[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 108 (Wednesday, June 27, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H5759-H5765]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROVIDING FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6157, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019, AND PROVIDING FOR PROCEEDINGS DURING THE
PERIOD FROM JUNE 29, 2018, THROUGH JULY 9, 2018
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 964 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 964
Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this
resolution the Speaker may, 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 further
consideration of the bill (H.R. 6157) making appropriations
for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. No further
amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except
those printed in the report of the Committee on Rules
accompanying this resolution and available pro forma
amendments described in section 3 of House Resolution 961.
Each further amendment printed in the report of the Committee
on Rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the
report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the
report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for
the time specified in the report equally divided and
controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be
subject to amendment except amendments described in section 3
of House Resolution 961, and shall not be subject to a demand
for division of the question in the House or in the Committee
of the Whole. All points of order against such further
amendments are waived. At the conclusion of consideration of
the bill for amendment the Committee shall rise and report
the bill, as amended, to the House with such further
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.
Sec. 2. On any legislative day during the period from June
29, 2018, through July 9, 2018 --
(a) the Journal of the proceedings of the previous day
shall be considered as approved; and
(b) the Chair may at any time declare the House adjourned
to meet at a date and time, within the limits of clause 4,
section 5, article I of the Constitution, to be announced by
the Chair in declaring the adjournment.
Sec. 3. The Speaker may appoint Members to perform the
duties of the Chair for the duration of the period addressed
by section 2 of this resolution as though under clause 8(a)
of rule I.
Sec. 4. It shall be in order without intervention of any
point of order to consider concurrent resolutions providing
for adjournment during the month of July, 2018.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Wyoming is recognized
for 1 hour.
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to my colleague from California (Mrs. Torres)
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
Ms. CHENEY. 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
gentlewoman from Wyoming?
There was no objection.
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 964,
which provides for the consideration of additional amendments to H.R.
6157, the Department of Defense Appropriations
[[Page H5760]]
Act for fiscal year 2019. This rule makes in order an additional 29
amendments: 8 Republican, 16 Democratic, and 5 bipartisan amendments.
Mr. Speaker, as we discussed on this floor yesterday and many times
previously, providing funding that our men and women in uniform need to
defend this great Republic is by far the most important responsibility
we have as Members of the United States Congress. Today's rule gives us
the opportunity to get the input and hear the voices of additional
Members as we listen to and consider their amendments to H.R. 6157.
In the National Defense Strategy that was released late last year,
Secretary Mattis described the situation facing our Armed Forces this
way: ``Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware
that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We are facing
increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the longstanding
rules-based international order--creating a security environment more
complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory.''
Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I would say more than any that we have lived
through and any that we have existed in since World War II.
Without the kind of sustained and predictable investment that
appropriations bills and the appropriation process needs, we will
simply not be able to restore readiness to modernize our military or to
maintain our strategic advantage. We will rapidly lose our ability to
project our forces as well as our military advantage.
We cannot allow that to happen. The rule and the underlying bill that
we are debating today are both crucial steps to continue the progress
that we have already made and crucial steps toward ensuring that the
commitment that we made in order to provide 2 years of funding for our
men and women in uniform is kept.
This bill helps provide the very resources and modernization that the
National Defense Strategy said were so crucially needed. We have to
make sure that our Department of Defense can provide combat-credible
military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our
Nation.
Today's rule, Mr. Speaker, gives us the opportunity to debate this
important piece of legislation and get the input from Members of this
body who would like to make it even better.
One of the amendments, Mr. Speaker, made in order by this rule was
offered by my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Wittman) and cosponsored by
a bipartisan group of Members. It would allow the Department of Defense
to dual buy CVN-80 and CVN-81. These are our next two aircraft
carriers. The Navy has stated that this dual buy authority could likely
save taxpayers $2.5 billion on these two aircraft carriers.
