H.Res. 891

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

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the legislation. I am disappointed that today we once again are discussing the continued Republican insistence that immigration is a Federal land emergency.

I will continue to dispute this claim because instead of focusing on the root causes of our Nation's immigration crisis and challenges, my colleagues have chosen to double down on a distraction.

I oppose this bill because it is a political stunt that will invite even more hateful anti-immigration rhetoric from the extreme MAGA wing of the Republican Party.

The case of Floyd Bennett Field does not represent a threat to our public lands. Rather, it encapsulates the humanitarian crisis that we are facing caused by failed immigration policies from the past administration and from the failure of Congress to take any action to reform a broken immigration system.

The crisis can be solved but only with real comprehensive immigration reform.

Madam Chair, former President Trump, as I understand it, is still the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination.

News flash: Nothing has changed. He has stated that he intends to return to the White House with his supercharged plan that one of his closest confidants and noted white nationalist Stephen Miller described as a ``blitz.''

Miller went on to say that, ``Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of Federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.''

Madam Chair, I include in the Record The New York Times article, ``Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration Plans.''

[From the New York Times, Nov. 11, 2023]

Sweeping Raids and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration

Plans

(By Charles Savage, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan)

Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme

expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he

returns to power in 2025--including preparing to round up

undocumented people already in the United States on a vast

scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to

be expelled.

The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal

immigration in a multitude of ways.

Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies,

including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-

majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of

refusing asylum claims--though this time he would base that

refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious

diseases like tuberculosis.

He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants

and deport people by the millions per year.

To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an

enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require

due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs

Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign

other federal agents and deputize local police officers and

National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by

Republican-run states.

To ease the strain on ICE detention facilities, Mr. Trump

wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases

are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get

around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary

funds, Mr. Trump would redirect money in the military budget,

as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall

than Congress had authorized.

In a public reference to his plans, Mr. Trump told a crowd

in Iowa in September: ``Following the Eisenhower model, we

will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in

American history.'' The reference was to a 1954 campaign to

round up and expel Mexican immigrants that was named for an

ethnic slur--``Operation Wetback.''

The constellation of Mr. Trump's 2025 plans amounts to an

assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American

history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred

from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades

after settling here.

Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical,

financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously

challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth

and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing.

In a second Trump presidency, the visas of foreign students

who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests

would be canceled. U.S. consular officials abroad will be

directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants

to block people the Trump administration considers to have

undesirable attitudes. People who were granted temporary

protected status because they are from certain countries

deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the

United States, would have that status revoked.

Similarly, numerous people who have been allowed to live in

the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons would also

lose that status and be kicked out, including tens of

thousands of the Afghans who were evacuated amid the 2021

Taliban takeover and allowed to enter the United States.

Afghans holding special visas granted to people who helped

U.S. forces would be revetted to see if they really did.

And Mr. Trump would try to end birthright citizenship for

babies born in the United States to undocumented parents--by

proclaiming that policy to be the new position of the

government and by ordering agencies to cease issuing

citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards

and passports to them. That policy's legal legitimacy, like

nearly all of Mr. Trump's plans, would be virtually certain

to end up before the Supreme Court.

In interviews with The New York Times, several Trump

advisers gave the most expansive and detailed description of

Mr. Trump's immigration agenda in a potential second term. In

particular, Mr. Trump's campaign referred questions for this

article to Stephen Miller, an architect of Mr. Trump's first-

term immigration policies who remains close to and is

expected to serve in a senior role in a second

administration.

All of the steps Trump advisers are preparing, Mr. Miller

contended in a wide-ranging interview, rely on existing

statutes; while the Trump team would likely seek a revamp of

immigration laws, the plan was crafted to need no new

substantive legislation. And while acknowledging that

lawsuits would arise to challenge nearly every one of them,

he portrayed the Trump team's daunting array of tactics as a

``blitz'' designed to overwhelm immigrant-rights lawyers.

``Any activists who doubt President Trump's resolve in the

slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the

vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most

spectacular migration crackdown,'' Mr. Miller said, adding,

``The immigration legal activists won't know what's

happening.''

Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration and

criminal justice advocacy group that repeatedly fought the

Trump administration, said the Trump team's plans relied on

``xenophobic demagoguery'' that appeals to his hardest-core

political base.

``Americans should understand these policy proposals are an

authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart

nearly every aspect of American life--tanking the economy,

violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants

and native-born Americans alike,'' Mr. Schulte said.

Since Mr. Trump left office, the political environment on

immigration has moved in his direction. He is also more

capable now of exploiting that environment if he is re-

elected than he was when he first won election as an

outsider.

The ebbing of the Covid-19 pandemic and resumption of

travel flows have helped stir a global migrant crisis, with

millions of Venezuelans and Central Americans fleeing turmoil

and Africans arriving in Latin American countries before

continuing their journey north. Amid the record numbers of

migrants at the southern border and beyond it in cities like

New York and Chicago, voters are frustrated and even some

Democrats are calling for tougher action against immigrants

and pressuring the White House to better manage the crisis.

Mr. Trump and his advisers see the opening, and now know

better how to seize it. The aides Mr. Trump relied upon in

the chaotic early days of his first term were sometimes at

odds and lacked experience in how to manipulate the levers of

federal power. By

the end of his first term, cabinet officials and lawyers who

sought to restrain some of his actions--like his Homeland

Security secretary and chief of staff, John F. Kelly--had

been fired, and those who stuck with him had learned much.

In a second term, Mr. Trump plans to install a team that

will not restrain him.

Since much of Mr. Trump's first-term immigration crackdown

was tied up in the courts, the legal environment has tilted

in his favor: His four years of judicial appointments left

behind federal appellate courts and a Supreme Court that are

far more conservative than the courts that heard challenges

to his first-term policies.

The fight over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

provides an illustration.

DACA is an Obama-era program that shields from deportation

and grants work permits to people who were brought unlawfully

to the United States as children. Mr. Trump tried to end it,

but the Supreme Court blocked him on procedural grounds in

June 2020.

Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would try again to end DACA. And

the 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court that blocked the last

attempt no longer exists: A few months after the DACA ruling,

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Mr. Trump replaced her

with a sixth conservative, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Mr. Trump's rhetoric has more than kept up with his

increasingly extreme agenda on immigration.

His stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants--pushing

for a border wall and calling Mexicans rapists--fueled his

2016 takeover of the Republican Party. As president, he

privately mused about developing a militarized border like

Israel's, asked whether migrants crossing the border could be

shot in the legs and wanted a proposed border wall topped

with flesh-piercing spikes and painted black to burn

migrants' skin.

As he has campaigned for the party's third straight

presidential nomination, his anti-immigrant tone has only

grown harsher. In a recent interview with a right-wing

website, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that foreign

leaders were deliberately emptying their ``insane asylums''

to send the patients across America's southern border as

migrants. He said migrants were ``poisoning the blood of our

country.'' And at a rally on Wednesday in Florida, he

compared them to the fictional serial killer and cannibal

Hannibal Lecter, saying; ``That's what's coming into our

country right now.''

Mr. Trump had similarly vowed to carry out mass

deportations when running for office in 2016, but the

government only managed several hundred thousand removals per

year under his presidency, on par with other recent

administrations. If they get another opportunity, Mr. Trump

and his team are determined to achieve annual numbers in the

millions.

Mr. Trump's immigration plan is to pick up where he left

off and then go much farther. He would not only revive some

of the policies that were criticized as draconian during his

presidency, many of which the Biden White House ended, but

also expand and toughen them.

One example centers on expanding first-term policies aimed

at keeping people out of the country. Mr. Trump plans to

suspend the nation's refugee program and once again

categorically bar visitors from troubled countries,

reinstating a version of his ban on travel from several

mostly Muslim-majority countries, which President Biden

called discriminatory and ended on his first day in office.

Mr. Trump would also use coercive diplomacy to induce other

nations to help, including by making cooperation a condition

of any other bilateral engagement, Mr. Miller said. For

example, a second Trump administration would seek to re-

establish an agreement with Mexico that asylum seekers remain

there while their claims are processed. (It is not clear that

Mexico would agree; a Mexican court has said that deal

violated human rights.)

Mr. Trump would also push to revive ``safe third country''

agreements with several nations in Central America, and try

to expand them to Africa, Asia and South America. Under such

deals, countries agree to take would-be asylum seekers from

specific other nations and let them apply for asylum there

instead.

While such arrangements have traditionally only covered

migrants who had previously passed through a third country,

federal law does not require that limit and a second Trump

administration would seek to make those deals without it, in

part as a deterrent to migrants making what the Trump team

views as illegitimate asylum claims.

At the same time, Mr. Miller said, the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention would invoke the public health

emergency powers law known as Title 42 to again refuse to

hear any asylum claims by people arriving at the southern

border. The Trump administration had internally discussed

that idea early in Mr. Trump's term, but some cabinet

secretaries pushed back, arguing that there was no public

health emergency that would legally justify it. The

administration ultimately implemented it during the

coronavirus pandemic.

Saying the idea has since gained acceptance in practice--

Mr. Biden initially kept the policy--Mr. Miller said Mr.

Trump would invoke Title 42, citing ``severe strains of the

flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like

R.S.V. and so on, or just a general issue of mass migration

being a public health threat and conveying a variety of

communicable diseases.''

Mr. Trump and his aides have not yet said whether they

would re-enact one of the most contentious deterrents to

unauthorized immigration that he pursued as president:

separating children from their parents, which led to trauma

among migrants and difficulties in reuniting families. When

pressed, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out

reviving the policy. After an outcry over the practice, Mr.

Trump ended it in 2018 and a judge later blocked the

government from putting it back into effect.

Soon after Mr. Trump announced his 2024 campaign for

president last November, he met with Tom Homan, who ran ICE

for the first year and a half of the Trump administration and

was an early proponent of separating families to deter

migrants.

In an interview, Mr. Homan recalled that in that meeting,

he ``agreed to come back'' in a second term and would ``help

to organize and run the largest deportation operation this

country's ever seen.''

Trump advisers' vision of abrupt mass deportations would be

a recipe for social and economic turmoil, disrupting the

housing market and major industries including agriculture and

the service sector.

Mr Miller cast such disruption in a favorable light.

``Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption

celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered

higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs,'' he

said. ``Americans will also celebrate the fact that our

nation's laws are now being applied equally, and that one

select group is no longer magically exempt.''

One planned step to overcome the legal and logistical

hurdles would be to significantly expand a form of fast-track

deportations known as ``expedited removal.'' it denies

undocumented immigrants the usual hearings and opportunity to

file appeals, which can take months or years--especially when

people are not in custody--and has led to a large backlog. A

1996 law says people can be subject to expedited removal for

up to two years after arriving, but to date the executive

branch has used it more cautiously, swiftly expelling people

picked up near the border soon after crossing.

