Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

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

First of all, the protection of private ownership of property is vital to individual freedom and national prosperity. It is also one of the most fundamental constitutional principles, as the Founders enshrined property rights protections throughout the Constitution, including in the Fifth Amendment, which provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.

This clause created two conditions to the government taking private property: first, the subsequent use of the property must be for the use of the public and, second, that the government must pay the owner just compensation for the property.

However, more than a decade ago the Supreme Court, in the 5-4 Kelo v. City of New London decision, expanded the ability of State and local governments to exercise eminent domain powers beyond what is allowed by the text of the Constitution, by allowing government to seize property under the vague guise of economic development, even when the public use turns out to be nothing more than the generation of tax revenues by another private party after the government takes property from private individuals and gives it to another private entity.

As the dissenting Justices observed, by defining public use so expansively, the result of the Kelo decision is, effectively, to delete the words ``for public use'' from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. The government now has license to transfer property from those with few resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.

In the wake of this decision, State and local governments can use eminent domain powers to take the property of any individual for nearly any reason. Cities may now bulldoze citizens' homes, farms, churches, and small businesses to make way for shopping malls or other developments.

To help prevent such abuse, using Congress' constitutional legislative powers, it is important Congress finally passes the Private Property Rights Protection Act.

I want to thank Mr. Sensenbrenner for reintroducing this legislation. He and I have worked together on this issue for many years, and I am pleased that this legislation incorporates many provisions from legislation I helped to introduce in the 109th Congress, the STOPP Act.

Specifically, the Private Property Rights Protection Act would prohibit State and local governments from receiving Federal economic development funds for 2 years when they use economic development as a justification for taking property from one person and giving it to another private entity.

In addition, this legislation grants adversely affected landowners the right to use appropriate legal remedies to enforce the provisions of the bill and allows State and local governments to cure violations by giving the property back to the original owner.

The bill also includes a carefully crafted definition of economic development that protects traditional uses of eminent domain, such as taking land for public uses like roads and pipelines, while prohibiting abuses of the eminent domain power.

No one should have to live in fear of the government's taking their home, farm, or business simply to give it to a wealthier person or corporation. As the Institute for Justice's witness observed during a hearing on this bill, using eminent domain so that another richer, better-connected person may live or work on the land you used to own tells Americans that their hopes, dreams, and hard work do not matter as much as money and political influence. The use of eminent domain for private development has no place in a country built on traditions of independence, hard work, and protection of property rights.

This legislation has passed the House three times previously, either by voice vote or with the support of at least 80 percent of House Members in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, only to be stalled in the Senate. But the fight for people's homes continues, as will this committee's efforts to protect Federal taxpayers from any involvement in eminent domain abuse.

Just a few years ago, every single Republican Member voted for the very same legislation on the House floor, as did two-thirds of Democratic Members. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this overwhelmingly bipartisan effort.

I want to respond to some of the issues raised by the gentleman from New York and the gentleman from Maryland. Pursuant to Congress' powers under the Constitution's Spending Clause, the Private Property Rights Protection Act conditions the receipt of Federal economic development funds on State and local governments agreeing not to use eminent domain for private economic development takings.

Federal law currently permits expending Federal funds to support the use of eminent domain for these abusive takings. In our current economy, and with the Federal Government running deficits every year, Congress should not be spending American taxpayers' scarce economic development funds to support State and local governments that unconstitutionally deprive hardworking Americans of their homes, farms, and small businesses.

By conditioning the receipt of Federal economic development funds on State and local governments agreeing not to take property for commercial development, this provision in the bill ends the Federal Government's complicit support of eminent domain abuse.

The enforcement provisions in the base bill are comprehensive, and they include all manner of relief from preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders, to the awarding of attorney's fees, to the ability of the State or locality to return or replace the property to avoid the penalties under the bill. Even those comprehensive enforcement mechanisms, on their own, are not enough. We must end Federal monetary support for economic development takings.

If State governments retain control over eminent domain decisions, then, of course, those States should be held responsible for the State's own actions. But in Virginia, my State, local governments are not allowed to condemn property for economic development purposes. In Virginia, the so-called Dillon Rule provides that localities can act only in areas in which the State general assembly has granted clear authority.

So, in Virginia, local governments have only the authorities granted to them by the General Assembly, and the Virginia General Assembly has empowered local governments in Virginia to condemn property for roads, schools, and other public uses, but local governments do not have the right to condemn property for economic development.

In fact, back in 2000, Virginia Beach city government tried to condemn private property on the oceanfront to help a Hilton hotel build a parking garage, but Circuit Court Judge H. Thomas Padrick, Jr., ruled that Virginia Beach could not use eminent domain for that purpose, finding that the legislature did not intend to allow a city to condemn property solely for its economic benefit and development.

Indeed, after the Supreme Court handed down its notorious decision in the Kelo case, a spokeswoman for the Virginia attorney general said the following:

As per the constitution of Virginia, public use in eminent

domain is defined by the general assembly. There is no

proviso in our constitution to use eminent domain for

economic development.

As a result of the Kelo decision, this bill won't have an impact on Virginia.

Finally, regarding Representative Raskin's comments about how the bill relates to the Supreme Court's NFIB v. Sebelius case, the ObamaCare case, the bill, as currently drafted, would certainly not run afoul of anything in it for several reasons.

The court made clear in the case that Congress may attach appropriate conditions to Federal taxing and spending programs to preserve its control over the use of Federal funds. That is what the bill does: deny the use of Federal economic development funds to jurisdictions that have demonstrated their willingness to abuse eminent domain and thereby demonstrated their willingness to use Federal funds to further future abuses of eminent domain if allowed to do so.

The court went on to cite the South Dakota v. Dole case, in which a Federal law threatened to withhold 5 percent of a State's Federal Highway Fund if the State did not raise its drinking age to 21. The court found that the condition was directly related to one of the main purposes for which highway funds are expended: safe interstate travel.

In the same way, the bill's restrictions are directly related to one of the main purposes for which Congress should intend Federal economic development funds to be expended: economic development that does not infringe on the property rights of individual property owners.

The court pointed out that, in the South Dakota v. Dole case, the Federal funds at stake constituted less than one-half of 1 percent of South Dakota's budget at the time; whereas, the potential loss of funds at issue in NFIB v.

Sebelius were such that Medicaid spending accounts were over 20 percent of the average State's total budget.

No one is claiming that Federal economic development funds, however defined, would constitute anything near 20 percent of a State's total budget.

In NFIB v. Sebelius, the court also cited the Pennhurst v. Halderman case and characterized its holdings as, though Congress' power to legislate under the Spending Clause is broad, it does not include surprising participating States with post-acceptance or retroactive conditions.

That, of course, is not the case with the bill, which applies its prohibition upon the receipt of Federal economic development funds only after a State had been found by a court, in a final judgment on the merits, to have violated the act.

