Floor Statements

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for organizing this important topic of conversation.

I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for recognizing the law enforcement officers in her home State, much like the rest of our States, who put their lives on the line every single day to defend us, to protect our communities.

This is an important week, obviously, for law enforcement. I think it is germane to the point that my friend from Colorado is making about canceling because this whole notion of canceling isn't just about corporations; it is not just about technology; it is not just about Amazon; it is not just about Twitter and Facebook. It is about canceling the very people who are, like our friend from North Carolina was just talking about, these law enforcement officers--canceling police officers, canceling law enforcement, canceling those who are standing up and defending us every single day.

We hear it. I had a little girl in my home district in Austin who wrote a project for her school in which she was outlining how she was upset about how her father, her dad, who is a police officer, was being treated and how, when he would come home, he was despondent a little bit about the day because our law enforcement officers are being harassed, targeted, criticized, mocked, defunded.

This is purposeful. This is happening every single day. We are literally working to cancel law enforcement.

In Austin, Texas, they defunded police $150 million. Now, we have seen a 50 percent spike in homicides. There are homeless encampments all across the streets. We have 1999 levels of funding for the police department for a city that has grown by leaps and bounds since then.

This canceling of law enforcement leaves us at risk, and it undermines the very security of our communities. But it is real, and it is happening in real-time.

Twenty major cities have cut police budgets. $1.7 billion has been cut from police departments nationwide.

But it is not just law enforcement. We are talking about that here because of my friend from North Carolina. But it is about corporations. We are sitting here in the people's House, in front of the American flag, and our Nation right now is increasingly run by corporations more than the men and women who are in this body.

I mean, think about it. We hardly ever meet. We never amend. We never debate. We never do any actual give-and-take here on the floor. We get up and speechify a little bit.

Meanwhile, corporations are deciding who gets to get their voice heard. Corporations are deciding, by the way, what election laws are warranted in Georgia or Texas, venerable corporations like Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Major League Baseball.

In the United States of America, baseball has been politicized. I can't even watch baseball with my son without having to figure out and worry about how he is going to be viewing America because Major League Baseball has decided it is more important to be woke and move the All- Star Game from 50 percent Black Atlanta to 10 percent Black Denver. Why? So they can go around patting themselves on the back in Colorado while they say: Hey, look at me. I am driving my Subaru, and I have an Apple sticker on my car.

No offense to the gentleman from Colorado.

Is that woke?

Hank Aaron passed away this year. We could have celebrated his life with an All-Star Game in Atlanta, Georgia, and woke corporate Major League Baseball decides it is more important to make a statement about election laws in Georgia, which, by the way, the proposed laws differ very little from the laws in Colorado, as my friend from Colorado knows.

But they wanted to make a statement through their corporate power and their woke corporate boards that are packed with all these elite Harvard Business School and Yale school of business types that are going into these corporate boardrooms and trying to tell us how to live our lives in little ole Texas or Georgia or Colorado. That is what we face with these corporations that are trying to tell us how to live.

I appreciate my friend from Colorado giving us the time to focus on this important issue tonight. We have to reclaim our ability to live free in this country, and we ought to ask ourselves that question more and more: Are we truly free with wide-open borders and half a million apprehensions, $30 trillion in debt, and corporations telling us how to live our lives? Are we truly free in this country? I think we ought to ask that question over and over and over.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 175th anniversary of Fredericksburg, Texas. Fredericksburg was founded on May 8, 1846, by Baron Otfried Hans von Meusebach as the second prominent German settlement in the Texas Hill Country. Those brave settlers established a cordial relationship with the local Comanche tribes allowing the town to grow into what it is today. Now many years later, Fredericksburg has grown into the national spotlight for its wonderful attractions and rich German-Texan culture.

Sites throughout Fredericksburg are near and dear to my heart. I love to visit Luckenbach dance hall with my family and listen to local songwriters cover Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. I recommend visiting fields of bluebonnets and wildflowers in the spring and enjoying some world-famous peaches in the summer. While some of the buildings and faces have changed in Fredericksburg, the people are still the same hardworking, friendly Texans who helped mold the state.

Fredericksburg is full of American history. Giants like Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz call Fredericksburg home. Admiral Nimitz led American forces to victory in the battle of Midway, regarded as the most important battle in Naval History. The beautiful National Museum of the Pacific War, named in his honor, resides in downtown Fredericksburg.

Madam Speaker, it is my distinct honor to pay tribute to the many figures who helped shape the history of Fredericksburg. I want to extend my thanks to the Mayor and city leadership who have worked with me on important issues throughout my first two terms, and to groups like the Gillespie County Historical Society who work hard to preserve the history of the region. It is an immense privilege to serve those who will continue to shape the future of Fredericksburg, Texas for the next 175 years.

I hope my colleagues in the House of Representatives will join me in congratulating the town of Fredericksburg on this historic occasion.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Maryland makes an excellent closing case in court, because he knows that this is going to be in court, because he knows that this is constitutionally infirm. He is trying to make the case that is going to have to be made in court on the losing side of the argument, because it is very clearly unconstitutional to add D.C. as a State by statute.

And what we have here today is a simple question: Does anybody in this room believe that if Lubbock, Texas, had been set up as the Capital seat of the United States of America, that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be arguing to give it the position of statehood?

