Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes on Tuesday, April 10, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call votes 130 and 131, and voted Nay on Roll Call vote 132.

Mr. Speaker, the President said to reporters at the White House on Monday: ``And it's a disgrace. It's, frankly, a real disgrace. It's an attack on our country, in a true sense. It's an attack on what we all stand for.''

While I agree that there has been a disgraceful attack on our country, I don't think it is the investigation that is closing in on the President, but rather his disgraceful reaction to it.

We now know, without any doubt, that the special counsel's investigation is closing in on the President and those very, very close to him. I don't think lawful warrants legally executed against the homes, office, and hotel rooms of the President's chief fixer and fellow grifter are the problem.

Rather, it is the constant threats to further obstruct justice by a sitting President, to thwart those lawful investigations from reaching their logical conclusions. That is what I and a lot of patriotic Americans are worried about.

What we find disgraceful is the President's attitude toward law enforcement and the circumstances that have led us to this moment, including the apparent dealings with the Kremlin, the campaign finance violations, the hush money payoffs to silence witnesses, and using one's elected office to influence and even try to end an investigation in which you are the target.

When he is the target, it is called disgraceful.

Before we left for the Easter break, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee made a commitment that we would be on the first plane back to Washington to initiate hearings if the President took action to further obstruct justice, including firing the Attorney General for recusing himself or the deputy attorney general or the special counsel.

The President reiterated his threats to subvert justice by firing key Justice officials this week. So I feel obligated to reiterate my commitment to defend the Constitution and the rule of law as a citizen of this Nation.

Let's be clear. Republicans have no intention of investigating, holding hearings, or taking seriously their constitutional mandate, no matter how far this President goes.

When athletes kneel during the national anthem or the former President wears a tan suit or salutes a marine while holding a cup of coffee, that is a constitutional crisis. But when the President threatens to fire the special counsel, well, you know.

We cannot rely on Republicans to defend democracy and our system of government as long as they find political and personal advantage in walking lockstep with the President, or they tremble in fear of what would be in a tweet if they stepped out of line.

And we as Democrats, well, we are in the minority, so we are almost powerless unless some of our fellow colleagues put country ahead of party.

But human beings are very resourceful and fight fiercely for their own freedom. When we are united in great numbers, we can accomplish any goal.

In Selma and elsewhere, Dr. King and others showed us that beatings, lynchings, and State-sanctioned discrimination could not withstand the power of the people fighting for justice and equality.

In turn, they inspired, in part, the resistance known as the Prague Spring in Central Europe, when people stood up to tanks and repression, and eventually the wall came down.

In Africa, the Americas, Asia, and across the Arab world, people are still fighting to secure their freedom.

And in China, the image of a lone man standing up to tanks to defend his country moved the world.

One man standing up will not be enough, but many American women and men are already heeding the call. Young people from Parkland, Florida, called us to Washington by the millions, despite viscous attacks.

Women led the way by the millions in Washington and around the world.

And when our Muslim brothers and sisters called us to the airports to oppose Trump's religious ban, we came in numbers.

We have to be ready to come to Washington quickly, massively, energetically, in huge number when the

shoe drops. We have to answer the call to defend the country we all love, and we must be unified as Americans.

My fellow Americans, we must be ready to stand up again and again and answer the call when our Nation is under attack and threatened by a tyrant. Together, the American people can fight petty disregard for law and order, the data-driven divisiveness, and media manipulation to defend the country we love.

To do so, we must be ready and we must be together.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes 115 and 116 on Monday, March 19, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call votes 115 and 116.

Mr. Speaker, last week I wrote a letter to Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, asking him about this guy.

This is Carl Icahn, the billionaire, financier, and buddy of our President Donald Trump.

It seems that he had a massive amount of stock in a company that sells cranes and equipment, which, in case you didn't know, are made of a lot of steel. Then all of a sudden, Mr. Icahn sold his position in the crane and equipment maker; and 1 week later, his friend, buddy, pal, and fellow billionaire, Donald Trump, announced he was proposing import tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Now, we all know what happens to the stock of companies heavily dependent on steel and aluminum when the President announces he will impose new tariffs. Their stock prices go down a lot.

