Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to an epidemic, a pandemic of unnecessary amputations in our country. In the 21st century, non-traumatic amputations should be a thing of the past, but they are not.

Poor blood circulation because of peripheral artery disease often leads to amputations, and minorities are suffering disproportionately. In fact, African Americans with PAD are more likely to be amputated and less likely to have their lower limbs revascularized.

Across this country, people are having their limbs and digits amputated simply because they are poor, simply because they don't have access to healthcare until it is too late.

Yesterday, Mr. Paulsen and I brought together experts from across the country to discuss ways Congress can prevent this unnecessary amputation issue. This is serious.

The problem is no one checks or does any screening prior to amputations. If a woman went in to her doctor and found a lump in her breast today and the doctor said well, we are just going to have to do a mastectomy, we would go crazy. So we need testing in this area as well because these limbs can be saved and Americans can go on and live the quality of life that they deserve in this Nation.

This is a serious health issue that affects people in all of our districts, and I look forward to continuing to work with both Democrats and Republicans to reduce unnecessary amputations.

Mr. Speaker, recently FEMA released a report into its own response after Hurricane Maria swept Puerto Rico last year.

To sum up the report, FEMA screwed up.

FEMA underestimated how much food people would need.

FEMA miscalculated how much fresh water people would need.

FEMA didn't foresee how difficult it would be to get supplies to the island.

And when Hurricane Maria struck, FEMA's warehouse in Puerto Rico was basically empty.

I was most shocked by FEMA's admission that its plans for a crisis in Puerto Rico were based on a focused disaster like a tsunami, not a major hurricane devastating the whole island.

Just last week, the island's death toll was adjusted to reflect the reality that thousands of people died because of Hurricane Maria. Mr. Speaker, these were American citizens.

The Federal Government must do better. Lives are at stake.

Mr. Speaker, since 1987, the number of pilots in the United States has decreased by 30 percent. Demand for pilots is up and the supply of trained pilots is down. Throughout the aviation industry, there is a desperate need for trained aviation employees.

One way we can help end the shortage is to create paths for minority training. African Americans are significantly underrepresented in the aviation industry. They represent only 9 percent of airline mechanics and service technicians, 2 percent of aircraft pilots and flight engineers, and 12 percent of air traffic controllers. Creating opportunities to diversify the aviation field will help the critical shortage of pilots and aviation employees.

Soon, I will be introducing a bill to establish an African American advisory board within the FAA. The advisory board will engage African American students through aviation training, mentorship, education, and outreach programs.

I urge my colleagues to join me in my effort to decrease our Nation's pilot shortage by tapping into an underutilized population and creating a more inclusive aviation industry

Mr. Speaker, it is still going on. The Trump administration is still holding thousands of little children in jails across this country in cages, cyclone fencing, cages.

These are babies and toddlers, preschoolers and adolescents. Their only crime is their desire to breathe free.

And just when you think the pit of the Trump administration's soul could get no darker, heartbreaking reports emerge from inside these so- called detention facilities.

These children are prohibited from touching one another. No hugs, not even from their siblings. They can't run around. They have to wake up at unreasonably early hours, with their jailers banging and making noise as if it is Alcatraz, for everyone to get out of bed.

Some of these children only get 1 hour to play outside a day. They are being held in strip malls and abandoned motels.

Some are banned from sending mail to their siblings. Others have scrubbed toilets or handled bags of unsanitary used toilet paper.

Mr. Speaker, these so-called detention facilities are nothing more than jails for children, baby jails. Let's end this madness.

Mr. Speaker, now that the Manchurian President has come back from meeting with his holders in Helsinki, we need to look at what is going on here.

We were scolded today in another country by the President of the United States telling us how: Well, Russia has made mistakes. Well, we have made mistakes, too.

When has a President ever done that? And all my colleagues do is sit over there and don't say a word.

Let this have been some other President, it would be holy water in here.

He attacks women all the time--Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren, Megyn Kelly, Hillary Clinton, you name it. But then stands there next to the person that had everything to do with our elections being rigged or held up, and he stands there and says: Well, he said he didn't do it.

What is going on here? Is there any backbone?

The President of the United States doesn't have a backbone. What did I see today?

It used to be being called a communist was the worst thing you could call someone. Now they are our friends?

Wake up.