The Trump administration tried to expand the use of

expedited removal, but a court blocked it and then the Biden

team canceled the expansion. It remains unclear whether the

Supreme Court will rule that it is constitutional to use the

law against people who have been living for a significant

period in the United States and express fear of persecution

if sent home.

Mr. Trump has also said he would invoke an archaic law, the

Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to expel suspected members of drug

cartels and criminal gangs without due process. That law

allows for summary deportation of people from countries with

which the United States is at war, that have invaded the

United States or that have engaged in ``predatory

incursions.''

The Supreme Court has upheld past uses of that law in

wartime. But its text seems to require a link to the actions

of a foreign government, so it is not clear whether the

justices will allow a president to stretch it to encompass

drug cartel activity.

More broadly, Mr. Miller said a new Trump administration

would shift from the ICE practice of arresting specific

people to carrying out workplace raids and other sweeps in

public places aimed at arresting scores of unauthorized

immigrants at once.

To make the process of finding and deporting undocumented

immigrants already living inside the country ``radically more

quick and efficient,'' he said, the Trump team would bring in

``the right kinds of attorneys and the right kinds of policy

thinkers'' willing to carry out such ideas.

And because of the magnitude of arrests and deportations

being contemplated, they plan to build ``vast holding

facilities that would function as staging centers'' for

immigrants as their cases progress and they wait to be flown

to other countries.

Mr. Miller said the new camps would likely be built ``on

open land in Texas near the border.''

He said the military would construct them under the

authority and control of the Department of Homeland Security.

While he cautioned that there were no specific blueprints

yet, he said the camps would look professional and similar to

other facilities for migrants that have been built near the

border.

Such camps could also enable the government to speed up the

pace and volume of deportations of undocumented people who

have lived in the United States for years and so are not

subject to fast-track removal. If pursuing a longshot effort

to win permission to remain in the country would mean staying

locked up in the interim, some may give up and voluntarily

accept removal without going through the full process.

The use of these camps, Mr. Miller said, would likely be

focused more on single adults because the government cannot

indefinitely hold children under a longstanding court order

known as the Flores settlement. So any families brought to

the facilities would have to be moved in and out more

quickly, he said.

The Trump administration tried to overturn the Flores

settlement, but the Supreme Court did not resolve the matter

before Mr. Trump's term ended. Mr. Miller said the Trump team

would try again.

To increase the number of agents available for ICE sweeps,

Mr. Miller said, officials from other federal law enforcement

agencies would be temporarily reassigned, and state National

Guard troops and local police officers, at least from willing

Republican-led states, would be deputized for immigration

control efforts.

While a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally

forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement

purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an

exception. Mr. Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act at the

border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend

migrants, Mr Miller said.

``Bottom line,'' he said, ``President Trump will do

whatever it takes.''

Madam Chair, apparently, the plan that has Mr. Miller salivating includes mass roundups, mass incarceration, permanently ending DACA, and the construction of camps to hold migrants waiting to be processed and presumably later expelled from the country.

This is the leader from the Republican Party--his platform on immigration.

I wonder if MAGA Don thinks that he will build these camps on public lands. I hope not, but who knows, perhaps he even thinks Mexico will pay for it.

Seeking asylum is a human right. We should be discussing how we can best support migrants in this time of crisis by providing additional resources to guarantee safety and well-being during the immigration process.

We should be supporting cities like New York that are responding proactively to this crisis. Instead, we are taking up a bill that micromanages and limits local decisionmaking authority.

If the Republicans wanted to protect our parks, they would have passed an appropriations bill that would not cut nearly half a billion dollars from the National Park budget. Such a cut would result in the loss of 1,000 park staff and will reduce the agency's maintenance and preservation funding.

These extreme cuts are going nowhere in the Senate, and President Biden has promised to veto, so why waste that time.

To protect our parks, we should empower our Federal land management agencies by providing them with the necessary resources to fulfill their mission and the mission to the American people. Instead, this bill would interfere with that work.

Historically, the National Park Service has the authority to lease its property if the agency head determines that the lease will not obstruct the preservation of the property. Well, in the case of Floyd Bennett Field, the temporary lease will have minimal environmental impact.

New York City will be investing millions of dollars to address the deferred maintenance and improve visitor amenities, leaving the site actually better than before. This idea that leasing the field this way will somehow degrade it is a red herring.

The temporary lease will also have minimal impact on recreation. The park at Floyd Bennett Field we are talking about in this instance is the disused runway at an abandoned airport. That is why the site has a long history of leasing for nonrecreational purposes.

It has been used for emergency responses, like during Hurricane Sandy, and even now it is used by NYPD and the New York City Department of Sanitation for exercises, including training their drivers in the use of heavy-duty vehicles.

Madam Chair, New York City is urgently responding to a humanitarian crisis. We need to support that effort. Evicting the migrants at Floyd Bennett Field with no plan for keeping them from being homeless is not a real solution for New Yorkers. It is not a real solution for our national immigration debate. We need real immigration reform, not more unserious attempts to distract from the root of the problem.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), a distinguished member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maine (Ms. Pingree).

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

I think a soft reminder is important now, as we point to these asylum seekers and those who are seeking refugee status in this country and those who are going through the immigration process.

It is important to note that they are not the first. Almost everybody who speaks on this floor today can trace their lineage to somebody who wasn't here in this country when the indigenous people, the first Americans in this country, were here.

I think we need to be careful not to stereotype, not to be ugly, and not to be abusive about a crisis and human tragedy that we see before us that we should be attending to rather than exploiting.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), a valued colleague.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Goldman).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Garcia).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Chairman, as a reminder, seeking asylum is a human, legal right protected by international law and United States law, period.

Instead of wishing that that was not the case, Republicans should work with Democrats and the administration to move a meaningful response to this humanitarian crisis and dealing with the issue of comprehensive immigration reform. Unfortunately, we are here debating a senseless stunt of a bill instead.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Chicago, Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).

Mr. Chairman, yes, elections do have consequences, and one of the responsibilities that elections provide to the United States Congress and the House of Representatives, let me remind my colleagues, is our broken immigration system, and that is a problem only Congress can solve.

We have seen what happens when Republicans try to solve this from the White House. The Trump administration set an unprecedented pace for executive action on immigration. These restrictive policies did not solve the crisis. Instead, they increased the backlog in immigration proceedings, separated children from their families, banned foreign nationals from predominately Muslim countries, and cut refugee numbers to the lowest in decades, among other things. So this is on Congress to fix.

Unfortunately, as long as Republicans refuse to support real, substantive reform that is fair, humane, and equitable for all parties, then we will continue to see immigration-related crises of the makings of Congress and in this particular instance of the making of the House majority Republicans.

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

Mr. Chairman, it is interesting to hear my Republican counterparts wax eloquently about their concerns for our national parks during this debate. They didn't say a word about the tremendous damage done to cultural resources by Trump's disastrous border wall along the southern border in Arizona primarily. They did not speak to that issue at all.

In fact, now they want to condition aid to Ukraine and possibly Israel, who are key U.S. allies, on the construction of even more miles of an ineffective and destructive border wall.

It is one thing to have a debate about a basic philosophical difference and policy difference that we have in terms of immigration reform. It is another to use half-truths and disinformation and to be disingenuous in presenting what is a reality. The reality on the southern border in Arizona is serious, and I have not denied and will not deny that it is a crisis.

Nevertheless, this is a crisis that must be worked on humanely and not by stereotyping and profiling people because of their country of origin as the reason that we make the harsh comments that are being heard today.

Pandering is not the solution. Constructive and pragmatic immigration reform is what we need to do. That is not being done, and this bill doesn't do it.

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

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

We have heard the argument today, and indeed for years now, that migrants crossing our border are the primary ones responsible for the tens of thousands of American lives tragically lost to fentanyl overdoses each year. It is a tragedy that we can all not only sympathize with but want to do something desperately about.

Nevertheless, that story is simply false. Fentanyl is overwhelmingly smuggled into the United States by American citizens where it is then also consumed by American citizens. That is a fact.

In 2021 more than 86 percent of convicted fentanyl traffickers were U.S. citizens. More than 90 percent of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points and interior checkpoints, not illegal immigration routes, and just 0.02 percent of migrants arrested by Border Patrol are found to possess fentanyl.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record a piece from The American Prospect exploring how customs loopholes allow smugglers to ship fentanyl and its precursor chemical to the United States without inspection or law enforcement.

[The American Prospect, Nov. 27, 2023]

The Amazon Loophole Is Driving the Fentanyl Crisis

(By David Dayen)

One of the more frustrating things about public policy in

the United States is how the dominance of corporate interests

makes simple reforms that could save thousands of lives

impossible. To wit: Here is the story of how Amazon and other

retailers are facilitating the epidemic of deaths from

fentanyl.

We know that fentanyl deaths rose 279 percent from 2016 to

2022. Two-thirds of the 110,000-plus overdose deaths in

America last year were due to fentanyl. It is the leading

killer of Americans aged 18 to 49, and it has devastated

communities across the country.

Drug enforcement efforts in the U.S. have historically

targeted supply through a so-called ``war on drugs.'' But

reducing the amount of fentanyl on the street need not

involve military-style operations in Central and South

America. China is the source of most of the chemical

compounds that cartels use to make fentanyl in illicit drug

labs. Without these raw materials, much of the fentanyl trade

would be stopped.

Now, of course this would not halt opioid addiction or use

by itself; traditional smuggled heroin would likely fill in

the gap. But fentanyl is orders of magnitude more dangerous

than heroin thanks to its extreme potency, which is a

principal cause of the overdose epidemic. The tiniest of

measurement errors can lead to an overdose, and black-market

drug dealers are not exactly known for their responsible

metrology.

Customs enforcement officials have begun to charge Chinese

firms that produce and ship these precursor chemicals (and

produced fentanyl as well, and President Biden, in a summit

earlier this month, pressured Chinese President Xi Jinping on

the matter. The U.S. and China agreed in principle to a deal

where China would limit the flow of fentanyl

in exchange for the U.S. rolling back restrictions on China's

forensic police institute.

But while Chinese cooperation is welcome, the bigger

problem is that the vast majority of fentanyl chemicals sent

from China are not inspected at all. That's because of

something called the ``de minimis'' rule.

Section 321 of the Tariff Act of 1930 allows for goods

under a certain value to be shipped into the U.S. without

tariffs, fees, or inspections. Anyone who has flown on

international travel is familiar with this from their

declaration card when they return to the U.S.; if you got

some trinkets from abroad that are of a nominal value, you

don't have to submit them to customs officials.

In 2016, that nominal, or de minimis, value, went up from

$200 to $800. There are only two countries in the world that

have a higher de minimis value than the U.S.; China's de

minimis value is less than $10.

Why did this change happen? Because

e-commerce firms, primarily Amazon, wanted to be able to

bring in goods from China to their warehouses or even

directly to their customers without any taxes or tariffs. In

fact, it's often been characterized as the ``Amazon

loophole.''

Chinese shippers have been known to package shipments in

separate boxes to keep under the $800 threshold, or send

goods to distribution centers just outside the United States,

where packages are broken up to get under the de minimis

threshold and sent into the country.