No, of course not.

This city was set up by the Founders to be the Capital seat of the United States of America. It was not set up to be a State. And when my friend said that every other State has been added by statute, none of those have been specifically set up as the Capital seat of the United States of America.

This should be rejected. It is unconstitutional. D.C. has never been a State. It shouldn't be a State, and it is not going to be a State.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I would note, for all of our friends and fellow citizens who are watching at home on C-SPAN, that you are seeing something go across your screen that says, ``Prohibiting Religious- Based Travel Restrictions.''

Well, to C-SPAN, I say: Be better. Don't take the talking points from my Democrat colleagues about what we are actually debating here on the floor of the House because it is not that.

What we are talking about is a power grab by Democrats who, for some reason, want to continue to perpetuate the lie that there was ever a Muslim ban. It is literally not true. It is absolutely not true. No matter how many times they say it, it doesn't make it more true.

For example, the gentlewoman referred to litigation. Let's look at what the United States Supreme Court said precisely about what President Trump did to try to secure the United States from terrorists. Let's remember what we are talking about. The President of the United States, President Trump, working to secure the United States from terrorists, the Court said: ``The proclamation is expressly premised on legitimate purposes: preventing entry of nationals who cannot be adequately vetted and inducing other nations to improve their practices. The text says nothing about religion. Plaintiffs and the dissent nonetheless emphasize that five of the seven nations currently included in the proclamation have Muslim-majority populations. Yet, that fact alone does not support an inference of religious hostility, given that the policy covers just 8 percent of the world's Muslim population and is limited to countries that were previously designated by Congress or prior administrations as posing national security risks,'' as my friend from Kentucky just laid out.

Madam Speaker, these are the facts. Do not listen to Democrat talking points being thrown on the screen on your C-Span. Do not listen to repetitions and lies about Muslim bans when it is not true. The facts are completely opposite of that.

Let's also add one more point here. As we talk about this, our borders are wide open. As we talk about this, foreign nationals come in between ports of entry because Border Patrol is distracted, processing immigrants who come here because Democrat policies entice them to be abused by cartels while cartels have operational control of our border, while they create a narco-terrorist state in Mexico, and while they exist in the district that I represent, where children are in cars being driven by American citizen employees of the Cartel del Noreste, being taken to stash houses to be put into the sex trade.

Then, we sit here and listen to this? This is what we are focusing on, taking away the constitutional authority of the President to protect us from terrorists while terrorists are able to come into our southern border between ports of entry because my Democratic colleagues and this administration flat out refuse to do their job to secure the border of the United States?

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding.

Madam Speaker, 185 years ago today in San Jacinto, Texas, the great State of Texas won its independence from Mexico.

General Sam Houston launched a surprise attack against Santa Anna, routed their forces, and then ultimately was able to negotiate with Santa Anna for his freedom the treaty that resulted in the founding of the Republic of Texas.

As a proud Texan, I am sitting here 185 years later recognizing that my State, the State that I am proud to represent, is under siege. It is under constant siege on a daily basis by dangerous cartels, but worse than being under siege by dangerous cartels, it is under siege by a Democrat President who refuses to do his constitutional duty to secure the border of the United States.

That is the fact, that this President, obligated under the Constitution, literally refuses to carry out and exercise his constitutional duty to defend our borders--our borders in Texas--where our communities are under siege, where our schools are overrun, where our hospitals are being inundated, where our ranchers are having people cross them, and where dangerous narcotics like fentanyl are pouring into our communities.

This is what is happening to my State of Texas on this, the 185th anniversary of the battle at San Jacinto.

One has to wonder whether the agreement that Texas made when entering

this Union remains worth it when the State of Texas is under siege by an administration that refuses to defend our border.

That is a question that we Texans are continuing to wrestle with, because it is the duty of this President and the duty of the Federal Government to secure the borders.

I look at Texans who have lost loved ones at the hands of people here illegally. I look at families who have families destroyed by fentanyl and dangerous narcotics. And I look at trafficking of human beings into the sex trade in the State of Texas where stash houses are being run by cartels. Then I watch as my Democratic colleagues want to put up every roadblock to security and launch every single way possible to prop up cartels, prop up the ability of our border to be exploited, and refuse to actually do the job necessary to secure the border.

It is incumbent upon this body to speak with one voice that we are going to defend the borders of the United States and do our duty under the Constitution while States are feeling the brunt every single day in very real terms.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, a couple of nights ago, I was in Laredo, Texas, doing an interview while overlooking the Rio Grande. My interview was interrupted by a stream of human smugglers and people shouting ``run for the ladders, run for the fences'' coming from the water. Then, some went back across the river.

I went over to a facility where children are being housed right now. They are the people being smuggled by cartels for profit. That is happening right now today. While we sit in here and debate this bill, it is happening right now.

A child is being abused right now by cartels. And this body, the ``people's House,'' is doing nothing--nothing--to address cartels that have ownership of our borders right now.

We are not doing our job. A secure border is pro-immigrant. Instead, what we are doing today is we are going to pass legislation that is a magnet for more trafficking of children. We are going to pass legislation today that empowers cartels. We are going to pass legislation today that is a Band-Aid on a broken system because this body refuses to do its constitutional duty to secure the borders of the United States. That is what we are going to do today.

