Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I have spent the past year speaking every year in this Chamber about the damaging effects of our broken immigration system on our security, our economy, our families, and communities. We started with such great hope at the beginning of this Congress. But here we are in the final hours of the 113th Congress, and instead of moving a piece of legislation that the majority would put forward to address the underlying problems with our immigration system, we have before us another symbolic, superficial vote that will fix absolutely nothing.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will not strengthen security at our borders, including the most important gateways that are rarely mentioned, at LAX, Chicago O'Hare, or JFK. This bill will not address the labor needs of our agricultural industry or tech industry. This bill will not protect American workers by implementing E-Verify across the board to make sure there is one legal labor force in America, paying their fair share of taxes and fully protected by American labor laws. This bill does not do that.

This bill will not answer the pleas of U.S. American citizens who have a parent or a spouse who wants to get right with the law, is willing to submit to a thorough background check at their own expense and prove to the American people that they are not a threat and able to work, pay taxes, and contribute to the success of this country.

Instead of moving forward, instead of legislating actual solutions to difficult public policy issues, instead of putting the emphasis on doing what needs to be done to improve the economy, the security, and the basic human decency of our laws, we are left with a tired and unfortunate partisan battle. It is a partisan fight based on pure fantasy, not just the fantasy that the U.S. Congress will ever appropriate enough money to jail, expel, and deport 11 million people and their families, but also the fantasy that what your side votes on today will ever become law. You know it. I know it. Apparently the majority prefers to take symbolic votes instead of legislating real and lasting solutions.

Mr. Speaker, they didn't call Ronald Reagan a tyrant. They didn't call him lawless. Yet he said, ``I will protect 1\1/2\ million undocumented people that you call illegal.'' He protected them. When the Congress expressly said they would not be included for any benefit under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, he protected them. He used his Presidential power to do that. And he wasn't called a tyrant, and he wasn't called lawless. He was doing the right thing: protecting the siblings and spouses of those that would be granted legalization under that law that Congress expressly excluded.

And do you want to know something? I am happy that President Barack Obama is following in that great and proud tradition set forth by President Ronald Reagan that he would rather put family first, the demagoguery and any anti-immigrant policy always last.

Mr. Speaker, last week, we celebrated Veterans Day, so naturally, there was a lot of talk about the military, but there was also a lot of talk about President Obama taking executive action on immigration. It got me thinking about Harry Truman.

Like me, Harry Truman was from the Midwest and a plain talker who didn't mince words and sometimes made his fellow Democrats uncomfortable. Like every Republican and Democratic President in modern history, including this current one, Harry Truman was not afraid to use his executive power to fight for justice in the United States, even when Congress failed to act.

In 1946, we had just defeated fascism. We were already locked in a cold war. Black, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American troops had helped deliver that victory against fascism, but when the war was over, they faced the same segregation, discrimination, Jim Crow, and violence that they had before they were deployed, markers of an era from which we continue to feel the lasting effects to this very day.

In response, Truman established a Committee on Civil Rights. One concrete step the President wanted to take was to desegregate the military, but President Truman knew that legislation mandating desegregation would not pass through the U.S. Congress, which was dominated by Southern segregationists who, it is worth remembering, were mostly just like Truman, Democrats.

But he pushed forward, and Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948. The last all-Black unit in the United States military was finally abolished years later. Congress caught up with reality and with the President, but it took many years.

I am fairly confident that Democrats from North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, and Louisiana asked Harry Truman not to do a thing, but he did it anyway. I would venture to guess that there aren't too many Members of Congress today who wish that Truman did not desegregate the military or had waited however long it took for Congress to evolve on the issue of segregation. He used his pen, and we celebrate his courage today.

Here is one big difference between what Truman did and what President Obama is considering: President Truman never, ever asked Congress for legislation to desegregate the military, but President Obama, as he contemplates taking executive actions to keep families together and spare certain immigrants from deportation,

knows that he did ask Congress repeatedly to act.

He has been judicious in his use of executive actions throughout his Presidency, despite facing a Congress deeply entrenched, well, in being deeply entrenched.

But he did ask this Congress to act. He worked with both parties in the Senate to help shepherd an immigration bill through in June of 2013, and for a year and a half, he has waited, patiently deferring the use of executive action as a last resort. He has held off again and again so that he could give the Republicans in the House of Representatives time to pass a bill, but they never did, never even considered one.

When Republicans in the Senate said gay people can't be included under any circumstances, the Democrats didn't like it. It offended us. But we said, let's keep trying to find a compromise.

When Republicans said they needed 30,000 more Border Patrol agents, the Democrats found a way to include that, too, in the Senate.

When the House said it would not even consider a Senate bill, we Democrats, myself included, said, okay, let's work on a House bill.

And when Republicans said immigrants could not get a special pathway to citizenship and that we would have to pass many separate bills piecemeal, Democrats and the President never left the negotiating table.

When the Speaker of the House called the President last June to say that, despite all of the Speaker's efforts and all of the President's efforts, the House was not even going to allow a vote, the President said he would do what he said he was going to do all along: use his pen under current law to help this Nation.

Now the Speaker says that the President is picking a fight with Republicans over immigration and that he is vowing to fight back, which is the Speaker's right. But I would advise the Speaker that his fight is not with the President or with Democrats; it is with the American people. It is a fight he will have to deport millions of U.S. citizens' parents; the spouses, husbands, and wives of U.S. citizens; the parents of DREAMers who know no other country but this one. And that is who the Republican Party intends to fight.