So I guess you could say that Carl Icahn was lucky to unload his shares, valued at, at least, $31 million, just before the President made his announcement, but I suspect that luck had nothing to do with it.

Here is a Trump insider making a gigantic decision on tens of millions of dollars, and we are just supposed to believe it is a coincidence.

Sorry, but I am not buying it.

So I wrote the chairman of the SEC to request that he investigate. I have not heard back from him, but I hope after he hears this speech, he might have a change of mind.

In the letter, I said: ``The announcement of tariffs on the heels of Mr. Icahn's stock sale is highly suspicious. The close relationship between the President and Mr. Icahn adds to the appearance of wrongdoing.''

So I think the SEC has an obligation to investigate, because it looks bad. We are talking about the President of the United States, and the people have a right to know that things are on the up and up.

Let's remember that Mr. Icahn left as an adviser to Trump at the White House because, we are told, it would raise difficult conflicts of interest, and presumably, just like the President, Mr. Icahn was not interested in selling off part of his empire just so he could appear impartial and demonstrate core integrity to the American people.

The President, who many of us think is profiting illegally from the office--and we have filed Articles of Impeachment because of it--seems to attract a lot of people with deep pockets and shallow reserves of judgment to his side.

Mr. Icahn, who was a notorious corporate raider and vulture capitalist during the Clinton boom years of the 1990s, appears to me and a lot of others to fit this mold.

If there is nothing to hide in this deal, then the investigation will be quick and that will be that, but simply saying this multimillion- dollar stroke of luck was just a coincidence is not flying; not with me, anyway.

Do you know the rigorous reporting of assets that we as House Members have to do to fully disclose our debts and investments?

And all those disclosures are available to the public, and the press goes over them with a fine-tooth comb. Every time a Member of Congress buys or sells a security over $1,000, we have to file a form, and then that gets shared with the public. And if we are late with the filing of the paperwork, we have to pay a fine.

This may seem burdensome, but the important goal here is transparency and to ensure that Members are not using insider information they have access to t personally enrich themselves.

If I was as lucky as Carl Icahn to make a stock trade that my friend had the power to tell me the inside information on and it resulted in me making millions of dollars or avoiding losing millions of dollars, well, let's see, there would be investigative reporters, hearings, an Ethics Committee report, maybe even criminal charges. But for Mr. Icahn and his buddy, the President, nothing; at least not yet.

Let's demand that the friends who circle the White House and the Trump businesses provide the American people with answers and transparency. That is all we ask so that we can have greater confidence in our President and his family that they are not running a kleptocracy like we see in Russia, where those who govern are simply governing to make money.

Mr. Speaker, no tax returns; very little in the way of disclosure; recusals that don't seem to actually be recusals; hotel and business conflicts of interest; and the strong odor of something fishy;

those close to the President who are making millions, apparently because of the proximity to the President; those people demand scrutiny from watchdog agencies; and, in this case, it requires an investigation of Carl Icahn by the SEC.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record my letter to the Honorable Jay Clayton, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, of last week.

Congress of the United States,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, March 8, 2018.

Hon. Jay Clayton,

Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Clayton: I write to request that you and your

agency immediately investigate possible illegal insider

trading by Mr. Carl Icahn, a longtime friend of President

Donald Trump, who according to his SEC filings sold $31.3

million worth of stock in a company heavily dependent on

steel just days before the President announced plans to

impose import tariffs on steel and aluminum.

According to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

filings submitted in February, Mr. Icahn disclosed that he

sold nearly 1 million shares of Manitowoc Company, Inc.,

which is heavily dependent on steel to manufacture cranes and

lifts. Approximately seven days later, his good friend

President Trump announced plans to impose steep tariffs on

steel imports. On that news, Manitowoc stock plunged and lost

6% of its value, but Mr. Icahn had already cashed out.

