▶ 0:24:43Committee will come to order without Chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Pursuant to committee rule two, House Rule 11, clause two. Chair may postpone further proceedings today on the question of approving any measure or matter or adopting an amendment which is [clears throat] whichever quarter vote is is ordered. I now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr.
▶ 0:25:06Ander to lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
▶ 0:25:28Thank the gentlemen. Uh, first order of business today is adopting an updated subcommittee roster. This roster was distributed to members yesterday. It updates the subcommittee assignments of a few of our Democrat colleagues. Is there any discussion before we vote on approving the roster? Maybe I would ask, does the ranking member have anything to say about the roster? I think we're
▶ 0:25:46uh Yes. Let's see. Uh Summer's not here right now. Um but she's been added to the committee. I'm not sure if we had a moment to welcome her yet, Mr. Chairman. We can do that later. [music] And um
▶ 0:25:58she arrives. We can do that.
▶ 0:25:59Yeah. And um let's see. Do is are we going to do the subcommittees now or No,
▶ 0:26:06we update the subcommittee roster. That's next. The question is on approving the updated sub gentleman yields back. The question is on approving the subcommittee updated subcommittee roster. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, no. The eyes have it and the subcommittee roster is approved. Pursuant to notice, I call up the permanent Trump secure border act for purposes of markup and move that the committee report it favor to the House. The clerk will report the bill.
▶ 0:26:31HR 97. Without
▶ 0:26:32objection, the bill will be considered as read and open for amendment at any point. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy, for an opening statement.
▶ 0:26:39Well, Mr. Chairman, I have an ANS.
▶ 0:26:42No, you do. Go ahead and
▶ 0:26:44statement. Yeah.
▶ 0:26:48Well, I thank the chairman. I keep asking my colleagues, what's it going to take? What's it going to take before we work together to make sure the border remains secure no matter the occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? When I started working as a staffer in the United States Senate shortly after September 11th and a group of visa overstayers murdered nearly 3,000 Americans, I thought surely Republicans and Democrats could agree that we should close the loopholes that allowed 19 foreign terrorists to gain our immigration system.
▶ 0:27:18But the Democrats were only interested in amnesty. The loopholes remained during then President Obama's administration. I want you to hear this. Under President Obama's administration, after surges of unaccompanied alien children and families crossed our southwest border illegally, the president along with then Secretary Jay Johnson asked Congress to close certain loopholes that allowed those surges.
▶ 0:27:42Democrat president House Republicans passed a fix, but Democrats in Congress wouldn't come to the table to do what the president of their party had requested. The loopholes remained. When President Trump called for additional legislative tools to help secure the border during his first administration, our Democratic colleagues refused to work with us to help the president. The loopholes remained.
▶ 0:28:05And even after the Biden Harris administration unleashed the largest mass illegal immigration in United States history, our Democratic colleagues refused to fix the statutory loopholes that they were abusing to allow and incentivize that mass illegal immigration to occur that resulted in the deaths and destruction of thousands of American people and the flow of fentanel into our communities.
▶ 0:28:32Tens of millions of illegal aliens later, after thousands of Americans were murdered or otherwise violently victimized by illegal alien border crossers, the loopholes still remained. Three years ago, this committee mobilized to pass the critical border security components in HR2, the Secure the Border Act, leading to its passage on the House floor, bringing different corners of the Republican conference together to codify common sense border security. We did it then, and we can do it today.
▶ 0:29:02Our nation's future depends on it. I suspect that today my Democrat colleagues will once again refuse to support common sense statutory changes to secure the United States border. And again, I want to clarify statutory changes that is to make permanent changes irrespective of who occupies the White House. But my GOP colleagues cannot lose focus.
▶ 0:29:27We must ensure that border security is not a byproduct of whoever is elected to the presidency. President Trump has succeeded where none other has even tried. He's done so using nearly every available statute and administrative authority. He has done so despite constant rhetoric from open borders advocates, including my Democratic colleagues in Congress. He's done so because that's what he promised the American voters he would do. But the president only has so many tools at his disposal.
▶ 0:29:55And the statutory loopholes that were present decades ago and during the Biden administration remain today. Meaning that when President Trump's administration's actions to secure the border go away, the border could once again be abused. Today, we consider the Permanent Trump Secure Border Act, which closes statutory loopholes that allow the Biden Harris administration to flood our country with millions of illegal aliens.
▶ 0:30:21Title One enshrines statutoily the changes that the Trump administration made to asylum law and policy by regulation and other executive action. The changes include additional criminal bars to asylum, a requirement that the alien claim fear at a port of entry, an increase of the credible fear standard to deter frivolous claims, and reigning in immigration and federal courts abuse of asylum grounds like quote particular social group end quote.
▶ 0:30:48Title two clarifies in statute [clears throat] that the DHS secretary must remove or detain illegal aliens who arrive at the border or place them into a remain in Mexico type program. There would be no other options. The aliens cannot be parrolled or otherwise released into the United States unless an immigration court grants the aliens asylum claim or other immigration benefit claim.
▶ 0:31:13If an administration refuses to follow the law, state attorneys general have standing to sue under these provisions. Title two also allows the DHS secretary to suspend the entry of aliens at the border to gain operational control. Title three helps end mass unaccompanied alien children migration.
▶ 0:31:31It requires that current law regarding unaccompanied alien children from Mexico and Canada be applied to children from other This means that UAC's from non-ontiguous countries will be screened for trafficking or a fear of return and if none is found will be sent home and reunited with their family in their home country. Title 3 will help disincentivize parents to pay violent smuggling cartels to transport their children across the border and it will reduce the exploitation of UAC's once in the United States.
▶ 0:32:02Title 4 closes the so-called Flores settlement agreement. that loophole that has for many years prevented families who crossed the border illegally from being detained for the pendency of their immigration court proceedings. As many know, the number of real and fake family units illegally crossing the border skyrocketed over the last decade because these aliens knew they will be promptly released once they get to the United States.
▶ 0:32:26Title 5 puts visa overstay, currently a civil infraction, on par with illegal entry as a misdemeanor crime and increases penalties for overstay. I will remind people how I introduced this the statement that it was overstays that attacked the towers on 911. Finally, title six helps end the abuse of immigration parole.
▶ 0:32:48Over the years, administrations of both parties have abused statutory authority to allow classes and other large numbers of aliens not otherwise admissible to the United States to enter and remain in the country indefinitely. this despite the purpose of the provision to be case by case. The Biden Harris administration took such abuse to the extreme, creating several illegal categorical parole programs and prolling into the United States at least 2 million illegal aliens. Just want everybody to remember what was happening.
▶ 0:33:17You can build a wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and I support constructing barriers and support such a wall. But you can do that and if you open the doors wide open to the abuse of parole and asylum, then it does you no good. President Trump has rightly ended that practice.
▶ 0:33:36Title Six brings the use of immigration parole back to its intended purpose to allow a foreign national to enter the United States for an emergency purpose for a short period of time like a surgery or getting access some family member or something that's an emergent case-byase issue. Americans deserve an administration that is interested in securing the border. in January 25. They got that. They also deserve a Congress willing to do the hard work to ensure the next president can't unilaterally open that border. Kayla Hamilton's family deserves that.
▶ 0:34:07Lake and Riley's family deserves that. Jocelyn Nungare's family deserves that. Rachel Marin's family deserves that. Sheridan Gorman's family deserves that. And to that end, I urge my colleagues to support the permanent Trump secure border act. I yield back.
▶ 0:34:27Gentleman yields back. The ranking members recognized for an opening
▶ 0:34:31Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. So for the entire 119th Congress, which is now limping to an historically unproductive finish, we've been [clears throat] urging the majority to set aside the demonization of immigrants to pass comprehensive common sense immigration reform on a bipartisan basis.
▶ 0:34:53We should be able to agree that we need to make it a whole lot harder, as close to impossible as we can to enter or stay in the United States unlawfully and a whole lot easier for people to become Americans lawfully. After all, we've got crying labor shortages in nursing, construction, farming, seafood, landscaping, and the hotel and service sectors to name just a few. And [clears throat] after all, America is an immigrant society.
▶ 0:35:22All of us here, except for Native Americans and the descendants of people who were kidnapped and enslaved and brought to the country, all of us are descendants of immigrants in this country. Um, and yet that's not what's happening. We should be able to agree on these basic values. We should be able to legislate accordingly.
▶ 0:35:43We should be able to get the administration to stop poorly trained ICE officers from killing American citizens and immigrants in service of a lawless, authoritarian, and brutal clampdown on American communities. Two more people have been shot down in cold blood in one week on July the 7th and on July the 13th.
▶ 0:36:10But instead of engaging with us to map out a pathway to citizenship for dreamers, which the president promised to do a decade ago, instead of working with us to fortify the border, to expand the categories and numbers of lawful immigrants, instead of trying to get ICE to change their terrifying police state tactics, and just to focus on the worst of the worst as they promised, our colleagues are wasting the last few days of this Congress playing summer rerun anti-immigrant propaganda
▶ 0:36:40and ignoring the brutal and often lethal federal government assault on the rights of both Americans and immigrants. Masked immigration officers have shot and killed in broad daylight six human beings in the streets of America. Three of them American citizens exercising their first and their second amendment rights. Three of them immigrants posing no threat to anyone. and two of those not even the target of the operation by which they lost their lives.
▶ 0:37:09ICE killings are like having the death penalty in your state without a crime, without an arrest, without a prosecution, without trial, without conviction, without sentencing, without any judicial due process.
▶ 0:37:25just the sudden violent death of mothers and fathers in states that don't even have the death penalty, like Maine and Minnesota, administered by poorly trained and hastily recruited, unqualified agents, courtesy of billions of dollars provided by the taxpayers via the permanent Trump Republican caucus.
▶ 0:37:49Is there no one left in Donald Trump's party who will speak up for the rights of the American people against a federal government killing spree under the pretext of immigration raids? DHS agents have teargassed babies and shot pepper balls at pastors and members of Congress.
▶ 0:38:09They've packed tens of thousands of immigrants into mismanaged and dangerous for-profit detention centers whose corporate owners are plundering the taxpayers for billions of dollars while overseeing the deaths of a record 53 people in their custody. ISIS separated families, stolen breastfeeding mothers away from their infants, and caused the death of a three-year-old boy and the sexual abuse of a three-year-old girl.
▶ 0:38:39Our refugee system was once a proud, robust, well-vetted program that helped desperate people fleeing tyrants and dictators all over the world. Now, it's a closed whites only presidential perk operation catering to Elon Musk's fellow Africconers and white South Africans.
▶ 0:39:00To be fair, Trump has also issued an emergency visa to a corrupt right-wing Polish minister, evading justice while categorically barring anyone from 40% of the countries in the world from even applying for a visa to flee oppression. President Trump today has among the lowest polling numbers of any president in the history since polling began.
▶ 0:39:23Immigration used to be his strongest issue, but after the lawlessness, cruelty, and corruption we've seen, it's now one of his worst issues. Opposed to Ipso's poll from last week found that nearly 60% of Americans disapprove of the way he's handling immigration in our country. And yet, here we are again today, rejecting oversight to curtail this reign of terror or the prospect of any reforms to repair our broken immigration system.
▶ 0:39:50The majority brings us another partisan red meat enforcementonly bill to make Trump's policies permanent. Congress has pumped an extraordinary $240 billion dollar into immigration enforcement. And yet this committee has done no oversight of ICE and no oversight of the CBP.
▶ 0:40:09Republicans have not brought in a single official from either ICE or CBP or from Geo Group or Core Civic, the private prison companies that are collecting billions of dollars from our constituents every year to operate these facilities.
▶ 0:40:22The only DH official official who's appeared before this committee was former Secretary Christine Gnome, who refused to apologize for defaming Renee Good, a mother of three, and Alex Prey, a VA nurse, as quote domestic terrorists, and failed to provide any explanation for her spending of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds to buy luxury jets in lavish personal PR campaigns with pictures of her on horseback at Mount Rushmore. more.
▶ 0:40:52She was fired within 24 hours of appearing before this committee because she actually had to take questions and one saw the inevitable departure of Ms. Gnome. Why are our Republican colleagues abdicating responsibility to oversee and re in the continuing corruption and lawlessness at ICE and CBP? ICE has recruited domestic abusers who go out and kill people.
▶ 0:41:19In shooting after shooting, we're told there's no bodywn camera footage, either because they lack the funding to provide them to their agents or because the agents who have them can't turn them on because ICE has not paid for the subscription required for the cameras to work. All despite having an unprecedented $240 billion dollar of taxpayer money. Why do our colleagues have nothing to say about the waste, fraud, and abuse that we're seeing throughout that system?
▶ 0:41:46The majority wants to give the mega ICE bureaucracy even more power to make this cruelty machine permanent. The bill for before today would take the asyl asylum system already decimated by Trump and then permanently destroy it. It removes protections for unaccompanied children and opens the door to sending them to war torn countries, traffickers, and abusers. It would allow for the indefinite detention of children and the evisceration of long-standing safeguards for children.
▶ 0:42:13America's had enough of the violence and bloodshed and lawlessness. It's time to stop these lawless tactics in the streets of America. I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas to offer an amendment in nature of a substitute.
▶ 0:42:31Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the
▶ 0:42:33Clerk report
▶ 0:42:34amendment in the nature of
▶ 0:42:36objection. The amendment in the nature of a substitute will be considered as read and shall be considered as base text for the purpose of the amendment. The chair is now uh the gentleman from Texas is now recognized.
▶ 0:42:44This amendment makes technical changes to the bill to clarify that state attorneys general have standing to sue an administration for non-compliance with parts of title two of the bill and to provide an effective date for title three. I yield back.
▶ 0:42:56Gentleman yields back. Who seeks
▶ 0:43:00Gentle lady from Washington's Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last Recognized. Okay. Um, this bill is yet another example of how incredibly out of touch Republicans are with the views of the American public.
▶ 0:43:16This weekend, three more US service members were killed in Trump's most unpopular and illegal war on Iran, now making it 17 service members killed, even as gas prices continue to go back up, squeezing Americans everywhere. Despite all this, Republicans are moving forward with another $60 billion check for this war.
▶ 0:43:38This week, Trump has called affordability concerns a quote hoax and even refused to sign a once- in a generation housing bill that addresses the housing supply crisis we have across the country. And then there's immigration, the number one way that Republicans have tried to distract Americans from all of their problems, by criminalizing and blaming immigrants.
▶ 0:44:01Last year, Trump and Republicans handed ICE and CBP $140 billion, even as they stripped health care from tens of millions of Americans because apparently we couldn't afford it. Then a few weeks ago, they gave them another $70 billion dollar of taxpayer money to continue to unleash a rogue militia on the streets of America with loaded up arrest quotas of 2,000 people a day that have led to the killing of at least six people in ICE enforcement
▶ 0:44:32activities and 65,000 people every single day being incarcerated in for-profit detention facilities that cost US taxpayers billions of dollars and don't even meet basic required conditions of human decency. Now, just last week, ICE agents killed Lorenzo Salgado Ajo and Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Houston, Texas and Bifford, Maine. two fathers who left behind US citizen children families.
▶ 0:45:03A three-year-old in bluey pajamas watching what they did on the streets of America as they snatch people away in unmarked cars with agents that have no body cameras hiding behind mass. Just imagine the ICE agent who shot Mr. Guerrero has a record of domestic violence and threw his 13-year-old daughter through a glass coffee table.
▶ 0:45:29These are the people who are implementing government policies in our cities and towns. And on Friday, the outrage continued when an employee of Geo Group, who operates ISIS detention center in Aurora, Colorado, shot a 42year-old woman. Let's just play a short video of footage from just three of these ICE killings.
▶ 0:45:53Get out of the [ __ ] car.
▶ 0:45:55Get out of the car.
▶ 0:46:00[ __ ] [ __ ] in the face.
▶ 0:46:10What the [ __ ] [screaming] What? What? WHAT?
▶ 0:46:25Not a single bit of accountability for any of these. Imagine that they pulled a man who was shot multiple times out of the car and handcuffed him on the ground while his daughter was watching. Americans, including those who supported Donald Trump in the last election, are clear that this is not what they want. Polling across the country has shifted dramatically.
▶ 0:46:49And today, twothirds of Americans are rejecting this cruelty, this lack of accountability, and the outrageous actions of these lawless agencies. Is today's bill recognizing any of this, demanding accountability, putting a stop to ICE and CBP's actions? Quite the opposite.
▶ 0:47:09This bill is doubling down on cruelty and a massive sign of disrespect to families across the country, including the many US citizens and people of every immigration status who have been the targets of ICE and CBP. This bill eviscerates asylum, strips due process protections for unaccompanied kids, and allows for the indefinite detention of families and children.
▶ 0:47:34It is so extreme that it is not clear that it can even pass the House floor because there are some Republicans who oppose it themselves. Instead of demonizing immigrants, we should work together to reform an immigration system that has not been modernized in over 30 years because of Republican opposition. We should recognize the value of immigrants who keep our country going every single day.
▶ 0:48:00and we should demand accountability for an outofcrol ICE and CBP and stop unleashing cruelty on our communities across the country. I strongly oppose this bill and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield back.
▶ 0:48:14Gentle yields back.
▶ 0:48:17Mr. Chairman,
▶ 0:48:18gentleman from uh New York is recognized. [clears throat]
▶ 0:48:21Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word.
▶ 0:48:23Gentleman's recognized.
▶ 0:48:24Mr. Chairman, our nation was built by immigrants. For generations, we have welcomed people to our shores, whether they were fleeing violence, seeking a path out of economic despair, or simply hoping to start a new life. And our country is much richer for it, both economically and culturally. Our communities have benefited from their ingenuity, their hard work, and their vibrant culture, enriching our society and helping our economy flourish.
▶ 0:48:50If our tradition and history of welcoming immigrants to this country represents the very best of America, this bill and the Trump administration policies it seeks to bolster represent the very worst. This xenophobic and cruel legislation would essentially shut down our asylum system while stripping needed protections from vulnerable children and subjecting them to indefinite detention. It is a shameful abandonment of our fundamental values and ideals.
▶ 0:49:17Even worse, this bill completely fails to address the cascade of cruelty and chaos emanating from the White House, ICE, and CPB as they carry out the Trump administration's failed immigration policies. Over the last 13 months, Congress has showered immigration enforcement agencies with $240 billion with no guardrails attached.
▶ 0:49:38With this money, these agencies have assembled a massive force consisting of tens of thousands of agents who have flooded our streets to carry out Donald Trump's brutal and reckless mass deportation campaign. Rather than going after the worst of the worst, as the administration repeatedly claims, they're indiscriminately targeting anyone they suspect of being here unlawfully with the vast majority of people detained having no criminal record.
▶ 0:50:03In the process, they are engaging in racial profiling on a massive scale and using dangerous tactics that have already led to the deaths of multiple people, including three American citizens. And when tragedy does strike, the administration has employed a tried and trueue strategy. They smear the victims, calling them domestic terrorists or some other slander, and then they blatantly lie about the events, trying to tell us not to believe what we can see with our own eyes. It is straight out of the authoritarian playbook.
▶ 0:50:32Not only are we seeing unprecedented mayhem and destruction on our streets, but we are also witnessing the highest death rate in immigration detention facilities in decades. Despite the best efforts of this administration to deny access to these facilities facilities, a few months ago, I conducted an oversight visit to Delaney Hall, a privatelyowned ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. What I learned there was absolutely shocking and appalling.
▶ 0:50:57In particular, the medical neglect, denying people access to potentially life-saving care, and withholding necessary medicine is truly apparent. I saw people diagnosed with cancer and denied any treatment. At Delaney Hall and across the country, detainees are being held in squalor in facilities that do not meet basic sanitary needs. As if that weren't bad enough, this legislation would dramatically increase the number of children who are subjected indefinitely to such deplorable conditions.
▶ 0:51:28That is the very definition of cruelty. But it is standard operating procedure for this Republican majority. A year and a half into the second Trump administration, a clear picture of its immigration policies and their consequences has emerged. They've sent masked agents to terrorize our communities with aggressive and violent tactics, arresting and in some cases murdering American citizens. They are tearing children away from their parents.
▶ 0:51:53And where when they are caught violating the law, they've deliberately lied to the American people and even to federal courts which have called them out at unprecedented levels. And where is this Republican Congress? Rather than holding this administration accountable, they have served as its enablers, fueling its reign of terror with hundreds of billions of dollars and no accountability measures. And today, they seek to pass legislation that would codify some of the worst and most cruel policies.
▶ 0:52:21I understand that marking up this bill was the price that some members extracted from the speaker in order to allow action to proceed on the House floor. But if this bill were to become law, it is the American people who would pay the cost. I urge all members to oppose this legislation and I yield back.
▶ 0:52:39Gentleman yields back.
▶ 0:52:42Gentle lady from California.
▶ 0:52:46Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I uh rise in strong opposition. Um
▶ 0:52:51would you mind moving the mic? Yeah. In front of your front of your
▶ 0:52:54Sorry about that.
▶ 0:52:55Thank you.
▶ 0:52:55Appreciate you, Mr. Chairman. I rise in strong opposition uh to this bill, the permanent Trump secure border act. This bill expands detention, reduces due process, strips protections for children, and hands even more unchecked authority to agencies that have already harmed communities like mine in Los Angeles.
▶ 0:53:22We already know what an ICE with unchecked power looks like. At Dilly Detention Center in Texas, it looks like children reporting mistreatment, contaminated food, sleeplessness, and inadequate medical care. In Hawthorne, California, it looks like Carly Carrie Lopez Alvarado, a 9-month pregnant US citizen shoved against a truck, handcuffed, chained, and interrogated by ICE agents about where she was born.
▶ 0:53:51She later went to the hospital with abdominal pain and gave birth early. In Huntington Park, California, it looks like federal agents using explosive devices outside Jenny Ramirez's home while her one-year-old and six-year-old children were inside. Everyone in that home was a United States citizen. And in my district, I saw firsthand what it looks like. During my visit to Adilanto Ice Detention Center, I met my constituent, Caritos Ricardo Pereus.
▶ 0:54:21He's a food bank volunteer. He's been recognized by the city for his good works. He is a father and a husband, and he was shot in the arm during a traffic stop by immigration agents before being taken into custody. Mind you, the judge dismissed those trumped up charges, but he is still in Adilanto and he is still not receiving the medical treatment that he deserves. I went to visit him and what I saw was horrifying.
▶ 0:54:50He reported severe pain, nerve impairment, swelling, reduced mobility, headaches, vision problems, and a bone infection. It looked to me like his arm will be amputated.
▶ 0:55:05And when I was able to get the medical records, it was revealed that for his gunshot wound, he is receiving vitamin I was told by the folks at Ottoanto that pre-existing conditions are not treated. I was told that the doctors at Adilanto are not liable for treating any kind of medical issue that occurs before arrival. That is stupid and it is malpractice. Mr.
▶ 0:55:35Pereus remains in detention and he is still not receiving the medical attention that he deserves. So why are we not marking up legislation to address these abuses? Why are we not conducting the necessary oversight on these conditions? Why are we so afraid to have the folks responsible for this kind of behavior come before us and answer questions?
▶ 0:56:03If you are not afraid of the answers, then you should not be afraid of the questions that will be asked of you. Why are we marking up a bill that rewards inhumane treatment with more authority and fewer safeguards? A bill that imprisons children. A bill that weakens asylum protections. A bill that criminalizes technical errors. A bill that empowers agencies with a documented record of abuse.
▶ 0:56:29None of those things in this bill will make us safer. This is a doubling down on cruelty. And yes, Republicans in this Congress have given DHS $240 That is larger than the budgets of 150 They have more police officers than the cities of Los
▶ 0:56:59Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Vegas, LA And the American people don't want to see more killings on their streets. And they don't want this bill. They want that madness to stop. They want answers to their questions and they want oversight.
▶ 0:57:27And this committee has an obligation to [clears throat] stop trying to ram this kind of nonsense through a committee and to instead conduct the kind of oversight that we all deserve. If one of these people in any of these videos was your child, your friend, your even somebody you didn't like, you would still be pressing for oversight.
▶ 0:57:56So, let's get to that business instead of this bill. And with that, I yield back.
▶ 0:58:02Gentle lady yields back.
▶ 0:58:08Who's Who's
▶ 0:58:13Oh, gentle gentle lady from
▶ 0:58:18Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to strike the last word.
▶ 0:58:20Gentle is recognized.
▶ 0:58:22Uh, yeah. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, which would cautify some of Trump's crulest immigration policies and does nothing to compat combat the atrocities committed by the Department of Homeland Security on our communities. When immigration officers violate people's constitutional rights or physically harm people or kill people or terrorize communities, it's not an accident or an outlier. It's the Department of Homeland Security's planned policy.
▶ 0:58:50is also not unique to this administration because immigration enforcement was designed to be cruel and callous and lawless. When DHS was formed, it took power away from other agencies that may have better uh been better served to provide the individual services and stuffed them together all in the name of national security. But since its start, it's been responsible for the targeting, the detainment, and family separation of hundreds of thousands of people. The courts are separate.
▶ 0:59:18The judges are unaccountable and detention networks remain deplorable. This isn't just Trump administration uh manipulating an otherwise effective agency. Though it is rogue by design, DHS has caused so much harm to our communities. Yet, Republicans keep wanting to throw money at it with no oversight mechanisms to rein in their bad actions. In the last 13 months alone, they've been given $240 billion.
▶ 0:59:45DHS has taken that money and hired incompetent and unqualified immigration enforcement officers. They've thrown the money at private prison corporations to expand detention centers. They've even purchased spyware uh and people's data to get around the Fourth Amendment protections. Six people have been killed by ICE and CBP during immigration enforcement actions and another 53 people have died in ICE custody.
▶ 1:00:09The agency has gone out of its way to not cooperate with local law enforcement to investigate these killings. Though there have been no reports that agents responsible have faced any discipline or consequences. Often DHS won't even identify them. DHS has also racially targeted people, smashed into people's houses without warrants, and disappeared people. These arrests are usually based on no real, no cause, no investigation, no hearing with the judge, and no due process.
▶ 1:00:39The immigration officers don't care about a person's status, whether a person is actually a citizen, if that person has a child at home, or even if they physically harm the person during an arrest. This committee should be holding hearings with DHS officials, demanding transparency and accountability. We should be examining how DHS's creation allowed the agency to operate outside the law and the constitution. We should be listening to refugees and asylum seekers about how to improve the intake process and better protect them.
▶ 1:01:08Cruelty is the point of the Department of Homeland Security and this bill fully supports that. I urge my colleagues to grow conscious and to oppose this bill and I yield back.
▶ 1:01:17Gentle lady yields back.
▶ 1:01:20Anyone seek recognition? Gentleman from California.
▶ 1:01:25Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 1:01:28Clerk will report
▶ 1:01:32point of order reserved by the gentleman from California. The other gentleman from California
▶ 1:01:39amendment to the amendment in the nature of his
▶ 1:01:41without objection. The amen be considered as read. The gentleman from California is recognized to uh explain his amendment.
▶ 1:01:48Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Folks, once again, our nation is at war. So far, 17 American service members have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
▶ 1:02:03Hundreds others have been These are soldiers that take an oath to defend our country, to make the ultimate sacrifice when These soldiers need to know that we back home have their back. My amendment essentially codifies current President Trump administration policy.
▶ 1:02:33protects per only the children and spouses of active duty servicemen. My amendment would essentially again cottify current Trump policy of protecting children, spouses, and the parents of active duty service members, reserveists, and veterans.
▶ 1:02:52As you know, today actually very sadly, ICE is willing to go after the military families and specifically the parents who are not protected by this bill. Again, ICE is going after the parents of soldiers who are serving in our battlefield today. In my district, Santa Ana, Narciso Vanco, a hardworking law-abiding man and father of three US Marines.
▶ 1:03:21Folks, you make movies about individuals like this. He was pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, and beaten while being restained by ICE agents. After the incident, Mr. Barco was held in custody for three weeks by our government as they tried to deport him. After a judge ruled in Mr.
▶ 1:03:44Baro's favor, DHS still worked to appeal the ruling to pause his parole in place application and to deport him. It's important to note he had a parole in place application.
▶ 1:04:01a father of three Marines and our US government DHS was doing everything in its power to deport this father of three The second case in Huntington Beach, Ombberto Martinez Martinez was stopped and taken into ICE custody while driving with his daughter Anna to school. He was removed to Mexico within hours.
▶ 1:04:32At the time of his arrest, he had a pending parole application in place based on his daughter, his other daughter's active duty military service. His daughter Jessica Martinez, a Navy aviation ordinanceman serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, 20 years old, Navy Abraham Lincoln.
▶ 1:04:58On the same day her father was deported, Jessica was deployed aboard the Lincoln to the Middle East amid the conflict with Iran. Folks, this is not the way to reward our soldiers. You have to make sure you let our men and women in uniform that are fighting for our country know that our nation has their back.
▶ 1:05:25My amendment again is simply cottifying President Trump's current policy of extending parole in place to again to parents of active duty service members, reser and veterans.
▶ 1:05:40Since 2013, USCIS has approved over 40,000 applications for military parole in place, including 20,000 applications approved by the Trump administration from 2017 to 2020. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
▶ 1:05:59Gentleman yields back. Does gentleman insist on his point of order from California? Gentleman withdraws his point of order. The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
▶ 1:06:07I thank the chairman. Um the under current law, members of the United States military can seek uh an exped expedited path to uh LPR status. Uh the legislation that we have uh contemplates very specifically uh dealing with the spouse and children uh with respect to parole for uh members of the United States military. Uh we believe that is uh directly reflective of what the administration is doing and reflective of of the appropriate policy and that this uh amendment is is unnecessary.
▶ 1:06:37And I I would add uh in response to uh some of the rhetoric from my colleagues uh in their statements regarding the legislation, I want to remind everybody out there who's viewing this. This is legislation that uh we passed uh the the construct of this was passed previously uh in in Congress and out of this committee.
▶ 1:07:00Um, this legislation is designed very specifically to cottify current practices which have objectively and irrefutably slowed, stemmed, eliminated the border crisis that was resulting directly,
▶ 1:07:15gentlemen, yield,
▶ 1:07:16the deaths of American people. I in in a moment, but I I just want to finish here in response to to the to the amendment.
▶ 1:07:24That that's the purpose here. And I and I heard my colleagues bringing up uh other matters involving uh enforcement, ICE, and and things going on which we could have a full throat of debate about and we have repeatedly in this room and else elsewhere. But what we're talking about here is stopping what happened. I mean, again, we've had repeated testimony in this room from people who were victimized by by folks that were released into the United States.
▶ 1:07:52In a little bit, I I'm not going to do it right now. I've got an entire folder here, an entire folder of the examples of people that I'm gonna ask to insert in the record in a little bit of Americans. Hundreds, dozens, like all of these pages right here. These are all Americans. All people.
▶ 1:08:08And by the way, all immigrants who were abused by people released into the United States under the previous administrations and my colleagues policies of abusing asylum and parole that resulted directly in these rapes, murders, and destruction and death and fentanel and impacts on the state of Texas to the tune of 11 billion dollars of incalculable impact that we're trying to deal with. So here we have legislation designed to codify it.
▶ 1:08:37I remember, you know, I was my my daughter's here and we were watching an episode of the West Wing from 1999 2000. It was the Shabolith episode and they were talking about there were some refugee uh Christian refugees from China and there was an entire episode dedicated to credible fear and trying to figure out and determine whether there was in fact credible fear.
▶ 1:08:58And here, fast forward, and we are long gone from the days of Chuck Schumer taking to the Senate floor and talking about the need for border security or our Democratic colleagues going to the House floor and talking about the need for border security or a relatively left-leaning television show talking about the law and following the law with respect to credible fear.
▶ 1:09:18And instead we have seen this evolution to abuse credible fear, make it completely meaningless, drive a truck through loopholes of that parole, asylum, and all of the things that are designed to allow us to be a country that does the things I think the gentleman is referring to, right?
▶ 1:09:37that we have a country that wants to say that when there's a baby at your doorstep or when there's somebody that need is deserving of a parole so they can come here and have a kidney transplant or see their grandmother or do the things we all as human beings and people of faith want to do. We are left having to deal with the exploitation and and uh uh you know using loopholes to undo the purpose of the law.
▶ 1:10:03And so thus resulted in the countless millions of people in the United States that then harmed Americans. So the purpose of this bill is to leave in place paths. As I said, military, if you're here, there's a path, expedited path to LPR. If you're the spouse or child of that person, there is a path under parole. This legislation would leave in place a path for asylum, a path for parole, a path to be able to deal with unaccompanied children, being able to seek asylum.
