Stop Illegal Entry Act of 2025

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule. The fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act presented to us without amendment is, against all odds, a strong bipartisan compromise between Republicans and Democrats on the Armed Services Committee.

I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised to see this year's NDAA come to the floor untouched by some of the rightwing extremist policy riders that in recent years have been attached to important bills like the NDAA.

However, this morning in the Rules Committee, Republicans green- lighted dozens of amendments containing controversial poison pills that may very well make their way into the bill. I hope that my Republican colleagues are able to demonstrate some restraint this week and vote down these bad policies. We cannot afford to politicize our national defense.

A good NDAA, like a good budget, is one that is probably perfect for no one. It is the result of compromise and negotiation. In the case of the NDAA, it is oriented around the shared goal of making sure that our Armed Forces continue to be the best in the world.

However, while the FY26 NDAA is strong in many ways, it also falls short in some crucial areas. Above all, it falls short in its lack of meaningful policy to rein in the Trump administration's reckless and illegal actions.

Out of fealty to their dear leader, Republicans have refused at every turn to perform meaningful oversight of this administration, to push back on Trump's worst impulses, and to exert Congress' Article I powers against the executive's repeated overreach. In the context of the NDAA, there hasn't been a single oversight hearing scheduled in the House or Senate to address the ongoing misuse of our military forces.

Of all Trump's abuses, his worst have been in the domain of national defense. Empowered by a partisan Supreme Court and aided by complicit national security staff, Trump has repeatedly used the U.S. military to commit reckless and even illegal acts that imperil our security, weaken our status in the world, hurt our relationship with our closest allies, and endanger our own citizens.

The President claims to have broad, undefined, and unchecked executive power. He has installed corrupt and incompetent appointees who jeopardize our national security and economic stability. He has imposed Federal troops and the National Guard on civilians across America, despite fierce opposition from local residents and political leaders. He has sent armed and masked Federal law enforcement agents to terrorize immigrant communities. Those agents have harassed and detained U.S. citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

The President has initiated multiple politically targeted criminal investigations against his opponents and unilaterally defunded programs that are important to our national defense and our security.

While Republicans gleefully cheer on military deployments in American cities, I bet they would lose their goddamn minds if those troops were sent to their home States which have substantially higher crime rates.

If the real rationale for these deployments is to address high crime rates, States like Arkansas, Missouri, and Louisiana would be at the top of the list. We all know this.

We all know this isn't really why the National Guard has been deployed to D.C. or L.A. or Chicago. As with so many acts by this White House, it is just pretext. It is pretext for an agenda based on fear, intimidation, performative violence, and retribution.

Trump's agenda is about power and self-dealing, not problem-solving. That is all it is. There are no solutions. There are no plans. Time and time again, we have seen this White House reject and defund proven solutions in favor of no-tolerance policies and flashy shows of force.

In the process, this administration has wasted millions in taxpayer dollars with stunts like sending Dr. Phil on an ICE raid with a camera crew.

They sent hundreds of people, many of whom had no criminal record, to a violent, inhumane prison in El Salvador and produced a video of their abuse and humiliation.

They sent uniformed military troops to the streets of American cities, damaging the relationship between our citizens and our Armed Forces.

This past week may have seen the most egregious and violent misuse of military force yet that we know of. Last week, President Trump ordered the extrajudicial execution by the U.S. military of 11 men on a speedboat in international waters, thousands of miles away from the U.S. He then posted a snuff video of that act on social

media. We still have not seen credible evidence or legal justification for that strike.

That killing represents a sinister choice. The Navy and Coast Guard interdict drug smugglers on the high seas all the time. If we knew these men were smugglers and we knew where they were, an intentional decision was made not to stop the ship and, instead, to kill the people on it.

There is no congressional authorization for a President to kill drug dealers at home or abroad. This killing on the high seas is not authorized by international law.

The President cannot declare anyone he wants to be a criminal or an enemy combatant and then summarily kill them. This is the logic used by dictators and despots to disappear and kill dissenters and political opponents. A President who acts as judge, jury, and executioner is flat out un-American. If we allow such conduct, then we are no better than the terrorists and criminals we claim to fight.

Additionally, earlier this year the President approved air strikes against Iran, doing so without congressional authorization and in contravention of the Constitution.

No matter what one thinks about the merits of that attack, this was a flagrantly unconstitutional act.

Taken together with last week's assassinations on the high seas, we now have a President who claims to be able to kill whoever he wants, whenever he wants, and for whatever reason he wants, all without accountability under the law to Congress and to the American people.

Moreover, as we speak of the separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution, over the weekend, the President unilaterally decided to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War in what can only be described as a PR stunt. It is a decision he doesn't have the authority to make.

Whether or not this gimmick will distract from the Epstein files and this administration's economic failures, it will certainly cost taxpayers a fortune, with estimates ranging over $1 billion. Experts predict that our enemies will use the move to portray the United States not as a guarantor of peace but as a threat to international stability.

The NDAA is one of Congress' best opportunities to rein in these kinds of abuses of military power, specifically abuses by this President in his role as Commander in Chief. Unfortunately, this bill misses that mark. It lets the President get away with starting illegal wars and committing illegal killings.