The announcement of tariffs on the heels of Mr. Icahn's

stock sale is highly suspicious. The close relationship

between the President and Mr. Icahn adds to the appearance of

wrongdoing. This is also not the first time Mr. Icahn has

been suspected of using his relationship with the President

for his personal benefit. It was widely reported that Mr.

Icahn stepped down from his role as ``special adviser'' to

the President because of potential conflicts of interest.

As a member of the House of Representatives I am required

to report my assets and liabilities yearly and to report

within 30 days of a transaction any securities I buy or sell.

The purpose of these rules is to ensure transparency and to

help prevent personal profiteering from insider information

that Members of Congress may have access to while serving. In

other words, if I were to dump a stock a week before Congress

took action that would impact that stock's price, I would

most certainly be investigated resulting in possible

sanctions, removal from office or jail time.

It is hard to believe Mr. Icahn's actions with regard to

unloading voluminous shares of Manitowoc stock right before

the President's is just a coincidence. It undoubtedly

warrants a federal investigation. Thank you for your

attention in this matter and I look forward to your agency

taking swift action and your response to this request. To

contact me about this request, please call me at my

Washington DC office.

Sincerely,

Luis V. Gutierrez,

Member of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 102 and 103 on Tuesday, March 13, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Nay on Roll Call 102 and Yea on Roll Call 103.

Mr. Speaker, on September 5 of last year, the day after Labor Day, the temperature was 86 degrees in Washington, D.C., so that was a long time ago. On that date, President Trump and his henchmen announced that they were killing the DACA program.

The next day, meeting with my Democratic colleagues, I said I would not support any spending or budget bills that didn't include a Dream Act or some other serious attempt to put Dreamers with DACA in a safe place. That was 6 months ago, and we are right back where we started.

The Republicans have a bill to cut legal immigration and abandon the Dreamers in some semilegal limbo, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee had a press conference about it yesterday and is touting his bill as the last chance to get something done about DACA.

No, this will not resolve DACA. We will not support it in exchange for it.

What the chairman did not mention is that his bill is actually about something else: it is about changing the racial makeup of America's immigrants so that more of them are White and fewer of them are from countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

Analysis by the Center for Global Development of Goodlatte's proposal states the following: ``Hispanic and Black immigrants would be roughly twice as likely to be barred by the immigration cuts as white immigrants.''

The legal immigration cuts would bar the majority of Muslim and Catholic immigrants from coming legally to the United States of America.

While the President keeps saying that he wants a better class of immigrants coming to America, the cuts would actually substantially reduce the number of university graduate immigrants.

The Goodlatte bill would expand some work visas, but we would only add one university graduate for every seven workers removed by eliminating the family visas and diversity visas.

Now, tell me, how does cutting out hardworking immigrants and guaranteeing that the only available avenue to come and work in America is an illegal one, how does that protect Dreamers? It doesn't.

We are once again chasing bad policies down a rabbit hole, because the real agenda on the other side of the aisle is to leverage the national concern over the plight of Dreamers into a radical reordering of legal immigration to make it whiter.

Sorry. That is not the agenda of my party and, frankly, not the agenda of my fellow Americans. So, with more than 80 of my colleagues, we will release a letter today at a press conference we wrote to the leaders of both parties in the House and the House appropriators. It echos what I started saying 6 months ago: we need a budget or spending measure that includes the Dream Act, a clean Dream Act, and that is it.

This week or next week, we all know we need to pass a budget to keep the government open, and Democrats are clear: our country, our Congress, and our leaders need to figure out how Dreamers get to live in the country they grew up in, the country they love, the country that has invested so much in them and received so much from them.

Don't be lulled into a false sense of security. The Federal courts didn't settle this or give us a permanent solution. They just gave a lot of lawmakers a convenient excuse for inaction.

