Mr. Speaker, yesterday, our country and the community that I have the honor of representing, El Paso, Texas, lost one of our best: Dr. Joseph E. Torres, who was 93 years old at the time of his death, still practicing dentistry in the…
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, our country and the community that I have the honor of representing, El Paso, Texas, lost one of our best: Dr. Joseph E. Torres, who was 93 years old at the time of his death, still practicing dentistry in the community of El Paso, and somebody who left a terrific legacy for his family, for our community, for this country, and for all posterity.
Dr. Torres served in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945. He first served as an infantryman, and then later as a bombardier and a navigator for the B-17 aircraft.
Dr. Torres flew 13 bombing missions over Germany, one of the most difficult missions to be assigned to anybody, over the course of World War II. He later joined and served as a lieutenant in the Army Air Corps Reserve from 1945 to 1947. He later joined the Air Force Dental Reserve, where he reached the rank of colonel.
As I said, he was a practicing dentist in El Paso, Texas. After his time in unform, he continued to serve his community and he continued to serve his El Pasoans, his fellow Texans, and his fellow Americans. He never stopped being an advocate for servicemembers, veterans, and this country.
So here today we mourn his loss.
Preceding him in death from that Greatest Generation, not too long ago, in August 2016, was Maynard L. Beamesderfer, known as ``Beamy'' to his friends and his fans. He was one of the original 350 Pathfinders, who were the first combat paratroopers to jump into Normandy, France, before the D-day invasion in 1944. He was a member of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment and 101st Airborne Division. Mr. Beamesderfer died at the age of 92.
The third gentleman that I want to introduce to you and who I would like to talk about today and whose story I would like to share is someone I greatly admire and who I have had the privilege of meeting several times and being able to introduce my oldest son Ulysses to. That is Retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Chisolm, ``Bob,'' who is a founding member of the 82nd Airborne Division Association in El Paso. He is someone who is very much still with us, full of vigor, strength, energy, and an inspiration at a time that we so badly need him.
He is also the rarest of Americans. He is a combat veteran of World War II, he is a combat veteran of Korea, and he is a combat veteran of Vietnam. In fact, he is one of only 325 combat veterans in the history of the United States military authorized to wear the Triple Combat Infantryman Badge for combat service in three separate wars.
During World War II, he earned the Legion of Merit Award, which can only be obtained after receiving direct approval from the President of the United
States. He was also recognized by the French Government more recently in 2012, at which time a French general awarded him the French Legion of Honor Award and the status of Knighthood.
We are grateful for the service of these three amazing Americans, these three outstanding El Pasoans, these three great examples to each and every one of us of who are we when we are at our best and what we are willing to do to serve this country and the cause of freedom and the best interests of humanity.
It is these three men and others who join them in the Greatest Generation, the men and women throughout this country who endured and suffered, survived, and began to thrive through the Great Depression. Following that, they proudly and gladly served their country in World War II in a world away, whether it was in North Africa, Italy, Europe, or the Asia Pacific.
These were men and women who fought for not just this country, but who fought for and won a world order that has more or less sustained us for the last 75 years; a world order that was won, fought for, and sustained through enormous treasure, blood, and sacrifice of this country, sustained, fought for, and won by men like Bob Chisolm, ``Beamy'' Beamesderfer, and Dr. Torres.
I bring them up today so, one, we can pay honor and tribute to them; and, two, so that we can remember what is at stake today, in 2017, seemingly a world away from when Dr. Torres first served in the Army Air Corps in 1942. It is a world where the United States is the sole superpower, where we guarantee the lanes of trade, the connections between countries, the viability of an entire continent in Europe. The benefits from the treasure and the blood and the sacrifice and our sustainment of these policies over the last 70 to 75 years has accrued primarily to the United States, but also to our allies and also, I would argue, to the rest of the world.
We have largely seen in that time a time of peace, a time where we avoided major world wars, where we peacefully sustained and outlasted the Soviet Union and ushered in a new era of peace in Eastern Europe.
