Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, today, 4 months and 3 days after Mr. Khanna and Mr. Massie introduced their discharge petition, perhaps the most famous discharge petition in American history, the people's House unites across party lines to draw a moral line. We draw a line against the rape and sexual violation of children. We draw a line against the global criminal trafficking of girls and young women to service the pleasure of rich and powerful men who believe they are beyond all law and all morality. We draw a line to put the voices of the victims and the survivors first.

We ask the Senate to join us without changes rather than obstruct this bill with dilatory amendments, legislative graffiti, and self- dealing, million-dollar jackpot provisions for lucky Senators.

Just pass the bill.

We are finally voting today because a bipartisan discharge petition, led by Representatives Massie and Khanna and signed by 218 of us, overthrew the determined obstruction of the Speaker. This forced vote means the House will no longer acquiesce in this astonishing real-time coverup of a multibillion-dollar global sex trafficking and child rape ring that has ravaged the lives of more than a thousand girls and young women.

We are here today because these victims, these survivors, these citizens, these inspiring women who have come to Washington are demanding nothing less than justice and the complete truth about who is responsible for their vicious abuse, including those responsible for enabling it, ignoring it, bankrolling it, and covering it up.

We join them today in rejecting any more dangerous lies about the crimes they suffered. No, child sex abuse is not a hoax. It is a crime. Human trafficking is not a hoax. It is a crime.

These crimes are a curse on children and young people across America, in universities and elementary schools, in churches and mosques and synagogues, in Boy Scout troops and college sports teams, in summer camps, anywhere the powerful and the rich believe they have the opportunity and the impunity to exploit the young, the poor, the powerless, and the vulnerable.

We must face the truth and find the coconspirators still at large in one of America's most extensive and sophisticated sex trafficking and child abuse rings in history.

Release of the file will expose the role of everybody who facilitated and covered up these crimes like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon, which executed billions of dollars in transactions related to these offenses, as well as any bank executives who participated in the sexual abuse of girls and young women.

We must expose everyone who covered up these crimes like Alex Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami, Donald Trump's Labor Secretary, who gave Jeffrey Epstein an unbelievable sweetheart plea deal, immunized unnamed conspirators, and killed an investigation into Epstein's financial crimes that could have brought down the entire criminal network.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I should just point out that we have heard now from the two distinguished chairmen of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and they have spoken almost exclusively to denounce Democrats.

We have a bipartisan coalition here demanding the truth about the largest child sex abuse and trafficking ring perhaps in American history, certainly in this century, and they want to just throw stones at the Democrats. What a remarkable failure of leadership we are seeing from the other side.

I imagine that the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will follow up his spectacular failure in trying to impeach President Biden with his spectacular failure in trying to block the resolution we brought to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garcia), the very distinguished minority leader on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark), the minority whip.

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

Just very quickly, what happened under the Biden administration? Well, under the Biden administration, Ghislaine Maxwell was prosecuted for conspiring to sexually abuse and traffic girls in 2020. In 2021, she was convicted, in December of 2021, after a month-long trial in Judge Nathan's courtroom. In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison under the Biden administration for sex trafficking and sexual abuse of minors.

When President Trump took office in January of 2025, they killed the investigation. They assembled all the materials, they got all the prosecutors together, and they terminated the investigation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his eloquent remarks. Pardons are for people who are

contrite. Pardons are for people who are repentant. Pardons are not for people who lie. Every Member of this body should immediately, verbally, vocally denounce the idea of clemency, commutation, or pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez).

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

This whole bill is about protecting the innocent. Mr. Speaker, the Senate must pass the bill, as we are passing it today and as the President has said he would sign it, after changing his position on the bill over the weekend when he could see the tidal wave of public opinion moving against him. Let's pass this bill. Pass it in the Senate. Sign the bill, and let's go ahead and release the complete file.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Ansari).

Mr. Speaker, I have never heard a more defensive presentation in my life than we are hearing from over there. The gentleman should spend a little less time pointing out hypocrisy and a little more time trying to ferret out cruelty, humiliation, and rape. That is what we are working on.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Min).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Walkinshaw).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the very distinguished gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Grijalva), who is finally with us, the Representative from Arizona's Seventh Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, they are here as honored guests of the House. We are delighted they are here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel).

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez) for the purpose of making a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close. I have no more speakers on my side, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I take the opportunity of the Speaker's presence to respond to some of the things that he said. In the very presence of the victims and the survivors who have come to join us today, the Speaker said that now would be the time we should be working on urgent legislative work.

Mr. Speaker, justice is urgent legislative work. The truth is urgent legislative work.

The Speaker says: Why now? Why now?

Mr. Speaker, you were the one who refused to swear in Adelita Grijalva for 50 days. We would have done it 50 days ago, but she provided the 218th signature on the discharge petition.

So why now?

It was because of your dilatory tactics, your delay, your postponement of it.

Now the gentleman says that there are not sufficient protections. There are protections in the bill for the victims to make sure that their names will be redacted. Yet, we hear even the Speaker of the House of Representatives openly inviting the U.S. Senate to start finger painting on this bill which we have waited more than 5 months to bring to the floor.

The Senate should pass the bill exactly as it is written. The President should sign it exactly as he said he would when he finally changed his mind, and the Epstein file must be released. Moreover, if the President is serious about what he is saying, he has got the power to release the Epstein file right now. Nobody is stopping him. It is within his possession. It is within his control. He can release the whole thing, and he can redact the names of the victims and others who are innocent in this process.

Mr. Speaker, Speaker Johnson said that these are unspeakable evils. However, because of the bravery and the invincible courage of the women who joined us today, they are no longer unspeakable.

They are spoken. They are articulated. The cat is out of the bag. We know what has been going on for decades. It has been a double standard of justice going all the way back to Alex Acosta, who got later rewarded with a Cabinet appointment in the Trump administration.

Alex Acosta had a 60-count Federal indictment ready to go against all kinds of people for an interstate sex trafficking conspiracy, with solicitation, child sex abuse, all of it. He traded that 60-count Federal indictment for 1 count in State court.

Jeffrey Epstein ended up getting the sweetest of sweetheart deals ever on the plea bargain front. He was free from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. to do whatever he wanted in continuing to perpetrate his crimes and run his conspiracy. Then he would come and would watch TV and spend the night in jail. It was over in about a year. This was after the rape and sexual abuse of hundreds and hundreds of girls. He kept going, and he kept at it.

We want the whole truth to come out.

This is the United States of America. Even the British monarchy wouldn't put up with this. How about the American democracy? How about we say: No way. We are not going to allow this coverup to go on for 1 day more.

I am glad the President changed his mind after pulling out all the stops to try to get one of our Republican colleagues to change their mind, to remove their name from the discharge petition. He gave up.

I want to salute the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. Boebert) for having the courage to stand her ground in the Situation Room in the White House and say, no, she wasn't going to be bullied.

I am glad the President changed his mind, but let's be clear: Mr. President, you have the power today to release the entire file. That is what you called for. That is what Pam Bondi called for. That is what Kash Patel called for. We don't need anybody calling for the Senate to slow things down for more weeks and more months.

The American people have had it.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

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

I thank all of America for tuning in to this. I thank Representatives Massie, Khanna, and Greene and all of those who have insisted upon bringing the truth forward and a reckoning with the reality of one of the worst international child sex trafficking rings ever to exist in the United States and the coverup attendant to it.

We have the opportunity today to do justice for the victims, for the survivors who have come forward to say that the voice of the victims and the survivors must be put at the very center of our deliberations, not shunted off to the side, not submerged, not subordinated, but put at the very center. We must hear from the people who themselves were victimized by this nightmare.

Now, our colleagues across the aisle seem to want to make this into some sort of partisan contest. I haven't heard so much talk about the Democrats since the Democratic National Convention. All that we have done here is to say we want to bring the truth forward, along with a bipartisan group. We don't want the Senate monkeying around with this in order to slow things down. We want it passed in the Senate. We want it signed.

Before that, if the President is true to his word, and he wants to see all of this come to light, he can release it now instead of fighting, kicking and screaming every step along the way. I am glad he has changed his mind, and I hope he maintains the momentum he has to stick with the vast majority of the American people who want to see that the truth is done here. While he is at it, the administration could reconsider their terrible policies gutting Federal offices and programs designed to combat violence against women.

