Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to denounce the terror campaign this administration has launched against our immigrant neighbors.

At the direction of the Trump White House, masked Federal agents are ripping children away from their parents' arms. They are pepper spraying moms in parking lots. They are pulling childcare workers from classrooms in front of desperate toddlers.

This is unacceptable.

The world is watching as the United States Government violates the rights and due process of our neighbors. Families are frantically trying to locate their loved ones who have been hauled away to detention centers, for-profit makeshift prisons, prisons where meals are inedible and medical care is denied, prisons where women are denied cancer treatment and endure miscarriages while their screams are ignored.

Mr. Speaker, this situation is desperate and it is not the result of a natural disaster or an act of God. Instead, it is the direct action of a narcissistic, cruel dictator who occupies the Oval Office who has contempt for every person that calls this country home.

None of us is free until all of us are free. No one is truly safe in Donald Trump's America.

For our immigrant families, they belong here, and I will not stop fighting for them, their rights, and their dignity.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Bishop William E. Dickerson II and Lady Luella Dickerson, who are role models in love and service, on their 36 years of selfless service and spiritual stewardship as founding pastor and lady of the Greater Love Tabernacle in Dorchester.

Across the city of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the names Bishop Dickerson and Lady Luella have been synonymous with truth, justice, and love. Their love of community and love for all God's children is evident in their spiritual guidance every Sunday and made manifest in their good deeds in the community Monday through Saturday.

From the pulpit to the classroom, from city hall to behind the incarcerated walls, Bishop Dickerson and Lady Luella have saved generations of souls;

changed and saved lives. They have lived a life dedicated to God, their ministry, their city, their marriage, and their family.

It is only fitting that Greater Love Tabernacle's 36 years of service are now an indelible part of the Congressional Record to serve as a permanent inspiration to us all.

Honoring Life of Judge Leslie Harris

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life and legacy of the Honorable Judge Leslie Harris, a father, husband, grandfather, mentor, and champion for justice in Massachusetts.

Raised in Chicago, he journeyed to Boston, where he earned advanced degrees, planted roots, and dedicated his life to public service. In the courtroom, first as a probation officer, then as a public defender, then as the chief of the juvenile division of the Suffolk County DA's Office, Judge Harris inspired generations.

He possessed a fine legal mind and an altruistic heart. He saw every person as worthy of dignity, opportunity, and compassion. He will forever be remembered as a kind titan of a man who showed up for everyone, for his beloved members of the Eliot Church of Roxbury, and for students at Roxbury Community College.

He was there for young children experiencing abuse and neglect. He was there defending Black men viciously targeted and criminalized in the Charles Stuart case. He was there supporting marriage equality to facilitate the first-ever adoption by a gay couple in Massachusetts. He was there for people from all walks of life.

I can feel that he is here with us today. His spirit straightens our back and lifts our chin to motivate us in the pursuit of justice. May he rest in peace and power.

Remembering Setti Warren

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of my dear friend and brother, former Newton Mayor Setti Warren, a trailblazer, the first popularly elected Black mayor in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Setti was a loving son, brother, husband, and father whom I had the privilege of working alongside closely when we were both aides to United States Senator John Kerry. He was always ready with thoughtful counsel, an easy and deep laugh, and kind eyes that twinkled. He radiated life and optimism.

Setti accomplished so much in his short 55 years here with us. He was a dedicated mayor, veteran, and public servant from the White House to Capitol Hill to city hall. As the director of the Harvard Institute of Politics, he led pivotal conversations that stoked our consciousness and reminded us of our shared humanity, all the while inspiring a new generation of public service leaders.

Setti had so much life left to live, milestones to experience, hearts to touch and lives to change. My heart goes out to his wife, Tassy; and their children, Abigail and John. Know that your Kerry family, your Boston College family, the city of Newton, and your Harvard family mourn alongside you. What a tremendous loss for our country, our Commonwealth, and for humanity. Rest in power, my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of every elder who can't afford their prescriptions and every parent who went to work hungry so their child could eat. In the United States of America, there is no lack of resource, only a deficit of empathy, political will, and courage.