This amendment serves two purposes. It helps ensure that we are using
taxpayer resources wisely, and it helps move us toward the Navy's
necessary and stated goal of a 355-ship Navy.
There are several other good amendments, Mr. Speaker, made in order
by this rule, some that I probably won't support. But the rule takes
serious ideas about how we can strengthen the Nation's Armed Forces,
how we can make the defense of this Nation our priority, and brings
them to the floor of this House for our consideration.
I look forward to considering each amendment and completing the
Defense Appropriations process in this House. The work we are doing
here is vital, but it is only part of the job, Mr. Speaker. We have to
pass the appropriations bill through this body, and then we have to
make sure that our colleagues on the other side of this building, our
colleagues in the Senate, do the same. We can't hold funding for our
military hostage to other priorities, even for additional domestic
spending. We simply must provide reliable funding at necessary levels
for the men and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the
line for all of us.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule that will allow
consideration of additional amendments to H.R. 6157.
Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the underlying bill, and I reserve the
balance of my time.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the
customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this rule makes in order 29 amendments to H.R. 6157, the
Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2019. The
underlying legislation is the product of bipartisan negotiations, which
have been going on for months. Bipartisan negotiations are a really
good thing, and I am glad that, on this one issue, we are finding ways
to work together.
In particular, I want to recognize the work that Representative
Aguilar, Representative Hurd, and many of our colleagues on both sides
of the aisle have been doing to create a path forward and look for a
solution to President Trump's self-created Dreamer crisis. That is what
we are supposed to be doing here: working together to solve problems.
Unfortunately, this Republican leadership doesn't believe in working
with the other side. They are only interested in negotiating with their
own. So it is not surprising that it isn't going very well. That is why
they pulled their own immigration bill last week.
Maybe the Republican leadership, which has blocked the bipartisan
Dream Act time and time again, and which has blocked the bipartisan USA
Act time and time again, should trust their Members to craft and vote
on compromise legislation.
{time} 1230
But they don't have the courage or the vision to do that, do they?
Now we have another crisis, which, again, the President has created,
a crisis that has outraged our constituents. Thousands of children,
even infants and toddlers, are ripped from their parents at our
southern border, children who have done absolutely nothing wrong,
children who did not choose to come here on their own, kids too young
to know the name of the country that they came from, too young to know
what asylum is, too young to know what illegal entry means. Some of
these kids only know two words: ``mom'' and ``dad.''
We have heard the recordings of these children crying out for their
parents while being made fun of. Many of us have visited the detention
centers, and it is heartbreaking and it is unnecessary.
So, while I congratulate the Appropriations Committee for their hard
work on the defense bill, I have to remind the Speaker that we have 95
days to finish our work for funding the Federal Government. But I would
challenge my colleagues to imagine one day, a single day, without their
child, unsure if they would ever see them again.
We have some time to do the defense bill, but on the issue of family
separation, we cannot afford to wait another day. Congress should be
addressing this crisis today. It is not going to be easy. This
administration clearly did not think through this policy that they have
created.
Right now, we have children in HHS care, but where are their parents?
Some are in custody of the U.S. Marshals or ICE, already deported, or
maybe some are free on bond.
HHS said yesterday that they were not reuniting kids with their
parents who are in detention. What does that mean? Are they going to be
free? If not, what is the plan?
Let's look at the best-case scenario: a parent who gets out on bond
and goes to HHS and asks for their child is told, ``Show us your
documents. Prove you are really the parent,'' and this parent who has
been in custody has nothing.
Where is the plan to help these parents obtain their documents? Where
are these plans to help these children reunite with their parents?
Does the administration even know where all the parents are and how
they are supposed to be reunited with their kids?
How are they keeping track of the babies, the babies who are simply
too young to even know their name?
We have many unanswered questions. We should be making sure those
kids get to their parents, making sure that every single one of those
children is accounted for. That is doing our job.
