Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is our responsibility to ensure that our veterans have the resources they need to access care after serving.

Every year, brave men and women enlist in the military, seeking to serve their country, pursue a better life, and obtain benefits and security for their future. This means being able to afford college and having access to housing, healthcare, and other opportunities.

Our troops are deployed into active war zones that too often leave veterans with PTSD, suicidal ideation, anxiety, addiction, depression, and other mental health challenges.

Regardless of what congressional district you live in, you will always take what happens in your service back home with you.

But when they return, our government has failed to provide them with the care and support they deserve.

The outcome is a veterans suicide crisis. The suicide rate for veterans is 1.5 times higher than the rate of nonveteran adults, and I see this in my district. I have had veterans call my office as a last resort after not being able to access the healthcare they need at the VA. My constituent services team has had multiple cases of veterans struggling with suicidal ideation and other mental health challenges who have expressed an immense frustration that no

one in our government seems to care about their well-being. Our veterans deserve better, and we must do better.

I am grateful for incredible organizations in my district like Black Veterans for Social Justice, Veterans for Peace, and The American Legion who are leading with care, working to support our veterans' mental health by destigmatizing mental health care and connecting veterans to mental health professionals. They regularly host support groups for veterans with mental health challenges, advocate for a stronger VA system, and provide one-on-one opportunities for veterans to learn about benefits available to them.

Our amendment to H.R. 1836 builds upon their work to ensure that when transitioning to civilian life, veterans receive information about what healthcare and mental healthcare services are available to them, including how to access the Veterans Crisis Line and seek mental health support. This amendment also specifies that this information should be provided to veterans in a manner that helps destigmatize mental health and encourages veterans to reach out.

These are important steps toward creating a society in which every single veteran has access to universal, high-quality healthcare and is empowered to seek out the mental health support they need to thrive.

If you are a veteran who is struggling with mental health challenges, please know that you are not alone and that seeking out mental health support is an important step toward feeling better. During these especially difficult times, we must care for ourselves and for one another.

Madam Speaker, we know that about 1.5 million Uyghur and Kazakh Muslims have been detained in reeducation camps and that products made in the Xinjiang region have been made with forced labor-- in other words, slavery.

The House considered the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, led by Chairman McGovern, that would ban the import of goods made with forced labor and sanction people responsible for modern-day slavery.

This is ethnic cleansing happening here. The world cannot look away from one of the most egregious and deadly incidents of ongoing Islamophobia, genocide, and slavery.

I was proud to vote ``yes'' on this legislation and hope to ensure that we hold China accountable for this egregious human rights abuse.

Madam Speaker, I rise today because the maternal health crisis in this country is dire, with the United States being the only developed country in the world experiencing a rise in maternal mortality rates.

It is even more dire for Black women, who are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications.

This is no coincidence. For centuries, systemic racism has harmed the mental, physical, and economic well-being of Black and Brown people. Thanks to the leadership of Black women in Congress, Congresswoman Underwood, Congresswoman Sewell, Congresswoman Adams, and more, who are driving the momnibus, this body is working to bring us out of a Black maternal health crisis.

Madam Speaker, I rise for my sisters and their babies who are more than a statistic and deserve to be holistically treated and cared for. Black moms matter.

I urge my colleagues to support the momnibus and join us in our effort to protect Black women and Black mothers.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Madam Speaker, today, we are focused on Federal student loans.

This global pandemic, which is very much still with us, has been hard on Americans in so many ways. One source of relief the Federal Government has been able to provide is the pause on Federal student loan payments. That pause is scheduled to end after January, and tens of millions of Americans will have to resume monthly payments on their loans.

Millions of people will yet again be faced with terrible choices between paying off their loans and putting food on the table, paying for childcare, or paying medical bills. Student debt is a national crisis. It was a crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic and it is an even bigger one now.

I can't think of a better opportunity to cancel student loan debt. Today, over 40 million borrowers owe a combined $1.8 trillion in loans, and the share of people who are able to make payments high enough to reduce their principal balance has been rapidly declining. That means for years people have been doing all they can to make

monthly payments but can only afford to keep up with the interest that accrues.

If someone took out a $30,000 loan to go to a public State university but can only afford the minimum monthly payments to cover interest, they can be paying hundreds of dollars every month for years without seeing the total amount they owe go down at all. In fact, many borrowers see their debt increase because they can't even keep up with the interest.

Far too often it can take a borrower over a decade to pay off their loans, and many borrowers end up defaulting because they simply cannot make ends meet with such high payments. This can have lasting impacts on a person's financial, mental, and physical health which taken all together makes it harder for people to fully participate in the economy over the long-term.

For example, Madam Speaker, you can't get a Small Business Administration loan if you have defaulted on any loan in the past 7 years. So many of our family members, friends, and neighbors face additional barriers to starting businesses because of student debt. They face additional barriers to save for retirement, buying homes, taking care of their health and putting off doctors' visits or necessary prescriptions, starting families, or pursuing a career they are passionate about.

Students took these risks in their pursuit of the American Dream through obtaining a college degree. Students across America are doing exactly what we asked them to do; work hard, study and learn deeply, grow your mind, develop your skills, and expand your world view. Students across America took these steps because we told them that education, particularly higher education, would be the great equalizer. We told them their hard work would open doors for the rest of their lives.

Instead, we have shut those doors in their faces one by one, and we have disproportionately done this to Black and Latino, indigenous, and poor students. We have preyed upon our most vulnerable kids.

