Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate student athletes from the University of Virginia for their success in winning the 2022 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis National Championship.

Each year the NCAA supports student athletes from roughly 1,100 institutions of higher learning sponsoring 90 championships in 24 sports. Over half a million student athletes from across the United States compete each year for a national championship.

Winning an NCAA championship is truly a remarkable achievement and something deserving of celebration.

On Sunday, May 22, 2022, the many years of hard work and perseverance of these UVA student athletes paid off. They defeated Kentucky 4-0, securing the program's fifth NCAA Division I Men's Tennis National Championship, all coming in the last 10 years.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to rise today to congratulate these student athletes and the University of Virginia for this great achievement.

Madam Speaker, one of the most fundamental, God-given rights that we possess, which is uniquely protected in our American Constitution, is the right to keep and bear arms for self- defense and to ensure that we remain a free people.

We have seen under this administration, supported by the Democrat majority in this Congress, an unprecedented trampling on the basic rights of American citizens over the past 2 years. Our most precious freedoms to assemble together, to go where you want, to worship as you choose, to earn a living or operate your business, to keep your job or your employees, what you have to wear on your face, and whether or not you are required to receive a vaccine that you may not want or may not need all trampled upon by Democrats in power.

Democrats simply do not believe in the inalienable rights of American citizens to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They believe that your rights come from government, and they, therefore, have the right to take them away.

The guarantee provided by our Founders to ensure we remain free from foreign invasion and, yes, as our Founders clearly warned us, from an oppressive government like we see in Canada, Australia, and the Democrats' beloved Communist China is the constitutional right of law- abiding citizens to be armed as they choose.

Over and over, the Founders affirmed and reiterated that Congress has no power--no power--to limit the right of lawful citizens to arm themselves. H.R. 2377 would create a nationwide system of red flag laws, undermining the constitutional guarantee of due process, which is required before depriving any American of their Second Amendment right.

Madam Speaker, Democrats believe that the government should control everything: what kind of car you drive, whether you have to get a vaccine, how or if you get to heat or cool your home, if you can keep your job, and if you can open or operate your business.

Republicans, on the other hand, believe that Americans should control their own lives, their purchasing decisions, their healthcare decisions, and even their businesses and apprenticeship programs.

Businessowners across the country try to utilize apprenticeships to develop the skilled employees that they need to succeed and grow. Sadly, this Democratic bill only funds government-approved apprenticeships that are registered with the Department of Labor, not those designed by businessowners who have the audacity to think that they know more about their business than those with no business experience, like President Biden and the progressive activists that make up his administration.

Why would anyone trust Joe Biden to run their business? He has no private sector experience, but he is now the proud owner of the worst economic record in modern history--so there is that.

Why would anyone trust Democrats in this Congress or this administration to run their business? These former educators, lawyers, community organizers, and progressive activists have ruined the outstanding economy that they inherited in January of 2021.

House Democrats demand that you have your apprenticeship program designed by unelected bureaucrats in the Department of Labor because, of course, Washington knows best when it comes to everything.

Look what they have done with inflation, supply chains, rising crime, the open border, and everything else. They are a picture of success. If Washington truly knew best, then one in four businesses would not have closed permanently in my home State of Virginia due to Democrat COVID restrictions.

Employers in my district often ask me: Why do they have to submit to government control to be eligible for funding for their apprenticeship program? Who could do a better job developing apprenticeships than the people who, you know, actually create the jobs; despite Washington's best efforts to prevent them from doing so? That question was rhetorical, please don't answer.

My amendment would actually let employers run their own apprenticeship programs and help them educate their workers the way they need to so they can expand their workforces.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

Madam Speaker, the Supreme Court seems poised to finally, mercifully, reverse the only decision in the history of the Court that has cost more than 60 million precious innocent lives which, by the way, beyond the moral travesty, has contributed massively to our labor shortages and Social Security and Medicare being on the verge of bankruptcy.