At its best, government is a backstop, a compassionate steward of the public good. At its best, government catches people when they stumble at a moment of hardship. At its best, government does right by the people, all the people.

Struggle does not discriminate, Mr. Speaker. Hardship is not a character flaw and has zero to do with work ethic. Every single person is one diagnosis and one layoff away from hardship. Life can change in an instant.

What we are bearing witness to is not only a lack of political courage, but it is a fundamental betrayal of the people, incompetence and indifference to the suffering of our neighbors, the shame and the sham of it all.

Any Member of Congress who would vote to deny a child a meal or medication, it is child abuse and neglect. I ought to file a 51A on Republicans for that. Every person in this Chamber and every person in our country has lost a loved one to cancer, and yet Republicans would vote to deny people lifesaving cancer treatment and research.

Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and with a majority they have chosen to enact harm to make people hungry, poorer, sicker, and less safe.

The shame and the sham of it all. You the people deserve better. We the people deserve better, and I won't stop fighting until you get it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the United States of America as he accepts the prestigious and well-deserved Templeton Prize, one of the world's most prestigious awards in Religion and Science.

On behalf of the thousands of Greek Orthodox constituents who call the Massachusetts 7th Congressional District home and the more than 300 million followers worldwide, it is an honor to host the longest serving Archbishop of Constantinople in the Church's history and a humbling opportunity to say thank you for his efforts on behalf of the entire human family. Since being elevated to primus inter plares (first among equals) in 1991, he has worked tirelessly to promote religious freedom and human rights, foster cooperation and understanding among all people of faith, convene peace conferences around the globe, and call all of us to care for and preserve the environment we all share and will pass to our children and our children's children. His personal attention and institutional leadership to address issues that transcend borders or religious affiliation have led him being hailed as ``The Bridge Builder'', ``The Patriarch of Peace'', and the ``Green Patriarch.''

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's words and deeds have been in pursuit of justice, love, and reconciliation. And his lifetime of service and leadership has placed him among the illustrious company of previous Templeton Prize honorees--The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and the first ever recipient, Mother Teresa.

As His All-Holiness reminds us, ``We have it in our power either to increase the hurt inflicted on our world or to contribute toward its healing. The choice is ours.'' and each day he rises and chooses serve, to lead, to guide, to empower, and to divine God's grace into healing. And it is my humbling honor to note for the Congressional Record the unique gift of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's leadership and spiritual guidance and for his innumerable contributions to peace and harmony during his visit to the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Garcia for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this legislation. This bill seeks to create 14-year-old prisoners in the adult criminal legal system. We know this approach doesn't improve public safety. It only traumatizes our babies. History tells us as much.

Antron McCray, 15 years old;

Yusef Salaam, 15 years old;

Raymond Santana, 14 years old;

Korey Wise, 16 years old; and

Kevin Richardson, 14 years old.

These five boys with big smiles and bright futures ahead of them went on to experience fear and manipulation that no child should. They were threatened, harassed, coerced, abused, and tried as adults, the very harm that this Republican bill would expand.

From the moment of their arrest these teenage boys, these Black boys, were treated as guilty of a horrific crime in Central Park, despite being innocent of all accusations. It was part of the hyper-punitive culture that prioritized political talking points about being tough on crime and targeted Black and Brown communities rather than investing in resources and policies that actually keep us all safe.

Does this sound familiar, Mr. Speaker?

During their trial, there was a PR campaign against the boys on TV and in newspapers. Donald J. Trump himself spent the equivalent of more than $200,000 advocating for them to get the death penalty.

These five Black and Brown children were innocent, but Trump wanted them killed. To this day, he has not even apologized, and Republicans in Congress are supporting him and his bigotry with this bill.

The story of the ``Exonerated Five'' is a tragedy and part of our shared history, but Republicans want it to be the future.

First, their rhetoric demonized their communities. Then they began weaponizing National Guard against citizens. Now they are changing laws to incarcerate more people at an even younger age. Of course, the prison industrial complex will reap the profits.

