[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 171 (Thursday, October 1, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H5123-H5136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H. RES. 1153, CONDEMNING UNWANTED, 
   UNNECESSARY MEDICAL PROCEDURES ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT THEIR FULL, 
  INFORMED CONSENT, AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H. RES. 1154, 
   CONDEMNING QANON AND REJECTING THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES IT PROMOTES

  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I

[[Page H5124]]

call up House Resolution 1164 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 1164

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order without intervention of any point of order to 
     consider in the House the resolution (H. Res. 1153) 
     condemning unwanted, unnecessary medical procedures on 
     individuals without their full, informed consent. The 
     amendment to the resolution printed in the report of the 
     Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution shall be 
     considered as adopted. The resolution, as amended, shall be 
     considered as read. The previous question shall be considered 
     as ordered on the resolution and preamble, as amended, to 
     adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of 
     the question except one hour of debate equally divided and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on the Judiciary.
       Sec. 2.  Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in 
     order without intervention of any point of order to consider 
     in the House the resolution (H. Res. 1154) condemning QAnon 
     and rejecting the conspiracy theories it promotes. The 
     resolution shall be considered as read. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the resolution and preamble 
     to adoption without intervening motion or demand for division 
     of the question except one hour of debate equally divided and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on the Judiciary.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 
the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko), 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
be given 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Pennsylvania?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, on Wednesday, the Rules Committee met and 
reported a rule, House Resolution 1164, providing for consideration of 
H. Res. 1153, condemning unwanted, unnecessary medical procedures on 
individuals without their full, informed consent, under a closed rule.
  The rule self-executes a manager's amendment offered by Chairman 
Nadler, which clarifies the last statement in the resolved clause. The 
rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the 
chair and ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee.
  The rule also provides for consideration of H. Res. 1154, condemning 
QAnon and rejecting the conspiracy theories it promotes, under a closed 
rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and 
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Judiciary 
Committee.
  Madam Speaker, I am proud to offer the rule for two timely and 
necessary resolutions, one that addresses allegations of gross human 
rights violations conducted under the watch of the United States 
Government and the other a long-overdue resolution that forcefully 
condemns QAnon, an anti-Semitic, racist, and, frankly, unhinged 
conspiracy theory that has infiltrated the internet and infected the 
rightwing of our Nation's politics.
  Let's start with H. Res. 1153, offered by my colleague, Congresswoman 
Jayapal of the House Judiciary Committee, in response to some of most 
repulsive and inhumane allegations ever directed at a U.S. Federal 
agency.
  In mid-September, just a couple of weeks ago, a whistleblower came 
forward to disclose that women who have been detained for immigration 
offenses at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, operated by a 
private prison company, LaSalle Corrections, have been subjected to a 
pattern of nonconsensual and inappropriate medical treatment, including 
forced partial and full sterilization.
  This complaint was submitted to the Office of Inspector General at 
the Department of Homeland Security and outlined concerns raised by a 
nurse at the facility and numerous immigrant detainees at the facility.
  While the IG's investigation is just beginning, many of the central 
allegations in the complaint have already been confirmed in reporting 
by The New York Times and by a delegation of a dozen of my colleagues 
who visited the detention center last weekend, interviewed women who 
had suffered through these procedures, and consulted with medical 
professionals who have reviewed the women's medical records relating to 
those incidents.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record The New York Times article 
from yesterday entitled ``Immigrants Say They Were Pressured Into 
Unneeded Surgeries.''

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 29, 2020]

       Immigrants Say They Were Pressured Into Unneeded Surgeries

     (By Caitlin Dickerson, Seth Freed Wessler, and Miriam Jordan)


 Immigrants detained at an ICE-contracted center in Georgia said they 
 had invasive gynecology procedures that they later learned might have 
                            been unnecessary

       Wendy Dowe was startled awake early one morning in January 
     2019, when guards called her out of her cellblock in the 
     Irwin County immigration detention center in rural Georgia, 
     where she had been held for four months. She would be having 
     surgery that day, they said.
       Still groggy, the 48-year-old immigrant from Jamaica, who 
     had been living without legal status in the United States for 
     two decades before she was picked up by immigration 
     authorities, felt a swell of dread come over her. An outside 
     gynecologist who saw patients in immigration custody told her 
     that the menstrual cramping she had was caused by large cysts 
     and masses that needed to be removed, but she was skeptical. 
     The doctor insisted, she said, and as a detainee--brought to 
     the hospital in handcuffs and shackles--she felt pressured to 
     consent.
       It was only after she was deported to Jamaica and had her 
     medical files reviewed by several other doctors that she knew 
     she had been right to raise questions.
       A radiologist's report, based on images of her internal 
     organs from her time at Irwin, described her uterus as being 
     a healthy size, not swollen with enlarged masses and cysts, 
     as the doctor had written in his notes. The cysts she had 
     were small, and the kind that occur naturally and do not 
     usually require surgical intervention.
       ``I didn't have to do any of it,'' Ms. Dowe said.
       The Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga., drew 
     national attention this month after a nurse, Dawn Wooten, 
     filed a whistle-blower complaint claiming that detainees had 
     told her they had had their uteruses removed without their 
     full understanding or consent.
       Since then, both ICE and the hospital in Irwin County have 
     released data that show that two full hysterectomies have 
     been performed on women detained at Irwin in the past three 
     years. But firsthand accounts are now emerging from 
     detainees, including Ms. Dowe, who underwent other invasive 
     gynecological procedures that they did not fully understand 
     and, in some cases, may not have been medically necessary.
       At least one lawyer brought the complaints about 
     gynecological care to the attention of the center's top 
     officials in 2018, according to emails obtained by The New 
     York Times, but the outside referrals continued.
       The Times interviewed 16 women who were concerned about the 
     gynecological care they received while at the center, and 
     conducted a detailed review of the medical files of seven 
     women who were able to obtain their records. All 16 were 
     treated by Dr. Mahendra Amin, who practices gynecology in the 
     nearby town of Douglas and has been described by ICE 
     officials as the detention center's ``primary gynecologist.''
       The cases were reviewed by five gynecologists--four of them 
     board-certified and all with medical school affiliations--who 
     found that Dr. Amin consistently overstated the size or risks 
     associated with cysts or masses attached to his patients' 
     reproductive organs. Small or benign cysts do not typically 
     call for surgical intervention, where large or otherwise 
     troubling ones sometimes do, the experts said.
       The doctors stressed that in some cases the medical files 
     might not have been complete and that additional information 
     could potentially shift their analyses. But they noted that 
     Dr. Amin seemed to consistently recommend surgical 
     intervention, even when it did not seem medically necessary 
     at the time and nonsurgical treatment options were available.
       In almost every woman's chart, Dr. Amin listed symptoms 
     such as heavy bleeding with clots and chronic pelvic pain, 
     which could justify surgery. But some of the women said they 
     never experienced or reported those symptoms to him.
       Both the reviewing doctors and all of the women interviewed 
     by The Times raised concerns about whether Dr. Amin had 
     adequately explained the procedures he performed or provided 
     his patients with less invasive alternatives. Spanish-
     speaking women said a nurse who spoke Spanish was only 
     sporadically present during their exams.
       The diagnoses and procedures are ``poorly supported'' and 
     ``not well documented,'' said Dr. Sara Imershein, a clinical 
     professor at George Washington University and the Washington, 
     D.C., chair of the American College of Obstetricians and 
     Gynecologists.
       Even if the patients had reported the symptoms recorded by 
     Dr. Amin, ``there

[[Page H5125]]

     would have been many avenues to pursue before rushing to 
     surgery,'' she said. ``Advil for one.''
       ``He is overly aggressive in his treatment and does not 
     explore appropriate medical management before turning to 
     procedures or surgical intervention,'' said Dr. Deborah 
     Ottenheimer, a forensic evaluator and instructor at the Weill 
     Cornell Medical School Human Rights Clinic.
       But the doctors who reviewed the cases noted that 
     aggressive overtreatment is all too common among doctors--
     especially with patients who do not have the resources to 
     seek a second opinion.
        Dr. Ada Rivera, medical director of the ICE Health Service 
     Corps, said in a statement that the whistle-blower's 
     allegations ``raise some very serious concerns that deserve 
     to be investigated quickly and thoroughly.'' She added, ``If 
     there is any truth to these allegations, it is my commitment 
     to make the corrections necessary to ensure we continue to 
     prioritize the health, welfare and safety of ICE detainees.''
       Dr. Amin's lawyer, Scott Grubman, said in a statement that 
     the physician ``strongly disputes any allegations that he 
     treated any patient with anything other than the utmost care 
     and respect.''
       ``Dr. Amin also strongly disputes that any patient was 
     treated without full informed consent,'' the statement 
     continued. Mr. Grubman said that patient privacy laws 
     prevented him from discussing any specific patient's 
     treatment, but in each case it ``was medically necessary, 
     performed within the standard of care, and done only after 
     obtaining full informed consent.''
       The statement added that Dr. Amin always uses an 
     interpreter when treating patients who do not speak English 
     and ``always attempts to treat his patients with more 
     conservative treatment, including medicine and less invasive 
     procedures, before even recommending surgery,'' which he 
     views as a last resort.
       Independent doctors that provide treatment for ICE 
     detainees are paid for the procedures they perform with 
     Department of Homeland Security funds. Procedures like the 
     ones that Dr. Amin performed are normally billed at thousands 
     of dollars each.
       Dr. Amin's billings had previously come to the attention of 
     federal authorities. In 2013, the Justice Department named 
     him in a civil case alleging that he and several other 
     doctors had overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by, among other 
     things, performing unnecessary procedures on terminal 
     patients and leaving the emergency room staffed by nurses 
     while billing for diagnoses and treatments as if they had 
     been performed by doctors. The case was settled for $520,000 
     with no admission of fault on the part of the defendants.


