[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 1, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H860-H865]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
U.S.-MEXICO RELATIONSHIP
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Tenney). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. O'Rourke) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. O'ROURKE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise
[[Page H861]]
and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject
of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. O'ROURKE. Madam Speaker, with the President's recent announcement
that through an executive action he would commit resources and national
attention and focus on building a wall with our neighbor to the south--
Mexico--and given some of the rhetoric that we have heard over the last
year in the Presidential campaigns about rapists and criminals coming
from the country of Mexico, one might be confused, at best, or, at
worst, believe that we have some kind of crisis on our border with
Mexico, some kind of crisis in our relationship with our closest
neighbor, a country that has done more to benefit the United States
than any other country I can imagine, a country that is the number one
trading partner of the State of Texas, the third largest trading
partner of the United States, our partner on security, on economic
development and growth, and on other important hemispheric issues.
It is important today that we take this opportunity to ensure that
our colleagues in the House have the facts. And it is with those facts
that we can make better decisions, informed judgments, and a policy
that is truly going to benefit not just the U.S.-Mexico border, not
just border States like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, but
the entire United States. Here are some facts that I would like to
start with, and then I want to ensure that some of my colleagues who
can bring their wisdom and experience and perspective to this are able
to do so.
The first fact that we should know is that we have record low levels
of northbound migration from Mexico. In fact, more Mexican nationals
today are going south into Mexico than are coming north into the United
States. We have less than zero migration from Mexico. Total northbound
apprehensions of any people from any country coming across our southern
border are also at historic lows. And if there are any surges in people
or populations coming across that border, it happens to be young
children and families fleeing horrific, historic violence in the
northern triangle of Central America. And those little kids, they are
not trying to evade detection, they are not trying to climb fences,
they are not trying to escape the Border Patrol. They are, in fact,
turning themselves in, and presenting themselves to Border Patrol
agents and to Customs and Border Protection officers at our ports of
entry.
We should also note that we are expending record amounts of U.S.
taxpayer resources to secure the border--$19 billion a year this year,
last year, and the years going forward--only to increase with these
executive orders. We have more than doubled the size of the Border
Patrol in these last 15 years from just a little under 10,000 agents to
over 20,000 agents on the U.S.-Mexico border and some on the U.S.-
Canada border.
There has never been a terrorist, a terrorist organization, a
terrorist plot, or a terrorist act connected to our border with Mexico.
There has been with our northern border with Canada. There has been
connected to our international airports. There have been homegrown
radical terrorists. There has never been a case of terrorism connected
with our border with Mexico.
But just in case, and we should remain vigilant, just in case, we
have got those 20,000 Border Patrol agents, we have got thousands of
Customs and Border Protection officers, we have 600 miles of fencing
and physical obstructions already on our border with Mexico, we have
aerostat blimps, we have drones flying overhead, we have a
concentration of Federal law enforcement--DEA, FBI, among others--
including one of the largest military installations anywhere in the
world--Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, with 32,000 Active Duty
servicemembers. We have the security resources already that we need.
I also think it is important to mention that El Paso, Texas, which is
conjoined with Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and forms what I think is the
largest true binational community in the world, certainly the largest
on the U.S.-Mexico border, El Paso, Texas, is not just the safest city
on the U.S.-Mexico border, it is not just the safest city in the State
of Texas, it is the safest city in the United States. And it is not an
outlier. If you look at other U.S. border cities, like San Diego,
California, you will find that they are among the safest in the United
States. In fact, there is a positive correlation with the number of
migrants and immigrants, documented and otherwise, in a community and
that community's relative safety. The U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico
border is far safer than the average American city deeper into the
interior. These are some of the facts that we need to have at our
command as we are developing policy, as we are judging the President's
recent executive actions, and as we are thinking about how best to
secure this country.
Here is another fact that we need to keep in mind. If we are
committing resources where they are not needed, where, for example, we
don't have terrorism, where we don't have a problem with immigration,
where we don't have an issue with security, then by definition we are
taking those resources from where they could be best used, where we
have known risks and threats, where we have real problems against which
we must contend, where we are not keeping Americans as safe as they
could be because we are directing resources where they don't need to
be, this is something that we need to know, I think, as we make policy
for this country, as we fulfill our most important solemn obligation,
which is the safety and security of this country and every American
within it.