Meanwhile, nothing is going to improve the life of the little girl sitting in Nuevo Laredo right now being abused under the hands of CDN for the $3,000 or $7,000 to move that little girl across the river while Border Patrol doesn't have the resources to secure the border.

I was down on the river with the guy who is on a 3-mile stretch of the border--one guy--and he can do nothing about that flow while narcotics and fentanyl come across our border.

So, pat ourselves on the back today, Mr. Speaker, for a bill that is going to get passed and headline speeches given about how all this is so great for immigrants. Meanwhile, immigrants today are getting raped, abused, beaten, sold into indentured slavery, and put into human sex trafficking because we refuse to secure the border of the United States. And we will never get a chance to offer an amendment on the floor of this body to do anything about it.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I hear a lot from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that this is not how people should be treated, whether it was with respect to the first broader amnesty bill, with respect to the Dreamers, or whether it is this bill with respect to farmworkers, which is, in fact, an amnesty bill. But the fact of the matter is that nobody on this side of the aisle and nobody I know in Texas disagrees that the system is broken and that we need to make sure that people are treated fairly and treated appropriately. Nobody disagrees with that.

The problem is that what we are doing is putting this bill in front of any kind of enforcement mechanisms that will prevent the continued abuse of human beings because we refuse to do our actual job under the Constitution of the United States to secure our border.

We are just refusing to do it, and then we pass legislation in the name of helping people who, yes, are stuck in a system because we created this system because it is so badly broken. You then create the magnet, Madam Speaker, that empowers cartels and continues the vicious cycle.

Today, when this passes off the floor, there will be a lot of backslapping and congratulations: Isn't this great, isn't this awesome, and aren't we so proud of ourselves for what we are doing for these immigrants, these workers?

But we are not doing a darn thing to actually fix the system that prevents the flow, prevents the danger, prevents the cartels, prevents the abuses, and

prevents essentially the indentured servitude that this bill would actually create for the farmworkers in question, leaving them stuck with Band-Aids of having to work certain hours as farmworkers, continuing the process, by the way, while we continue to encourage sex trafficking, human trafficking, crimes, violations, and children being abused.

As I said before, as we sit here in this august body--not actually amending, by the way, just bloviating--while we are sitting here, some little girl is getting raped in Mexico on a journey because of the pressure that we are causing by empowering cartels to do it. That is occurring, and we are just whistling, and we are just sitting here, burying our head in the sand.

Like I said, go give the press conferences and go pat ourselves on the back as a body for being pro-immigrant. How is it pro-immigrant to have wide-open borders being exploited by cartels, wide-open borders with narcotics coming across, and wide-open borders with human beings coming across it?

By the way, when the media says this Biden crisis has ended, if they ever acknowledge it exists, it will be because numbers are going down in facilities because catching and releasing is going up. That is what is going to occur.

Madam Speaker, that is what is going to occur. My fellow citizens back home in Texas and Americans, when those numbers go down in facilities, don't kid yourselves; illegal immigration will continue.

They will be catching and releasing illegal immigrants. They will be dropping numbers down at facilities. They will close the FEMA facility in Midland. We will have as much illegal immigration as we have right now, and the other side will claim: Oh, the crisis is going down.

That is what is coming at us. And today, we are passing amnesty instead of securing the border of the United States.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to follow up on the remarks of my friend from California, who just noted the crisis we have at the border and the danger that that puts the American people in, and not just the American people, but the immigrants who seek to come here.

I rise today, in particular, to bring the public's attention to that border crisis, which my friend rightfully recognized is being driven by that guy who runs that outfit over there.

Now, I do not mean, in saying that, the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. I know who he is. I mean that other guy who runs that outfit over there, down Pennsylvania Avenue, and that is the President of the United States.

I say this because the President cannot possibly have any idea what is going on because no American President entrusted with the safety and well-being of the United States and her citizens would purposely empower cartels or would purposely empower illegal organizations to harm American citizens for profit, to flood our streets with dangerous fentanyl and narcotics, to cause high-speed chases like the ones that have occurred in the district I represent, where Americans are in danger, or the murder of Americans through wide-open borders. No American President would purposely do that, would they?

No American President would purposely lie to immigrants and cause them to get raped and abused on long, dangerous journeys across the desert, upon the promise of amnesty, for crass political purposes. No American President would possibly do that, would he or she?

No American President could be so callous, so indifferent to the lives of Americans and immigrants who seek to come here, that he would allow his staff and the Secretary of Homeland Security to lie, repeatedly, to the American people that there is no crisis at our border.

No American President would do that, so no American President could know that this is happening and take that position, could understand what is happening and then ignore it, could understand what is happening at the border and then deny it and encourage it through reckless policies.

No, that guy who runs that outfit over there cannot possibly know what is happening at our border because no American President would do that.

But I assure you, we Texans know; our neighbors in other border States

know; and the American people across the country affected by this crisis know. We see it every day, the brutal conditions along the border ravaged by the deceit and the lies of politicians governing by sound bite and pretending they are compassionate. We do see it every day.