The DOJ terminated hundreds of grants to police departments, defunding the police when it comes to investigating violent sex crimes and to support victims. His DOGE destroyed programs to combat international human trafficking rings. Let's get back on the side of the women.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution. We are here today on the floor to support the complete disclosure of information related to Jeffrey Epstein and his billion-dollar, international child sex-trafficking ring. Our side of the aisle, at least, supports the release of information relating to anybody who had anything to do with it, whether they are a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what have you, period. We insist on complete, full disclosure.

This resolution has nothing to do with that. This seems to me to be one more pathetic effort to distract and divert attention from the fact that the President's name appeared more than 1,000 times already in the small fraction of material released on Epstein and from the failure of the majority to move to disclose this information.

It is this bipartisan group that we have had behind the discharge resolution, which has insisted on bringing this to the floor, and we have gotten nothing but obstruction, opposition, resistance, evasion, distraction, and diversion from the other side, and now we get one more resolution like this.

The resolution actually proposes a disciplinary censure against Representative Stacey Plaskett but, amazingly, alleges no misconduct. It does not allege a violation of the Constitution. It does not allege the violation of a Federal law or a State law or a local law. It does not even allege a violation of the ethics rules of the House of Representatives. Yet, they want to censure her and throw her off of her committee--this, a distinguished former Federal prosecutor, diligent public servant, and Representative of the people of the Virgin Islands.

Mr. Speaker, criminal justice has two parts to it. One is insisting upon legal accountability for people who do wrong. The other part of it is due process, which may be the two most beautiful words in the English language, certainly the two most beautiful words in the Constitution of the United States. It is due process that protects all of our freedoms and our rights against the arbitrary power of government and the will to just punish somebody without any process at all.

That is exactly what is going on here. Think about it. Ghislaine Maxwell had due process. She had a right to counsel. She had a right to hearings. She had a right to hear the evidence against her. She had a right to put on her case. She had a right to cross-examine. She had a right to a neutral, impartial tribunal. She had a right to a unanimous verdict of a jury.

All of that she had, and she was found guilty. That is why she was sentenced to jail for 20 years, even though Donald Trump has transferred her from a real prison to a prison camp, where she has gotten very special, pampered treatment, like she is in a Trump hotel. She gets room service to her cell. She gets gym privileges that other inmates don't get. She gets to use the warden as a go-between with people outside of the institution.

Mr. Speaker, she had due process. Donald Trump had due process. He was convicted on 34 felonies, but he had the right to counsel. He had the presumption of innocence. He had a unanimous jury trial. They had a right to cross-examine everybody and put their own witnesses on.

Mr. Speaker, now they want to take a former United States prosecutor, the Representative of the people of the Virgin Islands, and without even going to the Ethics Committee, much less a court, they want to arraign her on some charges based on a newspaper article that she did something lawful. However ill-advised it may have been, she took a phone call from one of her constituents.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think it is the position of the very distinguished gentleman that, if we find Jeffrey Epstein on the phone with Donald Trump, he should be impeached for it, or is that his position? Is his position that anytime Jeffrey Epstein got somebody on the phone--and he got a lot of people on the phone--that person is suddenly guilty? That sounds like guilt by association. That sounds like collective guilt.

Our minority whip introduced a perfectly reasonable amendment to say: Let's refer this to an Ethics Committee. Let's have a real hearing. They didn't want to have a real hearing. They want to rush to judgment. Why? It is so there can be some headline that will please Donald Trump tomorrow instead of a unanimous statement--or forgive me, I think the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana may have dissented, but an otherwise unanimous verdict of the House of Representatives that the American people want all the files open.

We have had enough of the coverup. We want all of the truth. We want the survivors and the victims to have the possibility of accountability. Well, they want to give them another headline, which is that they have arraigned a Democratic Member for taking a phone call from her constituent, Jeffrey Epstein, in the middle of a hearing, and, of course, I don't think there is any rule here against taking phone calls in a hearing.

Now if you want to actually give her the chance to explain what happened, then we would take it to the Ethics Committee. I still don't see what the charge is. Where is the ethical transgression? Where is the legal transgression? Are you saying anybody on your side of the aisle who had a phone call with Jeffrey Epstein should be censured?

Be careful of your answer there because there is a lot more that is about to come out, right? You should think about what is the principle behind this rush to judgment.

Mr. Speaker, I will close just with this thought because I know there were a lot of people in the Chamber who were here when this happened and a lot who weren't.

There was a move to expel George Santos. He was a Republican Member of the House from New York. It was the same kind of rush to judgment, absolute political frenzy. I looked at it for about 60 seconds.

I was a professor of constitutional law, so call me a legal nerd, but I said, wait. This guy has not been convicted of anything. Well, he is a Republican. I know he is a Republican. He was not convicted in criminal court, to my knowledge. He had not been arraigned yet or convicted of anything in the Ethics disciplinary process. They just said, well, there is bad press. We want to get rid of him.

Beware of what you wish for. Is that the rule that you want here in the House of Representatives, that you can just draw up a Member of Congress in 24 hours or 48 hours because there is a bad newspaper article without asking any questions, without giving that person any due process at all? Is that what it has come to at this point?

All we are asking for in the Epstein files is, release the materials so we can check it out. They want to go ahead and censure and remove from a committee a distinguished Member of the House of Representatives with no due process at all.

Mr. Speaker, I reject this. I hope the whole body will reject this just like I voted and spoke against removing George Santos, a Republican on the other side of the aisle, because he had gotten no due process. I hope all our colleagues will reject this absurd rush to judgment in an attempt to change the subject.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear from my friend from Louisiana.

Both of the Republican speakers have said this demands an Ethics investigation. I think Mr. Higgins just said it should be investigated by Oversight and by Judiciary, as well as by Ethics and others.

This resolution censures her and punishes her before there has been one day of investigation. There has been no investigation at all. That was the whole burden of the minority whip's amendment. It was to say let's have an investigation, refer it to the Ethics Committee.

That is why the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana and I both voted against, and we got a majority to vote against censuring, or expelling even, George Santos without any ruling by our Ethics disciplinary body.

Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? I don't get it. I wish one of you could explain that to us why we should censure her before there has been one day of actual investigation. If being on the phone with one of our constituents, even an evil sinister force like Jeffrey Epstein--and, of course, he has said that he considered Donald Trump the most evil person he ever met, without a redeeming bone in his body.

I agree people can say different things, but Jeffrey Epstein, to me, disgraced himself. In any event, people want to know what were the contents of that conversation. Why was Ms. Plaskett doing that? I am sure she has a good explanation. We are talking about a distinguished lawyer and Federal prosecutor who was in the middle of a hearing, which is something that Members do all the time is to talk to people in hearings about different things.

Let me ask, if it is now the standard that just to be on a phone call with somebody establishes guilt by association, what about all of the Members of this body or of the U.S. Senate who were on the phone with January 6 insurrectionists and President Trump and his associates who were trying to block the certification of the election as people were chanting, ``Hang Mike Pence.'' There were a lot of phone calls, a lot of traffic going on.

In fact, that is why our Republican colleagues dealt themselves a million-dollar cash payoff bonanza provision in the most recent Republican spending bill.

They put that in there because their phone records had been subpoenaed lawfully by a grand jury. They were treated like every other American citizen because their names came up as potentially being involved in that conspiracy to somehow shut down proceedings in the House and the Senate.

Now, are we saying just because they were on a phone call that they are guilty of something, that we should strip them of their committee assignments, that we should censure them? Have we gotten to that point? I mean, come on. This is the House of Representatives of the United States of America. Let's stick by the Constitution. Let's stick by due process. Let's go through the rules.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Himes).

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

I thank my friend from Texas for those remarks. I am afraid all of them dance around the central issue, which is the good Congressman knows how due process works in America. There are facts that are adduced first. There is an opportunity to be heard on both sides. There is due process. There is consideration. Then there is judgment.

The gentleman has flipped the whole thing on its head. He has said we are going to judge her guilty before anybody has an opportunity even to hear what the charges are, much less answer the charges, much less do any kind of analysis.

I am sorry to hear that the text exchange that seems to be at the heart of people's consternation here took place during the distinguished gentleman's questioning, but that is not a Federal offense nor is it an ethical violation in the House of Representatives. You don't get to have the undivided attention of all of your colleagues.