Madam Speaker, I am very fortunate today to be joined by some
outstanding colleagues. One whom I would like to introduce from the
great State of New York is a new colleague, he himself an immigrant to
this country. He represents tens of thousands of immigrants in his
Congressional District, has already, from day one, become a leader on
this issue, introducing legislation that provides a more rational,
humane, smarter approach to some of these issues that have been blown
out of proportion, politicized, mythologized, and from that steering
the country in the wrong direction. Here is somebody who wants to get
us back on track.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Espaillat).
{time} 1715
Mr. ESPAILLAT. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
Madam Speaker, back in 1987, then-President Ronald Reagan issued one
of his most famous speeches--``tear down this wall''--as he addressed
then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to insist that he open the barrier
dividing East and West Berlin. It was, perhaps, one of the most
exciting times as we watched to see, finally, if the Cold War would
end. It was a moment of hope and strength and character that propelled
our country to a higher regard and standard of our identity throughout
the global community.
Today, in stark contrast to that famous speech given by President
Ronald Reagan, President Trump orders the construction of a $25 billion
wall that divides communities, separates families, and perpetuates fear
and hate. It sets a dangerous precedent and fails to elevate our
country and confidence abroad the way it was back when President Reagan
gave that famous speech. The economic ramifications will be devastating
to the entire country, going as far north as New York City, because it
is $25 billion or more that will be spent on building this wall that
could otherwise go to other meritorious projects.
These executive actions also secure what I call insecure communities,
not Secure Communities--a program that strains relationships between
law enforcement and communities along the border and throughout that
region of our country.
We live in a global society and are connected with countries and
citizens from around the world. To build this wall not only separates
the United States from our bordering country--our neighbor, Mexico,
which is one of our biggest trading partners--but the wall itself sends
a strong message to citizens around the world that they are not welcome
here in America. The President's wall and his anti-immigrant agenda is
a continuation of the
[[Page H862]]
irrational and hateful rhetoric we have witnessed from him before, and
it stands contrary to who we are as Americans and to what we believe as
a nation.
I am proud to introduce one of my first bills in Congress, called
This is Our Land, which is legislation that will prohibit this divisive
wall from being erected on public lands. This is a time when we should
be investing in our infrastructure--in roads, bridges, tunnels,
airports, schools, housing--and also respecting our public lands.
Building President Trump's wall would trample on our public lands and
potentially put precious endangered species at risk and likely disrupt
or destroy environmentally important ecosystems and habitats. It would
also deplete precious resources from our cities. We should be building
a wall around Trump to stop these irrational executive orders--instead
of this ludicrous $25 billion wall between our closest ally.
Mr. O'ROURKE. I thank the gentleman from New York for his comments--
again, bringing his experience to bear and, right from the beginning,
introducing legislation, not just criticizing or complaining, but
offering an alternative. It reminds us that, if we are to spend $20
billion on building something in this country--which is the upward cost
of what President Trump's proposal would take from the American
taxpayer--there are roads; there are bridges; there are tunnels. There
are legitimate infrastructure needs on which we could spend that money
that would put people to work, and it would be money much better spent.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Peters),
someone who represents a part of the border that really demonstrates
what is beautiful about the United States-Mexico relationship in San
Diego and Tijuana. He is a fierce advocate for our shared economic
development and growth, for the jobs that are connected to that, and
for everything that is beautiful about the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mr. PETERS. I thank Mr. O'Rourke for putting together this Special
Order to talk about what is really an important issue and, with all of
the things going on, something that has even got a little bit lost.
Madam Speaker, for the region that I represent in San Diego, the
border is an economic engine--it is a job creator. Home to the Otay
Mesa, San Ysidro, and Tecate ports of entry, San Diego-Baja is the
busiest border crossing in the world. From life sciences to
electronics, San Diego is an attractive place to start a business and
to manufacture goods, in part, because of our proximity to border
crossings and international trade.