Finally, not only is it implausible that the bill would ever run afoul of Supreme Court precedent due to the relatively small size of Federal economic development funds in the context of a State or a locality's entire annual budget; the bill contains a further safety valve in that it gives the attorney general the discretion to promulgate precisely which Federal funding streams are Federal economic development funds under the bill. So, if a constitutional issue ever arose, the attorney general could simply scale back the size of its promulgated list accordingly.

It seems to me it can't be claimed this bill is unconstitutional under any reasonable reading of any existing Supreme Court precedent.

Regarding federalism values generally, the key point is that there actually is a very close nexus between Federal development funding and eminent domain, even if the funding is not used on eminent domain projects.

Money is fungible, of course. If the bill were amended to disallow only the use of Federal economic development funds on eminent domain projects, it would be very easy for an offending jurisdiction to game the system by artificially segmenting a project into parts that use eminent domain and parts that don't. That segmentation would happen both vertically, by dividing a project into stages, and horizontally, by dividing a single project into very small geographic segments.

The entirely appropriate federalism message the base bill sends to States and localities is that, if you are going to do economic development but abuse eminent domain, that is fine, but you will be on your own for a while and go without Federal taxpayer complicity in your abuse of eminent domain.

Mr. Speaker, this is good legislation. The concerns addressed by the minority are addressed clearly in this legislation. There is strong bipartisan support for this bill. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to pass this and, once again, send it to the United States Senate, where we can only hope that they will someday see the wisdom of protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5954) to amend title 18, United States Code, to clarify the meaning of the terms ``act of war'' and ``blocked asset'', and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 5954, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, Congress enacted the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1992 in order to help combat international terrorism and to provide some level of financial

justice to American victims of terrorism. The 1992 act added a civil remedy to the ATA's existing criminal regime, removing jurisdictional hurdles that often confounded terrorism victims' ability to get their day in court. The act has been largely successful.

However, from time to time, the 1992 act has also needed modifications to ensure that it is fully serving its purposes. For instance, just last Congress, in the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, I helped lead the charge in the House to amend the civil liability provision to make sure that those who aid and abet or conspire with foreign terrorist organizations are liable under the ATA.

In addition, in 2012, the Judiciary Committee worked to lengthen the statute of limitations on civil ATA claims to provide victims with the time they need to file these often complex lawsuits.

The bill we are considering today, the Anti-terrorism Clarification Act, builds on these previous technical amendments to the ATA. It makes three needed improvements in order to better ensure that victims of international terrorism can obtain justice in U.S. courts against terrorists and their supporters.

First, the bill clarifies the ATA's act of war exception. Defendants accused of aiding and abetting acts of international terrorism have been attempting to use this exception as a means of avoiding civil liability, even in cases in which the plaintiffs' injuries were caused by the actions of designated terrorist groups.

For example, in Kaplan v. Central Bank of Iran, the defendant financial institution successfully argued that rocket attacks against civilians carried out by Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization, were acts of war and, thus, outside the scope of the ATA's civil liability provisions.

The act of war exception should not be a liability shield for those who aid or abet attacks carried out by designated terrorist organizations.

This legislation amends the definition of ``act of war'' in the ATA to clarify that the exception does not apply to U.S. Government- designated foreign terrorist organizations or specially designated global terrorists.

Second, at the urging of Representative Posey, the author of the CAPTIVE Act, we included language in the bill to strengthen the ATA's civil enforcement regime by permitting victims of narcoterrorism to satisfy their court-awarded judgments with the assets of foreign narcotics drug kingpins. Assets blocked by the Federal Government under the Kingpin Designation Act are not currently available to victims, leaving victims of the FARC and other narcoterrorists without a meaningful method of getting compensation for their injuries.

Finally, this legislation addresses recent Federal court decisions that have called into question the continued ability of victims to bring terrorists and their supporters to justice under the ATA's civil liability regime.

The ATA was specifically designed to provide extraterritorial jurisdiction over terrorists who attack U.S. nationals overseas. However, these recent cases have severely limited the extraterritorial scope of the ATA.

The Anti-terrorism Clarification Act amends the jurisdiction and venue section of the ATA to make clear that defendants who take advantage of certain benefits provided by the U.S. Government shall be deemed to have consented to personal jurisdiction in U.S. courts in ATA civil actions. No defendant should be able to accept U.S. foreign assistance while simultaneously dodging responsibility in U.S. courts for supporting or carrying out terrorist attacks that harm Americans.

I want to thank Ranking Member Nadler, along with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Ranking Member Nelson for joining me in introducing this bicameral and bipartisan bill.

I urge my colleagues to support us in passing this legislation to clarify ambiguities in the ATA that terrorist sponsors have exploited to evade liability so that we can help ensure that Americans are able to hold terrorists and their supporters accountable.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey), who has been a real champion in protecting the rights of the victims of terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill. I urge my colleagues to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4100) to amend title 36, United States Code, to revise the Federal charter for the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4100, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, the mission of the Federal Bar Association is to ``strengthen the Federal legal system and administration of justice by serving the interests and the needs of the Federal practitioner, both public and private, the Federal judiciary, and the public they serve.''

The Federal Bar Association's membership includes more than 18,000 Federal lawyers, including 1,500 Federal judges, who, as the Association states, ``work together to promote the sound administration of justice and integrity, quality, and independence of the judiciary.''

The FBA received a Federal charter in 1954. Steve Chabot has introduced H.R. 4100, the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association Charter Amendments Act. The Foundation wrote to the Judiciary Committee stating that:

We wholeheartedly endorse H.R. 4100, which would provide

for technical changes to the Federal charter of the

Foundation of the Federal Bar Association. . . . The

technical amendments embodied in H.R. 4100 will provide

reasonable and necessary flexibility to the Foundation to

assist in the governance and management of the Foundation's

affairs. Under the legislation, the mission of the Foundation

of the Federal Bar Association will remain unchanged in the

promotion and support of legal research and education

concerning the Federal administration of justice, the

advancement of the science of jurisprudence, and the

fostering of improvements in the practice of Federal law. . .

. Since 1954, and especially over the past two decades, the

Foundation has devoted significant effort toward the

enlargement of its educational and charitable programs,

including the creation of a fellows program, support of

academic and legal scholarship, creation of donor advised

funds, establishment of assistance funds for the victims of

terrorism and natural disasters, creation of scholarship

programs for law students and the children of Federal

attorneys, and grant assistance for Federal Bar Association

chapters conducting pro bono and other community service

projects. . . . These wide-ranging efforts have been

successful, but also have exposed the limitations of the

Foundation's 1954 charter, particularly with respect to

eligibility for membership and governance of the Foundation.

. . . The technical corrections . . . would address these

concerns and provide greater flexibility to the Foundation in

a fashion similar to the authority and privileges enjoyed by

other . . . organizations federally chartered by Congress. .

. .

