[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H10326-H10330]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HOUSE FREEDOM CAUCUS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina
(Mr. Meadows) for 30 minutes.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my colleagues to
stay in the fight to make sure that we help this President deliver on a
promise that he made years ago.
I am sad that tonight we are here, and we are on a backdrop of a
potential government shutdown; but, really, what it is is more a
function of the fact that we have not done our job like we should have
done already.
The President, many, many months ago, said that he would not sign
another funding bill unless we gave him wall funding. So what did this
House do? It passed a bill to fund the Department of Defense and passed
a short-term CR. And they said: Do you know what? We are going to have
that fight, but we are going to have that fight after the midterms.
Well, Mr. Speaker, it is after the midterms, and we are here with a
number of my colleagues tonight to say that we are ready to fight on
behalf of all the freedom-loving Americans to make sure that we have
secure borders and that never again do we have to worry about
terrorists and drug traffickers coming across our southern borders.
So I have a number of my colleagues tonight, Mr. Speaker, who want to
speak on this to encourage the American people to stand with us in this
fight.
I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful that my colleagues are here
standing up for the crisis, to solve the crisis on the border.
Securing the United States and the American people, this border, is a
fundamental, constitutional responsibility of the Federal Government.
We have Members of the House and Senate who are still unwilling to
ensure we have control over our borders, unwilling to ensure we know
who enters the United States, and unwilling to enforce our immigration
laws.
Some of the opposition has forgotten their previous support for
border walls back then, before they didn't fundamentally disagree with
border security or the border wall. But now they simply don't want
President Trump or elected Republicans to get a win. What they want is
open borders.
In 2006, some of the Democrats still in the Senate today, including
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted in favor of the Secure Fence Act
to build a southern border wall.
For now, Republicans still control Congress. Rumor is that our
leaders are negotiating a deal to avert a shutdown and fund the
government through February 8. Once again, we are kicking the fight for
border security down the road.
When are we going to stand up and fight, if not now?
Our coalition of Members here have drafted an amendment that would
allow us to deliver on our promise to make the necessary policy changes
to end catch and release, increase the number of immigration judges,
and provide $5 billion in border wall funding.
In all of the debate about borders and illegal immigration, many of
the headlines focus on those who have come here illegally, but I urge
you to remember people on the American side of the border. Remember the
ranchers and residents living along the border who are impacted by
smuggling and trafficking that goes on because of our lack of will in
this body. Remember our Border Patrol agents who risk their lives every
day trying to keep us secure.
I urge my colleagues in the House and our leadership to think about
what is best for America. Is it the status quo, or is it standing up to
fight for the security and sovereignty of our Nation?
Clearly, we must stand up and fight now. I urge my fellow Members to
support funding for the border wall before January 3 comes; and if we
have to, I am willing to stay here to make sure that happens.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to another gentleman from Arizona
(Mr. Gosar).
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for
yielding.
[[Page H10327]]
Mr. Speaker, a study came out earlier this year that said the opioid
epidemic today is deadlier than the Vietnam war in 1968. That study
found that opioids had cost our country more than 1.7 million years of
life. Those are moments of joy, family, and community that are lost
irrevocably. And as we move into the Christmas season, it is worth
thinking about the millions of American families dealing with addiction
and overdose tragedies.
We have done a great deal in Congress to try to fight the epidemic,
from beefing up grants, to tougher law enforcement, to fixing the pain
medication guidelines, to cracking down on bad actors in the
pharmaceutical industry. But we have not addressed the immigration
issue, which is central to the crisis.
The book, ``Dreamland,'' written by veteran L.A. Times Reporter Sam
Quinones, provides one of the most definitive accounts of how we got to
this grim place we are today. It details how Mexican nationals south of
Arizona pioneered a new model of drug distribution, decentralized and
customer centric, that successfully flooded our towns and cities with
black tar heroin just as the availability of prescription opioids was
ebbing.
Our porous border was the lynchpin of that model in two ways:
One, it allowed traffickers to be caught by police, to be deported,
and to reenter the country, ensuring an unbroken stream of illegal
labor for trafficking organizations;
Two, it allowed drug dealers to display their ill-gotten gains at
home in Mexico, gaining status in their towns by poisoning our people.
That is above and beyond the simple fact that an insecure border
allows massive amounts of drugs to be smuggled into our country.
Make no mistake, we are under chemical attack. Fentanyl is so potent
that even a small amount, the equivalent of a few grains of salt, can
be lethal. Earlier this year, police seized enough fentanyl to kill 26
million Americans.