When we think about the challenges that we face today, those countries who do not see a place in this world order that we won and have sustained--countries like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, each of whom, in their own way, pose a threat not just to the United States, not just to their neighbors in their respective regions, but to the world and the order that we have bought at such a dear cost.
When we think about what is going on today, it is critically important that we move forward very carefully and mindful of what it took to bring this world order about and what could happen if this world order collapses.
As General David Petraeus told us last week in a House Armed Services Committee meeting, this world order did not will itself into existence. It did not sustain itself. It did not win itself. All of that was done by Americans, for Americans, for our allies, for our interests, and our values around the world. It is important that we be mindful of that when all of that is at stake and when it is under threat unlike any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As we begin a new Congress with a new administration, we have several choices before us. We can shore up that world order and the alliances and relationships that underpin them. An example is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, our partnership with 28 European countries that has effectively kept the peace on that continent for more than 70 years. Or we can refer to that arrangement and that treaty as obsolete and we can ask the Europeans to take care of their own business without assistance or alliance from the United States.
Perhaps that is in the best interest of this country. Perhaps that reduces the burden on the United States taxpayer. Perhaps that reduces the burden on the servicemembers now deployed in Europe, reassuring that continent.
Perhaps it is also better for Russia as they continue to probe the weaknesses in the Western alliance; as they move into Ukraine and seize Crimea or are active in the eastern part of that country; as they interfere in elections throughout the Western world, most notably our own in 2016, but not limited solely to the United States, and where we fear they may be active again in interfering in other elections in the free world.
Perhaps this is good for Russia to think of NATO as obsolete or to withdraw our commitment because our allies are not ponying up their fair share of the burden, and I think that is a real concern. Maybe that is good for us. Maybe that is good for Europe. It is certainly going to be good for Russia. The consequence for that, my colleagues, may very well be that, while we might save some in what we are spending in treasure and sacrifice and service in Europe today, we may be called back again, as we were in the World War I and afterwards in World War II to defend that continent from tyranny at extraordinary costs to our treasury, to the lives of those who serve, to the lives that are lost, to the lives that are changed forever.
When we look at another part of the world in the South China Sea and to our allies there like Japan, the Philippines, increasingly, Vietnam, perhaps it is better that we allow China to decide what is best for that region and for those countries at the expense of those who, today, are our allies. Certainly, it would save the taxpayer the resources that we expend today to prop up and support our allies, to ensure their defense, and to ensure our interests. Perhaps it would be good for those countries in that region, including Taiwan. It would certainly be good for China, a growing competitor not just in the South China Sea, not just in Asia, but, increasingly, around the world.
So we have a choice there to make as well: Do we retrench, withdraw, close ourselves off from the rest of the world and our commitments and our obligations? Again, the benefit of which has largely accrued to us, as it has to our allies and much of the rest of the world. Or do we fix what is not working now; sustain, perhaps even grow, that commitment; meet the threats; and address the fears that that part of the world has? It comes at some cost, and it is not a trivial one.
But I would argue that we cannot foresee the future where the United States is not involved in the South China Sea, in east Asia, with our allies in that region. We don't know for sure what will happen, but we know that power abhors a vacuum. We know that where the United States is not, other world powers will be; and they certainly don't have the interests of our citizens, our values, and our way of life at heart.
When it comes to the Middle East and the series of serious challenges that we face there from Iraq and Syria to north Africa in Libya, to our difficult relationship with Saudi Arabia, who is an ally and at the same time the source of so much that threatens that region and, ultimately, the United States, certainly, in the short term, it would be cheaper to withdraw our commitments and our support, our resources and our servicemembers, who are there at such great cost, again, to this country and to themselves and to their families, who bear the burden of the fight and sustain those injuries when they are incurred and mourn the losses of those servicemembers who never make it back.
It is easy to argue, in the short term, that that could be good for the United States. But it is hard to argue, in the long term, that, without our leadership, without some level of involvement, including military involvement, but especially diplomatic and political engagement with the governments and the people and the interests in the Middle East, it is hard to argue that, without that, our interests, our goals, our values will be respected, accepted, honored, and seen through. What is much more likely is that we will find ourselves there again, responding to a great crisis at greater expense of life and treasure to this country.
