[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 66 (Friday, April 16, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H1874-H1878]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
(Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of
the majority leader the schedule for next week. I yield to the
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-
hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes expected no
earlier than 6:30 p.m.
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate
and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
On Wednesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for legislative
business.
On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business,
with last votes no later than 3 p.m.
We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The
complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of
business today.
In addition, Madam Speaker, we will consider bills relating to
justice and civil rights: H.R. 1333, the NO BAN Act, which prevents
origin-based discrimination against those seeking to visit our country
to do business, see family, or engage in tourism, rejecting the
previous administration's policy of banning arrivals from predominantly
Muslim countries; H.R. 1573, the Access to Counsel Act, which reaffirms
key American principles of justice with regard to immigrants' rights to
counsel during status hearings; and then lastly, H.R. 51, standing for
the 51st State. H.R. 51 is the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, to admit
the District of Columbia as a State and provide equal representation in
Congress for its residents.
That will be our schedule for the week to come. The following 2 weeks
in April will be our committee workweeks so that the committees can
produce additional product for consideration on the floor of the House
of Representatives.
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I know, just yesterday, one of the
Members of the House Democrat leadership team, Chairman Nadler,
introduced a bill to pack the Supreme Court.
This is a proposal that we have seen in other countries.
Unfortunately, it is in mostly socialist countries. If you look at some
of the examples, in 2004, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez packed his
court, and the result was totalitarian dominance for his socialist
regime. Congressman Gimenez, who himself fled Cuba, fled a communist
regime, said just recently on court-packing:
Packing the courts is a tactic used by brutal dictatorships
to consolidate the socialist power, which resulted in tens of
thousands of court rulings in its favor, basically destroying
the country.
I wanted to ask the gentleman, is that court-packing bill a bill that
the majority is going to be bringing to the floor or even marking up in
committee? I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. I have not had a discussion with Mr. Nadler, but as the
gentleman knows, we have a lot of work to do on the floor of the House
of Representatives, and we intend to get that work done. We have not
considered bringing to the floor the bill to which the gentleman
refers.
Did the gentleman in his research find any instances in any
authoritarian country where they refused to consider a constitutional
appointee to their Supreme Court that the President, with 10 months on
his term, sent down to the United States Senate or some other body in
those countries?
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I haven't read the Constitution of
Venezuela, but I know in the Constitution of the United States, it
actually gives the Senate the advise-and-consent role, the
responsibility, as it relates to Supreme Court picks. Obviously, that
has been kept.
The borking incident was probably the most embarrassing, egregious
abuse that started this back-and-forth, where individual Supreme Court
picks became more personally scrutinized. That process has been abused
in cases like Bork.
Even the Kavanaugh hearing got out of control, where disgraceful
false allegations were made.
But in the end, the Senate's advise-and-consent role is part of the
United States Constitution. I don't know if the gentleman is suggesting
that that
[[Page H1875]]
should be changed. I don't see it. Even with a Democratic majority
right now, I wouldn't suggest changing that process that is in our
Constitution.
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I don't know about the Nadler bill, but I
do know that the Constitution says nothing about the Senate's ability
to simply refuse to consider an appointee of the President of the
United States. I don't think the Founders had any concept that that
would be the case when they gave the power of appointment to the
President of the United States.
{time} 1230
And then when that occurred, when the present Attorney General was
appointed to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell said, We are not going
to consider it, ten months before the end of the term of a President of
the United States. And then they said the reason being is because we
have an election coming up in just a few months--in that case, it was 8
months--and the next President ought to appoint.
Madam Speaker, that deep principle enunciated by Mr. McConnell, by
Mr. Graham, and others--who was the chairman of the Committee on the
Judiciary, that deep principle was abandoned immediately when it became
politically pragmatic for the Republican Party to do so and steal a
Supreme Court justice.
So he can talk about socialism all he wants. What a distraction that
is. A failure to want to discuss on the merits of the issues.
So what do they do, Madam Speaker? They talk about socialism or
communism or dictatorship, none of which we have in the United States
of America.
Now, we just lost a President of the United States that, in my
experience--and I have served with many Presidents of the United
States--was the most authoritarian-seeking President with whom I have
served.
