Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen) for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, my Houston area has suffered a historic hurricane, one that really changed the lives of all the people who were affected. My district was hammered by this flood.

To put it in perspective, 27 trillion gallons of rain fell over Texas and parts of Louisiana in the 6 days of the flood. That is enough water to file the Houston Astrodome 85,000 times.

At the height of the flood, 70 percent of Harris County, which is the Houston area, was flooded, 70 percent was underwater.

The devastation in Texas equalled, Mr. Speaker, the size of New Jersey. You place New Jersey in southeast Texas, that is how much of the area was affected by this flood and the rain.

People had anywhere between 36 and 52 inches of rain. The Weather Service had to create a new color, purple, on their maps to show how much rain had fallen. Nothing like this has ever happened in North America.

72,000 people were rescued by first responders and volunteers from high water. This is the largest civilian water evacuation since Dunkirk.

Thousands of civilian volunteers worked along with city and county first responders to save countless lives. The heroes came from all walks of life, from all parts of the country.

The attitude of the people of Texas was one of inspiration. Flooded victims who didn't know each other, their homes were flooded, but they were helping other flooded victims get to safety and get what property they could recover. This heroism reminded me what it means to be a Texan and an American.

Mr. Speaker, Harvey will not defeat the human spirit. There were two men in Brownwood. Now, you know where Brownwood, Texas, is. Probably nobody else ever heard of it. That is in way west Texas. They decided they wanted to help. They got in their pickup trucks. They drove to Austin, Texas, which is still 200 miles away from Houston. They went to a sports place there and bought a bass boat, a trailer, a motor, and filled it up with all kinds

of stuff, drove to Houston, Texas, and kept working for others. That is one of many stories.

So this supplemental is important to southeast Texas.

Let this vote show that we will vote not for politics, but for people.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk today about a person, a person that I never got to meet, but this is her story, and this is her story from her point of view and the information that I have received from people who knew her, including her parents, her aunt, and some of her friends. And, like I said, I don't know the real facts of this case. I am just giving you my opinion, and I am here today to tell Megan Rondini's story, because she can't tell her case, Mr. Speaker.

I am co-chair of the Victims' Rights Caucus, along with the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa), my friend. I was a former prosecutor in Houston, Texas, for 8 years. I tried felony cases. And then I was a criminal court judge for 22 years, seeing all kinds of violations of the law. I mention that because that is the background from which I speak.

Over that time, I knew a lot of victims of crime. Too many victims of crime worked their way through the courthouse. I am going to talk about another one today: Megan Rondini.

She was 19 or 20 when she was a student at the University of Alabama, and on July 1, 2015, Megan and some of her friends, sorority friends, went to a nearby bar, as we would term it in the old days, where a lot of students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, went for meeting other folks and hanging out.

She came in contact with an individual whose name was Terry Jackson Bunn, Jr. His nickname was Sweet T.

Sweet T--being from the South, you can understand somebody being called that, Mr. Speaker.

He was a patron of this establishment. He was older. He was in his early thirties. Megan was approximately 20.

He invited her to go over to his house, to look at his house, because he and his family live in a big mansion in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She agreed to go. He went with another individual that he knew, and they went over to his house.

They go upstairs, and here is where the problem and the crime apparently started. He takes her into his bedroom. She says: This is not a good idea.

She may have been intoxicated, but apparently later during that evening, she is drugged or under the influence of drugs and really was not coherent during this time, according to her, later.

He sexually assaulted her. She did not consent. She did not consent. And she, from that day on, told everybody who talked to her about this case she did not consent.

He had sexual intercourse with her. He falls asleep on the bed.

She gets up. She tries to get out of this upstairs room. There is a dead bolt on the door, apparently. She couldn't get out. She couldn't figure out how to get out, so she climbs out the second-story window in the middle of the night and jumps from the second-story window to a trash can on the ground.

She doesn't have her keys. She didn't know where they are. So his car is parked there, a Mercedes, sleek Mercedes, which he picked her up in earlier. She gets in the car, looks for her keys.

She doesn't have any money, so she takes money out of the vehicle to call a cab, to pay for the cab so she could get away, and the cab later shows up.

During this time, she is texting her friends, asking for them to come get her. The text messages maybe didn't make a whole lot of sense because of the condition that she is in.

She eventually gets to the hospital, the place where sexual assault victims usually go first to get medical attention. She goes to the hospital there in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and while there, she told her story, even though she was somewhat still under the influence of drugs, probably. And while there, a Women and Gender Resource Center advocate shows up at the hospital.

The hospital people take what we call in the vernacular in law enforcement, as you used to be, a rape kit. It is called a sexual assault kit now. They take that sexual assault kit and they perform that examination, but they didn't take any blood and they didn't take any urine and they didn't test Megan for whether she was under the influence of drugs. They did the sexual assault kit.

Along the route, the sexual assault kit gets to the sheriff's department, and we don't know what happened to it after that. It was never tested. As far as I know, it hasn't been tested yet. They don't know where it is. Maybe the sheriff's department has it, maybe they don't, but that sexual assault kit, like I said, was never tested.

