Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, November 6, El Paso lost a beautiful soul, the beloved Judy Ackerman, who had been battling cancer since 2015.

A veteran who served our country, a conservationist who loved the outdoors and the Chihuahuan Desert, she was always ready for a hike. She was a relentless activist who was never seen without a petition in hand fighting for the integrity of our natural spaces and our beautiful community on the border. Judy's legacy is one that El Pasoans will never forget.

Judy dedicated 20 years of her life to the preservation of the Castner Range in El Paso, and her advocacy has brought us closer than ever to protecting this crown jewel of west Texas.

Today, we honor her service to our country, to conservation, and to El Paso.

Thank you for being my friend and thank you for being the best friend our community could ever have. You will never be forgotten.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to recognize October 15, 2022, as National White Cane Safety Day.

White Cane Safety Day is observed every year to celebrate the accomplishments of people who are blind or visually impaired. The white cane carries special significance because it is a tool that helps visually impaired people be independent. To celebrate this year, the El Paso Council of the Blind is partnering with the El Paso Community College, Center for Students with Disabilities and Diversity and Inclusion Programs to host a community-wide event to bring awareness about issues that blind and visually impaired people have learned to conquer.

The El Paso Council of the Blind has been active in our community for nearly ten years and has welcomed hundreds of members over that time. They provide essential programs like peer support for persons with vision loss and their families, Braille for Badges, sensitivity training for paratransit drivers, guide dog meet and greet sessions, and assistance to older individuals who are blind or visually impaired. They also fight to protect the right to voting privacy and accessibility, and they advocate for the expansion of much-needed training resources in Texas and El Paso.

I am grateful to the El Paso Council of the Blind and our community partners for gathering on this day to raise our consciousness to the plight of the blind and visually impaired and for their tireless work to help those who carry a white cane lead their lives with independence, dignity, and hope.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to recognize the week of September 26-30, 2022, as National GEAR UP Week at Ysleta Independent School District in El Paso, Texas.

Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) is a federally-funded grant program designed to prepare first-generation and low-income students

to be college-ready and have the resources to successfully complete their post-secondary education.

In El Paso, the GEAR UP-Proyecto to M.A.S. (Motivating Aspiring Scholars) is a partnership between the Ysleta Independent School District and the University of Texas at El Paso. The program currently serves 3,400 students through tutoring, mentoring, financial education, and college visits to ensure readiness and awareness of higher education opportunities.

As a former educator myself, I know that programs like GEAR UP are essential to communities like mine where over 80% of our population is Latino. Many of our students come from families where they will be the first in their family to go to college. I am so proud of the tremendous impact GEAR UP makes in the lives of young El Pasoans through its tools made available to our communities.

I am grateful to the educators and families who work tirelessly to support our youth, I applaud all the students who have immersed themselves in this program and express my best wishes and hopes for their success.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Bowie High School's Centennial Celebration.

On September 7, 2022, Bowie High School will celebrate its 100-year anniversary. Bowie High School was founded in 1922 and is one of El Paso's oldest schools. Situated within 100 yards of the United States- Mexico border, Bowie High School encapsulates our city's history of integrated cultures between El Paso and our sister city, Ciudad Juarez.

Over the last century, this beloved El Paso institution has been central to the education of South side, mostly Mexican-American families who live at our Nation's front door. The school and its students have seen many hardships, including persecution and racial discrimination, but Bowie High School has built a strong and resilient community that has always persevered.

Today, it continues to stand as a high school powerhouse of spirit and pride that has produced decades of distinguished alumni who have transformed our borderland. I am grateful for the commitment of all the administrative staff and teachers to educate every student who has attended this historic institution.

I commend Bowie High School's 100 years of loyalty, tradition, and service to generations of El Pasoans who call themselves proud Bowie Bears.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the assault weapons ban which will save lives.

Mr. Speaker, El Paso is coming up on a terrible anniversary. On August 3, 2019, my district was the site of the deadliest targeted attack on Latinos in modern history. Three years later, my constituents are still recovering from their injuries.

Because Republicans have decided that unfettered access to assault weapons is worth the routine slaughter of Americans, the domestic terrorist who attacked my community was able to do so with a legally purchased assault weapon.

What was once an unthinkable tragedy--the mass carnage we saw in El Paso--is now commonplace across America. Americans are fed up, and so am I.

Republicans have done nothing meaningful and hide behind thoughts and prayers--a phrase so empty and devoid of action that Congress is routinely and deservedly mocked for it.

So, Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to act. I am proud to vote on the assault weapon ban for El Paso, for Uvalde, and for countless other communities, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, once again, we have gotten a glimpse into the dark future Republicans have in store for Americans unless we stop them.