The gentleman says that he thinks that our position is that any association with Jeffrey Epstein is a dispositive moment of judgment for people. That is not the position we have advanced.

We have taken the position with the survivors that we want to end the coverup of what happened and then let the chips fall where they may. If there are people who were actually engaged in crime, as Ghislaine Maxwell was, as Epstein was, then they should be charged with every element of due process.

If they happen to be a waiter or a waitress who worked at an event, they are not guilty of anything. That is what due process is, we are able to sift through and figure it out.

However, your rush to judgment isn't even giving anybody a chance to know what the charges are here. It is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Crockett).

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to remark that yet one more Member says we should go ahead and censure her and we then should do a complete investigation. I think any fifth grader in America knows that is the exact opposite of what due process means in America. We don't punish people before we have an investigation and an opportunity to be heard.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke).

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

I want to start by addressing the young people who appear to be in the audience this evening because I am afraid some of my arguments are lost on some of our colleagues across the aisle suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. It seems to have completely warped their minds today, and they are not thinking clearly about the Constitution or the rule of law.

The young people here will recognize, if they read this resolution, immediately what is wrong with it because it is replete with phrases like this, that this one incident that they are referring to raises serious questions about the judgment and the integrity and the fitness to serve. Well, I think that is absurd, but in any event, if you think it raises serious questions, presumably you would want the answers to those questions. You don't get answers by rushing to judgment and turning the whole process upside down.

This resolution starts by saying that we censure her, that we remove her from committee. The very next component of it says that we direct the Committee on Ethics to conduct an investigation. That is the opposite of due process, and I hope at least future generations will understand that is not how we hold people accountable, whether it is under criminal law, under civil law, or under an ethics process, which they purport to want to be launching here.

Again, go back to the George Santos standard. The reason we voted against just hanging him out to dry, censuring him, and expelling him is because the process hadn't happened yet. Democrats and Republicans together did it, but they are thinking in solely partisan terms.

Even Matt Gaetz, accused of having sex with a 17-year-old, was never censured by the House of Representatives. Even with Speaker McCarthy and others condemning him for what he did, we did not censure him.

Think about what you are doing to the precedents of this body by trying to attack Ms. Plaskett.

Let me just close with a personal thought. I wasn't going to bring it up because I didn't want to embarrass her, but she was one of the three finest students I ever had in constitutional law. She was a straight-A student in the early 1990s. She is a straight-A student in the 21st century. I am proud not only that she was my student but that she is my friend and that she is my colleague. She doesn't disgrace us in any way. She goes to work every day for the people of the Virgin Islands, and we are proud of her.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill, which they now call imperfect, contains the single most corrupt provision for legislative self-dealing that anyone in this Chamber today has ever voted on. It is such an egregiously corrupt act of legislator self-enrichment and plunder of the taxpayer that not only did every single House Democrat oppose it in the Rules Committee last night, but multiple Republicans were denouncing it, that is, before they were summoned into a side room and instructed to vote for it, which they all proceeded to do.

Now they are telling us: Vote for it today and they will repeal it maybe next week or maybe the week after that or maybe before Christmas. I have a solution. If Members don't like this corrupt provision, don't vote for it today. That will work.

This is a great bill, a great bill that is if you think eight Republican U.S. senators should have a right to collect at least $1 million in a jackpot bonanza payoff from the taxpayers simply because they were subject to the exact same rules all other Americans were subject to and are subject to now. They don't propose to change those rules for anybody else, not for more than 300 million Americans, not for the Members of the House of Representatives, not for Governors or mayors but for themselves. They want to deal themselves a special legal privilege.

In this Republican class war, a Great Gatsby economy where President Trump has made more than $3 billion since he reoccupied the White House, the Federal building which he has proceeded to demolish in large part while millions of Americans face losing their healthcare and their SNAP benefits. This provision is an affront to our taxpayers and to the rule of law.

It is an affront to everyone who believes that we, in public office, must be the servants of the people, not the masters of the people who get special, legal rights and privileges and multimillion-dollar payoffs, people who think that they have a right to better treatment than everybody else, like Ghislaine Maxwell in the prison camp where she gets room service, puppy time, and special gym privileges.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a dedicated public servant. Ms. Maryam Azarion has given over 26 years of her career to serving our Nation's veterans and advancing scientific innovation across the federal government.

Maryam began her career as a microbiologist and inventor before finding her way to the law and federal service. She has dedicated her professional life to making government a force for good, one that drives progress and innovation and provides exceptional care to our Nation's veterans.

For nearly 20 years at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Maryam brought her expertise in science and the law to the VA's senior leadership. As a Staff Attorney for the VA's Office of General Counsel, Maryam was in charge of giving legal advice about research agreements, intellectual property licensing and smart phone application submissions.

After her first five years at the VA, Maryam saw an emerging need to create a legal team devoted to health research and innovation. Maryam was entrusted with the responsibility of nurturing the VA's first Specialty Team Advising Research (STAR), which she led with distinction from 2012 until her retirement this year. Her leadership at STAR has improved the quality of life for our Nation's veterans, spurred health care business development and encouraged innovation across our government.

Medical innovations are only lifesaving and life-changing if new technology and treatments can reach hospitals and clinics and if the veterans who need care can afford them. Maryam's vision and expertise helped facilitate the transfer of technologies developed within federal agencies to public, private and nonprofit partners.

Maryam developed her expertise in technology transfer after beginning her career as a microbiologist and researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Discovering a passion for technology transfer and a talent for the intersection of science and the law, she lent her expertise to the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and the Naval Research Laboratory.

A Marylander to her bones, Maryam prepared for this remarkable career at the Free State's world class colleges and universities. She's earned degrees at the University of Maryland-College Park, Hood College, and the University of Baltimore School of Law. On behalf of a grateful Nation and the residents of Maryland's beautiful 8th District, I wish Maryam Azarion nothing but the best as she begins a new chapter in her life after her decades of federal service.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the United States Congress and our Nation's capital will be honored with a visit from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All-Holiness Bartholomew I. Patriarch Bartholomew is not only the denominational leader of 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide--he is a global spiritual leader who has advanced the sacred causes of peace, interreligious understanding and environmental stewardship.

Patriarch Bartholomew is stopping in Washington, D.C. on his way to New York City to accept the Templeton Prize for his groundbreaking harmonization of faith and science in service of environmental protection. The Templeton Prize, given to singular champions of human dignity and progress such as Mother Teresa and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, honors people who have harnessed the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind's place and purpose within it. His All-Holiness Bartholomew has earned this storied honor through the same works that gained him the moniker of the ``Green Patriarch.'' Since assuming his office in 1991, Patriarch Bartholomew has convened leaders across borders and disciplines to redefine human- caused climate change, environmental destruction and pollution as not just practical crises but spiritual and moral failings. He does so because of his conviction that ``we are not owners of this planet. It belongs to the coming generations as well. We are simply stewards and priests of the environment and not proprietors of it.''

In addition to his environmental stewardship, Patriarch Bartholomew finds common cause with Americans in advancing the causes of democracy and peace. He assumed the Patriarchate of Constantinople during the same year that the Soviet Union dissolved. His leadership was instrumental in advancing the spiritual and political self- determination of the Eastern Orthodox faithful in former Soviet republics. Today, he is a steadfast and unflinching moral leader supporting the people of Ukraine as they resist Vladimir Putin's bloody imperialist invasion and a forceful counterweight to the Moscow Patriarchate's Putinist subversion. This is a cause that most Americans support, recognizing that the cause of the people of Ukraine and their war of self-defense and self-determination is now the cause of all humanity.

During this time of great uncertainty and fear, we Americans would do well to learn from Patriarch Bartholomew's example. Over the past 36 years, Patriarch Bartholomew has sought to build relationships across faith traditions, cultures and borders. In 1997, Patriarch Bartholomew was the first Eastern Orthodox Patriarch to denounce the great horror and evil of the Holocaust. He has traveled to Muslim-majority countries to foster interreligious understanding. And he has taken great care to cultivate relationships with Roman Catholic Popes and leaders across the world. These examples of moral and spiritual bridge-building are essential to our own democratic and human progress as a multi- religious, pluralist democracy.

Twenty-eight years ago, the U.S. Congress recognized Patriarch Bartholomew with the Congressional Gold Medal for his extraordinary and courageous leadership. Today, on behalf of my constituents in Maryland's beautiful 8th District, I welcome Patriarch Bartholomew back to our Nation's Capital and congratulate him on earning the Templeton Prize as the latest of many well-deserved honors.

