Federal Working Animal Protection Act

Mr. Speaker, happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody. I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, the distinguished chairwoman of the Rules Committee, for whom I have much admiration and respect, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, what on Earth are we doing here? Yesterday, the President of the United States spent an hour at lunch talking about the Kennedy Center--you know, the place he slapped his name on before basically running it into the ground.

Today, the Congress of the United States is spending an hour debating messaging bills that totally ignore the realities of what is going on in people's everyday lives.

Does anyone on the other side of the aisle realize that the United States of America is at war right now? Does anyone in the Republican Conference want to acknowledge that costs are up, corruption is running rampant, and everyday people are getting screwed?

They promised lower costs on day one. That is what Donald Trump promised. Guess what. Gas is up, thanks to the war in Iran. Groceries are up, thanks to the tariffs. Rent is up. Childcare is up. Healthcare is up, with millions of Americans paying double and triple for their health insurance and over a million losing it altogether because of Republican inaction.

Do Republicans plan to do anything about any of that? No.

This is what they did instead. They jammed through a big, ugly bill to help billionaires. They defend Trump's tariffs that are raising costs on working people. They continue to cover up for the predators in the Epstein files. Now, they are backing another illegal war in the Middle East that is costing over a billion dollars a day in taxpayer money.

But they are not talking about any of that. They keep bringing distraction after distraction to the House floor, bills meant to waste time, divide people, and shift the blame from billionaires onto immigrants. That is their whole playbook.

Don't look over here at Epstein elites and billionaire corporations who are ripping us off, breaking the law, and getting away with it. No, no, no. Blame the immigrants. Blame trans kids. Blame Joe Biden. Blame everybody but the President and his billionaire buddies. It is getting old, and I, for one, am sick and tired of it.

This President and my friends on the other side, who are refusing to rein him in because they are all afraid of him, are burning a billion dollars a day of American taxpayer money on a war halfway around the world. That is $1 billion a day. Let me repeat that: $1 billion a day.

There is no more money to help seniors heat their homes. They say we don't have it. There is no money to help kids get healthy breakfasts in school. There is no money to restore SNAP benefits to help seniors and veterans afford groceries. There is no more money to help working families breathe easier or sleep better at night.

I am just sick and tired of this, Mr. Speaker. There is always money for war. There is always money for another tax break for multimillionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations. There is always time to debate silly bills that try to shift the blame onto immigrants and trans kids, but there is never the time or the money to address the real and pressing issues that the American people are begging Republicans to help them with.

This is an embarrassing debate. This is an embarrassing moment for this Congress. While everybody in this country is in an uproar over rising costs, people are begging us to address that issue, to lower costs, and to help make their lives easier. While that is what is on the minds of the American people, Republicans can't bring themselves to bring legislation to the floor to address those issues. It really is sad. It really is sad.

Again, I think that my friends are going to realize come the midterm elections that people have had enough of this. But really people can't wait until the next election. People need us to address these concerns now.

This is an embarrassing debate, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am just going to respond to the gentlewoman because she wants me to address some of the underlying bills. One of them, H.R. 4638, is the so-called BOWOW Act of 2025. We are debating something and saying that it should be illegal when it already is illegal. It is kind of redundant.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a noncitizen who is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude is subject to removal. In 2018, the Board of Immigration Appeals found that the crime of animal fighting is a crime involving moral turpitude because there is a clear intent to harm an animal.

Let me read to you how this bill we are talking about came to be. On June 24, 2025, canine detective and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Beagle Brigadier Freddie and his handler were inspecting baggage from Cairo, Egypt. Beagle Brigadier Freddie's job is to sniff out prohibited agriculture products at the border that could threaten vital agricultural industries.

Beagle Brigadier Freddie alerted to one of the suitcases being transported by Hamed Ramadan Bayoumy Aly Marie, an Egyptian national. As Beagle Brigadier Freddie continued his investigation, his handler began questioning Mr. Marie who abruptly and violently kicked the canine detective. The kick was of such force that it launched Beagle Brigadier Freddie, a 25-pound beagle, off the ground. After examination by a veterinarian, it was determined that Beagle Brigadier Freddie suffered contusions on his right ribs following the attack.

Mr. Marie was taken into custody and charged with harming animals used in law enforcement under the law. He pleaded guilty. He was ordered to pay Freddie's vet bill, and he was deported back to Egypt. That is the law.

What the hell are we doing here? I mean, we are repeating what was already in the law.

I guess the difference would be if the bill that the gentlewoman is advocating actually became law, then Mr. Marie would escape any kind of financial responsibility of paying Freddie's vet bill. I don't think we want that. But this was a deportable act, and this gentleman was deported.

When I say that this is a distraction, this is what I am talking about. Again, we are spending a billion dollars a day, my friends, on this war in Iran, and nobody knows what the hell is going on.

Gas prices are through the roof. The cost of everything is going up. We are here on the floor basically trying to bring bills that restate current law?

I would even say that in this case it weakens current law.

I have got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I think things are screwed up around here when our focus is on the stuff that we are bringing to the floor today and not on trying to lower the costs for the American people.

Life is hard. I don't know whether my friends go home and talk to their constituents or do townhalls or do town meetings, but if they do, they are hearing what I am hearing: Life is too damn expensive.

People want us to address the high costs, and we are not doing that. We are not doing that, and Republicans refuse to bring legislation to the floor to address that issue. Instead, we do this.

Mr. Speaker, I am a huge animal rights advocate, and so I want people who abuse animals to be deported. I don't have any problem with that, but that is the law. We are bringing this to the floor, and we are not doing a damn thing about addressing the high costs that Americans are facing each and every day. Something is wrong with this place.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me read for my colleagues a statement from the national director of the National Economic Council, Mr. Hassett, who works for President Trump.

This is his quote: ``If the war were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we'd have to think about what we'd have to do about that, but that's really the last of our concerns right now.''

This is from Trump's top economic adviser. This is a direct quote from him.

He says that hurting consumers is the last of our concerns right now.

This guy should be fired. This is outrageous. We all should be worried about consumers. Those are our constituents. When prices are going up, people cannot make ends meet. They can't afford their rent, they can't afford their healthcare, and they can't afford their groceries.

Madam Speaker, they can't afford a damn thing, and this is what Trump's top economic adviser says: The consumers are really the last of our concerns right now?

Does anything outrage my Republican colleagues?