Securing the border is a matter of life and death. We have got to
build the wall. This amendment that we are talking about here would
provide the $5 billion that the President has asked for and ensures
that he has the legal authority he needs to get it done.
Let's back the President and the American people here in the House
today and put the wall money in the funding bill. It is not going to
happen under Nancy Pelosi, that much is certain. Now is the time. This
is the bill, and this is the body, and we are at the right place. The
American people can't afford any more delay.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Perry).
Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, we are here to talk about the promise that we
made to the American people.
As the proud son of immigrants, my great-grandmother escaped the
child bride situation in Colombia and came here with the shirt on her
back and her little girl and just enough skills to make it through in
America, and she did it legally.
We are a compassionate country who supports legal immigration, but we
are here to talk about illegal immigration and the one chance we have
left to solve that.
Border security is a bipartisan issue, and it is not just about a
wall or a fence. It is about stopping things like illegal immigration
and human trafficking, because seeing little girls sold into sex
slavery into this country is not a compassionate thing for the American
taxpayer to be a part of.
It is about declining economic conditions for America's working poor,
knowing that the average high school dropout in America makes about
$25,000 a year and, over the last 20 years, that has increased the
amount of people, through illegal immigration, who don't have a high
school diploma by about 25 percent. Who is standing up for the working
poor that were born in this country?
And then there is the abuse of the American taxpayer. Pennsylvanians,
where I represent a portion of the population, paid an additional $1.3
billion in taxes this year for things like education, incarceration,
healthcare, and a whole raft of social services.
Senior citizens struggling to pay their property taxes in
Pennsylvania risk losing their homes paying for those kind of things,
and it is completely avoidable.
There is the rise of the opioid crisis, where fentanyl, across the
border, the southern border, has increased 750 percent since the
beginning of the year. I talked to my DAs today. In the two major
counties I represent, that is one death a day due to opioid and
fentanyl overdose.
Then there is the potential for terrorism through our southern
border, where our Border Patrol says that they seize 10 terrorists a
day.
Mr. Speaker, regardless of all those reasons that I have just
outlined, there is still just one more that is the most important, and
that is that we made a promise to the American people to secure the
border. This is our last chance.
Nancy Pelosi will not do this, and the American people are counting
on us to do what we said we would do. And that is why I am advocating
for the funding package for the border in the CR, or I have to say
``no.''
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Jordan).
Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, everyone knows the old line: Fool me once,
shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. But we are going to have to
change that line. We are going to need a new one. The new line should
be: Fool the American people four times, shame on Congress.
Remember what we did in March? The March big omnibus spending bill?
We said: Oh, no. We are not going to put the border wall funding on
this bill because we are going to do it in September.
Then we get to September and say: Do you know what? Wait a minute. We
are not going to put it on this bill because we are going to do it on
December 7.
And then December 7 has come: Wait a minute. We are not going to keep
our promise. We are not going to put the border wall funding money on
that bill. We are going to do it December 21.
And what did we learn today? Now they are talking about kicking it to
February 8. You have got to be kidding me. Really?
I mean, February 8, when Nancy Pelosi is Speaker, I am supposed to
believe--we are supposed to believe that we are then going to build the
border security wall and keep our promise from the 2016 campaign? No
way.
Four different times we promised something and then kicked the can
down the road. I will tell you this: You know when else we should have
done it? March, September, December 7.
And now do you know when we really should have done it? Last week.
Last week when the President of the United States stood in the Oval
Office and told Congresswoman Pelosi: Nancy, this is fine. This is
fine. We don't need to go behind closed doors. Transparency is a good
thing.
Let's do what we said. Let's build the border security wall that we
should have passed last week. Instead of taking a 6-day weekend, we
should have passed it last week.
So I am sick of the games. The House Freedom Caucus is sick of the
games. More importantly--most importantly--the American people are sick
of the games.
{time} 2100
So just like Congressman Perry said, let's do what we said. We make
this job way, way too difficult. It is pretty simple. What did you tell
the voters you were going to do? What did they elect you to do? Go do
that.
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, the Freedom Caucus is going to do that. We
have an amendment. We have an amendment that says $5 billion for the
wall, reform our asylum laws, fix the problem--a commonsense, basic
amendment that everyone in this country knows needs to be done.
And now is the time to do it. We didn't do it the four times before,
but now is the time to do it. So let's get it done this week. Let's do
what we said.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chairman's leadership of our group. I
appreciate his Special Order tonight. We know what we have to do. Let's
just do it.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I couldn't agree with the gentleman more.