And that story repeats throughout the world. Whatever country, whatever region, whatever hemisphere, whatever continent, when the United States is not there, neither are our interests, neither are we able to benefit, and neither is the world able to depend on some level of peace, security, and stability.
I urge this House, our new President, those whom we represent to think
about what is at stake right now around the world, to understand how this international order was brought about, how it was fought for and won and sustained, and how tragic it would be, after 75 years, after the noble sacrifice of so many of the Greatest Generation and of the generations that followed who served in Korea, who served in Vietnam, who served in the first Gulf War, who are serving today in our wars that followed the attacks of 9/11, how terrible would it be for us to lose what we have fought so hard to gain in the span of one administration?
It does not have to be that way. I think working together, across party lines, with this administration, with Congress, both Houses, with the American people, certainly supporting our servicemembers and honoring the sacrifices of our veterans, I think together we can meet this challenge, just as we have met serious challenges in the past. But we are going to need to correct our course, and we will need to do so immediately.
No longer can we mock allies, try to humiliate our neighbor to the south, the country of Mexico.
No longer can we call into question an alliance that has withstood the test of time and has ensured the peace of this country and the continent of Europe: the NATO alliance.
No longer can we threaten to withdraw from international obligations, whether they are at the U.N., whether they are bilateral trade negotiations or multilateral trade agreements.
No longer can we think that the United States can serve as a bunker against the rest of the world. It is too late for that. It was too late for that in World War II when the three brave gentlemen that I began my speech with decided to serve this country and to purchase the freedom and the world order that so many take for granted today.
I think it is incumbent upon us to try to offer an alternative to the course that we are currently on, an alternative that I would say starts here at home and with those countries that border ours. It starts with acknowledging that Mexico, for example, is far more an opportunity than it is a threat to the United States, that today we do hundreds of billions of dollars of trade with Mexico, trade that is unique in its character such that, when we export to Mexico, certainly we win. Those are U.S. jobs, U.S. products being exported to the country of Mexico, bought by Mexican consumers. The proceeds flow back to the U.S. worker and to the owners of those businesses and companies.
But when we import from Mexico, it is important to remember, 40 percent of the value of our imports from that country were generated here in the United States. Those same factory floor jobs in Michigan, in Indiana, in Ohio, in Tennessee, in Texas produce products that are exported to Mexico for final assembly and then brought back into the United States.
Forty percent of the value of our imports from Mexico are U.S. content. When we look at China, it is 4 percent. When we export to Mexico, we win. When we import from Mexico, we win. We win jobs, 6 million American jobs that, today, are dependent on U.S.-Mexico trade.
Nearly half a million of those are in the State of Texas alone, each one of them jeopardized by the course that this country has taken under this new administration, each one of those potentially lost if we cannot redevelop a positive relationship with the country of Mexico, certainly one in which our interests are most important to the United States, where the U.S. worker is preeminent, but where, nonetheless, we understand the larger picture and the longer game, that our future--the United States and Mexico--is a shared future, that the way we manufacture today is done together, both countries producing products that are made in North America along with Canada. That is what is going on here today, that we are linked in a way that cannot be unlinked without causing serious trauma, job loss, economic downturns, and insecurity for the United States.
In the last 30 years, as we have grown closer to Mexico and had a stronger economic relationship with that country that results in the hundreds of billions of dollars of trade that cross our ports of entry every year, at the same time, we have grown a stronger, closer security relationship such that the most notorious criminal mastermind in the history of Mexico, Joaquin Guzman, El Chapo, was recently extradited to the United States despite considerations of Mexican sovereignty. Despite, perhaps, the loss of pride that is entailed in sending that country's criminal who is responsible for countless deaths, for drug production, drug transit, and the drugs that cross into the United States and are consumed in Mexico and other parts of the world, Mexico did that precisely because of the strong security relationship that has grown between these two countries.
So should we pursue a path of humiliation for our southern neighbor? Should we build a 2,000-mile wall in a hopeless effort to seal that country off from ours? Should we propose imposing a 20 percent tax on all goods coming in from Mexico which, again, remember, will not just hurt the Mexican worker, but will hurt the U.S. worker as well?