Further, Pete Hegseth still has not faced any consequences for leaking confidential information to journalists and wasting taxpayer dollars on makeup mirrors. Tulsi Gabbard has not faced consequences for manipulating intelligence reports that contradicted the President's claims about Venezuelan gangs. No one has been held accountable for firing intelligence officials who claimed falsely that his strikes on Iran had obliterated its nuclear capabilities.

I know that my Democratic colleagues on the Armed Services Committee fought hard for oversight in the NDAA. Unfortunately, the price of a bipartisan bill to support our troops was that Republicans would continue to enable this administration and many of its worst actions.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, House Republicans' efforts to turn a blind eye to the President's apparent misconduct are not limited only to matters of national security. For months, the President and most House Republicans have blocked the release of the Epstein files.

During the 2024 campaign, the President and his inner circle, particularly Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino, all repeatedly promised that they would release the Epstein files, but once they came into office and found the President to be frequently mentioned in those files, they changed their tune.

In the past few months, the President has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent the release of the Epstein files. His DOJ approved the highly unusual transfer of Epstein's convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a cushy minimum-security prison, apparently in exchange for her agreement to distance the President from Epstein's sex trafficking activities. The President has even threatened members of his own party with retribution if they vote to release those files.

These threats appear to be working because House Republicans continue to provide cover for the administration, repeatedly voting down amendments in the Rules Committee that would have forced the release of the Epstein files.

In fact, just this morning, Rules Committee Republicans once again blocked the release of those files, and we have not seen our Republican colleagues stepping up to sign the discharge petition that could lay this issue to rest once and for all.

The longer this goes on, the more it seems appropriate to ask: What are they trying to hide, and whom are they trying to protect? What is the ``wonderful secret'' that Trump and Epstein share?

Mr. Speaker, I bring all this up because the other bill in this resolution, H.R. 3486, the Stop Illegal Entry Act, is another distraction to divert attention from this White House's ongoing issues and the Epstein files. It is a messaging bill that is light on substance, bad on policy, and just something shiny for House Republicans to talk about other than the Epstein files.

The bill purports to be tough on undocumented immigrants, but it doesn't do a single thing to improve our broken immigration system. What it will do is siphon even more taxpayer dollars into the hands of for-profit prison companies. Instead of deporting undocumented immigrants, this bill would require convicted immigrants to serve lengthy prison sentences here in the United States.

Guess who would benefit from that, Mr. Speaker? GEO and other private prison companies that have invested millions in the President's political campaigns.

It is already a crime to enter the country illegally. Despite the propaganda from the other side, prosecutions against unlawful entry are regularly the most prosecuted cases in the United States under Presidents of both parties. Those found in violation of these statutes are already subject to prison sentences and mandatory removal. However, Republicans are proposing to jail undocumented immigrants for up to 10 or 20 years, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and limited Federal prison space.

American taxpayers are certainly justified in asking our Republican colleagues: Why should we imprison someone who is subject to deportation here in the United States and at that cost to the American taxpayer?

Every day, we are seeing a new atrocity committed by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. All over America, masked ICE agents, often in unmarked cars, are taking parents from their children, arresting the elderly, arresting law-abiding immigrants, and even detaining citizens.

Trump says he is going after the worst of the worst, but over 70 percent of the immigrants his government has rounded up have no criminal record. In fact, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security are reallocating resources away from investigating major crimes so they can terrorize undocumented immigrants who are just trying to work a job and provide for themselves and their families, including some who were legally present here and had legal status until this administration suddenly reversed it.

For all its bluster, this administration is not doing anything to combat gangs or serious criminals. They are not arresting the worst of the worst or gangs like MS-13 or Tren de Aragua. It is not doing anything about the smugglers and human traffickers at the border.

Instead, ICE agents are scrambling to meet Stephen Miller's quotas by arresting people at work or when they attend court hearings on their legal cases for asylum or citizenship, as they are required to do, and the hell with the impact on the local community, or, in the case of the disastrous raid on the Georgia battery plant last week, the hell with our allies and foreign investment in our country.

In the latest example of how this administration's disastrous immigration agenda is at odds with reality, last week, ICE was directed to make a flashy, high-profile raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia, arresting over 400

South Korean nationals whom we had explicitly invited to invest in manufacturing here and bring jobs to the United States. This stunt has been a complete disaster. It caused a major diplomatic rift with one of our closest allies and biggest economic partners, and it has given the whole world reason to believe that it is a mistake to move manufacturing to the U.S.

In truth, the Stop Illegal Entry Act is just another shiny object that is supposed to divert attention from the Epstein files and the failures of this administration. Republicans don't actually care about reforming the immigration system. They have repeatedly rejected all attempts to do so. They just want to campaign on telling horror stories about immigrants, regardless of the truth.

All we see from this House majority is distraction after distraction, all to divert attention from the President's failure to deliver on promises to the American people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Ansari).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. McBride).

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

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of H.R. 4849, the Protecting Health Care and Lowering Costs Act of 2025, introduced by Congressman Gray.

Mr. Speaker, in July, Republicans jammed through their big, ugly bill. This 870-page monstrosity includes the largest cuts to healthcare in American history. It takes healthcare coverage away from more than 15 million Americans, American citizens, including 10 million who would lose their care due to the $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act and another $5 million because Republicans failed to extend the tax credits that help make ACA plans more affordable.

These cuts will throw millions of Americans off coverage entirely, bury families in medical debt, and result in hospitals and nursing homes closing, especially in rural America.