In typical fashion, Democrats are revealing who they are with their response, and their unlawful protests and intimidation tactics at the homes of the Justices, while the administration and their allies in this body cheer them on.

Democrats can't win at the ballot box or through the legislative process, so they try to eliminate the electoral college, rig election laws, eliminate the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, pack the Senate, give statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, and now threaten Justices at their homes.

This is because Democrats are the radical extremists on abortion. They have become the party of death. Their position is abortion at any time, for any reason, up to and beyond the moment of birth, with taxpayers being forced to fund it.

I didn't hear any Democrats criticize the former Governor of Virginia when he said a couple of years ago that a mother and her doctor can have a conversation after a baby is born and decide whether or not to kill it.

I say, let's have this fight in this Congress.

We had an election 6 months ago in purple Virginia when everyone knew that the Supreme Court would be reviewing Roe v. Wade, and the party of death got trounced in that election.

Republicans must embrace this moment and stand for life, expose Democrats for the radical extremists they are, and work to end the brutal, horrific practice of abortion. To Democrats, I say bring it on. Let Democrats defend piercing a baby's skull and sucking out its brains, tearing an infant limb from limb, or burning it alive with a saline injection. Call it what it is and call them out for supporting abortion with no restrictions whatsoever.

Just this week, Democrats pushed another failed abortion-on-demand vote in the Senate, a bill that passed this House with no Republican votes but, sadly, all but one Democrat supporting it, as they try to ensure that America remains among the most extreme nations in the world with the most radical laws on abortion.

Now, this current piece of legislation will permit Federal dollars to be used to harm the unborn, as it includes a provision that allows taxpayer dollars to be used to ``address health needs and improve health and well-being'' and ``to identify and respond to physical and behavioral health challenges.''

However, a recent Marist poll found that 54 percent of Americans oppose using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.

My amendment would protect taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortions, even if Hyde were repealed. If this bill is not intended to fund abortion, then accept and pass my amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Perry's leadership on this issue.

Secretary Mayorkas' testimony today in a hearing was that the border is secure. You have to ask yourself: What would an unsecure border look like as defined by this administration, by this President, and by this Democrat majority?

I wish the Democrats were with us across the aisle tonight to try to defend the indefensible. I wish the Democrats were here tonight to tell the American people why they are intentionally, willfully, and purposefully facilitating this border invasion.

Many of us thought the President would open the border, would rescind the policies that were making the border secure under the Trump Presidency, but most of us probably underestimated how effective he would be in facilitating the invasion at the border, to your point, some 7,000 to 8,000 a day now that we encounter, that we apprehend before we bus or fly them into the interior of the country.

Never in the history of the country has our own President done more to intentionally harm the United States than what this President has done in his first 16 months. If we secured the border now--if today we secured the border, we have done irreparable, untold harm to the country that will only be shown in the next days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

We have got 2,000 criminal aliens a day evading apprehension. Think about this. This administration's policies are welcoming these illegal aliens into the country, giving them their free phones, free transportation, free education, social services, and healthcare, and releasing them into the interior of the country wherever they want to go without even a day to appear in court.

Why are the 2,000 a day avoiding apprehension? Those are the ones with the criminal backgrounds, the terrorist ties, trafficking drugs, trafficking humans, children, and what have you, who don't want to be captured, don't want to be apprehended.

This administration admits that 42 on the terrorist watch list have been caught in the last year coming into the country out of the 2 million plus who they apprehended. What about the 700,000 in the first 15 months that they didn't apprehend? How many of those have terrorist ties? We have no idea. The country will find out, sadly, in the days, the weeks, and the months ahead.

Mr. Speaker, I had a constituent say to me a couple weeks ago: Nothing this Democratic Party is doing makes sense unless they hate the country.

Carry these policies to its logical conclusion. As Congresswoman Boebert said, they are on track for 10 million illegal border crossings in this President's first and only term, I hope.

