Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for votes Monday, May 22, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted Nay on Roll Call votes 269 and 270.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for votes Wednesday, May 17, 2017. I would like the record to show that, had I been present, I would have voted ``Nay'' on roll call votes 259, 260, 261, and ``Yea'' on roll call vote 262.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 263, 264, 265, and 266 on Thursday, May 18, 2017. I would like the record to show that, had I been present, I would have voted ``Nay'' on roll call votes 263, 264, and 265; I would have voted ``Yea'' on roll call vote 266.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call vote 258 on Tuesday, May 16, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea'' on roll call vote 258.

Mr. Speaker, I will admit that I am pleased that the deal

worked out between Democratic leadership and Republicans to keep the government open until October does not include funding for the President's ``tremendous'' border wall. But let's put that in perspective.

A border wall will not deport thousands of people living and working in cities across the Nation or moms and dads in my neighborhood. A border wall will not deport anyone, and I seriously doubt it would do any good keeping anyone out, either.

Building a 3,000-mile wall is a hugely expensive boondoggle to solve a policy problem many say we don't have. Border apprehensions have been going down steadily for years, and now we have people fleeing violence and persecution who are so scared of us they are deciding not to come to America and are applying for asylum somewhere else. They are not taking their legitimate claims for political asylum and safety to the Nation that is the hallmark of freedom.

So while even Donald Trump admits that border apprehensions are significantly down, he says, 75 percent, it is not necessarily for reasons we should be proud of.

But a wall? Are policy experts and pundits really discussing whether fifth century technology plays a role in modern homeland security? The Great Wall of China boosts tourism. It is not a factor in national security.

What concerns me more is the spending on deportation that is still in the bill we will be voting on today. $1.2 billion of Trump's original $3 billion request for border security and interior enforcement is still there. Any money we give those agencies at this point will find its way into funding the President's mass deportation agenda.

Now, imagine if we were applauding the approval of a budget that had $1.2 billion in new funding to roll back Roe v. Wade, additional funding from the Federal Government to restrict women's healthcare and reproductive rights. Well, I would never vote for that budget.

But what if Trump asked us for $3 billion but we only gave him $1.2 billion to undermine workplace safety laws and labor rights? I would never do that.

Let's just say it was $1.2 billion to defeat environmental regulations that protect clean air and water. Would we celebrate? I don't think so.

Would we celebrate $1.2 billion in additional money to weaken the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts? Would we celebrate more money to combat and weaken same-sex marriage or take away transgender rights? I wouldn't.

Adding $1.2 billion to the budget to make it easier for the U.S. Government to deport people should never be celebrated by any of us, and certainly not in the era of Trump when we know their number one policy priority is to scare immigrants into leaving or not coming in the first place.

Look, the people who will be deported with the money we are voting on are usually people with no criminal background and deep roots in their communities. They are parents, teachers, businessowners, mostly people of color, who have lived and worked here a long time and are here, in many cases, seeking refuge, as is their right under our laws and international law.

Yes, some are dangerous criminals, but don't believe the hype. The Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are overhauling who we define as serious criminals so they can make their deportation force look benign and sometimes even beneficial.

Mr. Speaker, I will not be voting for the omnibus bill because I don't believe that it is okay to slip another billion here or there into the budget to break up and destroy families, put moms and dads in detention, and send DREAMers out of the country--the only country they have ever known.

I have looked into the eyes of children, of kids, U.S. citizens, whose parents have been deported. I have spoken to teachers in Chicago and across the country who have to deal with the fear in their students' lives every day. I have worked for decades with families who have complied--yes, for decades, I have worked with families who have complied with every order they have been given by Homeland Security and have reported to authorities like clockwork, but now when they report, they are deported from the United States of America.

I cannot turn around and bless more money for the machinery that is grinding up families. I just won't do it. And I will not turn my back on the immigrant community of the United States of America by supporting funding that will be used to detain immigrants in private jails and put them on airplanes out of the country.

Mr. Speaker, as long as we are going to shortchange health care in Puerto Rico and subsidize the deportation of families in Chicago, the budget will not have my vote.

Mr. Speaker, ``This is a new era. This is the Trump era.'' Mr. Speaker, those were the words of the Attorney General, the former Senator from Alabama.

The Attorney General has launched a campaign to paint immigrants as criminals, rapists, gang members, and ``cartel henchmen.'' In his prepared remarks at the border a couple of weeks ago, the Attorney General planned to say the following: ``It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.''

When he gave the speech he edited out the words ``this filth'' because, I guess, calling immigrants from Latin America ``filth'' was even too extreme for this Attorney General. But it remains on the DOJ website. In fact, as far as the Attorney General is concerned, any immigrant who is here illegally is a criminal.

