Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this is my final week in Congress. Many come to the floor and ruminate over their service. As for me, I can't think of a better way to spend my final words on the floor than in support of recognition for the Lumbee Tribe.

The Lumbee have been pursuing justice since the mid-1800s. I have previously stated on the floor some of the specifics of the Lumbee's Native American heritage, their struggle as a people against racial discrimination, and their deep and abiding community orientation around the life-changing power of education, especially represented by UNC Pembroke.

I have talked about their rich Tribal culture, the Tribal Council, the Warriors Ball, Lumbee homecoming, the Powwow. I count among my greatest privileges in Congress having been designated an honorary Lumbee warrior.

I have explained the abomination of the recognition legislation of 1956, which acknowledged the Lumbee's nationhood while explicitly denying them the incidents and benefits of the status extended to other American Indian Tribes, the epitome of arbitrary and capricious governmental action.

Although Robeson County, the historic homeplace for the Lumbee, passed into Mr. Rouzer's district in 2022, Lumbee recognition remains the unfinished business that is closest to my heart.

I have been pleased to introduce President Trump to the Lumbee and am proud to count him a vocal supporter of this legislation. I am certain that progress toward righting this historic injustice has occurred over my 5 years in the House, and I am pleased to say that victory is in sight.

Let my final words here be to thank the Lumbee for the honor of representing them here and for their friendship.

Mr. Speaker, let's pass the Lumbee Fairness Act now and vote for the bill.

Mr. Speaker, with the Biden administration's allowance of 10 million illegals into the country, the immigration issue does have a bearing on this issue.

Radical, progressive Democrats answer the merits of this legislation with logical fallacies. The 2020 election was perfect, they say; therefore, we should not think about, act to end, or prevent unlawful voting by noncitizens, should not speak of the possibility, should avoid the issue entirely, all to improve Americans' confidence in elections.

Since noncitizen voting is unlawful, they say, it does not occur. Since undetectable conduct in the ordinary course is not evidenced by huge masses of evidence, then the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

In other words, Biden debate logic. Every vote cast by an illegal alien cancels out the vote of an American citizen, and with millions of ``newcomers'' flooded into the country by the Biden administration, the threat is greater than ever.

Without secure elections, the American experiment is finished. We must pass the SAVE Act.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to recognize Ms. Emma Clarke of Rowan County, North Carolina's top high school female athlete of the year.

Emma is a three-sport star and is the first female student athlete from Rowan County to receive the Pat Best Memorial Award honoring North Carolina's top male and female athletes.

On the softball diamond, Emma received all-state honors twice and holds single season and career home run records in Rowan County. On the volleyball court, Emma earned all-State honors as both a junior and senior. Emma also dominated on the basketball court, earning all- conference and all-county honors while leading her team to a 31-0 record and a State championship this year. She capped off her outstanding career with the most outstanding player performance in the 3A State championship game victory. Emma now heads to the University of Tennessee to continue her softball career.

Emma is a superstar. Her parents, Ken and Elizabeth Clarke; her grandparents, Commissioner Jim and Karen Greene, are so proud of her, and so am I. We can't wait to see what is yet to come. God bless Emma.

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

This matter is simple, and in its simplicity is the clarity of its appropriate resolution. The audio recording of President Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur is demeanor evidence.

Demeanor is one's outward manner, a way of conducting oneself. One might say his bearing. In some circumstances, demeanor evidence is the most probative, powerful evidence that can be heard. Better than words, it can evidence credibility or evasiveness and avoidance. Especially in this circumstance, it can evidence a witness' capacities to observe, recall, and relate information accurately.

President Biden shared classified information with his ghostwriter in pursuance of securing his $8 million book advance. Mr. Hur attributed the Justice Department's decision not to recommend prosecution of President Biden for misusing and mishandling classified documents on this and other occasions to the fact that he is an elderly man with poor memory.

A raw transcript doesn't inform the Judiciary Committee sufficiently to evaluate the reasonableness of that determination, especially since President Biden hotly contested Special Counsel Hur's characterization.

Demeanor evidence could powerfully clarify whether that exercise of prosecutorial discretion was politically neutral or politically freighted. In fact, it is the very power of the demeanor evidence in the audio of Biden's interview that Garland inadvertently acknowledges in stubbornly withholding it. If it were nothing more than a duplicate of the transcript, it would never have been refused.