Instead, we are passing another appropriations bill with the full
knowledge that we will probably do what we have done every year that I
have been here: We will pass a CR at the end of
[[Page H5761]]
the fiscal year, and then we will probably pass another CR, and then
another, and then another, and then another, because we can't legislate
together.
This rule makes in order 29 amendments, but not a single one of them
deals with the issues of the kids. Why not allow a vote on the
amendment I offered with Representative Schiff to prohibit detaining
children at military facilities?
Why not allow a vote on my amendment to block certain Cabinet members
from using military aircraft until the children are reunited? Is it
more important for Scott Pruitt to get on a plane than for a baby from
El Salvador to get back into his mother's arms? or the amendment
offered by my colleague on the Rules Committee, Mr. Polis?
Representative Polis' amendment would have prohibited the Department of
Defense from transferring resources to the Department of Justice to
carry out prosecution of migrant families.
Don't our troops need these resources? Shouldn't our military be
focused on keeping us safe from ISIS and North Korea, not toddlers and
babies?
And why is the Republican leadership afraid to allow us to have a
vote? I guess babies are too controversial for the Republican caucus. I
guess keeping families together is a poison pill amendment.
By refusing Congress a vote, this House is giving up its
responsibility to make immigration laws, plain and simple. This House
should be a check on the administration. That is the way the system is
supposed to work. But we are not doing that. Instead, by refusing to
let us have a vote on the floor, the Republican House majority is
endorsing President Trump's family jails.
Mr. Speaker, this House majority owns this crisis. Let me be clear: A
vote for this rule is a vote for more of President Trump's cruelty to
these babies. It is a vote to keep innocent children from their
parents.
This House has the power to reunite these families. This House has
the power to end separation. This House has the power to stop hateful
immigration policies.
But this House won't act. Because of that, thousands of families may
be destroyed forever. We must defeat this rule and give this House an
opportunity to act.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the rule, and I reserve
the balance of my time.
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would point out that this House actually is going to
be taking up a bill that addresses these issues. Mr. Goodlatte's bill
will come up within the next hour or so here on this floor. The bill
itself would require that the Department of Homeland Security maintain
the care and custody of aliens together, with their children, as well
as providing funding for DHS family residential centers.
So I think that it is fair to say that there is bipartisan concern
for the plight of these children, the plight of these families. I think
all of us who are mothers understand the emotions involved here and
understand that we don't want to perpetuate a situation that, in fact,
also was occurring when President Obama was in office.
But I think it is also important to note that we have got to secure
our border and we have got to be in a position where we are recognizing
that people who come here illegally cannot be allowed to stay. People
who come here illegally must, in fact, be deported, must, in fact, be
apprehended.
We need to end, as we have, the practice of catch and release that we
saw during the Obama administration. It is a security issue for us.
The pain and the emotion that we all feel for the families that have
been separated I think we all also feel for the angel families, the
families that President Trump has met with, the families that have been
the victims of violence perpetuated by people who have come to this
country illegally.
So I would say, Mr. Speaker, that it is absolutely the wrong thing to
do, as my colleague urges the notion that we should defeat this rule so
that we can address immigration. It just simply is wrong on a
procedural matter. We ought to, in fact, support this rule, pass this
rule, not once again hold hostage the men and women in uniform to
another issue.
The position of the minority here is apparently that we should stop
our bipartisan process and our bipartisan movement on funding the
troops so that we can take up an issue that we are already planing to
take up. It is not necessary and it is unjustified. I actually would
urge exactly the opposite of my colleague from the Rules Committee. We
ought to, in fact, pass this rule.
Mr. Speaker, as we think about this issue, we have got to remember
that there are families involved not just with respect to the issue of
immigration; there are families involved with respect to the men and
women who are defending all of us.
I don't think that it is acceptable, I don't think it is justifiable,
for us ever to be in a position where we are telling the mother or the
father or the spouse of a servicemember that we couldn't get them the
funding they needed because our process is broken, that we couldn't get
them the funding that they need because we are bickering with each
other. I think that is, in fact, absolutely an abrogation of our
constitutional responsibilities and duties.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr.