Can anybody in the Trump administration say anything that might give them pause and that might cause them concern?

This is outrageous. Three out of four Americans say that groceries are so expensive that they have been forced to cut down on other spending.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from Fortune titled: ``Three in four Americans say groceries are so expensive they've been forced to cut down on other spending.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert in the Record an article from CBS8 titled: ``National average gas prices now nearly 90 cents higher than one month ago.''

Madam Speaker, I hate to tell my Republican friends this, but here is a news flash: The American people are struggling. They are desperately looking for us to take action to make their lives easier, to help them be able to afford groceries, to be able to afford gas prices, and to be able to afford to support their families.

While we are spending $1 billion a day on a reckless and illegal war in Iran and the President with no end in sight has money for that, my friends on the other side can't bring themselves to bring legislation to the floor that will address the high cost of living.

Madam Speaker, when you have people in the administration saying that consumers are the last of their concerns, I mean like, I am just like every time I think this administration can't say something that will shock me even more, they do. This is one of the more outrageous comments coming from one of the President's top advisers.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I just want to say the gentlewoman is doing exactly what I predicted she would do: blaming immigrants so that people who are watching this debate don't focus in on the fact that prices are going through the roof and everything is more expensive than ever.

She said that Trump is doing better than Biden in terms of gas prices. Well, when Biden left office, the average gallon of gas was $3.11. It is now close to $3.80. It is creeping up to nearly $4. I mean, that is just the reality. People can google that. Don't take my word for it. You can google it.

The other fact is that, if I remember correctly, Donald Trump said that when he became President, he and Republicans would lower costs on day one and everything would go down. What a crock. Everything has gone up. Everything has skyrocketed. Gas, rent, the price of food-- everything has gone way up.

I am going to read this again because I can't get this out of my head that somebody in this administration would say this out loud. Again, this is what the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Kevin Hassett, said: If the war ``were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the U.S. economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we would have to think about . . . what we would have to do about that, but that is really the last of our concerns right now. . . .''

This is one of the President's top economic advisers telling the American consumer: The hell with you. You don't matter. You are at the bottom of our list.

That tells you everything you need to know.

I heard the gentlewoman's 1-minute speech before we got into this debate, when she kind of defended the tax cuts for the rich and basically said that we have a spending problem in this country.

Okay, we have a spending problem. We are spending a billion dollars a day on a reckless, illegal war in Iran, and nobody on the other side seems to give a damn about that. We don't have money to help make sure that we can lower energy costs for senior citizens. We don't have money to make sure our kids get nutritious breakfasts and lunches in schools. We don't have money for anything, for childcare, eldercare, our veterans, or our healthcare in general.

We are told we don't have the money, but no debate and no concern about a billion dollars a day on Iran? Come on. I mean, enough is enough.

The focus of Congress, the focus of government, should be about helping people, not screwing them over, not hurting them. The focus of our government should not be about enriching the rich, protecting the Epstein class, the people who are well-off and well-connected and who have tons of money.

The focus ought to be on how to lift up working families in this country. That is what Democrats have been fighting for. That is what we stand for. There is a difference here.

Again, going back to Kevin Hassett, his comment today. He says the quiet part out loud. The consumers, according to him, are the last of our concerns right now.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I am almost at a loss for words. I don't even know how to respond to that. That gets like five Pinocchios. I don't know what the gentlewoman is talking about. She talked about the debt and reducing the debt. My friend, who I respect and enjoy working with, voted for a reconciliation bill that added nearly $5 trillion to the debt.

Let me say that one more time: It added nearly $5 trillion to the debt. Most of that additional cost to the debt were in the form of tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires.

She talks about the Republicans trying to cut fraud, waste, and abuse. They cut programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to help senior citizens and veterans and low-income families be able to put food on the table, a benefit, by the way, that is on average about $2 per person per meal. That is what SNAP is.

They cut money for child nutrition programs. They cut money for school nutrition programs. They cut money for environmental protection, for infrastructure. I go right down the list, economic development for our farmers, everything.

They had Elon Musk come in with DOGE, and they claim they saved all this money. Guess what. All of the cuts that they made, by the way, I think we are going to pay for down the road because they are going to add costs in a whole bunch of other ways. All of that so-called savings has just been eliminated by what has been spent on the war in Iran, a billion dollars a day. We are at $22, $23 billion already on that war.

We are not anywhere near done. They tell you that we can't deal with the fact that we have so many senior citizens in this country who can't afford to put food on the table. We can't do anything about that. Then they say nothing about the billion dollars a day on an illegal and reckless war in Iran.

For the record, I will include the CBO score, that is the Congressional Budget Office, on their reconciliation bill in the Record because I want the Record to reflect that what I am saying here is backed up by facts. This is a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Both Democrats and Republicans rely on the CBO for scores on how much things are going to cost.

This is crazy that we are having this debate, all the while the cost of living for every person in this country, who is not a multimillionaire or billionaire who is not part of the Epstein class, is going through the roof.

By the way, when you talk about taxes on people, what my friend didn't mention was the tariffs. That is a tax on every American. That is a tax on every American. We are now told that these tariffs are costing the average citizen of this country an additional $1,700 per person per year. I don't know who is asking for this stuff, but it is certainly not the people that I talk to.

Madam Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question. If we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 7481, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2026, sponsored by Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, a bill which only funds law-abiding agencies under the Department of Homeland Security and not the unlawful actions of ICE and CBP.

Madam Speaker, House Republicans are trying to use President Trump's illegal war in Iran as pretext to force Congress to fund ICE and CBP without any reforms, even though these agencies are harassing, detaining, beating, and killing American citizens. This is a cheap trick to score political points, and we are not buying it. I don't think anybody in the country is buying it.

You can't make this up. The President's own National Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who Trump himself appointed and basically every single Republican in the Senate voted to confirm this guy, resigned this morning stating that he cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran and that ``Iran posed no imminent threat to our Nation.''

Also, Republicans already funded ICE and CBP in their big, ugly bill so why are they holding up funding for TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA? Republicans should allow a vote to fund the law-abiding components of DHS while negotiations on critical reforms to ICE and CBP continue.

Madam 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.

Madam Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and the sponsor of this bill.

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

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

Madam Speaker, nobody disagrees that we should have a secure border. That is not the debate.

