[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 4, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H3646-H3650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CRISIS AT THE BORDER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Roy) for 30 minutes.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr.
Schweikert), my colleague and friend, for his steadfast dedication to
ensuring
[[Page H3647]]
the American people are informed, at least the 72 people that were
watching C-SPAN while you were extemporaneously educating them.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. My own family doesn't watch.
Mr. ROY. In all seriousness, we were able to push this out. We were
able to do clips. It is important that we continue to have this
conversation.
The gentleman is correct, in very broad terms and very specific
terms, about the extent to which we have a fiscal crisis looming. It is
incumbent upon this body to do something about it.
We have structural reforms we could put in place that the gentleman
is talking about. I think we just covered that quite nicely, but we
also need to be aware of what we need to do with our discretionary
spending and using the power of the purse, both to constrain the
bureaucracy that is still a third of that annual spending and constrain
that spending also for the purpose of limiting tyranny over the
American people.
This is one of those things that frustrates me among my colleagues,
both Democrat and Republican. The gentleman from Arizona is not in that
group, by the way, because the gentleman from Arizona, I think, largely
would agree with what I am getting at here. I have colleagues who will
always slip into saying: It doesn't matter. Stop worrying about
discretionary. Stop having a fight about $100 billion or $30 billion or
whatever your debate is about constraining discretionary spending.
When I say that to the average listener, what I mean is what we spend
every year on the stuff you see in the bureaucracy, such as the
Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce, the Department of
Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense, all of those things
that make up the alphabet soup of government that, frankly, are the
things impacting your life every day, or undermining, frankly, your
freedoms every day.
The thing that drives me crazy in this town is you will hear Members
of Congress who come down here and they say: Chip, we have a razor-thin
majority. Don't you understand? Chip, it is all mandatory spending. You
don't have to focus on this $100 billion. We are talking about $35
trillion in debt.
That happens all the time. I assume the gentleman from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Perry) would agree with me. I assume, in his career, since he has
been here a few years longer than I have, that we hear that as an
excuse for ignoring our job to constrain the bureaucracy, using the
power of the purse, almost every single day that we come down here to
the floor, when we are in committee or in our conference meetings. I
assume the gentleman agrees with me on that point.
Mr. PERRY. Of course I do. We have fought bitterly. I mean, even if
you just look at the last few years here since the pandemic, the
pandemic was unexpected, decisions were made, and in hindsight we
obviously made some wrong choices.
Be that as it may, it was expensive. People were out of work. The
government forced them out of work, forced them to close their
businesses. It was only right, since the government had the authority
and the power to do that, to make them as whole as possible.
Now, we can debate that as long as we want to, but subsequent to the
end of the pandemic, it should have been reasonable for the people in
this room on either side of the aisle to say: Well, let's just reset
back to prepandemic.
Believe it or not, at that time, if we had just gone back to that
number, the budget would have balanced.
Mr. ROY. You are quite right.
Mr. PERRY. We would actually have taken in enough revenue to pay for
the things that we were buying, but a substantial portion of this body,
unfortunately, my friends, my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle, said: No, no, no. We are going to keep spending now at the
pandemic level even though the pandemic is over.
Mr. ROY. The gentleman is correct. I think that is one of the things
I want to stress. I came down here not to talk about spending. However,
on the heels of our friend from Arizona, I want to make the point and
then pivot to what I think is important to talk about. I am sure the
gentleman will agree.
In the context, it matters, right? What we fund matters. We are
funding the Department of Homeland Security and for them to utterly
fail to secure the homeland and endanger our own people and empower
migrants to be able to actually flood in and get dumped into the United
States, including the individual who was paroled into the United States
and killed Laken Riley, including individuals who were dumped into the
United States and shot those two police officers in New York just
last week, including the individual who killed a woman named Lizbeth
Medina in my own State--killed her, and her mom found her in the
bathtub when she was supposed to be cheerleading on the streets. I can
give example after example. We are funding that. We are funding the DHS
that does that.