So after she is there, or while she is there, the police, the sheriff's department show up and they question her briefly. It appears that these two homicide detectives heard her story, and they didn't take any notes about it. They just listened to her story.

What transpired there maybe was not a lot of information given to the police, except she told her story. She told the police she didn't consent, that she may be under the influence of drugs, drug-induced rape, and they left.

The next morning, Megan, staying up all this time, the police, either at the first or the second interview, wanted to know why she didn't physically resist, why she didn't fight back this older man. And she was under the influence of drugs.

Under most laws in most States, she couldn't physically fight back, and that is the lack of consent. She didn't give consent. And it is still sexual assault, but apparently not so to the sheriff's department in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She didn't fight back.

Now, I am older than you are, Mr. Speaker, but I remember the days of these old, archaic rape laws where, in many States, the victim had to fight almost until death. The statutory limitation on sexual assault or rape was 1 year. That is when the victim only had a year to have that case indicted. And there are some other things about the old law that we both know, but I will get to that, hopefully, later.

But it was obvious to her, either at the first interview and at least the second interview, the sheriff's department did not believe her. When she told them who the alleged perpetrator was, Sweet T Bunn, they seemed to back off the prosecution.

Sweet T Bunn comes from a family in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, well-known, prominent citizens. The Bunn folks run a construction company, probably built every road in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Everybody knew who they were. And they backed off, according to her, of the investigation, still not taking, apparently, any real notes.

On the second interview later that morning with the police, the police started accusing her of committing a crime. So the victim no longer is the victim, but becomes the accused, the defendant, about the money that she took from Bunn's car so she could get a cab to flee the perpetrator.

The police interviewed TJ Bunn. He first denied she was ever at his mansion, and then later he changed his story, as accused individuals tend to do, and then said it was consent, that she consented to everything and that this is not a criminal case. And the police further backed off and then later said to Megan: We think we are going to prosecute you for theft of that money to get home and get away from the offender unless you drop the charges, the accusations against Sweet T.

Mr. Speaker, we need, as a community, to understand and put ourselves in the place of this girl who is alone. And I believe, all through that night, she made the best decisions she could to get help, and everywhere she turned, people turned her down.

Now, I don't know what most victims would do in this case, but she didn't know what to do. She called her mom in Austin, Texas. Mom quickly gets in her car and starts driving to Alabama, as mothers do, wanting to know how she should handle this particular situation: she is becoming the accused. And that is the trump card that the police put on her: You back off the prosecution, and we won't prosecute you for theft and maybe other crimes that you committed.

So Megan left, not knowing what to do.

So the sheriff's department doesn't believe her, doesn't want to believe her, and takes the alleged perpetrator and makes him the victim and makes her the accused individual. So the sheriff's department has the rape kit--never tested. The sheriff's department is accusing the victim of committing a crime.

So she seeks relief from the University of Alabama. She goes there and she talks to a lady who was a counselor for students at the University of Alabama, a female, and tells her the whole story again: No consent; I was sexually assaulted.

After the story is told to the counselor, the counselor apparently says: I can't help you. I know the Bunn family. I have a relative that works for Bunn Construction. I cannot help you, and I am backing off and recusing myself of this case--the counselor.

What does Megan do? Well, the university gives her another counselor, who I wouldn't say is a real counselor. It is a graduate assistant. And the graduate assistant talks to Megan and says: ``I can't talk to you until you take medication for your anxiety.''

Well, no kidding she has anxiety because of what has happened to her over these several hours.

And that was the last we heard of the University of Alabama physical therapist. She backs off because she has anxiety.

The district attorney, eventually, about 3 weeks later, said: We are not prosecuting this case. No case, no sexual assault, believes the sheriff's department, believes it is consent, and they are not prosecuting the case.

Later, it turns out, Mr. Speaker, and I don't know if this influenced these people's decisions or not, but we learn that the defendant's family, the construction company, gave financial contributions to the sheriff's department, to the district attorney's office campaign, and to the University of Alabama, where they apparently are big contributors. I don't know if that influenced all of this or not, but you can take it for what you want. But anyway, they backed off the case.

Megan, because it is the summer break, leaves and goes back home to Texas. She wants to get away from the University of Alabama because she had seen the defendant on campus. He is not a student there. She had told the people on the campus: I am very worried about me because of this person being on campus.

She leaves the university, asking the title IX folks to help her transfer her university education from the University of Alabama to SMU, and she leaves. Apparently, she did not get cooperation, according to her, for a couple of months from the title IX folks, which is another issue that I am not going to go into, and enrolls in the university at SMU, needing a letter from Alabama to get into another university, as all kids need to have nowadays.

She is at SMU. She seeks medical help in Texas. The doctor told her that the findings were apparently post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, all from this criminal case that happened against her, always telling folks she didn't consent. She never changed her rendition of the case.

She wasn't doing very well. She saw a counselor at SMU and wanted help with depression when she is filling out her medical history form that goes to the university at SMU in Dallas, Texas.

She said she had mental issues. She said that she had bad thoughts about living. And then later, on February 26, 2016, with that form laying next to her, Megan committed suicide. She took her life.

