure our borders, protect our Nation, and safeguard our communities. Today, House Republicans are delivering on that promise.

No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, it is undeniable that we are in the midst of a severe border crisis. In just over 2 years, President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have intentionally turned our Nation's border into a place of chaos and devastation, one controlled by the drug cartels.

The administration's refusal to enforce the law or implement effective policies to secure the border has led us to this point, completely dismantling any semblance of law and order. Over the past several months, the members of the Committee on Homeland Security have been hard at work crafting a solution to address the administration's self-inflicted crisis at our borders.

With input from our colleagues across the Republican Conference, as well as Border Patrol agents, victims of illegal alien crime and the drug crisis, small business owners, State and local law enforcement, and farmers and ranchers, the committee has taken the time to fully understand Secretary Mayorkas' record-breaking humanitarian crisis.

These are the everyday Americans bearing the brunt of this crisis who are all too often overlooked by the media and the DC beltway. The numbers that they, and now all Americans, are facing are staggering:

More than 5 million encounters at the southwest border since President Biden took office;

Over 1.4 million known got-aways since February 2021;

193 aliens on the terrorist watch list encountered along the southwest border trying to enter the country between ports of entry from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2023;

Over 14,000 pounds of fentanyl seized in fiscal year 2023, enough to kill the entire U.S. population nine and a half times;

Over 61,000 criminal aliens arrested by CBP attempting to cross the U.S. borders since the beginning of FY 2021.

And just as we think it can't get any worse, tomorrow marks the end of the only tool that Customs and Border Protection has left under this administration, title 42.

As we have approached the end of title 42 the past few days, CBP has been reporting an even greater increase in the number of alien encounters and got-aways, which are already off the charts.

Whether my colleagues on the other side want to admit it or not, Mr. Biden and Mr. Mayorkas' border crisis has turned every State into a border State, and the American people have had enough.

From a record number of fentanyl deaths to rising crime, it is the families and communities across America that are left to pay the price of this administration's open borders and antisecurity policies.

These policies are enriching and emboldening transnational criminal organizations who have increasingly threatened the safety and security of all Americans.

However, we are here with a solution.

Thanks to the hard work of many members across multiple committees, H.R. 2 requires the administration to secure the border, enforce the law, and reduce illegal immigration, once again.

Specifically, division A of the bill addresses the immediate impact of the border crisis by focusing on mitigating and stopping the surge of illegal border crossers and illicit drugs that are flowing across our borders between ports of entry.

Over 30 years ago, the United States Government began building the border barrier system. We have heard from frontline agents on the ground that an effective border barrier system is a proven critical component in deterring and discouraging illegal activity. That is why H.R. 2 directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to immediately resume construction of the border wall.

The bill requires at least 900 miles of wall to be built, using the materials that American taxpayers have already paid for, but that under President Biden are laying unused and left to deteriorate in the desert.

This bill makes targeted investments in border technology that not only supplements the border wall system, but also integrates new, advanced, and improved technologies into Border Patrol operations that will prioritize frontline personnel safety and the detection of illicit activity.

We know that Border Patrol agents are leaving at a faster rate than the CBP Commissioner can hire them. Under the Biden administration, Border Patrol agents are stretched thin, both physically and mentally. They are overwhelmed and overworked.

Customs and Border Protection agents are leaving before reaching their retirement eligibility because of poor working conditions and low morale due to a horrendous lack of support from the Biden administration and the inability to do what they signed up to do-- enforce the law.

During the committee's field hearing on March 15, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz testified that he needs approximately 22,000 agents to achieve Border Patrol's mission. H.R. 2 mandates CBP expand their force by over 3,000 agents to reach that total of 22,000 agents.

The bill also aims to return agents back to their law enforcement duties in the field by ensuring they are not responsible for serving as processing coordinators, something that the Biden administration is forcing highly trained law enforcement agents to do.

The bill addresses the retention challenges that Border Patrol is facing by providing qualified agents with a retention bonus. They need to know that all of us in Congress have their back and appreciate their sacrifice.

The Department of Homeland Security has made very blatant attempts to bury the release of its monthly border statistics or withhold certain information from the public. That is why H.R. 2 requires DHS to publicly disclose all monthly data, including known got-aways and known or suspected terrorists, before the seventh day of each month.

Congress will not tolerate this administration's lack of transparency to the American people, who deserve to know who and what is coming into our country.

To further enhance border security measures, this bill increases support for Operation Stonegarden, a grant program that provides funds to State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies that are forced to deal directly with the crisis, given the administration's complete dereliction of duty.

Under H.R. 2, Operation Stonegarden grants will be increased to $110 million per year, and we know this support can't come soon enough for our State and local law enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives

Committee on Homeland Security

Washington, DC, May 4, 2023.

Hon. Jason Smith,

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Smith: I write regarding H.R. 2794, the

``Border Reinforcement Act of 2023,'' of which the Committee

on Ways and Means received an additional referral. I

appreciate your support in bringing this legislation before

the House of Representatives, and that the Committee on Ways

and Means will forego further consideration of the bill.

The Committee on Homeland Security concurs with the mutual

understanding that by foregoing consideration of this bill at

this time, the Committee on Ways and Means does not waive

jurisdiction over the subject matter contained in this

legislation in the future. In addition, should a conference

on this bill be necessary, I would support your request to

have the Committee on Ways and Means represented on the

conference committee.

I will include our letters on H.R. 2794 in the Committee

report on this measure and in the Congressional Record during

floor consideration of this bill. I look forward to working

with you on this legislation and appreciate your cooperation

on this matter.

Sincerely,

Mark E. Green, MD,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Guest), the vice chair of the Committee on Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gimenez).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. DesJarlais).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. D'Esposito).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Strong).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Greene).

Mr. Speaker, as a quick correction for the record,

the bill doesn't do anything to take away healthcare services provided by NGOs, just to clarify that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ogles), my friend from my home State.

Mr. Speaker, again, I am compelled to correct the Record. The bill very specifically states that family units will be kept together. There will be no separation of children. It very clearly is stated in the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on each side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Luttrell), the American hero.