Last month, Mr. O'Rourke and other members of the Congressional
Border Caucus and I held a hearing with local leaders from chambers of
commerce from around our districts to discuss real pragmatic solutions
and issues around the border. I was joined by Jerry Sanders, who San
Diegans well know as the former mayor. He is also the former police
chief of San Diego and is now the current president of the San Diego
Regional Chamber of Commerce. During that hearing, Mayor Sanders said
that an efficient border is a safe border, and he knows something about
safety from his time as a police chief. We also know that 99 percent of
what gets screened at border crossings is safe and that there is no
need to worry about its coming into the country. What we need is to get
more efficient at approving the 99 percent of safe cargo and travelers
and better at stopping the 1 percent that we don't want to come in.
One of the big challenges that we faced when I first came to Congress
was in border delays. We saw that delays at the border crossing were
costing us, at that point, $7.2 billion of economic activity in our
county and 35,000 jobs annually--numbers so big that they are almost
unbelievable, but those numbers came from independent assessments.
One of the great successes I have had in Congress, in working with my
colleagues within our congressional delegation, is to have worked
together to secure more than $500 million to finish the expansion and
the improvements at the San Ysidro border crossing. We did that in
working with Democrats Juan Vargas and Susan Davis and with Republicans
Duncan Hunter and Darrell Issa because we all understood how important
the United States-Mexico border is to our regional economy.
By investing in infrastructure and innovation in San Diego, Tijuana,
and across the border, we are keeping Americans safe and supporting the
export of goods made in America by American workers. In San Diego and
in other communities, we are embracing this forward-looking approach of
opportunity and job creation.
Now President Trump wants to put us in reverse by building a wall,
which we have assessed at $15 billion. I mean, I have heard estimates
of its being from $18 billion to $20 billion. By any count, it is a
waste of money. Let's say, for purposes of argument, it is $15 billion.
It took Congress more than a year to approve $170 million to help
Flint, Michigan, recover from a crisis that has poisoned children and
left an entire city without clean water--$170 million compared to $15
billion for a wall that nobody needs. We are talking about spending 100
times the money for Flint to build a wall that will do nothing to make
us more secure, to make our children safer, or to make us more
prosperous.
$15 billion is exactly how much the American Society of Civil
Engineers says we will need to fill the funding gap for infrastructure
needs at all of our Nation's ports for the next decade. So, if you took
the money you were going to spend on this wall, you could cover all of
the investment we would need at our ports around the country for the
next decade. We are going to spend it on a wall.
$15 billion is also three times as much money as the Federal
Government spends to help the homeless every year. For the cost of this
wall, we could build the Navy the 11th aircraft carrier that it needs.
For 60 times less--or 1-60th--we could finish the modernization of the
Otay Mesa border crossing, which is the third busiest commercial port
of entry along our southern border and which facilitates $35 billion in
trade every year.
What are we doing here?
Unlike President Trump's wall, this investment will support long-term
job creation and increase revenues and is a much more responsible way
to spend American taxpayer dollars. Let's be clear. American taxpayers
are going to foot the bill for this wall, not Mexico. It is the leader
of the Senate and Speaker Ryan who have committed they are going to
spend $15 billion on this wall. That is American taxpayers. That is not
Mexico.
Instead of trying to turn his campaign rhetoric into policy, we would
prefer that President Trump listen to those who understand what
business is like at the border, to those who understand that border
cities are safe, like El Paso, like San Diego, and that the border is
an opportunity for America, not a threat. We don't need a wall. We need
to hire more Customs officers. We need newer screening technologies. We
need to modernize and expand our infrastructure at other border
crossings like we are already doing at San Ysidro. That is how you
would create jobs in America. That is how you would keep us safe.
I thank my friend Beto O'Rourke for his leadership and for his
hosting this conversation today. I look forward to working with the
gentleman in diverting this money from this silly proposal--this
dangerous proposal--to the kinds of things and investments that our
country needs from Texas to California.
Mr. O'ROURKE. I thank the gentleman from California for sharing his
community's perspective and for reminding us that, when it comes to
Mexico and our shared connection with Mexico--the U.S.-Mexico border--
we have much more to look forward to than we do to fear.