He has ordered the government to prosecute immigration violations, even minor ones, to the full extent of the law and to make prosecution of immigrants a top priority--on par with murder, drugs, counterfeiting, and kidnapping.

He has ordered every one of the 94 U.S. Attorney Offices to appoint a special prosecuting attorney so that immigrants are considered public enemy number one, nationwide--not drug dealers, immigrants. According to the latest Federal data, 46 percent of all new Federal criminal prosecution is immigration related--not narcotics. The second highest crime prosecuted accounts only for 14 percent of new Federal cases. In the new Trump era, a felony prosecution against an immigrant who has been living and working here peacefully for decades is three times important than a felony prosecution of a drug dealer.

And that imbalance is not enough for the Attorney General. He wants to prosecute immigrants beyond the full extent of the law by turning misdemeanors into felonies, and turning felonies into aggravated felonies. They think it will not look so ugly when the U.S. is deporting moms and dads who have raised successful families--or deporting children who grew up in the U.S. from the time they were toddlers--if the Attorney General and his team can look and tell the American people they were just thugs, gangbangers, and rapists.

Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump want more immigrants criminalized, felonized, and deported. Yes, we are truly in the Trump era.

But let's be frank. This is not a surprise when Donald Trump descended the gold escalator and announced his candidacy for President. Almost the first words out of his mouth were Mexicans are rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and immigration is turning America into a war zone.

When he was a Senator from Alabama, the Attorney General made a career of associating immigrants with crime and doing his best to defeat reforms that would strengthen legal immigration and reduce illegal immigration. Deportation, criminalization, and restricting legal immigration were the bedrock of this Attorney General's approach when he was a U.S. Senator.

Our legal immigration system already works fine according to both Senator and Attorney General Sessions, no matter that some people who are receiving their visas today applied for them when Bill Clinton was President and that those applying for visas today will probably get them when Chelsea Clinton is President of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, when your constituents say, ``Hey, why don't those immigrants come here legally?'' or, ``Why don't they just go back and come back legally?'' the answer is clear: as a Senator, our Attorney General made sure that that was impossible.

Next week, millions of Americans will take to the streets to demonstrate against mass deportation, the border wall, prison beds, and drive-by deportations. But it is not because we are soft on crime or love immigrants more than the people who were born here. No. We have a different vision of what the United States is and should always be.

We are not an incarceration nation, a nation hostile to other countries and their people. We are a great nation, a nation that, in her greatness, is a beacon of hope to refugees, a land of opportunity for entrepreneurs, and a democracy with separate branches of government that act as effective checks and balances on unlimited power.

The American people are sensible, fair, and pragmatic, and are correct when they reject the idea that a wall makes sense in the 21st century as the centerpiece of our immigration policy. We are not persuaded by the poetry of the Attorney General when he stands at the border and says: ``It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.'' No, we think of another, better poem, the one at the Statue of Liberty, the lady with her torch in the harbor, who shares our deeply held values as Americans and says every day to the entire world at that harbor: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.''

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 222 and 223 Tuesday, April 25, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on both

Mr. Speaker, if Donald Trump is going to be successful as a President--successful from his point of view; not the point of view of the American people, or history, or the rest of the world, or the point of view of people who like peace and freedom, but from his point of view--then he is going to have to rely on fear.

He got elected by creating fear about immigrants, Mexicans, and Latinos, calling us rapists and criminals. He got elected by creating fear about President Obama, the Blacks, thugs, and big cities.

He got elected by creating fear among Americans about the big, scary world out there with threats from ISIS, al-Qaida, and Mexico. But for some reason, he left out things like the fear of Russia or his buddy and friend, Putin.

And if President Trump is going to enact his agenda of deportations, building a wall, and making it impossible for people to come to the United States with visas, he needs to use fear as well. For example, he feels he needs to publish a list every week of the crimes that were committed by immigrants to scare Americans into fearing our community.

And Trump needs to use fear in another very important way. He needs to scare the immigrant community.

Why?

Because he knows he doesn't have the money, the manpower, or the time to drive 11 million men, women, and children who are undocumented out of this country. He doesn't have enough jails, ICE agents, or airplanes to deport

11 million people. That is the population about as big as the State of Illinois, and such a max exodus will not be easy.

So what do they do?

They use fear. Trump has to make immigrants scared to leave their houses. Trump has to make parents scared to take their kids to school. Trump has to make doctors' offices, courthouses, police stations, and fire departments places where immigrants are afraid to go.

