[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 122 (Thursday, July 31, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H7133-H7149]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5230, SECURE THE SOUTHWEST BORDER 
  ACT OF 2014; PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5272, PROHIBITIONS 
RELATING TO DEFERRED ACTION FOR ALIENS; AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION 
   OF THE SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 5021, HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION 
              FUNDING ACT OF 2014; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call 
up House Resolution 696 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 696

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 5230) making 
     supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending 
     September 30, 2014, and for other purposes. All points of 
     order against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill 
     shall be considered as read. All points of order against 
     provisions in the bill are waived. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on any 
     amendment thereto to final passage without intervening motion 
     except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled 
     by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Appropriations; and (2) one motion to recommit.
       Sec. 2.  After passage of H.R. 5230, and on the legislative 
     day of July 31, 2014, the House shall consider in the House 
     the bill (H.R. 5272) to prohibit certain actions with respect 
     to deferred action for aliens not lawfully present in the 
     United States, and for other purposes. All points of order 
     against consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall 
     be considered as read. All points of order against provisions 
     in the bill are waived. The previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment 
     thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: 
     (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the 
     Judiciary; and (2) one motion to recommit.
       Sec. 3.  Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in 
     order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 5021) 
     to provide an extension of Federal-aid highway, highway 
     safety, motor carrier safety, transit, and other programs 
     funded out of the Highway Trust Fund, and for other purposes, 
     with the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the 
     House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion 
     offered by the chair of the Committee on Transportation and 
     Infrastructure or his designee that the House disagree to the 
     Senate amendment. The Senate amendment and the motion shall 
     be considered as read. The previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the motion to its adoption without 
     intervening motion except one hour of debate equally divided 
     and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of 
     the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
       Sec. 4.  Any motion pursuant to clause 4 of rule XXII 
     relating to H.R. 5021 may be offered only by the Majority 
     Leader or his designee.
       Sec. 5.  It shall be in order at any time on the 
     legislative day of July 31, 2014, for the Speaker to 
     entertain motions that the House suspend the rules as though 
     under clause 1 of rule XV. The Speaker or his designee shall 
     consult with the Minority Leader or her designee on the 
     designation of any matter for consideration pursuant to this 
     section.
       Sec. 6.  The requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII for a 
     two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee on 
     Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is waived 
     with respect to any resolution reported through the 
     legislative day of July 31, 2014.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oklahoma is recognized 
for 1 hour.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Oklahoma?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and 
reported a rule for consideration of three measures: H.R. 5230, the 
supplemental appropriations bill to deal with the influx of 
unaccompanied minors across the southern border; H.R. 5272, a bill that 
would prevent the administration from expanding the use of deferred 
action for individuals who are not legally present in the United 
States; and the Senate amendment to H.R. 5021, the Highway and 
Transportation Funding Act of 2014.
  The resolution provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 5230, 
the supplemental appropriations bill. This is consistent with the way 
all seven supplemental appropriations acts considered in the 110th and 
111th Congresses were treated when my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle were in the majority. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate, 
equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of 
the Committee on Appropriations, and provides for one motion to 
recommit.
  In addition, the resolution also provides that after the passage of 
H.R. 5230, that it be in order to consider H.R. 5272, a bill that would 
prevent the administration from expanding the use of deferred action 
for individuals who are not legally present in the United States. The 
resolution provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 5272, 
provides for 60 minutes of debate, equally divided by the chairman and 
ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, and provides for a 
motion to recommit.
  In addition, the rule also provides for consideration of a motion to 
disagree to the Senate's amendment to H.R. 5021, so we can send the 
bill that easily passed the House on an overwhelming bipartisan vote 
back to the Senate.
  Finally, the rule provides for same-day and suspension authority 
today to

[[Page H7134]]

resolve any outstanding issues before the August recess.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule demonstrates this House's careful 
consideration of the President's supplemental request. Earlier this 
month, the President submitted to Congress a $3.7 billion request to 
deal with both the urgent crisis of unaccompanied juveniles crossing 
the border and with wildfires.
  Since then, Chairman Rogers, Chairman Granger, Speaker Boehner, and 
the Republican Conference have thoughtfully considered what resources 
the President needs to address this crisis through the end of the 
fiscal year.
  The result, Mr. Speaker, is a significantly pared-down piece of 
legislation. It provides $659 million to meet the immediate border 
security and humanitarian needs. This supplemental sends the message 
that this administration has been unwilling to send, that if you come 
here illegally, you will be deported. And it provides the resources to 
effect just that.
  It provides $334 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for 
boosted enforcement efforts, accelerates judicial proceedings by 
providing $22 million to hire temporary immigration judges and provide 
courts with video teleconferencing equipment, and makes smart policy 
reforms, like changing the 2008 sex trafficking law to require that all 
unaccompanied minors are treated the same, among others.
  These important policy reforms, which the President initially asked 
for, are a reasonable, thoughtful response to the tenfold increase of 
unaccompanied alien children since 2011.
  Mr. Speaker, the President's advisers warned him this crisis was 
coming back in 2012 and 2013, but he ignored that advice. In fact, Mr. 
Speaker, the administration has mismanaged this entire issue from the 
beginning.
  If the President's FY 2015 budget had become law, we would have seen 
a reduction of nearly 3,500 detention beds, a 2 percent reduction in 
ICE's investigative capacity, and a 12 percent reduction to CBP air and 
marine operations, all vital tools to deal with this problem.
  In addition, the President's budget request for the Central American 
Regional Security Initiative, which confronts narcotics and arms 
trafficking, gangs, and organized crime in that region and addresses 
border security deficiencies and disrupts criminal infrastructure, was 
actually proposed to be cut in the President's FY 2015 budget. The 
House FY15 foreign operations bill reverses those cuts and actually 
increases the resources to deal with these related problems.
  Mr. Speaker, at every turn, the administration has failed to address 
the border crisis adequately, and now the President wants a blank check 
to proceed. His aim is not to stop and reverse the flow of 
unaccompanied minors into this country. He merely aims to manage that 
influx more efficiently. The House cannot accept that.
  This legislation, H.R. 5230, adequately funds the shortfalls caused 
by this administration's policy by using existing resources. And 
Republicans are willing to provide additional resources should they be 
needed in FY 2015 appropriations, within the bipartisan budget cap set 
by the Ryan-Murray budget agreement. But we believe that this bill 
provides the appropriate resources at this time.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, the bill provides for consideration of H.R. 
5272, which would prevent the administration from expanding the 
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the so-called DACA program. I, 
like many of my colleagues, believe that DACA has incentivized 
juveniles to attempt the long and dangerous journey from Central 
America, with the hope of staying in this country permanently. 
Executive orders, like DACA, only serve to keep that hope alive. I 
believe it is important to send a strong signal that this program 
should not be expanded. H.R. 5272 does just that.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, the rule would send back the original House-
passed highway bill to the Senate. While I appreciate what my friends 
in the other body have been able to do, I believe it is important to 
provide Members the maximum amount of flexibility to craft a long-term 
highway bill. By accepting the Senate amendment, which would only 
provide adequate funding of the highway trust fund through mid-
December, we would be effectively creating a new crisis in the middle 
of a lame duck session of Congress. Given the limited number of session 
days before the election, this does not seem like a prudent course to 
take. Instead, the House should return to the Senate its bipartisan 
legislation, which passed this Chamber by a vote of 367-55.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is important to move forward on 
these three important pieces of legislation before the August district 
work period. I urge support for the rule and the underlying 
legislation.
  I reserve the balance of my time.


                        Parliamentary Inquiries

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Maryland will state his 
parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I am looking over the rule that was 
passed late last night, and my reading of the rule indicates that that 
there was a change in the standing rules of the House. Mr. Speaker, I 
would like some parliamentary clarification on that provision.
  If you look at the resolution in section 4, it says, ``Any motion 
pursuant to clause 4 of rule XXII relating to H.R. 5021''--that is the 
transportation-related bill--``may be offered only by the Majority 
Leader or his designee.''
  Now, I am looking at the standing rules of the House, Mr. Speaker, 
and the standing rules of the House provide that ``when the stage of 
disagreement has been reached on a bill or resolution with House or 
Senate amendments, a motion to dispose of any amendment shall be 
privileged.''
  My question is: Doesn't ``privileged'' mean available to any Member 
of the House?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is asking the Chair to 
interpret the pending resolution, and that provision will not be 
interpreted by the Chair while it is under consideration.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, Mr. Speaker, my understanding of a 
parliamentary inquiry was where the Speaker was supposed to clarify 
questions of the rules and the parliamentary order.
  I am simply asking whether or not, in previous rulings by this House 
and by the Parliamentarian, ``privileged'' has been interpreted to mean 
something that is available to any Member of the House, not just to the 
majority leader or the designee of the majority leader?

                              {time}  0930

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will not interpret this resolution 
during its pendency.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If the Chair does not want to interpret this 
parliamentary inquiry at this time, at what point would it be in order 
to ask the Parliamentarian and the Chair to interpret the rules of the 
House?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. A parliamentary inquiry should relate in 
some practical sense to pending proceedings.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Is it not the rule, passed out of the committee, that 
is pending? That is the parliamentary inquiry. Is that what is pending 
before the House, the rule?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's inquiry is a matter for 
debate on the resolution.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But, Mr. Speaker, isn't the matter pending before the 
House the rule that the designated chairman--acting chairman--of the 
Rules Committee just spoke about?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. House Resolution 696 is pending at this 
time.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. That is correct, Mr. Speaker. And I am reading one of 
the provisions of that resolution, specifically section 4 of that rule, 
which is before the House which changes the rules of the House to say 
that a motion may only be made by the majority leader or his designee, 
as opposed to the privileged motion required under the underlying rule. 
Is that correct?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. As the Chair has stated, the Chair will not 
interpret the pending resolution. That is a matter for debate.

[[Page H7135]]

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. If I could ask for 1 minute of time to discuss this 
matter.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I will further yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Look, yesterday, we were on the floor of the House, 
Mr. Speaker, and our Republican colleagues passed a measure to sue the 
President of the United States, waste millions of dollars of taxpayers' 
money to sue the President of the United States, and the claim was the 
President has exceeded his authority.
  That is a specious claim, but what is incredible is the very next day 
our Republican colleagues are here suspending democracy in the House, 
changing the standing rules of the House to take away from any Member 
of the House the opportunity to offer a motion with respect to the 
transportation bill, which is what the standing rules of the House 
provide, and they want to say no, we are going to take that right away 
from a Member, and we are going to give it exclusively to the 
Republican leader or the Republican leader's designee.
  Do you know, Mr. Speaker, the last time we saw this happen? On the 
government shutdown. Our Republican colleagues used the same measure to 
refuse to take up the Senate bill, which would have ended the 
government shutdown. They didn't want to end it, so they kept it going. 
That cost the American taxpayer $24 billion in damage to the economy.
  Let's not play games with the rule, that this rule allows every 
Member their rights. The Speaker is not the king, and we should make 
sure that every Member has an opportunity.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to address the underlying rule, and I appreciate 
the gentleman from Maryland's efforts to get clarity as to what is in 
this rule.
  As you know, Mr. Speaker, we saw this rule for the first time late 
last night. We saw the bill for the first time late last night. I 
believe the underlying bill was dropped shortly after 8 p.m., and Rules 
Committee convened after 10 p.m.
  We are still in the process of trying to understand what is in this 
rule and this bill. I know that there are legitimate questions with 
regard to how it changes the rules of our entire House of 
Representatives, as well as what this bill actually does.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to both the process of the 
rule and the underlying bill. The bill, of course, prohibits certain 
actions with respect to deferred actions for people who are already in 
our country.
  This provision was added at the last minute in the midnight hour to 
restrict the deferred action for the childhood arrivals program, which 
is a form of prosecutorial discretion, which is used by all 
prosecutorial and administrative agencies.
  When you have a situation where 10 or 11 or 12 million people have 
illegal presence in our country, clearly, with our limited enforcement 
resources, we need to have prosecutorial discretion and priorities. 
Whom should we be going after and in what form, given that it is not 
possible with the limited resources they have, to in any way address 
the entire issue?
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to think that it makes perfect sense, with 
regards to the deferred action program, that we focus our limited 
enforcement resources on criminal aliens. Those are people who, in 
addition to having unlawful presence here, have committed some kind of 
crime. It might have been a DUI. It might have been an assault.
  We need to focus on promptly bringing people who have committed 
crimes to justice and deporting them under our laws. So whom does it 
make sense to not focus on, given our prosecutorial discretion?
  I think the deferred action program is a perfect example, and this 
bill, in our understanding, even recognizes that, that many of the 
people that grew up in our country, that know no other country, that 
came when they were 2 or 3, that were cheerleaders or high school 
football players and know no other country than the United States of 
America and owe their loyalty to us, of course, should not be the 
enforcement priority of laws that are broken until we can fix our 
immigration system.
  It makes sense that the President work--any President, Democrat or 
Republican--to identify additional groups that we can use with our 
prosecutorial discretion and offer some kind of deferred action to, so 
that we can further focus our limited enforcement resources on those 
who would do us harm or represent a threat to our safety or our 
economy.
  If there is a way, for instance, to include the parents of American 
children who are here unlawfully and are not violating any criminal 
laws of our country, it would make sense that their enforcement should 
come after those who have committed criminal violations in our country. 
That is a customary aspect of prosecutorial discretion ranging from any 
DA to the Attorney General to the President of the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, under the language of this bill, it would further 
restrict the ability of the President to focus our limited enforcement 
resources on criminal aliens who would do us harm, reducing the 
security of the American people.
  Now, we all know the real answer here is to replace our broken 
immigration system with one that works. The answer is not to have 10 
million, 12 million, who knows how many million people here illegally 
and just focus on which group we can actually enforce the law on. We 
need to have a law that we can enforce universally.
  There should not be people that are here illegally in our country. We 
need to secure our borders, we need to reunite American families, and 
we need to grow our economy. Later on today, if we defeat the previous 
question, Mr. Garcia will offer a bipartisan bill that will do just 
that.
  Instead of even allowing amendments on these controversial bills, 
including amendments that are extremely commonsense, we have a closed 
process that, as Mr. Van Hollen pointed out, changes the very rules of 
the House, in the name of preventing the President from focusing on 
deporting criminal aliens.
  Look, Republicans and Democrats alike acknowledge that there is a 
crisis on our southern border. Unaccompanied minors are fleeing from El 
Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, fleeing horrific situations. I had 
the opportunity to visit the border the weekend before last, along with 
many of my colleagues, and got to speak to some of the kids, as well as 
the Customs and Border Patrol and HHS officials, and hear some of those 
stories firsthand.

