[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 87 (Thursday, May 23, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H4153-H4158]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OUR SINGULAR AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to hear the great tributes
to those who have served this country well, as we just heard. In fact,
we have so many people to whom we should be eternally grateful.
As Abraham Lincoln said, they gave their last full measure of
devotion for the freedom of this country, not for some wishy-washy
government in Washington, D.C., that can't figure out what it should do
or not do, but for the idea of freedom.
I heard more discussion again recently about the Revolution. I have
read a few new books I hadn't read this year about the Revolution, the
victory at Yorktown, and other aspects of the Revolution.
And, still, there are so many historians who wonder why there was
such a dramatic difference between the outcome of the United States
Revolution, 1775 to 1783, and the French Revolution which followed.
I think the historians have it right who have said that the key
difference, the reason the U.S. Revolution lasted and was unlike the
French, which resulted in so many heads being cut off and eventually
resulted in a monarchy again, the key difference was that the U.S.
Revolution was about liberty and freedom.
It wasn't about vengeance. They weren't out to cut off as many of the
British heads as possible. It was about liberty. Unfortunately, too
many in the French Revolution, not all, but too many in the French
Revolution were about revenge and not about liberty.
So the great efforts of great heroes in France got hijacked. Many
people lost their lives, and then they lost their effort to have a
republican form of government, as we have had.
A lot of people don't understand the difference between democracy and
a republic. I think it is fair to say, as most historians do, we have a
democratic republic.
Democracy would mean the majority always rules, and our Founders
realized that sometimes you can have too much passion and not enough
time for clear reflection. You are better off, especially among a
majority that really doesn't understand the total aspects and factors
involved in a decision, selecting and electing representatives with
majority votes, except for President.
We set up the electoral college so all States would have a say in who
was President, not just the few that had the most people.
But all the other elections were about a majority--so a democracy--
electing representatives to their governmental entities locally, State,
and Federal. So, really, we have a democratic republic.
{time} 1215
It is interesting, as we saw this week, the Speaker of the House
getting ready to go meet with a President of the United States from the
other party, and he really wanted to talk about infrastructure and
making this country stronger.
I think probably most everybody on both sides of the aisle has seen
the surveys regarding the permanent structures, the infrastructure of
this country that helps tie us together as a nation, and most of the
scores are D-minus, D, D-plus at best. And that is about all you see.
We are better in some areas than we are in others, but whether it is
dams, bridges, or highways, we have a lot of infrastructure needs. And
that is something that I would hope that we could come together on and
work out, as those who went before us were able to do.
We are told in Proverbs that, where there is no vision, the people
perish. And it is interesting, when you see towns that had community
leaders with visions who could see certain things needed to be done to
have a vibrant community 10, 50, 100 years later, you saw how blessed
that community was to have leaders with vision.
You go to some communities, and you find, gee, they haven't
progressed very well. They seem to be eternally declining and holding
on to what they have. Normally, you will find leaders in a community
like that who have been spiteful, who didn't want somebody else to get
credit for what was being done. And they prevented a community from
flourishing for years into the future just because they were small-
minded and had petty differences and didn't want somebody else to get
the credit.
One of my heroes, Ronald Reagan, is often credited with the line that
actually had been around for a great deal longer than President Reagan,
but he used the line: It is amazing what you can get accomplished if
you don't care who gets the credit. And that has been true since the
beginning here in Washington and, even before Washington became the
capital, in Philadelphia and New York.
But the Speaker announced at a press event, before going over to the
White House to talk about infrastructure, that the President of the
United States had been engaged in a coverup. We weren't told a coverup
of what. We were not told what was done to cover up.
``Coverup'' is a very ingenious term to be using, almost as brilliant
as the term ``collusion,'' because neither the term ``collusion'' nor
``coverup'' are crimes. There is no law that says it is a crime to
cover up. There is no crime that says it is a violation of the law to
collude.
So words like that have been chosen and used and repeated over and
over and over so that the public thinks, ``Oh, my goodness, crimes have
been committed. There was collusion. There was a coverup.'' Well, of
what?