Who is this that I am showing here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives? This is the Vargas family. I have come to know Lori, and I have come to know other members of this family because Jared, depicted in this picture, was murdered by a colleague at a restaurant who was in this country illegally, who had been caught, let go, caught, let go, caught again, let go, and then murdered Jared. He was from San Antonio, Texas, which I represent.

This is real. This happens every day. We, in Texas, are on the front lines while the people in this body fiddle, and endanger the lives of American citizens, to prostrate themselves to a crass political left that could care less about the American citizens getting killed or raped. And they do it for political purposes.

The arrogance of leftist Democrats destroying our own Nation with trillions of dollars of spending; the reckless disregard of our energy independence and strength; the reckless disregard of the small businesses getting destroyed by shutdowns and the livelihoods destroyed while peddling fear and panic; the reckless disregard of our children, as their futures are destroyed by teachers' unions and the devastating masking of their innocent faces; the reckless disregard of our fundamental inalienable rights to worship, to speak freely, to defend ourselves with firearms, to pursue happiness by working to provide for our families; the reckless disregard for our safety while defunding police and attacking our rights to defend ourselves under the Second Amendment at the same time, done on this floor today; the reckless disregard for our national security, while empowering China to undermine our way of life; the reckless disregard for public health, as we rejoin the very World Health Organization that lied to us to protect China.

But perhaps the most reckless, by my leftist Democratic colleagues, is the arrogance of using crass political selfishness to encourage parents to send their children to be raped, to be abused, to ride on train cars, and even to die along dangerous journeys, while simultaneously facilitating or encouraging the destruction of our neighbors to the south, in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. It is happening in real time and in extraordinary arrogance, for purposes of crass political gain or perceived gain.

Our neighbors to the south lament the mass exodus of their people under the lies and false compassion being sold from American Democrats.

This is the truth of what we are dealing with.

Let's talk about some of the real issues going on on our border. Uvalde, Texas, the mayor, Don McLaughlin said, ``The 2019 border crisis will look like a cakewalk to what is coming with Biden's border crisis.''

He said they are seeing 10 to 12 high-speed chases each week, with speeds up to 105 miles an hour. The local government has to take it on the chin because this administration refuses to secure the border. That is the mayor in Uvalde, Texas, just outside of the district I represent. My friend, Mr. Gonzales, represents that district.

Don calls me all the time saying, ``Where's the help?''

Where is the Federal Government, whose job it is to secure the border of the United States? You know where it is?

Nowhere to be found. In fact, actually found at a border making it worse for the citizens of this country, making it more dangerous, purposely or incompetently, either one unacceptably endangering the lives of Americans and the immigrants who seek to come here.

Del Rio mayor Bruno Lozano said, ``I am pleading and requesting you to please put a halt to any measures regarding the release of immigrants awaiting court dates into the city of Del Rio and surrounding areas.''

Madam Speaker, the American people are pleading with their leadership. They are begging for the people in this body, the people's House, to recognize what is happening to them.

It is real. People bury their head in the sand up here protected by fences with razor wire, walking through magnetometers, tweeting out how they somehow compare or have compassion for immigrants, ``Look at us.'' And in this photo is what is happening to immigrants in south Texas.

There are mass graves where cartels kill people along the Rio Grande. There are people dying in the desert, seeking to come here like any normal person would do around the world, seeking to come to the United States of America, but being fed irrational hope from an administration for political purposes, endangering lives of immigrants and American citizens.

Yuma, Arizona, mayor Douglas Nichols said, ``I am urging the Federal level for additional resources for United States Customs and Border, the need for more space at migrant holding facilities that will allow for adherence to CDC guidelines, more COVID testing. There is no capacity in our current nonprofit system in Yuma.''

Our colleague, my friend from Texas, Mr. Cuellar, has said thousands of migrants have not been tested. Over 10,000 people have come in through the lower Rio Grande Valley. He said, ``Those folks aren't being tested.''

There are folks--my friends on the other side of the aisle who recognize what is happening.

My colleague, Mr. Gonzales, sent a letter to Biden, requesting a meeting, stating, ``It is imperative we get this situation under control or we are looking at another crisis on our hands.''

Well, that crisis is here, citing the large number of unaccompanied children and increased hospital admissions. This is happening right now.

Where is the President? Where is the Homeland Security Secretary? Where is anyone in this administration recognizing the crisis at our border, the death toll, the impact on citizens and immigrants who seek to come here?

Texas State senator, Chuy Hinojosa, Democrat, said, ``I don't think, quite frankly, the Biden administration was aware of what is happening on the ground here, which you can understand because they are just coming in and trying to get people up to speed with what is happening. But I don't think they were aware there were that many coming across. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed. They are throwing their hands up because they don't know what to do.''

That is all from my Democrat friend from Texas.

The CBP has already encountered nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants since October, and the numbers are rising. For contacts in the first 5 months of fiscal 2020, the CBP encountered 200,000. That is twice as many this year, twice as many.

What changed?

The administration's absurd, embarrassing, incompetent or, worse yet, purposefully malicious policies.

Just last month, February, the CBP encountered over 100,000 aliens at the border. One month. That is who they encountered. That is not got- aways. This is real.

Come do like I have done and go spend the night on the border. Go sit down at the river at the Rio Grande. Talk to the immigrants, in my case in broken Spanish. If you are fluent, talk to them or have somebody who can and talk to them about why they are coming. Talk to them about what the cartels are doing to them.