Madam Speaker, so I tell my friend that we are going to focus on
issues important to the American people. We want to pass a jobs bill to
make sure that America is competitive in the 21st century. We want to
pass a jobs bill to make sure that families have good-paying jobs that
they can support themselves and their families. We want to support
bills that build America back better. I want an America that makes sure
that everybody can ``make it in America,'' not only manufacture it in
America but make it in America. That is what we are going to be focused
on.
Madam Speaker, we hope that the debate is on the merits of those
proposals, not some aspersion of some ideological tinge that they may
think their supporters regale at.
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
This is the bill. It is not even a page and a half, but the real change
in law by the Member of House Democratic leadership Chairman Nadler,
says, ``A Chief Justice of the United States and 12 Associate Justices,
any eight of whom shall constitute a quorum.'' So in essence, a hostile
takeover of the United States Supreme Court, not going through the
traditional process that has been in place for over 100 years.
And I think the gentleman knows, if you go back historically, the
President in power when the Senate was led by a different party--I
can't recall a case in generations where if in the election year there
was a vacancy in the Supreme Court it was filled.
And everybody in the country knew that that was an issue in the
election of 2016. In fact, it was probably one of the deciding issues
that helped elect President Trump, was that there was that vacancy and
the public wanted to be engaged in the direction of the country, as
well as the direction of the court. It was absolutely a heavily debated
item in the 2016 Presidential election and President Trump won that
election.
But, again, I have never heard anybody suggesting changing the
Constitution to take away the Senate's advise and consent role. But we
do see here a bill that was filed just this week by a leader in the
Democratic Party to have a hostile takeover of the Supreme Court,
similar to what has been done in socialist countries. And I think it is
important to point to who has proposed those kinds of changes in the
past, and what it has led to. And I know President Biden himself is on
the record many times criticizing heavily the idea of packing the
Supreme Court.
Now, that was before he was President. Now that it would be him that
would be able to appoint these extra judges, I don't know if his
position has changed. But it is a dangerous precedent. It is the kind
of precedent that exists in Soviet-style nations. I sure hope it is not
here.
But Mr. Nadler did just say yesterday when asked about Speaker
Pelosi's position, he said, ``Speaker Pelosi and others will come
along.'' So I was just wondering if that was something that the
gentleman was planning on bringing to the floor that would be a
divisive issue as opposed to things that we could work together on,
like infrastructure, that would be unifying.
And obviously, there is a lot of talk about infrastructure. This is
something that there is tremendous interest in on both sides of the
aisle. I know Chairman DeFazio, as well as Ranking Member Sam Graves,
have had a lot of conversations about things that we could agree on.
And I would hope that would be the approach that we take, unlike the
bill that over 90 percent of which had nothing to do with the COVID--
the $1.9 trillion spending bill, which was hyper-partisan.
Madam Speaker, I hope we approach this in a bipartisan way. Because
as I said, there are clearly Members on both sides that want to agree
on an infrastructure bill and have lots of areas of agreement if we are
talking about infrastructure. And by infrastructure, I think most
Americans--if you asked them what they thought was infrastructure, they
would say roads, bridges, ports, waterways, and broadband.
Once you get into social policy and Green New Deal-type policies or
tax hikes that would make America the highest rate above Communist
China in terms of tax policy--the National Association of Manufacturers
said that the kind of proposal that is being floated in the partisan
approach would kill over 1 million American jobs.
So I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland talking about jobs. Why
would we want to approach this in such a partisan way that we would
threaten millions of jobs, that we would make America uncompetitive
again, and Communist China would have a lower tax rate than America?
Hopefully, we do the bipartisan approach and not a partisan approach.
And I yield to the gentleman to enlighten us on what direction is
being approached right now.
Mr. HOYER. The gentleman refers to Communist China, apparently wants
to follow that example. A communist authoritarian government that owns
most of the manufacturing capability in China--not all of it. It is
ironic that in two different debates in less than 5 minutes that the
gentleman would point to China as the example of what perhaps we ought
to do, when their tax policy is approximately 100 percent, except what
they want to allow their citizens to have.