We now know that, after 2\1/2\ years of hearing about collusion with
the Russian Government--and I am certainly no fan of Robert Mueller. He
did more damage to the FBI than any FBI Director ever, including the
worst of J. Edgar Hoover, when he was spying on Americans.
We had Mueller's FBI that took innocent people, destroyed their
lives. In the case of the longest serving Senator, Republican Senator,
at the time, he even saw to it that he was convicted immediately before
his election, and then that cost him the election.
And then he was killed in a plane accident that he would never have
been involved in if Mueller's FBI hadn't framed him for a crime he
didn't commit and gotten him voted out of office right before or at his
election. That was, of course, Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska.
And Dr. Hatfill, who Mueller accused of committing the crimes of
murder using anthrax right after the 9/11 attacks. There was no
evidence to support that Dr. Hatfill committed the crimes.
We are told that, at one point--though Mueller kept pursuing Hatfill
and questioning his neighbors, telling the neighbors, through Mueller's
minions, that Hatfill had committed murder with anthrax and they needed
to be careful and report anything. They basically ruined the Hatfill
family's lives.
But, at one point, President Bush is reported to have called him in
and said: There is no evidence that Dr. Hatfill is the guy who did
this. Are you sure? I mean, there is just no evidence. And Mueller
stated: I am 100 percent certain.
So, when it turned out he was not the guy that had been involved with
anthrax and should have been cleared--by anybody but Mueller--Mueller
was asked if he had any regrets about destroying the life of an
innocent man. He said, ``Absolutely not,'' and never apologized.
[[Page H4154]]
Unfortunately, U.S. taxpayers paid millions of dollars in settlement
for Mueller's vindictiveness with no evidence.
Curt Weldon stood right here at this podium making speech after
speech in my freshman term. This was obviously well after 9/11. I
didn't get here until 2005. But in 2005, 2006, he was talking about a
program through which information had gotten to the FBI, and, according
to Curt Weldon--Able Danger, I think, was the name of the program that
had identified some radical Islamist terrorists, wannabes, and that
they were planning an attack in the United States.
And according to Curt Weldon's speeches right here at this podium
where I am standing, the FBI, if they acted, they probably could have
prevented 9/11, but they didn't act.
And I kept thinking: I don't know if what he is saying is true. I was
not familiar with the Able Danger program at that time. But what I kept
thinking was: Gosh, these are really serious allegations about the
leadership of the FBI. Surely Mueller is going to have to come out and
address these allegations from Congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania.
And the FBI never publicly addressed those issues, not that I have been
able to find.
But they did address them. Mueller's FBI, in fact, raided Weldon's
adult daughter, a lawyer, her office, early in the morning. And, gee,
somebody in the FBI committed a crime, apparently, and leaked it to the
media so they could be there when the warrant was run early in the
morning. And somebody alerted Democratic operatives. They had signs
that morning around the office talking about, you know, Curt Weldon is
caught red-handed, he is a thief, alleging all kinds of crimes.
It turns out he hadn't committed any crimes. It turns out, some
months later, they notified the Weldon family they could come get all
the stuff that Mueller's FBI had collected during the raid. They were
told: It has never been presented to a grand jury. We just did the
raid. No prosecution, no grand jury, no indictment.
But since they did that 2 weeks before his election, he narrowly lost
that election.
So it appeared to me pretty clear that Mueller's way of responding to
allegations that his FBI--and, in fairness to him, he hadn't been there
that long before 9/11, so he had plausible deniability: ``Gee, I just
got there. I didn't know about Able Danger at the time.'' But, instead,
what he chose to do was have his FBI affect an election adversely,
causing a critic to lose.
So these are all part of Robert Mueller's background.
But even as much as he wanted to ruin Donald J. Trump, later
President Trump, the guy that he begged for a second appointment as
Director of the FBI, just shortly after he was begging Trump for
appointment to Director of the FBI again and President Trump turned him
down, he jumped at the chance to investigate and try to destroy the
life of the sitting President who refused to hire him. And he spent 2
years, virtually 2 years, on it. I have seen $25 million, $35 million
that Mueller spent.