Have a conversation with a young man, like I did last year, about the pack of girls behind him, about whether they were abused on the journey. He said, ``Yes,'' ``Si.''

Or just continue to bury one's head in the sand and pretend it is compassionate to have open borders, because that is what is happening today in the people's House. These are human beings, y'all.

As of last month, the number of families encountered is the highest since January 2019. In January, 7,200--almost 7,300 family units were encountered. In February, that number skyrocketed to 19,246. That is not an accident. These are families.

Encounters with what we call UACs--unaccompanied alien children-- increased 74 percent year to date. Just last month, some 6,000 migrants aged 16 and 17 were caught. The Department

of Homeland Security currently projects there will be 117,000 unaccompanied child migrants crossing the border this year.

The number of migrant children is on pace to exceed the all-time record by 45 percent, and the administration does not have enough beds. The Biden administration needs another 20,000 beds to shelter the minors.

Now, I have a couple friends here, a couple colleagues, who I think are waiting to join.

Is the gentleman from California looking to add a few remarks?

I will yield to the gentleman from California in just one minute, and then my friend from Virginia after him.

But what I would say, when we are talking about these numbers, people get lost in the numbers, 20,000 beds, talking about 45 percent increase. Let's just be very clear. For those of us who spend time on the border--I am going back on Monday--these are human beings. These are people. They are not political pawns. And that goes for American citizens and for the immigrants who seek to come here.

And this is the dirty little secret. My Democratic colleagues know full well that what is happening at the border is going to be a catch- and-release organization. The Department of Homeland Security is turning the CBP into a catch-and-release organization. So you will see some of these numbers going down.

But don't kid yourself, the American people watching this. When the numbers go down in these facilities, it is because the Biden administration is purposefully catching and releasing folks, whether they have been tested or not, regardless of what kind of security threat they might pose, regardless of fully checking whether a child goes with a family member or not, whether they can be abused, put into the sex trafficking trade, because it is rote incompetence. When you see those numbers go down, just know what is happening.

11,000 people were caught and released in January and February, immediately caught and released from the CBP rather than being put in facilities.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks. He rightfully points out the impact on Miss Steinle and her family and American citizens in California being negatively impacted by illegal immigration.

I talked before about Jared Vargas from San Antonio, the city I represent, who was murdered a couple years ago. His twin brother just graduated from college. He is going on. His family is a beautiful family. They have a strong faith, and they are persevering, but their family was turned upside down by a brutal murder. He was beaten to death and burned. Beaten to death and burned by a guy who came here illegally, was caught and let go, caught and let go, caught and let go again. He beat and burned to death Jared Vargas.

These are real people. We can do hundreds of these. We can talk to the angel families who have lost loved ones. We can talk to the parents of law enforcement officers and others in Border Patrol who have lost loved ones along our border. We could do a whole hour, we could do a whole day just going through that impact and, as I pointed out before in the other slide, the impact on the immigrants who seek to come here.

This is the story, all in the false name of compassion by this administration.

I will be happy to yield in just 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia.

My friend from California was raising the important points of the impact of illegal immigration. Now we are seeing it in real time, particularly in Texas, among all four States along the border and throughout this country, empowering cartels, endangering the lives of the immigrants who seek to come here, endangering American citizens for one reason and one reason only, and that is the crass political interests of the American Democratic Party and this administration.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Madam Speaker, in a moment I will yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia, and I thank the gentleman from Virginia for those remarks that are directly on point.

What we are seeing right now--you used the phrase that we are creating a ``sanctuary Nation,'' is a sanctuary country. Well, that is what is happening. That is what this administration is doing. You talk about sanctuary cities; this administration is just going right past sanctuary cities, and they want to make the United States of America a sanctuary Nation.

They are turning the Department of Homeland Security and the CBP into the welcoming center for a sanctuary Nation. And not a welcoming center in the sense that we would all agree we want to do as Americans, to make sure that those who are truly seeking refuge following our laws, seeking asylum, the things that our laws provide for people truly under persecution. No. They are using that as an excuse and cover for wide- open borders and, essentially, people seeking economic opportunity, which no one I know begrudges those who seek economic opportunity. But we do take issue with those who seek to violate our laws to come here, overwhelm our border, and an administration whose job it is to enforce the laws of the United States to refuse to do so.

It begs the question whether the President of the United States, as I said before, either has no idea what is happening at the border or whether it is purposeful. And if it is purposeful, is it the President of the United States choosing to refuse to defend the Constitution and the laws and to refuse to take care to see that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed as is required under the Constitution of the United States? I think it is a question this body ought to be asking.

The people's House ought to be asking: Is the President of the United States refusing to take care to ensure that the laws of the United States with respect to our borders are being faithfully executed?

I would posit that that is precisely what is happening, or the President of the United States has no idea what is happening at our border. Because, again, no American President can be so callous as to use raw, crass politics to allow what is happening at our border to happen to human beings, American citizens and immigrants alike. ``That guy who runs that outfit over there.''

I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman from Georgia coming down and joining us in this conversation.

