Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today, we celebrate National Police Week. After the year our police officers have endured, where radical activists sought to defund them, even with asinine proposals to abolish them, it has never been more important to show our appreciation to them.

For months, we have heard anti-American activists, and even some of our colleagues, tell us that the act of policing is inherently evil and unfixable. But, Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth.

Last year alone, 264 police officers from across this country gave their lives while protecting their communities. Throughout it all, the overwhelming majority of police officers are good men and women who have stepped up for their communities and built mutual trust that is vital to them doing their jobs.

Sure, there are bad apples out there. I am a physician. We have bad apples in medicine, but we don't seek to abolish doctors or the practice of medicine.

Nobody dislikes bad officers more than good officers because they give the good officers a bad reputation. Ninety-nine percent of police officers do their jobs with fairness, integrity,

and honor and should not be lumped in with the few officers that disgrace their profession.

On the whole, police officers have done the best they can to defend their communities over this past year. For their thanks, 23 American cities have cut their budgets. Unsurprisingly, this has contributed to the biggest crime wave of the 21st century, making their jobs even harder and destroying decades of progress.

For instance, New York defunded their police by $1 billion. The result is a 97 percent increase in shootings and a 45 percent increase in homicides, especially crime in minority communities.

Make no mistake, these horrifying statistics can be traced directly back to defunding the police. If it can happen to this legendary police department in the country, the NYPD, it can happen anywhere, in your neighborhood also.

In reality, we should be investing more in our police. The job of a police officer is an incredibly difficult one. They are often asked to make split-second decisions, which have enormous consequences. This is why we should be providing them with more resources and training rather than demonizing them.

I, along with my fellow Republican colleagues, will continue to stand by the men and women in blue who faithfully and sacrificially serve their communities and keep our families safe.

Mr. Speaker, last week, some of my Doctors Caucus colleagues and I took a trip to the southern border to observe the ongoing humanitarian crisis. What we saw was nothing short of tragic.

The bottom line is that the situation stems from several key Biden policies that have created an incentive for migrants to cross the border illegally. President Biden abolished the Remain in Mexico policy despite the fact that it helped migrants avoid numerous dangers. The policy was accompanied by his administration's moratorium on deportations, not abiding by title 42's expressed purpose.

Let there be no mistake, no one gets into this country without the expressed permission of drug cartels at our southern border. Not only are illegal immigrants coming in, but drugs, weapons, and human trafficking are coming now in record numbers.

Even worse, this crisis falls on terrified unaccompanied children. I will never forget seeing a 4-year-old with nothing on her back except her clothes and a telephone number written in Sharpie upon her chest.

Only securing our border will end this crisis. I ask the Biden administration to return to the previous administration's border policies.

Madam Speaker, as we speak, at President Biden's behest, thousands of migrants are crossing our border illegally and being detained in facilities that are well over capacity.

Besides the many adults, the real victims are the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children, many being

sent by drug cartels to this country. These children are often used by cartels to smuggle drugs or money, and many are being sold into essential slavery with the promise of easy and safe passage to the U.S.

Does the President not care about the problem of juvenile human trafficking occurring at the border?

For years, Democrats and media types slammed the Trump administration for keeping kids in cages. Their righteous indignation is conspicuously absent from today's discourse, as they are now referring euphemistically in the press to the ``migrant detention centers.'' Amazingly, you have to have a negative COVID test to fly into the country, but you can be COVID-positive and enter illegally.

Madam Speaker, the basic reality is this: We need to know who is in our country. We are a country of laws. ``Catch and release'' has now become a national security threat. Even CNN is calling this a crisis.

I urge the Biden administration to admit this is a crisis and fix the problem it has caused.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 8 as well as H.R. 1446.

There is not a single Member in this Chamber who does not mourn the innocent lives lost to gun violence, but I solemnly believe that my Democratic colleagues lack a fundamental understanding of this issue.

I have worked as a surgeon who has done pelvic trauma for close to 30 years. In fact, I will submit that I am the only Member of this Chamber who has ever operated on a gunshot victim. The infinite majority of gunshot victims are shot by criminals who have obtained their guns illegally. They did not apply for permits. They are not a member of the NRA. They are criminals. These bills would do nothing to keep the guns out of their hands.