But let's be clear: nothing the President does will keep the House from working with the Senate to pass an immigration bill.

Sitting at his desk in the White House, Harry Truman said, ``The buck stops here.'' And he was right then, and he is just as right today about the current occupant of the White House. The President has a responsibility to act, even when Congress refuses to do so.

And just like the 1950s and the 1960s, after Harry Truman desegregated the military, it will be time for this Congress to catch up to the executive branch and to catch up to reality.

Mr. Speaker, we have not been back in D.C. for a full 24 hours and the immigration shenanigans have already begun.

Republicans, even a few unhelpful Democrats, have been saying the President should not take executive action on immigration and should not act yet, as if his intention to use his executive power under existing law is a surprise.

David Axelrod, safe in the confines of the University of Chicago, has no sense of urgency because none of his family members or neighbors are facing deportation. But it is a little different on my side of Chicago, where people live in nearly constant fear that a loved one or a friend will be detained and then strapped into an airplane for deportation.

My Chicagoans have been waiting for the Congress to act and take action for over a decade. Polish, Ukrainian, Irish, and Mexican have been waiting, Jamaicans and Filipinos. They have been waiting for family members to get visas in backlogs that stretch to 20 years because Congress refuses to act. They have been heartbroken by laws that say, on the other hand, they can apply for a green card because they are married to a U.S. citizen, but, on the other hand, they must wait in exile outside the country, away from their husband or wife, their loved one, for 10 years in order to get that green card.

Two hundred thousand, 300,000, 400,000 deportations a year. These statistics represent people, people disappearing from their churches, from their kitchen tables, from parent-teacher conferences. Why? Because Congress is doing nothing to make it stop or make any progress towards an immigration system based in reality and common sense, where people come legally with visas rather than smugglers.

Now the GOP Conference in the House is saying, after a decade of delay, a decade of defying the American people, and a decade of demonizing immigrants, that they are so anxious to work on immigration reform. But there is just one thing stopping them: the President. The one thing preventing Republicans from taking action, they say, is that the President may also take action to keep families together and address the destructive nature of the deportation.

But here is how one commentator in Atlantic magazine described it: ``Boehner's effort to hold congressional immigration reform hostage if Obama acts unilaterally is so absurd. Boehner killed the hostage long ago. Now he's hoping that if he pretends it's still alive no one will notice the corpse lying on the floor.''

To put it another way, it is a little late for the mayor of Chernobyl to say he is worried about someone poisoning the well.

The President stood right there and said that if this Congress failed to act on important national priorities, he will use his pen and phone within current law to do so. Republicans heard him just as well as I did. Republicans had more than 2 years to address the bill and a year to schedule a vote on the Senate bill. I do not see one scheduled today, tomorrow, or next week. I doubt before this Congress expires will we see a bill scheduled.

Let's just look at the record. Republicans said we can't do immigration unless it is done piecemeal; we can't do immigration unless people are denied citizenship; or, we need more border security spending; we need a parole officer assigned to each immigrant who gets to stay and work. And every Democrat, from the President of the United States on down, all the way to me, said, ``Yes, yes, and yes. Compromise and progress are more important than gridlock and making every Democratic constituency happy.''

Governing means when Democrats say ``yes'' to Republican demands, Republicans actually move forward and we work together. But none of that happened, despite the door being open, the table being set, and Democrats saying, in effect, Republicans can order anything off the menu. And yet here we are with no action, no vote, and the Republicans threatening to double down on no action if the President, acting within the letter and spirit of the

laws passed by this Congress, takes action to help the Nation.

The President will act as he should--boldly, broadly, and soon--to help people. And when he acts, tens of millions of our fellow American citizens will support him. Why? Because they care more about justice and practicality than they do about partisan politics and the blame game. Because a policy based on driving out 10 million immigrants is neither a sensible one nor one that we should be spending billions of dollars on.

The President will act because Presidents before him have acted to solve immigration problems when Congress acted too slowly. The President will act because he believes, as the American people do, that families are more important and children should be raised without the government coming along and ripping their mommy and daddy away from them.

I am tired of the manufactured excuses for inaction. The U.S. Congress can still debate, vote, and pass an immigration law if it wants to, and the best way to get it done will be if leaders on both sides of the aisle work together. If you don't like it, then do something. There is nothing in your way but yourselves.

Mr. Speaker, my press secretary has kept me pretty busy the last few days, talking about the President's decision to delay executive action on immigration, in two languages. I made it clear that from a political standpoint, in the short run and the long run, I think the President should have taken action before election day in order to be more transparent with the American people about the policy we all know is coming.

It makes the job harder for me to generate enthusiasm among Americans to vote at all, let alone enthusiasm for voting for Democrats when there are members of my own party asking the President to hold his pen and his phone in abeyance until after the voters vote.

From a policy standpoint, every week we delay is bad for our country. From a humanitarian perspective, deporting the parents of U.S. citizens is not in our national interest. Making it impossible for spouses of legal immigrants and citizens of the United States to pick up the visas that have already been issued to them is not in our national interest.

Keeping the fear of deportation hovering over immigrant communities, like Pilsen and Little Village in my district in Chicago, has a damaging impact on the fabric of our community. It dampens the economy along commercial thoroughfares, like 26th Street, a key engine of the Chicago economy and tax base.

Perhaps more important to those living outside of immigrant communities is to know that when the President acts, he will announce a tough but fair solution for millions of immigrants who do not have visas or any way of getting visas, but who have lived and worked here peacefully for years, even decades.