The student debt crisis is a racial justice issue, and we cannot talk about the problem nor the solutions without centering the experiences of students and families of color and others who come from marginalized communities.

Canceling student debt would mean putting money back into people's pockets and improving the overall economy. This is money that can be used to pay for childcare so that parents can reenter the workforce and actually use the degree they went into debt for in the first place. This is money that can be used to start a business or buy a house or pay for necessary healthcare.

This newfound freedom will open the door to pursue a passion or a purpose like teaching, nursing, or public service rather than one that just pays the bills. This freedom will improve one's quality of life and provide the self-determination necessary for quality, long-term planning.

Canceling student debt would go a long way in reducing the racial wealth gap and the racial homeownership gap and would help address many of the systemic barriers Black and Brown families face.

It is time to cancel this predatory student debt to give the American people a fresh start and accelerate both the economic and social well- being of our Nation. Our predatory debt is an unfair and unjust burden that has been hanging over the heads of borrowers since they decided to pursue an education.

That is why I, along with many Members you will hear tonight, Madam Speaker, have been calling on President Biden to use his executive authority to cancel Federal student loans. This authority is already being used right now to cancel the interest owed on all Federal student loans during the pandemic. Now it is time to use that same authority to cancel all Federal student debts.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), who will highlight many ways canceling students loan debt is urgently needed. Congresswoman Jayapal will address this House on this very important issue.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Jayapal for her remarks, and I thank her for her congressional leadership as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I thank the gentlewoman for lending her voice and vision to this very important issue.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Espaillat), who represents the Boogie Down Bronx right next door to me.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Espaillat for his kind words. Before he goes, I want to underscore what he said about people investing in their own communities when they have more money in their pockets. The gentleman just made me think of all the young children who want to take art classes, drama classes, and swimming lessons, and receive tutoring, and all the things that families cannot afford because they are trying to pay down their student debt.

They can reinvest in their communities, reinvest in their children, and their children will be much less likely to commit harm to themselves or their communities because they have been developed and nurtured from an early age.

I thank the gentleman so much for his remarks, my brother representing the Bronx, Manhattan, and the historic Washington Heights. We cannot forget that, Brother.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Williams), my sister and fellow freshman.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Williams for participating.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio- Cortez), who represents the Bronx and Queens.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez for taking me back to when I was 17, a senior in high school, trying to figure out what the heck I was going to do. I decided to go to college. We didn't have any money, so they offer you all this free money and say: There you go. You could take out as much as you want, as much as you need. Just come to our school, and we will take care of you.

Then what happens is, you take on all of this debt, and then you get out, and you are underpaid in terms of the employment you receive. Then the rent is too high, and the groceries are too high, and the childcare is too high.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

And health insurance is too high. It is unbelievable.

We need to cancel student debt and end the predatory practices on our young people, completely end the practice.

It is my honor to now yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Pressley).

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Pressley for her words.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Tlaib so much for her powerful words.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Thank you so much, Congresswoman Jackson Lee. You made me think of the hundreds or even thousands of students and families that I have met throughout my career in education who in elementary school have already made the decision that their children are not going to attempt to go to college despite their brilliance, despite them being artists and scientists and architects and engineers and athletes and musicians and all of those things.

Because of the crippling impact of student debt and cost of college, they have already made the decision when kids are as young as 5, 6 years old. That is unconscionable, that is un-American, and the President has the authority and the moral responsibility to cancel student debt right now. Thank you so much for your words.

I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez), the last speaker of the evening. I thank him for being here.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Gomez for his powerful and inspiring words.

President Biden and his administration have made some important strides to improve student loan debt for many people who are enrolled in public service loan forgiveness. 30,000 people getting loan forgiveness is a big step in the right direction. Now we need loan forgiveness for the more than 40 million other people in this country.

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

Madam Speaker, prior to coming to Congress, I worked in education for 20 years. I served as a public school elementary teacher, a high school counselor, and a middle school principal for 10\1/2\ years, and I can tell you without a doubt that the Build Back Better Act is going to be transformative for our democracy for generations to come.

The reasons are many, including climate change and investments in home care; however, our investments in our children, particularly in early childhood education, focusing on expanding the child tax credit, universal pre-K programs, and making sure we have almost universal childcare, will prepare our children--our babies--to enter kindergarten hitting the ground running.

As we know, when we invest in early childhood education, we have much better health, education, and economic outcomes with decreased costs in prison as well as healthcare.

So this is an exciting time, and I am blessed to be a part of this Congress during this time. I just want to celebrate the Build Back Better Act's investment in our youngest, most precious resource: our babies and our children.

Madam Speaker, I rise to emphasize how important our actions today are for domestic violence survivors everywhere.

Domestic violence is yet another pandemic in this country. In my district, we have seen a rise in domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic amongst teenagers.

Survivors of domestic violence carry their experiences with them every single day, experiencing fear, chronic stress, self-doubt, depression, and so much more. This emotional trauma can prevent survivors from accessing and maintaining safe housing, employment, and supportive relationships, leading to feelings of isolation that only worsen their mental health.

Organizations in my district, like Safe Horizon, Westhab, Family Services of Westchester, and the YWCA are a lifeline of support for survivors of domestic violence. The Federal Government should support groups on the ground like them doing this important work.