Madam Speaker, let me just close on that point with: The Supreme
Court has been packed.
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Finally, I want to bring up the crisis that our Nation is facing at
our southern border. And this has been a crisis that has been brewing
for months. It is not an overnight problem, but it is an executive
order-created problem when President Biden on day one got rid of some
policies that were working incredibly well.
And every border patrol agent that I have talked--and I was on the
border last week, Thursday and Friday, in McCollum, Texas, and in
Donna, Texas, at the Donna processing facility--every border agent said
the same thing. They said getting rid of the remain in Mexico policy,
that one action alone opened up the floodgates to a surge, thousands of
people a day crossing our border illegally.
Then you couple that with the deterioration of the Northern Triangle
agreements. And, yes, it was President Trump who negotiated those
agreements with Mexico, with Honduras, with El Salvador, with
Guatemala. And maybe President Biden just doesn't like the fact that
President Trump did
[[Page H1876]]
something that was working well. Why doesn't he renegotiate those
agreements and call them his own? But they were working.
Madam Speaker, now today, it is so out of control that we have, for
example, at the Donna processing facility, a facility designed for
about a 250-person capacity--when I was visiting that facility last
Friday, there was over 4,000 people--young kids, primarily--crammed
into that facility, in those holding cells like sardines.
In fact, yesterday, we had a committee hearing with Dr. Fauci and CDC
Director Walensky. And I asked them specifically about what is going on
down at our southern border; showed them some of the pictures that have
been taken.
And if you look at the CDC guidance that is out there on how we, as
American citizens, have to conduct ourselves--if you own a restaurant,
for example, whether it is in Baltimore, New Orleans, or anywhere else,
if there is a capacity limit, and if that limit was 250 people, if
there were 4,000 people in that restaurant, it would be shut down
today. And I asked both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky: Would that facility
be in violation of CDC guidelines? And both of them said, Yes, in
testimony under oath.
And then I talked to them about what is happening at our southern
border. And I asked them: Are these conditions in compliance with CDC
guidance? Both Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky said: No, this is not.
We talked about the Donna detention facility and the inhumane
treatment of these young children by the Biden administration in that
facility. And I asked Dr. Fauci: Is that facility, the conditions in
which they are treating those young kids by the Biden administration in
compliance with the CDC guidance? And Dr. Fauci said: No. And Dr.
Walensky, the CDC director, testified the exact same way, that: No,
those are not in compliance. And in fact, as we know, they are coming
across from Mexico.
Do you know that the CDC guidance designates Mexico as the most
dangerous nation right now? Along with probably a few others, but they
are the most dangerous in terms of COVID transmission.
So CDC guidance encourages American citizens not to go to Mexico, but
they say if you do come back from Mexico, you are mandated by the CDC
to show a COVID-negative test before you, as an American citizen, can
come back into the United States.
Do you know that not one of these people are being tested for COVID
when they come in illegally across the Rio Grande from Mexico? And then
many of them are being put on airplanes, without ID, being paid for
mostly by the taxpayers--put on airplanes to fly off into cities all
across the country. Border patrol agents have told us at least 15
percent of these people that crossed illegally are COVID-positive.
So I asked Dr. Walensky and I asked Dr. Fauci: Does that process by
the Biden administration violate CDC's guidance on travel from Mexico?
And they both testified that, yes, in fact, it does. That if they are
getting on an airplane, they should be testing negative for COVID. None
of them are, and in fact, some of them are known to be COVID-positive,
being put on airplanes, flying to cities all across this country.
It is going on right now. It was going on Friday. About half the
plane that I was on when I flew from McAllen back home had people with
folders that said: I do not speak English, and it had a city on it. And
it was multiple cities.
But this is what the Biden administration is doing in violation of
CDC guidance that you and I have to follow, that our constituents who
are seeing their livelihoods crushed, their restaurants closed down--
many that won't open again ever--because they have to play by the rules
that CDC and their States issue. And yet, the Biden administration is
exempting themselves from this.
Madam Speaker, now we have legislation, I would like to bring up to
the majority leader, that would fix this:
My colleague, Mrs. Miller-Meeks, requires that a COVID test be done
before someone is released from CPB custody.