In my district, 21,000 people are likely to lose their healthcare. In the gentleman from Georgia's district, 36,000 people are estimated to lose their healthcare.

Mr. Gray's bill would reverse those disastrous cuts, as well as permanently extend the tax credits that help make ACA plans more affordable for millions of Americans.

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 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. McDonald Rivet) to discuss our proposal further.

Ms. McDONALD RIVET. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the hardworking men and women not just in Michigan but across the country.

Working families in Michigan and across the country are really struggling. There are 200,000 people in my district alone who rely on Medicaid.

While the Republican tax scheme gives huge giveaways to billionaires and breaks to the wealthy, it neglects the ACA tax credits working families in my district depend on to cover their insurance premiums. It cuts Medicaid by $1.1 trillion, kicking tens of thousands of my constituents off their healthcare, and it raises costs for everybody.

Our Protecting Health Care and Lowering Costs Act reverses all of that, and we should pass it today. We aren't just making a point. We are fighting for the retired teacher from Mount Morris who needs Medicaid because her insurance isn't cutting it. We are standing up for the pregnant woman whose rural hospital is at risk of being shut down because of the Republican tax giveaway.

We are raising our voices for the family from Bay City who will have to sit down at the kitchen table to figure out if they should pay for rent or their child's visit to the doctor.

We know that as a result of the billionaire tax giveaway we are going to see premiums rise for working people across our country. The ACA tax credits need to be reestablished now.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, if we are going to discuss what should be disclosed with these Epstein files, all the more reason to bring this bill forward. We can amend it in Rules and carry on from there, but that is not what we are seeing from our colleagues across the aisle. They are trying to bury it, and I assume they will continue to do so.

This House and this Congress cannot afford to continue allowing an unrestrained and reckless President to trample on the Constitution and Congress' powers and responsibilities. Every day brings a new crisis with this White House, and they are all of its own making.

Since Trump announced his tariffs, the U.S. has lost 42,000 manufacturing jobs, tourism is tanking, and unemployment is on the rise. Costs for everything from electricity to groceries to health insurance are up, not down.

In fact, we are facing the biggest increase in health insurance costs in 15 years, even as the cuts in this big, bad bill threaten to bring more hospital closures.

Trump's attacks on the Federal Reserve could cause another financial crisis. Masked agents are roaming our streets, and reports of human rights abuses at ICE detention facilities are growing. Far from ending the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, Trump has amassed naval forces off the coast of Venezuela and could provoke another unauthorized war.

This administration is out of control and Congress must act. Republicans can't keep their heads in the sand. They have already failed to protect core Article I spending authorities, the power to make appropriations and the power to declare war. Continued inaction will only allow more power grabs by this White House to occur.

At every turn, Republicans have fought Democratic efforts to place oversight and enforcement riders in legislation that we are passing. With this NDAA, our Republican colleagues are, again, blocking policies to restrain this President and prevent him from using the Armed Forces as political weapons. This cannot be allowed to continue. We must reject this rule and the Republicans' failed agenda.

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

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

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

I congratulate Mr. Knott on his first bill coming to the floor of the House.

The administration and ICE say that they are targeting the most hardened criminals, the worst of the worst, but

the numbers now suggest a different story. Roughly half of the people who have been arrested by ICE have no violent criminal history and no criminal history other than being undocumented.

Most migrants, of course, are coming due to poverty, insecurity, violence in their home country, and authoritarianism at home. In fact, the two most common crimes committed by people who have been detained by ICE are being here without documentation and traffic offenses.

Now, the President has said that his administration wants to remove and deport people who commit crimes after they illegally enter the country, but the gentleman's legislation moves in exactly the opposite direction. If this bill were passed into law, it would imprison people for long sentences, even potentially for life, just for having entered the country on an undocumented basis, several times, as the gentleman says.

Obviously, if someone commits a murder or rape, they are going to be prosecuted for murder or rape, so the bite of this bill is with respect to people who just keep reentering our country without permission.

Now, it would require that people who are immediately removable and deportable, undocumented immigrants, must spend 5 or 10 years in overcrowded and overburdened Bureau of Prisons facilities in our country at a huge cost to American taxpayers--more than $150, and in many cases $200 a day, which comes to hundreds of millions of dollars when you multiply it by the people that would be affected--before they can be removed from the country.

That is the odd part of this bill, that we have people who have entered unlawfully who have no documentation to be here. They are removable. They are deportable, but we are insisting that they stay here and be imprisoned and punished here for the crime of having entered illegally.

This would undoubtedly be good for the owners of all the private detention facilities and prisons who are getting rich off of laws like this, but it would fail the rest of us.

Under 8 U.S.C. 1325, today, entering the U.S. without inspection is already a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and a sentence of up to 6 months in prison with enhancements that can increase the maximum sentence up to 2 years. Under 8 U.S.C. 1326, if you unlawfully reenter the country or are found to be here in the United States following a removal or denial of admission, this is already a felony punishable by up to 2 years in prison with enhancements that can increase the maximum sentence already to as high as 20 years in prison for those who were ordered removed following a conviction for certain offenses.

The gentleman's bill would increase the penalty for people who enter without inspection from 6 months to 2 years for a first offense, and then if you reenter without documentation for up to 5 years, and in certain circumstances, potentially up to life. You could be held for life for a consecutive illegal entry into our country.