It would work something like this: if they come forward, if they submit their fingerprints at their own expense to the FBI, and if they pass a rigorous criminal background check and meet other requirements, we will issue them a biometric identification card that says that they are not a priority for deportation.

Not only do we get them in the system and on the books, but now they are in a program that needs to be renewed periodically with strict rules. This creates a huge incentive not to violate the rules of the program or the rules of our society.

I know the President has heard all of these arguments, and I don't think I will convince him to change his mind again and move forward with key improvements to our deportation policies before November 4, but let us be clear, I think he has already made two important decisions.

Number one, there is no longer any question that the President of the United States has the legal authority to act on immigration and deportations under current law. Even Republicans who have hired the best lawyers at taxpayers' expense to prepare their lawsuits against the President agreed and didn't include immigration in their farfetched list of Presidential ``overreaches.''

This is settled law, and despite the shouts of talk radio and a few on the Republican side, there is no real serious debate about the rock- solid legal ground from which the President can act and has already acted.

Secondly, I know the President has decided going big, going broad, going generous, and going quickly after the election is the right decision because he and Secretary Jeh Johnson have to set enforcement priorities about which people they will deport first and which people they will deport last based on national security and economic interests of this country.

He will act up to the limits of current law, and believe me, I can hear the cries from the other side, ``He can't act because we, Republicans, may try to do something on immigration in the lameduck. The President can't act because we, Republicans, are going to put the bipartisan coalition back together again in the new 114th Congress, and we will get reform passed in both Houses; or, you know, we were just kidding when we said all that stuff about immigration after our defeat on election day in 2012.''

They will say, ``This time, we really mean it because 2016 and the electoral college are staring us in the face''--but no, I know the President and the Democrats will not fall for that again.

I don't see the President saying he will act if you don't act, as we have been saying for 2 years. This time, I see the President acting first, acting broadly, and acting generously, laying out a broad array of executive actions to mitigate the damage that is being done to our country by congressional inaction on immigration reform.

If the Republicans are so inclined, they can take legislative action. It is what we have been begging them to do for two decades on this issue. We may even work with you if you are serious about it, but it will no longer be accepted as a delaying tactic for action by the executive branch of government. It will be a response to Presidential action.

I think the President will have the courage to act, and then it is Congress' chance to act.

How did we get here? In the dark of night, Republicans are voting to deport DREAMers, take away the DACA program, and make every undocumented immigrant deportable.

In November of 2012, the Republicans were shellshocked, and they spoke of turning over a new leaf with young voters, with Asian voters, with women, and Latinos.

A year ago, I was working with Congressman Sam Johnson and Judge Carter of Texas. I did town hall meetings and public appearances with Judge Carter and with Congressman Valadao. I worked with Mike Coffman of Denver and stood up with Aaron Schock and Adam Kinzinger in my own State of Illinois.

But now Steve King, Michele Bachmann, and Ted Cruz are literally writing the immigration script for the Republican Party, a script filled with ugly and mean policies that demonize

children and marginalize immigrants and destroy families.

In January, you were saying that all of the DREAMers should get green cards and citizenship. We always understood you wanted to deport their parents.

But now, late on a Friday night, you are going after the DREAMers, who have known no other country but this one, who risked their identities and their families to come forward and sign up with the Department of Homeland Security and pass FBI background checks so they could get right with the law.

The United States said, come forward and get right with the law. And now Republicans are saying they should go back in the shadows, back to a life of fear, where opportunities are few, and their futures are uncertain.

The voters had a referendum on the program back in 2012, and the winner was President Obama, the DREAMers, and the American people. But now you want to take all of that away. Thank God the Senate is gone. The President has called this ``veto bait,'' and this will never become law.

Is there no one in your conference who can stand up and talk sensibly when others in your party want to demonize children at the border and deport the DREAMers who live in our neighborhoods across America? You are so frozen in fear of your own voters, so frozen in fear of your own colleagues, and the Nation needs you to be courageous.

Only cowards scapegoat children. And only those who are ashamed of themselves do it in the night, on a Friday. You are apparently not strong enough to stand up and craft real solution to America's problems.

But here is the truth revealed about the Republican Party in the last few weeks, and why all of the talk this year about immigration reform was just talk.

In the end, the Republican position on immigration can be summed up as ``deport 'em all.'' When push comes to shove, your party is standing by the simplistic desire to deport 'em all.

Most of you know that the approach of deport 'em all is nonsense, and you know it is suicide as a political strategy. But you continue to say, deport 'em all. Shame on those who will not stand up for the children at the border, and shame on all those who will not stand in the neighborhoods of our communities for the children who live with us.

Say ``no'' to this bill.

Madam Speaker, I came to the floor on April 2 to tell my Republican colleagues that they had 3 months to craft an immigration policy before the July Fourth recess. At the time, there was still hope that sensible Republicans would see that their existence as a national party depended on getting the immigration issue resolved. I came back to this well almost every week to remind my Republican colleagues that time was running out. With the Nation gripped by World Cup fever, let me give you a visual representation of my message for the last 3 months.

I gave Republicans a yellow card to put them on warning if they failed to act on immigration. If they failed to act, they would be out of the game. Having met with the President in March, I knew he was prepared to give Republicans time to craft an immigration reform bill, but if they failed to take action, I knew the President intended to use his pen and pad to save families at risk of being deported.

Let's review where we stand 3 months after I gave you the first warning.