                     I could not ask any questions

       In many cases, Dr. Amin's patients said they were confused 
     about why they ended up being sent to his office in the first 
     place--some after raising medical issues that had nothing to 
     do with gynecology.
       Yuridia, a 36-year-old immigrant from Mexico, sought out a 
     nurse at the center soon after she arrived because she was 
     having pain in her rib after a fight with her abusive ex-
     partner just before she was picked up by ICE. She asked to be 
     identified by her first name because she feared for her 
     safety.
       She was sent for a medical exam at Dr. Amin's office, where 
     she said he began to prepare an ultrasound machine. ``I was 
     assuming they were going to check my rib,'' she said. ``The 
     next thing I know, he's doing a vaginal exam.''
       Dr. Amin recorded in his notes that Yuridia had cysts in 
     her ovaries and scheduled a surgery to remove them. He also 
     wrote that she had complained of heavy menstruation and 
     pelvic pain. She said that she never experienced or reported 
     those conditions and that she had not asked to see a 
     gynecologist.
       Weeks later, she underwent surgery. Pathology reports show 
     that she did not have dangerous cysts, but small ones of the 
     kind that occur naturally in most women and do not call for 
     surgical intervention.
       Yuridia said she had expected only a minor procedure that 
     would be performed vaginally, but she was surprised when she 
     woke up to find three incisions on her abdomen and a piece of 
     skin missing from her genital area.
       ``I woke up and I was alone, and I was in pain and everyone 
     spoke English so I could not ask any questions,'' Yuridia 
     said. Three days later, still sore and recovering, she was 
     deported.
       Yuridia's case bears striking similarities to others that 
     the panel of doctors reviewed. Many of them led to two 
     surgical procedures performed simultaneously: ``dilation and 
     curettage,'' often referred to as a ``D & C,'' which involves 
     inserting tools into a woman's vagina and scraping tissue 
     from the uterus, and laparoscopy, in which three incisions 
     are made to insert a camera into the abdominal cavity to 
     examine or perform procedures on the reproductive organs.
       The cases suggest a pattern of ``excessively aggressive 
     surgical intervention without adequate trial of medical 
     remedies,'' Dr. Ottenheimer said.


                A report reveals longstanding complaints

       It was the Irwin County center's handling of the 
     coronavirus pandemic that inspired Ms. Wooten, the nurse 
     whose whistle-blower complaint was first reported by The 
     Intercept, to come forward about another issue that troubled 
     her: Dr. Amin's surgeries. She said in an interview that she 
     had for years noticed that an inordinate number of women were 
     being referred to Dr. Amin. She said she would hear reports 
     that they had undergone surgeries but that they had no idea 
     why the surgeries were performed.
       ``After they get up from general anesthesia,'' Ms. Wooten 
     said, the women would ask, ``Why'd I have this surgery?''
       ``And I don't have an answer for why,'' she said. ``I am 
     just as shocked as they are. Nobody explained it to them.''
       Data from ICE inspection reports show that the center, 
     which is operated by a private prison company, Lasalle 
     Corrections, refers more than 1,000 detainees a year for 
     outside medical care, far more than most other immigration 
     detention centers of the same size. It is not clear how many 
     of these referrals are for gynecological care. Lasalle 
     Corrections did not respond to requests for comment.
       Concerns from women detained at Irwin emerged long before 
     Ms. Wooten came forward.
       Ms. Dowe, after being told by Dr. Amin that she had a mass 
     the size of a ``cantaloupe'' on her uterus, had reached out 
     in early 2019 to Donald Anthonyson, an immigrant advocate she 
     had met through a fellow detainee. She was asking for help, 
     Mr. Anthonyson said.
       ``She expressed real concerns about going to that doctor,'' 
     he said. ``She was concerned about what was happening to her 
     and what she was hearing from other women.''
       Unlike some of the women who had no gynecological 
     complaints, Ms. Dowe was experiencing intense menstrual 
     cramping, which the doctors who reviewed her case said could 
     sometimes justify the procedure she underwent--but only if 
     the patient understands the options and elects to move 
     forward. Even then, the doctors raised questions about 
     several seemingly healthy and naturally occurring cysts that 
     Dr. Amin might have removed unnecessarily while he was 
     operating on her.
       After the procedure, Dr. Amin wrote in his notes that Ms. 
     Dowe requested a second surgery--a full abdominal 
     hysterectomy and removal of her ovaries.
       But Ms. Dowe insists she never made any such request. A 
     note in her medical records from the detention center appears 
     to corroborate her denial. ``Detainee is requesting a second 
     opinion to have a hysterectomy,'' it reads, ``OB/GYN 
     scheduled hysterectomy and patient refused.''
       Complaints about Dr. Amin had also been raised with senior 
     officials long before Ms. Dowe's case.
       In November 2018, a woman named Nancy Gonzalez Hidalgo was 
     left shaken after several visits with the physician, during 
     which she said he performed rough vaginal ultrasounds and 
     ignored her when she cried out in pain. Ms. Gonzalez 
     Hidalgo's lawyers sent an email to the warden of the center, 
     David Paulk.
       In the email, Erin Argueta, a lawyer at the Southern 
     Poverty Law Center, explained that Ms. Gonzalez Hidalgo's 
     health was worsening because of complications she was 
     experiencing from an earlier miscarriage.
       ``Nancy hesitated to seek medical attention because her 
     last experience with Dr. Amin was so painful and traumatic 
     that she did not want to be sent back to him,'' Ms. Argueta 
     wrote.
       She referred in her email to several previous verbal 
     complaints about Dr. Amin that lawyers had taken to the 
     center's inmates services director, Marteka George. ``Ms. 
     George stated that this was not the first time someone 
     complained about Dr. Amin, and she said that she would look 
     into whether Nancy could see a different provider,'' the 
     lawyer wrote.
       The warden responded twice, stating on Nov. 30 that Ms. 
     Gonzalez Hidalgo had been scheduled for an appointment with 
     an outside provider ``that is unassociated with Dr. Amin.'' 
     The other doctor, Warden Paulk said, was ``reportedly well 
     thought of by his patients.''
       Warden Paulk did not respond to requests for comment.
       Other women who questioned Dr. Amin's care in the past said 
     they had also faced challenges when they tried to seek 
     answers.
       On the morning of Aug. 14, Mileidy Cardentey Fernandez 
     said, there was no interpreter present at the Irwin County 
     Hospital when she was presented with consent forms in English 
     to sign for a procedure she was undergoing that day.
       She asked the technician, ``Spanish, please? Little 
     English.'' The woman urged her to sign the forms--and so she 
     did.
       Afterward, she said, she filled out a form on numerous 
     occasions at the detention center requesting her medical 
     records but got no response.
       ``I wanted to know everything they had done,'' she said. 
     ``I made requests for the biopsy, analyses, and they don't 
     want to give them to me. They said they don't have the 
     results. How can they not have the results?''
       When she was released from detention on Sept. 21, she 
     called her daughter in Virginia and then headed straight to 
     Dr. Amin's clinic with her lawyer to demand her records, 
     which she received.
       Some women said they had managed to avoid surgeries by Dr. 
     Amin but not without facing resistance.
       Enna Perez Santos said she objected when Dr. Amin suggested 
     that she undergo a procedure similar to the ones that other 
     women had complained about. Dr. Amin, she said,

[[Page H5126]]

     counseled her that it was a mistake to forgo the treatment 
     and he wrote in his notes that she had asked to speak to a 
     mental health care provider.
       Back at the detention center on the same day, Ms. Perez 
     Santos was given a psychiatric evaluation. ``I am nervous 
     about my upcoming procedure,'' Ms. Perez Santos told the 
     examiner, according to the practitioner's notes. ``I am 
     worried because I saw someone else after they had surgery, 
     and what I saw scared me.''
       Ms. Perez Santos was brought three more times to Dr. Amin's 
     office over the next several months, she recalled. Each time, 
     she said, Dr. Amin raised the prospect of a surgery. She felt 
     ``pressured'' to agree, she said, but each time she told him 
     she did not consent.
       Three board certified gynecologists who reviewed Ms. Perez 
     Santos's medical files say that her instincts appear to have 
     been correct. ``Based on what I see here, Amin was 
     inappropriately suggesting a D & C scope,'' Dr. Ottenheimer 
     said. ``There is nothing at all there to support the 
     procedure.''