In fact, in the State of California, there are hundreds of thousands
of jobs that depend on U.S.-Mexico trade. In the State of Texas, it is
just under a half a million. In fact, every single State in the Union,
including Alaska, has tens--if not hundreds--of thousands of jobs that
depend on the flow of U.S.-Mexico trade, which happens at our ports of
entry and comes through at our border. There are 6 million jobs in this
country, which represent hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries
and economic growth and add-on effects, that are dependent on U.S.-
Mexico trade. When we begin to prioritize
[[Page H863]]
our separation, in sealing Mexico off from the United States literally
physically, we deprioritize those connections that make us stronger,
that grow our economy, and that create more jobs in the United States.
One thing that we should know, as long as we are talking about
sharing facts and confronting some of these unfortunate, untrue myths
about the border, is that, when we export to Mexico, of course, we
win--we are building things in our factories; we are sending them to
Mexico; the Mexican consumer buys them; those dollars are flowing back
to the U.S. worker. It also happens that, when we import from Mexico,
we win as 40 cents of every dollar of value that we import from Mexico
originates in the United States. Literally, factory floor jobs in Ohio,
in Iowa, in Michigan are producing things that go to Mexico and that
are part of the final assembly that is reimported to the United States.
We certainly make things in America today, but we make a lot of
things in the United States and in Mexico concurrently. Our economies,
our production platform--our future--is inextricably connected, and to
try to break that apart is not simply going to hurt Mexico. It is going
to hurt the United States. It is going to hurt the U.S. worker. It is
going to hurt our economy. It is going to hurt our opportunity at
growth.
If we continue to cast Mexico as the enemy, if we threaten trade wars
or to pull out of free trade agreements, if we construct a wall to try
to humiliate that country at a time that it poses no security threat to
the United States, the consequences are not going to be good. You may
remember that I reminded you that migration from Mexico over the last 4
years is less than zero. More Mexicans are going south than are coming
north to the United States. If you build a wall, withdraw from our
trade agreements, try to de-link our economies, where you do not have a
security or an economic problem today, you will in the future have one.
You will give people in Mexico a reason to flee that country and to
seek opportunity and jobs and connections and safety and shelter
somewhere else, and that somewhere else, in many cases, is, in fact,
going to be the United States.
If we want to make this country safer, if we want to make this
country more prosperous, if we want to protect the American worker,
then the policies that this President has adopted in the first 10 days
in office are precisely the wrong way to go about doing it. They will
make us less secure; they will slow down this country's economy; they
will jeopardize the 6 million jobs that depend on U.S.-Mexico trade.
If the U.S.-Mexico border is as secure as it has ever been--look at
any metric, and you will see that I am right--if we are having record
low levels of northbound migration and apprehensions, if we are
spending record amounts, if we are using new technologies, like drones,
to patrol the border, if we have 20,000 Border Patrol agents, which is
also a record high, why is there so much concern, why is there so much
interest, why is there so much anxiety, why is there so much fear built
up around the border?
{time} 1730
I will tell you, this is a long time in coming. And when we say that
there are real issues with where these border measures are coming from,
let me give you an example of some of those.
One of our colleagues, when describing young Mexican immigrants
coming to this country, said: Look at them. They have calves the size
of cantaloupes. They are bringing drugs into this country.
When you have a Presidential candidate dismiss Mexican immigrants as
rapists and criminals, despite the fact that immigrants commit crimes
in this country at a much lower level than native-born U.S. citizens,
when you have this kind of rhetoric, when you have this kind of
mischaracterization, when you have this kind of vilification of an
entire people and their connection to us at the U.S.-Mexico border,
then you be the judge of where these priorities are coming from and
what they are about and why they in no way reflect the real concerns,
threats, and issues that we have in this country today.
My colleagues, the fact of the matter is Mexico presents opportunity
to the United States and it always has. Whether it is the $90 billion
in U.S.-Mexico trade that passed through just the points of entry in El
Paso, the city I have the honor of serving in Congress, and Ciudad
Juarez, the city with which it is connected, whether it is the 6
million jobs that we already have in the United States economy, whether
it is our security cooperation to ensure that we are disrupting
transnational criminal organizations that are trying to move drugs and
human chattel into this country, whether it is our work to address the
real security issues in the northern triangle countries of Central
America that border Mexico, we will lose a very valuable partner. We
will lose those things that we want most: job growth, economic
development, security for the people that we represent.
