Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, Charlie Kirk died yesterday at age 31, his neck ripped open by an assassin's bullet. He is survived by his wife, Erika, and their two young children, who will never see their dad at a T-ball game, a high school graduation, or a wedding.

Make no mistake about it: Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He was an incredibly effective force in American politics. He was beloved for his Socratic style of going to college campuses and gently and charitably asking questions and engaging in respectful dialogue with those whom he disagreed.

Most of all, he was a very convincing advocate for the love of God, family, and country, the hatred of which is a sacred creed of the left. They could not have it. They killed him.

In April of this year, Charlie prophetically said on social media:

``Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same thing about Donald Trump.''

``The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.

``This is the natural outgrowth of leftwing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.''

That was Charlie Kirk in April.

Yesterday, a social media post of mine hit a nerve when I called Charlie a martyr. Without question, he was.

The Athenians put Socrates to death for the simple crime of asking questions about culture and society and the meaning of life itself. Socrates was, in that sense, a martyr to the truth, and so was Charlie Kirk, but Charlie was also a martyr for Jesus Christ.

A priest friend of mine sent me this short passage from St. Bede, referring to John the Baptist:

``There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to our Redeemer, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. His persecutor demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless, he died for Christ. Does Christ not say: I am the truth? Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.''

Charlie also died as he was answering a question about the transgender cult that has gripped so much of our society and destroyed the life and health of so many of our young people.

They couldn't stand for that, so they killed Charlie, martyr for the truth and to Christ.

What for us? Well, everything has changed. If we didn't know it already, there is no longer any middle ground. Some on the American left are, undoubtedly, well-meaning people, but their ideology is pure evil.

They hate the good, the truth, and the beautiful and embrace the evil, the

false, and the ugly. They literally will kill those with whom they disagree, just as their predecessor leftists Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, and Fidel Castro did. We must know that. We must stand firm, and we must win this twilight struggle.

They killed Charlie, but as Tertullian wrote in the second century when the church was very much persecuted: ``The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.''

May God raise up thousands of Charlie Kirks to take his place.

To my fellow warriors in this fight: Hold your families tight. Be safe. Pray even for those who persecute you. Yes, most of all, pray.

Charlie Kirk, martyr for the truth, pray for us.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in support of my bill, H.R. 3424, the Shared Property Agency Collaboration and Engagement Act, or SPACE Act.

I am grateful to Congressman Chris Pappas for co-leading this bipartisan effort to bring greater efficiency and accountability to Federal Government real estate decisions.

Mr. Speaker, the GSA currently manages more than 8,300 owned and leased assets, totaling over 363 million square feet. Yet, many of these facilities are underused, duplicative, or poorly maintained.

Agencies often operate in silos. One agency leases new office space while another has empty square footage in the same city. There is no coordinated system to ensure that agencies share space or consolidate operations when possible. That lack of communication leads to waste of taxpayer dollars.

That is why the SPACE Act directs the Administrator of the GSA to identify barriers to Federal agencies sharing space in federally owned or leased buildings and to develop solutions to overcome those barriers. This includes examining logistical, legal, regulatory, or cultural hurdles that prevent our agencies from entering into shared- use agreements, even when that would save money and improve efficiency.

Once the Administrator completes this review, the GSA will report its findings and recommendations to the relevant committees of jurisdiction in both the House and the Senate.

This is a fiscally responsible, good government reform. It doesn't grow government; it makes existing government work smarter. We shouldn't be asking taxpayers to fund more buildings when the Federal Government already has plenty of space that is being mismanaged or ignored.

The SPACE Act promotes better use of what we already own by reducing waste and protecting taxpayer dollars. This is not a new idea. The GAO, the Public Buildings Reform Board, and numerous oversight bodies have repeatedly recommended this kind of interagency coordination in order to reduce costs and improve property management. The SPACE Act puts those recommendations into action and establishes a clear process to identifying opportunities and delivering results.

Again, I thank Congressman Pappas for working with me on this legislation. This is the kind of commonsense, bipartisan approach that shows that we can work together to fix real problems without adding bureaucracy or spending more money.

The SPACE Act is about accountability and stewardship. It says to Federal agencies: Before you ask for more, use what you already have and work with your neighbors to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support H.R. 3424 and to help us to move this important reform forward today.

Madam Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for his leadership. I am so excited to join him today as the newest co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.