Madam Speaker, on the occasion of her retirement, I rise today to recognize the extraordinary public service of Julie Tagen, who served over the last 9 years in a succession of critical posts for me: as my chief of staff, as my staff director when I was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, as my staff director when I was the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, and always as a cherished friend, a trusted adviser, and an active constituent.

A native of Philadelphia, who unfortunately never recovered from her love of Philly sports teams, Julie is a graduate of the University of Maryland. She is a devoted Terp, a lover of the Eastern Shore, and a true-blue Marylander.

She has had a dazzling career in politics and public service. A Capitol Hill veteran of 20 years, she has been a powerful force for good on the Hill who has always worked to bring our government closer to the needs and the values of our people.

I first met Julie in 2016 when I was running for Congress in Maryland's Eighth District. I was fortunate that Terry Lierman, who was chief of staff to Steny Hoyer, introduced me to Julie from Silver Spring, and off we went.

I will never forget the long hike that Julie and I took through Rock Creek

Park as we discussed her storied career in public life working for former Congressman Alan Grayson, the National Association of Retired Federal Employees, the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and the Human Rights Campaign.

For this freshman Member of the House from Maryland in 2017, Julie quickly amassed a top-tier team and got our House office up and running. With my amazing district chief, Kathleen Connor, Julie saw my office through good times and bad, legislative victories and government shutdowns, the COVID-19 pandemic, the January 6 insurrection and the second impeachment trial, through sickness and through health, and all of the public and private trials and traumas of our days.

Julie has great political instincts and amazing historical awareness. She is unflappable. She is understated, and she is always kind. She has a marvelous sense of humor. She is quick to laugh. She always finds the time to help a friend or colleague in need, and she has been a mentor to generations of junior staffers. Countless young, eager public servants have sought her out for advice and insight. She has taken many of them under her wing and connected them with different ways to serve on Capitol Hill and our people in the government.

Finding someone like Julie is a very special thing on Capitol Hill. She can get almost anybody in Washington on the phone, but she always makes time for all of our constituents in Maryland's beautiful Eighth District.

I will miss her daily compassion, her wisdom, and her excellent advice. I will miss her irrepressible love for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. We went to several concerts together.

I know Julie has many new adventures ahead of her and many great battles to fight with her amazing wife, Dee, and their two fantastic kids, Carly and Natasha.

On behalf of the people of Maryland's beautiful Eighth Congressional District, on behalf of all of the members of Team Raskin past and present, I thank Julie Tagen for her remarkable service to our country, our Congress, our people, and our democracy. We wish her Godspeed in all of her projects ahead.

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

I congratulate Mr. Knott on his first bill coming to the floor of the House.

The administration and ICE say that they are targeting the most hardened criminals, the worst of the worst, but

the numbers now suggest a different story. Roughly half of the people who have been arrested by ICE have no violent criminal history and no criminal history other than being undocumented.

Most migrants, of course, are coming due to poverty, insecurity, violence in their home country, and authoritarianism at home. In fact, the two most common crimes committed by people who have been detained by ICE are being here without documentation and traffic offenses.

Now, the President has said that his administration wants to remove and deport people who commit crimes after they illegally enter the country, but the gentleman's legislation moves in exactly the opposite direction. If this bill were passed into law, it would imprison people for long sentences, even potentially for life, just for having entered the country on an undocumented basis, several times, as the gentleman says.

Obviously, if someone commits a murder or rape, they are going to be prosecuted for murder or rape, so the bite of this bill is with respect to people who just keep reentering our country without permission.

Now, it would require that people who are immediately removable and deportable, undocumented immigrants, must spend 5 or 10 years in overcrowded and overburdened Bureau of Prisons facilities in our country at a huge cost to American taxpayers--more than $150, and in many cases $200 a day, which comes to hundreds of millions of dollars when you multiply it by the people that would be affected--before they can be removed from the country.

That is the odd part of this bill, that we have people who have entered unlawfully who have no documentation to be here. They are removable. They are deportable, but we are insisting that they stay here and be imprisoned and punished here for the crime of having entered illegally.

This would undoubtedly be good for the owners of all the private detention facilities and prisons who are getting rich off of laws like this, but it would fail the rest of us.

Under 8 U.S.C. 1325, today, entering the U.S. without inspection is already a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and a sentence of up to 6 months in prison with enhancements that can increase the maximum sentence up to 2 years. Under 8 U.S.C. 1326, if you unlawfully reenter the country or are found to be here in the United States following a removal or denial of admission, this is already a felony punishable by up to 2 years in prison with enhancements that can increase the maximum sentence already to as high as 20 years in prison for those who were ordered removed following a conviction for certain offenses.

The gentleman's bill would increase the penalty for people who enter without inspection from 6 months to 2 years for a first offense, and then if you reenter without documentation for up to 5 years, and in certain circumstances, potentially up to life. You could be held for life for a consecutive illegal entry into our country.

The bill provides even for a potential life sentence in Federal prison for merely entering the country unlawfully with no other criminal conduct required. There are obviously armed robbers and rapists and even murderers who have done less time than that.

Obviously, we don't want these people entering the country illegally. That is why the solution is to toughen the border. We had a bipartisan compromise to toughen and fortify the border with the hiring of hundreds more border officers and judges. It was coming through the Senate. That was the one at the end of 2024 that was sailing through Congress when President Trump decided to sink that legislation and said, essentially, that he didn't want a border compromise bill for more effective enforcement there, that he wanted a border crisis to run against.

There has been a consensus between the parties for several years that mandatory minimums do not effectively reduce crime and do not improve public safety. They strip judges of their ability to exercise fact- based discretion and impose sentences that fit the circumstances of the case, frustrating their ability to consider mitigating and complicating factors, imposing a one-size-fits-all straitjacket that leads to often disproportionate and inflexible prison sentences.

This is why the Judicial Conference itself opposes mandatory minimums. This is why you don't have judges at the border demanding the gentleman's legislation. This is why the Brennan Center opposes it. This is why Right On Crime has opposed mandatory minimums and so on.

Study after study has shown that mandatory minimums don't work to deter criminal conduct. We know from a report issued by the Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice that the certainty of being caught and quickly punished, not the severity or length of the sentence, is what deters criminal conduct. Increasing and mandating harsh, lengthy sentences will not deter illegal reentry, but strengthening the border will do that.

According to The Washington Post, the administration is actually pressuring Governors today to commute the sentences of immigrants who are in prison under the current framework convicted of serious crimes. I am not talking about just entering without documentation. I am talking about serious crimes. The administration is pushing for them to have their sentences commuted so ICE can take custody of them and then remove them from the country more quickly.

The gentleman's bill does the exact opposite. It requires the deportable immigrants be held in our prisons at enormous public expense for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, in some circumstances even for life, making the taxpayers pay for it when they could have simply been removed and deported, which has been the policy of this administration.

The gentleman's bill, which was opposed on a bipartisan basis in committee, is ultimately too punitive, way too expensive, and ultimately ineffective.

I will urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, with all due respect to my friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington.

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

My friend and the good gentleman from Kansas says that the legislation is about the worst of the worst, and I beg to differ.

The worst of the worst are already covered by existing law. If you commit a murder like the gruesome murder he describes in his State, you can go to jail for life. In many States--and I suppose Kansas, but I don't know--you are subject to the death penalty. If you commit rape or armed robbery, there are laws that cover that.

Today, under section 1326, if you have committed an aggravated felony such as the kind he describes, you already can be imprisoned for an additional 20 years under the immigration statute.

I understand that it might be satisfying for us to say we are just going to increase all these penalties, but we are not in any way connecting with the worst of the worst. What we are really doing is saying that we are going to hold people who have done nothing other than enter the country illegally for much longer periods of time, for 5 years or 10 years.

Again, we see this as very wasteful in terms of public tax dollars. If we set aside the murderers, the rapists, and the armed robbers, who we are going to get under existing laws that make all of that criminal, and you look at what is actually happening here, it is a focus on people who are entering the country illegally.