  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, the whistleblower complaint raises 
multiple serious questions which should concern every Member of this 
body and the administration.
  First, these women were apparently subjected to unnecessary and 
inappropriate medical care without their consent, which, in many cases, 
has rendered them unable to have children, one of the most precious 
decisions a family can make.
  Second, think about the circumstances. Many of these women did not 
speak English and had no access to interpreters to explain the 
procedures to which they were subjected. They were being held in 
detention, awaiting adjudication of their legal applications to stay in 
this country, not for any crime. But they had no access to family 
members, their family doctors, or legal counsel.
  Many report that they went to the doctor for unrelated medical 
conditions and only learned that they had been subjected to surgery 
after the fact.
  Finally, we must determine how such outrageous and inhumane treatment 
of human beings in the custody of a U.S. agency could be allowed to 
occur, and we must hold that agency, as well as the detention center, 
the facility, the private prison operator, and the medical personnel, 
accountable.
  I cannot even begin to express how appalling these allegations are 
and the stain that, if found to be accurate in their entirety, they 
will leave on this country.
  I am sure there is not a single Member of this body who doesn't want 
to see a full independent investigation into these claims, and that is 
exactly why we are offering this resolution today.
  This resolution expresses the sense of Congress that this 
investigation must begin immediately. Any delay is simply unacceptable.
  Members of this body have already been forced to intervene in ICE's 
attempts to deport witnesses central to the investigation since the 
complaint was filed. This further affirms the necessity for the 
investigation and that the very nature of how Federal agencies like ICE 
and DHS are operating under this administration, in violation of the 
rule of law and without accountability, that this is unacceptable.
  Our current administration is aware of the structural flaws in our 
immigration system and exploits them to great political effect. What we 
are left with is a leader and a party that vilify immigrants as a tool 
for political gain. Then they systematically round up and detain 
immigrants in some of the most horrific ways possible, using private 
detention centers, separating children from their parents, denying 
basic medical treatment such as flu shots or COVID prevention, and 
inflicting lifelong trauma on our fellow humans, creatures of God.
  The allegations from the Irwin County detention facility are 
repugnant, but they are consistent with a pattern of inhumane and 
similar injustices that have been perpetrated by this administration. 
ICE and DHS operate with impunity under a President who is using them 
as a secret police force.
  I hope all of my colleagues will join me in passing this necessary 
resolution, but more than that, I hope that we can come together to 
reform our broken immigration system.
  Our current system harms significantly more than it helps, inflicting 
physical and emotional pain without protecting our borders. We are long 
overdue for serious changes that will better reflect our values and 
interests as a country.
  Next, Madam Speaker, we have H. Res. 1154, a resolution condemning 
the rightwing conspiracy theory QAnon.
  I am not entirely sure where to start with QAnon, but basic research 
tells us it is a rightwing conspiracy theory concocted in some of the 
darkest corners of the internet that purports to hail President Trump 
as a savior of the country by combating shadowy members of a deep state 
who kidnap children in order to drink their blood.
  This is a theory so ludicrous that it could be considered absurd if 
not for the thousands of Americans who have fully bought into these 
premises and the rash of violence, hatred, and criminal activity that 
these wild theories have encouraged.
  In August 2020, a woman in Colorado was arrested and charged with 
attempted kidnapping of her daughter, who had been placed in foster 
care as her mother was deemed unfit to care for her. The woman is a 
fervent QAnon follower and was even found to have consulted other QAnon 
believers in a plot to kidnap her son, also in the foster care system.
  Then there is the case of an Arizona man who was a QAnon follower. He 
was charged with aggravated assault and making terroristic threats 
after he was inspired by QAnon theories to use an armored van to block 
a bridge over the Hoover Dam and demand release of a report he believed 
existed that would expose the deep state, whatever that is.

  The court ultimately blocked his guilty plea as the judge determined 
that the sentencing would have been too lenient for the crimes he had 
committed.
  One of the most high-profile QAnon incidents came after an alleged 
leader of the Gambino crime family in New York was murdered by a QAnon 
supporter who, according to his testimony, believed that the murder 
would assist President Trump.
  While my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to flirt 
with these fringe conspiracy theories, including riling up their base 
with allegations of invasions by antifa, which have been debunked by 
the administration's own FBI, QAnon and those who have bought into it 
are genuine threats to our democracy.
  We are talking about a coordinated, sophisticated cult that is 
poisoning the brains of more and more Americans each day.
  In our Rules Committee meeting last night, many of my colleagues 
claim to have never even heard of this deadly cult. I cannot possibly 
believe that these skilled political operatives are so clueless, but 
that is beside the point.
  President Trump is certainly aware, and his tacit support and 
encouragement of these dangerous narratives are a threat to the law and 
order he so noisily embraces.
  I hope that every single one of my Republican colleagues joins us in 
condemning QAnon today for the sanity of this country. It is 
particularly important that we do so now because the Republican Caucus 
may not be united on this front in the next Congress.
  Madam Speaker, with more than 15 QAnon believers on the ballot this 
November across the country, it appears likely that at least one or two 
of them may be taking seats in Congress next term.
  In the meantime, every single Member on both sides of the aisle must 
take their share of blame if these Hallowed Halls are going to be 
contaminated by Representatives of a deranged conspiracy theory.
  In any case, I look forward to seeing how Minority Leader McCarthy 
will find a spot for this kind of expertise next Congress.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1145

  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
and I thank Representative Scanlon for yielding me the customary 30 
minutes.
  Madam Speaker, this rule consists of two nonbinding resolutions, H. 
Res. 1153, regarding allegations made against the Irwin County 
Detention Center, and H. Res. 1154, condemning QAnon and rejecting the 
conspiracy theories it promotes.
  First, H. Res. 1153 is a complete disregard to our Nation's due 
process system. If the accusations from the

[[Page H5127]]

women at Irwin County Detention Center are true, they are obviously 
horrific, and this resolution would be, obviously, an appropriate 
response.
  However, we don't know anything for certain yet. In fact, the Office 
of the Inspector General and the Department of Homeland Security are 
currently conducting investigations.
  We could open up a committee investigation, too. We could go through 
a normal committee oversight process where we have a hearing and bring 
in witnesses to get to the truth. That would be appropriate, not this.
  Guess what. ICE agrees with us. Acting ICE Director Tony Pham issued 
a statement on September 18, 2020, saying: ``The recent allegations by 
the independent contracted employee raise some very serious concerns 
that deserve to be investigated quickly and thoroughly. ICE welcomes 
the efforts of both the Office of the Inspector General as well as the 
Department of Homeland Security's parallel review.
  ``As a former prosecutor, individuals found to have violated our 
policies and procedures should be held accountable. If there is any 
truth to these allegations, it is my commitment to make the corrections 
necessary to ensure we continue to prioritize the health, welfare, and 
safety of ICE detainees.''
  In fact, I, along with my colleague from New Jersey, Representative 
Chris Smith, sent a letter to DHS last week to state that the 
allegations are alarming and must be investigated thoroughly.
  It also said in our letter that these accounts don't comport with the 
statement of Dr. Ada Rivera, the medical director of the ICE Health 
Services Corps, who stated that, since 2018, only two individuals at 
Irwin County Detention Center were referred to certified, credentialed 
medical professionals at gynecological healthcare facilities for 
hysterectomies. Dr. Rivera also said that detainees are afforded 
informed consent, and a medical procedure like a hysterectomy would 
never be performed against a detainee's will.
  On September 18, the Associated Press published an article citing the 
results of its own internal investigation. It stated that the AP's 
review did not find evidence of mass hysterectomies as alleged in a 
widely shared complaint filed by a nurse at the detention center.
  The AP also noted that one attorney investigating the case had found 
that Dr. Amin has performed surgery or other gynecological treatment on 
at least eight women detained at Irwin County Detention Center since 
2017, including one hysterectomy.
  As a member of the Homeland Security Committee and the co-chair of 
the Bipartisan Women's Caucus, I am very concerned about these 
accusations in this situation. However, what happened in this body to 
due process?
  The way the House is moving forward today on this resolution sets a 
very dangerous precedent. For instance, in the resolution itself, it 
states: ``Whereas these allegations indicate a failure by U.S. 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct rigorous oversight to 
protect the health and safety of people in its custody.''
  However, we do not even know if the allegations are true. It should, 
instead, read: ``If true, these actions indicate a failure.''
  We can't just base it on allegations. This is an example of my 
Democratic colleagues' acting first and learning later.
  Right now, we need to investigate, not bring a resolution condemning 
ICE to the floor. This is backwards, and it is just wrong. America 
needs to see us together on this issue. Unfortunately, my Democratic 
colleagues clearly do not want to work with Republicans to make that a 
reality.
  Madam Speaker, this rule also contains H. Res. 1154.
  At the outset, let me be clear, Republicans are concerned with and do 
not embrace QAnon.
  I have to admit, although I must confess I know little to nothing 
about this idea, organization, whatever it is, if what they say on 
Wikipedia is true, then, of course, we oppose it. In fact, on August 
20, the House Republican leader, Mr. McCarthy, stated very clearly that 
there is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party.
  It is a serious issue, and Republicans don't discriminate on which 
dangerous organizations or groups we take seriously. We don't just 
condemn groups because it is politically convenient. Because, unlike 
many of our colleagues across the aisle, we also take the threat of 
antifa seriously.
  It is clear, unfortunately, that many of my Democratic colleagues 
refuse to condemn antifa. Chairman Nadler said here right on the floor 
of the U.S. House of Representatives something to the effect that 
antifa was a myth, a fantasy. Just the other night, Vice President 
Biden refused to condemn antifa at the debate.
  That is why, last night, I offered an amendment to this resolution in 
the Rules Committee to include condemning antifa, so we, as a governing 
body, could unite against at least two threatening groups and 
ideologies, not just one.
  Unfortunately, all of my Rules Committee Democratic colleagues voted 
against my commonsense amendment, even though FBI Director Wray, 
himself, testified recently in Judiciary Committee: ``Antifa is a real 
thing. It is not fiction.'' In other words, antifa is not a myth as 
some on the other side believe. According to the FBI and the Department 
of Justice, antifa is involved in the rioting and looting across our 
Nation.