The bill provides even for a potential life sentence in Federal prison for merely entering the country unlawfully with no other criminal conduct required. There are obviously armed robbers and rapists and even murderers who have done less time than that.

Obviously, we don't want these people entering the country illegally. That is why the solution is to toughen the border. We had a bipartisan compromise to toughen and fortify the border with the hiring of hundreds more border officers and judges. It was coming through the Senate. That was the one at the end of 2024 that was sailing through Congress when President Trump decided to sink that legislation and said, essentially, that he didn't want a border compromise bill for more effective enforcement there, that he wanted a border crisis to run against.

There has been a consensus between the parties for several years that mandatory minimums do not effectively reduce crime and do not improve public safety. They strip judges of their ability to exercise fact- based discretion and impose sentences that fit the circumstances of the case, frustrating their ability to consider mitigating and complicating factors, imposing a one-size-fits-all straitjacket that leads to often disproportionate and inflexible prison sentences.

This is why the Judicial Conference itself opposes mandatory minimums. This is why you don't have judges at the border demanding the gentleman's legislation. This is why the Brennan Center opposes it. This is why Right On Crime has opposed mandatory minimums and so on.

Study after study has shown that mandatory minimums don't work to deter criminal conduct. We know from a report issued by the Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice that the certainty of being caught and quickly punished, not the severity or length of the sentence, is what deters criminal conduct. Increasing and mandating harsh, lengthy sentences will not deter illegal reentry, but strengthening the border will do that.

According to The Washington Post, the administration is actually pressuring Governors today to commute the sentences of immigrants who are in prison under the current framework convicted of serious crimes. I am not talking about just entering without documentation. I am talking about serious crimes. The administration is pushing for them to have their sentences commuted so ICE can take custody of them and then remove them from the country more quickly.

The gentleman's bill does the exact opposite. It requires the deportable immigrants be held in our prisons at enormous public expense for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, in some circumstances even for life, making the taxpayers pay for it when they could have simply been removed and deported, which has been the policy of this administration.

The gentleman's bill, which was opposed on a bipartisan basis in committee, is ultimately too punitive, way too expensive, and ultimately ineffective.

I will urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, with all due respect to my friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington.

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

My friend and the good gentleman from Kansas says that the legislation is about the worst of the worst, and I beg to differ.

The worst of the worst are already covered by existing law. If you commit a murder like the gruesome murder he describes in his State, you can go to jail for life. In many States--and I suppose Kansas, but I don't know--you are subject to the death penalty. If you commit rape or armed robbery, there are laws that cover that.

Today, under section 1326, if you have committed an aggravated felony such as the kind he describes, you already can be imprisoned for an additional 20 years under the immigration statute.

I understand that it might be satisfying for us to say we are just going to increase all these penalties, but we are not in any way connecting with the worst of the worst. What we are really doing is saying that we are going to hold people who have done nothing other than enter the country illegally for much longer periods of time, for 5 years or 10 years.

Again, we see this as very wasteful in terms of public tax dollars. If we set aside the murderers, the rapists, and the armed robbers, who we are going to get under existing laws that make all of that criminal, and you look at what is actually happening here, it is a focus on people who are entering the country illegally.

We have to ask ourselves, is it economically worthwhile for us to say that we are so mad at those people that we want to hold them in our jails for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, or even life in certain circumstances rather than send them back to their own country and toughen the border so they can't get back in? That is precisely the purpose of the legislation that was rejected at the end of 2024 on toughening up the border. We should go back and do that rather than having people continually come back in.

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

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

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

I want to underscore something that the gentleman from California said. The whole weight of this bill is on people who are not the hardened criminals. Obviously, we are going to be prosecuting rapists for rape and murderers for murder and so on. He talked about people who are hardworking immigrants, the kind even President Trump described when for a moment he said there wouldn't be immigration raids on farms because the agricultural sector is in crisis and people are saying we need the workers.

Well, I wanted to echo what President Trump said briefly there before he was corrected by Mr. Miller. I was just in upstate New York in the Adirondacks in the 21st Congressional District represented by Ms. Stefanik. I met a bunch of dairy farmers there, who told me it was impossible for them to find workers to work the farms. With the additional crackdown on migrant labor, it is pretty much impossible for them to get the workers they need.

What is the economic result of that? Well, they take the citizen laborers they have got, and they do mandatory overtime, so they are working an additional 15, 20, 30 hours per week, then they have got to pay them time-and-a-half under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Therefore, the prices go up now because they are not able to find enough workers to satisfy the demand. Their choice at that point is to either pay the farmers less money, which they can't do because the farmers are already at the breaking point, or they have got to increase prices, and that is what they end up doing.

They have said to the grocers, this is because Congress refuses to work on bipartisan immigration reform. That is why we are seeing inflation in dairy, produce, and across the agricultural sector.

The gentleman is telling us if we are serious about dealing with this, we need to do what we started to do at the end of 2024. We need to have bipartisan commitment to immigration reform, and we need to sit down and work this out the way that prior generations of Americans have done. This is a country that has been built on immigration.

I am afraid that the gentleman's legislation here, which is basically just jacking up a whole series of criminal penalties, doesn't get us out of the economic problems and the immigration policy problems that we are in. It is a distraction. It will be ineffectual, and so it is not going to work to deal with the real crises that we are facing.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove), a very distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I have no more speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I have just one quick correction or amendment to my distinguished friend's last set of remarks, which is that when he says how low a standard must there be, all they have to do is not commit another felony or commit a felony. As I understand the gentleman's legislation--and please correct me if I am wrong, because he certainly knows it better than I do--it is a felony to come back to the country again without having committed any violent crime or any other offense. It becomes a felony under the legislation. Now you have a felony because you have reentered, and at that point you are eligible for up to 20 years or even a life sentence.

