[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 173 (Thursday, October 31, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H8714-H8715]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to be here on the floor 
of the House of Representatives this 502nd anniversary of Reformation 
Day.
  Madam Speaker, prior to discussing immigration policy and the other 
issues of the day, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington).
  Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership on the Budget Committee, and I thank him for his patriotism, 
his love of this country, and for his desire to do what is right for 
our country, first and foremost.
  Madam Speaker, today was a sad day, I believe, for our country. We 
have got, now, round two of this phony impeachment process.
  It is purely political. It is not based in facts, not based in the 
pursuit of truth and justice. There is no openness; there is no 
fairness; and there is, really, no credibility.
  The American people are not buying this bologna, not a single bit.
  That is why we are seeing round two of putting lipstick on a pig, as 
we say in Texas. But, listen, the nature of this phony process is what 
it is, no matter how you dress it up.
  It is sad because we are allowing this institution to be degraded. We 
are making a mockery out of this Chamber, the serious business of this 
country, and the serious nature of impeachment.
  I would say, first and foremost, that the claim that this President 
has committed a high crime, treason, or impeachable offense is absurd, 
really.
  From the outset, I would say that this is a baseless claim that only 
firsthand knowledge, the only primary source of evidence, is his 
conversation with President Zelensky. Unlike the cherry-picked leaks 
from Chairman Schiff, he let it be known what he said, what their 
conversation was about, in the full sunshine, for all the public to 
see.
  And it was clear that the President not only didn't have a quid pro 
quo, the President not only didn't commit some impeachable offense, for 
heaven's sake, he was ensuring that taxpayer dollars, as the fiduciary, 
the chief fiduciary of this country, weren't going to be wasted or 
abused or misspent on anything except for what they were intended for 
and that every stone would be turned over to root out graft and 
corruption.

                              {time}  1400

  Now, that is not just appropriate; that is to be commended for any 
chief executive, especially for our President.
  I think that this process is purely political and aimed, again, not 
at truth and justice, but at a distraction from what is not happening 
on trade, on prescription drugs, and a whole host of things that we 
have to address if we are going to have a real impact on our fellow 
countrymen and move this country forward.
  I think it is a distraction from the socialist policies that have 
been advanced through this Chamber that have no chance of having any 
real effect on mainstream America.
  I think, ultimately, it is to discredit this President; and instead 
of actually doing battle for hearts and minds the old-fashioned way in 
the public squares and at the ballot box, they are doing it

[[Page H8715]]