  So while I do wish that the majority would have included a resolution 
condemning antifa in this rule for floor consideration today, I am glad 
Republicans can put country first and agree when a group poses a 
threat.
  Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the 
balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, I am so pleased to hear that we should all be working 
together to get to the bottom of this, because that is exactly what the 
resolution puts forward. It says that these are allegations. It doesn't 
say that they are conclusively proved. But the resolution asks for an 
investigation, and it asks our government to pull out all the stops to 
do that.
  The reason we need a resolution and a sense of Congress about this is 
because we see ICE and the Department of Homeland Security undermining 
this investigation already. When the news broke 2 weeks ago, they 
promptly moved to deport one of the central witnesses. One of our 
colleagues, Sheila Jackson Lee, had to get that witness removed from a 
plane. She was on the tarmac ready to be sent overseas, where she then 
would not be available to testify.
  That same person was given humanitarian relief. She is allowed to 
stay in the country. Today, this morning, as we speak here, she 
reported to check in to ICE, as she was required to and as most 
immigrants do in our system, and when she reported, they tried to 
arrest her and deport her again.
  As we speak, Members of this body are having to work to keep ICE from 
undermining this investigation. So, yes, we need this resolution to 
move forward.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), who is the distinguished chairman of the 
Committee on Rules.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished member 
of the Rules Committee, Ms. Scanlon, for yielding me the time.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule and the 
underlying resolutions. We must pass the resolution from Congresswoman 
Jayapal. Medical procedures being done on immigrants without their 
consent harkens back to a dark time in our Nation's history when 
medical abuse against the poor and people of color happened again and 
again and again.
  I rise today, though, to discuss the bipartisan resolution condemning 
the collective delusion known as QAnon. I don't say that description 
lightly, Madam Speaker, but we all must call it what it is: a sick 
cult.
  We are not talking about a group of people with just some differing 
political views. Americans respect political disagreement. But what we 
do not respect and what this House should not tolerate are people using 
conspiracy theories from the darkest corners of the internet to spread 
hate and lies.
  QAnon isn't some harmless distraction. It is an extremist ideology 
that exploits children and opens the door to

[[Page H5128]]

real-life violence. That is what we are talking about here: reality 
versus delusion; political discussion versus political violence.
  Just ask the sponsor of this resolution, Congressman Malinowski. In 
an interview that was published yesterday, he talked about the death 
threats and hundreds of hate-filled attacks sent to him from QAnon 
supporters after introducing this bill.
  He is not the only Member of Congress who has been targeted. Sadly, 
there are candidates across the country running to serve in Congress 
who peddle this trash.
  It is sick; it is wrong; and it is dangerous.
  It is frustrating that the President wouldn't condemn QAnon. He says 
they like him. But, then again, I never thought I would see the day 
when a President of the United States would tell a white supremacist 
group to stand down and stand by in a national debate. He didn't use a 
dog whistle; he used a blow horn.
  Extreme views like these are dangerous.
  Are we really going to stand by and do nothing, Madam Speaker?
  That is not who we are as a nation. All of us, especially my 
Republican colleagues, must condemn QAnon or risk being complicit in 
their dangerous hate peddling.
  So let's make it crystal clear: This is a sick and a twisted 
ideology.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, let's be clear: I already said it, but we agree. We 
condemn QAnon, but we also ask the majority to condemn antifa.
  Why is the majority condemning one group and not the other group? 
That is the point.
  But let me go on to what my colleague, Representative Scanlon, said 
on H. Res. 1153. This was said in the Rules Committee last night, too, 
that all this resolution does is call for an investigation.
  That is inaccurate. This resolution goes beyond that. In fact, it 
says it right here, and I said it last night. It says: ``Whereas these 
allegations indicate a failure by U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement.''
  So, if all it did was call for an investigation, fine, but that is 
not what it all does. It says: Whereas these allegations indicate a 
failure by ICE.
  Madam Speaker, you saw in the comments that Representative Scanlon 
gave that she was going after ICE. That is what this is about.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Austin Scott).

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for 
yielding, and I thank all of my colleagues for their comments.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to focus my comments on the attacks on 
the Irwin County Hospital and the staff at the Irwin County Hospital. 
And one of the things that I would like to make very clear is: While I 
was not invited to the event at the Irwin County Detention Center that 
my colleagues had--even though it is in my district--I was on the 
telephone with people who were there at the time, including our local 
hospital administrator. I have been to that facility, and one of the 
things I want everybody in this Congress to understand is, surgical 
procedures are not done at the Irwin County Detention facility. They 
are not. They are done at the Irwin County Hospital.
  So when you talk about procedures being done at the Irwin County 
Detention facility, it is just false. They are done at the Irwin County 
Hospital. The detention facility is not set up to do surgical 
procedures.
  So the question is: How do we get here?
  Well, there was a whistleblower complaint filed by a group named 
Project South on September 14, 2020. I have a copy of the complaint. 
The complaint focuses on COVID and the challenges that the facility may 
or may not have had with COVID. And every facility in the United 
States, including this Congress, had challenges with personal 
protective equipment and COVID, and how we were handling those issues.
  Now, in this complaint, which focuses predominantly on COVID, they 
make an allegation of hysterectomies. And I read to you from one of the 
AP articles: ``But a lawyer who helped filed the complaint said she 
never spoke to any women who had hysterectomies. Priyanka Bhatt, staff 
attorney at the advocacy group Project South, told The Washington Post 
that she included the hysterectomy allegations because she wanted to 
trigger an investigation to determine if they were true.''
  And the investigation has been triggered. And we all want the 
investigation to go forward, and we want the facts to come out. And 
nobody wants the facts to come out more than those of us who live in 
that area. Nobody wants the facts to come out more than the doctor and 
the hospital and the staff at that hospital and the people who work at 
the detention facility.
  Madam Speaker, I share with you a couple of quotes from some other AP 
articles. This is from The Washington Post: ``The advocacy group that 
filed the complaint, Project South, did not make the hysterectomy 
allegations the focus of its September 14 complaint to DHS, a complaint 
that alleged there is poor medical care and novel coronavirus risks at 
the ICE facility.''
  The attorney at Project South who was the lead investigator for the 
complaint said in an interview with The Washington Post that she did 
not speak to or identify any women who had undergone a hysterectomy.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record the Washington Post article.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2020]

     Hospital Where Activists Say ICE Detainees Were Subjected to 
           Hysterectomies Says Just Two Were Performed There

                            (By Nick Miroff)