Calvert), who is vice chairman of the Defense Appropriations
Subcommittee.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule to complete
consideration of the FY 2019 Defense Appropriations bill.
I thank the Rules Committee and all the Members who submitted
amendments to the Defense Appropriations bill. I commend the chairman,
Chairman Frelinghuysen, Ranking Member Lowey, Subcommittee Chairwoman
Granger, and Ranking Member Visclosky for their leadership on the FY
2019 Defense Appropriations bill. I would also like to thank our
dedicated professional staff who have tirelessly worked on this bill.
I have served on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee for
many years, and providing for our men and women in uniform is a
privilege and an honor. This bill provides vital funding for our armed
services, including a 2.6 percent pay raise. This bill is an investment
in our future superiority on land, air, and at sea.
Earlier this year, Secretary Mattis released the National Defense
Strategy. As we know, our Secretary of Defense is focused on readiness
and lethality. This bill meets the demands of the Department to restore
readiness levels, invest in lethality, buy the equipment that will
maintain superiority, and provide for the health and welfare of our men
and women in uniform.
We are at a unique time in history that demands U.S. leadership
throughout the world. As we know too well, a power vacuum breeds
instability and extremism. A strong U.S. military with our allies
creates stability.
After too many years of a budget-driven strategy, this bill reflects
the investment needed to maintain and secure U.S. interests around the
world. The investment we make here today, about 16 percent of our
entire Federal budget, has dividends down the road for many years. The
security of our Nation, and the peace of the world, depends on a strong
U.S. military.
The last time the House passed a stand-alone Defense Appropriations
conference report that was signed into law before the end of the fiscal
year was September 2009. Let's turn the page on CRs that cripple the
Department and return to regular order.
I again thank my colleagues who crafted this bill, our military
leadership, and the men and women of the United States military. I urge
passage of the rule and the underlying bill.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree that a primary duty of this Congress
is to fund the military, absolutely. There are military families
serving in our Nation and abroad that deserve to get paid.
So I would like to take this moment of privilege to remind this
Congress that, before I got here, my son, who joined the United States
Air Force, was going to have his pay withheld. I remember him telling
me, Mr. Speaker:
Mom, I signed up to serve our great Nation in the United
States Air Force, and I signed up to defend and protect my
country. I did not sign up to defend and protect the men of
my country, but I signed up to protect all of the people in
my country. And I resent Congress withholding my pay or tying
my pay to the reproductive rights of women.
[[Page H5762]]
So let's keep all of those things in mind when we talk about the
priorities of this Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Doggett).
Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this Congress once provided a check on
excessive executive power. But today, in this House, it is all lapdog
and no watchdog. Even terrified toddlers torn from their mother's
embrace are not beyond the limit of this Congress.
Until very recently, limitation amendments like those I authored to
this bill to protect taxpayers from having funds misused were routinely
approved for debate--no more.
{time} 1245
Just as Trump undermines our democracy, so too do these House
Republicans refusing to permit even the pretense of a fair debate on
key national issues.
Having enabled Trump's separation of children from their parents,
often with their silence, Republicans have blocked amendments that I
and 41 of our colleagues sponsored to prevent our military bases from
being converted into internment camps for children and, in some cases,
their families.
Our military bases have an important mission. It is to ensure our
national security, to ensure the utmost readiness for our troops, who
may be called into action in many different parts of the globe at the
same time. It is not their job to take care of 20,000 people, as the
administration has requested, on two Texas military bases. The function
there is a totally different one from that to which we have committed
in this defense bill.
These are real people, real children. They are toddlers who have been
torn from their parents in places like McAllen, which I once
represented; real children who cry themselves to sleep every night,
held without their freedom and without their loved ones, while some of
my former constituents are shopping right down the street.
