[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 133 (Thursday, July 29, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H4279-H4284]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PATHWAY TO CITIZENSHIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from New Mexico?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, we are here today to call on the 
President, to call on the House, to call on the Senate to pass 
immigration reform. We hope to see immigration reform in 
reconciliation.
  We are here to tell the stories of why we must do this, of why we 
must do this not just for the immigrant community, and not just because 
it is the right thing to do, and not just because of the stories of 
each of those families who put their lives on the line, who study, our 
DACA, our Dreamers, our essential workers, not just for each of them. 
We are calling for immigration reform because it is good for America.
  And we must move beyond the rhetoric of division. We must move beyond 
the rhetoric of hate. And we must move to the facts. And when we move 
to those facts, we know and we learn that immigration reform is good 
for this country.
  I often talk about the fact that we need to ignore those who would 
divide us. Those who would seek to demonize another for political gain. 
Because we know in New Mexico, especially, we know that there is no 
other, there is only an us. No hay un otro, solamente nosotros.
  And when we look at some of these numbers, we recognize that. When we 
notice that immigration reform will bring a $1.7 trillion benefit to 
our economy, that it will raise annual wages for everybody by $700, 
that it would create 438,000 jobs for Americans, there is an economic 
reason for doing this beyond the sense of who we are, our humanity, and 
who we are as a Nation of immigrants.
  This issue affects every community in our Nation. And it is so 
important in my own community that the first meeting I had after I was 
elected was with Somos Un Pueblo Unido. We Are a United Community. 
Somos Un Pueblo Unido.
  And it was wonderful to have that meeting, because I heard directly 
the voices of my sisters who were undocumented. I heard their voices 
tell the story of what it was like to work, tell the story of what it 
was like to be exposed to COVID, but they knew they had to go back to 
work because they did not have a choice. Because they did not have any 
other way of providing for their children.
  They put themselves in harm's way to care for us. They put themselves 
in harm's way to make sure that our grocery stores were stocked. They 
put themselves in harm's way to make sure that our elderly were cared 
for. They asked me a favor, they said, Senora Congresista, we ask that 
you will take our stories to Washington, D.C., that you will take our 
stories and use your voice there to repeat them. And so my voice right 
now is not mine, it is theirs.
  Today, we stand in the people's House and use our voices to share the 
community stories, to highlight the benefits of immigration reform, and 
hopefully, hopefully, to get closer to making it a reality.
  There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the 
United States, they are the Dreamers who we have talked about. They are 
undocumented students, children, adults, who have only known this 
country as their home, they have U.S. citizen family members. As noted, 
they are caregivers, healthcare workers, education, and small business 
owners.
  The immigrants in the United States are a reflection of us. They do 
the

[[Page H4280]]

things we do, they are doctors, they are lawyers, they are students, 
they are children. They are American. Just as American as any of us, 
and they each deserve an opportunity to reach their fullest potential.
  And year after year after year immigration reform becomes a political 
football. Year after year after year 11 million people are held hostage 
by political games.
  You know, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has advocated and 
fought for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants for 
years. It is one of our priorities that we get it passed. It is one of 
our priorities that we address immigration reform in the American 
Families Plan, in the American Jobs Plan.
  The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been fighting this battle for 
decades--since they were formed. They have not given up. And the 
Congressional Progressive Caucus has not given up because we know that 
we must carry those voices and those voices must be all of our voices.

  Let's talk a little bit about what happened during the pandemic. 
Immigrants carried us through the pandemic. While we stayed home, 
immigrant farm workers continued to go to work in the fields, risking 
their lives to keep our country fed. Undocumented essential workers in 
our grocery stores kept the shelves stocked with that food that was 
picked by the immigrant farm worker. Dreamers taught our youngest, they 
kept them engaged over that Zoom screen.
  We saw how the pandemic, though, fueled the rise of anti-Asian hate 
crimes. But what else fueled that rise of hate? Anti-immigrant, racist, 
xenophobic rhetoric from the Trump administration. Asian Americans, 
despite those attacks that were leveled at them, they continued serving 
their communities, even in the face of those racist violent attacks.
  And, yet, during the first round of stimulus checks, these 
immigrants, who we just described, who kept us going through the 
pandemic, they were left behind. They were made to feel like they were 
not part of our country, that they were not part of our recovery, and 
like they were an other.
  I want to talk a bit more about the other immigrants.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bowman), 
to engage in this conversation about the role that immigrants play.
  Mr. BOWMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Leger Fernandez for 
convening this Special Order hour to discuss the urgent topic of 
immigration reform.
  Last week, I had the opportunity and privilege of visiting the U.S.-
Mexico border to bear witness to the carceral system that undergirds 
our immigration policy and practices.
  I gained a firsthand understanding of how our Federal policies impact 
the conditions at the border. While there, I visited a Catholic 
Charities shelter that centered its work around caring for newly 
arrived asylum seekers. This shelter operates on a shoestring budget 
and relies on FEMA to retroactively reimburse spending for essentials 
like food, a funding process that is never certain. And most of the 
workers there were volunteers from across the country. While their 
facilities lacked resources, it was abundant with care.
  I then saw inside a well-funded Customs and Border Protection, or 
CBP, facility, where law enforcement had put over 10 men, who had not 
been tested for COVID, together in one small cell, sleeping on the 
concrete floor, even when other cells were sitting empty.

