[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 44 (Tuesday, March 12, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H1136-H1142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FOREIGN ADVERSARIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Luna). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I am glad to be here in an empty Chamber 
having the rigorous debate that we are so accustomed to here in the 
people's House, but that is, again, where we find ourselves with the 
level of debate at the moment.
  We are left with bringing bills to the floor, having a couple of 
hours cut up and then moving on with whatever bill has been on the 
suspension calendar. That is not the kind of debate that we should 
have.
  There is a bill that is coming before us tomorrow that I believe 
should have vigorous debate. I believe that it does raise consequential 
issues, and we should debate them here vigorously on the floor of the 
House.
  I want to be unequivocally clear to the American people that I 
support it, and I support it unapologetically.
  We have legislation before us that would ensure that foreign 
adversaries are not able to collect information on the American people 
and collect data on the American people and use that data to target the 
American people, undermine our national security, undermine our 
democracy, and undermine our way of life, which is precisely what is 
happening with the evidence we have before us.
  Both classified and very publicly known information indicates very 
much that TikTok, which has significant ownership by the Chinese 
Communist Party, is targeting American citizens. There are some who are 
out professing that this legislation that would try to prevent that 
would somehow undermine our freedom.
  Madam Speaker, I do not like the heavy hand of government being used, 
certainly not wantonly. An individual today who is fairly well-known 
out in the social media sphere put out and said that we had this 
classified briefing today and that the issue of election interference 
was brought up. This was a classified briefing that was not supposed to 
leak by the way. That is how things work in Washington. It was leaked.
  Then we had the additional point here, not coincidentally, the anti-
TikTok legislation. Let me clarify and stop. It is not specifically 
anti-TikTok legislation. It is antiforeign adversary control of 
American data and information legislation.

                              {time}  1745

  According to this individual, this ``legislation now being debated on 
the Hill would allow the Federal Government to force the sale of any 
social media platform that interferes in elections. Just so you know 
what is coming in 2025.''
  Now, if I believe that to be true, I certainly wouldn't support the 
legislation. It is 12 pages long. I would note that a friend of mine 
who serves on the FCC, Brendan Carr, responded to this, and I happen to 
agree with Mr. Carr.
  Mr. Carr wrote: ``It would be concerning to many if the bill allowed 
this.''
  ``This,'' being the post on X by someone this afternoon that I just 
recounted.
  Mr. Carr says: ``It would be concerning to many if the bill allowed 
this. It does not. The text is definitive on this point. The bill does 
not apply to just any social media platform. Far from it. Here is the 
only and targeted application.''
  Mr. Carr writes:
  ``One, if you are an individual user, the bill confers zero authority 
to the government over you.'' That is true.
  ``Two, the bill only applies to applications controlled by one of 
four foreign adversary governments previously codified in law by 
Congress--China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia. The bill is clear that 
it is not enough to merely have operations there or do business there. 
It must be `controlled' by one of those four governments.
  Three, even then, the bill only applies if the application presents a 
demonstrated and significant threat to national security. Control by 
one of four foreign governments alone isn't even enough under the 
bill.''
  You have got to have significant ownership by these foreign 
governments. You have got to have a demonstrated and significant threat 
to national security.
  Four, and then, only after public process provided and Congress 
reported to with a description of the specific national security 
threat.
  Every single one of those hoops (and more) must be cleared and met. 
So it is very narrow. It confers no authority to go after any other 
application--even if someone were to allege that it engaged in election 
interference.''
  What is happening here is a reflexive reaction and a scaremongering 
tactic. Let me pause and say I do believe this legislation should have 
full debate. This is also why I prefer legislation to go through the 
Rules Committee. This is also why I prefer legislation to be amendable, 
amended, debated, but this bill was passed out, it is trying to be 
moved so that it doesn't open up for the possibility of undermining the 
legislation that was very narrowly crafted with a 50-0 vote out of the 
Energy and Commerce Committee.
  Now, many of my conservative and more libertarian friends say 50-0 
gives them the heebie-jeebies and I don't like it. That is my general 
default position in this town.
  This is different. I will be very clear: This is different than what 
I am about

[[Page H1137]]