Mr. Speaker, the vast majority of people in our country oppose the Trump administration's cruel policy of jailing immigrant children. This administration is rotten to the core.

Just yesterday, news broke that the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement is preparing for possibly another surge of families to separate. They are planning for the possible detention of thousands more children, even though the office doesn't have enough money to take care of these children.

So what is the administration's plan for covering the cost of jailing children? According to internal documents obtained by reporters, HHS plans to pay for the child separation by robbing funds from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. In fact, HHS is already moving money out of the Ryan White program.

Mr. Speaker, this administration is wicked. Stealing from the underinsured and the uninsured people living with HIV in order to put children in jail is outrageous. Congress needs to step up and protect the Ryan White program and end child detention.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes it seems that the United States moves from one crisis to the next. We have to keep our eye on the ball.

As Members of Congress, we have a duty to protect everyone in this country from unnecessary suffering. We cannot forget that the Trump administration is still holding children in cages, ``Cages `R' Us.''

Congress should step up and end this terrible policy. We cannot forget that thousands--maybe even millions--of people in this country are served by water systems that violate the Safe Water Drinking Act. Congress should invest in rebuilding community water infrastructures.

We cannot forget that this year there is nearly one school shooting a week. Congress needs to dump the NRA and pass reasonable gun laws.

Mr. Speaker, ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away, and each moment we fail to act puts human lives at risk.

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics. Justice is supposed to be blind.

But rather than nominate a fair and balanced jurist to the Supreme Court, the man in the White House has nominated a right-wing operative to replace Justice Kennedy.

Not only that, the nominee is someone who apparently believes that the President is above the law.

Make no mistake. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is no Justice Kennedy.

Whether we are talking about the disgraceful Starr Commission or Bush vs. Gore or the scandalous George W. Bush administration, Judge Kavanaugh has been there. His hands are covered in right-wing muck.

This nomination threatens the rights and liberties the people of this Nation have died for. Confirming Judge Kavanaugh would destroy Roe vs. Wade. It would put ObamaCare at risk, and it would threaten the rights of same-sex couples to marry.

The American people demand justice, and justice is fair, not a justice who is full of hot air.

Mr. Speaker, due to personal illness, I was not present for the following Roll Call votes. Had I been present, I would have voted the following: ``nay'' on rollcall No. 279, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 280, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 281, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 282, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 283, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 284, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 285, and ``nay'' on rollcall No. 286.

Mr. Speaker, there are babies being ripped away from their parents at the southern border in the name of the American people. Make no mistake, this is part of an evil plot by the Trump administration, and it has to stop.

What I want to know is how the Trump administration is keeping track of these children. My triplets didn't carry identification around when they were little babies. That was my wife's and my job, to be able to identify them and speak for them. We were with our kids, and we could identify them.

If these babies don't have identification, how will they be reunited with their parents? How will they be reunited with their families?

The American people demand answers, Mr. Speaker. The American people demand an end to this evil, to this new GOP nonprofit, ``Cage the Children.''

Mr. Speaker, today is Juneteenth, a day to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States.

The destructive history of slavery in this country flows through the fabric of our social conscience, but much more so during the month of June.

On June 19, 1865--hence, the name Juneteenth--the Union Army took control over Texas. It is on that date, 2\1/2\ years after the fact, when slaves in Texas learned about the Emancipation Proclamation. That is how dominant the institution of slavery was. Slave owners were able to keep freedom a secret for 2\1/2\ years.

The end of slavery didn't mean freedom came overnight. It took a cultural transformation and the course of a hundred years before African Americans could even vote. And the effects of slavery continue still today.

On Juneteenth, we celebrate the end of slavery and aspire to be fully free.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Garamendi, once again, for stepping out and giving Members such as myself the opportunity to express our outrage at what is going on in this great Nation of ours. The gentleman has given me several opportunities to speak on issues pertaining to this country that are at the core of decisions and issues that we need to address, and his passion tonight is warranted.

Let me say, never in my life did I think that I would be on the floor of the United States House of Representatives calling for the President of the United States to stop tearing children away from their parents. Yet here I am.

Perhaps it is fitting that today is Juneteenth, a holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth is also a stark reminder that our country has a dark history of ripping children away from their parents.