Mueller took the unusual step of hiring people to assist him in the
Special Counsel's Office who hated Donald Trump. Normally, when there
has been a special counsel of integrity, they know they are going to be
vilified, so they are careful to hire people that appear will be even-
handed.
I can't imagine any person of integrity actually hiring people who
contributed to the opponent of the person to be investigated, who would
go to what they hoped would be her victory party, who despised the man
who got elected. It is surprising he would go out of his way to make
sure that he hired people that hated President Trump, whom they were
supposed to investigate.
But here again, the one good thing that I can say about Robert
Mueller is--and he apparently served honorably and well in Vietnam, so
I thank him for that service--the guy is consistent. When he decides he
wants to destroy an innocent man, he gets after it.
Weissmann hated President Trump. These other folks that hated Trump,
some of them still work at the FBI. Many of them have been fired and
run out of the FBI or DOJ in shame. They should have had more than that
happen, and hopefully they will.
But there was no crime committed. His report indicates that there
were efforts by Russians to reach out and try to pull the Trump
campaign into some type of conspiracy, but nobody in the Trump campaign
took the opportunity that was presented by Russia, and there was no
crime of conspiracy with Russians.
And then, as we go along, the more we find out, we find out that,
actually, it is a whole lot worse than Mueller indicated. Mueller
indicated no collusion, no conspiracy, no crime that anybody in the
Trump campaign committed with Russian agents. But if Mueller had been
the man of integrity that I would have hoped, he would have
investigated those who did conspire with Russian agents.
Because, now, the information is coming out that the Clinton campaign
had hired Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie law firm was helping them negotiate
and work through some of these things, using their firm's name in the
conspiracy--it sure seems like a conspiracy to me--as they hired a now-
disgraced foreign agent who had worked for MI6, Christopher Steele, to
do digging to try to find some tie between the Trump campaign and
Russia, any kind of dirt they could get.
{time} 1230
They tried to lure Don Trump, Jr., into some kind of deal. They said,
gee, there is a Russian person who has all kinds of negative
information about Hillary Clinton.
He agreed to meet and found right away that this is not what it was
represented to be and got out of the meeting as quickly as he could.
Here again, Christopher Steele was hired, apparently through Fusion
GPS, to dig up dirt, true or not true, about Donald Trump. Fusion GPS
hired this foreign, disgraced intelligence agent to do digging, using
Russian agents.
Fusion GPS also hired the spouse of one of the top FBI people, Bruce
Ohr. That was his wife, Nellie. She was hired to dig up dirt, anything
she could in Russia about Trump.
I didn't realize until more recently that Christopher Steele was not
even traveling to Russia to dig up this dirt. He was simply contacting
people in Russia, trying to find somebody who had some dirt on Donald
Trump.
Apparently, he has now recently indicated: You know what? I guess
there is a good chance that the people I was talking to in Russia who
gave the false information about Donald Trump, yeah, they may have been
working for Vladimir Putin.
It appears the evidence is now starting to come out, no thanks to
Robert Mueller and the tens of millions of dollars he wasted, the years
that he wasted. The truth is starting to come out, and it is making
people who are in positions of power very uncomfortable.
We have heard Clapper and Brennan making really inappropriate
statements for somebody who had been involved in our intelligence-
gathering agencies. But it is appearing that it was probably Brennan--
we will be finding out in the days ahead--who may have asked England's
intelligence agencies to spy on American citizens involved with the
Trump campaign because our intelligence community is not authorized to
spy on American citizens. So there may be a wink and a nod.
We need to get to the bottom of whether our intelligence community
winks and nods, and says: Hey, we want to spy on our own citizens, but
we are not allowed to legally. So how about you spy on these citizens,
and we will spy on some for you in our country?
We need to know if that kind of thing has really gone on. If it has
gone on, if there is a quid pro quo, we need to know. We need to know
if some of our top intelligence officials have committed crimes. This
is serious stuff.
