Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Antonio Marcias, a World War II veteran and an exceptional El Pasoan. Listening to the story of Antonio and other World War II veterans reminds me why we call theirs the ``greatest generation.''

In 1943, while still a United States resident, Mr. Macias volunteered for the Second World War. He served in Pacific Theatre in Okinawa as a U.S. Navy Sailor and completed his service as a ``Motor Machinist's Mate Third Class.'' As the war ended, he was honorably discharged in 1945. After completing his service, Mr. Macias returned home to El Paso, Texas, where he worked as a rancher, a sheet metal worker, and at the local Phelps Dodge Refinery for 33 years. He retired in 1978 and became the owner of a small business specializing in landscaping. Now, at the age of 95, Mr Macias continues to reside in El Paso with his wife of over 65 years and is a tireless advocate for improving services for El Paso's many veterans. Mr. Macias is an exceptional asset to the community, and as one of my staffers put it ``he is an inspiration to El Paso.''

Like so many other individuals from his generation, Mr. Macias put his life on the line for his country. We are grateful for his service and appreciate that he continues to be a vital part of the El Paso community. Thank you, Antonio Macias, for making El Paso, Texas, and the nation proud.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the Benavidez- Patterson ``All Airborne'' Chapter of the 82nd Airborne Division,

a distinguished Veterans Service Organizational in El Paso, Texas.

The Benavidez-Patterson ``All-Airborne'' Chapter is comprised of current and former military paratroopers. The unit develops new relationships and cultivates existing bonds among those who have served in the Airborne; honors the memory of troopers who died in service; and informs its members of legislative changes and policy ideas relevant to veterans.

With 250 members, the Benavidez-Patterson Chapter is the largest ``All-Airborne'' chapter in Texas and has included representation from virtually every Airborne unit since World War II. It is comprised of national heroes. Members have included veteran paratroopers who had combat assignments in Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Korea, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq and Afghanistan, along with others currently deployed in the Middle East. Members have included one of the original Darby's Rangers and a Pathfinder on D-Day. Others were involved in ``Operation: Overlord'' into Normandy, France, on D-Day; ``Operation: Market Garden'' in Holland; and the ``Battle of the Bulge.''

Chartered in August 1985, the Benavidez-Patterson ``All-Airborne'' Chapter is named in honor of the late MSG Roy P. Benavidez and CSM Robert Patterson (Ret.), both recipients of the Medal of Honor. The Chapter was further honored through the membership of Medal of Honor recipients COL. Joseph Rodriguez (Deceased) of El Paso and LTC (Ret.) Alfred Rascon. Other distinguished members have included MG Howard Bromberg; BG Shuffer, a statesman, author and paratrooper; in addition to LTG Lionetti, MG Lennox, MG Cravens, MG Infante, MG Little, MG Oblinger and MG Michael G. Vane.

I thank the Benavidez-Patterson ``All-Airborne'' Chapter for their commitment to honoring our veterans and for helping to strengthen the bonds among service members and veterans in the El Paso community.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation, which will help us to reduce the unacceptably long wait times for our veterans who are waiting to hear back on service- connected disability claims.

In El Paso, Texas, I have the honor of representing almost 80,000 veterans. Right now, their average wait time out of the Waco regional office is nearly 460 days to hear back on a service-connected disability claim. I visited that office not too long ago and witnessed people carrying around the claims files for single veterans in hand trucks with the files and the paperwork measuring 3 to 4 feet in some cases.

That is why, along with Paul Cook, I introduced bipartisan legislation earlier this year to work with no cost to reduce that wait time by informing veterans of the average wait time to file a disability claim amongst all available methods. From the slowest, which is an incomplete paper-based

claim, to the fastest, which is a fully developed claim filed online.

I am pleased that this legislation in section 109 includes this bill called the Faster Filing Act. I am convinced it will help us to get our veterans the response in the time they deserve. After all, they have sacrificed their health, their security, and their safety for ours. We need to meet our end of the obligation.

I want to thank Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Michaud. I also want to thank Mr. Broun from the committee staff and Erin Snow from my legislative team for helping to write the legislation. And I encourage all of my colleagues in the House to pass this without delay.