Madam Speaker, I strongly believe that together we can prevent all violence and create a culture of care for one another. This legislation, which will authorize funding for preventative and culturally responsive services, is an essential step toward this vision.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to cosponsor this bill, and I rise in support of its passage.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the lives of those lost due to senseless violence in my district:

Leon Wayne, age 26, gun violence.

Chevor Williams, age 28, gun violence.

Cori Lowe, age 31, stabbing victim.

Richard Black, age 39, gun violence.

Joseph Ramirez, age 43, gun violence.

Wray Harding, age 55, gun violence.

Aliyah Waiters, gun violence.

Marilyn Cotto Montanez, age 18, gun violence.

Guy Vanlew, Jr., age 18, gun violence.

Jeremy Logan, age 32, gun violence.

Omari Ellis, age 18, gun violence.

Warren Clahar, age 35, gun violence.

Olivia Green, age 15, fentanyl overdose.

Madam Speaker, I ask that we observe a moment of silence for the lives lost in my district due to senseless violence.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, the pandemic of senseless violence is not new. If you live in a poverty-stricken community and if you are Black or Latino in these communities, you are more susceptible to acts of senseless violence.

When I was in high school, trying to just be a good student and play on the football team, I ended up caught up in a situation where I was almost shot and killed. A few months later, at a party with some friends, just trying to go out and have a good time, I ended up in a situation where I was almost shot and killed.

If it weren't for sheer luck, I would not be standing here as a Member of Congress today.

Thankfully, at that time, I was able to move out of my community and move to a suburban community where it was much less likely for me to end up in a situation where I could be shot and killed.

I have so many friends and family members who did not have the luxury of moving out and the privilege of moving out of their community. As a result, they ended up dead at some very young ages, some 18, some 21, some even younger.

Oftentimes, when we have these conversations, we point to the perpetrators of these acts of violence and of these crimes and we identify them as bad individuals and we say that we need law enforcement to respond to remove those bad individuals from these situations, and we think that that method is enough to end the violence in these communities.

But we have invested in law enforcement for decades; the 1994 crime bill being one example of how we have made such investments and targeted highly violent communities. But the violence hasn't gone away, and the violence has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that has isolated many and has also created a mental health crisis.

So I ask and I beg this Chamber to recognize that this is not just about individual bad actors in communities. Poverty is a policy choice, and the trauma related to poverty and the lack of opportunity in so many of our communities will continue to lead to increases in violence that we see in poverty-stricken communities.

We have to invest in education, healthcare, jobs, housing, mentorship, and so many other programs that could literally save the lives of our children before they ever decide to pick up a gun.

Lastly, and very quickly, we passed H.R. 8, commonsense gun reform legislation, in the House this year, and the Senate still has not acted on that legislation. Seventy percent of the incidents of gun violence that take place in New York are done with guns that come from outside of New York. So we have to move this gun legislation in the Senate.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge support for my amendment that will take an important step towards restoring congressional war powers. This amendment will bring our unauthorized military presence in Syria to a long overdue debate in Congress so we can ultimately vote to authorize or reject military action.

Members on both sides of the aisle have long recognized the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973 grant Congress the exclusive power to send our servicemen and -women into war.

I represent parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, New York, and in my district I am humbled to represent so many veterans who have sacrificed so much for our country. Hundreds of thousands of brave men and women have spent years away from their families, missing precious moments in their families' lives. Many have seen their brothers and sisters in arms be injured and killed in battle. Many have suffered life-changing injuries themselves. Others have made the ultimate sacrifice. On a daily basis, more than 17 veterans die by suicide every single day. A study from Brown University's Costs of War project estimates that more than 7,000 servicemembers have been killed in post- 9/11 operations, and a suicide epidemic has claimed more than 30,000 Active Duty servicemembers and veterans.

Given the unimaginable sacrifice our troops make for our country, we owe them the respect of holding a debate and a vote on deploying them into harm's way. I hope that no one serving in this body would oppose honoring their service and their sacrifice by debating and voting on these life and death matters.

We haven't shown that respect in my view. Washington is known for military contractors lobbying for endless wars and a bloated Pentagon budget while our investments in schools, healthcare, and jobs at home are neglected. Our military footprint extends across dozens of countries far from public scrutiny and accountability. In Congress we find out about drone strikes after they occur in the news.

My amendment--which I am honored to be joined by Representatives Khanna, DeFazio, Schakowsky, Tlaib, Levin, Cohen, and Ritchie Torres in offering--is a fundamental next step toward breaking that cycle.

This is a question of war and peace that should be answered with a recorded vote in Congress.

This amendment does not take a position on substantive Syria policy questions. It merely requires this body to follow the Constitution and hold a debate and vote to authorize military action. I hope that my colleagues will agree that our troops and the American people deserve to see this body

hold that debate and then cast their vote.

Under the last administration, President Trump made it clear that U.S. military troops in Syria were there to secure the oil, but an explicit authorization from Congress was never obtained for that purpose.

I disagree with claims that the 2001 AUMF--which was about responding to the September 11 attacks--authorized our troops to engage in hostilities against these forces which nobody argues had anything to do with those attacks or to guard oil fields.

My colleagues who believe that the President does not need specific authorization to deploy U.S. military forces to seize Syria's oil in an unconstitutional war should just admit that to their constituents. They don't care about the duty of Congress, the Constitution, or the War Powers Act.