When we begin to humiliate that country and its leadership--and
President Pena Nieto has canceled a trip to visit the United States in
just 1 week of this administration--nothing good will follow that.
We cannot wall Mexico off from the United States. We cannot wish them
to disappear. They will always be there, and they should always be
there. And we should be grateful that they will always be there because
they have always been a part of our history, our success, those things
that are best about the United States; and, God willing, they will
always be part of our future.
I think it is going to take each and every one of us--every
Republican, every Democrat, every person who doesn't feel affiliation
to a party--to stand together behind and with the facts, with the
truth, with this country's best interests in mind. I am confident that
if we do that, if we will simply look at what is happening today, what
has happened historically with that country, where our interests lie,
we will make better policy. We will not be constructing walls between
the two countries.
We will, at some point--hopefully, sooner rather than later--tear
down the 600 miles of fencing that already separates us. We will build
more bridges that connect us, not just for trade, not just for economic
growth, but for the reasons that the people I represent are so grateful
for and proud of, the place that they call home, a city that, with
Ciudad Juarez, forms the largest binational community in the world,
where last year alone 32 million times people from El Paso and Juarez
crossed into each other's cities.
Our families are on both sides of the border. Our business partners
are on both sides of the border. Students at the University of Texas at
El Paso, who live in Ciudad Juarez and are Mexican nationals, are
granted instate tuition because we want to attract the very best and
the very brightest. And we are going to find them all over the world--
in the United States, certainly, but also in Mexico.
I want to read to you a comment that a constituent of mine posted on
our Facebook page this evening when I let my constituents know I would
be on the floor talking about the border, asking them to share the
truth and the reality, their perspective versus the myth that we hear
so often here in Congress, on national TV, and from those who don't
live on or understand the border.
Lisa Esparza said:
The border has been great because I grew up in Ciudad
Juarez. I came to El Paso, paid for an education at a private
school, learned English. I love the fact that I am
binational, and I can think and speak in two languages.
Lisa and millions of fronteriza and fronterizo border residents
exemplify the best of this country, literally, of what makes America
great.
El Paso, for those of you who do not know, has, for more than a
century, served as the Ellis Island of the Western Hemisphere. If you
came up from Mexico or your family did--or El Salvador or Guatemala or
Honduras or Costa Rica or Argentina--there is a good chance that you
came through the ports of entry in El Paso, Texas; that your family may
have, before they went on to a destination further in the United
States, settled in Segundo Barrio or in Chihuahuita. This is a
community where they learned our laws, our values, where they learned
to speak English, where they went to school, where they not just
participated and believed in the American Dream, but became net
contributors to it. It is one of the reasons that El Paso,
[[Page H864]]
Texas, is the safest city in the United States.
It is the safest city not in spite of the large number of immigrants
who live in my community--and, by official counts, 24 percent of the
people that I represent were born in another country. It is not in
spite of those people who were born in another country that El Paso is
so safe. It is, in large part, because of their presence.
Families made extraordinarily difficult decisions to leave their home
country--their home city, their families, the language they knew, the
customs that they loved--to come to a new country. They make sure that
they follow our laws. They make sure that their kids follow our laws.
They make sure that their kids are doing the right thing by this
country so that they can get ahead, have an opportunity and a crack at
the American Dream. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, there is
something profoundly great about that. It is what has helped make El
Paso the safest city, a wonderful city in America, a great country.
I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Michelle Lujan
Grisham), someone else who understands the value of our relationship
with Mexico, the special character of border people, and the value of
immigration and immigrants.
Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico. Madam Speaker, the people
who, in fact, know the border issues the best--whether it is companies
or lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, border communities, trade
groups, economists, and law enforcement officials--all agree that
building a wall is unnecessary, impractical, ineffective, and it is a
complete waste of time and taxpayer money.
This wall, in fact, damages New Mexico's economy, and that is without
taking into account President Trump's idea to now impose a 20 percent
tax on Mexican imports to pay for it. In the end, we know that it is
American jobs, American consumers, and American companies that will be
hurt.