▶ 1:10:33All of the paths we want to do as people of faith to help individuals, but not allow it to be exploited, to dump people onto the streets of our country that have resulted directly in the death, destruction, murder, mayhem of the American people. Uh, and with that, I I yield back.
▶ 1:10:49Gentleman yields gentleman yields back.
▶ 1:10:52gentleman from Maryland's recognized.
▶ 1:10:56Um, [clears throat] thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got an amendment at the
▶ 1:10:59Well, we're still on the other
▶ 1:11:00Oh, we're we're still
▶ 1:11:02gentle lady from Washington's
▶ 1:11:04Thank you. I yield time to Mr. Caro.
▶ 1:11:06To my colleague from Texas. Uh, I want to get you back on point on my amendment. Again, this is President Trump's existing policy on his website. You mentioned children and spouses of military personnel. My amendment simply adds parents of active duty service members, reser and veterans.
▶ 1:11:32And I have my colleagues here in this committee focus on what we're talking about here. On this amendment, you have Jessica Martinez, a Navy aviation ordsman on the SS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier. Her job is to again load up those F-18s with ordinances as they go off to another mission.
▶ 1:11:57This is a 20 yearear-old off naval personnel in an aircraft carrier. What are we telling her the day you deport her father? The next day you say, "Please make the ultimate sacrifice for your country." We're talking about keeping this country strong, defending this nation, about soldiers who are human beings, and more importantly, my friend from Texas,
▶ 1:12:28I am essentially codifying with this amendment current Trump administration policy. This is the Trump administration policy. And if we are here to keep America strong, we got to make sure that we watch and watch the backs of those military officers, those military personnel, men and women fighting for us across the country. This is a common sense legislation, common sense amendment to keep our country strong.
▶ 1:12:58Again, Narciso Barco, the father of three US Marines who was provide both of these fathers were following the legal process to adjust their status to stay in the United States. ICE went out of the way to arrest them. They deported one individual. The second one they're trying to deport. What is this all about? Narciso Baranco, father of three Marines.
▶ 1:13:26We should be lo getting ready to make a movie about this guy. His three sons he raised to be patriots and we want to deport him. Mr. Martinez, daughter, Navy, proud American and we're trying to deport her father. Mr. Chairman, I yield yield back to Miss Jaipal.
▶ 1:13:53Thank you, Mr. Koreah. I I I don't know if there's a misunderstanding, but the Trump policy that's on the website is what this amendment is about. The bill um that is in the bill, the military parole option only benefits the spouses and minor children of active military service members. And so in doing so, it leaves out the service members parents and the families of US veterans.
▶ 1:14:19It leaves out the families of individuals who served or are currently serving as reservists. That is different from the Trump policy that is on Trump's website. So Mr. Koreah's amendment seeks to cottify the one parole program that the Trump administration is actually using.
▶ 1:14:40And I don't understand why my Republican colleagues want to restrict a parole program that is actually being utilized by Donald Trump for members of our military. And to your broader point about um you know the work that we need to do if only we would actually reform the immigration system.
▶ 1:15:00We have spent between 400 to$450 billion dollars on border security over the last 10 years instead of actually providing more legal pathways. You can't do one without the other and expect one to work. What we need is a functioning immigration system that allows people to have a process whereby they come to the United States, it is orderly, it is humane, we respect the rights of those who are here.
▶ 1:15:27We don't try to throw out people who are here and who have committed no crimes, who are working, who are doing all the things. And we have not provided a pathway to citizenship for people in this country, including those who have lived here for 30 years. Imagine how this country would suffer if we actually succeed in kicking out everybody that Trump and Steven Miller want to kick
▶ 1:15:50The gentle lady yield for a question. 15
▶ 1:15:54The My question is this. um they're calling this the permanent Trump Act, but it seems like there's at least one Trump policy they don't like. They're positioning this legislation to the right of Donald Trump. Why are they doing that?
▶ 1:16:06That's my question, ranking member. Uh that is my question. They are taking away the one parole program for our US service members and their families that Trump actually codified or or put onto his website. They don't want to codify
▶ 1:16:21Time is expired. Is there further discussion on amendment? I move to strike the last word.
▶ 1:16:27The gentleman from New York.
▶ 1:16:28Wait a sec. Is there further discussion on the amendment?
▶ 1:16:31Gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized.
▶ 1:16:33I yield my time, Mr. Chairman, to the gentleman from Texas.
▶ 1:16:37I I think the gentleman from Wisconsin, a few data points here that I think are important. Number one, this policy uh dates back to Obama. Uh it was a Biden policy. Uh so to say it was Trump policy is not accurate. Number two, this amendment was offered this amendment was offered when we debated this bill in the last Congress before the current Trump administration. Other words, this amendment was offered under Biden being president. So the the idea that you're trying to say that, oh, this is somehow a Trump policy.
▶ 1:17:04It is a policy that has it is a policy that I acknowledge has spanned several administrations of folks across the other side of the aisle and Republicans. I agree with that that that policy has existed but it was hold on a second that it was that it was put in place under Obama that it was carried forward under under Biden that we debated it when Biden was president. We offered the same amendment during that time and then now yes it is stayed as the policy.
▶ 1:17:32The point of the statutory change is to make the statutory change very specific that does not do anything to change what is already law that you can seek LPR status if you're the active duty member of the military that's currently uh uh allowed and under the statute it's lawful but it is putting in place a specific parole category for spouses and children that is what the the legislation does I think in good faith to deal with this issue uh broadly speaking for the men
▶ 1:18:02and women in military um and to provide for that for the direct spouse and children um and whatever the policies are of of the administration they can do that but this is Congress speaking with one voice in a tight definition with respect to how we handle the men and women in the military and their spouses and children and that's the purpose of the legislation that I'll yield back
▶ 1:18:24the gentleman from Wisconsin the gentleman from Wisconsin controls
▶ 1:18:27I yield back to the gentleman from
▶ 1:18:29and I yield back to the chair
▶ 1:18:31the gentleman yields There further discussion. Uh, Mr. Goldman.
▶ 1:18:36Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, [clears throat] I I I want to just clarify one thing um that my friend from Texas said. Uh, it's not uh Biden policy or Obama policy or Trump 1.0 policy. We're talking about what the policy is right now under this administration. So stop deflecting to try to put the blame on somebody else for a for a policy that you don't like. It is this admin administration's policy.
▶ 1:19:06That's what we're talking about. But I want to go back to something that my my friend from Texas said earlier uh a couple times that people of faith are just trying to help other people. I believe you said um that trying to find that inner humanity and that faith to do uh what is right for the American uh residents and the American people.
▶ 1:19:36The question then why don't you care about the immigrant who are being absolutely terrorized and abused by this Department of Homeland First of all, this administration tried to stop providing counsel to unaccompanied children.
▶ 1:20:01Obviously these unaccompanied children are not making these decisions of their own valition. They are children. They many don't speak the language. Have no idea what this how this immigration system works. And this Department of Homeland Security wants to take away their legal counsel. Well, thankfully a judge intervened and required the administration to abide by the contracts that it had to provide counsel for unaccompanied children.
▶ 1:20:32Now, re recognizing they can't prevent it or withhold it, the administration is now withholding payment under those contracts to the legal services providers. And in fact, they are demanding private confidential information, some of which is subject to the attorney client privilege in order to be able to in order to uh send that money that they are owed.
▶ 1:21:02These are not big law firms. These are small nonprofit organizations that cannot survive uh without getting paid. And yet the administration refuses to do it. And as of today, more than six months of of payments have not been made. But that's not it.
▶ 1:21:24The average length of time for unaccompanied children in OR custody in October 20 of 2024 was 35 days. In November of 2025, it was This administration on average is putting children in jail for more than six months.
▶ 1:21:55Many of them are actually eligible for SIG for their own protection as unaccompanied children who cannot who if they are returned to their country will face abuse from a parent.
▶ 1:22:13So now this bill says we're going to actually reduce the protections for those children who can show an abusive or violent parent by saying that if they have one parent that they can be with that is not abusive then they don't qualify for SIG. But the problem is that one parent is often here in the United States.
▶ 1:22:40And so by denying them this lawful parole, they are then going to be deported back to the one parent who is abusing them. So if you really are a person of faith who cares about the humanity of people and wants to do right by people, then why don't you care about children, whether they are immigrant children or American citizen children? Why are you punishing children?
▶ 1:23:11children who often are not making decisions of their own because as we know from our own law, children generally are not considered capable of making decisions on their own. So I call on your faith faith of all of us to care for children basic human decency and I yield back. Gentleman's time is expired. Is there further discussion on the amendment?
▶ 1:23:41Mr.
▶ 1:23:42Mr. Nadler,
▶ 1:23:43Mr. Chairman, I have a very simple question. I I I would ask uh the gentleman from Texas, does he oppose supporting uh uh parents of um of uh soldiers in the manner that the gentleman that the gentleman's amendment would do. I'm yielding you the time to ask the qu answer the question.
▶ 1:24:11If if a U member of the armed services uh seeks LPR status then then that individual can then go seek uh bring well but that's but that's the path right now under our current law they can do that and this legislation contemplates spouses and children and that's appropriate under this
▶ 1:24:27why would you oppose this legislation also contemplating parents? Well, first of all, the legislation has a number of flaws in it, which we can go into it and and and that that are issues involving
▶ 1:24:36reclaiming my time. The gentleman's amendment would would would cure this one flaw. Why would you oppose it?
▶ 1:24:43There are numerous issues with the amendment. We believe the legislation as it is crafted does exactly what we intend to do to ensure that armed services folks have a path, that their spouse and children have a path, and that if you seek LPR, the parents have a path if you seek LPR status. and that that that's a tight and good way to do it. That's what the legislation
▶ 1:25:04I failed to understand the the grounds for opposing amendment that would give parents the same status as as as children and spouses here.
▶ 1:25:16As I've said, the legislation allows for that possibility for the member of the army to seek LPR. Well, because we allow the possibility
▶ 1:25:24because our laws that way you know whether the individual is serving the armed services they want to become an LPR there's a path to do that expedited they can do that and then they can seek status for their parent
▶ 1:25:34it establishes as the parole status for the spouse or the child which is a good
▶ 1:25:40reclaiming my time it establishes the status of the spouse or the ch and the children but not for the parents it seems to me there is no logical reason not to establish the same status the same rights for the parents uh of of a soldier. I yield back.
▶ 1:25:57Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the amendment? Mr. Ras.
▶ 1:26:01Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um I want to first thank the gentleman from California for introducing this amendment and for spotting this uh outrageous departure from even current policy. As I understand it, military parole is in place today and available to people who are the immediate relatives of US military service members and veterans.
▶ 1:26:27I'm assuming these are people who've had uh honorable discharges and people who uh have no served the country and many of them are decorated uh but certainly they all have honorable discharges. Okay. Um and so the military parole is available to people who are their immediate relatives including their spouses and including their parents.
▶ 1:26:53now despite the fact that this legislation is called the permanent Trump act to codify his policies, they want to they want to reject the policy and not codify the policy of allowing these immediate family members of veterans to get in categorically even spouses. They just want to go to active members of the forces but not allow these people to come in.
▶ 1:27:21um uh with veterans who may even be decorated uh war heroes. They want to get rid of that. And I heard you mention a case um of some people who live right near you, which is perhaps why this caught your eye, Mr. Korea.
▶ 1:27:37But I wonder if you would tell us exactly what we're talking about in this case because as I heard you say it, um, we're talking about three sons, all of whom serve in the US military, and they want to be able to deport their father, and that's something that is an ongoing case. Is it right? Would you just apprise us of what's happening?
▶ 1:28:00Yes. And let me say to you that one of them is a veteran and two are active Marines. Two are actually in the Marine Corps now. One of them honorably discharged. Okay.
▶ 1:28:14Under the existing policy, Trump policy, the father applied for parole in place, submitted the application, moved ahead and that's why when he was arrested, okay, he was not immediately deported, but deportation was paused. He went before a judge. The judge ruled in his favor. DHS is essentially coming back and appealing that favorable ruling.
▶ 1:28:44You're talking about three Marines, two active, one essentially a veteran, always followed the law, has not been an individual with any criminal record. This is the individual we're talking
▶ 1:28:58Okay. And so if this if your amendment doesn't pass, essentially the legislation would say you have three sons, say who served honorably and dutifully in Iraq or Afghanistan, and their father um is now petitioning to be part of the military parole in place. Um he would be rejected because they're veterans at this point and because they're not active service members.
▶ 1:29:26And I understand in the case today, it's a mixture of uh but they just want to categorically say if you're just a veteran of the United States, you don't get the benefit of this policy. And I got to believe that this is an oversight. Although I'm a um a little stunned to hear um the distinguished gentleman from Texas substantively defend this policy instead of just say this looks like an oversight.
▶ 1:29:50Certainly the families of veterans should be included as they were under Trump and Biden and Obama. It's a policy so obvious that it is had bipartisan participation by all the presidents. And now for some reason, I guess in an eagerness to uh demonstrate the anti-immigrant bonafide of the majority, they want to go way to the right of what the current policy is and do some serious damage to people's families. Mr. career yield to you.
▶ 1:30:20Yes. Just wanted to This is even more Jessica Martinez on the SS Abraham in the Middle East. Her father also had a parole in place application. But when ICE picked him up, they took him to the Santa Ana ICE detention center. Instead of checking his status, which would have enabled him to stay in the country, when he when they walked him in, they said, "Our computers are down. Sorry, [clears throat] we're sending you to the border immediately.
▶ 1:30:51That is what they did. They said, "The computers are out. We'll taking you. We're deporting you immediately." This is a violation of the Trump administration current policy when it comes to the family members of soldiers.
▶ 1:31:03Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 1:31:05Gentleman's time has expired. Is there further discussion on the amendment?
▶ 1:31:09Seeing Mel has already spoken on this.
▶ 1:31:13Yeah, Mr. Mel's already spoken. Are you
▶ 1:31:16Is there further discussion? Seeing none, the question is on the adoption of the amendment offered by the gentleman from California. Those in favor say I.
▶ 1:31:23Those opposed say no.
▶ 1:31:25The nos appear to have it. And
▶ 1:31:27recorded [snorts] vote, Mr.
▶ 1:31:28Recorded vote is requested. Clerk will call the role.
▶ 1:31:31Mr. Jordan, no.
▶ 1:31:32Mr. Jordan votes no. Mr. Isa,
▶ 1:31:35Mr. Bigs,
▶ 1:31:36Mr. McCllintok,
▶ 1:31:38Mr. Mcccleintoch votes no. Mr. Tiffany,
▶ 1:31:42Mr. Massie,
▶ 1:31:44Mr. Roy, Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Mr. Klein, Mr. Gooden, Mr. Gooden votes no. Mr. Vandrew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Miss Haggamman,
▶ 1:32:01Miss Haggman votes no. Miss Leah, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Mr. Growthman, Mr. Knot,
▶ 1:32:16Mr. votes no. Mr. Harris, Mr. Harris votes no. Mr. Ander, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Schmidt votes no. Mr. Gil, Mr. Bombgardner. Mr. Raskin,
▶ 1:32:30Mr. Raskin votes I. Mr. Nadler,
▶ 1:32:33Mr. Nler votes I. Miss Lofrren.
▶ 1:32:36Miss Lofrren votes I. Mr. Cohen. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Lou, Miss Gyipalaw,
▶ 1:32:45Miss Gryaw votes I, Mr. Korea,
▶ 1:32:48Mr. Korea votes I, Miss Scandlin,
▶ 1:32:50Miss Scanland votes I, Mr. Negus, Miss Miss Ross,
▶ 1:32:56Miss Ross votes I. Miss Balot, Miss Balant votes I. Mr. Garcia, Mr. Garcia votes I. Miss Camager, Dove, Mr. Mr. Goldman,
▶ 1:33:08Mr. Goldman votes I. Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I. Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore votes no. Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Tiffany votes no. Miss Camdub, you are not recorded. Miss Camager votes yes.
▶ 1:33:41Mr. Fry, you're not recorded. Mr. Fry votes no Mr. Bonervitz now. Mr. Klein, you are not recorded.
▶ 1:34:11Mr. Klein, votes no.
▶ 1:34:15Mr. Gman,
▶ 1:34:16Mr. regress now.
▶ 1:34:37Click to report.
▶ 1:34:42Mr. Johnson.
▶ 1:34:43Mr. Johnson, you're not recorded. Mr. Johnson votes I
▶ 1:34:54Mr. Fitzgerald.
▶ 1:34:56Mr. Fitzgerald votes.
▶ 1:34:58Mr. Fitzgerald votes no.
▶ 1:35:03Mr. Herder.
▶ 1:35:04Mr. Honor votes no. Mr. Kylie.
▶ 1:35:07Mr. Kylie votes I. clerk report.
▶ 1:35:30Mr. Chairman, there are 14 eyes and 16
▶ 1:35:33The amendment is not adopted.
▶ 1:35:35Seeks recognition. Gentleman from Miss Le gentle lady from
▶ 1:35:43Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 1:35:45Clerk report.
▶ 1:35:48Point of order reserved by the gentleman from California.
▶ 1:35:53Amendment to the amendment.
▶ 1:35:54Objection. The amendment be considered as read. The gentle lady is recognized to explain her amendment.
▶ 1:35:59Thank you, Mr. Chair. This amendment is simple. It would ensure ICE does not use any of its warehouses that has purchased over the past year for family detention. Um, it's honestly shameful that we even need to offer this amendment, but unfortunately cruelty knows no bounds uh under this administration. It's also necessary because Republicans have given ICE over $50 billion just for immigration detention with no guardrails or oversight. This country has way too much practice warehousing human beings.
▶ 1:36:30It's so deep within our history that we have perfected a system where we can strip away someone's humanity and put them in a holding pin uh where they are treated as lesser human being, less deserving of rights and dignity. We have the highest incarceration rate of any developed nation and Republicans want to expand it further. In February, Internal ICE documents reveal plans for what the agency called the ICE detention re-engineering initiative.
▶ 1:36:55This proposal would replace the current detention system with one centered on 34 ICE owned facilities, including eight large-scale detention centers that would each hold 7 to 10,000 people in refurbished warehouses.
▶ 1:37:09ICE has since acquired warehouses in my commonwealth, Pennsylvania, as well as Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas, Arizona, Maryland, and U Utah at a cost of $1 These uh three of these facilities are intended to be largecale facilities with 7,500 to 10,000 planned beds.
▶ 1:37:30A warehouse in Social Circle, Georgia located 50 miles outside of Atlanta, a warehouse in Sakaro, Texas in the El Paso metro area, and a warehouse in Tmont, PA in central Pennsylvania. The other six, which have already been purchased, are smaller processing centers with plans to hold 1,00 to,500 people each.
▶ 1:37:50The goal of the revamped detention and deportation system would, as former acting ICE director Todd Lions put it, be an Amazon Prime but with human beings. A reminder that Amazon Prime is also a distribution warehouse. So, what does that even mean? But needless to say, this is disgusting. Luckily, the agency has partially reversed course and is now planning to offload seven warehouses by either giving them to other federal agencies or selling them outright.
▶ 1:38:19But the casual cruelty of this scale of detention cannot be overstated. The government is essentially treating these people, mothers and fathers and grandpas and little kids like livestock. These are human beings being held in inhumane conditions. And Republicans want to convince people that this is the source of pride rather than shame. History will treat these actions as shameful.
▶ 1:38:43Just as enslaving people was shameful and putting Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II was shameful and the Trail of Tears was shameful. Geographical borders should not be the lines that determine how we treat other human beings. If that's the only standard, then we may find that one day we too are not worthy of compassion. Isn't the golden rule in our Christian Bible? do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
▶ 1:39:11These actions are they not inviting the same sorts of treatments upon our descendants one day. And none of this touches on the fact that our country has in many cases played a significant role in the destabilization of the country's people are being displaced from in the first place. Republicans are taking away all context and saying we must herd these human beings into inhumane warehouses indefinitely. It's imperative that we ensure the remaining warehouses facilities are not used to detain families.
▶ 1:39:39The conditions in the regular facil facilities are already unconscionable. When I visited Moshana detention center in Pennsylvania and spoke to the women detained there, they told me about the bad food and toxic water and a lack of proper medical care. Delaney Hall of New Jerseys conditions were so bad that detainees conducted a hunger strike. Rather than do something to improve these conditions, whistleblowers and protesters have been transferred around the country to break up organizing power.
▶ 1:40:05These facilities designed for for detention with the right infrastructure and it's still terrible. We've seen the disaster that was alligator Alcatraz in Florida. Millions of taxpayer dollars funneled into a failed makeshift detention center. Detainees at the facility reported difficulty accessing lawyers in poor conditions like worms in the food or toilets that didn't flush and floors flooded with fecal waste and mosquitoes and other insects everywhere. Detention is bad enough, but a commercial warehouse is no place for a child.
▶ 1:40:35I encourage all my colleagues to support this common sense amendment and I yield
▶ 1:40:40Gentle lady yields back. Gentleman withdraws his point of order. Gentleman from North Carolina is recognized. Then we'll come to Texas. Mr. Chairman, I just I I thank you for the time, but I' I've got to respond. Uh I don't know that there was one word that I agree with uh my colleague from Pennsylvania what she just said.
▶ 1:40:58I for one have been to some of these facilities and I actually have been overwhelmed with how the reality of those facilities operate differs from the narrative that we're hearing from the other side of the one in North Carolina that I was at recently. They have workout facilities. They have recreational courts. They have a video game portal where these detainees can go and play video games. They have movie rentals. They had uh sufficient dining options.
▶ 1:41:26They even cater to individuals faiths on a on an individual basis. They have worship facilities. They have free attorney portals. The idea this is somehow uh anything other than a professional and very humane option is simply dishonest. And for my colleague to say that the United States destabilizes countries in the world and therefore we should welcome millions and millions of people into our country illegally.
▶ 1:41:54That's the most specious claim I think I've heard in several weeks if not months in Congress, which is saying something. My question to the Democrats on on the other side is is there a number that we should we should cap enroles? Is it 10 million, 20 million, 50 million? What about a 100 million? If destabilized countries in the world is your threshold, we could triple our nation, our population in a week. We're not talking about we're not talking about people who come here legally, mind you.
▶ 1:42:24We are talking about people in the country illegally. And there is the reality that our immigration system that your party has supported has weakened the country. So with that, if anyone on on this side would like to respond, I'll certainly yield the time. Mr. McClint,
▶ 1:42:41uh I would the the U one there's one one other detail about these detention centers that I think needs to be added. Those who are detained in them can be uh can leave them anytime they want for any country that will accept them. They're simply not allowed to return to our
▶ 1:42:59Uh and the reason for that ought to be self-evident of in fact the whole purpose of these detention centers is simply to arrange for transportation back to their home countries. And I yield back to the gentleman.
▶ 1:43:12Anybody else on this side?
▶ 1:43:15Yes, sir.
▶ 1:43:15Thank you, Mr. Kn. You know, I I see the outrage from my colleagues about what's happening at DHS, and I just didn't see that in the Biden years, and the border was wide open. The whole reason we've got this bill before us today is because of the damage uh that the Democrat administration before this one did. And we wouldn't be talking about this had the border remained secure in the four years prior to President Trump coming back.
▶ 1:43:40But we are in this situation because of mismanagement and because of a DHS uh that harmed the American people for four years and we could never get answers from the homeland secretary when he was here, Mr. Mayorcus. He sat right there and defied uh every question that was asked, said the border was secure, lied to this committee, and now here we are. And it's a shame that we've even come to this place. But I uh applaud your push back and I thank you, Mr. Roy for this bill.
▶ 1:44:10And I'll just close, Mr. Chairman, again, I I do want to know from the Democrats, is there a number that we should cap it of illegal aliens inside the country because there was without any question an unchecked harm that's been inflicted on Americans because of
▶ 1:44:25Gentlemen, yield.
▶ 1:44:26Yes, sir.
▶ 1:44:28Mr. N. Thank you for that question. And I would say that it takes two. Okay. Not only undocumented, these are undocumented workers, taxpayers, hardworking individuals who are hired by honest, law-abiding businesses.
▶ 1:44:46That's a broad as a broad question, sir, is how many employees do our growing economy need to sustain that economic growth? That's the answer to your question, sir. It's not a singular statement or a singular subject. It's the economic growth of the United States. That's the answer to your question, sir.
▶ 1:45:06That is not the answer to my question. For you to for you to say I'm reclaiming my time. For you for you to say that we should hire anybody or we should allow anyone that can be hired.
▶ 1:45:15We need immigration reform and that would be the answer to your question.
▶ 1:45:18That doesn't answer the question. We have millions and millions of people who are here illegally that take rather than
▶ 1:45:25and your side cannot condemn them. workers that are here
▶ 1:45:29supporting our national economy.
▶ 1:45:31Will you say that if someone is taking more than they're producing, they should
▶ 1:45:37I'm just saying that's a very simple yes no question.
▶ 1:45:40to say that every illegal immigrant is a net producer for the country
▶ 1:45:44support this economy and I think that you know that I yield
▶ 1:45:50Time of the gentleman is expired. The gentleman yields back who seeks recognition. the gentle lady, the gentleman from New York, and then I'll go to Washington.
▶ 1:45:56Mr. Chairman, I don't know
▶ 1:45:59what universe some of the gentlemen on the other side um inhabit. But a couple of months ago, Mr. Goldman and I in uh inspected Delaney Hall, which is a large facility, large uh uh privately operated uh ice facility in Newark, New Jersey. What we saw there was terrible. We saw maggoty food. We saw that the food was not prepared at proper temperatures to kill bacteria.
▶ 1:46:30I saw a girl who had been in this country from one year old who was taken from high school a week before her prom and had no idea what was going to happen to her. I saw two people with advanced cancers who were not being treated at um literally not being treated. We were told that uh doctors were available Monday through Friday at uh 9 to 5:00 p.m.
▶ 1:47:01We were there from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. on I think it was a Wednesday. There were no doctors available in the facility at all. A facility that had several thousand people in it. So I don't know how you can say that these are humane facilities. I don't want to say they're designed to, but they certainly have the effect of killing people for lack of cancer treatment, for example.
▶ 1:47:32and they are a shame on this nation. I can't speak for every single facility, but I certainly can speak for Delaney Hall, which is one of the largest facilities, the one that Mr. Goldman and I inspected. And that facility is terrible, the inmates at one point went on a hunger strike because to protest the uh maggoty food,
▶ 1:48:03which they couldn't eat in any event. So, I just wanted to inform the committee of what I we actually saw, not what somebody else may say or what the administration may assert, but what Mr. Goldman and I observed with our own eyes and ears.
▶ 1:48:22The gentleman yield.
▶ 1:48:22Yes, I will.
▶ 1:48:23Well, I just just to to uh give you some peace of mind, everything I said was was firsthand account as well. I went and visited and I am working with the department to go to Delaney Hall and I'm going to try to do so with with very little notice to see If what you're saying is accurate today, it shouldn't be accurate. But even besides that, I do I do have to ask, should the American taxpayers be forced with a bill to cover the world's sick? I mean, this this is a fundamental question that I think a lot of Americans
▶ 1:48:50You're reclaiming my time. The American taxpayer should not be forced to cover the world's sick, but the American taxpayer should certainly cover the medical expense of people seized
▶ 1:49:01by the government and kept in confinement. Just as we
▶ 1:49:05who were here illegally,
▶ 1:49:06whether they're here illegally or not, if they're put in a facility and kept there, they should not be killed by lack of medical attention. When we have people in our prisons, we hopefully guilty of whatever crime they may be, we hopefully give them adequate medical Same thing here. If someone is held in a facility for whatever reason, valid or invalid, they should be given adequate medical treatment.
▶ 1:49:35And I don't think anybody can can quarrel with that. And I would hope that if you tour Delaney Hall, you don't give reasonable notice. You give no notice at all. You have a right as a matter of Congress to do
▶ 1:49:45I agree.
▶ 1:49:45And if if you give notice, they may
▶ 1:49:49dress up.
▶ 1:49:52They may clean up what you're permitted to see.
▶ 1:49:55So go there with no notice as Mr. Goldman and I did.
▶ 1:49:59Yes, sir.
▶ 1:49:59I yield back.
▶ 1:50:02May I be heard?
▶ 1:50:03Back. The gentleman from uh New Jersey is recognized.
▶ 1:50:07Thank the chairman. So I was in Delaney Hall. I looked at I heard all this stuff. Kid, people are eating maggots. People are being beaten. They don't have medical care. The whole bit. We didn't give them a whole lot of notice at all. We showed up there. We went through everything. Not just on the regular guided tour that they give, but went through each and every part of it. Let me tell you, this comes from a congressman now who was the head of the prison gang task force for the state of New Jersey. So, let me give you some information.
▶ 1:50:37The Laney Hall was nicer, cleaner, better than any facility that the state has, the state of New Jersey, any of the prisons they have, period. And quite frankly, that's under repeated Democratic governors over and over again. In fact, recently, New Jersey just got in trouble for their state facility. So, let's talk about what I saw. We went there. I saw the law library. I saw the computers and the iPads they can have. Okay.
▶ 1:51:06Then we saw the lending library. If they're not interested in law, they can get regular books. I'm a dentist. I met with the physician. The physician showed me the prescriptions, showed me the charts, showed me the people who for the first time in their life ever had medical care. Came into Delaney Hall, never really had medical care before.
▶ 1:51:26He's found diabetes, found high blood pressure, find just about every condition that you can think of, high cholesterol, and now they're getting medications that they never had before. And now if especially if they request it or they think it's needed, the food that they get is for salt restricted diets or for people that have any kind of medical need, a special diet. Let's tell the truth.
▶ 1:51:53This was a show that I'm sorry to say this that the other side put on to make things look terrible that just weren't true. Will the gentleman yield?
▶ 1:52:04No, I will not because I want to finish this. If I get time in the end, I will yield. And then we went through the rest of the facility and I did speak with I didn't have long conversations. Some of them didn't speak English and truth be told didn't have an interpreter to me, but I spoke to people doing okay and we bueno bueno, you know, everything's fine. And by the way, I've said this before, I'll say it again.
▶ 1:52:25I don't know how well they work or don't work, but if we want to test who's telling the truth out here, I'll go on a lie detector test anywhere, anytime with anybody who wants to do this and say, you know, that that I'm telling the truth on this because I didn't know what to expect. I was hoping it would be up to state standards of the state prisons I visited and walked through when I was a state senator and found that the standards were much better. But get this, I'm not done yet. So then they, well, they don't have recreation.
▶ 1:52:55They can't move around enough. And by the way, in the state facilities, they can't. In the state facilities, because our governor in New Jersey was criticizing it, they have to stand and eat over their bed. They no longer have a table to eat at. But here they had place to eat. They had the things that they need. And then they said, well, they don't have recreation. Hell, I know a lot of people that don't have recreation, but okay, we want we're a humane society. and it's America. So I, you know, I asked because they weren't going to take us to that part.
▶ 1:53:25I go out and I'm looking at soccer fields. They have soccer tournaments. They play soccer. Most people don't have this. I work out every morning. I know what gym equipment is supposed to look like. Man, this gym equipment was topnotch, more than most people have or use. And it was typical of what a good gym would have. All kinds of machines for every body part. So come on, man. It's tell the truth time. Stop it.
▶ 1:53:53Well, the general
▶ 1:53:54and anytime somebody says this, I'm going to say it because and that's why I got sick of it. That's why I went there. That's why I looked through. That's what I found. I know what my eyes see. And we look at And by the way, the meals, bad food. Look at the food. They have halal for Islamic people. They had kosher for Jewish people. If anybody else had some other restrictions, they would work with you. That's the real deal. So I will yield. May reclaim my time. Gentlemen, gentleman yield to the gentleman from
▶ 1:54:26I I just wanted to add that that an illegal alien who agrees to voluntarily return to their own country. That that is who agrees to obey the law spends an average of 4 days in detention.
▶ 1:54:39And that's a good point by the way and I will yield in a second. I reclaim my time. uh if they want to go back to their country, they absolutely can go back. And by the way, the famous hunger strike, those folks were getting money and they were going into the commissary because they also have a commissary besides the regular food you get and they were getting food there, saying they were on a hunger strike. Nobody was on a hunger strike. Who wanted me to
▶ 1:55:06Your time's up.
▶ 1:55:07Okay, I yield back to the chairman.
▶ 1:55:10Gentleman yields back to gentle from Washington. Then I'll go to New York. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I guess the question I would have for my colleague on the other side is why are you asking taxpayers to pay for the profits of forprofit prison operators?