What Republicans do in D.C., they want to apply to the entire country.

This Republican bill perpetuates racism. The Department of Justice statistics show that Black kids are twice as likely to be incarcerated compared to White kids, despite committing crimes at the same rate.

This Republican bill is flawed. By treating children as adults, Mr. Speaker, you deny them protections from abuse from adults in prison, including bullying, physical violence, sexual assault, and rape.

This Republican bill makes children's lives worse. Unlike in other States, when kids in D.C. are treated as adults, the Bureau of Prisons ships them hundreds of miles away from their family and loved ones to places like South Dakota or Texas. This makes rehabilitation harder and increases the likelihood of recidivism.

Don't just take my word for it, Mr. Speaker. There is a large coalition opposing this bill.

Scientists tell us that young people's brains are not fully developed until their twenties. They don't share the same culpability for their actions as adults when they are only 14 years old.

Lawyers explain that children treated as adults, even when they are innocent, are denied age-appropriate legal protections for the rest of their lives.

Sociologists find that children who commit crimes are overwhelmingly influenced by adults and their surroundings, not their own thinking.

Of course, the people of D.C. did not vote for Trump or any Republican for that matter to be a city councilor.

Republicans are supporting this legislation not because they care about public safety. If Republicans cared about reducing crime, then they would tell Trump to stop delaying funding for community violence prevention programs that already were passed with bipartisan support.

If Republicans cared about victims, then they would stop making cuts to the crime victims fund so that people who experience harm get the help that they need.

If Republicans cared about our kids, then they would invest in restorative justice programs that teach children how to resolve their conflicts without violence.

If Republicans cared about our kids, then they would support commonsense legislation to prevent school shootings.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill to keep our babies safe from trauma, abuse, and fear.

In the words of James Baldwin, ``The children are always ours, every single one.''

I challenge you, Mr. Speaker, to protect them all.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to condemn the cruelty of the Hyde Amendment and reintroduce the EACH Act to end it once and for all.

It is 2025. In 1976, when I was a mere 2 years old, a Congressman from Chicago was livid at the thought that a woman could be in control of her own body, especially a Black or Brown woman. So he came to this floor and put forward an amendment with a simple, cruel aim to ban as many people as he could from getting abortion care.

With that robotic precision, this institution has rubber-stamped this amendment in budget after budget.

The Hyde Amendment denies abortion care to patients who receive their care through Medicaid, CHIP, and other government programs.

Once in my lifetime, we defeated this amendment in the House, a testament to activists, organizers, and my mentor, Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Mr. Speaker, in my lifetime, we will defeat it once and for all because everyone deserves access to fundamental healthcare, and that is exactly what abortion care is.

No man, no king, and no coward should come between us and our bodies.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in vigorous opposition to the CLARITY Act. This bill gives a green light to self-enriching crypto schemes where officials at the highest levels of power, including in the White House, have generated hundreds of billions of dollars in personal profit.

We need legislation that stops financial abuse, not encourages it, especially during a time when the SEC has dropped enforcement actions against major crypto firms and undermined investor safety.

Across our country, millions of working families are battling rising costs, our elders are targeted by financial scams, and investors are trying to recover from volatile markets. Republicans are ignoring all of that to prioritize the crypto industry's wish list.

To be clear, the people deserve crypto legislation that is fair, transparent, and accountable, not a bill that opens the floodgates to conflicts of interest and weakens investor protections.

The CLARITY Act fails that test. Republicans need some clarity all right: moral and legislative. I agree with Ranking Member Waters that this is really the calamity act.

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

Mr. Speaker, during Roll Call vote No. 196 on H.R. 1717, I mistakely recorded my vote as Nay when I should have voted Yea.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the rule to make in order the amendment at the desk that protects against any cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the traumatic loss of life around the world and to reaffirm a simple truth: Our destinies are tied.

Too often, in moments of crisis, we are bombarded with abstract numbers and detached headlines describing casualties and missiles, but behind every number is a name. Behind every headline is a story: a story of a little girl whispering prayers beneath her blanket hoping the night sky stays quiet or a story of a father digging through rubble, his hands bloodied, desperately searching for his wife and child.