Why? My opinion, because she never got any help. She couldn't get help from the hospital because of the urine test; no drug test, no blood test; the rape kit never analyzed by the police department, sheriff's department; the sheriff's department didn't believe her? Like I said, in my opinion, they didn't want to believe her.

The university didn't help her. They gave her a graduate assistant to try to help her with her mental case, told her to get on medication.

Mr. Speaker, Megan did everything that she should have done under those situations. It is easy for society, in cases like this, to always say to victims of crime, especially rape cases: You should have done this; you shouldn't have done that.

And there is a lot of second-guessing going on in this case by a lot of people. But, as a prosecutor, former judge, I think she did the best she could to get help, and she got no help.

When people are desperate, when they feel like nobody cares, that nobody is going to help them, in a sexual assault case, where--to me, that is one of the worst crimes that can be committed against a person--they are desperate, and she didn't think life was worth living because of this case.

Over the years, I have learned a lot from sexual assault victims, and one thing that they all want is validation. They want validation from us--community, society, government--that that act they said happened to them did happen. That is what they want. Sometimes they want that more than prosecution or apprehension of the offender, is validation that we believe them.

She didn't get that validation, except for her family, and so she took her own life. What a tragedy.

So that is why I am here today. Megan can't talk about what happened to her, but we can. We, as Members of Congress, are really in the people business, and that is why I am in Congress. I know that is why you are in Congress.

So what are we going to do about this? What has happened in the interim?

Well, at the hospital, because of the failures--no drug testing, no urine testing, the loss of the sexual assault kit, rape kit, or not being analyzed--myself, Carolyn Maloney, Democrat from New York, and also, Terri Sewell, who represents this area in Alabama, have filed the Megan Rondini Act on her behalf.

Now, what does that do? So this legislation will require hospitals in our country, wherever they are, to have a SAFE at that hospital. What is a SAFE? It is a Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner. Some hospitals do, some don't; but this law will require you have one at your hospital 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or be able to take a sexual assault victim to one place close by that has this type of examiner.

It is a special recognition for people in the sexual assault business, whether they are a nurse or whether they are a doctor, and we filed that legislation. Maybe that would have helped in this case where the sexual assault examiner would have finished the examination, made sure that the testing was done, or had some examiner near this hospital. So we filed this. It is called the Megan Rondini Act. That is one of the pieces of legislation we filed.

I want to talk about the law enforcement agency. Now, you know as much about law enforcement as anybody in Congress, but let me tell you the way I see this.

They never tested the sexual assault kit, the rape kit, the urine sample. They questioned her because why didn't she resist? Why didn't she fight back?

When a person is drug-induced in a sexual assault, they can't fight back. They certainly can't consent, but that is what they were asking her, even though that didn't apply in this case. She couldn't fight back. She didn't fight back because of what happened to her when she was drugged or under the influence of something.

And then they accused her of being a criminal. Rather than examining her case and finishing her case, they went on to take the defendant's position, say they believed him, even though he gave contradictory stories later in this investigation.

We have a piece of legislation that has already been filed to deal with sexual assault kits, and I have introduced legislation today to reauthorize SAFER. SAFER is a piece of legislation Congress needs to reauthorize to have rape kits throughout the country examined. There are thousands of sexual assault cases sitting on the shelves, sitting in warehouses; some have been destroyed they are so old, where law enforcement, government, has not analyzed those sexual assault rape kits.

There are a lot of excuses made--there is not money, all of those things. They need to be examined in all criminal cases. SAFER provides funding to do that so that the backlogged evidence gets tested and so that it convicts the guilty and clears the innocent. That is the second piece of legislation that we have filed.

The district attorney's office, after Megan committed suicide, after they had refused to do anything about the case, almost a year later, they took the case to a grand jury, and it was not indicted. It was no- billed.

Now, I have presented cases to the grand jury. I am sure you have testified before grand juries. Unfortunately, some district attorneys, I am not saying all, or even most--the grand jury does the will of the district attorney. If the district attorney encourages an indictment, that person is indicted. If they encourage and recommend a no-bill, not indicted, grand juries will do that.

Some prosecutors don't offer advice. They let the grand jury make that decision because that is their decision. I don't know if that happened in this case or not. But they did decide to present the case to a grand jury, and it was not indicted. She was not indicted, or the defendant was not indicted.

Of course, nothing could happen to her. She has already taken her own life.

The university made some mistakes, in my opinion. The school victim advocate abandoned her at the hospital where she was.

On campus, the counselor, even though hearing the case, full story, at the end--this is interesting--at the end, decided to recuse herself because she knew the Bunn family. She knew the Bunn family when this interview started. Why didn't she recuse herself before the victim tells the story again to another person, to another stranger? Interesting turn of events.

Graduate assistant, in my opinion, didn't have any qualifications to order that she get medical treatment before she comes back to talk to the folks at the hospital.