I am not buying it and neither should you, because also in the spending bill there are likely to be billions of dollars for deportation, detention, breaking up families, and breaking down doors in neighborhoods across the country. That is why our letter says we do not only want a clean Dream Act included in the omnibus, but we want to reduce funding appropriated to DHS' detention and deportation machine, specifically funding for detention beds, deportation agents operating under ICE or CBP, and an end to border militarization.

We oppose any funding that expands the construction of walls or fencing at the southern border. We should, instead, allocate border security resources to modernize the infrastructure and technology at our ports of entry, which would actually benefit our country and our economy.

Mr. Speaker, 6 months after Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions instigated this crisis by proclaiming their desire to deport Dreamers and kicking their safety and security in our Nation to this do-nothing Congress, we now have what could be the last opportunity to actually take permanent legislative action.

Do not be distracted by the President's nativist agenda or the bills in Congress that seek to implement his nationalist view. Do not give up on taking action that is serious and will actually protect Dreamers and the communities that they live in, and do not allow the deportation and family destruction machine to thrive and grow on our watch.

We must take a stand right here, right now, and stand up for what is right and what is beneficial for our Nation. I am proud to stand with the majority of Americans and 83 colleagues who have joined me on this letter. The time is now.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from 83 Members to House leadership and appropriators.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, March 13, 2018.

Hon. Paul Ryan,

Speaker of the House, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Democratic Leader, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Rodney Frelinghuysen,

Chairman, Committee on Appropriations,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Nita Lowey,

Ranking Member, Committee on Appropriations,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Ryan, Leader Pelosi, Chairman Frelinghuysen,

and Ranking Member Lowey: With the newest government funding

deadline on March 23, 2018 looming, tens of thousands of

Dreamers continue to lose their protection from deportation

since President Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for

Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on September 5, 2017. And

while numerous stopgap measures to fund the government have

been enacted since September of last year, zero legislative

action has been taken to protect Dreamers permanently.

Congress is long overdue in acting on this issue, and the

failure to pass the Dream Act has resulted in countless lives

put in peril. Meanwhile the Department of Homeland Security

(DHS) tears families apart by targeting Dreamers, long-term

residents, asylum-seekers, families and children for

detention and deportation. As the negotiations for the Fiscal

Year (FY) 2018 Omnibus Appropriations bill are ongoing, we

urge you to:

(1) include the bipartisan Dream Act;

(2) reduce funding appropriated to DHS's detention and

deportation machine, specifically funding for detention beds,

deportation agents operating under Immigration and Customs

Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP),

and border militarization; and

(3) oppose any funding that expands the construction of

walls or fencing at the southern border, and to instead

allocate border security resources to modernize the

infrastructure and technology at our ports of entry.

The appropriations for ICE and CBP have come at

significant, detrimental cost to our communities throughout

the country because all immigrants are in the crosshairs of

the Trump Administration's mass deportation agenda. When

agents for both ICE and CBP operate without any discretion or

regard to length of residence in the U.S. and deep ties in

our communities, the fear and mistrust in our neighborhoods

is heightened. It is an abuse of ICE and CBP funds to rip

fathers from U.S. citizen children and tear severely ill

children or young infants from their parents' arms. Now more

than ever, we cannot fund the detention and deportation of

valued members of our communities on the border and in the

interior and vulnerable individuals and families seeking

refuge in our country, especially when the key components of

DHS that enforce our nation's immigration laws operate with

negligible oversight.

As Congressional leaders, we must exercise our powers

responsibly to protect the

Dreamers through legislative action and to wield our power of

the purse to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security

does not make immigrant families and communities casualties

of a reckless, indiscriminate detention and deportation

machine.

Sincerely,

Luis V. Gutierrez; Adriano Espaillat; Raul M. Grijalva;

Jerrold Nadler; Zoe Lofgren; Michelle Lujan Grisham; Judy

Chu; Joe Crowley; Jan Schakowsky; Jose E. Serrano; Steve

Cohen; Eliot L. Engel; Ted Deutch; Dina Titus; Nydia M.

Velazquez; Lloyd Doggett; Carolyn B. Maloney; Linda T.