  We had this discussion yesterday in Rules Committee. Action means a 
bill passing the House, a bill passing the Senate, and the President 
signing it. Instead of taking action to address the crisis on our 
southern border, the House is considering a House-only bill that the 
President has said he would veto, that the Senate won't likely even 
bring up, and then promptly going home for a 1-month vacation. We 
wonder why Congress has a 12 percent approval rating.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to disagree with my friend on a couple of points 
that he made. First, I would suggest the President actually hasn't 
taken action or suggested action. A month ago, he told us that the 2008 
sex trafficking law was responsible for his inability to return people 
to their country of origin, unaccompanied minors.
  We have been waiting for his corrective for 30 days; instead, Mr. 
Speaker, we get an open-ended supplemental that goes through from this 
fiscal year to the end of the next fiscal year with a lot of measures--
some of which, by the way, we agree with--to manage the flow, but 
absolutely nothing to stop and reverse the flow.
  So we think, in that absence of leadership from the executive branch, 
we have acted. We have actually done what a month ago at least he was 
suggesting ought to be done, giving some discretion and giving some 
ability to try to deal with the loophole in the law.
  In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we have looked at what he put in front 
of us, and we have decided, look, we can actually offset this money. We 
don't have to spend extra money. This is a higher priority. We will 
take money from lower priority areas.

[[Page H7136]]

  We will get us through the end of this fiscal year and through the 
end of this calendar year, and in that interim time, we will have an 
opportunity to work with the administration to continue to address the 
problem within the limits of the Ryan-Murray budget agreement that we 
agreed to on a bipartisan, bicameral basis not that long ago.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, this issue of the DACA controversy that we have 
here, I would like to make the following points: first, nothing in this 
legislation changes the current state of affairs at all. In other 
words, what the President has done up to this point is left 
undisturbed.
  However, we do believe the abuse of prosecutorial discretion is 
actually one of the things that contributed to the current crisis that 
we have--not deliberately, but, frankly, I think the President 
unwittingly or unknowingly sent a signal that if you get here and you 
get across our border, you are going to be able to stay. So we want to 
be very careful that doesn't happen again.
  In addition, Mr. Speaker, the President has said if Congress doesn't 
do certain things by such and such a date or by the August work period, 
then I intend during that time to use my pen and my phone to effect 
some changes that I want.
  What is interesting to us, by the way, less than 2 years ago, he said 
these kinds of things were unconstitutional and couldn't be done by the 
executive branch. Now, he has changed his view on that.
  So we are going to finally put in place something that will prevent 
him in our absence from once again abusing prosecutorial discretion to 
achieve other aims.
  With that, I would like to reserve the balance of my time, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my colleague on the Rules 
Committee.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, my House Republican friends never cease to 
amaze me. Once again, House Republicans have turned control of their 
agenda to Senator Speaker Ted Cruz. The last time they did this, they 
shut the government down, and look at how that worked out for them. 
Some people never learn.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not enough that House Republicans, despite Speaker 
Boehner's promises of a more open House, continue to block 
consideration of comprehensive immigration reform. No, they need to go 
even further.
  Last night, after a lengthy meeting with Senator Speaker Cruz, House 
Republicans caved in a desperate and partisan way and produced an 
extreme bill that would prevent President Obama from building upon the 
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This bill was 
introduced last night. It has never had a hearing, but here it is.
  Mr. Speaker, House Republicans are victims of their own 
shortsightedness. In their attempts to placate the fringe elements on 
the far right, especially as the November elections grow closer, House 
Republicans continue to refuse to bring up any kind of comprehensive 
immigration reform bill.
  Of course, the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform 
overwhelmingly, and we know that the bill would pass this House if it 
were brought up for a vote.
  Mr. Speaker, this process is absurd. The bills we will consider today 
are cruel and cheap political stunts. They would do nothing to 
alleviate the crisis and merely serve as political cover, and what is 
worse, the Republicans are playing games with the lives of vulnerable 
children.
  Further, the supplemental appropriations bill is a sham. It does not 
even come close to addressing the humanitarian crisis on our border. It 
provides nothing in terms of necessary resources for the Border Patrol, 
HHS, Homeland Security, and our immigration system to give these 
children and their families the attention that they need.
  The policy is bad enough. The process absolutely stinks. The deal the 
Republican leadership cut with the hard right is this: if you want the 
opportunity to vote for a nasty bill to block expansion of DACA--which 
has absolutely nothing to do with the crisis on the border--then you 
have to vote for this terrible supplemental.
  No wonder the approval rating of Congress is at 7 percent. With 
stunts like this, I am surprised it is that high. I know this is an 
election season, but I plead with Republicans: let's not lose our 
humanity in this process.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, my friend is always a terrific and impassioned speaker, 
and I love to hear him. I genuinely do, but what he is saying is, 
frankly, at odds with the facts.
  Look at the record. It was the President in his budget who wanted to 
cut border security, cut detention beds, reduce aid to Central America, 
and reduce law enforcement. That was the President's proposal.

                              {time}  1045

  Before this crisis, we had already corrected some of those mistakes 
in the FY15 Foreign Operations budget. So in terms of who has been 
willing to put resources not only in a law enforcement sense but in a 
humanitarian sense, it has been the majority side of the aisle, not the 
minority.
  Frankly, our plan will not increase suffering; it will decrease it. 
What will increase suffering is continuing to send the signal that 
coming here illegally will be rewarded. The challenge of that is, 
number one, when you encourage that behavior, we are destroying the 
societies from which those young people are coming. The officials of 
those governments have met with ours, and they say that we would like 
our children back. That is a terrible thing that we are doing to those 
countries.
  Number two, the people who are financing it, well-meaning people in 
most cases, trying to bring children into the United States, are 
turning their money over to criminal enterprises and cartels. They are 
strengthening the very people who are destroying their society and 
committing crimes across the entire region, not just our country.
  And finally, the children that are encouraged to come are young 
people, mostly juveniles from three countries and, frankly, are subject 
to a horrific and dangerous journey. Along the way, they can be pressed 
into sex trafficking. They can be turned into drug smugglers. They can 
be physically abused. We don't know how many of them never make it here 
at all.
  Any policy left in place that encourages that, wittingly or 
unwittingly, ought to be changed. Until the signal is sent unmistakably 
to these societies, don't spend your money, don't put your kids at 
risk, the flow will continue.
  Now the President of the United States, at least 2 weeks ago, said:

       The majority of these children are going to be returned.

  That is his statement, not ours, not us doing something that he said 
isn't going to happen. He said the overwhelming majority of these 
children will be returned. Doing this quickly and humanely might keep 
other children from following the same route.
  This is a tough, tough situation. It is a situation, quite frankly, 
that the President was warned would happen in 2012, was warned in 2013 
by officials in his own administration, and ignored. You can see he 
ignored it in terms of the budget he actually proposed to present to 
Congress this year. Thank goodness we didn't actually do what he asked 
us to do.
  I think if you look at this objectively, you can see the President 
was overtaken by a crisis. He fumbled it and mismanaged that crisis, in 
my opinion, and now my friends on the other side of the aisle are 
trying to turn this into something that it is not. It is a border 
crisis debate and discussion. It is not an overall immigration debate. 
It is not a political stunt. We certainly didn't plan for this to 
happen. My friends clearly did not plan for it to happen. The President 
didn't plan for it to happen or he would never have submitted the 
budget that he did. So we are trying to respond quickly and 
expeditiously to a crisis.
  This is not, by the way, a once-and-for-all response. We are here in 
August. We will be back here in September. We will be back here after 
the election. We have an appropriations process, probably an omnibus 
bill waiting in the lame duck that will continue to address this, but 
something has to be done now.
  What the President requests, again, doesn't address the problem. It 
is an open-ended check and, frankly, sort of

[[Page H7137]]

gets him off the hook until September 30, 2015, when we would have to 
come back here again.
  The bill in front of us is a much more prudent, much more targeted, 
much more thoughtful, and much, frankly, more efficient use of 
resources in the interim while we continue to work to get a handle on 
the situation.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. O'Rourke).
  Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, allow me to address some of the concerns 
raised in the underlying bill concerning unaccompanied alien children. 
If our concern is with a secure border, you can talk to someone such as 
myself who represents El Paso, Texas, the largest city in Texas on the 
Mexican border which, today, is also the safest city not just in Texas, 
but in the entire United States. You can talk to other elected leaders, 
to the folks who actually live on the border, and you can look at the 
facts.
  Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border are down nearly 70 percent 
over the last 15 years. In the year 2000, we had 1.6 million 
apprehensions. This last year, 420,000. And even with this spike of 
refugees from Central America, we are not expected to get to half a 
million this year. The border, by the numbers, is as secure as it has 
ever been.
  If your concern is with the welfare of these children once they enter 
this country, then I say let's increase the amount that we are spending 
with Health and Human Services which, in this current bill, is a 
pittance against what is necessary and what should be required.
  And if your concern is with the welfare of these children in Central 
America and along this journey, then I ask you to do what this 
country's proud history, what our conscience, and what the law already 
mandates, which is to accept their applications for asylum, to help 
them once they are in this country, and to work with our neighbors in 
Central America and this hemisphere to resolve the underlying problems.
  I urge my colleagues to reject this rule, to reject the underlying 
bill, and to come back together in September and to work on something 
that is rational, that is humane, and that is in the best interests of 
all concerned.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let's talk for a minute about the additional money to HHS. That is 
exactly, by the way, what this does. The difference--and I think there 
is probably some confusion here--is we are doing it for a short period 
of time, and then we are going to probably continue to do it next year, 
but do it within the constraints of the Ryan-Murray budget deal. The 
President, frankly, hot-wires around the congressional agreement that 
was made to lower the budget by extending these expenditures to the end 
of the next fiscal year.