Am I understanding that correctly? There are people whose only offense could be reentering without anything else who would be subject to the most serious punishment.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield if he can just clarify that.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time. I thank my colleague for that clarification.

Madam Speaker, I am satisfied to believe, again, that there are people who could end up with the most severe penalties under the legislation who have done nothing other than reenter the country, which is something we don't want them to do, which is why we want a bipartisan immigration bill to actually fasten down the border and move forward on this so we are not constantly dealing with this.

The bottom-line problem with my friend's legislation, which is offered in all good faith, is that it is just continuing to pile criminal penalties on people reentering the country without changing any of the incentives or inducements. It doesn't deal with any of the things pushing them out of countries that are marked by violence, gang violence, authoritarianism, and so on, nor is it dealing, as Mr. Correa points out, with the pull of all of the jobs here.

We need real immigration policy breakthroughs and not just piling on a bunch of additional criminal penalties that are not going to work. If they did work, they would just end up costing the American taxpayers hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in holding people in our prisons for offenses that currently they are being held for 6 months or for up to 2 years.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the gentleman's legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 682, I call up the bill (H.R. 3486) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to increase penalties for individuals who illegally enter and reenter the United States after being removed, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 3486.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to open remarks on this important legislation which holds a specific criminal category to account, specifically those who exploit weak border policies to bring crime into the United States.

I certainly feel that it is appropriate, before I begin my remarks, to note that today is the 24th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and in that same vein, Mr. Speaker, this proposed legislation profoundly enables law enforcement to protect us from all threats that seek to enter our country illegally.

Let me begin by commending Congresswoman Bice for partnering with me on this important issue.

As to the bill, Mr. Speaker, no matter the type or category, all crime is made worse by illegal immigration. Theft, assault, murder, drug trafficking, human trafficking, violent crime, and property crime, you name it, Mr. Speaker, illegal immigration makes it worse.

What is perhaps most unfortunate is that many of the worst offenders in this specific category return to the United States after being deported due to gaps in the current immigration law.

As a former U.S. prosecutor, I saw how deportation alone is insufficient to deter the committed illegal immigrant criminal. I have investigated, tried, and convicted many individuals who had been deported 2 times, 3 times, 4 times, and some even beyond 10 times. Yet, they continue to illegally return with the sole intent--the sole intent--to commit crime here in the United States.

The original version of this bill, Mr. Speaker, was drafted after a 32-year-old woman, an American woman, was tragically murdered by an illegal alien who had five felony convictions and had been deported multiple times from the United States. Tragically, her case is not an outlier. It has become far too common.

Under the current law, we must wait for a repeat felon, a recidivist illegal alien, to harm another American before we can effectively punish him or her for the crimes they seek to commit.

Enough is enough.

For any illegal immigrant who has demonstrated a clear and perverse disregard for our law, this bill shows that we will not wait for them to harm another American before we punish them. The act of returning after deportation is a serious crime, and it should denote serious consequences.

Further, if a person is here illegally, commissioning and being convicted of a felony is not a victimless crime. All felonies have a victim.

Enough is enough.

In the current state of the law, we must wait for an American to be harmed before significant punishments are issued to those who are here illegally. That is the core motivation of the changes being sought in this bill.

Candidly and specifically, if a person is here illegally with demonstrated criminal intent, that alone is sufficient to be punished meaningfully in this country.

Utilizing my own experience prosecuting this specific class of criminal, this bill implements the following commonsense provisions.

First, if any illegal alien is found guilty of a State or Federal felony, that alone qualifies the illegal alien for a new Federal charge that will bring a minimum of 5 years in Federal prison.

Secondly, rather than capping the sentence for illegally reentering-- again, this is not the first attempt--illegally reentering the country at 2 years in prison, which is, again, the current state of the law, the new maximum would become 10 years for all illegal reentries regardless of the criminal history that they have.

Thirdly, if an illegal alien is convicted of any felony and then deported, and that illegal alien attempts to enter the country illegally again, that will qualify the illegal alien for a new Federal charge that carries a minimum of 10 years and up to life in Federal prison.

I want to make it very clear that this bill does nothing to remove the current immigration authority. If a swift deportation is sought, it can be achieved. If apprehension for an underlying crime and prosecution is sought, that is within the discretion of law enforcement and the prosecutor. This merely adds new tools with which we can fight illegal immigrant criminals.

The premise of the bill, Mr. Speaker, begins with the reality that anyone who is in the country illegally is guilty of criminal conduct. However, what triggers the enhanced penalties is either illegal reentry--illegal reentry--after deportation or a felony conviction within the United States.

Let me be clear to preempt some of the concerns on the other side of the aisle. This bill adheres to strict and constitutionally protected due process, requiring a conviction in a court of law to trigger the enhanced penalties while leaving room for discretion as the prosecutor deems necessary.