It is time that we deliver on behalf of the American people and fulfill
the promises that the President made many months ago.
[[Page H10328]]
Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce),
someone who has been key in that, who knows this problem better than
most, because he represents a district in New Mexico.
Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.
Mr. Speaker, I do represent the Second District of New Mexico. That
is the part of New Mexico that lies on the border with Mexico.
Make no mistake about it: This issue is one that is important to the
entire Nation. We are talking about a single subject, and that is
securing the border. That is all the discussion is about. The rest of
the spending in the bill, maybe it is right, maybe it is wrong, but
that is not part of the discussion. The discussion is: Are we going to
secure the border or not?
The gentleman from Ohio had it exactly right, that the President sat
there and said we are going to take this in front of the American
people. He said: I will take responsibility for it, and we are going to
have that discussion.
But then the Speaker of this House has said we are not going to have
the discussion.
We came here as Members of Congress to make important decisions,
sometimes very weighty decisions, sometimes very hard decisions.
Frankly, this decision is not that hard: Secure the border. That is it.
That is all we are asking for from this institution and from our
friends in the Senate, but somehow we are finding that that is too hard
an ask. The American people don't think it is too hard an ask.
It is not that it is a racial question. The Second District of New
Mexico is 52 percent Hispanic, 60 percent overall minority. They agree.
No matter how they feel on immigration, no matter how they feel on
amnesty, they agree that the border must be secure. They agree that we
must know who is coming here and why they are coming here.
As we watched the people gathered in Tijuana, there are concerns
about exactly who makes up this group. A secure border allows us to
answer those questions. An open border does not allow us to answer
those questions.
So I am here tonight to stand with my friends in the Freedom Caucus
to say to the Speaker, to say to the leaders, that we simply need to
take up this question. We have the amendment. It is very
straightforward, very simple.
Mr. Speaker, I support the amendment. I support the question: Will we
secure the border? The answer should be yes.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Jody B.
Hice).
Mr. JODY B. HICE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from
North Carolina for recognizing me tonight.
Mr. Speaker, we all know that immigration continues to be one of the
most pressing issues that we are facing in our country today. The
question of illegal immigration is not going away. In fact, it is
growing. It is getting worse. It is getting more complex with each
passing day, and Congress has repeatedly failed to take any action
whatsoever.
We have the opportunity now in this spending bill to finally deliver
results for the American people--again, something that we have not done
over and over and over again.
The Department of Homeland Security has reported that, roughly, on
average, 2,000 illegal aliens are crossing our southern border every
day. Now we learn from Border Patrol that, in recent months, there has
been an increase of 90 percent attempted illegal individuals crossing
our borders compared to this time last year.
The border crisis is for real, and it is time for us to act.
The President has requested $5 billion. That is really not a whole
lot of money compared to the $1.3 trillion that we spend in
discretionary spending every year.
Look, the wall is not the whole answer, but it is the first step,
because walls work. Wherever there have been walls put in place, there
have been great results that have been produced: for example, a 92
percent drop in illegal traffic in San Diego since a wall was there; 95
percent decrease in El Paso; 90 percent decrease in Tucson. Walls work.
Now, look, there are other things we need to do, some practical
steps, from closing the asylum loopholes, stopping chain migration,
making E-Verify mandatory. There are other things, but I hear, right
now, the voices of millions of Americans from my district and across
the country, as we have all heard the chant: Build the wall. Build the
wall. Build the wall.
We are standing here tonight as a voice for millions of Americans who
feel like they have lost their voice in Washington, and we are saying
it is time right now. Build the wall. Let's do it.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Norman).
Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this Special Order.
You know, I walked in this Chamber tonight, and I thought: This
brings a new meaning to ``major in the minor.'' We have something that
is as important as the sovereignty of this country in securing our
borders, and here we are, at the last hour, saying we are going to get
out of here before Friday on something this important.
You know, I was in line, getting some work done, and the President
came on. He challenged Speaker Pelosi, and he challenged the Senator.
He said: Bring the fight on. We are going to stay here. We are going to
fund the wall. We are going to get the $5 billion.
Now we hear talk that maybe we won't. We are going to pass a
continuing resolution for 2 months.
I am sick of it. Nobody can fund your business month by month by
month.
Here we are, abdicating our constitutional obligations to make this
country sovereign.
As has been pointed out by Mr. Meadows and Mr. Jordan, the drugs, all
the things that come into this country--I am for immigration, but it is
legal immigration. We need to sit up here as long as it takes. If it is
the next 6 months, sit up here until we get it.
