[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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