Ten million, apparently, is not a problem. We cannot get one Democrat. We cannot get one Democrat.

Where are the Democrats?

Mr. Speaker, do you want to know why they are going to lose the majority?

It is because of what Congressman Cloud just said.

Carry these policies to its logical conclusion. Ten million is not scary to them.

What if it was 100 million?

What if it was 1 billion?

We have got 7 billion people in the world who don't live in the United States.

How many of them would come here if they could?

We have put out the sign, the Democratic majority and the administration, come. If you want to come in the country, come now. The border is open. We are welcoming as fast as we can, as much harm as we can do before the election in November, before 2 years from now in 2024 when the Presidential election changes. Carry it to its conclusion.

Is there any number that would concern the Democrat majority?

Is there any number where we could get Democrats to sign on to this?

Nothing they are doing makes sense unless they hate the country.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to not showing up here to do the job that their constituents sent them here to do, they are literally lying about the reason they are not here.

Same here.

I have been tempted to interrupt during the proxy voting to ask the Speaker to allow me to offer a prayer for the healing and recovery of the dozens of Members of Congress who are not at work and who are apparently too sick from COVID to show up and do their job.

Of course. That is why they are getting rid of it because it has been used to turn back some illegal immigrants at the border.

We did. Where just a couple months ago you had ``Bidentown'' with some 20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants gathered under the bridge. We learned a lot while we were there, and I thank the gentleman for leading that trip.

I also want to say thank you to my friend, the Congressman from Wisconsin, for allowing us to do this, and Congressman Roy for allowing me to join him.

But we had the 20,000 illegal Haitian immigrants gathered in ``Bidentown'' under the bridge which they quickly--they weren't concerned that the immigrants were coming in the country illegally. They were concerned about the image and the embarrassment of 20,000 of them in ``Biden's village'' there under the bridge, so they wanted to distribute them into the interior of the country as quickly as they could to hide it from the American people.

The gentleman will remember at first they tried to keep the media from covering it. And then what they did was bus them into the country to wherever they wanted to go. They flew a few back to Haiti, but most of them they distributed into the country.

But we learned when we were in Del Rio--and my friend may have already known this--I learned it that day when we were there that there were 1,000 a day coming just through that corridor. Sadly, that is just a fraction of the 7,000 a day who are coming across the southern border along Arizona, New Mexico, Arizona, and, of course, Texas.

But to this President's policies now, what is the response?

We want to try to double or even triple that by rescinding title 42.

That is right.

I'm not aware that they have apologized.

As a matter of fact, at least the President and the Vice President, to my knowledge, have never been to the border to see what is happening.

Again, my friend led one of the trips I was on. I have been to the border four times in my first 15 months here in Congress so that I could see better and experience in person the crisis at the border, to see the human toll, to see the environmental toll, and then to see exactly where that was happening.

These are Border Patrol officers who were trying to stand in the gap, to be on the front line, and trying to do their job despite the efforts of this administration to prevent them from doing their job, and putting their lives, literally, at risk.

The previous time I was at the border--not the Del Rio trip--but the previous time I was in Arizona, there was actually a shooting of a Border Patrol officer while I was there. And yet here we have--as my friend has said--the Department of Homeland Security Secretary besmirching, smearing, and demeaning his own employees knowing full well that is a lie, knowing full they are just leading those horses as they do and trying to protect us American citizens from what is happening at the border.

That is right.

They say they want to identify the root causes. I can tell my friend what the root causes are. The root causes of the massive surge across our border, if you will, the invasion at our border: is the cessation of the Trump policies that were working. It is the enhancement of the catch-and-release practice. It is ending MPP. It is stopping building the wall. And it is promising amnesty and an open border during the 2020 election for illegals to come. That is why they were coming with their Biden T-shirts on. It is not mandating E-Verify. It is allowing the economic incentive to come. It is allowing individuals to come and be apprehended and provided free social services, free healthcare services, free education, and to be flown or distributed wherever they want to go around the country at taxpayer expense with no specific court date to even appear to have their case heard.