Where there is disagreement and, quite frankly, where there is outrage is when we have a Federal agency that goes into our communities and kills American citizens. This is not at the border but in our heartland. That is where we believe there is a line that has been crossed. We are outraged over that.

I am sorry that my friends on the other side are not. They control the House. They control the Senate. They control the White House. They are in charge. If they want our votes, we are not going to vote to continue to fund agencies and departments within agencies that are rogue, where there is no accountability and where there is no transparency. We are not going to do that.

We support TSA, the Coast Guard, and FEMA. We will vote to support them, but don't ask us to fund agencies that do harm to our constituents.

By the way, is there any end to what my Republican colleagues want for CBP and for ICE? They have got money in the big, ugly bill for them, billions and billions of dollars for them. I don't understand what the deal is.

In any event, for whatever reason, they have a problem with TSA. They have a problem with FEMA. They have a problem with the Coast Guard. I don't understand why. We don't. We support them.

Madam Speaker, the pattern here is obvious. It is broken promises, higher costs, more war, more hate, alternative facts, and unbelievable corruption. That is what is happening in this country right now because of Republican leadership.

Republicans said they would fight for ordinary people. Instead, they helped billionaires. They said they would keep us out of war. Instead, they dragged us into another one. Madam Speaker, 13 American troops are dead. Over 140 are wounded. Our Nation is, once again, sending $1 billion a day over to the Middle East on another reckless, illegal war of choice.

They said they would tell the truth. Instead, they protect the Epstein elites and peddle distraction after distraction after distraction, hoping it will all go away.

At the center of it all is a President so hollow, so unwell, and so morally lost that he is fundraising off of dead American troops. I can't believe I am saying that sentence out loud.

The President of the United States went to a dignified transfer of remains ceremony. He refused to take off his ball cap. Then he took a photo of himself standing behind an American servicemember in a casket coming home from war in the Middle East. He slapped it on a fundraising email, asking people to donate money to his campaign. Let me say that again.

The President used a dead American servicemember as a photo op for his campaign fundraising. When he was asked about it yesterday, he said he saw nothing wrong with that.

Can anyone imagine if Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden had done that? My Republican colleagues' heads would explode. That is what happened after Joe Biden checked his watch during one of these ceremonies. Yet, there was not a word after this disrespectful President dishonored our troops in the most outrageous way by using them as a prop for his own personal benefit.

I challenge any Republican, any single one, to come down here and defend this. Come down here and explain to their constituents why the leader of their party is fundraising off of dead American servicemembers.

I think it is one of the most disrespectful, inappropriate, awful things I have ever, ever seen in all my time in Congress. I doubt a single Republican will have the guts to say it was wrong.

The American people deserve a hell of a lot better than this chaos and cruelty. They deserve better than this President. They deserve better than this Republican majority. They deserve elected officials who care about them and who want to fight to lower the cost of living, who want to make their lives better and easier and more manageable. That is not what is happening here.

With all that is going on--$1 billion a day on a reckless illegal war in Iran, gas prices creeping up to nearly $4 a gallon, and the price of groceries going up because of these stupid tariffs that my friends don't want to deal with--I can go on and on and on about how the Republican policies are making life more miserable for average Americans. With all that is going on, they can't be bothered to come down here.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this 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.

Mr. Speaker, here is what America is talking about: Donald Trump's unauthorized, undeclared war of choice, a forever war in the making, which is costing us between $1 billion and $2 billion every single day and has killed already 13 Americans in uniform, wounding more than 200 Americans in uniform, and killing more than 1,000 Iranians, including 170 school children who were bombed at an all-girls school in Iran.

Americans are talking about the fact that gasoline now costs $3.84 a gallon. It has gone up more than 25 percent in 1 week because of Donald Trump's unauthorized, undeclared, illegal war of choice in Iran. Crude oil is now soaring to more than $109 a barrel because Donald Trump's war planners could not have predicted that Iran would try to strangle commerce in the Strait of Hormuz.

That is what America is talking about this week. America is talking about when there will be justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, American citizens exercising their First Amendment and Second Amendment rights who were shot down in cold blood by government agents in Minneapolis, and the most recent Secretary of Homeland Security libeled them as domestic terrorists and refused to recant from that defamatory lie.

That is what America is talking about. When are they going to reform ICE, and when are they going to start paying members of the Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA, and CISA?

We have a discharge petition to say: Pay those people, and don't let all of the illegality of ICE bring down the faithful public servants at the Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA, and other Federal agencies.

That is what America is talking about this week.

Well, what are MAGA Republicans in Congress talking about this week? They are talking about the BOWOW Act. The BOWOW Act?

Now, how did they come up with this bill and this title?

Well, the President's poll numbers are sinking like a stone, so they needed to find something to do in Washington to put on the floor. They can't talk about Trump's ruinous tariffs that have plunged so many small businesses into oblivion and cost American consumers hundreds of billions of dollars. They can't talk about that because the Supreme Court, which they gerrymandered, sliced and diced, and packed and stacked, struck it down.

Even the extremely right-leaning Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's tariffs. We told them that it was unconstitutional. We told them that only Congress has the power to impose taxes and to regulate commerce with foreign nations, but no. Like lemmings, they followed Donald Trump off of the side of the ship, and now those tariffs are not only economically ruinous for the country, but they are discredited and struck down.

They can't talk about that, which was their big policy hit of the administration so far. No, they can't talk about that.

Well, they are not talking about the war in Iran. That is splitting even the MAGA base right down the middle because they had talked before Donald Trump about the importance of Congress actually making decisions about going to war. After all, that is what the Constitution says in Article I, Section 8, Clause 11. It is Congress that has the power to declare war.

Mr. Speaker, they are not talking about that. They are not talking about the lives that have been lost in Iran with this bizarre, impetuous war of choice that has been thrust onto the country when the President promised us that there would be no more forever wars and regime-change wars.

They can't even settle on whether this is a regime-change war or not. Some of them say that it is. Some of them say that it isn't, so we don't know. They can't talk about that.

Maybe they can talk about the healthcare public policy, which Donald Trump has been promising for more than a decade. It is a decade of, in 2 weeks, we will get you our plan. They don't like the plans that we have under Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which have delivered healthcare to millions of Americans.

They have done whatever they can to dismantle those healthcare plans. Maybe they could come up with a healthcare plan. No, they are not uttering a peep about that.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks, and Donald Trump fundamentally is not interested in delivering a healthcare plan to America.