My constituents at home now in San Antonio, San Marcos, Lockhart, and
Austin care about this. Over 1,000 people have reached out to my
office, their hearts breaking for these children.
Trump is truly testing the waters of dehumanization, seeing how many
people blink an eye when he calls for suspending due process,
guaranteed by our Constitution, for people who don't look like him.
I do believe in a no-tolerance policy. The no-tolerance policy that I
support is no tolerance for bigotry, no tolerance for the demonization
of foreigners which regularly spews forth from this White House, no
tolerance for using cages to hold children as hostages.
No matter how grievous the wrong, how insulting the tweet, my
colleagues sit here, idle and silent, silently blocking debate on
congressional checks on this authoritarian-loving President who seeks
to amass more and more power.
Perhaps what we need in this House is a strong, professional ENT--an
ear, nose and throat physician--because Republicans have lost their
voice when it comes to standing up to Trump on much of anything. You
could say that Trump's got their tongue.
Whatever the reason, they are not there standing up for the children,
won't even permit a debate on the issue of whether our military bases
should be converted to this perverted purpose.
Mr. Speaker, I will never yield to a President who knows no limits,
and we will not yield in raising the issue of these children, their
separation, and the detainment of their families indefinitely. We must
speak out and use every opportunity afforded in this House to defend
their presence and to defend a better policy and the use of our tax
dollars for what they were intended, not to detain, indefinitely, these
babies.
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would thank my colleague very much for her son's
service in our Armed Forces, and I would also just note that we agree.
We don't think that our military servicemembers' salaries should be
held hostage for any issue, no matter the issue. That is why we in this
body believe we should pass a stand-alone Defense Appropriations bill.
That is why we believe that we ought to pass the rule that we are
debating today, so that we can get to the debate and the discussion
about the stand-alone Defense Appropriations bill. That is why we
believe the Senate should take it up and pass it that way as well.
We shouldn't add any legislation to it. The funding that our men and
women in uniform need should not be made a situation where it is held
hostage to other political issues. It is simply not justifiable, no
matter the issue.
I would note once again, Mr. Speaker, and this is crucially
important, that one of the fundamental values that our men and women in
uniform are fighting for and defending is the rule of law, and for too
long in the previous administration we had policies like catch and
release that were sanctioned from the top. We had policies like
sanctuary cities that were sanctioned from the top. We had situations,
Mr. Speaker, where the laws of the Republic that were passed by this
body, passed by the Senate, signed into law by the President, were
simply not enforced. That is not a situation that we can allow to
continue.
I think it is important that we address the issue of the separation
of families at the border. No one wants to see that happen or that
continue. I think we need to focus on it. We need to make sure that we
come up with solutions for it, like the kinds of solutions that are
going to be presented on this floor shortly.
I think, as we do that, we have also got to remember the larger
issues involved, including the security of the Nation. That is not just
about the resources that this bill provides; it is also about making
sure that our borders are secure.
One of the things that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
have refused to deal with and to address time and again is funding for
a border wall. President Trump has made clear that part of securing
this Nation is providing funding for a border wall. That is something
that we have got to make sure we appropriate. That is also something
that the bill that we will consider this afternoon does.
I am hopeful that we will see support from the other side of the
aisle for a bill that deals with the issue of separating children from
families at the border.
I also would point out, Mr. Speaker, that this House has been very
dedicated and focused and very active in dealing with the issue of
human trafficking. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle know
very well that many of the situations we are seeing at our border that
involve children are not family situations. They are situations where
those children are brought here by human traffickers. Those children
are brought here to be exploited. That is something we have got to make
sure we protect against.
When we as a nation allow sanctuary cities to continue to exist, when
we look the other way and say we won't enforce our immigration laws, we
are, in fact, perpetuating a system where those children are put at
risk, and we are not doing our duty, our fundamental obligation, to
protect and defend those children.