I want to compliment the gentleman's Governor from yesterday. I hope that he will follow through on this. I hope this will actually happen. Perhaps the gentleman from Texas has some thoughts on that. He announced yesterday that he is going to bus these illegal aliens right here to Washington, D.C., so our Democratic majority and our Democratic administration who are willfully and purposely facilitating this invasion at our southern border through their policies can accommodate these illegal aliens when they are brought here.

I call on my Governor from Virginia and Governors throughout the country to do the same thing.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. And the four times that I have been to the border in the last 15 months, I have never seen a Democrat there. I have had Border Patrol, Texas State Police, sheriffs, and law enforcement who are working there at the border--not just Texas, but Arizona as well--where they tell me they never see Democrats at the border.

We only need seven Democrats to join our discharge petition to get a vote on maintaining title 42, but we can't get one Democrat, one majority Member, to do this. One would hope that just in the States of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California--the border States--that we could get, just in the State of Texas, in particular, that we could get Democrats to say, Hey, don't mess with Texas.

We are going to join our fellow Republicans, and we are going to support Texas' efforts to stand in the gap and do what the Federal Government will not do in violation of the Constitution and protecting the State from invasion.

Happy birthday to my brother Steve who is 55 today, April 7.

That is right.

Naming names.

Not one.

There is no excuse for it.

If this President was doing everything else right--just use your imagination and just allow for a moment--if he was doing everything else right and some of his other policies were working--let's pretend some were working--what he has allowed to happen at the border as the head of the Democratic Party, never in the history of the country has our own President done more to intentionally harm the United States in what he has done in his first year. So it is no wonder that not one Democrat will join us in standing up for border security.

How did that become a partisan issue?

As you know, we were in an off-the-record meeting with Secretary Mayorkas so I can't share what he said. I can share what I said.

I asked him: What is the end game?

Here we are going to take it from some 7,000 a day--it is estimated 18,000 a day--that means every 3 days you will have the equivalent population of my home county, Campbell County, Virginia, 56,000 people, in 3 days we will have that many illegal border crossings.

By the way, in my hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, right outside Campbell County there, we just had a murder conviction of an MS-13 gang member who came across illegally. Again, demonstrating that every town is a border town under this President. Every State is a border State under this President.

I appreciate you leading on this issue, Mr. Roy, so passionately and so consistently and so faithfully. Specifically, you helped lead that letter that we sent to leadership of both the House and the Senate on the Republican side, just 2 or 3 weeks ago, saying no Republican should support any government funding that does not secure the border.

So what did we do with the potential leverage that we had that was before us, if all Republicans would refuse to fund a government that doesn't secure the border?

$1.6 trillion, less than 1 percent of which was for

Ukraine support. Some justified their vote for that because it was supporting Ukraine. So 99 percent of the bill had nothing to do with Ukraine. Yet, 54 Republicans, one-fourth of our body, voted against that $1.6 trillion spending, with no leverage, no concessions, nothing really gained. We didn't secure the border; we didn't end the vaccine mandates; we didn't unleash American energy independence.

Who also didn't vote for that bad bill, by the way.

That is right.

That is right, for 2 years.

Into the interior of the country.

Yes. The illegal drugs that are pouring in across the country, fentanyl and other dangerous drugs, at record levels, is the reason why we had 100,000 overdose deaths last year in this country. In 2021, the number one cause of death for individuals between 18 and 45 was not COVID; it was overdose.

On the border trips that I have been on--again, a couple of those with you--when you meet with the folks who live there, who live on the front lines, and they talk about these illegals, they will find the carpet shoes. We saw them. You see the carpet shoes and the camos. Once they get picked up by their crime cartel contact and picked up to go wherever they want to go in the interior of the country, you find the carpet shoes and you find the camos left behind.