Yes, we need the law. Yes, we need deportations. Yes, we need to remove those who are here illegally, especially those who have committed crimes that harm Americans. The President has shown that these steps are essential. However, from my firsthand experience, from my conversations with these criminals, and from the crime data that is all over this country, sophisticated criminal networks with vast resources extend their reach into America due to the open-border policies that the left seems so committed to.

It is only through maintaining the policies of this President and strengthening deterrence that we can ensure that illegal immigrant criminals do not continue to flood this country.

We must send a message to those around the world who want to come here to commit harm: Our tolerance for that activity is over.

With the tools in this bill, investigators and prosecutors will be better able to dismantle organized crime rings across America. Most importantly, they will employ an efficient deterrent to anybody who seeks to enter or reenter this country illegally.

It is time for the illegal immigrant criminals to know that we are finished tolerating their presence with the illegal activity that they engage in.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Harris).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Schmidt).

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

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

I will say that my friend from Maryland mentioned robbery, rape, and murder. This bill's goal is to apprehend dangerous criminals before they rob, rape, or murder Americans.

Secondly, and most importantly, referencing a farmworker, if they are here illegally and they do not commit a felony, this bill does not touch them. The only standard that this bill has: Do not come back into the country a second time illegally, and do not get convicted of a felony. How low do you think of the farmworkers that they cannot meet that standard?

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Moore).

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

Will the gentleman yield?

The issue with your characterization, sir, is number one, someone who enters illegally must be convicted of illegally entering the country. Then they must be convicted of illegally reentering the country to get a felony conviction. There is no compulsion to charge the most serious layers of this offense. There is prosecutorial discretion.

Under this law, if someone is apprehended, they can be deported without any charging, and that is where the misconception and the mischaracterization is.

If someone is convicted of illegal reentry and deported and they come back, a prosecutor would have the discretion to charge the 10-year minimum. It is not compulsory. It is within the discretion but, yes, he would meet the element.

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

Madam Speaker, I have heard a lot from the other side about costs, whether it be costs to law enforcement, costs to imprison, costs to society. I want to talk about the costs of open-border policies that is felt in this country.

In the year 1990, roughly 5,000 Americans died because of illegal drug use. Since the year 2000, almost 1.5 million Americans have lost their life because of using illegal drugs. Of course, there is involvement locally and domestically in the drug trade, but just about all drugs--statistically, all illegal drugs--come into the country illegally. That is just one category dealing with the cost of illegal immigration.

Any criminal code should have three objectives:

First, it should protect Americans. It should protect American children. It should protect American families, neighborhoods, and businesses from the ill effects of crime.

Second, it should punish illegal activity. When someone harms another American, there should be adequate and reciprocal punishment. It should be efficient, and it should work, again, to protect Americans.

Thirdly, it should deter ongoing criminal conduct in that same vein, repeat criminal offenses, or anyone who would want to copy criminal conduct to enrich themselves.

When you look at the scale of illegal immigration, when you look at the problems that are being inflicted upon this country across every metric, the criminal law is failing to protect Americans.

This bill, again, aims to target the committed criminals who are here illegally. There is no distinction under the current law for people who commit crimes when they are here illegally versus those who commit crimes who are citizens. That discrepancy enables hordes of illegal immigrants to come from around the world to harm Americans.

Again, I repeat, Mr. Raskin, in good faith and with sound logic, talked about robbery. He talked about property crimes. He talked about rape and murder. Some of these people have been convicted of rape, murder, property crimes after they have been deported. They return illegally and harm Americans.

This bill aims to preempt the harm Americans feel by committed illegal immigrant criminals.

Just this week, there was a release from the Department of Homeland Security. A 34-year-old gang member

from Mexico had illegally entered the country 26 times. He has received convictions for burglary, tampering with government records, government witnesses, criminal enterprises, illegal reentry multiple times. When you look at cases like this that are so voluminous, it is hard to summarize. Again, the only conclusion--the only conclusion is the law is insufficient as it is currently drafted.

We are in Congress to make laws to protect Americans. When we have such gaping holes in our criminal justice law as it relates to illegal immigrant criminals, not dairy workers, not those who are not committing crimes, the conclusion is straightforward. We need to change the law.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle candidly are twisting themselves into circles to defend the policies of the status quo. They want more illegal immigrants. They do not want stricter enforcement. They are turning every opportunity to resist the changes that Republicans and this President are trying to implement.

Again, as a Federal prosecutor in my previous career, I saw how illegal, unchecked immigration harmed every corner of my State and the country. When you have an open flow of illegal immigration, crime flourishes. It is hard to quantify the cost.

Again, with this bill, for any illegal immigrant to be under its effect, they must commit a felony and get convicted or they must illegally reenter--not enter--reenter after deportation. That is not a standard too high. That is not detached from logic.

Again, when you look at the goals of what all criminal laws should achieve, protecting Americans, punishing illegal activity, and to deter repeat offenses, this is a needed step to accompany the legitimate approach that the President has been implementing over the past few years.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 682 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), 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, this morning, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 682, providing for consideration of two measures.

The first measure is H.R. 3838, the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, under a structured rule.

The rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services or their respective designees, provides for one motion to recommit, and made 298 amendments in order.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 3486, the Stop Illegal Entry Act of 2025, under a closed rule.

The rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees, and provides for one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to debate a rule on two pieces of legislation. First, H.R. 3838, the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026.

Mr. Speaker, under the leadership of Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Adam Smith, one of the top priorities of the bipartisan fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act was to reform the defense acquisition system and equip our armed services with the technology they need to deter national security threats.

