[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 50 (Thursday, March 19, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H2600-H2606]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 0910
BILL TO OUTLAW WOUNDING OF OFFICIAL WORKING ANIMALS ACT OF 2025
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1115, I
call up the bill (H.R. 4638) to amend the Immigration and Nationality
Act to provide that an alien who has been convicted of harming animals
used in law enforcement is inadmissible and deportable, and for other
purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 1115, the
amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on
the Judiciary, printed in the bill, modified by the amendment printed
in House Report 119-554, is adopted, and the bill, as amended, is
considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
H.R. 4638
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Federal Working Animal
Protection Act''.
SEC. 2. INADMISSIBILITY AND DEPORTABILITY RELATED TO HARMING
ANIMALS USED IN LAW ENFORCEMENT.
(a) Inadmissibility.--Section 212(a)(2) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)) is amended by
adding at the end the following:
``(J) Harming animals used in law enforcement.--Any alien
who has been convicted of, who admits having committed, or
who admits committing acts which constitute the essential
elements of an offense under section 1368 of title 18, United
States Code (relating to harming animals used in law
enforcement), is inadmissible.''.
(b) Deportability.--Section 237(a)(2) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(2)) is amended by
adding at the end the following:
``(G) Harming animals used in law enforcement.--Any alien
who has been convicted of, who admits having committed, or
who admits committing acts which constitute the essential
elements of an offense under section 1368 of title 18, United
States Code (relating to harming animals used in law
enforcement), is deportable.''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for
1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority
member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees.
The gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) and the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Raskin) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on H.R. 4638.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, Freddie is a 5-year-old male beagle that was found on
the side of a Georgia road and adopted into the USDA's detector dog
program.
In August 2023, Freddie began his current job as a CBP agriculture
detector dog at Dulles International Airport. He and his handler,
Melissa Snyder, worked the early-morning flights arriving primarily
from Central America and Africa. As of late last year, Freddie had
conducted more than 590,000 searches, resulting in more than 2,000
alerts that led to more than 1,800 seizures of prohibited agricultural
products and almost 2,500 different pieces of quarantined material.
Mr. Speaker, it was during this important work last June when Freddie
alerted to luggage on a flight from Egypt. While Agent Snyder
questioned the owner, this man violently kicked Freddie with sufficient
force to lift Freddie off of the ground. Freddie suffered contusions to
his right forward rib area. He was taken off duty for 2 weeks to
recover.
It turns out that the Egyptian national was smuggling 117 pounds of
meat and produce which were prohibited from entering the United States.
In the same month as Freddie's attack, leftist protesters in Los
Angeles physically attacked horses used by the Los Angeles Sheriff's
Department for crowd control during an anti-ICE riot. Horses are used
extensively by Federal agencies for crowd control and also for access
to remote areas along the border frequented by human and drug
traffickers.
Mr. Speaker, Congressman Calvert brings us this simple bill that says
that if you are convicted of harming a law enforcement animal or you
admit to doing so while you are a guest in our country, you will be
immediately expelled and never be allowed to return.
It is true that we have good laws to punish such animal cruelty, and
yes, such assaults can be defined as moral turpitude to bar admission.
Yet, as we have discussed before on this floor, that finding can often
require Byzantine legal proceedings that eat up many years and
thousands of dollars of resources, if they are pursued at all.
Mr. Speaker, I know many of our Democratic colleagues support the
border policies of the Biden-Harris administration, which encouraged
the largest illegal mass migration in history. They allowed members of
the world's most violent criminal gangs and cartels into our
communities, suppressed American workers' wages, and cost taxpayers an
estimated $160 billion a year to support.
I know that many are now vigorously and, in some cases, violently
opposing the enforcement of our immigration laws under the Trump
administration. They can't change these laws, so they seek to obstruct
their enforcement and attack, harass, and threaten the law enforcement
officers who are upholding them.
Some Democratic State and local officials have even revived the
disgraced doctrine of nullification that we all
[[Page H2601]]
thought had died with the Confederacy in order to defy Federal law.
There is a deep and irreconcilable divide between our parties that
only the voters ultimately can resolve, but can't we at least all agree
that kicking a 5-year-old beagle at an airport should disqualify a
foreign national from entering our country ever again? That is the
entire two-paragraph bill, and I hope we can put aside our differences
and all support it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, here is what America is talking about: Donald Trump's
unauthorized, undeclared war of choice, a forever war in the making,
which is costing us between $1 billion and $2 billion every single day
and has killed already 13 Americans in uniform, wounding more than 200
Americans in uniform, and killing more than 1,000 Iranians, including
170 school children who were bombed at an all-girls school in Iran.