We are funding the FBI that has been politicized against the former
President, against our own people, like Scott Smith and Mark Houck and
other people around the country. We are politicizing the FBI and the
Department of Justice that is using the FACE Act to put a 75-year-old
woman in jail for 2 years for praying at an abortion facility.
You are paying for that, ladies and gentlemen. You, the American
taxpayer, are paying for that, and guess what? With all due respect to
my Republican colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans are funding
it.
They are funding it, and they come down and they say: Well, we have a
duty to do that.
Our Democratic colleagues will say: We must do all these things. You
are politicizing this. You are making it this way.
My Republican colleagues will say: Well, Chip, of course, we would
like to do that. Of course, we would like to fix it, but you don't
understand. You can't do math. We have a razor-thin majority. We can't
possibly get it done.
By the way, when did they ever talk about the razor-thin majority in
the Senate, which exists?
Mr. PERRY. Right. It does.
Mr. ROY. One last point. Has my friend from Pennsylvania heard the
same issues? I won't say who, but I have already heard very important
Members of this body, in terms of their rank and committee, already
talking about the fact that, no matter what happens in November, if we
win the White House and President Trump is in the White House and if we
win the House of Representatives, even grow our majority, and if we win
back the Senate and have a majority of two, three, or four, depending
on how you go look at the scoreboard, that we will not have 60 votes.
We are told: Unless you can do something on reconciliation, which is
a maneuver--for all you Americans out there--to find a way to bend
around the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, well, then you are just
stuck. We are sorry. You just have to accept it, Chip.
Does the gentleman hear that all the time, and has he already heard
Members already setting the stage for January to say: We can't do the
things that we said we would do?
Mr. PERRY. Of course, I have heard it. I have heard it ever since I
have been here. There is always some reason: We have a slim majority.
We don't have a majority at all. We don't have 60. We don't have the
Presidency. We have this House, not that body. It is the courts. There
is always some reason to say we can't do it.
I was in a committee hearing today talking about waste and abuse on
foreign affairs. I found out that we send money to Nepal to support
atheism. We send some of your money to Nepal, which is a highly
religious society, to support atheism.
What I am told is: Well, not all bills are perfect. Nobody agrees
with that, but we had to get the bill passed.
Well, somebody agreed with it. It ended up in there.
Mr. ROY. Right.
Mr. PERRY. Somebody wanted that, so I am supposed to go along with
that. The people that I represent that wake up early in the morning and
go to work and pay their taxes, their money is going for that when they
can't afford their electricity bill, their food bill, or their daycare
bill. It is insane.
This whole thing about a wide-open border, not only can they not
afford to pay the bills, but their kids can't even get jobs now coming
out of high school because they are competing with people who are here
illegally who will take
[[Page H3648]]
those jobs where you start out, where the only skill you have, Mr. Roy,
is, I can show up on time with a good attitude. That is the skill I had
when I was 13 or 14 years old, right? That is the skill I had when I
started.
You start out doing things that maybe a lot of people don't want to
do, but now there are other people in this country with a work permit.
Your kids can't even get started anymore. That is the insult upon
injury.
You are being taxed out of your homes. You can't afford your bills.
Other people are taking your work. You are being told to sit down and
shut up and just take it, whether you are in Congress or, Heaven
forbid, you are at home and you are watching on TV and you are saying:
What do I do about any of this? I told my Representative, and they said
they can't stop it.
Mr. ROY. In the meantime, I want to pivot to the border point you
just raised, but I would like to make the point. We are funding all
those rules and the requirements that are driving the American family
out of the ability to afford a life.
Just today, I had a crack in my windshield, and I was just there at
the dealer's getting it looked at and getting it worked on. We couldn't
go do a nondealer part for reasons I won't get into. It was $1,100 for
a windshield. They used to be 200 bucks. You would call Safelite or
somebody to come out, and they would replace the glass. Now they say:
Well, you can't just replace the glass because it has all these sensors
in the windshield.
Mr. PERRY. Mandated by the government.
Mr. ROY. Right. Guess what? Now, increasingly, all of these things
are mandated by the idiots in this Chamber.
Mr. PERRY. Like the kill switch.
Mr. ROY. Right. The idiots in this Chamber voted to cause that to
happen and back up what the regulators down the street are forcing on
the average American.
Here is what I don't get, right? All my colleagues here, if I forced
my colleagues, one by one, to go down to the microphone on any one of
these issues and explain to their constituents: I am going to vote--as
some Republicans did last fall--I am going to vote against eliminating
a kill switch in a car, which is going to dramatically increase the
cost of that car, dramatically increase the cost of that windshield,
dramatically increase the chance that that car is going to shut down in
the 20-below-zero cold in North Dakota and leave you on the side of the
road because you have a computer determining whether you can start the
car, if I made every Member go defend that, they would start to think
twice about it because that is a hard thing to defend.
However, they didn't want to vote against it because MADD came around
and lobbied for it. They didn't want to be against that, so 19
Republicans say: No. Sorry. I can't vote against killing the kill
switch.
If you put it out there and start really telling the American people:
Hey, should we have something in there that protects people from drunk
driving, they will say: Well, I guess so.
What if that would cost you another $10,000 for the car?
They would say: Are you out of your freaking mind?
However, we do it, and we do it for the same reason Mr. Schweikert
was talking about why our healthcare costs are high. It is because
there is an army of lobbyists in town, or there is an army of people
who are going to go out and say certain things. The one thing Mr.
Schweikert said, when he talked about how we are going to make sure
that we are protecting incumbents, he didn't mention about protecting
the incumbency of the people in this room, people who hold onto their
election certificate like it is the most important damned thing they
will ever have in their life, instead of the opportunity to come here
and do what we said we would do.
Does the gentleman agree?
Mr. PERRY. I do agree. I do agree with that completely. Protecting
that, and, of course, what we are seeing right now is the protection or
the attempted protection of that at the Presidential level.
For 3\1/2\ years, I have watched the President say: I can't do
anything about a wide-open border. I can't take any action. There is
nothing I can do. It must come from the legislature.
Yet, somehow, now that all the polls have turned around and it looks
ominous in 5 months, somehow, he found the wherewithal to say: Well,
shazam, I can take executive action.
Who knew? Well, the American people knew because, before he got
there, executive action was taken, and the border was relatively
secure, much more secure than it is now.
For 3\1/2\ years, it has been wide open, and, essentially, our
President just acknowledged what we all knew, that this has been
meaningful. This has been by design, the wide-open border has been
intentional, and he could have done something about it, but he chose
not to until he had no other choice politically.
Even at that, I am sure that my good friend from Texas, who is on the
front lines in Texas, is going to talk about the provisions of this.
The one I find interesting, we are going to stop these people coming in
once we hit the threshold unless they are minors, unaccompanied
children. Unless they are minors, unaccompanied children, we are going
to let--so we are going to allow the sex trafficking of children to
continue, even as we know that our Federal Government has lost track of
literally tens of thousands of children illegally in our country,
unaccompanied.
Mr. ROY. There were 85,000 documented in one case, for sure.
Mr. PERRY. Yes, 85,000. Right. Yeah.
Mr. ROY. And I am glad the gentleman brings this issue up because I
would note that, today, while I was sitting in the House Judiciary
Committee with the gentleman from California (Mr. Kiley)--who just came
in to join us, who is going to take the microphone, I am sure, in a
little bit--we had the Attorney General before us. We were questioning
the Attorney General in the House Judiciary Committee.
In that exchange, I was asking the Attorney General about the extent
to which he believes that it is wrong for Texas to have passed what we
call SB4 in Texas to empower Texans to do the job of stopping people
from being released into the United States, contrary to law, and
endangering the people of Texas that has led directly to the death of
Texans, does he believe, as the Attorney General of the United States,
that it is wrong for Texas to do that?
The reason I asked him that question is because, as the Attorney
General of the United States, he is, of course, leading litigation to
stop us. He is suing Texas, taking us to court to try to prevent us
from doing it because of the Supremacy Clause. The Federal Government
is supposed to do this, and you don't have a say.
Well, hold on a second. If the Federal Government is supposed to
secure the border of the United States and manage this inflow of people
and it is violating the laws and dumping people into the United States,
are we saying that the people of Texas can't, under the invasion clause
or otherwise, say: It is our duty as the people of Texas to protect our
citizens and our people?
{time} 1815
The Attorney General, of course, said no. He has got to take us to
court and go sue us. The fact is he is, therefore, ignoring--
Mr. PERRY. When is the invasion clause operable then?
Mr. ROY. I think he would say it is not.
Mr. PERRY. When is it? Never?
Mr. ROY. I think he would say if you have got a literal army of
people coming across the river, I suppose. I think they would probably
fight us on that.
Mr. PERRY. If you came across with a gun and you were wearing a
uniform with your name on it, that is an invasion. If you don't have a
gun and you don't have a uniform, no matter what your intentions are or
the scale, that is not an invasion.
Mr. ROY. I am not sure that they have stipulated the former, but they
certainly want to try to stop us from identifying and recognizing the
latter. The reality is that the people of Texas are fed up and they are
asking their leaders to do the job the Federal Government won't do.
I will compliment Republicans. I am not afraid to criticize both
Republicans or Democrats. I will compliment Republicans for having done
a year ago what we have never done, which is set
[[Page H3649]]
aside the absurdity of saying you have got to do amnesty and setting
aside the absurdity of saying you have got to open the floodgates to
more people coming into the country, even though we allow about a
million people a year to come in.
Mr. PERRY. Legally.
Mr. ROY. Legally.
Even though we have 51.5 million people in the United States who are
foreign-born. You have the Chamber of Commerce and all of the big
interests coming down here saying: You guys have got to open up more
immigration. You have to do it.
We always bow down. We always say: Okay, we will do that. We will do
amnesty, but can we just get some security? We beg for crumbs.
A year ago, we did something different. We came together as
Republicans, and we passed the most comprehensive and strongest border
security bill we have ever passed.
Frankly, I don't think my colleagues fully understand the historical
importance of that, even many who support it and talk about it and
tweet about it.
I have been here in some various forms, now 5 years as Member of
Congress. I was here as chief of staff for Senator Ted Cruz. I was on
the Senate Judiciary Committee as a lawyer. I watched the debates and
the failures and the Gangs of Eight and all of the machinations. I
watched in 2017 when we had two different bills, so-called Goodlatte 1,
Goodlatte 2. We left President Trump stranded. We blew it.
Last year, we came together, we set the terms of what we will now do
next year. That matters.
When Republicans unite to achieve something, not unity for the sake
of it. I get so tired of hearing my colleagues talk about unity. I say
something like: To do what?
It doesn't matter. We have just got to unite. To do what? Right?
When we unite to say we are going to stand up and say we are going to
secure the border of the United States, we did it. We didn't always
agree, by the way. People swept aside our differences of opinion a year
ago.
We fought through it. We met, we worked, and we passed the best
border security bill we have ever passed. The Senate has sat on it.
They tried to pass a sham bill, which the President today went to the
microphone and gave up the game. Remember the Senate bill? The Senate
bill said: Oh, don't worry, guys. We are going to cap the flow at
5,000.
Mr. PERRY. A day.
Mr. ROY. A day. Which, by the way, Obama's Secretary of Homeland
Security, Jeh Johnson, said a thousand a day was basically a crisis.
We are going to cap it at 5,000 a day, rest easy, but we are going to
have all these exceptions. We are going to have exceptions for
unaccompanied children; exceptions for parolees when we are violently
just dumping people into the United States under parole; exceptions for
foreign nationals who use the CBP One app, which is another version of
parole.
We objected. All the Democrats said: You guys are not doing this
bipartisan bill.
Guess what the President did today? He went to the microphone, and he
looked at America and he said: ``We need to regain control of the
border.''
The President of the United States today acknowledged to everybody
watching and to every American that we do not have control of the
border. That is what the President did today.
The President also went to the microphone today and said: ``I will
cap it at 2,500.'' If the President of the United States has the
authority today to issue an order to cap it at 2,500, did he not have
that authority 2 months ago or 6 months ago or 2 years ago or 3\1/2\
years ago? Of course, he did. That gives up the game on the Senate bill
when they said they would cap it at 5,000 and the President comes in 3
months later, why?
It is because he is looking at the polls and he is looking at his
butt getting kicked and he is looking at losing the House and the
Senate. Now, he is, like, oh, crap. I have got to do something to
actually look like I care about the border when everybody in America
knows I don't.
Madam Speaker, so he did it. He went to the microphone, and he said
it and he made a joke of the Senate bill that all of those Senate
Democrats and all of our Democratic colleagues have been lying to the
American people that we have been obstructing good bills when they are
the ones that put forward a sham bill and the President made it clear
today.
Does the gentleman agree?
Mr. PERRY. I agree completely. The historical perspective of what we
accomplished in the House over a year ago now with the most righteous
border security bill ever to pass out of the House is to give Members
of the House of Representatives and the Senate the alternative, so when
the President says: Well, you haven't done anything over there. You
haven't passed anything, and you won't pass the bipartisan bill.
Madam Speaker, it doesn't matter. I mean, it is awesome when it can
be bipartisan, but what is more awesome is when it can be correct, when
it actually is the solution to the problem.
The Senate bill, the so-called border protection bill that allows
5,000 people every single day to hemorrhage across our border
illegally, is not a solution. It is not a solution to an open border.
It is just a codification of an open border.
The fact that some of my friends on the other side of the aisle
didn't want to vote in favor of securing the border shouldn't be a
reason for the President to say: You haven't done anything.
We get that he doesn't like it. He doesn't like it because it
actually would have secured the border. That goes to the point. It was
always his intention. It has always been his intention. It has always
been the intention of my friends on the other side of the aisle to
leave the border wide-open as long as they possibly could and get away
with it. The only reason it is changing now is because the polls
reflect that the American people are, number one, sick of it; and,
number two, know they are being lied to and know that the President has
the authority and the ability to secure the border.
Mr. ROY. I will ask the gentleman a quick question, then I will leave
both of us a little time at the end. We have got about 9 minutes left.
I will give a chance for us to talk about June 6, which is coming up
in a couple days. I want to ask one thing today, in that we just talked
about the border. We just talked about the extent to which they are
wide-open, being ignored, endangering the American people. It is
purposeful.
We just talked about the attorney general suing to get in front of
Texas trying to secure our borders. I just want to point out the extent
to which the current administration is defying and undermining the rule
of law on a daily basis.
As we sit here in this Chamber and we sit here under Moses and we sit
here in recognition of the importance of the rule of law, this
administration is at war with the rule of law: the borders are open,
ignoring the law; student loan repayments, ignoring the Supreme Court
and the law to try to buy votes. You have got wide-open streets and
criminals on the streets, and we are not prosecuting crimes that we
need to prosecute.
More importantly, you have an administration hell-bent on trying to
use the political apparatus to target a former President and to use it
in direct violation of everything we understand and know about the
importance of blind justice. You cannot get away from that reality.
Today, we have an attorney general who is choosing to target one
President and say: I am going to charge you with a crime. Right? And
then choosing not to charge the other President for basically the same
crime with the classified record stuff. You have got the Attorney
General of the United States saying, I am not going to turn over audio
of the very rationale for why Special Counsel Hur said: No, we
shouldn't go after the current President because, frankly, he is not
mentally able to do it, and he will be a sympathetic figure.
They don't want to turn over the audio, even though it is the same
material, and the attorney general testified to that today.
That is an abomination to the rule of law that you have got the New
York prosecutor in complete and obvious coordination with the attorney
general, where the deputy to the number three goes up and works with
the D.A. in
[[Page H3650]]
New York and they prosecute the former President of the United States.
They prosecute him on a State law charge, but then they bastardize
and shoehorn in a Federal charge they won't even define. Then they use
that to run through multiple charges that most observers say may not
even get through the State system without their supreme court in New
York throwing it out.
We have got 6 minutes. I will get to this other issue.
Does the gentleman see the problem with what is happening to the rule
of law, the very foundation that causes migrants to want to come here
and the strength of this economy and this country?
Mr. PERRY. I do, and I lament this. I say this often. The gentleman
from Texas has heard me say that this is the Constitution of the United
States of America, Madam Speaker.
It is a quick read. You can probably read that in less than an hour.
Everybody can see it is a piece of paper. It cannot defend itself.
Mr. ROY. Correct.
Mr. PERRY. There it is, laying on the desk. This is the owner's
manual. This is the operator's manual. This is the set of instructions
for running your country. We all take an oath to follow this thing.
However, if you are not going to, if you choose not to, this
Constitution can do nothing about it. It can do nothing.
It takes people of integrity. People that are willing to sacrifice
their own personal viewpoints on occasion or what I call the avarice of
man, their own personal greed; the things that they want for the sake
of this. When people refuse to do this, refuse to do that, and just use
the awesome authority granted to them in a position whether it is
electoral or otherwise in places like the Department of Justice, well,
that is what we have today.
That is what we have today, which is a Soviet-style show trial to go
after your political rivals. This is the thing of dictators and
tyrants.
One of the practitioners I saw this week before I came in said: It is
crazy. It is crazy. I said: It is not crazy; it is tyranny. It is
tyranny.
Mr. ROY. I assume the gentleman would agree with me--and I am going
to switch topics, but it is a transition that makes it more
meaningful--that when the boys walked into the wall of bullets that
they walked into at Normandy in 1944 that they weren't doing it to toss
aside the rule of law and the Constitution, all that this country
stands for.
I have chosen not to go to Normandy and to make the trip. I didn't
wear the uniform. I want to leave it to those who did. Some who wore
the uniform aren't going. I want the gentleman to comment on this as he
has served for almost three decades or something along those lines in
the United States Armed Forces--just so everybody knows, today is June
4.
In 2 days, it will be 80 years since those men got in those boats,
jumped out into the stormy seas, ran on to the sand, ran into a wall of
bullets, went up the cliffs, and then went all the way to Bastogne, to
Germany, went through all of what they went through, this is the
message from General Eisenhower on the order of June 6, 1944:
``Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
``You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we
have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In
company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you
will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the
elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and
security for ourselves in a free world.
``Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
``But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi
triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans
great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has
seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage
war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming
superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal
great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free
men of the world are marching together to Victory!
``I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill
in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!
``Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon
this great and noble undertaking.''
Those words speak for themselves. We honor and tribute those who lost
their lives, those who fought, those who came home, those few World War
II veterans who remain with us.
I will turn over the remaining 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend who wore
the uniform that I did not wear.
Mr. PERRY. No words that we can use today can adequately honor the
sacrifices of those who gave the last full measure and signed up to do
it. There is just no way you can describe what they endured and what
they knew they were going to endure.
Many of them never made it off the beach. Many of them never made it
out of the boat. So many of them even joined up and lied about their
age so they could go fight for what they believed in: this country,
this idea.
{time} 1830
The idea is that everybody is equal under the law, that no one person
is more important than another person, that you can make decisions for
your life based on what you want to do. You can buy the gas stove that
you want or not buy any stove at all. You can buy a car with a
windshield sensor in it or no windshield sensor in it.
Madam Speaker, they didn't give their lives for this government that
we have now that bankrupts families, that puts the fear of the
government in them if they say something, that they are going to be
hauled off to jail in the middle of the night or be drawn out on the
lawn in their shorts in the wee hours of the morning. Yet, that is what
we have right now.
Madam Speaker, we need to honor the commitment they made for the
country that they loved that existed then. That is the best thing we
could do.
Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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