These small shipments have exploded in frequency. In fiscal

year 2018, 410.5 million de minimis packages were sent. By

fiscal year 2022, that number was up to 685.1 million. Some

experts put that number much higher. One analysis estimates

that the official figure for the trade deficit with China

last year was short by $188 billion after accounting for de

minimis shipments.

While there's practically no information available about

these shipments (many have no data at all except for a

mailing label), there is mounting evidence that one of the

most common de minimis items is fentanyl, as Michael Stumo of

the Coalition for a Prosperous America has written. This

stands to reason, as fentanyl's potency means it is highly

valuable by weight. ``The overwhelming volume of small

packages and lack of actionable data,'' the U.S. Office of

Customs and Border Protection wrote earlier this year,

``impacts CBP's ability to identify and interdict high-risk

shipments that may contain narcotics, merchandise that poses

a risk to public safety, counterfeits, or other contraband.''

It's highly likely that precursor chemicals are moving from

China to Mexico under de minimis rules as well.

It was not the original intention of de minimis rules to

build a parallel, off-the-books customs system, used often

for illegal goods shipping. But that's what the Amazon

loophole has facilitated. Congress is aware of the problem. A

bill from Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA)

would reduce de minimis thresholds to the level of trading

partners (meaning that the de minimis threshold on Chinese

goods would fall to under $10). A separate bipartisan,

bicameral bill would simply ban de minimis shipments from

``non-market'' economies, as well as countries on a priority

watch list for using de minimis, which would target China.

The House Select Committee on China has investigated

rampant use of the Amazon loophole from fast-fashion

companies using forced labor. One textile industry official

described de minimis as akin to ``handing a free trade

agreement to China and the rest of the world.'' The chairman

of the China committee, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), has

expressed optimism that legislation reforming de minimis

would pass this year (though passing anything in Congress is

incredibly optimistic).

Of course, this is terrible news for the companies

exploiting the loophole for tax benefits, like Amazon and

other online retailers. So they are firing up their lobby

engines. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National

Foreign Trade Council (a trade group of importers) deny that

counterfeit goods or fentanyl enter the U.S. through de

minimis shipments at all, while arguing that CBP gets plenty

of information about what's in the packages. Lobbyists and

their allies are also complaining about higher CBP costs for

inspections of small packages, while not mentioning that it

would be the importer who would have to pay those charges.

Keep in mind that when indictments were handed down on the

companies sending precursor chemicals for fentanyl to drug

cartels, they were reportedly packagd to appear as dog food,

nuts, or motor oil. The ``benefits of free trade'' are hard

to discern in a recently expanded loophole intended mostly to

save Amazon money that is now facilitating the fentanyl

crisis.

There's another beneficiary of the de minimis loophole:

digital advertising companies, which benefit from ads from

Chinese fast-fashion firms like Shein and Temu that make

liberal use of the loophole. Financial Times reporter Rana

Foroohar reported recently that one-third of the revenue

growth from Meta this year is due to these two fast-fashion

firms.

The Biden administration could actually use executive

authority to remove certain de minimis exceptions. But in a

meeting last week about combating the entry of fentanyl,

administration officials actually claimed that reauthorizing

the warrantless spying provisions of the Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Act was critical to stopping the supply. There

isn't much evidence that surveillance dragnets would deal

with the fentanyl trade, and Congress is highly unlikely to

rubber-stamp government spying once again.

Drug addiction is largely a medical issue, and expanding

treatment is likely to pay higher dividends than a loser's

game of trying to stem the flow of supply. But the fact that

fentanyl is coming in through ordinary shipping services

without inspection seems to be the low-hanging fruit here.

The process of customs inspection has been almost totally

circumvented, to the benefit of two groups: e-commerce

companies raking in cheap goods from China, and drug

traffickers. The latter may be a universally hated scourge,

but the former is quite powerful. And so abuse of the

loophole continues.

The question for lawmakers and the White House then

becomes: How many Americans are they willing to sacrifice so

Amazon doesn't have to pay a little bit in import fees?

Mr. Chair, U.S. citizens are providing both the supply and the demand for fentanyl and other illegal drugs. The organized criminal syndicates on both sides of the borders are the ones profiting off the billions and billions of dollars from the misery and deaths that fentanyl has caused.

Instead of addressing these root causes that have led to the tragic opioid epidemic, Republicans want to lay the blame on migrants seeking a life in this great Nation of ours, being free from persecution and free from hatred and fear.

That is another piece of disinformation. I think it is important to know that we are talking about an issue where that bitter taste and that deadly taste was introduced to the American people by Big Pharma, nice homegrown American corporations that provide pharmaceuticals to this country.

They introduced the habit to the country. Organized crime has taken it over. American citizens are being hurt, and American citizens are hurting other citizens.

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

Mr. Chair, in closing, we are having a debate on a piece of legislation that is not really the intent of the legislation. The intent of this legislation is to begin to continue to develop the narrative anti-immigrant, xenophobic rhetoric that the Republican majority feels is going to be their pathway to electoral success in 2024.

I think the American people are going to be able to see that if you want to talk about our national parks and the public use as being the priority, Democrats are prepared to work with the Republican majority to protect them and to enhance those resources.

If we are going to talk about immigration and we are going to talk in an atmosphere where the dog whistles don't become barks on this issue, Democrats are prepared to do that. We are prepared to sit down and look at the aspects of legalization, security, and fighting the syndicated crime that is causing much hurt in this country and in Mexico. We are prepared to do that, but we are not prepared to deal with this issue as a ruse, as a stunt, as a political performative act leading to 2024.

If they are serious about immigration reform, if we are serious about protecting our public lands and waters, we are serious about it, too.

Mr. Chair, I urge all Members of the House to vote ``no'' on this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment is, frankly, completely unnecessary. It would require preparation and submission of an annual report in perpetuity regarding the migrants housed on certain public lands. Yet, the underlying bill would essentially ban any such housing.

It is a permanent requirement for reporting on nothing, paid for by the taxpayer.

Over the years, I have heard plenty of skepticism from my Republican colleagues about some of the reports that Congress requires of the executive branch. Usually, though, I can at least see the argument for those other reports, but I have to say it is interesting to see my Republican colleagues in favor of this one.

That said, I don't think this amendment is worth fighting over either. Having these reports would not be useful, but it would not be actively harmful either. I only hope that House Republicans would change their minds about slashing the budgets of these departments and will instead give Federal workers the funding they need to carry out their missions, which will now also include generating these annual reports.

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

Mr. Chairman, again, in our view, this amendment is unnecessary, but it is not actively harmful, either. I hope we can move on. I hope that everybody is satisfied, that they got their little clips done in terms of being strong, hard, anti-immigrant people and got those little sound bites done already. I think it is time that we move on.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. This amendment draws attention to the dubious and deceptive strategy of placing migrants on buses under false pretenses and without any coordination or even a courtesy call.

Both Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis have demonstrated that they are more interested in ginning up the MAGA base on Twitter than finding meaningful solutions to the challenges facing our immigration system, the refugee crisis both nationally and particularly in their States.

Migrants are people, not political pawns. We can have disagreements over immigration policy. That is fair game. However, the dehumanizing games and political stunts need to stop.

Mr. Chair, I associate myself with the remarks of the gentlewoman from New York, the sponsor of the amendment.

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

Let me first start off by saying the President of the United States did the right thing. It is easy to say why we should vote against this bill.

My good friend, the chairman, has talked about October 7 over and over. Our committee has had several family members come before our committee where we have vowed to do everything we can to get their family members back home.

For me, it has been very personal. Yesterday, we talked to a group of family members. We told them we will not stop until we get their family members back home.

Negotiating to bring our hostages home is hard because you have to do it with bad people.

Guess what? Hamas committed the heinous acts on October 7, but who are we negotiating with to get the hostages home? Hamas. It is not easy, but we vowed in front of these witnesses.

I wonder what we would say to those five individuals and families, who are now safe at home, before they were released? Would we have promised them and didn't we promise them we would do everything we could to get them back home?

Yes, President Biden did the right thing. He brought five Americans home who were rotting in Iran's notorious Evan prison.

Every Member of Congress--I repeat, every Member of this Congress who was aware of these cases wanted our fellow citizens to come home. Now, they are saying they should not have come home.

This was done, wanting them to come home, with a bipartisan voice. President Biden thus succeeded in doing what his predecessors could not. He got them home.

Iran, of course, as is Hamas, is a murderous and corrupt regime. They are not pleasant, and this isn't easy. Thanks to this agreement, five American families are now whole again, and Iran has lost the leverage of holding these American hostages.

Now, H.R. 5961 would sanction parties that carry out the financial terms of the hostage agreement in question. These include three European commercial banks and the Central Bank of Qatar, who, by the way, has been very instrumental in working with us to get hostages home that were taken on October 7, but let's really talk about the facts.

Yes, I have been in classified sessions and nonclassified sessions and have heard it, as all of us have. Let's talk about the facts.

Billions of Iran's own profits from oil sales were sitting in a restricted account in South Korea. It was done by the prior administration. It was established by the Trump administration for Iran to make approved humanitarian purchases. This wasn't done by the Biden administration. It was sitting in South Korea, by the Trump administration, for humanitarian purchases.

The United States had no control over that account while it was sitting there. The agreement moved that $6 billion from the restricted account in South Korea, converted it to euros, and relocated it into the restricted account in Qatar, which now the United States has visibility over--not a single penny--facts, not conjecture, facts.

I don't think anyone can refute the fact that not a single penny has moved into Iran. Not one. Not a penny, much less a dime. Not a penny has moved into Iran.

Under the terms of the agreement, Iran can use the money in Qatar to make approved humanitarian purchases to acquire medicine, medical equipment, agricultural goods, and food. Iran's government physically will never touch this money. The entirety of the transaction occurs outside of Iran, and Iran only receives the vetted humanitarian goods.

By the way, that is consistent with our values, and that is why we, in all of this, are talking about humanitarian concerns for people who are just victimized by bad people.

Thus far, Iran has not made any requests of the humanitarian fund, and nothing has been gained by Iran. All of the money remains in the account, an account that the United States can watch.

We have leverage over that account due to our relationship with the correspondent banks in Europe that would help process any transactions. In other words, we know we now have more control over this money than we did when it was sitting in South Korea. In fact, this account provides us with leverage, not the other way around.

Furthermore, following the horrific attacks in Israel on October 7, the United States and Qatar froze the humanitarian fund, so it is frozen now in Qatar. No humanitarian purchases will be approved any time soon. Again, nothing has changed.

The money remains in the account and we continue to have leverage. Nothing has changed from when the money was sitting in South Korea.

The only thing that has changed is five American citizens are no longer sitting in an Iranian prison. They are back home with their families.

Madam Chair, if H.R. 5961 is passed into law, that leverage will be gone. It will disappear. We will also lose our ability to conduct diplomacy with Iran and others in the future. If we blow up this agreement by passing this bill, we, the United States, will be the ones breaking yet another sensitive negotiated agreement.