We have filed a resolution, it is a sense of Congress resolution, Mr. Speaker, calling on all universities to employ a full-time victim advocate on campus who deals with sexual assault victims, have that expertise. And it is an expertise. A victim advocate needs to be specified to be a sexual assault victim advocate, because, you can talk about a victim advocate, that could be somebody talking about a theft case or something, but you need a sexual assault victim advocate on campus, no matter what university this happens to be.

It is a sense of Congress. It is a resolution that has been filed today.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have left?

Mr. Speaker, let me--this is Megan Rondini. This is the way she looked when she was a student. We have heard a lot about her, as we should.

But now I want to talk about the family of the alleged perpetrator, Sweet T, and the Bunn family. Well-known business in the community. Good for them. Business is doing well. They give money to the university. As I mentioned, apparently they give money to the campaigns of the sheriff and the district attorney, and they make other contributions throughout the Tuscaloosa region. Apparently, everybody knows them.

They are so concerned about this case that this is a full-page ad taken out of one of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, newspapers this week defending their honor, as we would say in the South. And it goes into quite a bit of detail.

What it does is attack the victim of this crime. It almost justifies the defendant's, the accused's, position. All through this ad, they talk about a lot of things. I want to read you just part of it. Here's just one paragraph talking about their three generations of civic involvement in Tuscaloosa, Alabama:

We support education. We support law enforcement. We

support our hospital and civic. We are generous, and now we

are condemned as if it is a conspiracy.

The Bunn family, for more than 70 years, have given their

time, energy, and resources to make our community a better

place to live. Now, according to some journalists, every act

of charity and good citizenship was nothing more than a large

standing conspiracy. If no deed goes unpunished then why

should anyone invest in our community to take the risk of

being a good citizen?

They are defending their honor. They are defending Sweet T. And all through this ad, taken out this week, they never mention sympathy or compassion or sadness for the death of the victim in this crime. That seems very strange to me. Regardless of guilt or innocence, we know that a person took their life because of what happened. I find that very strange.

They seem to protest too much--full-page ad in a local newspaper.

The parents of Megan, Mike and Cindy Rondini, they are just folks who live in Austin, Texas. Robin, the aunt, she is a constituent of mine in Houston. And just listening to them talk, there sure is a different side of the story about compassion than what we hear from the Bunn folks.

Mr. Speaker, I will try to sum this up. I appreciate your patience. I mentioned I have known a lot of sexual assault victims. Years ago, before you were born, I was prosecuting in Houston, Texas.

I am going to change the name of the victim in this case because of concerns about privacy for her family.

Lisa was a student at the University of Houston, working a second job. She leaves school one evening at about 9 o'clock p.m. or so. She is driving north on one of our interstates--or freeways, as we call them. She has car trouble. She pulls off the freeway, goes to a service station she thought was open. It was not open.

An individual comes up to her, has a pistol--Luke, we will call him-- kidnaps her, sexually assaults her, and abandons her. She is later found in a very traumatic emotional state somewhere in the area. The police are called. They figure out who the perpetrator was, they go out and arrest him, investigate the case.

One thing I want to mention that happens in most cases that didn't happen in Megan's case, the police didn't talk to any witnesses. They didn't talk to the witnesses at the bar. They didn't talk to any of Megan's friends. They didn't talk to anybody. They just talked to the alleged perpetrator and to Megan. No investigation.

Anyway, the investigation is done, Luke is captured. It turns out he is an ex-con for sexual assault--rape, as we called it in those days.

Lisa convinced herself that she would testify. She comes to the courthouse. I prosecuted the case. She went through every detail.

And you remember, Mr. Speaker, years ago, before the law started having justice in it, sexual assault victims had to tell their whole sexual life before strangers. Of course the defendant, you never could go into the sexual life of the defendant, but the defense could always go into it on a victim.

She goes through the trial. Twelve right-thinking folks on a jury convicted the offender. That same jury gave him 99 years in the penitentiary of Texas, what he earned, what he deserved.

We would hope that life would go on, that justice is done, and that everybody is satisfied that justice is done. But that doesn't always work.

Lisa lost her job, dropped out of school, started abusing alcohol, drugs, a lot of stuff. She married, had two kids. Her husband, being the kind of guy he was, apparently decided to leave her and took the two kids and went somewhere else.

It wasn't long after that I got a call from Lisa's mom telling me that she had taken her own life and left a note saying: ``I am tired of running from Luke in my nightmares.''

Another victim years ago, and I give her example only because we need to understand that this is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. One other case. I prosecuted a case where a guy was charged with sexually assaulting an elderly woman. She came to the courthouse to testify. Sadie. I will use her first name. She was dressed in a dark gray suit, long skirt, double-breasted coat. She had on a dark gray hat and a little veil over her face.

She took the witness stand. I asked her: What happened when this perpetrator that you have identified came into your house?

She said: He committed an act worse than death.

I asked: What do you mean? What did he do? Did he assault you? What did he do?

She said: He committed an act worse than death.

Finally, she testified to the legal requirement of penetration.

To some sexual assault victims, rape is a fate worse than death. To Megan,

she got the death penalty for being a sexual assault victim. She couldn't quite handle it. Why? Because no one was there to make sure that she did handle it.