A year ago this Friday marks the 1-year anniversary of passage of the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate. We had our own group of 8 here in the House crafting a tough but fair immigration compromise, but politics slowed us down and the effort collapsed. Some leaders in the Republican Party, knowing that immigration reform is the only way to achieve border security and workplace verification like E-Verify, legal immigration to feed our economy, and compassion and justice for how we treat our immigrant neighbors and friends, some in the Republican Party kept trying, and I thank them.

On my side of the aisle, we kept an open mind. When the Speaker of the House said no to the Senate bill, I said, okay, let's find a way to craft a House bill. When Republicans said no to a conference, I said we will find a way to make it work if that is what needs to be done.

Piecemeal bills they said, not a comprehensive bill. I said we will work with you. No direct path to citizenship for most immigrants, well, we didn't like it, but we kept talking. No one tried harder than I did to keep the two parties talking about how to move forward on immigration.

There are Members of the House Republican Conference who need immigration reform politically, others who want it because it restores law and order, and others for reasons deeply grounded in their conservative philosophy. Still others in the Republican Conference are fighting for reform out of a sense of compassion and doing the right thing, as my friend Mr. Diaz-Balart from Florida has.

But months passed and Republicans turned their backs on their own members, turned their backs on the American people, turned their backs on the business community, on Latino and Asian voters, and on those trying to save the Republican Party from itself.

You know, Madam Speaker, I kept hoping the better angels in the Republican Party would tamp down the irrational and angry angels blocking reform the American people want and deserve.

And then the last straw. As violence and poverty and gangs drive families out of Central America, I see Republican Members of Congress and their allies in talk radio and TV taking advantage of a humanitarian crisis to score cheap political points. In a few hours, the Judiciary Committee, which has done nothing to help move the Republican Party and the Congress forward on immigration, will hold a hearing on what it calls ``Administration-Made Disaster at U.S.-Mexico Border.''

I gave you the warning 3 months ago and now I have no other choice. You are done. You are done. Leave the field. Too many flagrant offenses and unfair attacks and too little action. You are out. Hit the showers. It is the red card.

First of all, your chance to play a role in how immigration and deportation policies are carried out this year is over. Having been given ample time and space to craft legislation, you failed. The President now has no other choice but to act within existing law to ensure that our deportation policies are humane, that due process rights are protected, that detention conditions are as they should be, and, most importantly, that the people who we are deporting are detriments to our communities, not assets to our families, economy, and society.

I think we all know that you are out when it comes to the White House. By taking no action, even after repeated warnings, you have decided it is up to the Democrats to pick the Supreme Court Justices, conduct foreign policy, and carry out all the functions of the executive branch for a generation, for the next 30 years. The Republican Presidential nominee, whoever he or she may be, will enter the race with an electoral college deficit they cannot make up.

Republicans in the House simply have no answer when it comes to immigration reform, and Republicans have failed America and failed themselves. Madam Speaker, it is now time for the President to act.

Mr. Speaker, I usually come here to talk about the ongoing crisis in American cities and towns related to our unrelenting deportation of moms and dads and longtime residents with no criminal history.

There is no doubt we will see substantial action to dial back the record deportation this country has suffered over the past 5 years and a retargeting of deportations at criminals.

The only question is whether the Republican majority gets its act together to participate in that process as legislators and leaders in the next 6 legislative days before the July 4 recess.

Now, in addition to the deportation crisis, we face a new crisis quickly becoming a human tragedy of catastrophic proportions. Thousands and thousands of young children are fleeing Central America because they think it is their only option for survival.

Faced with death threats, sexual assault, poverty, and no legal immigration options, little boys and girls are simply leaving their Central American countries by the tens of thousands.

Some are coming to the United States to reunite with relatives, while many others are seeking asylum in any country they can get to, including this one.

Girls as young as 11 and 12, threatened with rape in their own country, are risking rape, smugglers, murder, and exploitation for the slim chance of a life in the United States. Eighty percent are coming from just three countries--Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala-- countries that top the list of the highest murder rates in the world.

Gangs, drugs, poverty, and hopelessness are driving kids as young as kindergartners to countries like Belize, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States. It is a complex international crisis that does not have easy solutions.

The Obama administration, Homeland Security, and FEMA are mobilizing like they would for a major natural disaster. They are trying to address each case one by one, following the laws of this country we have for unaccompanied minors, families, and asylumseekers.

The first goal must be to get the children in a safe place. Eventually, some may pass the rigorous test for asylum. Others may be considered for legal status as victims of traffickers, but many have no legal avenue and had none to begin with.

In many cases, children will face an immigration judge alone, without a lawyer and without a clue what is going on. The majority get orders of removal and face deportation immediately.

I have urged parents in the home countries that the risks are too great, the dangers too real, and the survival rate too low to attempt such a perilous journey, but let's be clear, adults on all sides of the border are failing when children feel they have no way to survive, other than risking their lives to cross thousands of miles.

I do not see the countries of Central America stepping up to take responsibility for the danger, dysfunction, death, and despair in their other countries, cities, and towns. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus told their embassies that in a very testy meeting yesterday.

Nor do I see the United States taking responsibility for the insatiable appetite for drugs on our streets--that, in most cases, fuel the drug trafficking, gangs, and desperation in Central America.

In Congress, we are quick to point fingers of blame--especially in an election year--but surely, we must accept some of the responsibility ourselves.

For decades, no realistic legal immigration options have existed for most people, and this breeds a clandestine network of smugglers that feeds on desperation and hopelessness.

Invading or propping up failing states on the other side of the world--like Iraq--has meant we have paid little attention to the failing states in our own backyard in this hemisphere.