Madam Speaker, today we celebrate the biggest victory for life in American history, the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson. This court case held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and returned the authority to regulate abortion to the American people and to their elected Representatives.

Roe v. Wade wrongly held that the 14th Amendment's reference to liberty protects the right to abortion. Planned Parenthood v. Casey subsequently upheld that argument, but Dobbs v. Jackson rightly rejected this specious argument.

The Constitution makes no explicit reference to a right to an abortion. Why is this so? Some would claim that that is because it wasn't a relevant issue back in the 18th century when the Constitution was written, but this is not true.

Abortion has been discussed historically since ancient times. It has been documented as far back as 1075 BC in ancient Assyria. The Hippocratic oath condemned abortion in the fifth century BC.

The Founding Fathers were well aware of the reality of abortion when they drafted this Constitution. They did it guided by the principles of natural law which, according to Thomas Aquinas, is understood by the light of reason.

The precepts of natural law are written in our hearts. We are naturally horrified by evil acts, murder being chief among them. Since human law is based upon natural law, we can rightly deduce that intentional killing of the innocent has no place in a civilized society.

As our Founding Fathers were drafting the Constitution, they never intended for the Constitution to be interpreted in such a manner as to directly contradict the natural law upon which our Republic was founded.

Nevertheless, Row v. Wade did exactly that. Thank goodness, we now have a Supreme Court that understands the Founders' intent to the natural moral law.

One of the most important tasks we now have in a post-Roe world is the continuing fight for life at the Federal level. Dobbs v. Jackson did not simply kick back the issue of abortion to the States. The wording in the Court's opinion was very clear. The authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected Representatives.

Members of Congress and Senators are elected Representatives. Congress has the authority and the responsibility to legislate on this issue in certain areas.

There are many policies within our purview. For instance, Federal taxpayer dollars still flow to Planned Parenthood uninterrupted. According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, between 2019 and 2024, Planned Parenthood was issued $66 million of direct funding through Title X.

From 2019 to 2021, Planned Parenthood received $1.5 billion--yes, that is billion with a b--from Medicaid/CHIP and $3.3 million from Medicare.

There is no reason we cannot turn off Planned Parenthood's government cash flow. The big, beautiful bill in its current form protects taxpayers from

being forced to fund Planned Parenthood. This provision must be preserved in the final bill, otherwise it will be very difficult for pro-life Members to support the final package.

Another example is the use of Federal dollars on the grotesque experiments used on baby body parts funded by the taxpayer. The National Institutes of Health spent $53 million on human fetal tissue research in 2023 and expects to spend $55 million in 2025.

This is a human rights abuse, and it has not even produced valuable research. After nearly 100 years, no therapies have been discovered or developed that require aborted fetal tissue. Meanwhile, ethical alternatives for research and treatment are available and effective.

Nonfetal cells were used to develop insulin for diabetes and Herceptin for breast cancer. Umbilical cord blood has treated thousands of people with blood disorders, and adult stem cells have saved over 1 million people worldwide.

There is no reason to continue funding aborted fetal tissue research. That is why I introduced the Protecting Life and Integrity in Research Act of 2025, which blocks all Federal funding for research involving human fetal tissue from an induced abortion. Language to accomplish this policy priority was included in the fiscal year 2025 Labor, Health, and Human Services appropriations bill. I look forward to seeing it approved and included in the 2026 bill.

Yet another issue is the rise of dangerous chemical abortions. Chemical abortions comprise over half of all abortions performed in the United States. New research shows that this regimen is very dangerous to American women.

More than 1 in 10 women who use chemical abortion pills experience serious adverse events. The rate of serious adverse events is about 22 times higher than the rate stated by the FDA. It is a blatant lie that taking mifepristone is safer than Tylenol, as Planned Parenthood likes to say.

Congress must act to protect women by reinstating the FDA's original requirement that mifepristone, the abortion pill, be dispensed in person under medical supervision and not by tele-abortions.

Prescribing these pills to pregnant women without an in-person evaluation for an ectopic pregnancy or other conditions should be considered medical malpractice, which indeed it is. I look forward to working with my colleagues to address these issues.

Today, we celebrate a milestone standing for life. A new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association found that since Dobbs v. Jackson, 22,180 more babies have been born in States that enacted pro-life protection laws. Praise God. What a beautiful gift.