I did not realize that the gentlewoman had the pleasure of meeting with and getting to know the Vargas family or at least maybe the aunt and uncle, I think is what you said. And what I would tell you is that it is a truly wonderful family. They embody all that is right and good about the American Dream, about opportunity.

These are American citizens, American citizens who happen to have, you know, Hispanic family members, which is so ironic because--you know, those of us who really try to take and honor the idea of judging people by the content of their character and not their skin color or race or creed, I find it ironic that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to only view the purpose of the legislative body to view human beings by the color of their skin and to make all of our policies based on segmenting us out.

To quote the Supreme Court Justice John Roberts in a seminal Supreme Court case, Divvying us up by race is a sordid business.

And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle often use words like ``voter suppression'' when we talk about believing we should have voter identification. Believing we should have rules in place about how we run our election systems, heaven forbid.

And would the gentlewoman agree that too often those words like ``voter suppression'' are code words, buzz words for the allegation that those of us who believe a secure border is better for immigrants and American citizens believe that voter ID and systems that make sure American citizens are the ones voting that we are labeled bigots, and that words like ``voter suppression'' are code words and buzz words, dog whistles that we are bigots and that the agenda of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is often directed to label us as such. Would the gentlewoman agree with that?

I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia.

Madam Speaker, a brief moment, a side-step away from the issue of border security--and I know the gentleman is here and is waiting patiently--and I would just ask one more question.

The gentlewoman was here on Monday when we let it be known our desire to not allow 13 bills--10 Democratic bills, 3 Republican bills--to move off of the House floor by voice vote, that is without a roll call vote. And you would have thought that we, you know, lit a match on the floor of the House of Representatives or had done something extraordinary to just break this hallowed institution from its smooth operations of today.

You would think that we were, you know, up-ending our Constitution as we know it because, believe it or not, we demanded the yeas and nays, a roll call vote, on 13 bills. The gentlewoman has also often taken to using motions to adjourn--and I believe I have heard she has done so and the gentlewoman stipulates she has done so--to force another hour of consideration when we have a bill like the $1.9 trillion monstrosity that reshapes the American economy, reshapes the American healthcare system, funds money for people in prison, up-ends our entire fiscal stability, I could go on and on.

Is the gentlewoman in agreement with me that what we are trying to do is to simply put our colleagues on notice that perhaps the people's House should debate, vote, amend, be present, not vote by proxy from your home districts, actually be here, not have fences with razor wire, actually do our job, actually represent the people that elect us to come here, would the gentlewoman agree with that? I yield to the gentlewoman.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Georgia. I know I have my friend who has been waiting patiently, and so I will yield to that gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I would just note that the gentlewoman from Georgia mentioned video taken from southeast Texas this morning. I am looking at that on social media at the moment, a huge line of people waiting for smugglers to ferry them across the Rio Grande into the United States, video courtesy of Tripwires and Triggers, which is run by a fellow named Jaeson Jones, who is a good friend of mine, formerly with the Department of Public Safety in Texas.

Jaeson is on the job, on the spot, much like my friend Brandon Darby and others who work for Breitbart Texas who are on the spot, always trying to look out for the interests of Texans and American citizens, but also the immigrants who seek to come here.

These immigrants are being abused by cartels while my Democrat colleagues use them as political props. It is unconscionable that we are allowing that to continue in the greatest Nation in the history of the world, again, all for crass political purposes.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale).

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time.

Would the gentleman be surprised if I recounted to him the story of when I was at the border last year at Laredo, and we were having a conversation with Border Patrol and went into one of the facilities, and we were talking to one of the fellows there. While we were there, through conversations with one of the young men who had come across-- frankly, encouraged to do so and come in and meet with Border Patrol in order to get across. He then gave up the location of a stash house in Houston, Texas, where we then went and found, that day, 50 immigrants in a basement, in a stash house in Houston, Texas, being held essentially for ransom.

These were human beings, the product of a broken system that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle hail as somehow pro-immigrant when it is decidedly the opposite of pro-immigrant.

Would the gentleman agree with that?

Madam Speaker, it certainly goes without saying.

I started my remarks earlier about the knowledge and the engagement of this President and the President's administration, that the policies of this administration, the policies of Democrat cities, the policies of Democrat States, with sanctuary cities and sanctuary States, and now, effectively, a sanctuary Nation, are directly causing the movement and the migration of human beings to come here, being exploited by cartels for profit, endangering their lives, endangering American citizens.

Yes, for any understanding of law, you are complicit in what is happening to the people in question.

Madam Speaker, and I would say to my friend that the scourge of human trafficking, in all of its elements--and human trafficking in the sense of the sex trafficking trade, modern-day slavery right here in the United States, people being under the thumb of dangerous organizations, cartels, and illegal organizations embedded in this country. It all has its roots and connections, in many ways, to the trafficking of human beings across our border for profit.

The power being put over these people, in which they are working in subpar conditions or put into the sex trade, that is happening in the greatest country in the history of the world, and it is all a direct consequence of accepting and embracing that lawlessness.

That lawlessness starts at our border and is also tied to our lack of enforcement and interior enforcement, through ICE, and the other cutbacks by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

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

Madam Speaker, what I would like to expand upon is an extension of what my friend from Montana was just talking about, what is happening to human beings here in the United States.