Sanchez; Gene Green; Paul D. Tonko; Alcee L. Hastings.

Al Green; Albio Sires; Peter Welch; Barbara Lee; Adam

Smith; Keith Ellison; Gwen Moore; Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson,

Jr.; Ben Ray Lujan; Maxine Waters; Bobby L. Rush; Elijah

Cummings; Danny K. Davis; Eleanor Holmes Norton; Yvette D.

Clarke; Robert A. Brady; Hakeem S. Jeffries; Grace F.

Napolitano; Jared Polis; Norma J. Torres; Juan Vargas;

Bonnie Watson Coleman.

Donald Norcross; Tony Cardenas; Kathleen M. Rice; Mark

Pocan; Mark Takano; Darren Soto; Michael E. Capuano; Ed

Perlmutter; Nanette Diaz Barragan; Grace Meng; Robin L.

Kelly; Jimmy Gomez; Bill Foster; Joaquin Castro; Ruben

Gallego; Brenda L. Lawrence; Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott;

Brendan F. Boyle; Donald S. Beyer, Jr.; Earl Blumenauer;

Dwight Evans.

J. Luis Correa; Pramila Jayapal; Ro Khanna; Suzanne

Bonamici; James P. McGovern; Joseph P. Kennedy, III; Jamie

Raskin; Colleen Hanabusa; Jacky Rosen; John Lewis; Mark

DeSaulnier; Val Butler Demings; Frank Pallone, Jr.; Ted W.

Lieu; Alma S. Adams, Ph.D.; Salud O. Carbajal; Donald M.

Payne, Jr.; John Yarmuth; Alan Lowenthal.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I talked about immigrants Donald Trump doesn't really care for, like the Dreamers who were raised in the United States and are now vulnerable to deportation. Then there are the refugees from war and religious persecution. He doesn't really care for them either.

Let's see, there are the people from El Salvador, Haiti, or Africa-- the people from shithole countries. Trump would rather deport than protect them. And he doesn't want them coming here legally either.

No, as we all know by now, Trump prefers immigrants from snowhole countries like Norway. Yep, you take a look at the Winter Olympics leaderboard of the countries that won medals and that is a pretty good list of who Trump wants to have here. Norway, check. Canada, great. Netherlands, okay. And we better add Russia to that, too.

President Trump has been blocking any kind of immigrant legislation because he will only agree to protect Dreamers from deportation if he can eliminate whole categories of legal immigration. And not just any immigration, but specifically the programs that are filled with people who want to come to the United States legally from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

He is especially opposed to diversity in our immigration system, and among the programs he insists we eliminate is the one most often used by immigrants from Africa.

So Trump's immigration approach is pretty simple: If you are White, you are all right. If you are Brown, you are a little lower down. And if you are Black, just go back.

The other group of people Trump is particularly angry about are family members of U.S. citizens--yes--and those who are on the path to becoming U.S. citizens. He insists that we need to take away the rights of U.S. citizens to petition for their family members. Nope, Trump thinks U.S. citizens cannot be trusted to petition for their own family members, which is kind of strange because he doesn't have to look very far to find an immigrant American citizen who petitioned--legally--for Melania's parents to come to the United States.

According to The Washington Post:

``The parents of First Lady Melania Trump have become legal permanent residents of the United States and are close to obtaining their citizenship, according to people familiar with their status. . . .

``Immigration experts said''--they--``very likely relied on a family reunification process that President Trump has derided as `chain migration' and proposed ending in such cases.''

Remember, the in-laws are from Slovenia, and that country won two medals at the Winter Olympics, so I guess they are okay. It is okay, apparently.

Now, let us remember that the First Lady of the United States is here in this country because she applied for, and received, an ``extraordinary ability visa,'' which is often called the Einstein visa because we give it to Nobel Prize winners. But I guess we also give the Einstein visa to musicians and artists and runway models.