The bill, among other things, allows the Foundation to have its principal office outside of the District of Columbia, gives its board of directors more leeway in meeting its responsibilities, and adds a nondiscrimination clause.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4100, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), chairman of the Small Business Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 2245) to include New Zealand in the list of foreign states whose nationals are eligible for admission into the United States as E- 1 and E-2 nonimmigrants if United States nationals are treated similarly by the Government of New Zealand.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 2245, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, E-1 visas are nonimmigrant visas available for treaty traders, and E-2 visas are available for treaty investors.

Pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, these visas are available to aliens who are ``entitled to enter the United States under and in pursuance of the provisions of a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States and the foreign state of which he is a national, and their spouse and children . . . solely to either carry on substantial trade, including trade in services or trade in technology, principally between the United States and the foreign state of which he is a national, or to develop and direct the operations of an enterprise in which he has invested . . . a substantial amount of capital. . . . ''

Alien employees of treaty traders and treaty investors may receive visas if they are coming to the United States ``to engage in duties of an executive or supervisory character, or, if employed in a lesser capacity, if they have special qualifications that make the services to be rendered essential to the efficient operation of the enterprise.''

There are no numerical caps on E-1 or E-2 visas. Aliens may be admitted initially for a period of 2 years and can apply for extensions in 2-year increments.

The United States has entered into treaties of commerce since at least 1815, when we entered into a Convention to Regulate Commerce with the United Kingdom.

Currently, the nationals of 83 countries are eligible for E-1 or E-2 status. In fiscal year 2017, in total, about 50,000 E-1 and E-2 visas were issued.

In the past, countries became eligible for the E-1 and E-2 programs through treaties signed with the United States. However, in 2003, the Judiciary Committee reached an understanding with the U.S. Trade Representative that no immigration provisions were to be included in future trade agreements. Henceforth, legislation would be required to add countries.

The bill we are considering today, S. 2245, makes New Zealand nationals eligible for E-1 and E-2 visas. I want to thank Mr. Issa for all of his work on this issue, and for introducing companion legislation in the House. I am also appreciative of the Embassy of New Zealand for seeking E visa status in the right way.

I urge my colleagues to support S. 2245, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland and Ranking Member Nadler and others for their work on this legislation, as well as Congressman Issa and Senator Hirono. This is very good legislation and it's overdue. I urge my colleagues to support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 990) supporting the officers and personnel who carry out the important mission of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H. Res. 990, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support H. Res. 990 introduced by Clay Higgins to express our support for the men and women of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Recently, Democrats nationwide, from the mayor of New York City to Senators Gillibrand and Warren, have recklessly called for the abolishment of ICE, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with enforcing Federal immigration laws within our Nation's interior.

They have used rhetoric that is both bewildering and deeply troubling. New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon has gone so far as to call ICE a ``terrorist organization.'' The Democratic candidate for the 14th Congressional District of New York just yesterday stated: ``We have to occupy all of it. We need to occupy every airport. We need to occupy every border. We need to occupy every ICE office. . . . ''

What is remarkable is that these calls would undo what has been our singular bipartisan achievement on immigration over the last two decades--the creation of ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The late Barbara Jordan was one of the most distinguished persons ever to serve in this body. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and NAACP's highest honor, the Spingarn Medal for highest and noblest achievement by a living African American. She was appointed by President Clinton to be chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. Her commission found that:

Immigration law enforcement requires staffing, training,

resources, and a work culture that differs from what is

required for effective adjudication of immigration benefits.

Separating enforcement and benefits functions will lead to

more effective enforcement.

The commission is particularly concerned that although the

removal system produced more than 100,000 final removal

orders each year, the system did not have the corresponding

capacity to remove the individuals subject to those orders.

It noted that:

The system is bogged down with increasing numbers of aliens

who are put into removal proceedings, released due to a lack

of detention space, and never appear at their hearings, or

are never deported after a final order of removal is issued.

We must enable the immigration system to deliver better on

its commitment to actually remove those who are issued final

orders.

Those are the words of Barbara Jordan's Commission.

Following upon the Barbara Jordan Commission's recommendation, Sheila Jackson Lee introduced the Immigration Restructuring and Accountability Act establishing an Office of Immigration Enforcement to:

Implement the removal of deportable and inadmissible aliens

from the United States.

Ms. Jackson Lee has stated:

I have been a champion for years when it comes to

restructuring the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I

have been arguing for years that we need to separate out

services and enforcement functions of the INS.

In 2001, then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner introduced the Barbara Jordan Immigration Reform and Accountability Act which proposed to abolish the INS and established separate offices for immigration enforcement and the provision of immigration benefits. The bill was a bipartisan juggernaut. It passed the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 32-2 and this body by a vote of 405-9.

Alcee Hastings stated during floor consideration that:

I want to commend the authors of this bill. They have

produced a bipartisan bill that is sure to improve

performance and accountability. I think Mr. Sensenbrenner and

Mr. Conyers have done an outstanding job.

The Barbara Jordan Immigration Reform and Accountability Act was, in effect, enacted into law as part of the Homeland Security Act. In creating DHS, it transferred over the INS's functions and placed responsibility over Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the same directorate. President Bush placed the final piece of the puzzle in 2003 when he submitted a DHS reorganization plan that created the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the primary mission of:

Enforcing the full range of immigration and customs laws

within the interior of the United States.

In that bygone era, House Democrats were committed to effective enforcement of our immigration laws. This was further evidenced by the fact that in 1996, a majority of Democrats voted for Lamar Smith's omnibus immigration enforcement legislation that was to be enacted as the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

That commitment has inexorably withered away. By 2005, only 36 House Democrats voted for Jim Sensenbrenner's Border Protection, Anti- Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act. Just a few weeks ago, not one Democrat voted for either of two bills that would have resuscitated immigration enforcement--the Securing America's Future Act or the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act.

House Democrats once worked collaboratively with Republicans to improve the effectiveness of Federal immigration enforcement. I hope that we will resume that soon. Now it appears that they are outraged when ICE has the audacity to actually enforce the laws that we have enacted.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote on both sides of the aisle for H. Res. 990. Let's honor the work of Barbara Jordan and our Republican and Democratic colleagues who joined together to create ICE, and the brave men and women of ICE to whom we owe so much.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins), who is the chief sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to point out to my Democratic colleagues that every single one of them had the opportunity and every single one of them voted against H.R. 6136, which addressed this issue and a solution for DACA recipients. Every one of them voted against it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the House majority whip.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Gianforte).

Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. Speaker, I have only one speaker remaining to close the debate for our side. I believe we have the right to close.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority leader.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 336.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, today I rise to urge support for my amendment, which would reaffirm and preserve the rights of the States to write their own water quality plans.

My amendment simply prohibits the EPA from using its Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load and the so-called watershed implementation plans to hijack States' water quality strategies.