▶ 1:55:28The two detention operators in this space that occupy the vast majority of of of detention contracts are GEO and Core Civic. GEO in 2025 alone had a recordbreaking $254 million in net profit. That was 700% more than compared to 2024.
▶ 1:55:56And they had a revenue stream of $2.6 billion. that they're projecting, the executives at GEO have these stock portfolios that are projecting that they're going to increase their profits to 3.1 billion this year alone. So then you look at Core Civic, which is the other one, revenue of $2.2 billion, up 13% from the year before.
▶ 1:56:22They just got $1.47 47 billion dollars in multi-year uh in a multi-year deal to either sell or operate specific facilities. They've built nine new detention centers in this year alone. So what you're saying is you want taxpayers to foot the bill for profits to these mega corporations that are using the imprisonment and incarceration of immigrants of every single immigration status.
▶ 1:56:52US citizens, legal permanent residents, people who are here with work authorization, people who have committed zero crimes. You want these taxpayers to pay for the profits of these guys that go out and uh continue to just reap the benefits of this industry. No, I will not. Has gone absolutely wild. Absolutely wild because of all the money you've plowed into this system.
▶ 1:57:20And you have to ask yourself, well, who are these people that are in detention? Why are they there? Why are we having to hold people in prisons
▶ 1:57:32who are legal permanent residents? US citizens, people who have been here for 30 years, never committed a crime. Let's look at ISIS's own statistics. Over 72% have zero criminal record. Zero. Zero. Most of the people that are being held in immigration detention are being held for civil immigration violations. And I'm going to make the point that I make a hundred times in this committee. I'm going to make it again.
▶ 1:58:00Immigration is a immigration violations are civil
▶ 1:58:06It is a civil matter. That's why before 911 it was all handled out of the DOJ. These are not for criminal violations. And you're holding people, forcing taxpayers to pay for this while you cut their health care, while you launch illegal wars in Iran, while you refuse to do anything about housing or groceries or gas prices.
▶ 1:58:31You just want to make this over and over again about so-called criminal immigrants who are bombarding our country and taking over uh everything. And the reality is that this country would collapse without the contributions of immigrants. We should be providing the legal pathways. But what has this Republican Congress done and this administration done? They've taken away every legal pathway.
▶ 1:58:57They've slowed down all the processing of applications for legal visas, le means of legal processing. people show up for their hearings and they're suddenly put into deportation proceedings when they're doing what we asked them to do. So the people that you are holding
▶ 1:59:16in these detent, you had your time, Mr. Vanrew, this is my time. I'm going to claim it. You had your time and I was asking Mr. Not this and I might just see if he has a response to this, but I I have a lot to say on this issue. I'm the ranking member of the immigration subcommittee. Do we have a single hearing on reforming the immigration system? No. You know why? Because Republicans have since 2013 when I was not in Congress and I was advocating for immigration reform.
▶ 1:59:45There was a bipartisan bill. It passed the United States Senate with 68 bipartisan votes. And you know what happened? John Boehner was the speaker of the house. And John Boehner was pressured by his right-wing members to not bring that bill to the floor because what would happen if we passed immigration reform like a truly humane bipartisan comprehensive reform? We would no longer be able to blame immigrants for everything that you want to distract us from.
▶ 2:00:13And so it angers me that people keep putting out the same lies instead of genuinely recognizing that we need legal pathways. We need a reform to an antiquated system and that is what we should be doing in this committee. I yield back.
▶ 2:00:30Gentle lady yields back. Gentleman from Texas is recognized.
▶ 2:00:34I thank the chairman. Uh I oppose this amendment. Uh my colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim it will result in indefinite detention of families which is patently false. I mean you can look right now what we see if you look at the data which I don't have a chart big enough for people to see but if you look at the data of the impact of what we see under this current president you see a massive drop off here a massive drop off what we're dealing with family units and it's dropped and plummeted directly correlated to the enforcement measures uh that have been put in place and the policies of this administration that we're trying to codify here.
▶ 2:01:04Um and the the reality is I mean I can sit here and offer into the record articles phase out of uh here we got private um Biden use of private migrant centers grows amid border crisis. Uh another one about Obama expansive use of private centers. Uh the fact is this has been a part of of our policy on this for uh a long period of time. Uh the reality is that these centers include housing, playgrounds, schools and meals for families.
▶ 2:01:31The guid guidelines state that they will offer access to reading materials and other programmatic activities such as adult educational classes, organized recreational programs and groups focused on healthy living. Um that uh and at the end of the day, the stay in these centers is not supposed to be indefinite. In fact, multiple administrations have created a fast dedicated docket for family based claims. And what we're trying to do is ensure that we're able to do that. As we saw under the Biden Harris administration, the status quo simply didn't work.
▶ 2:01:58And for four years, these policies incentivized hundreds of thousands of aliens who are part of family units to travel to the southwest border. It allowed cartels to exploit them. It allowed the furtherance of the profiting of the cartel members. Uh cartel members are using children to pose as family units. We know this to be true. We know it was documented and it was all a direct consequence of the open border policies that resulted in the trafficking of children using these policies to do so.
▶ 2:02:25We know that this administration lost tens of thousands of children, could not keep up with them, could not know where they are because of the flawed policies of what they were doing. And this legislation designed to end those perverse incentives, to stop the empowerment of cartels, to protect children, to protect family units, and to be able to get those processed without the perversion of our laws. The fact that there are private centers uh does not mean we shouldn't have oversight. Of course, we should.
▶ 2:02:51uh the executive branch, Congress should oversight over the quality of the facilities and where they fall short, they those should be addressed. But we have private uh uh prisons uh with in in numerous categories throughout our country in state u um incarceration, in federal incarceration, and here with respect to dealing with those that are detained who are here illegally.
▶ 2:03:12Um, and look, I mean, I was out in Aurora, Colorado after that u u um center was targeted for for protest back in 2019. And I happened to be in Colorado visiting family. So, I went out to Aurora and literally spot check walked in. Didn't wasn't announced. I just showed up to go say, "What's going on?" And they walked me through the facility. Wasn't pregamed out. It wasn't set up to be some sort of cleansed sort of situation. And I walked around the facility and I saw a clean facility.
▶ 2:03:42I saw ping pong tables, video game centers, phone rooms to be able to call home. I saw dental uh process. I saw a big storage warehouse of all of their private effects when they'd come into the center. I saw people there that were engaged in athletic activity and physical activity. I saw people that had iPads being given to them. Um and and and any number of of things that people would frankly most taxpayers would say, "Wait, what? We're doing what and we're giving how much and spending how much.
▶ 2:04:12And that's where most taxpayers that I represent would say, "Well, we're 40 trillion in debt." And I've got people that are trying to figure out how to rebuild after a flood and try to deal with what's happening. And wait, we're giving iPads to people who are here illegally and in a detention center in Aurora. And then we're trying to say that somehow that's something we need to, you know, address and undo. Again, to the I take the gentleman at his word about what he observed in some abhorrent uh conditions. we should address those and fix those. Uh those could occur in governmentr run facilities.
▶ 2:04:40Those could occur in private facilities that the government's supposed to have oversight over. uh but to to suggest that we shouldn't uh allow for uh the executive branch, be it under Biden or Trump, to be able to uh use uh whatever they can in facilities to be able to deal with and manage this so that we can have people properly and appropriately detained and then be able to be removed as appropriate uh or or go through whatever procedures are appropriate to seek asylum or whatever they're doing under our laws. I think is full hearty and I oppose the amendment. I yield
▶ 2:05:12Mr. Chairman,
▶ 2:05:13gentleman yields back the gentleman from I think it was New York and then
▶ 2:05:17Uh, lot to respond to here. Um, Mr. Roy, I'm glad you agree we should do oversight. How come we haven't done a single bit of oversight
▶ 2:05:27of ICE?
▶ 2:05:29Not one hearing. We have not done a single oversight hearing of ICE and the $240 billion that they have received. the excessive force, the murdering of people who have done done nothing wrong, even though even if they did do something wrong, they shouldn't be murdered. No oversight hearings. So, I appreciate you saying that we should do it. Well, do it. Do it.
▶ 2:05:59Let's do it right here. my friend from North Carolina who said that all of these detainees in the facilities, private or public, whichever you want, are here illegally. Asylum is a legal pathway. They are here legally.
▶ 2:06:24I understand my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not like the asylum process. And frankly, I agree. It takes far, far too long to get through the asylum process. We should absolutely reform it. The James Langford, Chris Murphy bill would have done that and we need to do it. But stop saying they're here illegally. Asylum is a legal pathway.
▶ 2:06:55That is what the law is. And so all of those people Not all of them. Most of those people at Delaney Hall that I spoke to, I'm sorry, Mr. Vandrew didn't have an interpreter. I was able to stay for two and a half hours and speak to number of them. Many spoke English. The ones that didn't were translated by other people. They're they have no criminal record.
▶ 2:07:19They have work I was talking to a mother who had an 18-year-old single mother, 18-year-old, 12-year-old, and 8-year-old. and she has been there in months with no hearing in sight lawfully here work authorization working her 8-year-old is being taken care of by her 18-year-old because she's in jail. You want to compare this, Mr.
▶ 2:07:46Vandrew, to state criminal detention facilities. These are not criminals. They are not criminals. They are here 70 just I I will if I have time 70% of those who are arrested have no criminal record whatsoever and the data is about 5% have serious criminal convictions and they should be deported.
▶ 2:08:15But these people are not criminals. They do not belong in jail And what's worse is you don't have to take my word for it. who can take the word of 88% of federal judges in this country. 88% every single president. I know we all like to name who appointed it because uh obviously if it's appointed by the other party, it's not legitimate. Well, plenty of Trump appointed judges.
▶ 2:08:46Since July of 2025, the federal courts have decided 16,400 habius cases. Of those 14,350 went against the administration and the detainees were ordered to be 88%. Let me tell you something. Let me ask you something.
▶ 2:09:10If your agency had 88% of their cases lose, do you think you might change your Do you think you might say, "Okay, this is probably not legal. Maybe we should do something different." But no, you know what Steven Miller wants to do?
▶ 2:09:31He wants to suspend habius corpus because he doesn't like the fact that he can't just do whatever he wants and there's actually a law that he has to follow. So yes, the criminals should be deported, but that's not who are being kept in these detention facilities indefinitely for months and months and months and months.
▶ 2:09:54Many of with work authorizations, paying taxes, having What are they doing in a criminal jail? They're not criminals. So yeah, that's all well and good. You want to compare it to a state criminal jail, but these are not criminals and they should not be in jail as 88% of federal judges have determined. And I yield back.
▶ 2:10:22California is recognized. Well, the gentleman from New Jersey has some unanimous consent and then I'll come to you. I do see the lady snack purchases out on hunger strikes
▶ 2:10:39without objection. Gentleman from California is recognized.
▶ 2:10:42Move to strike last word.
▶ 2:10:43Gentleman's recognized.
▶ 2:10:45Mr. Chairman, I I patiently listened for five minutes to the word illegal is not a criminal. Uh, but I want to go a little further back because it it needs to be said. This committee has tried to in previous times prior to President Trump to deal with people who drank who drink and drive and hurt or kill people that are illegally in the country.
▶ 2:11:12And the other side has repeatedly turned down with amendments such as, well, what if u what if someone did it 10 times a DUI? what if they did it 20 times? And in every case, the then majority Democrats would vote no.
▶ 2:11:30So it it pales uh in comparison to uh the uh definition that they pa they painted because of course their definition of criminals that statistic that was cited only 5%. of course, ignores the DUIs, ignores the wife Peters, ignores anything except having been convicted of a felony.
▶ 2:11:54Now, if 5% of the people you're trying to throw out are criminal and you're having trouble sometimes even getting rid of them, then I don't care if it's 80% of the cases or not, of course, you continue to do it.
▶ 2:12:09And within those who were denied uh this the being held and released there were lots and lots of people who hadn't held jobs had were involved in or suspected strongly of being involved in gang and criminal activities and the list goes on. And yet the other side says well we're okay if it's a crime. No, you're okay if the guy's been charged and convicted.
▶ 2:12:37Unless, of course, he's going out the back door of one of your sanctuary cities. If he's going out the back door of one of your sanctuary cities, you're okay with releasing him again and again. So, how dare the other party make the statement that somehow, well, we're okay with uh locking up criminals. We're okay with deporting criminals.
▶ 2:12:57Your definition of criminals and your treatment of criminals in sanctuary cities, most of the blue states and cities has shown us that that's just not true. So yes, we are dealing with a good piece of legislation here. We are fighting amendment after amendment, and I'm okay with just voting no on the amendments as appropriate. What I'm not okay with is sitting silent while somebody redefes crime and forgets their own history.
▶ 2:13:27The history of this committee is when Democrats are in charge, nobody gets deported. Everybody gets let in.
▶ 2:13:35I'm going to I'm going to close I'll yield with you in just a moment.
▶ 2:13:40My grandfather came through Ellis Island as so many did. That was an orderly way to come in. But even then, if they found or suspected criminal activity, you didn't get off the island. If you had tuberculosis, you didn't get off the island. If if if the fact is there was a time under presidents of both parties when people said it's a privilege to come to America and even when you're invited, you still can be fact checked.
▶ 2:14:10Unfortunately, today we're not talking in those terms. It is a This is not the only bill I'd like to see passed, but I'm delighted that it's finally being brought up and I look forward to voting for it. And I yield to my colleague from California.
▶ 2:14:22I think I just want to make a couple quick points. The the Langford bill would have prevented President Trump from taking the actions that he took to secure our borders until illegal crossings reached 4,000 a day. That's why we opposed this bill and why Langford ultimately disowned it. Now remember, the Democrats said there was nothing could be done. The president proved them liars when he enforced the law and illegal crossings immediately dropped more than 95%. Now, we're also told these are not criminals.
▶ 2:14:53Well, that's both true and untrue. What's untrue is that they've not violated the law. They have indeed. If they've crossed the border illegally, they've committed a misdemeanor under federal law, punishable for by up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine. if they reenter uh it's a felony. But what is uh true is that they are normally not charged for this crime. So their illegal presence is a civil matter. It's remediated by the civil enforcement of deportation.
▶ 2:15:23Deportation is not a punishment. It is a simple recognition that they've got no right to be here. It's analogous to being escorted off the the premises of a property that you have no right to be in. uh even if you're not charged with the actual crime of trespass. Thank the gentleman for
▶ 2:15:40Mr. Chairman,
▶ 2:15:40and I yield back,
▶ 2:15:41Mr. Chairman.
▶ 2:15:42Gentleman yields back. Gentle lady from California is recognized. I'm
▶ 2:15:44I move to strike the last word.
▶ 2:15:46Lady's recognized.
▶ 2:15:47I would just note that as usual, the judiciary committee is all over the the mat without actually talking about the amendment that is before us. The Trump administration has gone all over the country and paid in many cases inflated prices. is two or three times the assessed value for a bunch of warehouses. Now they're having to sell some of them.
▶ 2:16:11And what they've found all over the country is that in red states and blue states is the neighbors don't want these warehouses to be converted to detention facilities. The amendment would preclude converting these warehouses to detention facilities for families. That's what the amendment is.
▶ 2:16:33And I I would challenge any of us to go home and explain to our constituents why we think that's not a good idea when the people of the country are saying, "Don't do this." Suing in in some cases a a red state sheriff cutting off the road access. People don't want this. And that's what the amendment would do. I'm favored. And with that, I would yield the balance of my time. Uh,
▶ 2:16:57I'll take it if uh I'll take it
▶ 2:17:00to to um to to Mr. Goldman.
▶ 2:17:04All right. Thank you um to Miss Lorren. Just to respond to a couple things that um Mr. Isis said um and that Mr. McCclinktock said. First of all, my grandmother also came through Ellis Island. Um there was no immigration law at that time and certainly there was no NCIS where you could look at a database and figure out whether someone has a criminal record from their own country.
▶ 2:17:31Uh and those with tuberculosis and other illnesses went into an enti a huge hospital that they built at Ellis Island in order to rehabilitate people so that they could come in. 98% of the people who arrived at Ellis Island were allowed into this country.
▶ 2:17:53So I don't think you want to go back to the quote orderly process unquote that you said Ellis Island is given everything that you've said here today. sanctuary cities. If there's a criminal conviction, and I ask you, please cite me one case where there was a criminal conviction.
▶ 2:18:18The defendant served his time and was convicted of a removable offense under the INA and he was not turned over by the city or the state to the Department of Homeland Security. You have not and are unable to provide one is my guess. Maybe you'll have one or two.
▶ 2:18:41I'm I'm sure that some fall through the cracks, but the policy of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states is that if you are removable after you're convicted, after you complete your sentence, you are turned over to the Department of Homeland Security. The problem you all have is the conviction part. You don't think there should be a conviction.
▶ 2:19:04You think it is enough that someone is arrested for a removable But we have due process here and you're innocent until proven guilty. And that's these people are not turned over before they are convicted. And then finally, I just go back to to one thing that you you talk about and Mr.
▶ 2:19:27Mcccleinto, I believe you brought this up that there is a crime that says you are uh that it is a crime to enter That is true. But you are also allowed to and this supersedes it to claim asylum and then you are here legally. And I understand now the policy is that you can only claim asylum if you come through a port of entry.
▶ 2:19:57Um, I I think that's a worthwhile policy to discuss, the asylum laws allow you to claim asylum even if you cross over the border illegally. So, it is a defense to that claim. It is not therefore a crime if you can claim asylum, which is a legal pathway. And the the issue I keep coming back to it over and over again.
▶ 2:20:28Where do you come from?
▶ 2:20:29You keep saying everybody here who's detained is illegal. They're not. They're not. If they claim asylum, they are. That is a lawful pathway. I know you don't like it, but it is a lawful pathway. So, they are not here illegally. And I wish this administration would stop putting those people in jail indefinitely. becau when they are simply following the
▶ 2:20:57Lady's time has expired. Gentleman from North Carolina is recognized and then we'll go to
▶ 2:21:02Well, just I'll briefly respond to some of that. Number one, claiming asylum does not mean that the United States has to take someone in. They can't. A claim can certainly be denied.
▶ 2:21:12Gentlemen, [clears throat] one second. I will claim the time and I will yield to the gentleman from North
▶ 2:21:17Oh, thank you. Uh, I would argue that that the asylum process has been abused. People come across the border and yell, "I'm in I'm I'm afraid of something and they're granted entry." And of course, the previous administration was far more liberal in granting those requests.
▶ 2:21:30And I will just say I agree with you.
▶ 2:21:32Well, but secondly, uh I would say and probably importantly, a conviction is not required to deport someone, especially if it is an illegal re-entry. Your presence here is criminal. I mean 8 USC 1326. I use that all the time when I was a federal prosecutor. So being here is sufficient to be detained and deported. But thirdly, the sanctuary jurisdictions do have a very wide paradigm in how they're operated.
▶ 2:22:02Uh you know, there are some sanctuary leaning jurisdictions in my home state of North Carolina. We had to pass a law at the state legislature to override the discretion. But we had members of of uh I believe it was Fairfax County, Steve Dano, where he campaigned on not charging and not leading, not not not even uh hiding the ball. He wanted to plead them down to a non-deportable offense under the INA if they were here illegally. And we heard of numerous cases where that was that was uh exercised.
▶ 2:22:30Number one for me was when he cut loose a a pedophile with overwhelming evidence because the judge said, "Your plea offer is deficient." So, sanctuary cities, some there is some merit to some of them, but the other ones, they do go far too extreme. And in terms of waiting until an illegal alien is convicted, I would just say that what we're arguing for in that instance is for an American to be harmed, the illegal alien to be caught, the illegal alien to be convicted before they're deported. And I disagree with that.
▶ 2:23:00if they're here, especially a second time illegally, I would prefer we not wait for an American to be harmed, that we appropriately seize them and then deport them with greater efficiency.
▶ 2:23:11And that those are my three points.
▶ 2:23:12Will the gentleman yield? Well, it's back to the chair.
▶ 2:23:15I'm happy to yield to whoever. Mr. Roy and Mr. Goldman,
▶ 2:23:19yield to the gentleman for Texas.
▶ 2:23:20I I just want to add just a couple things to this deal, which is um the Biden Harris administration uh acknowledged this problem with asylum. um when they said a full when they had between 2014 and 2019, a full 83% of the people who were subject to expedited removal um and claimed fear from that window were referred to an immigration judge.
▶ 2:23:43Um in fiscal year 24 for asylum cases originating with a credible fear claim at the border, only 8% of applications were eventually granted in immigration court. 6% were denied. 34% were not adjudicated, including cases that were terminated or dismissed. 42.7% of cases did not even bother filing the asylum application.
▶ 2:24:08Look, the point here is our effort to streamline this process to make sure that those who are able to claim asylum, credible fear, can have it heard without being inundated, without having the system overwhelmed. So that the 85% in the 2024 data under Joe Biden that were not uh and by the way, 8% were eventually granted immigration court, so 92% weren't.
▶ 2:24:33Um that number is completely unacceptable and it's indicative of everything that was wrong with our system under the previous administration and why we are seeking to make cotification of the policies that have restored order that have restored sensibility, common sense that have made it to now where you can actually do your job. Where somebody has an an asylum claim, you can at least hear it. Where you can manage the border without total abject chaos.
▶ 2:24:59where ranchers are overwhelmed, rapes are occurring, unaccompanied children are being abused, cartels are being p empowered, fentanyl are killing Texans and Americans. And this the purpose of this is to avoid that ever happening again irrespective of who's in the White House. I yield back or I yield to the chairman. The gent chairman yield.
▶ 2:25:18I'll yield to the gentleman from New
▶ 2:25:20Just real quick in response to to Mr. Not um 8 USC 1326 is a federal crime. um when any ever anybody is arrested federally, they and they're they don't have status. They're not here uh legally. They go into uh immigration custody if they're not put into federal custody. The issue is with the sanctuary cities, we're talking about city and state um criminal prosecutions. And and Mr.
▶ 2:25:47Roy, I guess what I would just ask is why is not some of the $240 billion that is being given to our immigration enforcement going to hire many more immigration judges to get out of the backlog of asylum. That's a pretty simple thing. Instead, it's going to $50,000 bonuses to people who are unvetted, who don't even have their background checks completed
▶ 2:26:13and who are being hired just to terrorize people and arrest them for pe people who have no criminal background.
▶ 2:26:22Time is expired. There was money was used to to get more immigration judges as part of the the bill we passed last year. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from uh Georgia. Well, the facts are that uh Trump has doed the uh immigration judges. So, you have fewer judges now than you had a year ago or two years ago.
▶ 2:26:46And they continue to uh narrow the funnel from the uh the top where you are putting uh immigrants into the private forprofit crony capitalist prison industrial complex private detention facilities. You you you hire uh agents to uh terrorize the communities across America.
▶ 2:27:15arrest people, put them in private detention. The average stay for an asylum seeker is 700 days in private detention. And the fact is, if they're in private detention, they're going to spend more time there at taxpayer expense than they will in a public uh detention center, a government-run detention center.
▶ 2:27:41So, this private for uh for-profit desent uh uh uh prison detention uh industrial complex is one that makes money for a few people at the top and those are the crony capitalists associated with Donald Trump. And it's hurting Americans when our neighbors and in some cases our relatives are getting caught up in that funnel.
▶ 2:28:10uh you're putting a bunch of people in, but yet you're adjudicating fewer and fewer cases, meaning more lengthy stays in the detention centers at taxpayer expense. Connect the dots. It hurts the taxpayers, but it also hurts uh people on the ground. I want to read parts of an article written by Miriam Jordan, a national immigration correspondent with uh the New York Times.
▶ 2:28:38In an article published yesterday and updated today, she says, quote, "The Trump administration's immigration crackdown is colliding with a demographic reality. Americans are aging rapidly and living longer, creating soaring demand for elder care when the industry is already buckling under the weight of chronic labor shortages.
▶ 2:29:02Almost 70 million people in the United States are 65 years of age or older and government projections estimate that 70% of older adults will need care at some point in their lives. Millions of immigrants eligible to work in the United States fill positions across the elder care industry, such as nurses, dieticians, fitness instructors, and maintenance technicians.
▶ 2:29:32And countless undocumented immigrants, care for seniors in their homes, part of a vast informal economy. Immigration enforcement is choking both labor pools. And so when you get older and you don't have anybody to take care of you, you can blame Trump and you can blame MAGA Republicans here in the House of Representatives and also in the US Senate.
▶ 2:30:02I'll also talk about uh the 1.5 people that the United States Supreme Court, the 63 MAGA majority on the United States Supreme Court has authorized Donald Trump to revoke their temporary protective status and deport them. Where do you think they're going first before they get deported?
▶ 2:30:26They're going into those private for-profit detention centers, wreaking more profits for the crony capitalists. So you have s you have 350,000 which or or who President Trump has uh accused of being uh dog eaters and cat eaters are domestic pets, you know, but do you think he gives a damn about them?
▶ 2:30:56Those 350,000 many of them work in the nursing homes. Many of them work in the informal economy taking care of yours and mine, our el our elderly relatives, our mothers, our fathers, uncles and aunts, grandmothers. And so be careful of what you do.
▶ 2:31:21You can talk about illegal illegal immigrants being criminal or being noncriminal, whatever you want to call them, but these are the people who are working in this economy and they are helping make life better for you. And when they're not there, uh, you have only yourself to blame. And with that, I yield back.
▶ 2:31:39Gentleman yields back. Gentleman from Kansas is recognized.
▶ 2:31:43Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy.
▶ 2:31:47Gentleman from Texas recognized.
▶ 2:31:48I thank my friend from Kansas. I think chairman um let me just juxtapose a couple of things in the window of time from the time that we passed HR2 in the previous Congress in May of 2023 but that we were being stonewalled by Democrats in the Senate and by the previous administration during that window of time between then and when President Trump took office and was able to get control of the situation at the border enacting the very policies that my Democrats clearly support by virtue of the way they're talking about what we want to try to accomplish here and what we're trying to do right
▶ 2:32:18Now, in that Republicans in that time, we passed the bill. In that window, more than 3 and a half million illegal aliens encountered at the southwest border alone, 5 million encountered nationwide. We had millions of illegal aliens released, hundreds of thousands of aliens chauffeered into the country through illegal parole programs, at least 2 million new cases in immigration court. Let me repeat that. At least 2 million new cases in immigration court.
▶ 2:32:41We had the preventable murders and deaths of Lake and Riley, Jocelyn Nungre, Rachel Moren, Katie Abraham, Sheridan Gorman, Stephanie Mentor, and countless other Americans. All of that since May 2023, since the time Republicans took action and that we are trying to do right now to cottify what President Trump did that actually restored order at the border. Let's talk about immigration judges. The EOIR announces 77 immigration judges and five temporary immigration judges.
▶ 2:33:11I'd like to incre put this into the record without objection from the chairman.
▶ 2:33:15The largest class in agency's history. The executive office for immigration review announced the swearing in of 77 immigration judges and five temporary immigration judges. The largest class of new adjudicators in EO's history, growing the total immigration judge court to nearly 700. It's hired 153 permanent immigration judges this fiscal year, the most in any single year in the AY's history. I would also ask to insert into the record this adjudication statistics which shows the extent to which initial receipts have plummeted. If you see this chart, you got to zero in on the screen.
▶ 2:33:45The receipts have plummeted under this administration in terms of who's coming into the system. Yet the total completions of the adjudication of claims is going up under the Trump administration because we took the money that we got under the OBB. We took that and our efforts and we've added to the immigration judges. We've been processing the backlogs, diminishing the numbers, and no longer uh filling the the courts with new people because we're actually doing the job we're supposed to do at the border.
▶ 2:34:15So, I totally agree that we should be doing exactly what we're doing right now. That's the whole point. We want to codify it and make it to where it's permanent. With that, I would yield back to the gentleman from Kansas.
▶ 2:34:29Gentleman yields back. Gentleman from Kansas yields back.
▶ 2:34:32Gentleman from Kansas yields back. I think it's Miss Scandan and then Miss
▶ 2:34:36Thank you. Um I I've found so many of the statements from the other side of the aisle today absolutely astonishing. um the way that people can uh try to justify this detention fantasy that underlies their efforts to justify mass imprisonment of people is just inhumane and immoral and and everything else.
▶ 2:35:05I mean it's a house of cards which if you examine any one of those cards the whole thing is going to collapse. It starts with this idea that we have all these dangerous criminal immigrants in this country. It's a fantasy. Even the people they have picked up, the vast majority of them are not criminals. So that card is not structurally sound. Then we have the lies that all these people came here illegally. That's not true.
▶ 2:35:34Many of the people who have been detained have come here legally under visas under different um under as uh recipients of TPS and the rules got changed under them. We also know that there are millions of people who came here legally.
▶ 2:35:51And because our immigration system is so broken and all the money is going to detention and and border walls, we don't have the resources to process the people who are in line trying to follow the rules. And those people are getting picked up as they go to their court hearings, as they go to meetings in which they are trying to follow our rules.
▶ 2:36:14So it's just one lie after another which then is used to justify the unconstitutional and inhumane treatment that is being doled out using taxpayer dollars. um place prisons, many of them privately run that are being operated in conditions where there is inadequate clean water, inadequate meals, um unsanitary conditions, and a lack of medical care.
▶ 2:36:44As court after court after court has found in recent years, we now have thousands of decisions indicating over the last two years that people are being held in inhumane conditions. And if every one of these people could get a lawyer, then we would have thousands more released than have been already.
▶ 2:37:03Probably one of the most perverse things is that some of the taxpayer dollars being used to fund these private prisons are actually taxpayer dollars from the people who are being held there now. Because so many of the people who have been detained are actually here working legally, working and paying taxes. because as several people have pointed out, our immigrants are a net monetary benefit to this country. Um it the arguments are just not credible.
▶ 2:37:34They're not true. And and to justify the kind of conditions where we've had over 50 people die in the last just year and a half in in ICE facilities. That is vastly more than we've ever seen before. And in so many cases, these people died from lack of medical treatment, from inhumane conditions.
▶ 2:37:57And to try to justify continuing that kind of immoral behavior, I think is well beneath this institution and this country. Um, but I do want to make the point that I think kicked off this part of the debate. Uh my colleague from Pennsylvania has offered a very simple amendment saying that we should not be detaining people in warehouses.
▶ 2:38:21I if we can't even agree upon the fact that we should not treat people like an Amazon package, I have very little hope for uh anything productive getting done in this body uh in the foreseeable future or at least until November. So, um, it is not just the human rights of the folks that are involved, but we have seen across the country as these warehouses have been gobbled up by ICE often at excessive prices.
▶ 2:38:49Um, the local communities are saying, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Our sewer system, our electrical grid, our hospital system can't handle you putting 7,000 or 10,000 people in an Amazon warehouse in our district." So, there are so many other issues here that deserve to be dealt with.
▶ 2:39:08Um, I do think an overarching one is the fact that so many of these facilities are being run for private for-profit prison contractors who, as we heard detailed earlier, are raking in billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, some of which they're turning around then and making millions and millions of dollars of contributions to the White House and to members of Congress.
▶ 2:39:31So the whole thing is a very sick inhumane cycle and obviously I will be supporting my colleagues amendment and voting against this bill. I yield back.
▶ 2:39:40Gentle yields back. Gentle from Texas is
▶ 2:39:43Thank you so much Mr. Chair. Uh and this amendment specifically um as it goes back to what my colleague was just saying. It's about these Amazon warehouses and I know that there's been a lot of talk about sanctuary cities and blue states and red states and things like that. But I want to tell you the story of um a town by the name of Uh in the town of Hutchkins, there was a proposal for um ICE to purchase a building. There was a million square feet.
▶ 2:40:14It was a warehouse. It had previously been utilized specifically by Amazon. Um, and the Department of Homeland Security and ICE considered the site to convert it into a massive detention facility, which would have held roughly 9,500 to 10,000 individuals, far exceeding the small town's population of around 6,000 people.
▶ 2:40:38Um, in the following weeks, the people rose up and the people decided that they were going to push and use every tool in their tool back toolbox to make sure that this ICE facility did not go through. The town of Hutchkins is actually in Texas. It actually sits in Texas 30. And I do want to applaud not only the people of the town of Hutchkins, but also my elected officials on every single le level that worked together to make sure that that was shut down.
▶ 2:41:08But let's talk about what this is really about. And I know y'all knew it was coming, especially once I showed up. It's racist. It's just racist, racist, racist. Okay. Now, let me tell you why it is racist. All right. This ain't about whether or not you're concerned that the immigrant is coming in and the immigrant is going to kill everybody. That is not what it is. It's not. It's the things like what your fearless leader said when he said they're poisoning the blood. Okay? What this is about is racism.