We have to ask ourselves, is it economically worthwhile for us to say that we are so mad at those people that we want to hold them in our jails for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, or even life in certain circumstances rather than send them back to their own country and toughen the border so they can't get back in? That is precisely the purpose of the legislation that was rejected at the end of 2024 on toughening up the border. We should go back and do that rather than having people continually come back in.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

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

I want to underscore something that the gentleman from California said. The whole weight of this bill is on people who are not the hardened criminals. Obviously, we are going to be prosecuting rapists for rape and murderers for murder and so on. He talked about people who are hardworking immigrants, the kind even President Trump described when for a moment he said there wouldn't be immigration raids on farms because the agricultural sector is in crisis and people are saying we need the workers.

Well, I wanted to echo what President Trump said briefly there before he was corrected by Mr. Miller. I was just in upstate New York in the Adirondacks in the 21st Congressional District represented by Ms. Stefanik. I met a bunch of dairy farmers there, who told me it was impossible for them to find workers to work the farms. With the additional crackdown on migrant labor, it is pretty much impossible for them to get the workers they need.

What is the economic result of that? Well, they take the citizen laborers they have got, and they do mandatory overtime, so they are working an additional 15, 20, 30 hours per week, then they have got to pay them time-and-a-half under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Therefore, the prices go up now because they are not able to find enough workers to satisfy the demand. Their choice at that point is to either pay the farmers less money, which they can't do because the farmers are already at the breaking point, or they have got to increase prices, and that is what they end up doing.

They have said to the grocers, this is because Congress refuses to work on bipartisan immigration reform. That is why we are seeing inflation in dairy, produce, and across the agricultural sector.

The gentleman is telling us if we are serious about dealing with this, we need to do what we started to do at the end of 2024. We need to have bipartisan commitment to immigration reform, and we need to sit down and work this out the way that prior generations of Americans have done. This is a country that has been built on immigration.

I am afraid that the gentleman's legislation here, which is basically just jacking up a whole series of criminal penalties, doesn't get us out of the economic problems and the immigration policy problems that we are in. It is a distraction. It will be ineffectual, and so it is not going to work to deal with the real crises that we are facing.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove), a very distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I have no more speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I have just one quick correction or amendment to my distinguished friend's last set of remarks, which is that when he says how low a standard must there be, all they have to do is not commit another felony or commit a felony. As I understand the gentleman's legislation--and please correct me if I am wrong, because he certainly knows it better than I do--it is a felony to come back to the country again without having committed any violent crime or any other offense. It becomes a felony under the legislation. Now you have a felony because you have reentered, and at that point you are eligible for up to 20 years or even a life sentence.

Am I understanding that correctly? There are people whose only offense could be reentering without anything else who would be subject to the most serious punishment.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield if he can just clarify that.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time. I thank my colleague for that clarification.

Madam Speaker, I am satisfied to believe, again, that there are people who could end up with the most severe penalties under the legislation who have done nothing other than reenter the country, which is something we don't want them to do, which is why we want a bipartisan immigration bill to actually fasten down the border and move forward on this so we are not constantly dealing with this.

The bottom-line problem with my friend's legislation, which is offered in all good faith, is that it is just continuing to pile criminal penalties on people reentering the country without changing any of the incentives or inducements. It doesn't deal with any of the things pushing them out of countries that are marked by violence, gang violence, authoritarianism, and so on, nor is it dealing, as Mr. Correa points out, with the pull of all of the jobs here.

We need real immigration policy breakthroughs and not just piling on a bunch of additional criminal penalties that are not going to work. If they did work, they would just end up costing the American taxpayers hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in holding people in our prisons for offenses that currently they are being held for 6 months or for up to 2 years.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the gentleman's legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of this Congress, nearly 60,000 of my constituents in Maryland's beautiful Eighth District woke up every morning to serve their country in the federal government. Today, thousands of professional civil service employees, among them cancer researchers, climate experts, food safety inspectors, air traffic controllers and civil rights lawyers, have been illegally fired or forced to retire from a job they loved and in which they excelled. They are victims of the Trump Administration's drive to gut our government and sell it for parts while replacing the professional civil service with unqualified political sycophants.

One of my constituents working at the National Institutes of Health wrote this summer about what it's been like to be a federal worker during a period of administrative chaos and vicious attacks on federal workers. This achingly beautiful and stirring essay drives home how the loss of her service and the service of her colleagues will affect all Americans. I include in the Record her essay as we return to session this September, so that my colleagues and all Americans can read it and reflect on the enormity of President Trump's attack on the federal workforce.

What it is Like to be a Federal Employee in 2025

(Commentary published in the Federal News Network on June 13, 2025)

I remember driving with my father down Rockville Pike in

Bethesda, Maryland as a little girl. We would pass a large

campus of impressive buildings called the National Institutes

of Health. I told my dad I would work there one day. He said

no, that place was for doctors and scientists. I knew I would

find a way.

Many years later, I did. In March 2008, I began my journey

at NIH, working with several institutes until I found my home

at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and

Stroke. I stated in the Division of Translational Research,

then moved to the Division of Clinical Research, where I

remain today.

How proud I have been to work alongside titans of the

scientific community. Dr. Francis Collins, physician and

former director of the National Institutes of Health and the

National Human Genome Research Institute, led the NIH with

vision, dedication and hope. Dr. Anthony Fauci, physician and

immunologist, served as director of the National Institute of

Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to

seven different presidential administrations.

NIH scientists have made major contributions to health and

medical science for over 100 years, including 163 Nobel

laureates, 214 winners of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical

Research Award, and more than 200 members of the U.S.

National Academies of Science and Medicine. Non-scientists

like myself are essential to NIH's day-to-day operations and

key to understanding the institution's history and mission.

It had been the happiest and proudest time in my long career.

Everything changed in 2025.

The Trump administration cut billions of dollars in

biomedical research funding, resulting in dire consequences

for the scientific research community, including universities

and medical centers. This action has crippled lifesaving

research and innovation. I was once so proud to say I worked

for the world's premier biomedical research facility. All of

that has changed.

Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives were scrubbed

away at the direction of this new administration, as though

they were dirty words. Donald Trump created the Department of

Government Efficiency and put Elon Musk at its head. In

record time, Musk moved from disrupting social media and

automotive industries to targeting the federal government

itself.

The indignities were swift and demoralizing. We were

required to provide weekly accounts of ``five things'' we

accomplished, as though our decades of service meant nothing.

They dictated what we could use in our email signatures and

instilled paranoia in every aspect of our jobs--all with the

support of the man elected to lead our country.

In a shocking turn of events, Musk shut down the U.S.

Agency for International Development. The impact was

immediate: food and crucial medications abandoned in

warehouses, vital programs closed, workers laid off. The U.S.

government, once known for humanitarian assistance, quickly

transformed into something unrecognizable. It is estimated

that over 300,000 people, including children, have died

because of this decision. But that would not be their worst

offense.

The Trump administration canceled grants at NIH, fired

intramural researchers, and planned to cut billions in

indirect costs. What they fail to understand is that federal

funding for biomedical research is central to healthcare

innovation. The dismantling of this once-great institution

will adversely affect American and global lives for years to

come. They stripped away vital departments like human

resources and acquisitions. There is no one to answer

personnel questions, and we are expected to perform without

basic supplies. This is not a well-thought-out plan, but

something executed with malice by an organization supposedly

focused on eliminating waste, fraud and abuse.

On February 14, 2025, scientists and medical researchers

began to be dismissed by President Trump's administration.

They were told it was due to probationary status and poor job

performance. Nothing could be further from the truth. I know

because one of them was my son.

This is as much his story as mine. He worked as a

contractor for nearly twenty years at NIH, helping to run a

lab at the National Cancer Institute. He devoted himself to

cancer research after watching my father die from lung and

brain cancer. While not a scientist himself, he was popular,

well-respected and beloved for his hard work and dedication.

Less than two years ago, in recognition for his service, he

was converted from contractor to federal employee. We were so

proud. On a day ironically devoted to love, my son was yanked

from the position he cared about and discarded like garbage.

He was a dedicated worker with the highest possible rating on

his yearly performance appraisals. His staff and senior

leadership were shocked, dismayed and bereft at losing such

an important team member.

My son delivered this news with a crack in his voice,

something that will bring any mother to her knees. He felt as

though a piece of his soul was destroyed. He immediately

filed an appeal with the Merit Systems Protection Board. Four

months later, he has heard nothing.