Given that the United States already maintains approximately 650
miles of border fence, drones, cameras, motion detectors, thermal
imaging sensors, ground sensors, and 21,370 Border Patrol agents, the
wall is completely unnecessary for the stakeholders who are, in fact,
most impacted. The only person it truly benefits is President Trump by
furthering his isolationist, divisive, and anti-immigrant agenda.
I agree that this country should be building, and I agree with my
colleague from El Paso, Mr. O'Rourke, that there is a wonderful thing,
an incredible thing about building bridges, building highways, building
buildings, and refocusing our energy on making sure that everyone has a
fair shot and that we are looking at those economic values and those
economic indicators. That is not what we are doing here. We are
diverting our attention for an unnecessary, huge, colossal mistake that
hurts the progress that border communities and border States have made.
Mr. O'ROURKE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New Mexico
(Ms. Michelle Lujan Grisham) for bringing her State's experience and
perspective to bear on this issue and for being a champion for the best
in our traditions and our values.
I would like to build on the gentlewoman's remarks and talk about one
of the consequences of building walls. I have already made the case
that the border is as secure as it has ever been. Those who study and
understand security issues have come to the conclusion that extra miles
of wall don't deter migrants.
The lower levels of migration that we have seen to this country have
a lot more to do with the U.S. economy and its struggling performance
in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession and throughout that
road to recovery and, relatively speaking, the performance in other
countries, including Mexico, that has afforded Mexican nationals more
opportunity to stay there.
The border is as secure as it has ever been. We have recently doubled
the size of the Border Patrol. We are using the latest and greatest
technology to remain as vigilant as possible, which we should.
It is also important to know the character and quality of the Border
Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers who man the
line, who are at our ports, and who have one of the most difficult,
dangerous jobs that anyone has in the Federal Government. The
conditions in which they work, the situations which they must
anticipate, the constant vigilance that they must maintain, and the
kind of threats that they have to be aware of--which include drug
smuggling, which is critically important to stop; which include human
smuggling, which we must deter and stop; and which includes, even
though there has never been a terrorist or terrorist act connected to
the U.S.-Mexican border, includes the possibility that sometime that
might happen--those men and women are literally on the front line
protecting this community.
I would like to see some of the $14 billion to $20 billion proposed
for the construction of a wall put behind our Border Patrol agents to
improve their salaries, their working conditions, and the ability for
them to do their job and to keep us safe.
I would like to hire more Customs and Border Protection officers, the
men and women in blue at our ports of entry who facilitate legitimate
trade and travel at our ports of entry. They are the ones who help to
keep this economy humming while keeping us safer.
Madam Speaker, one of the consequences, though, of building walls,
while it doesn't make us safer and while it uses a lot of resources
that could be better put toward other more legitimate security
challenges, it does do one thing that I want all of us to know about.
It does ensure that migrants coming to this country will unnecessarily
suffer, and many will die.
In the same time where we have gone from 1.6 million apprehensions a
year--that was the year 2000, 1.6 million apprehensions on our southern
border--to last year, when there were just a little over 400,000, so a
quarter of the level that we had 15, 16 years ago, in that same time
that we have had record low levels of migration, we have maintained
record high levels of migrant deaths. So those few migrants who do try
to cross in between our ports of entry and do encounter physical
barriers are going to more remote sections of the border. They are
dying of thirst. They are dying of exposure. These are otherwise
preventable deaths.
So I ask you to think about it this way. Whether you are looking at
the moral dimension of this--the otherwise preventable deaths, the
effort to humiliate our closest partner in the country, of Mexico--
whether you look at the economic dimension of this, if you want to
protect those 6 million jobs that depend on a strong U.S.-Mexico
connection, whether you look at the security dimension and taking our
eye off the ball when it comes to real threats, proven threats that we
have in this country at our international airports, at our
northern border with Canada or increasingly homegrown radicals in the
United States radicalized over the internet, if you want to remove
resources from those real threats, then go ahead and build a wall if it
makes you feel good. But it is going to make us less safe, it is going
to make us less economically secure, and it is going to be to our
lasting shame. It will haunt us, and it will haunt us for generations
for anyone who supports this or does not stand up and speak against it.