African Americans know all too well that laws and policies can be twisted to evil ends. We know all too well the pain of having our children torn away from us and our families separated. It was a common event during slavery. We know all too well that state-sponsored psychological terror can have lasting effects on generations.

What is going on at our south border is evil. It is a deplorable policy by deplorable people, and it has to stop.

The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics has explained that the practice of ripping children away from their parents at the border is child abuse. Let me emphasize, one of the country's leading pediatricians has said that the United States is engaging in horrible actions that ``disrupt the synapses and the neurological connections that are part of the developing brain'' of these immigrant babies.

Who are we as a nation?

Now, I have heard pundits defending evil by saying that the Trump administration is just following the law, just applying the law. I have heard other pundits wrongly say migrant parents are breaking the law and deserve to have their children taken away.

Attorney General Jeff Beauregard Sessions even trotted out the Bible to defend the family-separation policy, quoting a passage that says ``to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes.''

That is the same scripture that they used for slave-owners against their slaves, to defend their practice of holding human beings in bondage.

So let me answer Attorney General Beauregard Sessions and the Trump administration's goons: Legal does not mean moral.

Slavery was legal, but it was immoral. Jim Crow was legal, but it was immoral. Forced sterilization was legal, but it was immoral. Apartheid was legal, but it was immoral. Tearing children away from their parents at the border may be legal, but it is immoral.

The President could end this evil with one tweet. Congress can end it with a vote. Let us hope that reasonable people steer the ship of the state onto the right course before the seas of despair consume us all.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman from California, let me just say that, as I thought about this, the gentleman has been in this body much longer than I and has seen people come and go, great people on both sides of the aisle that the gentleman has worked with. Well, let me just say, what has happened? What has happened to that side of the aisle? What is going on with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that they do not speak up? They all have children.

I would die for my triplets getting here if I was in a position where I thought that my life and my children's lives were in danger where I was. You had better believe I would come up here and try to get into this Nation. We would all do that for our children.

Yet these people are criminals? It baffles the mind.

I know that time is fleeting, but I have seen the GOP come up with a new nonprofit through this whole endeavor. They have created a new nonprofit, sir. It is called ``Cage the Children.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the wonderful accomplishments of two young women from my district. April Vassell and Nevaeh Parker were each selected to attend the United Nations Foundation's 2018 Women in Science, or WiSci, Girls STEAM Camp in Namibia.

The camp will bring together 100 high school girls from the African Continent and the United States for a 2-week intensive learning program.

This amazing camp is co-hosted by the U.S. Department of State and private partners. It brings girls together to help close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.

April and Nevaeh will have the opportunity to enhance their STEAM skills, grow as young leaders, and develop relationships with their sisters from Africa. These two young women and the other campers have a lot to be proud of.

I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing their achievements, their potential, and success.

Mr. Speaker, over the past 100 years, the life expectancy of men has declined in comparison with that of women. Women now live, on average, 5 years longer than men.

There is a silent crisis of men's health in America. To reverse the decline, we must be silent no more. Too often, men are foregoing routine health screenings, and they are dying because of it.

Colon cancer, heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes, all of these are treatable or even preventable, if you get screened. Screenings aren't scary. They don't hurt.

This morning, my staff and I were screened by healthcare professionals on Capitol Hill with the Men's Health Network. Knowledge is power, ladies and gentlemen, for my staff, for myself, and for our families.

Just a few minutes ago, my fellow chairman of the Men's Health Caucus, Congressman Mullin of Oklahoma, joined me to introduce a resolution recognizing June 11 to 17 as National Men's Health Week. I encourage each of you to join us on this resolution and help end the silent crisis of men's health in America.

Mr. Speaker, when will my Republican colleagues divorce themselves from the NRA? Despite all the uncertainties in this world, there seems to be one truth, that there will be no Republican action on gun violence.

That is what the NRA stands for: No Republican Action. That is what the NRA pays for when it funnels tens of millions of dollars into our Federal elections.

Two years ago, 49 people were shot to death by a crazed gunman in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. On this, the anniversary of that massacre, I ask my colleagues to join with me in honoring those who were lost by uplifting the spirits of their families.

Mr. Speaker, to truly honor the lives lost at the Pulse nightclub, in Las Vegas, at Parkland in Florida, and in communities every day across this Nation, we have to change our laws, and we have to do it now.