As we celebrate the third anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson, let us take comfort in knowing we advanced the cause of human dignity in the United States. Let us continue to fight for life and never give up hope. The cause of human life is a righteous one because all life is precious in the eyes of God.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4 to codify President Trump's DOGE tax cuts.

Americans have been awash in unsustainable debt and waste, and Americans have known it long before DOGE began its work. What many didn't realize is just how bad the problem is: $14 million in cash vouchers for illegals at the southern border, $3.3 million for being LGBTQ in the Caribbean, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, and $1.5 million to promote LGBTQ employment in Serbia, not to mention the hundreds of millions wasted on the politically biased government media known as NPR.

Enough is enough. We must rein in Washington's reckless spending and hold bureaucrats accountable.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me and put Americans and fiscal sanity first in what I hope will be the first of many rescission bills.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 364) calling upon local communities to support organizations that provide resources and aid Gold Shield Families in their time of need.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material into the Record on H. Res. 364.

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

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 364 calls on local communities to support organizations that provide resources and aid to Gold Shield families in their time of need. This is a commonsense resolution that recognizes the families of fallen servants of public safety as revered Gold Shield families.

These Gold Shield families deserve support from their communities in their time of need. This resolution honors the ultimate sacrifice that their loved ones made in the line of duty.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser) for his leadership on this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the resolution, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Bresnahan).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), the sponsor of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, H. Res. 364 is a commonsense resolution that honors the sacrifices of our brave public servants and helps to ensure the welfare of their families.

I urge support of this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 120.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, today I was not present to vote due to the death of an immediate family member. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 104.

Mr. Speaker, I was not present today to vote due to the death of an immediate family member. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 100, NAY on Roll Call No. 101, and YEA on Roll Call No. 102.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the No Rogue Rulings Act.

Historically, district court rulings only applied to the parties before the court, but over the past 15 years, district courts have increasingly asserted that their rulings apply nationwide, interfering with the legitimate Article II powers of the President of the United States.

We are experiencing a constitutional crisis, a judicial coup d'etat. In February alone, district judges issued more nationwide injunctions against President Trump than against Bush, Obama, and Biden during their entire administrations.

District judges from Democratic jurisdictions are preventing the President from fulfilling his duty to keep us safe.

Last night, the Supreme Court called out judge shopping and reversed an order issued by a Democrat-appointed D.C. judge that blocked the Trump administration from removing violent Venezuelan gang members from our country. The Supreme Court said that this case should never have been brought in D.C. but rather in Texas where the individuals can file individual petitions challenging their individual cases.

The Supreme Court can and should rein in these rogue courts. In the meantime, the No Rogue Rulings Act rebalances the separation of powers as the Founders intended.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this critical legislation.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Do No Harm Act.

As a physician, I took an oath to do no harm, but over the past several years, doctors working at pediatric transgender clinics have prescribed medications or done procedures that they know will permanently sterilize children or leave them with irreversible medical and psychological damage.

This bill is the most comprehensive legislation introduced to date to protect children from experimental and unethical practices of so-called gender-affirming care. This practice has been banned or severely limited in European countries, including the U.K., Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and it is time for the U.S. to wake up and ban this quackery once and for all.

The Do No Harm Act builds on President Trump's day one executive order ending the chemical castration and mutilation of children. I look forward to working with the Trump administration to solidify this policy as Federal law.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1048, the DETERRENT Act.

Mr. Chair, this bill will end the influence and downright espionage of the Chinese Communist Party on our American College campuses.

Last Congress, the Select Committee on the CCP issued a remarkable report highlighting how UC Berkeley partnered with Tsinghua University and the city of Shenzen to create the Tsinghua-Berkeley-Shenzen Institute, which actively partnered with a Chinese research lab in April 2023 to improve advanced chip technology.

Why in the world should the Chinese Communist Party, which controls the city of Shenzen and Tsinghua University, have access to American research on sensitive technology with military applications?

Likewise, Alfred University recently received a grant from the Department of Defense to research hypersonic weapons. Unbelievably, the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan then partnered with Alfred University with this research.

China University of Geosciences also happened to be doing very similar weapons research for the CCP. How do we know that our research and development in our hypersonic weapons isn't going straight to the CCP? The answer is: It probably is.

Additionally, according to the FBI, the CCP is the world's principal infringer of intellectual property. We need to stop the Chinese Communist Party, the number one threat to our security and the security of the world, from taking advantage of American innovation and the openness of our university campuses.