  So just to reassure my friend, nobody is more interested, I think--
actually, let me put it this way. I think we are both interested in 
making sure that, when anybody is in the custody of the United States, 
they are treated humanely and that there are sufficient resources there 
to do the job. So this does it in the short-term. I would expect in the 
appropriations process--again, within the overall spending caps that we 
have both agreed to--we would continue to do that by moving resources 
from less important areas to more important areas.
  I am going to disagree with my friend on, I think, his point that 
most of these folks ought to remain inside the United States. Frankly, 
I agree with the President of the United States: most of them should 
not.
  There is a process, by the way, if you want to apply for refugee 
status. You do that by going to an American Embassy which is actually 
in the countries there and they make that determination. You don't do 
it by breaking the laws of Mexico and breaking the laws of the United 
States by simply arriving here.
  The President has said that most of these young people will be 
returned. The longer they are here, the more you are going to encourage 
other people to come, the more people will be subjected to that journey 
that we all know is dangerous and deadly, and the more often criminal 
enterprises will be enriched as people give them money to transport 
juveniles to what they think will be permanent residence in the United 
States when the President of the United States himself says it will not 
be permanent, that most of them will return. Better to act on this now.
  Now, again, I will be the first to tell you that I don't expect this 
to be the final piece of legislation. This is an emergency measure. It 
is timely, it is focused, and it is funded at an appropriate level. We 
will be back here again in September. We will be back here working on 
the appropriations process, no doubt, in a lame duck. Frankly, at that 
time, the appropriate additional resources will undoubtedly be made 
available, but they will be made available within the budget caps of 
the Ryan-Murray deal.
  I think sometimes when we compare this bill to the budget request the 
President made, the supplemental request, we really are comparing 
apples to oranges because the timeframes are much different. Remember, 
the President's bill also includes wildfire funding. That may be 
appropriate, but we just don't think it is appropriate in this vehicle, 
in what ought to be a focused approach.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), the ranking member of the 
Rules Committee.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  We spent a good time here yesterday debating and voting on a 
resolution to sue the President for doing his job, and we are up to 
about the same kind of tricks today. But if that show yesterday of the 
Republican obstinance wasn't enough, last night at 10:30, the majority 
changed the rules in the House to block efforts to achieve a long-term 
solution to our infrastructure problem. Can you believe that? I want my 
colleagues and everyone else to know what the majority is up to.
  Mr. Speaker, we know and everybody knows that we need a long-term 
highway bill that would create more jobs and strengthen our 
infrastructure and provide more certainty for highway construction. And 
under the rules of the House--always--any Member of the House would 
have had the right to bring up real solutions to this problem, but not 
any more. In the middle of the night, the Republicans at the Rules 
Committee took that right away and gave it to one person, only one 
person out of 435: the Republican leader. It seems that Republicans are 
so fixated with my way or the highway that they are even willing to 
change the rules of the House to block a vote.
  This parliamentary trick has only been used once before in the 
history of the House--only once--and it was during the government 
shutdown that we recently experienced. While they were obsessing over 
how to deny people health care, they changed the rules to ensure that 
no one could open the government back up. None of us could bring that 
up except one person, just one: the Republican leader. And the last 
time they pulled this stunt with the government shutdown, it cost the 
economy of the United States $24 billion. That is with a B.
  Now, we don't know what will happen this time, but what we do know is 
that it is a dangerous ploy that will undermine economic recovery and 
job creation. The interest here today is not with the people of the 
United States; it is purely, absolutely a political stunt after the 
stunts yesterday. And the whole bill, what we are doing on the border 
issue, again, is simply a diversionary tactic that signifies not much.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Let me pull us back from arguing about rules and procedures to what 
the real essence of the conflict on the transportation bill is: 357 
Members, an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, voted to send the 
transportation bill to the United States Senate.
  That bill, by the way, ran through, if I recall correctly, May of 
next year, giving us enough time to actually then come to what I know 
both sides want, and that is a longer-term highway bill.
  What the Senate did was send us back something with fewer dollars and 
a shorter timeframe that actually reaches simply into December, meaning 
a lame duck Congress would have to deal with the transportation deal. 
Not likely to happen, particularly

[[Page H7138]]

when we will also be dealing with the omnibus spending bill since the 
Senate, in its infinite wisdom, has been unable to pass a single 
appropriations bill.
  So I think cluttering the calendar with the transportation fund 
dispute and problem in a short timeframe simply isn't wise. We think it 
was a political game on the part of the United States Senate. But 
regardless, the position of this House as expressed by a bipartisan 
vote of 357, is overwhelmingly clear. We want to expedite that and get 
it back to the other side so hopefully they can see that type of 
gamesmanship doesn't work and they accede to the position that, 
frankly, both sides of this Chamber adopted in overwhelming numbers.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Doggett).
  Mr. DOGGETT. Sadly, Mr. Speaker, the do-nothingism of the 19th 
century, the anti-immigrant fervor of that time, is alive and well here 
today in the House. Republicans are overwhelmed with fear. They are 
fearful of immigrants. They are fearful of little children at our 
border. But I think most of all, they are fearful of their own 
shadows--fearful that if they try to deal with any of the major 
problems that our country faces, that they might suffer political 
losses. So it is not only know-nothingism, it is do-next-to-nothing 
that prevails today.
  Even when the Republican chair of the Homeland Security Committee 
last May obtained unanimous committee approval for a bill that he said 
would secure our border, Republicans were afraid to have it debated on 
the floor of the House for fear that it might lead to real 
comprehensive immigration reform, reform that was approved by the 
United States Senate over a year ago for which they have offered us 
nothing but excuses, one excuse after another as to why we could not 
permit a majority of this House to consider the best way to reform our 
broken immigration system.

                              {time}  1000

  Affording full participation to our DREAMers, students who came here 
long ago as children through no fault of their own without a visa, will 
not only benefit them as individuals to achieve their all, but it will 
create jobs and grow our economy. I met with these DREAMers. They have 
tremendous potential to give back to our country. Some want to deny 
that opportunity.
  What about these children at our border? Aren't they all God's 
children? Aren't they our children? Don't all children deserve a chance 
to survive without exploitation and violence and terror? We are not 
asking that every one of these children be permitted to stay in the 
United States.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield an additional 25 seconds to the gentleman from 
Texas.
  Mr. DOGGETT. We are not asking for amnesty, but how about just a 
little decency, a little civility, a little humanity, how about just 
following existing law, going after the smugglers, and providing the 
supplemental resources needed to see that their rights are protected?
  I believe that children who came here seeking refuge in this country 
at least deserve a fair adjudication, not to be met with the barrel of 
a gun and a one-way ticket back without considering whether they are 
justly in this country.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  This is a subject on which, obviously, there is considerable passion 
and considerable emotion. I respect that on all sides.
  I will remind my friends who are insisting on immigration, they did 
actually control the Chamber for 4 years and didn't bring up an 
immigration bill ever, had two different Presidents who would have 
signed anything that they cared to pass, and never introduced one.
  Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COLE. I will not yield until I finish my point. You have got 
plenty of time. I think you can make your points on your own.
  Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield on just a quick correction on 
that point?
  Mr. COLE. I certainly will yield to my friend on that.
  Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The House of Representatives did pass the DREAM Act during the lame 
duck session.
  Mr. COLE. Reclaiming my time, I thought we were talking about 
comprehensive immigration reform--safely after an election I might add.
  But the President of the United States, who ran in 2008, saying he 
would have a bill on the floor within 100 days, didn't do it.
  My friends had basically complete control of this Chamber and the 
other Chamber. They demonstrated that by passing, again, ObamaCare 
without a single Republican vote, passing Dodd-Frank, and passing the 
stimulus bill, so they had the ability to do this and chose not to do 
it. That is their right. They were in the majority. But please don't 
lecture us on people stopping individual bills.
  We have 350 bills, by the way, this Chamber has passed, sitting and 
waiting for the Senate to consider any of them, any of them. So I 
recognize, again, there is a great deal of passion here, but that is 
not what this debate is about.
  This debate is about a border crisis that we both recognize exist. 
This debate is to give the President additional resources to deal with 
that, even though he in some measure contributed to creating it. And 
this debate is to make sure that we send the message unmistakably: if 
you subject children to this journey and pay criminals thousands of 
dollars to bring them across, they are not likely to get to stay--a 
point that the President of the United States has made. He has said a 
majority of these children are going to go home. If my friends have a 
quarrel with that, they should direct that to the President, not to us.
  In this case, we do think if you don't discourage that, you are going 
to feed criminal behavior. You are going to put these children at risk, 
and you are going to destroy the society from which they came.
  I don't think we can in a single bill have an overall solution to 
this problem of this level. I personally think it is going to take an 
effort somewhat similar to what we did in Colombia--in a bipartisan 
sense, I might add--on the drug trade, where we invested considerable 
resources in Colombia to help them deal with that problem. I am not 
going to tell you it is perfect there, but it is considerably better 
than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.
  So that is where we worked together constructively and did something 
good for those societies and something good for our own country. That 
will probably be the model that has to emerge again in Central America.
  But, again, that is a problem far ahead of us and legislative in 
scope. This is a response to a crisis. We think it is the appropriate 
response.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
O'Rourke) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Mr. O'ROURKE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a 4-
year-old Honduran girl whose body was found in a nylon bag showing 
signs of torture.

                    [From La Tribuna, July 20, 2014]

                   Kidnap and Kill a Girl in Olancho

                     (This is a Google Translation)

       SAN FRANCISCO DE LA PAZ, Olancho. A heinous crime committed 
     against a minor, has shaken an entire community that is not 
     answered the savage and ruthless attitude of those involved 
     in the sadistic action.
       A little of just four years had disappeared last Thursday 
     afternoon a little after 2:00 pm, according to the account of 
     his father Anibal Cardona, about 30, who wept inconsolably so 
     the tragedy.
       Apparently a family would have caused neglect subjects 
     mysterious little girl lifted backyard to lead to an unknown 
     destination Quiscamotelugar the community, the origin of the 
     parents of the unfortunate infant.


                              inside sack

       The body of the girl was placed inside a nylon bag and left 
     abandoned near the home where a day earlier had kidnapped.
       Showed signs of torture and was handcuffed, and the 
     conditions under which the body was giving signs of having 
     been killed on the day she disappeared.

[[Page H7139]]

       The crime involves a mystery, which generates various 
     speculations in the whole population and in the same family, 
     which not only repudiate what happened, they also believe 
     that someone close may be linked to macabre done.
       The house where he carried the creature is roughly an area 
     of half acre of land, fenced with cyclone wire mesh and only 
     one entry and when the body was found no one saw who placed 
     it on the site though many neighbors accompanied the family 
     at that time.


                                 rescue

       The other uncertainty that goes through the head of the 
     citizens, is related to an alleged phone call asking for 
     ransom, which the authorities are already investigating and 
     could become the thread from the skein that leads to the true 
     origin of what happened.
       It was learned that the police is on the trail of four 
     subjects, which might be collusion, or have enough 
     information from individuals who committed the detestable 
     fact.
       Those who were arrested in a nearby village and that from 
     the beginning of the alarm mentioned that they were 
     responsible, but last night only two people were detained for 
     investigation.
       The girl's father, Anibal Cardona, and uncle, Luis Alonso 
     Duarte.
       In less than a year, this olanchano municipality has been 
     involved in two violent incidents that result in death left 
     two young children, who still has shaken society.
       On 11 October last year, another toddler died a brutal 
     hands of a mentally alienated, brutalized by the effect of 
     alcohol and drugs, committed a heinous murder.
       At that time, parishioners wanted to take justice into 
     their own hands hours after police stopped the confessed 
     responsible, a young 22 year old named Carlos Peralta.
       Today, the San Franciscan people revive those feelings of 
     grief, sorrow and helplessness, and calls to the appropriate 
     speed in the latter investigations mourns another family 
     event. (FS)

  Mr. POLIS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Garcia) for the 
purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Mr. GARCIA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a 17-
year-old Guatemalan boy who received asylum because a gang killed his 
father and they were threatening him.

       Cesar, a 17-year old boy from Guatemala, lost his father to 
     gang violence at the age of 4. For 13 years, Cesar was 
     harassed by the same gang who killed his father. When he 
     refused to join the gang, he feared for his life and fled the 
     country, swimming across the Rio Grande to cross the border. 
     He was granted asylum, loves school and hopes to attend 
     college.
       Cesar--Asylum
       Cesar, from Guatemala, was four years old when his father 
     was killed by gangs in their community. The gang members were 
     never arrested and continued to live in the town. They 
     started harassing Cesar when he was very young and never 
     stopped. He was very scared but there was no way he could get 
     away from them.
       By the time he turned 17, Cesar could not stand the gang 
     harassment any more. The gangs were trying very hard to get 
     him to join and he was very afraid he was going to be killed. 
     He decided to make the journey to the United States. He said 
     was very hard; sometimes he didn't think he would survive. He 
     swam across the Rio Grande to cross the border. A pro bono 
     attorney KIND matched him with from Kirkland & Ellis helped 
     him gain asylum. He loves school and wants to attend college.

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from California 
(Ms. Lofgren) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Ms. LOFGREN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of an 11-
year-old Salvadoran boy who is applying for asylum because he was 
threatened by gang members who killed his cousin and who suffered 
severe domestic abuse.

       Andres is an 11-year-old Salvadoran boy, abused by his 
     caretakers and fleeing gang violence after his cousin was 
     killed, he entered the U.S. to reunite with his mother, 
     grandmother (USC), and extended family. He entered in July 
     2013 when he was 10 years old. He is applying for asylum.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. As indicated by previous occupants of the 
Chair on June 26, 2003, on June 27, 2002, and on March 24, 1995, 
although a unanimous consent request to insert remarks in debate may 
comprise a simple declarative statement of the Member's attitude 
towards the pending measure, it is improper for a Member to embellish 
such a request with other oratory, and it can become an imposition on 
the time of the Member who has yielded for that purpose.
  The Chair will entertain as many requests to insert as may be 
necessary to accommodate the Members, but the Chair must also ask that 
Members cooperate by confining such requests to the proper form.


