Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution to repeal an almost two decades-long Authorization for Use of Military Force against Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying thank you, thank you, thank you to my colleague, Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

I was an activist back in 2001, leading the largest immigrant advocacy organization and the largest march at the time against the war in Iraq, because we knew that what was happening was wrong. And we were looking at Congress, and saying, Congress needs to make sure they are taking action, and Barbara Lee stood up at that time on her own.

The 2002 AUMF was based on a lie; a lie that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of lives lost, including civilians, U.S. servicemembers, journalists, humanitarian workers; a lie that was used as the legal basis for military hostilities beyond Iraq, hostilities that were never authorized by Congress.

Mr. Speaker, this must be the beginning and not the end of our work to end endless wars. We must continue our work to forge a meaningful engagement with the rest of the world toward a lasting peace. Mr. Speaker, I also thank the chairman for his tremendous leadership.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Bowman for yielding to me and also for his tremendous leadership in the Progressive Caucus. We are so proud to welcome him into the Progressive Caucus, into Congress, and to have the benefit of his tremendous experience in education, in caregiving, on so many fronts. I am so proud to cosponsor the Care resolution with the gentleman. I think it is a very important statement.

Madam Speaker, I am also very proud to be here as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. This is our Special Order hour that we get to devote to any topic that we want; and, today, it is a real privilege and an honor to devote it to the American Families Plan.

Why?

Because the American Families Plan and the American Jobs Plan are what this country needs and what this country wants. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents across the country have said clearly that they are ready for a big, bold investment that allows us, allows America, to build back better.

That is what the President has proposed because, Madam Speaker, at the core of any society is how we care and look out for each other. That reality was made undeniably clear as we have struggled to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 600,000 deaths.

And at the root of our recovery is how we look out for each other, how we give each other opportunities, how we ensure that America truly is a country where we are all better off when we are all better off.

For me, coming to this country by myself at the age of 16, now getting to serve in the United States Congress as the first South Asian-American woman, I have watched how too many people across America do not have that opportunity. They do not have the investments that we, as a Federal Government, should make in order for them to be successful.

Now, our care economy is broad. I am not just talking about essential healthcare providers, like nurses and doctors who cared for patients struck by COVID-19. I am talking about the broader care infrastructure, and that includes childcare. It includes home- and community-care services. And it includes providing everyone with basic paid family and medical leave and more.

The American Families Plan also includes investing in healthcare for everyone across America, investing in education, the kind of education that gave me my opportunity to come here. We need to provide that 2 years of free community college or college for people across this country so that they can get the additional skills they need.

We need to invest in housing and, of course, we need to invest in this broader care economy.

At the end of the day, our American Families Plan, the President's American Families Plan, the jobs plan, has to be about every person across this country, working-class, poor, people who are seeking opportunity, people who deserve to have the American Dream that is no more; to make sure that every person, White, Black, and Brown, with understanding that the disproportionate burden of our inequities and racial injustices in the United States have fallen on Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, we need to make sure that all people are taken care of and have opportunity.

Care infrastructure is the critical infrastructure that allows our families and communities to thrive and stay healthy.

Take, for instance, the home care workers across the country who have been serving on the front lines of the pandemic. For those most vulnerable to COVID, such as people with disabilities and seniors, home care workers were often the difference between life and death. Home care workers allowed many of those most vulnerable to avoid congregate settings, like nursing and group homes, that saw a high spread of

Mr. Speaker, Mahatma Gandhi, a great leader on nonviolence, said poverty is the worst form of violence.

Let me be clear: We allow poverty when we take no action to eradicate it. 145 million Americans today live in poverty in the wealthiest country in the world.

We allow poverty to continue when we approve bloated military spending, when structural racism is everywhere, when 55 of the largest corporations did not even pay $1 in taxes last year, when 32 million people do not even get paid $15 an hour, and 87 million Americans remain uninsured or underinsured.

Poor people in this country are suffering, without the food they need to eat, without the wages they deserve,

without the dignity they have a right to.

We, in Congress, have the power to end poverty. We must act immediately with resolve, moral clarity, and with complete attention to the lives of poor people who demand to be seen and respected with our actions.