For these four months, my once cheerful, talkative son has

become withdrawn, sad and

rightfully prone to despair. He describes his treatment as

diminishing, brutal and humiliating. Initially, he kept in

constant contact with his former team, who continue to

support and miss him. Now, we have agreed never to speak of

NIH or the current administration as it is simply too much to

bear.

The National Institutes of Health limps along on invisible

crutches, its significance on life support, its staff feeling

diminished, dazed and confused. When this madness will end is

anyone's guess. With the Department of Health and Human

Services under Robert Kennedy Jr.'s direction and our country

steered by leaders who seem intent on destruction rather than

progress, there is little to hope for.

They say that change and grief are cousins. Indeed, they

are inseparable companions in these dark times for federal

service and scientific advancement.

A federal employee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. McGovern for yielding.

The American people across the political spectrum are now demanding the release of the complete Epstein file. This is what President Trump and Vice President Vance and the whole Trump team was demanding up until the last couple of weeks when President Trump suddenly decided he wanted to sweep the whole thing under the rug. There are now two approaches in Congress.

We have got a bipartisan, binding law which has teeth to compel disclosure of all the relevant material that America wants to see, but on the other hand, the Republicans in the Rules Committee just unveiled a meaningless, hortatory, fig leaf, Swiss cheese resolution that has no teeth at all. It doesn't even have dentures. It is all cavities what they have offered.

We have got a choice now. We can go with a bill that would actually have teeth for enforcement or a meaningless, hortatory resolution that has all the legal force of National Chrysanthemum Month.

Now, the original Khanna-Massie bill asks for comprehensive release from the Attorney General, and it is binding, which means if they don't turn it over, then we can go to court. It is comprehensive. It includes everything from flight logs and travel records to individuals, including government officials named or referenced, in connection with all of Epstein's criminal activities, all of the entities involved. We want to know about all the immunity deals.

It even tried to deter and account for destruction, deletion, alteration, misplacement, or concealment of documents and records. All of that falls out of this fraudulent resolution they have thrown up at the last minute here.

There is nothing in there except for a series of qualifying weasel words which are added to give complete, unilateral, and subjective discretion to the Attorney General to decide what should be in and what should be out. It starts off by saying whereas--our resolution says: ``All documents, records, and communications.'' Theirs says: ``All credible documents, records, and communications.''

Well, who is going to decide that?

It will be Attorney General Bondi in conjunction with Donald Trump who today said that a letter that he wrote to Jeffrey Epstein on his birthday which was published and which has all the indicia of credibility is not credible. That would not be included.

Let's release the real Epstein file.

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, our National Archivist, our National Security Advisor, and our

USAID Administrator took some time off from his work in these full-time positions to exercise his additional powers as Secretary of State of the United States.

The guy with four Federal jobs fired, en masse, more than 1,300 professional civil servants at the State Department, each of them doing just one job and, in general, doing it in an exemplary and excellent way. They have devoted their careers to America and America's role in the world.

Yet, Secretary, Archivist, National Security Advisor, USAID Administrator Rubio has robbed America of centuries of their expertise for no apparent reason at all. This destruction of the American role in the world comes as China is bolstering its soft power everywhere.

This is a giant blow to our national security and effectiveness in the world.

I express gratitude to the patriotic men and women at the State Department, many of them my constituents, for their decades of service, and I affirm our enduring commitment to the values they have worked so hard to advance.

Mr. Speaker, I found the preamble to this big ugly bill: We, the billionaires and our king, in order to deform and sicken our Union, establish injustice, ensure domestic servility, weaken our people's defenses, undermine the general welfare, and reserve to ourselves and our posterity staggering debt servitude for eternity, do hereby instruct the Republicans in Congress to strip 17 million people of their healthcare, increase copays, deductibles, and premiums for everyone else, cut 42 million people off of nutritional assistance, increase the national debt by $4 trillion, trash renewable energy systems, increase our electric bills for the carbon kings, all to weaken and destroy the Constitution of the people of these United States of America.

Please include this preamble in the legislative Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), the chair of the California Democratic Delegation who leads the 45 Democrats in the California delegation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am moved by the comments of the distinguished gentleman from California, and I wonder what our colleagues think the value is other than of a purely political nature to a resolution that purports to be honoring law enforcement when it is set up on a completely partisan basis. I wonder what the value of that is.

I especially wonder what the value of that is when the majority doesn't even stand by actual law when it comes to honoring law enforcement because this body on March 15, 2022, passed a resolution to put up a plaque, a simple plaque to honor the noble and brave police officers who battled for 4 or 5 hours to stop a violent riot and insurrection unleashed against this Chamber and against the Senate in an attempt to overthrow a Presidential election.

We voted to erect a plaque in their honor. That was on March 15, 2022. It was supposed to have been put up on March 15, 2023. We are now more than 2 years overdue in honoring those police officers, 140 of whom were wounded, injured, disfigured, and many of them permanently disabled. Several lost their lives in the days to follow that atrocity, attack on this body.

There is a law which says put up the plaque, and Speaker Johnson and the majority will not put the plaque up which is why you walk in the House Office Buildings now, everywhere there are poster replicas of that plaque being put up.

Now they want to pass a resolution deploring violence that took place thousands of miles away from here, and it is just a resolution, a hortatory resolution. They can't even get bipartisan support because of course they have to set it up on a polemical, partisan basis instead.

What is the utility of that resolution when they won't even follow an actual law to honor police officers who put themselves between us and a bloodthirsty mob?

That is not a partisan point because the Republicans denounced it at that time as terrorism, as an attack on this institution, as intolerable, as unacceptable.

I am happy to share with my colleague, who I know wasn't in Congress at the time, all of the statements made by Republican leaders at that time begging Donald Trump to send in the National Guard, which he controlled because it is the District of Columbia National Guard, and he didn't do it. He sat and watched it, eating hamburgers or whatever, in the White House on TV, ignoring all of the appeals to send the National Guard to come and defend Republican and Democratic Members of Congress.

Now we have got a law which says put the plaque up in honor of these officers, and they can't do it, but they want to bring a totally partisan resolution to the floor deploring violence thousands of miles away, and you have got Members of Congress from California saying that they are not capturing what actually happened there.

However, no, it has got to be another opportunity for partisan division. Why? Why can't we honor law enforcement together and follow through on our word?

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear my colleague invoke Abraham Lincoln in the rejection of disunion secession and violent attack on the Federal Government.

Neither of my colleagues who is on the floor has said a word explaining why they won't put the plaque up to honor hundreds and hundreds of police officers on the Capitol Police force, the Metropolitan Police Department, and the Montgomery County Police throughout the region who came to defend us. Why won't they put the plaque up if they are really such big supporters of the police? That is a law.

They just want to pass a resolution. Their resolution, of course, is completely political. One of their whereas clauses is: ``Whereas, California's leadership has prioritized protecting illegal immigrants and violent individuals over U.S. citizens.''

That is just defamation of the law enforcement officials in California. It is defamation against the Governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles, the sheriff in Los Angeles County, the chief of police in L.A., all of whom fought to put that violence down when riots broke out, something Donald Trump never did when the riots broke out that he incited against us.

Remember, he was impeached by this body for inciting a violent insurrection against us. Not only did he not do anything to defend us, but he was the one who caused the whole chain of events that led to the deaths that took place that day and the violence that took place that day. My colleague won't utter a word about it. He won't say a word about it.

All of the attempt to focus everybody over there is a distraction from the fact that they still, to this day, are defending what Donald Trump did with January 6. Why? It is because they also defend his lie that he won the 2020 Presidential election, which he lost by more than 7 million votes, 306 to 232 in the electoral college.

I don't know what the meaning of their totally partisan resolution is when they won't even stand by the law--it was signed into law by the President--to put up a plaque, a simple plaque honoring police officers who fought tooth and nail for hours against the most bloody, vicious, violent insurrectionist mob ever to attack the Capitol of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her excellent point. The California delegation has advanced, with Ms. Lofgren, a truly bipartisan resolution that deplores all violence because the political violence is getting out of control in America.

We just had colleagues in Minnesota who were the subject of assassination attempts, and, of course, the former speaker of the Minnesota House was killed, along with her husband, and a State senator was wounded, along with his wife.

We deplore all the political violence across the board, and we defend the right to speak. We look for policies from the Federal Government that will not exacerbate conflict but will reduce conflict.