Mr. Speaker, the government shutdown continues to harm the communities I represent and the more than 43,000 Federal employees in El Paso who dedicated their careers to public service.

The Federal district court in El Paso is one of the busiest in the country. It handles a large volume of immigration and drug cases, among many others. I recently heard from Maureen Franco, a Federal public defender, regarding the shutdown's impact in El Paso.

In the U.S. Attorneys Office there, the prosecutors and public defenders are working, but not getting paid. In addition, their staffs have been furloughed. The result: prosecutors brought only 35 cases on Monday. On Tuesday and Wednesday, only nine people were brought into court. When our government works, the average is 55 a day.

The same number of people are being arrested, but the shutdown means we are not prosecuting them in a timely manner. It is likely that these individuals are remaining in detention at taxpayer expense, costing us more than if the government were open. Justice is not being served, nor are the American people.

Mr. Speaker, it is time to end the shutdown. Please allow an up-or- down vote. It will pass this House on a bipartisan basis. It will be signed into law by the President. We can reopen the government today.

Madam Speaker, I received the following email from Stu Harris in El Paso yesterday. He's the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, Local 1929. He writes:

Our Border Patrol agents in the El Paso sector are outraged

by this nonsense. We cannot understand tying the fight

against the Affordable Care Act with funding the government.

I can only hope that nothing happens to any of our agents

in the field putting their lives on the line and doing it for

free. Imagine having to be in a state of heightened awareness

for 10 hours a day, all the time not knowing if or when the

paycheck will come in or how we're going to pay the bills and

feed our families.

Due to the shutdown, all Border Patrol agent trainees that

were at the academy have been sent home. This amounts to yet

another delay in adding measures to secure the border.

Madam Speaker, it is time to reopen the government and allow an up- or-down vote on funding this government.

Mr. Speaker, 43,000 El Pasoans are Federal employees. This is the fifth highest concentration of Federal employees in the Nation. Many of them work at Fort Bliss. Others are Border Patrol agents or customs officers at the busiest ports of entry in the country. All of them are facing uncertainty because they're being furloughed or working without pay.

I have spoken to many of them over the past week, including Army officers who are worried about what this shutdown is doing to the morale of the soldiers they command and veterans employed at William Beaumont Army Medical Center who cannot go to work to care for our wounded warriors.

A woman whose husband must go to work, but doesn't know when he will get paid provided this advice to us:

Do your job, just as my husband has to do his.

Mr. Speaker, the solution to this crisis is right before us. Bring the Senate-passed government funding bill to the floor. It will pass this House, and the government will be open tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, please put politics aside and do what is right.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the week of September 23, 2013 as National GEAR UP Week at Socorro Independent School District and Ysleta Independent School District in El Paso, TX.

The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) is a federally funded, competitive grant program designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education. GEAR UP serves low-income, minority and disadvantaged students and their families from underserved communities who might be the first person in their family to go to college. The program provides multi-year grants to states to deliver resources to students and their families, starting in middle school and onward, to help them achieve their dreams of attaining a postsecondary education.

GEAR UP includes interventions such as tutoring, mentoring, rigorous academic preparation, financial education and college scholarships to improve access to higher education for low income, minority and disadvantaged first-generation students and their families. The program is built around public-private partnerships, enlisting resources from government, business and community groups to support low-income students as they prepare to enter and succeed in college.

The GEAR UP-SOAR (Solutions for Optimal Academic Readiness) and GEAR UP-Proyecto MAS is a partnership of the Socorro Independent School District, Ysleta Independent School District and the University of Texas at El Paso. Over 8,000 El Paso students have benefited from their participation in these GEAR UP Projects focused on college readiness.

The program helps the University of Texas at El Paso, Socorro Independent School District and Ysleta Independent School District fulfill their missions to provide a quality education for all students, helping them achieve their highest potential. I thank GEAR UP for increasing the number of low-income and minority El Paso students who are college ready, and helping these students enter and succeed in higher education.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a great man, a legend in the community that I have the honor to represent and a hero to our country, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Eugene Chisholm.