That is why I am so proud to co-introduce with Representative Barbara Lee this bold and necessary resolution that commits Congress to eradicating poverty from the bottom up.

Mr. Speaker, today, we say to poor people everywhere, we see you, and we will eradicate poverty in our country with you.

Madam Speaker, we are here today for Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Hyun Jung Grant, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Amarjeet Kaur Johal, Jasvinder Kaur, Jaswinder Singh, Amarjit Sekhon, and too many others.

This bill is an important step to address and prevent hate crimes as we deal with the root causes of hate and violence. That means providing basic economic security, including housing, social services, education, and healthcare.

A ``yes'' vote says that we won't stand by as our children are bullied on playgrounds and our elders are beaten in the streets.

A ``yes'' vote says to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders-- Chinese, Korean, Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Pakistani, Japanese, Filipino, Native Hawaiian, Laotian, Hmong, Cambodian, Burmese, Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Indonesian, Tibetan, Sri Lankan, Tongan, Malaysian, Mongolian, Taiwanese, Fijian, Singaporean, Chamorro, Nepalese, Samoan, Bruneian, Afghani, Micronesian, and Marshallese--that we are visible and that we matter.

We, too, are America.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the NO BAN Act, and I thank Congresswoman Chu for her leadership.

Yes, let's get back to protecting America. That is what we want to do.

Madam Speaker, Anahita is an asylee from Iran. The last time she spoke to her father, he told her that, when she returned home, he would sit with her on the terrace and talk politics. That

never happened. Due to Trump's Muslim ban, Anahita could not get travel documents to see her dad before he died or to mourn with her family.

Madam Speaker, for 4 years, families remained separated. That is not the America we want to protect.

American businesses and universities couldn't recruit top candidates, and our Nation's doors were closed to people seeking refuge.

President Biden rescinded the bans, but we must pass the NO BAN Act to prohibit any future President from issuing discriminatory bans.

Now, that day, I was in my first month here in Congress, when the Muslim ban was passed. I rushed to the airport, along with our chairman and many other Members of Congress. We worked with attorneys to file the national lawsuits that called for an emergency petition that blocked the President's order from taking effect.

We were also able, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, to go onto the tarmac and stop a plane from taking off because of an emergency habeas from a judge there that allowed us to get two people back in who should have been here in the first place.

Madam Speaker, just imagine the hearts and souls of people whose lives were thrown into chaos, thinking that they were going to land in the United States with valid travel documents and then were turned away by a President who issued a Muslim ban. The reason we need this bill is to make sure that that can never happen again.

Madam Speaker, yes, we want to protect America's values. We believe that the way to do that is to pass the NO BAN Act.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman so much for his tremendous leadership on helping to bring this bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, the Access to Counsel Act.

It is the Access to Counsel Act. I don't know if my friends on the other side have heard that. I am not sure how access to counsel helps empower cartels. I am not sure if my colleagues on the other side have read the bill. This does not fund counsel, and it actually doesn't give a right to counsel. We could debate that in another bill. This gives access to counsel.

It brings us one step closer to upholding our country's principles of due process and fairness by ensuring that individuals with lawful status have the right to call a lawyer and receive assistance if they are detained at ports of entry or in airports.

So why did this bill come about?

The Access to Counsel Act was the very first bill I introduced as a Member of Congress in 2017 in response to President Donald Trump's Muslim ban. On the day that Donald Trump announced that ban, I rushed to my local airport in Seattle. What I encountered and what we saw at airports across the Nation was a sham of our democracy.

People from seven Muslim-majority countries--all with legal access to be in the United States--suddenly found themselves held for upwards of 30 hours, deported, and in some cases pressured to sign papers giving up their legal status without even the ability to call an attorney or a family member.

I then reintroduced, again, the Access to Counsel Act in my second term, in January of 2020, after Customs and Border Protection targeted Iranian Americans at ports of entry. As many as 200 Iranian Americans were held in secondary screening in Blaine, Washington.

Negah Hekmati and her two children were detained for nearly 6 hours despite being U.S. citizens and despite having preclearance for expedited processing at the border that is specifically for approved, low-risk travelers.

She recalls her small children begging her not to speak Farsi in fear of being detained. At such a young age, her children, U.S. citizens, already recognized that they were being profiled and unjustly held because of their heritage.