I agree with what President Biden said yesterday at the United Nations where he called for a new era of relentless diplomacy and that U.S. military power must be our tool of last resort, not our first, and should not be used as an answer to every problem we see around the world.

One step in the right direction would be to restore war powers, which is the solution put forth in this amendment.

After U.S. troops clashed with armed Syrian villagers last year, now- senior Biden NSC advisor Brett McGurk wrote on Twitter last year that American soldiers with an ill-defined mission in Syria are forced to navigate roads controlled by Russian and Syrian regime forces. He said that this is too much to ask of our brave warriors.

I agree. And that is why I am seeking a vote to show them the minimum respect of doing our constitutional duty and either authorizing a mission with clear goals and a timeline or bringing our troops home to their families.

I honor and respect the incredible sacrifices made by our Kurdish allies. Nothing in this amendment supports abandoning the Kurdish people, nor do I personally support that. The current unauthorized U.S. military presence of indefinite duration is disrespectful to the Kurdish people as it does not provide them the clarity that they need to make their own sovereign decisions about how best to protect their people and advance their own interests.

I want to have a transparent and vigorous debate in front of the American people on the role of the U.S. military in Syria.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in support of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise as the designee of the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark).

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer a commonsense, good- government amendment that has already passed this House on a bipartisan basis.

Decades ago, Congress recognized that there is an inherent conflict of interest when elected officials, who decide how taxpayer dollars are spent,

are also allowed to contract with the Federal Government to receive those dollars. That is why Federal law prohibits every single Member of this body from contracting with the Federal Government.

At the time, it was thought that there was no need to include the President, Vice President, or members of the Cabinet in this statutory prohibition because every recent executive had voluntarily divested of their financial conflicts of interest. Unfortunately, that trend of presidential transparency was broken by the last administration. If we have learned anything from Donald Trump, it is that we can no longer rely on norms and tradition to ensure our elected officials do the right thing.

In 2014, the General Services Administration awarded The Trump Organization a contract to operate a hotel in the taxpayer-owned Old Post Office Pavilion. A provision in that contract specifically stated that no elected official of the Government of the United States shall be admitted to any share or part of this lease or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.

Despite this clear and unambiguous prohibition, the GSA shockingly declared that the President of the United States could continue to operate this hotel on Federal Government property and personally benefit from the proceeds of that operation.

As a result, it was easier than ever for foreign governments and special interests to put money directly into President Trump's pocket. Just ask Saudi Arabia, which reportedly spent $270,000 at the Trump Hotel in 2017, or the island nation of Cyprus, which hosted a ``Justice for Cyprus'' conference there, or the Iraqi sheikh who spent tens of thousands of dollars staying 26 nights at the hotel.

The solution to this problem is very simple. My amendment simply inserts ``the President, Vice President, and any Cabinet member'' into the existing statutory prohibition on Members of Congress contracting with the Federal Government.

With the addition of these eight words, we can ensure that every elected official is free from the conflict of interest associated with both deciding who gets Federal contracts and then benefiting from those contracts.

The American people deserve to know their President is working for them, not to line their own pockets.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and hold the President, Vice President, and members of the Cabinet to the same standard of conduct we hold ourselves.

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

Mr. Speaker, to my colleagues who oppose this amendment, I ask this simple question: If they think the President should be allowed to contract with the Federal Government, do they support repealing the current statute that prohibits every Member of the body from contracting with the Federal Government?

Of course they don't. That would be outrageous.

My amendment is common sense. It will apply to any President, regardless of party affiliation. It will help restore integrity to the Office of the President by closing the door on self-enrichment at the White House. And it will prevent some of the corruption that defined the Trump Presidency from ever happening again.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and impose the same standards of conduct we imposed on ourselves to every federally elected official.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Leger Fernandez for convening this Special Order hour to discuss the urgent topic of immigration reform.

Last week, I had the opportunity and privilege of visiting the U.S.- Mexico border to bear witness to the carceral system that undergirds our immigration policy and practices.

I gained a firsthand understanding of how our Federal policies impact the conditions at the border. While there, I visited a Catholic Charities shelter that centered its work around caring for newly arrived asylum seekers. This shelter operates on a shoestring budget and relies on FEMA to retroactively reimburse spending for essentials like food, a funding process that is never certain. And most of the workers there were volunteers from across the country. While their facilities lacked resources, it was abundant with care.

I then saw inside a well-funded Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, facility, where law enforcement had put over 10 men, who had not been tested for COVID, together in one small cell, sleeping on the concrete floor, even when other cells were sitting empty.

For context, the current year, the funding level for CBP is more than $15 billion.

In New York's 16th Congressional District which I represent, one- third of my constituents are born outside of the United States. I represent thousands of undocumented constituents, refugees, and immigrants living and working in the Bronx and Westchester who have to navigate our immigration system on a regular basis with fear from ICE agents. In our home State of New York is Ellis Island which reads:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The U.S. Mexico border is the new Ellis Island, yet these newcomers-- a darker hue than those who came to Ellis Island with welcome arms--are met with punishment, walls, and harm. We send our tired and our poor to prison-like detention centers without proper medical care and little food and produce a retraumatizing experience for those who already made a scary and life-threatening trek across the border.

I heard stories of mothers traveling with their 1-month-old babies across the river, carrying their babies on their heads as they waded through the waters. Now imagine the level of desperation in your home country, Madam Speaker, where you would risk the life of yourself and your 1-month-old baby to come to this country with no guarantee that you were going to be able to remain here.