Mr. Chisholm entered the military in 1942 and served 28 years, fighting for his country in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam before retiring in 1971. He parachuted into Normandy on D-day and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, as well as Operation Market Garden.

He is the recipient of more than 20 service awards, which include two Presidential Unit Citations, a Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Bronze Star.

Lieutenant Colonel Chisholm's service did not end when he left the Army. He helped found the Roy Benavidez-Robert Patterson ``All Airborne'' Chapter of the 82nd Airborne Division in El Paso, Texas, an important veterans' service organization working in our community.

Mr. Chisholm is a shining example of why his really is the greatest generation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record references to pages 1 through 4 of report S. 2201 from the U.S. Census Bureau showing that 329 Active Duty military families at Fort Bliss and Fort Hood in Texas rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table.

Mr. Speaker, I am very honored to be here today to speak on the topic of immigration reform, immigration reform that is humane, that is rational, that is fiscally responsible, and to be doing so with the guidance and leadership of Congressman Cardenas, my friend from California, who despite his short tenure in Congress has really emerged as a leader on this very important issue--important to me, important to the community I represent in El Paso, Texas, important to our State, and important to our country. Frankly, just to extend it one more time, important to the world, because I think the world's eyes are on us today, they're on us as we decide how we are going to respond to this opportunity, this once in a 20- or 30-year opportunity to make meaningful, positive changes in our broken immigration system, because as Steny Hoyer said earlier, ``we are proudly a Nation of immigrants.''

I'm sure it is this way for the gentleman from California, but for me the moral and ethical reasons are the most compelling--to do the right thing for those people who are already in our communities, for the people who have so much to offer who have yet to come to our shores and will add to the economy, to the civic strength of our communities and make the places that we live in and the country that we call home a better place.

I think of Edgar Falcon, a constituent of mine, a U.S. citizen, who is working. While he's working, he's also going to nursing school to improve his life, his ability to compete in the marketplace, his opportunity to contribute back to the community that we live in.

To complete his life beyond his education and his work and everything that he has done in the community, he wants to marry the woman of his dreams, a woman named Maricruz, who currently lives in Durango, Mexico, who would love to be here with the man that she loves.

But unfortunately, because of our current broken immigration system, she's unable to live here in the United States with the man that she loves. He's unable to bring her here because when she was a child, her sister, while they were crossing into the United States, falsely claimed citizenship for the both of them. Under our current broken immigration system, that has earned her a lifetime ban from reentry to the United States.

So despite the fact that an American citizen, someone I represent, someone who pays taxes into our government, someone who is by all measures doing everything he can to make our community and our country a better place, he cannot be with the woman he loves because of what I think to be a very arbitrary and unhelpful law that is separating two people who deeply love each other.

What we need to do is correct this through comprehensive immigration reform and through a measure that we'll be introducing this week, the American Families United Act, that will allow judges some level of discretion in cases like these where we have someone who poses no threat to our country, who can pay a fine, do some sort of penance for a mistake they made or a family member made on their behalf, and then if it makes sense for our community and our security is secured, they are able to join our community, the person that they want to marry, a U.S. citizen.

I hope that we'll have others who will join us in cosponsoring this legislation that we'll introduce this week because there are literally thousands upon thousands of American families, families of U.S. citizens, who are affected negatively by this immigration law.

As I said earlier, we want to do the right thing for the right reasons, for the moral imperative. Coming from El Paso, Texas, we really have been the Ellis Island for much of Latin America, including Mexico. The people who came through our ports of entry ended up in Los Angeles, they ended up in California, they went to Chicago, they went to New York, they went to all points east, west and north, and then many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, chose to stay in El Paso.

It is because of those immigrants, both legal and unauthorized immigrants I would argue, that El Paso today is the safest city in the United States. It was the safest city last year as well, it was the safest city the year before that. For the last 10 years, El Paso has been one of the top five safest cities in the United States.

When we hear people, who I think out of ignorance, say that we need to secure the border before we move forward with comprehensive immigration reform, I tell them that today we are spending $18 billion on border security, more than we are spending on all other Federal law enforcement agencies combined, that we've built hundreds of miles of fencing, that net migration last year from Mexico was actually zero, that El Paso is the safest city, San Diego is the second-safest. The U.S. side of the U.S. border compared to the rest of the country is far safer. We do not have a border security problem today. The border has never been more secure or more safe.