Mr. Speaker, I hear from my colleagues across

the aisle the accusations that the legislation that is before us today is somehow xenophobic. I will remind my colleagues that the number of countries of people who are appearing at our southern border, breaking our laws are from over 140 countries, every single race, every single religion, almost all the nationalities of the world. This bill is about law and order. It is not xenophobic.

I recall when I was there on the border, maybe it was three trips ago, some folks from Russia and Ukraine. This isn't xenophobic. This is about law and order.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Miller).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take an opportunity to correct the record on a couple of things.

We often hear from our colleagues across the aisle that 90 percent of the fentanyl is seized at the ports of entry. Well, if you make the statement that 90 percent of the fentanyl that is seized is seized at the ports of entry, that is correct. But oftentimes, what we hear from the left, is that 90 percent of fentanyl coming into the country is seized. We know for a fact that that math is absolutely wrong.

If you put the amount seized at the ports of entry as the numerator and the total amount seized as the denominator, yes, that is 90 percent of what is seized. On the denominator would be 90 percent plus 10 percent, right? But what is missing in that denominator is all of the fentanyl that gets into our country that we have no idea is seized, so you can't technically say we are seizing 90 percent of the fentanyl that is coming into the country. That is factually incorrect. It makes no mathematical sense.

In fact, the Border Patrol itself is saying that we are actually catching about 5 to 10 percent of the fentanyl. So if it is 90 percent of what is seized at the ports of entry, which I agree that statement is correct, it is 90 percent of 5 to 10 percent of the total. That is an important point of distinction.

I would also like to talk a little bit about this CBP One app that my colleague from Mississippi mentioned and all of the other efforts that have been elaborated on by this administration, their efforts to maintain control of our border.

When they came into office, the budget didn't increase suddenly. The number of border patrol agents didn't decrease suddenly. There was no new legislation that was written.

What happened was 89 effective policies of two administrations were completely undone by executive orders, and it resulted in an immediate incentive to come to the United States. They did away with all of the disincentives, the pull factors, of people coming into our country.

What happened is, people came, they tested the system, and they were immediately released into the country. Deportations were ordered to be halted. Over a million people with deportation orders that a legal process had determined they were supposed to be returned, we are just not going to deport. Phone calls went home, and people poured across our southern border.

This incentive then was seized on by the drug cartels. They saw a huge opportunity, and so they flooded the crossing sites with people, interestingly enough, paying coyotes to bring them there.

That is sort of at the strategic level. They neutralized the Border Patrol at the border crossing sites, and then the fentanyl and other things come around between the ports of entry. That is the fentanyl we are seizing. By the way, that is the fentanyl that has resulted in the street price of fentanyl in Tennessee going from $95 in January of 2021 to $28 just recently, according to the sheriffs of Tennessee. That supply-demand means more fentanyl is pouring into this country.

If you talk about 90 percent of it being seized; that is a false statement. If you talk about the policies that supposedly are attempting to gain or are getting border control, that is incorrect. The incentives have allowed and empowered the drug cartels to take advantage, neutralizing the Border Patrol at the crossing sites.

Back to the tactical level, on one of my visits in Arizona, we actually saw a scout from the cartels. And the Border Patrol agents and the law enforcement in that area informed us that those scouts have military-grade encrypted radios. They have military-grade optics that they are using and from their vantage point are observing Border Patrol. They then notify someone else with this encrypted radio. They send 20 to 30 people to basically overwhelm that Border Patrol agent on the border. While that individual is tied up, they send the fentanyl. That is when the carpet-shoe-wearing, backpack fentanyl carriers result in drop sites just inside the border where I saw hundreds of empty backpacks and carpet shoes, where the drugs are then placed into the hands of the courier in the back of a truck and transported to cities all across America, resulting in that supply.

Make no mistake about it: The actions of this administration to remove those policies have resulted in this crisis. One of the other policies that they so effectively have taken care of--title 42, that will end tomorrow and will result in a catastrophe of epic proportions--is already breaking records, and we see them massing throughout Central America to come into the United States.

You can have good intentions of wanting to help every person on the planet. That is great. But by making that something that taxpayers have to do, you are basically determining what someone else should be doing with their charity.

Maybe somebody in Tennessee, our taxpayers, wants to do something for Gold Star families. Maybe they want to give to a different charity. Maybe they want to give to one of the NGOs that want to do something. But they should be the ones getting to decide, not the Federal Government telling them how their charity should be given. That is not freedom.

I will tell you, the policies that have been canceled that have resulted in this crisis, that have resulted in the cartels taking over five of our sectors of our southwest border, all on Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas. Title 42 being canceled and what is about to happen, states of emergency in cities all across the southern border, coming across and making every State a border State, is on Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas. I think it is really important we correct the record on some of this stuff.

I will make one other point, and I want to warn my colleagues across the aisle. President Biden promised to veto the D.C. crime bill. Remember that? He said: We are going to veto that bill. The Senate said: We are not going to vote for that. You know what our Democrat colleagues did here in the House? They all voted ``no.''

Then the furor happened in America, and the President realized, boy, that would be a mistake. The Senate said: Oh, my gosh, we are not going to do that either. So the Senate voted for the D.C. crime bill.

Now, the Democrat colleagues here in the House are going to have to go back and explain why they voted ``no'' when their party on the other side of the aisle voted ``yes,'' and their President changed his mind and signed that bill into law.

Now, you watch the next couple of days as the border gets worse and worse and Americans become more and more and more aware. We are going to pass this bill. You can vote ``no'' on it, but as those Senators get more and more aware of this crisis and the President has to look at what is happening to El Paso and Brownsville, he just might change his mind again. Guess who is going to be left holding the bag?

You don't want to vote ``no'' on this bill. This bill will secure our southern border. This isn't an immigration bill. We never set out to handle immigration with this. That is coming. This bill secures the border so that we can deal with the immigration issues.

What we can't do is create even more incentive with an open border. That just does what Mr. Mayorkas and Mr. Biden have done, create more incentive that brings more people in and overwhelms our social services, overwhelms our schools and hospitals.