Over the last several years, the EPA has implemented a Total Maximum Daily Load blueprint for the six States in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which strictly limits the amount of nutrients that can enter the Chesapeake Bay. Through its implementation, the EPA has basically given every State in the watershed an ultimatum: either the State does exactly what the EPA says or it faces the threat of an EPA takeover of its water quality programs.

Congress intended that the implementation of the Clean Water Act be a collaborative approach, through which the States and the Federal Government work together. This process was not meant to be subject to the whims of politics and bureaucrats in Washington. Therefore, my amendment instructs the EPA to respect the important role States play in implementing the Clean Water Act.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this amendment would not stop the EPA from working with the States to restore the Chesapeake Bay, nor would it undermine the cleanup efforts already underway. My language only removes the ability of the EPA to take over a State's plan or to take retaliatory actions against the State if it does not meet EPA- mandated goals. Again, it ensures States' rights remain intact and not usurped by the EPA.

It is important to point out that the correlation between the EPA's outrageous waters of the United States rule and the Bay TMDL, at the heart of both issues is the EPA's desire to control conservation and water quality improvement efforts throughout the country and to punish all those who dare to oppose them.

The bay is a national treasure, and I want to see it restored, but we know that in order to achieve this goal, the

States and the EPA must work together. The EPA cannot be allowed to railroad the States and micromanage the process.

This amendment has passed the House with bipartisan support several times, and I urge my colleagues to once again vote to ask the EPA to respect the important role States play in implementing the Clean Water Act and prevent another Federal power grab by the administration.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, let me just say, this amendment does not in any way take any resources away from any of the six States in the Chesapeake Bay region to improve water quality. What it does take away is the ability of the EPA to dictate to those States one way, their way, to do it.

The Clean Water Act was written with it in mind that the Federal Government would set the standards and the States would figure out how to meet those standards. And that flexibility has been taken away starting in the Obama administration, and it is time for this Congress to stop them from doing that so that we can have the kind of collaborative effort just described by the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Calvert, and get back to doing things the right way.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 717) to promote pro bono legal services as a critical way in which to empower survivors of domestic violence, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on S. 717, currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to be voting on S. 717, the Pro bono Work to Empower and Represent Act of 2018, otherwise known as the POWER Act.

The POWER Act directs that each year the chief judge in each judicial district across the country hold at least one event in partnership with domestic violence service providers or volunteer lawyer projects to promote pro bono legal services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Lawyers play a critical role in combating domestic violence. Not only do government prosecutors enforce criminal laws, but in the civil realm, lawyers may provide legal representation in matters such as civil protection order applications which ultimately help keep victims safe from their abusers.

While victims are able to apply for these orders pro se, as this bill makes clear, legal representation increases the possibility of successfully obtaining a protective order against an attacker, which prevents further mental and physical injury to a victim and his or her family. One study has found that 83 percent of victims represented by an attorney were able to obtain a protective order, whereas only 32 percent of victims without an attorney were able to do so.

Federal courts already promote many pro bono programs in their judicial districts and have access to local attorneys who may be able to volunteer to work with domestic violence victims. This bill not only requires a public event in each Federal judicial district for every year during a 4-year period, it also requires an additional public event to be held every 2 years during the 4-year period in districts that contain Tribes or Tribal organizations that specifically focus on encouraging pro bono legal services for Indian or Alaska Native victims of domestic violence.

I would like to thank Senator Sullivan from Alaska for introducing this bill and shepherding it through the Senate. And I would like to thank Mr. Kennedy from the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts for introducing this bill in the House. This is an extremely important issue, and I hope it will make a real difference in increasing legal services to victims.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the POWER Act, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. McMorris Rodgers), who is the Republican Conference chair.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), the dean of the House who has been a real champion in combating domestic violence.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is a very good bill. I thank the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Sullivan, for working with me and my staff. On the minority side as well, I thank Congressman Kennedy, Mr. Raskin, and the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee.

This is truly a bipartisan effort to help educate people who are the victims of domestic violence about better ways that they can protect themselves and avail themselves of good representation in court.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to file a supplemental report on the resolution, H. Res. 928.

Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this effort to distract us from the major problems that we are attempting to address in our country. This motion to recommit deals only with a red herring. It fixes nothing, but rather ensures that catch and release will remain in effect.

The American people want a holistic approach to reforming immigration laws that focuses on enforcement first before legalization. The motion to recommit simply does not do that.

H.R. 6136 helps solve the problem with a surge of people coming illegally into the United States by funding the border wall construction and other infrastructure at the border, and it closes the loopholes that require catch and release of aliens who have entered illegally. The bill begins the process of reforming the way U.S. green cards are

allocated. And it provides a path to legalization for the DACA-eligible population.

H.R. 6136 addresses the areas that need to be addressed in immigration: enforcement, including a true fix to the issue of separation of children from their parents; it includes border security, legal immigration, and legalization for DACA-eligible individuals.

The motion to recommit does none of that. I urge my colleagues to oppose that motion.

I also want to call to everyone's attention the Statement of Administration Policy issued by the Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget just this morning. It says in part: ``The administration strongly supports House passage of H.R. 6136, the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018. . . .''

``H.R. 6136 would end the visa lottery program and would begin moving toward a merit-based system for admission. H.R. 6136 would also reduce extended-family chain migration by removing family preference categories for siblings and adult married children. . . .''

``Overall, the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018 would support the administration's goals of securing the border, closing legal loopholes, moving to a system of merit-based immigration, and providing a responsible solution to DACA.

``If H.R. 6136 were presented to the President, his advisers would recommend that he sign it into law.''

But, you don't have to listen to his advisers. You can listen to the President himself, because he tweeted this morning: ``House Republicans should pass the strong but fair immigration bill, known as Goodlatte II, in their afternoon vote today, even though the Dems won't let it pass in the Senate. Passage will show that we want strong borders and security while the Dems want open borders equals crime. Win.''

That is what we need to do today. We need to win by defeating this motion to recommit and passing this important legislation that brings America forward in addressing our immigration issues, is an appropriate fix for the DACA population, secures our borders, and moves towards a merit-based immigration system that this country needs. That is what we are about today.

Mr. Speaker, reject the motion to recommit, pass this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me this time and for his hard work on this issue as well.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very good bill. It is not something that was cooked up overnight. This bill was introduced 6 months ago. It is based upon legislation that has passed out of the Judiciary Committee in previous Congresses, and some of it in this Congress. It is a good effort to make sure that we are addressing all three aspects of immigration law that need to be addressed.

It has a very good proposal with regard to the DACA recipients. They get a legal status permanently for the rest of their lives, renewable every 3 years, as long as they don't commit a crime. And that is a statutory protection.

That is not something that is subject to court challenges. That is not something that is subject to the whims of any President, past, present, or future. It is something that allows them, then, to avail themselves of existing pathways to citizenship, and it is something that will allow them to work in the United States, live in the United States, own a business in the United States, and travel in and out of the United States.

I think it is a good first step in addressing this situation.