Mr. Speaker, as anyone who follows this process knows, it can take more than a decade before new capabilities are finally deployed. By then, the threat has changed, the technology is outdated, and the programs are over budget.

This bill cuts red tape and shifts the focus of the defense acquisition system from compliance to quickly and cost-effectively fielding new capabilities to ensure that our Armed Forces are the most lethal and effective fighting force in the world.

Implementing the Peace Through Strength agenda, the fiscal year 2026 NDAA codifies over 45 executive orders and legislative proposals from President Trump. It fully funds top defense priorities, revitalizes the defense industrial base, and grows manufacturing jobs in America, all while pressing our NATO and other allies to pay more for their own defense.

Building upon last year's NDAA, which focused on servicemember quality of life, this bill supports a 3.8 percent pay raise for all servicemembers, improves housing and DOD schools, and expands access to healthcare and childcare.

To deter our adversaries, the fiscal year '26 NDAA focuses on countering the threat from China, bolsters Taiwan's defense, and supports Indo-Pacific allies and partners. Additionally, this bill continues to focus on countering threats to our national security from Russia, North Korea, Iran, and other foreign terrorist organizations.

To counter emerging threats, the bill focuses on rapidly deploying new, innovative technologies to our warfighters while strengthening nuclear deterrence and missile defense.

To further secure our border and fight drug trafficking, the fiscal year '26 NDAA fully funds the establishment and enforcement of national defense areas along the southwest border of the United States, authorizes DOD to provide additional support to Customs and Border Protection, and authorizes President Trump's budget request of nearly $1 billion to combat drug traffickers.

Finally, the fiscal year '26 NDAA reforms programs and saves taxpayer dollars. It saves over $20 billion from DOGE cuts and DOD workforce reforms, limits funds available for senior leader travel until DOD makes progress toward fully passing an audit, and overhauls military construction to reduce costs and expedite project delivery.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues and House Armed Services committee staff for all the work that went into creating this strong, bipartisan legislation that should pass with overwhelming support.

Mr. Speaker, moving on, the rule also provides for the consideration of H.R. 3486, the Stop Illegal Entry Act of 2025. While existing law criminalizes both illegal entry and illegal reentry to our country, often the punishments are not sufficient to defer aliens from illegally reentering the country after committing crimes or being removed from the United States.

In fact, of all the aliens charged with illegal reentry in 2023, more than 70 percent had criminal records, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 3486, if enacted, gives Federal officials more tools to prosecute aliens who illegally enter the United States.

It requires between 5 years of imprisonment to life imprisonment for an alien who illegally enters the United States and is later convicted of a felony. It requires between 10 years of imprisonment to life imprisonment for an alien who illegally reenters the United States after being removed following a felony conviction.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to consideration of these pieces of legislation, and I urge passage of this rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, if you don't like President Trump, that is fine. If you don't like the legislation, that is fine. However, for a Member of the House to walk down here and to intentionally take the name of the Lord in vain on the floor of the House of Representatives of the United States of America is just a new low for this institution, Mr. Speaker.

I think it is a sad day for our country, and it says a lot about how far society has fallen. While I know, and I actually read the Book of James yesterday, the tongue is hard to tame, that was an intentional use of language taking the name of our Lord in vain on the floor of this House. I am going to leave it at that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Schmidt).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), the Chairwoman of the Rules Committee and the toughest lady in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, there is absolutely nothing that can make Affordable Care Act plans affordable. It was a gift to the insurance industry from the Democratic Party.

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

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

I commend Chairman Comer for the work that is being done in the Oversight Committee. I commend the courage of the victims who came forward. I should have commended the courage of the victims that came forward to Congress last week and met with Members, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives, before I even commended Chairman Comer for his work on the Epstein files.

The key to the Epstein files is the flight logs and the tax records, neither of which is mentioned in the Khanna-Massie language. We are pushing forward.

Chairman Comer is doing a good job. I commend him and the bipartisan work that is being done on the Oversight Committee. I commend the victims for coming to Washington and doing this.

I apologize to the victims for the gamesmanship that is being played at their expense by the other side of the aisle in the Democratic Party. I think they support, from what I understand, what is being done in a bipartisan manner in the Oversight Committee. We are going to continue to push forward that way.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, it wasn't a speedboat. It was a panga full of drugs. I would rather that so-called speedboat, as they call it--I call it a panga full of drugs--be at the bottom of the ocean than another American be at the bottom of a six-foot hole because of drug overdoses.

I personally think the President and the Secretary of Defense made the right choice, and I hope they will do it again. In fact, I challenge them to do it again.

Mr. Speaker, this week the House can advance two pieces of legislation under this rule. H.R. 3838, the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, significantly improves the defense acquisition system. The act implements the Peace Through Strength agenda and restores lethality to our Armed Forces. It secures America's borders and improves the quality of life of our servicemembers.

The fiscal year '26 NDAA reforms key programs and saves taxpayer dollars, resulting in a ready, capable, and lethal fighting force. This legislation will deter China, defend Israel, and counter Russia, North Korea, Iran, and other foreign terrorist organizations, including the drug dealers riding around the oceans with pangas full of dope.

Finally, this act strengthens our nuclear deterrence, builds the Golden Dome, and grows our Nation's strategic space capabilities. This is bipartisan, must-pass legislation that every one of my colleagues should support.