If we think we are going to get it when the gavel passes on January
3, it is not going to happen. I support what we are doing. Now is the
time for us to have a backbone, finally, and support this country and
make sovereign borders a law. Fund it.
You know, $5 billion? How did the previous administration get $153
billion to give to a rogue country? We can't come up with $5 billion?
It is sad, to say the least.
I support what we are doing. Hopefully, we can get this thing done.
Sitting up here, it is time to fight.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have
remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 13 minutes remaining.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Virginia
(Mr. Griffith), my good friend.
Mr. GRIFFITH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for recognizing me
tonight. I appreciate it.
Recognizing that the time is drawing short, and we have lots of other
people who want to speak on this issue, I will attempt to keep myself
in check on the time.
Mr. Speaker, everybody knows we have to secure our border. When we
talk about building the wall, we are not talking just about bricks and
mortar. We are talking about securing our borders with all devices
available to us, whether that be drones or smart fences like they have
in Israel where they protect 17 miles of border with a fence that, if
something hits it, they send people out to see what is going on.
We have to use all the tools in the toolbox. And the $5 billion is
just the start on what we need to do to protect all of our borders, but
it is an important start.
We have heard about the drug crisis, and all of our districts are
affected by it. A lot of times, people say in the mountains of
southwest Virginia: Morgan, why are you so concerned about this illegal
immigration?
Let me tell you why. The Mexican drug cartels are bringing
methamphetamine into my district. They use it as a distribution area.
They are the main supplier of that drug. Now that we have gotten
opioids a little bit under control, and we are starting to get that
where it should be, the Mexican cartels are our biggest problem in the
mountains of southwest Virginia.
[[Page H10329]]
It is important that we secure our borders, build the wall, protect
the American people, protect our borders, and protect our laws.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Budd), my good friend.
Mr. BUDD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for recognizing me
tonight.
Mr. Speaker, we know our immigration system is broken and desperately
in need of reform. No sovereign country in the world is scrutinized the
way America is just for simply wanting to secure our borders.
For decades, the United States has taken in millions of immigrants.
In fact, that number is about a million per year, and that is something
we are going to continue to do.
Immigrants, historically, have been a major asset to the growth and
prosperity of our country. However, the issue before America is not
legal immigration but illegal immigration.
It is interesting to me that, throughout the years, Democrats have
supported securing our borders. In 2006, the Secure Fence Act was
signed into law by President Bush authorizing 700 miles of border fence
and $50 billion in total maintenance. That is a far stretch from the
small $5 billion, in comparison, that President Trump is asking for
today.
We should remember that the Secure Fence Act passed through Congress
with bold and broad Democrat support.
So in 2013, we should also remember that Senator Schumer himself
sponsored a bill that invested $46 billion in border security
improvements that added 700 miles of border fencing. That is $41
billion more than what President Trump is currently asking for.
So what changed, Mr. Speaker, between now and then? Simply, politics.
Politics is the only thing that has changed. But, to me, securing our
country's borders and making sure people feel safe should be above
politics.
Our ICE agents and Border Patrol need the necessary resources to do
their jobs effectively and with confidence. It is hard to plug a leak
when you are working with the wrong tools. The solution is simply to
shut off the water at the source.
In closing, I would pose these questions to my friends across the
aisle: If now is not the time to secure our border, then when is? If
not today, then when? And where do we go from here?
If we can't come together to solve a problem that both Republicans
and Democrats know exists, I worry that our tribal political
environment will hold the security of American citizens hostage for
years to come.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my Democrat colleagues to turn back the clock and
remember a time when putting the country first was more important than
putting the party first.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his friendship and for his
time.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer).
Mr. PALMER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to call upon this body to
fulfill its duty to protect the American people.
Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to claim that
strengthening border security is about separating families or
preventing them from immigrating to the U.S. In reality, it is about
protecting the American people by stopping the flow of dangerous
individuals across the southern border.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen has confirmed that
ISIS has produced written materials that encourage ISIS followers to
cross our Southwest border, given the loopholes that they are also
aware of, and that, on average, her department now blocks 10 known or
suspected terrorists a day from traveling to or attempting to enter the
United States.
The four individuals shown here, one of whom had been previously
identified and flagged for insurgency/terrorism, were stopped in Panama
while trying to make their way to the U.S. Thanks to a fortunate tip
and coordination between U.S. and Panamanian law enforcement, these
individuals were stopped.