Americans are talking about the fact that gasoline now costs $3.84 a
gallon. It has gone up more than 25 percent in 1 week because of Donald
Trump's unauthorized, undeclared, illegal war of choice in Iran. Crude
oil is now soaring to more than $109 a barrel because Donald Trump's
war planners could not have predicted that Iran would try to strangle
commerce in the Strait of Hormuz.
That is what America is talking about this week. America is talking
about when there will be justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti,
American citizens exercising their First Amendment and Second Amendment
rights who were shot down in cold blood by government agents in
Minneapolis, and the most recent Secretary of Homeland Security libeled
them as domestic terrorists and refused to recant from that defamatory
lie.
That is what America is talking about. When are they going to reform
ICE, and when are they going to start paying members of the Coast
Guard, TSA, FEMA, and CISA?
We have a discharge petition to say: Pay those people, and don't let
all of the illegality of ICE bring down the faithful public servants at
the Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA, and other Federal agencies.
That is what America is talking about this week.
Well, what are MAGA Republicans in Congress talking about this week?
They are talking about the BOWOW Act. The BOWOW Act?
Now, how did they come up with this bill and this title?
Well, the President's poll numbers are sinking like a stone, so they
needed to find something to do in Washington to put on the floor. They
can't talk about Trump's ruinous tariffs that have plunged so many
small businesses into oblivion and cost American consumers hundreds of
billions of dollars. They can't talk about that because the Supreme
Court, which they gerrymandered, sliced and diced, and packed and
stacked, struck it down.
Even the extremely right-leaning Supreme Court struck down Donald
Trump's tariffs. We told them that it was unconstitutional. We told
them that only Congress has the power to impose taxes and to regulate
commerce with foreign nations, but no. Like lemmings, they followed
Donald Trump off of the side of the ship, and now those tariffs are not
only economically ruinous for the country, but they are discredited and
struck down.
They can't talk about that, which was their big policy hit of the
administration so far. No, they can't talk about that.
Well, they are not talking about the war in Iran. That is splitting
even the MAGA base right down the middle because they had talked before
Donald Trump about the importance of Congress actually making decisions
about going to war. After all, that is what the Constitution says in
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11. It is Congress that has the power to
declare war.
Mr. Speaker, they are not talking about that. They are not talking
about the lives that have been lost in Iran with this bizarre,
impetuous war of choice that has been thrust onto the country when the
President promised us that there would be no more forever wars and
regime-change wars.
They can't even settle on whether this is a regime-change war or not.
Some of them say that it is. Some of them say that it isn't, so we
don't know. They can't talk about that.
Maybe they can talk about the healthcare public policy, which Donald
Trump has been promising for more than a decade. It is a decade of, in
2 weeks, we will get you our plan. They don't like the plans that we
have under Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which have delivered
healthcare to millions of Americans.
{time} 0920
They have done whatever they can to dismantle those healthcare plans.
Maybe they could come up with a healthcare plan. No, they are not
uttering a peep about that.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks, and Donald Trump fundamentally
is not interested in delivering a healthcare plan to America.
Then someone says, ``Well, let's go back to immigration,'' but they
have already been told not to talk about mass deportation. We pulled
out of Minneapolis because we disgraced ourselves there. We know that
America reviles the policy of shooting down American citizens in cold
blood for exercising their First Amendment and Second Amendment rights,
so we can't talk about that.
Then somebody discovered Freddie and said: There is a case at Dulles
Airport with a dog, and we can at least go to the dog people with the
BOWOW Act.
I am co-chair of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, and I
have one of my dog's dog hair all over this suit, even though I tried
to get it off before I came out this morning. If anybody is going to be
a sucker for something called the BOWOW Act, it is me. I don't vote for
a lot of MAGA legislation, but every dog has his day, and I was willing
to look at this one. I was moved by something called the BOWOW Act.
I looked up the incident that the gentleman from California has
referenced, and it was outrageous. I was outraged to learn about what
happened to Freddie. It all started when Freddie the Beagle, the canine
detective at Dulles Airport who works with CBP, Customs and Border
Protection, to detect smuggled agricultural products, alerted his
superior officers at Dulles to the presence of over 100 pounds of
prohibited food items that appeared in the baggage unloading area.
It turns out Freddie did his job. He barked and alerted his superior
officers to what was happening. They determined that there was a guy
coming over from Egypt, a foreign national, named Aly Marie. Mr. Marie,
age 70 years old, who was traveling to the airport and had all of this
illegal food, contraband, was foiled by Freddie's excellent detective
work. This frustrated Mr. Marie guy kicked Freddie. He kicked him so
hard that the poor dog became airborne and had bruised ribs.
Now, if you are a major dog person and believe in animal protection,
like me, you say to yourself: You have to be kidding me. That should be
illegal. Kick that guy out of the country immediately. Don't let him
in.