I would like to leave you with two anecdotes that I think exemplify
the beauty, the strength, and the safety of the border. The first is a
story of an event that took place this weekend in El Paso and Ciudad
Juarez, where we are joined by the Rio Grande River channel. Right now,
all that water is stored up at the Elephant Butte Reservoir in New
Mexico. Really, there is just a little trickle in the river channel not
more than a couple of inches deep.
Thanks to the Border Network for Human Rights and thanks to the
Border Patrol who allowed this, they were able to organize 300 families
from Mexico and El Paso who were allowed to meet--one family at a
time--in the middle of that river channel, both sides clearly
identified so there would not be any security or immigration issues.
{time} 1745
And those families got to spend a total of 3 minutes together,
families who, in some cases, had not seen each other for decades. A
young woman
[[Page H865]]
posted on Facebook that she drove down from Oklahoma City to see her
dad who she had not seen in 10 years.
You had folks meeting grandchildren they had never seen before, sons
or daughters-in-law that they had never seen before, weeping, crying,
laughing, hugging, holding, kissing for 3 minutes.
That, to me, is absolutely beautiful. That, to me, is family values.
That, to me, shows you the extent to which people will try to be
together, to be with each other, to do the things that perhaps you and
I, as U.S. citizens, take for granted. And that happened in El Paso,
Texas, thanks to the Border Network for Human Rights, thanks also to
the men and women in the Border Patrol.
It didn't compromise our security. It didn't add any new immigrants
to this country. It was just doing our best under the current
conditions.
The other anecdote that I would like to share with you, and which I
will close on, involves another outstanding organization in the
community that I have the honor to serve, Annunciation House, led by
Ruben Garcia, who--when we faced unprecedented numbers of young
children and young families, young moms in their teens and twenties,
coming up from Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador, which have
become the deadliest countries, not just in Central America, not just
in the Western Hemisphere, but in the world, the deadliest countries in
the world; kids being murdered and raped and sold into slavery.
Those kids fleeing that horrific brutality and violence, coming up
the length of Mexico, sometimes riding on top of a train known as la
bestia, or the beast, to come and present themselves at our border, not
evade detection, not try and escape, not try to do anything against the
law; literally, as the law proscribes, presenting themselves at our
points of entry to a Border Patrol agent, or a Customs and Border
Protection officer, and asking for help and for shelter, depending on
the best traditions inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, counting on the
United States in their moment of need.
Well, the Border Patrol were outstanding. The agents themselves, out
of their own pockets often, were buying toys and gifts for these young
children, taking care of them, having their hearts broken, doing their
best to serve them. Agents who work for ICE and immigration were doing
their best as well.
As that flow of people, the number of people became too many
temporarily for us to hold and to process, they got in touch with Ruben
Garcia at Annunciation House, which is a charity operated in El Paso,
Texas. And Ruben took those asylum seekers, those refugees, and housed
them, clothed them, fed them, insured they had showers and medication
and a visit with a doctor, the ability to talk to their families deeper
in the interior of the United States and, most importantly, especially
for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, had a full and
complete understanding of their legal obligations under U.S. law, what
they were allowed and not allowed to do, what their court expectations
were, and that they must appear in court, and that their issue must be
adjudicated, and that they may or may not be able to stay in this
country.
Annunciation House, Ruben Garcia, the volunteers who work for him,
and hundreds of other El Pasoans who contributed did this at not a
penny's cost to the Federal taxpayer or to our government.
So $20 billion to build a wall or Annunciation House taking care of
refugees, asylum seekers, little kids who need our help for free?
That is the border. That is the best of us. That is the best of this
country. That is what we need to think about. Those are the folks we
need to listen to. Those are the facts we need to understand before we
even contemplate building a wall, separating ourselves from Mexico,
giving in to the nativist sentiment and instinct that was so proudly on
display during this Presidential election.
I think if we look at the facts, if we take the best from the border,
we are going to get the best policy and the best outcome from the
United States.
And after all, isn't that why we were all sent here? Isn't that what
we are supposed to do when our voters sent us here to do the work of
the American people?
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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