[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 171 (Thursday, October 1, 2020)]
[House]
[Page H5115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THREE PIECES OF GOOD NEWS, ONE PIECE OF BAD NEWS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, normally, or frequently, people use this 
microphone to give negative news, and I would like to lead off with 
three little positive stories that I don't think have been in the news 
enough, and then we will talk about a story--I don't know if it is true 
or not--but we are going to ask for a committee hearing.
  First of all, I was at a committee about 10 days ago in which we had 
a hearing on Afghanistan. So many of us back home have heard stories, 
attended funerals of people, people frequently in the National Guard, 
who have died fighting in Afghanistan.
  We have now gone 7 months without any combat deaths in Afghanistan. I 
don't think that story has been told enough. I am kind of really 
surprised it hasn't been told a lot during this campaign season, but it 
hasn't.
  So let's celebrate the fact that we have gone 7 months, hard to 
believe, without a combat casualty in Afghanistan.
  Now, the second piece of good news. I was talking to the head of the 
border patrol, and it was not long ago, about 15, 16 months ago, when 
90,000 people a month were apprehended at the southern border and 
allowed in the United States, frequently given a hearing, an asylum 
hearing. But they were allowed in the United States, frequently lost 
track of, and people who we weren't appropriately vetting becoming a 
permanent part of our American fabric.

                              {time}  0945

  In the last month, in part due to three different things--a 
negotiation that President Trump had with Mexico, where when we 
apprehend people, we send them back to Mexico, pending the asylum 
hearing; secondly, negotiations with Central America, where people 
walking through Central America headed to the United States are kept in 
Central America; and third, a directive that if people try to come into 
this country because of fears of COVID-19, they are also immediately 
turned around and led back--we now have gone from about 90,000 people 
to under 2,000, as a matter of fact, he told me under 1,000 people a 
month being let in this country who are apprehended or talked to by the 
Border Patrol.
  There are still people who sneak across the border who are not 
apprehended by the Border Patrol. But among these people who they 
touch, we have gone from 90,000 to under 1,000. That is good news, and 
I am surprised how many people, even on the floor of this institution, 
do not know what an improvement we have had at the border.
  The third piece of good news I am going to give a tip of the hat to, 
when I drove in 2 weeks ago, I took an Uber from the airport. I talked 
to the Uber driver, who not only was driving for Uber, but he also had 
a job, I believe he told me, with CVS, and he was living the American 
Dream.
  When I asked him what was great about America, he said anybody can 
make it in America, the land of opportunity.
  Here you have an Afghan Uber driver. He wasn't of European heritage. 
I don't believe he was Christian. I don't believe in the family growing 
up he could speak English. But despite all these disadvantages, he is 
living the American Dream--and it wasn't rocket science--driving an 
Uber, working at CVS.
  I hope we remember him as other Congressmen, for whatever political 
reason, want to tear down America and say you can't make it in America. 
I will tell you, if that Afghan Uber driver can make it in America and 
live the American Dream, anybody can live the American Dream.
  But now I would like to ask for a hearing because I had some, 
perhaps, bad news back home. I talked to a woman who had two children. 
One is $30,000 in debt, one is $40,000 in debt, from taking out student 
loans. She told me that she felt that if she and her husband weren't 
married, there would have been government programs, and her children 
wouldn't be so in debt.
  She has raised good kids. Those kids are going to pay off their 
loans, even if they were discriminated against because their parents 
were married, or not.
  But it occurred to me, at a time when so much of the rhetoric in this 
institution is about discrimination, we ought to have a hearing on the 
Education and Labor Committee: Is it really true that we have 
government programs out here penalizing people for getting married?
  I would ask, again, that my wonderful chairman of the Education and 
Labor Committee have a hearing on this topic. We can find out whether 
it is the official policy of the United States, when determining 
government grants helping people go through school, that we 
discriminate against children of married couples. And they have to 
delay having children, delay buying a house, as they have to pay off 
their student loans.
  So I would like to have a hearing. I hope what my constituent told me 
is not true, that it is the official policy of the United States 
Government to discriminate against people who decide to get married. 
But I am afraid it might be, and that is why I would like to have a 
hearing.

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