Guess what. That is exactly what happened. He was arrested
immediately. He was charged immediately. He was held by the
authorities. He was charged with one count of harming animals used in
law enforcement under 18 U.S.C. 1368. He was convicted in a trial on
his second day in America. He was held overnight, arrested, charged,
convicted the next day, and then removed. He was sentenced to time
served. He was ordered to pay for the veterinarian bill for Freddie's
bruised ribs, which the court records show is $840, and he was promptly
deported right back to Egypt after the court hearing on day three.
I am happy to report that, according to the CBP, Freddie is doing
fine today. The law worked.
Imagine if Alex Pretti and imagine if Renee Good had that kind of
criminal law enforcement and justice. What if their killers had been
apprehended, arrested, charged, and convicted in 3 days? That would be
a great thing, but no. What do we hear from Pam Bondi? What do we hear
from Kristi Noem, the now-deposed former Secretary of Homeland
Security? It is under investigation. The whole world saw it right on
video. It is under investigation. Nothing is happening there.
Freddie got justice. We have a system that actually works there. Mr.
[[Page H2602]]
Marie served 3 days in jail. His food was confiscated, taken away, and
he was deported from the country. Why? Because assaulting a dog like
that is a crime of moral turpitude. Under the Federal laws, a crime of
moral turpitude like that gets you kicked out of the country. It all
worked.
They have nothing else to talk about, so they want to double down and
pass redundant legislation to say that somebody who does this should be
deported, which is already what happened in this case. The opportunity
to propose a redundant, unnecessary, superfluous bill to score
meaningless political points, when the rest of the world is talking
about war and inflation caused by this President, proved impossible to
resist for our colleagues.
H.R. 4638 would render inadmissible and deportable any noncitizen who
willfully or maliciously harms a police dog or a police horse, as
current law already requires.
There is one change. It removes the requirement that immigrants to
the country, whether travelers like the doggone Mr. Marie or a green
card holder, it removes the requirement that a noncitizen actually be
convicted of a crime. It is enough that you be charged with it or they
say you admitted it, or whatever, but the conviction requirement is
removed.
Now, that has been a trend for our colleagues in this session. They
have been taking things that are already crimes and saying: Let's make
that a matter of deporting and removing someone. Well, they already can
be deported and removed, yes, but now they want to excise the
conviction requirement to do it without complete due process. Why would
they do this?
Thomas Jefferson said at the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts that
there will be a temptation to go after the immigrants. He said that
when you water down constitutional requirements as they apply to
noncitizens, that is going to come to affect the citizens, too--a
bitter lesson learned by the families of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
In other words, if you train the ICE agents that they can do whatever
they want, that they are beyond the law, that they can put on masks,
bust down people's doors, and enter without a Fourth Amendment search
warrant issued by a neutral magistrate, if they can do that kind of
thing, if they can abuse people as we have seen all over the internet,
if they can rough up people, what difference does it make really if
they are immigrants or if they are citizens if they are beyond the law?
Now, we have dead Americans at the hands of our own Federal agents,
with nobody charged, nobody arrested, and nobody being prosecuted.
They want to just get rid of the conviction requirement before people
are deported. They can already be deported once they are convicted, but
they want to get rid of the conviction requirement.
This case illustrates how completely unnecessary the bill is. Harming
animals in law enforcement, or any form of animal cruelty, is already a
crime involving moral turpitude and has been for a long time. It is a
deportable offense, and everybody knows it. If it wasn't, Mr. Marie
would not have been deported 3 days after he kicked Freddie.
Bizarrely, because their bill doesn't require a conviction, if this
legislation had been in place and Mr. Marie had been deported on day
two instead of day three, and there had been no trial, he never would
have had to pay restitution. Think about that. Due process helps a lot
of people. It is not just for the benefit of that defendant who might
be innocent, as Mr. Marie was not, but it also benefits the victims
because the victims can win restitution and fines in this way.
They want to deport first and not have a trial. They just want to
eliminate due process. I don't understand it.
President Trump has had his experiences in the criminal justice
process, and he had every right guaranteed to people under due process:
the right to a lawyer, the right to be heard, the right to introduce
evidence, the right to cross-examine, the right to trial by a jury of
his peers. Even after going through all of that, there are still people
who say: That wasn't enough. It didn't really work for him. He didn't
really get due process. He wasn't really guilty of committing fraud.
{time} 0930
If that is the case for someone who had every conceivable benefit of
due process, what about somebody now who gets no due process at all and
no trial? That is what they are suggesting. I don't understand why,
really, other than the possibility of just introducing an unnecessary,
redundant bill and giving them something to talk about when they don't
want to talk about what is really going on in the world, what is really
going on in America, with gas prices soaring out of control, people
unable to pay for their healthcare, and people unable to afford
groceries. They don't want to talk about any of that. They want to talk
about Freddie.