The Justice Department and the Attorney General have not a leg to stand on. Their refusal is the essence of contempt. Garland's own words reflect it in the hearing before the Judiciary Committee the other day. He said ``certain members of this committee'' have marked up a contempt resolution, but as I pointed out to the Attorney General, it was a majority of the members of the committee. He retracted those words. It was a majority of the committee charged by a majority of this House with inquiring into the existence of grounds to exercise the awesome constitutional power of impeachment.

The Attorney General's reference to ``certain members'' reflects a political mindset that does not support withholding evidence that the committee seeks that is squarely relevant and essential to its inquiry.

That defiance, the House cannot abide. Therefore, this resolution for contempt must pass this House.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1227, I call up the bill (H.R. 7581) to require the Attorney General to develop reports relating to violent attacks against law enforcement officers, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 7581.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to be the lead sponsor of H.R. 7581, the Improving Law Enforcement Officer Safety and Wellness Through Data Act, and I rise in support of it.

The bill would refine and expand the gathering and analysis of data about attacks on law enforcement officers across the country, our current-day scourge. Its sponsorship is bipartisan and bicameral. I am grateful for the leadership in the Senate of Senators Grassley, Tillis, and others, and the support of 25 bipartisan cosponsors in the House.

The justification, Mr. Speaker, is obvious. Just yesterday, the FBI forecast the release of its annual report on officers assaulted and feloniously killed in the line of duty in 2023, reporting that ``from 2021 to 2023, more officers were feloniously killed (194) than in any other consecutive 3-year period in the past 20 years,'' and 2024 is on track to be the worst year of any, other than 2021, because a repeat criminal who should have been in jail gunned down four heroes in Charlotte 2 weeks ago and injured five others. Criminals killed 10 cops nationwide in April alone. Until the full 2023 report is released, the latest data is that over 66,000 officers were assaulted in 2022.

This bill will deepen the available dataset in three ways: Reporting on the intentionality of targeting law enforcement officers because of their status as sworn officers; tracking aggression and trauma-inducing incidents that do not rise to crime; and cataloging the availability to officers of mental health resources to deal with the attacks they suffer.

One would expect unanimous support, and yet in the Judiciary Committee, Democrats amazingly sought to gut and replace the entire bill with the same old antipolice legislation to impair qualified immunity for police officers, create a national registry of police misconduct, and require implicit bias training, and so forth.

If reacting to unprecedented killings and assaults of cops by intimidating and undermining cops sounds backwards and astonishing to you, watch the vote on this bill.

The truth is that the strong impulse and desire among Democrats to demonize and delegitimize police remain powerful and just under the surface, even as many of them deny they ever uttered the words ``defund'' and ``abolish'' during the 2020 summer of love, which spawned mass riots and increased attacks and killings of not only police officers but also those most in need of their protection.

Especially here in Washington, D.C., the effects of this most irresponsible rhetoric in the history of American politics have been catastrophic.

Crime remains out of control, especially among juveniles, carjackings and assaults on Congressmen, a 20-year murder record.

Congress has disapproved with Joe Biden's signature the D.C. Council's radical rewrite of the District's criminal law that eliminated mandatory minimums and cut maximum sentences for most crimes.

Two D.C. Council members face recall efforts by citizens beset by violent crime, and the Metropolitan Police Department has lost almost 600 of its 4,000-member force and almost every month loses more than it hires.

Yet, some Democrats will vote against this little bill to collect more information about attacks on officers.

It must be considered under a rule because it might not get the two- thirds majority required to pass on suspension as many such little bills do.

Here, to my right, are the searing consequences of this unforgivable political division--the human cost of the worst attack on law enforcement since 2026.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Officer Joshua Eyer, North Carolina Corrections Officers Sam Poloche and Alden Elliott, and Thomas Weeks, Jr., United States Deputy Marshal, all lost their lives on April 29.

I have been to their funerals. I have seen and heard from their families. May their names long endure in our memory.

One could list the other lives taken from us longer ago but just as strong in our memories: Jonathan Diller, NYPD officer shot and killed in March during a traffic stop, leaving behind a wife and a 1-year-old son; Philip Dale Nix, Greensboro police sergeant killed at a Sheetz gas station interdicting criminals who wanted to steal mass quantities of beer the night before New Year's Eve; Ned Byrd, Wake County, North Carolina, sheriff's deputy, ambushed and shot to death by illegals in 2022; Ryan Hendrix, Henderson County, North Carolina deputy, lost his life in a shoot-out with a hardened criminal wanted in multiple states; David Dorn, a 77-year-old retired police captain, fatally shot interrupting a burglary in St. Louis during the George Floyd riots in 2020; and far, far too many others to name in the time allowed. Is it time yet to come around?