I wish, Mr. Speaker, that the concern for the children of my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle were as broad as it needs to
be, to encompass, frankly, all of the threats that these kids are
facing.
I think it is important that we pass this rule, we pass this
underlying bill, and we move on to address and focus on the issue of
immigration in a way in which Members on both sides of the aisle can
agree.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to add that I absolutely agree with my
colleague from the other side of the aisle on one thing, and that is
that we should be absolutely focused and work together on the issues on
which we agree, such as the USA Act.
Mr. Speaker, why aren't we allowed to have a vote on the floor when
that is bipartisan legislation created by a bipartisan group of
Members?
If we want to talk about the rule of law, Mr. Speaker, we can't talk
from both ends. Either we support the rule of law or we don't. Yet this
Republican Congress, time and time and time again, has been complicit
with President Trump and his family's conflicts of interest when it
comes to dealing
[[Page H5763]]
with China, when it comes to dealing with our trade agreements, when it
comes to dealing with Russia and now possibly North Korea.
Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration has ripped thousands of
children from their parents' arms at the border, sending them all over
the country. Separating children from their parent poses ongoing
psychological harm and trauma, yet the government has no clear plans to
reunite those families. For that reason, if we defeat the previous
question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up
Representative Bass' bill, H.R. 6236, the Family Unity Rights and
Protection Act, which would require the Federal Government to reunite
families which have been forcibly separated at the border.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my
amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately
prior to the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from California?
There was no objection.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Bass) to discuss this proposal.
Ms. BASS. Mr. Speaker, mothers and fathers who sought a safe haven
for their children watched helplessly as their children were being
snatched away from them by our government.
These families were fleeing unimaginable violence. They had no idea
where their infants were being taken. They had no idea the treatment
they would receive. These parents, in many instances, still have no
idea where their children are located or how to communicate with them.
The Trump administration established no formal process to return
these children. I am terrified at the thought that these parents may
never see their children again. If the parents are deported and their
children are sent all over this country, how will the parents find
their children?
Just imagine the mother from El Salvador who is deported back to El
Salvador, who came here dirt-poor to begin with. She gets deported back
to El Salvador. Her child is sent off to New York. How is she ever
supposed to find that child again?
It appears that the only real plan was to separate families as a
deterrent to legal immigration. Coming to America should not mean
permanently losing your child, especially if you came to America and it
was not illegal. If you came in search of asylum, that is not illegal
immigration.
The zero-tolerance policy will have a lasting effect. Pediatricians
and health experts agree that child-parent separation will result in
neurological damage. I will tell you that I have received numerous
phone calls from experts, pediatricians, social workers, and child
welfare workers.
The other night, I even received a very long email from a distraught
internationally known psychologist, Dr. Phil McGraw. He shared with me
his concerns about the impact child-parent separation will have on
children. He highlighted that, when children are torn away from their
parents and raised in institutions without a stable caregiver, it
disrupts the formation of attachments, that children become anxious and
fearful, and that this can last for years, if not a lifetime. Dr. Phil
also expressed how this impacts a child's brain development, which can
lead to negative health and well-being outcomes.
We did this, and now we must undo this. If our government did this
policy of separating children from parents, then it should be our
government's responsibility to reunite those parents with those
children, whether they remain here in the United States or, especially,
if they are deported.
This proceeded without a plan, without foresight, and without a
second glance at the law or what we stand for as a nation. This is
chaos. That is why I am calling for a vote on my bill, H.R. 6236,
Family Unity Rights and Protection Act, to require the Federal
Government to reunite the parents with the children, to establish a
database of children separated from families, and to make sure that
parental rights aren't terminated.
We are told that parents can communicate with their children, but let
me ask you how a parent in Los Angeles would communicate with a child
who is 6 months old in another State.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from California an
additional 30 seconds.
Ms. BASS. Mr. Speaker, my bill also requires a report outlining the
short- and long-term effects on these families and proposed solutions.