Trump has to make sure that undocumented immigrants who are raising children--most of whom are American citizens--in families who have lived in the U.S. on average for more than a dozen years, and who own homes, cars, and businesses, he has to make them so afraid that they want to leave this country.

It is a Presidency and a Presidential policy agenda that relies on fear and bullying to achieve success--or what people who surround Trump define as success, at any rate.

How do Americans respond to fear? Do we hide in our homes and isolate ourselves and run?

No, that is not what people do in the United States of America, and we never will. We stand up and we stand together and confront fear.

So on May 1, millions of Americans are going to stand up. We are going to stand together and we are going to rise up.

May 1 is an international day to recognize the contributions of working people, and it is observed as Labor Day in much of the world. This year, it will be a day to honor working people of all types, but there will be a special emphasis this year on immigrants working and living in the United States.

In 42 cities in 33 States, from Milwaukee to Seattle, to LA, to Chicago, to Boston, cities and towns will hold activities, marches, rallies, and workshops to lift up immigrant communities and demonstrate the solidarity between Americans and immigrants.

This is a campaign to galvanize broad support for immigrants, so this is not going to just be a Latino thing or an immigrant thing. Churches, mosques, and congregations are going to rise up. Unions, students, teachers, and working men and women are going to rise up on May 1.

Let's be clear, when we marched for women in massive numbers the day after the inauguration, it was not just women marching. When we came to the airports to stand up for American values and against Trump's Muslim ban, it was not just Muslims standing up for American values. It was a lot of the rest of us, too.

So if you care about justice, rise up with us on May 1. If you think a man should be able to use a men's bathroom, even if his birth certificate says he was born a woman, rise up with us. If you think global warming is a thing and science is a thing and the planet Earth is a thing to be protected, then go to riseupmay1.org to get more info about what is planned in your city or your State.

This will be a day for all Americans to demonstrate our resistance to the mass deportation, mass discrimination, and mass deception policies of our President.

The way you deal with fear is to stand up with your friends and allies and demonstrate your strength in numbers. That is why I am going to rise up on May 1.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to welcome the graduating class of 2017 from Inter-American Magnet School in the city of Chicago and the parents who are accompanying the students and the teachers. A special welcome to my grandson, Luis Andres Figueroa Gutierrez, who is with them this morning at our Capitol.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 209 and 210 Monday, April 3, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on roll call votes 209 and 210.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the Subcommittee on Immigration, the chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin, attempted to reprimand me by reminding me that House rules prevent Members from ``casting aspersions on the President of the United States.'' And what did I say to get this reprimand? I said that the President of the United States had said that Mexicans were criminals and rapists.

Well, as the sportscasters used to say, let's go to the videotape. Almost the first words out of Donald Trump's mouth when he descended the golden escalators to launch his Presidential campaign were this:

When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their

best. They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. They

are rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

Well, I left out that part about some, I assume, are good people.

But the chairman of the committee said I was not following House rules because I was casting aspersions on the President because, apparently, I was saying what the President, himself, had actually said. And if that was offensive to the chairman, I agree. It is offensive. That was the point of making the speech.

So is repeating the words of the President against House rules? And if so, why? Because they are hateful and ugly things to say about our fellow human beings?

I don't think we should be barred from repeating the words of the President because they are hateful and ugly things to say about our fellow human beings, because he said them, and he is the President, and I respect the office.

So maybe it has to be something else. Maybe we cannot say things the President has said because it is not appropriate to say some of the things he has said about people, like the dehumanizing language he uses when describing which body parts he can grab women by, for example.

Now, Mr. Speaker, rather than saying, as I said earlier, let's go to the videotape, I think every single American has seen that videotape. When I have discussed the President saying these awful, hurtful things about where he can grab women, either here on the floor or on the Judiciary Committee, I

have actually had to clean up the language so it is safe for daytime C- SPAN audiences.

So what is it about repeating the words of this particular President in the U.S. House of Representatives that the gentleman from Wisconsin feels is a violation of the rule?

Maybe it is the lies. I looked through the House rules, and I didn't see any section that said, Members, thou shalt not lie. No, Mr. Speaker, that wasn't in the House rules. But, clearly, repeating things that this President said means that you will be repeating lies, and it just goes with the territory.

There was the original lie as President, barely a few hours in office, saying that his crowd was the largest crowd in the history of Presidential inaugurations.

Then there was the one about the Muslim ban, which the President said was a Muslim ban; his key adviser, the former mayor of New York, said was a Muslim ban; his other key adviser, Stephen Miller, said was a Muslim ban; but which the White House tried to say was not, in fact, a Muslim ban because it didn't ban all Muslims.