The former New York City Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton, said about that place: Don't hold your breath. The State and the city council have been captured by the progressive left, and it is unlikely that the voters are going to take them out of office anytime soon.

Let's prove that the same cannot be said of Congress one way or the other. Support our men and women in blue--the American people certainly do, the overwhelming majority of them.

Let's pass this little bill and develop the information necessary so that we can protect the officers who serve us, who risk their lives every day.

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

Mr. Speaker, as the comments to the gentlewoman from Washington developed, it became clear.

She said at first I mischaracterized what occurred in the Judiciary Committee, and then it became clear that I didn't mischaracterize anything.

What they offered to do was to, again, take this bill, which provides for additional data collection about attacks on law enforcement officers, to take the entire text of the bill and to gut it and replace it with, yes, indeed, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is the name, and that is the bill that I described as having attempted to impair officer qualified immunity, to require training on implicit bias, and to establish a database to impugn officers nationwide.

That is the bill that was a very top priority of Democrats when they were in the majority. It passed on the floor under their majority rule, and it went on to the Senate where it didn't advance, for good reason, because the last thing America needs--again, as demonstrated by the events in Washington, D.C., the last thing America needs is police officers to be brushed back from their jobs and to be intimidated from doing the very tough work of criminal law enforcement by legislation that antagonizes, demeans, and delegitimizes them. That is the last thing they need.

Here we are. It is remarkable. Is this the only reporting bill that has ever come up that Democrats find objectionable because of their interest in good and efficient government?

Is it that they are concerned about the possibility that the bill might not have excellent impacts or be efficient or advance the game or break new ground? What is the harm, after all?

Here is what the harm is: Democrats cannot abide by even the simplest of legislation that recognizes the burdens that are borne every day by police officers across this country on our behalf; that they are being subjected to greater and greater incidents and risk of attacks on their persons and of their deaths in the line of duty by people who intend to do them harm, and that there may be gaps in terms of the resources that are available to them to deal with the difficulties they confront.

The response that you need to do the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in lieu of this reporting bill is absurd. It is gaslighting in the highest degree.

This little reporting bill, there is just nothing to it, and, yet, for some reason, it sticks in the craw of the minority just to say to police officers: We are going to extend further efforts, further minimal efforts to learn the information that we need to find out, to see just how big this problem is and whether you are being afforded the opportunity to deal with it in your personal lives as it wreaks havoc on you.

Joshua Eyer, Sam Poloche, Alden Elliott, Thomas Weeks, Jr.: One of the worst attacks on law enforcement ever.

Shouldn't we go and find out what we need to know for their benefit? Is that not an appropriate way, that little bill? Would that not be an appropriate way to honor their memory?

Is the concern with efficiency and breaking new ground so profound that you have to replace the bill to find out information about the assaults on them with the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that was rejected last Congress? It is simply astonishing, and Americans aren't going to tolerate it.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me speak more directly to the circumstances in Washington, D.C., and what has transpired as a consequence of exactly the kind of policing bill represented by the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which the minority proposed in the Judiciary Committee to gut and replace this bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).

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

Madam Speaker, I think it bears repeating, in light of that extraordinary commentary, that right here in the District of Columbia, to the affliction of 700,000, roughly, local citizens and the 19 million who visit annually, exactly the kind of radical politicization that would say this reporting bill is beyond the pale and that you have to have the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. That is exactly what they did in D.C. That is exactly what they have done to lead to citizen-led recall petitions on two D.C. councilmembers, what they have done to see carjackings explode in ways that no one ever thought possible, to have a 20-year record of homicides last year, and to have one D.C. councilmember still touting that he managed, because of the budget politics, to take millions and millions out of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department so that their force has declined from 4,000 by 600 or more and continues to decline 3 years into the phenomenon.

How far will ideology go to take us beyond common sense to a point we can't recover? Let's do a little reporting bill and find out the details. Let's get a rich dataset about this scourge that we see across the Nation precipitated and encouraged by those who still cannot bring themselves to say that law enforcement officers are a needed quantity, that the Nation must have them, that law and order must prevail in order for the country to succeed.