Well, there is a lot of meaningful animal protection work we can do
together, and those of us in the Animal Protection Caucus would be very
happy to meet with the gentleman from California about all of the
things we can do to really help animals in America. But right now,
Freddie is doing fine. That case worked out fine. This bill is
unnecessary.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I can't blame the ranking member for wanting to talk about everything
except the bill before us.
I would simply remind him that this House has repeatedly voted to
fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. Every Republican in
this House voted to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. It
was the Democrats who have consistently opposed these bills and are
holding them hostage in the United States Senate.
Why? Because they want us to stop enforcing our immigration laws, the
laws that Congress itself enacted. If they don't like these laws, they
should work to change them. They are serving in the very institution
that writes these laws. Instead, they block funding for the Department
of Homeland Security at a particularly vulnerable time in our Nation's
history, and they attack the officials who are valiantly working to
enforce those laws to keep us safe.
We have one Democratic Member of this House who is being prosecuted
for assaulting an ICE officer, another deliberately doxed an ICE
officer to a violent mob which then attacked that officer and sent him
to the hospital. It shouldn't surprise us that they would oppose this
bill to protect law enforcement animals. As the President observed a
few weeks ago, these people really are crazy.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from California (Mr. Calvert), the author of this bill.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R.
4638, the Federal Working Animal Protection Act. This legislation was
inspired by a member of Customs and Border Protection's Beagle Brigade
named Freddie.
This is a picture of Freddie right here.
Freddie is a 5-year-old agricultural inspection beagle who works for
Customs and Border Protection. His job, along with other members of the
Beagle Brigade, is to prevent the importation of illegal agricultural
products in the United States, imported foods and other products that
pose a significant risk to both American farmers and the American food
supply at large.
Last summer, during a routine inspection at Dulles International
Airport, Freddie alerted his handler to suspicious luggage belonging to
an Egyptian national at which point he was violently kicked and flung
into the air by the man. Fortunately, Freddie has made, as was pointed
out, a full recovery and is back on duty.
With increased attacks on law enforcement, it is vital that our
working animals receive the protections that they deserve.
For that reason, I introduced the Federal Working Animal Protection
Act. This legislation would make the assault of any Federal working
animal by a non-U.S. citizen a deportable offense.
The Federal Government employs a wide range of working animals--a lot
of people don't know that--not just dogs but including horses and even
dolphins. All of these animals work to protect us from threats both at
home
[[Page H2603]]
and abroad, and they should be given protection while they are
performing their duties to keep us all safe.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot let this heinous act go unanswered. If you are
a foreign national in our country and you hurt a Federal working
animal, under this new law, you will be immediately deported.
I thank the chairman, Chairman Jordan, my friend Chairman McClintock,
and the House Judiciary Committee staff for helping to bring this
legislation to the House floor. I urge all my colleagues to approve
this bill.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
We want the immigration laws enforced. We also want the Constitution
of the United States to be enforced. They think somehow it has been
suspended, and the President of the United States can do whatever he
wants.
We are trying to stand up for the rule of law in America and for our
Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington
(Ms. Jayapal).
Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, we also want to make sure that the work
that we do in this body reflects the priorities of the American people.
Once again, this bill is nothing but an attempt to distract the
American people from Republicans' failure to lower prices.
This morning I went online and I looked at what gas prices are in my
home State of Washington. They are over $6 for diesel and over $5 for
regular unleaded. That is an increase of almost a buck just in the last
couple of weeks.
I know what my constituents care about. It is the fact that they
can't afford their gas. Childcare right now is around $21,000 per child
in the State of Washington. Healthcare premiums have gone crazy since
Republicans have refused to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
What people are facing is a complete destruction of their ability to
live decent lives.
Are we addressing any of that here?
At a townhall last week, I had a constituent stand up and tell me
that he was a war veteran from the Afghanistan war. He was a sergeant
in the United States Marines. He said he spent his entire life fighting
in these forever wars. He doesn't want another one.
But we are not talking about any of that here. We are not even making
sure that the President does what he is supposed to do and comes to
Congress for authorization for this war.
In fact, we just heard that the Pentagon is putting forward a request
for $200 billion more for this war. How on earth are we going to pay
for that? It is absolutely ridiculous.
So I think that this is all about trying to go back to the old
playbook of trying to vilify immigrants and trying to make people blame
immigrants for everything that is wrong with their lives.
The reality is, instead of figuring out how we can stop immigration
agents from murdering U.S. citizens on the street or arresting and
imprisoning children, we are back to Republicans' favorite type of
bill: Find a crime, blame an immigrant, make people deportable and
inadmissible without requiring a conviction, deny them basic due
process, rinse, and repeat.
By the way, for people who are listening, who are upset about the
mass deportations that the Republicans do not want to talk about here
because they are incredibly unpopular, this is the pipeline to those
mass detentions and mass deportations. This is the way that DHS, a
lawless ICE and CBP are able to just go out and pick up anybody and
continue to detain and deport people, including U.S. citizens.