This should be alarming to every American, especially concerning the
dangerous individuals we may have missed and will continue to miss due
to our lack of robust border security.
I am proud of the job our Border Patrol and law enforcement officers
are doing to protect their country, and I urge my colleagues to do our
duty to protect the American people from dangerous individuals by
taking border security seriously and fully funding the President's
proposal for border security.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cloud).
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for recognizing me
tonight.
Mr. Speaker, tonight I speak to the humanitarian and criminal crisis
at our southern border.
This crisis has been permitted to exist because of Congress' failure
to act. For over 30 years, the American people have been promised
results, but they have received empty promises.
We know from history that our southern border wall works. This is not
a new concept. Where we have implemented a wall, we have seen great
success in curbing illicit activity.
Our Nation is a generous nation, one of the most diverse in the
world, and our generosity is being taken advantage of by illegal
cartels across our southern border. These cartels have created a
humanitarian and criminal crisis that abuses the rule of law and costs
innocent lives.
Cartels recruit and send migrants across our border, making thousands
of dollars a person, in a strategy to tax our human resources and
distract from our enforcement against drug trafficking.
As the Representative of the 27th District of Texas, the southern
part of my district is just 2 hours from the border.
{time} 2115
I know the good men and women who serve on our southern border, and
they always prioritize life. Cartels know this and take advantage of
it.
Failure to complete a southern border wall and loopholes in our
asylum laws have created a magnet for illegal immigration. According to
DHS, around 80 percent of asylum cases that go to a hearing are
rejected by the judge as illegitimate.
DHS spokesman Tyler Houlton pointed out earlier this year that
smugglers and traffickers understand our broken immigration laws better
than most.
The catch-and-release process, whereby migrants come into the country
and are issued a date to appear in court, often years away, are
released into the interior, and it is driving this humanitarian crisis.
ICE reports that the number of migrants, including many women and
children seeking entry, has increased dramatically in recent years.
They often find themselves at risk for assault and abuse, such as rape,
beatings, kidnapping, and robbery.
=========================== NOTE ===========================
December 19, 2018 on Page H10329 the following appeared: ISIS
reports that the number of migrants, including many women and
children seeking entry, has increased dramatically in recent
years.
The online version has been corrected to read: ICE reports that
the number of migrants, including many women and children seeking
entry, has increased dramatically in recent years.
========================= END NOTE =========================
Tonight, Mr. Speaker, we are here advocating for an end to the
humanitarian and criminal crisis on our southern border caused by
Congress' failure to act. This means ending the status quo, funding
border security, and closing the loopholes in our broken asylum system.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have
remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from North Carolina has 3
minutes remaining.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Babin).
Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, ``securing our border'' is a term that we
have heard so often it has lost its punch inside the beltway. But that
doesn't mean the American people have forgotten about it.
We made a promise to our folks to secure our borders, and we have to
keep that promise. Without question, funding to build a wall is
necessary, and now is our chance to do it. Many sections of our border
cannot be secured without a wall, and Congress must act to ensure that
it is built. But bad policies like catch and release must be addressed
by Congress as well.
Take the recent quotes and actions from many of the migrants who have
been in these caravans, abusing our catch-and-release policy to seek
asylee status in order to work in our country. These migrants were
demanding entrance and jobs, waving foreign flags
[[Page H10330]]
while burning ours, cursing our government and our President, and
vowing that our laws mean nothing to them.
Are these people who share our allegiances? Should we not demand a
lawful immigration system so that we can determine who we let in? Is
not a secure border a prerequisite for that?
We must increase penalties for illegally crossing our border. Earlier
this year, I cosponsored the Zero Tolerance for Illegal Entry Act,
which would make doing so a felony. This would encourage legitimate
asylum seekers to do so at authorized points of entry. This should be a
component of reform.
Just this week, in a story we have seen over and over, agents
arrested illegal border crossers with over 100 pounds of meth. Without
our border agents, these dangerous drugs would be in our schools and in
our communities.
We made a promise to our constituents to build this wall. We must
prioritize the interests of the American people. I am willing to fight
for this, and I hope that my colleagues are as well.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his leadership.
Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Speaker, as I close out this particular Special
Order, I think it is appropriate for us to remind the American people
that there is a bad case of Potomac fever up here in Washington, D.C.
They forget what they promised the American people, yet what they must
do is not forget this time.
Mr. Speaker, we are going to back up the President. If he vetoes this
bill, we will be there. But, more importantly, the American people will
be there. They will be there to support him. Let's build the wall and
make sure that we do our job in Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________