Opponents of immigration and immigration reform mock the children on their radio shows and have even cooked up a new conspiracy theory that claims that President Obama has been calling these children to our country, so he can put more of them on welfare, so

that these children, who can never become citizens, will somehow be allowed to vote for him. It is outrageous.

We must not make light of this tragedy. These are children--desperate boys and girls who are being demonized after being brutally victimized by drug traffickers. Opponents of immigration are exploiting their desperation for political sport, but the stakes could not be higher for the Republican Party.

With only 6 legislative days before the July 4 recess, Republican leaders have little or no time to demonstrate compassion and understanding of the immigration issue, enact real border security, allow legal immigration that feeds our economy, and get people who have lived here for decades on the books.

Six days, Mr. Speaker, before this issue clobbers the Republican Presidential nominee in the 2016 election. You may have waited too long to act, but that is--as it always has been--up to you.

Mr. Speaker, some things do not change after a primary, even a primary result that no one, including the winning candidate, had predicted. The thing that does not change with the political winds in Washington is the calendar. There are only 10 legislative days before the July Fourth recess.

Another thing has not changed. The Republican Party and the Republican leadership have a difficult choice. They can choose to address the immigration issue head-on and get it resolved, and give the Republican nominee in 2016 a fighting chance in his or her run for the White House, or they can go back to the bunker, sharpen their anti- Obama knives, and never get to the White House in the next generation, possibly two.

As I have said on the floor before, if there is no serious immigration reform action headed toward a floor vote in

the House by July Fourth, we will not see action at all, and it will be left up to the President to rescue the country from the worst aspects of our dysfunctional immigration system.

On the Democratic side, we all prefer a legislative solution where the House, like our counterparts in the Senate, pass bills signed by the President. But in the absence of anything resembling leadership from the legislature, the President will not just sit back and watch a bad situation get worse. He will act in accordance with existing law to protect all immigrants he can. I believe he can protect literally millions of them through executive action.

Immigration reform is not dead. It will just move to the White House for action if none comes from this House. So with 10 days left before July Fourth, where do we stand? The majority leader released his legislative schedule for the month of June, and reforming our immigration system is nowhere to be found. Immigration is the single most important issue to address for the Republican Party's ability to be competitive at the national level after this fall, and it is nowhere on the schedule before this fall.

So what lessons have we learned? Half-measures to legalize some immigrants here and allow legal immigration for some industries there doesn't seem to have much political traction with conservative voters in the South. Blocking sensible immigration reform and sending out mailers decrying ``amnesty'' at the last minute doesn't seem to have much traction with southern voters in conservative districts.

Articulating, however, a firm argument for why deporting 11 or 12 million people is not a realistic proposition, defending your position that legal immigration is preferable to illegal immigration, and making clear that the only way to actual border security is a combination of enforcement, legal immigration, and addressing the legal status for immigrants already living and working here seems to work pretty well with southern conservative voters.

That is what the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Graham, would tell us, or the gentlelady from North Carolina, or every poll that has been taken in recent memory. And we know that in every part of the country outside the most conservative districts, mainly in the South, supporting the end of illegal immigration and a broad and rigorous legalization combined with serious workplace and border enforcement is not only the policy that works, it is the only policy that is viable politically.

So every pundit on TV last night said it was time to man the barricades. They said immigration reform with a Republican stamp in a Republican Congress is dead because the American people want to be protected from the threatening world outside, and Republican Congressmen want to be protected from their threatening voters.

But it is still up to the Republican leadership how they plan to proceed. Not a single Republican who opposes immigration reform needs to vote for it--not one. And we will still have a majority of the House voting to do what a majority of Americans want them to do; that is, address our broken immigration system.

Next week in Judiciary we will have a hearing on the crisis of unaccompanied minors fleeing Central America, and we will be pointing fingers at everyone but ourselves, and not, I would note, using the few remaining legislative days available to craft a sensible border and immigration strategy as our colleagues did in the Senate almost a full year ago.

Let us not accept the latest excuse for inaction on immigration, especially from those who want to take no action under any conditions. This Nation--built by and sustained by 400 years of immigration--needs a coherent system, and we need politicians brave enough to craft one.

Mr. Speaker, like a lot of Americans, I spent time traveling this past holiday weekend, but I never made it to the beach. Instead, I did what I do on a lot of weekends, which is travel the country building support for comprehensive immigration reform.

I attended immigration events in Orange County and Riverside County in California, and, yesterday, I was in Richmond, Virginia, in the majority leader's backyard, listening to his constituents plead for congressional action.

One young lady told her story perfectly in two languages. She came to the United States when she was 6. Now she has deferred action and temporary protection from deportation but wants a permanent solution for herself and her U.S. citizen sister. Another woman, a mom of two U.S. citizen children, wore a GPS anklet bracelet to the event and asked me how I could help her keep her family together. She has an order of deportation for June 6.

They were pleading with the majority leader--who holds the key to the schedule and the calendar in the House--to please schedule a vote, just a simple vote on immigration reform. So far, he has refused to allow a vote.

The stories from his constituents were heartbreaking: moms whose only wish is to remain here and raise their U.S. children and not fear a deportation date or a knock on the door at dawn. Children want their moms and dads to be here to see them achieve the American Dream.

But I have to say that I had a heavy heart even before I arrived at the State capitol building in Richmond, Virginia, yesterday. The night before, I received a call letting me know that the White House intended to announce yesterday that it wasn't going to take action on Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson's review of deportation policies.

Therefore, for the next several months, the deportations will continue at a rate of 1,100 a day. Moms with U.S. citizen children, women with 25 years in this country and who have committed no crimes will get no relief in the short run.