This one that is on the floor today is a new one, even for us. It is
moving into the arena of harming animals.
Now, I am speaking as someone who has long been a champion of animal
welfare. I have supported bills that protect animals and prevent
inhumane treatment of them.
My dog, Otis, has been a loved and loving member of our family for 14
years. He is an incredibly resilient guy. Some of my constituents
recognize him more than my spouse because he goes everywhere with us.
I take violence against animals seriously, and so do our immigration
laws. The crime referenced in this bill requires someone to willfully
and maliciously harm a dog or a horse. This is already a crime
involving moral turpitude, which can render someone deportable or
inadmissible from the country.
In 2018, the Board of Immigration Appeals made clear that the crime
of animal fighting is a crime involving moral turpitude, and that is
because there is a clear intent to harm the animal.
In addition to the binding precedent set by the Board of Immigration
Appeals, the 9th and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals also found that
animal cruelty is a crime involving moral turpitude. This issue is
already well covered under our immigration laws, and this bill is, once
again, largely unnecessary.
If Republicans are concerned about cruelty to animals, why not look
at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who shot and killed her 14-
month-old dog, Cricket.
Unfortunately, this bill goes too far in eroding due process rights.
Under current law, a person does not need to be convicted of a crime to
be inadmissible. However, under most circumstances, you do need a
conviction to be deportable.
{time} 0940
Once again, as they have with so many other bills, my Republican
colleagues do not require someone to be convicted of this crime to be
deportable from the country. That means that a green card holder who
has lived here for decades could be deported.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from Washington.
Ms. JAYAPAL. That means that a green card holder who has lived here
for decades could be deported from the country without even being
convicted of a crime.
This bill was written in response to an incident where a 70-year-old
man kicked a Customs and Border Protection agriculture detector dog at
Dulles Airport. The incident was horrible, and no dog should ever be
kicked or harmed. However, that man was tried and convicted in Federal
Court before he was removed from the country underscoring how
unnecessary this law is.
It has never been more important for people to have their day in
court. Look at what is happening across the country, Mr. Speaker, as
Federal immigration authorities terrorize American communities. We have
seen residential communities tear-gassed without a care for the young
children who have been affected. We have seen a teacher with work
authorization arrested at the daycare where she works, inflicting
irreversible harm on the little kids whom she cares for.
We have seen U.S. citizens brutalized and even killed by ICE and
Border Patrol most recently in Minnesota. We have seen, again and
again, how ICE has accused people of assaulting them only to find out
that it was a lie.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has again
expired.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the
gentlewoman from Washington.
Ms. JAYAPAL. The Wall Street Journal just released an investigation
finding that most accusations against U.S. citizens for attacking
immigration agents were unsubstantiated. The right to being innocent
until proven guilty should be something that every single one of us in
this Chamber can agree to. It is a bedrock principle of fairness, of
due process, and of the rule of law.
Republicans gave ICE tens of billions of dollars to continue the
lawless assault on the American public. Republicans own this mess, but
it is up to all of us to fix it. Republicans want to pass absurd
legislation like this one that only makes the system worse, not better.
Mr. Speaker, oppose this bill.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I don't want to stray too far from the topic, but I have
to remind the gentlewoman that inflation peaked at over 9 percent under
the Biden administration, specifically because of the massive spending
bills that the gentlewoman supported.
Every dollar that you held the day that Joe Biden took office, Mr.
Speaker, was worth just 79 cents the day he
[[Page H2604]]
left office 4 years later. This administration is bringing inflation
down, and real working wages are rising once again.
Now the Democrats have told us: Don't worry, this is already covered
by the catchall ground for moral turpitude.
However, moral turpitude is in the eye of the beholder. It often
requires years of lengthy litigation.
The whole purpose of this bill is to take those years of litigation,
delays, and appeals and make a simple and clear statement to every
guest in our country: If you are convicted of or you admit to harming a
law enforcement officer, you are out of here, and you are not coming
back. The act itself is defined as disqualifying for entering or
staying in our country. You still have to be convicted of that act or
admit to that act, so you either have your day in court with all the
due process rights, or you waive those rights by admitting to the act.
However, once you have done so, there is no further room for
interpretation or delay.
What is so hard for the Democrats to admit that a person shouldn't
kick a dog and expect to remain a guest in this country?
Democrats also tell us that this bill would require a conviction for
harming an animal before the provisions of this law can take effect.
Listen carefully, Mr. Speaker. The bill does either require a
conviction or an admission of guilt. It is the admission that is
something that the Democrats just accept.
Let me put it to them as plainly as I can: An admission of guilt is
an admission of guilt. This isn't something just blurted out in their
sleep. There are already many offenses that fall under the same
process, and the standards are rigorous.