       A hospital in rural Georgia where a physician has been 
     accused of performing a large number of hysterectomies on 
     immigrant detainees said its records show that just two women 
     in immigration custody have been referred to the hospital for 
     the procedure since 2017.
       Heath Clark, an attorney for ERH Healthcare, which operates 
     the Irwin County Hospital, said both of the procedures were 
     performed by Mahendra Amin, the physician whom activists have 
     accused of carrying out forced sterilizations on immigrant 
     women in U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement custody.
       According to a complaint filed last week by immigrant 
     advocates and attorneys, a former nurse who worked at the 
     Irwin County Detention Center, Dawn Wooten, claimed that a 
     doctor known as ``the uterus collector'' was subjecting 
     female ICE detainees to unwanted hysterectomies. The doctor 
     was later identified in news reports as Amin. Through 
     attorneys, he has denied the accusations, and calls to his 
     office were not answered Tuesday.
       Clark said hospital records show that Wooten's claims are 
     ``demonstrably false.''
       ``These allegations are disturbing and sensational, but 
     they are not supported by reality,'' said Clark, speaking by 
     phone from Nashville. ``Dr. Amin is a longtime member of the 
     Irwin County Hospital medical staff and has been in good 
     standing for the entirety of his service to the Irwin County 
     community.''
       The allegations of forced sterilizations received 
     significant attention from lawmakers, news organizations and 
     human rights groups last week. Attorneys who represent 
     several women have come forward to say that their clients 
     received gynecological treatments from Amin that they did not 
     agree to or fully understand, including one former Irwin 
     detainee, Pauline Binam. Binam said that one of her fallopian 
     tubes was removed without consent.
       Binam's deportation to Cameroon was halted last week at the 
     behest of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.).
       Amin has a private clinic near the detention facility, but 
     the hospital is the only place where such a procedure would 
     be performed in small Irwin County, Clark said. Amin does not 
     have an ownership stake in the hospital, contrary to some 
     news reports, Clark said.
       Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), one of the lawmakers 
     who participated in a virtual hearing Monday to discuss the 
     ICE report, called Wooten's allegations of sterilization 
     procedures on ICE detainees ``one of the most inhumane things 
     I have ever heard.''
       Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote a letter signed by 173 
     lawmakers demanding a DHS inspector general investigation.
       ``There may be at minimum 17 to 18 women who were subjected 
     to unnecessary medical gynecological procedures from just 
     this one doctor, often without appropriate consent or 
     knowledge, and with the clear intention of sterilization,'' 
     Jayapal said.
       In a subsequent interview, Jayapal acknowledged that she 
     did not know the details of each of those cases, but the 
     number she cited referred to the clients of attorneys with 
     whom she had spoken.
       The advocacy group that filed the complaint, Project South, 
     did not make the hysterectomy allegations the focus of its 
     Sept. 14 complaint to DHS, a complaint that alleged there is 
     poor medical care and novel

[[Page H5129]]

     coronavirus risks at the ICE facility. But it was the 
     allegations of forced sterilizations that triggered a 
     firestorm.
       ``The rate at which the hysterectomies have occurred have 
     been a red flag for Ms. Wooten and other nurses at ICDC,'' 
     the Project South complaint said, without identifying other 
     nurses.
       According to Project South, ``Ms. Wooten explained: `We've 
     questioned among ourselves like goodness he's taking 
     everybody's stuff out . . . . That's his specialty, he's the 
     uterus collector. I know that's ugly . . . is he collecting 
     these things or something . . . . Everybody he sees, he's 
     taking all their uteruses out or he's taken their tubes out.' 
     ''
       Priyanka Bhatt, the attorney at Project South who was the 
     lead investigator for the complaint, said in an interview 
     with The Washington Post that she did not speak to or 
     identify any women who had undergone a hysterectomy. Bhatt 
     said she included the allegations to spark an investigation 
     into their validity.
       The legal director at Project South, Azadeh Shahshahani, 
     said by email Tuesday: ``We have already heard from multiple 
     attorneys representing numerous women who have suffered 
     abuses reflected by Ms. Wooten's whistleblowing disclosures. 
     Some of these women are considering speaking up because Ms. 
     Wooten courageously stepped forward. There has been a 
     troubling pattern of misreporting on the health and welfare 
     of detained immigrants held inside ICE facilities, and we 
     look forward to Congress, the Inspector General, and all 
     other relevant offices conducting a full investigation and 
     applying immediate, necessary, corrective actions.''
       ICE said its own records show that two female detainees at 
     Irwin have been referred for hysterectomies since 2018. 
     Officials at ICE said the agency would have records of such 
     procedures, which would require the approval of a supervising 
     medical officer at the agency. ICE officials say they are 
     cooperating with investigators.

  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, here is another article 
from Reuters: ``Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on 
Thursday that the government has not yet found any proof of forced 
sterilization of Mexican women being held at migrant detention 
facilities in the United States.''
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record this article.

                     [From Reuters, Sept. 24, 2020]

  No Evidence of Sterilization of Migrant Mexican Women, Says Foreign 
                                Minister

                           (By Reuters Staff)

       Mexico City (Reuters).--Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo 
     Ebrard said on Thursday that the government has not yet found 
     any proof of forced sterilization of Mexican women being held 
     in migrant detention facilities in the United States.
       The comments came after U.S. immigration officials earlier 
     this month said a federal watchdog would investigate 
     complaints made by a whistleblower nurse in a Georgia 
     immigration detention facility who alleged detainees had 
     improperly received hysterectomies and other gynecological 
     procedures.
       Ebrard told reporters that 20 of 24 female Mexican 
     nationals being held at detention centers in the U.S. states 
     of Georgia and Texas had been interviewed and none of them 
     had been subjected to such procedures.
       He added, however, that an investigation was ongoing as 
     more women still needed to be interviewed.
       Ebrard at the time described such potential abuse as 
     ``unacceptable'' and said that if the procedures were 
     confirmed, measures would have to be taken, without giving 
     details.

  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, now somewhere between 
September 14 and September 25, H. Res. 1153 was drafted. And I think 
that that date is extremely important because the resolution was 
drafted before you even went to the ICE detention facility in Irwin 
County. It was drafted before you even got on the site to see what was 
actually happening. The hospital administrator was there at the 
facility on the 26th. And there are a couple of things I want to point 
out:
  One, the hospital administrator is a lady. She is a good lady and she 
is a good hospital administrator. And the doctor is an immigrant.
  Now, everyone who came to that facility had the opportunity to meet 
with the hospital administrator, and every single one of you refused 
the opportunity to get the facts from the hospital administrator.
  Never mind the facts. And you wonder why people hate us up here.
  Madam Speaker, I have a statement I would read from the Irwin County 
Hospital, who wants a complete and thorough investigation: ``Irwin 
County Hospital is aware of various allegations of misconduct against 
individuals being detained at the Irwin County Detention Center.
  ``Irwin County Hospital is committed to the safety and welfare of 
everyone in our care, including patients referred for care from the 
Irwin County Detention Center. From 2017 to the present, two 
individuals in detention at the Irwin County Detention Center were 
referred to Irwin County Hospital for hysterectomies.''
  You have made accusations of mass sterilization. You should be 
embarrassed by your conduct.
  You don't want an investigation because you don't want the facts.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, ``From 2017 to the 
present, two individuals in detention at the Irwin County Detention 
Center were referred to Irwin County Hospital for hysterectomies. 
Mahendra Amin, MD, performed these two procedures. Dr. Amin is a long-
time member of the Irwin County Hospital medical staff and has been in 
good standing for the entirety of his service to the Irwin County 
community.
  ``Irwin County Hospital is and will continue to cooperate with any 
and all regulatory investigations related to healthcare services 
provided at Irwin County Hospital.''
  Dr. Amin has only performed two hysterectomies in 3.5 years on 
detainees at Irwin County Hospital. This has been acknowledged by 
independent reviews by ICH, ICDC, ICE, and even the Associated Press.
  Independent peer review has confirmed those cases were medically 
necessary.
  Irwin County Hospital is the closest hospital facility to the Irwin 
County Detention Center.
  The CEO of Irwin County Hospital was available to the Hispanic Caucus 
during their visit to the detention center. The warden made the Caucus 
aware of her presence at the facility and availability and no questions 
nor interaction was made by the Caucus. You absolutely refused to even 
speak to the lady that runs the local hospital because you don't want 
the facts.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record this statement released by the 
hospital.
       Irwin County Hospital is aware of various allegations of 
     misconduct against individuals being detained at the Irwin 
     County Detention Center.
       Irwin County Hospital is committed to the safety and 
     welfare of everyone in our care, including patients referred 
     for care from the Irwin County Detention Center. From 2017 to 
     the present, two individuals in detention at the Irwin County 
     Detention Center were referred to Irwin County Hospital for 
     hysterectomies. Mahendra Amin, MD performed these two 
     procedures. Dr. Amin is a long-time member of the Irwin 
     County Hospital medical staff and has been in good standing 
     for the entirety of his service to the Irwin County 
     community.
       Irwin County Hospital is and will continue to cooperate 
     with any and all regulatory investigations related to 
     healthcare care services provided at Irwin County Hospital.