                        Parliamentary Inquiries

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. POLIS. When these requests are submitted, the Members are merely 
stating the title of the document that is being submitted, which 
clearly has to have a name. I want a clarification as to whether that 
is charged to our time, if they are simply submitting a document and 
telling you the name of that document?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. As most recently ruled by the Chair on July 
11, 2013, a unanimous consent request that extends beyond a simple 
declarative statement of a Member's attitude about the underlying 
measure constitutes debate and may result in time being charged to the 
yielding Member upon execution of that order.
  Mr. POLIS. Again, Mr. Speaker, I inquire--I would like your judgment, 
in fact--on when these motions are made and the document is submitted, 
clearly the document that is being referred to has to be referred to in 
the remarks. These Members are submitting a document, and they are, in 
fact, naming that document that they are submitting. I want to ensure 
that that complies with the Chair's interpretation of the House rules.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Also stated on July 11, 2013, the Chair will 
exercise discretion in determining whether an individual unanimous 
consent request results in a yielding Member being charged time in 
debate.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, what is the Chair's conclusion with regard to 
these unanimous consent requests?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Requests that include remarks in the nature 
of debate will be charged against the yielding Member.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, have the previous submissions of documents 
gone beyond the unanimous consent request compliance that the Chair 
stipulated?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair has not yet charged any time to 
the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. POLIS. I thank the Chair.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for the 
purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a 
12-year-old girl who was trafficked for sex and labor and escaped 
slavery with her baby and received a T visa in the United States.

 Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service: Voices of Central American 
              Youth--Why They Are Fleeing Their Countries


        Background on the Humanitarian Crisis in Central America

       Since the Fall of 2011, prior to the President's 
     announcement of DACA, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) 
     started apprehending significantly more unaccompanied minors 
     from Central America. ORR promptly started to open more 
     shelters and detention sites for these children.
       Updated data from the UNHCR, has shown a 712% increase in 
     asylum requests in Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and 
     Belize by nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
       ORR has reported a significant increase in both younger 
     children and girls coming.
       Maria, a 12 year old girl from Central America, was 
     trafficked for labor and sex, she fled with her baby to 
     escape slavery. Maria was 12 years old, when she was 
     kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to a home where she was held 
     captive. She was beaten and raped on an almost daily basis 
     and eventually forced into prostitution. Because of this she 
     became pregnant and gave birth to a girl while captive. Maria 
     fled with her child, riding on top of trains so that they 
     might escape the sexual bondage. Maria ended up qualifying 
     for a T-visa and is currently doing well She has now 
     graduated high school.

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Doggett) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

[[Page H7140]]

  (Mr. DOGGETT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a 
young Honduran girl the age of my granddaughter, who fled domestic 
violence and kidnapping. The document is from Lutheran Immigration and 
Refugee Service, and it is entitled: ``Voices of Central American 
Youth--Why They Are Fleeing Their Countries.''

       Laura, an 8 year old girl from Honduras fled domestic 
     violence and kidnapping. Laura was living in Honduras with 
     her aunt while mother was in the U.S. working to provide for 
     her family. One day a man she called ``step-father'' who was 
     an ex-boyfriend of her mother's, kidnapped her from her 
     aunt's care. Laura's mother in the U.S. said she could not 
     report the kidnapping to authorities as they would do 
     nothing. This step-father beat Laura daily with belts and 
     pieces of wood, resulting in bruises, bleeding, and leaving 
     visible scars on her body. On multiple occasions, he also 
     threatened to kill her with a gun. The step father finally 
     threatened Laura's mother that he would kill the Laura if her 
     mother did not send him money. Laura's mother was finally 
     able to save and send a large amount of money to the step-
     father and Laura was able to escape to come live with her in 
     the U.S. A child like Laura might apply for asylum.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Colorado will 
be charged.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Mrs. Capps) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Mrs. CAPPS asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Mrs. CAPPS. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of an 11-
year-old Honduran boy who was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.


                        Parliamentary Inquiries

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I believe that the only unanimous consent 
request that has been charged to our time is Mr. Doggett's. Is that 
correct?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. That is correct.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. POLIS. Again, Mr. Doggett stated the title of the document that 
he submitted, which seems to be a prerequisite for submitting a 
document. I would like to inquire as to why the Chair has ruled to 
charge the time to us.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the Chair's discretion, the gentleman 
engaged in debate.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, how can submitting a document and saying what 
the name of the document is constitute debate?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, the gentleman 
was engaging in debate.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for a 
parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, can the Chair provide advice, so that my 
colleagues will understand what it was in reading the title and the 
source of the document that described the tragedy of this little 
Honduran girl seeking refuge in our country, constituted debate, rather 
than simply identifying the title?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair is exercising his discretion.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, without any guidance to my colleagues as to 
how they can present documents within the rules of the House without 
reading the title and the source of the document, can the Speaker 
describe anything about my remarks that differed from any of the other 
remarks that were given by my colleagues, other than the reading of the 
title and the source from Lutheran Services of this young girl who 
sought refuge in our country?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. To clarify, the Chair has stated that a 
unanimous consent request to insert extraneous material may include a 
simple declarative statement of the Member's attitude towards the 
measure, but it is improper for the Member to embellish such a request 
with extended oratory.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. McGovern) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a 15-
year-old Salvadoran boy who has requested asylum because local gang 
members threatened to kill him after he refused to sell drugs for them.


                   Pangea Legal Services Client Story

       Jose is 15-years-old. He grew up in El Salvador with his 
     grandparents. His parents immigrated to the United States 
     when Jose was still a toddler, and he had not seen them 
     since. Jose considered his grandparents as his parents and 
     wished nothing but to continue living with them and his 
     little brother. In April 2013, at age 14, Jose was forced to 
     flee his country after gangs threatened to kill him if he 
     didn't sell drugs for them. The family suspects that Jose was 
     targeted by the gang because Jose's uncle is the mayor of the 
     small Salvadoran town, and has attempted to establish 
     rehabilitation and anti-gang programs for several years. Jose 
     is in removal proceedings and his asylum application is 
     currently pending with USCIS.

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Roybal-Allard) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend her remarks.)
  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of 
seven very young Honduran children who were tortured and brutally 
murdered after refusing to join a gang.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. 
Lujan) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico asked and was given permission to 
revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record 
the story of a young Honduran girl who resisted being robbed for $5, 
was clubbed over the head, dragged out by two men who cut a hole in her 
throat and left her in a ravine.

                [From the New York Times, July 11, 2014]

                     The Children of the Drug Wars

                           (By Sonia Nazario)

       Cristian Omar Reyes, an 11-year-old sixth grader in the 
     neighborhood of Nueva Suyapa, on the outskirts of 
     Tegucigalpa, tells me he has to get out of Honduras soon--
     ``no matter what.''
       In March, his father was robbed and murdered by gangs while 
     working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. His 
     mother used the life insurance payout to hire a smuggler to 
     take her to Florida. She promised to send for him quickly, 
     but she has not.
       Three people he knows were murdered this year. Four others 
     were gunned down on a nearby corner in the span of two weeks 
     at the beginning of this year. A girl his age resisted being 
     robbed of $5. She was clubbed over the head and dragged off 
     by two men who cut a hole in her throat, stuffed her panties 
     in it, and left her body in a ravine across the street from 
     Cristian's house.
       ``I'm going this year,'' he tells me.
       I last went to Nueva Suyapa in 2003, to write about another 
     boy, Luis Enrique Motino Pineda, who had grown up there and 
     left to find his mother in the United States. Children from 
     Central America have been making that journey, often without 
     their parents, for two decades. But lately something has 
     changed, and the predictable flow has turned into an exodus. 
     Three years ago, about 6,800 children were detained by United 
     States immigration authorities and placed in federal custody; 
     this year, as many as 90,000 children are expected to be 
     picked up. Around a quarter come from Honduras--more than 
     from anywhere else.
       Children still leave Honduras to reunite with a parent, or 
     for better educational and economic opportunities. But, as I 
     learned when I returned to Nueva Suyapa last month, a vast 
     majority of child migrants are fleeing not poverty, but 
     violence. As a result, what the United States is seeing on 
     its borders now is not an immigration crisis. It is a refugee 
     crisis.
       Gangs arrived in force in Honduras in the 1990s, as 18th 
     Street and Mara Salvatrucha members were deported in large 
     numbers from Los Angeles to Central America, joining 
     homegrown groups like Los Puchos. But the dominance in the 
     past few years of foreign drug cartels in Honduras, 
     especially ones from Mexico, has increased the reach and 
     viciousness of the violence. As the

[[Page H7141]]

     United States and Colombia spent billions of dollars to 
     disrupt the movement of drugs up the Caribbean corridor, 
     traffickers rerouted inland through Honduras, and 79 percent 
     of cocaine-smuggling flights bound for the United States now 
     pass through there.
       Narco groups and gangs are vying for control over this 
     turf, neighborhood by neighborhood, to gain more foot 
     soldiers for drug sales and distribution, expand their 
     customer base, and make money through extortion in a country 
     left with an especially weak, corrupt government following a 
     2009 coup.
       Enrique's 33-year-old sister, Belky, who still lives in 
     Nueva Suyapa, says children began leaving en masse for the 
     United States three years ago. That was around the time that 
     the narcos started putting serious pressure on kids to work 
     for them. At Cristian's school, older students working with 
     the cartels push drugs on the younger ones--some as young as 
     6. If they agree, children are recruited to serve as 
     lookouts, make deliveries in backpacks, rob people and extort 
     businesses. They are given food, shoes and money in return. 
     Later, they might work as traffickers or hit men.
       Teachers at Cristian's school described a 12-year-old who 
     demanded that the school release three students one day to 
     help him distribute crack cocaine; he brandished a pistol and 
     threatened to kill a teacher when she tried to question him.
       At Nueva Suyapa's only public high school, narcos ``recruit 
     inside the school,'' says Yadira Sauceda, a counselor there. 
     Until he was killed a few weeks ago, a 23-year-old 
     ``student'' controlled the school. Each day, he was checked 
     by security at the door, then had someone sneak his gun to 
     him over the school wall. Five students, mostly 12- and 13-
     year-olds, tearfully told Ms. Sauceda that the man had 
     ordered them to use and distribute drugs or he would kill 
     their parents. By March, one month into the new school year, 
     67 of 450 students had left the school.
       Teachers must pay a ``war tax'' to teach in certain 
     neighborhoods, and students must pay to attend.
       Carlos Baquedano Sanchez, a slender 14-year-old with hair 
     sticking straight up, explained how hard it was to stay away 
     from the cartels. He lives in a shack made of corrugated tin 
     in a neighborhood in Nueva Suyapa called El Infiernito--
     Little Hell--and usually doesn't have anything to eat one out 
     of every three days. He started working in a dump when he was 
     7, picking out iron or copper to recycle, for $1 or $2 a day. 
     But bigger boys often beat him to steal his haul, and he quit 
     a year ago when an older man nearly killed him for a coveted 
     car-engine piston. Now he sells scrap wood.
       But all of this was nothing, he says, compared to the 
     relentless pressure to join narco gangs and the constant 
     danger they have brought to his life. When he was 9, he 
     barely escaped from two narcos who were trying to rape him, 
     while terrified neighbors looked on. When he was 10, he was 
     pressured to try marijuana and crack. ``You'll feel better. 
     Like you are in the clouds,'' a teenager working with a gang 
     told him. But he resisted.
       He has known eight people who were murdered and seen three 
     killed right in front of him. He saw a man shot three years 
     ago and still remembers the plums the man was holding rolling 
     down the street, coated in blood. Recently he witnessed two 
     teenage hit men shooting a pair of brothers for refusing to 
     hand over the keys and title to their motorcycle. Carlos hit 
     the dirt and prayed. The killers calmly walked down the 
     street. Carlos shrugs. ``Now seeing someone dead is 
     nothing.''
       He longs to be an engineer or mechanic, but he quit school 
     after sixth grade, too poor and too afraid to attend. ``A lot 
     of kids know what can happen in school. So they leave.''
       He wants to go to the United States, even though he knows 
     how dangerous the journey can be; a man in his neighborhood 
     lost both legs after falling off the top of a Mexican freight 
     train, and a family friend drowned in the Rio Grande. ``I 
     want to avoid drugs and death. The government can't pull up 
     its pants and help people,'' he says angrily. ``My country 
     has lost its way.''
       Girls face particular dangers--one reason around 40 percent 
     of children who arrived in the United States this year were 
     girls, compared with 27 percent in the past. Recently three 
     girls were raped and killed in Nueva Suyapa, one only 8 years 
     old. Two 15-year-olds were abducted and raped. The kidnappers 
     told them that if they didn't get in the car they would kill 
     their entire families. Some parents no longer let their girls 
     go to school for fear of their being kidnapped, says Luis 
     Lopez, an educator with Asociacion Compartir, a nonprofit in 
     Nueva Suyapa.
       Milagro Noemi Martinez, a petite 19-year-old with clear 
     green eyes, has been told repeatedly by narcos that she would 
     be theirs--or end up dead. Last summer, she made her first 
     attempt to reach the United States. ``Here there is only 
     evil,'' she says. ``It's better to leave than have them kill 
     me here.'' She headed north with her 21-year-old sister, a 
     friend who had also been threatened, and $170 among them. But 
     she was stopped and deported from Mexico. Now back in Nueva 
     Suyapa, she stays locked inside her mother's house. ``I hope 
     God protects me. I am afraid to step outside.'' Last year, 
     she says, six minors, as young as 15, were killed in her 
     neighborhood. Some were hacked apart. She plans to try the 
     journey again soon. Asking for help from the police or the 
     government is not an option in what some consider a failed 
     state. The drugs that pass through Honduras each year are 
     worth more than the country's entire gross domestic product.
       Narcos have bought off police officers, politicians and 
     judges. In recent years, four out of five homicides were 
     never investigated. No one is immune to the carnage. Several 
     Honduran mayors have been killed. The sons of both the former 
     head of the police department and the head of the national 
     university were murdered, the latter, an investigation 
     showed, by the police.
       ``You never call the cops. The cops themselves will 
     retaliate and kill you,'' says Henry Carias Aguilar, a pastor 
     in Nueva Suyapa. A majority of small businesses in Nueva 
     Suyapa have shuttered because of extortion demands, while 
     churches have doubled in number in the past decade, as people 
     pray for salvation from what they see as the plague predicted 
     in the Bible. Taxis and homes have signs on them asking God 
     for mercy.
       The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recently 
     interviewed 404 children who had arrived in the United States 
     from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico; 58 percent 
     said their primary reason for leaving was violence. (A 
     similar survey in 2006, of Central American children coming 
     into Mexico, found that only 13 percent were fleeing 
     violence.) They aren't just going to the United States: Less 
     conflicted countries in Central America had a 712 percent 
     increase in asylum claims between 2008 and 2013.
       ``If a house is burning, people will jump out the window,'' 
     says Michelle Brane, director of the migrant rights and 
     justice program at the Women's Refugee Commission.
       To permanently stem this flow of children, we must address 
     the complex root causes of violence in Honduras, as well as 
     the demand for illegal drugs in the United States that is 
     fueling that violence.
       In the meantime, however, we must recognize this as a 
     refugee crisis, as the United Nations just recommended. These 
     children are facing threats similar to the forceful 
     conscription of child soldiers by warlords in Sudan or during 
     the civil war in Bosnia. Being forced to sell drugs by narcos 
     is no different from being forced into military service.
       Many Americans, myself included, believe in deporting 
     unlawful immigrants, but see a different imperative with 
     refugees.
       The United States should immediately create emergency 
     refugee centers inside our borders, tent cities--operated by 
     the United Nations and other relief groups like the 
     International Rescue Committee--where immigrant children 
     could be held for 60 to 90 days instead of being released. 
     The government would post immigration judges at these centers 
     and adjudicate children's cases there.
       To ensure this isn't a sham process, asylum officers and 
     judges must be trained in child-sensitive interviewing 
     techniques to help elicit information from fearful, 
     traumatized youngsters. All children must also be represented 
     by a volunteer or government-funded lawyer. Kids in Need of 
     Defense, a nonprofit that recruits pro bono lawyers to 
     represent immigrant children and whose board I serve on, 
     estimates that 40 percent to 60 percent of these children 
     potentially qualify to stay under current immigration laws--
     and do, if they have a lawyer by their side. The vast 
     majority do not. The only way to ensure we are not hurtling 
     children back to circumstances that could cost them their 
     lives is by providing them with real due process.
       Judges, who currently deny seven in 10 applications for 
     asylum by people who are in deportation proceedings, must 
     better understand the conditions these children are facing. 
     They should be more open to considering relief for those 
     fleeing gang recruitment or threats by criminal organizations 
     when they come from countries like Honduras that are clearly 
     unwilling or unable to protect them.
       If many children don't meet strict asylum criteria but face 
     significant dangers if they return, the United States should 
     consider allowing them to stay using humanitarian parole 
     procedures we have employed in the past, for Cambodians and 
     Haitians. It may be possible to transfer children and 
     resettle them in other safe countries willing to share the 
     burden. We should also make it easier for children to apply 
     as refugees when they are still in Central America, as we 
     have done for people in Iraq, Cuba, countries in the former 
     Soviet Union, Vietnam and Haiti. Those who showed a well-
     founded fear of persecution wouldn't have to make the 
     perilous journey north alone.
       Of course, many migrant children come for economic reasons, 
     and not because they fear for their lives. In those cases, 
     they should quickly be deported if they have at least one 
     parent in their country of origin. By deporting them directly 
     from the refugee centers, the United States would discourage 
     future non-refugees by showing that immigrants cannot be 
     caught and released, and then avoid deportation by ignoring 
     court orders to attend immigration hearings.
       Instead of advocating such a humane, practical approach, 
     the Obama administration wants to intercept and return 
     children en route. On Tuesday the president asked for $3.7 
     billion in emergency funding. Some money would be spent on 
     new detention facilities and more immigration judges, but the 
     main goal seems to be to strengthen border control and speed 
     up deportations. He also asked Congress to grant powers that 
     could eliminate legal protections for children from Central 
     America in order to expedite removals, a change that 
     Republicans in Congress have also advocated.