It turns out there was no collusion, no conspiracy between anybody in
the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin or Russia. But it is appearing
more and more that there was a conspiracy between people associated
with the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Christopher
Steele, potential agents of Vladimir Putin, to try to destroy Donald
Trump before the election and after the election.
We expect to see more coming out as some of the information that was
classified is declassified. It appears now we
[[Page H4155]]
are hearing, and we heard previously, that an Australian Ambassador had
spoken to a member of the Trump campaign, just tangentially part of the
campaign.
But what we have found out now is, apparently, the Australian
Ambassador was manipulated through the Democratic effort to defeat
Donald Trump, recruited to tell a tangential member of the Trump
campaign that the Russians had Hillary Clinton's emails.
Then they set that same Trump marginal official up by asking him
questions: Have you heard anything about Russia having information on
Hillary?
He said: Well, yes. I heard that Russians had Hillary Clinton's
emails.
Then they used that information to help them get a warrant to spy on
the Trump campaign. It was a total setup by potentially our
intelligence community, potentially British MI6.
We have to get to the bottom of this. People who have committed
crimes need to go to prison.
In the meantime, there is all this animosity that has been stirred up
against Donald Trump. Now we find out there was nothing to the
collusion. He knew that he had not committed any kind of conspiracy
with Russia. He knew that this was all bogus. He was hearing rumors
that if there was a conspiracy, it involved the other campaign.
What do you do? How do you act? I would submit, you act exactly as
President Trump has acted, frustrated. He can't believe that his own
United States Government is trying to set him up and say that he
committed some crime that he never committed. He can't obstruct justice
when he is doing everything he possibly can to ensure that justice gets
done.
That is where we have been. We heard the roadblocks, the things that,
oh gee, there was collusion. When that didn't materialize, then: Well,
there is a coverup.
No allegations other than just the general term ``coverup.''
Clearly, efforts are being made in this city to prevent President
Trump from being successful in getting legislation through this House
and through the Senate that could become law and help the country.
Even on issues of securing our border, President Obama talked about
the need to secure the border and stop illegal immigration. Senator
Clinton had talked about the need to stop illegal immigration and
secure the border. Most of the leaders on both sides of the aisle have
talked about that at some point.
Why don't we do it? Well, he would get credit for keeping a campaign
promise, and apparently, it is more important to stop the President
from keeping campaign promises than it is important to some to help the
country.
What it reminded me of, as I thought back--and I have been here 14
years. Never expected to be here this long. I feel like I am kind of
going to a scary movie. Get into it and I am sorry I went, but I can't
leave until I see how it turns out. I want to make sure that we get on
a proper footing here.
I know in the 14 years that I have been here, I have not seen either
party work so hard to prevent the other party's President from being
successful.
As I majored in history, I have never stopped studying history.
American history is my favorite. I have tried to think back, okay, when
was the last time, if there ever was a time before, when one party
worked so hard to prevent another party's President from being
successful and helping the country?
I think it probably goes back to John Quincy Adams' days. John Quincy
Adams, he was the first son of a former President to be elected
President, and he did not get a majority of the vote. It ended up that
he didn't get a majority of the electoral college.
It was thrown here to the House of Representatives to decide, under
the Constitution. Henry Clay, so beloved and respected here in the
House of Representatives, he decided to throw his support to John
Quincy Adams.
I have studied John Quincy Adams, read a very thorough biography. I
liked it. I chose it because it incorporated more of John Quincy Adams'
own journal, where they kept calling him JQA. John Quincy Adams,
apparently, kept more of a journal than any President we have ever had.
He started very young, and he went until the last few weeks of his life
when he could no longer see to write.
I didn't know until I read that, for example, that his last night at
home before he came to the House floor to give a speech against the war
with Mexico, because he was concerned that that would perpetuate
slavery longer, that the reason he had run for the House of
Representatives after being President was to try to do what William
Wilberforce had done in England, and that is to use his elected
position to fight to end slavery.
Wilberforce got it totally outlawed 3 days before he died in 1833. In
1830, that is what Adams thought he was supposed to do. That is why he
ran for Congress.