For all of those reasons, all of the moral ones and all of the commonsense ones that I just cited, we should do the right thing. Yet that is not enough for some people.

I will conclude by saying this. It is in our moral interest as a country that wants to do the right thing. It makes all the common sense in the world to do the right thing. But if we look at our economic self-interest, today it is already proven that immigrants, including unauthorized immigrants, contribute far more to our economy, they contribute far more to our tax base, they contribute far more to job opportunities and quality of life than they take in benefits. That has, I think, been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

What we also know is that if some form of the current proposal for comprehensive immigration reform passes, the CBO has scored it such that within the first 10 years these new immigrants to our country who will be on a path to citizenship will be able to reduce our deficit by more than $150 billion. In the next 10 years, those same immigrants will reduce our deficit an additional $800 to $900 billion. They'll also be contributors into Social Security, one of the pillars of our social safety net, one that is unable to meet its obligations in the not too distant future. This is surely going to help us to shore up Social Security as well.

So whether we look at the moral dynamic, whether we look at what makes common sense for our communities and our country, or whether we look at our economic self-interest, comprehensive immigration reform that is rational, that is humane, and that is fiscally responsible makes sense for this country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor distinguished El Pasoan Woody Hunt as the recipient of the Ysleta High School ``2012-13 Outstanding-Ex Award,'' which recognizes exceptional school alumni. Mr. Hunt has earned this distinction through a lifetime of serving the El Paso community in his roles as a successful business leader, tireless education advocate, and generous community servant.

Mr. Hunt, a fourth generation El Pasoan, graduated from Ysleta High School in 1962 and earned his Bachelor's Degree in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin (1967). He received his MBA in Finance from UT Austin (1970) and later earned his MA in Management from the Drucker School of Management in Claremont, California (1986).

Mr. Hunt began his career by returning to El Paso to work for the family business, which he eventually grew into one of the nation's leading construction and development companies. As Chairman and CEO of Hunt Companies, Inc., Mr. Hunt manages more than $13 billion in assets focused on the key areas of public-private partnerships, community development, real asset investment management and multifamily housing. Mr. Hunt uses his business expertise as a board member of numerous business and leadership nonprofits in El Paso.

Beyond his notable business achievements, Mr. Hunt has been a particularly effective higher education advocate. He understands that access to college is essential to growing our middle class and ensuring that all Americans have an opportunity to succeed. Mr. Hunt is a board member of several national, statewide and local education organizations focused on college access, including Complete College America; the College for All Texans Foundation; and the Development Boards of the University. of Texas at El Paso and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso. He previously served as the Vice-Chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents. This work allows him to focus on closing achievement gaps and increasing opportunity for traditionally underrepresented students. He is one of the first people I call when issues of higher education are before Congress.

Mr. Hunt is also passionate about promoting quality and accessible healthcare. He is the founding Chairman and current board member of the Medical Centers of Americas Foundation in El Paso; a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston; and was the Chairman of the Paso del Norte Health Foundation.

Mr. Hunt serves as Chairman of the Hunt Family Foundation, which he and his wife Gayle established in 1987. The El Paso community continues to be enriched by Woody Hunt's legacy of leadership, integrity and generosity. I thank Mr. Hunt for his commitment to improving the quality of life for everyone in El Paso, and in particular for his tireless efforts to ensure young people in our community have access to excellent educational opportunities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce bipartisan legislation that will assist servicemembers as they transition back to civilian life. We have a fundamental responsibility to provide for the needs of our veterans who have sacrificed their comfort and safety for ours. The Healthy Transitions for Veterans Act will help us meet that responsibility by requiring the Department of Defense (DoD) to perform two simple and common sense tasks:

1. Provide a comprehensive physical examination to all servicemembers of the active, guard, and reserve components when they separate from military service.