As this thing unfolds over the next few days, don't be surprised if the President changes his mind again and you are left holding the bag.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the American people cannot wait any longer for secure borders and safe communities. Securing the border should not be a partisan issue. It is an American issue. It is the Federal Government's responsibility to do so. When they fail, Congress, a coequal branch of government, should step in and hold them accountable. That is what we are doing here today.

The Biden administration produced the catastrophic humanitarian tragedy we are seeing today, dismantling all semblance of law and order and sending a clear message to the cartels that our border is open.

We have all seen what has been happening in the past few days as title 42 comes to an end. It is a fact that the border is in shambles.

Frontline law enforcement personnel are overwhelmed and overworked as they are stretched physically and mentally amid this crisis. State and local resources are quickly depleting as they attempt to do the job that this administration has not done since its first day in charge: secure the borders and enforce the law.

The current situation at the border is unsustainable. Yet, over the past 2-plus years, my colleagues across the aisle have refused to hold the Biden administration accountable for its ineffective policies, have watched the border fall into the hands of violent cartels, and have completely ignored the disaster that has only gotten worse by the day.

That must end today. The American people are fed up with inaction.

The Biden-Mayorkas border crisis is a national security threat that must be addressed immediately. I encourage my colleagues to join House Republicans in passing this very important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I will close by addressing the patriots serving on the front lines of this crisis with no support or appreciation from this administration. Many of us have visited the border on several occasions, across multiple sectors, and have seen firsthand the work our Customs and Border Protection officers and agents do every single day to risk their lives for this great country.

To the officers and agents on the ground dealing with this crisis, on behalf of the American people, we appreciate you. We support you, and we have your back.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is now after 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We were scheduled to be on the floor today around noon, but when I came to the floor prepared to debate this rule, we were told first to wait and then that the House would recess so the Republicans could go back behind closed doors to negotiate among themselves.

This is becoming a pattern in this Congress. For the second session week in a row, the Rules Committee met far into the night and reported out completely closed rules that allow no amendments on the floor.

Now, after Speaker McCarthy realized that he couldn't pass his own bill, he spent all day negotiating in secret to twist people's arms to get enough votes from his own party to get this bill or the rule passed on the floor.

No one has seen what is coming out of the backroom deal today and allegedly moving to the floor under this very rule.

This isn't how you run the people's House, although it is apparently how the new House majority runs the people's House--backroom deals that prioritize politics or policy over people.

Turning to the matters at hand, this rule moves two bills to the floor. The first bill is H.R. 2, although, as mentioned, we still don't know what the final version of that bill will be.

We should all be able to agree that immigration and border security present vast and complex issues. Despite my colleagues' pronouncements to the contrary, we all want a secure border that protects our national security, but we also need to address the realities of migration, the forces that are driving families, even young children, to flee their homes, and the serious workforce shortages confronting businesses in our country and elsewhere.

Given the complexities of these issues, they require comprehensive and nuanced solutions. H.R. 2 is neither. It is a great example of the old adage: For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, clear, and wrong.

During my legal career, I spent decades working on immigration cases and within our immigration system. I know it is underfunded and dysfunctional and has been for many years. We also know that American businesses, small and large, are asking for immigration reform so that they can hire the healthcare, agricultural, research, and food service workers they need.

Solving these issues is not simple, but I am extremely disappointed that my Republican colleagues want to create more chaos by bringing an extremist, cruel, and completely unworkable bill to the floor today.

The truth is, this isn't responsible or serious governance. Without any real proposal, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle resort to conspiracy theories, fact-free rhetoric, and political theater designed to stoke fear and chaos to distract from their lack of real solutions.

We have seen how the failed and inhumane immigration policies of the prior administration weakened our economy, undermined our moral standing in the world, inflicted unimaginable cruelty upon defenseless migrant children, and did not make us any safer.

However, Republican extremists want to take us back there again. Once more, they would rather fixate and waste American taxpayer dollars to build a wall that the experts, including Customs and Border Patrol, agree will not solve the issue.

I must call out the dishonesty of claiming that families seeking legal asylum are a source of the very real scourge of fentanyl and other dangerous drug trafficking. We know from Customs and Border Patrol data that over 90 percent of fentanyl seizures occur at U.S. ports of entry in trucks or cargo ships, not in areas that a border wall might cover.

Despite this fact, the bill fails to provide needed resources at ports of entry to fight fentanyl smuggling where it is actually happening.

Just last month, House Republicans voted to cap nondefense discretionary funding, which, according to DHS, would result in the cutting of 2,400 Customs and Border Patrol officers and agents that do this work fighting the scourge of fentanyl.

How can we begin to craft measures to address either the fentanyl crisis or humanitarian issues at our border if our Republican colleagues insist on starting from a place of misplaced blame and misguided policies?

Additionally, this bill, or at least the most recent version of it that we have seen, enacts a nationwide E-Verify system without providing other reforms that give meaningful pathways for undocumented workers to legalize their status, which employers across this country are screaming for.

In doing so, this provision has the potential to wipe out half of our agricultural workforce, cause huge disruptions in our Nation's food system, allow a mass offshoring of jobs, and sink American farms from California to Pennsylvania and throughout States across the Nation.

This isn't the first Congress in which Republicans have tried to move forward on this E-Verify proposal. In every Congress, it faces opposition from the small business community, civil liberties groups, religious organizations, agricultural organizations and growers, privacy advocates, libertarian think tanks, and immigration reform groups because it fails to address our broken immigration system in a meaningful way. This time around is no different.

H.R. 2 also bans Department of Homeland Security funding for critical nonprofit and religious partners that provide shelter, food, legal assistance, and other aid to vulnerable immigrants.

That means a faith-based NGO that helps an Afghan refugee to find housing or gives support to a woman here on a U visa, a special status set aside for victims of crimes, will no longer get assistance to do that important work.

How can our Republican colleagues say this bill is only about border security when it clearly and cruelly rips resources away from those in the country legally, too?

When it comes to this bill, the immoral policies do not stop there. This legislation puts children in harm's way--the very ones the other side of the aisle claims they want to protect.

Children come or are brought to the U.S. because the conditions in their home countries are so horrific, whether due to poverty, violence, corruption, or climate change and how it is destroying their way of life.