The First Lady's extraordinary abilities are many, I am sure. Now, I want you to recall that one of the issues in Jared Kushner's security clearance was that he owes so much money to foreigners, that some people might be able to leverage that debt into an application for another visa program just for millionaires and fat cats. Yes, in America, if you have $1 million, or you look like $1 million, you can get a visa. But if you look like a parking attendant or a busboy or a field hand or the king of Wakanda, in the eyes of our President, you are just not welcome in the United States of America.

Look, let me break it down from my perspective. This is not the country we aspire to be. My mother came from Puerto Rico with a fifth grade education, and Puerto Rico has never won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. But guess what? Her daughter--my sister--is a great public school teacher and her son is a Member of Congress, and I think that is what the American story should always be about. Not special treatment, not special programs just for the rich and the beautiful, and not, apparently, fast-tracking for the President's family, especially when he is going after so many other people's families who look just like mine.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 92 and 93 on Monday, March 5, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on both of these votes.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday was the deadline for the U.S. Congress to secure the futures of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers. Our constituents, who grew up in the United States, have been here at least 10 years, but do not have permanent legal immigration status and, therefore, are deportable, vulnerable, and exploitable.

And guess what? The cynics were right, and Congress has taken no action. There have been a few attempts, but the reality is that Congress has not passed a bill, and the opportunities for us to pass a bill are dwindling.

How did we get here? How is it that we always end up here when it comes to immigration?

Well, it has been a failure of both parties to act, to compromise, and to legislate. But let's be honest, the President doesn't want these immigrants in this country, and Republicans in Congress only want to do what the President wants them to do because they fear his tweets and the effect it might have on their voters in November.

The President said he loved Dreamers. Remember? He wanted to preserve DACA and treat them ``with heart.'' He said he wanted to give a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, and he told a group of lawmakers on national television that he would take the political heat and sign whatever bipartisan approach they were able to come up with, but he was lying, again.

Just like his conversations with lawmakers on guns after the massacre in Florida--also with the television cameras rolling--what the President says in public, what he does behind closed doors, what he tweets, and what he thinks from moment to moment do not seem to be connected in any logical way.

And when the cameras are turned off, the radical rightwing whispers their orders in the President's ear, and he falls right in line-- whether it is with gun manufacturers or the anti-immigration nativists.

And when you cannot trust the President to have a stable opinion for more than 2, maybe 3, hours, it makes it hard for Republicans to figure out what will please him and make him happy from moment to moment.

Bipartisan proposals that could have passed the House and the Senate were brought to him and he rejected them, saying that he wanted to eliminate various types of legal immigration avenues used by people, especially people of color and people from the developing world. Without these massive cuts to legal immigration, the President just wasn't interested.

And we offered him money for his silly, mindless, stupid, dimwitted, racist wall, but he rejected that, too.

In the end, this is not about Dreamers, it is not about the wall, it is not about border security. Do you know what it is about? It is about a deeply held core belief of the President, and many of his advisers, that there are just too many people of color coming legally to the United States. There are too many family members of immigrants, unless those immigrants are members of Trump's own family.

It is clear that the President doesn't want immigrants who look like the diverse and colorful fabric of the world. And he doesn't want Dreamers who were raised in the U.S. alongside of our own children, who reflect the diversity of America.

Now, to be fair, some of my Democratic colleagues are just as happy about the injunctions in the Federal courts that are keeping the Trump deportation machine from fully engaging and going after Dreamers. Lawmakers--both Democrats and Republicans--don't need much encouragement sometimes to just kick the can down the road.

But let's not kid ourselves. Relying on the courts to save Dreamers is a cop-out, and a lot of people are left out if they do not already have DACA. And for the ones who can renew their status, we may be back here in a few days or weeks trying to prevent the deportation of Dreamers and lots of other immigrants if the courts change course, which they may.

So I will not let my colleagues in either party rest.

For now, every person who has DACA should renew their DACA as quickly as possible for whatever time they have left. I say run, don't walk, to renew.

I have been here long enough to know that even when faced with an issue on which 80 percent of the American people agree--whether it is sensible gun control or preventing the deportation of children raised in America--it is the 20 percent of the American people who Republicans are listening to, and playing to, and tweeting to, and playing nice- nice with the White House to appease.