You will have those folks who live there tell you they are coming onto their property, they are knocking on their doors, they are threatening them and making demands of them. These folks who live on the border are finding dead bodies. The previous trip I was on in Arizona, they said they apprehended 30 Chinese nationals on their property.

They are from 160 different countries, not just Central and South America, as if that wasn't enough. But to your point, 160 different countries are making every town a border town and every State a border State.

It is a dereliction of duty on behalf of this President's administration. It is a threat to the national security of our country, to the sovereignty of our country, to the health and security of our country, and to the financial security of our country. I appreciate your leadership on this issue.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 471, the PAUSE Act, to protect all Americans from Biden's border crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I have been there four times in my first year, the first 14 months here in this Congress.

February a year ago was the largest February in terms of illegal border crossings in the history of the country. We had 101,000 cross, some 3,000 a day, in February a year ago.

We exceeded that by 64 percent this most recent February. We went from 101,000 to 165,000.

Now, it is so bad with what this President has allowed to happen in the last year that 165,000 in a month doesn't sound like a really bad month for this President.

That is because, again, it was 101,000 last February, but it increased as the year went on to where it was some 200,000 a month later on into the year, as we know, and 2 million in the first year this President was in office.

As others have already pointed out, with him rescinding title 42, I guess he was afraid that is a policy, a law, that might help repel some illegals back across the border, might allow us to return some if we actually would enforce the law.

So, we are rescinding title 42, which, as already has been said, will take it from 7,000 to 2\1/2\ times as large. Mr. Speaker, 18,000 a day is the average, 500,000 in the first 30 days.

This President is on pace for some 10 to 15 million illegal entries into our country in his first and hopefully only term.

I was in a Budget Committee hearing today with Congresswoman Boebert. We had Secretary Becerra there, the HHS Secretary. HHS has been called in not to help stop the border crossings but to help facilitate those.

Mr. Speaker, I asked him today, I said: Who do you think should be let across our border, or who should be prevented from going across our border? Are there any restraints you would put upon anyone who wants to come across our border, or do you think everyone should be able to come across illegally?

He said: Well, we are talking about violating the law. You are saying it is illegal. Why would we permit anyone to violate the law?

Our President is violating the highest law of the land. The Constitution that we all and he swore to uphold, Article IV, Section 4 says: ``The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government and shall protect them against invasion.''

As we look to next year, I want to go on record and say--some of you were on the articles of impeachment with me. Congresswoman Boebert drafted those. How do we declare this the public health emergency that it is, the national security crisis that it is, the health crisis that it is, the social services crisis that it is, the education crisis that it is, and the unlawful process that it is and not hold this President responsible when we have the House majority, Lord willing, a year from now? How can we not impeach this President?

Mr. Speaker, it is simple. Complete the wall. End catch and release. Reinstate remain in Mexico and title 42. Require E-verify. Take amnesty off the table.

Speaker Mrvan, we would love to have you on that petition.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon for yielding.

Our country continues to suffer under the many crises created by the Biden administration and Democrat policies; you know, the border crisis, the crime crisis, the inflation crisis, the energy crisis. And yet, the priority of this Congress now turns to expanding access to addictive, behavior-altering, recreational drugs at a time when our country is also experiencing increased addiction, depression, and suicide.

What is worse, we want to target those individuals and communities who are historically most impacted by the harm of illegal drugs and provide Federal funding to help enable criminals to open and operate now legal drug businesses.

We have rising violent crime in Democrat-run cities across the country. More drug use won't help that.

We had 100,000 Americans die of overdoses last year, the leading cause of death in Americans ages 18 to 45. More drug use won't help that.

Our government, schools, and our education systems are failing us. More drug use won't help that.

But, in fact, this legislation has no prohibitions on edible forms of marijuana, flavored vape products, or other efforts to target, specifically, teens and young people.

Meanwhile, we have surrendered operational control of our southern border to the Mexican crime cartels, and we have got fentanyl and other dangerous drugs streaming into our country at historic levels because of this President's open border policies.