to talk about in just a minute, which is the uniparty in this town that 
decides everything for you and is bent on whatever the defense 
industrial complex says and jams through spending bills and limits our 
ability to proceed.
  This is different because it is very specific and narrowly tailored 
toward the end of ensuring that Americans' data and Americans' safety 
and security are being protected. That is it. That may not be perfect, 
but nothing this body ever does is perfect.
  This bill was put forward to address that issue and it is a giant 
step forward, in my opinion, to recognize the threat against our 
freedom and our liberty that the Chinese Communist Party poses to us, 
to our children, to our grandchildren, the extent to which they are 
using algorithms to undermine and focus on our kids.
  That is what they are doing. They are targeting our children. We know 
it. They are targeting our people. We know it. They are skewing the 
data on the results.
  If you do a search for China virus--now, just the utterance of those 
words makes the head of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
explode--the difference between Instagram, which is hardly some paragon 
of rightwing reporting, the difference in the algorithm response on 
Instagram versus TikTok is 400-1 if you search for China virus.
  If you search for Hong Kong, I think it is 180-1. If you search for 
Tiananmen Square, I think it is 80-1. The fact is you are getting 
demonstrably shaped information out of TikTok. What most people don't 
understand, most parents at home while their kids are out using 
TikTok--and this is a parental problem, not just China--China is 
specifically limiting the information that kids can see in China.
  They are making sure that the kids in China see patriotic, pro-China 
engineering, all of this stuff you want to try to have your kids see in 
order to make them into what you want to make them.
  In our country, we are allowing freedom to undermine our freedom, and 
that is what is actually happening here. It is the false name of 
freedom, to be clear, to undermine our freedom.
  It is not actual freedom because the freedom that we have is being 
attacked by China and we are sitting back in the false name of freedom 
saying, oh, no, let's not touch that.
  I hope that tomorrow we will crack through that. I hope tomorrow on a 
bipartisan basis we will send a message that the Chinese Communist 
Party cannot knowingly attack us and get a response that is a whimper 
because that is what we have been doing so far.
  If you wanted to destroy America, you would set out and do exactly 
what China has been doing bit by bit, targeting our people, undermining 
our access to information or at least information that they are trying 
to control and target our kids with propaganda very specifically.
  Yes, we have problems with Google, but I am getting tired of the 
``but Google.'' Yes, we have problems with Facebook, but I am getting 
tired of the ``but Facebook'' because I get that a lot. You want to 
break up Google, let's sit down and do it. I am happy to have a 
bipartisan bill to talk about that. You want to deal with Facebook, I 
am happy to have that conversation.

  You want to talk about the misuse of the power of those big companies 
attacking First Amendment rights, targeting people for their political 
beliefs, happy to have that conversation, but do you know how hard that 
is? Because none of us want to use the power of the government to go 
after companies so that the government is saying what they know is best 
about what that means for our freedom and our rights here in this 
country.
  That is what we are wrestling with under our Constitution to protect 
our rights. But when the Chinese Communist Party is actively targeting 
the American citizens, I am tired of people hiding behind the flag to 
let China do it. That is what is happening.
  People are going to do it in the false name of freedom and in the 
false name of, oh, let's go do this because--I don't know--a former 
President says so or a media personality says so.
  How about we do our job here in the House Chamber to take on the 
Chinese Communist Party and not act like they are not doing what they 
are doing? I think it is important. I support the legislation. I 
appreciate my friend,   Mike Gallagher, working on it. I cosponsor it. 
I will defend it tomorrow. I will defend it in the future. I am 
defending it now. I hope we pass it tomorrow on the floor of the House.
  I want to bring something up because that brings up the question of 
the uniparty in this town. The fact is, we have, yet again, reverted to 
the mean. This town has reverted to what it does best, which is a 
handful of people making decisions, dropping it on the floor, and then 
walking away from the deliberative process.
  I want to reiterate that the bill I just talked about, I think we 
should go through committee and I think we ought to amend it. We are 
walking away from our duty that we fought for 14 months ago to have 
amendments, to open up debate, to run through the normal regular order, 
but more importantly than that even, to actually stand up to the powers 
that be in this town that make all the decisions.
  Three years ago, I stood on the floor and I pointed out that our 
border was in chaos already, a mere 2 months into the Biden 
administration.
  In his first full month in office, Federal law enforcement had 
already encountered more than 100,000 migrants at the border. It was 
spiking. It was spiking rapidly, and we all knew it. Those of us who 
went down to the southern border in Texas sounded the alarm and we got 
a lot of crickets in this town.
  That was the beginning of the radical progressive Democrats' efforts 
to reshape America with mass releases into our country. Just in 
December, we saw 370,000 migrant encounters alone. Three years into 
this crisis now, radical progressive Democrats are trying to blame the 
crisis on Republicans.
  You heard the gentleman, Mr. McGovern from Massachusetts, on the 
floor of the House today, he said something in the ZIP Code of, 
Republicans own this crisis now--which, by the way, was a giveaway. It 
was a tell. It was purposeful because our radical Democratic colleagues 
worked to try to get a bill in the Senate so they would have something 
to hide behind. Unfortunately, a handful of Republicans either 
wittingly or unwittingly went along, but the bill died because the bill 
doesn't do the job.
  But here is the question: We have got a situation in our country 
where we have got wide-open borders. I will go through some of the 
details in a minute. Yet, today, we passed a resolution.
  I supported it. I voted for it. I went to the Rules Committee, did my 
job, defended it, argued for it, came to the floor, debated it, argued 
for it. I support it, but come on. It is a resolution. Why? You want to 
know why? Because we refuse to use the power of the purse to stop 
President Biden. That is the truth. That is what we are actually doing.
  Next week, in about 8 or 9 days, this Republican Party will saddle up 
with that Democratic Party filled with radical progressive Democrats 
who want to remake America, dump people into the country through mass 
releases. My Republican colleagues will saddle up with Democrats to 
pass a funding bill that will fund all of those open borders, and then 
they will try to go home and campaign: But I passed a resolution. I 
passed a bill that was named after Laken Riley. Aren't I great? Aren't 
I awesome?
  The answer to that question is, no, you are not. You are not great. 
You are not awesome. Great and awesome is when you are willing to stand 
up and fight for the people you said you would fight for when you came 
here.
  We control the power of the purse and I am tired of the excuses. We 
had another Member of Congress resign today. So now I will be told, 
Chip, we only have a one-seat majority or two-seat majority. I don't 
even know what it is anymore.
  Let me ask the question: Does it matter?
  In 2018, we had the House, we had the Senate, we had the White House, 
and we had a bigger majority than we have today and we utterly failed 
to secure the border. We totally dropped the ball. We didn't do it.
  Why? I remember why. They would say, Chip, we don't have 60 votes in 
the Senate. Let me be very clear to the American people back home. 
There is always an excuse for why those who