And the rest of us, what do we get? Nothing--on immigrants, on guns, on climate change, on healthcare, or on taxes--unless we, as voters, simply reshuffle the deck.

Mr. Speaker, when we left Washington before the Presidents Day recess, we watched our colleagues in the Senate vote on a series of bills to address immigration. Only one bill received 60 votes, but it was 60 votes against the bill offered by Senator Grassley, the bill that most closely matches the President's hatred for immigrants.

So a supermajority in the Senate opposes the President's plan for massive cuts to legal immigration and massive deportations.

Then, yesterday, President Trump's campaign against immigrants received another blow. The Supreme Court declined to take a case from California

and declined to lift an injunction requiring the Department of Homeland Security to continue to process renewals for the DACA program, which means that those who signed up for DACA over the past 5 years can renew their DACA now, and the arbitrary deadline the President set for kicking 1,000 people per day out of the program beginning next Monday has, like so much of what Trump does, been stopped for now.

Just take a moment to appreciate what happened. The Attorney General and the President, without offering any evidence, told the American people that they had to end the DACA program because it was illegal and the courts would strike it down, they said.

As it turns out, the truth is almost the exact opposite of what the President and the Attorney General have told the country. No court has ever found DACA illegal or even legally suspect. Their actions to kill the DACA program have been found highly questionable by the courts.

But let me be clear, Mr. Speaker, just because the courts have taken no action and the Senate failed to take action does not mean that the House and Republicans are off the hook for DACA. The President still plans to kill DACA and make hundreds of thousands of immigrants, who are currently documented and known to our government, into undocumented immigrants forced underground--vulnerable, exploitable, and deportable.

The House has an opportunity--indeed, a responsibility--to step up to the occasion and craft a permanent solution. The good news is that the solution is supported by 8 out of 10 voters in the United States: a pathway to citizenship.

Can we, as a body, rise to the occasion to do something Americans want us to do? Can we set aside questions of who wins and who loses politically long enough to do what is right? We won't know unless we try.

Many on the other side say there should be only one option: leave or be deported, but that is not what we do to American children. And let's be clear, these are American children. We do not force American children to live in exile for 10, 20, 30 years. We do not educate and acculturate our youth and then force them out of the country.

If you are an American patriot, the last thing you want is for the world to see us deporting our own Americans. Just ask your donors, the Koch brothers, who know that saving the Dreamers is what they call something demanded as patriots.

So, Mr. Speaker, the ball is in our court. We need to take action now. If we can draft a compromise to protect Dreamers and allow them to live in their home country, America, if both sides concede something to the other, we may get to a solution. That is what leaders must do. A compromise will likely be painful for all. We need to show the country that we are willing to take the heat and that we are ready to legislate.

The President set us on this course. He pulled the legal rug from underneath the Dreamers and then cloaked his position on immigration in an ethnocentric, pro-European, pro-White agenda that will hurt America.

But the racists--and we must call them out for what they are--the racists who are driving immigration policy in the White House are defining the agenda for every House Republican and are shaping the brand of the Republican Party not just as the party opposed to illegal immigration, but, now, as the party opposed to legal immigration; not just as the party who doesn't want poor or Latin American immigrants, but doesn't want Brown or Black or anyone who isn't White in this country. If that is how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle define themselves and want to be remembered, then they should do nothing.

But I have a greater faith in this institution and in the ability of this Congress to rise above racism and to do something the American people want us to do without regard to race, religion, or national origin. I am a Democrat who will work with Republicans if Republicans are serious about reaching a solution, but it must start with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying: ``Yes, we want to solve the problem, and we want to rise above the racism emanating from the White House today.''

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for roll call votes 79 and 80 on Thursday, February 15, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea'' on roll call vote 79 and ``Nay'' on roll call vote 80.