The night before, he had a massive stroke. The next day, when he
tried to stand up and speak against war with Mexico, he couldn't see.
He couldn't sleep, and he asked his precious wife if she would mind
reading him any of William Wilberforce's sermons. She chose one. She
read it for him, and he finally dozed, listening to William
Wilberforce's sermon the last night he slept at home, before he had his
massive stroke on the House floor here in the Capitol.
In 1824, John Quincy Adams was still a man of integrity. He was
always a man of integrity. Some feel like it is possible that he was
the smartest President we have ever had. Certainly, he was one of the
top-educated Presidents we have ever had. He spoke a number of
languages.
One thing he had in common with our current President, he is the only
other President to have had a wife who was not born in America. Much
like President Trump's wife, John Quincy Adams' wife spoke multiple
languages, very fluent. She herself was brilliant. So we share that
with the current First Lady.
John Quincy Adams even wrote some history books in German. His
favorite foreign language was French. He was an amazing guy.
He knew he was a man of integrity, and when studying his life, you
figure out that he was a man of integrity.
He asked Henry Clay for his support. Henry Clay threw his support
behind John Quincy Adams for President. That got him the votes in the
House to win the Presidency.
When it came time to pick Cabinet members, President-elect Adams said
that he believed the person who would make the best Secretary of State
would be Henry Clay.
Those people who were close to him, who loved him, said, yes, he was
right, that Henry Clay would make a fabulous Secretary of State, but
that if he appoints Henry Clay to be Secretary of State, it will look
like he cut a deal with Clay in return for his support for him for
President, which gave him the election. If he agreed to make him
Secretary of State, people would think he made an illegal deal.
{time} 1245
He said: He is the best person for the job. I didn't make any kind of
deal with him. He threw his support behind me. I never mentioned
Secretary of State to him. I never mentioned making him a Cabinet
official, but I think the world of the man. I think he would be the
best Secretary of State. People know I am a man of integrity. I
wouldn't do an illegal deal to be elected President, so they just need
to get over it. He is the best man. I am going to appoint the best man
to be Secretary of State. People who know me will know that I never
made a deal, promised him Secretary of State in return for throwing his
House support behind me. That is just a lie, and I am not going to be
prevented from appointing the best man for Secretary of State by my
fear about what somebody might think.
So he appointed Henry Clay to be Secretary of State, and people got
really upset: There must have been a deal. He must have cut a deal with
Henry Clay. In return for Henry Clay's support that won him the
Presidency, Henry Clay gets to be Secretary of State.
Apparently, there was no deal, but people thought there was. People
felt like: This looks terrible. It looks like he made a deal. He must
have made a deal. We know Adams is an honest guy, and so if he made a
deal with Clay, he surely would have kept his end of the deal.
There was no deal, but there were so many in the opposition party who
were
[[Page H4156]]
mad about it, they just decided they were not going to let John Quincy
Adams accomplish anything as President.
He was elected in 1824, sworn in, in 1825. His term was 1825 to 1829.
He was defeated by Andrew Jackson and defeated fairly easily because
people thought he had cheated to win by making a deal he didn't make
with Henry Clay.
During those 4 years--anyone can do the research--he couldn't get
much of anything done. There were even cases of Members of this House
who were of the opposition party, the Democratic Party, there were
Democrats who had actually written and sponsored bills they desperately
wanted to get passed. When John Quincy Adams threw his support behind
the bills because he thought they were a good idea, the person who
wrote the bill, sponsored the bill, withdrew his support. He did not
want John Quincy Adams to get credit for passing some important bill.
He had some great ideas. He wanted a national observatory. He felt
like it would be good to have a uniform system of weights and
measurements. That had not happened. He wanted to create a naval
academy for the country. He wanted to have a code, a systemized
national bankruptcy law.
Bankruptcy is mentioned in the Constitution. There were finally some
laws passed before he was President, but it wasn't a uniform national
bankruptcy law as it needed to be.