This is a situation that has been building for decades, and H.R. 2 does nothing to address it.

During my legal career, I represented many of those children, those who were orphaned, those who were fleeing gang violence, starvation, or abuse.

If we really want to protect child victims of trafficking or children separated from their parents who arrive at our border, we don't limit their access to representation, as this bill does. We give them the tools to make the case that they are eligible to stay in this country, which a child simply cannot do unless they have a qualified attorney with them.

Mr. Speaker, I have seen up close how important representation is to anyone trying to navigate our immigration system, but especially kids.

When our colleagues say they want to send unaccompanied children home to safety, they are turning a blind eye to reality. The reality for most of these kids is there is no safe home. Their parents are dead or otherwise unavailable, and country conditions are so dangerous that the journey to our border is a safer alternative.

This bill would expose children to the very harms and exploitation my Republican colleagues hollowly insist they want to prevent. In addition to

limiting children's access to counsel, the bill allows them to be jailed. It guts the protections of the Flores settlement agreement, which has governed the conditions of children held in government custody for 26 years.

In doing so, the bill upends a carefully crafted system to minimize the detention of children due to the grave impact that it has on their physical and mental health. The evidence is clear: No amount of detention is safe for kids. Even a short period can cause long-term harm like psychological trauma and mental health risks.

Despite knowing this, my Republican colleagues wrote a bill that allows the long-term detention of minors who arrive in the U.S. and that jails kids and their families indefinitely.

I want to describe for a moment a tragic situation this bill creates. A mother and her child fleeing violence or starvation at home come to America in search of safety and legal asylum. When she finds the ports of entry are closed, which this bill would do, that mother takes her child and crosses between them. She then follows the rules and applies for asylum.

To be clear, she is not a risk for flight or violence. Even so, this bill requires that she and her young child could be jailed for what could be years if she is prosecuted for the misdemeanor of unlawful entry, a result that is prohibited by current law and the Flores litigation.

This legislation falsely states it is consistent with the Flores decision; although, it is clear that it is not, and that the Court has already ruled on that precise point.

If my colleagues want to come together and meaningfully work on immigration reform, it can't start from a place of cruelty against the most vulnerable. Instead, we need to recognize both the horrific conditions that cause migrants to flee their homes and the meaningful contributions that immigrants make to our country and, critically, we must provide functioning pathways for people to enter the U.S. lawfully.

Mr. Speaker, the second bill here is H.R. 1163. In addition to their misguided immigration plan, today House Republicans are bringing up a harmful bill that hinders antifraud programs, opens up new pathways to fraud in unemployment insurance programs, and opens workers up to surprise bills through no fault of their own.

My colleagues want to attack unemployment insurance, a benefit that helped millions of Americans stay afloat during the depths of the pandemic. Of course, it is important that we prevent fraud in our public programs and instances of fraud in unemployment insurance absolutely should be addressed and prosecuted.

In fact, just this morning, we learned that a Republican Member of this Chamber was indicted in New York on charges that, among other things, he allegedly stole public funds by fraudulently collecting pandemic unemployment benefits.

I hope all my colleagues agree that stealing public funds, especially during a global pandemic when so many working people lost their jobs and needed the support to keep their families healthy and fed, is unacceptable and absolutely should disqualify someone from serving in the United States Congress.

However, although my colleagues across the aisle claim that they want to fight fraud in unemployment insurance, their leadership continues to welcome the votes of this alleged fraudster in order to push a deeply unpopular and extremist agenda and they want to pass a bill that makes it harder to catch the kind of cross-State fraud that their colleague has allegedly committed by slashing $400 million in critical funding for Department of Labor antifraud programs.

It opens up opportunities for fraud in UI programs by halting the roll out of new identification verification systems and the legislation allows States to send surprise bills to workers for accidental overpayments of unemployment insurance benefits made during the pandemic.

These overpayments were made to workers who did nothing wrong and did not know they had been overpaid. These people spent their unemployment insurance on necessities like food for themselves and their children. They returned to work as soon as they could, but now Republicans, with this bill, want to send these working people a bill and punish them for an error that they didn't commit.

Ultimately, both of these proposals from my Republican colleagues are unserious and unworkable. They will wreak harm on America's economy, especially businesses unable to find workers to grow or even survive. They will wreak harm on working families, law-abiding immigrants, and terrified refugees who have the right to seek asylum at our borders.

These bills are political stunts to stir up extremist supporters, not serious solutions to complex problems, problems that require comprehensive and nuanced solutions. We are eager to work with responsible legislators from any party on an immigration bill that truly secures the border, protects Dreamers, and solves the workforce challenges we are seeing from farms to pharmacies. Such a bill would grow our economy, help our communities combat crime, and stem the flow of illegal drugs into our country.

We firmly believe that we can reach an agreement that secures our border and reforms our immigration system in a way that reflects fundamental American values, and we are ready to work on that now. We welcome assistance in that from the House majority.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do find it a little hard to credit the expressions of concern for the migrants who are crossing our border when yet again, today, the Governor of Texas sent a busload of migrants from the border after announcing he was providing free transportation to them.

He refuses to tell the cities where they are headed, but the migrants are on their way. So as has occurred multiple times over the last year, people were dumped in Philadelphia at 6 o'clock in the morning. Thank God that the weather has turned because when they were dumping them on New Year's Eve, it was pretty darn cold. So please spare me the crocodile tears for the humanitarian concerns when you are not willing to help ease that process.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a very distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I just have to push back a little bit on this idea that somehow immigrants coming to this country are taking advantage of our police and different parts of our society. I mean, the Cato Institute, of all places, has recently published a study that shows there is a net economic benefit for several generations when we have immigrants come to this country.

Of course, there is also the continuing inaccurate characterization of these folks coming here illegally when they are applying for asylum.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the distinguished

ranking member of the Committee on Rules.

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

Mr. McGovern raised a few good points, but one in particular: We haven't seen the bill that we are allegedly supposed to be considering with this rule.

Last night, Mr. Norman, who just spoke, correctly criticized this closed process. He said, ``That's a problem going forward, a huge problem because that is not the process we think is fair to everyone.''