Then someone says, ``Well, let's go back to immigration,'' but they have already been told not to talk about mass deportation. We pulled out of Minneapolis because we disgraced ourselves there. We know that America reviles the policy of shooting down American citizens in cold blood for exercising their First Amendment and Second Amendment rights, so we can't talk about that.

Then somebody discovered Freddie and said: There is a case at Dulles Airport with a dog, and we can at least go to the dog people with the BOWOW Act.

I am co-chair of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, and I have one of my dog's dog hair all over this suit, even though I tried to get it off before I came out this morning. If anybody is going to be a sucker for something called the BOWOW Act, it is me. I don't vote for a lot of MAGA legislation, but every dog has his day, and I was willing to look at this one. I was moved by something called the BOWOW Act.

I looked up the incident that the gentleman from California has referenced, and it was outrageous. I was outraged to learn about what happened to Freddie. It all started when Freddie the Beagle, the canine detective at Dulles Airport who works with CBP, Customs and Border Protection, to detect smuggled agricultural products, alerted his superior officers at Dulles to the presence of over 100 pounds of prohibited food items that appeared in the baggage unloading area.

It turns out Freddie did his job. He barked and alerted his superior officers to what was happening. They determined that there was a guy coming over from Egypt, a foreign national, named Aly Marie. Mr. Marie, age 70 years old, who was traveling to the airport and had all of this illegal food, contraband, was foiled by Freddie's excellent detective work. This frustrated Mr. Marie guy kicked Freddie. He kicked him so hard that the poor dog became airborne and had bruised ribs.

Now, if you are a major dog person and believe in animal protection, like me, you say to yourself: You have to be kidding me. That should be illegal. Kick that guy out of the country immediately. Don't let him in.

Guess what. That is exactly what happened. He was arrested immediately. He was charged immediately. He was held by the authorities. He was charged with one count of harming animals used in law enforcement under 18 U.S.C. 1368. He was convicted in a trial on his second day in America. He was held overnight, arrested, charged, convicted the next day, and then removed. He was sentenced to time served. He was ordered to pay for the veterinarian bill for Freddie's bruised ribs, which the court records show is $840, and he was promptly deported right back to Egypt after the court hearing on day three.

I am happy to report that, according to the CBP, Freddie is doing fine today. The law worked.

Imagine if Alex Pretti and imagine if Renee Good had that kind of criminal law enforcement and justice. What if their killers had been apprehended, arrested, charged, and convicted in 3 days? That would be a great thing, but no. What do we hear from Pam Bondi? What do we hear from Kristi Noem, the now-deposed former Secretary of Homeland Security? It is under investigation. The whole world saw it right on video. It is under investigation. Nothing is happening there.

Freddie got justice. We have a system that actually works there. Mr.

Marie served 3 days in jail. His food was confiscated, taken away, and he was deported from the country. Why? Because assaulting a dog like that is a crime of moral turpitude. Under the Federal laws, a crime of moral turpitude like that gets you kicked out of the country. It all worked.

They have nothing else to talk about, so they want to double down and pass redundant legislation to say that somebody who does this should be deported, which is already what happened in this case. The opportunity to propose a redundant, unnecessary, superfluous bill to score meaningless political points, when the rest of the world is talking about war and inflation caused by this President, proved impossible to resist for our colleagues.

H.R. 4638 would render inadmissible and deportable any noncitizen who willfully or maliciously harms a police dog or a police horse, as current law already requires.

There is one change. It removes the requirement that immigrants to the country, whether travelers like the doggone Mr. Marie or a green card holder, it removes the requirement that a noncitizen actually be convicted of a crime. It is enough that you be charged with it or they say you admitted it, or whatever, but the conviction requirement is removed.

Now, that has been a trend for our colleagues in this session. They have been taking things that are already crimes and saying: Let's make that a matter of deporting and removing someone. Well, they already can be deported and removed, yes, but now they want to excise the conviction requirement to do it without complete due process. Why would they do this?

Thomas Jefferson said at the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts that there will be a temptation to go after the immigrants. He said that when you water down constitutional requirements as they apply to noncitizens, that is going to come to affect the citizens, too--a bitter lesson learned by the families of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

In other words, if you train the ICE agents that they can do whatever they want, that they are beyond the law, that they can put on masks, bust down people's doors, and enter without a Fourth Amendment search warrant issued by a neutral magistrate, if they can do that kind of thing, if they can abuse people as we have seen all over the internet, if they can rough up people, what difference does it make really if they are immigrants or if they are citizens if they are beyond the law? Now, we have dead Americans at the hands of our own Federal agents, with nobody charged, nobody arrested, and nobody being prosecuted.

They want to just get rid of the conviction requirement before people are deported. They can already be deported once they are convicted, but they want to get rid of the conviction requirement.

This case illustrates how completely unnecessary the bill is. Harming animals in law enforcement, or any form of animal cruelty, is already a crime involving moral turpitude and has been for a long time. It is a deportable offense, and everybody knows it. If it wasn't, Mr. Marie would not have been deported 3 days after he kicked Freddie.

Bizarrely, because their bill doesn't require a conviction, if this legislation had been in place and Mr. Marie had been deported on day two instead of day three, and there had been no trial, he never would have had to pay restitution. Think about that. Due process helps a lot of people. It is not just for the benefit of that defendant who might be innocent, as Mr. Marie was not, but it also benefits the victims because the victims can win restitution and fines in this way.

They want to deport first and not have a trial. They just want to eliminate due process. I don't understand it.

President Trump has had his experiences in the criminal justice process, and he had every right guaranteed to people under due process: the right to a lawyer, the right to be heard, the right to introduce evidence, the right to cross-examine, the right to trial by a jury of his peers. Even after going through all of that, there are still people who say: That wasn't enough. It didn't really work for him. He didn't really get due process. He wasn't really guilty of committing fraud.

If that is the case for someone who had every conceivable benefit of due process, what about somebody now who gets no due process at all and no trial? That is what they are suggesting. I don't understand why, really, other than the possibility of just introducing an unnecessary, redundant bill and giving them something to talk about when they don't want to talk about what is really going on in the world, what is really going on in America, with gas prices soaring out of control, people unable to pay for their healthcare, and people unable to afford groceries. They don't want to talk about any of that. They want to talk about Freddie.

