[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 30, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H7051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Costa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the importance of 
comprehensive immigration reform and the growing humanitarian crisis we 
are facing at our southern border.
  It is the job of the Congress to face and resolve challenging issues 
like our broken immigration system. We ought to pass the bipartisan 
Senate bill that would provide commonsense solutions to address not 
only reforming our immigration system, but to deal with this immediate 
humanitarian crisis at our border.
  Instead, the Republican House leadership refuses to allow a vote on 
comprehensive reform and has come up, instead, with a plan that would 
change the law passed in 2008 to combat human trafficking. In addition, 
this partisan bill will provide limited funding for this fiscal year.
  Again, House leadership plans to pass a short-term fix, so that they 
can go back to their districts next month and say: well, we tried to 
fix this crisis that we are facing.
  This is not how we should be solving our Nation's problems. Each day 
that our immigration system remains broken, jobs are lost, and our 
economy suffers. It is time to set politics aside and focus on fixing 
our current immigration system. In fact, failure to address reform is 
making it more difficult to deal with the thousands of unaccompanied 
children arriving at our southern border in hopes of finding safety.
  The humanitarian crisis that we are facing is in part a result of the 
increasing turmoil in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, where drug 
trafficking, human trafficking, and violence is rampant. Families have 
been tortured and killed, and today, there are people who are literally 
running for their lives.
  Atrocities are being committed in those countries, and they must bear 
the responsibility of addressing and resolving their issues. Mexico 
also has a role to play.
  We in the United States must now face the humanitarian crisis this 
violence is causing at our southern border. In a joint statement, 
President Obama, along with Presidents from El Salvador, Guatemala, and 
Honduras, pledged to reduce criminal activity in Central American 
countries by promoting greater social and economic opportunity.
  It is my hope that these leaders stay true to their word and 
demonstrate leadership by addressing the humanitarian crisis taking 
place within their own countries.
  These young unaccompanied children must be treated in a humane and 
dignified way. Ultimately, these children's fate rests in the hands of 
our immigration judges, and those children who are not granted asylum 
must return to their countries. Playing politics with this grave 
crisis, as some are doing, is not productive.
  It is the height of hypocrisy that Republicans want more border 
security, but have refused to allow a vote on a comprehensive 
immigration reform bill that would in fact provide more funding to 
secure our borders. That makes no sense. We have spent billions of 
dollars on border security, but clearly, our border is not yet secure.
  The comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by the Senate in a 
bipartisan fashion requires that a long-term plan be developed and 
executed with an initial $8.3 billion in funding to focus on securing 
the borders today and an additional $6.5 billion in funding to be spent 
over the next 6 years to in fact secure our border.
  What we need now, more than ever, is an open and honest discussion on 
the House floor about the relationship between immigration reform and 
this humanitarian crisis. Therefore, I urge my Republican colleagues to 
join together, in a bipartisan fashion, like they did in the Senate, to 
find an effective and humane short- and long-term solution to this 
crisis, which is directly related, in my opinion, to fixing our broken 
immigration system.

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