▶ 2:41:39Because the last time I checked, supposedly this administration supposed not even just this administration, let me just be clear. your president. He is the one that said white South African refugees needed their own program. [clears throat] And so therefore, he decided that he would raise the cap on how many refugees could come into the United States, but it was only raised for white South Africans.
▶ 2:42:08The administration said a limit of 17,500 slots. plan to admit more white South Africans as refugees this year. So, here's the point. Every time I see these images of these officers who obviously are completely incompetent, none of that money that has been given to ICE has been given so that they could be trained up and know how to do the dag on job. Seems like they are specifically targeting people because of how they look.
▶ 2:42:38In fact, earlier, one of my colleagues from across the aisle was talking about, "Let's not forget our history as he quoted the history of how his family came in." And I guess he was trying to say they came in the right way. Let me be clear about something. The people that were here are the indigenous folk. And you know who ICE been rounding up? They've been rounding up indigenous people.
▶ 2:43:07THE PEOPLE THAT ORIGINALLY CAME, NOT THE COLONIZERS, but the original people. So, what this is about is whiteness. Everything that this administration has pushed HAS BEEN ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACY, your fear. In fact, you say things like, "Oh, you just want them to come in so that they will vote for you because we know that when you look at the numbers, I mean, I'm just being real with this, but white people, they not the ones that carry the Democrats. they aren't.
▶ 2:43:37And so this is literally about you say think, you tell on yourselves. You believe that somehow they will become citizens and they will start voting in the interest of equity. Those are the things you fight against when you say no diversity, equity, and inclusion. You want to sit up here and act like the crime is being perpetrated by people of color, BUT THE STATISTICS SAY OTHERWISE.
▶ 2:44:02If you look at the real numbers, I know that y'all believe in propaganda and y'all don't want people to know the truth and y'all definitely don't want them to know history because then you got to again acknowledge colonizing. But nevertheless, when you look at the numbers, you want to tell me about oneoffs. And listen, as a criminal defense attorney, I have represented people of all colors. Let me tell you, anybody can commit a crime on any given day.
▶ 2:44:25The idea that you put a white sweeping brush on everybody that happens to have a little bit of melanin as a criminal, that is really the crime. When you are elected to represent somebody, you should be understanding that your
▶ 2:44:42is to fight for everybody. And what makes this country great is our
▶ 2:44:48I'll yield.
▶ 2:44:50Time is up.
▶ 2:44:52Gentleman from Maryland. I think she's Oh, the gentle from California.
▶ 2:44:56Gentle lady from California is
▶ 2:45:00Okay. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. I support this amendment. I certainly supported that history lesson uh we just heard and there's so much to talk about um based on what my colleagues from the other side of the aisle have been saying. So, we want to talk about the border. Well, let me see.
▶ 2:45:18If I recall, we had a bipartisan immigration reform bill that did address the border uh that in fact Trump tanked because he wanted to make sure that, you know, he had Republicans falling in line so that he could try and win the election in 24.
▶ 2:45:39And so in my mind, this bill that we're debating now is like sloppy seconds to a bipartisan piece of immigration reform Uh let's talk about immigration and immigrants. There are all kinds of immigrants. There are the ones that landscape your homes. There are the ones that care for your families. There are the ones that prepare your food. There are the ones that design your Teslas.
▶ 2:46:08There are the ones that come up with vaccines that cure diseases. There are the ones that marry people that ultimately become the president. There are all kinds of immigrants with all kinds of status. So, let's not try and lump immigrants into one kind of bucket to push a very perverse narrative about who immigrants are.
▶ 2:46:37Let's talk about criminals. Criminals has come up, I guess. And I don't know like Dem what Democrats think about criminals and Republicans. Well, we can talk about criminals. Let's talk about the ones that stormed the capital on January 6. I have not heard anybody say, "Round these people up and put them in jail." I have heard people say, "Give them restitution. Give them a job working for ICE." Reparations reparations is what they know. Give them a car and a bonus and all of this.
▶ 2:47:07And there are so many other kinds of criminals than just those January 6ers. There are white collar criminals. There are terrorists. There are folks, and not just immigrants, there are folks, Americans, that are involved in trafficking, human trafficking, drug And you know what? We have agencies for this. We have DEA. We have ATF. We have Homeland Security. And I'm not talking about ICE.
▶ 2:47:34And you know what this administration, you all, you know what you all have done? You all have stopped the thousands of agents working in those departments. You have stopped them from going after criminals. You have stopped them from pursuing their prosecutotorial work to go after people that are trafficking children. and you have put them on ICE detail.
▶ 2:48:06Anybody who does that in my mind is a criminal. If you are taking folks away from their job trying to stop child trafficking, then you're a criminal. Let's talk about judges. People have come up with these judges. Well, there are judges that are saying no to ICE because of these warehouses, because of these detention facilities, these warehouses that are warehousing two-month-old babies, pregnant women.
▶ 2:48:35How what is a two-month old baby doing? What kind of high crime is a two-month old baby committing? Crying more than three seconds. I What is that? Why are we doing this? Why are we warehousing babies less than a year old, pregnant women? Why are we shackling pregnant women, putting them in these warehouses? The judges are saying no. A judge in my district has said no.
▶ 2:49:00Because she said that these warehouses, these detention facilities, y'all's ICE, are violating the fifth amendment. People are dying because of inhumane conditions of And so what we're saying through these amendments to try to fix this sloppy second bill is have some oversight. Say the thing we are saying the thing you want to talk about people being killed.
▶ 2:49:31Well, you know what? My colleague didn't add Alex Prey to the list. Renee Good to the list. Be honest. I really don't understand why no one on the other side of the aisle can be about what is happening. A death is a regardless of it fits your narrative or not.
▶ 2:49:56And you should be demanding oversight over your dollars being misused to create inhumane conditions which is why I support this amendment. I yield back. Mr. Chair,
▶ 2:50:07gentleman yield. Our gentle lady yields back. The question occurs. Gentleman from Maryland.
▶ 2:50:12Mr. Chairman, thank you. [clears throat] Um, our colleagues want to strike the pose of anti-rime warriors uh over this legislation, but they are complete bystanders, even enthusiasts, when it comes to certain kinds of crime, white collar crime, the frauds that are sweeping the country today, any of Donald Trump's crimes, and any of the crimes committed by the convicted felons, he pardons.
▶ 2:50:41pardoned more than felons who attacked and assaulted our police officers, stormed the capital of the United States, threatened to his own vice president. they did and tried to overthrow a presidential election. And then he pardoned all of them, commuted their sentences, gave them clemency, forgave any fines or restitution that they owed to their victims, including to the United States of America.
▶ 2:51:12And we don't hear a peep from them about that kind of crime. We heard about DUI. Well, a lot of our families have been touched by DUI. Lots of families in America. 12,000 people every year are lost to drunk drivers. 34 deaths a day.
▶ 2:51:34Don't all these families deserve something more than just a rhetorical invocation of DUI in order to pass a a terrible anti-immigration bill that everybody knows is going nowhere in the dwindling days of this Congress. Why didn't we have a one serious hearing about drunk driving in America and people getting killed every single day?
▶ 2:52:00When I was a state senator in Maryland, I advanced legislation which passed to impose a a mandatory compulsory ignition interlock device on the cars of convicted drunk drivers. And yet, what have our colleagues done about that? Nothing. No hearings, no markup, no legislation. But they will use DUI as a way to make an argument for more immigrant bashing in America.
▶ 2:52:30We keep keep hearing fairy tales about the Obama administration, the Biden If if the Democrats had their way, they say there'd be a 100 million uh illegal aliens swarming the streets of America. If Democrats had their way, there'd be a billion people. The whole world would be here. Well, you know what? Under the Obama administration, more than three million people were removed, deported, and repatriated.
▶ 2:52:56Under the Biden administration, more than 4 million people were removed, deported, and repatriated from the country. I went back because I remembered a hearing that we had. The Republican chairs of the oversight and homeland committees interviewed the border patrol chiefs for each section of the southern border to try to find out what was going on under Biden. Here's what they said. You can go back and listen to the whole hearing or check out the report.
▶ 2:53:20The B administration made investments to address the spike in undocumented immigration and to control the border. There was no open border. They tried everything they could to get one of them to say there was an open border and they said no, there was no open border. There was robust drug interdiction at the border. Gregory Pavino, whom Trump made the commander at large of the border patrol, was the chief patrol agent for the El Centro sector under President Biden.
▶ 2:53:46and he testified about the successful border patrol operations he was running and he discussed applying consequences for those illegally crossing the border and drug traffickers under President Biden. So look, if you want to go off and continue to divide and polarize Americans and demagogue this issue, do it. But stop misstating the historical record when it comes to the administrations of President Biden and President Obama.
▶ 2:54:17While America's involved in an illegal, unconstitutional, disastrous war in Iran, taking American lives as well as Iranian lives, they want to uh replay the best of, the worst of all of their anti-immigrant fantasies, which have turned the vast majority of the country against them as more than 60% of Americans reject the failed immigration policies of this administration.
▶ 2:54:42And Tom Payne said when he got over to America in 1774, two years before a revolution, that this country, if it lives up to its ideals and values, will be an asylum to humanity. Not an insane asylum, but a place of refuge for people seeking freedom from political and economic and religious and intellectual persecution from all over the world. That's who we are as a country.
▶ 2:55:05And instead they want to set Americans against Americans and continue to have ICE agents killing Americans, shooting them down in the streets. And we say no, enough of this. Let's get together and have serious bipartisan common sense immigration reform. I yield back to you, Mr.
▶ 2:55:24Gentleman yields back. The question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from Pennsylvania. All those in favor say I.
▶ 2:55:30Those opposed, no. No. Any of the chairs, the nos have it. The amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 2:55:36Seek a roll call, please.
▶ 2:55:38Roll call being requested. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 2:55:40Mr. Jordan,
▶ 2:55:41Mr. Jordan votes no. Mr. Isa,
▶ 2:55:44Mr. Iso votes no. Mr. Biggs.
▶ 2:55:47Mr. Mcccleintoch.
▶ 2:55:49Mr. Mcccleintoch votes no. Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Massie. Mr. Roy,
▶ 2:55:55Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Klein, Mr. Gooden, Mr. Andrew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore,
▶ 2:56:09Mr. Moore votes no. Miss Haggman,
▶ 2:56:11Miss Haggman votes no. Miss Lee of Mr. Hunt, Mr. Hunt votes no. Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman. Mr. Knott,
▶ 2:56:28Mr. Not votes no. Mr. Harris,
▶ 2:56:31Mr. Harris votes no. Mr. Ponder Mr. Schmidt Mr. Gil
▶ 2:56:37Mr. Gill votes no Mr. Bombgardner
▶ 2:56:41Mr. Raskin
▶ 2:56:43Mr. Raskin votes I Mr. Nadler
▶ 2:56:46Mr. Nadler votes I miss Lofrren
▶ 2:56:49Miss Lrren votes I Mr. Cohen Mr. Johnson Mr. Lou Miss Gyipol Mr. Ka
▶ 2:57:01Mr. Korea votes I. Miss Scandan.
▶ 2:57:03Miss Scanland votes I. Mr. Negus. Miss Mcbath. Miss Ross.
▶ 2:57:11Miss Ross votes I. Miss Balot. Miss Balot votes I. Mr. Garcia.
▶ 2:57:21Mr. Garcia. Mr. Garcia votes I. Miss Camlager Dove.
▶ 2:57:26Miss Camlager Dove votes I. Mr.
▶ 2:57:30Mr. Goldman. I.
▶ 2:57:31Mr. Goldman votes I. Miss Crockett. Miss Crockett votes I. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I.
▶ 2:57:43Mr. Fitzgerald, you're not recorded. Mr. Fitzgerald votes no. Mr. Schmidt, you're not recorded. Mr. Schmidt votes no.
▶ 2:58:16Mr. Bombgardner.
▶ 2:58:18Mr. Bombgardner votes no.
▶ 2:58:26Mr. Chairman, there are 12 eyes and 13
▶ 2:58:29Uh, the amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 2:58:32Who seeks recognition?
▶ 2:58:34Gentleman from Maryland.
▶ 2:58:35Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've got an amendment at the desk.
▶ 2:58:38Clerk will report.
▶ 2:58:41Gentleman from California reserves a point of order.
▶ 2:58:47Amendment to the amendment in the nature. The amendment will be considered as read. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized to explain the amendment.
▶ 2:58:53Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My amendment is about the necessity of ICE agents wearing body cameras, something which I think the vast majority of Americans and people in Congress agree to. Uh we've watched in horror uh as poorly trained and outofc control DHS uh and ICE officers shot more than two dozen Americans and immigrants and killed six of them, including three US citizens during immigration enforcement operations since Trump
▶ 2:59:23has taken office. Despite these killings in the streets of America, the majority has refused to conduct any investigative oversight into these homicides or to hold the Department of Homeland Security or its agents accountable in any way. To my knowledge, the majority has not sent a single letter, marked up a single bill, or held a single hearing to try to restrain this violence against innocent people on the streets of America.
▶ 2:59:47From Texas to Minneapolis to Maine, [clears throat] Democrats have been demanding reform, including a requirement that all DH officers wear and use fully functioning body cameras when conducting these enforcement operations. But despite repeated assurances from DHS that this would happen, it has not happened. Shortly after agents killed Renee Good and Alex Brady in Minneapolis in January, DHS vowed to quickly deploy functioning body cameras for every officer across America.
▶ 3:00:17But nearly 6 months later, still hasn't happened. And the carnage continues. Earlier this month, ICE officers fatally shot Lorenzo Salgata Ajo, father of three children, all of them US citizens, in Houston, Texas during an operation. The officers involved were not wearing body cameras, according to reports, leaving lots of questions about why this happened. Just days later, ICE officers fatally shot Johan Sebastian Guerrero during an operation in Maine.
▶ 3:00:47The officers were wearing body cameras this time, but no, they were not turned on. They were not functional. For both shootings, we've been forced to rely on DHS's official bureaucratic description of events because no body camera footage is available to provide either a corroborating or a contradictory account of what actually took place.
▶ 3:01:06and DHS's veracity and credibility have been repeatedly debunked after eyewitnesses, reporters, and judges in federal courts have determined the government simply did not tell the truth about what happened. Following these most recent crimes against citizens, immigrants, and communities, DHS announced that all agents and officers will be equipped with fully functioning bodywn cameras in the next 60 days.
▶ 3:01:32They said, "We can only welcome this announcement, but given the administration's bloody track record, we cannot take their word for it. Trust, but verify. We need these cameras yesterday. No more bureaucratic red tape and evasions. DHS and its component agencies have consistently made false and unsubstantiated allegations about the people that its agents shot dead, including Renee Good and Alex Prey, who the secretary quickly called terrorists.
▶ 3:02:04Terrorists, she called them. A defamatory lie that she refused to retract in this committee. DHS has routinely claimed that its own homicide the people that their agents shot down in broad daylight at point blank range were actually attacking the officers and that they had tried to weaponize their cars against them. All of this has been proven obscenely, demonstrably false.
▶ 3:02:33both the false charge of terrorism attributed to moms of three kids and VA nurses and the false assignment of guilt in people causing their own deaths at the hands of DHS and ICE. In each case, evidence emerged that definitively contradicted and debunked the government's claims.
▶ 3:02:53In other incidents, it was found ICE agents lied and acted inappropriately, resulting in several of the prosecutions of DHS's victims being dismissed in in federal court with prejudice. As a result, Donald Trump's DHS has completely lost the trust of the people that it was created to protect and serve. We need DHS using bodywn cameras to ensure the accountability, bureaucratic transparency, and public safety against a bloated masked paramilitary force.
▶ 3:03:24This is a basic constitutional requirement, not a partisan complaint. Most law enforcement agencies across America are using body cameras as a standard practice. Just last week, Representative uh Republican Senator John Cornin called it a mistake that the officers didn't have body cameras. So, this is not a question of a lack of resources. Mr. Mr. Chairman, they've got the resources to do it. I urge my colleagues to support this constitutionally compelled and common sense amendment. And I yield back.
▶ 3:03:53Gentleman yields back.
▶ 3:04:39And now we'll have a word from our
▶ 3:05:15Is that question? Okay. Does the gentleman insist on his point of order?
▶ 3:05:44I do, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 3:05:45Uh, the gentleman's recognized to
▶ 3:05:48Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's amendment would introduce material beyond the scope and purpose of the bill before us and therefore violates House Rule 16, clause 7. I yield back. Uh gentleman's amendment does not satisfy the subject matter and fundamental purposes test. Therefore, it is not gerine and is out of order.
▶ 3:06:10Who seeks recognition?
▶ 3:06:12Gentleman from Tennessee.
▶ 3:06:14Mr. Chairman, um was there a ruling on
▶ 3:06:18What was the ruling?
▶ 3:06:19It's not Germaine.
▶ 3:06:20Um okay. The I have another amendment that we can introduce that's written more narrowly. Uh and I'll introduce that one.
▶ 3:06:27Gentleman's recognized. Uh clerk will uh clerk will report
▶ 3:06:45amendment to the amendment in the
▶ 3:06:47Objection. The be considered as read. The gentleman is recognized to explain the amendment. Point of order being reserved by the gentleman from California. Gentleman from Maryland's recognized. We're we're talking about body cameras for ICE agents on the streets of America and we're talking about in the aftermath of uh numerous killings of US citizens and also immigrants um immigrants who were not even the target of the original operation and were not committing any crimes.
▶ 3:07:19this is a matter that the vast majority of Americans agrees about. These ICE officials should be wearing, these ICE agents should be wearing body cameras the way that the vast majority of local and state police do when they're out on the beat. And ICE has a lot more money than our local police They got billions and billions of to do it. Yes,
▶ 3:07:48they've got a a force of agents larger than the local police departments of Washington DC, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, all combined. We're talking about a huge police force and they're going around
▶ 3:08:06and they've been killing American citizens as well as immigrants in their work. We need those body cameras. And the administration doesn't disagree. The administration keeps saying, "Yes, we're going to get to that." And now there's a promise within 60 days. Before that, it was going to be immediately and so on. Enough. This has to be a matter of law, and everybody should take a position on this and not try to squirm out of it.
▶ 3:08:31Do we believe that ICE agents should be able to continue this masked rampage across America without wearing the body cameras that our police officers back home are wearing? to great effect. So that's the purpose of this uh amendment and I submit it to the judgment of the committee. If you don't like it, vote against it. But if you do like it and you stand with most of the American people, vote for it. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 3:08:57Gentleman yields back. We're not trying to squirm out of anything. We're just trying to follow the rules. If it's gerine, we the amendment will be allowed. We'll debate it and we'll vote on it. If it's not gerine, it'll be ruled not gerine. That's how it operates. The gentleman from California, does he insist on his
▶ 3:09:11withdraws his amendment. Imagine that. The gentleman from Texas is recognized
▶ 3:09:14The gentleman from California is recognized to speak on the amendment.
▶ 3:09:18Thank you, M. Mr. Speaker. The the the ranking member laments the the fatal encounters with ICE officers and and we join him in in that. But it must be remembered that no one, not ICE officers, not rioters, not fugitives, and not bystanders have ever been issu injured, uh, let alone killed when ICE officers have been able to arrest illegal immigrants while they're already in custody.
▶ 3:09:46But the Democrat sanctuary laws of don't turn them over when they can be safely arrested. They release them back into our streets to pray upon innocent Americans instead. Uh, and by the way, pray upon immigrants until squads of ICE officers have to go out, track them down, and take them back into custody by force. And when they do that, they must often encounter violent mobs, often incited by the Democrats, or confront violent fugitives.
▶ 3:10:17And people get injured and they get killed. Indeed, a Democrat member of Congress last year doxed an ICE officer to a violent mob in California who then set upon him and put him in the hospital. Another Democrat member of Congress stands indicted for assaulting law enforcement officers at an ICE facility in New York. You cannot lament these injuries and deaths while defending the sanctuary laws that caused them. But now to the point of the body cameras. We support body cameras on all law enforcement.
▶ 3:10:47Republicans appropriated $20 million for this purpose. But I need to remind the ranking member that he and his colleagues voted to shut down DHS for 75 days, the longest government shutdown in American history, during which time they could not draft RFPs to start the bid process to obtain these cameras. They're now in that process, but the gentleman and his colleagues are the reason we're 75 days behind in achieving this objective. and I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas.
▶ 3:11:17I concur with my friend from California. I mean, I do think it merits repetition of what the gentleman just said for the record that we in fact funded said cameras. The administration has publicly stated their intent to implement and are in the process of implementing said cameras.
▶ 3:11:35That my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stonewalled for about half of this year our ability to easily fund ICE and Border Patrol, which delayed their ability to have funds that they knew that they were going to have in place while they were shutting it down while we worked to use a reconciliation process to do what we should have done through appropriations. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refused to do it.
▶ 3:11:59So they literally are now complaining about not implementing something that they held up for months on end without being willing to fund ICE and Border Patrol to do their basic duty and their basic job. Then Congress Republicans in leadership had to step in the breach, use reconciliation to solve the problem and did so.
▶ 3:12:19I would also note that the structure of this amendment is flawed in the sense that it is it is going to exacerbate the problem by trying to withhold implementation of the of the cotification of the policies that we ought to have put in place that would make permanent our ability to not have the uh uh situation where we have people in America in our streets that have to have enforcement.
▶ 3:12:42So we would delay and not allow the implementation of the codification of the very policies that would help avoid the problem that we're having to deal with by having people here who are not supposed to be here under our laws. We funded it. We put it in place. Democrats opposed it.
▶ 3:12:58And now they want to try to turn this legislation which is designed to cottify and improve our policies with respect to who gets into our country under what procedure so they can't be abused by a future president as they were under the previous president under asylum parole catch and release and all the other policies unaccompanied children that created this situation that resulted in the death of Americans that resulted in the death of immigrants and now they want to try to do this when we all agree that we want to have the problem the administration agrees that we want to have the problem addressed and that they themselves delay paid by
▶ 3:13:28delaying the funding of ICE and Border Patrol in the spring. With that, I would yield back to my friend from California.
▶ 3:13:34And I yield back.
▶ 3:13:35Gentleman yields back.
▶ 3:13:36Gentleman from Tennessee is recognized.
▶ 3:13:38Thank you, Mr. Chair. Firstly, I appreciate the ranking member for bringing this amendment. It's so pertinent and important that body cameras be on ICE officers. We can't make sure they don't turn their cameras off when they're doing something or the cameras aren't on them and don't happen to work, which happens in mo many cases in my city with the police. some reason or another, the body camera is not working. But this is an attempt and and I agree with Mr. McCulla and uh Mr. Mr. Roy about the need for body for ICE agents.
▶ 3:14:05We do need customs patrol and and immigration control, but this ICE group is out of control. They are out of control. Uh we have I've written to the secretary who is amazing to me that he's a secretary with a capital S that uh that want to know what their what ICE is made up of. If there are any people in there, they're January 6 folks have been convicted.
▶ 3:14:31Uh if there people that or policemen and other a departments who were dismissed for some reason, what are their criteria for hiring officers? And we haven't had an answer yet, but recently sent I've seen pictures on the street of ICE agents. This is no DEI thing, but I've never seen a person that look like they were black as an ICE agent. Looked like they might have been Never seen anybody look like an immigrant. It's all white, white, white.
▶ 3:15:01It's the color of the Proud Boys. It's the color of all of those groups that have tried to destroy democracy on January 6 and came up here. So, I'd like to know who they hire, what their criteria is, and what training they get. And there was a gentleman on television recently who's was a whistleblower I believe and he said that they didn't they their training and he was a trainer in in deadly force was very limited and they didn't have nearly as much as police officers have and that they don't have really good training on when to shoot when not to shoot and they were given improper information
▶ 3:15:31by shooting at cars. In Memphis the police department I was the legal adviser for the police department many years ago. They're prohibited from shooting at a at a at a vehicle because if you hit the the person, you're liable to have the car go off and kill somebody else. But they shoot shot this good in in the car and they shot Mr. Pretty. And these people are saying they're holding these posters. Democrats are trying to we're trying to stop not trying to protect you. Well, Mr.
▶ 3:15:57Pretty and Miss Good were American citizens and we were try hoping they'd have been protected by body cameras or some other uh better use of and cho choice of who the ICE officers are. Uh the people that were shot in Maine and Texas shot the wrong guy in Texas. They shot they shot the wrong person in Maine, too. Uh we need a force that is properly trained and properly chosen.
▶ 3:16:26Not just what we've got out there, which has got some people that are not qualified and and like the power they've got. The ones that got up in Minneapolis after they took the weapon that Mr. Good had a a right, Mr. Freddy had a right to licensed in in Minneapolis and Minnesota allows you to carry. They took his one guy took his gun and ran and as soon as he took the gun out of his back pocket which he never tried to use and he ran towards across the street.
▶ 3:16:54The other officer next to him immediately shot him and shot him and shot him and then the other guys got away turned away and turned back and two of them shot him and shot him and shot him. That's wrong. It's murder. There's no question it's murder. And yet they're not cooperating with the Minneapolis Police Department. They need to cooperate with local law enforcement and find out which of these ICE agents committed murder and and don't understand the law. They had no business killing that man.
▶ 3:17:23And the same thing goes with Miss Good. The officer got in the way and they said sometimes officers get in the way intentionally car to be able to justify shooting. And the gentleman I think in in in Maine was shot three times in the face. His car uh shot directly into the car. the man was in front of you. Uh you you have to have the rule of law and you have to have public order.
▶ 3:17:54Will the gentleman yield?
▶ 3:17:55I yield to the ranking member.
▶ 3:17:57Thank you. Our colleagues invite us to believe that sanctuary cities are the cause of ICE agents shooting people in the face, shooting people in the streets of America. Well, let's take a controlled case study. Let's look at what happened in Texas. Texas banned sanctuary cities, but that didn't stop ICE agents from going out in the community and killing uh Lorenzo Salgado Ajo in Houston a couple weeks ago when he wasn't even the target of their operation.
▶ 3:18:25and a father of three with no criminal record, no criminal charges against him, shot down in cold blood by ICE agents who must have not known that Texas had banned sanctuary cities because uh they proceeded to completely embarrass the argument of my colleague who claimed that it's sanctuary cities that are at fault for ISIS misbehavior.
▶ 3:18:48Uh the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
▶ 3:18:52Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The American people elected President Donald J. Trump with a clear mandate that was to secure our border and restore the rule of law, which is exactly what he has done by putting the American citizen first. That's exactly why the permanent Trump secure border act. And I want to thank my colleague from Texas, Mr. Roy, for doing this common sense immigration enforcement measure so we could codify this into law and to do exactly what the American people asked him to do.
▶ 3:19:23Now, for years, we have sat through hearing after hearing in this very room, listening to grieving mothers and fathers describe the unimaginable pain of burying a son or daughter because our border was deliberately left unsecured by the left. We have heard stories of Americans murdered by people who should have never been in this country in the first place.
▶ 3:19:44And I'll be damned if I have to listen to the defense of people that have no business being in this country in the first place murdering other Americans. Sheridan Gorman, Katie Abraham, Khloe Pollson, Lincoln Riley, Jocelyn Nungury, Rachel Moren, their names. Say their names.
▶ 3:20:06Yet my colleagues on the left continue to oppose the very policies that would have prevented these I want to thank my law enforcement officers. I want to thank federal law enforcement officers. I want to thank I agents. I want to thank local police officer. I want to thank law enforcement individuals specifically for their desire to put their lives on the line to keep everybody here in this country safe and harmed. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.
▶ 3:20:35If I played a drinking game and every time I heard the word white, white, white or white supremacist while watching CNN, watching MSLSD, I mean NBC, are listening to my colleagues on the left talk about white supremacy and white people all day every day. I would be drunk after an hour and I would die of alcohol poisoning. What are we talking about? This is about protecting every single American regardless of your race, religion, color, or creed.
▶ 3:21:04And I can assure you, as I have said in this room many a day, I've been black for my entire life. I'm not a white supremacist. What I want to do is be safe in my own communities, regardless of what you look like. And that's exactly what my colleague from Texas Chip Roy is trying to do here. That's exactly what we have done. secured our borders to ensure that people that have no business in this country harm and arbitrarily murder our children. This is not hard. I thank God every day.
▶ 3:21:34I'm not a lawyer. I'm just a soldier, just an American. I'm a father, a follower of Christ, somebody that believes in this great nation and ensuring that we have safety for the future. That's literally all I care about. And that goes for every single red-blooded American regardless of your race, religion, color, or creed. And with that, I'll yield my time to my colleague from Texas if he has anything to say. I appreciate my friend from Texas.
▶ 3:21:59Uh, I would I would note um that u it it merits um repetition that my literally voted against funding the very thing and implementing the very thing by delaying ICE and Border Patrol funding for 4 months. That's no small thing.
▶ 3:22:19We were sitting there in February and ICE and Border Patrol funding was entirely shut down and blocked by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and we had to save it by backdooring into something that is not the the the typical use of of reconciliation in order to fund the very operations of government that would carry out the implementation of the thing my colleagues are raising. With that, I yield back to my friend from Texas.
▶ 3:22:45Will the gentleman yield? I'm Blunks here. Gentleman from Texas.
▶ 3:22:50Sure. I yield.
▶ 3:22:51Thank you. 75 billion I think it was that wasn't enough to pay for the body cameras. Mr.
▶ 3:23:03they're funded. I mean, what they were funded by the the OBB. You guys blocked implementation of ICE and Border Patrol having funding to be able to carry out their operations
▶ 3:23:10there. So, it's OBB. It's not the most recent reconciliation. the the the the dollars that were put in place to be able to get cameras put in place, that funding has been put forth by by us and this administration. The problem is you guys blocked ICE and Border Patrol being able to operationalize for 4 months. You stopped them from being funded.
▶ 3:23:28Wait, are you talking about OBB or are you talking about the second
▶ 3:23:33The reconciliation, the second reconciliation package literally just funded the operations of ICE and Border Patrol because you all wouldn't.
▶ 3:23:39Okay. So,
▶ 3:23:40that's what we did,
▶ 3:23:41right? Well, [clears throat] I I understand. And the
▶ 3:23:44first shut them down. We had to
▶ 3:23:45first reconciliation bill
▶ 3:23:47had how put how much money into the Department of Homeland Security
▶ 3:23:51money that's there for the cameras?
▶ 3:23:5375 billion.
▶ 3:23:54The cameras are being
▶ 3:23:55and that was not enough to pay for the cameras. And the issue here is it's not just whether there's funding for it, but whether it's required. And why would you not want the ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws to have to be required to wear body cameras so that they can be held accountable for the work that they're doing? What is the argument against it?
▶ 3:24:18Time the time of the gentleman from
▶ 3:24:22This gentleman from Texas uh on is has expired and the chair now recognizes the gentle lady from Pennsylvania, Miss
▶ 3:24:30Thank you. I just wanted to interject some revisions to the revisionist history we're getting here. So, first off, we heard that the reason people were killed in the last two weeks in Houston and in Maine was because there had been rioting and criminals and sanctuary cities. But I I think we do need to recall the fact that there were no riots taking place, that neither of these people were criminals.
▶ 3:24:58In fact, they were family men driving to work and neither of them was the target of enforcement. So, yet another reason why we need some accountability here. The second piece of the revisionist history is the idea that the incredibly overfunded, well-funded, whatever, uh, DHS hasn't been able to get body cams in place because Democrats blocked them.
▶ 3:25:22I mean, that's just [ __ ] I mean, the reason Democrats refused to allow additional funding for DHS and ICE was because we were demanding that there be guard rails put around their conduct conduct after they killed two US citizens in Minnesota in January. So, Republicans refused to put in place common sense uh safety guidelines for the American public and anyone else residing in the US.
▶ 3:25:51And that is why there were delays in funding. It was Republicans and the White House refused to come to the table to put those guidelines in place. They continued to refuse to do so, whether in connection with this bill, with the budget bills that are moving forward. And they were so adamant that they wouldn't put in place those guardrails. They passed a completely partisan um reconciliation bill in order to fund DHS for billions of more dollars.
▶ 3:26:18And then finally, I mean, if we're going to talk about hypocrisy here, how about the hypocrisy of endorsing and consorting with people who um are here, uh the Tate brothers, Andrew and Tristan Tate, who were here on the Hill this past week, hanging out with some of our members here who were just so adamant that their highest duty is to protect Americans from things like rape and sex trafficking and human trafficking when they are openly hanging out with people who not only
▶ 3:26:49have been charged with that but are now in US custody for those crimes. So, you know, if you're going to be all in there for you support body cams, you support expelling criminals, you support um all measures to take, you know, to prevent sex trafficking and rape and human trafficking. Let's have a little
▶ 3:27:08Would the lady yield?