Mr. Speaker, sexual assault predators--and that is what they are. You can call it rape, you can call it sexual assault, you can call it a fate worse than death--sometimes steal the soul of the victim. That is the way the victims feel. Everything that was important to them is gone because of the perpetrator.

I think the best evidence, unfortunately, that Megan, in my opinion, was telling the truth throughout all of this was that she took her life. That is what makes this case so sad.

Sexual assault or rape, Mr. Speaker, is never the fault of the victim. Never. Never. And some folks want to look at this and say: Megan, you should have done this, you should have done that, you shouldn't have gone with him, you shouldn't have been drunk, you shouldn't have allowed him to get you intoxicated on drugs, whatever.

I think most of them do the best they can in trying to get justice.

She went to the hospital and was denied help. The sheriff's department, in her opinion, denied help. In fact, they accused her of being the perpetrator. They didn't investigate, they didn't talk to witnesses. She goes to a university that gets Federal funds trying to get help and was denied. Denied. Denied. Denied.

She leaves, she goes back to Texas, tries to enroll in another university, and before all that is completed, she takes her life.

I hope we can understand not just this case and not just Megan, but we can understand the plight and the awful things that happen to some of our young women in our country.

The same Constitution that protects defendants of crime, protects victims of crime. They are entitled to equal protection under the law. I am talking about victims of crime. If we understand that principle, we will understand justice. We will understand what we are all about; that we are in the people business. In this House of Representatives on this late Friday afternoon, we need to understand that.

Justice means different things to different folks. But justice must be balanced between the rights of the accused and the rights of the victim so that we do the right thing for the right reason in every case.

Mr. Speaker, you know this in doing investigations in your capacity before, and I want to reiterate this. Sometimes victims just never get over it. They just never do. We should be there with them. I am talking about the community should be there with them and at least hear them out and make a rational and just decision, regardless of who the offender is: poor, rich, famous, somebody in the community, big contributor, whatever; and no matter who the victim is, same background: poor, rich, famous. That should go away in determining justice. Otherwise, we don't have justice for all. We only have justice for a few.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time, I appreciate the patience of the House of Representatives when I wanted to talk today about Megan Rondini. This case bothers me as a father of four kids, three of them girls; twelve grandchildren, eight of them girls. It bothers me as a Member of the House of Representatives and as a former person who worked at the courthouse for over 30 years.

I hope it bothers the House of Representatives so we move forward with trying to get help for folks like this, that we pass legislation that requires a safe officer at hospitals, that we pass legislation as a House resolution that it is a sense of Congress that all universities have on campus a sexual assault victim's advocate or coordinator, as the law says.

I thank Carolyn Maloney from New York and Terri Sewell from Alabama, who represents this area, for cosponsoring this bill.

I ask the leadership to move this legislation forward. But let's not forget about Megan's family and Megan's case and the thing that happened to her that just can't happen anymore. Justice can be served, it shall be served, because justice is what we do, Mr. Speaker.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask how much time is left.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, Jennifer Mamola represents the very best of America. She volunteered for the Peace Corps at 26 and served in Uganda.

While there, tragically, she was hit from behind by a drunk driver, breaking both of her legs. Her life changed forever.

When she returned home to America, she faced an uphill battle to get treatment and endless bureaucracy. After 3 months, the Peace Corps stopped covering her medical costs and sent her to face the bureaucracy of the Department of Labor.

Instead of serving as a resource, the Peace Corps' postservice unit was no help at all. When she reached out asking for mental health services, they ignored her. She has undergone four surgeries and endless hours of agony.

America's angels abroad deserve better. My legislation will ensure that Peace Corps volunteers have medical care in foreign countries and in America when they return home.

I want to welcome Jennifer to the House Chamber today. Congress appreciates her service as a Peace Corps volunteer, and we must provide help for wonderful people like her.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, having lived in Texas all my life, I, like many other Texans, have been to the Texas border numerous times. I have been to the border from San Diego to Brownsville while I have been in Congress, the entire length of the border. Some things are working on the border, and one of those things that is working is a wall in the big cities.

One of my friends from El Paso likes to talk about how El Paso is the safest city in America. Well, one reason is El Paso has multiple fencing, a canal, and a river between the U.S., Texas, and Mexico.

The sheriff of El Paso told me after that fencing was created, cross- border crime is almost nonexistent. That is one reason--not the only reason--why El Paso is the safest city in America is because they have a wall, a fence, the Rio Grande River--a barrier. Let's use that term.

Sure, not everybody from Mexico is coming to commit crimes, of course not, but a wall works.

It also works where they have fencing in San Diego. It also works where they have fencing in Brownsville, Texas, between Brownsville and Mexico. It stops and reduces the cross-border individuals coming in without permission. So a partial fence will work.

This bill, let's make it clear, is not a complete border wall of the whole border. It is only 74 miles. And we need to do everything. We need to have that 74 miles. We need to have aerostats in the air. We need to have more Border Patrol on the ground. We need to have all types of technology to have a virtual wall, if you will, to protect the United States' security.

People need to come to the United States. We want people to come to the United States, but come the right way.