Of course, what is his solution? Let's end Title 42 which is predicted to increase the daily crossings from the current 7,000 a day to as much as 18,000 a day. That is over half a million a month.

How might this impact the illegal drug trade across our country? Law enforcement tells me that legalizing marijuana will force the criminal element to redouble their efforts into hard, more dangerous drugs to replace the profit that has been lost from marijuana.

You can also look at the States that have already legalized it, and you can see the increased addiction, dependency, and homelessness that this has cost. We should be ashamed of ourselves for this legislation, and I oppose this bill.

Person Speaker, and I say ``Person Speaker'' because I am not a biologist. And out of respect to our Supreme Court nominee, I don't feel qualified to say Madam Speaker.

But I do rise in opposition to this bill. The Affordable Insulin Now Act is just more of government controlling your healthcare.

Today, Democrats are using insulin as the gateway to their dream of fully socialized medicine where Joe Biden and his accomplices in Congress have more control over your healthcare than you or your doctor. After all, they got to decide whether or not you got a vaccine, and they fired you if you didn't obey.

If Democrats succeed in setting the price of insulin at $35, the negative effects will ripple across the entire healthcare market.

I invite my Democrat colleagues to read my sophomore economics textbook to confirm what happens when you implement price controls.

It is estimated the average annual cost for the private sector of compliance with this mandate is $2 billion. Not that Democrats care about billions of dollars, the way they throw around trillions of dollars. Don't tell them what comes after a trillion.

But we all remember the lies of ObamaCare. Please, say it with me. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Come on. This is participatory. If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your healthcare plan. As a matter of fact, costs are going to go down. None of that was true.

And, instead, American families found themselves with plans they didn't like, but at least they cost more, so it was a lose-lose.

Premiums will rise again if this bill becomes law because setting prices, again, has consequences, something our economically illiterate Democrat friends apparently don't understand, or maybe they do.

American innovation has brought amazing, lifesaving treatments to the healthcare market, but that research and development comes at a cost, like any other good or product or service in this country.

Don't we all want the best drugs, the best medicine, and the best healthcare? Instead of going with the Democrat default government- knows-best, one-size-fits-all mentality, we need to embrace free market principles.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. We don't have a finer patriot and a more courageous warrior for freedom in the Congress, and I appreciate his leadership on this and so many issues. I appreciate him leading this discussion here on the floor tonight.

Never in the history of the country has our own President done more to intentionally harm the country than this President has done in his first year in Congress. Never in the history of the country has a President done more to harm the United States than this President has done willfully and intentionally than what he has done with the border in his first year.

We are averaging 7,000 illegals across the border a day right now. The administration is admitting that. They are allowing 7,000 illegals across the border a day. I had a constituent say to me on the phone just 2 days ago: Nothing this administration is doing makes sense unless they hate the country. Nothing that this administration is doing makes sense unless they hate the country.

Whether you are talking about the crime crisis, the inflation crisis, our diminished standing on the national stage, the spending crisis, the energy crisis, what we are doing to American energy and making us depend on foreign nations who hate us. I think at the top of that list is what we are doing at the border.

When I ran for the first time 2 years ago I identified the greatest threats to the country. I believe those threats are our education system, indoctrination of our kids K to 12 and college campuses, our runaway radical spending that is bankrupting our future, and then our immigration and border situation. Nothing has changed my mind to that effect in my first year here.

Mr. Speaker, I have been to the border four times and I am well-aware that Virginia's Fifth District is not geographically physically located at the border. We just had an MS-13 gang member convicted of murder in my hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, who illegally came across the border. This President's policies are making every town a border town, every State a border State.

Everything and everyone that comes across that border comes under the control of the Mexican crime cartels. It has threatened the security of our Nation. It is an economic security issue. It is a health security issue. It certainly is a national security issue.