[[Page H7142]]

       This would allow life-or-death decisions to be made within 
     hours by Homeland Security officials, even though studies 
     have shown that border patrol agents fail to adequately 
     screen Mexican children to see if they are being sexually 
     exploited by traffickers or fear persecution, as the agents 
     are supposed to do. Why would they start asking Central 
     American children key questions needed to prove refugee 
     status?
       The United States expects other countries to take in 
     hundreds of thousands of refugees on humanitarian grounds. 
     Countries neighboring Syria have absorbed nearly 3 million 
     people. Jordan has accepted in two days what the United 
     States has received in an entire month during the height of 
     this immigration flow--more than 9,000 children in May. The 
     United States should also increase to pre-9/11 levels the 
     number of refugees we accept to 90,000 from the current 
     70,000 per year and, unlike in recent years, actually admit 
     that many.
       By sending these children away, ``you are handing them a 
     death sentence,'' says Jose Arnulfo Ochoa Ochoa, an expert in 
     Honduras with World Vision International, a Christian 
     humanitarian aid group. This abrogates international 
     conventions we have signed and undermines our credibility as 
     a humane country. It would be a disgrace if this wealthy 
     nation turned its back on the 52,000 children who have 
     arrived since October, many of them legitimate refugees.
       This is not how a great nation treats children.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Colorado will 
be charged.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary 
inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, again, if there is 
discretion that can be shared, that was directly from the article that 
I asked to be entered into the Record. On many occasions I have been on 
this floor and been part of many debates in the 5 years I have been 
honored to serve with the Congress and have used the exact same 
approach and have never been charged. Is there any discretion that the 
Speaker can give us direction on?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair is exercising his discretion as 
the Chair has said previously. The Chair has discretion in this matter.
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I have a further 
parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, with that being said to 
debate, even though the same practices are used by Members, rulings can 
change by the Chair on this particular issue?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair does have discretion. The guidance 
has been to confine the request to a simple declaratory statement of 
the Member's attitude toward the pending measure.
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, for clarification, that 
is exactly what I did, which is I read a statement from the article.
  I am confused, Mr. Speaker. I am just maybe a junior Member from a 
small farm in New Mexico, but it seems that if I am reading from the 
article directly, that I don't appear to be violating any rules to be 
charged time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Embellishments or statements on other 
matters are debate and will be charged to the manager.
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I have a further 
parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, this was not an 
embellishment. This was a direct quote from the article. It appears to 
me that my understanding of an embellishment are my own words being 
added.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair has advised that embellishments or 
statements on other matters are debate and will be charged.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for 
submitting that powerful testimony.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) for the 
purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Ms. SCHAKOWSKY asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a 
17-year-old girl who fled her country with her 2-year-old daughter to 
escape constant physical and sexual abuse from the baby's father.

              [From the National Immigrant Justice Center]

       Lauren, a 17-year old, fled the country with her 2-year old 
     daughter due to constant physical, sexual and verbal abuse 
     from the baby's father. While in DHS custody, Lauren and her 
     baby were held in two ``hieleras'' for a total of six days 
     without adequate food and warmth.
       Lauren is a 17-year-old who came to the United States with 
     her two-year-old daughter, Charise. Charise's father, Juan, 
     was physically and verbally abusive. He has hit, choked, and 
     raped Lauren and threatened to kill her and take their baby. 
     Lauren fled to the United States with Charise to live with 
     her parents and U.S.-citizen sister. While in DHS custody, 
     both Lauren and her baby were held in two ``hieleras'' for 
     about six days total. Lauren had to use her own clothing to 
     keep Charise warm because DHS only gave her an emergency 
     mylar blanket for Charise, despite the cold. Lauren slept on 
     the floor of her cell with Charise in between her legs. DHS 
     gave Charise two small burritos to eat each day, and gave 
     Lauren a piece of bread with deli meat and an apple twice a 
     day. When she asked for more food for her baby, who was 
     hungry and cold, DHS told Lauren there wasn't any more food 
     available.

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Chu) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Ms. CHU asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. CHU. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of a 15-year-
old Salvadoran boy whose body was found in a plastic bag with his hands 
and feet bound.

                    [From La Pagina, June 25, 2014]

       Burn Bus Route 177 in Tecoluca After Assaulting Passenger

              (By Maribel Montenegro and Carlos Hernandez)

       A bus route 177 was intercepted by at least 8 heavily armed 
     men, forcing passengers to surrender their belongings and 
     then burned them down the unit, police said.
       According to reports, the incident occurred in the village 
     of Las Pampas, on the road that leads to San Vicente 
     Zacatecoluca Tecoluca in the jurisdiction of the department 
     of San Vicente.
       Police said the fire was set and the place has became a 
     unit of the Fire Department to extinguish the flames of the 
     unit was completely destroyed.
       Depending on the version of the automotive PNC was off 
     course forcing it to penetrate into the community Las Pampas, 
     where 20 passengers were assaulted. The authorities say they 
     are on the trail of the perpetrators.
       He also said that he reported no casualties, only material 
     damage.


                             Resume, Resume

       The body of an unknown man was found this morning in the 
     subdivision Istepec, Canton El Cerrito, the, in the 
     department of Sonsonate municipality Nahuizalco. Police said 
     the incident occurred the night before and do not know the 
     motives of the crime that was committed with knives.


                             Resume, Resume

       A 16 year old girl was killed by multiple gunshot wounds 
     that caused unknown subjects while walking on the 3rd km of 
     the Pan American Highway, in the jurisdiction of the 
     municipality of El Carmen, department of Cuscatlan.
       The victim was identified as Adonis Hernandez, according to 
     the PNC disappeared yesterday. So far the police said he was 
     unaware if the victim had any connection with gang groups.


                           Colon, La Libertad

       The body of a 15 year old boy was found is tied hand and 
     foot in a plastic bag that was abandoned in Lourdes, Colon, 
     La Libertad morning.
       The victim was identified as Ivan N., who was kidnapped 
     last week in La Libertad.
       According to the PNC, the young man had at least 36 hours 
     have passed.


                                 Resume

       A young man was killed last night near the resort Spain, 
     CV.
       According to authorities, the victim, identified as Brandon 
     Ch, was attacked and killed by unknown assailants who left 
     him seriously injured so he had to be rushed to a hospital 
     emergency where he died in surgery.


                              San Salvador

       The woman, identified as Marlene Rivas, was wounded with a 
     knife this morning in the vicinity of San Jose San Salvador 
     park.
       According to police, the woman resisted being assaulted by 
     a homeless man, who reacted violently and caused a wound in 
     the neck.
       The victim had to take shelter in a supermarket in the 
     area, where Rosales was taken to hospital.


                        Mercedes Umana, Usulutan

       A gang Mara Salvatrucha, was murdered in Canton The 
     Caulote, Mercedes Umana, Usulutan.
       The victim was identified as Fredy Mejia, 17, who 
     authorities say was attacked by two gang Barrio 18 traveling 
     on a motorcycle.

[[Page H7143]]

                         Gardens Seltsut Resume

       A trader was shot to death at night in the Garden Colony 
     Selsut, Ilopango, San Salvador.
       The victim was identified as Jorge Mario Arteaga, 53, who 
     was killed by gang members for refusing to pay extortion, 
     according to PNC.


                       New Guadalupe, San Miguel

       A man who was deported from the United States months ago 
     was killed Tuesday evening in Freedom Colony, New Guadalupe 
     in San Miguel.
       The victim was identified as Adilio Quintanilla, 41, who 
     had multiple gunshot wounds in the body. The authorities know 
     the motive for the attack.


                    Canton Plans Concepcion, La Paz

       A man was killed in the canton Plans Concepcion, La Paz. 
     The victim was identified as Carlos Palma, 47, who was shot 
     at by unknown persons. Attack the causes are unknown.


                               San Martin

       A blind seniors tonight was killed by gang members in the 
     neighborhood of Las Mercedes and Santa Teresa Street Project, 
     San Martin.
       The victim was identified only as Francisco and authorities 
     said he was about 70 years. The old man died at the scene 
     after being shot several times.
       According to the PNC, the man was hit by bullets when the 
     gang tried to assassinate some people who were inside a 
     vehicle on the street entered Project, Las Mercedes 
     neighborhood.
       Subjects discharged a burst of lead impacted the blind who 
     could not dodge bullets due to its limitation. After 
     committing the fact, the gang fled in an unknown direction.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Colorado will 
be charged.