I would simply say to the gentleman that the process has only gotten worse. Reportedly, there will be an amendment offered to this rule that we haven't even seen yet. Although, I guess the fact is we may know why we had to delay the hearing until this point; so that your Member could return from New York.

I wonder when we are going to see the open and transparent process that some of our Rules Committee colleagues have spoken so much about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my colleagues across the aisle. I didn't realize that I needed to delay my remarks until the next round.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record a letter from the Department of Labor, which states that H.R. 1163 would hinder efforts to tackle unemployment insurance fraud, delay payments, and undermine State efforts to modernize and protect the system from fraud.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security.

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

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution which states that it is the House's responsibility to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare for our future generations and reject any cuts to these essential programs.

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

Mr. Speaker, Social Security and Medicare are vital to many of our constituents' economic and health security. Many of my Republican friends across the aisle were calling for major cuts to these critical programs but recently some have changed their tune.

If they truly believe in a new position, I am offering my friends the opportunity to back it up with a vote in the people's House. This vote will give Members the opportunity to reassure Americans that the House won't eviscerate these foundational programs that our constituents rely upon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

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

Mr. Speaker, since the aftermath of World War II, the United States has championed its duty to uphold the international right to seek asylum by providing those fleeing persecution with safe haven here in America.

However, the Republican immigration plan in H.R. 2 and the rhetoric we have heard about it today does nothing more than sow chaos, anger, and fear about this important humanitarian system.

It puts the blame for our broken immigration system on the backs of families and children fleeing poverty and violence, instead of recognizing the complexity of the issues involving immigration and border security and blaming Congress for failing to address our broken system for decades.

It is clear that jailing families indefinitely or sending unaccompanied children back to dangerous and exploitive situations and refusing to provide working legal pathways to residents will not make us any safer; neither will wasting American taxpayer dollars to build a discredited and ineffective border wall, decimating our agricultural sector, or defunding trusted nonprofit organizations that provide support to immigrants.

These are not the comprehensive, multiprong solutions we need, the kind of solutions that Democrats have been imploring our Republican colleagues to come to the table on, solutions that secure our ports of entry, expand legal pathways, and address the root causes of migration.

A long and impactful history of immigration is at the heart of our American story. As such, we should meaningfully fix our immigration system so it works better and can continue making our county stronger. We shouldn't gut it or attempt to destroy it altogether. I want a better future than that for the United States and all of those who call it home.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Green for his work.

Mr. Speaker, when we took the majority and Mr. Green became chairman, he didn't stay in Washington to figure out what the problem was. He actually took his committee to the border to see firsthand.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the ranking member on the other side wouldn't attend. He stands up speaker after speaker thinking he knows what is happening on the border from far away in Washington.

I have been to the border four times in the past 3 years. I have seen the fear in the eyes of the ranchers who have had their property broken into. I have heard the frustration in the voice of the Border Patrol agents who are stretched to the limit.

Mr. Speaker, 2\1/2\ years ago, when I went to the border, I sat with the agents in El Paso. They told me they saw something different that they hadn't seen before. They were actually catching people on the terrorist watch list. I came down and had a press conference and announced what they told me.

Mr. Speaker, I would have thought that the Members on the other side of the aisle, knowing what has happened with 9/11 and others, that they would rise up in a united front to protect America.

Do you know what I heard from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle? They said that I was lying. They said that they had as much security clearance as I did, that it must not be true. In Washington, they thought they knew all, but they didn't go to the border to actually talk to the people who work right there.

It is interesting, though, that the next day, the administration had to say it was true. Do you know what the administration did then? They withheld the information from Congress so they could no longer find out how many people we would catch on the terrorist watch list. They wanted to deny knowing going forward.

My good friend on the other side of the aisle, the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, I am sure he knows that, in the month of February, we caught more people on the terrorist watch list in this 1 month than the entire time of the last administration.

In the last administration, the 4 years of everybody who came across on the terrorist watch list, this February, more came across. I am sure from far away he might probably think that is not true, too.

Mr. Speaker, I felt the sorrow in the words of the mothers and fathers who lost their children to fentanyl. Do you know what? You can stay in Washington if you want, and you will still hear the sorrows of the mothers and the fathers.

Today alone, 300 Americans will be poisoned by fentanyl. It is the equivalent of an airline crashing each and every day in America. I don't hear them rising up. Every day there are 300. They come from all walks of life.

Mr. Speaker, they want to stand and say ``no'' to H.R. 2. I want them to look in the eyes of the parents of the young children. They didn't buy fentanyl when they died. They were at college and bought Xanax. It doesn't just happen to the kids who are maybe into partying or others.

Just last year, on spring break, six kids OD'd in Florida. They didn't belong to a fraternity. They went to West Point. They didn't buy fentanyl. They all didn't take cocaine. Four of them did. The other two simply gave them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Do you know what? Vote ``no.'' Go ahead and vote ``no.'' If you won't lead, we will. If you want to take the same approach as the President, that you want to ignore a problem and say it is not happening, we won't sit back. We don't sit back in Washington. We go to the border to actually see what is going on. We listen. We learn. Then, we sit in committee.

Even though your committee went and had a hearing--I am sure they are very proud that they protested and didn't go. Who lost? More Americans lost. More Americans will die by their actions. For their sake and for our Nation's safety, we must secure our border.

This is President Biden's record on the border: record crossings, record carelessness, and record chaos. More than 11,000 people were caught yesterday crossing the border illegally, the highest single-day total ever.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing what the ranking member's quote is coming forward. Maybe he will quote the Secretary that the border is secure and believe him. You sit in Washington.

What is the administration's plan for these 11,000? According to NBC News, the plan--it is brilliant; listen to it--is to release many of them into the United States with no court dates and no way to track them. That worked so well in the past. Just ask the 85,000 children that the Biden administration lost.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to hearing the other side get up and tell me why they are voting ``no.''

They don't want to find these 85,000 kids? Don't take my word for it. This comes from The New York Times.