Well, there is a lot of meaningful animal protection work we can do together, and those of us in the Animal Protection Caucus would be very happy to meet with the gentleman from California about all of the things we can do to really help animals in America. But right now, Freddie is doing fine. That case worked out fine. This bill is unnecessary.

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

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

We want the immigration laws enforced. We also want the Constitution of the United States to be enforced. They think somehow it has been suspended, and the President of the United States can do whatever he wants.

We are trying to stand up for the rule of law in America and for our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am baffled and amazed that the gentleman would bring up the economy under President Biden. A month before the Presidential election in 2024, The Economist magazine had a cover story titled: ``The envy of the world. The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue, argue Simon Rabinovitch and Henry Curr.''

That was what President Biden left to Donald Trump when he took over, an economy that was the envy of the world, inflation down, unemployment down, small business sector roaring, the economy roaring, opportunity for young people. Donald Trump has taken an economy that left other rich countries in the dust, and he has covered us in mud and dirt. He has put us in the dust.

Now gas prices are up 25 percent in 2 weeks. I don't need to refute all this propaganda and disinformation. People go to the gas station and it refutes all the propaganda and disinformation that we are hearing from them.

They are better off sticking to the BOWOW Act.

Under President Biden, we passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a $1.2 trillion investment in America, in our bridges, our roads, our highways, our ports and our airports, not blowing up stuff in other peoples' countries, precisely what Donald Trump had promised he wouldn't do.

That is where our money is going now, draining the U.S. economy by $1 to $2 billion every day. They are spending that on an undeclared, unauthorized war, and our colleagues would not even want to have one honest debate and one honest vote in Congress on whether or not to declare war on Iran. They won't utter a peep about it today or yesterday or tomorrow. They won't say anything about it, nothing, but they let President Trump have their way with them.

Now the gentleman somehow accuses us of not being interested in animal rights and animal welfare. I am sorry, I usually don't go running to rightwing MAGA forces for the protection of animals against animal cruelty and the industrial slaughterhouses and so on. They don't show so much interest in that, but now in Freddie's case because there was an immigrant traveler involved, they want to pass a law which is an exact echo of what the law is. The gentleman has not explained to us why we need to pass a law when Freddie's kicker was arrested, jailed, charged, prosecuted, convicted, and sent back to Egypt all within 3 days. He never saw anything outside of a jail cell in the United States of America, and yet they tell us we need, essentially, to go back and pass the law that mimics what the law is today, except now they want to sneak in a provision saying that we are going to remove the necessity of a conviction.

Why wouldn't it have been better to deport Mr. Marie on day two before he was fined $800 or $900 for Freddie's veterinarian bill?

Why would that have been better?

The gentleman hasn't explained. That is the only substantive change I can imagine coming from the BOWOW bill because the bowwows are already protected as we saw in this case. I wish he could summon up for the GOP caucus the same kind of fervor, passion, and commitment they are now demonstrating for animal rights and welfare, summon that up for human rights and human welfare, for people like Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who were shot down by out-of-control ICE agents in Minneapolis, and then ICE and Homeland Security say that they will not cooperate with local police authorities in Minneapolis and State police in Minnesota.

Why not?

All of a sudden they care just about dogs. They want to rewrite a law that already exists that already protects dogs, as we saw in this case, and not explain why they want to do it. It is an absolute diversion. It is an absolute distraction for the country.

They can't talk about gas prices. They can't talk about inflation. Remember, President Trump said he was going to bring down prices on day one. He hasn't done one thing to bring down prices. Now, they are soaring out of control throughout the entire economy because of his illegal, unauthorized war that is splitting even their own base.

It is the most unpopular war at the beginning that we have seen, maybe in American history, certainly in this century, because nobody explained why they were doing it. That is why the Founders said it has to be Congress that decides whether we go to war.

James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Tom Payne, the whole founding generation knew that the Kings were always plunging their countries into impetuous wars of conceit, vanity, imperial ambition, foreign intrigue, and corruption. They didn't trust one guy with that decision; they put that decision in us. They reposed it in us, whether or not we wanted it.

They are running away from it. They don't want to make a decision about this war, which Donald Trump now calls the ``little excursion,'' the little excursion in Iran, the little excursion that has already taken the lives of 13 U.S. citizens in uniform, wounded more than 200 Americans, and killed more than a thousand Iranians, including 170 schoolchildren who got bombed in this reckless, impetuous war.

They don't want to talk about that. It is the BOWOW Act, but they have not made one good argument about why we need to add a redundant, superfluous law in this way.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1115 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may

have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, last night, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House Resolution 1115, providing for the House's consideration of H.R. 556, H.R. 1958, and H.R. 4638.

The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 556, the Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act, under a closed rule. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their designees, and provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.R. 1958, the Deporting Fraudsters Act of 2026, and H.R. 4638, the Federal Working Animal Protection Act, both under closed rules. The rule provides each 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees and provides for one motion to recommit for each bill.

Additionally, when considered under suspension of the rules, the rule provides additional debate time to 1 hour of general debate for H.J. Res. 139, proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States requiring a balanced budget for the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, the three measures that underpin this rule all share a singular, defining characteristic: They are in alignment with the priorities and demands of the American people.

What do the American people want, Mr. Speaker? I will tell you what they want. They want a restoration of law and order so that illegal aliens are deported, especially when they are convicted of having committed criminal acts.

Republicans are answering that demand by putting forth H.R. 1958 and H.R. 4638. These two pieces of legislation zero in on criminal aliens who have defrauded the government and criminal aliens who commit violent acts against law enforcement working animals in the line of duty.

Mr. Speaker, when I say that we back the blue, I am talking about the men and women of law enforcement and the trained animals that stand alongside them in the line of duty.

Those who choose to oppose this legislation, I can guarantee, are members of the same party that has voted to keep the Department of Homeland Security shut down and has voted in the past to defund the police. You and I both know, Mr. Speaker, which party it is that I am referring to here. It is obvious.

Americans want a Federal Government that respects consumer choice and the exercising of our freedoms, not a Federal Government that seeks to regulate every single aspect of our lives. That is why Republicans are putting forth H.R. 556, which would tear down regulations that have dictated how men and women across the Nation can hunt and fish on select pieces of land under the control of the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture, respectively.