We need to reimagine and redesign our immigration system and the support we provide to our immigration neighbors. If we want to live up to the ideals of this country, our system must be rooted in care and inclusion, not militarization, surveillance, detention, and forced deportation.

As a Black man in America and as Black people in America, we have been experiencing mass incarceration since the end of slavery. Our brothers and sisters coming in through the Mexico border to the U.S. are experiencing mass incarceration and mass deportation under the hands of CBP.

The differences in funding and capacity at the Catholic Charities shelter, which heavily relies on donations, versus the CBP facility was startling and disheartening. The vast majority of CBP apprehensions, Madam Speaker--over 90 percent--were determined by Border Patrol to not be criminals. Over 90 percent, the Border Patrol told me. Yet the vast majority of our annual funding to this region goes to law enforcement. We need a fundamental shift in our priorities to move away from funding detention and militarization at our border.

This is especially true given how past U.S. policies, such as the U.S. occupation of Nicaragua in 1912 and other Latin American countries, and our historic empowerment of corrupt governments have contributed to instability, violence, and economic oppression; all of which force people to flee their home countries and seek asylum here.

Yes, our immigration policy is connected to our foreign policy and connected to our capitalism. We have stolen land and resources from foreign countries and caused their political and economic systems to be disrupted and taken over by violence. The guns that get to many of these countries come from here. So we have caused this harm and disruption, yet we won't allow those who are looking for peace to flee into our country.

We also need to create a pathway to citizenship for all of the 11.4 million undocumented immigrants as part of the next reconciliation package. The young adults whom we met with in Laredo, Texas, whose family members had been deported deserve a pathway to citizenship.

By the way, once CBP, which seemed to be hunters in this situation, detain someone and they need long-term detention, they pass them over to the ICE agents. Then the ICE agents put them in detention, and they are so isolated they can't receive calls from family and friends, they can't receive letters, and they can't receive visits. Finally, when someone finds a way to make a connection with the detention center, the person who was in the detention center is lost, often never to be found.

The young adults whom I met with in Laredo whose family members have been deported deserve a pathway to citizenship. The high schoolers in my district who fear they won't be able to file for DACA status and stay in our country for college deserve a pathway to citizenship. From Laredo, Texas, to the Bronx, to Westchester, to St. Louis, Missouri, there are millions of people who should be able to stay in this country and continue to help our communities thrive.

We have the power to provide stability and a sense of belonging to our immigrant communities this Congress, and we cannot wait any longer.

I will end with this: during the last administration there was so much fear

instilled in our immigrant families and communities that one student in the Bronx thought that her mom was deported from home, but the mom actually ran away so she wouldn't be deported. But because the student thought that the mother was deported, the student fell into a deep depression and committed suicide because she thought her mother was taken from her.

This is what we are dealing with when it comes to our immigration policy. It is inhumane, and it is evil. Our immigrants make us a stronger nation, not a weaker one. It is time for a 21st century Marshall Plan to help rebuild Central and South America. But those who come in here should be welcomed with open arms as they are just seeking peace, safety, care, and security. If we are as a nation to live up to the ideals of our democracy and our Constitution, then we must welcome them with open arms and with love so that we can build a better nation back better.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Leger Fernandez for her leadership.

Madam Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 242.

Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress

Aderholt (Moolenaar)

Carson (Butterfield)

Carter (GA) (Joyce (OH))

Carter (TX) (Nehls)

DeSaulnier (Thompson (CA))

Fulcher (Meuser)

Grijalva (Stanton)

Horsford (Jeffries)

Katko (Joyce (OH))

Kelly (PA) (Keller)

Kirkpatrick (Stanton)

Lawson (FL) (Evans)

Lowenthal (Beyer)

Maloney, Carolyn (Velazquez)

McEachin (Wexton)

Meng (Jeffries)

Napolitano (Correa)

O'Halleran (Stanton)

Payne (Pallone)

Porter (Wexton)

Rush (Underwood)

Sires (Pallone)

Watson Coleman (Pallone)

Wild (Axne)

Wilson (FL) (Hayes)

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Madam Speaker, this afternoon, we are focused on the Green New Deal. And I want to be very clear about why we need a Green New Deal. Our fossil fuel-driven economy is making us sick and literally killing us. But with historic investments in green infrastructure and the care economy, we can do the opposite. We can repair the damage done and give every person what they need to flourish.

In the Pacific Northwest, we just saw a brutal heat wave that took the lives of 116 people in Oregon, 112 people in Washington, and hundreds more in British Columbia.

We saw catastrophic floods across Europe that killed nearly 200 people, and record-shattering rains that caused deaths in India and China. We are living with wildfires that destroy communities and suffocate us with smoke. Africa is being battered by drought, and Siberia is in flames. We literally saw the ocean on fire.

We now live in a world in which extreme weather driven by climate change is killing 5 million people per year. And in parts of my district, you are three times more likely to die from asthma than anywhere else in the country. We need to be crystal clear about the fact that our economic system created this emergency, while our political system subsidizes and protects the fossil fuel industry. That has to change now.

The Green New Deal provides the framework we need to rebuild our economy, society, and democracy from the ground up. The Green New Deal recognizes that climate change, public health, systemic racism, and economic inequality are all deeply connected. And as you will hear tonight, it gives us a road map for tackling these crises together in a holistic manner.

As a lifelong educator, I see the perfect place to kickstart this process, our K-12 public schools.