Should we do all that, not only will we hurt ourselves economically, we will deeply damage the security bonds that exist today between those two countries, security bonds that keep us safe, that keep us secure, that help explain why today, despite the headlines, despite the campaign rhetoric, the facts show that the U.S.-Mexico border has never been more secure. It has never been more safe. It has never posed less of an immediate risk or hazard to Americans.
It has a lot to do with the brave men and women in the United States Border Patrol, those who also serve in police departments like ours in El Paso, in sheriff's departments like those under the command of Sheriff Richard Wiles in El Paso County. It has a lot to do with the immigrant populations who live in the communities along the U.S.-Mexico border who are such a part of our safety because they are striving to get ahead, to keep out of trouble, to learn, to study, to do better, to contribute to, participate in, and reap the benefits of the American Dream.
But we are also safe because the country of Mexico has made a commitment to help keep us safe. When we are concerned about transnational criminal organizations coming from the three most dangerous countries in the world today--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras--we have a partner in Mexico, who checks their advance at Mexico's southern border, who ensures, when we have the greatest humanitarian crisis this hemisphere has ever seen because of the brutality and violence that we see in those northern triangle countries in Central America, that Mexico is our partner in helping to provide shelter, sustenance, and aid to those frightened young children leaving the northern triangle.
Some still make their way to the United States and present themselves, not trying to evade detection, but present themselves to Border Patrol agents and Customs officers at our ports of entry. No wall could ever keep them out.
But as many as are coming from Central America today, we have record low levels of northbound migration and asylum-seeking attempts crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The number last year was somewhere around 400,000 northbound apprehensions. The number 16 years ago was 1.6 million northbound apprehensions.
For all the reasons that I gave, and one of them an important one-- and we must keep that in mind--is Mexico: our relationship, our partnership, part of that world order that we have fought for, worked so hard for, sustained at such great cost. These are the dividends that world order is producing for the United States today in jobs, in economic growth, in the security and safety of our communities and the people we represent.
El Paso, Texas, in fact, is the safest city in the United States today. It was the safest city last year, it was the safest city the year before that, and it has been among the safest cities in America for the last 15 years. It is not an outlier, and it is not an anomaly. The second safest city is San Diego, California, another large U.S. border city, conjoined with its sister city of Tijuana.
So when we upend this world order, when we upend our relationships, when we bully, humiliate, and threaten the
countries with whom we have been allied and partnered for so many years now, not only will they suffer, which I can only assume is the intent of the President, but so will we. We also do deep disservice and dishonor to those who have fought so hard, worked so long, and done so much to build up something today that we are the lucky heirs to.
Furthermore, our leadership position in the world is not sustained on blood and treasure and diplomacy alone. It is the values that we live out each and every day in our homes, in our communities, and, yes, here in our government, in the United States Congress. Values that include taking in the world's refugees.
After screening, ensuring the security and safety of the communities into which they will come, which we have always done--and no one is vetted or screened more thoroughly than a refugee from another country trying to enter the United States--most will not be able to make it, even under previous administrations. But after that screening has taken place, when they come to this country, those refugees, those asylum seekers, and those immigrants are the ones who have helped to build this success story, this exceptional country, this indispensable Nation, the United States.
And when we turn off the lamp of liberty, when we no longer shine as a beacon to the refugees, the aspirational people around the world who are looking for a better life, who were called to our shores by our values and what we represent around the world, and what we have always fought for and proved in actions beyond our words, when that lamp goes out, when we begin religious tests for the kinds of immigrants who we will bring into this country, when we do things that are immediately politically popular but are not in the best traditions of this country, we lose that place of prominence around the world, not just to the countries and the decisionmakers within those countries--the kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers--we lose that place of prominence with the people around the world who have always looked to the United States for example and for leadership.
And so I ask my colleagues to join me in ensuring that, as troubling as this course has been in the first few weeks of this administration, we remember that we still have time to correct it and that we have an obligation to offer an alternative, one that has served this country so well for so long and is a source of so much of our strength, our exceptionalism, and our greatness. I call on my colleagues to move beyond Presidential fiat, beyond executive order, beyond the whims of a new administration, and to set in law our values and our priorities.