In all my years as a surgeon, I have yet to see a gun jump up by itself and injure someone. It is either from a crime, a mental illness, or tragically from an accident. Where I live in eastern North Carolina, it is certainly different from New York City, the gun haven of Chicago, or Oakland, but we still have our share of drug-related and gang- related crime.

On the other hand, we have a lot of wilderness that people back home, adults and children, still enjoy hunting. These law-abiding citizens should not have their rights trampled upon. We are all saddened by the loss of life from mass shootings, but, Mr. Speaker, the issue is not the gun itself, but the mental illness borne by the gun holder. A mentally stable person does not shoot innocent people.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446 absurdly hamper people's ability to exercise their constitutional right to defend themselves. This sort of broad government overreach does not save lives, but treats everyday law-abiding citizens like criminals.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on these bills. We should not support bills that place the rights of violent criminals above those law-abiding American citizens.

Mr. Speaker, our southern border is in crisis.

President Biden has been dodging the crisis they caused at our southern border, calling it a challenge, not a crisis. They have opened our borders but, at the same time, kept our schools closed.

The Democrat's approach of ``come on in'' has reversed sensible immigration control measures put in place by the previous administration and led to disastrous results.

Compared to pre-inauguration numbers, Customs and Border Protection is encountering five times the number of family units trying to cross the border. We are on pace to have over 100,000 unaccompanied minors cross the border illegally this year, up by 45 percent. Customs and Border Protection is projecting a 20,000-bed shortage for the children in their custody.

Under his rule, asylum seekers are now allowed to come into America to wait. And even if they are COVID-positive, they are released into the country--many of whom will never be seen again.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge President Biden to reverse these disastrous actions and return to sensible immigration policies that were present to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 842, the prounion bosses act.

Here we are once again. This is becoming all too familiar here in Congress, an exercise for Democrats to steamroll these massive bills through the House without proper debate or transparency. Our committee didn't even have a hearing or a markup on this.

Frankly, the bill is disastrous. Bills like this only further suppress workers' rights, create a one-size-fits-all type of union contract, and create incentives for disruptive and dangerous union strikes, especially in healthcare.

One particularly bothersome practice is this legislation would require employers to hand over workers' private personal information to union organizers--home addresses, cell phone numbers, email addresses-- without

their employees' consent. These are privacy violations not to be tolerated in this country.

I know leadership doesn't want you guys to do this, but we want to work with you. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote ``no'' on this legislation.

Madam Speaker, thanks to Operation Warp Speed, we now have a pathway out of the pandemic using anti-COVID vaccines, but I want to share some more good news.

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that just one dose of the Pfizer vaccine has an efficacy of close to 93 percent. The clinical difference between 92 percent and 95 percent of the two-dose regimen is minuscule.

If we gave everyone, except possibly the most vulnerable, just the first dose, we could possibly double our supply immediately and thus inoculate our citizens much faster. Using this strategy, we could possibly prevent the spread of new variants and mutants and effect a quicker end to this tragic pandemic, which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives in this country.

Yesterday, I joined some of my fellow physician colleagues, asking the Health and Human Services Department to consider adopting this strategy.

Acting now could prevent the spread of new variants and the further spread of this tragedy, the kind of tragedy already felt and continuing to be felt by thousands across this country.

Madam Speaker, I strongly urge the Health Secretary to follow the science.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in ardent opposition to H.R. 1, the alleged For the People Act.

Before I do that, I want to speak to the recent amendment submitted that would allow criminals, convicted felons, in this country to vote. I have traveled around the world. I don't know any country in this world that allows criminals, convicted felons, to vote. That is not keeping them from committing their crime. It is called punishment. It is punishment for their crime. It is unconscionable to me we are actually debating some of these things that we debate on the floor now.

Madam Speaker, the last election showed the Democrats' true goals for reform, a way to permanently federalize the States' elections away from Republicans.

If someone would read the Constitution, it is a beautiful document. It talks about States making their own election law. This bill, if anything, should be referred to as the for the politicians act.