Nations are not just governments and regimes. They are people. They are mothers, sons, teachers, taxi drivers, people whose stories echo our own because they are us. No matter where someone is born or what language they speak, our grief over losing a loved one is the same.

We are bound together by that shared humanity, so we must be relentless in our commitment to peace: peace rooted in diplomacy, peace that is sustained with dialogue, and peace that insists, without exception, that every single life matters.

From Boston to the Middle East, our destinies are tied, and everyone deserves to live free from fear and know peace.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of our neighbors and community members, our immigrant brothers and sisters who are being targeted and abducted, taken from their homes, torn away from their babies, and disappeared on their way to church, work, and school.

There are children crying in their teachers' arms, families separated, and communities traumatized that if they have not already been kidnapped, they are fearful that they will be.

Children crying in their teachers' arms are afraid that they are going to come home and their parents will be gone. There are elders carrying all of their medications with them in their comings and goings for fear of being abducted and sent somewhere without access to necessary healthcare.

We see a spike in no-shows and cancelations at health clinics as patients would rather miss critical care than risk detainment. We see young parents and grandparents alike attending their immigration court hearings, eager to officially call this country their home, only to be met with handcuffs and shoved into cars by masked ICE individuals.

This is Donald Trump's America, but these are real people. These are hardworking people whose labor and contributions make our communities a better place. These are young people who show up every day in our schools as part of our learning communities. These are mothers and fathers working overtime to provide for their children.

In my district, Massachusetts-07, my Chelsea constituent Kenia and her three children were driving to a Mother's Day church service with her husband, Daniel, when ICE agents in unmarked vehicles ambushed them, broke the passenger side window, forcefully extracted Daniel from the car, and slammed his face on the hot sidewalk while their three children watched on in horror.

In East Boston, my constituent Mercedes and her son are struggling after her husband, Jose, was arrested at work and detained for 2 days at an ICE facility in Burlington. Jose was living here legally with temporary protected status but was told by the ICE agents who detained him that only people born here have rights.

These are real people--real people--children and adults alike traumatized, whose lives have been disturbed, upended, and irreparably harmed.

Donald Trump and ICE claim that they are committing this assault on our communities in the name of safety. Terror makes no one safe. It does the opposite. It sows chaos. It breeds fear and fosters unrest.

From my home in Massachusetts-07, where mothers have wept on my shoulder, pleading for their husbands to come home and for their families to be reunited, to Los Angeles, where Donald Trump sent the National Guard and the Marines to descend on justice-seeking, peaceful protesters, the hurt and harm of this hostile White House is felt by us all.

This has nothing to do with law and order. That is laughable coming from the most godless, lawless Oval Office occupant in our history.

This has everything to do with power and control: deploying the National Guard without a Governor's approval and taking unwarranted and unprecedented action against peaceful justice seekers and freedom fighters.

We must see our neighbors' humanity in this moment. Yet, across the country, occupant Trump is working overtime to be a fascist dictator, to weaponize our government against its own people, to sow fear and chaos, and to silence dissenting voices in our communities, at our colleges, in the courts, and, in fact, even in Congress.

These actions are lawless, a complete violation of our constitutional rights to due process, and void of common sense and compassion.

Know this, for those of you watching at home who might be tempted to think that this is not your problem: An extremist march toward fascism is everyone's problem. Trust me, if you are not already suffering, you will be.

We need solidarity, resistance, and a rejection in this moment of these attacks on our immigrant communities. An attack on our immigrant communities is an attack on all of us.

As a woman of faith, my God tells me to welcome the stranger. Do not be indifferent to the suffering of your neighbors. Immigrants make our country a better place. Immigrants make America great, and our immigrant brothers and sisters deserve to call this country home.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share the story of Adriana Smith.

Adriana Smith was a 30-year-old nurse from Georgia and the mother of a vibrant 5-year-old boy. She started to experience debilitating headaches, and she sought medical care. She was discharged and her pain was dismissed, as is so often the case for Black women in this country and certainly in our healthcare system.