The Republican-controlled Supreme Court hasn't just stripped women of the right to determine their own future by overturning Roe v. Wade, but Justice Clarence Thomas has invited attacks on access to contraceptives, private intimacy between adults, and marriage equality.

Last week, our House Democratic majority voted to codify Roe v. Wade, and this week, the House Democratic majority is here to defend your right to marry who you love. I rise in strong and urgent support of the Respect for Marriage Act.

Republicans are intent on turning back the clock to create a group of second-class citizens with limited rights. When they say they want to send these issues back to the States, that is code for wanting to ensure that State legislative bodies can eradicate civil rights protections.

If you think your hard-earned rights are protected, think again, because Republicans are coming for you. Democrats, however, are with you.

To the American public, take note of our votes, and who is with you and who is not.

Madam Speaker, it has been 22 days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, taking away women's ability to make choices about their own future, setting us back nearly 50 years. But even that is not enough for Republicans.

In the last 24 hours alone, we have gotten a glimpse into the dark future Republicans have in store for women, doctors, and vulnerable children:

The Indiana attorney general says he is investigating the doctor who treated a 10-year-old rape victim.

Texas sues the Biden administration for requiring abortions in medical emergencies so that women's lives could be saved.

And the National Right to Life official who said the 10-year-old should have had her baby.

Yes, according to Republicans, even a little girl impregnated by a brutal rape should be denied an abortion and have to endure a government-mandated birth.

Remember, this is the same party that has voted against:

Paid family and medical leave for parents of that baby.

Childcare for babies.

Universal pre-K for babies.

The Child Tax Credit, which helps babies.

School lunch programs that help babies.

Commonsense gun violence prevention measures that keep those babies safe in school, and much more.

The Republicans' war on women has never been more dangerous. Today, we will vote on the Women's Health Protection Act to ensure that women across this country have access to abortion and the freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies and their futures.

America, Democrats have your back.

Mr. Speaker, as the vice chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel, and representing Fort Bliss in my home district of El Paso, Texas, I am proud to speak in support of this bill, which passed out of our committee with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The bill supports a military basic pay raise of 4.6 percent and includes a targeted bonus to address the challenges of inflation. It provides additional resources to decrease out-of-pocket costs for housing and for our commissaries so they can keep their prices low.

It mitigates the tragedy of suicide by supporting an increase in the number of behavioral health providers to ensure access to care for those who need it most. And, given concerns about the increasing number of vacancies of military and civilian providers across the Military Health System, this bill prohibits the Department from realigning or reducing military medical end strength until additional analysis on the impacts is complete.

We also built on last year's historic reforms to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, ensuring our criminal litigators are getting the best training, resources, and experience possible to support our troops.

We are also taking care of our military children. In 2021, more than 20,000 children of servicemembers who had immediate need for childcare were stuck on waitlists. In order to address the root causes, we are requiring the Department of Defense to complete a study on adequate pay for military childcare center employees.

To better support families with special needs, the bill establishes a grant program to help them navigate school districts after every move and ensures children with disabilities receive appropriate and high- quality educational services.

Together, servicemembers and their families make countless sacrifices for our Nation, which is why we must continue our commitment to them.

I am grateful to Chairwoman Jackie Speier for her leadership, and I am grateful to the ranking member and proud of the contributions our subcommittee made to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this bill would make a tremendous difference in the lives of our military families, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask for support for my amendment to allow servicemembers to get their chains of command to process their complaints of harassment and prohibited discrimination in a timely manner.

My amendment does not grant servicemembers any new rights or expand existing ones, nor does it allow them to sue the Department of Defense. It simply gives them the leverage to hold their chains of command to their own timeline for processing complaints that have been filed.

Our servicemembers put their lives on the line protecting our country every day. They make the ultimate sacrifice to serve our country in ways that many cannot.

When they file complaints alleging serious harassment and discrimination they have experienced while serving, they deserve to be heard and to receive timely responses.

Data shows that civilian military employees file far more discrimination and harassment complaints than servicemembers do, despite having a smaller workforce than our servicemembers.

This is because our servicemembers lack many of the protections and privileges that their civilian counterparts have when it comes to discrimination and harassment, including this one.

While this benefits all servicemembers, my amendment would be especially significant for women and minorities serving in the Armed Forces.

Data from one Pentagon survey showed nearly a third of Black servicemembers and a significant percentage of Asian and Hispanic servicemembers experience racial harassment, discrimination, or both during service.

This is talent we need to work to retain, and my amendment would help with that. Our servicemembers deserve meaningful and robust policies that ensure their complaints are processed expeditiously and with the utmost urgency.

My amendment respects the separate internal administrative systems the services have for processing complaints. It simply creates a time limit to ensure they are processed within a reasonable timeframe that is respectful of the servicemembers and their experiences.