[[Page H1138]]

campaign to come to this town fail to deliver. Always.
  Here is a glimpse into what we will be funding next week. Here is a 
glimpse into what your Members of Congress, both sides of the aisle, 
led by radical progressive Democrats who, by the way, you will get more 
votes out of them than you do out of Republicans.
  Every bill we have passed over the last 4 or 5 months of consequence 
have had more Democrat votes than Republican votes. Let's be very 
clear. That is the truth. You can't hide from the truth. You can't hide 
behind rules votes. You can't hide behind pointing fingers. This 
institution, the Republicans that run it, we are giving the ability for 
bills to come off this floor with more Democrat votes filled with 
radical progressive Democrats who want to remake America than 
Republican votes.
  The last bill, the first half of this omnibus spending bill that 
spends at Nancy Pelosi's levels--I am sorry--more than Nancy Pelosi's 
spending levels, cracking the caps that we passed less than a year ago, 
that legislation passed I think with only two Democrats voting against 
it. Two.
  Do you know who was in the Democratic Party? Two voted no. I think we 
had 83 Republicans vote no. You do the math. Which way do you think 
that bill tilts?
  Here is what we are going to fund next week. We had 1,200 known got-
aways recorded at the border on Sunday alone.
  In this country, 1,200 people came into this country, we don't know 
who they are; we don't know where they came from; we don't know what 
they are doing, but I promise you, for at least a large block of them, 
they ain't up to good.