He had some great ideas, but they weren't passed because people did
not want him to get credit. They were willing to hurt the country to
prevent John Quincy Adams from having a great victory.
That is what went through my mind. Somebody may be able to find a
case in which one party did everything it could to prevent a President
from having any big successes.
It is a little late. President Trump got a great tax bill. It wasn't
as good as I had hoped it would be, but it was helpful to the country
overall. He got that passed, signed into law.
Hopefully, we are going to vote on the Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
It is better than NAFTA was. Hopefully, we will get that done, and we
won't keep harming the country by failing to bring that for a vote.
For Adams, there was a tariff that was passed. That was about the
biggest piece of legislation passed during his 4 years, but it didn't
even get enacted until Andrew Jackson took over as President.
So Adams, a man of integrity, was accused of making an illegal deal
with Henry Clay to get himself elected President. The country suffered
for 4 years. Those who despised John Quincy Adams, they were able to
hurt the country for 4 years just to keep John Quincy Adams from having
a major victory.
It is important to learn from history. As we know from the old adage,
those who refuse to learn from history are destined to repeat it. Of
course, I also grew up learning there is a corollary to that, that
those who do learn from history will find new ways to screw up. We have
seen both of those play out in this country.
I am hoping it will come together, and we will be able to pass some
of the critical legislation to secure our border and to get some
infrastructure built so we don't give a country to our children and
grandchildren that has infrastructure crumbling and with so much debt
that they can't afford to rebuild the infrastructure. We already know
that we are the first generation in American history that didn't have
as our driving goal to give a country to our children better than we
had it.
The debts continue to skyrocket, over $23 trillion now. We really
need to come together on these important issues.
With regard to the President's effort to try to secure the border, I
continue to believe with all my heart, the most compassionate, caring
thing we could do for the people of Mexico--and I was talking to the
Ambassador from Guatemala yesterday. I sure like him. Guatemala, of
course, was the only country to immediately recognize Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel, as it was 3,000 years ago, and should be and is
today, and will be for the future. Guatemala had the courage to back us
up on that.
Apparently, MS-13ers come mainly from El Salvador, but Guatemala
wants to help. We ought to help Guatemala to help us. I hope that will
be occurring.
If we really want to be compassionate for the people of Mexico and
Central America, the best thing we could do is secure the border, cut
off the tens of billions of dollars every year, maybe into the hundred-
plus billion, that go to the drug cartels. It funds corruption in
Mexico. It is the one thing that keeps Mexico from being one of the
very top economies in the world.
They have fantastic natural resources. They have a better location
geographically than the United States does. They are between North
America and South America. They are between two oceans. They have a
great location. They have some of the most hardworking people in the
world.
I also am thrilled that the huge majority have faith in God. I think
we could stand another boost of people who have faith in God, a
devotion to family, a hard work ethic like we generally find among the
huge majority of Hispanic people from Mexico and Central America. We
could afford more of that here, but we have to enforce the law.
If we secure the border, Mexico ought to be able to put down the drug
cartel corruption and become a top economy. Then you won't have people
doing everything they can, risking their lives, having their daughters
raped repeatedly coming up here from Mexico or through Mexico to the
United States. We can go back to having the kind of vibrant tourism
that we once had in support of Mexico.
But there are efforts that are being undertaken here in the House by
friends across the aisle who do not want Donald Trump to have success
in helping the United States, and, really, it would greatly help
Mexico.
What is the result? Well, here is a story from May 21, Washington
Times, Steven Dinan: ICE says Prince George's County released illegal
murder suspects.
The story says: ``Two teens arrested last week on charges stemming
from a horrific killing in Maryland were supposed to be deported last
year, but local authorities didn't turn them over to ICE, the
immigration agency said Tuesday.
``Prosecutors say the teens, Josue Rafael Fuentes-Ponce, 16, and Joel
Ernesto Escobar, 17--suspected of being MS-13 gang members--feared they
would be ratted out for an April robbery, so they and an accomplice
snuffed out a 14-year-old suspected snitch. They made her strip before
beating her with a baseball bat and chopping her with a machete. The
girl's body was found in a creek this month.''