Secondly, the President has made it very clear, and people watching the news coverage know, the difficulties that the administration--any administration, this administration, the Obama administration, the Bush administration before it--has with laws that need to be corrected to make sure that loopholes are not followed at our border.

We have, now, a waiting list of 600,000 people applying for asylum. Historically, asylum, which is a very good part of our immigration law, has been granted to 5,000--some years, maybe as many as 10,000--people.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the great Soviet dissident, who wrote ``The Gulag Archipelago,'' got political asylum in the United States. But when everyone who is apprehended coming across the border illegally trying to avoid detection, when they are apprehended then says, ``Oh, I am here for political asylum,'' and you create a backlog 600,000 people long and then they are released into the interior of the country and don't return for their hearings in many, many, many instances, that is a very flawed aspect of our immigration system. This bill addresses that, as it does the problem with unaccompanied minors.

Children 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 years of age, mostly young boys, coming across all of Mexico and then through the desert or across the Rio Grande River and then thinking that this is an acceptable thing for them to do to enter our country, they need to be returned safely home, and the laws need to be reformed to accomplish that.

We need to reform many other aspects of our border security laws, close these loopholes.

We need to have greater technology. We need to have, along some segments of our border, improved wall technology. We have fences and some walls already. The fences have big holes in them. People come with chain cutters and cut holes through them in a matter of seconds and go through them when it is foggy there in San Diego or other times when they have that opportunity.

We need to have a more secure border both with technology and with a wall in some places and with the necessary personnel to handle this, including not just Border Patrol, but the judges and other officers who are necessary to process people when they are apprehended. This is a very serious problem, and it is addressed in this legislation.

We also need to move toward a merit-based immigration system.

We have, as the gentleman from Texas has repeatedly noted, the most generous immigration policy in the world. We have tens of millions of people who come to visit this country every year: some to work, some to go to school, some to conduct business. For more than 75 different categories of reasons they come here.

We also have more than a dozen immigrant visa categories that allow people to come to the United States, and we give out, on average, about 1.1 million green cards a year to people who go through the process lawfully. That is the most generous system in the world. We need to recognize that as we do that, we have to move toward a system where we are meeting the needs of American citizens, as well, as we do it.

Areas where we have shortages so that we can keep businesses in the United States rather than having them move elsewhere in the world where they can find the workers they need is an important part of this. So eliminating things like the visa lottery, where we give 55,000 green cards out for no good reason at all other than the pure luck that people attain from that and instead use those to have a new system where we have the opportunity to move towards a merit-based system, which is not in this bill but should be the successor to this bill, is an important thing to do.

I think that all of those measures are contained in this legislation. I think it is very, very good legislation.

But this bill contains two important provisions that are not in the second bill, and I want to particularly address those.

First, we have in this bill the E-Verify program. This is a program, a very fine program, that exists today. More than 800,000 businesses use it. Many large businesses use it. I would bet that probably a majority of the people who process job applications today utilize it. But it is certainly not utilized by everybody.

As a consequence, it is not being totally effective, because the people who aren't using it either don't want to know whether somebody is lawfully present in the United States, or they think they are unlawfully present and don't want to have a system that uncovers that.

But this bill, applying prospectively only--you don't have to apply it to your current employees--works 99.7 percent of the time. It is very, very accurate. And most importantly, it has a safe harbor for both the worker and the employer. So that if you get a false positive, and if you are getting that three-tenths of a percent of the time--that is still a significant number of people when you use the E-Verify system--the new law actually gives them a way to work out the catch-22 situation that workers and employers find themselves in.

Because under the current law, we use the I-9 forms. Oftentimes, someone will look at it and say: I am not sure these are genuine documents. But if they refuse to hire the individual and it turns out that they are genuine documents, they can be sued for discrimination.

And on the other hand, if they hire the worker and it turns out they are unlawfully present, they can be prosecuted for hiring someone unlawfully present in the United States.

And so the safe harbor says, you can go ahead and hire that person until we work out whether it is a false positive or a false negative without that consequence, and only until we know that, will you then have to not employ that person. You will face no consequences in doing that. That is good for the worker and it is good for the employer as well.

When you do that--there is no doubt that there are sectors of our economy where we have a lot of people who are not lawfully present in the United States working. And by far, the number-one sector that is affected by that is our agricultural workforce. There are some estimates that as many as 80 or 90 percent of people working in agriculture, beyond the actual family members who own a farm, are not lawfully present in this country.

Some estimate that more than 1 million people who are working, are not lawfully present in this country. Wouldn't it be great if we could turn that workforce into legal workers where they have the opportunity to go back and forth across the border, to go home to where their family is without the fear of being apprehended and prosecuted?

That is what this bill does. It gives farmers a much more reliable workforce. It gives them a much better program where they can self- certify, where the worker can come in for up to 2 years at a time. And in the dairy industry where they have no program at all today, or in processing plants, raw-food processing plants, they have no program at all today, we have the ability to help those farmers.

This is an area of our economy that is very much affected by international competition. It is exceedingly important that we pass this legislation to

move immigration in the direction it needs to move, and this is an enlightened way to do it. It is not a bad bill. It is a good bill for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 954, I call up the bill (H.R. 4760) to amend the immigration laws and the homeland security laws, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 4760.

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

Mr. Speaker, I introduced H.R. 4760, along with Michael McCaul, Martha McSally, and Raul Labrador, to provide an equitable and permanent legal status for unlawful aliens who grew up in America after their parents brought them here as children. Just as importantly, we want to strengthen our borders, close gaping loopholes, curtail endemic fraud, and enhance interior immigration enforcement so that our Nation won't face the same dilemma in a few years.

President Trump did the right thing and tried to end President Obama's blatantly unconstitutional DACA program. As a Federal court ruled in enjoining DACA's sister program, DHS cannot ``enact a program whereby it not only ignores the dictates of Congress, but actively acts to thwart them. . . . The DHS Secretary is not just rewriting the laws; he is creating them from scratch.'' President Trump also did the right thing by immediately turning to us, asking Congress to fix the problem.

As he asked for, H.R. 4760 solves the DACA conundrum. It provides DACA beneficiaries with an indefinitely renewable legal nonimmigrant status allowing them to live and work in the United States without worry and travel abroad as they choose. It also allows them to receive green cards on the same terms as any other intending immigrant around the world.

As I indicated, the bill will help ensure that the distressing DACA dilemma does not recur. It ends catch and release at the border, battles asylum fraud, and ensures that unaccompanied minors caught at the border will be treated equally, regardless of their home country. It will ensure that the law no longer tempts minors and their parents to make the dangerous illicit journey to the United States and to line the pockets of cancerous cartels with hundreds of millions of dollars.

The bill will also take away the other magnet that draws millions of persons to come to the United States illegally: the jobs magnet. Through the inclusion of Lamar Smith's Legal Workforce Act, it makes E- Verify mandatory. After two decades of constant improvement, E-Verify has become an extremely effective, reliable, and easy way for employers to ensure that they have hired a legal workforce. Three-quarters of a million employers currently use E-Verify, which almost instantaneously confirms the work eligibility of new hires 99 percent of the time.

