Carlos Curbelo

Mr. Speaker, politics is the art of what is possible, what is achievable--not the measure of our differences.

We come to this Chamber--we should--to seek common ground, to solve problems, to address challenges. That is what I have done over the course of the last 4 years: work with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to improve quality of life in our country, in our communities, and to show the American public that this institution is capable of responding to its concerns and its aspirations.

In Congress, progress is measured in small units, the way our Founding Fathers intended.

On climate and the environment, we broke the ice, bringing Republicans and Democrats together in the Climate Solutions Caucus, the first meaningful bipartisan dialogue and collaboration effort on this subject in a generation. We also filed landmark legislation that would make massive investments in American infrastructure while reducing carbon emissions and creating clean energy jobs.

Climate change and transportation infrastructure--twin challenges threatening the future of my home, Miami-Dade County. The Market Choice Act would make it more likely that our children and grandchildren can live out their years in our paradise, an area marked and blessed with countless natural treasures.

On immigration, we forced the House to process and debate comprehensive reform for the first time in nearly a decade. While for many, using this subject and the many victims of a broken immigration system for political gain is the preference, ours was a solution that would secure the border, reform our asylum laws to prevent abuse, keep families together, and secure a future for 2 million American Dreamers--the young immigrants who went to school with our own children and today are contributing to our economy and to our communities.

While the forces of obstruction and cowardice prevailed, this institution grew from the debate, and dividends will be reaped in the future, I have no doubt. This issue is also a special one for Miami- Dade and south Florida. It is personal for us. We are a community of immigrants. We believe immigration should be legal and orderly, and we know immigrants made America great and will continue making it greater still.

Guns--another issue that deeply divides our country. We proposed solutions modeled after what was achieved in Florida in the wake of the tragic massacre at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It is possible to protect gun rights for law-abiding citizens while keeping deadly weapons out of the hands of those who seek to harm others or themselves. We are reforming our criminal justice system in order to truly give people a second chance.

We secured funding for Everglades restoration, for water quality improvements in the Florida Keys, for important infrastructure projects in south Florida. We honored our troops by guaranteeing them the resources they need and granting them the raises they have earned. We also invested in American children, making it easier for immigrant students to learn English and protecting the accountability framework that put all students at the center of the public education system. And we delivered historic tax relief for Florida workers and families while making American businesses more competitive.

In our hemisphere, I have advocated for the oppressed people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, and encouraged the administration to forge strong relationships with leaders committed to human rights, the rule of law, and economic growth and prosperity in countries like Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, and others.

In the Middle East, I have worked to support and bolster the critical U.S.-Israel alliance while holding the terrorist mullah regime in Iran accountable for its countless transgressions. And further east, I have advocated for closer relations with important allies like Japan and Taiwan in the face of China's growing hostility.

Most importantly, every day I have put my south Florida community and the country above any partisan or personal interest. My goal has always been to serve with sincerity and decency, to call it honest no matter who might get upset. And even if political consequences would follow, to focus on ideas instead of petty politics, to speak in truth instead of talking points, to be both direct and decorous.

While I have learned much from this institution, it never changed me. I have served to the fullest every day, and I now begin a new chapter in my life overflowing with gratitude for this wonderful opportunity to serve, for the many colleagues I have come to know, for my team, for my family, my God, and for the community that trusted this child of political refugees with the privilege of representing it here in the Congress of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois, who indeed is a wonderful friend. Sometimes his jokes aren't as good, but his advice has been very good here since I started running for the House for the first time in 2013.

The people of southern Illinois are blessed to be represented by Mr. Davis. He is a wonderful family man. He is a great friend, and even though I am moving on, I am very happy to know that people like Rodney Davis will remain a part of this institution working for his community and for our wonderful country.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Costello), another wonderful friend. We have shared many great experiences together. We have worked hard on the issues that are important to our communities, to our districts.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Costello, for his kind words, and I also want to commend him for his great service to our country. The people of Philadelphia's suburbs have been blessed to have been represented over the last 4 years by a thoughtful, honest, decent man, someone whom I worked with very closely on issues like the environment, like immigration, the difficult issues, the controversial issues, the issues where legislators are required to take risks if they are going to have a positive impact.