As it is, our foster care system is already overrun with over 400,000
children. We know that these kids are in detention right now, but
ultimately they will wind up in foster care. Because of the opioid
crisis, we don't have enough foster homes for kids who actually need to
be in care.
The long-term neurological effects that I describe even apply to
children who should be removed from home because their parents have
either abused or neglected them. So even when the children should be
separated, that separation causes tremendous harm.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has again
expired.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from California an
additional 30 seconds.
Ms. BASS. Mr. Speaker, if that is what happens to children who should
be removed from home, we must call for an end to State-sponsored child
abuse, because that is what this policy is. This is our Federal
Government that is abusing children.
That is why I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on ordering the
previous question.
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Let me remind this body of a brief history of our Nation.
During World War II, this country chose to round up Japanese American
citizens and put them in internment camps across the country.
{time} 1300
Some were held in my hometown at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds,
in Pomona, California.
In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in Korematsu v. United States that
the government had every right to incarcerate families in the best
interest of our national security. It was wrong and immoral then, and
it is wrong and immoral now, and we look back at Japanese internment as
a dark moment in our history.
Just yesterday, the Supreme Court finally rejected the ruling and
admitted that it was clearly unconstitutional to forcibly place
Japanese Americans in concentration camps--74 years later. That is how
long it took for our court system to catch up with the reality and to
right a horrible wrong.
We are facing a similar dark period in our country now with what is
happening at our southern borders. How long will it take this time for
us to realize that what this administration is doing at our southern
borders is morally repugnant, wrong, and illegal?
How long before we realize that what we are doing is causing
emotional harm to families, especially to the children? How long before
we consider how history will remember this moment and judge us?
What national security threat are we facing today that warrants such
a barbaric response towards families and children? They are exactly
that: children, families, babies.
They are coming to our borders pleading for help and protection. They
are fleeing kidnapping, rape, murder, and threats. They are not MS-13;
they are fleeing MS-13. They want to work and raise their children in
peace. Is that so terrible?
This administration is deliberately choosing to inflict trauma onto
thousands of children, holding children hostage, using child abuse as a
scare tactic to deter families from coming here seeking refuge.
There are still more than 2,000 children separated from their
families at this present moment. President Trump may have signed his
executive order last week, but he failed to implement a plan to reunite
these families--no plan to reunite these families.
We are doing nothing to fix this problem today. And let's be clear:
Speaker Ryan's bill, which we may or may not consider this week, does
nothing to fix this problem either. All his bill does is pave the way
for long-term incarceration of families in prison-like facilities. It
would be replacing one form of child abuse for another.
[[Page H5764]]
I visited some of these detention centers at our borders. The
horrendous conditions we are exposing families to are completely
unacceptable.
Where are we, as a nation, when we place children in cage-like cells,
inside warehouses, with nothing but an emergency thermal blanket and a
thin mat between them and the cold concrete floor, with a toilet in the
middle of the cell? Criminally prosecuting every individual, every
child, who crosses between a port of entry, who poses no threat to our
country, is not only inhumane, it makes us less secure.
We have a limited number of prosecutors. We have to make choices. If
you prosecute one crime, it means you are not prosecuting another. So
when we send our prosecutors after every single border crosser, who
benefits? Let me tell you who benefits. The murderers, the rapists, the
drug traffickers, the drug dealers, the pimps, the muggers, and the
human traffickers, that is who will benefit from this. We are taking
away from where law enforcement agencies need the most and are wasting
by traumatizing defenseless families. How does this make us safe?
This administration's impulsive zero-tolerance policy is harming our
moral credibility. It is harming our national security. Most of all, it
is harming innocent babies.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and
the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I agree that the court determination,
essentially rejecting the Korematsu decision yesterday, was the right
one. And we agree that the episode in our Nation's history, in which we
were holding Japanese Americans in internment camps, was a dark one and
was something that should not have happened. But I think that it is
unjustifiable, and I think, frankly, it just politicizes the challenge
that we are all facing to compare the current situation at our borders
with Japanese internment camps, or with concentration camps, or many of
the other exaggerations and, I think, highly irresponsible language
that we have heard throughout this debate.