Our word and integrity will no longer be good in negotiations, whether it is with Iran or any other parties. The United States must continue to address--and here is where I think we agree--no one is saying that the United States needs to continue to address Iran's backing of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Iranian-supported Hamas terrorists unleashed pure evil when they broke a cease-fire in the attacks on October 7. The population of Gaza would not be engulfed in war right now if it were not for Hamas. But we must also remain sober and serious about the challenge of Iran's nefarious nuclear

program. None of the bad options we possess to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions are better than the diplomatic track, which has already proven successful.

It was the United States who actually violated the JCPOA, not Iran. Pulling out of this hostage agreement will be the second time we violate an agreement with Iran's leaders. Passage of this bill would mean potentially slamming the door closed on future diplomacy, leaving us only with dangerous and highly risky options of confronting Iran's nuclear program.

We all agree, Iran must not ever have a nuclear weapon, but guess what, since we pulled out of JCPOA, they are closer to getting a nuclear weapon than had we been in there.

Madam Chair, the prisoner swap confirms to the Iranian regime that the United States is a reliable negotiating partner, just as we see taking place right now.

As we bring the hostages home from Gaza, they have to deal with Hamas. Both sides have to keep their word. We have warned Israel, who is a strong, diplomatic, honest country moving forward, fighting for its existence but have to deal with Hamas. They made an agreement, and they are living by that agreement. Hostages are coming home, and we want that to continue for each and every one of them. They are not just simply being released, Israel is giving something back in return.

In our case, Iran is actually not getting anything because they are not getting a dime to be utilized for their nefarious purposes.

Madam Chair, let me conclude with this: The agreement has freed five Americans--I repeat, five American citizens--who were suffering in an Iranian prison, who we all, in a bipartisan way, said we would do anything to get them home. We wanted them to be home.

It shifted Iran's own money from an account in Korea that we did not control, to one where we play a role and have control that we didn't in South Korea.

Not a single penny has left the account. I don't think anybody can refute that. Not a single penny has left the account. Not a single penny has entered Iran. Not a single U.S. taxpayer dollar has been involved.

This fund remains frozen indefinitely by the United States in Qatar, which has been working closely with us and Israel.

There is no reason to jeopardize future negotiations or further inflame an already dangerous situation by passing this bill. The fact of the matter is, I don't see why we would want to pass this bill. We know that diplomacy is the first thing we need to move forward in bringing our people home.

Lastly, let me just say this because I want to be absolutely clear: I don't want Iran's leaders to benefit from our actions in any shape, fashion, or form. This hostage agreement that stands today, they have not benefited from it and will not benefit from it.

Unfortunately, this legislation will shoot American global credibility in the foot without even touching Iranian regime leaders. We encourage this House not to rush into passing this bill. Let's keep the door open for diplomacy.

This stands as an example with Iran and others because we have adversaries, but you always have to deal with those adversaries and negotiate and talk to try to figure out how we can live in a better place.

Let's think ahead. Let's not play checkers. Let's play chess. That is what this is all about.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me just say that I keep hearing this demonstrates weakness. The Biden administration demonstrated strength in being willing to stand with your enemies and negotiate.

I can recall, for me, even in our own country, what I learned to live by. Many folks were thinking that when Dr. King was moving forward with nonviolence, he was demonstrating weakness and that we should go back and fight. He demonstrated strength. Sometimes when dealing and negotiating, that is where strength comes from, and if you just go out swinging, you demonstrate weakness.

What Joe Biden has done was kept his word, number one. He said that he would bring, whenever he could, American hostages home. This body has said to American families that we would do everything and anything to bring their families home. We should keep our word.

President Biden kept his word to those five American hostages, and the United States House of Representatives should keep its word and not challenge the agreement that the President made to return those five American hostages.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Again, I haven't heard a reply. Not one penny has gone to Iran. If I am wrong, then someone tell me. Not one cent. The money is frozen in Qatar. Not one penny.

None of this could have been used by Hamas, Iran, or anyone for October 7. They didn't have a dime.

The money was there already, put there for humanitarian purposes by the Trump administration. It was in South Korea, but we didn't have any control over it.

I didn't hear anybody talk about that when the Trump administration was there, that he should not have sent the money to South Korea. This should not be something that we are playing politics on.

The money shifted from South Korea and was changed into euros and sent to Qatar, where we have now more visibility than ever. Not a dime is going to Iran. We have five American hostages home, and then we are going to question the deal.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me say this: The United States has values. What is taking place and what took place in Israel and is taking place in Gaza right now is why we are fighting so hard to make sure that we have a supplemental that includes humanitarian aid.

We know that there are people in Gaza, Palestinians, who are not part of Hamas. Everyone wants to make sure, as we are doing in this pause, that humanitarian aid is getting to them. It shows the best of who we are as Americans.

It is also so in Iran. Every Iranian is not part of the regime. In fact, the regime is cruel and does not provide humanitarian aid to many of its citizens.

We don't want to be like the regime. We want to show our humanity. Yes, when human beings are suffering, we want to make sure that we get in humanitarian aid so that we can take care of them. That is what is happening right now. That is why we are having the pause in the Middle East, in Gaza.

Doing the hostage exchange, bringing people home, is what we should be doing. What we are also doing is bringing in humanitarian aid to those individuals who Hamas would never aid.

So people around the world will respect and know who we are, we should never give up on our values. The money that we are talking about is not going to be used or getting into the hands of the Iranian regime. We are talking about trying to show that we have care and humanity for those who are the victims of the regime.

Humanitarian aid. That is who we should be. We should be proud of the fact that we want to try to take care of those who are a part, unfortunately, of dictators and authoritarian regimes who will not take care of their people. That is not who we are.

If, in the future, through the constraints that we have and the approval that needs to take place we can help somebody that has been victimized, I think that is the right thing to do.

To say that we don't care is the wrong thing to do. I just wonder if we would invite those five families of those who have now returned home, what would we say to them?

We wish your folks would have stayed in the prison because the President should not have made this deal because of humanitarian aid?

What would we say to them?

What can we say to them now? They are listening to us.

We should renege on the deal and let their loved ones stay in prison?

Thank God President Biden understands being a humanitarian, bringing our folks home, and at the same time having a hard line against Iran and Hamas and its affiliates.

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

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

Mr. Chair, one question that I think remains unanswered to my colleagues on the other side: Are you willing to go and tell the family members of those five hostages that are now home that they should still be in that prison?

Are you willing to tell them that we should not have worked out a deal with the $6 billion frozen for humanitarian

concern and that we should renege on the deal and they should go back to prison?

The one thing that is missing is that we got these hostages home, and that can't be held over our heads by Iran anymore.

I don't hear an answer to that.

What do you say to those families?

We have talked to families who have loved ones that are hostages. What do you say to them? You should still be there? We should not have made the deal?

Is that what you are saying? I think that what I am hearing is that this deal should not have been made and those American hostages should still be sitting in that Iranian prison?

I ask my colleagues on the other side: What do you say to those five families?

Do we renege on the deal?

Do you tell them they should not be home, so we should not have made the deal?

We have hostages before us all the time. What do you say to them?

I know what I am going to say to them. I am glad their family members are home and I am glad Joe Biden made the deal to get them home. He is not threatening and not using any U.S. dollars. There is no threat from Iran in regard to that $6 billion to be utilized for any aggression on their part.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just say this. First, the debate on the House floor today is a rare moment where the House Foreign Affairs Committee is debating legislation under a rule, rather than under suspension.

For those who don't know what that means, it signifies that this bill is not bipartisan. That is in contrast to the great majority of legislation that comes out of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

This is the first primary Foreign Affairs bill this year that we are debating under a rule this Congress. In the previous two Congresses, under the Democratic leadership, we debated a total of one bill under a rule.

One thing I will say, as I have talked throughout this debate, one thing that is a fact is that Mr. McCaul is my friend. We always try to reach an agreement on all bills. There is no question about that. I am not questioning that at all. We are frequently, as we did yesterday, very successful.

We had a completely bipartisan markup, including on a potentially game-changing bill that would codify an outbound investment regime to protect our economy and our national security. I would say that that is the way I do believe this committee is ran, and we work very closely together.

On this bill is one of those times where I do fundamentally disagree with the arguments put forward by the majority. I submitted an amendment that would have added a national security waiver to the legislation. Such a waiver is a very restrictive standard. The President can only waive the sanctions if it was vital to the national security of the United States. He could not waive the sanctions for trivial reasons, nor even for an important economic reason. He could only waive the sanctions to protect our national security. Of course, that amendment was not made in order.

Every major sanctions bill over the last 20 years has had basic exemptions and waivers, like the amendment I offered to this bill. This history includes numerous Republican sanctions, bills targeting Iran. By moving a bill today without those very basic guardrails, we are undermining bipartisan practices that have been held for decades. We are also forfeiting leverage to promote American interests and undercutting our credibility around the world.

As such, I oppose this legislation. It is the wrong time for this legislation. It is improper. It will hurt down the road. We need to look and have a vision for down the road because, for me, what we do is not just about today. It is about--I have three granddaughters, and I say this everywhere--it is about 5, 2, and 6 months, so it is about what takes place and what opportunities might be available 60 years from now.

As we look back at prior history, things that were done by prior Congresses had an effect 50 and 60 years later. People that are our allies now, 60 years ago were our enemy. Time changes things. People who were our enemies 60 years ago are now our allies.

Let's think forward. Let's vote this bill down--at least we should have the waivers in there. I must oppose this legislation, and I encourage all of my colleagues to do the same.

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

Mr. Chair, I strongly support this amendment.

The United States must stand for humanitarian aid and must stand for helping the people of Iran, even while we condemn the Iranian governing regime. The regime's medieval views on women's rights and religious freedom and their depraved agenda of financing terrorists around the region are separate from the people of Iran.

This amendment simply separates the government from the people, and I encourage all of my colleagues to vote for this very good and humanitarian amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is counterproductive. The House has voted in a bipartisan manner to support general licenses to Iran to allow open internet access to the protesters against the regime of Iran. That could violate this vaguely drafted amendment. In the recent past, the United States has spent very small sums of money to promote civil society and democratic ideals in Iran, and that could violate this amendment.

This amendment, I believe, with all due respect, is carelessly drafted and unvetted. Therefore, I must oppose it.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment targets Qatar, the most

important partner of the United States in freeing Americans and Israelis held hostage by Hamas.

Passage of this amendment and, in my opinion, this overall bill would jeopardize sensitive, ongoing diplomacy related to the hostage crisis in Gaza and further endanger Americans and Israelis in harm's way. Israel's National Security Adviser publicly praised Qatar's role as crucial to ongoing efforts to facilitate humanitarian solutions.

Furthermore, it was reported in late October that Qatar's Emir told Secretary of State Blinken that his government was open to reconsidering the presence of Hamas in Qatar once the hostage crisis is resolved.