I have talked extensively with Secretary Johnson and had no illusions that a major policy announcement was in the works. Rather there are, I think, some enforcement adjustments that can be made now that would spare thousands from counterproductive deportations that are doing more harm than good to our Nation.

I am deeply disappointed that the President chose to delay any action, and I know that many of us who have been fighting against the deportations that needlessly break up families and leave communities living in fear are also disappointed.

And as I heard the stories of the constituents of the majority leader who are facing their own deportation or deportation of a loved one, I realized that it would be harder to save them in the coming weeks and months without some kind of policy adjustments revealed by the Secretary's review.

While the Republican majority decides whether or not they will act on immigration reform and solve an important American problem, thousands more will be deported.

But I also understand what the President is trying to do. He is saying that he still has hope that the Republicans are not just playing games with immigration policy. He believes, as I do, that Republicans still could use the last 14 legislative days before July 4 to make a real difference in the lives of moms and kids that I met yesterday in Richmond, Virginia.

The excuse that House Republicans can't trust President Obama to enforce the law and therefore they will not pass immigration reform, that excuse no longer holds water, if it ever did. Yesterday, President Obama expended a great deal of political capital to give House Republicans time and space to come up with an immigration solution. It was a grand gesture on the part of the President. I know that I and a lot of my Democratic colleagues are not happy, and many in organized labor and in the pro-immigrant movement that have fought hard for policies to dial back the deportations are very, very saddened. It is not easy for a President to so fully and boldly stand up against his base, against those of us who have voted for him, loved him, and protected him, but he did it so that House Republicans could use the following weeks to take action on immigration reforms, House Republicans who have shown him nothing but disdain.

In reality, for those families facing deportation and losing their children who live in the majority leader's district, they know that both the majority leader and the President have the power to help keep them in the United States and protected with their children.

The majority leader can schedule a vote, and the President can use his pen and his phone to spare these families from what amounts to a life sentence. And of one thing I am confident: if the majority leader fails to act, the President will, and he will do so boldly.

To my House Republican colleagues, I say, please act. The country will thank you. The children and the moms that live in your districts and fear deportations will thank you, and your voters will thank you. You have 14 days to work this out.

Mr. Speaker, last week, Tom Donahue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that if House Republicans fail to pass an immigration bill this year, the Republican Party should ``not bother to run a candidate in 2016.''

Even with a majority of Republican voters supporting immigration reform--and yes, a majority of Tea Party voters in support--the positions Republican candidates feel they must take in order to win over their base make them unelectable when they face the American people in the general election.

Latino voters are repelled, and the loud but small contingent of immigration opponents have backed the Republican Party into a corner that they don't have the courage to break out of.

So, Mr. Speaker, I give you George W. Bush, the man who will go down history as the last Republican President in American history.

Tom Donahue is right. There is a demographic reality that will make Republicans a footnote in history, just like the Whigs and the Know- Nothings, unless they do something to get the immigration issue off the table.

Look, there are only 18 legislative days before the July 4 recess, before the campaign season takes over, but you still have time to change history.

If you do nothing on immigration, I guess you can take comfort in knowing that, from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush, you had a pretty good run. Freeing the slaves, winning the Civil War, interstate highway system, those all go in the highlight column; and there have been a few lowlights as well.

All our grandchildren will ever know of Republicans as a national party will be what they read in the history blogs, and they will look at 2014 as the year it all slipped away, unless you act soon.

With or without immigration reform, Latino voters are a force that is growing faster than Republicans can withstand and are tilting more towards the Democrats with each day Republicans stand in the way of stopping deportations that are breaking up immigrant families.

Today, Tuesday, 2,000 Latino citizens born and raised in the United States--right here in the United States of America--will turn 18 and become eligible to vote. That is 2,000 today and every day until Election Day 2016.

But wait a minute. That will continue for the next 30 years. That is 65,000 citizens a month, with or without immigration reform for the next 30 years.

Throw in women, younger voters, Asian voters, and others who are strongly in favor of immigration reform, and the Republican Party has dug quite a hole for themselves by standing with Steve King of Iowa.

Two million more Latinos voted in 2008 than in 2004 and tilted heavily to the Democrats after the Sensenbrenner bill, a Republican enforcement-only bill that criminalized immigrant families. Two million more Latinos voted in 2012 than in 2008 and tilted even farther to my side because of Romney's anti-immigrant message. And we aren't even registering the citizens in our community in the numbers we are capable of, but we are getting better at it with every passing year.

Right now, I think House Republicans are at a crossroads. Many, including the Speaker, I think, want to get the immigration issue resolved before the 2016 elections. They know that the next few weeks offer the only chance Republicans have to both solve a tough American issue and get some of the credit for doing so.

Others are already crouching in their anti-Obama bunkers and want to play it safe this year, regardless of the consequences for the future. Conservative columnist Juan Williams calls this the ``trap'' Obama is setting for the Republican Party. Williams knows, as I do, that President Obama can act with or without Congress, given the latitude he already has under existing immigration law. Williams wrote in Roll Call:

The House's lack of action could open the door for Obama to

take unilateral action on immigration reform.

And I will tell you, he will take unilateral action.

He goes on to state:

The political result would be to make heroes of the

President and his congressional allies while leaving

Republicans to explain why the Tea Party element in the House

refused to deal with the immigration crisis.

He further states:

Such an outcome would cement political loyalty between the

growing Latino vote and Democrats. It would also stir the

Democrats' liberal debate for the 2014 midterms.