by weaponizing this serious constitutional provision of impeachment.
  Again, it is a sad day. But what I would say in closing, to my dear 
friend from Wisconsin, is that it is one thing to take the oxygen out 
of this Chamber for actually doing things that are going to have a real 
impact and make a real difference in the lives of our fellow Americans, 
it is one thing to take this President down yet another rabbit hole, 
another Russian collusion hoax, but another thing to do irreparable 
harm to our democracy.
  The Presidency, how is it ever going to be the same after this? How 
will a President ever have a phone call with a foreign leader where 
they can have the candor that is necessary to build relationships and 
to do the people's business.
  Madam Speaker, I say to my fellow Americans: This isn't about truth 
and justice. This is about fear and hate, hate for our President and 
for what he stands for, for his agenda, and fear that they can't beat 
him at the ballot box, so they are going to do it by weaponizing our 
congressional oversight responsibility and abusing the power of this 
great institution for their political objectives. I say that is wholly 
un-American.
  For my children's sake, they are doing irreparable harm to not only 
the Presidency, but to all of our democratic institutions. If you lose 
that, you lose the ability to govern, Republican or Democrat; you lose 
the ability to govern functionally for the American people.
  What a sad day. History will judge cruelly those who participated in 
this instead of doing it the old-fashioned American way, from house to 
house in the neighborhoods, in the public squares, and at the ballot 
box.
  God save our great country, and God help us all if this political 
railroad job and farce continues any longer.
  I thank my friend from Wisconsin for yielding to me. I am grateful 
for the opportunity.
  God bless America, and go, West Texas.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  I realized that a lot of what has been said here the last few days 
focuses on an impeachment inquiry, and one has to ask oneself why we 
have so many people who have been wanting to try to impeachment 
President Trump immediately.
  It was, obviously, a very important vote today, but it is the fourth 
vote I have taken, I believe, since President Trump has been sworn in 
on impeachment. So far, nothing has turned up. I don't expect anything 
to turn up in the future.
  But I think one of the motivations for this impeachment inquiry is to 
keep other stories off the page, to keep other stories out of the 
mainstream media. And that is why, today, I want to address what I 
think is the biggest threat to America in the short term and a threat, 
unless we deal with it, which will ultimately destroy our country, and 
that is the threat of illegal immigration, of people flowing across the 
southern border.
  I have been at the southern border three times this year to see for 
myself what Border Patrol and other people in charge of securing our 
border have to put up with, and I would like to say that they have done 
a tremendous job.
  Yesterday, in this building, while so many people were focused on the 
impeachment inquiry, we had a hearing in the subcommittee of the 
Oversight and Reform Committee in which Ken Cuccinelli, the United 
States Citizenship and Immigration Services office head, and Matthew 
Albence, Acting Director of ICE, were testifying before our 
subcommittee.
  It was interesting, the appalling comments that they had to put up 
with from Members of this House, being called white supremacists, just 
doing their job trying to secure the border. Those are the type of 
things that every American should be aware of what is going on in this 
building.
  But I would like to update people on the good job that President 
Trump has been able to do in the last 6 months, why he has been able to 
do this job, and the hatred which it has brought our President.
  In May, over 145,000 people were processed trying to get into this 
country, and we allowed over 100,000 people in this country.
  About a year ago, there was a study put out by MIT and Yale which 
increased the estimated number of people in this country illegally from 
10 to 11 million to 20 to 22 million people. That is a lot of people.
  Obviously, we could not forever go on, May after May after May, in 
which 100,000 people were allowed in this country.
  That, by the way, is in addition to people who sneak in the country 
without being detected because we have no wall and we have not 
adequately funded our Border Patrol. I think experts believe another 
10,000 people probably came in, at least 10,000 came into this country 
in May undetected.
  Since that time, President Trump has reached agreements with Mexico, 
in part by threatening tariffs, in part by just general suasion, and we 
have reduced the number of people coming into this country from over 
100,000 in May to, I am told by the Border Patrol, perhaps under 5,000 
in September after processing 40,000 to 50,000. This is because 
President Trump reached an agreement with Mexico that they will hold 
asylum seekers down there.

  He has reached out and reached agreements or received help from 
Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, in addition to Mexico, in not 
only keeping more of their citizens there, but if people try to leave 
other countries for asylum, more are being kept in places like Mexico, 
El Salvador, and Honduras.
  I want to point out, too, that this is not something that Congress 
helped him with. These are things that he has had to do on his own.
  There are other things that he is trying to do that Congress should 
be taking up, but isn't.
  He has been trying to keep people from coming into this country if 
they are a public charge. We have enough people who we are taking care 
of in our country--some through their own fault, some through no fault 
of their own--on various welfare programs.
  President Trump tried to say: Hey, we will maybe take people who are 
working. We will take people who want to come here legally. But courts, 
including a prominent judge appointed by President Clinton, struck that 
down. So President Trump was denied the opportunity to prevent people 
from coming here who are going to be a public charge.
  President Trump is still waiting--and I hope he does--to do something 
about birthright citizenship, another situation that I saw when I was 
on the border in which, obviously, America, being 1 of only 2 of the 40 
wealthiest countries in the world to say, if you have a child here, you 
get to be a citizen.
  His Border Patrol has been acting with inadequate funding. They have 
had, up until recently, 2,000 vacancies. They could use more people in 
addition to that.
  We are in the process of building 500 miles of wall. It is not going 
to be enough. But we like to believe we are going to be able to get 
that done by the end of December.
  But, in any event, after doing all of these actions, we have done a 
much better job--I would say the best job we have had in years--of 
holding down the number of immigrants in this country.
  Like I said, the sad thing is, largely, this is President Trump 
acting on his own while Congress tries to remove the immigration crisis 
from the headlines by spending day after day talking about impeachment, 
trying to chase some rumor down, or maybe somebody operating under the 
guidance of a Congressman making charges against President Trump.
  But I will just ask the American public to keep their eye on the 
ball, and that ball is immigration. We cannot go back to the days of 
100,000 people being allowed in this country every month.
  We have to make sure that the policies that President Trump has 
implemented in the last 5 months continue to be implemented.
  We have to demand from Congress action on the variety of things that 
they should be doing instead of filling up the press with stories on 
impeachment.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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