Tomorrow, as you sit here in debate and fight to make sure the border is still wide open, title 42 expires. Everyone knows we are days away from disaster. The mayor of El Paso, which recently declared a state of emergency, says: ``There is no light at the end of the tunnel. We are preparing for the unknown.''

The Governor of Arizona says that President Biden has been unresponsive. Governor Abbott of Texas rightly pointed out that this is not a Texas problem. This is a problem for the entire United States.

Mr. Speaker, I heard President Biden say yesterday that lifting title 42 means it is going to be chaotic for a little while. With all due respect, Mr. President, it has been chaotic for 2 years because of your actions.

On the very day President Biden took office, he decided against the advice of the border security experts, and he single-handedly removed the successful border policies of the previous administration.

The first thing President Biden did was he stopped construction of the border wall. He spends money now just to house the equipment and materials. He halted deportation. He ended remain in Mexico, and he called for amnesty for millions of people who broke the law.

His actions sent a clear message to the world, including the cartels: the border is open.

I remember on one of my trips down to the border right after the President took office, we had a new facility built. That day they hit a record number at the facility that they thought would never make capacity, but they did. As we walked in, we interviewed those who were standing in line.

We asked them: Why did you come?

They said: President Biden told us to. He told us the border was open.

We asked: How long was the trek?

Weeks, months, but the President invited us.

The world listened, and the cartels acted.

To this day, the southern border is being flooded by illegal aliens from more than 140 countries: Yemen, Russia, China, and others.

Yet, how has this administration responded?

A responsible administration would have told the American people in clear terms that this is a crisis. However, the Biden administration tells the public that there is no crisis. Rather than leveling with the American people, the Biden administration is choosing to mislead them.

I don't know if the ranking leader has ever been to Tucson, Arizona, but I was there recently. In Tucson, Arizona, the cartels control the border. Every single person who comes across that border wears a camouflage outfit. On their feet and on their shoes is a piece of rug. Seventy-one percent who come across that border are single males. They don't run up to the border agents. They run from them. It is one of the highest areas of get-aways.

It is a large terrain. Every day Americans risk their lives to go rescue people on the cliffs who have fallen. We took balloons up so we could actually calculate who was coming across.

When this became such a reported case, do you know what the Biden administration did, Mr. Speaker?

They cut the number of balloons.

Do you know why?

Because they said the numbers would go down. That is how they want to deal with it. They want to lie to the American public.

There is no better example than Secretary Mayorkas' comments that the border is secure.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the ranking member gets up after me, and I would like him to answer one question: Does he believe Secretary Mayorkas that the border is secure?

You have been chairman. You are ranking now. I am sure at some time you went to the border--but not when your committee did and not when we wanted to work on this bill.

You wanted to protest. You wanted to not go because you could learn everything you needed from right here in Washington--maybe from the Secretary.

I would like to know how many of you who stand up and say that you are going to vote against H.R. 2 believe Secretary Mayorkas?

Do you believe the border is secure?

Honestly, tell us. Tell the American public if that is what you believe.

Everyone knows that isn't true.

You can't say the border is secure when more than 4.5 million people have crossed our border illegally in the 24 months since President Biden has taken office.

There is not one piece of legislation that has changed from one administration to the other. The only thing that changed was the President.

And what did President Biden do?

He lifted all the actions of President Trump and President Obama. That is what happened to our border.

You can't say the border is secure when more than 175 individuals on the terrorist watch list have tried to cross our border.

You can't say the border is secure when human trafficking has grown into a multibillion-dollar business for the cartels.

You can't say the border is secure when you don't control the border and when the number one employer in some of these border towns is the cartels.

You can't say the border is secure when I sit there with a mayor, who happens to be from the other party, and he tells me a personal story that his daughter called, and he told her not to go outside because there was a car chase, a car chase because a cartel hired a young American to drive somebody they put across, and the car was going through--it is not an unusual thing. It happens often. Schools there, they would tell me they had to close for 45 days.

This car chase ended like others. It killed an innocent American, an innocent American who was going to a retirement party. She was a 65- year-old grandmother. She was going to have her friends celebrate a life of work and was looking forward to the times, with all the work and investment she had put in, to spend with her grandchildren and travel, but, no, her life was taken from her. And the Secretary said that our border is secure.

If you would travel to these towns, then you would know this too. If you would spend the time, then you would understand.

You see, Mr. Speaker, many of those elected officials aren't Republicans. They are Americans. They are registered as Democrats. They say they are disgusted by what this administration is doing.

While the Biden administration is missing in action, House Republicans are going to take action. We spent 2 years listening to those who have lived through the border crisis: Border Patrol agents, ranchers, families, businesses, and local leaders.

When I was in Tucson, I sat with a rancher. He told me that he has found five dead bodies on his ranch. His grandson, 7 years old, found one just last year. This is human life. Fifty-two died in a tractor trailer.

I sat with one who told me the story that when he looked down the road, he saw three young children, one not even 1, the other 3, and the other 4. Had the rancher not found them, they wouldn't be alive.

What about those who don't make it?

What about those who don't pay the cartels?

I sat with one news-covering agent who told the story of a woman who didn't pay the cartels, so the cartels took her life. They didn't just take her life. They wanted to show it to everybody in the world. So they strung her body up in a tree, cut her legs off, and set her on fire.

You see, if you go to the border, you will learn these stories. You will actually know what is happening there. So I don't think you would take a partisan position. You wouldn't talk in talking points. You would actually believe that 4.5 million people in the last year came across. If 11,000 came across yesterday--title 42 is going to be lifted.

If you don't like our bill, what is your answer?

What is your plan?

What are you going to do?

As I promised, we brought their government to them--visiting the border, gathering facts, and holding hearings.

What we learned directly informed not only our Commitment to America, but also the Secure the Border Act.

Here is what this bill does:

It fully provides for effective border enforcement policies, infrastructure, and advanced technology.

It increases the number of Border Patrol agents and gives them the bonus pay they deserve.

It ends catch and release and strengthens current laws to protect unaccompanied children from exploitation by human traffickers. I hope everybody who votes ``no'' reads The New York Times. I hope you read the stories about these young children.

It reinstates the so-called remain in Mexico provisions.

And it resumes construction of the border wall because the border wall works.