But now let's talk a little about the impact with respect to COVID and the pandemic that we are dealing with. The Biden administration, in its infinite wisdom directly causing what we are seeing at the border, relaxed title 42 to allow illegal alien minors to enter the country, leading to a massive surge of illegal immigrants at the border in total.

In February, CBP encountered nearly 9,500 unaccompanied alien children at the southern border. That is a 28 percent increase over January, more than 2,000 over last year, and, incredibly, almost 30,000 UACs have been encountered in just the first 5 months of the fiscal year, 30,000 children. That is nearly a thousand more UACs than the first 5 months of last year, but it is a 74 percent increase over fiscal year 2020 numbers.

Here is the thing: It is harming these kids, but it is also distracting Border Patrol from their job. They are turning Border Patrol into an entity that has to manage people, kids in facilities, but they are no longer doing their job between the ports of entry.

Do you know what that means? Fentanyl, narcotics. Why do we have a mass opioid crisis in this country? Now we are feeding into that as a literal, direct, and obvious result of the policies of this administration.

It has to be, as I said as I opened, either complete incompetence or purposeful. Either one of those is unacceptable.

Madam Speaker, Mexico is closing their Migrant Protection Protocol shelters where migrants are supposed to be tested and confirmed negative for COVID before being let into the United States. Reports have indicated at least 108 COVID-positive illegal aliens were released by CBP in one fell swoop. According to reports, at least 185 immigrants released in the past month in Brownsville tested positive.

Madam Speaker, 25 Border Patrol agents have died of COVID, but the administration is taking no major steps to prioritize those frontline workers for the vaccine in the last 2 months. Most of them are having to go into the communities to go get the vaccine, even though they are on the front lines, dealing with COVID-positive individuals coming across our border.

Madam Speaker, it is for this reason that my colleague from New Mexico, Yvette Herrell, introduced H.R. 471, the Protecting Americans from Unnecessary Spread upon Entry from COVID Act of 2021, or the PAUSE Act.

Title 42 must remain in effect under her act until all State and Federal lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, curfews, and other COVID mandates end; all public and Federal public health emergencies for COVID-19 end; and the CDC's COVID-19 travel health risk level for Canada and Mexico is reduced to level 1.

Madam Speaker, that is a good bill. We should continue to enforce title 42. There are 44 cosponsors to this bill, only Republicans.

Yesterday, I filed H. Res. 216, which is a rule to discharge this bill. When it ripens, which is another 8 or so legislative days, we are going to be pushing to discharge that bill from committee and vote on it on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I hope my Democrat colleagues will agree that we should enforce title 42 to protect American citizens and make sure that we don't have an epidemic at our southern border.

Madam Speaker, this is what we are facing, and it is a direct consequence of

an administration peddling amnesty and the false hope to immigrants to come here through dangerous channels, being abused by cartels in the process.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), my friend.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for his remarks.

Madam Speaker, I think the gentleman who has spent time at the border, as I have, would appreciate the story that I can recount. When I was last there, there was a conversation involving a young man who had come across, and he was being questioned, as the gentleman just described. He was questioned about where he came from and all the things to go through, his age and so forth, and then at one point the young man said he needed to use the bathroom.

The Border Patrol agent said: Oh, sure, it is no problem. Let me get up and show you where it is.

He said: Oh, I know.

He knew. He knew where the bathroom was. This wasn't his first rodeo. This is happening every day at our border, literally every day.

But the media just goes about its business, ignoring the crisis now that it is not politically expedient to do so. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle spent the last 3 years saying that it is all a manufactured crisis and that there is no crisis at the border. Then with Trump, there was a crisis suddenly. There wasn't a crisis, and then there was a crisis.

Then there were people drinking out of toilets--a lie. Then it was kids in cages--a lie. Fences and barriers were put up in facilities to protect these kids and separate them from the dangerous elements to make sure someone claiming that they are this kid's uncle is actually the kid's uncle.

Those chain-link barriers that were put up in these facilities were put up by whom?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

That is exactly correct.

Yet for 4 years under the Trump administration, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle went around ranting about the treatment of migrants, whom we are dealing with because of very broken policies, trying to protect the kids, keep them from being abused, put them in air-conditioned facilities with airflow, the chain-link barriers so you can see them--oh, no. Kids in cages. Oh, drinking out of a toilet. It was a lie. It was a straight-up lie.

I sent my chief of staff down the next day. He went to where they were talking about it, and it was one of those devices that is a toilet with a water fountain off the back of it, which we have in all of our facilities and in a lot of our prison facilities and ICE facilities in this country.

By the way, in every bathroom in America, the water supply behind the drywall is supplying the water to your faucet and the water to your toilet, Madam Speaker. Oh, but this is kids drinking out of toilets.

``Never let a crisis go to waste,'' say my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We are seeing that right now with $1.9 trillion. We are seeing that right now. And we are seeing the result of that right now with a Biden border crisis directly of the making of this administration.

It is the direct consequence of undoing and refusing to enforce their laws; undoing the migrant protection protocol working with Mexico; refusing to fully enforce title 42; refusing to go through what you are supposed to do on asylum determinations; refusing to limit catch and release and instead turning the Department of Homeland Security into a catch-and-release organization, trumpeting an amnesty bill; and then attracting families to come through dangerous channels, risking their own children and lives at the hands of cartels, all to profit and enrich cartels; and then have the audacity to say that is compassion and the audacity to say that that is pro-immigrant.