Of course, when we raised this in the moment, Border Patrol said: That is not happening. We can't do that. We wouldn't do that. We are not doing that.

Well, it took over a year and suing the government in order to access documents from Customs and Border Protection for us to find out that the total number of people held was 227 people. Half of those people were U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, half of the 227. The rest of them had legal paperwork to come into the country.

So, why were they held? They were held because of their Iranian heritage or ties to the Middle East. Later, we also found out that there was no attempt from Border Patrol to figure out why they were there, whether they should be there, or to even comply with the law that says that your country of origin cannot be the sole purpose that you are held.

If Republicans want to talk about wasting Border Patrol resources, let's talk about the fact that 227 people, half of whom were U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents and the rest with valid visas, were held in a Border Patrol station in Blaine, Washington, for almost 12 hours and unable to leave. That is called detention.

You have now turned the Border Patrol stations into detention facilities. That is not what we are supposed to do. Why is it so difficult to say: Yes, a phone call is permissible.

That is what this bill is trying to do.

Throughout the last administration, we saw dozens of Iranian students with valid visas having their visas revoked or being deported upon arrival to the United States simply because of their country of origin. The Access to Counsel Act would ensure that people who have already been vetted and granted lawful status have a meaningful opportunity to call an attorney, have a

meaningful opportunity to call a relative or other interested party, like a Member of Congress, when they get held for more than an hour in secondary inspection.

This is a commonsense measure, Mr. Speaker, to make sure that our Nation treats those who are arriving to our country, whether it is green card holders who have made their home here in the United States; visa holders working, studying, or traveling to the United States; or U.S. citizens who happen to have been identified with a different country of origin for some reason, let's make sure we treat everybody with dignity and respect.

I am so proud to be passing the Access to Counsel Act today, alongside the No BAN Act, to put an end to some of the most cruel and discriminatory policies adopted by the previous administration and to make sure that they never happen again.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the American Dream and Promise Act.

As an immigrant myself who came to America alone at the age of 16 and who spent a decade in the immigrant rights movement before coming to Congress, I stand with the Dreamers and TPS and DED recipients who have courageously proclaimed ``undocumented and unafraid'' in the streets and Halls of Congress and built this movement for justice.

These Dreamers, TPS, and DED holders have lived in the shadows for too long, doing our Nation's essential work while living a life of uncertainty and fear every day.

Mr. Speaker, Congress--we--right here and right now can change that. We can stand up for our 4.4 million essential community members who have made the United States home. We can legislate what they deserve, which is a roadmap to citizenship and a future of hope, opportunity, and contribution.

Let's stop the hypocrisy of criminalizing immigrants. Let's give recognition and hope today. Vote ``aye'' on the American Dream and Promise Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act. This bill is among the most commonsense gun violence prevention reforms, requiring background checks for unlicensed sellers.

Mr. Speaker, this is not complicated. This is simple. Under H.R. 8, people who wish to transfer a firearm would have to visit a licensed firearm dealer to run a background check before the transfer could be finalized.

Most of these checks take 90 seconds, 90 seconds to prevent firearms from ending up in the wrong hands, 90 seconds to prevent more of our loved ones from being killed by gun violence.

I am proud to be from Washington State, where voters have consistently tackled gun violence with commonsense reforms, passing one of the first, most comprehensive background check laws in 2014 and raising the legal age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle to 21 in 2018.

Mr. Speaker, let's do this. To save lives, vote ``aye.''

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the PRO Act. I am very proud to be a lead sponsor of this transformative bill and to represent one of the most unionized States in the country, where I have spent two decades organizing alongside unions for decent wages, benefits, and workers' rights.

Unions helped build America's middle class. But over the years large corporations have deployed union-busting tactics to rob workers of their fundamental workplace rights. That changes today.

The PRO Act will undo decades of Republican antiworker policies. It puts power back into the hands of workers and secures the right to organize and bargain for good wages, fair benefits, and an equal voice on the job. The PRO Act is about democracy in the workplace. It is about standing with the heroic workers carrying America through the pandemic.

It is past time to pass the PRO Act.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record two letters of support from the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to strongly support the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and to say Black Lives Matter.