I agree that Hamas' continued presence in Qatar and Turkiye is problematic. These terrorist leaders are living a life of luxury while their people suffer in Gaza. They should be held accountable, but this is not the way to go about it.

Let's free our hostages. Then, we can talk and work with Qatar to hold Hamas' leadership in Doha accountable.

This amendment is simply grandstanding and not the best way to deal with this issue, and certainly, it is being offered at the worst possible time.

Diplomacy is very important. If we challenge or damage these diplomatic channels, it further endangers Americans.

We can't pass this legislation. We should not pass this legislation. I ask my colleagues to please join me in voting ``no'' on this amendment. We shouldn't even need the bill.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gooden).

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

Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I will just simply say, very briefly, when you hear from Israel, its leaders, Israel's national security advisor publicly praising Qatar's role as crucial, and when I visited Israel and talked to the head of their defense, talked to Prime Minister

Netanyahu, all said that Qatar was crucial to this negotiation.

Let's not do this. It is the wrong time.

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

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment is needless and simply not rooted in fact. The sponsor bases his claims for this amendment on the assertion that the administration has not condemned Houthi militants for their violent actions and continued destabilizing behavior. This simply is not accurate.

The Biden administration has repeatedly called out the violence of Houthi militants that they have perpetuated against civilians, including recent missile launches toward Israel, as well as our Gulf partners.

In fact, as recently as this past Tuesday, November 28, the State Department called out the violence of Iranian proxies across the region as well, and especially called on the Houthis to immediately cease attacks.

The United States led other G-7 nations in this public effort, which follows other similar statements. These statements include the State Department's condemnation of Houthi militants seizing the cargo ship Galaxy Leader on November 20.

Spokesperson Matt Miller called such actions flagrant violations of international law and demanded the immediate release of the ship and its crew.

The administration made similar statements earlier this year and last, calling out Houthi abuses against Yemeni civilians, missile launches against Gulf partners, and more.

I, along with many of my colleagues, have and will continue to call out abuses, escalatory actions, and violence throughout the region, just as the administration has.

This amendment is an unnecessary and ill-conceived attempt to misrepresent the facts, so I must oppose it, and I encourage all of my colleagues to do so as well.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me just say this.

Joe Biden has been one of the staunchest Israel supporters of any President of the United States.

You are going to take the word of the Ayatollah over the word of the President of the United States?

The President of the United States has said not a penny will get to the Ayatollah, but yet you want to take the side or believe in that brutal authoritarian dictator.

I think that the American people know better than that. I think that the American people understand better than that. I think that the American people can look at the facts and see what side Joe Biden is on, as he talks on a regular basis with the leadership of Israel, almost every day since October 7.

I wouldn't trust or believe anything that the Ayatollah says, but I do believe in Joe Biden.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would be counterproductive to America's interest.

No President, whether he be Democratic or Republican, has used this waiver for anything but the most pressing reasons.

Rescinding this waiver would likely prevent the administration from waiving sanctions that allow Iraq to pay for electricity imports from Iran. Without this waiver, Iraq likely will be unable to import electricity from Iran, leading to electricity outages and instability across Iraq.

We have seen what instability in Iraq looks like over the past decade: the decay of central governance, the rise of ISIS, and a growing terrorist ideology that struck America and Europe in numerous deadly attacks.

America has many interests in the Middle East, and this waiver is important for ensuring that this administration or any future administration has the flexibility it needs to promote American interests.

It is important for the Presidents, this one and those in the future, to have that flexibility. Thereby, I oppose my good friend from Texas' amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler), my colleague on the Committee on Rules, for yielding, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, once again, House Republicans are spending a week on legislation that fails to solve many of the very real issues facing our constituents.

Last week, when I was in my district, my constituents shared with me their aspirations, their worries, and their vision for how to make our communities thrive for generations. Veterans from Hobbs described how hard it is to travel for access to healthcare and other services-- services that they have earned.

Seniors from Hobbs described the concern about paying their bills on a fixed income and the need to reduce costs. The Lovington mayor led us on a tour of the wastewater plant as he described the need to invest in water infrastructure in rural communities and thanked us for doing that and promoting such investment.

In Taos, New Mexico, ranchers and farmers working with the New Mexico Acequia Association, which for those of you who don't know, is a centuries-old system of providing irrigation to farmers and ranchers in New Mexico.

They talked to me about their concerns about growing their business amid the climate crisis that we are seeing and the drought conditions. These are real challenges that our constituents want us to fix, challenges that Congress has the ability and responsibility to address.

Does this rule make in order any bills to help address veterans' need to access healthcare?

Does it make in order any bills to help seniors pay their bills?

Does it help our rural communities access rural clean water systems?

Does it help our farmers keep their heritage and grow our foods?

Nope. It doesn't.

What are we doing this week?

We have a bill that prevents the use of Federal lands to provide temporary shelters for certain noncitizens, including migrants who are legally applying for asylum. It is a bill that fails to address the humanitarian crisis or security needs at our border.

Our colleagues across the aisle have consistently repeated harmful theories, like the invasion theory, where they seek to demonize the communities I represent and from which I come. Their talking points simply inflame the issue rather than looking to solve it.

This is just more of the same from a majority that is unable to govern effectively. Instead, we should pass legislation that actually improves our immigration system and acknowledges and upholds the dignity of immigrant communities.

There are real solutions to deal with the border. The Republican majority just doesn't want us to vote on them on this floor.

For example, the Dream and Promise Act has vast support from Americans, but will we see Republicans put it on the floor?

Nope.

The Farmer Workforce Modernization Act that has bipartisan support would help agricultural communities and help farmworkers, but will we see Republicans put it on the floor?

Nope.

We could move these bills, if only Republicans would stop blocking them. We will also consider today a resolution to reverse a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule. That rule would require lenders to collect and report information about the small business credit applications they receive, including geographic and demographic data, lending decisions, and the price of credit.

We know that many rural small businesses struggle with access to financial resources. It is important to know whether or not the banks, especially the big banks, are serving them.

Americans, the middle class, and small businesses want somebody on their side because they know the big banks and corporations aren't. That is why Americans across the political spectrum overwhelmingly support the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Despite the strong public support, Republicans continue to attack the Bureau. The Democrats are on the side of small businesses when we stand up for the Bureau and its work.

We should support initiatives to bring capital to entrepreneurs and innovators, especially in rural America. A lot of that work happens because of credit unions, I might add. I support efforts to address the credit unions' concerns about the smaller entities.

A CRA, though, as proposed by the Republicans, is an overly broad and blunt tool that prevents an agency from promulgating any regulation in an area that it addresses.

This CRA that they have put forward would tie the hands of the Bureau. It would prevent them from rulemaking regarding data for small businesses, women-and minority-owned businesses.

We need access to this data to make sure that small businesses, women- and minority-owned businesses, rural businesses have access to capital. Investing in these small businesses is how we grow the middle class, and that is what Democrats are focused on. How do we grow the middle class.

Lastly, H.R. 5961 would freeze certain Iranian funds involved in the 2023 hostage deal between the U.S. and Iran. We must acknowledge, and do acknowledge, that Iran is dangerous and a state sponsor of terrorism. We cannot allow the terror to continue.

I must remind my Republican colleagues that the Rules Committee already reported a rule for this bill. Their own party blocked the House from voting on this bill when they voted down the rule on the floor.

This week we should be debating a bill with aid for our allies, including Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and others around the world, but I guess we are not.

I guess we should not be surprised with this rule. This is just a continuation of the chaos and closed process that has been a hallmark of this Republican-led House. We have seen over 40 closed rules on the floor that have blocked two-thirds of bipartisan amendments, including blocking half of all Republican amendments.

Republican leadership clearly hasn't made good on their promise to make the legislative process more open, inclusive, and accommodating.

This year, Republicans will have wasted nearly a month on internal politics just to elect a Speaker--time that could have been spent lowering costs for seniors and helping those veterans I mentioned earlier, time that could have been spent helping our farmers and ranchers, time that could have been spent helping to grow our middle class.

As Republicans continue to press forward legislation that seeks to further destroy and divide, House Democrats are working to improve the lives of everyday people.

House Democrats are committed to putting people over politics, to do what is right for everyday Americans; lowering costs, growing the middle class, and defending fundamental freedoms.

As we have all year, House Democrats continue to extend the hand of partnership to get things done for the American people, including passing legislation that invests in working families and keeping our Nation safe.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule and a ``no'' vote on the underlying bills.

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

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

This entire Congress, Republicans have tended to use titles for their bills that are extremely misleading. For example, today's rule includes the so-called Protecting our Communities from Failure to Secure the Border Act. Interestingly, though, this bill does not actually secure the border. In fact, it does not include any resources for States to deal with migrants who are awaiting processing. How is that protecting our communities? Let's invest where we need to address this issue.

Instead of addressing real problems at the border, Republicans are bringing up this unnecessary legislation to attack vulnerable migrants under the guise of protecting public lands. Remember, this is a public lands bill. It came out of the Natural Resources Committee. If they really cared about protecting public lands, they wouldn't have passed an Interior appropriations bill out of their committee that cuts nearly a billion dollars from the Federal land management agencies that are tasked with protecting these public lands.

The concern really isn't about protecting public lands, and it is not really about addressing the real immigration concerns. If they were really, truly interested in that, they would work with us to address the root causes of migration.

The most effective way to control the number of asylum-seekers arriving at our ports of entry is to help them stay in their home countries. They talk about that in some of their bills, but look at what they say and what they do.

Let's focus on what they actually do. They have put forward appropriations bills that actually cut funding for customs and border officers. They cut CBP funding. They cut money for fentanyl interdiction. That is what they actually do.

They may have bills with fancy titles and all this talk, but what happens when it comes to what they are funding? They are not funding with the necessary resources to address these issues.

For example, the last time we were in the Rules Committee, they were cutting funding for the FBI, DEA, and law enforcement agencies that we need to work on these issues. They are not supporting the kind of cutting-edge inspection machines that we need to detect fentanyl at our southwestern border ports of entry, like in the President's national security supplemental request.

I asked them if they were going to support the national security supplemental request with those provisions in it, if they were going to support the Democratic amendments in the border package earlier this year that would have made that bill better.

It is not a great bill. They focus on that wall. They are fixated on that wall. It is not what we need. We have seen report after report that it does not work. They just keep using migrants to score political points. This is the third bill we have seen this year, but none of them are true solutions.

If they were serious about solving the issues at our border, they would work with us on comprehensive legislation instead of these things that do absolutely nothing to fix the problem.

The problem isn't in New York City. It is their failure to work with us on legislation that would solve the issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a letter of support for proposed section 1071, CFPB rule, which highlights the benefits of collecting lending demographic data for small farmers and farmers of color.

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

This letter tells us a lot about how Democrats see the issues in rural America, how Democrats see the issues affecting our small businesses, our women-owned businesses, and our minority-owned businesses. It is one of wanting to make sure that the playing field is level, that there is transparency and fairness at the same time that we use the market to build up thriving communities.