This is in Prince George's County.
``U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a pointed statement
Tuesday, said the crime could have been averted''--could have been
completely prevented--``but for Prince George's County's sanctuary city
policy.''
That is what stopped it, or it is what kept our ICE agents from
preventing the baseball bat and machete mutilation of this 14-year-old
girl.
``Mr. Fuentes-Ponce and Mr. Escobar were in county custody last year
on attempted murder charges for another crime. ICE placed a detainer on
them, asking to be notified when they would be released so agents could
deport them. ICE said the Prince George's County Department of
Corrections defied the request.
`` `These individuals had demonstrated violent criminal behavior
before, and because they were released in spite of the lawful detainer,
they were afforded an opportunity to take a life.' ''
And not just take a life. They beat her, stripped her, beat her with
a baseball bat and then chopped her up with a machete.
Thank you very much, Prince George's County, for your sanctuary city.
No telling how many people will have to lose their lives while you defy
Federal law.
This article says: ``ICE has placed new detainers for both teens
after the murder charges. Prince George's corrections spokesman Andrew
Cephas said the agency didn't release the teens into the community. He
said the Corrections Department did have custody last year but remanded
the teens to
[[Page H4157]]
Cheltenham Youth Detention Center, a State facility, after a judge's
ruling.
`` `Neither of these individuals were released to the public from
Prince George's County Department of Corrections. They remained
detained in the juvenile facility until the disposition of their cases
earlier this year.' ''
Yeah, right. The cases were disposed of, a little slap on the wrist
for their attempted murders. But this says the county department does
inform ICE--or the Prince George's County spokesman said they inform
ICE about upcoming releases but did not provide notification in this
case.
``ICE says the county should have given notification of any transfer
out of custody so the agency could lodge a detainer with the new prison
or jail.''
{time} 1300
``Under a 2014 Department of Corrections policy, county jails say
they will notify ICE of impending releases but won't hold the migrants
for pickup unless ICE has a signed warrant from a judge.
``Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration
Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration controls, said the
teens are at the center of several raging immigration debates.
``Mr. Fuentes-Ponce came to the U.S. in late 2015 as part of the
surge of families from Central America who have overwhelmed the border
in recent years.
``Under the Obama administration, the family was paroled into the
U.S. to await its immigration case. Like many other families, Mr.
Fuentes-Ponce didn't appear for his hearing and was ordered deported in
absentia, ICE said.
``Mr. Escobar, meanwhile, entered the U.S. in 2016 as an
unaccompanied alien child, the other major demographic in the border
surge.''
That is one of the things we debated for hours and hours yesterday in
our Judiciary Committee. The committee's majority wants to have even
more widespread amnesty than DACA, which President Obama had said 20-
something times it would be unconstitutional for him to do what he
ultimately did creating the DACA program. He didn't even sign executive
orders, I understand. He had the Secretary of Homeland Security do a
couple of memos.
So he changed Federal law without the bill being passed by the House
and Senate, without signing it into law. He didn't even sign an
executive order. He just had a couple of memos that changed the policy.
``Mr. Krikorian wondered whether the killing of the 14-year-old girl
would receive as much attention as the death of an illegal immigrant
teen in Border Patrol custody this week.''
There was a teen who died from an apparent flu.
``That case prompted reporters to question Mr. Trump about what steps
he would take.
`` `The antiborder activists are quick to blame the Border Patrol for
deaths that are out of their control, but rationalizes the crimes
committed by people who would be removed if the law were enforced.
There really is a double standard here.'
``The D.C. area has long had a large Central American population,
making it one of the top destinations for families and unaccompanied
alien children involved in the surge. Prince George's, Fairfax, and
Montgomery Counties are among the top 10 locations.
``More than 5,660 unaccompanied alien children have been placed with
sponsors in Prince George's County over the past 5 years, topping
Fairfax at about 5,200 and Montgomery at about 4,300.
``The unaccompanied alien children have strained schools and,
security experts say, created a breeding ground for gang recruitment.