  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Correa).
  Mr. CORREA. Madam Speaker, I thank Ms. Scanlon for yielding, and I 
rise in support of H. Res. 1153.
  First of all, let me say to my colleague from Georgia, I was there on 
that trip and I was not aware that the hospital administrator was 
offering to meet with us. I was meeting with the people that would want 
to meet with me and would want to talk to me. As a matter of fact, I 
had a lot of discussions with a lot of members of ICE while I was 
there.
  As a member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I have visited a 
number of ICE detention centers, especially in the State of California. 
But I must say nothing has prepared me or had prepared me for what I 
had found, what I saw and what I heard at the Irwin Detention Center.
  This was the first time that I have heard individuals in ICE custody 
desperate to be let out--anywhere--to get out. Women crying, asking not 
to be left alone. They cried that we--please not forget us--don't 
forget them.
  And yet, their stories had one very common theme. When asking for 
medical care, when asking for gynecological care, the care they 
received was without their consent and they had no idea what was going 
on, what they were doing to them.

[[Page H5130]]

  The medical doctor that was delivering the healthcare--and I believe 
my colleague from Georgia mentioned his name--is a doctor that has 
allegedly been fined half a million dollars. He and his medical 
practice paid half a million dollars in fines.
  So I would ask, why does the U.S. Government, why would ICE, contract 
with a healthcare provider that has been fined half a million dollars?
  And if these women complained about their medical problems, they were 
placed in what was called isolation for observation. Many of them 
described it as solitary confinement for days. Solitary confinement 
that caused psychological pain. These women were scared. They were 
traumatized, they were scared to ask for further medical treatment and 
they wanted to be sent home.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from California.
  Mr. CORREA. Madam Speaker, first, we had child separations. Now we 
have mistreatment of women. This has to stop.
  We need investigations. We need oversight. We need accountability. 
This is not going away.
  Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, Ms. Jayapal, for bringing this 
resolution forward, and I ask all the Members of this body to support 
this resolution.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, yield myself such time as I may consume. 
Again, we are all for investigations. Two investigations are already 
going on; one by the office of Inspector General; one by DHS. I wrote a 
letter, along with Representative Chris Smith, to the DHS Secretary 
Chad Wolf last week, saying: Please investigate this, get back to us.
  The problem that I have with this resolution is that it also condemns 
ICE, just based on allegations that haven't even been investigated. The 
findings haven't been done yet. So how can you condemn an agency based 
on allegations that haven't even been proven yet? That is the point.
  That is what Mr. Scott was trying to say. There are opposing 
viewpoints. One side said this happened, another said it didn't.
  So last night, in addition, in Rules Committee, I said: Why don't we 
postpone this resolution until October 9? Give it a week. Let's go 
through committee and find out what is exactly going on. Let's have DHS 
come in. But, no, they opposed that, too.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Collins), my good friend.
  Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, it is not a surprise why we 
are here. To the gentlewoman from Arizona, it is not a surprise. They 
have nothing else to put on the floor except political statements a 
month before an election and to further an agenda that they don't like 
with ICE and the immigration process, which we have heard now in the 
Committee on the Judiciary for well over 2 years. Again, there are no 
actionable items that actually can fix them but a lot of talk.
  So let's continue with this just amazing reason we are here on the 
floor. Because the majority has embraced this absurd and baseless 
accusation that employees and doctors at the Irwin County Detention 
Facility in my State of Georgia are engaged in a conspiracy--this is 
amazing--with local doctors to systematically sterilize illegal aliens.
  They have proven to the American people that no story is too 
outlandish to use in furtherance of their radical agenda.
  It would be a completely different situation if we were standing here 
today to take action on substantiated claims of mistreatment, but we 
are not.
  We are here today so that the majority can attempt to squeeze one 
last bit of value out of the false claims propagated by Project South's 
complaint about the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. 
The left knows these complaints are not true, but they are hoping we 
will ignore the mountain of evidence contradicting them--Madam Speaker, 
I have news for them--we are not.
  If claims of mass hysterectomies were true, or even if they were 
substantiated by the smallest amount of evidence, then there would be 
swift action. But to the contrary--and to the dismay of my Democrat 
colleagues--the claims of mass hysterectomies were quickly proven false 
mere days after the complaint was released. In fact, as Mr. Scott said, 
just days later, both the hospital and the detention center confirmed 
only two such hysterectomies were performed since 2017.
  Madam Speaker, that didn't stop the whistleblower. That didn't stop 
Project South. That didn't stop us from bringing this show to the floor 
of the House.
  In fact, in the complaint Ms. Wooten called the doctor at the center 
a uterus collector. Where does he go to get his reputation back from 
somebody who in a group who makes basic claims?
  I need to remind Project South; they don't have speech and debate 
privileges like we do. They ought to be careful about who they are 
slandering and how they are doing it.
  Ms. Wooten said she has spoken out about several inmates who have had 
hysterectomies. Even more sensationalized, Ms. Wooten stated that: 
Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy--just about everybody. This is 
what she is saying about the doctor.
  Project South alleges that a detainee at the facility had talked to 
five different women detained between October and December 2019 who had 
hysterectomies done. But both the detention facility and the local 
hospital have clear evidence directly contradicting this hearsay: 
records showing that only two detainees have had hysterectomies since 
2017. Let that sink in: Only two since 2017.
  How can they claim mass hysterectomies performed by the uterus 
collector are true? The simple answer is they are not.
  In fact, Project South's attorneys and lead investigator admitted to 
The Washington Post that she had not even spoken to or identified a 
detainee claiming to have undergone a hysterectomy. The group providing 
these claims has no evidence to back them up, but nonetheless, we are 
here embracing them and continuing to perpetrate a falsehood. Sounds 
like a little bit of another resolution that we are dealing with here 
today.
  As the facts have come out to disprove these absurd claims, did the 
Democrats acknowledge they were wrong? No. There has been no 
acknowledgment of their wrong. They conveniently shifted their argument 
to uninformed consent and expanded the allegation to medical procedures 
generally and the lack of adequate translation services to strengthen 
their faulty arguments. But even those failed.
  According to the employees at the facility, the center has 24-hour 
access to interpreters for virtually every language, which they 
consistently utilize. In fact, they even have several remote 
interpreters who specialize in relaying medical terms and advice to 
non-English speakers.
  Clearly, the majority does not care about the credibility of their 
witnesses and their whistleblowers. They want the publicity. They want 
the political aspect of this because we are coming to the real reason. 
As long as they espouse these claims, it allows them to continue their 
attack on two places: The President and law enforcement. We have seen 
this during the sham impeachment, and we are seeing it here again 
today.
  The Democrats have already expended a lot of time and effort trying 
to make the claim in this complaint true by writing letters to DHS IG 
and traveling to Ocilla. In fact, just 2 days after the release of 
Project South's complaint, 173 Democrats wrote DHS IG urging an 
investigation centering their call almost entirely on Ms. Wooten's 
debunked claims of mass hysterectomies.
  Madam Speaker, now that is a mass progression to something--173 on a 
debunked complaint that has already been done. They have conveniently 
failed to update the DHS IG and the American public that their claims 
of a eugenics conspiracy in south Georgia have been proven false.
  They have also conveniently failed to mention that, according to its 
website, Project South is committed to ending the use of local police 
to enforce what they characterize as the Federal Government's draconian 
and racist immigration policies. Further, the group

[[Page H5131]]

boasts a goal of shutting down immigration centers and is a frequent 
user of the hashtag, #abolishICE.
  To set the record straight, Representative Austin Scott and I wrote a 
letter to the DHS IG to shed light on the developments that followed 
Project South's complaint and the group's anti-law enforcement, anti-
Trump agenda.