                              {time}  1015

  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I further yield to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Cardenas) for the purpose of a unanimous consent 
request.
  (Mr. CARDENAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CARDENAS. Mr. Speaker, I will enter into the Record the story of 
an 18-year-old Mexican boy who was trafficked into the United States 
and held by the U.S. Marshals Service so he could testify as a material 
witness to some deaths that he witnessed.

       Juan Antonio is an 18-year-old Mexican UAC. He fled severe 
     cartel and criminal gang violence in his home town. His 
     uncle, cousin, and several family members were killed before 
     he fled from Mexico. He was trafficked to the US and 
     initially in the US Marshals custody to testify as a material 
     witness before being turned over to ICE and released to ORR 
     because he was a minor.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Colorado will 
be charged.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I further yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  (Ms. LEE of California asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend her remarks.)
  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I will enter into the Record the 
story of a 12-year-old girl who was trafficked for sex and labor, 
escaped slavery with her baby, and received a T visa in the United 
States.

 Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service: Voices of Central American 
              Youth--Why They Are Fleeing Their Countries


        Background on the Humanitarian Crisis in Central America

       Since the Fall of 2011, prior to the President's 
     announcement of DACA, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) 
     started apprehending significantly more unaccompanied minors 
     from Central America. ORR promptly started to open more 
     shelters and detention sites for these children.
       Updated data from the UNHCR, has shown a 712% increase in 
     asylum requests in Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and 
     Belize by nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
       ORR has reported a significant increase in both younger 
     children and girls coming.
       Maria a 12 year old girl from Central America was 
     trafficked for labor and sex, she fled with her baby to 
     escape slavery. Maria was 12 years old, when she was 
     kidnapped at gunpoint and taken to a home where she was held 
     captive. She was beaten and raped on an almost daily basis 
     and eventually forced into prostitution. Because of this she 
     became pregnant and gave birth to a girl while captive. Maria 
     fled with her child, riding on top of trains so that they 
     might escape the sexual bondage. Maria ended up qualifying 
     for a T-visa and is currently doing well. She has now 
     graduated high school.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Colorado will 
be charged.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Farr), the ranking member of the Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration, and Related Agencies.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I stand today in the well to appeal to my 
Republican colleagues about this debate, which isn't about the 
underlying bill, it is about the rule. You ought to all be worried. We 
all ought to be worried. This rule is a sham to the institution of 
Congress.
  I am an appropriator, and I am proud to do that. We respect the 
jurisdiction of all other committees. That is why we have standing 
committees. We don't do their business.
  This rule ignores all the standing committees in Congress. This rule 
says you can write a bill in the darkness of night. Nobody has read it. 
No Republicans read it, no Democrats read it. You can pick it up in the 
hallway here. I read it this morning.
  The rule waives all points of opposition, which we say in this rule, 
``All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived.''
  All points--that means all the ideas of all the committees that are 
supposed to be writing these bills. Nobody is going to be thanked if 
they vote for this. First of all, nobody is going to thank you for 
voting for the rule because it does so many things that misjudge the 
purpose of Congress, misappropriate the purposes of Congress, which is 
to have transparency and allow people to get into the debate.
  Nobody who understands the problem in the embassies of the host 
country was able to testify. Nobody in the administration who deals 
with the border was able to testify. No Member of Congress who has some 
knowledge about this was able to testify. This bill says: So what? We 
wrote the bill, and you just have to accept it, and if you any 
objections, we waive all those points of orders.
  So the rule does a disservice to Congress, and it ought to be 
rejected.
  Secondly, on the bill, when you get to it, if it isn't rejected--
first of all, if we reject the rule, nothing is broken. We can fix it. 
We can make it better because no own is going to thank you for voting 
for this.
  Just to show you how outrageous it is, it says to the host countries 
that: we are going to give you money, but you have 15 days to convene 
your legislatures and enact legislation, secure your borders, and make 
sure everything is secure.
  You couldn't do that in Washington in 15 days, much less essentially 
Third World countries. There are all kinds of provisions in here that 
don't make any sense and don't help fix anything that is broken, and 
for all the testimony you have just heard, there are a lot of other 
things that need to be addressed that aren't in this bill.
  So my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, the best thing we can do 
to respect this institution is to reject this rule and vote ``no.''
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I have a great deal of respect for my friend from the Appropriations 
Committee. He is an excellent legislator and tremendous Member.
  I am, though, going to point out the record of the Democratic 
majority the last time they were here and in control of what happened 
on the floor.
  In the 111th Congress, the final 2 years of Representative Pelosi's 
time as Speaker, the House never considered a single bill under an open 
rule--not one bill. That is the definition of a closed process.
  Under Republican control, the House has returned to consideration of 
appropriations bills under an open process, with 22 open rules. We had 
no open rules on appropriations when my friends were in the majority.
  This year alone, the House has considered 404 amendments during the 
appropriations process, and 189 of them offered were by our friends on 
the other side.
  When you actually compare the record overall, frankly, I think the 
comparison is much to the advantage of Republicans. So we are trying to 
deal with complex issues in a relatively short period of time.
  I know the Congress will be back in session in September. We will be 
working on the appropriations process in the lameduck again, so there 
are going to be ample legislative opportunities, but we are in a crisis 
situation, which we are in this case.

[[Page H7144]]

  We are trying to respond thoughtfully and expeditiously. We are 
trying to put resources toward the problem. We are trying to get at the 
core of the problem, which the administration itself a month ago 
identified as a 2008 law, but has now offered absolutely no suggestions 
how to fix.
  So we have not tried to repeal it. We have tried to tweak it and 
address the problem. If my friends have a better solution, we would 
love to hear it, but we haven't heard it. Instead, we have been told 
the 2008 law caused the problem, but you can't change the law. That 
seems to me both politically and intellectually indefensible.
  We are going to continue to try to solve the problem that has been 
identified by the administration. At some point, we hope they will join 
us in trying to actually correct the problem that they say exists.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent 
request, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez).
  (Ms. VELAZQUEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
her remarks.)
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record the story of two 
Honduran brothers who were tortured and murdered by gang members in San 
Pedro Sula, the murder capital of the world.
  Mr. Speaker, how we treat our children speaks to the character of our 
Nation.

                [From The New York Times, July 9, 2014]

              Fleeing Gangs, Children Head to U.S. Border

                          (By Frances Robles)

       San Pedro Sula, Honduras--Anthony O. Castellanos 
     disappeared from his gang-ridden neighborhood on the eastern 
     edge of Honduras's most dangerous city, so his younger 
     brother, Kenneth, hopped on his green bicycle to search for 
     him, starting his hunt at a notorious gang hangout known as 
     the ``crazy house.''
       They were found within days of each other, both dead. 
     Anthony, 13, and a friend had been shot in the head; Kenneth, 
     7, had been tortured and beaten with sticks and rocks. They 
     were among seven children murdered in the La Pradera 
     neighborhood of San Pedro Sula in April alone, part of a 
     surge in gang violence that is claiming younger and younger 
     victims.
       The killings are a major factor driving the recent wave of 
     migration of Central American children to the United States, 
     which has sent an unprecedented number of unaccompanied 
     minors across the Texas border. Many children and parents say 
     the rush of new migrants stems from a belief that United 
     States immigration policy offers preferential treatment to 
     minors, but in addition, studies of Border Patrol statistics 
     show a strong correlation between cities like San Pedro Sula 
     with high homicide rates and swarms of youngsters taking off 
     for the United States.
       ``The first thing we can think of is to send our children 
     to the United States,'' said a mother of two in La Pradera, 
     who declined to give her name because she feared gang 
     reprisals. ``That's the idea, to leave.''
       Honduran children are increasingly on the front lines of 
     gang violence. In June, 32 children were murdered in 
     Honduras, bringing the number of youths under 18 killed since 
     January of last year to 409, according to data compiled by 
     Covenant House, a youth shelter in Tegucigalpa, the capital.
       With two major youth gangs and more organized crime 
     syndicates operating with impunity in Central America, 
     analysts say immigration authorities will have a difficult 
     time keeping children at home unless the root causes of 
     violence are addressed.
       In 2012, the number of murder victims ages 10 to 14 had 
     doubled to 81 from 40 in 2008, according to the Violence 
     Observatory at the National Autonomous University of 
     Honduras. Last year, 1,013 people under 23 were murdered in a 
     nation of eight million.
       Although homicides dropped sharply in 2012 after a gang 
     truce in neighboring El Salvador, so far this year murders of 
     children 17 and under are up 77 percent from the same time 
     period a year ago, the police said.
       Nowhere is the flow of departures more acute than in San 
     Pedro Sula, a city in northwestern Honduras that has the 
     world's highest homicide rate, according to United Nations 
     figures.
       Between January and May of this year, more than 2,200 
     children from the city arrived in the United States, 
     according to Department of Homeland Security statistics, far 
     more than from any other city in Central America.
       More than half of the top 50 Central American cities from 
     which children are leaving for the United States are in 
     Honduras. Virtually none of the children have come from 
     Nicaragua, a bordering country that has staggering poverty, 
     but not a pervasive gang culture or a record-breaking murder 
     rate. ``Everyone has left,'' Alan Castellanos, 27, the uncle 
     of Anthony and Kenneth, said in an interview in late May. 
     ``How is it that an entire country is being brought to its 
     knees?''
       He said the gangs operated with total impunity. ``They 
     killed all those kids and nobody did anything about it,'' Mr. 
     Castellanos said. ``When prosecutors wanted to discuss the 
     case, they asked us to meet at their office, because they 
     were afraid to come here. If they were afraid, imagine us.''
       The factors pushing children to migrate vary, according to 
     an analysis of their home cities by the Department of 
     Homeland Security.
       The Guatemalan children who arrive in the United States are 
     more often from rural areas, suggesting their motives are 
     largely economic. The minors from El Salvador and Honduras 
     tend to come from extremely violent regions ``where they 
     probably perceive the risk of traveling alone to the U.S. 
     preferable to remaining at home,'' the analysis said.
       ``Basically, the places these people are coming from are 
     the places with the highest homicide rates,'' said Manuel 
     Orozco, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a 
     Washington-based research group. ``The parents see gang 
     membership around the corner. Once your child is forced to 
     join, the chances of being killed or going to prison is 
     pretty high. Why wait until that happens?''
       A confluence of factors, including discounted rates charged 
     by smugglers for families, helped ignite the boom, he said. 
     Children are killed for refusing to join gangs, over 
     vendettas against their parents, or because they are caught 
     up in gang disputes. Many activists here suggest they are 
     also murdered by police officers willing to clean up the 
     streets by any means possible.
       In the case of the Castellanos family, the police said the 
     older boy was a lookout for the gang and had decided to quit. 
     The order to kill him, the police said, came from prison.
       Several arrests have been made. Hector A. Medina, 47, who 
     the police said lived at an abandoned house controlled by the 
     18th Street gang, where Kenneth was killed, was charged in 
     the boys' deaths. ``It's a serious social problem: any 
     children born in this neighborhood are going to get involved 
     in a gang,'' said Elvin Flores, a police inspector in charge 
     of La Pradera. ``Our idea is to lower crime every day. We 
     need a state policy to involve kids from when they are little 
     to go to school.''
       But gangs, which rob, sell drugs locally, kidnap people and 
     extort money from businesses, often recruit new members at 
     schools.
       In some cities, blocks are empty because gangs demanding 
     extortion payments have forced out homeowners. Many people 
     have had to move within the country in a displacement pattern 
     that experts liken to the one seen in Colombia's civil war.
       The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for 
     Refugees said that from 2008 to 2013, the number of asylum 
     claims filed in Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and 
     Belize increased sevenfold.
       Most were from people of Guatemala, El Salvador and 
     Honduras, the three nations with large numbers of migrants 
     now arriving at the United States border.
       Refugee advocacy organizations have urged the State 
     Department to treat the children arriving at the United 
     States border as refugees, and proposed a processing system 
     where asylum claims could be reviewed in Central America and 
     those accepted could move safely to the United States or 
     countries willing to accept them, as was done in countries 
     such as Haiti and Iraq. They have not yet received a 
     response, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 
     said.
       President Obama urged Congress on Wednesday night to pass a 
     $3.7 billion budget supplement that would, among other 
     things, beef up border security, hasten deportations and help 
     Central American nations address security problems. ``The 
     best thing we can do is make sure the children can live in 
     their own countries, safely,'' he said.
       During a recent late-night visit to the San Pedro Sula 
     morgue, more than 60 bodies, all victims of violence, were 
     seen piled in a heap, each wrapped in a brown plastic bag. 
     While picking bullets out of a 15-year-old boy shot 15 times, 
     technicians discussed how they regularly received corpses of 
     children under 10, and sometimes as young as 2.
       Last week, in nearby Santa Barbara, an 11-year-old had his 
     throat slit by other children, because he did not pay a 50-
     cent extortion fee.
       ``At first we saw a lot of kids who were being killed 
     because when the gang came for their parents, they happened 
     to be in the car or at the location with them,'' said Dr. 
     Darwin Armas Cruz, a medical examiner who works the overnight 
     shift. ``Now we see kids killing kids. They kill with guns, 
     knives and even grenades.''
       Dr. Armas said his family was thinking of migrating, too.