How could we have come to a point in the country where that cannot be conceded readily by everyone in the political spectrum? I do not know. I do not understand, but that is where we are.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, cheap talk. That is what the gentleman from New York just said: cheap talk. Madam Speaker, there is nothing cheap about it. Behold the price.

That is why when this body, when this Republican House, undertook to disapprove the D.C. crime bill that would have radically rewritten criminal law in the District of Columbia, this body disapproved it with the support of over 30 Democrats. That is why Chuck Schumer and the Democratic majority in the Senate joined in disapproving that radical rewrite of the criminal law in the District of Columbia. That is why Joe Biden signed the law to disapprove the radical rewrite of the criminal law in D.C.

What is cheap talk is the concern that this would produce a duplicate report. That is the objection, that the report might be duplicative? Really?

I would take duplicative reports from here to kingdom come if there is the slightest chance that it will avoid this unspeakable price. Everybody in the Chamber should support the bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield his time to me? I would be glad to take that question.

In part yes; in part no. That is to say, as the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia just read the section, it prohibits the Council from enacting changes to existing criminal liability sentences.

It does not prevent the D.C. Council from creating new crimes, like an organized retail crime act. It would prevent them from increasing sentences-- Mr.

RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time. As I understand the answer, the District of Columbia would not be able to increase the penalty for rape or the penalty for murder or the penalty for child sex abuse.

We might have a difference as to your second conclusion because, of course, it is increasing a criminal sentence to create a criminal sentence or offense where it didn't exist in the first place.

In any event, you are creating grave constitutional doubt about new criminal offenses that might be created in the District of Columbia with this legislation.

In any event, the first part is bad enough. The point is that, how is it tough on crime to say that the District of Columbia, as the gentleman just conceded, cannot increase criminal penalties if it chooses to in response to local circumstances?

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

Mr. Speaker, I was about to comment that sooner or later you had to expect that the debate would be a rant about Donald Trump.

Let's get back to the subject matter at hand perhaps. To clarify, since the point has been raised repeatedly and continues to be repeated, here is what the D.C. Council would be prohibited from doing: enact any act, resolution, or rule to change any criminal liability sentence in effect on the date of the enactment of the DC CRIMES Act of 2024.

Nothing would keep the D.C. Council from creating new crimes. Nothing whatsoever. In fact, they would not be able to increase crime sentences, existing sentences for crimes, but they sure haven't shown any inclination whatsoever to do that.

The law professor from Maryland also made another elementary mistake in his recitation of the facts. As they said in law school, you have got to know the facts. He said that ``crime is down 16 percent in the past year in D.C.''

Look a little closer. Go to the website MPDC.DC.gov. That is the website for the Metropolitan Police Department. That reduction in crime that was cited, that is only for this year to date. Go look at last year, 2023. In that situation: homicide, up 35 percent; robbery, up 67 percent; violent crime total, up 39 percent, et cetera. Across the board, all crime totaled up 26 percent, just last year.

I know it is out of memory now because we are into the first few months of the next year, but it hasn't gone away. The victims haven't gone away.

Here is what the gentleman from Maryland said, the law professor, that Thomas Jefferson would understand, but the Constitution that Thomas Jefferson signed said: ``[The Congress shall have power . . . ] to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding 10 miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all places purchased . . . ''

That is pretty clear. It is not only the question of the interests of the roughly 700,000 D.C. citizens; it is the 19 million Americans who come to the seat of government every year and are threatened by the recklessness of the D.C. Council.

A moment's refresher about how we got to this place: The D.C. Council's radical rewrite of the entire criminal law that was reversed by H.J. Res. 26, which 31 Democrats voted to disapprove along with the majority, two Democrats from my home State, and eight Democrats couldn't bring themselves to vote. The rest of the extreme Democrats voted to stay out of the way, let them do what they wanted to.

Mr. Speaker, the Senate voted to disapprove, 81-14, and the President of the United States, Joe Biden, faithful Democrat, signed the legislation even though many extreme Democrats supported the D.C. Council's reckless action.

Then the other matter, H.J. Res. 42, to disapprove the ``Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022,'' which Mayor Bowser also vetoed, and they overrode her veto.