Mr. Chair, I proudly support the DETERRENT Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 35, the Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act.

This important legislation would make it a crime to evade arrest or detention while operating a motor vehicle within 100 miles of the U.S. border. For aliens, the bill would go a step further, making it a deportable offense to flee from a pursuing Border Patrol agent.

Our southern border is under attack, and our Border Patrol agents are on the front lines. The former administration depleted Border Patrol resources, leaving them with an impossible task that routinely puts them in harm's way.

The Border Patrol experienced over 5,700 encounters every day in December 2022, the month that Agent Raul Gonzalez was killed while pursuing an illegal alien who was evading arrest.

The following year, the Biden administration doubled down on its open-border policies, surging these encounters to 2.5 million in 2023.

Under President Biden's so-called leadership, border wall materials were sold off, and razor wire was removed.

Under President Trump's leadership, we are taking full advantage of our resources to secure the border, and Mexico and Canada have already agreed to bolster enforcement.

The Trump policies are already working. Yesterday, The Washington Times reported what they called a reverse flow of illegal immigrants streaming back home after being blocked at Trump's border.

When migrants learn of the new, enhanced security measures at the southern border, they are giving up and going home. Border Patrol agents who previously encountered as many as 10,000 illegal immigrants in a day are seeing fewer than 500.

By passing this legislation, we are showing Border Patrol agents that we have their backs and that we prioritize their safety. This bill provides additional protections for Border Patrol agents by imposing harsher penalties for illegal aliens evading arrest at our border.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address an issue important to all Americans, not just Americans living on our border. Illegal immigration directly impacts our society, our safety, our security, and the future of our Nation. Dangers posed by illegal immigration are many. The consequences of policies from the Biden administration are many and severe.

Deaths from murder, poisonings from fentanyl, and victimization of the innocent by human traffickers could all have been solved if only the Biden-Harris administration and the Democrat Congress were willing to secure our borders.

I want to begin by sharing a case that sadly demonstrates the dire consequences of our porous border and weak immigration enforcement. In my district, in St. Charles County, Missouri, two innocent women were sexually assaulted by an illegal alien of Middle Eastern descent who overstayed his tourist visa. Instead of returning home like he was supposed to and as our law required, he flouted the law and stayed illegally.

Ultimately, he victimized two innocent American women. The trauma inflicted upon these women and upon many others like them is immeasurable. If we are to prevent this from happening again, we must remember that the pain is a direct result of the open border policies that have failed to prioritize the safety of Americans.

Mr. Speaker, this is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern and an epidemic of lawlessness that has swept across our country. Criminals, foreign nationals, and even terrorists have attempted to exploit our immigration policy failures.

Over the past 4 years, we have rightfully turned our attention to the southern border. We also have illegal immigrants taking advantage of lax enforcement and overstaying visas without consequence. The story of this individual in St. Charles County is part of a pattern with these overstays being a large source of our illegal alien population.

For that reason, I will soon be introducing the Timely Departure Act. This important legislation would require certain visa recipients to post a cash bond which they would forfeit should they overstay their visas. Under this law, overstayers who overstay would be unable to obtain lawful immigration status for at least 4 years, and they would be unable to submit an asylum claim or withholding of removal claim after their scheduled departure date. Visitor, business, and pleasure visas are important to our economy, but they are being abused.

Before the Biden administration's change to the asylum policy, visa overstays were a leading contributor to illegal immigration. As of 2023, visa overstays accounted for 42 percent of the illegal population. This legislation is necessary to enforce visa exit dates, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Timely Departure Act.

Mr. Speaker, our immigration system, which was once designed to be a source of legal immigration and lawful entry, has become nothing more than a wide-open door and a red carpet. This must end. This is why President Trump and House Republicans have to act forcefully to protect Americans.

Another border security issue is the abuse of our asylum process. Over the past couple of years, especially as Texas has taken action to secure its border, fewer illegal aliens have been entering our country by sneaking by border crossings like Eagle Pass or Brownsville.

More and more illegal aliens are presenting themselves to immigration authorities and claiming asylum. Most of these asylum cases are bogus. The Biden administration has not detained these aliens but, rather, released them into the country with some far-off asylum hearing date to which they never show. We found time and time again that these so- called refugees are violent criminals.

Under our America First border policies, this abuse of the asylum process is going to end. President Trump's actions at the border, his executive orders, and his diplomacy with Colombia, Mexico, and Canada show that he means what he says. He means business.