▶ 3:27:09I'll yield to uh the gentleman from
▶ 3:27:12Thank you. Could you go a little further on what the guard rails were that held up the passage of the of the of the budget with the DHS and what what the Democrats held back on what what those guardrails were.
▶ 3:27:23I mean, a [clears throat] large part of it was making sure there was proper training that there were warrants in place before homes were broken into. Um, I think body cams were some of it. Um, there was also a requirement that these agents not be masked and that they be in fact identifiable as federal agents. Um, but none of those things have been enacted and I would defer to the chairman or someone else who might have a more top-of- mind uh list of recollection of the very short list.
▶ 3:27:52Those those were common sense things not that they can't wear masks. Policemen don't wear masks in the city.
▶ 3:27:57Well, these were reason they're masked.
▶ 3:27:58These were elements that every other um law enforcement agency in the country is held to because they are things that do keep all of our um population safe. So we were trying to protect the public that the sign they got up about two years or two months or 60 days or whatever it is trying not defending the the public out there. We were trying to defend the public from officers who weren't properly uh trained and unformed. [clears throat]
▶ 3:28:26Not properly trained, not properly uniformed. And we were trying to do this with the very real evidence of what happens when you don't have those guard rails in place. Citizens die, citizens homes are invaded. people are um detained without probable cause, etc.
▶ 3:28:43The officer from Maine, yes, shot the shot the man and killed him. His wife said he was thrown hot water at her when she was pregnant, holding her baby. Said he tried to daughter said she came in one time and he had a gun to his head. There were several other incidents that were reported and he was hired as an ICE agent. He was on the edge on the edge. He was a racist. He had racist beliefs and violent tendencies as ex-wife said. They hired him. He was perfect for ICE. I yield back.
▶ 3:29:07Thank you. you and I would yield to the gentleman from New York.
▶ 3:29:10Well, Mr. Roy said we want to do oversight earlier. Uh I have heard rumblings that that officer still has not had his background check uh completed. So if you want to do oversight, let's send a letter to the Department of Homeland Security and ask whether that officer who killed the gentleman in Maine had his background check completed before he was hired.
▶ 3:29:35Thank you. and I would yield back.
▶ 3:29:37The gentle's time has expired. The gentleman from New Jersey is recognized.
▶ 3:29:43So, just a couple quickies here. One, masks. First of all, I do believe in body cams. We all do. We're going to have them. It's kind of a moot point. We've already said it's going to be, but masks. Masks are needed because unfortunately this has been made a political argument and we have people on the other side of the aisle that are continually defending criminal illegal aliens. Period.
▶ 3:30:10And agents have been told over and over again, we're going to get you. We're going to get your family. We're going to get anybody that's related to you or friends with you and we're going to hurt you or kill you. and they there's tons of testimony to back that up. So there's a reason there are masks. It is different unfortunately than regular police officers or normally what you would find. Second thing is we are also forgetting I like to get back to the basics.
▶ 3:30:40Thousands and thousands of felons, murderers, drug dealers, rapists, child abusers, the list goes on and on. I mean, uh, have done horrific things, have been caught since we've put this system in place and since ICE was is there. If ICE wasn't there, we would go back to the old days. And that is what I want to refresh everybody's memory. Why are we here? Why do we need this legislation? Why are we having this debate?
▶ 3:31:10Why is this discussion exists? because we were actually we are preventing a clear and pleas present danger to American citizens and legal American immigrants who came here. And then finally, when we think about the people that are here and we think about why they're here, immigration is good. Somebody said before they keep mixing illegal felon immigrants and they just [clears throat] say immigrants.
▶ 3:31:39Immigrants are good. We love immigrants. I'm going to say it over and over again, but the bottom line is again, this legislation addresses what we've abused. We've abused our parole system and gone around Congress and are doing much more and allowing people in that never should have been in asylum. We were letting people in at all different points of our borders that were coming in, many of whom were criminals and were responsible for horrendous illegal activity. Catch and release.
▶ 3:32:10what was going on under the last administration. We are doing all this. We are where we are because of what the horrible policies were in the last administration. So, you know, in those days, we were catching people. Didn't matter what they were or what they did or if they're criminal or not. And pretty much we're releasing and we have the proof of it. Releasing criminals back into the American public, which is why all the horrible things happen. Let's not do this in a vacuum.
▶ 3:32:39Let's understand why this legislation is here. Let's understand why we are here and what the American people demanded. They want us to be humane. They want us to be decent when we're detaining people. They want us to be to do it the right way and we are. But we also should not endanger our law enforcement who are trying to do their job.
▶ 3:33:02And finally, contrary to what some people have said on the other side, in most cases where there is a problem, it is because with ICE, because they are given responsibilities that they shouldn't even have to have, there should be cooperation among county law enforcement, state law enforcement, local law enforcement, and ICE. And in those cases, it works out well.
▶ 3:33:30And in most areas where that's done that way, it works out well and we don't have these problems. The problem is when you try when you're not cooperating with ICE at all and they've got to go into the streets and pick up people, other folks get scooped up. That's not the their fault. And it's not the fault quite frankly of Republicans. It's the fault of sanctuary cities, states, and communities that won't cooperate.
▶ 3:33:57And by the way, chairman, just I it's not Germaine completed this discussion. Uh just hot off the news, in case people haven't heard, now the governor of my state of New Jersey admits they've found at least 70,000 illegals who were on the election rolls. The governor just admit it today. 70 thou Are you kidding me? I think that was the number. I'd have to look.
▶ 3:34:237,000. Okay. Still bad. No, that's funny. 7,000 are bad. I I just heard it. I don't think it's funny. I don't think that 7,000 people voting, some of whom are criminal, all of them who were illegal, are actually, and that's what she's admitted. God knows what the real number is. It may be closer. How wrong is that?
▶ 3:34:44I move to
▶ 3:34:45I'm gonna say one thing. I don't think that's funny. I don't think it's funny if it's seven. I don't think it's funny if it's 7,000 or 700,000 that illegal criminals are voting in my beautiful state of New Jersey. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of it and so are people.
▶ 3:35:00It's not it's citizens.
▶ 3:35:02It's not funny. It's the I think the gentle lady from Vermont is is uh is up
▶ 3:35:09Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um I want to go back to something uh my colleague on the other side said earlier uh he's now stepped out. Uh he said you know Americans voted for this. So he said, "Americans wanted this." I just want to be clear that I, unlike many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, will admit that President Trump did win this election.
▶ 3:35:40And part of what he ran on was about going after the worst of the worst. Hundreds of times he said that in uh gatherings with his supporters. We're going to go after the worst of the worst. We're going to go after the criminals. We're going to go after the racists. We're going to go after the drug dealers. Americans actually do not support where we are right now because he actually is not going after the worst of the worst.
▶ 3:36:09And all the data points show that. But I just want to level set here so that we can see what we're talking about in terms of the superers sizing of the ICE budget because you can look at all of the years that are leading up from 2017 till today and the dark orange is where the ICE budget has been.
▶ 3:36:30And then you see this incredible increase in the budget under the one big beautiful bill, which I've noticed they've stopped calling that because they know it's incredibly unpopular right now. But this is what we're talking about. This now they have created the largest law enforcement agency in the country by far.
▶ 3:36:53So if you could if you combined law enforcement in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington DC, Las Vegas, and Dallas, you would then have the amount of officers that are being hired and deployed through ICE.
▶ 3:37:13$170 billion dollar to DHS and then an additional 70 billion more because that 170 plus was not enough. That's 240 billion taxpayer dollars to fund ICE. And no, Americans did not ask to have ICE agents stopping them on the street based on the color of their skin or the accent they're using.
▶ 3:37:41When I was in Chicago in Minneapolis, when the ranking member on the subcommittee on uh immigration led trips to witness what was happening in those two cities, what we saw were Americans not just being stopped, but being We saw in very similar cases to what we just saw in Bitterford, Maine. The man was gunned down in front of his kid.
▶ 3:38:10He was there legally. He had papers to And so it is so hard to sit in this committee because it is it is this incredible uh brainwashing that has been done to the American people saying don't worry, trust us with the dollars. Trust us with what ICE is doing even though we can't still seem to get body cameras.
▶ 3:38:40We got people with masks. We got people who are not identified. You got people chasing after you in unmarked cars. Of course you're going to be scared. Of course you're not going to know exactly what to do. And so no, the American people did not ask for this. And so right now the polling for President Trump in terms of approval on the way that he is handling immigration sits at about 37%.
▶ 3:39:06Meanwhile, 80% of Americans consider immigration a net positive. So twothirds of the people have seen more than enough of what is being done in our name with our taxpayer dollars. And there is not majority support, far from it, for what ICE is perpetrating against innocent people across this country.
▶ 3:39:32It would be a very different conversation if in fact this president and ICE were going after the so-called worst of the worst. But we're not seeing it. And that's why the people of Baford, Maine, stood up this week when this tragic killing happened and said, "We are good people. He was a good man going to work and this never should have happened." And I know the ranking member would like to jump in
▶ 3:39:58Thank you, [clears throat] Miss Balent. the the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey um said that uh he supports uh body cameras. we all do. Um, and we're going to get them. Therefore, everybody should be voting for this amendment seriously to hold the executive branch uh to account.
▶ 3:40:18Then he says though that ICE agents uniquely need to wear uh masks whereas our police officers don't because they're somehow in more hazardous duty than the police officers who are out there every day going after real criminals and not innocent people. You know, when El Chapo and Madura were uh apprehended by federal agents, those agents were not wearing masks.
▶ 3:40:44And so, the gentleman basically invites us to be more afraid of concerned US citizens like Renee Good and Alex Prey than we are of El Chapo and international narot traffickers. I yield back.
▶ 3:40:56Gentleman yields back. The question
▶ 3:40:59I move to strike the last word.
▶ 3:41:00Y Mr. Jordan,
▶ 3:41:02I think it's gentle lady chairman
▶ 3:41:06on the amendment.
▶ 3:41:07You've been
▶ 3:41:08Have I spoken on this?
▶ 3:41:09Okay, I didn't think so.
▶ 3:41:10Gentleman's recognized.
▶ 3:41:11Hard to keep track. I think it merits a return to what we're talking about here. We're talking about cottifying the policies that have led to a 94% drop of what we're dealing with at the border. Daily border encounters have plunged 94% since President Trump took office. The reason for that is because of policies that are now consistent with our laws with respect to asylum, with respect to parole, with respect to catch and release, etc.
▶ 3:41:39And we're trying to codify this to ensure that we can adhere to those policies so that we no longer have the abuses of the previous I would like to enter into the record a document here with 42 pages of individual news accounts of people that have been murdered, raped, otherwise assaulted or harmed by the people who were released into the United States of America through the abuse of
▶ 3:42:09parole, through the abuse of asylum, through flawed catch and relief policies, through the abuse of the unaccompanied alien children that allowed cartels to use these children to harm them and to harm Americans.
▶ 3:42:21And I could if I wanted to, under the rules of the committee,
▶ 3:42:25I could I could wi with under the rules of the committee, instead of burning five minutes of time, I could just sit here and enter each one of these articles one by one. We could just sit here. I'm not going to do that, but I'll use this time to highlight a few. from November 23. Illegal immigrant who posed as a minor while crossing border charged with murder in Florida, stabbing the person in the house that brought the individual into their home.
▶ 3:42:49Number two, Afghan allegedly molested 12-year-old and 14year-old boys at Fort McCoy, a 20-year-old Afghan refugee that sexually abused a 12-year-old and 14year-old immigrant sitting at the base where Democrats thought it was okay to have them all cohabitating. September 21, Afghan pleads not guilty to strangling wife on Wisconsin military base. That's the article, but it went on to be prosecuted and dealt with.
▶ 3:43:16March 2022, the Biden administration released a suspected terrorist into the United States after he illegally crossed the border. March 22, Biden's DHS released illegal alien on terrorism watch list. Illegal aliens released the United States by Biden's DHS linked to robbery gang in sanctuary state of New York. Illegal MS-13 gang member accused of murdering 20-year-old Kayla Hamilton. Illegal alien freed into the United States by Biden DHS now wanted for drug trafficking in Brazil.
▶ 3:43:45Illegal alien charged with raping teen girl released into the United States by Biden's Department of Homeland Security. Migrant arrested charged with capital murder and death of another migrant. illegal alien freed into the United States by Biden's HHS denied bail for allegedly raping and murdering 11year-old girl. Just stop on each one of these headlines.
▶ 3:44:06And every single one of them are about releases by the Biden administration flouting and using loopholes in the laws that we are seeking to codify to Illegal alien freed into the United States from southern border charged with killing 11-year-old Aiden Clark. Peruvian illegal immigrants alleged murder victim as US citizen. Another one, ICE arrest African illegal immigrant wanted in Sagal for terrorist offenses released into the United States.
▶ 3:44:36Another one, Virginia sanctuary county freed from illegal alien accused of child rape after Biden's DHS freedom into the United States. Another one, illegal migrant released by border patrol, charged with rape after local police ignored ICE and let him go. I could go on and on and on on 43 odd pages with three or four of these articles with summaries on each one. I'm going to insert it into the record.
▶ 3:45:01I may go back to it and and make sure that we continue to focus on what has happened to our people in this country that have [clears throat] been murdered, raped, had fentanel put into their communities, have lost loved ones, and not just the ones we've had here testifying, not just having Alexis Non Gray talking about Joselyn. And we name a wildlife refuge, which is great. And we invite her to come talk to us, but she's still at home without her daughter. Kayla Hamilton's family is still sitting there without Kayla.
▶ 3:45:32All of these little this little 11-year-old girl is raped was in fact raped by someone released into our country because we completely abuse the very policies we put in place to try to help people. The whole point of asylum, the whole point of parole, but yet we abuse it and then bad things happen. That's why we're here to codify these things. With that, I yield back. Mr. Chairman,
▶ 3:45:58gentleman yields back. Chair recognized gentle lady from California.
▶ 3:46:03Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, [clears throat] you know, bad things are going to happen in this world because people make mistakes. Um, so we should just not try to create some fantasy about how we're going to never have any bad thing to happen. Um, bad things happen all the time. You know, service men and women were recently killed.
▶ 3:46:27uh because of this war in Iran that people don't want that certainly people don't want to pay for that was a bad thing that happened. So this is certainly not the committee that's going to erase or mitigate any kind of bad thing from happening. You know I also just want to say that my colleague from the other side of the aisle was talking about all of the things that we have abused that you all have abused.
▶ 3:46:51I mean, one thing that's been abused has been the as a result of all of these shenanigans um that you all are actually allowing to happen by funding DHS and ICE without any oversight or without any guard rails. But I don't want to go down that rabbit hole um because my head is starting to swim. You stay too long in this committee, that's what happens.
▶ 3:47:16I do want to get back to the amendment which is about body cameras and I don't know why anyone would be opposed to this Law enforcement officers support wearing body cameras and they don't say, "Oh, just have, you know, local LAPD or police officers wear it but not sheriffs or just have sheriffs but not ICE." Distinctions without a difference.
▶ 3:47:44Law enforcement is law enforcement and law enforcement support wearing body cameras because it also protects them. It is a twoway street. I have been in courts. I have watched criminal cases. And you know who often testifies? Law enforcement. And you know what they do? They refer to objective evidence. And you know where the evidence comes from? From the body camera. They want it.
▶ 3:48:15It builds trust in communities. You know, I'm not going to do anything crazy because I have this little camera on my chest to make sure that you're protected and that I'm You know, oftentimes law enforcement get hurt when they are responding to domestic violence calls. They get injured. And you know how all of that is discerned? From the body camera. It provides objective evidence.
▶ 3:48:45It does build trust in the community. And you know what else it's used for? For training. So these are the dos and these are the don'ts. So that you have people who are properly trained to do the job, which is very important. Bless you. Which is to keep communities safe, including them. So I don't know why you would be opposed to it other than it's a Democratic amendment.
▶ 3:49:10But if you wanna if you're espousing support for law enforcement, then you should be like, I do support wearing body cameras. And that's all this says. This title and amendment made by this title shall not take effect until the Secretary of Homeland Security has deployed functional bodywn cameras on all US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are engaged in civil immigration enforcement actions. I mean, that is simple.
▶ 3:49:39wear a camera so you know what's going on. So I know what's going on. If you try to lie on me, I can show you the But no, you all want folks running around masked up, no IDs, no warrant, ragtaggy individuals going rogue, running down the street, shooting folks in cars, which is not legal, yanking them out of the car while they're bleeding, having their three-year-old baby in pajamas wailing.
▶ 3:50:09That's y'all's idea of a good time. And it makes no sense to me. And it doesn't make sense to the American people. 65% of voters say wear a body camera because maybe if you do that every two or three weeks, we won't have to be traumatized watching another killing take place that you all have paid for.
▶ 3:50:39And you continue you continue to pivot and deflect from the accountability piece. I mean, I don't know how y'all live. In my home, there's accountability. You don't take out the trash and you're asked to, something's going to happen. There's a consequence. You know, you don't pay a bill from your credit card, something's going to happen. There's a consequence. Well, how about this? You shoot somebody and you're not supposed to because you're masked up without a warrant. There should be a consequence.
▶ 3:51:10And with that, I yield back.
▶ 3:51:12Gently yields back. The committee will be in recess for votes on the floor and will resume as soon as votes are completed on the floor.
▶ 5:11:30Committee will come to order. The question in front of the committee is on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from Pennsylvania if I remember correctly. Is that
▶ 5:11:37Oh, no. Mr. Rasentle.
▶ 5:11:39Mr. Rasin. The gentleman from Maryland. Close enough to Pennsylvania to be confused maybe. Um the uh
▶ 5:11:47those in favor say.
▶ 5:11:49All those in favor say I.
▶ 5:11:52Those opposed, no.
▶ 5:11:53No. The nos's definitely had that one.
▶ 5:11:56Definitely had that one.
▶ 5:11:57I need a recorded vote on that one. Mr.
▶ 5:11:58vote being requested. Uh call the role on the amendment by the gentleman from
▶ 5:12:03Mr. Jordan.
▶ 5:12:04Uh no.
▶ 5:12:05Mr. Jordan votes no. Mr. Isa,
▶ 5:12:09Mr. Biggs, Mr. Mcccleintoch, Mr. Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Massie, Mr. Roy, Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Mr. Klein, Mr. Gooden, Mr. Vandrew,
▶ 5:12:30Mr. Vandrew votes no. Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore votes no. Miss Haggman, Miss Lee of Florida, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman, Mr. Not Mr. Harris, Mr. Harris votes no. Mr. Herder, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Gail, Mr.
▶ 5:12:59Bombgardner, Mr. Raskin,
▶ 5:13:03Mr. Raskin votes I. Mr. Nadler, Miss Lofrren,
▶ 5:13:08Miss Lofrren votes I. Mr. Cohen, Mr. Johnson,
▶ 5:13:13Mr. Johnson votes I. Mr. Lou, Miss Shipal,
▶ 5:13:18Mr. Eyepal votes I. Mr. Korea, Miss Scandlin.
▶ 5:13:23Miss Scandlin votes I. Mr. Negus, Miss Mcbath.
▶ 5:13:28Miss McBth votes I. Miss Ross. Miss Ross votes I. Miss Ballot. Miss Balot votes I. Mr. Garcia. Miss Kamiger Dove.
▶ 5:13:37Miss Camager Dove votes I. Mr. Mr. Mr. Goldman, Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I
▶ 5:13:56Mr. Herder votes no.
▶ 5:13:58Mr. Gil, you are not recorded.
▶ 5:14:00Mr. Gil votes no. Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Schmidt votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald, you're not recorded.
▶ 5:14:14Mr. Fitzgerald votes no. Mr. Mr. Gooden. Mr. Gooden votes no.
▶ 5:14:21Mr. Nadler votes I.
▶ 5:14:55Mr. Klein Mr. They're climb now.
▶ 5:16:14Mr. Mcccleinto votes no.
▶ 5:16:16Mr. I say, you are not recording. Mr. Isa votes no.
▶ 5:16:31Mr. Keller, you are not recorded. Mr. Cohen votes I.
▶ 5:16:49The clerk will report.
▶ 5:16:50Mr. Chairman, there are 12 eyes and 13
▶ 5:16:56The nose have it and the amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 5:17:01Who seeks recognition? Gentle lady from North Carolina.
▶ 5:17:05The gentle lady from North Carolina.
▶ 5:17:10The clerk will report.
▶ 5:17:12The clerk will report
▶ 5:17:14amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 9773 offered by Miss Ross of North Carolina. Page 58, line two.
▶ 5:17:25When order of order reserved by the gentleman from California.
▶ 5:17:27Without objection, the amendment will be
▶ 5:17:29Without objection, the amendment will be considered as read. Gentle lady from
▶ 5:17:32Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 5:17:33Gentle lady from North Carolina is
▶ 5:17:36Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As currently drafted, title five of this bill would make overstaying a visa a crime for the first time in our history. My amendment would amend Title 5 to ensure that minor dependents who overstay their visas are not criminally liable. It's important to remember that if a person overstays their visa, they are already subject to removal.
▶ 5:18:07The addition of a criminal penalty is cruel, unnecessary, and expensive for our justice system and for our jails and prisons. This bill is punitive with far-reaching implications that may go beyond what my colleagues have intended.
▶ 5:18:29Unless they want to make the following current immigration law a crime punishable up to six months in prison and a fine of up to $1,000 for overstaying a visa. This bill has no exceptions or flexibility when it comes to overstaying a non-immigrant visa.
▶ 5:18:51And there are no exceptions based on age or dependent As the bill is currently written, if a 2-year-old is on a family vacation in the United States and their parents decide to extend their trip 10 days beyond the validity of their visitors unless the 2-year-old somehow miraculously leaves the country on their own, that 2-year-old could be thrown into federal jail for up to six months and face a fine of
▶ 5:19:24I certainly hope that this was simply an Surely all of my colleagues agree that we shouldn't be prosecuting children for something that is beyond their control. If that's the case, we should have no problem passing this amendment. Minors should not be imprisoned for overstaying their visa, something they have no control over.
▶ 5:19:47So if we care about protecting children, saving money, we should remove that as a possibility right now with this amendment. Our immigration system needs reforms and we are absolutely interested in bold ideas to fix it, but is currently drafted. This bill isn't one of them. It's not the kind of policy that I can support and that the American people can support. And I yield back.
▶ 5:20:18The gentle lady yields back
▶ 5:20:20who seeks recognition. The gentleman from Texas. The um under current law um when you're coming here and re-enter. Uh that's a crime, right? A a crime that uh comes with a possibility of penalties. And we don't make exceptions based on age or circumstance and so forth.
▶ 5:20:41Uh the fact is we're we're we're going through the motions here to try to find every way possible to um stand with those who don't want to follow our laws. Overstaying visas is one of the primary ways that bad actors come to the United States and endanger the people here. 911 being the most notorious example, but there are literally tens of thousands of other examples. And this would simply change that.
▶ 5:21:11Prosecutorial discretion is a thing when I was a prosecutor and as the gentle lady knows and those that learn it in the law that many prosecutors here and here, you have to use discretion. Um I think you know I had to prosecute felons in possessions of weapons which by the way is now being constitutionally challenged as we all know in the Supreme Court. Um and we'll figure out we'll see what the court does on that. uh raises interesting questions, but you know, I there there was a woman that was uh you know, she had a weapon.
▶ 5:21:41She was a felon. Uh but she was trying to get her life in order and she was trying to protect herself against some of the bad actors that she had formerly affiliated with and I didn't pursue it. I didn't think it was appropriate. I looked at the totality of the circumstances and made a decision not to. Um there are times that that's how you deploy prosecutorial discretion.
▶ 5:22:03And uh you know at the end of the day um we've got as I said existing examples where we don't draw an exclusion or exception for every category of person but without question we have got to have policies in place that make it much stricter when you overstay your visa.
▶ 5:22:23Um this is every bit as pernitious as those who are in in fact in many ways much more so than those who are uh you know using the cartel coyote system to come across the Rio Grand or uh or even coming to our borders and claiming asylum and the [clears throat] administration allows release under I think faulty interpretations of asylum or lack of full uh you know vetting and then you know releasing and so forth on their floor is all
▶ 5:22:53the things we're addressing in this bill. But uh managing and dealing with the overstays is one of the most critical functions. And again, this legislation is designed to deal with the question of like when people are getting here.
▶ 5:23:06border security both in the sense of we had pieces that were dealing in the original bill with wall and with all of the things of managing flow at the border but this has everything to do with how people get here and under what circumstances they get here and how they can apply for asylum how parole is applied or in this case hey we granted you uh the ability to be here on a visa but then you you stick around like stop doing that and uh you know our current uh system is not adequately stopping people
▶ 5:23:36from overstaying their visas with with sufficient penalty. Uh I believe prosecutorial discretion takes care of this. As I noted before, we have uh uh again, if you come in here and you're uh guilty of re-entry, uh children would be in the same category. Uh I'm unaware of anybody where we're going to be going after a 2-year-old or a six-year-old uh with respect to prosecutorial discretion. I just don't think we have to uh you know constrict every single application of of the law. I yield back.
▶ 5:24:07Gentleman yields back.
▶ 5:24:08Who seeks recognition?
▶ 5:24:09Who seeks recognition?
▶ 5:24:12The gentleman, the ranking member.
▶ 5:24:15Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to speak strongly in favor of Ms. Ross's amendment. Um the the only substantive reply I really heard there was well the prosecutors wouldn't do anything ridiculous and the prosecutors wouldn't do anything ridiculous like maybe prosecute someone for uh throwing a Subway sandwich.
▶ 5:24:37Um, we saw that happen where the prosecutors would not my constituent, a three-time Olympic canoist in his 70s for putting his hand in the reflecting pool in order to deflect the president's responsibility for the waste of millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. They're prosecuting him right now. They want to send him to jail for 10 years. So, I'm sorry.
▶ 5:25:02This is just a a bad time to make the argument that we we'll let the statute be drawn in an overly broad loose way because we can trust the prosecutors. Even the federal judges have said they are now rejecting the so-called presumption of regularity, which is that Department of Justice lawyers could be trusted to be telling the truth and saying the right thing because they're saying there just way too many cases where the Department of Justice lawyers are lying or evading the truth um and disobeying court orders.
▶ 5:25:33So um somebody should come up with a better argument than that because I don't think it's going to work. I'm happy to yield to Miss Ross.
▶ 5:25:40Absolutely. And These minors don't always have the ability to leave the country if they even if they wanted to leave the country because they're with their parents. The other thing that this provision, it's so over broad and punitive, doesn't take account of is people who have been here illegally are on visas and may have to wait a little bit longer to go through the process because this administration doesn't want to
▶ 5:26:10help them get whatever the next thing is. So, just say you're a minor and you decide you want to get and your and your visa is about to expire, but then you want to get a visa, an educational visa. If you stay for more than 10 days, you're a criminal. Even if your educational visa has been delayed by two weeks, this is over broad. It's punitive. It's ridiculous.
▶ 5:26:40And it's at frankly a waste of prosecutors time to deal with this. And so to not understand that this goes too far, that this absolutely these are not people who came here illegally. These are people who came here legally. And to not understand what if somebody gets sick and they have to be in the hospital. A kid gets sick and has to be in the hospital for two weeks.
▶ 5:27:10They're automatically a criminal under this law.
▶ 5:27:13M. Ross, can I can I just pursue that point with you for a second?
▶ 5:27:16Please reclaim your time.
▶ 5:27:17The gentleman the gentleman reclaims his
▶ 5:27:20I'm reclaiming my time in order to ask you a question, M. Ross, about this. Just to be clear, everybody, [clears throat] regardless of age, um, whose visa is up is civily removable from the country
▶ 5:27:33100%. This is about criminal liability. So, it's about stigmatizing someone uh as being a criminal and uh putting a young person in a facility theoretically um where they could be in real danger. And we're talking about people who are here lawfully and now we're talking about children.
▶ 5:27:52I mean, you know, if our colleagues are not moved by the fact that there have been um overzealous and ludicrous prosecutions uh under this Department of Justice, maybe they're just moved by the politics of it. This just looks ridiculous. It's going to make America look ridiculous in the eyes of the world that we're calling kids criminals. Um,
▶ 5:28:13it's going to be another kid in a bunny hat situation for you guys.
▶ 5:28:17Um, [clears throat] well, I just think we shouldn't go down this road. And I I wanted to yield to the gentle lady from California. I think she also had something to say here.
▶ 5:28:28Um, [clears throat] agree in supporting this. And as I'm thinking, there were some hearings ago when we actually um were talking about legislation to cut federal funding. So you want to cut the courts. You want to cut funding going to the courts. You're going to have these federal charges. These are courouses that are already underresourced and overwhelmed.
▶ 5:28:51We are throwing more things on their calendar because we are trying to you all are trying to pass these preposterous pieces of legislation that only do more harm to the court system. And you're going to add to that by detaining kids. Now maybe, and I I love it. The colleague from Texas said, "I don't think you need to be so prescriptive, but actually we do have to be prescriptive because prosetorial discretion is all about the discretion that someone has." And so we cannot leave it up to rogue prosecutors.
▶ 5:29:20You do need to be precise, which is why we should be supporting this kind of legislation to lay out very specifically that we are not trying to that we don't want to detain children. We don't want to charge children and there are two-month-old babies actually in these detention facilities right now.
▶ 5:29:41Yield back, Mr.
▶ 5:29:45Who seeks recognition,
▶ 5:29:49Mr. Chairman gentleman from
▶ 5:29:51the gentleman from Missouri.
▶ 5:29:53Uh thank you Mr. Chairman to speak against the amendment. Um Mr. Chairman, this is no time to be watering down the visa overstay part of this very important bill. In fact, I I believe this is one of the most important parts of this of this bill.
▶ 5:30:13You know, prior to the Biden open border policies, the majority of our of the illegal aliens in our country were visa overstayers, including uh at least several of the September 11th, 2001 hijackers, including Muhammad Sabre Solomon, who was the B border boulder, Colorado terrorist, who yelled, "Free Palestine and threw ignited Molotov cocktails on." Would the gentleman yield?
▶ 5:30:42Uh uh let me finish and then I'll yield. Uh at peaceful demonstrators advocating for the release of October 7th hostages and also including um a uh an illegal alien uh visa overstayer uh from the Middle East who sexually assaulted two female victims uh in my own county of St. Charles, Missouri.
▶ 5:31:05So, I think this is a very important uh part of the legislation before us today and I don't I do not believe uh we should be watering it down. Uh thank you and I yield back.
▶ 5:31:17I I will yield yield back to uh the representative from Texas.
▶ 5:31:21Oh, not to me. Thank you.
▶ 5:31:22The the Well, you would yield to the the point that I'd like to make is we do prosecute under current law juveniles uh for re-entry. We do it under 1825 um regularly under the Obama years in 2010 191 cases 2011 153 2012 138 these are all the Obama years um and then you know fast forward and you know we even did did some during the Trump years there was sort of a decline I'm going look at the numbers or throw the chart
▶ 5:31:52up um and then it dropped off precipitously but there was a handful uh during the Biden administration um notably that that means by definition they were carrying out because of the numbers they were carrying out prosecutorial discretion and choosing not to. For better or worse, um I'm willing to bet that if I pry these numbers back that there's a whole hell of a lot of 17 year olds and and 16 year olds that were up to no good that were that were a part of those significant numbers under Obama.
▶ 5:32:20I'd be willing to take that bet and I'm pretty sure I'd win that bet. And so the the reality is we we do it. We've done it and the evidence bears out that under our existing laws that uh prosecutorial discretion is at play again for better and worse. Uh with that I yield back to the gentleman from Missouri.
▶ 5:32:40Yeah, I re reclaim my time. I will yield to my Democrat colleague.
▶ 5:32:44I just wanted to know whether the examples that you gave involved minors. uh you know I don't know exactly at what age each of the 9/11 um uh hijackers uh entered the country um but you know again when we say minors that can mean 16 and 17year-old uh gang members it doesn't
▶ 5:33:10who came legally on a visa to begin with
▶ 5:33:13and overstayed and then committed some of whom committed illegal acts in our country which is what brought brings them to the attention of law enforcement and gets them in ICE detention unless they're in a sanctuary city.
▶ 5:33:26Well, this isn't about that. This is about automatically making them a criminal before they've done anything before they've committed. They haven't all they did was stay here for more than 10 days. That's all we're talking about. We're not talking about people who are terrorists. We're not talking about people who committed crimes. We're talking about people who overstay a visa by definition becoming a criminal.