Williams is right. You have 18 legislative days to write the policy, whip the votes, and pass the bill. That is not a lot of time.

Let us work together to put my 200 Democrats together with 60, 70, or 80 Republicans that we can get on board to get a bill--or a series of bills--passed, and let's get it done for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the Republican majority that they do it for Abraham, they do it for George. Do it for any little boy or any little girl in America who wants to grow up to be a Republican President. But most of all, do it for our country.

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honor to recognize the sacrifice and bravery of our men and women in uniform. Today, as a fellow Puerto Rican, I am pleased to join my colleagues in celebrating the Puerto Rican veterans of the 65th Infantry Regiment, who are known as the Borinqueneers.

The Congressional Gold Medal will be the highest award granted by Congress to a Hispanic active duty unit in U.S. history. The Borinqueneers will be only the second Latino individual or group to receive a Congressional Gold Medal. This recognition of their service and sacrifice is long overdue and I thank the authors, the Governor of Puerto Rico, and Puerto Ricans and veterans from Florida to New York, to Illinois to Colorado who have made sure the accomplishments of the Borinqueneers are preserved and celebrated.

The Borinqueneers served during WWI, WWII, and the Korean War. The unit was segregated through most of the Korean War and composed primarily of soldiers from the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, but also included recruits from other Latino backgrounds. In the face of discrimination and segregation, these brave soldiers performed many remarkable military accomplishments and are known for waging the final battalion-sized bayonet assault in U.S. Army history.

These soldiers fought valiantly on behalf of the U.S. and served our nation honorably with great skill and courage. General Douglas MacArthur said of the Borinqueneers, ``The Puerto Ricans forming the ranks of the gallant 65th Infantry give daily proof on the battlefields of Korea of their courage, determination and resolute will to victory, their invincible loyalty to the United States and their fervent devotion to those immutable principles of human relations which the Americans of the Continents and of Puerto Rico have in common. They are writing a brilliant record of heroism in battle and I am indeed proud to have them under my command. I wish that we could count on many more like them.''

Throughout the course of the Korean War, Puerto Rico's 65th Infantry Regiment suffered more casualties than did the vast majority of mainland states and according to Department of Defense records, 2,700 soldiers received the Purple Heart for wounds received while in battle, and the Regiment lost 740 Borinqueneers in Korea. The Borinqueneers selflessly served and many gave their lives for our democracy and have earned this recognition from Congress. They have inspired new generations of Puerto Ricans who have continued to answer the call to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States.

To the Borinqueneers of the 65th Infantry Regiment, their loved ones, and to the Puerto Rican soldiers who have followed in their footsteps, I thank you for your proud service to this country. Your sacrifice is just one more reason I am proud of my Puerto Rican heritage.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for votes on Monday, April 28, 2014.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 178, and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 179.

I was also absent for the following votes on Wednesday, April 30, 2014 and May 1, 2014 to participate in immigration events. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall vote 184, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 185, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 186, and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 187 in support of final passage of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

On May 1, 2014, I would like the record to show that had I been present, I would have voted, ``nay'' on rollcall vote 188, ``nay'' on rollcall vote 189, ``nay'' on rollcall vote 190, ``nay'' on rollcall vote 191, and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 192. Finally, had I been present I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 193 in support of final passage of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act.

Mr. Speaker, tick, tick, tick. The clock and the calendar march on. Congress just took a 2-week vacation, and I am back to remind my colleagues that the window to pass legislation to fix our broken immigration system, stimulate the economy, keep families together, and strengthen America is ticking away.

With just 25 legislative days until the July Fourth recess, the Republicans have a difficult task, and it gets harder with each passing day. But I am optimistic this morning. Last week I saw the Speaker of the House in his district urging his Republican colleagues to get to work and legislate on this important issue. Republicans from Coffman in Colorado to King in New York are calling for reform.

In my home State of Illinois, practically every Republican running for office came out to stand with former Speaker Denny Hastert and the business community to say they want Republicans to allow a vote on immigration. One speaker, Carole Segal, the cofounder of Crate & Barrel, shared the microphone with two American kids whose parents are being deported, and there was not a dry eye in the house. I knew there was a reason I shopped at Crate & Barrel.

While some House Republicans, the Speaker, and key Republican supporters and funders get it, the majority leader did not list immigration as something the House should address this spring. It is nowhere on the legislative calendar.

In order to fix what is broken about our immigration system, we must do three things at the same time. We must repair and improve our legal immigration system so that we can eliminate the black market; we must strengthen and humanize our enforcement system so that our laws serve our national interests; and we must legitimize and destigmatize those people who actually live, work, and raise families in our country by inviting them to join us on the right side of the law so that they can earn the privileges and fulfill the responsibility our great Nation demands.

The easiest way for Republicans to get this issue behind them would be to schedule a vote on the bipartisan bill that passed the Senate last year. An hour or 2 of debate and a 15-minute vote is all we need. Done, punto. Not one of the Republicans who thinks that legislating on immigration reform this year is ``too hard'' needs to vote for it, and it will still pass comfortably the House of Representatives.

But House Republicans say that the bill has too many pages and doesn't have the imprint of House Republicans. Okay. Fine. We have introduced the discharge petition for H.R. 15 for any Republicans who change their minds.

Republicans say they prefer a series of short, digestible bills to address the three components of reform. Fine. Pass

multiple bills to fix our immigration system, and we Democrats will work with you and the Republican majority. But remember, more bills take more time, and time is not something Republicans have plenty of.