The alien's admission has to be explicit, unequivocal, and
unqualified. The immigration judge has to find that the admission fits
within the relevant statutes and that the admission is based on
reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence.
Nothing in this bill denies the alien due process. They can either go
to trial or they can waive their right to due process by admitting
guilt.
The Democrats clearly aren't interested in due process. They are
interested in gumming up the process so that aliens can remain in this
country even after such a patently reprehensible act as kicking a 5-
year-old beagle that is assisting law enforcement.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am baffled and amazed that the gentleman
would bring up the economy under President Biden. A month before the
Presidential election in 2024, The Economist magazine had a cover story
titled: ``The envy of the world. The American economy has left other
rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue, argue Simon
Rabinovitch and Henry Curr.''
That was what President Biden left to Donald Trump when he took over,
an economy that was the envy of the world, inflation down, unemployment
down, small business sector roaring, the economy roaring, opportunity
for young people. Donald Trump has taken an economy that left other
rich countries in the dust, and he has covered us in mud and dirt. He
has put us in the dust.
Now gas prices are up 25 percent in 2 weeks. I don't need to refute
all this propaganda and disinformation. People go to the gas station
and it refutes all the propaganda and disinformation that we are
hearing from them.
They are better off sticking to the BOWOW Act.
Under President Biden, we passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a
$1.2 trillion investment in America, in our bridges, our roads, our
highways, our ports and our airports, not blowing up stuff in other
peoples' countries, precisely what Donald Trump had promised he
wouldn't do.
That is where our money is going now, draining the U.S. economy by $1
to $2 billion every day. They are spending that on an undeclared,
unauthorized war, and our colleagues would not even want to have one
honest debate and one honest vote in Congress on whether or not to
declare war on Iran. They won't utter a peep about it today or
yesterday or tomorrow. They won't say anything about it, nothing, but
they let President Trump have their way with them.
Now the gentleman somehow accuses us of not being interested in
animal rights and animal welfare. I am sorry, I usually don't go
running to rightwing MAGA forces for the protection of animals against
animal cruelty and the industrial slaughterhouses and so on. They don't
show so much interest in that, but now in Freddie's case because there
was an immigrant traveler involved, they want to pass a law which is an
exact echo of what the law is. The gentleman has not explained to us
why we need to pass a law when Freddie's kicker was arrested, jailed,
charged, prosecuted, convicted, and sent back to Egypt all within 3
days. He never saw anything outside of a jail cell in the United States
of America, and yet they tell us we need, essentially, to go back and
pass the law that mimics what the law is today, except now they want to
sneak in a provision saying that we are going to remove the necessity
of a conviction.
Why wouldn't it have been better to deport Mr. Marie on day two
before he was fined $800 or $900 for Freddie's veterinarian bill?
Why would that have been better?
The gentleman hasn't explained. That is the only substantive change I
can imagine coming from the BOWOW bill because the bowwows are already
protected as we saw in this case. I wish he could summon up for the GOP
caucus the same kind of fervor, passion, and commitment they are now
demonstrating for animal rights and welfare, summon that up for human
rights and human welfare, for people like Alex Pretti and Renee Good,
who were shot down by out-of-control ICE agents in Minneapolis, and
then ICE and Homeland Security say that they will not cooperate with
local police authorities in Minneapolis and State police in Minnesota.
Why not?
All of a sudden they care just about dogs. They want to rewrite a law
that already exists that already protects dogs, as we saw in this case,
and not explain why they want to do it. It is an absolute diversion. It
is an absolute distraction for the country.
{time} 0950
They can't talk about gas prices. They can't talk about inflation.
Remember, President Trump said he was going to bring down prices on day
one. He hasn't done one thing to bring down prices. Now, they are
soaring out of control throughout the entire economy because of his
illegal, unauthorized war that is splitting even their own base.
It is the most unpopular war at the beginning that we have seen,
maybe in American history, certainly in this century, because nobody
explained why they were doing it. That is why the Founders said it has
to be Congress that decides whether we go to war.
James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Tom Payne, the
whole founding generation knew that the Kings were always plunging
their countries into impetuous wars of conceit, vanity, imperial
ambition, foreign intrigue, and corruption. They didn't trust one guy
with that decision; they put that decision in us. They reposed it in
us, whether or not we wanted it.
They are running away from it. They don't want to make a decision
about this war, which Donald Trump now calls the ``little excursion,''
the little excursion in Iran, the little excursion that has already
taken the lives of 13 U.S. citizens in uniform, wounded more than 200
Americans, and killed more than a thousand Iranians, including 170
schoolchildren who got bombed in this reckless, impetuous war.
They don't want to talk about that. It is the BOWOW Act, but they
have not made one good argument about why we need to add a redundant,
superfluous law in this way.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, nothing in this bill prevents a miscreant from being
convicted and punished for their actions. What it does is simply
removes the years of delay that can prevent the deportation of an alien
after they have been fined or incarcerated if they are charged.