                              {time}  1915

  For context, the current year, the funding level for CBP is more than 
$15 billion.
  In New York's 16th Congressional District which I represent, one-
third of my constituents are born outside of the United States. I 
represent thousands of undocumented constituents, refugees, and 
immigrants living and working in the Bronx and Westchester who have to 
navigate our immigration system on a regular basis with fear from ICE 
agents. In our home State of New York is Ellis Island which reads:

     Give me your tired, your poor,
     Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
     The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
     Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
     I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

  The U.S. Mexico border is the new Ellis Island, yet these newcomers--
a darker hue than those who came to Ellis Island with welcome arms--are 
met with punishment, walls, and harm. We send our tired and our poor to 
prison-like detention centers without proper medical care and little 
food and produce a retraumatizing experience for those who already made 
a scary and life-threatening trek across the border.
  I heard stories of mothers traveling with their 1-month-old babies 
across the river, carrying their babies on their heads as they waded 
through the waters. Now imagine the level of desperation in your home 
country, Madam Speaker, where you would risk the life of yourself and 
your 1-month-old baby to come to this country with no guarantee that 
you were going to be able to remain here.
  We need to reimagine and redesign our immigration system and the 
support we provide to our immigration neighbors. If we want to live up 
to the ideals of this country, our system must be rooted in care and 
inclusion, not militarization, surveillance, detention, and forced 
deportation.
  As a Black man in America and as Black people in America, we have 
been experiencing mass incarceration since the end of slavery. Our 
brothers and sisters coming in through the Mexico border to the U.S. 
are experiencing mass incarceration and mass deportation under the 
hands of CBP.
  The differences in funding and capacity at the Catholic Charities 
shelter, which heavily relies on donations, versus the CBP facility was 
startling and disheartening. The vast majority of CBP apprehensions, 
Madam Speaker--over 90 percent--were determined by Border Patrol to not 
be criminals. Over 90 percent, the Border Patrol told me. Yet the vast 
majority of our annual funding to this region goes to law enforcement. 
We need a fundamental shift in our priorities to move away from funding 
detention and militarization at our border.
  This is especially true given how past U.S. policies, such as the 
U.S. occupation of Nicaragua in 1912 and other Latin American 
countries, and our historic empowerment of corrupt governments have 
contributed to instability, violence, and economic oppression; all of 
which force people to flee their home countries and seek asylum here.
  Yes, our immigration policy is connected to our foreign policy and 
connected to our capitalism. We have stolen land and resources from 
foreign countries and caused their political and economic systems to be 
disrupted and taken over by violence. The guns that get to many of 
these countries come from here. So we have caused this harm and 
disruption, yet we won't allow those who are looking for peace to flee 
into our country.
  We also need to create a pathway to citizenship for all of the 11.4 
million undocumented immigrants as part of the next reconciliation 
package. The young adults whom we met with in Laredo, Texas, whose 
family members had been deported deserve a pathway to citizenship.
  By the way, once CBP, which seemed to be hunters in this situation, 
detain someone and they need long-term detention, they pass them over 
to the ICE agents. Then the ICE agents put them in detention, and they 
are so isolated they can't receive calls from family and friends, they 
can't receive letters, and they can't receive visits. Finally, when 
someone finds a way to make a connection with the detention center, the 
person who was in the detention center is lost, often never to be 
found.
  The young adults whom I met with in Laredo whose family members have 
been deported deserve a pathway to citizenship. The high schoolers in 
my district who fear they won't be able to file for DACA status and 
stay in our country for college deserve a pathway to citizenship. From 
Laredo, Texas, to the Bronx, to Westchester, to St. Louis, Missouri, 
there are millions of people who should be able to stay in this country 
and continue to help our communities thrive.
  We have the power to provide stability and a sense of belonging to 
our immigrant communities this Congress, and we cannot wait any longer.
  I will end with this: during the last administration there was so 
much fear