These are two essential parts of life that Americans are incredibly fortunate to engage in and enjoy. I believe all should respect that, but the Federal Government, under Democratic control, has time and again viewed these activities as nothing more than a target to overregulate. Is anyone surprised by this? I don't believe so.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I will guarantee that our colleagues across the aisle won't spend their time debating this slate of bills with us today. I would be pleasantly surprised if they actually chose to do that. Instead, they will do the same thing they always do: stomp their feet, huff and puff, and yell about unrelated things until they are blue in the face. It is like muscle memory for them at this point.

Meanwhile, Republicans will be focused on the task at hand, like they always are. They stand ready to deliver, and they intend to do so, yet again, with these three pieces of legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Massachusetts for his kind comments. I send them back to him and wish him a happy St. Patrick's Day. I appreciate him making my prediction in my opening remarks come true.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I am a huge animal rights lover too, and I have a dog I say that owns me.

My colleague just talked about one example that worked out well, but we know lots and lots of examples where these things don't work out well, and that is why we need this legislation. It is because acts of cruelty toward animals who are working often fall between the cracks.

My colleague also just said that no one will see any benefits from the Working Families Tax Cut, yet thanks to this important legislation, Americans could receive nearly a $4,000-tax refund this year. The average take-home pay boost is $10,900, and the average tax cut for middle-income Americans is 15 percent.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I will point out to my colleague that, yes, gas jumped in the last month, but it is still a lot less expensive than it was under President Biden.

Thankfully, under President Trump, gas prices were cut almost in half. The number one role of the Federal Government, Madam Speaker, as we all know on our side of the aisle, is defense of this Nation.

Madam Speaker, the need for legislation like H.R. 1958 is not hypothetical. Fraud is a serious crime, and it is essential we ensure foreign national fraudsters cannot continue to exploit the American taxpayers.

While my colleagues will argue that there is no fraud currently, here are just a few recent examples: ``A 3-year-old girl's Social Security number had been used for `two credit cards and two auto loans, with an outstanding balance of more than $25,000.''

The second example is: ``Fraud by illegal immigrants destroying children's

lives.'' These are quotes, Madam Speaker. Including the life of: ``A 9- year-old boy who was denied Medicaid because wages were reported on his Social Security number. A 13-year-old girl who was denied as a dependent on her family's tax return because she supposedly made too much money.''

These are because illegal aliens are stealing Social Security numbers and using them.

In 2019, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Mississippi announced the prosecution of 119 illegal aliens for crimes, including ``misusing Social Security numbers of American citizens.''

I have the sources for all of these, Madam Speaker.

In June 2020, the Justice Department announced that an illegal alien from Guatemala was sentenced to 3 months' imprisonment for ``[using] another person's Social Security number to get a job and for tax purposes.''

In October 2023, an illegal alien who was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol near Hidalgo, Texas, in September 2022 and then released by the Biden administration, pleaded guilty to illegal use of a Social Security number.

In November 2025, The New York Times highlighted the case of Daniel Kluver, a Minnesota man whose identity was stolen by a Guatemalan illegal alien with a criminal history and multiple deportations. Because of the identity theft, Kluver lost thousands of dollars through garnished wages and increased taxes. He spent years unsuccessfully trying to untangle the mystery of his stolen identity.

The stories go on and on, Madam Speaker, so there is a real reason for this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

First, let me say, we know what the role of the Federal Government is. It is outlined in the Constitution of the United States. Many of the things that my colleague wants us to be involved in--and we have been involved in--are the things that have caused us to have a $38 trillion debt at the Federal level, and so doing everything that we can to reduce fraud is really very important.

Let me say, if we have people who are here legally, as Americans have done for Americans, we will do for them. But those who come here illegally--and the term is illegal alien--then we do not have any truck with them. We want them to obey the law, just like we want everybody else to obey the law.

If they commit fraud, then we want them gone, out of this country. They shouldn't be here to begin with because they come in illegally.

If we want to address the high cost of living in this country, we must confront fraud. We must confront fraud. Democrats should be joining us, not opposing the commonsense effort.

Let's talk about the rhetoric from our colleagues on our record of fiscal soundness this Congress and the Democrats' record of spending addiction. We just finished the FY26 appropriations package--of course, minus the funding for Homeland Security. We saved nearly $14 billion compared to last year's appropriated levels. Let's not forget that comes on the heels of cutting $9 billion of waste and fraud through a rescissions package just months earlier, and that came on the heels of cutting $1.4 trillion of waste, fraud, and abuse through Republicans' reconciliation effort.

Democrats are lying in wait to vote for higher taxes on working families yet again if they have the opportunity. What they don't understand is that the government doesn't have a tax flow problem. We have a fundamental spending problem in Washington. Again, that spending is not on what the Federal Government should be spending it on, which is the defense of this Nation, but is on spending on things that are not outlined in the Constitution for us to be doing.

When Democrats had full control of the levers of power and passed their reconciliation packages, they expanded the Federal Government with an unprecedented $11 trillion in spending. Yes, Madam Speaker, I said $11 trillion in additional spending, $6 trillion of which has been added to the national debt.

There is simply no comparison between what Republicans have accomplished this Congress and the Democrats' spending addiction. We have lowered the deficit. We have cut trillions in waste. We have secured tax relief for working families. Democrats opposed us on every front.

Guess what. Our deficit is finally being addressed. The Federal Government's cumulative deficit for fiscal year 2026 at the end of November was 19 percent lower than the year prior under Biden.

Be it by reconciliation, rescission, or through the regular-order annual appropriations process, this Congress is cutting spending, driving down inflation, and returning money to taxpayers.

Madam Speaker, that is really the fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. We believe that the public should hold on to as much of its money as possible, not turn that money over to bureaucrats to spend.

Don't buy the empty rhetoric of congressional Democrats. They ran on affordability in the Commonwealth of

Virginia, but just recently, they slapped on a regressive payroll tax that will squeeze billions out of workers' paychecks.

Congressional Democrats are on record voting against tax relief for tipped workers, Social Security recipients, working moms, and the working class when they voted against the Working Families Tax Cut Act.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, this is not a serious proposal.

Madam Speaker, it is really rich. Now, it is the fault of Republicans that the Department of Homeland Security is not funded. It is just too rich.

Crime is down in this country because we have shut down our border and denied people coming in illegally.

Madam Speaker, we need to fund all of Homeland Security so that we can keep the border closed. Obviously, our colleagues want to open the border again just like President Biden did. There were people waiting at the border when President Biden was elected

with shirts on that said: Thank you, Biden. We can't do that. We need to fund all of Homeland Security at the same time.