They did all kinds of stuff to leave police officers at the tender mercies. They require juries to consider if officers consulted mental health, behavioral health, or social workers before using deadly force; imposed approval hurdles for the use of riot gear and nonlethal munitions necessary to protect officers; eliminated officers and union representatives from police complaint boards, restricted officers from using body cam footage in preparing reports, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It is sheer recklessness, and it should be changed, and the way to change it is for Congress to take back the authority over criminal sentencing.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to congratulate the Central Cabarrus boy's high school basketball team on winning back-to-back 3A state championships. In recent years, the Central Cabarrus Vikings have been the dominant force to reckon with in North Carolina boys' basketball. Local Charlotte news anchor Jim Tritsch described it perfectly when he said, ``there is no defense they cannot breach; there is no level of dominance they can't unlock.''

Led by Coach Jim Baker, the Vikings put up an astounding record of 95-1 over the past three seasons. The Vikings' most recent win not only earned them a second consecutive championship but raised Central Cabarrus' winning streak to 65 straight games, the longest current winning streak in the country.

Once again, on behalf of the 8th District of North Carolina, congratulations to Coach Baker and Viking Nation on this outstanding achievement.

Madam Speaker, today, 14 U.S. textile manufacturing plants stand idle, and much of the rest of American manufacturing is endangered by a new threat from China that this Congress could end at a stroke.

In just the last 2 years, roughly, Chinese online marketplaces have exploded in size, selling cheap goods at dumping prices into the American market.

What is causing this? Well, they learned to exploit fully the de minimis tariff loophole. In 2023, nearly a billion packages entered the U.S. through the $800 de minimis loophole, nearly 4 million individual shipments per day. That is not de minimis business. It is big money.

Chinese companies Temu and Shein alone account for roughly one-third of all de minimis shipments. Temu appeared on the American scene only in 2022, Shein not much earlier. You can go buy sneakers on Temu for $5, and a sweater for $7. Temu reportedly loses $30 per order in a deliberate strategy to flood the U.S. market with cheap crap and move toward market dominance. It is not only textiles.

We should close this loophole today.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the Crenshaw amendment would expand FISA's definition of foreign intelligence to encompass international drug crimes.

FISA is a counterintelligence and counterterrorism tool. It is limited to that purpose. The clear distinction between foreign intelligence and crime are essential to preserving the fundamental liberties of Americans under our constitutional system.

It is the essential design of the law: spying abroad, criminal justice at home.

Simply redefining foreign intelligence to include ordinary crime eviscerates the entire distinction on which the design of the FISA law rests.

Moreover, the Intelligence Committee proponents of this amendment fail even to explain to us why this blurred definition is needed. They assert it, but they don't explain it.

After all, the DNI's FISA section 702 fact sheet lists the government's use of section 702 to learn about our adversaries' plans to smuggle fentanyl into the United States as the number one successful use of existing section 702.

If section 702 already allows us to go after fentanyl, then why do we need to change and blur the critical definition of foreign intelligence? What is the purpose of doing so? What comes next?

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. Chair, everyone agrees that the fentanyl crisis is a terrible and serious public health and crime issue, but a mass, warrantless surveillance tool created by word games is not the answer. It is dangerous.

Indeed, the willingness and desire of some to create exactly that points back to the reason that Congress must impose a warrant requirement to deter the abuse of the section 702 foreign intelligence database collected to surveil foreigners abroad to permit backdoor searches against Americans. That is the issue.

Oppose the Crenshaw amendment and support the Biggs amendment to make them get a warrant.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time that restricting speech has been pursued in the interests of national security. In fact, in 5 days' time, next Monday, I will go to the Supreme Court for the first time where I will attend an oral argument in the case of Murphy v. Missouri.

It is a case where agents from the White House, the Department of Justice, and other Federal agencies embedded themselves with American social media companies to manipulate what could appear on social media: expression by the American people.

It has been described by the lower court as the most massive attack on free speech in U.S. history.

Even as that pends for a decision by the Supreme Court, Congress would in this legislation say, in effect: Hold my beer.

I don't use TikTok. I think it is ill-advised to do so. Members of this body are famous on TikTok, and I think that is unwise. Be that as it may, I respect the choices of 170 million users in the United States.

The Trump administration attempted to ban TikTok in 2020. It was held that it couldn't do so in two court decisions because under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, he is subject to the Berman amendment, passed in 1988 by this body, to provide that in the interest of dealing with hostile foreign powers, the President can do all sorts of things

with respect to commerce, but he cannot ban the free flow of information across international boundaries.

I have heard that described as a gap in the law, but it is a feature. It is not a bug.