2. Provide separating servicemembers with an electronic copy of their complete medical records.

Currently, servicemembers in the Guard and Reserve are not required to have physical examinations when separating from military service. This can result in a lack of documentation of service-connected injuries and medical conditions and is one of the reasons that former Guard and Reserve members who file disability claims with the VA are 4 times more likely to get an unfavorable decision than their active duty counterpart.

Providing all servicemembers the ability to take ownership of their complete health record will also ensure a smoother transition into the VA health care system as DoD and VA struggle to make their systems interoperable. For veterans who may apply for VA benefits, having their full medical record from the military will make the application process more efficient. VA employees would not have to track down evidence or engage in time consuming correspondence with the applicant to locate medical records from the DoD. This is good not just for the individual veteran, but for the entire VA system that continues to struggle to reduce the claims backlog.

I have the honor of representing Fort Bliss and the 33,000 active duty soldiers stationed there. I also represent nearly 80,000 veterans. All of these individuals, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to ``The United States of America'' for an amount of ``up to and including my life.'' Our responsibility to these men and women does not end when we bring them home from war. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation and help guarantee our servicemembers make a healthy transition back to civilian life.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the 60th Anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War on July 27, 1953 and honor the Korean War Veterans and their families, who have taught us about strength, duty, service, and resolve. I am proud to represent hundreds of Korean War Veterans. Their service has been selfless and their accomplishments have been extraordinary.

The 60th Anniversary of the end of the Korean War calls us to reflect on the immeasurable burdens of war that have been borne by our veterans and their families. We pay tribute to our wounded, our missing, our fallen, and their families. They know the true costs of conflict and deserve our deepest respect.

On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when approximately 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the

Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea's behalf.

Nearly 5 million people died as a result of the Korean War. More than half of these--about 10 percent of Korea's prewar population--were civilians, a rate higher than either World War II or Vietnam. Nearly 40,000 Americans died in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded.

289,000 Texans served in the Korean War. 1,916 were killed in action and 440 are still missing in action. 169 El Pasoans gave their lives in Korean War and 23 are missing in action. The President of the United States awarded the highest of military honors to 11 Texans, including one El Pasoan Modesto Cartagena, for their acts of valor during the war.

Today we remember our commitments to those who served in Korea. As we do so, let us reaffirm our promise that when our troops finish their tours of duty, they come home to an America that gives them the benefits they have earned, the care they deserve, and the fullest opportunity to keep their families strong and our country moving forward.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, my amendment aims to provide the Department of Defense with additional budgetary flexibility, should they need it, to guarantee that the resources are available to properly maintain family housing at our military installations.

Section 8058 of this legislation prohibits funds from being used to repair or maintain military family housing. My amendment would strike that provision and, I believe, provide needed flexibility at a time of austere budgets and sequester.

I represent Fort Bliss, one of the largest installations in the Army. There are over 3,700 homes on Fort Bliss, and my community, El Paso, Texas, takes immense pride in creating a high quality of life for all those who serve at Fort Bliss.

We have an obligation to our servicemembers and their families to ensure they have first-rate housing. It is good for morale, and it is the right thing to do.

I understand that funds for repair and maintenance are included in the Military Construction-VA appropriations bill. My goal is simply to do everything we can to protect our servicemembers and fulfill our responsibility to them.

I know that the chair and the ranking member share my goal. I am prepared to withdraw my amendment, and I would hope the chair and ranking member would be willing to work with me going forward to continue providing our servicemembers and their families first-rate housing.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I want to thank Representatives Lamborn, Barrow, and Jenkins for their bipartisan work on this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we obviously need a comprehensive solution to the sequester. Ideally, that's what we would be doing. I don't want to proceed in a piecemeal manner, but absent a comprehensive solution, I think we have an obligation to act to ease the pain of the sequester when and where we can.

At Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, 11,000 Department of Defense civilian employees are furloughed for 11 days, which is a 20 percent pay cut for the remainder of this year. These workers are essential. Many of them work at Beaumont Army Medical Center, where they care for our wounded warriors returning from war. Those wounded soldiers are now facing longer wait times and reduced care because of these furloughs, and it is already becoming harder to retain the best employees.

We have to do better both by our servicemembers and those civilian employees, who are so critical to our military. I urge all of my colleagues to help prevent more furloughs and to support this amendment.