The Secure the Border Act is the strongest border security bill to come through Congress in more than 100 years.

If it passes, I am confident that we will stop the flood of fentanyl into our country, solve the Biden border crisis, and support our Border Patrol agents so they can continue to keep us safe.

Fentanyl is the number one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

If anybody thinks about their life between the ages of 18 and 45, those are the years in which you reproduce. Those are your most productive years in business. Those are the years of those who volunteer to serve in the military to defend our freedom.

Right now, the most productive population age in our country is being killed.

However, I listen to the other side, and they are going to say: ``No, continue it.''

By the actions of this President, Mr. Ranking Member, you don't have to go to the border because now every city is a border city.

You see, in my hometown of Bakersfield, in the elementary school, a father registered his son just after Thanksgiving. The public school district did a really good job. They noticed in 2 days this boy had an issue. They didn't sit back, they went to his house, and they met with his father.

They said: We feel your son has a challenge learning and other things. We want to work with you, and we want to help him.

Literally, they went to his house in 2 days. They watched him as he came to school.

Do you know what he did when he came to school?

He walked over to a vape room. He had a backpack, and he came into the class. They looked in the backpack. He had 150 pills. This kid was not even 16 years old. I think he was only 12. The counselor took out a pill to see what it was. They had to call an ambulance because the counselor touched a fentanyl pill.

I am far from the border. Just up the road in my district, they pulled over a car. I believe it had more than 500,000 fentanyl pills. California law says you couldn't ask the individuals if they were citizens--and they weren't.

I can't tell you how much jail time they got because in California they believe in a lot of your policies, and so the individuals didn't even have to have bail. They both got a ticket and were told to show back up. They never did. They probably got back in the car and delivered more of those fentanyl pills coming across the border. Of those 300 Americans who will die today, I am not sure if one of those pills was theirs.

I do know this: Tomorrow when I cast a ``yes'' vote for H.R. 2, we are doing something to stop the fentanyl. We are doing something for those families. We are doing something for the next generation of Americans.

If you believe that the rule of law is one of the greatest strengths of this Nation, you cannot keep it if you have millions of people who break it by entering it.

There is no nation as generous as America. One million people will become citizens this year, and one million more next year. We are different from any other nation, but what we have today is something that we don't even control: our own operation of our borders.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Secure the Border Act, vote ``yes'' on security over chaos, and vote ``yes'' to stop fentanyl killing our children.

Mr. Speaker, it is important that we take a look at what we are doing here today. It is very obvious that we are addressing this question from the perspective of punishing families and punishing our children--yes, the children. The children are of all of us because we know that no matter what country, the children are our future.

This legislation is supposed to be a border security bill done without bipartisanship and extensively rejecting thoughtful amendments given by the members of the Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Homeland Security.

In Houston, this is to create an added nightmare in order not to be able to help those who are in need because they are coming. In fact, there are processes where they are able to access the process of asylum.

The fear that is made and given to the American people is to create hysteria rather than reason. I don't know what happened to the very reasonable, comprehensive immigration reform led by the late John McCain. Republicans ditched it, leaving DACA recipients, people who are EMS, doctors, and lawyers, still in limbo.

Here we come again with this bill that is the child deportation bill. It says in Houston to Catholic Charities, or the National Association of Christian Churches that is helping in New York, that they will be made criminals because we will not allow them to help those who are coming forward who have status with paperwork for asylum, but yet, they are still unstatused and undocumented.

It makes it absolutely impossible to come to the border to seek asylum. It upends the process and protections in place for unaccompanied children and requires all migrants seeking admission without a visa either to be detained or subjected to a program that Trump had. We know if we have someone who is going to, in essence, pardon all the January 6 persons, that is not a reliable policy.

It is clear that mandating indefinite detention for all asylum- seeking families and children is a deportation bill for children. Allowing children to be detained in Border Patrol facilities for an entire month is a cruel and inhumane act.

Hold a 9-month-old baby in your arms who was separated from their family, and maybe then, as I did almost more than 6 years ago, almost 10 years ago--this has been ongoing through all administrations. The only reason that the past administration had a title 42 is because of the pandemic.

We need not to have that patchwork of disaster. We need to be able to ensure that we are working studiously to ensure it. Let me share with you these numbers.

Mr. Speaker, people are, in fact, alarmed. They need to know that the migrants coming in are from Mexico. We do have an OTM, other than Mexican, people already going back--India, China, the Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Korea. It is widely diverse, based upon the persecution that people are feeling or the economic lack of life.

As we proceeded to do this work, do you know, as I leave this podium, that if you are an overstay in a hospital, you can automatically be criminally charged? In an amendment, I said: What is the intent? Do you know whether they were in a hospital, or they had a funeral, that they were, in essence, near death? There is no mercy.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation needs to go back to the drawing board. Americans and Houstonians are asking for us to do the right thing and to get security at the border and not have a bill that does nothing. That is what it does--absolutely nothing.

Mr. Speaker, I am here today o reassert my opposition to the proposed legislation, H.R. 2--Secure the Border Act of 2023, and to again assert the need for strong reconsideration for the harm and damage this bill will do to the American people and those seeking citizenship into our country. I do believe America must have a secure border!

I, along with my colleagues, have attempted to address some of the most glaring challenges this bill poses by offering common sense amendments, yet Republicans have continued to refuse any meaningful consideration. Let's work together for a secure southern and northern border.

H.R. 2 is in no way a serious measure that is being offered to resolve our current and ongoing dire needs to resolve immigration challenges and demands here in America.

We need the American people to understand that this is merely an unfortunate patchwork of extreme anti-immigrant proposals that would only add to more chaos at the border.

It includes a variety of illogical measures that would shut down the U.S. asylum system and target families and children for the cruelest forms of treatment.

One measure would make overstaying a visa a crime--for the first time in our history.

During the Judiciary Committee markup and the Rules Committee hearing, my Democratic colleagues and I could not get any Republican to roll back their punitive and damaging intent to harm any and all individuals seeking refuge and citizenship here in the U.S.--no matter the vulnerability of their age or their circumstances.