Ms. Herrell wants to prohibit DHS from ceasing title 42.
There is a bipartisan bill by Mr. Katko and Mr. Cuellar, which
establishes a regular migration surge border response fund.
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman if he would bring
those bills to the floor to address this crisis at the border that is
not only a humanitarian crisis and a national security crisis, but it
is a Biden-created crisis that is violating the very CDC guidance,
according to Dr. Fauci, that American citizens have to follow.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, we have a situation that is heart-wrenching
and unacceptable. And it must be dealt with. In part, this situation
comes because of the draconian policies of the previous administration.
It comes also because Republicans have refused, in both Houses, to
come to agreement on a comprehensive immigration reform bill. So we
have chaos as a result because our immigration system, as I believe
almost every Member of your side of the aisle and every Member of my
side of the aisle believes, is broken.
Now, unfortunately, what we see in that picture is broken systems
causing great danger, apprehension, and fear among many people who are
fleeing to America for refuge. It has, of course, Lady Liberty at the
head of the harbor, the Hudson River, raises her torch and says, ``That
is what America is for.''
Now, having said that, this situation is unacceptable. It is
unacceptable for humanitarian reasons. It is unacceptable for the
safety of not only those people that are in that picture, but for
American citizens as well.
Madam Speaker, now it is my understanding that the CDC's existing
pandemic public health order for closed borders is, in fact, being
followed. In Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, unaccompanied
children crossing the border are tested--are tested--by the Department
of Health and Human Services. The migrants entering ICE facilities are
tested, and they are quarantined if they test positive.
So protections are trying to be effective, and this administration is
working very hard to ensure the safety of Americans and the safety of
these many children who have come across the border.
{time} 1245
None of them have been taken out of the arms of their parents. None
of them have been made orphans by this administration.
I didn't hear the gentleman lamenting the fact that we had hundreds
of children who had been taken out of the arms of their parents, and
then they could not be found--that is, their parents. They could not be
reunited with their parents.
This is a challenge. It is not a partisan challenge. It is a
challenge for America. It is a challenge for us all.
This administration is working to try to come to a solution that is
both humanitarian and effective. I am hopeful that they will proceed in
accomplishing that objective.
The gentleman mentions the policies of the Trump administration,
which substantially underfunded its own policies of trying to help the
Northern Triangle countries. When I say help the triangle countries,
unfortunately, the leadership of those countries, in too many
instances, is not trying to help itself. So, we see panicked people
fleeing.
Madam Speaker, I don't know whether the gentleman from Louisiana, my
friend, Mr. Scalise, saw the pictures of two children being dropped
over the fence--by the way, that very large fence, billions of dollars
of fence. Smugglers dropped two children over the fence. That is how
secure it was.
The tragedy of those children being dropped over that fence alone, I
don't care where they are from or who they are, but my faith teaches me
that they may be strangers, but they are brothers and sisters.
In that context, we need to come to grips, and I am hopeful that the
gentleman will support the administration's desire to get a
comprehensive immigration bill adopted in this Congress.
In 2013, the Senate passed, Madam Speaker, a bill which was supported
by Democrats and Republicans, 14 Republican Members of the United
States Senate. We pleaded with the Republican leadership to bring that
bill to the floor. They will say they brought a
[[Page H1877]]
bill to the floor, and they did bring a bill to the floor, and almost
nobody thought it was effective in accomplishing the objective of
having an immigration system that would work.
So, I tell the gentleman, the pictures that he is displaying ought to
concern us all deeply. We ought to urge all of our colleagues to
cooperate and work toward making sure that we don't have scenes like
that and that we have the ability to deal with this surge at the border
in a humane way.
But no one in the previous administration can wash their hands of the
responsibility of creating a situation which--the gentleman says Mexico
is adjudged to be one of the most dangerous nations on Earth for COVID-
19. The previous administration said to people trying to seek solace
and health and safety: Stay. Stay in the most dangerous nation on Earth
for COVID-19.
I don't know whether that is a very humane policy. That is not a
sanctuary for people who are in dire straits.
We said ``no'' to some people who came here from Germany. We said,
no, you can't come in. Many of them returned in the 1930s and early
1940s and were slaughtered. They came here for sanctuary and found
none.