The bill will also allow DHS to deport members of MS-13 and other virulent criminal gangs and allow it to detain dangerous aliens who cannot be removed. It will combat the public safety menace of sanctuary cities in multiple ways, including by allowing the Justice Department to withhold from them law enforcement grants.

The bill makes significant reforms to our legal immigration system. It puts an end to extended family chain migration and terminates the diversity visa green card lottery, which awards green cards at random to people with no ties to the United States or any particular skills.

In addition, it replaces the dysfunctional H-2A agricultural guestworker program. The H-2A program is slow, bureaucratic, and frustrating, often forcing growers to leave crops to rot in the fields. They also must pay an artificially inflated wage rate, along with providing free housing and transportation. In doing the right thing, H- 2A users are almost always repaid by being placed at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace.

The bill provides growers with streamlined access to guestworkers when sufficient American labor cannot be found. It finally provides dairies and food processors with year-round labor needs with access to a guestworker program. It avoids the pitfalls of the H-2A program, and it will remain at its core a true guestworker program. As growers learned the hard way after the 1986 amnesty, illegal farmworkers will leave en mass and flock to the cities when provided with permanent residence.

The Agricultural Guestworker Act contained in this bill is supported by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the dairy industry, and over 200 distinct agricultural organizations from across the United States.

Following introduction of this legislation, I have sat down with my colleagues for months to learn of any concerns and to strive to improve the bill. The product of this intensive work is better legislation. While I am disappointed that the rule did not allow me to include all of the improvements made possible by the input of so many Members, I am gratified that I could include the refinements to the H-2C agricultural guestworker program.

To give just one example, the bill now clarifies that the Department of Homeland Security will issue documents to unlawful alien farmworkers who have been sponsored by growers to join the program, authorizing them to return to the United States without the need for visas after completing their initial touchbacks. This will create certainty for growers, allowing them to receive pre-approval of their H-2C petitions for current workers before they leave the country and precertification of the workers' admission back into the United States before they leave.

Congress has a unique opportunity to act before the country ends up with another large population who crossed the border illegally as children. Let's take this historic moment to come together and support vital legislation that provides commonsense, reasonable solutions.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join President Trump and support H.R. 4760, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Agriculture,

Washington, DC, June 20, 2018.

Hon. Bob Goodlatte,

Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Goodlatte: Thank you for the opportunity to

review the relevant provisions of the text of H.R. 4760, the

Securing America's Future Act of 2018. As you are aware, the

bill was primarily referred to the Committee on the

Judiciary, while the Agriculture Committee received an

additional referral.

I recognize and appreciate your desire to bring this

legislation before the House in an expeditious manner.

Accordingly, I agree to discharge H.R. 4760 from further

consideration by the Committee on Agriculture. I do so with

the understanding that by discharging the bill, the Committee

on Agriculture does not waive any future jurisdictional claim

on this or similar matters. Further, the Committee on

Agriculture reserves the right to seek the appointment of

conferees, if it should become necessary.

I ask that you insert a copy of our exchange of letters

into the Congressional Record during consideration of this

measure on the House floor.

Thank you for your courtesy in this matter and I look

forward to continued cooperation between our respective

committees.

Sincerely,

K. Michael Conaway,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), who is the author of an important provision in this bill related to electronic verification of employment, and he is the former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to some of the false charges that we are hearing here.

First of all, with regard to E-Verify, unfortunately, there is a misconception that it is our intention to implement the new H-2C program and mandate E-Verify for agriculture simultaneously. This could not be further from the truth.

The AG Act, under that act, E-Verify would not be mandated for agriculture until the H-2C is properly up and running and no sooner than 24 months after enactment of the legislation. In addition, E- Verify will only apply to future hires.

Secondly, I want to respond to those who complain about what we are doing for the DACA recipients in this legislation. I want to make it very, very clear we are going to do something that is legal, something that is constitutional for them instead of something that was illegal and unconstitutional, and it is going to be superior in this bill to what was done for them there, because they

will be allowed to remain in the United States permanently, renewing every 3 years. They are only excluded if they do not meet certain criteria.

The fact of the matter is we will have an opportunity for them to avail themselves of existing pathways to citizenship. If they are married to a United States citizen, as it would be logical that a great many of these DACA recipients are because of the fact that they have grown up here, they will be able to benefit from that. They could not do that under the Obama executive order. So this is much better than how the Democrats have treated the DACA recipients.

Lastly, whether the labor workforce status quo is sustainable for American agriculture, under current law in California and other States, farmers are facing chronic employee shortages. Last fall, the California Farm Bureau announced the results of an informal survey of its members. The survey showed that 69 percent of those surveyed were experiencing labor shortfalls. Despite all the efforts California farmers and ranchers have made to find and hire people to work on their operations, they still can't find enough willing and qualified employees.

California Farm Bureau President Paul Wenger said: ``Farmers have offered higher wages, benefits, and more year-round jobs. They have tried to mechanize operations where possible and have even changed crops or left ground idle, but employee shortages persist.''

The labor force status quo is simply unsustainable for American agriculture. Clearly, this is not a situation that is going to be solved by granting permanent resident status to farmworkers. In fact, that is the opposite of what is needed.

Granting permanent resident status to illegal farmworkers will not do anything to ensure that farmers and ranchers have access to the labor they need for years to come. It is shortsighted and does nothing to relieve employers or legal farmworkers of the unnecessary burdens and competitive disadvantage they face under the outdated H-2A program.

Americans' food can be grown in other countries where land and labor are far cheaper. To ensure that our meat and produce continue to be grown in America and that our Nation's agricultural industry thrives in the global marketplace, the U.S. needs a flexible, workable, and fair guest worker program like the H-2C program established in the AG Act and contained in the legislation that we are debating right now.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on each side.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Labrador), the chairman of the Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, this bill has been mischaracterized and was just again.

This bill makes provisions for when the immigration service prosecutes somebody at the border. It doesn't tell them when to do that. So it is entirely incorrect to make that assertion.

I see the conflicting news reports about what the intention of the administration is today on that issue, but that does not change the fact that that has nothing to do with the good measures in this bill that correct the problems that we are speaking about.

The overwhelming majority of the American people want children to be with their parents, and I have just seen a poll a few minutes ago that shows that the overwhelming majority of them want those children detained with their parents, not to have the parents and the children released into the interior of the country where they never return for their hearing.

That kind of open border policy that is supported by the advocates on the other side of the aisle is not good for America, and it is not good for sound immigration policy.

We are a nation of immigrants. There is not a person in this room who can't go back a few generations or several generations and find someone in their family who immigrated to the United States. But we are also a nation of laws, and respect for the rule of law and following our legal immigration system is the foundation of our society.