Had I been present for roll call vote 80, on final passage of the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017 (H.R. 620), I would have voted nay due to the vast setbacks this bill poses for the disability community. As a civil rights issue, the ADA Education and Reform Act would gut protections and key enforcements for an already vulnerable population. The onus falls on businesses to be proactive and to follow proper guidelines to ensure access for all. I particularly find troubling the ``notice and cure'' provisions detailed in the bill, which allows businesses to postpone compliance and fundamentally changes the American with Disabilities Act.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes 70 and 71 on Tuesday, February 13, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call votes 70 and 71.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House Chamber for rollcall votes 72 through 78 on Wednesday, February 14, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall votes 74, 75, and 76, and ``nay'' on rollcall votes 72, 73, 77, and 78.

Mr. Speaker, we sat here and heard the President's State of the Union Address in which he spoke about immigration and immigrants.

A couple of things I want to highlight: No, Mr. President, not all immigrants are, A, Latino, and not all immigrants, Mr. President, are members of organized gangs, MS-13. I know you don't want to be fair and you didn't want to talk about the immigrants who are doctors, healing people every day in our hospitals; the immigrants who are teachers, educating Americans every day in our schools; the engineers who are innovating and creating new infrastructure that keep us safe and keep us modern in America.

No, you don't want to even talk about the millions of immigrants who toil in our fields, without papers, without documentation; and we know and we see the fruit of their labor, both literally and figuratively speaking, when we go to our grocery stores.

Who do you think does that work, does that hard work in the fields? People born American citizens? No. People who have come here. But we didn't want to talk about that.

And then, after you criminalized immigrants and made them these scary people who come to rob and to maim and to murder, you then went ahead and said: And by the way, those who come here legally, sponsored by their relatives, by their parents, by their brothers and sisters, by their immediate family members, they too pose a threat. You said, Mr. President, they come here as immigrants and then they sponsor an unlimited number of distant relatives.

Well, last time I checked, in my personal life, my wife, whom you can sponsor, is a pretty close relative to me; my children and my parents. Those are the only people that you can sponsor. Yes, parents, children, and your spouse. But you said there were unlimited.

So, if that is a lie, what part of what you said was true? Well, virtually nothing. Because if the underpinning of one of your arguments is shown to be false, then what is true?

And then this week we saw this administration go from calling immigrants criminals to saying they are just downright lazy. No. I say to the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States, the DREAMers are not lazy. They may be afraid because it was an executive order which many of them feared a new President might revoke and put them in jeopardy; that is true. But lazy, they are not.

They scraped together the $500, went through the background checks, not once but twice and thousands of them three times, in order to get what you today want to take away from them: their ability to work and to live freely in this country with nothing from the government.

So, if you didn't think the criminalization of immigrants was wrong, if you didn't think the demonization of them as hordes of people who can bring unlimited numbers of distant relatives--that lie was wrong-- if you didn't think calling them just lazy was wrong--no--you know what I see? Barack Obama said he saw people who were inculcated with the same values that he inculcates in his very daughters. He made a direct relationship between DREAMers and his own children.

I want to go one step further than that. I don't see my children in them; I see fellow Americans. I see fellow Members of the House of Representatives. And I know that scares the hell out of a lot of Americans that that could be, but it shouldn't because it is the way forward. And they are going to come, and they are going to be integrated because we are going to get them the one thing that they need--that piece of paper--because they are Americans.

They are serving in the Armed Forces and dying for us today. Serving in the Armed Forces. And they are working, and they are healing. Why can't we let people who are doctors and lawyers and people who are nurses and people who are in the Armed Forces stay? They have been through the background checks. Because that is not the kind of America that some of us want to see in the future.

So today they are going to bring over from the Senate a proposal. They are going to lift the caps, and they are going to say: Let's vote on our budget. Well, I say to everybody, don't collude with this administration and deport DREAMers. Vote against the budget.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent in the House chamber for Roll Call votes 51 and 52 on Monday, February 5, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted Yea on Roll Call vote 51 and Nay on Roll Call vote 52.