By the way, Madam Speaker, it was the Bipartisan Policy Center that said that the 19 percent reduction in deficit had occurred.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, our colleagues across the aisle said that they want to keep the border closed. If they are serious about keeping the border closed and safe, then how are they going to do it without funding border patrol and they don't want to fund border patrol?

Mr. Speaker, our colleagues across the aisle have spent their time during this debate drawing caricatures, weaving a tapestry of tangential statements, and engaging in theatrics. This is unserious behavior, Mr. Speaker.

Might I remind them we are here debating substantive legislation that aligns with the priorities of the American people. Our colleagues across the aisle are welcome to join us in supporting them, standing for law and order, and returning freedom and choice back to the custody of the American people where they belong.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``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, pursuant to House Resolution 1115, I call up the bill (H.R. 4638) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that an alien who has been convicted of harming animals used in law enforcement is inadmissible and deportable, 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 include extraneous material on H.R. 4638.

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

Mr. Speaker, Freddie is a 5-year-old male beagle that was found on the side of a Georgia road and adopted into the USDA's detector dog program.

In August 2023, Freddie began his current job as a CBP agriculture detector dog at Dulles International Airport. He and his handler, Melissa Snyder, worked the early-morning flights arriving primarily from Central America and Africa. As of late last year, Freddie had conducted more than 590,000 searches, resulting in more than 2,000 alerts that led to more than 1,800 seizures of prohibited agricultural products and almost 2,500 different pieces of quarantined material.

Mr. Speaker, it was during this important work last June when Freddie alerted to luggage on a flight from Egypt. While Agent Snyder questioned the owner, this man violently kicked Freddie with sufficient force to lift Freddie off of the ground. Freddie suffered contusions to his right forward rib area. He was taken off duty for 2 weeks to recover.

It turns out that the Egyptian national was smuggling 117 pounds of meat and produce which were prohibited from entering the United States.

In the same month as Freddie's attack, leftist protesters in Los Angeles physically attacked horses used by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department for crowd control during an anti-ICE riot. Horses are used extensively by Federal agencies for crowd control and also for access to remote areas along the border frequented by human and drug traffickers.

Mr. Speaker, Congressman Calvert brings us this simple bill that says that if you are convicted of harming a law enforcement animal or you admit to doing so while you are a guest in our country, you will be immediately expelled and never be allowed to return.

It is true that we have good laws to punish such animal cruelty, and yes, such assaults can be defined as moral turpitude to bar admission. Yet, as we have discussed before on this floor, that finding can often require Byzantine legal proceedings that eat up many years and thousands of dollars of resources, if they are pursued at all.

Mr. Speaker, I know many of our Democratic colleagues support the border policies of the Biden-Harris administration, which encouraged the largest illegal mass migration in history. They allowed members of the world's most violent criminal gangs and cartels into our communities, suppressed American workers' wages, and cost taxpayers an estimated $160 billion a year to support.

I know that many are now vigorously and, in some cases, violently opposing the enforcement of our immigration laws under the Trump administration. They can't change these laws, so they seek to obstruct their enforcement and attack, harass, and threaten the law enforcement officers who are upholding them.

Some Democratic State and local officials have even revived the disgraced doctrine of nullification that we all

thought had died with the Confederacy in order to defy Federal law.

There is a deep and irreconcilable divide between our parties that only the voters ultimately can resolve, but can't we at least all agree that kicking a 5-year-old beagle at an airport should disqualify a foreign national from entering our country ever again? That is the entire two-paragraph bill, and I hope we can put aside our differences and all support it.

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

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

I can't blame the ranking member for wanting to talk about everything except the bill before us.

I would simply remind him that this House has repeatedly voted to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. Every Republican in this House voted to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. It was the Democrats who have consistently opposed these bills and are holding them hostage in the United States Senate.

Why? Because they want us to stop enforcing our immigration laws, the laws that Congress itself enacted. If they don't like these laws, they should work to change them. They are serving in the very institution that writes these laws. Instead, they block funding for the Department of Homeland Security at a particularly vulnerable time in our Nation's history, and they attack the officials who are valiantly working to enforce those laws to keep us safe.

We have one Democratic Member of this House who is being prosecuted for assaulting an ICE officer, another deliberately doxed an ICE officer to a violent mob which then attacked that officer and sent him to the hospital. It shouldn't surprise us that they would oppose this bill to protect law enforcement animals. As the President observed a few weeks ago, these people really are crazy.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), the author of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to stray too far from the topic, but I have to remind the gentlewoman that inflation peaked at over 9 percent under the Biden administration, specifically because of the massive spending bills that the gentlewoman supported.

Every dollar that you held the day that Joe Biden took office, Mr. Speaker, was worth just 79 cents the day he

left office 4 years later. This administration is bringing inflation down, and real working wages are rising once again.

Now the Democrats have told us: Don't worry, this is already covered by the catchall ground for moral turpitude.

However, moral turpitude is in the eye of the beholder. It often requires years of lengthy litigation.

The whole purpose of this bill is to take those years of litigation, delays, and appeals and make a simple and clear statement to every guest in our country: If you are convicted of or you admit to harming a law enforcement officer, you are out of here, and you are not coming back. The act itself is defined as disqualifying for entering or staying in our country. You still have to be convicted of that act or admit to that act, so you either have your day in court with all the due process rights, or you waive those rights by admitting to the act. However, once you have done so, there is no further room for interpretation or delay.

What is so hard for the Democrats to admit that a person shouldn't kick a dog and expect to remain a guest in this country?

Democrats also tell us that this bill would require a conviction for harming an animal before the provisions of this law can take effect.

Listen carefully, Mr. Speaker. The bill does either require a conviction or an admission of guilt. It is the admission that is something that the Democrats just accept.

Let me put it to them as plainly as I can: An admission of guilt is an admission of guilt. This isn't something just blurted out in their sleep. There are already many offenses that fall under the same process, and the standards are rigorous.

The alien's admission has to be explicit, unequivocal, and unqualified. The immigration judge has to find that the admission fits within the relevant statutes and that the admission is based on reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence.

Nothing in this bill denies the alien due process. They can either go to trial or they can waive their right to due process by admitting guilt.