So, to me, when you say that it is not good enough to do better for the DACA recipients than Barack Obama did, where do you get that idea from?

When you say that we are not a generous country with regard to immigration and that this is an anti-immigration bill when it sustains far more legal immigration than any other country on Earth, they are completely wrong.

But at the same time that we do that and we promote that in this bill, good legal immigration policy and something fair for the DACA recipients, we must also have secure borders in our country, and we must give any administration, not just this one, the tools it needs to close the loopholes to secure the border and to end crazy programs like the visa lottery program that gives 55,000 green cards to people just based on pure luck. There are better things to do with those green cards to move to a merit-based immigration system.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, reject the negative ideas of the opposition, and move forward with a policy that does both something important for the DACA recipients but also secures America's national security interests and the interests of our citizens.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this effort to distract us from the major problems that we are attempting to address in our country. This motion to recommit only--only--deals with amnesty for a far larger population of people than the American people expect to have addressed. The people who are the DACA recipients are people who arrived here as young children before June 15, 2007.

This bill does nothing to solve the problem with the surge of people at the border of our country. It does nothing to create a new border security wall and fencing system, technology and personnel who are needed, and judges in courtrooms to process the huge number--the 600,000 backlog--of amnesty cases that we have.

This does nothing to close the loopholes that are allowing people to enjoy what is called catch and release. When they come into the country, some of them even turn themselves in knowing that, ultimately, they are going to be released into the interior of the United States. We need to give the administration the tools they need to stop this problem. It is not a new problem.

The Obama administration wanted a number of the changes that are in this bill with regard to clarifying things like the terrible Flores decision, which is at the heart of the problem we have with young children being separated from their parents.

We fix those things in this legislation, and yet this would substitute all of that for something that is just targeted at what the other party wants to do. And they call upon us to work in a bipartisan fashion.

This bill addresses all of the areas that need to be addressed, and they give lip service to the other areas, but they do not address them. This is proof of that by the fact that it only deals with amnesty.

We need to have a movement to a merit-based immigration system. We need to end the terrible visa lottery system, which is a national security problem and which is something that does not benefit the American economy.

We need to move from chain migration to a merit-based system, and we need to make sure that we treat the DACA recipients better than they are treated under the unconstitutional, illegal Obama process, but not at the cost of not doing the other three pillars that we are seeking to address.

We need to address border security and interior enforcement; we need to end the visa lottery and move to a merit-based system; and we need to end chain migration.

It also doesn't have anything about E-Verify or helping 1 million agricultural guest workers who want to work in this country legally and the farmers who want to have a system that allows them to do that legally.

This is the bill that we need to pass, not this motion to recommit. I urge my colleague to oppose the motion to recommit and support the underlying legislation.

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

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 953, I call up the bill (H.R. 6136) to amend the immigration laws and provide for border security, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 6136.

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

Madam Speaker, Michael McCaul, Carlos Curbelo, Jeff Denham, and I introduced H.R. 6136 to be a consensus bill designed to bring Members together. It is the product of fruitful negotiations and will offer us a path forward toward true immigration reform.

As with the Securing America's Future Act, this bill provides a legislative resolution of DACA, which was imposed through an unconstitutional abuse of executive power by President Obama. But in addition to a renewable legal status, this bill expands relief to those who were eligible for DACA but never applied. Many did not apply because they thought that DACA was simply unconstitutional.

H.R. 6136 also creates a merit-based green card program that the recipients of the bill's contingent nonimmigrant status can apply for. This program is the first-ever point system based on education, vocational training, apprenticeship, employment experience, English proficiency, and military service under U.S. immigration law.

Aliens with similar life experiences to DACA recipients can also apply: those who were brought to the United States as minors by parents on temporary work visas and grew up in the United States. All other DACA legislation that I am aware of discriminates against such persons simply because they and their parents haven't violated our laws.

To be clear, there is no special path to citizenship for DACA recipients or DACA-eligible individuals.

Importantly, this bill will help ensure that the DACA dilemma does not recur after a few short years. As with H.R. 4760, it will end ``catch and release,'' battle asylum fraud, and require that unaccompanied minors caught at the border be treated equally, regardless of their home country. As with H.R. 4760, it will ensure that the law no longer tempts minors and their parents to make the dangerous, illegal journey to the United States or to line the pockets of cartels.

We must turn off the irresistible ``jobs magnet,'' if we are ever to effectively deal with illegal immigration. While expansion of the hugely successful E-Verify program is not contained in H.R. 6136, I am pleased that the leadership has committed to bringing such legislation to the floor this summer.

As with H.R. 4760, the bill will make it easier to deport gang members who are aggravated felons, or who have multiple DUIs.

H.R. 6136 modernizes our legal immigration system. It will reduce extended family chain migration and terminate the diversity visa program, which awards green cards by random lottery to people with no ties to the United States. It reduces overall immigration numbers over the long term, and shifts to a first-in-line visa system by eliminating the per-country cap on employment-based green cards. The bill begins a shift to a merit-based system by establishing the new merit-based green card program that I described.

As with H.R. 4760, the bill corrects the disastrous Flores settlement to ensure that minors apprehended at the border with their parents are not separated from their parents when the parents are placed in DHS custody. Importantly, H.R. 6136 addresses family separation in light of the zero-tolerance prosecution initiative by mandating that DHS, not DOJ, maintain the custody of aliens charged with illegal entry along with their children. This would only apply to those who enter the country with children and would not permit those charged with felonies, or any other criminal activity, to be detained along with children. The bill allocates funding for family detention space to facilitate this requirement.

Congress has a unique opportunity to act now, before the country ends up with another large population who crossed the border illegally as children. Let's take this historic moment to come together and support vital legislation that provides commonsense, reasonable solutions.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join President Trump and support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Agriculture,

Washington, DC, June 20, 2018.

Hon. Bob Goodlatte,

Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Goodlatte: Thank you for the opportunity to

review the relevant provisions of the text of H.R. 6136, the

Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018. As you

are aware, the bill was primarily referred to the Committee

on the Judiciary, while the Agriculture Committee received an

additional referral.

I recognize and appreciate your desire to bring this

legislation before the House in an expeditious manner.

Accordingly, I agree to discharge H.R. 6136 from further

consideration by the Committee on Agriculture. I do so with

the understanding that by discharging the bill, the Committee

on Agriculture does not waive any future jurisdictional claim

on this or similar matters. Further, the Committee on

Agriculture reserves the right to seek the appointment of

conferees, if it should become necessary.

I ask that you insert a copy of our exchange of letters

into the Congressional Record during consideration of this

measure on the House floor.

Thank you for your courtesy in this matter and I look

forward to continued cooperation between our respective

committees.

Sincerely,

K. Michael Conaway,

Chairman.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. Handel), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I just want to say there are complaints that this is not a bipartisan bill, and yet we addressed the issues that Democrats expressed concern about.