                              {time}  1215

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. COLLINS of Georgia. Madam Speaker, in the quest of their further 
radical agenda, the left has cast a shadow over an entire town in 
Georgia.
  This is more than just political fodder here for this floor when the 
majority has nothing else to put on this floor and is wasting the 
American people's time here. This goes back to disparaging a respected 
doctor in the community, an Indian-American immigrant, who provides 
free medical services to low-income patients simply for political gain. 
The doctor has been viciously slandered by the left's accusation that 
he carried out mass hysterectomies.
  Frankly, he should sue these organizations.
  It is truly sad to see the lengths that the majority is willing to go 
to advance their own misguided policies, and they should apologize to 
the doctor and to the center.
  It is clear to me that Project South has ulterior motives, and it is 
dangerous that the majority is permitting the group's complaint to 
serve as the foundation of a resolution when so many of the claims have 
already failed under scrutiny, and the credibility of the entire 
complaint is shattered by Project South's anti-ICE motives.
  Despite Democrats' wishes, the American people deserve to know the 
truth, and they deserve to see the motives behind the claim. An 
investigation is always there; an investigation can start. But it is 
pretty amazing that the investigation--173 of my majority colleagues 
rushed to sign a letter without even knowing the facts, and especially 
because it has salacious details that they could get at ICE and to get 
at a system that they don't like, actually protecting the American 
public, enforcing our immigration laws.
  Project South is an anti-law enforcement organization that has a 
stated mission of shutting down detention facilities. They included 
patently false claims in a complaint to the DHS IG.
  Detention facilities like the Irwin County Detention Center serve an 
important purpose in upholding our Nation's immigration laws, and 
efforts like this one to disparage them and shut them down by choosing 
to ignore facts in favor of fiction is disgraceful, not even meeting 
with the hospital administrator.
  Again, what are we here for? This is shown to be exactly what it is. 
This train is on the tracks. We are putting this up here for political 
purposes because, frankly, Madam Speaker, the majority has nothing else 
to put up, so let's get a last couple of days in to throw at our 
favorite targets: ICE and this administration. And who cares who we 
hurt, a hospital, a community, and a doctor who simply was doing his 
job.
  This is an investigation that needs to happen, and the smear needs to 
stop now.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Wow, that was hard to follow. Just to take a couple pieces there.
  There is no allegation here of mass hysterectomies. What there are 
allegations of, which have been strengthened over the intervening 2 
weeks, are allegations that numerous women were subjected to 
inappropriate medical care. And their medical records, as we begin to 
receive them, are starting to confirm that there were a variety of 
procedures that were committed upon these people without their consent, 
including total and partial sterilization, but a range of procedures.
  You know, Madam Speaker and I both come from Pennsylvania. We have 
seen this kind of corruption before in our prison systems, where you 
have a private prison system that gets involved in providing care--in 
Pennsylvania, it was called the ``kids for cash'' scandal, where public 
officials were being given kickbacks for interning children.
  Now, is that what is going on here? The investigation may 
substantiate that or it may not, but there is a lot that needs to be 
dug into: the appropriateness of the medical care, whether someone was 
profiting off what happened there, the humanity of what happened to 
these women. All of that needs to be looked into.
  That is what the resolution is asking for, that this be investigated, 
because the allegations are so serious, and everything we have seen so 
far has supported them.
  Now, the IG is moving to investigate, and Congress has started to 
investigate. While there was a general invitation to folks to attend 
the codel that went down there last week, nearly a dozen of our 
colleagues did go. They met with people down there.
  This is just a first step. There will be hearings. We will get to 
talk to the professionals from the community.
  No one is saying that the investigation is complete, and no one is 
saying that it is completely proven, but it is absolutely something 
this body must do: to act, to make sure that our government agencies 
are not participating in a scheme that deprives people of their basic 
human rights.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New 
Hampshire (Ms. Kuster).
  Ms. KUSTER of New Hampshire. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania for the time to speak as colead on this important 
resolution, to establish a thorough investigation. I know that we have 
colleagues across the aisle who want this investigation, and I ask them 
to join us today.

  Before having the privilege to serve in Congress, I was an adoption 
attorney for 25 years. I sat with 300 birth mothers as they make the 
most profound, private, and consequential decision of their lifetime.
  In America, the government should not interfere in this most personal 
and intimate decision. Any type of sterilization, without consent, is a 
shocking and wrong interference.
  I ask my colleagues: How many hysterectomies would be sufficient for 
a resolution? Would a partial hysterectomy without consent, for those 
who hold themselves out to be pro-life? These are women who want to 
have children. We can find common ground.
  In America, the government should not interfere, and that is why I 
and so many Members of this Congress were shocked and horrified, first, 
to read about the whistleblower complaint; then the expose in The New 
York Times, with even more detail; and, finally, to speak with our 
colleagues, the codel that took the time to go to Irwin, Georgia, over 
the weekend and to sit and speak with the women who have had 
unspeakable surgery on them without their consent or understanding.
  This chilling report outlines invasive gynecological procedures, 
ranging from full abdominal hysterectomy to the removal of ovaries and 
fallopian tubes.
  We will acknowledge, not every surgery was a full hysterectomy, but 
that should not keep us from helping these women who have come forward 
detailing the pain and the trauma that these procedures have inflicted 
with life-changing consequences.
  These procedures, performed without consent, in some cases result in 
the woman's inability to ever have a child, to ever bear a life. We 
have removed that life choice without her consent. And women who want 
to bear a child should have that right.
  In America, the decision of whether to have a child rests squarely 
with women and is protected by the United States Constitution and 50 
years of precedent under the law; yet we find ourselves amidst a 
renewed national conversation about whether women can make healthcare 
decisions about their own bodies and whether they can have the choice 
to bear a child.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Kuster).
  Ms. KUSTER of New Hampshire. Madam Speaker, these are the most 
difficult and private decisions that women will make, and the 
government should never have a role in that decision.

[[Page H5132]]

  So make no mistake about it: Women's reproductive health and well-
being is under attack in America, and whether that battleground may be 
a detention facility in Georgia or the highest court in the land, we 
must speak out, in unequivocal terms, to condemn efforts that take away 
a woman's ability to make her own healthcare decisions, including when 
and whether to bear a child.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the 
rule to immediately consider Small Business Committee Ranking Member   
Steve Chabot's H.R. 8265, to reopen the Paycheck Protection Program to 
America's 30 million small businesses.
  Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my 
amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately 
prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Arizona?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. LESKO. This amendment would ensure our Nation's smallest and 
most vulnerable firms get the support they need by allowing an 
opportunity for a second PPP loan with specific funds set aside for 
small businesses with 10 or fewer employees, expand the list of 
eligible covered expenses, simplify the loan forgiveness process, and 
extend PPP through the end of 2020.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Roy).
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, to this body, I say enough, enough of the 
swamp games.
  The House needn't wait for the powers that be to meet in a dark room 
and come out and tell us what so-called deal has been cut, whether it 
is the Speaker, the Treasury Secretary, or anybody else. And I 
shouldn't have to learn what is in the bill from K Street on Twitter.
  Nor should the House take up a partisan $2 trillion bill with no 
chance of becoming law, and you know exactly that is what it is.
  This is the people's House. We should act like it. We should debate. 
We should vote. We should actually do our job and amend.
  To my House Democratic freshman colleagues: Your Speaker is playing 
political games with people's lives.
  We are used to it. We are used to the Speaker playing games:
  With immigrant's lives, shouting: kids in cages, for Obama policies 
rather than supporting security;
  Refusing to call out antifa, or refusing to come to this floor and 
have this body stand with our law enforcement officers--not once;
  Supporting Iran over Israel;
  Refusing to stand against the extermination of babies born alive;
  Seeking to destroy American oil and gas and energy freedom and cheap 
energy in favor of radical Green New Deal policies;
  Working to take away your private doctors, taking away your private 
insurance; and
  Killing 6 months of this body's time with partisan impeachment 
proceedings.
  But this is a whole other level.
  In June, the Heroes Act, $3 trillion in partisan hackery with no 
chance of passage.
  But in June, I, along with freshman Democrats, led by my friend Dean 
Phillips, worked together and passed the PPP Flexibility Act. We saved 
jobs.

  We now know that, according to the S&P, 13.6 million jobs have been 
saved nationally; in the district I represent, 90,000 jobs, 18,500 
businesses, $633 million.
  But small businesses are still struggling. Forty-seven percent of PPP 
borrowers say they need additional support to survive.
  Right now, we have a bipartisan piece of legislation specifically 
designed and ready to help small businesses, but we are not debating or 
voting on it. Instead, the Speaker chooses what? Political messaging 
resolutions that won't do a darn thing.
  Worse yet, the Speaker is again purposely choosing legislation that 
is designed to fail: a tax cut that will go exclusively to the wealthy; 
banking for marijuana businesses; PPP loans to Planned Parenthood; 
billions to bail out State and local governments; environmental justice 
grants; weed diversity studies; soil health studies; stimulus checks 
for illegal immigrants; bailouts for Amtrak; and bailouts for the 
National Endowment for the Arts. And the kicker? Refusing to call out 
antifa.
  And the one thing cut from the first Heroes Act? Law enforcement 
funding: $300 million for COPS grants, $300 million for State and local 
law enforcement officers.
  Why won't the Speaker--why won't Democrats--stand with our law 
enforcement? Why won't they stand for small businesses instead of 
playing games on the floor of this House, the people's House? It is an 
absolute abomination.
  I urge my colleagues to reject the ways of the swamp. Let's unite 
together and vote ``no'' on the previous question and work to help 
small businesses right now.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, of course, I look forward to joining my 
colleagues in passing another round of coronavirus relief, as we did 
unanimously or near unanimously the first four times, because we know 
our communities, our colleges, our schools, our State and local 
governments, our law enforcement officers, our healthcare systems all 
need that relief that has been held up by the Senate and the White 
House since May.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Cohen).
  Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I came here for the purpose of commending 
Representatives Malinowski and Riggleman for bringing the resolution 
condemning QAnon and its baseless, racist theories. But having heard 
some of the remarks today, I have to tell you: Speaker Pelosi is 
standing up for American values and standing up for the least of us, 
while the Republicans are standing for the most of us.
  The Republicans passed a $150 billion tax break for the richest 
Americans, people like Donald Trump who don't pay taxes. They get a 4-
year backlog to file losses in real estate deals to cut out their 
taxes.
  They won't do anything for children in a child tax credit, but they 
think that that policy of giving people, on average, a $1.6 million tax 
benefit to the richest 1 percent is good values. That is not good 
values. That is bad values.
  That is not good values; that is bad values. And the Republicans 
ought to object to that because it is making them the party of greed 
and tax weaselers and the bad people in America and not caring about 
the least of these.