Under Democratic sanctuary laws, I would remind us, the criminal
aliens
[[Page H2605]]
who are incarcerated, instead of being turned over to ICE for
deportation, are released back on our streets. That is the whole point
of these sanctuary laws.
Mr. Speaker, it shocked the country when not a single Democrat would
rise on the floor to affirm that the first duty of the Federal
Government is to protect American citizens and not illegal aliens.
It mystified us when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor to
acknowledge families devastated by heinous crimes committed by illegal
aliens.
It shocked us when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor even
to honor our war heroes or the U.S. hockey team.
It should astonish us that the Democrats could oppose a simple bill
that says if a guest in our country harms a law enforcement animal,
like a 5-year-old beagle or a horse, they are no longer welcome here
and need to leave.
On reflection, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the Democrats are
strangely tolerant of protesters kicking, punching, and attacking ICE
officers as they enforce the very laws that Congress has enacted.
So, what is an injured dog to them as long as the perpetrator is a
foreign national? What is an injured dog to them as long as they are
injured enforcing laws that the Democrats don't like?
This isn't just about Freddie the beagle. It is about whether we will
tolerate violent predators imported into our country. If they will kick
a dog in the presence of a law enforcement officer, you can be sure
they will do far worse when that law enforcement officer isn't present
or the victim is a defenseless girl on a subway.
Do we want such people in our country? The Democrats do; the
Republicans don't. A time for choosing is approaching. Until then, we
will have this vote, which should be revealing as Americans consider
their future.
Mr. Speaker, I include the CBO cost estimate for this bill in the
Record.
H.R. 4638, BILL TO OUTLAW WOUNDING OF OFFICIAL WORKING ANIMALS ACT OF
2025 AS REPORTED BY THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY ON DECEMBER 12,
2025
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By fiscal year, millions of
dollars--
-----------------------------------
2026 2026-2030 2026-2035
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Direct Spending (Outlays)........... * * *
Revenues............................ * * *
Increase or Decrease (-) in the * * *
Deficit............................
Spending Subject to Appropriation * * *
(Outlays)..........................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* = between -$500,000 and $500,000.
Increases net direct spending in any of the four
consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2036? No.
Increases on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive
10-year periods beginning in 2036? No.
Statutory pay-as-you-go procedures apply? Yes.
Mandate Effects:
Contains intergovernmental mandate? No.
Contains private-sector mandate? No.
H.R. 4638 would make an alien (a non-U.S. national)
inadmissible to or deportable from the United States if that
person admits to or is convicted of harming animals used in
law enforcement.
Under current law, harming animals used in law enforcement
can be deemed to be a crime involving moral turpitude; the
admission of or conviction for such a crime makes an alien
inadmissible or, in certain cases, deportable. Therefore, CBO
expects that only a few people would be removed from the
United States based solely on enacting this bill. Because
some of those aliens might he eligible for federal benefits--
some of which are provided through income tax credits--CBO
estimates that enacting the bill would decrease direct
spending and increase revenues by an insignificant amount
over the 2026-2035 period.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is David Rafferty.
The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy
Director of Budget Analysis.
Phillip L. Swagel,
Director, Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Weber of Texas). All time for debate has
expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 1115, the previous question is ordered
on the bill.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was
read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228,
nays 190, not voting 14, as follows:
[Roll No. 96]
YEAS--228
Aderholt
Alford
Allen
Amodei (NV)
Arrington
Babin
Bacon
Baird
Balderson
Barr
Barrett
Baumgartner
Bean (FL)
Begich
Bentz
Bergman
Bice
Biggs (AZ)
Biggs (SC)
Bilirakis
Boebert
Bost
Brecheen
Bresnahan
Buchanan
Burchett
Burlison
Calvert
Cammack
Carey
Carter (GA)
Carter (TX)
Ciscomani
Cline
Cloud
Clyde
Cole
Collins
Comer
Crane
Crank
Crawford
Crenshaw
Cuellar
Davids (KS)
Davidson
Davis (NC)
De La Cruz
DesJarlais
Diaz-Balart
Donalds
Downing
Dunn (FL)
Edwards
Ellzey
Emmer
Estes
Evans (CO)
Ezell
Fallon
Fedorchak
Feenstra
Fine
Finstad
Fischbach
Fitzgerald
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Flood
Fong
Foxx
Franklin, Scott
Fry
Fulcher
Garamendi
Garbarino
Gill (TX)
Gimenez
Golden (ME)
Goldman (TX)
Gonzalez, V.