We have a very good way to address the DACA population in this legislation, and yet when we look to the other side for help with securing our border, with taking the current fencing--and if you have ever been along that border, particularly in San Diego where they have a very high fence, but all it is is a fence. You can take a saw, an electric saw and cut through that in a matter of seconds and be on the other side. But where is the help for addressing those kind of security measures? I don't see it.

We have addressed in this legislation the family separation issue in a very good way. We agree: families should be unified. If it is simply a matter of a misdemeanor charge that the parents are facing, we want the children to be detained with them. But where is the help that we get from the other side in terms of addressing problems like catch-and- release; problems like asylum fraud; problems like unaccompanied minor status, where we have a disparity between how we handle unaccompanied minors coming across the border from Canada or Mexico who are Canadian or Mexican, but if they have come from somewhere else in the world through Canada or Mexico, we can't treat them the same way. All of those things are addressed in this bill.

We are addressing the concerns of the American people on how to address immigration reform through the four pillars: making sure we do something appropriate for the DACA population, including opportunities, not for a special pathway to citizenship, but to ultimately attain citizenship if they earn it; and we are also addressing the other three categories, border security and closing the loopholes in our laws, ending the visa lottery and moving to a merit-based immigration system, and moving towards a family-based immigration system that is the nuclear family, your spouse and your children, not extended family members.

I don't see anything addressing most of that coming from any legislation from the Democrats, and I certainly would welcome seeing their proposals on what they would do for a wall and fencing and other security measures along our border. I would be very interested in seeing what they do to help us move from an overwhelmingly family-based immigration system to one that is a merit-based system.

Countries like Canada and the United Kingdom and Australia, they give their immigrants visas in 50, 60, 70 percent of their cases based upon education, job skills, job offers, training. We are at 12 percent. That is unacceptable.

This bill moves us in the right direction. I urge my colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on each side.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

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

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

Parliamentary Inquiry

If the gentlemen will yield, I don't control the floor schedule so I can't answer the question as to the timing of when the gentleman's opportunity to offer a motion to recommit, which the rules provide for, will be afforded to him. I don't know the answer to that.

If the gentleman will yield, again, I don't control the floor, and I don't have any direct advice on when that will take place.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of closing on our side, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Curbelo).

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

Mr. Chairman, Kristen Holman adored her little brother, Garrett. She cherished his warm heart and his bigger than life personality. She loved her brother unconditionally, as did her mother and father, Bobbie and Don.

Unfortunately, on February 9, 2017, at the age of 20, Garrett lost his life to a synthetic opioid that was mailed straight to him from China. My district lost a promising young man, Don and Bobby lost their son, and Kristen lost her little brother and only sibling.

Sadly, tens of thousands of families across the Nation have lost their loved ones to the opioid crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, drug overdoses killed over 64,000 Americans in 2016, a staggering increase of over 21 percent from 2015.

Of those souls lost, over 20,000 deaths were caused by synthetic opioids, the same type of drug that took Garrett's life.

Regrettably, the suffering shows no signs of slowing, as deaths from synthetic opioids have more than doubled from last year.

Synthetic drugs can be more potent and deadly than the real thing. However, when law enforcement encounters a certain synthetic drug compound and takes steps under current Federal law to bring the drug under lawful control, the manufacturers of these synthetics slightly alter the chemical structure of the drug to once again evade law enforcement. As a result, law enforcement is constantly one step behind the manufacturers.

Left undeterred, manufacturers and distributors continue to flood the U.S. with deadly synthetic drugs. Seizures of illicit fentanyl by Customs and Border Protection increased 64,000 percent between 2013 and 2017. We must stop this flood of poison that is fueling an epidemic that has taken far too many lives.

The Stop the Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues Act, or SITSA, ensures that manufacturers and distributors of deadly synthetic drugs cannot continue to evade law enforcement. SITSA modernizes the Controlled Substances Act by clarifying the regulation of synthetic analogues.

First, SITSA modernizes the Controlled Substances Act to establish schedule A, a new category for controlled substance analogues.

Second, the act establishes a streamlined mechanism by which synthetic analogues can be temporarily and/or permanently added to schedule A, but only after a thorough analysis by the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Altogether, SITSA will combat the flow of synthetic drugs that have taken both Garrett's life and lives of 20,000 Americans over the last year.

This bill was carefully crafted over the past 2 years with extensive coordination between law enforcement agencies from the Department of Justice and scientists and researchers at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Together, this bill strikes a balance between giving law enforcement the ability to stop the flow of deadly synthetic drugs while allowing the research community to study these dangerous drugs, identify the root causes of addiction, and advance the latest cures for serious illnesses.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot stand idle as criminal manufacturers and distributors of synthetic drugs continue to flood our country and destroy the lives of countless Americans. Not one more family should feel the pain that the Holmans feel after a synthetic drug shipped from China took Garrett's life.

SITSA is a bipartisan bill, and I commend Mr. Katko and Miss Rice, both of New York, for their efforts in moving this legislation forward. I urge my colleagues to support SITSA and bring an end to the era where manufacturers and distributors can freely profit from selling these dangerous drugs and destroy so many lives.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4655) to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the importation or transportation of child sex dolls, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous materials on H.R. 4655 currently under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, today we consider the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots Act of 2017. It criminalizes the importation and transportation of child sex dolls.

I have mixed feelings today about bringing this bill to the floor. I am happy that this legislation is moving through, and we are taking steps to address a problem that very much needs to be addressed. I am distraught, however, that this problem even exists. I am saddened that there are people in this world who would create realistic child sex dolls and distraught that there are people in this world who would buy them.

These dolls are being manufactured in China and Japan and being shipped all over the world. Consumers can order bespoke dolls providing pictures of specific children they would like the doll to resemble. They can indicate a preferred facial expression, such as sadness or fear. These dolls can be programmed to simulate rape. The very thought makes me nauseous.

While a small group of people advocate for the use of these dolls to curb pedophilia, there is absolutely no scientific literature supporting this view. To the contrary, these dolls create a real risk of reinforcing pedophilic behavior, and they desensitize the user, causing him to engage in sicker and sicker behavior. They put our children in danger, and we must not tolerate them.

In April of this year, Amazon announced it was removing anatomically correct child sex dolls from its website. I call upon all internet- based retailers and media platforms to do the same.

Australia and the United Kingdom have already taken steps to criminalize the importation of child sex dolls and are actively prosecuting these cases. There is no reason that the United States should not follow suit.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Mr. Donovan of New York for introducing this bill. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Donovan), the chief sponsor of this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, this truly is, as the gentlewoman from Texas said, a disgusting topic, but it is one that I think is very necessary to protect our children and to protect our society.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I, again, thank the gentleman from New York for offering it. His experience as a prosecutor and his testimony to how horrific he finds it, even as a veteran prosecutor, should tell all the Members all they need to know about how important it is to pass this bill and start doing what the United Kingdom and Australia are already doing, and that is getting after the people who would import this kind of trash into the United States.

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