Simply put, it ensures that after 180 days, if a servicemember's complaint remains unresolved, the servicemember can request a court order that would then direct the department to act on the case expeditiously.

Absent this amendment, servicemembers routinely wait months and months, and sometimes even years, for their complaints to be resolved, with no ability to urge the services to act on their complaints.

This amendment brings an added level of urgency into internal administrative processes.

My amendment would empower our servicemembers and bolster confidence in the systems in place.

By passing this amendment, we are thereby extending protections civilians already enjoy onto our servicemembers, whose battles should be fought on the battlefield, not within the ranks.

Mr. Speaker, I have tremendous respect for the ranking member and the work that he has done on our great committee.

I do want to emphasize that servicemembers would not be allowed to sue the Department of Defense. In fact, in many of these cases what happens is the cases are resolved by policy or should be resolved by policy within about 60 days, so this actually gives the service lines added time to resolve these cases.

This is for those egregious examples--and I have spoken with servicemembers who have had to live with these egregious examples--of lack of a true effort to resolve these harassment and discrimination claims. So this would be a last resort that would simply have a court urge the service line to complete the investigation of harassment or discrimination.

We are currently experiencing a challenge in recruitment. We want to retain this talent, and we want to demonstrate to our servicemembers that they matter, all of them, and that we will ensure that they have access to a free and fair process.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Monsignor Arturo Jose Banuelas' life work in the Catholic Church as he retires from full-time ministry.

Monsignor Banuelas is a native of El Paso, TX and Pecos, AZ. His 46 years of service have truly been centered in assisting the community's sick, hungry, and unemployed. During his tenure as pastor at Saint Pius X Church, the parish has received national distinction as one of the best parishes in America. He also significantly grew the parish's ministries and outreach programs in Saint Mark and assisted in the development of the new San Pedro de Jesus Maldonado Church. Monsignor Banuelas' pastoral leadership has taken him execute missionary initiatives in Chihuahua, Mexico, Honduras, China, Cuba, and Kenya.

He is a venerated faith leader always working for the betterment of his community. He founded numerous theological initiatives such as the Tepeyac Institute, a diocesan ministry formation center, the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States and the El Paso Interfaith Alliance. His work is also grounded in social justice to advocate for the neediest. He founded the Hope Border Institute--a pillar in the El Paso and Ciudad Juarez region for the immigrant rights movement.

Monsignor Banuelas is the embodiment of a community leader devoted to the service to the people of El Paso. May he continue to live out his commitment to his faith and community in retirement.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United States Sergeants Major Academy.

Fort Bliss is the home to the Sergeants Major Academy that trains our military leaders to address our country's challenges. Since 1972, the academy has expanded students' strategic level of thinking to become capable to address large-scale combat operations.

At the end of the academy, leaders leave as agile, adaptive senior leaders with the character, competence, and commitment to be effective leaders.

I am proud that my office's veterans' caseworker, Sergeant Major Benito Torres, graduated from the academy in 2009.

I commend the continuous education that the academy provides and their dedication for our military to be ready for future challenges. Please join me in recognizing the accomplishments of the last 50 years of the United States Sergeants Major Academy and wish them continued growth and success.

Madam Speaker, it is incredible to stand here and listen to our Republican colleagues talk about the risks and the dangers that exist to the Supreme Court.

I want to know where they were when the risks and the dangers existed for my community, El Paso, Texas, where 23 innocent people were slaughtered by a white supremacist with an AK-47? Where were they then? How about Uvalde? Where were they then? How about every other mass shooting? Buffalo? You name it.

Last week, we brought to the floor legislation intended to protect millions of Americans, especially and including children. The vast majority of our Republican colleagues voted against those protections for vulnerable people who don't have access to 24-hour, round-the-clock U.S. Marshal protection. They don't have access to round-the-clock, 24/ 7 Capitol Police protection, which Supreme Court Justices have today. Supreme Court Justices have far more protections than Members of Congress do, but more importantly they have more than those innocent lives that were taken in innumerable cities across America.

And as they rail about and clutch their pearls over the fact that it took House Democrats some time to get this bill to the floor, the reason it took that much time is because it was House Democrats that at least wanted to get one itty-bitty concession out of this bill to protect the staff of that institution, the United States Supreme Court. But they refused.

Madam Speaker, I remind the American public why they brought this bill to the floor, both in the Senate and here; it is a talking point. It is not because it really does anything, it is simply a talking point. It came as a result of a leaked decision on the Justices' desire to take away women's reproductive care.

Guess who else doesn't get protections in America the way that they would like to protect others? It is those healthcare providers and patients and staff who are vulnerable every day, especially because of the actions of the Supreme Court.