We all have to come together to solve the problem, but we have to
come together to enforce our laws. If, in fact, my colleagues are
interested in enforcing the laws, if they are interested in solving the
problem for the families at the border, and if they are interested in
closing the loopholes in the law that have resulted in the separation
of those children, then I assume that they will be voting in favor of
Mr. Goodlatte's bill that will be coming up for consideration today.
I would also say, Mr. Speaker, it is not accurate for our colleagues
to say that families seeking asylum are having their children ripped
out of their arms. Anybody who is seeking asylum, who goes to a port of
entry, is not going to be subject to prosecution and will not be
separated from their families.
I think it is very important for us to make clear that we are talking
about people seeking to come into this country illegally, and, in many
cases, as I mentioned before, we are talking about children who are
being trafficked. We have to make sure, as we deal with this issue and
as we come to a resolution and a solution that will help these kids,
that, in fact, we do it in a way that addresses the facts.
Mr. Speaker, it is really important that we focus back on the issue
that we are here to talk about today, and that is Defense
Appropriations.
What we have seen this afternoon is the same thing that we seem to
see every time this bill comes up. This is a really important, really
good bipartisan bill, and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle
want to talk about everything under the Sun, apparently, except Defense
Appropriations.
If we don't get Defense Appropriations right, if we don't get it
passed through this House and passed through the Senate and signed
before September 30, we are looking at the possibility of another
continuing resolution for the Defense Department.
Now, we have seen this happen before. We saw it happen last year. We
watched the Democrats in the Senate, for example, shut down the
government because they wanted to hold our troops hostage, because they
were in a position where they wanted to do everything possible except
just pass Defense Appropriations.
Tragically, Mr. Speaker, this isn't just a matter of words like
``readiness,'' ``modernization,'' and ``capability.'' Those words all
matter. But there are real men and women behind those words, and
families behind them.
So when we are in a situation where we abrogate our duty, and we
don't provide the funds that our men and women in uniform need, we end
up putting the lives of our servicemen and -women on the line. I don't
think that any Member of this body ever wants to be in a situation
again where the Secretary of Defense, or the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, or the service chiefs come in and say that we, as a body, have
done more damage to the military than any enemy has in the field. That
is what we have heard consistently and repeatedly over the course of
the last several years.
Taking the step of passing this rule and making sure that we pass
this underlying appropriations bill is a crucial part of continuing on
the path of fulfilling the commitment that we made and fulfilling the
commitment that the President of the United States made that he would
rebuild our military.
Every man and woman in uniform, who puts the uniform on, as Secretary
Mattis has said, is essentially writing a blank check to this Nation,
and it is a blank check that is payable with their lives. We ought to
stop spending our time on this floor debating a whole bunch of other
things. The Senate ought to stop spending its time stuck in the
filibuster rule, stuck in the process of going on and on for hours and
hours over matters that, frankly, don't have anywhere near the
importance that funding our troops does, and they ought to move to get
this bill passed.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of both the rule and H.R. 6157.
The material previously referred to by Mrs. Torres is as follows:
An Amendment to H. Res. 964 Offered by Mrs. Torres
At the end of the resolution, add the following new
sections:
Sec. 5. 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.
6236) to require the reunification of families separated upon
entry into the United States as a result of the ``zero-
tolerance'' immigration policy requiring criminal prosecution
of all adults apprehended crossing the border illegally. 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 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. 6. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the
consideration of H.R. 6236.
____
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
[[Page H5765]]
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 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.
Ms. CHENEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I
move the previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). 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.
Mrs. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentlewoman from California
will be postponed.
____________________