[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 145 (Wednesday, September 11, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H7602-H7603]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           RESTORE TRUTH AND COMPASSION TO IMMIGRATION DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Suozzi) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SUOZZI. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak about immigration in 
America.
  My father was born in Italy. He came to the United States as a young 
boy. I am a first-generation American, and I don't like the hateful and 
divisive rhetoric being used about immigrants today. I am appalled at 
the way my country is treating the children and families of immigrants.
  My dad came to America in the early 1920s. He was the first of his 
neighborhood to graduate from college. During World War II, he served 
as a navigator on a B-24 and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross 
with three oakleaf clusters. He returned home and

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graduated from Harvard Law School on the GI Bill.
  As a young, Harvard-educated lawyer and Italian immigrant, however, 
my dad couldn't find a job. Italians were not respected, and after 
Hitler teamed up with Mussolini during the war, Italian Americans were 
not trusted, either.
  My dad decided to return to Glen Cove, where he teamed up with 
another Italian lawyer, ran for city court judge, and became the 
youngest judge in the history of New York State.
  My father achieved many other great successes, and he would always 
say, ``What a country.'' His life was the very essence of the American 
Dream.
  Our American Dream, however, is at risk. It may soon be the American 
nightmare.
  Well, I still believe in my father's American Dream, and I am 
committed to keeping it alive.
  Immigration has been an issue for decades, yet after all these years, 
Congress has yet to pass immigration reform.
  President Trump's cruel, divisive, and simply unworkable positions 
have made things worse. His policies and rhetoric have exacerbated the 
problem, permeating a culture of fear that forces many immigrants 
further into the shadows.
  I have been an advocate for fair and reasonable immigration policies 
for more than 25 years. As mayor of my hometown of Glen Cove, New York, 
in 1994, I created the very first shape-up center on the East Coast of 
the United States of America. It gave newcomers from Central and South 
America a safe place to get hired and made sure they got paid for the 
work they did. If they didn't get hired, they could stay and learn 
English or new job skills.

  As county executive, in 2007, I refused to let ICE work with my 
Nassau County Police Department because ICE was acting like cowboys, 
drawing guns and knocking down doors, intimidating children and 
families who were not even subject to their raids and all of who 
together presented no risk of violence whatsoever.
  Today, those same guys who gathered on the street corners of Glen 
Cove now own their own businesses and own their own homes, and their 
kids attended school with my kids.
  But now, President Trump's heartless immigration actions are 
separating parents from their children, and children are being housed 
in cages.
  I have seen it with my own eyes. This past July, I traveled to 
McAllen and Brownsville, Texas, to personally inspect the detention and 
relief centers, visit points of entry, speak with migrant families, and 
meet with humanitarian aid organizations. My visit to the detention 
centers along our southern border was heartbreaking. I saw men, women, 
and children being held in awful conditions.
  Our system is broken. These centers are overcrowded, unsanitary, and 
clearly ill-equipped to care for people in great numbers.
  Meanwhile, the administration continues to promulgate more callous 
and mean-spirited decisions aimed at further attacking immigrants. 
Deporting children with cancer and diverting funds from military 
programs to build the wall, including money that was meant to go toward 
building schools for military families, and keeping immigrant children 
locked in indefinite detention are unconscionable.
  These decisions endorsed by this administration are not consistent 
with American values. America is founded on the fundamental principle 
that ``all men and women are created equal.'' It is not that everyone 
with a green card or U.S. citizenship is created equal; it is that 
every man and woman is created equal and should be treated with human 
respect and dignity.
  We must continue holding congressional hearings on forced family 
separation; the detention of children for prolonged periods of time; 
the decision to end TPS and DACA, the Dreamer plan; and the 
overwhelming backlog in U.S. immigration courts.
  We must also defund hate, as my friends at Bend the Arc are 
advocating, and set a floor for refugee admissions at 95,000, as my 
friends at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society are advocating.
  In addition to defunding the hateful policies of this administration, 
we must also strive for comprehensive immigration reform that treats 
people like human beings, lives up to the American Dream, gives a path 
of citizenship for TPS recipients and Dreamers, gives protection to 
millions of others, and secures our borders.
  Robert F. Kennedy once said, ``When we tolerate what we know to be 
wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are 
too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we 
strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.''
  We need to restore truth and compassion to the debate over 
immigration in America, and we need to do it now, because the promise 
of the American Dream demands it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.

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