Think about it, there is no single institution that touches the lives of more people. We are talking about 50 million young people, plus parents, teachers, staff, workers, and neighbors. Our schools are the heartbeat of our communities, and they must become the epicenter of transformative climate change.

For decades, we have allowed these precious places to be neglected, particularly in redlined parts of the country. We are leaving Black and Brown students and low-income students behind. We over-test the academic ability of our children, but we do not support and engage them as human beings.

And on a physical level, our schools have fallen into a state of disrepair. In my 20 years as a teacher and principal, I saw this every single day. We have schools with no running hot water or drinking fountains that do not work. Schools where the drinking fountains that do work are poisoning our children with lead.

We have schools that are infested with asbestos, mold, and rodents, and that lack proper ventilation. So every day our children face a whole spectrum of urgent health harms. And even as young people march and organize relentlessly for climate action, schools are failing to protect them from climate impacts, like extreme heat. Outdated, inefficient HVAC systems are contributing to carbon pollution and burdening schools with $8 billion in annual energy costs.

Last week, I introduced a bill called the Green New Deal for Public Schools. This is a $1.43 trillion investment over 10 years designed to fundamentally transform our public education system for the 21st century. It will create and support more than 1 million green jobs every year, and it centers the most precious resource in any healthy democracy, our children.

With this legislation, we are going to upgrade and retrofit every single public school in the country, beginning in the poorest and most vulnerable districts. Every school will become a safe, healthy, accessible, and zero-carbon center of the community.

We will remove toxic materials, electrify school facilities, and make them energy-efficient, comfortable, and disaster-proof. We will install solar panels and batteries so that every school generates and controls its own renewable energy. We will create community gardens and green spaces, and offer healthy food options to nourish our children, and so much more.

These investments will be game-changing for schools in a variety of ways. They could see their energy bills roughly cut in half and reinvest the money that they save in the mental and behavioral health resources that our children and families need.

In fact, this bill provides comprehensive funding for healing the trauma of our communities. It will allow schools to hire hundreds of thousands more educators, mental health professionals, school counselors, and other support staff, especially from the local community. It also provides significant resources for school districts to form strong community partnerships and develop curricula that are responsive to unique local needs.

The legislation tackles school inequality at the regional level by quadrupling Title I funding. And it greatly increases IDEA funding for students with disabilities. This is about care; caring for ourselves, each other, our families, our communities, and the planet. That is what the Green New Deal is all about.

Madam Speaker, I yield to my other colleagues who will highlight the many other ways the Green New Deal framework addresses our Nation's urgent needs.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Carolyn B. Maloney), the chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez), who is the original Green New Deal champion in

Congress and who has done so much in collaboration with social movements to inject this vision into the consciousness of America. Her Green New Deal for Public Housing was a major inspiration for my schools legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), the chair of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardenas).

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Bush), to whom I want to wish a very happy birthday today.

Ms. Bush is another powerful Green New Deal champion who has introduced a fantastic Green New Deal For Cities bill. I also had the pleasure of working with Ms. Bush on our public power resolution.

Madam Speaker, it is amazing, whether we are talking about the Bronx, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; or New Mexico, it is obvious that a Green New Deal is needed now.

Madam Speaker, I would like to close by returning to one particular aspect of the Green New Deal for Public Schools because I think it highlights something about the framework as a whole. For me, one of the most exciting parts of the Green New Deal for Public Schools is how the learning environment in every school will be enriched, putting our young people at the center of the green energy revolution.

Students will delve into every aspect of the building retrofit process and immerse themselves in the broader sustainability and social challenges that we are tackling as a society. Each school will become a living lab for the Green New Deal. I cannot think of a better way to nurture the curiosity, ingenuity, and imaginations of our children. We will be kick-starting climate, STEM, and STEAM careers across the United States, and our country will reap the benefits of all that creativity.

The Green New Deal for Public Schools and the entire Green New Deal framework is built on the foundation of care and healing and allowing everyone in this country to unlock their full potential.

This is an idea that is expressed in Tupac Shakur's brilliant poem ``The Rose That Grew from Concrete.''

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the

concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without

having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to

breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else

ever cared.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Torres for that introduction and for yielding, and I thank him for his overall leadership and vision, not just for our country, but for the Boogie Down Bronx.

I thank Madam Chairwoman for her incomparable leadership, and wisdom, and vision for the CBC and for our country.

It is my honor to stand here with both of you to call for a big, bold, visionary infrastructure package that finally addresses the disparities in our economy. We like to think of America as the land of opportunity where anyone can achieve success and shape their

own future with little more than hard work and determination. For many people, that is exactly the reality that they exist within, thanks to a little luck, determination, opportunity, and one-sided historical Federal investment.

Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to us believe that this accurately represents our history, but, unfortunately, most Black Americans have been written out of this narrative. Consider the world as it exists today in our history of the redlining of Black and Brown communities, as well as other racially biased policies of the New Deal. These divisions have always been rooted in Federal policy.

President Biden has said he considers this infrastructure package to constitute a generational investment in the American public and in communities like mine in the Bronx, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and Yonkers. And now is the time for us to right the wrongs of that history.

The infrastructure package of 2021 must be rooted in racial and economic justice. We must uplift the care economy, fix our public housing, rebuild our crumbling schools, expand access to Medicare, and end our dependency on fossil fuels, among many other things. No American with this infrastructure package should be left behind.