My final message is just extreme gratitude to this wonderful institution, to my community for this privilege, this opportunity. To my parents, Teresita and Carlos Curbelo, when they arrived in this country with nothing except the desire to be free and to work and contribute, I don't think they could have ever imagined that their son would be able to serve in this fine institution. Only in this wonderful country can we tell stories like that. Only in this wonderful country do these miracles happen.

I also want to thank my wife and my two daughters--Cecilia, my wife, and Sylvie and Carolina, my daughters--because public service is difficult, especially on young families, and my wife and my daughters have sacrificed a lot. Of course, we have done it with the support of our family, my in-laws, my parents, my friends, and everyone.

Again, to all my colleagues, I wish you the best. I will be rooting for you. Please continue trying to help strengthen this country, continue trying to do the right thing every day and serve with a servant's heart.

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

Mr. Speaker, Saturday marks the end of Immigrant Heritage Month, an annual tradition dedicated to celebrating the contributions immigrants have made to communities all across the country.

Our Nation was founded by immigrants. The very existence of our entire democracy, of this institution, is the result of compromise and consensus by the descendants of immigrants, and today our Nation continues to owe a great debt of gratitude to the contributions of more recent arrivals who are an essential part of daily life, our economy, and our society.

I had hoped we would be able to close out this celebration with the news that, for the first time in a long time, Congress had come together to fix our broken, inefficient, unfair immigration system. Instead, a bipartisan majority decided to double down on the status quo: a porous border, uncertainty for the victims of a broken immigration system, and continued division between Americans over the issue of immigration.

Despite this setback, I am hopeful that, working with any colleague that is willing to do so in this House, I and other Members can find a solution to this broken immigration system and, in doing so, help heal our country's politics.

Mr. Speaker, I am relatively new to this body, but I have been following politics in this country for quite some time. For many years, I have been hearing Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, but more so on this side, promising the country that we would secure the border, that we would disrupt the drug traffickers who are poisoning our people, and that we would disrupt the human traffickers who abuse and rape small children and others as they take them across the desert.

This is the opportunity to fulfill the promise of securing our country's border, because this country, just like any other country in the world, has the right and the responsibility to secure its border and enforce its immigration laws.

For a long time, I have also been hearing people talk about Dreamers, the victims of a broken immigration system, young immigrants brought to our country as children, who grew up here, went to school with our own children, pledge allegiance to the same flag, and today are contributing to this great country. A lot of people in this Chamber, on both sides, more so on the other side of the aisle, have been promising a solution for Dreamers for 17 years, with nothing to show for it.

This is our opportunity to make sure these young immigrants are treated fairly and guaranteed a future in America with a bridge onto the legal immigration system. We take the exact criteria that the Obama administration laid out in the DACA program. That is in this legislation.

This bill will also help us end family separation, which I think there is a great deal of bipartisanship for in this Chamber. Our country should have the ability to enforce its laws and to keep families together, which is exactly what the Obama administration was attempting to do until the courts got in the way. We can fix that here.

And lastly, we need to modernize our immigration system. We are a nation of immigrants. I am the child of immigrants, and I am so proud of it. But our immigration laws are outdated. Our immigration system has to be modernized so that it is better aligned with our economy so that immigrants who come to this country have the best opportunity to grow, to prosper, and to contribute.

The alternative is the status quo. A vote against this legislation is the status quo.

What is the status quo? A porous, wall-less border; uncertainty for Dreamers; young people who could lose their status within months; families separated at the border; and an outdated immigration system that dishonors every American.

So this is our chance to come together. Is this legislation perfect? Every Member of this House could find an excuse to vote against this bill. But that is the problem with immigration, that nothing has ever been good enough. When nothing is good enough, you get nothing. And that is not fair to the American people.

That is why I sat at the table, and I have been at the table for weeks, not just with Republicans, with Democrats, good colleagues like Mr. Polis. We sat long hours trying to reach a compromise, and it is always elusive. Let's change that now.