[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 143 (Thursday, November 20, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H8136-H8137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STANDING WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA ON EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, this is not the first year or the 
second year or the third year of the administration. In actuality, we 
are going towards the end of the term of this administration.
  From my perspective as a member of the Committee on Homeland Security 
Committee and the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security on 
the Committee on the Judiciary, every single year, this administration 
has extended its hand of collaboration to this Congress to intervene in 
the desperate lives of those who have been stolen from their children, 
deported, or families that have been disunited, if you will, wanting to 
be reunited.
  I stand with the President tonight as he gives his message to America 
that we are a humanitarian country and that ``under my constitutional 
authority, as can be documented by scholars across this Nation, I have 
the authority to be merciful to give humanitarian relief,'' citing the 
U.S. v. Arizona case in 2012, when Justice Roberts said that the 
President has the authority for humanitarian relief.
  Every difficult decision, unfortunately, in this Nation, from freeing 
the slaves to making the armies or the militaries integrated, took 
courage from Presidents. Lyndon Baines Johnson had courage when he 
signed the

[[Page H8137]]

Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
  Mr. President, you are doing the right thing. I stand with you on 
exercising your executive authority. We need mercy for these people who 
are desperate.

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