                       Correction: July 11, 2014

       Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about 
     the murderous gang violence in Honduras that is a factor in 
     the recent wave of migration of Central American children to 
     the United States misstated the amount of money that 
     President Obama has requested from Congress to address the 
     problem. It is $3.7 billion, not more than $4 billion.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Colorado will 
be charged.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), the chair of the Hispanic Caucus and the ranking 
member

[[Page H7145]]

on the Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education and 
Workforce Training.
  Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Congressional Hispanic 
Caucus, I rise in opposition to H.R. 5230 and the underlying rule.
  I represent McAllen, Texas, which has been the epicenter for this 
humanitarian crisis. For years, my Republican colleagues have been 
ignoring the problems caused by their inaction on immigration reform. 
They have cut funding for immigration judges, so that people wait years 
to have their cases heard.
  They have cut funding to help the countries of Central America deal 
with the internal problems causing their children to flee. The 
Republican solution has always been more walls and fences and more 
soldiers to militarize the border.
  I live on that border of Texas and Mexico, and I know that their 
enforcement-only approach is not working because it doesn't address the 
root cause of immigration. It has been economically devastating to 
border communities who vainly try to persuade companies to move their 
plants and factories to our region to create jobs and bring us out of 
poverty that is the highest in the Nation.
  Our veterans suffer because the VA can't get doctors to move to the 
border. All these companies and doctors hear is that the border is a 
war zone flooded with dangerous immigrants. That is not the border I 
know. My border home is a vibrant, educated, fast-growing, culturally 
diverse, welcoming region. I am proud of how we have embraced these 
children and families.
  We are now voting once again to militarize our border, deny children 
legal representation and due process, and providing little help to 
Central America. We are not fixing the problem, and I urge my 
colleagues to oppose the rule and this bill.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Just a few correctives, if I may. We are actually putting in 
additional resources. We haven't cut resources. It is the President's 
budget that cut resources. It cut detention beds, enforcement, and aid 
to the countries in Central America that are dealing with this problem. 
That is the President's budget.
  Those things were all corrected in the Foreign Operations budget that 
has not yet reached the floor, but has been passed by the full 
Appropriations Committee.
  I am going to disagree with my friends on the other side that this 
has anything to do with comprehensive immigration reform. Quite 
frankly, it does not. It is a border crisis. It has nothing to do with 
this legislation.
  The root cause of the problem here are criminals who go back and tell 
people: if you pay money and subject yourself to a dangerous journey 
and we get you to the United States, you will be able to stay. That is 
who is at fault here. That is where the focus ought to be.
  When my friends point to specific cases, I always point out, number 
one, we have an avenue called the United States Embassy. In the 
country, you can go and plead refugee status there. You don't have to 
travel 1,000 or 2,000 miles across very dangerous country. You simply 
afford yourself of the available opportunities.
  Finally, in the President's judgment, most of these children will be 
returned. That is the President's judgment. Frankly, I think he made 
that judgment, trying to discourage what is happening now. That is 
precisely what we are trying to do in this piece of legislation.
  So I think there is a lot of passion, and it is appropriate because 
there are some heartwrenching cases, but there is also a lot of 
political theater here. The reality is, again, most of these children, 
according to the President, will be returned.
  The quicker that can happen, the less likely it is that other 
children will follow them and be subjected to a very dangerous journey. 
That is what we are trying to achieve. We are going to try to do that 
in this measure today, but we invite our friends to work with us as we 
go forward, as I suspect that we will.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
Mexico (Mr. Ben Ray Lujan).
  Mr. BEN RAY LUJAN of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, last week, we were part 
of a conversation and debate around strengthening antihuman trafficking 
laws. We all came to this floor, and Democrats and Republicans found a 
way to talk to one another and talk to the American public about what 
we should do to protect these children that are in harm's way, not just 
fleeing street violence, but being brutally murdered and raped, Mr. 
Speaker.
  This week, what my Republican colleagues are doing is coming out of a 
conference and weakening antihuman trafficking laws.
  Mr. Speaker, at this point, all I can say is God help this Congress 
if it is now our policy to weaken human trafficking laws. It is a sad, 
sad day, Mr. Speaker, and I certainly hope that my colleagues take a 
chance to look at this and look into their hearts and pray on that and 
come to the floor and do the right thing.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the distinguished ranking member on the 
Committee on Homeland Security.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. I thank the gentleman from Colorado for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H. Res. 696. This rule 
would provide for consideration of a supplemental appropriations bill 
that clearly demonstrates its Republican authors either have no idea 
what is needed to address the current situation at the border, or they 
are more concerned with scoring political points than making public 
policy.
  The resources provided under the bill are both inadequate to provide 
the necessary humanitarian relief and misdirected toward so-called 
border security efforts that are unlikely to have any real effect on 
the number of unlawful border crossings.
  For example, deploying the National Guard to the border when children 
and families are already running to the Border Patrol agents is a waste 
of taxpayer money; instead, we should be providing the Border Patrol 
with the funding necessary to move additional experienced agents to the 
Rio Grande Valley, which is what their leadership has indicated they 
need.
  This misguided bill has also included provisions to undermine due 
process for unaccompanied children, many of whom are refugees fleeing 
terrible violence in their home countries.
  Mr. Speaker, we are better than this as a Congress and as a Nation. I 
urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and the underlying supplemental.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my colleague, the 
distinguished Member from Texas (Mr. Culberson).

                              {time}  1030

  Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Speaker, the heartbreaking stories my colleagues 
are telling about these young people coming across the border and being 
exploited and hurt and injured just confirm the wisdom of the approach 
the Republicans have taken to this problem based on common sense and 
long experience. It is called law enforcement. This is not complicated.
  In order to protect these kids, protect the people of the United 
States, protect the communities along the border, we believe strongly 
in enforcing the existing law and in ensuring that the people of the 
United States are protected against the lawlessness: the drug dealers, 
the cartels, the smugglers, the gun runners who are coming across the 
border and exploiting these kids.
  This is not a complicated problem. It has worked for years in Texas. 
We understand the border problem. It is simply a matter of law 
enforcement. No nation can survive that doesn't secure its borders and 
enforce its laws.
  By enforcing the law and by bringing peace and quiet to the border, 
you will also ensure that free trade--that legal trade back and forth 
between Mexico, our biggest trading partner--can proceed as it should. 
Laredo is the largest inland port in the United States, and in order 
for businesses to do their jobs, they have got to have peace and quiet, 
and that means law enforcement.
  That is the Republican approach to this problem. Enforce the law.

[[Page H7146]]

  Mr. POLIS. I would like to inquire if the gentleman from Oklahoma has 
any remaining speakers.
  Mr. COLE. I do not. I am prepared to close whenever my friend is.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire as to how much time 
remains on both sides.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Colorado has 6\3/4\ 
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Oklahoma has 4\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. POLIS. I would ask the gentleman from Oklahoma for the courtesy 
that, if somebody else shows up on my side, I might further yield, but, 
otherwise, I am prepared to close.
  Mr. COLE. I would certainly do that for my friend.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  The House Republican proposal includes a provision that would roll 
back our bipartisan antihuman trafficking protections that have been in 
place for 20 years and that were most recently reaffirmed unanimously 
by Congress in 2008. This is a debate to maintain our due process laws 
under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, 
which this bill strips, that help promote the safety of unaccompanied 
minors.
  According to the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, 58 
percent of children fleeing to the U.S. from Honduras, Guatemala, El 
Salvador, and Mexico may have valid claims to asylum or other legal 
protections. Our existing laws ensure that these children receive due 
process. Many of them are victims of human trafficking, of sexual 
violence, or of other persecution, and they need to have the meaningful 
opportunity under a law to present their protection claims before an 
immigration judge. The underlying bill would, according to the UNHCR, 
drastically weaken the due process protections by subjecting Central 
American children to an inadequate screening process.
  We have had our additional speaker arrive to offer our PQ, Mr. 
Speaker; and if the House had taken up the Senate immigration reform 
bill, the current influx of migrant children from Honduras, El 
Salvador, and Guatemala may never have even become the humanitarian 
crisis that is facing us today. That is why today, Mr. Speaker, I am 
proud to give the House a second chance.
  If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the 
rule to bring up H.R. 15, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, 
and Immigration Modernization Act, so the House can finally vote on a 
broad, long-term solution to overhaul our country's immigration system 
and to address the border crisis. At the same time, it addresses the 
systemic causes rather than simply trying to apply Band-Aid, after 
Band-Aid, after Band-Aid. The House will soon find there are not enough 
Band-Aids made. We need to address the health of the patient.
  To discuss our proposal, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Garcia).
  Mr. GARCIA. I thank the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say this bill were a joke. This is far 
worse than a joke. Not only does the underlying bill fail to provide 
adequate funding to deal with the situation at hand, it flat out 
ignores the root cause of the problem.
  By tacking on a vote on the so-called ``No New DREAMERS Act,'' House 
leadership is not just refusing to take action on immigration reform, 
it is prohibiting the President from doing things to fix a broken 
system. This is akin to watching a train crash or knowing that it is 
going to crash and stoking the furnace more, making the damage greater. 
They have no interest in fixing this crisis. They have no interest in 
fixing the problem. They are playing politics with people's lives, and 
they are playing politics with our Nation's economy.
  This isn't a game. These are human beings. This is doing damage to 
our country. If we are truly committed to tackling this crisis on the 
southwest border and to ensuring a fair and efficient process for 
dealing with these kids, we need to begin with comprehensive 
immigration reform.
  If the previous question is defeated, we will offer H.R. 15, the 
House bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill. Only by fixing our 
broken immigration system can we begin to better allocate the resources 
where they are needed most.
  My bill provides a path forward for people already here so that their 
cases are no longer clogging our immigration courts and so that 
immigration officials can spend their time going after those who wish 
to do our Nation harm. It will provide green cards for thousands of 
Hondurans and El Salvadorans who have languished for over a decade 
under temporary status, and it adds the necessary due process 
protection for children on the border.
  A speaker on the side opposite brought up the issue of what caused 
this. What was the straw that broke the camel's back? I will tell you 
what the straw is. Some of these children have waited 5 years; some of 
them have waited 8 years; and some of them have waited over a decade on 
the promises of this Congress--and there is blame to go to both sides--
to have comprehensive immigration reform. Then the Speaker who had 
promised earlier in the year to work with the President finally 
announced there would be no comprehensive immigration reform. That was 
the straw that broke the camel's back because 55 percent of these 
children are coming to be with their families.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. GARCIA. Mr. Speaker, our country needs comprehensive immigration 
reform, and the American people support comprehensive immigration 
reform. There are enough votes in this House to pass 
comprehensive immigration reform.

  I ask my colleagues to vote against the previous question so that we 
can finally consider comprehensive immigration reform.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself 
such time as I may consume.
  In our last week--on our last day--before this House adjourns for a 
5-week recess, we have an opportunity with Mr. Garcia's previous 
question in that, if we can defeat the previous question, we can 
actually address these issues with a bipartisan bill, H.R. 15, 
comprehensive immigration reform, nearly identical to the Senate bill. 
I am confident that, if this body passes that bill, Senate Majority 
Leader Reid will promptly act on it and send it to the President's desk 
so that we not only can address this border crisis but can prevent 
future border crises from arising by securing our border and restoring 
the rule of law to our Nation. The American people expect this body to 
act in a way that is consistent with our values. We have that 
opportunity today.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the 
amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately 
prior to the vote on the previous question to bring up H.R. 15, the 
House's bipartisan immigration reform bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Colorado?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and 
defeat the previous question so this body--this House and this 
Congress--can tackle immigration reform and restore the rule of law to 
our country. I further encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the 
underlying bills.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I am going to differ with my friends, obviously, on a number of 
important issues.
  First, I think they, probably, without thinking it through, accused 
us of wanting to roll back a human sex trafficking bill that passed 
this body unanimously. Absolutely untrue. Nobody has any intention of 
doing anything like that. It is the administration that said that 
legislation--a loophole in it--is what caused this crisis. I would 
dispute that, quite frankly.
  I think what has caused it is, first and foremost, the President's 
sending an unmistakable signal, a signal that may have been 
misinterpreted that, if you manage to get to the United States, you are 
going to be able to stay. He did that by unilaterally changing and 
thwarting whole sections of our own immigration law, by doing things 
that he, himself, had said a year