This is a letter that comes from ranchers, farmers, cooperatives, our rural areas. It is signed by dozens of organizations, and they read that the section 1071 rule is profarmer. Young, beginning, and small farmers have consistently demanded more transparent and fair markets.

Having accurate and public data will help farmers and consumers make better-informed financial decisions.

For some reason, the Republicans don't want to make sure that we have access to this data. What are they hiding? If big banks aren't serving our rural farmers, let's find that out.

This isn't just about that. This is about promarket. They say section 1071 is promarket. The data required by section 1071 will help lenders identify unmet credit needs and expand new markets.

This is important if we are going to grow the middle class. Once again, I was a small business owner. I had a woman-owned business. I went and sought credit. I filled out those forms. It wasn't that hard. I wrote down that, yes, I am a woman-owned business, and, yes, I am a minority-owned business. I am a Latina. I am proud of it. I am from a State capital, by the way, the oldest State capital in the United States, which is very pro-immigrant because we know of the economic benefits it provides.

We know that having access to this information is good for our small businesses. It is good for rural America. Therefore, we are very much in support of this rule, despite the fact that, once again, Republicans want to hammer and beat up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau despite the great work it does for our consumers, the great work it does for our small businesses, the great work it does for Americans, which is why they support it the way they do.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a measure that clearly states that the people's House will keep its solemn promise to American seniors and workers. We will protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare and fight against any cuts to these crucial programs that so many of our constituents depend on.

Reaffirming our promise is more important than ever. Republicans on the Budget Committee today, as we speak, are holding a hearing about fiscal commissions that could slash Social Security and Medicare. We cannot allow that to happen.

The top candidates for President in the Republican Party are also calling for cuts to Social Security. The House must stand against that. Democrats in the House will stand against that.

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, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Lee) to discuss our proposal.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, actually the debate around Social Security, similar to the debate about the Consumer Protection Bureau and its regulations, does highlight the policies that the Democrats and Republicans pursue and who are the beneficiaries of those policies.

Let's look at Social Security and what the Republican Budget Committee is looking at. They are looking at raising the retirement age. Who actually pays for that?

When you raise the retirement age, it is going to be the janitors, nurses, educators, and the people doing the hard work in our manufacturing plants that are going to be required to work longer. They are going to be the ones who are going to have a hard time because they don't have additional savings like the wealthy. Right?

The wealthy aren't going to care about whether you raise the age to 67, 68, or 72 because they have the assets and they are not relying on Social Security. It is our workers who have paid into Social Security who have earned it and deserve it. They deserve to receive the benefits that we promised them when they started working and paying into the system.

What can we do to make sure that Social Security is solvent in the future?

Well, Democrats have a bill that we introduced last year, and we supported it this year. You make sure everybody pays--no matter how much money you make--into the system. Right now we know that the wealthy stop paying into the system at about $147,000.

Why doesn't everybody pay Social Security taxes on all their earnings?

Why aren't the wealthy paying their fair share?

That is a policy difference. It is the policy distinctions that we are focused on.

Once again, Democrats are standing with working Americans who are not earning $200,000, $300,000, $400,000, or $1 million a year. We say you should pay your fair share of your Social Security taxes rather than doing what they want to do, which is gut benefits. When you raise the Social Security age, you are gutting the benefits.

That is an example of the distinction of when you are standing with working Americans and when your policies that you support are increasing the middle class instead of standing with the wealthy.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to remember why we faced inflation in the first place. We need to remember that this country and the world faced down a pandemic that threatened to destroy our economy.

Let's go back to those dark days when we moved from the Trump Presidency to the Biden Presidency. Our businesses were closed. Our Main Streets were going to fall apart. Our city, local, and State governments were worried about whether they would be able to keep people on the payroll.

The Democrats passed the American Rescue Plan, and we did rescue the economy indeed. I go to my working-class district because my entire district is like that. That is my family. I come from those roots. I speak to those people on a regular basis.

Every town I go into, I look at the number of loans, the PPP, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, and they are open now. Those communities are thriving because of the work we did. That was not the reason we saw inflation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Review.

Mr. Speaker, this is an article titled: ``How Much Have Record Corporate Profits Contributed to Recent Inflation?''

Firms raised markups to 2021 in anticipation of future cost pressures contributing to about 60 percent. Every American knows that record profits added to inflation. They just keep on trying to blame it on the fact that we kept our small businesses open. That is not the case. We made sure that people did not get thrown out of their homes.

It is the big corporations that they protect with their policies, and they want to make sure that they can cheat on their taxes. They bring that up every little while. He brought up issues with regard to Israel. Well, you know, they didn't allow a clean bill to come to the floor because they wanted to make sure that tax cheats could continue cheating on their taxes. They wanted to cut that funding.

We know that those kinds of things hurt America. We know that part of the reason for inflation was because of Putin's war, Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and what happened to the markets from that.

On that side of the aisle, we have the Putin protectors who are fighting back and do not want to provide any resources to Ukraine.

So, the majority should not start talking to me about inflation when the majority's policies are continuing to add to those problems.

You might know, Mr. Speaker, that neither this Congress nor this Presidency controls interest rates. That is the Federal Reserve. We do not control that. The President does not control that.

I would love to see interest rates come down because they do impact jobs. The fact that we had the lowest job growth of the Biden administration tells you--oh, my God, you had to compare it just to the Biden administration because the job growth has been phenomenal under this administration. It has been phenomenal based on the policies of what we did in the last Congress. We have added so many jobs.

We are seeing that the Inflation Reduction Act is bringing down inflation. Inflation is lower now than it was 1 year ago. Fact-check that. Yes, indeed, we have brought down inflation.

We are creating good manufacturing jobs. In New Mexico, we are creating manufacturing jobs. We are now manufacturing wind turbines. We are manufacturing solar facilities. We are manufacturing more now in New Mexico than we have done in the past.

Those are the kinds of things that are being created with the policies that Democrats supported and were signed into law last Congress.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, let me respond to the comment about not talking about interest rates. The gentleman talked about mortgage rates, and mortgage rates are tied to the Federal Reserve. So, once again, understanding how our economy works and which agency and entity has control over that is very important.

I also want to talk about the idea of who is trusted. He mentioned some polls with regard to who is trusted on the economy. The reality is that we are right now in the people's House. We are the Representatives who are closest to the people and who are out there meeting with them. This is what the Founders intended. When the Founders created the House of Representatives, they wanted to make sure that we were a miniature of America and that we were in constant communication.

I know that that is what we do. I know that is what my colleagues do and what I do. We go out and talk with them. We listen to their stories and bring them back. We decide, based on what we hear, what we are going to prioritize.

I like the fact that Democrats, that my party, those of us on this side of the aisle, go out to listen and come back and push for policies that are going to lower costs, like the Inflation Reduction Act did where we lowered the cost of prescription drugs and where we made sure that nobody is going to pay more than $35 a month for insulin. People have been asking for that.

For the first time, we are going to negotiate with Big Pharma to bring down those costs where there is going to be a $2,000 out-of- pocket limit for

prescription drugs. These are important ways in which we are lowering costs.

We are lowering costs by making sure that we are providing homeowners and renters with the ability to lower their energy costs, whether that is putting in renewable energy facilities and solar panels or insulating homes.

Those are the kinds of things that my colleagues across the aisle, my good friends, might not understand, like how important it is to insulate your house. I am from where it is cold, so getting those insulation credits is important. It lowers costs.

Because of this work that we have done, I know that there is an aggregated poll out that points to the fact that Democrat incumbents are trusted in the House at a rate that is so further beyond our Republicans. They are underwater by 14 points. Their own constituents know that they are not fighting for their economic benefit.

Nevertheless, what we have seen this year is chaos and dysfunction take over the House under Republican leadership. While Democrats have been ready to put people over politics and deliver for America through bipartisan legislation, our colleagues across the aisle continue to introduce bills like we are considering today that focus more on culture wars and nonsolutions.

Today, we have an immigration bill that does not address the root causes of migration, offer solutions for our broken systems, or provide any resources to help the U.S. citizenship or immigration system or Customs and Border Patrol address an increase in migrants.

In this bill, they might talk about a lot of things, but that is not what this bill does. This bill does not address any of those key issues. Instead, it restricts the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture's ability to manage their lands. These agencies are in charge of managing our public lands, and we need to let them do their job.

We have a bill that fails to help our small businesses even when we know that SBA low-interest loans have helped thousands of entrepreneurs grow their businesses and the economy. Instead, they would seek to make those Federal loans less transparent and would cripple the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's ability to address disparities in lending.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 891 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

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

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

House Resolution 891 provides for consideration of three measures: H.R. 5283, H.R. 5961, and S.J. Res. 32.

The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 5283, the Protecting our Communities from Failure to Secure the Border Act of 2023 under a structured rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.

The rule makes in order two amendments.

Further, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 5961, the No Funds for Iranian Terrorism Act under a structured rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.

The rule makes in order 12 amendments.

Finally, the rule provides for consideration of S.J. Res. 32, a resolution of Congressional disapproval related to a rule by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on small business lending under a closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, since President Joe Biden took office, there have been 7.8 million illegal immigrant encounters, 1.7 million known got-aways, and hundreds of individuals on the terrorist watch list have been stopped at our southern border.

Instead of fixing this issue, the Biden administration and far-left radical Democrats have placed illegal immigrants in our public schools, in our airports, our police stations, and now our Federal lands.

In New York City, the Biden administration and far-left New York Democrats are housing hundreds of illegal immigrants on National Park Service land.

H.R. 5283 revokes New York City's lease and prevents all national parks and Federal lands from becoming tent cities.

Additionally, H.R. 5861 blocks President Biden's $6 billion ransom gift to the Iranian regime.

As an Iraq war veteran, I have seen firsthand Iran's death and destruction in the Middle East. They are responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans in the Middle East.

Since Hamas' attack on October 7 against our number one ally, Israel, Iranian-backed proxies have attacked U.S. forces over 70 times in Iraq and Syria.

This is unthinkable. What is more unthinkable is that on the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, the Biden administration announced $6 billion in sanctions relief from the number one sponsor of terrorism, Iran.

These billions in sanctions relief will undoubtedly lead to more terrorist attacks, more attacks on Americans, and more attacks on innocent Israelis. That is why House Republicans will take action to freeze the funding that the Biden administration wants to send to the Ayatollah.

Lastly, the underlying legislation we will consider this week will address the Biden administration's CFPB guidance that places burdensome regulations on lenders and small business.

This new CFPB regulation will result in more compliance costs, it will create privacy concerns for small businesses, and adds to the bureaucratic regulatory environment that hinders hardworking Americans.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we are about to witness a real-time fact check here. My colleague from New Mexico is talking about the amount of closed rules. I would remind my friends across the aisle that in the 117th Congress-- and that is when they were deciding which rules were going to be run-- 58 of their rules out of 89 were closed rules; that is approximately 61 percent. Spare me the lecture on closed rules.