Gooden
Gosar
Gottheimer
Graves
Gray
Griffith
Grothman
Guest
Guthrie
Hageman
Hamadeh (AZ)
Haridopolos
Harrigan
Harris (MD)
Harris (NC)
Harshbarger
Hern (OK)
Higgins (LA)
Hill (AR)
Hinson
Houchin
Houlahan
Hudson
Huizenga
Hunt
Hurd (CO)
Issa
Jack
Jackson (TX)
James
Johnson (LA)
Johnson (SD)
Jordan
Joyce (OH)
Joyce (PA)
Kelly (MS)
Kelly (PA)
Kennedy (UT)
Kiggans (VA)
Kiley (CA)
Kim
Knott
Kustoff
LaHood
LaLota
Landsman
Langworthy
Latta
Lawler
Lee (FL)
Letlow
Loudermilk
Lucas
Luttrell
Mackenzie
Malliotakis
Maloy
Mann
Massie
Mast
McCaul
McClain
McClintock
McCormick
McDowell
McGuire
Messmer
Meuser
Miller (IL)
Miller (OH)
Miller (WV)
Miller-Meeks
Mills
Moolenaar
Moore (AL)
Moore (NC)
Moore (UT)
Moore (WV)
Moran
Nehls
Newhouse
Norman
Nunn (IA)
Obernolte
Ogles
Onder
Owens
Palmer
Patronis
Perez
Perry
Pfluger
Reschenthaler
Riley (NY)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rose
Rouzer
Roy
Rulli
Rutherford
Salazar
Scalise
Schmidt
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Self
Sessions
Shreve
Simpson
Smith (MO)
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smucker
Sorensen
Spartz
Stauber
Stefanik
Steil
Steube
Strong
Stutzman
Suozzi
Taylor
Tenney
Thompson (PA)
Tiffany
Timmons
Turner (OH)
Valadao
Van Drew
Van Duyne
Van Epps
Van Orden
Vindman
Wagner
Walberg
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Westerman
Wied
Williams (TX)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Womack
Yakym
Zinke
NAYS--190
Adams
Aguilar
Amo
Ansari
Balint
Barragan
Beatty
Bell
Bera
Beyer
Bishop
Bonamici
Boyle (PA)
Brown
Brownley
Budzinski
Bynum
Carbajal
Carson
Carter (LA)
Casar
Case
Casten
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Cherfilus-McCormick
Chu
Cisneros
Clark (MA)
Clarke (NY)
Cleaver
Clyburn
Cohen
Conaway
Correa
Costa
Courtney
Craig
Crockett
Crow
Davis (IL)
Dean (PA)
DeGette
DeLauro
DelBene
Deluzio
DeSaulnier
Dexter
Dingell
Doggett
Elfreth
Escobar
Espaillat
Evans (PA)
Fields
Figures
Fletcher
Foster
Foushee
Frankel, Lois
Friedman
Frost
Garcia (CA)
Garcia (IL)
Garcia (TX)
Gillen
Goldman (NY)
Gomez
Goodlander
Green, Al (TX)
Grijalva
Harder (CA)
Hayes
Himes
Hoyer
Hoyle (OR)
Huffman
Ivey
Jackson (IL)
Jacobs
Jayapal
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (TX)
Kamlager-Dove
Kaptur
Kennedy (NY)
Khanna
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latimer
Lee (NV)
Lee (PA)
Leger Fernandez
Levin
Liccardo
Lieu
Lofgren
Lynch
Magaziner
Mannion
Matsui
McBath
McBride
McClain Delaney
McClellan
McCollum
McDonald Rivet
McGarvey
McGovern
McIver
Meeks
Menefee
Menendez
Meng
Mfume
Min
Moore (WI)
Morelle
Morrison
Mrvan
Mullin
Nadler
Neal
Neguse
Norcross
Ocasio-Cortez
Olszewski
Omar
Pallone
Panetta
Pappas
Pelosi
Peters
Pettersen
Pingree
Pocan
Pou
Pressley
Quigley
Ramirez
Randall
Raskin
Rivas
Ross
Ruiz
Ryan
Salinas
Sanchez
Scanlon
Schakowsky
Schneider
Scholten
Schrier
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Sewell
Sherman
Simon
Smith (WA)
Soto
[[Page H2606]]
Stansbury
Stanton
Stevens
Strickland
Subramanyam
Sykes
Takano
Thanedar
Thompson (CA)
Titus
Tlaib
Tokuda
Tonko
Torres (CA)
Torres (NY)
Trahan
Tran
Underwood
Vargas
Vasquez
Veasey
Velazquez
Walkinshaw
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watson Coleman
Whitesides
Williams (GA)
Wilson (FL)
NOT VOTING--14
Auchincloss
Gonzales, Tony
Horsford
Kean
Keating
Kelly (IL)
Krishnamoorthi
Luna
Mace
Moskowitz
Moulton
Murphy
Swalwell
Thompson (MS)
{time} 1030
Mr. VEASEY changed his from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Ms. HOULAHAN changed her vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________