That doesn't mean we can take everybody, but it does mean that we
need to deal with it in a humanitarian way, in a way that honors our
values and honors these people as our fellow human beings.
So, I tell the gentleman, in conclusion, that these are sad scenes,
and we need to respond to them in a humanitarian way, but also a smart
way. We need to respond to the cause as well as the effect.
Mr. SCALISE. As we talk about asylum, let's be clear, America has
laws on how someone can seek asylum. I haven't seen anybody suggest
that those laws are just repealed, and you just take somebody's word
that if they say they want to come to America to seek asylum, to come
in today and jump ahead of everyone else.
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield on the asylum issue?
Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Does the gentleman believe we ought to obey America's laws
on asylum?
Mr. SCALISE. I think we ought to obey America's laws on immigration
across the board. If you look at the asylum laws, there is a process to
seek asylum.
In fact, every year, people are granted that asylum if they prove
their case. That is where the law comes into play, which is being
ignored right here.
What President Trump did when there was a surge in 2019, he
confronted it, as a leader should do. He talked to people on the
ground. He talked to our Border Patrol agents, who are the ones who
have to deal with this crisis on a daily basis.
In fact, 40 percent of our Border Patrol agents tonight at midnight,
like Thursday night at midnight last week, when I was with those Border
Patrol agents, 40 percent of them were pulled off of guarding our
border, where their primary mission is to stop drug cartels from
smuggling fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin into our country, which they
are doing now at much higher levels, killing Americans all across the
country.
Forty percent of them pulled away because they are going to be
changing diapers in the Donna detention facility tonight because that
is what they are being tasked to do by the Biden administration. That
is not their job. It is not why they signed up. Their morale is
incredibly low.
Well over roughly 90 percent of people who say they are coming here
to seek asylum, those cases are rejected by the courts. Rejected. In
fact, it is kind of hard to make an asylum claim here when the parents
of many of these kids you are seeing here paid thousands of dollars to
the drug cartels to smuggle their kids and themselves into the United
States. It is hard to claim economic asylum, which is the case many of
them plead, when you paid $4,000 to try to come here illegally when
there is a legal process to come here, not just the normal legal
process where you can wait to come into America legally, where we let a
million people into our country every year, the most generous nation in
the world, America. But when they go around that system, that is where
it overwhelms our system. That is what is going on right now.
President Trump confronted it, not by saying no one can come in, but
by saying you have to follow our laws if you want to come here. If you
want to seek asylum, you have to request it like everyone else. They
allowed them to even come through South and Central American countries
but stay in Mexico. Mexico agreed with this, and there was an orderly
system. You got to hear your claim in a very expedient way.
Today, they are given a piece of paper when they come across the
border illegally, saying: Come show up maybe 5 years from now.
Good luck with that. Then, they are given a free plane ticket,
without an ID, to just be sent off to some other State. I saw manila
envelopes, and once you got below the ``I do not speak English,''
Dallas was on one, Philadelphia was on one, New Jersey was on one.
I don't know what is going to happen to them when they land in New
Jersey if they can't speak English. What school system are they going
to be placed in? Who is then going to be responsible for this breakdown
at our southern border, which was created by President Biden, which he
could fix today?
I have urged President Biden to go down to the border and see this
for himself, to see how inhumane he is treating kids, in violation of
his own CDC guidelines, which Dr. Fauci verified yesterday.
If you read the child abuse and neglect laws of the State of Texas
where this facility is, this is a violation of the child abuse and
negligent laws at the President Biden-run facility.
Again, President Trump went and negotiated with Mexico, went and
negotiated with those Northern Triangle countries to resolve the surge.
This could be resolved as well, and you don't need to reinvent the
wheel because there was a method for how to resolve it legally, using
the legal system that America has.
Sure, I would agree it needs reforms, not an amnesty reform, where
you send a magnet not only across South and Central America but around
the world that America's borders are open, because that is the message
today. As the gentleman knows, there are at least six people on the
terrorist watch list who have come across America's southern border. I
am not talking about from South and Central American countries, but
from Middle Eastern countries, from Eastern European countries. Those
are just the ones we know of that we have caught, and the Biden
administration won't share that data with the media. The Biden
administration wouldn't even let the press into this facility, which is
a national disgrace.
I could imagine what the press would have said if the Trump
administration was housing kids in a 33-person facility. There are over
400 crammed into a 33-person cell in the middle of a pandemic.
Again, Dr. Fauci said this violates every protocol there is when we
are trying to get our economy reopened. Other countries have to control
COVID, too, but in America, we are trying to control it.
Here is where the double standard and hypocrisy are driving people
nuts. If any American citizen ran their business in America like this,
they would be shut down by the Federal Government today. Yet, people
can come here illegally, and the Biden administration is running this
facility in violation of those very same guidances.
Do you know what happened to them? They are given a free airplane
ticket, put on an airplane, possibly with COVID, and sent into some
interior State of America. We don't even know where they are going. The
Biden administration won't share that.
We have asked for a meeting, by the way. Our leadership team, Leader
McCarthy and I, have asked for a meeting with President Biden to talk
about this crisis, and he refuses to meet with us about it. Just
ignoring a problem will not make it go away. If we are going to find a
solution to this--again, I listed a number of bills, including some
that are bipartisan, that would start solving this problem.
President Biden doesn't even want to go. He put Vice President Harris
in charge of this mess, and she won't even
[[Page H1878]]
go down to the border, maybe because she doesn't want to be associated
with President Biden's debacle.
She was put in charge of it. She is the Vice President of the United
States. She has a responsibility to go down there. She should have gone
there weeks ago, but she still hasn't been.
Maybe if they saw that, if they looked into the eyes of these young
kids--one of the first girls we ran into might have been 10 years old,
a girl in one of these cells, and she was crying. We asked her: Why are
you crying? And she said: I don't want to be here.
She is an orphan. The gentleman talked about orphans. All of these
kids, there are no parents with them. They don't want to be here. Many
were crying because they are jammed into these cells for 20 hours a
day, at least 15 percent with COVID, 6 inches apart, not 6 feet apart.
That is what the Biden administration is doing right now.
President Trump fixed this problem. Again, if President Biden just
doesn't like President Trump, call it his own name. We don't care. The
template, if he doesn't want to do what actually worked, then do
something else that works. But just doing this, it is not only a
national disgrace, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky said it is a violation of
the CDC protocols that every American taxpayer has to follow. And they
don't. Exempting themselves from a problem, but making everybody else
comply with it, is no way to instill confidence in the American people.
I hope the President goes down there. I hope the President resolves
this issue. He should meet with us. He said he wanted to unify the
country. He said he wanted to work with everybody. It is time he starts
following through on those promises.
Mr. HOYER. Donald Trump didn't fix the problem; he delayed the
problem. That is what happened. That is what those pictures reflect.
He didn't fix the problem. He would say to those kids: Get out of
here. Go back to Mexico. Maybe you have a parent there, maybe you have
somebody who will take care of you, but get out of here.
That was one way to ``solve'' the problem, I presume. Those kids
didn't go away. The fear that they have for being home didn't go away.
Now, I have said, Madam Speaker, this is something that we all need
to deal with from a compassionate standpoint, from a legal standpoint,
and from a human standpoint, which I guess is redundant to
``compassionate.'' But the fact of the matter is that President Trump
did not solve this problem; he simply delayed it.
When he left, the pressure was so great because they did not believe
that this President would simply throw them to the wolves, take them
from their parents, treat them as refuse.
We need to deal with this, and, hopefully, we will. Hopefully we will
get comprehensive immigration reform.
I will say again that one of the reasons that we have the problem of
not adjudicating these people quickly is because we don't have enough
judges. And the reason we don't have enough judges, which were included
both in the 2013 bill and the subsequent reform bills, is because we
haven't passed bills to provide the judges on the theory that if we
don't provide the judges, then we won't be able to approve asylum and
people won't be able to get in.
Madam Speaker, I am at the end of this circuitous argument.
{time} 1300
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, these are children being thrown to the
wolves, and it is not President Trump who is doing it. It could end,
and I hope we can work together to solve this problem.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________