In Congress, we will assist with legislation like the Laken Riley Act, and we will provide funding for the border wall, border guards, and the legal resources to clean out the many bogus asylum claims.

A message to all the countries who are part of the problem is the era of the U.S. playing the fool ends now. They should not empty their prisons or coddle drug and human trafficking cartels at our expense or they will face consequences.

Another equally important issue is that the open border policies of the Biden-Harris administration have led to an epidemic of fentanyl poisonings across our country. Fentanyl, which is smuggled across our southern border, is responsible for 100,000 American deaths in the last year alone.

We have become a global dumping ground for the world's deadliest drugs with Mexican cartels making and smuggling fentanyl and methamphetamine into the United States, drugs made from Chinese precursor chemicals. We will secure our border. We will build the wall. Yes, we will target drug cartels as international terrorists.

Occasionally, we hear apologists for the open border policies of the Biden administration argue that somehow mass illegal immigration is good for our economy or that some illegal aliens pay taxes. It is nice that illegal aliens sometimes pay taxes, but these individuals fail to account for the full cost of illegal immigration.

The strain on our economy has been profound. Taxpayer dollars have been spent to fund social services, healthcare, and education for illegal aliens. That is money that could be better spent on securing the future, money that we do not have with our debt of $36 trillion, not to mention the economic and social costs of the victims of crime caused by illegal aliens or the lives cut short by fentanyl poisoning or the immeasurable and lifelong trauma of the victims of human trafficking.

Police officers, teachers, and healthcare providers are working harder than ever to accommodate an influx of people who have no legal right to be here. Democrats have told us to accept this as the new normal. House Republicans and President Trump are here to tell our communities this ends now.

Mr. Speaker, this crisis is not just a border issue. It is a national security issue. It is a public safety issue. It is a public health issue. It is an economic issue. We must take swift action to protect our country, our communities, and our people.

Mr. Speaker, the Biden administration's open border policies have failed, and it is time for a change. In collaboration with Donald Trump, it is time to make America safe again.

Madam Speaker, today, I rise in strong support of H.R. 21, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

This legislation says that infants who are born alive after an attempted abortion are entitled to the same respect and medical care that would be provided to an infant of the same gestational age.

In some late-term abortions, the abortionist is unsuccessful at ending the life of the baby, and the baby is born alive. Babies are able to move and breathe on their own. Even pro-abortion academics admit this is often the case, and it is not rare.

A June 2024 article published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found that of 14,000 second-trimester abortions, over 1,500 babies were born alive, a rate of 11.2 percent.

This legislation unfortunately is necessary due to heartbreaking reports of abortionists in the United States placing these living, breathing babies in biohazard bags, vats of formaldehyde, or storing them away in a utility closet to die alone. In that sense, there is a complete analogy between what goes on in these abortions, after these abortions, and what Kermit Gosnell did and languished in prison for.

This commonsense legislation requires that abortion survivors be treated with dignity. Remember, this bill applies to the baby's right to care after a baby is born alive and has no implication for abortion or the mother's health.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from my home State of Missouri for bringing forward this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of S. 5, the Laken Riley Act.

First, I point out that my Democratic colleagues are all exercised about the pardons of Donald Trump of January 6 protesters, but they said not a word when President Biden commuted the sentences of 37 cold- blooded murderers on death row in our Federal prisons.

This bill is the Senate amended version of Representative Collins' bill that passed this Chamber earlier this month. It is named after Laken Riley, the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was brutally murdered by a criminal illegal alien, another casualty of the Biden- Harris, Democratic, open-border policies.

This bill adds burglary, theft, and larceny to a list of crimes for which it would be mandatory that illegal alien criminals be deported. The Senate also added to this act a very important provision that adds assault of a law enforcement officer or causing bodily injury to another person.

The Laken Riley Act, when signed by President Trump, will begin the long and hard work of protecting Americans from the more than 10 million illegal aliens who were enabled by Biden's open-border policies.

On January 7, I was very encouraged to see 48 of our Democratic colleagues in this Chamber vote for the commonsense protections that Americans support in the Laken Riley Act. Yesterday, 12 Senate Democrats joined all the Republicans in supporting this commonsense measure.

Mr. Speaker, deporting criminal illegal aliens should not be a partisan bill.

I hope our Democratic colleagues will side with us on this issue to protect Americans and put Americans first.