Ultimately, we must be able to reform our system of immigration laws. But short of that, we must at least be able to honor the ones who are already on the books. We have to do more to ensure that those who need us most in the world can find a home in this country, not solely for their benefit. That is the moral imperative. That is the argument that can persuade us in our hearts, but also because the value and the benefit will accrue to this country economically in our security, in our vibrancy, and in ensuring that the next generation is going to be the leaders, whether it comes to the businesses that are created, the books and the art that are created, the leadership that is needed, and the service that we demand in uniform throughout the world.
Certainly that comes from native born U.S. citizens, but it also, as we know when we think about the history of this country, that comes from those who came to our shores. Or, like most of the Western Hemisphere, whether your family came from Mexico or El Salvador or Argentina, there is a good chance that your Ellis Island was El Paso, Texas, that your family first set foot on U.S. soil in the community that I have the honor to represent today. Whether it was in Segundo Barria, or the Chihuahuita neighborhood, or the Chamizal district, El Paso has been that first welcoming community to millions who have answered the promise, the potential, the opportunity, and the beacon of hope that we have provided for the world.
It is no accident, and it is totally connected, that El Paso's safety is directly proportional to our connection to the rest of the world, to Mexico, to these people who so many of our political leaders want to sow fear and anxiety and misapprehension about. They want to vilify these people, call them rapists and thugs and criminals, when the facts bear out that they are the very reason that we are so secure and so safe.
So imagine in the Ellis Island of the Western Hemisphere--El Paso, Texas--building a wall that would forever separate and divide us from the rest of the hemisphere, from the place where we meet the rest of the world. That, too, will compromise our leadership position in the world. That, too, will dishonor the noble sacrifice that we have seen from countless servicemembers from those who pursue U.S. policy around the world, and to those who are now serving in more than 140 countries around the globe.
I think about another country and another wall at another time that proved American exceptionalism when the Soviets constructed the Berlin Wall to keep East Germans from being able to flee to the West, those East Germans who, in some way, were responding to the hope that I am talking about that we have so long represented around the world. It was the United States that overcame that wall. It was people like General James H. Polk who ensured that the people of East Berlin had hope, that the people of West Berlin had hope, that we made every effort to fulfill our commitments, not just to Americans on American soil, but to American values wherever they may be represented around the world. While other governments were building walls, the United States was doing the right thing.
And it was a President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, who challenged the Soviet empire to tear down this wall. How far have we come that today, in 2017, in the living lifetime of those who served with President Reagan, who voted for President Reagan, who lived in the America that President Reagan was a President of, that we are contemplating building a wall that would keep people out, that would separate people who have a common future, a common history? And in places like El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, 3 million people who form the largest binational community in the world, two people who have a common identity, nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be anxious about, nothing to be scared of. We, the United States, are at our best when we are strong, when we are confident, when we are bold. We are at our worst when we are anxious, when we are afraid, when we are scared.
Mr. Speaker, I ask that we not make policy out of fear, that we not stoke anxiety, that we not lose the best, strongest traditions of who we are as Americans, but, instead, follow those traditions. And when we do, we will be able to change the course that this country is now on. We will be able to help this President to do the right thing, the right thing for this country, in this country more importantly, but to do the right thing for this country when it means standing up for our values, our interests, our allies around the world.
Mr. Speaker, for many in this country and for many around the world, these are some of the darkest days in recent memory. But I have hope because we have had far darker days in this country before. And the institutions, such as the one that we are in today, and the American people whose work we do at whose pleasure we serve, who we represent in this Chamber, are a remarkable, resilient people. And they will help to bring this body, this administration, this government, and this country to its senses. And when we get there, I am confident that we are going to do the right thing, I am confident that we are going to honor the best traditions of this country, we are going to honor the brave men and women who have served, who helped to build what we have today, which so many people take for granted. Mr. Speaker, I am confident that working together, Republican and Democrat, we are going to do what is best for the world and what is best for America.
I yield back the balance of my time.