This legislation cannot be described as other than receding from the Berman amendment. That principle in American law--which did not, by the way, emerge from the brow of Representative Berman in 1988--was predicated on a much earlier principle of First Amendment law established in 1965 by the United States Supreme Court in the case Lamont v. Postmaster General which said the American people have a First Amendment right of access to foreign propaganda.

At first, it may be remarkable or strike one as odd to hear that. However, it is because the proper relationship between government and citizen in the United States is that the citizen decides what to be exposed to and what ideologies to embrace and consider and is always free to engage in expression including across international boundaries. That remains the prevailing constitutional law today.

It begs this question: How could it be that Congress should be working hard to devise a means to circumvent that prevailing principle of the First Amendment against the use of a particular means of expression by 170 million Americans?

Isn't it ironic that the technical advisers in the construction of this legislation to design it so that it can get around legislation challenges, including isolating litigation challenges to 180 days and only in the court of appeals in the District of Columbia, those technical advisers are the same folks at the Department of Justice who devised that plan to embed agents of the Department of Justice and other Federal agencies with social media platforms in the United States to restrict what Americans could say online.

Mr. Speaker, America confronts a grave challenge in China, and it will not prevail by becoming more like them.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1052, I call up the bill (H.R. 7511) to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to take into custody aliens who have been charged in the United States with theft, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on H.R. 7511.

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

Mr. Speaker, today, the House says the name ``Laken Riley'' through H.R. 7511, the Laken Riley Act.

On this day, 2 weeks ago, the life of a 22-year-old nursing student, Laken Riley, a beautiful and vibrant young woman, came to an abrupt and shocking end, a totally unnecessary end, when she was abducted from her morning run around Lake Herrick Trail on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens and brutally killed, beaten to death and to a state of disfigurement by a criminal alien whom Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas were under legal obligation to detain.

Laken's failure to return home alarmed her roommate, who called police. Police found her discarded body in the woods off the running trail, her skull crushed.

Last Friday, Laken's parents laid their daughter to rest, their lives destroyed by the senseless and depraved actions of a criminal who should not have been here and the callous indifference of the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security.

A Venezuelan, Jose Ibarra illegally entered into our country across the southwest border in 2022. The Biden administration released him, just like millions of others, paroled him into the country to roam wherever he pleased, rather than detaining him as the law required.

Jose Ibarra roamed to New York City. There, in August, NYPD arrested him for driving a scooter without a license with a child on board unprotected by a helmet, and an independent obligation arose for Homeland Security to detain Mr. Ibarra; namely, that he had committed an offense involving moral turpitude by endangering that child. However, NYPD released him and Homeland Security did nothing.

From New York City, Jose Ibarra roamed to join his brother Diego, another criminal illegal alien, in Athens, Georgia. Athens police arrested Diego in September for driving while intoxicated and without a license, also an offense involving moral turpitude which required detention by Homeland Security. However, Homeland Security again did nothing, and Diego, too, was promptly released.

In October, Jose and Diego joined forces to rip off the local Walmart, and it must have been quite something for them to be arrested for shoplifting in this day and age, but arrested they were. Then another basis in law arose for mandatory detention, specifically two or more criminal offenses, by each of them, involving separate criminal acts. Again, Homeland Security utterly disregarded Congress' statutory command and did nothing. The Ibarra brothers were set free upon the community again.

In December, a final chance came to prevent Laken Riley's fate. Athens police arrested Diego again for failure to appear for a fingerprintable offense. Why didn't they arrest Jose? Who knows. Maybe they figured, what is the point? Homeland Security will just continue looking the other way. Even though Diego was also now an absconder, he was released again. The big bureaucratic Department of Homeland Security did nothing.

Secretary Mayorkas was asked whether Jose Ibarra should have been deported before he beat Laken Riley to death. He answered blandly that his agency works closely with law enforcement ``to ensure individuals who pose a threat to public safety are made the highest priority for detention and removal,'' which reminds me of the more than 30 times Secretary Mayorkas testified to Congress under oath that the border was secure.

What the Secretary omitted to explain was the law he laid down in September 2021, the memo to the Department of Homeland Security employees, where he instructed that the grounds specified by Congress for detention would never be the basis standing alone for any detention by Homeland Security; the law according to Alejandro Mayorkas.

Today, the Laken Riley Act presents two simple and straightforward amendments to law to break through the Biden administration's brazen, defiant, and reckless disregard for Laken Riley and all the other vulnerable Americans out there victimized already or soon to be victimized.