Madam Speaker, on August 3, 2019, in El Paso, a white supremacist massacred 23 innocent people at Walmart. Our red flag bill might have saved them.

On August 31, 2019, eight people were killed in Midland-Odessa by a man who failed his background check and purchased a gun through a private sale. Our bill on private firearm sales might have saved them.

On May 18, 2018, at Santa Fe High School, a 17-year-old used his father's gun to kill 10 people. Our safe storage bill might have saved them.

In Uvalde, parents are burying their babies today after an 18-year- old purchased an AR-15-style rifle and slaughtered 21 individuals. Our bill raising the age to 21 might have saved them.

These are just the recent Texas mass shootings.

It is not the teachers, the schools, or the doors. It is the guns.

We can't save every life, but my God, shouldn't we try?

We hear Americans, and today in the House, we are taking the action you are demanding. Take note of who is with you and who is not. I am proud to remain El Paso Strong.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 350, the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act.

Here we are again, reeling from another horrific domestic terrorist attack. This week a racially motivated

shooting in Buffalo, New York, perpetrated by an avowed white supremacist.

In 2018, it was the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. In April of 2019, it was a synagogue in Poway, California. On August 3, 2019, it was my community of El Paso, Texas.

After every attack on minority communities by radicalized and heavily armed young men who have embraced white supremacy, our media and even some of our colleagues, leaders in this country, refuse to call this violence what it is: domestic terrorism.

H.R. 350 calls on the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to dedicate resources specifically to track and combat the growing threat of white supremacy and neo-Nazism in the United States.

H.R. 350 will give communities like mine a fighting chance the next time an angry racist shares a deranged screed online and decides to drive hours to attack vulnerable and innocent people at our grocery stores or our houses of worship.

The Anti-Defamation League has tracked 450 murders over the last decade committed by these terrorists. Rightwing extremists are responsible for over 75 percent of these horrific attacks, and 50 percent of these horrific attacks are by white supremacists.

Mr. Speaker, America has a racism problem. America has a hate problem. America has a domestic terrorism problem. We must address it. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act is a crucial step in the right direction.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate National Infertility Awareness Week to salute the parents, doctors, researchers, and others for the extraordinary progress made over the last four decades to help individuals have families who without this progress could not. National Infertility Awareness Week, founded in 1989 by RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association is the largest public awareness campaign that addresses the public health issue of infertility.

Most Americans are not aware that one in eight, or nearly 7.4 million Americans are impacted by the disease of Infertility. The disease affects both men and women and it knows no barriers--it affects individuals of all races, religious backgrounds, and economic statuses.

Since 1978, as a result of extraordinary medical advancements, millions of couples have been able to receive life-affirming treatments to become pregnant. While for most of us having a child is taken for granted it is a painful and devastating struggle for millions of couples throughout the world.

Research scientists have been making significant advancement of Infertility treatments including a procedure that allows young cancer patients to preserve their fertility prior to undergoing lifesaving chemotherapy treatments are incredible. Organizations like RESOLVE, the Military Family Building Coalition, the National Infertility Association, and the Alliance for Fertility Preservation advocate for the millions of individuals and couples in this country who need help to have a family. Ms. Barb Collura, the CEO of RESOLVE, has testified before Congress in support of fertility services for the countless military veterans whose service-related injuries have rendered them infertile. There are also others such as Joyce Reinecke, Executive Director of Alliance for Fertility Preservation and cancer survivor, who has lent her voice on the importance of affordable fertility preservation options for individuals undergoing cancer treatment. As a matter of fact, in the absence of coverage, charitable organizations providing valuable, life-changing, financial assistance the option of having children after surviving cancer might not otherwise be available.

Congress can do more to remove many of the barriers that currently exist for those who experience infertility challenges but want to have a child. And I applaud my colleagues including Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, Congresswoman Brownley, Congresswoman DeLauro, Congresswoman Strickland, and Congressman Rick Larsen for introducing legislation devoted to eliminating obstacles to building families. I also salute the millions of infertility warriors throughout the country and the world, who advocate on behalf of that most precious of gifts, that of family.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the participation of the El Paso Juvenile Justice Center in this year's Global Youth Service Day.

The El Paso Juvenile Center has dedicated the month of April 2022 to engage and educate local youth to speak out against violence in our El Paso community. Through events with stakeholders, leaders, and community members, our young people are creating solutions on how to prevent hate crimes and violence using art. They are concluding the month with paying tribute at the El Paso Healing Garden to the 23 victims who lost their life and the 22 injured victims of the horrific Walmart shooting of 2019.

I praise the work that the Juvenile Justice Center is doing to help our young people

thrive and be active community members. Our young people of today will be our leaders of tomorrow and they will be equipped to solve problems our community faces.