Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. We have used a lot of analogies here to describe what is happening, and, of course, I have one, too, and that is that we are looking at a patient that is the United States of America, and…
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
We have used a lot of analogies here to describe what is happening, and, of course, I have one, too, and that is that we are looking at a patient that is the United States of America, and we are hemorrhaging at our borders. When that occurs, you first do something to stop the hemorrhaging. You may want to think about how you may treat the patient subsequent to that, but you stop the hemorrhaging, and this is what we are trying to do on the border. That is the first way of addressing this horrible problem that we have got.
It is important for us to do this and important for us to keep reminding the American people that there are things that can be done, that should be done by the Federal Government in order to try and protect them and do what we should be doing to live up to our responsibilities under the Constitution.
One of the bills today is of particular interest to me. It is the State and Local Law Enforcement Cooperation Act, and it talks about what we need to do and the authority of the State and local law enforcement to voluntarily investigate, identify, apprehend, arrest, detain, and transfer to Federal
custody aliens in the U.S. in order to assist in the enforcement of the immigration laws.
Let me tell you how important this. Just yesterday it was reported in Colorado, another event of one of hundreds that are around the country of a similar nature, where someone who was in the country illegally comes in contact with the local police. In this case, he was driving a car that had a warrant out for it across the country. He was driving without a license. He was driving with a forged identifier, something that was observable to the policeman, who said he saw that the picture had been cut out. That happened in early April. He was taken in and let go. No contact was made with ICE whatsoever.
Just a few days ago he dragged another person, we are not even sure who this other person is because there is not much left of the body, but dragged her behind a truck until she was dismembered.
Now, if the everybody had done their job there, including the Federal Government, and the job had been done at the local level, this gentleman would have been off of the streets. If it was done at the Federal level, he would have never gotten into the country. If the local police had been able to do their job, except for their sanctuary city provisions that stop them, he would have been off the streets in April and would not have been able to commit this horrible crime.
But all these things are happening. They happen on a daily basis. We need to engage the local communities in this effort to help us, and the Federal Government must take on the responsibility here to secure our borders. It is our true and one single responsibility.
I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.