▶ 5:33:52And again, uh, as my colleague from Texas has pointed out, these things can be handled with prosecutorial discretion. And with that, I yield back.
▶ 5:34:00Well, the last time I looked,
▶ 5:34:02the gentleman yields back.
▶ 5:34:05I recognize myself for just a few moments. You know, again,
▶ 5:34:09it has to go to
▶ 5:34:10Oh, I'm sorry. It does have to go to a Democrat. I'm sorry. Who seeks recognition? the gentle lady from
▶ 5:34:16Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm gonna yield [clears throat] some more of my time back to my colleague from North Carolina. But I I do want to say I I remain fascinated by these um posters on the other side of the aisle, these three-hour posters. And I was thinking, well, it's like three hours of Republicans running from the truth. It's three hours of rep Republicans holding a committee hostage debating a bad bill.
▶ 5:34:41It's three hours of I guess some pinky agreement that was made about vote for this to have this kind of hearing and um so I just I'm amazed. Yes. Three hours and we have not heard from the other side of the aisle any real substantive discussion about oversight and about what is happening with Department of Homeland Security and ICE.
▶ 5:35:06And now we're talking about overstaying visas for just a short period of time and and and um doing harm to these young people. And so we're talking about yes, another bunny ear situation, 5-year-old Liam Ramos. There was a child, a minor who attempted suicide at the Dilly detention facility. There was a one-year-old in a detention facility that got COVID.
▶ 5:35:33There was a a nursing mother who was detained with her There was a six another six-month-old being put in harm's way because of these And the average time that these young people are in these facilities is almost two months. Almost two months.
▶ 5:36:01I mean, we are supposed to be a free world here, one of the richest, most resourced. And this is what we're doing to children and not minors like at the 16, 17, 18 year old mark. Children less than 10, less than five.
▶ 5:36:21I could get into a whole thing about like people we know who uh could have been deported but weren't who've overstayed their visas, you know, but I'm not going to get into it. But there's a ton of them. So, it really isn't about anyone that overstays their visa. It's about profiling certain folks in our community who may have overstayed their visa and not even really knowing if they have, but picking them up. You know, that's what they do out in these streets.
▶ 5:36:49you know, they say, "Well, there's a a 50% chance that this person might have overstayed their visa, might have strange immigration status, might have a weapon. I'm just going to roll the dice, pick them up, and see." And that is not how we should be implementing law enforcement. So, I'd like to yield the rest of my time to my my colleague from North Carolina. So, I just want the gentleman from Texas to know that I'm not applying this to everybody. I'm a lawyer.
▶ 5:37:20I actually believe in narrowly tailoring laws to the actual problem. That is what this amendment does. You are talking about giving prosecutorial discretion to an administration that has been admonished by judges of all political stripes for how they use their prosecutorial powers.
▶ 5:37:48And we're seeing things that we rarely see. Grand juries refusing to indict. What happened to the expression you can indict a ham sandwich? Grand juries are seeing prosetorial malpractice and you're asking us to take an over broad law and trust the people who have abused the law. There is something very seriously wrong with that picture.
▶ 5:38:18This is the judiciary committee. Rarely does it act like the judiciary committee. It mostly acts like a three- ring circus of a bunch of posers. But I'm acting like a lawyer today because that is our job.
▶ 5:38:34And there is no reason to write an overroad criminal law that sweeps in minors, particularly minors who have absolutely no ability to have a men's rhea for this to get themselves out of the country if they're here with their parents and may be under difficult circumstances. And I cannot categorically trust this administration to do the right thing when it can't do the right thing under our current law.
▶ 5:39:04And I yield back. Say L Monica Macyver is my example of misuse of prosecutorial discretion. That woman was doing her job. Doing her job as a member of Congress.
▶ 5:39:22Lady's time is expired. I recognize myself for a moment. This didn't happen in a vacuum. Again, we look at history. We see what's happened. We see what happened [clears throat] when the borders were open. We see what happened when we had so many individuals overstaying. Uh and some of them, we don't like to talk about it, but some of them committed other crimes much more serious than the overstay.
▶ 5:39:49In fact, many of them who were in that 16, 17 year range of age certainly did. So, this didn't happen in a vacuum. It's not something that somebody made up just for the heck of it. And I would hope and I would believe that at least the majority of prosecutors in the United States of America have the ability and the understanding to realize what their responsibility is. And if somebody is just overstayed and they're a minor, nobody's putting them in jail.
▶ 5:40:19Nobody's hurting them. But if it's an individual who's a gang member who's committed felonies, it's a different story. That's the point. This is just one more mechanism to get those folks that would do harm to Americans. And with that, unless somebody on my side has anything to say, I yield to the gentleman from
▶ 5:40:43Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I I was listening to our colleagues from North Carolina and and her I thought, you know, wellplaced principle that we ought to act like the judiciary committee. And I I would ask you, Mr. Chairman, because I don't know this answer. I've never been a federal prosecutor, but listening to this uh certainly the vast majority of juvenile proceedings in this country are handled in state court.
▶ 5:41:05And on very quick uh research, I've been doing a little reading about the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, which is characterized as suggesting that when you have a federal prosecution of a person under the age of 21, not just 18, federal authorities have three choices. First, under federal law, they can refer the juvenile to state authorities. I presume that wouldn't apply here since there's no state crime.
▶ 5:41:31Second, they can initiate federal delinquency proceedings, not the underlying criminal proceeding. Or third, if the case is retained in the federal system and involves a serious offense, they can then petition the federal court to transfer the juvenile for trial as an adult. And I'm just wondering, Mr. Chairman, if you know, uh, would the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act apply here? And if so, would it render the amendment unnecessary because it already resolves the concern of the gentle lady from North Carolina?
▶ 5:41:58I gentleman yields back. I'm going to defer to Mr. Roy because he is a
▶ 5:42:04or was a prosecutor.
▶ 5:42:08I was I don't So your time you've gone to him. It's yielded to me. I'm I'm unadvised. Do we What's that? We Yeah. I mean lawyers here council said they believe it would. I'm unadvised. It's a reasonable question. I was going to bring up the Juvenile Delinquency Act earlier. I decided not to um because I'm not expert on it and so I wasn't going to dive into it. I would point out just as a reminder here, 40% of the illegal aliens here are visa overstays. I'm just going to use my time to put that out there. But uh which is part of what we're trying to address.
▶ 5:42:38And um and and and the reality is back to my point about this processal discretion when you've got whether the whether the gentleman's question is is on point or whether you're just simply talking about 17-year-olds, 16-year-olds, and others um that then abuse the system and then for whatever circumstances find themselves in having overstate the visa with or without the parents or whatever the situation may be. Um, I'm certainly comfortable leaving it up to prosecutorial discretion uh for for the uh for for them to make decisions about what to do about it.
▶ 5:43:07The point here is is when you've given a time, then you're given the time to be here and a 10-day extension or a 10-day grace period. Um, if you're not going to follow our laws, then there should be consequences and they should be um significant enough to to deter it. I yield I yield back.
▶ 5:43:23Gentleman yields back to the gentleman from Kansas. We will get you a more robust answer and maybe for in time before this hearing is over as well.
▶ 5:43:34Who seeks recognition?
▶ 5:43:40Okay. The question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from North Car North Carolina. Those in favor say yes.
▶ 5:43:49Those opposed say no.
▶ 5:43:51No. In the opinion of the chair, the nos have it and the amendment is not agreed
▶ 5:43:56Didn't sound like that to me, Mr. Chairman, but I'm I'm asking for a recorded vote.
▶ 5:44:01A recorded vote. Recorded vote is requested. The clerk will call the role.
▶ 5:44:05Mr. Jordan, Mr. Isa, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Mcccleintoch, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Massie, Mr. Roy,
▶ 5:44:20Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Klein, Mr. Gooden, Mr. Vandrew,
▶ 5:44:28Mr. Vandrew votes no. Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore votes no. Miss Hagman, Miss Lee of Florida, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman, Mr. Not, Mr. Harris, Mr. Hander Mr. Schmidt Mr. Schmidt votes no Mr. Gil
▶ 5:44:55Mr. Gil votes no Mr. Bombgardner Mr. Raskin
▶ 5:45:01Mr. Raskin votes I Mr. Natler
▶ 5:45:03Mr. Nadler votes I miss Lofgrren.
▶ 5:45:06Miss Lafrg votes I. Mr. Cohen
▶ 5:45:10Mr. Cohen votes I. Mr. Johnson Mr. Lou Miss Jipal.
▶ 5:45:16Miss Jipal votes I. Mr. Korea, Miss Scandlin, Mr. Nagus, Miss McBath, Miss Ross, Miss Ross votes I, Miss Balant, Miss Balant votes I, Mr. Garcia, Miss Camager, Dove, Miss Camager, Dove votes I, Mr. Mosquitz, Mr. Goldman, Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania, Mr.
▶ 5:45:46Isa, you're not recorded. Mr. Isa votes no. Mr. Klein, you are not recorded. Mr. Klein votes no. Mr. Ka, you're not
▶ 5:45:58Mr. Korea votes yes. Mr. Jordan, Mr. Jordan votes no. Mr. Mr. Gman,
▶ 5:46:20Mr. McClints now. Mr. Gman, Mr. Gman bids no.
▶ 5:46:39Clerk will report.
▶ 5:46:40Mr. Mr Chairman, there are nine eyes and 10 nos.
▶ 5:46:43The amendment is uh not agreed [clears throat] to. Who's who seeks recognition? Gentle lady from California is recognized.
▶ 5:46:51Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the
▶ 5:46:52Clerk report. Point of order reserved by the gentleman from Texas.
▶ 5:47:02Amendment to the amendment and
▶ 5:47:04objection be considered as read and the gentle lady from California is recognized to explain the amendment.
▶ 5:47:08Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This amendment strikes the proi uh provision of prohibiting government funds from being used to provide counsel to unaccompanied children and replaces it with a requirement that the government appoint or provide counsel to unaccompanied children. I think this is just a common sense. You know, children should not be uh appearing in immigration court without legal representation. And just envision what it's like.
▶ 5:47:36You've got, and this has been reported publicly, a six or sevenyear-old child in immigration court. They're facing an ICE trial attorney and an immigration judge, and that kid is by themselves, and obviously they're not in a position to adequately represent themselves.
▶ 5:47:55Um, children fleeing persecution, violence, trafficking, as many of these unaccompanied children are should be given additional protections such as appointed counsel. Um, we should not expect children to act like adults. They have unique developmental needs and it's really absurd to think that justice can be served with a small child appearing by themselves in immigration court.
▶ 5:48:23uh this uh provision prohibition in the bill would uh achieve statutoily what the Trump administration sought to achieve administratively an effective end to the office of refugee resettlement legal services program for unaccompanied children. Um in March of 2025 or unlawfully terminated funding for legal representation of over 26,000 unaccompanied children.
▶ 5:48:52Now, a federal court enjoined the termination, finding that this action violated, among other things, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. And I would uh ask the committee to recall that at that time that that trafficking bill was a bipartisan bill. We all realized that childhood trafficking victims needed protection.
▶ 5:49:19More recently, ORR has refused to pay legal service providers for essential uh services and already one legal service provider has pulled out of the program after uh they refused payment I think unlawfully. Now, this bill does really abandon the longstanding bipartisan support for efforts to provide counsel to unaccompanied children.
▶ 5:49:46In the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Congress required the Office of Refugee Resettlement to develop a plan to ensure the timely appointment of counsel for each unaccompanied child. And in 2005, ORR contracted with the Vera Institute of Justice to advance this co uh this goal.
▶ 5:50:07In the TV P, as I mentioned earlier, ORR was required to ensure to the greatest extent practicable that all unaccompanied children are represented by council. This bill would put an end to those efforts and make it more likely that unaccompanied children would appear without a lawyer in immigration court while the federal government is represented by an effective and usually pretty aggressive trial attorney uh from immigration and customs uh enforcement.
▶ 5:50:37I note also that children with attorneys are more likely uh to appear for their court dates. uh children who are represented by council have a very high appearance rate and um the executive office for immigration review fondly known by those of us in the immigration world as EOR their data covered completed immigration course uh court cases from fiscal year 2018 through the first
▶ 5:51:07half of fiscal year 2021 and illustrates that this due process imperative revealing that unaccompanied children without counsel were almost 100 times less likely to obtain legal relief in immigration court than unaccompanied children with counsel.
▶ 5:51:25Now, the National Association of Immigration Judges has weighed in on this, and obviously those judges are um in in the courtroom, and some of the observations that they share is that children may feain compliance to please the judge as an authority figure. And it's hard for a judge to need time to figure out if the child actually understands what's being communicated.
▶ 5:51:51Um, immigration judges really need to take more time with children who've been victims of emotional and psychological trauma. And that often is no longer the case in these proceedings. Children in proceedings need time uh to gather um cor uh corroborating uh documentation if they're seeking relief and immigration judges uh can conduct proceedings more expeditiously and resolve cases more quickly when children are represented by
▶ 5:52:21counsel. Council uh can direct their clients to available legal options instead of relying on an immigration judge to guess what the relief should be. This is a quicker process. It meets due process requirements uh that we strive to to meet uh guaranteed in our constitution. I think it's common sense and I hope that we can adopt the amendment. I yield back.
▶ 5:52:47Gently yields [clears throat] back. Committ uh suspend for a moment while we look at the Germaine issue.
▶ 5:53:58I got you. You can
▶ 5:55:05Committee will come to order. Does the gentleman uh insist on his point of
▶ 5:55:09I do, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 5:55:10Uh the gentleman uh is recognized to explain his point of order. Concern.
▶ 5:55:15Uh the amendment would introduce material beyond the scope and purpose of the bill before us and therefore violates House Rule 16, clause 7.
▶ 5:55:21Gentleman's correct. The gentleman uh the gentle woman's amendment does not satisfy the subject matter and fundamental purpose test. Therefore, it is not germanine and is out of order. Who seeks recognition?
▶ 5:55:32Mr. Chairman,
▶ 5:55:33gentle lady from California is
▶ 5:55:35I disagree with the uh finding, but having anticipated that that might be the finding, we have a reddrafted provision that I believe would meet your
▶ 5:55:47You have an amendment to the desk?
▶ 5:55:48I do.
▶ 5:55:48Okay. Clerk will report. Point of order being reserved by the gentleman from
▶ 5:55:53Report the amendment. Amendment to the amendment and then
▶ 5:56:21objection. The amendment will be considered as read. The gentle from California is recognized to explain the
▶ 5:56:25Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, essentially this strikes um lines 3 through nine in paragraph uh in B paragraph 5. uh and it strikes and who are not described in subsection A2A have counsel to represent legal proceeds and inserts have counsel appointed or provided by the secretary at government expense to represent them in immigration proceedings.
▶ 5:56:52I think this uh in a less um wholesome way the same goal as the prior amendment, which is that small children should not be appearing in immigration court or frankly any court by themselves facing a bunch of grown-ups who are talking about things they probably don't even understand.
▶ 5:57:15The idea that we could meet due process in such a setting in in that way is preposterous really. Um and there is no other circumstance in American jurist prudence where we would allow this. I mean if if a child is um you in court in in state court they have representation. Uh and that's only uh makes sense because we all know we have children, we have grandchildren.
▶ 5:57:45You know, when you're a little guy, you don't necessarily understand all of this. And and these are important issues. And many of these children, as we recognize when the committee did the trafficking uh bill, you I my recollection is it was unanimous, but was certainly bipartisan. Many of this ch these children are victims. uh they're not they've been traumatized and to have them appear in court by themselves and to try and cope with that is just unreasonable.
▶ 5:58:15So uh I recommend this amendment number two to solve that problem and with that uh Mr. Chairman
▶ 5:58:24the gentleman to yield.
▶ 5:58:25I would be happy to yield Mr. Well, thank you for pressing the point, Miss Loofgrren. Uh, it strikes me that this is a really essential question for the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. Uh, not all of us, but the vast majority of us are lawyers, and we understand all of us the difference between somebody going to court alone by himself or by herself or going with a lawyer.
▶ 5:58:51And if you can't put yourself in the shoes of a 10-year-old kid who's probably terrified and shamed and embarrassed and anxious about the situation, put yourself in the shoes of our president who has had hundreds of lawyers, hundreds of lawyers. He's he's got 34 felony convictions. He's an adjudicated sexual felon. He's been involved in thousands of cases. And he always had a lawyer.
▶ 5:59:19His right to counsel was always But now we want to turn around and say a kid can appear before a federal judge or without a lawyer, someone who someone whose entire life is maybe flashing before their eyes at that moment. I mean, I just don't know how we do that as the House Judiciary Committee. I really hope that we haven't sunk to that point.
▶ 5:59:46And I thank you, Miss Lafkin, for the time.
▶ 5:59:51Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield
▶ 5:59:54Gentle yields back.
▶ 5:59:58Gentleman from Texas recognized.
▶ 6:00:01Um, I thank the chairman. Um, I oppose the amendment. And there's a number of reasons why. I want to I want to rewind the clock for a second and go back some 20 years or 18 years or whatever. the the gentle lady from California remember better than I the exact year but you know um when we did all this I'm not even sure I remember the the nature of the markup of the UAC provision you know I was a lawyer on judiciary committee left prosecutor then I was back so I I I got to remember which things happened when but my recollection
▶ 6:00:31was that that was then done separately and pushed into the bill uh as it was headed to the floor or something along those lines but we could debate that whether it was happened or not my main point is you fast forward for just a few years. However, the UAC provisions were adopted uh with respect to to TVP and you had President Obama in a letter to then Speaker Boehner on June 30th, 2014 outlining the severe problems with the UAC program and laying to bear those issues
▶ 6:01:01and asking for Congress to act, which the Republican le Congress did act. Uh the Senate did not um in in providing the DHS secretary, this is the language from President Obama, providing the DHS secretary additional authority to exercise discretion in processing the return and removal of unaccompanied minor children from non-ontiguous countries like Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and trying to manage the very broken system that we created and that has now taken what began to be a problem that was being observed under President Obama was no, you know, gained
▶ 6:01:31notoriety around the world and kids riding on top of train cars and all the things that we saw that was horrific and the extent to which the uh cartels were making uh large sums of money moving these children for profit and then we had President Obama highlighting the issue. Congress then failing to actually respond to the issue. And we've been trying to solve the problem now for a a while and we did in in HR2. We are seeking to do it again now.
▶ 6:01:57And we we note that in the last however many years uh there's been significant people observing not even just on a partisan fashion the extent to which our own federal government is essentially closing the loop on the child trafficking cycle and and being part and parcel to the entire uh process having created the system by which these children are exploited.
▶ 6:02:22So now we come to all right we have a system that our uh taxpayers are forced to pay for to deal with all of this and to process people which thank goodness this administration under these policies has diminished the numbers massively by virtue of carrying out the policies that we should carry out and we're again trying to codify those so we can carry that forward.
▶ 6:02:44Um, and we're being asked, taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for that, to foot the bill for the proceedings to then foot the bill for uh prosecution, of course, and and then in this case, there are myriad NOS's and nonprofits that are funding uh the the litigation defense for or or uh cases for these individuals and uh and they have significant opportunities to avail themselves of those organizations.
▶ 6:03:11But it the the goal here ought to be to minimize and in fact to end um the extent to which we have this problem by tightening the policies. That's the goal of the bill. That's the purpose of the bill. And uh I believe that uh at the end of the day uh if you look at what we have uh section 292 of the immigration nationality act states that in any removal proceedings before an immigration judge and any appeal proceedings before the attorney general, the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented by counsel.
▶ 6:03:38Uh now that case obviously is at no expense to the government. The government is already having to spend an enormous amount of money to deal with this problem. Um we believe that it is certainly possible for for the NOS's and proono counsel proono lawyers do as the lawyers here in this room know uh myriad hours in fact by requirement typical of of their law firms and and their often engagement in the bar. Uh they're engaged in tons of proono hours and can carry out that work um uh to to do this.
▶ 6:04:05American taxpayers shouldn't shoulder the burden of funding the expenses incurred by the government during immigration removal proceedings and and the other side. Um and with that I would yield back yield.
▶ 6:04:15I'd yield back to the chairman.
▶ 6:04:19I think the gentle I think the gentle lady from Washington's hand was up
▶ 6:04:23Thank you. And I I'll uh yield to the gentle lady from California just for just for a little bit and then I have my own comments to make. Go ahead.
▶ 6:04:30Thank you very much. I I would just note that, you know, I went down to the border when during the Obama administration and it was there were huge problems. The gentleman from Texas is correct. Um and there were policy uh issues that related to that. I'm not defending that.
▶ 6:04:50On the other hand, you know, we have enough money to spend, you know, a billion dollars on a ballroom or many other things, but not a a a rather modest amount for small children who are in this country who are in immigration court by themselves. That's unreasonable.
▶ 6:05:13And uh I I think I don't agree with everything that the Trump administration has done at the border, but I will say that I think there were failures during the Biden administration in their border policies that were on their way to being corrected. I don't think we should conflate those two as a reason to deny a little kid the chance to be represented in an adversarial proceeding in a court.
▶ 6:05:43To me, that's just unconscionable. And certainly all of the things that we're spending in in Iran and on ballrooms and settlement funds for J6 riers. I think we can afford to keep a little kid in court with somebody to stand up for him. And I thank the gentle lady for you.
▶ 6:06:08Thank you so much. uh to the gentle lady from California. I want to thank you for this amendment because I think it is very important and it goes through to the core values of who we are as human beings, who we are as Americans. Um I have been to the court to witness a kid's docket and I can tell you if you haven't been to one, you should go. It is stunningly horrific.
▶ 6:06:31I sat in a courtroom that was packed with probably 75, hundred kids as young as three years old, four years old. One of them had a stuffy with him that he was just sitting on the on the benches in the courtroom and basically the the judges give an 18minute crash law crash course in immigration law and they say, "You have the right to be represented by an attorney.
▶ 6:06:59You have the right to question the witnesses before you. This they're talking to three-year-olds and four-year-olds. And these kids are sitting through hours long proceedings without any counsel. And how on earth is a three-year-old or fouryear-old or even a 10year-old or 12year-old going to argue against they the judge will say to them, you have the right to question any witnesses that are that are testifying against you. How are they supposed to question anyone?
▶ 6:07:26How are they supposed to go up against an attorney that is skilled in immigration law, which is the most complicated form of law other than tax law in this country. And to watch these children sit through these proceedings without any counsel and then to have to bear the brunt and the consequences of that is actually why we do say right now the law is that you have to provide counsel to the extent practicable.
▶ 6:07:55that that is what what is currently the policy and I want to say that there are a lot of people where what we're not providing counsel for what this bill does is it actually takes away even that language and I think that if there's you know you're asking about how we can ask taxpayers to pay for this I actually think if we were to put a poll out there and ask the American public if they would rather spend money on this or if they would rather spend money on the illegal war in Iran or Trump's
▶ 6:08:25ballroom or the reflecting pool that was done so badly because it was a no contract bid. They would say this. I actually think the American people would want to make sure that children, young children, minors are provided with counsel in these immigration proceedings. I think that is that is very much what people would want to spend money on, not on all of the things that we're spending money on.
▶ 6:08:50And just remember that this is in the context of giving the Republicans giving $210 billion dollars billion with a B billion dollars to ICE and CBP and now saying we are going to not only not provide attorneys we're going to cancel the contracts. I mean OR has refused to pay legal services providers for their essential services even though that that money was approved.
▶ 6:09:16So I think that this is something where if we put this question out to the American public, they would all say yes, we should pay for children, unaccompanied children to have counsel. And that is exactly what Mr. Lafkin's amendment [clears throat] does. It's why I think it is so important that we stand up for our values as Americans and that we approve this amendment.
▶ 6:09:38The gentleman uh from Tennessee is
▶ 6:09:41Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's hard to imagine we're sitting here and having discussions about giving children legal representation when they're subject to They have, you know, a hearing is supposed to be confrontational between two sides are adversarial and have a child without representation against an attorney is is not a fair process. And they do have a right to a hearing. You all understand that.
▶ 6:10:11and at the hearing they need to have it there needs to be fairness and the fact the fact that we're discussing that is is just hard to fathom and that Mr. Mr. Raskin and Mr. Lorren's first proposals were ruled out of order. This whole committee is out of order when they can't recognize the fact that children should have help at the council and they can't make their own decisions and they don't know how to deal with the system. It's unfair. It's something America doesn't count countenance.
▶ 6:10:41We've always been the landed to solve fairness as part of our due process and justice system. This is the opposite of it. We have it in our laws to require children to have legal representation. Uh the uh u what's this name of this law? Anyway, there's several laws that do give representation of states which try to get it.
▶ 6:11:03The trafficking victims protection reauthorization act of 2008 requirement that um the uh or ensure council for unaccompanied children to the greatest extent practicable. Trump administration has appealed that ruling. They don't even they want nothing. the Trump admin. And you got to realize where this this is coming from. Donald Trump. This is what he wants. He wants to deport as many people as possible. That's the message he gave to the Department of Homeland Security is deport.
▶ 6:11:33And Steven Miller gave them a headcount. They wanted I think 3,000 people a month or something like that. Some and they have to meet their headcount and they go out and they do it and they get people and they do it sometimes illegally. and they do it do it u sometimes they kill people because they make mistakes and they don't really understand what they're doing in the law. The president of the United States needs to resign.
▶ 6:12:02He's doing so many just unimaginable things to this country and to and to justice to due process. If you go overseas what people say they value about the United States is our system of justice and due process. We don't have it here anymore. He appoints his own people to the different committees that regulate the building of the ballroom, which is unnecessary. Uh he's deporting all the people who'd be waiters and cooks. Who's going to work there for a thousand people? They're not going to have them.
▶ 6:12:31Every great society has people at the bottom who do work and they're necessary. And we're deporting them. We're deporting people who do work and keep our communities active. They've deported a lot of people in Memphis. They've come there with their safe task force. It hasn't helped reduce crime. Crime just like in Washington is about the same. He doesn't even know about the killings. He mentioned one time, oh, there was a killing over there in Date Square. That was the woman in National Guardsman that was killed because Trump made them come here.
▶ 6:13:01He's responsible for that death. He's responsible for all those deaths because he's put people out there and he's created a lot of hate. Um, now he's talking about putting an 8- foot high fence around Lafayette Square. Lafayette Square where people go and sit and talk and have discussion. He's going to put an 8 foot high fence. I guess there'll be a gate that gets you open and let you out. Maybe they just want to swing the gate and lock people in if they choose to do that. Uh, that's insane.
▶ 6:13:29It's like going in front of the church and holding the Bible upside down and claiming you're you're doing something in front of the church. the most a-religious sacriiggious person ever to be in our government probably. He golfs on Easter. He doesn't go to church. He doesn't believe in religion. He doesn't believe in doing to others as you do unto yourself. He doesn't know any of the good principles that come out of it about person that's naked and giving him clothes, the person that's hungry and feeding him. He doesn't know Matthew whatsoever. He doesn't know he knows Corinthians 2. What a joke.
▶ 6:13:58He doesn't know jack about religion. He's irreligious and he's terrible and his values are are doesn't exist. It's all about him. It's a centered oneperson narcissistic grifter and that's who's carding this country and that's who's put these laws. In fact, he doesn't want anybody to have counsel except himself. He wants Roy Con and Roy Cones spirited people to give him counsel and he's got one with Steven Miller. He's got one with the new guy he's got in to be head of the department of of justice quote unquote small J.
▶ 6:14:28Roy Con taught him, "Never admit you're wrong. Never back down. Never admit you're wrong." Roy Conn was evil and one of the worst people ever on this earth and he's the mentor of the president of the United States. You get it? I yield
▶ 6:14:42Gentleman yields back.
▶ 6:14:44Gentleman [clears throat] from Georgia.
▶ 6:14:46Gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
▶ 6:14:49Uh thank you. I rise in support of the Lran amendment. You know, few weeks ago, it was Donald Trump's birthday, and to commemorate his birthday, he had a cage match on the grounds of the uh White House.
▶ 6:15:04And a lot of my friends on the other side of the aisle were there to a number of uh contestants trying to beat the the pope out of uh their opponent and then stand up and talk about uh former first lady Michelle Obama after that.
▶ 6:15:23Um, but I mentioned the the cage match uh because I wonder if my friends on the other side of the aisle would go to the White House for a cage match that featured a uh full grown uh male lion versus a uh newborn kitten. You know, I wonder if you would find enjoyment in uh that kind of a match.
▶ 6:15:51But that is exactly what happens in immigration court for uh minors and for little babies and little children, So I rise in support of this amendment because the underlying bill strips all legal counsel programs for children and declares that the government should never pay for lawyers for children.
▶ 6:16:18Even if by some miracle these children can find and pay for lawyers on their own, the underlying bill gives them at most two weeks before their immigration hearing, which is not nearly enough time. I strongly support Representative Lorren's amendment for the same reasons that I was an original co-sponsor on her fair day in court for kids act.
▶ 6:16:42like little toddlers are showing up in court unable to speak English, often traumatized and perhaps clutching their doll or stuffed animal. Their feet may barely touch the floor when they sit down as they stare silently at a judge in a black robe speaking a language they do not understand. They are scared and overwhelmed and can cannot possibly navigate complex legal proceedings by themselves.
▶ 6:17:13They are just like that little newborn kitten. Yet we have set them up to be alone against a fullgrown lion, a lawyer to decide if they should be deported back to countries where they face persecution, trafficking, or death. Do we really think that a toddler should be able to learn immigration law?
▶ 6:17:41The numbers show how dire the consequences are for children who cannot obtain counsel. Immigration judges are nearly 100 times more likely to grant relief to unaccompanied children who have a lawyer. And that makes sense. We provide counsel to adults who are charged with federal crimes because we want to ensure their fundamental right to a fair trial.
▶ 6:18:06If a grown adult needs a lawyer for a fair trial, it's obvious that a tr a toddler does as well. Children lack the capacity, emotional maturity, and legal knowledge to understand their rights, gather necessary evidence, and formulate legal Yet, we just pretend that we just pretend that they do. It's heartbreaking. It's unjust. It's unfair. It's cruel. It's not for the children.
▶ 6:18:38If not for the children, at least vote for Miss Lren's amendment for the immigration courts and the immigration judges. A courtroom cannot function when one side is represented by a literal Judges cannot oversee cases efficiently and the court system becomes Time uh time suck. Having unrepresented children in court hearings is bad for everyone.
▶ 6:19:08And I strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment as well because we cannot expect babies to serve as their own lawyers. I mean, if you get satisfaction from watching a cage match with a kitten and a fullgrown male lion, then vote no on this amendment.
▶ 6:19:28If you think that uh there's no utility or usefulness in watching such a display, uh then vote yes for this amendment. And I yield back.
▶ 6:19:40Gentleman yields back. [clears throat] Gentlemen from Maryland's recognized.
▶ 6:19:44Thank Mr. Chairman. Um first of all, I've got to say that I'm concerned that so many of our members uh I think on more on your side of the aisle, Mr. Chairman, are not present here. in fact want to commend the Democrats for um staying here for this important legislation. I'm just concerned that some people are going to come back and then just vote in a way they don't even really understand what we're talking about.
▶ 6:20:08This language that's currently in the bill repeals a critical part of the William Wilbur Force Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Trafficking Victims, that's what's being repealed by this legislation. minors, kids who are coming in uh to court to be heard about a claim of human trafficking or gang violence or government violence now go by themselves.
▶ 6:20:36How many of us would send one of our kids, an 8-year-old kid, a 10-year-old kid to the movies by themsel? How many would send a kid to the doctor by themselves? How many of us would send a kid to the dentist by themsel? Maybe Mr. Vandrew, he probably knows a dentist or I'm sure they'd be in good hands there. But you get my point. I don't think we send our kids to the store by ourselves.
▶ 6:21:02And yet now we want to say um that at a time when as uh Miss Gipall's pointed out, we're spending billions of dollars, $130 billion already on an illegal, unauthorized, unconstitutional, disastrous war in the Middle East. a billion dollars. They want to rebuild the bulldozed White House, which was done illegally.
▶ 6:21:27Or just take the the relatively modest example of just 15 or 20 million for the president to play around with the color of the water in the reflecting pool. During that time, we are gonna strip from children the right to have a lawyer with them when their whole future is at How much money do we think we're going to save doing that? I don't know if anybody has quantified it. Is it a million dollars? Is it $400,000?