As the White House considers this infrastructure package, let's take a deeper trip into our history. In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act, redistributing 10 percent of the land in the country, arguably constituting the single greatest wealth transfer in our history. African Americans never received their 40 acres of land after slavery, while White Americans received millions of acres of land which gave them the opportunity to self-actualize.

Housing now accounts for over 40 percent of household wealth, with much of this housing-related wealth stemming from Federal investments in homeownership during the New Deal. Because of redlining--one of the largest drivers of the wealth gap--of the over $1 trillion invested between 1934 and 1962, in 2021 dollars, less than 2 percent went to non-White families.

We can no longer attempt to build out the middle class on the backs of marginalized communities. We must make sure that the next round of generational investment incorporates everyone, beginning with those most marginalized.

If we make this infrastructure package inclusive and comprehensive, we can give every single American a job, a career, and the resources they need to flourish from the Bronx; to Mount Vernon; to Yonkers; to New Rochelle, New York.

If we have the courage to address the climate, economic, and racial injustices that threaten the human race, we can give our children and grandchildren a future they deserve.

We can either impart the full story of American history to our children or doom ourselves to relive it. In the case of infrastructure, an investment of this scale, repeating the failures of the past is unacceptable. To meet the promise of our democracy, we must give every person in our country an opportunity to both survive and thrive. That begins with a robust and comprehensive infrastructure package. This is our time. This is our moment.

Madam Speaker, I rise with great excitement and joy in my heart that today Juneteenth will become a national holiday.

156 years after the end of slavery in this country, we will now, on an annual basis, reflect collectively and, hopefully, begin the process of truth and collective healing as a nation.

But I ask us that we must not stop here. We must continue to go forward to fight for racial justice because in many parts of our country it still exists in the form of housing discrimination and segregation, lack of access to healthcare, and wealth inequality.

It is so humbling to stand here as a Black man in America and take another step toward feeling whole in this country. But we must--we have to come together across party lines to do much more.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Madam Speaker, tonight, I am pleased to be joined by many of my colleagues in the Congressional Progressive Caucus to talk about the long overdue investment we would need to make in the care economy, something that our infrastructure has always relied upon.

I introduced the Care for All Agenda earlier this spring calling for the Federal Government to dramatically expand and strengthen the care economy.

The American Families Plan outlines the next step we need to take to get there, which must include improving work conditions and compensation for care workers nationwide.

The care economy impacts all of us: Our children, elderly loved ones, family members with disabilities, childcare workers, home health aides, nurses, and so many more. Care is something we all need at different stages in our lives.

The care economy includes our essential workers who put their lives on the line every day during the most devastating global pandemic in a century. Many of us will be caregivers ourselves, if we haven't been one yet.

Ask any working family about how hard it has been to find affordable, quality childcare even before COVID.

Ask a childcare worker if they can afford to send their own child to the center they work at.

Ask any one of the vast majority of workers who do not have paid family and medical leave how hard it is to care for a loved one who is ill while holding on to their job.

Ask anyone who qualifies for long-term care under Medicaid but has been unable to access it due to the healthcare workforce shortage.

Ask a home health aide how much they make hourly, and the need to redesign our care infrastructure will become abundantly clear.

Just as our physical infrastructure is crumbling, the United States today suffers from a lack of care infrastructure. These two truths are intertwined.

Our crumbling infrastructure disproportionately harms Black, Brown, Indigenous and low-income communities. The negative health impacts arising from fossil fuel use, industrial pollution, and toxic materials in our homes and schools are literally making us sick.

We need to invest in eliminating carbon emissions, and we also need to invest in the caregivers we are counting on to heal us now.

We are calling for a broader shift to a society based on care for the people, communities, and the planet we share.

We are still grieving more than 600,000 lives lost to COVID in our country, many of them caregivers themselves. In this last year, we saw how badly we need a robust care economy and what happens when our investment in care doesn't match our needs.

I know that for some, talking about caregiving as infrastructure sounds like a new idea and a ``nice to have.'' None of this work is new, and all of it is necessary.

I have heard directly from New Yorkers who rely on caregivers every day; like a constituent of mine in Westchester, who was born with diastrophic dysplasia, and wrote in about how we need to do better by our caregivers and pay them a living wage. Now in her fifties, she qualifies for Medicaid and needs home-based care. The home health aide who cares for her has to work two additional jobs to make ends meet. That should give us all pause.

One of the biggest champions for caregivers and domestic workers, Ai- jen Poo, said that: ``The definition of infrastructure is that which enables society and the economy to function. So

what is more fundamental than the ability to take care of our loved ones?''

Caregiving is almost always provided by women, especially Black and Brown women. This work has historically been made invisible, which creates opportunities for the exploitation and poverty wages many of our caregivers face without protection or recourse.

When it comes to finding care, millions of families are left with no option but to figure it out, which we know so often means women not taking paid work in order to provide unpaid care for their own families.

The American Families Plan will help us bring the care economy out of the shadows with key investments in childcare, paid leave, Medicaid, home and community-based services, and more.

This goes so much deeper than making it possible for families to enter and remain in the workforce. We need to ask ourselves what kind of systems and structures we want in place not only for people to survive, but also to thrive and reach their full potential.

Given how common it is to need care and not get it, we must ask ourselves: Are we, as a nation, structured to listen? Are we structured to care?

We need to listen to the caregivers and the families who rely on them so that we make the most powerful investments that will not only boost our economy, but also allow us to heal and truly move forward as a society.