Republicans have said they don't want a special path to citizenship for adults who entered the country illegally. They want some sort of noncitizenship status that might or might not lead to citizenship over time. My side finds that very hard to swallow. At least we want to keep talking and hear you out. We want to see if we can reach a bipartisan agreement and move forward.

Democrats think citizenship is important, and we are ready to fight for it. We think making everyone play by the same set of rules is very, very important to the American people. Okay. If this is the only way you will fix the three components of immigration reform, let's talk and let's see if we can reach an agreement.

Now we hear the warning that if Obama does anything, even a clarification of the current deportation policy, Republicans say Obama will be ``poisoning the well'' for reform. This is from a party that seems to hardly need an excuse to scream about mass amnesties, Mexicans rushing across the border, and Obama's plot to undermine and sabotage America.

Sadly, even some important Democrats don't think any form of Presidential action would be prudent at this time when it comes to deportation. They seem to be saying: Let's just ride out the pain of deportations in the Latino and immigrant communities while we score political points against the do-nothing Republicans.

Maybe we can try again when Democrats are in charge again, even though we didn't do it the last time we were in charge. Yes, Democrats had 257 votes, and we didn't call a single vote for 4 years on comprehensive immigration reform.

One by one, deportations are driving fathers and mothers out of our communities and leaving children in foster care. Neither party is free from blame, and neither party seems to have the appropriate level of urgency when it comes to the deportation of and the devastating effect our broken immigration system has on our immigrant families.

The Republicans control the calendar, and Democrats will bring 200 votes to the table if you work with us. We must all be willing to put it on the line, to stand up for what is right, what is achievable, and what will heal and strengthen our Nation. We still have the next 25 days. Time is of the essence, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this is my weekly reminder to House Republicans that they have only 30 legislative days before the July 4 recess. In that time they had better allow a vote for immigration reform or the President will take executive action to reform our immigration.

The chance to save the Republican Party from being a regional party and not a national one rests on what Republican leaders do during the next 30 legislative days. If they deny justice, security, and dignity to our brothers and sisters with foreign hands, who work every day in American fields to plant and pick our vegetables, the Republican Party is giving up on the chance for their brothers and sisters with Republican hands to pick and plant vegetables in the White House's vegetable garden any time soon.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Hispanic Congressional Caucus will have a special meeting with Secretary of Homeland Security Johnson. We will present him with a memo that lays out options the Obama administration has under current law to protect more immigrants from a deportation along the lines of deferred action for DREAMers.

The important phrase here is ``under current law.'' In February 2011, we delivered a memo to the President outlining specific actions he could take within existing law to keep families together, spare military families, and, yes, spare those who would qualify for the DREAM Act; protecting them temporarily on a case-by-case basis from deportation using tools in the law like deferred action, parole, and hardship waivers.

Our position was strengthened in April of that year by a paper called ``Executive Branch Authority Regarding Implementation of Immigration Law and Policies.'' The report was written by Bo Cooper, who served as general counsel at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and by Paul Virtue, who was also general counsel at the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The report said:

The executive branch, through the Secretary of Homeland

Security, can exercise discretion not to prosecute a case by

granting ``deferred action'' to an otherwise removable or

deportable immigrant.

Only a month before deferred action for DREAMers was announced, a letter signed with footnotes and citations was sent to the President from almost 100 law professors at our top law schools and universities outlining the power the President has to spare immigrants from deportation.

Legal scholars and research are not always enough to persuade my friends in the Republican Conference. Almost every single one of them voted for the King amendment defunding deferred action last year and voted this year to sue the President over immigration enforcement. They are rejecting these arguments as some kind of academic hoax.

So, as I have done in the past, I ask you not to just take my word for it, or the word of legal experts, or hundreds of law professors. I ask you to take the word of your former Judiciary chairman--three of them--when it comes to immigration and deportation.

Here is the letter from November 1999 where at least 28 Republicans and Democrats called on President Clinton to exercise prosecutorial discretion when it comes to deportation and immigration enforcement. It is in this letter:

There has been widespread agreement that some deportations

were unfair and resulted in unjustifiable hardship.

The principle of prosecutorial discretion is well

established.

It is in the letter:

Optimally, removal proceedings should be initiated or

terminated only upon specific instruction from authorized INS

officials, issued in occurrence with agency guidelines.

They go on to urge that those guidelines--it is in there--they urge those guidelines should be issued from headquarters, just as the Hispanic Congressional Caucus is going to urge the President to issue guidelines for initiation and termination of deportation proceedings tomorrow.

Let's see, here is Lamar Smith, and James Sensenbrenner signed it, and Henry Hyde. Three Republican chairmen of the Judiciary Committee signed

this letter, stating that the President had broad discretion. Mr. Speaker, three former chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee, the legal foundation upon which this opinion rests, is as rock solid as their conservative credentials are.

Yet, to this day, the Republican Conference has not come up with an immigration bill or a series of bills of their own. The American people are still waiting for Republicans to write their own immigration bills or amend the ones that were sent to us by a two-thirds bipartisan majority in the Senate.

I am here to remind my friends in the Republican Conference that the time is running out. If you don't take action, the President will take action to permit millions upon millions of undocumented immigrants to be able to live safely in the United States of America. It is your choice.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House Chamber for votes on Tuesday, April 1, 2014.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 149, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 150, and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 151.

I was also absent for the following votes on Friday, April 4, 2014. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall vote 157, ``nay'' on roll call vote 158, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 159, and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 160, ``yea'' on roll call vote 161, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 162, ``yea'' on rollcall vote 163, and ``nay'' on rollcall vote 164.