The projection that I am seeing with the ending of Title 42--the egregious attempt to end Title 42--the projections I am seeing is it will take it from 7,000 a day to 18,000 a day. That is 7,000 a day to 18,000 a day, perhaps even tripling what has already happened. We had 2 million crossings a year ago. Extrapolate that out for 4 years.

Are we going to allow this President to have 8 million come across at the current pace? My most recent trip to the border that my friend from Texas was mentioning was to Del Rio, Texas. He led a trip to Del Rio, Texas. You might remember, that is where we had Bidentown just a few weeks ago with 20,000 Haitian migrants assembled under the bridge there in Bidentown in Del Rio, Texas.

While we don't have that still today because they distributed those migrants--those illegals--into the interior of the country, which they are doing all the time, by the way. Flying and bussing illegal aliens in the dark of night wherever they want to go throughout the country with no requirement of a court date to appear. It is a pinky promise that we will get back with you in the future and give you a date to appear.

While we don't have 20,000 in Bidentown under the bridge right now in Del Rio, Texas, right through that corridor, Border Patrol and the ranchers and the sheriffs that were there told us it is 1,000 a day through there. So every 3 weeks you got a repeat of what we saw with Bidentown just a few weeks ago in Del Rio, Texas.

Does this administration care? Every resource they have committed or directed to that border has been to facilitate--to willfully, purposely facilitate--more illegals crossing into our country and to hide it from the American people.

There has been no effort by this administration in this President's first year to stem it, to stop it, instead, they try to facilitate and hide it from the American people. Now they want to make it worse, two or three times worse with what they are doing with Title 42.

Absolutely.

That is right.

Yes, but they are turnarounds coming right back.

Since 2019 when that was instated, right?

That is right.

Absolutely.

There are 160 different countries.

The got-aways.

These aren't the ones dressed head to toe in camo with the carpet shoes on who are evading capture, are they?

How about that.

How many Democrat Members have we got from Texas?

That would get us past 218, wouldn't it, 13 plus 8, 208?

Absolutely. You mentioned Secretary Mayorkas. He has said the border is secure. The border is secure he has said, when as you know we have lost operational control of our border.

The Mexican crime cartels are making hundreds of millions of dollars a month off sex trafficking, drug trafficking, child trafficking, human trafficking, you name it. Everyone and everything that comes across that border comes under the control of the Mexican crime cartel.

There is no humane component to it. They are finding dead bodies at the border of people who were trying--they starved or they got dehydrated or they just couldn't make the journey or something happened to them on the way. And you talk about Remain in Mexico policy, instead of Remain in Mexico policy, the MPP, that was in place under the Trump administration. We have got the United Nations using our own resources that we pay the United Nations to help illegals cheat our asylum system. So the United Nations is taking resources that the United States is giving to them to use to train illegals on how to cheat our asylum system and how to gain access into our country by claiming asylum.

Then the Democratic Party 20 years ago passed a law that prohibits the requirement of proof of citizenship to vote. Now, of course, they don't want any ID in order to vote, and you have got the President promising amnesty to anybody who is here illegally.

Do you think there is incentive to cheat our voting system and to vote illegally when there is no requirement of proof of citizenship, there is no ID to vote, and you have got the promise of amnesty?

We have essentially got illegals with a license to vote here in this country right now, and here we want to continue to ramp it up, to take it from 7,000 a day to an estimate of maybe 18,000 a day by eliminating Title 42.

Yes.

The number one killer of Americans between the age of 18 and 45 last year was drug overdoses. And yet we are allowing the most dangerous drugs, fentanyl and other dangerous drugs, to stream across the border.

The only way you get across the border, the Mexican border, into the United States is to pay the Mexican crime cartels. Border Patrol and the local sheriffs will tell you: If you try to cross apart from the cartels, they will kill you. You come either beholden to them, essentially an indentured servant, with pledge of your family back

home if you don't have the cash up front--they will kill your family if you don't pay--or you work it off. You work it off by trafficking drugs across or trafficking children or trafficking women across the border. There is nothing compassionate about that.

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