We also have one bill coming to the floor that has 12 separate amendments. It is kind of rich hearing that criticism. What is even richer is the criticism that we, as Republicans, have done nothing about the border. Absolutely laughable.

As the Biden administration and far-left radical Democrats have ignored the southern border crisis, we passed H.R. 2 twice. Twice we passed it. I would invite any Democrat that actually wants to do something about the southern border to just vote for this underlying legislation that we are running.

Again, House Republicans have passed the Secure the Border Act of 2023. I will remind my friends across the aisle that act restarts construction of the border wall. It deploys advanced technology to the southern border. It increases Border Patrol agents and their pay. It strengthens and protects those provisions for unaccompanied minor children. It protects them from human trafficking, and it ends the disastrous policy of catch and release. It ends the catch and release policies of the far-left Democrats.

We have passed the FY24 Homeland Security Act as well that provides-- wait for it--over $2 billion for the border wall. It provides almost a half million dollars for 22,000 Border Patrol agents and billions in funding to remove dangerous criminals who have entered the United States interior illegally.

Now, this week, House Republicans will block the Biden administration and far-left radical Democrats from turning our Federal lands into the illegal immigrant housing that the Biden administration and far-left Democrats in our cities have turned them into.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Van Duyne).

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

It is time for another real-time fact check, Mr. Speaker. Homeland FY 2024 increased funding for border agents, $496 million for 22,000 new Border Patrol agents. That is the highest ever funded.

It is rich when I hear my colleagues from across the aisle talk about bills that are named one thing and do another. This is from a party that hung their entire term on the Inflation Reduction Act, which neither reduced inflation nor helped the economy. They later said that it was about preventing global warming. Again, it is rich coming from a party that often misnames their key legislation.

Let's talk about sanctuary cities because there is one thing that we can do. We can end sanctuary city policies. For years, Democrats have criticized House Republicans and President Trump for wanting to secure our border and protect our communities. They criticize us when we say that. When the crisis comes to their own backyard instead of a small rural town on the southern border, when it comes to their sanctuary cities, Democrats are the first ones to declare an emergency.

Look at Martha's Vineyard. When Ron DeSantis sent a few illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, it took those woke yuppies less than 12 hours to call the National Guard to remove the illegal immigrants. I am willing to bet there were more ``Hate has no home here'' signs in the pristine, well-manicured yards at Martha's Vineyard

than actual illegal immigrants, but they still called the National Guard to remove those immigrants from Martha's Vineyard.

Don't just take my word for it. Take New York City Mayor Eric Adams'. Over 110,000 migrants have reached New York City. Mayor Adams decried: ``The national government has turned its back on New York City.''

When illegal migrants showed up in Massachusetts, Governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency and said the quiet part out loud: ``Massachusetts has stepped up to address what sadly has been a Federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making.''

One thing is clear. Even Democrats now, in their sanctuary cities, are realizing that Biden has created this border crisis.

Democrats have ignored it for years. Republicans, thankfully, are finally stepping up and leading where they failed.

Any of my friends from across the aisle who want to help us, if they want to end this crisis, can vote for the rule today and vote for the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy), my good friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, I don't know if my colleague from Pennsylvania was talking about the party as in 2003 or 2023 because the last time I checked, the Republicans are the party that supports the guys that shower after work not before.

The Chamber of Commerce has picked its side. It is with the Democrats. The billionaires that my friend from Pittsburgh was talking about--check how they are registered to vote. I am pretty sure--and I am willing to bet--that they all registered as Democrats, and far-left, extreme Democrats, by the way. All the Big Tech CEOs, Apple and Amazon, you name it, they are all far-left Democrats.

So this nostalgia for the day when Republicans supported big business and Democrats supported the little guy, it is just that, it is nostalgia. It is 2023, and we need to realize the new political realities.

When we are talking about numbers, I noticed that my friend from Pennsylvania didn't talk about the numbers relating to the destruction of Hamas during the over 3 minutes she had to address the Chamber. Let's talk about those numbers.

Hamas has killed over 1,500 Israelis since October 7, 2023. They have killed over 1,500 Israelis. They have injured over 6,900. Over 230 hostages were taken by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Over 9,500 rockets have been fired from Gaza toward Israel. There were 32 Americans killed and several Americans are still missing.

While we are throwing out numbers, let's not forget to talk about the destruction Hamas has brought.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, here is another real-time fact-check for you. Obama under ObamaCare took $700 billion from Medicare. You tell me who is trying to protect Medicare and Medicaid. It certainly wasn't the Obama administration when they were taking billions of dollars from the fund.

It is amazing the amount of time that my colleagues across the aisle talk about working families. Have they actually talked to working families?

When I am in my district talking to working families, not the woke yuppies

that my friends across the aisle represent, but actually working Americans, they are talking about inflation. Let's look at the numbers.

When President Biden took office, President Trump had inflation where it was just 1.4 percent. Since then, prices have risen by 17 percent. By the way, real wages are going down, hurting working families and working Americans.

Prices have risen 17 percent and real wages are down. Credit card, auto loan, and consumer loan delinquencies are at the highest levels since the Great Recession. Just this morning, CBS News--the conservative news bash--reported that Americans need an extra $11,400 today just to afford the basics when compared to when President Trump was in office.

You tell me who is looking out for the working American. Something tells me it is not extreme, far-left Democrats that are looking out for their woke, affluent suburbs. All the while, the President has been misleading the American people.

Last week, our 81-year-old leader claimed Thanksgiving dinner was the fourth cheapest ever on record. Of course, that was false. Maybe it is his age showing, I don't know, but the truth is that it was the second most expensive Thanksgiving dinner ever.

If you want to talk about an all-time high, last year's inflation under the President's watch is an all-time high. It is clear, Bidenomics is broken economics. Democrats do not care about working Americans. Republicans do.

Let's talk about some more Bidenomics statistics. With the economy adding just 1,500 jobs in October, coming in below expectations, this is the second worst jobs report of the Biden Presidency.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent in October where the labor force participation rate actually declined. The average middle-class household has lost over $33,000 in real wealth in just this past year. That hurts people that are driving to work, driving to construction sites, and driving to work shifts at diners. It is not hurting the woke, yuppie base that the Democrats represent sitting at home on Zoom all day, having their EVs charging in their garage.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage is now at the highest level since 2000. This is bringing a disastrous effect to the housing market. Homeownership has been deemed unaffordable in 99 percent of the country. There are 73 percent of Americans that believe the economy is in bad shape, and more voters trust Republicans over Democrats to handle inflation, according to a recent AP-NORC poll.

Mr. Speaker, 58 percent of the Americans believe the economy is getting worse, and 69 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, according to an Economist/YouGov poll. That is not exactly a far-right polling outfit.

Half of Americans say their financial situation is worsening, according to a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll. Biden's approval rating on the economy is at just 32 percent, the lowest of his Presidency, according to CNBC's All-American Economic Survey.

It is very clear that the American people know that Biden and far- left Democrats are hurting not only their job prospects, not only their ability to afford a home, but the entire economy and their ability just to afford the basics.

Mr. Speaker, I question any time a Democrat tells me they are watching out for the working American.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is time for another real-time fact check. By the way, let's not conflate interest rates with inflation. They are two totally separate things.

Let's talk about inflation. My friend from New Mexico said that inflation started during COVID. We know that when President Trump left office, inflation was at 1.4 percent. In June 2022, when Biden was in office, it was 9.1 percent. That is almost a record high. Yes, inflation is slightly less than it was, coming down from the all-time high.

Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, facts don't care about your feelings, and they don't care about your political persuasion. Try arguing the difference between 9.1 percent inflation and 1.4 percent inflation. Good luck with that.

We all know who is to blame: Biden and far-left, radical Democrats.

Also, to talk about how great the economy is and unemployment, the unemployment rate actually rose in October to 3.9 percent while the labor force participation rate declined. It is actually worse than 3.9 percent if you are reading into that statistic, Mr. Speaker.

Again, this is quite amazing. Not only has President Biden totally botched the economy and Bidenomics, but he has repeatedly botched foreign affairs. Obama's own Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, once said that Joe Biden has managed to get every single foreign policy decision wrong in his entire career.

One of the big mistakes that Biden made, when we talk about foreign affairs, was when he decided to delist the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Here is a quick history lesson. In 2021, due to pressure from the Iranian regime, and for whatever reason the Biden administration is fixated on appeasing the Iranian regime, the Iranian regime was putting pressure on the Biden administration to delist the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization. For those who don't know, the Houthis are an Iranian-backed proxy group that wreaks havoc across the Middle East.

In recent weeks, the Houthis have carried out drone and missile attacks against Israel. They have attacked and seized commercial vessels in the Red Sea. They have fired rockets at the U.S. Navy, including the USS Mason, the USS Thomas Hudner, and the USS Kearny.

It is past time for the Biden administration to get tough with Iran and designate the Houthis as the foreign terrorist organization that they are.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I can't believe that, once again, I am here on the House floor explaining to my friends across the aisle that there is a difference between interest rates and inflation. They are two separate things. They shouldn't be conflated. I am shocked that I have to explain this to Members who are elected to Congress. It is quite amazing.

It is very clear, the difference between inflation and interest rates.

There is another thing that is very clear that Democrats don't seem to understand, and that is that President Biden's foreign policy agenda benefits our foreign adversaries and not the American people. From the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan to the $6 billion in sanctions relief to Iran, to the draining of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve and also the fast-tracking of Putin's Nord Stream 2 project, it has been disastrous.

Mr. Speaker, look at the invasion of Ukraine, a terrorist safe haven in Afghanistan, an emboldened China, and a destabilized Middle East. This legislation before us will protect our servicemembers in the Middle East. It will place additional pressure on the Iranian regime.

Additionally, we have another Biden-fueled disaster right here at home at our southern border. The White House now wants to exacerbate this crisis further by placing tent cities on Federal lands.

In Pennsylvania, our Commonwealth is home to several national parks, including the Flight 93 National Memorial, Fort Necessity National Battlefield, and Friendship Hill National Historic Site, all of which are in my congressional district. These are places for Americans and their families, not camps for those who broke our laws and are here illegally.

The underlying legislation will protect our national parks from the Biden administration's and the Democrats' radical, far-left immigration policies.

Finally, the Biden administration's attempt to burden our local lenders with extra costs would do irreparable harm to our Nation's 33 million small businesses. During a time when Bidenomics is failing the American people, it is critical we support efforts to make the American Dream more achievable, not insert partisan politics into small business lending. That is why the House will nullify this far-left, radical rulemaking by the Biden administration and Democrats.

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

The material previously referred to by Ms. Leger Fernandez is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 891 Offered by Ms. Leger Fernandez of New

Mexico

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 4. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the

House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the

resolution (H. Res. 178) affirming the House of

Representatives' commitment to protect and strengthen Social

Security and Medicare. The resolution shall be considered as

read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the resolution and preamble to adoption without intervening

motion or demand for division of the question except one hour

of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and

ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means or

their respective designees.