Several Federal courts have agreed with the President that what he ordered was a Muslim ban and disagreed with the President's lawyer saying that it was not a Muslim ban.

But what about when the President said that he saw American Muslims celebrating in New Jersey on 9/11? We know that was a lie. Or that 3 million illegal votes were cast on election day, causing the President to lose the popular vote, which he had walked back from the claim originally that 3 million undocumented immigrants had voted on election day? In either case, it was a lie.

Then there is the illegal wiretapping ordered by the previous President of the United States, President Obama, on President-elect Trump, which certainly looks like a lie at this point.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am starting to wonder if repeating a lie that the President has told the American people is against the House rules. Or maybe it is accusing the President of lying that is, in the words of the subcommittee chairman, casting aspersions.

But let's take a look. Here is the definition of the verb ``lie'' from Webster's Dictionary: ``to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive; to create a false or misleading impression.''

By those definitions, I would say I am on pretty solid ground, from a factual standpoint, that the President of the United States has told lies.

Water is wet, dogs have four legs, and President Trump tells lies. There may be exceptions, but basically all three are truthful statements.

Unless we are outlawing the truth in Congress, I think that pointing out lies by our President is not only within the rules, it is our moral obligation and duty as elected leaders of a free nation to point them out.

So then I am left to wonder, ``What is it about repeating the President's words that so upset the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin?'' and I figured it out. It is upsetting to Republican Members of the House to hear the words of the President of the United States because they know they have to defend them as the leader of their party, and I can understand why that would make any human being very uncomfortable.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House Chamber for roll call votes 195 and 196 Monday, March 27, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea'' on roll call votes 195 and 196.

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken here before about the surge in demand for citizenship we are seeing in the Fourth Congressional District of Illinois. Thousands who are eligible are taking the step to become citizens because they feel threatened by a President and administration that does not seem to think of immigrants, refugees, Muslims, or Latinos as human beings. So the one way to protect oneself and to protect one's family is to apply for citizenship if you are eligible.

Some days they are lined up out the door of my office. So full are our daily appointments, we had to add a Saturday citizenship workshop to accommodate all of the people who wanted to apply, and we will be adding additional workshops. At one workshop a couple of weeks ago, staff and volunteers worked with families to fill out the paperwork, assemble all of the evidence and fees for the application. In one day we helped 260 people fill out their citizenship applications.

I discovered something very important. People keep coming back to me and asking: What can I do to fight back? What can I do to help immigrant communities who are under siege by President Trump, ``President'' Bannon, and all the rest of the people who want to drive immigrants out of the country?

So I told them they could help others apply for citizenship, and they came in droves--hipsters with funky facial hair, women with pink knit hats they made for the Women's March, environmental and LGBTQ activists, union members, and just plain old folks from my district who are not themselves immigrants but who feel the solidarity with immigrants in their community.

You know what? This new group, after getting a little training, sat for a few hours with immigrant families, going over their histories, their stories, their reasons for being here, and their reasons for applying for U.S. citizenship. And they were pretty good at filling out government forms. They formed a bond. They got to know each other. They were helping each other accomplish a mutual goal, which is standing up to xenophobia and the Trump-Bannon era.

The citizens and the applicants to become citizens are both worried about Republicans taking away their health care and eliminating the environmental laws that have made the water we drink and the air we breathe so much safer. They worry about where women and girls will get healthcare services in cities like Chicago if Trump and his buddies defund Planned Parenthood, or what happens after the courts are stacked with judges who are so out of step with the modern era on gender and civil rights, consumer protections, women's health, and any of the other issues people care about.

Anyone who walked out of that citizenship workshop where 260 new citizenship applications were completed felt a sense of community and interconnectedness with one another. Now, it is sad to report that thousands of my constituents can't spend a Saturday morning applying for citizenship. Many of them are at legal clinics or law offices filling out papers to address the very fear that they will lose their homes, their savings, and their families if Trump's deportation force knocks on their door.

They are filling out, by the thousands, power of attorney documents and child custody papers in case they are grabbed off the street, in their homes, or, worse yet, in their places of worship. It is heartbreaking. Moms and dads are making decisions about who their kids will go to live with if they get picked up and deported. Which relative, neighbor, or older sibling will be in charge if mom and dad are taken away?

Believe me, these kids know what is going on. The 5 million U.S. citizens who have parents at risk of deportation know that their government is a threat to their safety and their security. Their own government could come to the door and upend their lives at any moment, and their parents are preparing for the worst.