This resolution is far from being nonpartisan, as my distinguished colleague argues. In fact, it attacks the Governor of California, Members of Congress, California leadership, and the mainstream media. I mean, come on.

We know the difference between what is a partisan, gotcha resolution and a resolution that actually attempts to unify people around common values.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from California talks about defunding the police. He might want to update his talking points because look who is defunding the police. President Trump and the

Republicans are defunding the police, and we know that because we debated it for hours on this floor.

His DOGE agents, back when Elon Musk was still in town before he got run out of town by somebody, DOGE said a guy in the Department of Justice cut out an estimated $500 million in community project funding to police departments across America, victim rights organizations, and others receiving those grants. They have not been able to explain it. They didn't even know it was happening.

Of course, they unleashed DOGE on the Department of Justice and hundreds of millions of dollars in State and local law enforcement, victim assistance, rape survivor organization grants, all of that was cut by them. Of course, they are also cutting more than a billion dollars in law enforcement funding in the DOJ appropriation this year.

We don't need any lectures about defunding the police from people who are actively defunding the police and people who are refusing to follow the law in honoring the police. My friend from California refuses to utter a word about that.

Could somebody please explain why they are not following the law and putting a plaque up to honor the officers who came to save our lives on January 6?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove), who is a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California has engaged in a spirited defense of the immigration policies of the administration. I wonder if he would clarify for us what the policy is this week, or at least today, with respect to agriculture in California or any other State.

President Trump heard from the Secretary of Agriculture and large agrarian interests saying that his immigration policies were destroying agriculture in America by getting rid of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who work there and that they are disrupting the entire agricultural economy.

Then, Donald Trump announced that there were some very fine, good workers within the agriculture sector, and they would not be enforcing the law there. That lasted for several days, and then there was a reversal. They went back to saying, yes, we will be doing ICE immigration crackdowns again.

Then, Donald Trump heard again from the Agriculture Secretary, as I understand it, and other interests, and he said no, they would be leaving some of these people alone.

I wonder if the gentleman could clarify that for us, and I wonder whether it causes him to second-guess in any way his absolute support for these policies. Maybe it suggests that there is something wrong with what they are doing and that the administration could go back to the drawing board.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Barragan).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am glad we are getting somewhere in this debate. The gentleman concedes that it is within the discretion of the administration to decide where to target resources.

I was just trying to find out where the administration is this week because we are getting conflicting accounts of whether or not they are still targeting farmworkers. We are getting reports from California, Texas, and New Mexico that entire farms are shut down because there have been ICE raids. The other workers are afraid to come to work.

They are begging the President to do something. The President then said we would stop doing that. Then they reversed it when Stephen Miller got involved. I think now the agriculture interests are getting involved. They should get the policy together.

It speaks to an underlying problem here, which is that the overwhelming number of arrests now are not of people who are criminal suspects for anything. Mr. Speaker, 65 percent of the people who have been taken by ICE since this administration began had no criminal convictions at all.

That is why we read articles in The Wall Street Journal about small, rural towns that voted for Donald Trump. They are up in arms and are in an uproar because people who have done nothing wrong and are pillars of the community are being taken away from their workplaces, their farms, their restaurants, their businesses, and their homes.

I ask the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley), who I know to be a serious student of the law because he was a student of mine of the law when we were at Yale Law School together: What authorizes the government to send people out who are not identified with any law enforcement insignia, who are masked and who are in unmarked cars, to arrest people? Doesn't that set the people up for danger in America?

That is what the assassins in Minnesota were doing. They showed up, dressed like some kind of vague police person without any law enforcement insignia, and in an unmarked car. That sets us up for danger.

Doesn't my colleague think the law enforcement norm is for people to know who police officers are so that they know they have to submit to their authority? I would inquire if my colleague would like to answer the question.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

Mr. Speaker, there are masked agents in unmarked cars sent out, violating people's due process rights, as the courts have found. This includes all the way up to the Supreme Court. They are arresting Members of Congress. They are prosecuting Members of Congress for doing their jobs. They federalize the State National Guard when the police in Los Angeles and the elected officials are doing their jobs.

This is an authoritarian attack on constitutional democracy. We must get back to the rule of law.

If nothing else, the Republicans should put up the plaque they committed to put up, honoring the police officers who defended American democracy, the Vice President of the United States, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and everybody in this room during the January 6 violent insurrection which Donald Trump was impeached for having incited.

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

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

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

With this strained legislation, we are bumping into two major social problems: deadly drunk driving on our roads and a broken immigration system. Alas, we are not doing anything to solve either problem. The bill pretends to do something about both of them, but it really does little or nothing about either of them.

We lose 11,000 people a year to drunk driving crashes. More than a million people are arrested on DUI charges every year, Mr. Speaker. I lost a beloved cousin of mine in Florida who was in the prime of her life just after graduating from college when she was killed by a drunk driver while she was riding a bicycle on the roads of Florida.

I take this issue of drunk driving very seriously. I have worked on it fastidiously for a long time in my career. There is a lot we could do in Congress to improve safety on the streets, including imposing a nationwide mandatory ignition interlock device on the cars of all convicted drunk drivers. We did that in my State of Maryland after fighting the liquor lobby for a long time, but we finally got that done.

We could also pass my bill, the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act, which would support State and local government efforts to build safer transportation networks for bicyclists and for pedestrians.

Unfortunately, this bill does not do anything like that. Indeed, it is hard to see how it will reduce drunk driving at all.

It is obviously not a serious attempt to address the social problem of drunk driving. It does not increase criminal penalties for DUI anywhere in the country. It does nothing to promote public education about the dangers of drunk driving. It will, sadly, improve nothing on the roads.

As an immigration law, it does nothing to make it more difficult for undocumented people to enter our country unlawfully, nor does it make it easier for people to acquire the documents to enter the country legally.

It is a purely punitive measure, and it is both radically underinclusive and radically overbroad.

It only targets the very tiny fraction of all DUI violations in the country committed by noncitizens and does nothing to crack down on drunk driving by citizens, who are responsible for the vast majority of it.

Immigrants who drive drunk are already covered by the criminal law, and the undocumented ones are already categorically deportable. They don't need to drive drunk to be deported. They are deportable now because they are not in the country lawfully.

Additionally, because of the breadth of DUI statutes around the country, this legislation will render deportable people who never drove drunk at all without any opportunity for judicial discretion or waiver. Under current immigration law, undocumented people are already both inadmissible and deportable. Furthermore, conviction for serious DUIs already render even lawful permanent residents who have been in the country for decades potentially deportable and inadmissible in the first instance.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, any noncitizen who is convicted of or who admits to a crime involving moral turpitude, a so- called CIMT, is generally inadmissible to the country. Likewise, any noncitizen who is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude where a sentence of 1 year or longer may be imposed is deportable from the country. Serious DUI offenses are already deportable crimes under current law.

The following DUI offenses are all considered crimes involving moral turpitude: any DUI where the maximum possible penalty is a year or more and where there is serious bodily harm, hit-and-runs, any aggravated DUI, and any DUI involving driving with knowledge of having an invalid, suspended, or revoked license.

This bill goes far beyond even this very stringent current law by making permanent resident green card holders deportable for a single infraction even where no one is hurt and no property is damaged. This will lead to some very harsh results.

In Arizona, sleeping in your car while drunk without even starting the car can get you convicted of a misdemeanor DUI. Under this bill, a single conviction for even that offense would make a 20-year permanent resident of America, a green card holder, deportable from the country.

That person is rightfully deportable if they engage in an act of drunk driving that hurts someone or kills someone or if they drive drunk without a license, but that is the law today.

An undocumented alien is, of course, deportable in all cases. You don't need a statute to deport them for falling asleep drunk in their car.

Today, there are nearly 13 million green card holders, permanent residents, in the United States. These are people who have followed all the rules. We are not talking about undocumented people, the people who are here unlawfully. They are already taken care of.

There are 13 million green card holders in the United States with 9 million eligible to become citizens now. Categorically deporting individuals who are convicted for any DUI offense without any regard for the severity or consequence simply defies common sense. This legislation on a tiny subset of criminal events distracts from the real problem.

My distinguished colleague has invoked several terrible drunk driving incidents by repeat offenders who are undocumented. They should have been deported from the country long ago. My colleague is talking about people who drive drunk and kill people. That is already a deportable and inadmissible offense. That is not what the meaning of this legislation is.