Sec. 5. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H. Res. 178.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record for H.R. 5961.

Madam Chair, we are here today because the Biden administration cut a dangerous, reckless hostage deal that puts a price on every American head all over the world. We have a responsibility to the American people to repair this damage.

First, let me say that I am relieved that Americans held hostage by Iran are safely at home. They have been through a terrible ordeal and should never have been imprisoned in the first place.

As part of this deal, the administration dropped charges against five Iranian criminals charged with endangering our national security, including by aiding Iran's nuclear program.

At Iran's request, the administration waived sanctions on $6 billion of Iranian funds, which have been frozen in South Korea to allow that that money be transferred and funneled to a bank account in Doha, Qatar--an undisclosed bank, Madam Chair.

Under this deal, Iran is getting access to $1.2 billion per blue passport, per American citizen. It is obvious that this agreement incentivizes more hostage taking.

The administration is claiming this money can only be used for humanitarian purchases like food and medicine.

We all know that Iran has a long history of sanctioned evasion and money laundering. It means that we cannot truly know where the funds end up or how they will be used.

If we had any doubt about Iran's intentions, look no further than DOJ's 2019 indictment under the previous administration against a Turkish bank.

This bank played a central role in facilitating billions of dollars' worth of fraudulent Iranian transactions.

These transactions were manipulated to look like humanitarian expenses when, in fact, no such purchases took place.

This is nothing new, but let's look at Iran's own words. Iran's President Raisi bragged to the world that Iran would spend the $6 billion ``wherever we need it.''

What more evidence do we need, Madam Chair, than that? This is not going for humanitarian purposes. It is going toward terrorism--wherever we need it.

Money is fungible, as everybody knows. Given Iran's access to these funds for any purpose frees up money for its malign activities, including its support to proxies like we saw on October 7 to Hamas.

Blocking money to Iran is the most consequential thing we can do here in this Congress to stop Iran's financing of terrorism to Hamas and other proxies to help keep our troops safe who are now under fire from Iran-backed militias.

After Hamas' brutal October 7 massacre of over 1,200 innocent people in Israel, the largest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust, Madam Chair, and over 70 attacks on our forces by Iran-backed proxies this fall, no one can deny Iran's role as the world's leading state sponsor of terror.

Put simply, the Middle East is on fire, and Iran's proxies are becoming more aggressive every day with increasing attacks, threatening to throw the Middle East into complete destabilization.

Now Iran's destabilization influence extends beyond the Middle East. They continue to supply deadly drones to Russia, supporting their unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.

Iran is going to keep throwing tens of millions of dollars to Hamas and other terror groups propping them up with our adversaries, like China, Russia, and North Korea, with weapons. We need to take every measure possible to stop Iran from giving its proxies another dime.

Madam Chair, after the October 7 attack by Hamas in which they took 240 hostages, it is absolutely undeniable this hostage deal was a catastrophic mistake.

Madam Chair, we met with some of the families yesterday, and it was one

of the most horrific experiences to hear what their loved ones are going through right now in Gaza. Americans held hostage, who we have still not been able to get out, they are in absolute hell right now, in darkness.

The narrative was something before October 7. Now, after October 7, they are trying to hide from this deal because they know what they did was wrong, and they know what they are doing is funding terror in the Middle East.

This body, this Congress needs to repair that damage. That is why my bill, the No Funds For Iranian Terrorism Act, imposes new sanctions to permanently prevent the transfer of $6 billion in Iranian funds covered under the 2023 hostage deal; which, by the way, Madam Chair, I haven't seen this deal. The administration says there is a deal. They have not provided that deal to me nor to my colleagues, to my knowledge.

One thing is clear, this is a moment of moral clarity. With such instability in the region, the last thing we need to do is to give Iran access to $6 billion to be diverted to more Iranian-sponsored terrorism. We must sanction anyone who enables the transfer or processing of transactions of these funds, period.

Put very simply and succinctly, I can't imagine how anybody can vote against this bill. How can anybody support $6 billion going into Iran when we know, both in classified space, which we can't talk about here, but in the declassified space, exactly who was behind October 7.

Iran is the head of the snake, and the snake had its tentacles all throughout the Middle East: in Gaza with Hamas; in Yemen with the Houthi rebels; and in Iran and Syria with Iran-backed militias, who, by the way, Madam Chair, are hitting our troops every day. They are under fire by Iran. We are going to give them $6 billion?

Now, the other side will say that is Iran's money. It is sanctioned money. This administration chose to lift the sanctions on the $6 billion.

My bill says, no, Mr. President. We, in the Congress, say no to this policy. We are going to put sanctions on the money so Iran cannot get access to this to fund more terrorism, more killing of innocent Jewish people. I don't have to go into graphic detail of what happened on October 7, but we all saw the Hamas video and the gruesomeness of it.

I, Madam Chair, will not sit by idly and allow this to happen while Americans are under fire and the Jewish people are being killed by these terrorists.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Self), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Mike Garcia), a member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Kim), the chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Indo-Pacific.

Mr. Chairman I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

Mr. Chairman, I am ready to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, let me say to my dear friend from New York, I have great admiration and respect for him. He is right, we do work things out. Of all the committees, we are the most bipartisan committee, and it is important that we speak with one voice as a Nation to the world.

However, as we also have agreed, there are times we just can't get to an agreement. This is one of those times. I just can't in good faith support the administration's position on this.

The gentleman asked a couple questions about why didn't this pass on suspension, and that is always our goal. The fact is that five Members on his side of the aisle voted in support of this bill. I think what we are going to find on the vote on this floor today is you are going to have more than five Members vote for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I admire him and his support for the President. I would probably do the same in his case, but I have to, with all due respect, disagree.

What would I say to the five American families?

I would say: Thank God your loved ones are home. I would say: We are with you. I don't think this is just about the five American hostages. There is something else going on that just doesn't make sense.

Mr. Chairman, you have five innocent Americans exchanged for five indicted Iranians on charges related to national security. That alone is a bad deal. We talk about negotiations--that is not a good negotiation.

Mr. Chairman, if you throw $6 billion on top of this--what is that all about?

I have to ask the question: Why was this money that was frozen in a South Korean bank transferred to an undisclosed Doha bank account to then be made available for humanitarian purposes to Iran?

What they will say is: Well, it is still frozen.

Why was the money transferred to an undisclosed Doha bank account? If it was for humanitarian purposes, why couldn't the South Korean bank transfer it?

I will tell you why it was transferred to the Doha bank account--and we don't even know the name of the bank, Mr. Chairman. It was transferred at the request of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Why did they want that?

They know that they can get access to the Doha bank account. They know that in Qatar they are going to be more friendly to them than the South Koreans. This didn't happen by accident, it happened by design. That is precisely why the money was money laundered to this other bank account to funnel into Iran.

For what purpose, humanitarian?

I get that. I don't doubt my good friend from New York's heart and sincerity. He believes this. Nevertheless, facts are stubborn things.

Under the previous administration, a bank was prosecuted for the same scheme that this administration is perpetuating. A Turkish bank--this is from the Department of Justice Public Affairs Office--was facilitating transactions to appear to be purchases of food and medicine by Iranian customers in order to appear to fall within the so- called humanitarian exception.

Mr. Chair, don't take my word for this. Take the President of Iran's word for this: I will do whatever I want with the money.

Let's be clear-eyed and sober about this. Let's not be naive about putting $6 billion into Iran at this critical time, Mr. Chairman, after October 7, the bloodiest day of killing Jews since the Holocaust. This is why their narrative is changing.

Now, it is like: But the President of Iran hasn't asked for the money yet. And by the way, it is frozen.

Then why did you transfer it to the Doha Bank account?

Mr. Chairman, I will tell you why. It is because Iran requested it. The idea that Iran is not going to ask for this money, I have to say, with all due respect, is incredulous. Of course, they want this money.

The question is: Why hasn't it been transferred already?

Do you know what, Mr. Chairman? The answer is October 7. That is why it hasn't been transferred. They got caught with their pants down. Now, they realize: Oh, my God, we can't transfer this money. Think of the optics here. This is going to look really bad.

There is another thing that is very nefarious going on here. There is some deal going on, Mr. Chairman, that we don't know about, and we have every right of oversight. They won't call things treaties because the Senate won't confirm them. They call them deals.

What is going on? It is not just about the hostages, and thank God they are home. Let me tell the families: God bless them.

Nevertheless, there is something else going on here. There is an undercurrent of another deal going on, and it is the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear agreement. That is why the money was transferred. In my judgment, it is to facilitate another deal with Iran.

The irony of all ironies, Mr. Chairman, is the Special Envoy for Iran is now under investigation by the FBI for violations of his security clearance. The very man negotiating the JCPOA, the Iran deal, is under investigation by the FBI for violating his national security clearance.

You can't make this up, Mr. Chairman. You really can't make this up.

He talked about the Presidential waiver. We said that the whole point of this bill is to ensure they cannot use the $6 billion unless they do two things: one, cease their support for international terrorism, and, two, stop their nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction programs.

This bill doesn't undercut our leverage; it turns this money into leverage to stop their most dangerous activities.

I think this is a bad deal. I think that the underlying intent is something more secretive.

Mr. Chairman, I have to ask the question: Has any Member of Congress seen this deal that we are talking about? Has the gentleman from New York seen this hostage deal with Iran?

I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it, classified or not. Where is the deal? Why won't the administration present the deal to the Congress pursuant to our oversight responsibilities?

That is transparency. That is why we introduced the bill because Congress has every right on behalf of the American people, before the $6 billion was transferred into Iran, to see what the deal is.

We met with these hostage families yesterday, and it is brutal. I was in the kibbutz at the Gaza border in southern Israel, Kfar Azza. They went into the daycare center and killed the children I saw there. They decapitated them, and they killed everybody I met in the kibbutz.

I can't look at these families of the victims or the families of the hostages in good faith. I cannot look them in the eye and say: Do you know what? I support your efforts to get your loved ones home. But guess what? I also support this deal that the President has decided to do to put $6 billion into the Islamic Republic of Iran, the largest state sponsor of terror and the very country responsible for the Hamas attacks killing more Jews than I have seen in my lifetime.

My father was a bombardier on a B-17 in World War II. He bombed the Nazis. He saw the Holocaust in his lifetime. I never thought I would see anything like that in my lifetime, but guess what, Mr. Chairman? This is the largest killing since the Holocaust.

I can't look those families in the eye, Mr. Chairman, and tell them that I am going to support this deal to add additional money for terrorism, especially $6 billion.

This is not about the five Americans. We released five Iranians guilty of espionage, in my judgment. This is about the undercurrent of a deal that we don't know about. They are secretive about it, and they need to come forward to the American people through the Congress and let us know what that deal was.

Nevertheless, I, for one, will not sit here in this Chamber and allow this to happen. That is why if they won't do it, then we will. Congress will stop this money from going into Iran not just for politics and not even for the American people but for the victims of terrorism around the world, especially the people of Israel.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.