Additionally, H.R. 3486, the Stop Illegal Entry Act of 2025, simply strengthens current law to deter criminal aliens from entering and reentering again and again the United States and gives Federal officials more tools to prosecute aliens who have illegally entered the country and are convicted of a felony or who try to reenter the country after removal following a felony conviction.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on the rule.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3486.

This bill is Republicans' latest attempt to scapegoat and fearmonger about immigrants. With President Trump's poll numbers tanking on immigration due to his kidnapping and disappearing of immigrants and U.S. citizens off our streets, House Republicans are, once again, looking to turn the conversation back to immigration and the border.

I will point out the absurdity of spending this valuable floor time on a bill that has harsh and ineffective mandatory minimums for immigrants while the majority effects one of the greatest coverups of our time, covering up the horrific abuses of Jeffrey Epstein and his network of child traffickers and sexual predators.

Why not spend our time focused on justice for the incredibly brave survivors who have spoken out against the rich and powerful men who abused them?

Why fight a bipartisan discharge petition from Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna to release all of the damned files, not just the ones that the Trump's DOJ allows to be released?

Why not speak out against the cushy deal that Ghislaine Maxwell just got from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to move to a cushy prison instead of serving her time as one of Epstein's main co-conspirators and groomers of young girls to be abused by Epstein and his cohort of rich and powerful men?

Obviously, once again, my colleagues across the aisle want to try to distract us by returning to their tried-and-true playbook of demonizing immigrants. That is not actually what the American people want. We have seen over and over again that the American people actually support immigration, despite all of the lies that come from the other side.

This summer, a Gallup poll noted a record high, 79 percent, of U.S. adults say that immigration is a good thing for the country. A Pew poll showed 64 percent of Americans disapprove of President Trump's suspension of most asylum applications, which was ruled unlawful in Federal court.

The American people now see that the Trump administration has continually lied about what they are going to do on immigration. According to a CBS poll, a majority of Americans believe that the Trump administration is not prioritizing the removal of dangerous criminals and public safety threats, and nearly 60 percent disapprove of how the Trump administration is using immigration detention facilities.

This is not surprising in the least. As the ranking member said, ICE's own data revealed that roughly 65 percent of people in immigration detention have zero criminal convictions--zero.

It is clear that this administration is not targeting the so-called worst of the worst, as President Trump claimed on the campaign trail. Instead, they are targeting everyone that they think they may be able to deport.

Tom Homan, the President's so-called border czar, said that arresting noncriminals is `` . . . our job.''

In Los Angeles, ICE has been racially profiling people, indiscriminately arresting and holding people, causing fear and terror in people of every legal status who simply look Latino or speak Spanish or congregate on certain corners.

Today's bill is just more of the same scapegoating and lying about immigrants. Once again, the majority implies that, somehow, we don't already have consequences for unlawful entry and reentry. That is absolutely false. Current law already includes harsh sentences and are some of the most prosecuted laws in our country every single year. This bill would add ridiculous mandatory minimum sentences, potentially going up to life, onto the crimes of unlawful entry and reentry.

Mr. Speaker, this makes no sense on multiple levels. If the administration is seeking to deport ``the worst of the worst,'' why put them into incarceration facilities? Perhaps this is just another ploy to give private, for-profit prison companies more money so that they can build more facilities, make more profit, and, ultimately, contribute more to the Republican campaign coffers.

In addition, as the ranking member said in his statement, mandatory minimums just do not work. We have actually seen this over and over again. Harsh enforcement is not the answer. I don't know why my colleagues are having such a hard time with this.

The first Trump administration actually tried to weaponize unlawful entry prosecutions by separating over 5,000 children from their parents. The entire country--Republican, Independent, and Democrat--was horrified at this, and the administration, ultimately, had to abandon their family separation policy.

Still, today, over 1,000 of these kids remain separated from their parents. Yet, despite this despicable, absurdly cruel policy, a 2018 study found zero--zero statistically significant relationship between the family separation policy and the number of apprehensions at the border.

These kinds of indiscriminate, harsh enforcement efforts are a waste of taxpayer dollars and detrimental to the kind of country that we are trying to create. The U.S. already has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, and it costs U.S. taxpayers about $182 billion every year, not to mention the social cost to lock up nearly 1 percent of the adult population. This bill would skyrocket that number.

Actually, it was during the first Trump term that Republicans joined Democrats in actually rolling back some mandatory minimum sentences in the First Step Act that was signed by--guess who--President Donald Trump himself in 2018. Yet, I guess all good policy is, once again, falling to the feet of the divisive political rhetoric around immigrants and crime that my colleagues across the aisle have embraced as their salvo to save them from the bleak economic picture that our country faces today: higher joblessness; Trumpflation; a host of reckless policies, including trade wars, that have cost the American people.

The Republican big, bad betrayal bill is unpopular everywhere in the country no matter how you spin it because Americans know that kicking 17 million Americans off of healthcare just so you can give a $7 trillion tax break to the wealthiest billionaire donors and giant corporations is outrageous, and the American people want us to roll it back.

Madam Speaker, in just 19 days, government funding expires. Right now, Americans across the country face rural hospitals that are closing, higher prices for back-to-school supplies, and double-digit increases in healthcare premiums. What is the Republican majority spending their time on? This terrible bill.

What a giant abdication of the huge responsibility that the American people put on us here in Congress.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.