[[Page H7147]]

before were unconstitutional. That signal, I think, has been picked up 
by criminals and turned into a message that has been directed at naive 
and vulnerable people, saying, if you give us thousands of dollars, we 
will take you on this journey, get you to the United States, and then 
you are going to be able to stay.
  When the President first addressed this problem--again, he was warned 
in 2012 and 2013 by his own advisers that this might well happen--he 
did not prepare for it. He submitted a budget that actually cut border 
enforcement and that cut security aid to the Central American countries 
so they could secure their own territory. When he finally dealt with 
this, he said this 2008 law is part of the reason.
  What this bill does is tweak it. It simply says we are going to treat 
children coming from the affected areas, from noncontiguous countries, 
in the same way we treat Mexican children. It has always been a 
question as to whether or not we should have that distinction. There is 
no particular reason why somebody from Central America should 
automatically be treated differently than somebody from Mexico.
  In addition, I will point out to my friends there is an easier way. 
Just go to the American Embassy in the country, and if you have got 
status that would qualify as refugee status, you can make your case 
there. You don't have to pay thousands of dollars. You don't have to 
subject yourself to a dangerous journey in the company of criminals.
  The President, frankly, has said that this is an immigration issue. I 
don't think it is. I think it is a border crisis, and I think it needs 
to be dealt with that way. I think the record is, again, pretty clear 
on this, and that is exactly what we are trying to do. We have acted on 
a problem the President has identified.
  When my friends express concern that the majority of these children 
will be returned, number one, remember they are going to be returned to 
the custody of their governments. They are going to be returned to the 
people who are actually responsible for trying to take care of them 
within their societies. Second, that is exactly what the President said 
is going to happen. Those were his words. The overwhelming majority of 
these young people will be returned. The quicker and the more humanely 
and the more expeditiously we accomplish that, the fewer of them will 
undertake this journey, and the fewer of these families will be conned 
out of their money. You are not doing the next people a favor by not 
dealing with the problem in front of us.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, this legislation continues this House's 
commitment to govern and deal with crises before they become even 
worse--the shortfall in the highway trust fund, for instance, in the 
supplemental request. They are all things the American people expect us 
to deal with before the August district work period. I would urge my 
colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker I rise to speak in strong opposition to 
the Rule for H.R. 5230, a bill to make supplemental appropriations for 
the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014 to address the humanitarian 
crisis on our nation's southern border.
  As a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and 
the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, 
I have visited the border and seen the children that this bill intends 
to help.
  This bill offers to little in funding to address the need that over 
50 states are attempting to address by providing shelter and assistance 
to the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who are now living in 
our country.
  This bill does too little to actually help the thousands of children 
who are awaiting immigration hearings. They are victims of human 
trafficking, sexual violence, and witnesses to murders as well as acts 
of violence against other children who took that dangerous trek to the 
United States.
  We should be focused on learning what they know and what they 
experienced to be sure the guilty are found and punished.
  I offered, along with several other members of the House amendments 
in attempts to improve the bill, but all were rejected by the Rules 
Committee, which chose to place H.R. 5230 before the House in the form 
of a closed rule.
  The Jackson Lee Amendment would have authorized designated federal 
agencies to reimburse State and local governments and private nonprofit 
organizations for the costs incurred in providing psychological 
counseling, housing, education, medicine and medical care, food and 
water, clothes, personal hygiene and other in dispensable consumables, 
other human services in response to the humanitarian crisis on the 
Southwest Border.
  This Congress has had the Senate's version of a Comprehensive 
Immigration reform bill for nearly a year, without accomplishing the 
task of taking up the issue and passing a House version.
  Our nation's immigration system is broken and needs reform, but the 
only attempt at addressing immigration into the United States is this 
bill that is being presented as an appropriations bill.
  H.R. 5230 is not an appropriations bill it is an immigration reform 
bill, which covers the jurisdictions of the two committees I serve on--
the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees. Neither of these 
committees were given the opportunity to hold hearings or make the 
needed changes to the bill to make sure it conforms with long standing 
policies relating to unaccompanied minor or issues related to refugees.
  The Jackson Lee amendment would have helped nonprofits, local and 
state governments in all of the 50 states who are now providing 
assistance to the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors within the 
United States.
  The message has gotten to families in El Salvador, Honduras, and 
Guatemala. Parents are no longer sending their children to the United 
States once they learned of the dangers and the prospects for their 
children surviving the journey without becoming victims of human 
trafficking.
  Over two-thirds of the language in H.R. 5230 will make significant 
changes in existing law or creates new law regarding immigration policy 
without going through the committees of jurisdiction such as the House 
Committees on Homeland Security, Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs.
  H.R. 5230 contains too much language that is legislative such as:
  The bill makes significant changes to 2008 trafficking victims 
protection act. This change will subject all children to the initial 
screening process that now applies only to children from Mexico and 
Canada; erects a new expedited immigration court screening for any 
children who pass the initial screening; prohibits administrative 
appeals from children ordered removed through the new expedited 
process; requires detention of certain children who demonstrate a 
credible fear of persecution throughout the pendency of their asylum 
proceedings; establishes new, high burdens of proof; and sets up a 
principle of ``Last In, First Out'' in the adjudication process.
  The bill prohibits the secretaries of the interior and agriculture 
from impeding, denying, or restricting the activities of U.S. customs 
and border protection on federal land located within 100 miles of the 
U.S./Mexico border--This issue has already been addressed. Both 
Interior and Agriculture have existing Memorandum of Understanding 
(MOUs) with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and all these agencies, 
as well as the GAO, have testified that these agreements are working 
and that federal land management laws and activities do not impair 
border security.
  The bill provides too few emergency immigration judges--the bill only 
requires the Department of Justice to designate up to 40 temporary 
immigration judges within 14 days of enactment of this legislation. 
Then the bill permits hiring of retired judges or magistrate judges, or 
the reassignment of current immigration judges, to conduct expedited 
hearings for unaccompanied alien children to try to meet the new 
requirement that their cases be heard within 7 days of being screened 
by DHS officials.
  The bill undermines a long standing policy reparging asylum--H.R. 
5230 Prohibits anyone believed to have been convicted outside the U.S. 
of any drug-related offense punishable by a prison term of more than a 
year from being granted asylum.
  The bill makes the wrong decision on border security by sending the 
national guard support for border operations--H.R. 5230 would deploy 
National Guard under Title 32 Status. National Guard troops with this 
change may be assigned duties as deemed necessary to provide assistance 
in operations, with priority given to high traffic areas experiencing 
the highest number of crossing by unaccompanied children.
  The bill denies safe shelter to children through its sense of 
congress--the states that the Secretary of Defense should not be 
allowed to shelter unaccompanied children or other migrants unless 
certain conditions are met.
  These children have found the compassion and love of thousands of 
Americans founds in the states of Texas, Alabama, Alaska, California, 
Illinois, North Carolina, South Dakota, New York, Utah, Virginia and--
yes--even the U.S. Virgin Islands.
  The nature of America is that of the Good Samaritan.

[[Page H7148]]

  On July 3, 2014, I went to McAllen, Texas and observed a Customs and 
Border Protection (CBP) facility where unaccompanied children were 
being processed by the Border Patrol.
  As I walked through the facility, I saw frightened and needy 
children, some as young as five years old.
  Mr. Speaker, some members of this body who have not taken the time to 
visit the border or visit the children who are now in their own states 
will stand before this body and accuse them of being dangerous--but 
they are not.
  They are traumatized and frightened children driven from their homes 
by violence and inducements of these same gangs to get payments from 
desperate parents seeking to save the lives of their children to bring 
them to the United States.
  These children had risked their lives to make their way to the U.S. 
by riding atop freight trains through dangerous territories in Mexico. 
One can only imagine the desperation and hopelessness that would prompt 
a parent to send their young child on such a treacherous journey.
  It takes courage and desperation to escape senseless violence and I 
know that is what Cuban Americans faced, and Christians, Jews and all 
other groups facing violence have endured.
  These are refugees and their status requires that the United States 
act appropriately.
  Some may mention that the United States has a quota on refugees that 
we can take each year and that number has been reached. The program 
they refer to is for refugees that other nations around the world are 
providing shelter--but if the refugees are crossing our own border 
there is not limit.
  This international law that the United State has backed for decades 
and pressured other nations to enforce. If the refugees are Christians 
escaping ISIS or Boko Haram or they are children escaping violent gangs 
in Central America they are not and should not be turned back.
  Children do not leave their homes and families by the tens of 
thousands unless fear is driving them from their homes.
  Upon my visit to South Texas borders, I witnessed hundreds of 
children whose young faces were pressed against glass jails with tears 
running down their faces. We are dealing with helpless children who 
have traveled a treacherous journey, and it should be within our 
American values to care for these children who fled their homes to 
escape violence.
  These children are not perpetrators or criminals--they are in many 
cases victims fleeing deadly violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El 
Salvador, and are seeking temporary safe haven in the United States, as 
so many people before them have done for centuries.
  The surge of unaccompanied children on our southern border does not 
pose a threat to our national security. Contrary to the shrill rhetoric 
used by some commentators, the nation is not being invaded by army an 
of children dispatched to do us harm.
  We are confronted instead with a humanitarian crisis resulting from 
the alarming scale of violence and economic desperation in three 
Central American countries that now lead the world in murder rates: El 
Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
  Politicizing the issue will not solve the problem. Taking actions 
that address the root causes in the short and long term will. We should 
be taking up Immigration Reform to deal with the wide range of 
immigration problems.
  The current status on the border is the number of children coming 
across the border has abated. Those children remaining in detention 
shelters along the border number only a few hundred.
  According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, these 
three Central American countries have among the highest per capita 
homicide rates in the world, with Honduras topping the list and the 
other two nations in the top five.
  To address this issue of the humanitarian crisis, I introduced H.R. 
4990, the ``Justice for Children Now Act of 2014,'' which authorizes 
the immediate hiring of an additional 7o immigration judges in the 
Executive Office of Immigration Review.
  This bill will help but it is not sufficient to address the backlogs 
to help advance the flow of the children's immigration court hearings.
  The amount allowed under this bill will leave states and aid agencies 
footing a significant portion of the cost for assisting these helpless 
children--when it is the role of the federal government to be present 
and actively engaged in leading the effort.
  I support the President's request for $3.7 billion to respond to the 
humanitarian crisis on the border and urge my colleagues in leadership 
to reconsider the level of funding for this great need.
  Congress should allocate the resources needed to deal with the 
increase in unaccompanied children seeking refuge in the United States. 
Some of these persons are attempting to enter the country unlawfully 
and without justification. Our laws do not permit this and they should 
not be allowed entry.
  The Administration is following immigration law as it relates to 
these unaccompanied minors.
  The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, 
signed by President George W. Bush establishes the legal status of the 
children who have entered the nation unaccompanied.
  That law provides persons fleeing lethal violence or escape from 
human trafficking the opportunity to have their case heard by an 
immigration judge.
  Over the time Congress has delayed acting and an additional 366,000 
pending cases were added to the immigration courts that must have 
hearings before any action can be taken.
  Because this situation is untenable for everyone--law enforcement, 
taxpayers, and individuals petitioning for relief, the first thing that 
we can and should do to reduce the backlog is provide the funding 
needed to appoint 70 new immigration judges, as provided under 
legislation.
  Ensuring that there are available sufficient facilities to house 
detained children in a humane manner while they await their immigration 
hearing is another challenge.
  I ask that the Rules Committee approve the Jackson Lee Amendment for 
inclusion in H.R. 5230.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. Polis is as follows:

     An amendment to H. Res. 696 Offered by Mr. Polis From Colorado

       At the end of the resolution, add the following new 
     sections:
       Sec. 7. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the 
     Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare 
     the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on 
     the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 
     15) to provide for comprehensive immigration reform and for 
     other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be 
     dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of 
     the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the 
     bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided among and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on the Judiciary. After general debate the bill 
     shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. 
     All points of order against provisions in the bill are 
     waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for 
     amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the 
     House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The 
     previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill 
     and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening 
     motion except one motion to recommit with or without 
     instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports 
     that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the 
     next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the 
     third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV, 
     resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further 
     consideration of the bill.
       Sec. 8. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of H.R. 15.
                                  ____


        The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

       This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous 
     question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. 
     A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote 
     against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow 
     the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a 
     vote about what the House should be debating.
       Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of 
     Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the 
     previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or 
     control the consideration of the subject before the House 
     being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous 
     question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the 
     subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling 
     of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the 
     House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes 
     the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to 
     offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the 
     majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated 
     the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to 
     a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to 
     recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: 
     ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman 
     from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to 
     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous 
     question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an 
     immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no 
     substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' 
     But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the 
     Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in 
     the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, 
     page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous 
     question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally 
     not possible to amend

[[Page H7149]]

     the rule because the majority Member controlling the time 
     will not yield for the purpose of offering an amendment, the 
     same result may be achieved by voting down the previous 
     question on the rule . . . When the motion for the previous 
     question is defeated, control of the time passes to the 
     Member who led the opposition to ordering the previous 
     question. That Member, because he then controls the time, may 
     offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for the purpose of 
     amendment.''
       In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special 
     Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on 
     such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on 
     Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further 
     debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: 
     ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a 
     resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control 
     shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous 
     question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who 
     controls the time for debate thereon.''
       Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does 
     have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only 
     available tools for those who oppose the Republican 
     majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the 
     opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

  Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________