Lastly, as my friend from Tyler, Texas, said, the drug cartels are the major problem, and the criminal gangs, like the MS-13 gang, are the ones who come into the United States because there is no barrier to stop them.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, during the long, dark, lamentable days of World War II, Serbians and Americans forged a bond in a secret mission that remained classified for almost 60 years.

What was known as Operation Halyard became the largest rescue operation of American airmen in history. It would not have been possible without the courage of the Serbian people.

In 1944, as the Allies advanced into fortress Europe, American bombers based in southern Italy began to strike Germany's vital oil supplies in Romania. The 15th Air Force launched nearly 20,000 sorties into Eastern Europe to degrade Hitler's war machine. To do this, they had to fly over Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. As many as 1,500 pilots and airmen were shot down during these dangerous flights.

Serbians who had been resisting German forces since 1941 risked their own lives to rescue American aircrews and hide them from patrolling Nazis. One of them was Serbian George Dudich, the father of Elaine Dudich, my chief of staff when I was a judge in Texas.

For months, George Dudich and the other Serbians aided downed Americans, caring for and protecting the pilots, and then smuggling the aircrews back to Allied lines.

By August 1944, hundreds of other downed aircrews were being sheltered by the Serbian guerillas. The OSS, the predecessor to the CIA, devised a plan to evacuate the Allied pilots in a daring mission coordinated with the Serbian resistance.

On August 10, unarmed American C-47s flew numerous sorties deep into enemy territory and landed at an improvised airfield built and protected by local Serbians near the village of Pranjani. By the 18th, more than 500 Allied airmen had been secretly rescued and flown back to Italy.

Here on this poster you see the Serbian resistance, along with American aircrews that had been downed, moving them to hiding from the Nazis that were patrolling the areas. For over 60 years, this bold, unbelievable secret operation was kept classified.

Our alliance with Serbia and the Serbian people goes back even further to the First World War. One hundred years ago, Serbia stood up to the aggression from the larger Austrian-Hungarian empire. We should admire such defiance against overwhelming odds.

Serbia's stand against tyranny also set events in motion that would lead the U.S. to take up the cause of freedom in Europe in World War I. That common devotion to liberty and the spirit of the Halyard mission still lives today with the close ties between the United States and Serbia.

As was the case in both World Wars, Serbia and the United States still face shared threats. We work together now to preserve each others' security. Serbian soldiers serve along with U.S. forces in fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, and Serbia is a partner in keeping terrorism from spreading in Serbia and in Europe.

However, Russian propaganda efforts in the country are particularly strong and anti-Western. We must be vigilant to thwart the Kremlin's efforts to poison our relationship with Serbia.

Fortunately, Serbia's integration into the West has continued to move in spite of Russian disinformation. In 2006, Serbia joined NATO's Partnership for Peace and, in 2015, signed an Individual Partnership Action Plan with the alliance to strengthen cooperation.

Serbia has no stronger supporter for increased integration with the EuroAtlantic community than the United States. So for more than 100 years, we have been friends with the Serbian people. And as co-chair of the Serbian Caucus, along with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver), I want to welcome Serbian Ambassador Matkovic and his staff to the House Chamber today.

With our shared events in Operation Halyard, our combined history, and our fight for freedom, the American people are forever grateful for those Serbs who came to America's rescue during those bleak days of World War II.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, sitting a mere 20 feet away from the man that raped and trafficked her daughter, Jennifer waited anxiously in the courtroom as the judge prepared to announce the sentence.

The amount of pain and turmoil this criminal inflicted on her family could never be undone.

A few years ago, this man pulled up alongside Jennifer's daughter as she walked down the street. He lured the 15-year-old into his car, and he sexually assaulted her. He then took her to a motel and began forcing her to have sex with numerous men for money. He posted an ad about her online offering buyers a chance to ``play with innocence.'' He literally stole her youth, her happiness, and he sold her to the highest bidder.

When Jennifer finally heard the judge's sentence, she wept with tears of joy--180 years in prison for the trafficker, from the right-thinking judge.

Let the word get out to deviants and traffickers and buyers: Our children are not for sale. There is a price to pay for the trafficker who sells our kids.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I want to thank him and the ranking member for moving this legislation forward.

Mr. Speaker, Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the whole world. Out of 195 countries, they are the worst country in the world when it comes to exporting terrorism.

The mullahs in Tehran not only support worldwide terrorist groups, terrorist groups that have American blood on their hands, they resort to terrorist tactics to extort and blackmail the American people.

For decades, Iran has held American citizens in prisons unlawfully. They detain these Americans under the charge of espionage. We all know that this is just a ploy to extract concessions from the United States.

Earlier this month, we learned that Iran threw another American citizen in jail last year. This time it was a Princeton Ph.D. student conducting research in Iran for his dissertation. This student is now being held in Iran's most notorious prison, Evin Prison. If anyone thought that Iran was going to moderate as a result of the nuclear deal, these ongoing unlawful detentions are evidence to the contrary.

Iran has been emboldened, and there is no indication they will stop this tactic of terror. We need to get the attention of the barbaric mullahs that seem to take delight in imprisoning Americans and even Iranian citizens for political reasons.