Meanwhile, the people I represent, the Texans we represent, are having to foot the bill. We are having to deal with it. We are having to deal with schools. We are having to deal with high-speed chases. We are having to deal with crime, drug trafficking, and the reach of cartels in south Texas. And no one in this people's House gives a whit because of political expediency.

Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Madam Speaker, I ask my friend from Texas if he has anything else he would like to add.

Madam Speaker, I will close my last minute to just say that it is currently easier for the cartels to exploit our Southern border and to allow gang members and dangerous narcotics to come into this country than it is for the American people to get access to the people's House. Fences with razor wire surround this building. We are apparently so afraid of what might happen to us in this body that we need fences and razor wire, but, meanwhile, our Southern border is wide open for exploitation.

I am only just reminded of when I started that the guy who runs that outfit over there in the White House, that the guy either is blatantly ignoring his duty to defend the border of the United States purposely or he has no idea what is going on, because no American President--no American President--

should or would allow this kind of activity to be happening at our Southern border, endangering American citizens and endangering immigrants in the name of the United States.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, right now in south Texas there are American citizens whose lives are in danger because of wide open borders as a direct result of Biden's border crisis and the policies of the Democratic leadership of this body and the Senate. American citizens are unsafe. I am not making that up.

For the last 2 years, I have heard my Democratic colleagues talking about a fake crisis at our border. There is nothing fake about 100,000 people coming across our border; or high-speed chases through Uvalde, Texas; or high-speed chases in Real County, which I represent. There is nothing fake about break-ins putting lives in danger.

People own ranches, and now my Democratic colleagues, after defunding the police and opening up our borders,

want to take away our God-given right--yes, God-given right--to defend ourselves under the Second Amendment. That is what this is about. This is about creating a gun registry to track guns of the American people. There is no way to implement what the Democrats are trying to implement without doing that.

I can just tell you straight up, Texans, Americans, the Government is never going to know what weapons I own. Let me be clear about that. It is not going to happen. We have a God-given right to defend our families, defend our State, and defend ourselves against tyranny; and we will do that regardless of the errant policies that this Democratic Congress is trying to jam through.

Mr. Speaker, Officer Tiffany-Victoria Enriquez, Officer Kaulike Kalama, Sheriff Sheldon Gordon Whiteman, Officer Katherine Mary Thyne, I could go on and on 113 times with the names of law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty, who were killed last year in 2020--113.

And we are on the floor of the House of Representatives with a bill gutting the qualified immunity that helps protect our law enforcement officers without so much as a hearing, without so much as coming back to talk to us and work with us since last June.

Why?

Because this is all political. This is all political.

We talk about defunding. I am from Austin, Texas; $150 million cut from the police budget there.

And what did my Democrat colleagues do last Friday?

Jammed through $500 billion for State and local governments, funding the very Democratic cities that are gutting our law enforcement officers, taking away what they need to be able to exist.

And with what happened in Austin, a 50 percent increase in murder rate. We lost the greatest cadet class we had.

This bill is a sham. We should oppose it.

Will the gentleman from Maryland yield?

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

Madam Speaker, as the gentleman knows, we have had a dialogue back and forth about the need for amendment, the need for debate on the floor. And what I would ask the gentleman is, for example, if the gentleman would agree that in 2004 we had former President Jimmy Carter, Democrat, and James Baker, Republican--hardly ideologues from the standpoint of division that we see today--agree that there are issues of bail and balance.

And what I would ask is: Why don't we have a debate here on the problems and concerns and potential fraud with mail-in ballots that is a nonpartisan concern? That is one example, and there are bunch. Why do we not have that debate robustly here on the floor for the American people to see, if we are talking about transparency?

And I ask the question respectfully of the gentleman from Maryland.

Madam Speaker, I would point out that the Speaker of the House came to the floor and used her magic minute, but doesn't stay on the floor and debate. There is no debate on this floor.

And then the Speaker said that there were amendments, 56 amendments. Forty-nine of them are Democratic amendments, hand-selected by a small group in the Rules Committee. Forty-nine are Democratic amendments.

So don't buy into the Kabuki theater that you are seeing on the floor of the House of Representatives.

You know what?

I can't ask to take down the words of the Speaker, even though the essence of her argument is that I am a bigot. Let's be very clear. The arguments being distilled on the floor today is that Republicans, my colleagues and I, that we are bigots.

Why?

Because they use fancy words like ``voter suppression'' to say that we are wanting to tamp down people's access to polls.

Nothing can be further from the truth. Heaven forbid we want to use voter identification. Heaven forbid we want to honor the will of the people through their legislature in the States passing rules to make sure that our system is actually working, using voter identification that the American people use to fly, that the American people use to do everything else. If I demand that, I am a bigot.

Does the rule regarding proxy voting require a form be submitted and signed by Members of this body that they have a pandemic- or COVID-related reason for being unable to be physically present?

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Would the Chair consider it a violation of the rule for a Member to be present physically here in the Chamber and on the same day vote by proxy having submitted said letter?

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, does the Constitution of the United States require a quorum to be present for votes on the House floor?