                              {time}  1800

  Four human smuggling loads were caught in 48 hours in Kinney County 
just this week, just out in San Antonio. These are friends of mine who 
live in that county.
  Virginia authorities apprehended an illegal immigrant from Mexico in 
connection with the February 29 abduction of a 15-year-old 
unaccompanied alien child--illegal alien.
  An illegal alien from Mexico was arrested for allegedly crashing into 
a Washington State trooper while drunk and high, killing the 27-year-
old husband and father.
  I have gone through and recounted all the deaths. We have talked 
about Laken Riley. We have talked about the 2-year-old who was killed 
just outside of the Nation's Capital by somebody who was released here 
by Joe Biden.
  Meanwhile, criminals with ties to MS-13 and other gangs are selling 
fake green cards and Social Security cards to illegal aliens on street 
corners in Queens. That is happening right now. You are going to fund 
that.
  A smuggler from Sullivan City who led Texas DPS on a high-speed chase 
in Hidalgo County was just recently arrested for evading, human 
smuggling, and DWI.
  An illegal alien from Venezuela has been charged with manslaughter 
for a wrong-way accident in Missouri that killed a 12-year-old boy.
  FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Monday the Bureau is ``very 
concerned'' about a human smuggling network with ties to ISIS that 
utilizes the southern border to gain entry into the United States.
  Madam Speaker, 331 known or suspected terrorists were stopped at the 
border under Biden--169 in fiscal year 2023, 58 so far this year.
  Members of a Mexican cartel shot at migrants who were taking Ubers to 
cross the southern border illegally, illegal aliens, leaving one woman 
dead. Nobody crosses the border without cartel permission. They have 
control.
  Madam Speaker, 7.3 million illegal aliens crossed our borders since 
Biden took office. That is more than the population of 36 U.S. States.
  Nearly 1.8 million known migrants escaped Border Patrol, the got-
aways I was talking about before.
  We have released some 4\1/2\ million of the 7.3 million illegal 
aliens that crossed our border. We have released 4\1/2\ million.
  I want to stop there. For my radical progressive Democratic 
colleagues who say that nothing is wrong and they are not doing 
anything, they are making policy choices to release people into the 
United States using parole authority against the law to mass-release 
people, including the man who came in here affiliated with a dangerous 
gang in Venezuela and killed Laken Riley, not Lincoln Riley.
  There are 331 on the terrorist watch list under Biden and 75,000 
fentanyl deaths in 2022. The administration has paroled 1 million 
illegal aliens into this country, many of whom come from Haiti and 
Venezuela--pause--many of whom come from Haiti.
  Has anybody looked at Haiti recently? There is some dude named 
``Barbecue'' who is in charge of Haiti at the moment, basically running 
the show--a dude named ``Barbecue.''
  We have people who are running like gangs and marauders and cannibals 
in Haiti, and now we are going to get a mass influx of people from 
Haiti.
  In fiscal year 2023, DHS released more than 233,000 under the Cuba, 
Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela categorical parole program--83,200 
Haitians, 65,000 Venezuelans, 49,000 Cubans, 36,000 Nicaraguans. I 
could go on and on.
  We have had more than 20,000 Chinese nationals encountered at the 
southern border since October 1, 2023. For context, more than 24,000 
Chinese nationals were encountered across the southern border in all of 
fiscal year 2023. We have had 20,000 since October 1.
  I could go down the list, but I want to give time to my good friend 
from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, a man who wore the uniform, who served 
his country with distinction, who serves his country with distinction 
now as a Member of Congress.
  My friend from Pennsylvania, I assume that you are concerned. As 
someone who has defended this country around the globe, flew 
helicopters for the United States military, I assume it concerns you 
that we have 20,000 Chinese nationals that we have encountered at the 
southern border since October 1, 2023, and that we are poised as 
Republicans to vote next week to fund fully, with additional money, the 
government that is doing that to the American people.
  Mr. PERRY. I am, my good friend from Texas. There were 20,000 
Chinese, and I think to myself, how did they get out? How did they 
escape the Communist Party of China?
  To my good friend, Representative Roy, I don't think they escaped. I 
think the Communist Party of China sent them. The Communist Party of 
China uses facial recognition software and programs oftentimes created 
in the United States of America to track every single movement, every 
decision that the people of China make, so they know why they are here. 
We aren't sure why they are here, but I suspect it is not because they 
love America. It is not because of that, and we are going to fund that.
  Do you know what else we are going to fund? You mentioned this, but I 
think it is important to put a boy's name or a little girl's name to 
this because that is what it is to many Americans. Travis Wolfe, a day 
away from his 12-year-old birthday, Travis Wolfe, one day away from 
being 12, unfortunately Edina Bracho, here illegally, an illegal 
foreign national to our country, driving 70 miles an hour in Missouri 
going the wrong way on the highway, crashed into his and his parents' 
car.
  On March 6, they took Travis off of life support. He didn't celebrate 
his 12th birthday. He didn't celebrate it because now he has passed on.
  I imagine Travis Wolfe's parents are thinking: I live in America. I 
had fourth-grade civics. The Constitution says they are going to defend 
my family and defend me against a foreign invasion. I have lost my son. 
What am I paying taxes for? What am I voting for in this country if you 
can't keep my son alive at the hands of someone who doesn't belong 
here?

  Just a month ago, Travis was doing well, smiling and laughing, and 
now he is gone, and the parents are left with what? What are the 
parents left with? The consolation that we can pass a bill, a 
resolution in the House of Representatives that says: Illegal foreign 
nationals in the country, that is bad.
  That doesn't make up for Travis, I guarantee. I don't know Travis. I 
don't know his parents, but I am heartbroken for them. If no one else 
will stand up for Travis and his parents, I know Chip Roy from Texas 
will, and I certainly will as well.

[[Page H1139]]

  How about Lizbeth Medina? She was murdered in December. Her murderer, 
Rafael Romero, was here illegally. He was a criminal on probation. He 
was here illegally. He had already committed crimes, but they let him 
out, so he stalked Lizbeth, and he went into her apartment where she 
lived.
  Lizbeth is 16. She lived with her mother. That is where kids should 
be, with their parents, but Rafael went in and bashed her head in. He 
stabbed her to death.
  She was a cheerleader at her high school with her whole life in front 
of her in America, the place that is supposed to protect its citizens. 
Meanwhile, Lizbeth's mom now lives in an empty house, I am sure 
heartbroken because her daughter is gone.
  Why is her daughter gone? Because President Biden says that Rafael 
Romero and Edina Bracho deserve to be in America because they came 
here. We don't know what their circumstances are, but they deserve to 
be in America because everybody deserves to be in America.
  Even though we have a system of legal immigration, the same system 
that my great-grandmother and my grandmother used to come from 
Colombia, South America, that system is not good enough even though we 
are the most generous country on the planet and allow a million people 
to come to America every single year legally. They wait in line. They 
take the test. They oftentimes know more about American civics than 
Americans do. However, according to President Biden, how many million 
people, Mr. Roy?
  Mr. ROY. It is 7.3 million.
  Mr. PERRY. There are 7.3 million people who can come from all these 
other countries, who don't have to abide by the law and can kill 
American citizens.
  Do you know what the insult to injury is to Lizbeth Medina's mother? 
Next week, we are going to make sure that the Federal Government is 
fully funded so they can just keep on doing it, keep on sending the 
killers to kill American citizens.
  It is unacceptable, unconscionable, and somebody has to stand up for 
these folks. If the majority of the Members in this Chamber won't do 
it, then maybe the majority of the Members in this Chamber need to get 
a different job. I don't know what else to say.
  We are here to represent the United States of America and our 
citizens. Our citizens are dying at the hands of people who are here 
illegally who have been arrested not only for the crime of coming to 
the country illegally, disrespecting the people that pay the bills 
around here, disrespecting the people that follow the law around here, 
but then committing crimes in addition to that.
  Myself, Mr. Roy, and you, Madam Speaker, are expected to vote to fund 
all that because it is too hard not to. It is just too hard, Mr. Roy 
from Texas.
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Perry) to engage in a colloquy so the American people can 
understand what we are dealing with.
  Next week, we are going to take up the second half of an omnibus 
appropriations package. There is no other way to describe it. It was an 
omnibus bill broken into two parts. That omnibus bill would spend 
approximately $1.66 trillion or, stated in plain terms, $30 billion 
more than Nancy Pelosi's spending levels passed a mere 15 months ago 
with abject opposition from the very Republicans in this Chamber who 
are going to vote next week to put the bow around two bills to make one 
omnibus spending package that will crack the bipartisan caps that we 
could have at least adhered to in order to limit spending.
  Is that what the gentleman understands?
  Mr. PERRY. That is what I understand. How many months ago did we vote 
against this?
  Mr. ROY. About 15 months ago.
  Mr. PERRY. It was 15 months ago that every single Republican in this 
Chamber voted ``no'' on what was and what is just unbelievable 
spending, unaffordable.
  We are spending a trillion dollars every hundred days now. Every 
single Republican voted against it. The policy was awful and led to the 
death of these two individuals.
  The spending was unaffordable, and now, these months later, we have 
avoided an omnibus in December so that we can do two minibuses in 
March, and I feel so much better about that, don't you, Mr. Roy?

  Mr. ROY. To be clear, we are racking up an additional trillion 
dollars of debt every 100 days.
  Mr. PERRY. An additional trillion.
  Mr. ROY. We are spending now, this year, more on interest than our 
national defense. We will be cracking a trillion dollars of interest in 
2026. We are now going to pass a package that spends $1.66 trillion, 
which the CBO acknowledges will continue to rack up deficits into the 
foreseeable future. We are going to do that after having voted for a 
bill last week that funded a number of things from the MILCON-VA to 
Energy-Water and to other issues.
  This next week, though, we are going to be voting on Defense. We are 
going to be voting on State-Foreign Operations. We are going to be 
voting on the Department of Homeland Security.
  A lot of these are bills we passed last year as Republicans in the 
House. I ask the gentleman, when we passed legislation last year, we 
passed legislation to push back on the radical progressive Democrat 
agenda. In the State-Foreign Operations bill that we will take up next 
week, I would remind, the United Nations is a part of it to the tune of 
$12.5 billion. By the way, Texas has had to spend $12.5 billion over 
the last 3 years to defend itself when the Federal Government won't do 
it.
  We are going to have $12.5 billion for the United Nations that is 
going to be funded this next week by this body, a United Nations that--
let me see if the gentleman agrees--has the United Nations Human Rights 
Council, which passed condemnatory resolutions on Israel 104 times to 
China's zero; a United Nations Population Fund, which is complicit in 
China's population control programs; the World Health Organization, 
which is complicit in COVID-19; UNRWA--I know the gentleman is familiar 
with this one--UNRWA, the corrupt organization that has been exposed 
since October 7 in terms of its engagement in the barbaric attacks by 
Hamas on the people of Israel.
  We are funding it. Biden says he is not funding it, but will we make 
that clear next week? We did last fall. We made it clear, but not clear 
enough. Why is that? What did the gentleman do last fall?
  Mr. PERRY. We had an amendment on the floor to defund the United 
Nations Relief and Works Agency that funds Hamas directly. 
Unfortunately, it didn't pass, and then, within days of that, Hamas 
attacked Israel.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. ROY. It didn't pass because it didn't have unanimity among 
Republicans.
  Mr. PERRY. That is correct.
  Mr. ROY. Now, will we vote this week to fund UNRWA? Now, even if 
UNRWA is taken out, which it is possible it will be, will we continue 
to fund all of the so-called humanitarian relief that is still getting 
funneled to Hamas?
  Mr. PERRY. Well, what about the funding to the United Nations that is 
then funneled to south of the border, which is used to pay the cartels 
to move people from 150-plus countries through my good friend Chip 
Roy's district in Texas to the rest of the United States?
  Mr. ROY. Right.
  Mr. PERRY. Funding the people who are taking the life of Travis Wolfe 
and Lizbeth Medina, funding those people.
  Mr. ROY. Will we continue to fund through the State and Foreign 
Operations bill the President's radical anti-life agenda?
  Will we pass, instead, any of the pro-life protections, like the 
Mexico City policy, or no?
  What will we be funding? Continuation of the radical anti-life 
policies of this administration.
  Will we be voting to end, or will we be voting to fund all of manner 
of wasteful and woke international envoys: The Special Envoy for Racial 
Equity and Justice, the Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of 
LGBTQI Persons, the Special Envoy for International Labor, the Special 
Representative for Palestinian Affairs? Will we be voting to fund that 
next week?
  Mr. PERRY. I suspect that we will get almost twice as many votes from 
that side of the aisle for a bill brought by the Republican majority, 
and the reason why that is is because most of

[[Page H1140]]

their priorities, the vast majority of their priorities are funded.
  Mr. ROY. The gentleman served in the United States Army, correct?
  Mr. PERRY. Correct.
  Mr. ROY. The gentleman flew helicopters in the United States Army?
  Mr. PERRY. Correct.
  Mr. ROY: He rose through the ranks to the title of General, correct?
  Mr. PERRY. Correct.
  Mr. ROY. Does the gentleman believe that next week, we, as 
Republicans, should be voting to fund chief diversity officers across 
the Department of Defense that are destroying recruiting and turning 
our military into a social engineering experiment?
  Should we fund the Air Force, which is reducing planned troop totals 
in their 2025 budget, cutting the total number of airmen in the service 
after missing its recruiting goals?
  How about transgender surgeries at the Department of Defense being 
funded?
  How about the Department of Defense's abortion tourism funding?
  How about funding for a Department of Defense that has failed to 
fully reinstate members impacted by its vaccine mandates, at least 
8,000? I just spoke with one of them the other night randomly at a bar/
restaurant here in the Northern Virginia area, who was upset that he 
got forced out of service in the United States military. Does the 
gentleman think we should be funding that?
  Mr. PERRY. The gentleman knows that I will be registering a strong 
``no'' in objection to those things that are destroying the greatest 
military the planet has ever known.
  Mr. ROY. Yet will not the very same people who will stand up and say 
we must fund this do so on the backs of the men and women in uniform 
saying that we must do this for defense, we must do this to make our 
defense stronger? Will they not be voting for all of those policies, 
undermining our own Defense Department?
  Mr. PERRY. They will, indeed.
  Mr. ROY. On both sides of the aisle?
  Mr. PERRY. On both sides of the aisle.
  Mr. ROY. How about the HHS funding that we are going to be taking up 
next week, including the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which lost 
track, as the gentleman knows, of 85,000 migrant children, according to 
that bastion of rightwing conspiracy, The New York Times. They are 
working with the NGOs to make the crisis worse, the very NGOs that are 
receiving funding from the United Nations.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania just acknowledged, we are going to 
fund the United Nations, we are going to fund through our own HHS the 
Office of Refugee Resettlement, which lost 85,000 children, and we are 
not going to demand change, as necessary. Is the gentleman concerned 
about that?
  Mr. PERRY. Of course, we are all concerned. It is unconscionable. 
Those who disagree with us say that our position on the border is 
inhumane, but I would submit that losing track of 85,000 children who--
just let your mind wander--are God knows dealing with what right now, 
turned over by cartels to other cartel members in the United States for 
just horrific circumstances, and yet we are supposed to just turn our 
face from that and act like, well, that is the cost of doing business?
  Mr. ROY. Does the gentleman agree that we will be fully funding Joe 
Biden's student loan bailout schemes that were found to be unlawful by 
the United States Supreme Court? He literally stood at the microphone 
and said: I don't care, I am doing it anyway. Do you think we ought to 
be funding that?
  Mr. PERRY. Of course not.
  Mr. ROY. Should we be funding, for example, under COVID, the 
continued funding of the Wuhan lab or anything with respect to 
EcoHealth Alliance without any accountability for any of the people who 
sent our entire economy into a tailspin, racking up $8 trillion of 
debt, sending our kids back in time in terms of their ability to 
compete, should we be continuing to fund those entities?
  Mr. PERRY. There is no American--left, right, or center--listening to 
this list who says: Sign me up to support that.
  Mr. ROY. I guess now, in conclusion on this point, back to the 
border, an absolute tragedy that is unfolding for Americans reeling, 
like Laken Riley's parents, like Lizbeth's mom--by the way, you left 
out the fact, I understand, that she was supposed to be cheering at an 
event. Her mom went there to go see her daughter, and when her daughter 
didn't show up, she had to go home to find her daughter's lifeless body 
in the bathtub, killed by somebody here illegally, an illegal alien.
  Again, I want to be very clear, the President of the United States, 
whether he knows it or not, a subject that we explored today in the 
Judiciary Committee, whether it is willful or not, he is certainly 
complicit because the buck stops with the President that they are 
releasing people into the United States in mass form, contrary to law, 
and endangering people like Laken Riley, like Lizbeth, like the 2-year-
old out here in Montgomery County, like hundreds of examples, thousands 
of fentanyl deaths.
  By the way, put all that aside, the fact is, we are destroying our 
country through the weight of what that means for our school districts, 
our prisons, our hospitals, what it means for healthcare.
  We have 50 million foreign-born people in this country. My colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle act like somehow this is anti-immigrant 
or that we don't want to have immigrants in the United States when 
nothing could be further from the truth.
  I assume that the vast majority of the people that I know working at 
Border Patrol, for example, who I know to be majority Hispanic, they 
want the law to be enforced.
  I assume that we want to back the people who want the law enforced. 
Yet I want to be clear, we are going to fund all the things we just 
articulated and fund a Department of Homeland Security to continue to 
carry out mass releases in the form of parole, asylum, abuse of the 
law, undermining our security and safety.
  By the way, I would point out, we are going to continue to fund the 
salary of Alejandro Mayorkas, who we impeached for violating his oath 
to the Constitution, violating the laws and endangering the American 
people. How does the gentleman feel about that?
  Mr. PERRY. Just astounding. It is astounding that that is our 
circumstance, yet that is where we find ourselves, and that is where 
Americans find themselves. I mean, some of the folks who know me say: 
Oh, you are so dramatic. You are so dramatic about it, and it is really 
not that bad. Immigration has always been an issue; it hasn't changed 
that much. You are just trying to increase people's anxiety. You are 
over the top.
  I don't know, but I guarantee you, Travis Wolfe's parents, Lizbeth 
Medina's mother, Laken Riley's parents, there is nothing more dramatic 
than losing your child. The hopelessness that they must feel at the 
inability to do anything about it, knowing that this is happening in 
the country, knowing that we know. They know we know.
  We read the news, we see the names, we hear the stories, but we are 
going to fund it. What are we going to say to them when we fund it? It 
is the best we could do? That is the best we could do?
  I know that Mr. Roy feels the same way. No one else is here. The 
Speaker is here, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) is here, I am here. 
I am sure there is a lot going on in Washington, D.C., tonight. I am 
sure there is. We are going to use this time to honor and to 
acknowledge Travis Wolfe, Lizbeth Medina, Laken Riley, and the 100,000 
Pennsylvanians who died of drug overdoses last year. That is happening 
for a reason.
  It is happening because these drugs are coming across our border. The 
cartels are running them. China is providing them, and America under 
this President is doing nothing to stop it.
  Mr. ROY. The America I know enforces the rule of law. The America I 
know establishes a rule of law that attracts people from the world to 
come to our country. That is why people come to the United States of 
America, because the rule of law affords them the ability to prosper.
  However, we are undermining the very thing that attracts people from 
around the world to come here. I know it is equality, justice, and 
freedom, but if you don't have the rule of law, none of those things 
matter.
  If you don't have the rule of law, you will have chaos.

[[Page H1141]]

  If you don't have the rule of law, you have what is happening in 
Haiti.
  If you don't have the rule of law, you don't have a country.
  If you don't have sovereignty and borders, you don't have a country.
  If you don't have that, then there is no America to stand side by 
side with Israel.
  If you don't have that, there is no America to even try to come to 
the rescue of any country like Ukraine or anybody else.
  If you don't have a country, you have nothing on this Earth to be 
able to organize, to be able to defend the very liberty that we say 
this country stands for.
  I would note that this body, Republicans, passed H.R. 2 just under a 
year ago. That bill would demonstrably change the situation at the 
border. It would enforce the law. It would reestablish the rule of law. 
It would still allow people to come here and make claims when they need 
them if they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs or 
political beliefs, but they would do so through the normal order.
  The chaos would end. America would be better off, the Western 
Hemisphere would be better off, the world would be better off. Most of 
the individuals seeking to come to this country would, frankly, be 
better off, so they are not being abused by cartels or being forced to 
run from the Darien Gap all the way up through Mexico to make the tough 
journey to come to America, then they get here and have difficulty.
  Why do I want to bring that up? I am going to be wrapping up here 
reasonably shortly so we can give the floor to another colleague. So 
why does it matter that we passed that bill last year? Because it is a 
good bill. It is a bill that would do the job.
  While my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are playing games 
trying to hide behind legislation in the Senate that never would have 
gotten the job done, our colleague from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) 
today gave up the game on the floor today when he said: Republicans own 
this issue now. It was purposeful. He gave it up. He gave away the 
game. They want to hide behind a bill they knew wouldn't pass.

  We passed legislation that would make a difference. It would save 
people's lives. It would be better for migrants, better for our 
country.
  Here is the thing: I hear a lot of my colleagues on this side of the 
aisle run around and say something like, well, can we just get migrant 
protection protocols? Can we just get remain in Mexico?
  Let me be very clear. That will not fix it. If you simply pass 
migrant protection protocol requirements, the President can just ignore 
them. If you do not end the releases, if you do not force an end to the 
releases--which, by the way, I did in a 3-page bill--then you have no 
border security. You cannot implement remain in Mexico and believe that 
that alone will solve the problem when parole is being abused, asylum 
is being abused, unaccompanied children will be abused. However, that 
is what some of our colleagues, even on this side of the aisle, are 
saying will be a solution if we package it together with Ukraine or 
Israel to move a bill.
  Let me be very clear to everybody watching, any of our colleagues 
sitting in their offices watching: That is not good enough. It won't 
work. Don't bring that to the floor. That is not the way we should go.
  At the end of the day, earlier today this Chamber passed a resolution 
condemning the Biden administration for its failures at the border for 
releasing people into the United States. Every Republican voted for it. 
Every Republican voted for it. Fine.
  What will it do? What will it actually do? I voted for it. The 
President should be condemned. How many of those same Republicans are 
going to vote next week, though, to fund fully at a higher level the 
very things they voted against--or condemned, I should say--in the 
resolution that they just passed today? What do you think, my friend 
from Pennsylvania?
  Mr. PERRY. It is going to be quite a number. Unfortunately, it is 
going to be quite a number of Republicans.
  This week, they will say they condemn the Biden administration for 
dereliction of duty, the lost lives created by wide-open borders. Then 
next week they will say: Well, we didn't have any choice. We had to 
fund it. We didn't have any choice. There was nothing more we could do.
  That is the sad state of affairs, and that is how our country ends up 
$34 trillion in debt, racking up $100 trillion every 100 days of 
additional debt with murderers who have been caught by the law out 
running around here illegally killing American citizens. That is how 
you end up with that. Unfortunately, that is what we are headed for.

                              {time}  1830

  We are supposed to take a victory lap because it didn't happen in 
December. It wasn't the pre-Christmas omnibus, so that is a win. That 
is something to celebrate. That is what I am told.
  I guarantee you, Lisbeth's mom and Travis' parents are not 
celebrating that. They want something done. They demand something be 
done.
  We can't bring back their loved ones, but we can damn sure make sure 
that it doesn't happen to anyone else. The way to do that is to stop 
funding this wide-open border.
  People say: Well, you passed H.R. 2. It is dead on arrival in the 
Senate. They are never going to take it up. You have to accept 
something less.
  How about we accept something less that is this? How about this 
President institute the same policies he eviscerated on day one of his 
Presidency and at least start bringing us back to some semblance of a 
nation that has a border, that is sovereign, and that is determining 
its own destiny?
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I will close with this. In a couple of years, 
this country is going to be celebrating its 250th birthday on July 2, 
2026.
  The question we have to ask ourselves is whether or not we are going 
to have a country that we pass down to our kids and grandkids. I 
believe we can and will.
  I believe we only will if the people who campaign and go to the 
people saying that they are going to change this town, saying that they 
are going to stop the unlimited spending, saying that they are going to 
do something about a trillion dollars of debt racked up every 100 days, 
saying they are going to do something about a trillion dollars of 
interest in 2026--we are spending more on interest than our national 
debt--saying that they are going to secure the border of the United 
States, saying that they are going to end the woke and weaponized 
government targeting the American people, saying that they are going to 
make sure that we don't have endless wars that are making our military 
overstretched and overrun and making it difficult for our men and women 
in uniform with a woke military and undermining their ability to 
recruit and have a military that functions, when our colleagues go out 
and campaign on those things, we should deliver.
  We should do something about it. We should be willing to give up the 
precious, to quote ``The Lord of the Rings,'' give up the precious of 
an election certificate if it means taking the steps necessary to fight 
for this country.
  When the Founders gave us the power of the purse, articulated well in 
Federalist No. 58 by James Madison and otherwise throughout the 
Founding documents, that power of the purse was supposed to be used.
  If you don't use it, what do you have left? An impeachment that you 
send over to the Senate to die in the Senate and then go campaign on 
it.
  The balance of power matters. The separation of power matters. When a 
President of the United States is ignoring the law and the Supreme 
Court, violating all the norms of the past to undermine our 
sovereignty, endanger the American people, spend money we don't have, 
ignore the law, and make us weaker around the globe, when the President 
of the United States is doing those things, it is incumbent upon the 
House and the Senate, but particularly the House, to do something about 
it.
  You shouldn't hide behind rules votes, thin majorities, and what the 
Senate has or doesn't have to say that we could use that power of the 
purse to force change out of a President.
  I, for one, believe that on July 2, 2026, we are going to be able to 
stand up and say that we are doing the right thing.
  I believe something is stirring in this country. I believe people are 
seeing what is actually happening. I believe people are seeing their 
country being taken away from them.

[[Page H1142]]

  We are seeing people like Riley Gaines standing up. We are seeing 
people like Chloe Cole stand up against the madness, as well as Scott 
Smith in Loudoun County.
  We are seeing the people around this country stand up and make their 
voices be heard, the parents who have taken their schools back, the 
parents who stood up in Texas and just had a strong election to try to 
force that State to stand up for universal school choice, to empower 
parents rather than bureaucrats, to stand up for our kids.
  I believe that the American people are right now going through a 
great awakening, and it is time for the people in this body to catch up 
to the people.
  It is time for the people in this body to stand up and do our part to 
make sure we restore that constitutional order and the very premise 
outlined in the Declaration of Independence for the pursuit of 
happiness so that in July 2026, we can say that our people live in a 
free country and that we have, in fact, kept the Republic, to quote 
Franklin after the Constitutional Convention.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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