We know at least eight Americans currently languish in Iranian jails. Iran is not content with just holding these Americans. They are actively working to extract payments and concessions from the United States, like sanctions relief, as a condition for their release. This is old-fashioned textbook extortion.

This resolution will send a clear message to the mullahs: Release the Americans and return them to their homes. Let the American hostages go.

I was glad to see the new sanctions imposed by the Treasury in April on the Tehran Prisons Organization. More pressure is needed by our country.

I urge the administration to spare no effort to secure the release of American hostages. These hostages have been held by Iran too long, and Iran has proven that they do not respond very well to carrots. Since we gave away the courthouse and the mineral rights in the Iranian deal, maybe it is time we pull out the stick. As Teddy Roosevelt said: ``Speak softly, and carry a big stick.''

And that is just the way it is.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for filing this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the VA has been using taxpayer dollars to have experiments on dogs. It is hard to believe that would occur in our culture today.

I have had three Dalmatians over the years, and I know there are a lot of other people who have dogs. They have service dogs that are used by our vets and our agencies. And the thought that our Veterans Administration would go ahead and torture dogs in the name of science and experiments is not acceptable; it is just not.

If citizens committed these acts that the VA is committing on dogs, under most laws, that would be animal cruelty. They could be prosecuted and go to jail. But because it is the VA, because it is a government agency, that doesn't apply.

But we do want the agency to stop torturing dogs in the name of science. There are better ways that they can spend the money, better ways they can figure out how to help our veterans besides taking careless actions against, as my friend from Virginia said, man's best friend. And if it's going to be man's best friend, maybe we shouldn't be, or we should not be torturing those dogs for any reason. So I support the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, and I also thank the ranking member for their work on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken to our military leaders, and they said that the biggest threat to the United States is North Korea. Strategic patience is over. It is time for strategic sanctions. This bill will go a long way to tighten the screws on little Kim and bring the dictator to his knees. We can no longer stand by meekly while North Korea terrorizes the world.

This bill includes my bill that has already passed the House that calls on the State Department to reassess if North Korea should be on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Let us not forget that North Korea helped supply Syria with chemical weapons. It has given Iran ballistic missiles and advice on how to develop its own nukes.

North Korea and Iran's evil cooperation is even going on as we speak today. They are now working together to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach American shores.

This bill also puts China in the crosshairs. Chinese banks have enabled the Korean regime to avoid sanctions and build its illegal weapons programs. China even provided the vehicle used to launch North Korea's new ICBM.

China also uses slave labor from North Korea to help North Korea avoid sanctions already in place. China needs to understand how its support for Kim will not only endanger the United States and South Korea, but it also endangers its own security.

Mr. Speaker, by targeting these rogue nations, we show we will not go away quietly in the darkness of silence.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, last Friday night, an Israeli family sat down for Shabbat dinner to celebrate the birth of a new grandchild, but a 19-year-old Palestinian terrorist put an end to this joyous occasion.

The terrorist brutally attacked the Salomon family with a large knife. Pictures of the family's home show a white floor stained red with the blood of the innocents.

A father and two of his children were murdered that night. Upon learning of the tragic event, Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets to sing, dance, and celebrate. No Palestinian leader has even condemned this grizzly attack.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, this is our U.S. tax dollars at work. The millions the United States sends to the Palestinians are funneled to terrorists and their families through the so-called martyrs fund. The leaders we prop up glorify terrorists and incite violence.

The American people refuse to continue this insanity. We refuse to continue enabling terror against the Israeli people.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, Saudi Arabia is a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism. Many of the same terrorist organizations that threaten the United States also desire to overthrow the Saudi government and break our partnership.

It's a key member of the coalition to fight ISIS, with its pilots flying alongside Americans since day one of the campaign in Syria. Last year, Riyadh adopted strict laws prohibiting fundraising for terrorism, jointly designating support networks for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Saudi intelligence has assisted in preventing terrorist plots targeting the U.S. In 2010 Saudi assistance helped foil an attempt by al-Qaeda to conceal bombs on a cargo plane en route to the United States. The Saudis are also battling Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. These rebels not only threaten the Kingdom but also targeted our own warships and destabilize the Red Sea trade routes.

The current diplomatic standoff between Saudi Arabia and Qatar demonstrates that Riyadh is willing to take a stand against state sponsorship of terrorism in the region. This is all encouraging. However, the Saudis still have much more they need to do at home to counter the sources of extremism in the region.

The battle against terrorism will uitimately have to be fought and won on the battlefield of ideas. Saudi Arabia has simply not done enough to defeat extremist ideology. The Kingdom is playing the role of both arsonist and firefighter when it comes to Islamic extremism.

Nowhere is this more evident than the textbooks Saudi Arabia produces to teach its youth. For far too long Saudi Arabia's education curriculum has inspired the very ideology that is at the root of many terrorist organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda.

Saudi textbooks are full of anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories, and calls to violence that have incited students both at home and across the world. This poisonous ideology has provided the groundwork for generations of radicalization and extremism.