▶ 6:21:57So, let's say one of these kids, imagine that one of these kids actually has a valid claim. Okay, if everybody can engage in that empathic hypothetical leap, imagine one of these kids has a valid claim. say that their family has been targeted by the government because they belong to the wrong political party and that's why the family sent them to America.
▶ 6:22:23Imagine that it's a a teenage boy, perhaps the most suspect demographic category in the world. A teenage boy who is running away from a gang that's insisting he joined the gang and he wants to come here to the country to the land of the free and the home of the brave. Maybe he saw the Statue of Liberty.
▶ 6:22:47Imagine the core paradigm target of the Human Trafficking Act, which is being repealed by this language. So, you've got a a 12 or 13 year old girl who's being subjected to human trafficking, threats, and violence, Maybe they don't even speak the language, but maybe they actually have a valid claim to asylum.
▶ 6:23:15And now we've reached the point where we're going to strip them of a lawyer under administration headed up by a president who has had literally hundreds of lawyers and doesn't go anywhere without a lawyer. We know the names of his Cydney Pal, Rudy Giuliani, Todd Blanch declared, "I'm his lawyer." the other day. That's why he shouldn't be attorney general.
▶ 6:23:41He should just go back to being in one of uh one of Donald Trump's battalion of lawyers. How about we show the tiniest bit of what America was made for. That's what our country is. for the tired and the poor. The huddled mess is yearning to breathe free. Have we forgotten all of that?
▶ 6:24:09Well, so you know, a whole bunch of people are going to come in the room and they're just going to uh go ahead and vote no because somebody's going to tell them to vote no. I warn them they do that at their own political peril when America finds out what's going on here right now. I I find it absolutely shocking and mesmerizing that they would walk into this position and I urge everybody to rethink it. And I want to thank Miss Lofgrren for spotting this subtle change in the language.
▶ 6:24:37And they say, "Oh, well, just get pro bono lawyers." Yeah. The ones that still exist because they haven't been shaken down by the president for hundreds of millions of dollars of free pro bono assistance because he issued an executive order against their law firms. I yield back.
▶ 6:24:55Gentleman [snorts] yields back. Mr. Mr.
▶ 6:24:57gentleman from Texas recognized me.
▶ 6:24:58Yeah. Um there's a few things to respond to. Um I
▶ 6:25:02I will I will claim the time and yield to the gentleman from Texas.
▶ 6:25:04Well, thank you. A few things to respond to. Um first of all, um when we talk about the number of NOS's and the amount of people that are out there with money that are uh funding vast armies of proono lawyers in this case, uh they they all receive significant taxpayer All of them bucket loads. Catholic charities alone responsible for resettling 600,000 aliens in 2021. Catholic Charities usually receives 1.4 to 3.7 million from the federal government each year.
▶ 6:25:33In 2023, it received $18.8 million. The Hebrew IM Immigrant Aid Society in 2024 received $13 million from the federal government in part to support the resettlement of aliens in the American interior. The Lutheran Immigration Refugee Service, 95% of its funding comes from the government. And all of these organizations are funding enormous armies of lawyers on a proono basis. There are literally billions of dollars going out in taxpayer funds for this very purpose.
▶ 6:26:03And it's going out through NOS's and it's literally documented out there. And when we talk about the actual numbers, I have the numbers from 2026 in terms of what we're dealing with in terms of relief granted for for the children in question. And I said, well, I don't want to look at 2026 because it might be said, well, the Trump administration is being too harsh. I ask for the information from 2024 to go back to the Biden information. And I look at the data from second quarter 2024, the last year of the Biden administration.
▶ 6:26:32Of the 40,000 pending UAC cases, 9,100 decisions at the time, 118 had relief granted. 118 out of the 9,186. The rest were dismissals, terminations, removals, voluntary departures. And my point of all that is not to say that there's not a case that shouldn't have a good competent lawyer adjudicating the case. I believe that proono lawyers are doing that and I believe that they're getting that. It is to say that we have created the problem.
▶ 6:27:00We Congress have created the problem with the legislation and then the administration, the previous administration in particular. But with all due respect, President Obama at least recognized the problem and asked for it to be fixed. Literally sent us a letter begging us to fix the problem that is causing these children to be put in. We talk about we wouldn't put our children out to go go to the store by themselves.
▶ 6:27:23Well, we sure as hell will put them out to be TRAFFICKED BY CARTELS BY THEMSELVES, to be sent across the border, to be abused by themselves because we create the very climate that makes it occur. This is what is so gling about this. These children will get representation. I assure you, if you look at the money that is flowing to these NOS's, literally billions of dollars of taxpayer money, they are getting the taxpayer funds. And what we're saying here is is that we should be right now minimizing these cases.
▶ 6:27:53That is the purpose of this bill. That is the purpose of moving forward to codify what the president is doing because this administration finally is trying to bring some sanity to the border. And with that, I yield back to the chairman. Could I ask you a question?
▶ 6:28:07I I would I would ask the gentleman the question, if I'm not mistaken, didn't the Biden administration during the four years that they allowed 10 million approximately 10 million illegal migrants to enter the country, didn't they lose track of kids? They lost track of tens of thousands of kids depending on the numbers you look at and Tom Hman has been very u u clear about what they've been doing and trying to track down those children and they they literally couldn't tell us where 350,000 kids were at one point. We started narrowing it down and there are still tens of thousands we haven't locked down
▶ 6:28:35and the goal of this legislation is to stop that from happening.
▶ 6:28:39Losing that we were they're giving us a lecture on compassion. I don't see the compassion in that.
▶ 6:28:44I do not either. I don't see the compassion in those thousands of people we saw under what was it the Del Rio
▶ 6:28:49Day after day after day living in those conditions and then being put in these temporary shelters. I mean where's the compassion that what happened in Eagle Pass? What we saw there on we saw that for four years. This bill's designed to stop that.
▶ 6:29:05That's the problem. The Democrats, they don't want to stop that. They want that to continue.
▶ 6:29:09And in my first year in Congress, I was and I had known this before being a Texan. and I was familiar with working with law enforcement. I was down at the border and I still have a picture of this little girl and I never did anything with it cuz I didn't want her picture out there of of the of a phone number on her arm uh which is all she had and talking to the the the two fellas in front of her about her status and what they knew about her because she was not really talking to folks and what they knew about how she'd been abused on the on the trail.
▶ 6:29:37and they walked through the extent to which this beautiful little seven or eight year old girl was abused on that trail all the way up through the process by a situation we created by a situation that we allowed to occur and that we empowered cartels and evil actors to carry out. The reason that I feel so strongly about proceeding with this legislation to curtail the problem of the abuse under UAC's under the catch and release Flores the abuse of assolment parole is to stop the madness.
▶ 6:30:07This president's doing it. We should codify it. I yield back.
▶ 6:30:10Gentleman yields back. The gentle lady from I think California. And then we'll come to Vermont.
▶ 6:30:18Thank you, Mr. Chair. I I just want to say this is um incredibly dystopian um to have to have this conversation about um young children, unaccompanied minors not being able to have representation. I mean, we've had a conversation about money, all this money, what the taxpayers are. I don't know.
▶ 6:30:46But you know, this president has contributed 11 trillion dollars to the debt, and I don't see anybody up in arms talking about that. This president asked us to cut a trillion dollars in healthcare. I'm sure all of us have constituents in our districts that are going to be hurt because of that.
▶ 6:31:07I don't see from the other side up in arms about And um as it relates to these children, you know, I have been to the courts and going into these courtrooms for these hearings. It is a daunting, scary process if you're an adult.
▶ 6:31:30If you're an adult with an attorney, it's even worse if you're an adult and you're pro perur representing yourself and now you're saying children children to represent themselves. It makes it actually boggles the mind. In some instances, what I've seen, there are children where language is a barrier and they don't really understand what they're saying.
▶ 6:32:00They're hearing words where they don't In some instances, you have children that are have developmental disabilities. They're on the spectrum. They're not getting additional help or support for that. And now you have courtrooms that are so overwhelmed that the judges are restricting continuences and sometimes they are noticing hearings with less than 24 hours advance.
▶ 6:32:30So that's even hard for an adult with an attorney to manage because an attorney probably has more than just that one client and just all of the machinations to get it together to go before a a judge. And you're asking for all of that to be managed by a minor. A minor who might be on the spectrum. A minor who might not understand everything. A minor who might have English as a second language.
▶ 6:32:59And a minor who is just scared out of their And there's no context about the backstory for that child. How that child got here, what that child is running from, what that child may face if they're deported. And all of those things all of those things must be taken into consideration.
▶ 6:33:23The the the the courtrooms that I've been in for proceedings, an an attorney an attorney would bring all of those things up so that the judge could make a coherent decision based on all of the information provided. See, the attorney is the advocate, and you're essentially saying you want a child to go in there without an advocate. And and last year, actually, Trump partially terminated the program that would allow children to be represented.
▶ 6:33:54So then folks had to file an injunction. And so all of these legal service providers that you all are talking you know, they had waiting lists upon waiting lists of kids that they couldn't help because of all of these shenanigans with this administration that you all are trying to cosign. You're double downing on the co-signing with this bill.
▶ 6:34:17But the value proposition, the value proposition is, are you okay with sending a child regardless of their circumstance into a courtroom without having an advocate? And you're saying yes. And so all these other hearings where folks have said, "What about the kids?
▶ 6:34:38Do no harm to the kids." I'm trying to find out what kind what children you're talking about when you're saying do no harm to the kids because every single child that you're throwing in a courtroom without an advocate, without any kind of representation, you're doing incredible harm to. And you're not going to recount the story of that child being deported and then raped or murdered or killed or because they went back into a really terrible situation.
▶ 6:35:06you're not going to put that child's name on your note card to read out into the record. So that's why you should be voting yes on this amendment. And with that, I yield back.
▶ 6:35:17Gentle yields back. [clears throat] The gentle lady from Vermont's recognized.
▶ 6:35:22Thank you, Mr. Chair. I associate myself uh with the remarks from the member from uh California and also strongly support uh the Lafrren amendment. So to level set here, what we're talking about is that the bill that the Republicans are trying to push through this committee right now would end any government sponsored council for
▶ 6:35:54It puts the onus on kids to find and pay for their own counsel in court, which of course is going to force many children to not be represented at all. And as the member from California said earlier, Miss Lofrren, there's no other area of jurish prudence where unaccompanied would have to appear without legal in front of a federal judge or a magistrate.
▶ 6:36:25So the only way I think you can get to this position is if you don't think that these children or these unaccompanied minors are worthy of basic human dignity. That you are putting them in some other file in your head. That there are somehow worthy children that are entitled to counsel in front of a judge.
▶ 6:36:47And then there are unworthy And I can say as a parent of a 16year-old and an 18-year-old, I wouldn't even want those children who have a highly educated mom who serves in Congress to be in front of a judge without counsel. So to be thinking about kids, as you said, the member from Washington, as young as four, five, six years old, sitting in front of a judge, having the judge talk about what the proceedings are going to entail.
▶ 6:37:18The only way that you can be okay with that is if you don't believe those kids are entitled to basic human dignity. So, we can talk about many other provisions of this bill. This one to me is just absolutely shocking that we can't all agree on this.
▶ 6:37:39That there should be a line for all of us who say we care deeply about children in this country that we would send kids into a courtroom and claim somehow we don't have the money to pay for this where we've all talked about all the ways in which this administration is wasting taxpayer money. We haven't even talked about the Qatari jet that has sent us back hundreds of millions of dollars that the president can't even use at this point because it's not safe.
▶ 6:38:09So, it's not a question of money and when we have the money, it's where the money is being spent. And I can tell you, I agree with what a member on my side said earlier. If if it were between spending money on those things or actually spending money to make sure that children have representation in court, I think I know where most Americans would come down. And I yield back.
▶ 6:38:35Gentle yields back. The gentleman from Illinois is recognized.
▶ 6:38:38Thank you. Uh Mr. Chairman, I um uh move to strike the last word. Uh I rise in support of this amendment for reasons that my colleagues have clearly uh and unequivocally laid out. Uh but I also wish to speak to the underlying bill because here we go again marking up a bill by the most powerful to inflict violence on the most vulnerable.
▶ 6:39:09And once again, this markup is just a show because this disgraceful piece of legislation is so extreme that it doesn't even have the votes in the [snorts] anti-immigrant Republican party. And that's why we didn't mark up this bill until now. The speaker and the chairman know it doesn't have the votes.
▶ 6:39:34So, the folding caucus threw a longer tantrum on the rule this time and now we all have to listen to the Republicans pretend that they're going to pass this
▶ 6:39:48But even if this markup is a joke, the policies in this bill are not. They reflect the shameless cruelty of the Trump Miller and their mass death squads and what they're inflicting on our communities. It's real and it's paid for by our tax dollars. They're executing innocent people on our streets. They're racially profiling people. It happened just three days ago in my district on a US citizen.
▶ 6:40:19They're breaking up into people's homes without a warrant. And the Republicans gave them $240 billion to do it. Think about that. Working [clears throat] people in this country struggle to put food on the table, buy a house, and pay for health care. Many don't even make a living wage.
▶ 6:40:41And the people elected to represent them spent 240 billion of their tax dollars to pay a bunch of racist thugs to terrorize random people on the street the way they do in my district every day. Not on healthcare. not on housing, not on nutrition assistance, not on public schools, not on child or elder care.
▶ 6:41:07They're paying say district criminals like David Broulette who murdered John Sebastian Durangerto in Maine or Charles Exum who shot Marimar Martinez, my constituent, five times in Chicago. These are the violent mercenaries who brag about shooting and murdering people.
▶ 6:41:30And because the Republican party has no purpose other than to persecute immigrants, give tax cuts to the rich, and destroy democracy, they have no choice but to double down on the cruelty.
▶ 6:41:44And that's why this bill, they want to inflict more violence on children, on people who accidentally overstate a visa, on people who are fleeing war, natural disasters, or persecution in their countries of origin. It's especially sickening that in many cases people are forced to leave their countries partly because of our policies of our government.
▶ 6:42:14We cut off food, medicine and energy to civilian populations as in Syria and Venezuela, Iran and Cuba. We fund war and mass destruction like in Gaza and Iran. We overthrow a government and occupy countries like Venezuela. And then as innocent people flee the only homes they've ever known, we deny them asylum. We criminalize them.
▶ 6:42:43And in some cases, we kill them. And while our constituents struggle to make ends meet because these same politicians gutted their health care, education, and nutrition assistance to fund ICE. This is not a redeemable piece of legislation which could be improved with a few tweaks here and there or by going back to the status quo even though there are valiant efforts to try to do that.
▶ 6:43:11And this is not a redeemable political vision. This is a vision of persecution and exploitation of pitting working people across borders against each other. While the rich and powerful rob them over and over again, there is a better way. I saw it earlier today when I stood with colleagues, advocates, and union leaders advocating for a discharge petition to bring the Dream and Promise Act for some sensible immigration reform that Americans support.
▶ 6:43:42Thank you. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. The question occurs. The gentleman from New York is recognized. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the ranking member. Ranking members is recognized.
▶ 6:43:50Um, and I want to thank the distinguished gentleman from New York for yielding. Um, this thing is actually even worse than I thought now that I'm able to do some down and dirty legal research on it. Um, in March of last year, the Trump administration abruptly cut off all funding for the nationwide legal services programs that serve unaccompanied children. and the unaccompanied children's program. That cancellation order um was not explained. It was not justified.
▶ 6:44:20There was no attempt to make it consistent with the law which requires it. Um and the consequences were immediate. There were 26,000 unaccompanied kids across the country who faced losing an attorney under the dreadful circumstances all of my colleagues have just described so eloquently.
▶ 6:44:42There was a group, and I'm not familiar with the group, but I certainly applaud them, uh, COA versus HHS, which brought a lawsuit on behalf of 11 legal services groups and co-counselled with the Justice Action Center. um in Gibson Dunn and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center to challenge this totally unprecedented and unlawful termination in federal court, US District Court in California.
▶ 6:45:10And the the a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, then issued a preliminary injunction and found that the government's actions cannot stand. Totally outside of the law. The government has tried multiple times to overturn these rulings and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has repeatedly rejected it. Okay? So, they weren't able to get their way and wipe out legal representation for kids just by cutting off all the money because it's very clear that that was contrary to law.
▶ 6:45:40So, now they want to sneak it through this legislation. In a few words, uh, I see in parentheses, um, first it says to to get them legal representation to the greatest extent practicable, and then in parenthesis, at no expense to the
▶ 6:45:56Those are the critical words, at no expense to the government. Now, I I come back to my my friend from Texas who I must say I'm going to miss so much when you leave, Mr. Roy, and it's always a pleasure to get to work with you on this stuff. I certainly did not understand the full extent of this. I'm not sure you did because your argument to me seemed to be we don't need government funding because you've got these not for-profit groups that will pick up the slack.
▶ 6:46:21But the whole point of that parenthetical is to strike at the government funding that those not for profofits get which allow them to send lawyers in. They just want to get rid of it. And in fact, there's not a lot written about this, but I found something from the mcdowocialjustice center.org or unaccompanied children have a legal right to counsel. The government cannot ignore the trafficking victims protection act.
▶ 6:46:46And then in this what it says is what's actually going on is that there's an attempt to privatize the whole thing. What do you know? There's a profit motive at the center of this particular effort to strip this basic right that kids and all human beings have in court. And what does it say? the as reported by the lever, it's a a journal I admittedly don't know. I [clears throat] don't recognize it.
▶ 6:47:13As reported by the lever in its investigation, President Trump is poised to privatize legal aid for migrant children, seeking to privatize all legal representation for unaccompanied children. So, the move likely shifts these services to a for-profit ICE contractor and imposes dangerous requirements, replaces in-person services with virtual videos, slashes funding through fixed fee contracts designed for private vendors, and results in significantly fewer children receiving any representation at all.
▶ 6:47:42You know what it reminds me of? Uh, it reminds me of what the federal district judge uh down in Florida just found about the completely illegal, outrageous, and discredited $1.8 8 billion political slush fund they tried to set up for the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, which even Todd Blanch now says is not moving forward, but we need to put that into law for obvious reasons. Uh he says it's not moving forward now. But the judge said that was a collusive litigation. You were on both sides of the issue. And that's exactly what they want to do here.
▶ 6:48:13They want to abolish a real lawyer for these kids and put in a for-profit ICE contractor. So you basically have the government being represented on both sides of the issues and they would impose that on little children whose entire lives are at stake. That is wrong and we should vote that down today unanimously in this committee. Thank you and I I yield back.
▶ 6:48:38I simply say that uh the ranking members observations are obviously correct and I urge uh that this amendment be adopted.
▶ 6:48:47I yield back. Gentleman yields back. Question now occurs on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from California. I believe all those in favor say I.
▶ 6:48:58Those opposed, no. No. In opinion of the chair, the nose have it and the amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 6:49:03Seeking roll call. Mr.
▶ 6:49:04Clerk will call the role.
▶ 6:49:05Mr. Jordan,
▶ 6:49:06Mr. Jordan votes no. Mr. Isa,
▶ 6:49:09Mr. Bigs, Mr. Mcccleintoch, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Massie, Mr. Roy,
▶ 6:49:17Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald,
▶ 6:49:20Mr. Klein,
▶ 6:49:22Mr. Gooden,
▶ 6:49:24Mr. Vandrew,
▶ 6:49:25Mr. Vandrew votes no. Mr. Nells,
▶ 6:49:28Mr. Moore, Miss Hagamman, Miss Leah, Florida, Miss Lee of Florida votes no. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman, Mr. Knot, Mr. Harris, Mr. Harris votes no. Mr. Ander, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Gil, Mr.
▶ 6:49:51Mr. Raskin,
▶ 6:49:52Mr. Raskin votes I, Mr. Nadler,
▶ 6:49:55Mr. Nadler votes I, Miss Lofrren, Miss Lafrren votes I, Mr. Cohen,
▶ 6:50:00Mr. Johnson,
▶ 6:50:02Mr. Johnson votes I, Mr. Lou, Miss Gipol,
▶ 6:50:07Miss Dipal votes I, Mr. Korea,
▶ 6:50:09Mr. Korea votes I, Miss Scandlin,
▶ 6:50:12Mr. Goose. Miss Mcbath.
▶ 6:50:16Miss McBth votes I. Miss Ross.
▶ 6:50:19Miss Ross votes I. Miss Ballot.
▶ 6:50:22Miss Balant votes I. Mr. Garcia. Mr. Garcia votes I. Miss Camager Dove.
▶ 6:50:27Miss Camager Dove votes I. Mr. Mosquitz. Mr. Goldman. Miss Crockett. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Mr. Her. Mr. Her votes no. Mr. Moore. Mr. Mr. Moore votes no. Mr. Klein, Mr. Klein votes no. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes yes.
▶ 6:51:03Mr. Mcccleinto votes no. Mr. Isa votes no. Mr. Gman Mr. Mr.
▶ 6:51:31Gman now Mr.
▶ 6:57:59Gail, you're not recorded. Mr. G votes now.
▶ 6:59:59Miss Hagman, you are not recorded. No.
▶ 7:00:01Miss Hagamman votes no.
▶ 7:00:05Mr. Chairman, there are 12 eyes and 13
▶ 7:00:09The amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 7:00:13Gentle lady from Washington.
▶ 7:00:15Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the
▶ 7:00:18Clerk will report. Board of order reserved by the gentleman from Texas.
▶ 7:00:26Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 9773 offered by Miss J Paul of Washington.
▶ 7:00:34Page 53.
▶ 7:00:35Without object objection, the amendment will be considered as read. The gentle lady from Washington is recognized to explain the amendment.
▶ 7:00:40Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In a normal world, I would say this would be a simple bipartisan amendment, but I certainly hope that's the case, but not much seems normal, and given the conversation over the last several hours, I have no doubt that um my colleagues will raise objections. This title of the section 4 of the bill claims that the legislation is about quoteuning families.
▶ 7:01:05However, the bill as written allows for the detention of entire families without regard to whether any of the children are US citizens. As the majority knows, US citizens cannot be detained under current law. That is why my amendment simply clarifies that families with US citizen children may not be detained under this bill. If the majority claims that's not what they meant and that's not what the bill does, great. We've got the solution.
▶ 7:01:34The bill language is poorly drafted and a plain reading of it explicitly allows for families with US citizen children to be detained and/or for immigrants to be indefinitely in family detention facilities separated from their US citizen children. 5 and a half million US citizen children live in households with at least one undocumented person. Just under two million US citizen children live with two undocumented parents.
▶ 7:02:03This bill would authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security to throw millions of children into immigration detention if ICE puts their parents into removal proceedings. Remember, this title is also retroactive, throwing families into limbo, even if they lived here for years. The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment that those born in the United States are US citizens, despite Trump's obsession with trying to change it. Now, I want to be very clear.
▶ 7:02:31Family detention is barbaric and it is a traumatizing process to which no child, regardless of citizenship, should be subjected. The harm of detaining children is clear. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there is no evidence that any amount of time in detention is quote safe for children. Even in fact, even short periods of detention can cause psychological trauma and long-term mental health risk for children end quote.
▶ 7:02:59According to a physician and psychiatrist who investigated the family detention facilities for the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, quote, "Shorter lengths of detention did not sufficiently mitigate the harmful conditions that we observed and their delotterious consequences. Most of the harms we documented were in families detained less than 20 days." End quote. We have seen the effects of detention on children under the Trump administration.
▶ 7:03:26Children detained in the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilly, Texas, have gotten sick and received improper medical care. They have received inedible food. They have become depressed. A 13-year-old girl attempted suicide with a plastic knife and hitting her head repeatedly. The idea that my Republican colleagues would not only endorse these horrors, but actively seek to impose the more more children, including US citizens, is grotesque.
▶ 7:03:55But sadly, unless there is a drafting error, that is exactly what this bill does. And before my colleagues say that's not what was meant and DHS doesn't detain US citizens, we know that's all false. Take the case of Jackie Merllo. Immigration officers arrested Jackie and her family, including her four US citizen children, at Peace Arch State Park, where they went to see her sister, who lives just over the border in Canada.
▶ 7:04:21When Jackie went to hug her sister, agents arrested the whole family, accused them of attempted alien smuggling, and took everyone but the sister who remained across the border in Canada into custody. The whole family remained in custody for weeks, and DHS was working to get passports for the US citizen children so they could deport the entire family.
▶ 7:04:44Fortunately, family members and friends were able to get the children out of custody, but ICE detained Jackie for several months until the case against her was thrown out. Jackie's family is not the only one to experience this. We have heard countless stories from across the country of US citizen children being detained and even deported, including multiple children with cancer. And with this bill, Republicans want to subject even more families to this horror.
▶ 7:05:13My amendment would make a horrific bill just a little bit better by preventing US citizen children from experiencing this nightmare. And again, I would just call on my colleagues across the aisle to have a little bit of humanity here and also to follow the law. You cannot detain US citizens. I hope my colleagues will join me in protecting US citizen children and accept this common sense amendment. I yield back.
▶ 7:05:39Gentle lady yields back. gentleman from Texas withdraws his point of order and is recognized.
▶ 7:05:45Thank the chairman. Um I guess my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are for family separation now. Uh because that's effectively what they're calling for. Um the the purpose here is to make sure that we keep families together. That's the point. When you have someone who came here illegally, you have illegal alien parents and they have a child. For the vast majority of cases would be an illegal alien child.
▶ 7:06:12To the extent that it is not an illegal alien child and it is a uh alleged or actual citizen child, it is almost certainly often going to be the case that it is the product of uh so-called birthright citizenship notwithstanding the Supreme Court's uh erroneous ruling. the the reality is that's going to be almost certainly the case in a number of these situations that the hypothetical put forward.
▶ 7:06:37My point is just this uh we have all the already by the way in the funding mechanism in in the uh OBB we have this exact language in place very specifically and this would be in alignment with that and it is purposeful to hold families together. That's the point. We are trying to make assessments. And by the way, if we embrace the policies we're talking about, we're decreasing the pressure at the border. We're taking power away from the cartels.
▶ 7:07:06We are trying to make it to where you can manage cases, which the evidence is now bearing out. We're putting more immigration judges in place. We're processing these claims and cases faster. We're making decisions where in the limited cases as the data also is evidenced under both presidents under Biden and President Trump in the cases of asylum when there's a tiny fraction that are granted asylum or a tiny fraction uh that are on the unaccompanied alien children who can stay etc.
▶ 7:07:34We're processing them quicker so the backload is reduced. That is the point. And so rather than the current system, which is everybody come in, everybody be able to claim asylum, everybody be able to get categorically parrolled, everybody get released, hope you show up one day, and you can't, by the way, deal with the situation of a family unit. You're stuck in this uh impossible [clears throat] decision where it's either flout the law and hold the family unit together or release the entire family unit.
▶ 7:08:03You can't manage the problem. All this would do is say look keep the family together and if it's a citizen child by virtue of birthright citizenship or otherwise it is better for the family that they be together uh and while we're adjudicating whatever claim that they allege to have which by the way is statistically improbable based on all of the evidence we have that it would be highly likely that they don't have a claim but to the extent they do have a claim that it would able to be adjudicated under asylum whether it's parole or whatever we might be
▶ 7:08:33dealing with and It is better served if you do it as a family unit. That's the point. We believe this is the humane thing to do. We believe this is the right thing to do. Keep people together, adjudicate the claim, and then make the case uh going forward as a family.
▶ 7:08:50when you separate them, when you empower cartels to intervene, when you create perverse incentives to make false claims about citizenship or not, when you pro you make uh incentives to be able to claim children and be able to use them for fake family units and so forth. We think that is harming children, harming aliens, empowering cartels, undermining our security and so forth. So for that reason, uh I oppose the amendment. I yield back to the chairman.
▶ 7:09:15Would the chairman I mean would the gentleman from Texas yield? the uh
▶ 7:09:22someone I'll recommend Mr. Ras and yield to you. Thank you.
▶ 7:09:25Um I yield yield to the gentle lady from Washington, but save me some time because I got some questions.
▶ 7:09:30Okay, [laughter] you got it. I just wanted to respond to the gentleman from Texas's uh comments because we are explicitly fixing an error in your bill that says that either you have to detain US citizen children with their families or you have to separate them. We are saying no, let's exempt the families who have US citizen children so that you can keep families together.
▶ 7:09:59This is all about keeping families together, uniting families, which is in the title of your bill. And so I want to clarify that if you support not separating families, you should support this amendment because it fixes the language in your bill that essentially says you can detain entire family units or with US citizen children or you or you separate them. That's what your bill does. And I'll yield back to the ranking member. Now, I'm glad you clarified that.
▶ 7:10:28It's an essential point. Um, but you know what? We've now reached a moment, I think, that really the whole country's got to pay attention to because Thomas Jefferson was someone who warned that if the government was to uh was to be allowed to violate the rights of non-citizens, it would inevitably come to violate the rights of citizens as well. And uh this particular language is a very vivid demonstration of that principle.
▶ 7:10:58Uh why is that? Because in the United States of America, US citizens cannot be held uh unless they are convicted of a crime or unless they're charged with a crime. That's what habius corpus is all about. If you're being held by the government and you're a US citizen, you've got the right to get out. The government can't hold you.
▶ 7:11:20There there are the only two exceptions to that I'm aware of I think are enemy combatants in war if they constitute a threat to society. And in certain cases I remember and somebody maybe can look this up. There were certain cases where US citizens who were material witnesses to a crime could be held even without charges until they testified or until they gave a report. But in any event, none of that has anything to do with what's going on here.
▶ 7:11:49This this legislation which the gentle lady from Washington is trying to correct with her excellent amendment. This legislation would actually say that citizens of the United States who happen to be minors can be held against all due process against habius corpus and I I take it indefinitely. Am I right about that? But I can we get that on the record Miss Dipol? they could be held indefinitely as US citizens under the language of this
▶ 7:12:19That's correct.
▶ 7:12:20Okay. So, um it's an old story. Thomas Jefferson warned about this during the Alien and Sedition Acts. He said, "If we are willing to sacrifice and surrender the rights of non-citizens who are being rounded up and arrested and deported without any due process at all, it is going to come back to haunt us. And we know that they're US citizens.
▶ 7:12:44And one of them was in my district who've been held for many days in ICE deportation uh or detention facilities. That's happened to lots of US citizens. Somebody please find me the numbers on that. We know there's lots of citizens. But this is an attempt to codify it and to say that US citizen children can be held indefinitely by Homeland Security and ICE.
▶ 7:13:13because one of their parents is being held and we'll just sweep in the whole family and they rejected I believe it was Miss Balance amendment uh to deny the right of family detention. I I can't remember if that one was yours.
▶ 7:13:28It was Miss Gipol's amendment. They rejected that. So now they want to sweep the whole family in whether you're a non-citizen or a citizen. Look look how far we have come. And this is this is an old story. It's an old story not with democracies. Democracies like to respect everybody's rights, but it's an old story with empires. Empires would extend their reach over lots and lots of land.
▶ 7:13:52And so, uh, you had to be a citizen and not a subject in order to exercise rights, but inevitably because of imperial practices, the rights of citizens would be sacrificed and denigrated and diluted just like the rights of the non-citizens.
▶ 7:14:10Let's get back on the path towards being a democratic republic and not acting like an empire with paramilitary forces that kill US citizens without warrant that kill immigrants without any reason. I yield
▶ 7:14:27Gentleman yields back. The question occurs on the amendment offered
▶ 7:14:34gentle lady from Washington.
▶ 7:14:35Gentle lady from Washington. All those in favor say I.
▶ 7:14:38I. Those opposed? No. No. Pay the chair. The nose have it.
▶ 7:14:43All right. I'm going to have to ask for recorded vote on that call.
▶ 7:14:47Being requested, the clerk will now call the role.
▶ 7:14:49Mr. Jordan,
▶ 7:14:50Mr. Jordan vets no. Mr. Isa,
▶ 7:14:54Mr. Biggs, Mr. McClintto, Mr. Tiffany,
▶ 7:14:59Mr. Tiffany votes no. Mr. Massie, Mr.
▶ 7:15:03Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr.
▶ 7:15:07Mr. Mr. Klein votes no. Mr. Gooden, Mr. Vandrew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Miss Hagman, Miss Lee of Florida, Miss Lee of Florida votes no. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman, Mr. Knot, Mr. Harris, Mr. Ander, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Gil Mr.
▶ 7:15:38Bombgardner Mr. Raskin
▶ 7:15:42Mr. Raskin votes I. Mr. Nadler.
▶ 7:15:44Mr. Nadler votes I. Miss Lofrren
▶ 7:15:47Miss Lrren votes yes. Mr. Cohen Mr. Cohen votes I. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson votes I. Mr. Lou. Miss Dipal. Miss Dryal votes I. Mr. Craya. Mr. Craya votes I. Miss. Mr. Negus. Miss. McBath. Miss McBth votes I. Miss Ross I.