I rise for Charleena Lyles, Che Taylor, Manuel Ellis, Tommy Le, Tony McDade, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Atatiana Jefferson, Ezell Ford, Tanisha Anderson, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Philando Castile, Gabriella Nevarez, Botham Jean.

I rise for all of our Black siblings who have been killed by law enforcement, because there are far too many to say all of their names.

I rise for the Black Lives Matter protestors who were met with aggression, tear gas, and force while White domestic terrorists were met with none of these things.

I rise to answer the call of millions of people led by Black voices who have taken to the streets demanding transformative change.

I rise because that change begins today by once again passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in memory of the 500,000 lives lost from COVID.

I rise for the 24 million Americans going hungry, 40 million Americans struggling to stay in their homes, and more than 8 million families who have been pushed into poverty.

I rise to support survival checks that put money in the pockets of tens of millions of poor and working people so that they can withstand this devastating crisis.

I rise to support childcare providers and housing assistance, small business relief, unemployment assistance, and tax credits for children so families can have hope again.

I rise to support a pay raise to $15 an hour for 27 million workers across this country who so desperately need our help, lifting 1 million people out of poverty and strengthening all of our communities.

Tonight I vote ``yes'' on this American rescue package. America, know that help is on the way. We are with you, and we will get through this together.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Equality Act.

I am the proud mom of a trans kid. I will fight every single day for every trans person, every LGBTQ person, including my kid, to explore and express the fullness of their gender without fear or risk of being fired, denied housing, or refused service because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Mr. Speaker, in 2020, over one in three LGBTQ Americans faced discrimination, including over three in five transgender Americans. In the midst of a pandemic, nearly 3 in 10 LGBTQ Americans faced difficulties accessing medical care, including over half of transgender Americans.

The Equality Act guarantees protection under the law, no matter who you love or your gender identity. It was President Abraham Lincoln who said those who deny freedom for others deserve it not for themselves.

So today, as we pass the Equality Act, we vote ``aye'' for Janak, for Evie, for so many thousands more of our kids.

We say to every LGBTQ person: We see you. We hear you.

Madam Speaker, just over a year ago, I stood on the House floor as we did our jobs and voted to impeach the President of the United States. The facts were clear then: Donald Trump abused the power of the Office of the Presidency to pursue his own personal, political gain. My vote was a vote for the Constitution and for `We, the People' because America is so deeply worth it.

Six months later, we saw Donald Trump's radically disparate treatment of a violent mob taking over the Michigan state capitol while threatening to lynch a governor and the harsh crackdown on Black, Indigenous, and people of color demonstrating for civil and human rights in the wake of yet another Black person being murdered by law enforcement. On the one hand, we saw armed white men with swastikas and Confederate flags threatening lawmakers, damaging the statehouse, and seeking to lynch, shoot, and behead the Governor of Michigan with no federal response. In fact, Attorney General Bill Barr told me under oath that he wasn't even aware it occurred. In sharp contrast, we saw Black people and people of color forcibly removed by armed federal officials using pepper bombs and tear gas. This time, the Attorney General was on the scene himself.

All of these events brought us to January 6, 2021. On that day, I was trapped in the House gallery for nearly two hours as a mob of insurrectionists launched a deadly attack on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy. My colleagues and I took cover as domestic terrorists waved the confederate flag in the People's House; as the temple of our democracy was ransacked in the most deadly and destructive assault on the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812. The events of January 6 were horrific. We know now that January 6 could have ended in even more violence, harm, and loss of life. We know the mob came ready for combat with nooses, zip ties, bats, bulletproof vests, and pipes. We know they came within seconds of breaching the United States Senate and ran around the inside of this building chanting ``Hang Mike Pence'' and looking for our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. And we know that they had placed bombs at the Capitol, the Democratic National Committee, and the Republican National Committee.

Why did they do all of this? Because for months, the man who sits in the White House has refused to accept the will of the American people; has refused to recognize that he lost a free and fair election-- decisively. And then he--and some Republican members of this Congress-- called on his followers to ``be wild.'' They told them to ``stand by.'' Then, they told them to ``fight like hell.'' Next, they proclaimed ``we are going to the Capitol.'' The insurrectionists followed those orders from the President of the United States. They went to the Capitol and fought like hell. They tried to subvert our democracy, but they failed.