In fact, ISIS adopted official Saudi textbooks for its schools in 2015 until the terrorist group could publish its own. Moreover, its export of hateful material through Saudi-funded schools abroad has helped spread the toxic ideology to more tolerant and open Muslim communities in countries such as Kosovo and Indonesia.

While the Kingdom has repeatedly pledged to remove extremist content from its curriculum, troubling language remains in many of the most recent editions of Saudi textbooks. In 2006 the Saudis committed to eliminate all passages that promoted hatred towards any religion by 2008.

Yet even today textbooks include content that discourages befriending ``infidels,'' claims the goal of Zionism is world domination, and encourages ``fighting'' any polytheist or infidel who refuses to submit to the supremacy oflslarn. This intolerance is unacceptable and directly contributes to the widespread persecution of religion minorities that plagues the Middle East.

Another passage in a current Saudi textbook for middle school students states that ``the mujahideen who are doing good deeds for the sake of Allah . . . should be given transportation, weapons, food and anything else they may need to continue their jihad.'' Messages such as this undermine the Saudis own counterterrorism efforts.

By indoctrinating children into the belief that people of other faiths are inferior or are a threat to Islam, Saudi Arabia is ensuring future generations of extremists that will join the ranks of terrorist groups. This is not to ignore that some positive steps have been taken. In recent years the Kingdom has introduced passages that denounce terrorism and encourage dialogue with other faiths.

But these steps only send mixed messages to easily influenced young minds so long as the more extreme messages remain. The State Department and previous administrations have also failed to hold their Saudi counterparts to past pledges.

The State Department has even refused to publish reports that shed light ori these troubling textbooks for fear of embarrassing our Saudi partners. While we appreciate Riyadh's contribution to our overall counterterrorism efforts in the region, we must hold them accountable for their role in fueling the very extremism we are trying to combat. It is in both our countries' interest.

In the fight against terrorism, we all need to be on the same page.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, today I was joined by some Members of Congress, along with other Americans, in taking a stand for the First Amendment right of freedom of expression.

We stood across the street from the Turkish Embassy, where, a few weeks ago, Turkish President Erdogan was visiting. But while a peaceful protest was taking place in May, Dictator Erdogan's security detail crossed the street and assaulted and beat up U.S. citizens protesting the rogue regime.

People were injured. The outlaws escaped arrest and fled to Turkey. No apology was issued by the Turks, but, rather, the government justified the assault on Americans. Erdogan should not be welcome back into the United States until he apologizes. Also, the culprits must face justice in American courts.

The First Amendment right of freedom of expression is the First Amendment because it is the most important of all of our rights. No foreign tyrant can assault the First Amendment or assault Americans without consequences. This should never occur on our soil.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, a new soccer stadium in St. Petersburg, a luxury apartment complex in Moscow, all brought to Russia by North Korean slaves. That is right. These slaves get almost no wages, no holidays, with little food or sleep.

Little Kim not only enslaves his own people at home, he runs an international slave trade. The slave network brings in $2 billion to $3 billion every year to the North Korean military complex and helps little Kim evade sanctions. This is state-sponsored human trafficking and slavery.

The slaves are not just sent to Russia. It is troublemakers like China and Qatar, too, that are slave destinations.

Secretary Tillerson has called upon all countries to fully implement U.N. Security Council resolutions to sever or downgrade diplomatic relations with North Korea in order to financially isolate that country. It is time these countries comply with the United Nations resolutions, and we must send a united message to North Korea: End your slave trade and stop the saber rattling.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Chair, I thank Chairman Thornberry for yielding time.

Mr. Chair, Pakistan has been supporting all kinds of terrorist groups for years, including those with American blood on their hands. But instead of penalizing Pakistan, the government has been rewarding them with hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid. Some of that money goes to support terrorists.

Previously, we placed conditions on military aid to Pakistan, but these conditions are only focused on Pakistan cracking down on one terrorist group, the Haqqani Network. Meanwhile, Pakistan is aiding and abetting a long list of terrorists in the region, including the Taliban in Afghanistan.

My amendment No. 100 places a new condition on any aid to Pakistan. The condition requires the administration to certify that Pakistan is not providing military, financial, or logistical support to any terrorists operating in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

This forces Pakistan to make a long overdue choice: either go after terrorists or lose millions of dollars of American aid.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, the United States is finally holding China accountable for its longstanding human trafficking abuses.

In the State Department's 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report, China was downgraded to the worst level: tier 3.

This means that, in the past year, the Chinese have done little to nothing to end human trafficking, which is nothing more than modern-day slavery in this communist nation.

China's crimes include state-sponsored forced labor, sex trafficking, and trafficking of children, men, and women from other countries.

This puts China alongside some of the world's worst offenders of human rights: Russia, Syria, and Iran.

It illegally detains and tortures its own people, as well as U.S. citizens that are there. It also restricts the fundamental human right to free speech and freedom of religion.

China is allowing labor and sex trafficking to flourish in its borders. Now the entire world knows what has been taking place behind their great wall of brutality: abuse.

And that is just the way it is.