Madam Speaker, let's just look at the process before I lambast the policy. There were 183 amendments submitted, but only 56 were made in order. Of those 56, only eight were allowed by Republican Members.

Thanks to the McGovern rule, Democrats are continually able to submit rule bills on the floor without a committee markup--it is called the democratic process--without a markup or a hearing.

Madam Speaker, policywise, things look even worse. This massive bill provides taxpayer money to finance incumbents' campaigns. It curbs free speech, significantly increases Federal bureaucracy and red tape, and creates a one-size-fits-all Federal election system.

Madam Speaker, our Founders purposefully decentralized our election process to give States the authority to conduct a smooth and open election day. Get the Federal Government out of State and local affairs. Not every precinct is equal or is of the same composition. Eastern North Carolina is not the same, thank God, as California; Portland, Oregon; or Manhattan.

Madam Speaker, furthermore, many of these changes were made without the input of State and local leaders who have the best on-the-ground knowledge.

Madam Speaker, several organizations oppose this bill. I urge my colleagues on both sides to oppose H.R. 1 and support the Republican alternative, the Save Democracy Act.

This is about our elections. This is what makes the United States different from everywhere. If we allow fraud in our electoral process, this Nation is lost.

Madam Speaker, ever since President Biden has taken office, he has been laser-focused on overturning every great initiative from the previous administration, regardless of how good it was for the American people.

Today, I want to shed light on President Biden's tragic reversal of Operation Talon. Operation Talon was a program run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to capture illegal alien sex offenders in America and deport them.

Sex offenders commit some of the most unspeakable and despicable crimes imaginable. We monitor where they are in the United States when those individuals are here legally. Now we have no idea where they are when they are here illegally.

Biden's misguided reversal threatens the physical and mental health of American children and their families.

Even setting aside the debate about illegal immigration, we should all be able to agree that sex offenders who are in this country illegally should be deported.

Of all things that are common sense and bipartisan, we should agree that sex offenders are criminals and are a risk to our citizens. To not deport these individuals just because the present administration wants to erase the last administration is unconscionable.

I strongly urge President Biden's reversal of Operation Talon and urge him to reinstate it immediately.

Madam Speaker, as a physician who has held 20-week-old babies in my hand, it floors me to think that some do not feel they are worthy of life. Who knows how many future movie stars, professional athletes, or even members of Congress never got their chance to shine because they were believed to only be ``a clump of cells.''

Abortion activists always deflect with the line: ``not your body, not your choice.'' Dye their hair green, pierce their lip, tattoo their tongue, the whole nine yards. That's their prerogative. A developing person is NOT a body part. A baby is its own completely separate entity. They have unique DNA. They have a unique future awaiting them. Nobody has the right to kill it.

Of course, pregnancies are absolutely difficult on women. I've watched my wife go through three of them. But what is more important? Opting out of a difficult 9 months? Or, on average, the 80 years of human life that result from that pregnancy?

One argument you frequently hear is that it's cruel for babies to be born into a world of poverty, so they're better off dead. This is such a sad argument. Life can be difficult, no doubt, being born into poverty, but life also offers endless opportunities for success. How can anyone deprive someone of their chance to succeed and experience life?

As science continues to progress and we learn more and more about babies in the early stages of pregnancy, it's my hope that people will finally come around to see their humanity. I pledge to continue fighting until that day comes and this evil is rooted out of our nation.

Madam Speaker, today I would like to bring attention to a troubling assessment that was issued by the National Counterintelligence and Security Center on Monday.

China continues to aggressively seek to acquire Americans' genetic information. They have targeted American hotels. They have targeted government agencies, as well as our universities, through hacks and ill-intentioned partnerships. They recently even tried to buy fertility clinics in the United States to gather American DNA.

And as was catalogued on ``60 Minutes'' last week, the Chinese are now targeting family research databases that Americans innocently use to research their family trees.

Make no mistake, our healthcare information can be and will be used against us. The Chinese have already demonstrated the lengths to which they are willing to go to use genetics against their own people as they experiment on the Uighurs in the Xinjiang province. This threat cannot be ignored.

China has already received personally identifying information on most Americans. As citizens, we must take better control of our information, and Congress must act to keep this problem from getting worse.