The Democrats clearly aren't interested in due process. They are interested in gumming up the process so that aliens can remain in this country even after such a patently reprehensible act as kicking a 5- year-old beagle that is assisting law enforcement.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, nothing in this bill prevents a miscreant from being convicted and punished for their actions. What it does is simply removes the years of delay that can prevent the deportation of an alien after they have been fined or incarcerated if they are charged.

Under Democratic sanctuary laws, I would remind us, the criminal aliens

who are incarcerated, instead of being turned over to ICE for deportation, are released back on our streets. That is the whole point of these sanctuary laws.

Mr. Speaker, it shocked the country when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor to affirm that the first duty of the Federal Government is to protect American citizens and not illegal aliens.

It mystified us when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor to acknowledge families devastated by heinous crimes committed by illegal aliens.

It shocked us when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor even to honor our war heroes or the U.S. hockey team.

It should astonish us that the Democrats could oppose a simple bill that says if a guest in our country harms a law enforcement animal, like a 5-year-old beagle or a horse, they are no longer welcome here and need to leave.

On reflection, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the Democrats are strangely tolerant of protesters kicking, punching, and attacking ICE officers as they enforce the very laws that Congress has enacted.

So, what is an injured dog to them as long as the perpetrator is a foreign national? What is an injured dog to them as long as they are injured enforcing laws that the Democrats don't like?

This isn't just about Freddie the beagle. It is about whether we will tolerate violent predators imported into our country. If they will kick a dog in the presence of a law enforcement officer, you can be sure they will do far worse when that law enforcement officer isn't present or the victim is a defenseless girl on a subway.

Do we want such people in our country? The Democrats do; the Republicans don't. A time for choosing is approaching. Until then, we will have this vote, which should be revealing as Americans consider their future.

Mr. Speaker, I include the CBO cost estimate for this bill in the Record.

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

Mr. Speaker, we also want to make sure that the work that we do in this body reflects the priorities of the American people. Once again, this bill is nothing but an attempt to distract the American people from Republicans' failure to lower prices.

This morning I went online and I looked at what gas prices are in my home State of Washington. They are over $6 for diesel and over $5 for regular unleaded. That is an increase of almost a buck just in the last couple of weeks.

I know what my constituents care about. It is the fact that they can't afford their gas. Childcare right now is around $21,000 per child in the State of Washington. Healthcare premiums have gone crazy since Republicans have refused to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. What people are facing is a complete destruction of their ability to live decent lives.

Are we addressing any of that here?

At a townhall last week, I had a constituent stand up and tell me that he was a war veteran from the Afghanistan war. He was a sergeant in the United States Marines. He said he spent his entire life fighting in these forever wars. He doesn't want another one.

But we are not talking about any of that here. We are not even making sure that the President does what he is supposed to do and comes to Congress for authorization for this war.

In fact, we just heard that the Pentagon is putting forward a request for $200 billion more for this war. How on earth are we going to pay for that? It is absolutely ridiculous.

So I think that this is all about trying to go back to the old playbook of trying to vilify immigrants and trying to make people blame immigrants for everything that is wrong with their lives.

The reality is, instead of figuring out how we can stop immigration agents from murdering U.S. citizens on the street or arresting and imprisoning children, we are back to Republicans' favorite type of bill: Find a crime, blame an immigrant, make people deportable and inadmissible without requiring a conviction, deny them basic due process, rinse, and repeat.

By the way, for people who are listening, who are upset about the mass deportations that the Republicans do not want to talk about here because they are incredibly unpopular, this is the pipeline to those mass detentions and mass deportations. This is the way that DHS, a lawless ICE and CBP are able to just go out and pick up anybody and continue to detain and deport people, including U.S. citizens.

This one that is on the floor today is a new one, even for us. It is moving into the arena of harming animals.

Now, I am speaking as someone who has long been a champion of animal welfare. I have supported bills that protect animals and prevent inhumane treatment of them.

My dog, Otis, has been a loved and loving member of our family for 14 years. He is an incredibly resilient guy. Some of my constituents recognize him more than my spouse because he goes everywhere with us.

I take violence against animals seriously, and so do our immigration laws. The crime referenced in this bill requires someone to willfully and maliciously harm a dog or a horse. This is already a crime involving moral turpitude, which can render someone deportable or inadmissible from the country.

In 2018, the Board of Immigration Appeals made clear that the crime of animal fighting is a crime involving moral turpitude, and that is because there is a clear intent to harm the animal.

In addition to the binding precedent set by the Board of Immigration Appeals, the 9th and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals also found that animal cruelty is a crime involving moral turpitude. This issue is already well covered under our immigration laws, and this bill is, once again, largely unnecessary.

If Republicans are concerned about cruelty to animals, why not look at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who shot and killed her 14- month-old dog, Cricket.

Unfortunately, this bill goes too far in eroding due process rights. Under current law, a person does not need to be convicted of a crime to be inadmissible. However, under most circumstances, you do need a conviction to be deportable.

Once again, as they have with so many other bills, my Republican colleagues do not require someone to be convicted of this crime to be deportable from the country. That means that a green card holder who has lived here for decades could be deported.

That means that a green card holder who has lived here for decades could be deported from the country without even being convicted of a crime.

This bill was written in response to an incident where a 70-year-old man kicked a Customs and Border Protection agriculture detector dog at Dulles Airport. The incident was horrible, and no dog should ever be kicked or harmed. However, that man was tried and convicted in Federal Court before he was removed from the country underscoring how unnecessary this law is.

It has never been more important for people to have their day in court. Look at what is happening across the country, Mr. Speaker, as Federal immigration authorities terrorize American communities. We have seen residential communities tear-gassed without a care for the young children who have been affected. We have seen a teacher with work authorization arrested at the daycare where she works, inflicting irreversible harm on the little kids whom she cares for.

We have seen U.S. citizens brutalized and even killed by ICE and Border Patrol most recently in Minnesota. We have seen, again and again, how ICE has accused people of assaulting them only to find out that it was a lie.

The Wall Street Journal just released an investigation finding that most accusations against U.S. citizens for attacking immigration agents were unsubstantiated. The right to being innocent until proven guilty should be something that every single one of us in this Chamber can agree to. It is a bedrock principle of fairness, of due process, and of the rule of law.

Republicans gave ICE tens of billions of dollars to continue the lawless assault on the American public. Republicans own this mess, but it is up to all of us to fix it. Republicans want to pass absurd legislation like this one that only makes the system worse, not better.

Mr. Speaker, oppose this bill.