It is the humanity, the love, their striving for a better life that comes through in these parents who want

what is best for their children and what was unavailable to them in some far-off country. These are very real people who have no legal avenues that allow them to live and work here legally, who have no options other than to hide or leave, who have been cut off from fully integrating into our society as citizens because Congress has been fighting over immigration reform. These are the people that Mr. Bannon, Mr. Sessions, and Mr. King have been working together for years to get out of what they call their country so that our erratic new President can point to deportations and say that he is making America great again.

What is clear from the citizenship surge and all those who want to help is that America is not only great, not only kind, not only dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, but there are Americans and those who want to be Americans willing to stand up and resist when leaders take us in the wrong direction.

Mr. Speaker, you will see millions of Americans and aspiring Americans marching together in American cities across our great Nation on May 1, and when you do, you will see this bond and this shared humanity this coming May 1.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 173, 174, 175 on Monday, March 20, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea'' on roll call votes 173, 174, and 175.

Mr. Chair, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for a rollcall vote on Friday, March 17, 2017. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 170.

Mr. Speaker, I use Twitter and have about 65,000 followers, which is pretty modest by Trump standards; but my staff is smart enough to keep the launch code secret from me so that when I say something, we find the right words to express what I want to say, and occasionally, very occasionally, I have a chance to cool down before I fire off a tweet. But this week we learned that one of our colleagues doesn't have a reasonable staff person who helps him think through his tweets.

On Sunday, Steve King of Iowa tweeted out his love and praise for the anti-Muslim nationalist candidate in Holland who is running on an explicitly White supremacist platform; anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-refugee, anti-people of color. This candidate is the full White nationalist package. And apparently, King and Geert Wilders are very good friends.

In his tweet, Representative King says: ``Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We cannot restore our civilization with somebody else's babies.''

Let that sink in for a moment.

In context, what it means is: A, Steve King believes Western civilization is under attack by outsiders; and, B, those outsiders can never be assimilated or be considered part of our civilization.

God knows what Representative King would think of my grandson who likes to tell me that in this arm he is Puerto Rican and in this one he is Mexican. But he says: ``Grandpa, right here, I am 100 percent American.''

You think: My grandson, yeah, he is right, and the Congressman from Iowa is wrong. I think my grandson is every bit as American as Steve King or I am.

I was born during Jim Crow, when separate but equal was the law of the land. But during my lifetime, we fought segregation and racism, and my daughters have been fighting it even more in their generation, so that exclusion, segregation, and racial hatred are no longer the law of the land.

Now, at least as far as I am concerned, my grandson, who was born in America, is an American, whether Steve King likes it or not. Born in Illinois, he is not someone else's baby. He is 100 percent American. He is part of our civilization, and he is the future of America, along with Steve King's grandchildren.

Just to be clear, Representative King's message was warmly received and retweeted by none other than David Duke, the grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who has been a very proud Republican candidate on numerous occasions.

Duke said: ``Just in case you were thinking of moving, sanity reigns supreme in Iowa's Fourth Congressional District,'' and, ``God bless Steve King.''

Oh, but Representative King was not done. He is never done. He did an interview with an Iowa talk radio show where he discussed ``the plan'' of television anchorman Jorge Ramos to make White people the minority in America, causing King to respond that: ``I will predict that Hispanics and the Blacks will be fighting each other before that happens.''

So what happens when a Member of Congress makes racist remarks? Is he censured? Are his words taken down? Is he rebuked by the leaders of his party?

If he traveled somewhere without getting permission or he accepted a gift without prior approval of Congress, he would be punished. He might even get censured or called out in some way.

But for making racist comments, for supporting a racist candidate in someone else's election, or for saying things that receive high praise from David Duke and the KKK, nothing is going to happen. I have not heard leaders in the Republican Party scrambling to say that Steve King does not represent their views on race, religion, diversity, and the threat that ``somebody else's babies'' pose to American civilization.

A friend of mine in Chicago asked me what I thought was going on when a Member of Congress says such hurtful, xenophobic things, calling, essentially, on Black and Brown people to join in a race war.

The answer is that people like Representative King feel empowered: empowered by the presence of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Jeff Sessions; empowered by a President who wants us all to fear Muslims, fear Mexicans, and, frankly, fear all Latinos, even my American-born grandson.

This is what happens when American men and women remain silent. When we do not stand up to the bully, the racist, the nationalist, they get more and more empowered. They get more and more empowered, and their actions become more and more normal.

Well, saying that Black and Brown people will be fighting each other and

saying that non-White people are somehow somebody else's children and not our children--the children of a nation that believes all men are created equal--well, that is not normal, and the American people will not accept the silence of the majority party when one of their own speaks out in this way.

I am waiting for the censure, the denunciations, and the rebukes. But I suspect I will be waiting a long time.