We need to rebuild our Nation with a new foundation; a foundation rooted in love, care, and equality. That is the kind of thinking we need in the infrastructure package.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to my other colleagues who will highlight other critical care economy needs. I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano), my friend.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Evans), my friend.

Madam Speaker, I now yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. Omar), my friend.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Kahele), my brother.

Thank you so much, Mr. Kahele. I now yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

I now yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Pressley), my friend and sister.

Madam Speaker, the American Families Plan recognizes that childcare is infrastructure, and that it is not enough to settle for any childcare that enables a parent to go to work. This needs to be high-quality childcare that every child can access.

Babies are born learners, and it is well established by brain science that a child's environment and interactions in the first 1,000 days of life, whether positive or negative and long before they enter a kindergarten classroom, are highly formative during this critical period for learning and growth.

When those formative early childhood experiences include inadequate nutrition, homelessness on other adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, such as those brought on by a global pandemic, we know that a child's brain and body are changed in ways that are linked to poor health and learning outcomes later in life.

Without reliable supports in place to buffer our kids from the stress, that stress can quickly turn toxic.

The good news is that ACEs are preventable on a national scale if we are collectively willing to put in the investment worthy of our kids.

As the Representative for New York's 16th District and a former educator and school leader, I believe our goal for healthy early childhood development needs to be more ambitious than the prevention of ACEs, which aims to protect our kids from the worse effects of stress and trauma. That should be the floor.

We, ourselves, need to move past a scarcity framework and embrace a framework of shared abundance.

That looks like affordable, reliable access to quality childcare where young children, in the context of an intergenerational community, are empowered to explore themselves and their world with pure wonder; where they grow into self-directed learners, collaborative leaders, and adaptive community-centered problem solvers.

Madam Speaker, I now would like to speak a little bit about the child tax

credit. The child tax credit has been in place for years, and it is supposed to help offset the many expenses of raising children. This includes food, childcare, diapers, healthcare, clothing, and taxes.

But before the American Rescue Plan, it wasn't accessible to the families who needed it most because it wasn't fully refundable. Families that didn't earn enough income could not benefit.

The American Rescue Plan changed that when it enacted a much-needed expansion of the child tax credit, making it fully refundable and increasing the maximum credit from $2,000 per child to $3,000 per child up through age 17, and $3,600 per child for children under age 6.

Because of the American Rescue Plan, nearly 66 million children will benefit from the child tax credit, making this the single largest contributor to reducing child poverty.

In my district, which includes the Bronx and Westchester, 124,400 children will gain from the expanded child tax credit.

The average benefit for 41,800 households in my district is $2,800, lifting 9,200 children out of poverty and 4,700 children out of deep poverty.

This is historic, but we can't be satisfied with reducing child poverty. We need to completely end child poverty and eliminate it.

The American Families Plan would extend the child tax credit increases from the American Rescue Plan through 2025. The infrastructure we want for building back better shouldn't tolerate childhood poverty, and the American Families Plan moves us forward on that necessary path.

Before I close, I want to use my time on the House floor to share the experience of a New Yorker who needs home care services and wrote into my office. Her experience seeking care paints a very telling picture about the state of our care economy, and makes the case for the strong investments in the American Families Plan that we have heard tonight.

She shared that seniors and people with disabilities like her struggle to find the home care she needs because the job pays under $13 an hour in most of New York State.

One week into the COVID lockdown, her home health aide contracted the virus from a relative, a nursing home worker who contracted it through their own caregiving job.

The first health aide has been unable to return to work because the virus has caused long-term complications from their immediate family members, for whom they are the primary caregiver.

Just 1 week after her first health aide contracted the virus, a second health aide fell ill.

While the second health aide did recover, the health aide's childcare provider closed permanently.

The second health aide wants to return to work, but, due to the low wages, they are unable to afford childcare.

Not being able to find a full-time health aide to provide her care means she is unable to receive assistance with all of her needs. Some days she only gets help to eat and use the toilet once per day. She cannot shower as frequently as she would like.

She shared: ``I live in constant fear that should something happen to my health aide, that my literal independence will be taken from me overnight. I don't know when this situation will improve, and I have no other resources to lean on should my situation worsen.''

The solution, however, is simple. We need home care jobs to be recognized and treated as quality, dignified jobs with family- sustaining wages. If we pay home care workers a living wage, these jobs will be filled immediately because of the high demand. We need to ensure our home care jobs never become minimum wage jobs again.

I want to thank her for sharing her personal experience and allowing me to share it tonight. It goes to show how connected and interdependent we all are on one another and the care economy.

We need to meet this dire moment with a substantial, transformative investment in the care economy, and we must do that with the American Families Plan.

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

Madam Speaker, the violence that is unfolding in Palestine and Israel is tragic and urgent. I rise today to voice my strong support for a swift cease-fire.

I have heard directly from my constituents in New York's 16th Congressional District. Parents with children living in both Israel and Palestine have written in, and their fear for their children's safety is palpable.

Their voices are with me today and have made this situation personal. This is the worst escalation of violence in the region in years.

I have continually called for President Biden to step in and rapidly broker a cease-fire to deescalate the situation, end the occupation, and finally find peace.

To that end, I will introduce a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire and diplomatic efforts to resume in earnest, which is a resolution Senator Sanders has led in the Senate. We have to do more. We must do more.