One of my amendments in particular would have added a mens rea requirement such that in order to be criminally liable, a person must ``knowingly and willingly'' overstay their visa.

It is important to remember that an individual can make an honest mistake about when they need to depart the country, be physically incapable of departing the country, or unable to return because of circumstances beyond their control in their home country.

Yet this bill has no exceptions or flexibility when it comes to overstaying a nonimmigrant visa.

For example, a person who has a medical emergency in the United States and cannot leave within 10 days of their visa expiring would violate this new law and face up to six months in prison and a fine of up to $1,000.

Or if a natural disaster prevents an individual from returning home for more than 10 days past the expiration of their status, they would be guilty of this crime and face 6 months in federal prison.

It is also important to remember that if a person overstays their visa, they are already subject to removal.

The addition of a criminal penalty is both cruel and unnecessary.

This bill is extraordinarily punitive, with far-reaching implications that may go beyond what my colleagues intended, unless they wanted to make following current immigration a crime punishable by up to 6 months in prison and a fine of up to $1,000.

Our immigration system needs reforms, and we are absolutely interested in bold new ideas to fix it, but this is not one of them.

That is why I also offered another amendment that would have simply created a critical exemption for Temporary Protected Status holders who overstay their visas.

If this bill had been in place last year, a Ukrainian student would have broken the law and faced a fine and jail time if they had been approved for Temporary Protected Status after Russia invaded their home, and then stayed in the US in Temporary Protected Status for longer than the validity of their student visa.

Perhaps if the majority had held a hearing on this topic, as they are supposed to under the regular order they love so much, they would understand the substantial problems with this legislation; perhaps we could have explored more realistic changes to our legal visa system.

I also offered another commonsense amendment during the Judiciary Committee Markup to the provision of H.R. 2 restricting parole.

H.R. 2 seeks to drastically limit the use of parole power but contradicts itself about how parole can be granted.

The bill claims that it limits DHS from granting parole based on eligibility criteria describing an entire class of potential parole recipients.

Immediately following this prohibition, the bill outlines the eligibility criteria for two classes of people it deems worthy of receiving parole: the spouses and minor children of active duty servicemembers and certain Cuban family members of US permanent residents.

The provision allowing parole for Cubans is modeled after Cuban Family Reunification Parole, which was created in 2007 to allow Cuban nationals with pending immigrant visa petitions to join their sponsoring family members in the United States.

This program was suspended during the Trump administration in 2017, but processing resumed in September 2022.

I am thrilled that Republicans have deemed this program worthy of keeping in place.

Their previous anti-parole bills certainly didn't seem to think it was worth saving.

However, I'm confused. There is another parole program, the Haitian Family Reunification Parole, which was created in 2014 and modeled after the Cuban program.

This program carries nearly identical eligibility requirements, with more limitations.

The Trump administration announced that it would terminate this program in 2019, about a year and a half after calling Haiti a ``s--- hole country.''

Fortunately, the administration was unable to do terminate the program before leaving office and the Biden administration reversed this decision.

The ongoing situation in Haiti is dire.

Earlier this month, human rights groups released figures showing that kidnappings in the country had dramatically increased in the first three months of the year.

The risk of kidnapping for Haitians is just one small piece of a wider crisis with escalating gang violence, a food shortage, a constitutional and law enforcement crisis, and a Cholera outbreak.

I cannot think of any legitimate reason why we would keep the Cuban parole program, but not the Haitian program.

My amendment simply would have added a provision to the parole section of this bill exempting this population from restrictions.

It is time we stop the negativity and counterproductive efforts that are ripping apart our country, and to instead focus on coming together to work towards sensible and effective solutions that can work for the betterment and growth of our country.

H.R. 2 is simply just another incredibly misguided Republican bill that further includes nonsensical and harmful changes to the current system for unaccompanied children (UACs) crossing the border.

Under this bill, all unaccompanied children would be subject to a summary removal process, which would give them even fewer protections than current law provides for unaccompanied minors from contiguous countries like Mexico.

H.R. 2 would eliminate the right of many children to seek protection in immigration court from human trafficking and other dangers, leaving them with only cursory screenings by law enforcement personnel lacking child welfare expertise.

The incredulous bill would also bar existing efforts to provide government-paid counsel to unaccompanied children and subjects all unaccompanied children to an expedited screening and removal process, giving them just 14 days to prepare their case without a government- provided attorney.

Additionally, the bill prohibits anyone who entered the United States between ports of entry (unless they were interdicted at sea) from being able to seek asylum--notwithstanding the Majority's rejection of multiple amendments that would have exempted unaccompanied children from this restriction.

Whereas, Democrats have proposed a range of solutions to address the humanitarian crisis at the border and improve protections for unaccompanied children.

These proposals include increasing funding for HHS and DHS to ensure that unaccompanied children are properly cared for, and their sponsors are thoroughly vetted, expanding access to legal counsel for these children, and addressing the root causes of migration from Central America through diplomatic and development initiatives.

Democrats also support comprehensive immigration reform that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and improve border security measures while respecting the rights and dignity of all individuals.

In March 2021, President Eiden signed a memorandum creating a task force to reunite families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Trump administration's ``zero tolerance'' policy.

The task force is composed of officials from several agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Democrats have proposed legislation, such as the Dream Act and the American Dream and Promise Act, that would provide a pathway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, also known as Dreamers.

In July 2021, the House passed a bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers and their families, called the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.

This would protect workers from exploitation and abuse and would provide stability for the agricultural industry.

Democrats have advocated for a comprehensive immigration reform package that would address the root causes of migration, improve border security, and create legal pathways for people to enter the U.S. lawfully.

In September 2021, the Biden administration announced plans to increase the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. annually, following a historic low under the previous l administration.

This move would provide opportunities for people who are fleeing violence and persecution to find safety and stability in the U.S.

Over the years, the Democrat party is making sure that these unaccompanied children stay safe and have a legal documentation in the United States, while the Republican party sadly has steadfastly opposed all the legislation that benefits these children.

I ask my colleagues to come together and move past the discord and to stand true to our ideals as Americans and protect our most vulnerable-- to protect all children who come to us in need.