▶ 7:16:07Miss Ross votes I. Miss Ballot. Miss Balot votes I. Mr. Garcia. Mr. Garcia votes I. Miss Camager Dove. Mr. Mr. Goldman. Miss Crockett. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Mr. Moore votes no. Mr. Isa. Mr. Isa votes no. Mr. Harris. Mr. Harris votes Miss Lee of Pennsylvania, you are not
▶ 7:16:39Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes yes.
▶ 7:16:42Mr. Mcccleintoch.
▶ 7:16:44Mr. Mcccleintoch votes no. Miss Kag votes yes
▶ 7:17:17Mr. on our reds now.
▶ 7:17:59Mr. Gill, you're not recorded. Mr. Check out now.
▶ 7:21:24Mr. Garin beds now.
▶ 7:25:53Mr. Vandrew, you are not recorded.
▶ 7:25:55Mr. Vandrew votes no.
▶ 7:26:07Clerk report.
▶ 7:26:08Mr. Chairman, there are 13 eyes and 13
▶ 7:26:11The amendment is not agreed to. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Growthman.
▶ 7:26:16I'm sorry. I've had other committee hearings today, but I I hear some things I want to clarify.
▶ 7:26:21Go right ahead.
▶ 7:26:22First, first of all, there are people who say that we're only going to remove the people from this country who are the the worst people. If we're going to have an immigration law in this country, and we're very very generous uh with people from other countries, every year about 800,000 people come here and are are naturalized. 800,000. We're at a point where one out of six people in America was born in another country.
▶ 7:26:51That's more than even was in the 80 late 1800s. So, we're very generous. But I don't know who thought up this idea that if you come here and you shouldn't be here, the only people we're going to remove are people who are like committing murders. We'll remove them, too. But if we're going to have an immigration law, we can't just say anybody comes here. So, we should be removing those people then. Uh I don't know if this bill is going to get to the floor.
▶ 7:27:18But if it gets to the floor, I uh I feel in the interest of trying to hold families together, there ought to be a provision in which our immigration laws do not allow families to break up because they come here.
▶ 7:27:34In other words, if there's a a woman from, I don't know, uh, Honduras and she comes here with her child and the father of the child is still staying in Honduras, we shouldn't allow it to happen, right? In this country, if you go through a divorce proceeding, you may have an order that, you know, the two parents have to kind of stick together in the same town.
▶ 7:28:03One parent can't just take the child and that moves to California. And it's the same thing with our immigration laws. If there is a mother and father and they're both in wherever Colombia, we shouldn't say that one of those parents can take the child to the United States and break up that little child's home.
▶ 7:28:23So, I I think in the future when we do one of these bills or if it gets to the floor this session, we should say that we're not going to allow a child to lose one of their parents because one parents going to the US, right? We should keep those parents together. So, I'd like to thank the chairman for indulging me and right, I never heard of those worst of the worst stuff. That's that's not the ship I'm on. So, thank you very much.
▶ 7:28:52Gentleman yields back from Georgia.
▶ 7:28:55Gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
▶ 7:28:57Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 7:29:00Clerk will report point of order reserved by the gentleman from Wisconsin.
▶ 7:29:05Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR9.
▶ 7:29:08Without objection, amendment be considered as read. The gentle lad is recognized to explain the amendment.
▶ 7:29:14Thank you, Mr. Chair. My amendment will add the men's rhea requirement that to be criminally liable, a person must knowingly and willingly overstay their visit. As Miss Ross pointed out earlier today, Title 5 would make overstaying a visa a crime, really for the very first time in American history. This is an egregious bill that has no exceptions or flexibility when it comes to overstaying a non-immigrant visa.
▶ 7:29:43Currently, there is no intent or knowing requirement provided in this new proposed crime. Meaning that an individual can be punished even if they make an honest mistake about when they need to depart the country or they're physically incapable of departing the country or are unable to return because of circumstances beyond their control in their home country.
▶ 7:30:07That is why my amendment adds a common sense requirement that the person only be guilty of this crime if they knowingly and willingly overstay their visa. For example, a person who has a metal medical emergency in the United States cannot leave within 10 days of their visa expiring.
▶ 7:30:27you know, that would violate this new law and they'd face up to six months in prison and a fine of up to $1,000 even if they're under medical care in a hospital or they're recuperating. That's
▶ 7:30:39So, take into consideration that maybe a natural disaster prevents an individual from returning home for more than 10 days past the expiration of their status. They would be guilty of this crime and face six months in federal prison. My Republican colleagues have repeatedly called for men's rail reform, citing existing criminal statutes that failed to explicitly require a men's rhea standard.
▶ 7:31:06But it appears Republicans commitment to due process simply does not extend to immigrants, even those that are here legally. Last summer, we marked up HR59, the Men's Rail Reform Act, which would insert a knowledge requirement in every existing criminal or regulatory statute that lacks an explicit men's rest standard.
▶ 7:31:31Republicans passed that bill out of this committee over Democrats objections to an imprecise approach that could lead to unnecessary unintentional mistakes.
▶ 7:31:47My amendment would make sure that this new criminal statute embodies the drafting standard that my Republican colleagues claim to favor by explicitly requiring proof of knowledge and will willfulness to obtain a conviction. Without my amendment, this bill would create yet another statute of the kind that Republicans claim to dislike.
▶ 7:32:17And it's not an adequate response to claim that prosecutorial discretion will address this issue. As Mr. Roy said we're Congress. We write the laws. And the idea that we would leave this level of ambiguity in the statute on purpose when trust in the Justice Department is at an all-time low. That's mindboggling. It's ludicrous and it's just plain old cruel.
▶ 7:32:46This Department of Justice tried and failed to indict a man for throwing a Subway sandwich at a DHS officer. It indicted an Olympian for touching the water of the reflecting pool after Trump's no big contract buddy miserably failed to make the iconic location American flag blue. And it indicted former FBI director James Comey for posting a picture of seashells on Instagram.
▶ 7:33:17So, let's not pretend that federal prosecutors under this administration are not bringing absurd and frivolous, unfounded cases. Without this amendment, this bill opens up a whole new avenue of cases federal prosecutors would be able to bring against people who had no intention whatsoever of breaking any laws. Our immigration system so badly needs reform.
▶ 7:33:47We have all said that over and over again. We're absolutely interested in bold new ideas to fix it. But this isn't one of them. If this amendment is not adopted, this bill would just imprison people for falling to circumstances beyond their control. This is not the kind of policy that I will support and I vote yes on my amendment. I yield.
▶ 7:34:10Gentle lady yields back. The gentleman from uh Wisconsin withdraws his point of order. The gentleman from Texas is
▶ 7:34:17Thank the chairman. Um I oppose this amendment. You know, we debated this amendment um in the last markup uh in the last Congress. Uh my friend from Texas, I believe, was the one who offered uh this particular provision in dealing with visa overstays uh Mr. Moran.
▶ 7:34:37And you know, he gave the example of probation, I think was the example that he gave, uh, that we put people on probation and they're given terms or conditions to comply with the probation and, you know, they do or they don't. And, um, this happens all the time in state and federal courts. You know, you can't go to if you're on probation into certain places that serve alcohol or or there are other issues where you might violate it. Um, uh, and and in many cases, maybe they didn't intend to be in a place, but yet they did.
▶ 7:35:06And so then it's a violation and then that that does yield back to the gentle lady referenced which is something I referenced before uh which is prosecutorial discretion in making determinations of whether somebody was um you know breaking the the the uh limit on their visa uh you know with some sort of malice or or whether it was a good faith effort. Um, but the point here is to put real teeth when someone is uh offered the ability to be a guest uh in the United States.
▶ 7:35:36And this is one of those things where I think we've we've culturally gone a miss and certainly um legally uh where we've now got a situation where 40% of the people who are legally here, at least historically, some of these numbers have have shifted a bit in the last few years, but 40% are visa overstays. That's just unconscionably wrong. Uh we we've created a system where people are rewarded from ignoring the law.
▶ 7:36:03And again, I it's just hard for me to believe that uh we have much sympathy here when when it was the 19 hijackers were all visa overstays. And all we're trying to do here is draw a very clear line and say, look, you know, you know when your visa is going to expire and then you've got a 10-day grace period.
▶ 7:36:23Um but but uh you know you got to you got to know when you're a guest when you're when you're no longer a guest and uh and to uh and to manage that. And again I go back to prosecutorial discretion. Somebody's here on a tourist visa and working in good faith and um they had some period of time and they overstayed the visa and they missed the thing. They thought they had a certain period of time and got it wrong.
▶ 7:36:47I think the odds are pretty good that that they wouldn't be pursued um with with the the uh you know with with force with respect to the the criminal statute. But it's important to have that as a backs stop to be able to let the world know that if you come here and abuse our our goodwill to allow you to be a guest in our country and you overstay it that there will be consequences. That's the point.
▶ 7:37:14And I I applauded my uh friend from Texas at the time for making that case uh and certainly supported it uh and certainly disagreed and voted against this same amendment then. Um and we'll we'll urge that we oppose it now uh because it is um I think the right policy to set the policy cleanly and clearly uh that there'll be consequences and again leave it to prosecutorial discretion to manage. I yield back.
▶ 7:37:45Gentle lady from Vermont's recognized.
▶ 7:37:47Thanks, Mr. Chair. I yield my time to the member from Georgia.
▶ 7:37:55Thank you so much. Um, I appreciate you're yielding, Mr. Roy. I understand what you're saying, but there again, you're making blanket assumptions that everyone, these 40% or what have you, you're making blanket assumptions that everyone is deliberately trying to be here and overstay their welcome. It's just a blanket assumption that you're making. And that's simply not the case. I mean, you you there are people here for, as I said, for no reasons of their own, you know?
▶ 7:38:24I mean, life happens, as they say, stuff happens. And so to make the blanket assumption that everybody's deliberately trying to stay here and stay past the time of their visa, I think is absolutely cruel and it's just unjust. It's not fair. And so there again, I understand what you're saying, but common sense, I mean, where's the common sense here? Where's the common sense in trying to be just and fair? And I agree with you.
▶ 7:38:54for people that are overstaying their welcome, their visas, and they knowingly are doing so and trying to buck the system. I get it. Yeah, I get that. But there are different circumstances that need to be considered for each and every one of these cases. And you can, and I have to be honest with you today, you can't honestly say that judges are making fair and just decisions about immigration. They're just not doing so.
▶ 7:39:23So, I think there are mitigating circumstances that we need to consider. You need to take each and every one of these cases individually and stop just putting everybody in a one-sizefits-all category because that's not life and that's not truly what happens in the
▶ 7:39:38Would the gentle lady yield?
▶ 7:39:41Yes. I yield.
▶ 7:39:43Yield back to
▶ 7:39:45Yes. I yield to the member from California. Just very briefly, you know, we have a problem here in the tourism industry already because of the hostility that's been shown to people who come to this country. Uh, and if if you're telling a tourist that, you know, if you miss your plane or you get sick, you could be charged with a crime, there are other places to go visit.
▶ 7:40:11And I do think the economic damage from this is um something that needs to be considered. I'm not for people flagrantly violating the law, but the way this is crafted is inelegant and I think the gentle lady's amendment resolves some of that problems. And I thank the gentle lady for yielding and yield back to Miss Balant.
▶ 7:40:33Will the gentle lady yield?
▶ 7:40:34I will. I'll yield to the ranking member. Uh, first let me start by by thanking you, Miss Balon, but also I want to salute Miss Lofkin on making that excellent point. You know, I had um a group of business leaders from my district in my office not so long ago talking about the horrific effect that this um violent immigration clampdown is having on people's desire to come visit the United States.
▶ 7:40:59People are literally afraid to come to the United States of America right now and it is killing the hospitality industry. It is damaging hotels. My district is right on the border of Washington DC and they're seeing dramatic reductions in the numbers of people want to come to our country.
▶ 7:41:15Now, we want to make it even worse and say if you slip up, as the distinguished gentle lady from Georgia says, through no fault of your own because there's a blizzard or in this shocking climate change weather, there's hurricanes or whatever and you don't get out in time and now your visa expires suddenly, you're a criminal in the United States when we're trying to get people to come here to go to Anaheim, California to see the Distinguished Gentleman's District or go to Disney World or come to Washington DC, which used to be known as
▶ 7:41:46uh the centerplace of politics for freedom and justice all over the world. And now we're sending this really cruel sick message. But the other point I really liked that um the gentle lady from Georgia made was that um this happens to lots of people, even happens to Republicans, to conservatives where they're suddenly out of alignment because there's some bureaucratic misstep. It could even be the government's fault.
▶ 7:42:13You guys have got to check out the Associated Press's reporting about Melania Trump. Now, luckily, she ended up getting an Einstein visa for people with extraordinary ability. Uh, I'm not quite sure what the whole background was to that, but that goes to, you know, people like Neils Boore and John Lennon and Yokoono and Ple, the soccer legend. But in the meantime, when she was in the country, she worked and did at least 10 modeling assignments unlawfully.
▶ 7:42:39She didn't have the work visa when it happened between September 10th and October 15th of 1996. And I hold no grudge against her. That kind of thing has happened to a lot of people. Should she have been thrown in jail? Should she have been made into a criminal because she was suddenly out of bureaucratic alignment? The distinguished gentleman from Texas says 40% of the people in that situation and for him that seems to be an argument for getting tougher and militarizing the whole thing. I think that demonstrates
▶ 7:43:08time is expired.
▶ 7:43:09Thank you very much.
▶ 7:43:10Does anyone else seek recognition?
▶ 7:43:12Mr. Chairman,
▶ 7:43:13I seek recognition just to complete my
▶ 7:43:15I was going to yield to you. Go ahead.
▶ 7:43:17I recognize
▶ 7:43:17Well, I was just going to say that the uh my friend Mr. Roy from Texas uh has repeated the statistic that 40% of the horrifying illegal alien population, the undocumented people are people who were here lawfully under a visa which expired. And for him that means therefore all of these police state tactics we're seeing across the country are perfectly justified. To my mind I think of those people like Melania Trump.
▶ 7:43:47You know I don't I don't know if you're saying she should have been rounded up and thrown into a detention center with her family. I don't know if she had any kids at that point or not. Um but to me what it says is hey like that is life people. the the um visas expire and most people are able to get it through the bureaucratic process in time and some are not. There's even kind of an implicit concession to that and saying you've got 10 days, but what if it's two weeks? What if it's a month?
▶ 7:44:17I don't know exactly what Melania Trump's story was when she was working in the country illegally. Um but so be it. I just don't think we should be casting this extremely broad net and just describing everybody as a criminal.
▶ 7:44:32Would the gentleman yield?
▶ 7:44:33Yes. And I will yield to the distinguished gentle lady from Washington and then to the lady from
▶ 7:44:37because I wanted to make another point that at the same time that this bill tries to criminalize people for things like this for for visa overstays. The administration is also changing the um for different visas. And I'll give you one example. I I think I'm might still be the only member of Congress that's ever been on an F1 visa. That's a student visa.
▶ 7:44:59And the administration just issued a final rule saying that they're going to change the current law that says or current um regulation that says that somebody can stay for the duration of their degree. So if you come here to seek a four-year degree, for example, you can stay for the time that it takes you to complete that four-year degree.
▶ 7:45:21They've just changed that to essentially a fixed time period which means that if for some reason during COVID for example or something happens your university has to delay its schedule you go on for a little bit longer it actually limits you and says that you cannot finish your degree on an F1 visa and it has created huge outrage across the country.
▶ 7:45:45It just happened last week and I was asked about it at a news conference and luckily I'd been following it because our universities, you talked about the hospitality industry. Um, and you know what this does to people not wanting to come to the United States. This is happening now in the universities too because universities actually across the country in red and blue districts, red and blue states are getting people, foreign students are coming and they're paying full freight.
▶ 7:46:10But now because of all of the immigration stuff that's been happening under this administration, people don't want to come here. They're choosing to go somewhere else. With this F1 rule, that's going to be even more the case because there's no guarantee that you can actually finish your degree if you come here to to stay on your degree. And now they want to criminalize people if you then end up having to stay a day or a week or a month longer on your F1 visa because of this rule change. I yield back.
▶ 7:46:36Thank you for that great point. It is undermining the universities and the colleges as well as the hotels and motel and everybody else. I just want to make one more point before I yield to my friend from Vermont. According to the US Customs and Border Protection Service, um nearly 99% of the non-immigrant visitors left the United States on time. In other words, this program is not being abused. People get a visa and they're generally here uh for the right amount of time and then they leave.
▶ 7:47:05And then in a tiny percentage of the cases, you've got things like hurricanes, tornadoes, COVID 19, whatever. Life happens. And we want to turn those people into criminals. I mean, that strikes me as outrageous. Miss Balon, I yield to you.
▶ 7:47:20Well, thank you. And uh the member for Washington reminded me as she was talking about student visas that you know in addition to the example you used of Melania Trump working illegally, we have the case of Elon Musk who came here on a student visa and never ever enrolled in the program which was the reason why he got the student visa and then worked illegally.
▶ 7:47:48He literally launched his career in the United States working illegally. So, I'm gonna go back to what I was saying before. So much of this is about who we see as worthy and suspect and who we look the other way when they are violating the exact same things that you are railing against. And I yield back.
▶ 7:48:13And I yield back. Thank you, Mr.
▶ 7:48:16Gentleman yields. who seeks recognition. Question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from Georgia.
▶ 7:48:28From Georgia. Those in favor say yes.
▶ 7:48:32Those opposed say no.
▶ 7:48:34Opinion. The chair. The nos have it. The amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 7:48:37I'd like to seek a recorded vote,
▶ 7:48:39Gentleman asks for a recorded vote.
▶ 7:48:43Clerk will call the role.
▶ 7:48:45Mr. Jordan. Mr. Isa, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Mcccleintoch, Mr. Tiffany,
▶ 7:48:53Mr. Tiffany votes no. Mr. Massie, Mr.
▶ 7:48:57Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Klein, Mr. Gooden, Mr. Vandrew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Miss Haggiman, Miss Leah,
▶ 7:49:13Miss Leah, Florida votes no. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman, Mr. Knot, Mr. Harris, Mr. Harris votes no, Mr. Ander, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Gil, Mr. Bumgardner, Mr. Raskin,
▶ 7:49:37Mr. Raskin votes yes. Mr. Nadler, I
▶ 7:49:39Mr. Nadler votes I. Miss Lofrren,
▶ 7:49:42Miss Lafrren votes I. Mr. Cohen,
▶ 7:49:46Mr. Cohen votes yes. Mr. Johnson,
▶ 7:49:48Mr. Johnson votes I. Mr. Lou,
▶ 7:49:51Miss Dryal,
▶ 7:49:53Miss Dryal votes I. Mr. Korea,
▶ 7:49:56Mr. Korea votes I. Miss Scandlin,
▶ 7:49:59Mr. Negus,
▶ 7:50:01Miss McBth,
▶ 7:50:03Miss McBth votes I. Miss Ross,
▶ 7:50:05Miss Balant, Miss Balant votes I, Mr. Miss Camlager Dove, Mr. Mosquitz Mr. Goldman Mr. Goldman votes I Miss Crockett Miss Lee of Pennsylvania Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I
▶ 7:50:23Mr. Moore Mr. Moore votes no Mr. ESA votes no.
▶ 7:50:51Mr. Gil, Mr. votes now.
▶ 7:51:27Mr. Klein, you're not recorded. Mr. Klein votes no. Mr. Jordan, Mr. Jordan vets now.
▶ 7:51:59Mr. V. No.
▶ 7:52:46Mr. Mlltock votes no Clerk will report.
▶ 7:53:10Mr. Chairman, there are 11 eyes and 11
▶ 7:53:20Yeah, the nos have it and the amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 7:53:25Who seeks recognition?
▶ 7:53:27Gentleman from California.
▶ 7:53:28Gentleman from California. Mr.
▶ 7:53:30Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk. report.
▶ 7:53:33Clerk will report.
▶ 7:53:43Point of order is reserved by the gentleman from Alabama.
▶ 7:53:46Substitute to the amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Mr. Korea of California. Strike all after the enacting clause and insert the
▶ 7:53:57without objection. The amendment will be considered as read. The gentleman from California is
▶ 7:54:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask a very simple question. Why take away workers, hard workers, law-abiding taxpayers from a workforce? Why take workers away from small businesses? Wisconsin dairies, farmers, senior homes, homebuilders, police officers. Why take away proven workers?
▶ 7:54:34The US Chamber of Commerce recently announced that their number one goal for our economy is 3% economic growth. Their number two goal for the US Chamber immigration reform. They could recognize the need for workers to get the 3% economic growth. Home builders, US home builders, the number one goal is immigration reform. They need a workers to build homes in this country.
▶ 7:55:02US manufacturers, the number one goal is immigration reform. Do you all remember that goal nearshoring from China? manufacturing in the US. I would ask instead of going after small businesses, workers, let's look at some modest immigration reform, DACA These are the immigrants we really need in this country.
▶ 7:55:30They know our culture because they've lived here all their lives. They either work or they're going to school and they follow the law. Believe me, DACA recipients have to pass a very, very detailed background check before they're actually accepted as into the DACA program.
▶ 7:55:49And today, dreamers or DACA recipients, they pull at about 70% with Republicans and about 85% positive with American voters in general. They're part of our workforce and again they have to pass a very extensive background check.
▶ 7:56:09My amendment, the American Dream and Promise Act, would essentially protect grant eligible dreamers conditional permanent residence for 10 years and cancel removal proceedings. Provide a pathway to citizenship for eligible dreamers by granting full lawful permanent residence or LPR status. provide individual temporary protective status or deferred enforcement department uh departure with lawful permanent residents.
▶ 7:56:40They would protect our dreamers and individuals with TPS during your application for relief under American Dream and Province Act. This is the legislation we lead. Ladies and gentlemen, for most of the day, we've talked about criminals. We talked about people that are unwelcome, that are not welcome in this country. Dreamers today have to follow the law, have to be no criminal record, and be gayly employed.
▶ 7:57:08This is what we need today in the United States, legal workers to relieve our need for workers in this country. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
▶ 7:57:20Gentleman yields back. Does the gentleman insist on his point of order, Mr. Moore?
▶ 7:57:27I do, Mr. Chairman. Uh
▶ 7:57:30the gentleman's excuse me one second
▶ 7:57:36the gentleman's correct uh the gentleman's amendment oh excuse me I'm sorry the gentleman explain as uh point of order
▶ 7:57:43uh gentleman would uh his amendment would introduce material beyond the scope and purpose of the bill before us and therefore violates rule 16 clause 7 and I yield back
▶ 7:57:52gentleman is correct the gentleman's amendment does not satisfy the subject matter and fundamental purpose test and therefore is not gerine and is out of order. Who seeks recognition?
▶ 7:58:01Gentle A from California is recognized.
▶ 7:58:03I have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 7:58:04Clerk report of order reserved by the gentleman from
▶ 7:58:16Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to HR 9773.
▶ 7:58:21Without objection, the amendment be considered as read. The clerk, the gentle lady's recognized to explain the
▶ 7:58:26Uh Mr. Chairman, uh, this amendment inserts the text of the Real Court's Rule of Law Act at the end of the amendment in the nature of a substitute as title seven of the bill. The Real Court's Rule of Law Act would transition the nation's immigration court system into an independent judiciary. Now, currently, immigration judges are appointed by the attorney general.
▶ 7:58:51They are employees of the Department of Justice and immigration judges may be directed to adjudicate course uh cases based on policies and priorities of the governing administration instead of the facts and the law that are before them in the court in the courtroom. That's exactly what's happened actually over the last year and a half.
▶ 7:59:14In 2025, the Trump administration fired almost 100 out of the 700 immigration judges nationwide with an I spokesperson targeting some as quote activist judges. Now, this has caused chaos and dysfunction uh with the Board of Immigration Appeals backlog reaching an all-time high of nearly 220,000 cases at the end of last year.
▶ 7:59:43Uh, you know, it's interesting. The Department of Justice advertised positions for immigration judges as deportation judges, which really emphasize that they just want the judge to deport rather than to apply the law to the facts that are presented to them in their courts. I think this is a dark and dangerous path for our court system to continue down.
▶ 8:00:12uh such influence and pressure from any res uh administration, Republican or Democratic, is not the right way to deal with justice. We need a new immigration court system that's separate from the Department of Justice that is defined by independence and integrity. I am glad that our to have our esteemed ranking member Rascin on this bill as well as Mr. Johnson and Mr.
▶ 8:00:37Goldman, the Federal Bar Association, and the American Bar Association have also endorsed this legislation. Uh, this is a proposal I hope can create a more impartial system and reduce the case backlog that we're seeing across the country. I also wanted to say just one more word about the underlying bill which I think doubles down on some of the most harmful policies we've seen from this administration.
▶ 8:01:07They're policies that can be uh harmful and mean that can be bad for our economy and really they're not popular with the American people. It should be noted that the latest Pew Research poll showed that 58% of Americans do not trust Trump on immigration. That's up 12 12% when he was elected.
▶ 8:01:31Um yet, uh my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to be saying to the American people, "Too bad we're going to codify this bad agenda into law anyway." you know, um, much has been said about the need, uh, for border control, and I agree. We had a situation that was disorderly and and needed attention at the border.
▶ 8:01:56I think the American people want an orderly, controlled system at the border, and I agree with them. But that's not the same as breaking families apart, uh, beating people up, killing Americans, uh, and turning away brilliant, highly skilled students and entrepreneurs when we need to attract the best and brightest minds in the world who want to come here and become Americans with us and help us succeed.
▶ 8:02:26So, I think this bill is a big mistake. It will harm our economy. Uh it will it is an opposition to the wishes of the American people. Adopting this amendment will at least go uh part way to uh establishing once again the rule of law in this system which is something that all of us should uh strive for. And with that uh Mr.
▶ 8:02:55Chairman I yield back.
▶ 8:02:58Excuse me. Gentle lady yields back. Does the gentleman sit on his point of order?
▶ 8:03:01I do, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 8:03:02The gentleman's recognized.
▶ 8:03:04Mr. Chairman, uh, the gentlewoman's amendment would introduce material beyond the scope and purpose of the bill before us and therefore violates House Rule 16, clause 7. I yield back.
▶ 8:03:17Uh, gentleman yields back. The gentleman uh, the gentle lady's amendment does not satisfy the subject matter purpose test. Therefore, is not germanine and is out of order. Who seeks recognition? Gentle lady from Washington is recognized.
▶ 8:03:27Uh, Mr. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
▶ 8:03:29Uh clerk report
▶ 8:03:35point of order reserved by the gentleman from Wisconsin.
▶ 8:03:38Amendment to the amendment.
▶ 8:03:39Not objection. The amendment will be considered as read. The gentle lady from Washington is recognized to explain the
▶ 8:03:43Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My amendment recognizes that family detention is just wrong and family separation is unacceptable. This amendment addresses both issues. It gets rid of the bill's mandatory indefinite family detention section, and it replaces it with language to prevent immigration and customs enforcement from detaining parents and primary caregivers unless it can show that the individual poses a specific risk to public safety that cannot be mitigated through a supervised release program.
▶ 8:04:12This would go a long way to addressing the harms of this section of the bill and ensure family unity. Trump campaigned on deporting the quote worst of the worst. But that is absolutely not what he's doing. Instead, he's cruy ripping apart families and detaining people of all statuses. On day one, President Trump brought back family detention. Let me be clear again. There is no humane way to detain children.
▶ 8:04:37The American Academy of Pediatrics has made it clear no amount of detention for children is safe. According to a recent analysis, since family detention was reinstarted, restarted last year, at least 500 babies and toddlers have spent time in ICE custody. The analysis also showed that ICE has dramatically increased detentions of children aged three and under.
▶ 8:05:03Between January 2025 and March of this year, ICE has been holding 25 children aged three and under in custody on average every single day. When ICE is not detaining families, they are separating them. Since Trump was sworn into office, ICE has detained and deported thousands of parents, leaving many children, including US citizens, separated from their caregivers.
▶ 8:05:28In just the first seven months of President Trump's second term, at least 11,000 US citizen children had a parent detained. Another report based on demographic data estimates that ICE detained the parents of more than 145,000 US citizen children since Donald Trump returned to office. Reporting describes parents being taken from children as young as four months old.
▶ 8:05:54and teenagers are increasingly caring for younger siblings, struggling to balance their own futures with working to pay for increasingly costly essentials like rent and healthcare and groceries. In my home state of Washington, ICE arrested a mother in front of her child's preschool. Similarly, in Oregon, agents arrested a father during morning drop off at his son's preschool. In Chicago, ICE arrested a single mother selling tamales, forcing her eldest daughter to step in and care for her youngest sibling.
▶ 8:06:24A Chicago born teenager fought for his parents' release while fighting terminal cancer. ICE released his parents one day before his death. In another case, a US citizen with a rare disease died after ICE detained his father and primary caretaker. ICE also detained a DACA recipient while he was on his way to the NICU to bring breast milk to his infant daughter who was born nearly six weeks premature.
▶ 8:06:54Perhaps the most one of the most horrific stories was that of Orland. Orland's mother, Wendy Hernandez Reyes, came into ICE custody earlier this year through a routine traffic stop. She told authorities that she was a single mother to her three-year-old son, Orland, and she begged to be released so that she could care for him. ICE ignored her please and detained her.
▶ 8:07:19When Wendy was ordered deported, she begged ICE once again to take her son with her to no avail. ICE once again ignored her. As a result of ISIS cruelty, Orland was left in the custody of an abusive uncle who abused him and eventually murdered him.
▶ 8:07:39The autopsy showed that Orland had multiple broken bones, signs of sexual battery, had been stomped on, burned with a lighter, and suffered at least 17 blows to the head. That never should have happened and it would not have happened if ICE had simply never detained Wendy or separated her from her US citizen child. Last week, I introduced a bill, Oregon's law, to make sure no family ever experiences this cruelty.
▶ 8:08:08Consistent with my bill, my amendment would prevent ICE from detaining a parent unless it can show through clear and convincing evidence that detention is necessary to mitigate a public safety risk. In the event that a parent is detained, it actually requires ICE to restore and expand protections to ensure that parents can make arrangements for their child's care. If a parent is deported, it requires ICE to let the parent decide whether or not they leave with their child.
▶ 8:08:37Orland should be alive today. Supporting this amendment would prevent another tragedy like Orland's death from happening. And for all the families I just talked about and so many more, it would stop Trump's cruel family separation. I urge my colleagues to vote yes and I yield back.
▶ 8:08:53Yields back. The gentleman from
▶ 8:08:56I remove my point of order.
▶ 8:08:57Withdraws his point of order. The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
▶ 8:09:01Thank you, chairman. Um I will oppose this amendment. This amendment is effectively uh the floor is extension and protection amendment. It would basically maintain the status quo.
▶ 8:09:14It would undo the very purpose of the provisions that we're putting in the legislation to fix what has been so wrong about uh policies in response or in following the uh Florida settlement um that that created such uh a difficult situation and problem uh and exploitation of of uh our border uh with respect to children and families.
▶ 8:09:40um you know uh it it seeks to strike um uh a provision that makes crystal clear that Congress intends this bill to satisfy the requirements of the revised Florida settlement agreement as it applies to accompanied minors and I would leave the status quo in place. Uh illegal aliens including cartel members buy and rent children to posose as family units. They can be released into the United States. Um this uh provision eliminates those perverse incentives that we've got.
▶ 8:10:11Um uh I would urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment and u I mean the fact of the matter is if we're looking at the data um and you can see precisely what's been happening that under in 2025 and under the under the uh current administration seen a just complete falloff complete falloff because we've been putting in place the right policies and we want to codify those policies policies so we no longer have this perverse incentive in place.
▶ 8:10:41So with that, I would yield back. Mr. Chairman,
▶ 8:10:45question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentle lady from Washington. All those in favor say I.
▶ 8:10:51Those opposed, no. No. Opinion of the chair, the nos have it. The amendment is not agreed to. Vote being requested by the Democrats. Clerk call the role.
▶ 8:11:00Mr. Jordan, no.
▶ 8:11:01Mr. Jordan votes no. Mr. Isa, Mr. Bigs, Mr. McClinintok, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Mr. Massie, Mr. Roy,
▶ 8:11:12Mr. Roy votes no. Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Klein, Mr. Klein votes no. Mr. Gooden, Mr. Vandrew, Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore votes no. Miss Hagman, Miss Lee of Florida, Miss Leah, