[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 126 (Wednesday, July 23, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H3559]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1020
              SORRY, NOT SORRY FOR IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

  (Mr. McClintock of California was recognized to address the House for 
5 minutes.)
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, the Democrats are outraged that the 
largest illegal mass migration in history, which they unleashed on our 
country, must now be followed by the largest repatriation in history.
  Democrats insist that they don't object to removing violent 
criminals, but that is a demonstrable lie. The whole point of the 
Democrats' sanctuary laws is to protect criminal illegal aliens from 
being turned over to ICE for deportation. Instead, they released them 
back into our communities, where many have gone on to commit even more 
heinous crimes.
  Recently, when Federal officers served a criminal warrant on a 
southern California marijuana farm, activists staged a riot. Officers 
liberated 12 minors forced to work at this facility. Eight of them were 
among the 465,000 unaccompanied alien children that the Democrats 
placed with poorly or unvetted sponsors during Biden's administration.
  It appears the marijuana farm was employing scores of illegal aliens 
to undercut their competition, in flagrant violation of U.S. labor and 
immigration laws.
  Now, let's start with some simple truths. If we don't enforce our 
immigration laws, we have no immigration laws. If we have no 
immigration laws, we have no border. If we have no border, we have no 
country. We have gotten a glimpse of what that means as foreign flags 
are waved by violent mobs setting fires, ransacking businesses, and 
terrorizing motorists in our sanctuary cities.
  What do our immigration laws actually say? They say, clearly and 
unambiguously, that any and every adult who illegally enters our 
country shall be detained. Those are the exact words of the law: 
``shall be detained.'' The Democrats simply ignore it.
  They have a right to challenge their detention through a writ of 
habeas corpus. If they are charged with a crime, they have a right to a 
trial by jury, but at no time do they have the right to be released 
back into our communities. Under the law, they ``shall be detained.''
  Unless they are charged with a crime, they have the right to leave 
detention any time they want for any country that will admit them. What 
they don't have is the right to remain in our country unless a judge 
determines otherwise.
  That is why the administration is expanding detention facilities, 
because that is what the law requires if our borders are going to mean 
anything.
  The Democrats call these concentration camps, but the detainees are 
free to leave for home anytime they choose. Indeed, that is the 
purpose, to provide temporary shelter while transportation is being 
arranged.
  Deportation is not a punishment and requires no criminal charges. It 
is a simple administrative act. Challenging it does not invoke a right 
to freely enter and stay indefinitely. You either wait here in 
detention or in another country that will accept you. Those are your 
options.
  Reportedly, more than a million illegal aliens have already decided 
to return home, an option for which our government will arrange 
transportation, a $1,000 stipend to help them resettle, and a right to 
apply for legal entry. If they wait until they are encountered by ICE, 
they will be taken into custody, deported, and forbidden from 
reentering. That is a choice.
  What about those who, after breaking our immigration laws to enter 
the country and breaking our labor laws to work here, have broken no 
other laws? That doesn't mean there aren't victims. For years, American 
families have struggled as the flood of illegal labor has taken their 
jobs and suppressed their wages.
  During Biden's 4 years, most new jobs were taken by foreigners, and 
Americans' real wages declined. Just 6 months into the Trump 
administration, most new jobs are now taken by Americans, and real 
wages are growing once again. That is not a coincidence.
  Supporting this impoverished, illegal population costs American 
taxpayers an estimated $160 billion a year. It flooded classrooms with 
non-English-speaking students, packed emergency rooms with illegals 
demanding care, and overwhelmed homeless shelters and food banks meant 
to help Americans. Worst of all, the most violent and dangerous 
criminal gangs in the world accompanied this population into our 
country and have now taken deep root in the Democrats' sanctuary 
cities.
  This is why we must enforce our immigration laws to the letter, as 
this administration is doing. America admits more legal immigrants 
under our laws than any nation on the planet and will continue to do 
so, but that does not give license to millions of foreign nationals to 
violate those same laws.
  That is the simple truth the Democrats refuse to acknowledge.

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