`` `Most of the Central Americans coming across the border are not
criminals, but gangs have used this flow of people across the border to
bring their members into the U.S., and others who weren't gang members
in Central America have become gang members here,' Mr. Krikorian
said.''
So it would really help if we could come together, if the President
wouldn't have to be building the wall without any help from a Democrat-
controlled House.
It is a shame they want to do all they can to try to prevent the
President from protecting the country, but we ought to learn a lesson
from the damage that was done between 1825 and 1829 during the
Presidency of John Quincy Adams, and we ought to come together, get the
border secure.
Let's not have any amnesties until the border is secure, then we can
talk about them, debate them. But every time we talk about amnesty--I
got a picture this week from a friend on the border, a 6-year-old and
an 8-year-old, unaccompanied children, yet we are told: Oh, no. We are
doing this DACA amnesty because the children were brought into the
United States by their parents, and so these children were drug into
the United States without their choice, and so we need to give them
legal status.
And yet you have got a 6-year-old and an 8-year-old that are coming
in, as my friend across the aisle said yesterday: Well, they don't come
in without help. She is right. The parents weren't with them. The
parents weren't with them, forcing them.
We also have been hearing that, since there is so much fuss made
about allowing people to stay that had children with them, the children
have now become a negotiable commodity. I have been there when children
were passed back and forth between different adults--you know, who is
going to claim these kids--and they are waiting for the border
patrolmen to get down to them so they can answer the questions.
But the drug cartels have figured out, the gangs have figured out--
gangs are often paid to bring people in illegally, and the gangs get
paid by the drug cartels because, as we know, every inch of the border
of the United States is controlled by some drug cartel.
So the gangs make money, the drug cartels make money by bringing
people in. And since they have learned they have a better chance of
staying in if they bring somebody's kid with them, then more kids are
coming in now.
But it is interesting. I am wondering how the debates will go when we
say, well, here is a person we want to give amnesty to because their
parents dragged them into America, even though there were no parents
with them. Well, so the gangs brought them in.
Anybody in the drug cartel brings in a child, that means we are
supposed to give them amnesty?
At some point, we have got to secure the border. It is the most
compassionate thing we can do. Mexico will become a great economy in
the world, one of the top, and the wonderful people of Mexico, Central
America will have a better standard of living. Heck, you might have
United States citizens thinking maybe they would like to go work in a
vibrant economy in Mexico if and when we can help stop the drug cartels
with all the money that they have got coming in.
Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have left.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 3 minutes
remaining.
Mr. GOHMERT. Since we are going into Memorial Day weekend, I am
thrilled Sergeant Derrick Miller has been released. I testified at two
different hearings for him. I am thrilled he is released. He shouldn't
have been incarcerated.
Lieutenant Clint Lorance, hopefully that can be brought to an end and
he can be released like American Taliban John Walker Lindh was.
But I want to finish by mentioning Ross McGinnis. I promised his
father, Tom, I would never forget him, and I haven't.
Ross was 19 when he was in Iraq. Ross loved the Army. Ross finished
high school in Knox, Pennsylvania, joined the Army. He loved it, and
his platoon sergeant said everybody loved Ross. Ross helped energize
people.
Ross was a machine gunner up in the turret of a Humvee going through
a village in Iraq. A grenade was projected into the bed of the Humvee,
and Ross was the only one in a position to jump out and save himself.
He yelled, ``Grenade.'' Ross saw the four people in the bed crouch.
Ross knew they were going to die, so Ross jumped down, covered the
grenade, and saved four people's lives.
I went to Ross' funeral, his graveside in Arlington Cemetery, because
two of the four people Ross saved were my constituents.
Ross' sergeant and the two others who made it back from Iraq for the
funeral came up after the ceremony,
[[Page H4158]]
knelt before Ross' remains, put their hands on Ross' remains, and as
they told me, they thank God for Ross McGinnis, and they thank Ross for
saving their lives.
We should thank God for all of those who have served and protected us
and thank the families of those that lost a loved one protecting us.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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