First, it specifies theft offenses as a ground mandating the Secretary of Homeland Security to take into custody criminal illegal aliens like Jose Ibarra and to issue a detainer request to local law enforcement.

How hard is that, Mr. Speaker? Shouldn't illegal aliens be required to be detained at the border in the first place? Shouldn't those who go on to engage in thievery in our country be detained and removed? Who could disagree with that?

If H.R. 7511 only added another detention mandate to the slew that Secretary Mayorkas is brazenly defying even today, then it would be an act of futility. It would be more statutory commands to an administration that is lawless, and it would do nothing to honor the life and memory of Laken Riley.

Therefore, the other essential element of this bill is to confer standing upon State attorneys general to bring civil actions against open-borders executive branch officials who refuse to enforce the Nation's immigration laws.

This provision comes from H.R. 7322, the SUE for Immigration Enforcement Act, introduced by Chip Roy and me. It would empower States to hold Homeland Security accountable in Federal courts for flouting mandatory detention requirements, the limits of parole authority, and visa sanctions against countries that refuse to cooperate with repatriation of illegals removed from our country.

This responds to the Supreme Court's ruling of 2023 in United States v. Texas that States lack standing in such cases, and it follows the roadmap set forth in the Court's opinion in that case inviting Congress to cure the standing defect by specifically authorizing such suits in statute.

The provision confers standing upon a narrowly defined set of plaintiffs, the States, and it authorizes the judiciary to grant redress. As such, this legislation would ensure that harmful abuses of our immigration laws--in fact, those policies set forth by the Biden administration that are in direct conflict and contradiction with the plain meaning of our laws--will not go unchallenged.

H.R. 7511 also honors Laken Riley's life and those who mourn her loss as well as all the other victims of the Biden border crisis.

No law passed by this body can bring back Laken or take away the pain suffered by her family and countless other victims of criminal alien crime. The Laken Riley Act, however, will ensure that illegal aliens who commit theft offenses, as Laken's alleged murderer did, cannot be shielded by the Biden administration's continued reckless and callous indifference.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Tiffany).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Molinaro).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), who represents Athens, Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close as well, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

H.R. 7511 is but the latest effort by Republicans to do something about the harm that confronts our Nation from an uncontrolled border by the determined action of President Biden and Democrats.

H.R. 2 is an extensive bill with many provisions and extensive reform. Democrats have ignored it. This bill is exceedingly simple and straightforward. Democrats attack it. The excuses for doing nothing never end.

The only answers offered by Democrats are to spend more money processing more aliens faster into the country, making the problem worse, and yet they always deflect blame to someone else for the calamitous results of their policies.

This bill is very straightforward. The objection that a thief should not be deported until after a conviction leaves Americans to be victimized for all the time that would have gone by until a conviction. It is not required under the law.

The distinction between the point the gentleman from New York made about Mr. Massie's bill concerning the use of facial recognition technology, that is about American citizens. The people involved here have no right to be in this country. They are not supposed to be here.

They also object that the standing change, that the conferral of standing on State attorneys general is unconstitutional, will not work, but it is Justice Kavanaugh in the opinion of the Court in United States v. Texas who said:

For example, Congress might specifically authorize suits

against the executive branch by a defined set of plaintiffs

who have suffered concrete harms by executive under-

enforcement and specifically authorize the judiciary to enter

appropriate orders requiring additional arrests or

prosecutions by the executive branch.

This bill takes that invitation from the Court to act. It is far past the time for President Biden to act. He will not act. Let's act in this United States Congress.

We have the chance to give States the ability to fight back. We have the chance to recognize Laken Riley's story as a tragedy. There need not be other tragedies.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the Laken Riley Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, many have said what the issue is. Many have mischaracterized it, in my judgment.

The issue presented by the Articles of Impeachment and why they should be adopted by the House is not a matter of policy, it is not a matter of maladministration, it is not a matter of incompetence, it is not a matter of neglect, and it is not even a matter of refusal to enforce the law.

It was stated succinctly and aptly in the District Court opinion that ultimately led to the United States Supreme Court last summer in the United States v. Texas.

The core of the dispute is whether the executive branch may require its officials to act in a manner that conflicts with a statutory mandate imposed by Congress.

It may not.

You see, Madam Speaker, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, issued guidelines--administrative law--instructing the Department of Homeland Security not to detain criminal aliens nor those ordered finally removed. That is what he did, and that was flatly contradictory to statutes passed by the Congress in the mid-1990s.