The next morning, Adriana woke up gasping for air and was taken to Emory Hospital, where she was declared brain dead.

There are no words to provide healing for a pain this deep--a dedicated and loving mother, a compassionate nurse, gone at the age of 30.

In the days that followed, Adriana's family and son should have been able to make a solemn, independent decision about what happened next as they celebrated her life; as they mourned this devastating loss; as they pieced their lives back together; and as they began helping their 5-year-old cope with the grief and loss of his precious mother.

Yet, the State of Georgia denied Adriana her bodily autonomy and dignity in death. In the days and weeks that followed, her family found themselves in a desperate battle with Emory Hospital.

The hospital believed that the anti-abortion bill that Georgia enacted in 2022 following the gutting of Roe v. Wade tied the hospital's hands and mandated that Adriana's body, her brain-dead body, remain hooked to machines. Mr. Speaker, this was not because there was any chance of survival, she had already transitioned, but because Adriana was 9 weeks pregnant, about a month past a missed period. Adriana's body has been turned into an incubator; an incubator with no medical rationale, no ethical reason, and no compassion.

Mr. Speaker, from the days of enslavement, Black women's bodies have been subjected to medical abuse, assault, and degradation in this country. We are more likely to die in childbirth. We are routinely denied medical care. We are dehumanized. Like in the case of Adriana Smith, our bodies and our dignity are desecrated in death.

This is cruelty. It is the latest episode in a long history of the experimentation and exploitation of Black bodies. I grieve for Adriana's family, for the torture they are experiencing layered with the daily uncertainty that they are navigating as they try to do right by their daughter and lay her to rest peacefully.

Her parents are by her bedside. Her 5-year-old asked: When will Mommy wake up?

Adriana should be here today, her blood clots treated, her voice trusted, and her pain believed. She should be decorating a nursery for her little son with her family and celebrating her son's last day of kindergarten, but Adriana's body lies hooked to machines in a hospital bed as part of an unjust medical experiment for more than 3 months. No family should have to endure this.

None of us are free until all of us are free.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 147.

Personal Explanation

Mr. Speaker, I rise in vigorous opposition to this bill that is callous and cruel and clueless about what the American people are dealing with.

We are talking about generations of harm, lives lost because of defunded cancer research, pregnant mothers denied essential healthcare, school lunch programs gutted, and our babies hungry if this bill is passed.

For what? It will line the pockets and stroke the egos of a fewer petty billionaires.

I believe in the promise of this Nation. I believe in the possibility that government can do right by people and help us through our most vulnerable moments. This bill is the antithesis of that. This bill is a threat to the lives and livelihoods of so many people.

The mood up here is somber. Republicans are gleeful. It is somber because this is shameful. We just need four Republicans to be people of conscience and stand up against this.

In exchange, my colleagues across the aisle can save lives. They can look their kids in the eye. They can say that when everything was at stake, they had clarity and did the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, I am not begging my Republican colleagues for benevolence. I am asking them for decency. I ask them to do right by the people that sent them here.

Mr. Speaker, this Republican administration claims to care about babies and families, but I cannot hear the words they speak because I see the things that they do.

The birth of every baby should be a joyful transition defined by compassion and whatever healthcare is required for the baby and the mother.

America's broken for-profit healthcare system denies far too many this basic dignity, but Medicaid has been a lifeline.

Today, 42 percent of births in America are funded by Medicaid. Republicans who claim to be pro-family are coming for Medicaid with a sledgehammer.

What would this mean for families across America? It would mean even worse maternal health outcomes, States rescinding policies that improve access to reproductive care, and decimating access to prenatal care, contraception, and cancer screenings.

This big, shameful, unconscionable bill is unacceptable, but it is not inevitable.

I need just four Republicans, four people of conscience, to listen to their constituents, to look into the eyes of pregnant mothers praying for a safe delivery, and to show a shred of humanity and oppose this horrific bill.

If my colleagues aren't here to fight for the people who sent them, they should give up their damn seats.