                              {time}  1230

  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Cloud) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. CLOUD. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses 
and the families they represent.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would advise that all time has 
been yielded for the purpose of debate only.
  Does the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania yield for the purpose of this 
unanimous consent request?
  Ms. SCANLON. No, Madam Speaker. I do not yield for that purpose, and 
I have no intention of doing so during this debate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania does not 
yield; therefore, the unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota 
(Mr. Stauber) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. STAUBER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Indiana 
(Mrs. Walorski) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mrs. WALORSKI. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R.

[[Page H5133]]

8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Roy) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 8265 
to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of employees 
on the payroll of America's small businesses and continue the benefits 
that we have done through bipartisan work previously.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  The Chair would advise Members that even though a unanimous consent 
request is not entertained, embellishments accompanying such request 
constitute debate and will become an imposition on the time of the 
Member who yielded for that purpose.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Smucker) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. SMUCKER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payrolls of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Austin Scott) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
to call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payrolls of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Newhouse) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on payrolls of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma 
(Mr. Kevin Hern) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. KEVIN HERN of Oklahoma. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Norman) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. NORMAN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana 
(Mr. Johnson) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas 
(Mr. Hill) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call 
up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions 
of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Carter) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call 
up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions 
of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Babin) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. BABIN. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Walker) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. WALKER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Baird) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. BAIRD. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. 
Watkins) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. WATKINS. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas 
(Mr. Crawford) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. CRAWFORD. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees

[[Page H5134]]

on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Keller) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. LaMalfa) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Garcia) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. GARCIA of California. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Calvert) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. CALVERT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Kelly) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
King) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up 
H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses and keep our 
businesses open and functioning.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me thank the gentlewoman from 
Pennsylvania and thank my colleagues for this vigorous discussion and 
the unanimous consent.
  I want to give them comfort. Tomorrow, we will be able to vote on the 
Heroes bill that we ask each and every one of them to support to 
provide moneys not only for small businesses but nonprofits and faith 
institutions because we believe in the American people, and we are 
going to keep them working.
  I look forward to them joining this bipartisan effort, supporting the 
Heroes bill that we have offered under the leadership of Speaker 
Pelosi.

                              {time}  1245

  I rise today to support both H. Res. 1153 and H. Res. 1154.
  I traveled to Irwin County this past weekend, but my exposure to this 
tragedy was not just that day; just last week, with butterflies in my 
stomach, if you will, and concern for a young woman, 29 years old, 
about to enter onto a plane that she obviously was directed to go to a 
place that she had never been, or had not been since she was 2 years 
old, a young woman from Cameroon who did have, who admits that her 
fallopian tube was removed without her consent.
  So people of color are not unused to having medical procedures 
without our consent. Women are not unused to and unfamiliar with having 
medical procedures without their consent.
  Think about these women, speaking mostly a different language, 
detained for civil matters, and that is, not being statused. Young 
women, women intimidated in the midst of COVID-19 in a facility where 
there is one physician who is supposed to be an OB/GYN, and you are 
carted off like cattle in a bus with one diagnosis: Oh, you need a 
fallopian tube removed.
  Let my friends on the other side of the aisle be reminded that they 
have been throwing the word ``uterus'' and other words around the floor 
of the House.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Texas an 
additional 30 seconds.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, this is not a condemnation of ICE. 
Read the language. It just says that they should engage in more 
vigorous oversight, and they are doing that with an inspector general's 
investigation.
  Look at this. This is from one of the women:
  Liberty, we are daughters and we are mothers, but you are stopping us 
from doing that.
  And H. Res. 1154 that I join in supporting, as well, condemning 
QAnon, talks about a better America, that we are not the way it is 
described in this resolution.
  I ask my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying bills 
because we are daughters and we are mothers, and what is going on there 
is an atrocious condition that should not exist.
  I ask my colleagues to join me, and I thank my good friend from 
Pennsylvania for yielding.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Chabot) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program bill that I introduced 
to keep millions of employees on the payroll of America's small 
businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would advise that all time has 
been yielded for the purpose of debate only.
  Does the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania yield for the purpose of this 
unanimous consent request?
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I do not yield.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Pennsylvania does not 
yield; therefore, the unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Bilirakis) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll for America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr.

[[Page H5135]]

Balderson) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. BALDERSON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Joyce) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. Tipton) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. TIPTON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to be able to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Bishop) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent 
to call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Meuser) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.

  Mr. MEUSER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to millions of employees 
on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Palmer) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. PALMER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. 
Marshall) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Olson) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. OLSON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 
8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of 
employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North 
Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Ms. FOXX of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
call up H.R. 8265 to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep 
millions of employees on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North 
Carolina (Mr. Budd) for the purpose of a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. BUDD. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to call up H.R. 8265 
to extend the Paycheck Protection Program to keep millions of employees 
on the payroll of America's small businesses.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that the gentlewoman 
from Pennsylvania has not yielded for that purpose; therefore, the 
unanimous consent request cannot be entertained.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, in closing, we need to help the American people. The 
House should be considering a bipartisan COVID-19 relief package right 
now, not binding resolutions that simply have the purpose of making 
political points.
  Our constituents need us, so let's get to work on a bipartisan 
package that could actually be signed into law because, let's face it, 
anything else is worthless to the American people.
  Madam Speaker, I urge ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on the 
underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  We are in trying times. We have an erratic administration that 
operates with the primary, if not exclusive, goal of winning reelection 
at any cost and a Republican Party willing to do anything necessary to 
aid in that goal.
  We are in the midst of a global pandemic that has already upended 
virtually every facet of our lives. Millions of people are unemployed 
or facing unemployment, and over 207,000 of our friends and neighbors 
have died.
  Many of my constituents are facing eviction or are struggling to find 
food for their families.
  The fact that much of this suffering could be alleviated if not for 
the apathy of Senate Republicans is tough to reckon with, but the 
American people know who is on their side.
  This Congress has passed more than 600 bills, and a quarter of them 
have become law. Over 350 bipartisan bills lie untouched on Mitch 
McConnell's desk while he focuses all of his energy on confirming as 
many rightwing judges as he can.
  We stand ready to negotiate, and we will pass a COVID relief bill 
every day and twice on Sundays if that is what we have to do to get 
Mitch McConnell's attention. And we will do it while passing other 
legislation that is for the benefit of all the American people--not 
just a select few, not just for those who dodge taxes--because that is 
what governing is, and that is what we will continue to do.
  We have a duty to provide an equal opportunity for all Americans to 
live, work, and thrive in this country, and that is a responsibility 
the administration and Senate majority leader have abdicated.
  So for all of the criticism lobbed from the other side of the aisle 
for taking up important resolutions like the ones we do today while a 
COVID package still hasn't been signed into law, your words are 
misplaced and you know exactly who to blame.
  We were elected to govern, and that is exactly what we are going to 
do. You are more than welcome to join us, but we are not going to let 
you stand in our way while we move to protect human

[[Page H5136]]

rights and advance the best interests of the American people.
  Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support the rule and 
underlying legislation.
  The text of the material previously referred to by Mrs. Lesko is as 
follows:

                   Amendment to House Resolution 1164

       At the end of the resolution, add the following:
       Sec. 3. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the 
     House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the 
     bill (H.R. 8265) to amend the Small Business Act and the 
     CARES Act to establish a program for second draw loans and 
     make other modifications to the paycheck protection program, 
     and for other purposes. All points of order against 
     consideration of the bill are waived. The bill shall be 
     considered as read. All points of order against provisions in 
     the bill are waived. The previous question shall be 
     considered as ordered on the bill and on any amendment 
     thereto to final passage without intervening motion except: 
     (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the 
     chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Small 
     Business; and (2) one motion to recommit.
       Sec. 4. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of H.R. 8265.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and 
I move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 3 of House Resolution 
965, the yeas and nays are ordered.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question 
are postponed.

                          ____________________