We are a nation of laws. The Supreme Court has said it cannot referee this dispute, it is up to Congress, and the Congress has but one means in this situation to vindicate the law. It cannot help the situation by shutting down the government or by cutting off funding. There is no new Cabinet Secretary to refuse to confirm in the Senate.

There is but one means: the impeachment of the Secretary who purported to issue law defying the Congress. That must result in his impeachment if the law is to have any force and if the Congress is to remain of any significance in the jurisprudence in the law of the United States.

Mr. Speaker Pro Tempore, today I rise to honor the legacy of the Union County Board of Commissioners Chair, Stony Dwight Rushing.

Stony loved his family and he loved Union County. He was fiercely devoted to his wife, Anne-Marie, and his two children, Reagan and RyLee. Stony also served Union County for four terms on the Board of Commissioners from 2002 to 2006, and then again from 2014 to 2023. Over the course of these four terms, Stony's fellow Board Members chose him to serve as Chairman for two of them. Stony was a congenial presence and a highly effective servant to his community. He stood for our God- given rights and took every opportunity to make people's lives better. His larger-than-life presence that still echoes throughout Union County will truly be missed.

Outside of his involvement with the Union County Board of Commissioners, Stony mentored young North Carolinians on the importance of firearm proficiency and safety. Stony served as a certified firearms instructor and owner of Take Aim Training Range. In fact, he was the NRA South Carolina Youth Hunter Education Challenge State Coordinator, and was honored as the 2013 NC Governor's Conservation Achievement Award winner for ``Hunter Education Instructor of the Year.'' Stony also served as the Union District Chairman for the Boy Scouts of America between 2006 and 2009.

On behalf of the entire 8th Congressional District of North Carolina, I rise to honor and celebrate Chairman Stony Rushing's fruitful life and dedicated service to others. I thank Stony and may he rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to congratulate Union County Public Schools teacher, Dawn Helms Stegall, on her retirement after 48 years of serving Union County's students and families. Dawn graduated from Piedmont High School in the class of 1972 before attending both Wingate University for a degree in history, and Meredith College for a degree in social studies and secondary education.

In 1975, Dawn started her teaching career at UCPS at Sun Valley, where she taught history for 10 years. She accepted a job at her alma mater, Piedmont High School, where she taught history for the next 38 years. She was named UCPS Teacher of the Year for the 1989-1990 academic year and was later named the Region IV Teacher of the Year. Year after year, Dawn's students register among the highest scores for AP U.S. History. Dawn's dedicated leadership in the classroom has inspired several of her students to further study history and return to teach in the UCPS system.

Dawn's years of service to the UCPS community also extends far beyond the classroom. Dawn helped start the Piedmont Barbecue in 1986 and continued every year until 2019. Over these years, the Barbecue has raised more than one hundred thousand dollars for Piedmont High students. It is clear, Dawn is the epitome of servant leadership.

Once again, on behalf of the entire 8th Congressional District of North Carolina, I rise to congratulate Dawn Helms Stegall on a successful career and a well-deserved recognition for her years of dedicated service to Union County.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to introduce America to First Baptist Church Indian Trail in the person of Pastor Mike Whitson, who opened us in prayer.

Pastor Whitson celebrated this past month his 40th anniversary in the pulpit at First Baptist.

Indian Trail? You may ask, what is Indian Trail? It is a small town, I would say, immediately east of Charlotte, North Carolina, except that is not quite right. The mayor of Stallings, North Carolina, is in the gallery. Stallings is immediately east of Charlotte, and Indian Trail is immediately east of Stallings.

It is a small town, and in its midst, the institution of First Baptist Church has over 7,000 members. In the course of the pastorate of Mike Whitson, more than 7,000 people have been baptized, and they have two satellite campuses.

In 1992, they began the Metrolina Christian Academy, which now matriculates 1,477 students in one of the largest K-12 private schools in our State. There is ministry after ministry--to the county jail, a Russian language ministry. Where God undertakes to do His will, it can be in the most unexpected of places.

It was related in the church's celebration of Mike's pastorate and his 40th anniversary that, in the early days, Mike would surprise everyone, certainly the men of the church, when he would bid them a farewell by saying: I love you.

At first, they were taken aback, but after a time, they began saying to Pastor Whitson: I love you.

That is what Pastor Whitson has meant, and the work of the Lord through him and in him is a masterful thing for the Nation to behold.

It is my honor to have had him here in the House Chamber today.