Let's look at a tiny slice of the criminal events we are talking about and ask whether, in fact, that is something that advances public policy. I don't think it does. Let's work together to impose compulsory ignition interlock devices on the cars of all convicted drunk drivers, including the overwhelming majority who are U.S. citizens. Let's really make the roads safer and stop the repetitive scapegoating of immigrants.

We can address DUIs in a serious way here in Congress if we are serious about the issue. That is what I did as a State senator in Maryland. We could do that across the country, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, the distinguished gentleman from Georgia has just offered us a vivid demonstration of what is wrong with this bill and how the rhetoric supporting it doesn't support the bill. He describes an indescribably tragic, terrible case where an undocumented alien is driving a car and kills people in the gentleman's district.

First of all, that person already could be deported just by virtue of being undocumented.

Secondly, under current law, having killed someone, he would be immediately deportable. He was convicted of his offense, sentenced to jail, and he would be deported immediately upon leaving. In fact, the President could commute his sentence, which is what he has been doing, and have him deported right now. You don't need this bill in order to make that happen.

That is a demonstration of why this is superfluous legislation. All it does is to say in a case where, say, nobody is hurt at all, the case of somebody who is asleep in their car in Arizona, for example--there are statutes like that

where you don't even have to be in a moving vehicle. If someone is drunk inside a vehicle, nobody is hurt, and there is no property damage, that person could be deported as a permanent resident even if they have been here for 20 years with kids in school and nothing else on their record.

That is all this bill is doing. It is an opportunity to get up and make speeches about how we are going to get rid of people who kill people in their cars as drunk drivers. That is already the law.

What I am saying is if we are going to take the time on the floor to deal with the problem of drunk driving--and, again, I take this very seriously because I lost a cousin to a drunk driver who is a U.S. citizen, not a noncitizen. The vast majority of drunk driving incidents occur because of citizens, not because of noncitizens, because the vast majority of the people in the country are here legally as citizens.

Let's do a serious thing. Let's say anybody convicted in the country--a U.S. citizen, a permanent resident, or an unlawful person who is somehow still in the country--must have a permanent ignition interlock device put on their car.

Obviously, the undocumented person is going to be deported. Fine. Now, what about everybody else? Should convicted drunk drivers be able to just go back out on the road?

This is the fight I had with Republicans in Annapolis when I was a State senator. They were the ones saying that is too harsh a punishment. I am saying to them, no. Maybe it is painful that you have to go through the ignition interlock device, which says you do the Breathalyzer in your car before you can drive again. They say that it is painful to have to do that every morning and going back from work. That doesn't compare to the pain of someone who loses a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, a cousin, an uncle, an aunt, or what have you.

If we want to deal with drunk driving, let's seriously deal with drunk driving. This legislation is not the way to do it.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington.

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

Madam Speaker, one can only regard with amazement the high indignation with which the previous gentleman speaker just mobilized against the Democrats in Congress. He accuses us of not taking DUIs seriously, and nothing he said could provide a more striking contrast between the parties.

I am afraid I have to go there. I was hoping not to have to go there. I seem to remember when we met in joint session at what would have been the State of a Union address in this year of 2025.

We left the Chamber after several years of--it seemed like years-- several hours of President Trump's speech. We got outside. Then a car plowed into the back of a parked police cruiser. The police descend on this situation. The door opens up. The driver staggers out. It turns out it is the chief of staff to Speaker Mike Johnson.

He is then administered the Breathalyzer test. He got a DWI. He is driving while drunk. Maybe it is a DUI, driving under the influence, in the District of Columbia. Speaker Johnson immediately said that everybody deserves a second chance and we should forgive him. We didn't make a big deal out of that.

We have a law right now which allows for the deportation and the inadmissibility of anybody who goes out and drives drunk and injures somebody. If they are here unlawfully, they are kicked out anyway. We are talking about permanent residents to the country. If they go out and get a DUI and injure somebody, they are immediately deported from the country.

They talk about all those cases. Those cases are already covered. We are talking about those cases where somebody is not injured at all and there is no property damage at all. They want to deport those people, even if they have family and even if they have been in the country for 15 or 20 years. They don't even want to give any discretion to the judge to decide.

That is what the disagreement is about. It is about this very small matter in a small number of cases where nobody is injured.

If the distinguished gentleman and his colleagues are really interested in doing something about drunk driving in America, let's use this as the occasion to do it. We have a bill, which is a bipartisan bill, called the End Driving While Intoxicated Act. It has been introduced by Mr. Mann, my colleague from Kansas; my colleague from New Hampshire, Mr. Pappas, who is in my party; my colleague from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, who is in the Republican Party; and by myself.

We are the lead cosponsors. What it says is if a State is going to get Federal funding for highways and then if somebody is convicted for drunk driving in their State, there must be a compulsory ignition interlock device installed in the car.

What does that mean? For a period of time after someone has been convicted for drunk driving, they have to breathe into a Breathalyzer machine before their car will start. Some of our colleagues say that is too much or that it is too painful for them to go through that. No, it is too painful for us to lose thousands of people on the streets every year to drunk drivers.

If we are serious about the problem and the gentleman invites us to be serious about it, let's be serious about it. Let's do what a majority of the States have done. Let's make this a nationwide program. A compulsory ignition interlock device is saving lives across the country. I think it is in 31 States now and in the District of Columbia.

Why don't we do that? Why don't we do something real, rather than talk about cases that have nothing to do with the bill? Already if a person goes out and kills somebody in their car, they will be deported from the country. Whether they are a lawful permanent resident or an undocumented person and they could have been deported anyway, that is already taken care of.

I know that those are the lurid episodes that we want to invoke for this legislation, but that is not what this legislation is about.

In any event, it doesn't do anything to reduce drunk driving in America. Let's reduce drunk driving in America. Could we get behind that bipartisan legislation?

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, forgive my emotion. For those of us whose families have experienced it and who have lost people on the roads, drunk driving is a problem of immense magnitude and seriousness. It changes the lives of families all across the country all the time.

I wish our colleagues on the House Committee on the Judiciary would bring out the End Driving While Intoxicated Act legislation to spread the compulsory ignition interlock device around the country. A majority of States and jurisdictions are using it right now. It is working. It should be nationwide.

We can save literally thousands of lives by doing that because it is a very, very small percentage of the population that engages in the profoundly antisocial act of driving drunk. For those who are undocumented, they are already covered, and they are already gone. For those who go out and seriously hurt people or kill people, they are already gone. That is already deportable. That is already inadmissible.

In an effort to try to find another way to go out and demonize and vilify immigrants, this legislation is now picking on people who are permanent residents of the country and could have been here for decades with their families. They get a DUI, which is a terrible thing regardless. They get a DUI, nobody is hurt, and there is no property damage. Then they want to deport those people from the country.

They want to kick those people out of the country. I presume they have got their votes together. They will vote for it. I presume it passes. It doesn't do anything to deal with the problem of drunk driving in America.

The vast majority of drunk driving episodes have nothing to do with a permanent resident who drives drunk and doesn't hurt anybody. That is not where we are losing lives. We are losing lives because there is a small percentage of people who drive drunk repeatedly. The vast majority of them are citizens.

We are not taking that seriously enough, but a lot of States are. In fact, a majority of the States have now imposed the compulsory ignition interlock device on people who have driven drunk and are convicted of it.

That is what we should be working on. That is something that will actually effectuate a change and make a difference. Why can't we do that? That is all I say to my colleague.

I hope they will join us in this legislation. It is bipartisan legislation that comes from the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). I am on it. We have Republicans. We have Democrats. Why don't we do something real to make the roads in America safer?

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is telling that President Trump and his cult followers have chosen to name their bill after its size and looks instead of its contents and values.

They don't want anybody looking inside this monstrosity. There is nothing beautiful or big about stripping 14 million Americans of their healthcare or removing food security from 11 million people, including 4 million kids. That is ugly. That is small.

I know Donald Trump has increased his net worth by more than $3 billion since taking office from his global crypto scam and that yesterday he brought home a $400 million jumbo jet from the monarch dictator of Qatar, a flying constitutional violation packed with threats of espionage and surveillance.

There is nothing big or beautiful about plundering the wealth of the people of America to give to the people who have already profited from Donald Trump's prior schemes. Let's vote this whole monstrosity down.