[[Page H4281]]

instilled in our immigrant families and communities that one student in 
the Bronx thought that her mom was deported from home, but the mom 
actually ran away so she wouldn't be deported. But because the student 
thought that the mother was deported, the student fell into a deep 
depression and committed suicide because she thought her mother was 
taken from her.
  This is what we are dealing with when it comes to our immigration 
policy. It is inhumane, and it is evil. Our immigrants make us a 
stronger nation, not a weaker one. It is time for a 21st century 
Marshall Plan to help rebuild Central and South America. But those who 
come in here should be welcomed with open arms as they are just seeking 
peace, safety, care, and security. If we are as a nation to live up to 
the ideals of our democracy and our Constitution, then we must welcome 
them with open arms and with love so that we can build a better nation 
back better.
  Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Leger Fernandez for her 
leadership.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for going 
to the border because it is only when we go to the border, but go to 
the border not with the intent to create a wedge issue but with an 
intent to listen and with intent to open our arms that we really see 
what is going on, the seeking of refuge. I went to the border with 
actually a bipartisan delegation surprisingly. It was wonderful. It was 
a bipartisan delegation.

  It struck me. Meeting with those young children who are alone it 
struck me that the seeking of refuge and sending your child alone to a 
place that you believe is safe, Madam Speaker, is as old as the Bible 
itself. Remember, Madam Speaker, Moses' mother put her child in a 
basket and sent him down the Nile because that was the way to save his 
life. When we think of that, let's remember the tears and the pain in 
the heart of every parent who sets out on that journey to seek asylum; 
and let's remember that it is the law of this land; it is the law of 
the United States and of the world to allow asylum and to grant asylum 
when you fear for your lives.
  What we have now is a broken system. Trump took a sledge hammer to 
it. But we must demand that it be put back together.
  So, Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for sharing his thoughts 
with the Nation today.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. 
Jayapal). I thank the gentlewoman for serving as the chair of the 
Congressional Progressive Caucus that allows us to have this 
conversation here today.
  Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Teresa Leger 
Fernandez. It has been a joy in Congress to have the gentlewoman's 
voice, to have her passion, and to have her advocacy. This is what 
makes me so proud to be the chair of the Congressional Progressive 
Caucus because of the words, the passion, and the advocacy of 
Representative Bowman, of Congresswoman Leger Fernandez, and of our 94 
other members who are part of the Progressive Caucus. The Special Order 
hour that we host for this Progressive Caucus is about the issues that 
matter to the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
  Let me be very clear, progressives have been at the forefront of 
fighting for comprehensive immigration reform for a very long time. Our 
Progressive Caucus is extremely diverse. We have members who are part 
of the Hispanic Caucus, part of the Asian-American Caucus, and part of 
the Black Caucus.
  The reality is that we represent the diversity that is immigration 
today in this country.
  Madam Speaker, when I think about immigration, this is very personal 
to me for multiple reasons. I am an immigrant myself. I am one of only 
two dozen Members of Congress who serve in Congress who is a 
naturalized citizen. When I came to Congress in 2017, there were 
actually only six of us at that time. Then it moved to 12, and now it 
moved to 24. It is good that we are here and that we are representing 
the voice of immigrants who come from all over the world seeking refuge 
because that is the identity that the United States has as a place to 
seek refuge.
  I came here when I was 16 by myself. My parents just had a few 
thousand dollars in their bank account, and they used all of it to send 
me, their child, across the ocean by myself at the age of 16 because 
they believed that this was the place that I would have the most 
opportunity.
  But it isn't just that. It was 20 years ago that in Washington State 
I started what was a grass-roots effort to organize against the Bush 
administration at that time cracking down on immigrants, Arab 
Americans, Muslim Americans, and South Asian Americans and curtailing 
civil liberties. That was the moment that I got involved in grass-roots 
organizing around immigration issues and ended up starting and founding 
what became the largest immigrant advocacy organization in Washington 
State and one of the largest in the country.
  Madam Speaker, if John Lewis were here, he would tell you that the 
first thing that I said to him when I came on to the floor is: You 
taught me how to make good trouble.
  The reason is because I, too, got arrested multiple times fighting 
for immigration reform in civil disobedience that was about calling 
attention to the pain of the country when we treat immigrants with the 
cruelty that we have treated immigrants with both Democratic and 
Republican administrations through the past to today.
  Yes, Donald Trump did something to the immigration system that was 
beyond anything that had been done before. But we should be clear that 
much of the cruelty has existed prior to the Trump administration 
coming in going back to the exclusionary history of immigration law in 
America, but then also continuing through what was called welfare 
reform. That was the so-called immigration reform that actually began 
the criminalization of immigrants in the United States.
  So the work that we do here in Congress as Representatives of our 
communities on so many levels is incredibly important, because we get 
to change the conversation about what the issue is and what we need to 
do. We also get to change the conversation about where to put the 
priority for legislative fixes to the issues that we are facing.

  We have an opportunity coming up in the reconciliation package to do 
the right thing for immigrants--not just for immigrants, by the way, to 
do the right thing for America, because let's be very, very clear, 
America would not survive without the labor and the toil of immigrant 
communities. That is why I am so excited about the opportunity to 
actually advance a path to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders, 
essential workers, and farm workers in the upcoming reconciliation 
package.
  This is an opportunity for us to actually face the truth about who it 
was that kept the country going during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 
COVID-19 pandemic only underscored how our communities and our economy 
rely on the work of immigrants. Throughout the pandemic, immigrant 
workers have filled a broad swath of duties from picking and preparing 
the food we eat, to cleaning our homes and community spaces, to serving 
as front-line medical professionals and the heroic teachers who 
educated our kids over Zoom.
  We are talking about an estimated 5.2 million undocumented immigrants 
who were serving as essential workers, nearly 15,000 DACA recipients 
who have pivoted to remote learning as teachers, 1.7 million immigrants 
working in the food supply industry to put food on our tables, and over 
200,000 undocumented immigrants working as healthcare practitioners 
including as registered nurses and home health aides.
  That is why we put as one of our top five priorities for the 
Congressional Progressive Caucus in the reconciliation package a 
roadmap to citizenship for these essential workers.

                              {time}  1930

  One million of these undocumented essential workers are also 
Dreamers. Just a few weeks ago, a judge in Texas cruelly ruled against 
the DACA program, stopping the government from processing new 
applications and, once again, throwing the status of hundreds of 
thousands of DACA recipients back into limbo.
  This is not what the American people want. It was yet another urgent 
reminder about why we need to end the filibuster in the Senate and pass 
the

[[Page H4282]]

Dream and Promise Act that we already passed multiple times in the 
House of Representatives.
  This, though, cannot wait. We cannot wait, and so it is time for us 
to act in this upcoming package.
  Further, over 7 million immigrant essential workers do have legal 
status, but they only have temporary status or are waiting to adjust 
their status. When we talk about immigrant essential workers, it is 
crucial that we recognize that many of them do have legal status and 
have been waiting--in some cases, in waiting lines projected to last 
over 80 years to transition--to a roadmap to citizenship.
  I know that when I became a citizen, Madam Speaker, it was after 17 
years of being on multiple visas. By the time I became a U.S. citizen, 
it was impossible for me to uproot my family, my parents, and bring 
them to the United States to be with me. That is why they still live in 
India, and I live here. I have not lived on the same continent as my 
parents since I was 16 years old.
  Every day, essential immigrant workers put their own health and the 
health of their families at risk, showing up to work on the front lines 
so that we and our families could stay safe. They do all of this 
knowing full well that a simple traffic stop could tear them away from 
their families and communities, and that should they get COVID, they 
likely wouldn't have access to healthcare.
  For instance, TPS holders have been serving on the front lines, even 
as the former President rescinded their TPS designation and threatened 
to rip them away from their communities.
  Recognizing the tremendous contributions of immigrants, countries 
like France actually acted to expedite citizenship for essential 
immigrant workers. Not only is that the right thing to do, but it is 
also good for our communities and for our economy.
  Most of these workers have lived alongside us as friends and 
neighbors for over a decade. They are deeply rooted in our communities. 
Many have U.S. citizen children and family members, and tearing them 
from their homes and their families would leave gaping, irreplaceable 
holes in communities across the country.
  Moreover, if doing the humane thing isn't enough for you, and if 
doing the popular thing isn't good enough for you either, then look at 
the economic benefit. In 2019, immigrant essential workers had an 
estimated $860 billion in spending power, and that is after paying up 
to $239 billion in Federal and payroll taxes, as well as an estimated 
$115 billion in State and local taxes. So it is clear that immigrants 
are helping to sustain our communities and bolster our economies.
  Madam Speaker, the gentlewoman and Mr. Bowman were talking about the 
importance of going to the border, and I just have to recall some of 
the worst cruelty that I saw in the last 4 years. I was the first 
Member of Congress to go into a Federal prison where mothers and 
fathers who had been separated from their children, in many cases, 
babies as young as 3 months old, under the previous administration and 
the previous President, when they were imprisoned--these parents were 
imprisoned and separated from their children.
  When I went to see them, a couple of weeks into this crisis, and as 
the first Member of Congress to do so, I met with hundreds of parents, 
mothers and fathers who did not know where their children were.
  Some of them were given slips of paper that had names of children on 
them. But guess what? They weren't their children because DHS had lost 
all trace of which children belonged to which parents.
  What we know today is that there are still hundreds of children who 
are separated from their parents. Their parents have been deported, in 
some cases, and they will never be reunited. This was by design. This 
was cruelty of epic proportions perpetrated by the last President and 
everybody who went along with those policies. Not all Republicans did, 
by the way.
  I remember when Laura Bush spoke out against this and said this is 
not who America is. Well, I have a different perspective on that 
because we have had a lot of things happen in America that remind us 
that we have a bad side to America as well.
  But we have resilience. We have refuge. We have humanity. When that 
trumps, that is the best of America.
  The reality is, Madam Speaker, I went down to the border, as well, 
multiple times. In fact, I see my colleague over here. I think he 
called me--I forget what he called me, but I think he called me a 
Congresswoman coyote.
  No, I am not yielding to you, Mr. Gaetz. But I appreciated that 
because I helped children across the border as a Member of Congress.
  How could anybody be against that? These were children traveling 
alone. Had I not been there, as a Member of Congress, they wouldn't 
have gotten over and been able to be processed because the last 
administration actually closed all the ports of entry.
  When I went to Tijuana and met with so many of these people--I 
remember a 15-year-old boy who had been shot in his knee. His mother 
said to him to just go as quickly as he can because his brother had 
already been killed by gangs. Just go. Just go. Just try to get there.
  This was a strapping young boy, and he wept as he played me the 
message that his mother had left him so that he could listen to it over 
and over again in the shelter that he was in to get away from gangs and 
violence.
  This is what we are dealing with. That is why I have introduced the 
Roadmap to Freedom resolution, which lays out a positive vision of who 
America is, and who we should be, and who we can be if we continue to 
embrace those roots by which everybody came here, unless you were 
Native American. Either you came enslaved on ships against your will 
and were forced to work and your labor was taken, or you came as an 
immigrant in some category.

  The reality is, Madam Speaker, there are many things that we have to 
do. Thank goodness this new administration closed the Irwin Detention 
Center, where women were being sterilized without their consent. Thank 
goodness that for-profit, private detention center was closed in 
Georgia.
  We had that resolution--that was my resolution--on the floor. And do 
you know what? It passed with bipartisan support. Members on the other 
side of the aisle, as well, couldn't stomach that.
  We have an opportunity here to do something really tremendous in the 
next reconciliation package. I know firsthand that our immigration 
story is one of struggle and resilience. Immigrants push boulders up 
mountains, and we succeed because we have to. There is no other option 
for us.
  It is that strength of courage that comes out of struggle that is 
what defines America, defines immigrants in America. So, I look forward 
to doing everything I can to make sure that the Congressional 
Progressive Caucus continues to push for bold, progressive immigration 
reform and that we make sure that we get a path to citizenship for our 
essential workers who have been taking care of all of us through this 
pandemic.
  Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Leger Fernandez for her 
tremendous work, her leadership, her heart, and her passion.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Jayapal, 
and I really do appreciate the Congressional Progressive Caucus' 
support for making sure that we include immigration reform in the 
reconciliation.
  We can do that because it has a direct economic benefit to this 
country, and it has a direct economic benefit that will be reflected in 
the budget. And we support it.
  But I think the other thing to remember is the country supports it. 
The support for doing immigration reform is huge. Sixty-seven percent 
of voters support the DREAM Act. Eighty-three percent of Americans 
support a pathway to citizenship for immigrant youth. Sixty-five 
percent of voters support citizenship for undocumented farmworkers.
  It is something that the country supports because they understand 
that immigrants, they are us. They live with us and care for us and are 
us. Americans know that, and they support that.
  So, then, we must ask, why are we not doing this? We will work on 
that.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib) 
to tell us the stories and to raise her voice about the immigrant 
experience.
  Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, I am a proud child of immigrants.

[[Page H4283]]

  Both of my parents immigrated from Palestine. My dad's journey 
actually was from Palestine as a young boy, and he grew up, his teenage 
years, in Nicaragua. From Nicaragua, at 19 years old, he came to the 
United States.
  My father, with a fourth grade education, couldn't ever experience 
human dignity anywhere except until he came here and worked for Ford 
Motor Company and became part of the United Auto Workers, the UAW. That 
is when he felt, for the first time, human dignity in the workplace.
  My father, in the 1970s, used to be in Detroit, on the corners. If 
you came up to him before he got to Ford, he would pull up his arm and 
say, ``Which watch you want?'' Because he hustled. That is how he 
provided for his family.
  My mother only went up to eighth grade because she was trying to 
provide for her family, which is a farming family in Palestine. When 
she came to this country, pregnant with me, never could they have 
imagined their daughter ever becoming a United States Congress Member 
and coming here with that lived experience and understanding the 
importance of bringing truly loving and caring farm immigrant 
neighbors.
  The human impact on doing nothing in regard to immigration is real. I 
grew up in Southwest Detroit--20 different ethnicities. I want you all 
to know what that feels like, right?
  I mean, this is a majority Black city with a little bit of beautiful 
Brown spice here and there. I mean, it was just incredible to grow up 
in such a diverse community, where I felt like it made me a better 
mother, a better advocate, a better American because, at that moment, I 
appreciated things that my immigrant neighbors had seen through their 
lens and my Black neighbors through their experience in this country as 
they were fighting against racism, and continue to do so, and 
discrimination.
  It is so incredibly important, as we think about this, not to allow 
others to fear our immigrant neighbors, to allow our country and 
policies to blame them for everything wrong in our country, when we all 
know they helped build it.

  I also want to take a moment because I think it is incredibly 
important to know that I grew up in a border community. Right there in 
Detroit, on the other side, you can see Canada. What does that mean? 
Because people focus on the southern border. What that means is Border 
Patrol and immigration enforcement is right there in our community.
  Why this is important is because I want you all to know, as they are 
supposed to be patrolling that border, making sure that illegal drugs 
and substances don't come in, that is not what they did. This very, 
very broken Customs and Border Patrol system and structure in place is 
so racialized that they turned on this beautiful Southwest Detroit 
community. They turned on my Latino neighbors. They turned on my Muslim 
brothers and sisters, many of them just trying to experience and live 
in this border community.
  A 9-year-old ACLU investigation of Customs and Border Patrol 
operations in Michigan revealed just how incredibly racist the agency 
is. The report revealed that, even though CBP's mandated mission is to 
police the border, only 1.3 percent of their cases in Michigan involved 
attempted entries from Canada that were illegal. Ninety-six percent of 
those arrested by CBP in Michigan were recorded by agents of being 
nonwhite.
  Now, I want to explain this to you all. My block club president, this 
beautiful Cuban, Black, mixed person, he is an incredible advocate. He 
works in the auto industry. He is out there with this guy from Germany 
coming in on a visitor visa. He is in this car, and he is showing them 
the border, the riverfront, just the walkway, and just showing: Hey, 
that is Canada. This is my community. This is where I live.
  He is driving around and, of course, CBP stops him. He goes to the 
guy who is here on a visitor visa: Hey, I know you are from Germany. 
Don't worry. Just have your immigrant documents ready and everything.
  But guess what? They didn't ask the guy from Germany for any of his 
documents. They asked the U.S.-born citizen, Brown neighbor of mine for 
those immigration documents.
  Not only that, one of my neighbors running around in her own local 
park, in her own local park, was asked: Where are your papers?

                              {time}  1945

  People are now being asked to carry their documents with them, and 
this never happened for a very long time, up until about 15 or 20 years 
ago. To my good colleague from New Mexico, you should know this. This 
is a community that has never seen these kinds of ICE and immigration 
operations at schools, which is illegal. It is against our own Federal 
policies. They were doing them near churches. I mean, literally, near 
churches, against their own Federal policy. So it is really incredibly 
important to understand just how broken those systems are.
  We can continue to talk about the contributions and the benefits of 
immigrants and our immigrant neighbors, but I don't want to make it out 
so--of course, it is an economic benefit. Many of my colleagues don't 
even realize that most of the food on the table, most the things that 
are done, are from immigrant hands touching it, most of it.
  You look around. Everybody knows. Everybody knows who is building our 
country. Everybody knows that the agricultural community and industry 
relies on our immigrant neighbors. Everyone knows that. But they don't 
want to do that. They want somebody else to blame. Instead, my 
colleagues want to focus on making a pathway to citizenship, one much 
more humane. They are focused on blaming them for any economic 
downfall.
  Guess what? Poverty is increasing, not because of our immigrants, but 
because we haven't been able to focus and put people before profits. We 
would rather do tax breaks for billionaires instead of actually taking 
care of our neighbors. We try to go ahead and blame our Brown and Black 
communities for everything going wrong in their own neighborhoods. That 
is just not how it works.
  I am here because I also wanted to talk about Jakelin, if I may. 
Jakelin's story was really eye-opening to me as to what is really going 
on at the border. She was a 7-year-old who died shortly after arriving 
in the United States in 2018.
  Jakelin turned 7 years old on her 2,000-mile journey north through 
Mexico. She was given her first new pair of shoes for this journey. Her 
and her father went north in search of a better life and to try to make 
money to send home to Jakelin's mom and her two siblings. Her family is 
from a tiny village in Guatemala, and they lived on approximately $7 
per day. She was one of two children to die in CBP custody that month 
alone.
  I say this because, where is the morality when it comes to these 
beautiful children that are coming with their parents? Where is the 
morality and understanding that people are coming here for this better 
opportunity and we have no pathway? This broken immigration system is 
hurting all of us. We need to wake up and understand that.
  My beautiful neighbors in southwest Detroit always have my back. They 
are the ones when they got up in the morning who knew where my kids 
were, what was going on in the community. They were and still are just 
an integral part of my neighborhood and my community. When I look 
around, all I see is beauty, people that just want to live and thrive 
in our country.
  I can show all kinds of economic benefit, but it is not enough, 
because a lot of people want to blame my immigrant neighbors for 
everything wrong. And everything wrong is not because of that; it is 
because you keep putting corporations before our people, period. That 
is it. You look at the budget, you see how much we are spending on 
defense versus how do we address infrastructure issues? How do we 
address the broken education and inequity in our education system?
  I have a school district right now where the majority of fountains 
have garbage bags over them because they have no clean water coming 
through in our schools. Our kids don't have clean drinking water in 
schools. That is not because of all of these things that they keep 
talking about, about broken immigration. No.
  If you look at what President Reagan did, President Bush and 
President Clinton, if you look at what they did, they created some sort 
of pathway. It wasn't perfect. But this constant vilification

[[Page H4284]]

needs to stop. It needs to stop, because that is the lazy approach. 
That is the lazy approach of legislating in this country.
  Come on. I grew up here. You know what Detroit and this beautiful 
Black city taught me? You always have the backs of the people you 
represent. You focus on helping them get through everyday issues. You 
focus on what is broken inside, not looking far away and saying it is 
all their fault. Some of them are not even here, and they are blaming 
everybody else. Accept the fact that we haven't had the courage to 
stand up and say the economic divide in our country is real, that our 
folks are paying the high cost of auto insurance, folks are paying a 
high cost in a number of issues regarding their homes, regarding the 
education system and so many other systems.
  I am passionate about this because not only am I a child of immigrant 
parents, but I was my mother's translator until I was 12 years old. I 
still remember, Madam Speaker, that I went into Sears and I was 
translating for my mother and this cashier just looked at her and looks 
at me and looks at her and looks at me--and I am 12 years old--and she 
goes: ``She needs to learn English.''
  I look and smile. Of course, the southwest Detroit girl came out of 
me. My head did bob a little bit, and I said: ``Excuse me, but I am not 
translating what you are saying to my mother. I am translating what my 
mother wants to say to you. Why? Because even with her heavy accent, 
you are dehumanizing her. You are othering her. You are making it like 
she is less than, even though she tries.''
  As she beautifully speaks the English language, I feel like, my God, 
like, if anything, people should appreciate it more.
  So I say this because this lived experience of my mother, as a 
naturalized American citizen, who is so proud of having human dignity 
here, this freedom of raising her daughter who is now a United States 
Congresswoman, should be celebrating it and should be honoring it. 
Instead, I know what is happening to her in the streets. People are 
yelling at her to take off her hijab, vilifying her. That is what we 
are doing to our immigrant neighbors, the same ones who pick fruit and 
put it on our tables, who open and revive neighborhoods that have never 
seen life since they came to our communities.

  I am tired of it. I am tired of folks using fear-mongering rhetoric 
to create hate towards my immigrant neighbors.
  They are here because our country offers something that others don't. 
We should understand that. We should create a humane and fair and just 
immigration system, not one that hurts them and allows children to die, 
that targets women in detention centers, and separates our families. It 
is simply wrong.
  The most American thing I could do up here is push back and say: 
Enough. We are a Nation of immigrants. All of us. I am tired of the 
hate and the racism.
  I thank the Congressional Progressive Caucus for always speaking that 
truth to power.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Madam Speaker, I think it is important to 
remember that they are not here just because we offer something more. 
Immigrants are here because we need them. We don't exist as a country 
without immigrants. They are here because they bring music and because 
they bring food and poetry and art and laughter. They bring community.
  But they also bring incredible economic benefits. I talked earlier 
about the $1.7 trillion over 10 years, the 438,000 new jobs, the $700 
in increased wages for everyone, the 6 years of additional life that we 
give Social Security. All of those are economic benefits.
  Do we know that three-fourths of undocumented immigrants in the labor 
force are actually essential? That means they are the essential 
workers. Not just that. They are healthcare workers: 38 percent of the 
home healthcare aides caring for our loved ones at home, 29 percent of 
physicians, 23 percent of pharmacists. They are taking care of us. They 
are keeping us healthy.
  Not only that. They are our entrepreneurs. They are the ones who are 
starting our businesses. Right now, 25 percent of new firms in America 
are opened by first-generation immigrants. The New American Economy 
reports that over 3 million immigrant entrepreneurs employ almost 8 
million American workers across the Nation.
  It is immigrants and the children of immigrants, who we have just 
heard, who come and serve in Congress, but they also start over half of 
all Fortune 500 companies. Yet, they are subject to the hatred that 
brought tears to my colleague's eyes. It is not right.
  They are subject to that hatred in order to detract us from talking 
about what we need to talk about. What we need to talk about is, what 
we have been doing in this Congress when we passed the American Rescue 
Plan.
  Instead of going back and being able to tell your communities that we 
passed the American Rescue Plan, help is on the way, we are going to be 
putting shots in arms, and we are going to get people back to work and 
kids back in schools--they don't want to talk about that. They want to 
talk about that border. That border is not threatening any of us, but 
that is what they want to talk about because they don't want to get to 
the work at hand.
  But we are going to get to the work at hand, and we are going to push 
to include immigration in the reconciliation.
  We heard earlier discussions about the manner in which families have 
been torn apart and separated at the border by the Trump 
administration. I have a bill that will not only reunify those 
families, but, as a mea culpa, as a way of saying we are sorry, we will 
make sure that they actually receive a visa and that they receive the 
kind of care that we must do whenever you traumatize a young child. 
They need that help.
  We are also going to push to make sure that everyone who pays taxes 
receives the child tax credit. Those immigrant families are working, 
they are paying their taxes, and they were not getting the benefit of 
the child tax credit. We are going to make sure that we push for that 
and argue for that. We are going to make sure that we highlight who our 
immigrant brothers and sisters are, because they are us.
  I want to remind us here today that back when this country was 
founded, even with all of its faults and flaws and original sins in how 
we started, that even back then, when our Founders talked about what 
this House should look like, they said that it should be a mirror, a 
portrait of America. They said that we should make sure that Congress 
has the right to pass the laws regarding how we vote us into office, 
because they did not trust those States. This was back at the founding. 
They did not trust those States because they knew that they would fight 
against having our House look like a miniature of the American people, 
a portrait.
  That is the other thing that we are going to fight to do, to make 
sure that we get the voting rights in H.R. 1 passed and H.R. 4 passed, 
because that is how we also continue to push for immigration reform. We 
know America wants it. We talked about those polls, 83 percent, 67 
percent. There is great, great support for that. It is only because we 
are not able to truly exercise our democratic values of self-governance 
that we have not yet passed it.
  But we have this moment in reconciliation. We have this moment. It is 
a priority of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It is a priority of 
the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. It is a priority of so many of our 
colleagues. So I am incredibly hopeful.
  I am looking forward to listening to the President's words, after a 
recent meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, to tell us that 
he will also be supporting this.
  We call upon the Senate to support immigration reform in the 
reconciliation act.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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