Donald Trump is the smoking gun. That gun is reloaded and whether or not it goes off once more is up to us. We must send a clear message to the President that the United States Congress will not stand by and allow one man to turn our democracy into an autocracy; will not stand by while that man incites insurrectionists to launch a deadly assault on the United States Capitol.

I call on my colleagues to join me in voting to immediately impeach, convict, and remove Donald J. Trump from office; to ensure he can never run for elected office again; to fight for justice; to send a signal to those across America and throughout the world who--incited and fueled by this president--want to do us further harm; and to hold him fully accountable for this attack on Congress, the United States of America, and our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, my inquiry is this. My colleague across the aisle just referred to Members of Congress as ``anti-American.'' I believe that those words are defamatory, and I would like to ask whether that is appropriate for a request for the gentleman to take down his words.

Mr. Speaker, so a Member can say that other Members of Congress are anti-American and no resolution for that? We would like to ask the gentleman to take down his words.

Mr. Speaker, yes, I am asking that the gentleman's words be taken down.

Mr. Speaker, I was trying to get the attention.

Mr. Speaker, I will relinquish the point, but I just want to remind my colleagues that that is completely inappropriate to tell any of us that we are anti-American.

Madam Speaker, I am appalled at the statements coming from the White House telling people who dissent that somehow you should go back to your country if you criticize the United States. Well, let me remind you that dissent is patriotic and, in fact, a core value to our democracy, enshrined in our Constitution.

And, yes, I am a proud naturalized citizen born in India, a proud patriot, a proud person who belongs in this country.

And it is not the first time I have heard, ``go back to your own country,'' but it is the first time I have heard it coming from the White House. And, frankly, Madam Speaker, I am appalled that, on this floor, my Republican colleagues would call any of us anti-American.

That is why this vote is so important, because we have to let the rest of the country know that the House of Representatives will stand up for the Constitution, represent and defend every single person in the country, regardless of the color of their skin or the country of their birth.

Madam Speaker, my Republican colleagues have been talking about patriotism, about love of country. One of them said ``love it or leave it.'' But what is love if not to make what we love better through our critique, our work, and our service. That is what real Americans do.

We do not stifle dissent. We do not otherize or sow hatred, and we certainly never say ``go back to your country'' to a brown or a Black person, because that is a racist trope.

I hope that every single Member of this Chamber, Republican and Democrat, will join me in rejecting the President's message and vote in support of this resolution. Madam Speaker, that is the American thing to do.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

I want to start by recognizing the work of our chairman, Mr. Schiff, on this bill.

Madam Chair, my amendment would require Congress to provide much- needed oversight to the intelligence community's use of face recognition technology. The amendment does three things.

First, it requires the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report to the Intelligence Committees in both the House and the Senate on the use of this new technology. This is a critical step in ensuring that there is a deeper understanding of the technology here in Congress and also, appropriate transparency.

Second, the amendment expresses the sense of Congress that using this technology to suppress dissent, or to target people based on ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion is contrary to our Nation's values.

And finally, it makes clear that Congress believes that the government should not sell or transfer face recognition technology to any country that is using this technology to suppress human rights.

I offered this amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act because I am concerned that face recognition poses grave privacy concerns. As a Nation committed to democratic norms, including constitutionally-enshrined rights to freedom of speech and privacy, it is critical that we ensure that our national security activities do not come at the expense of our individual liberties and our right to privacy. And thus, it is critical that this body know exactly how this technology is being used.

In addition to the civil liberties concerns of those in our country, the technology does disproportionately impact people of color. The technology, unfortunately, misidentifies people of color and women at higher rates than Whites and men, which undermines its usefulness to the intelligence community, and makes it potentially problematic for large-scale use.

Finally, my amendment makes clear that the United States should not be providing this technology to countries who are using it to perpetuate human rights abuses. We should not be selling or transferring the technologies to countries like China, who are actively using this technology to suppress dissent and target minorities, like the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group.

Although this sense of Congress lays down an important marker, we do need to continue to work to ensure that there are proper controls on the sale and the transfer of this technology, and I look forward to doing that with my colleagues.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), the chairman of the committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia).

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.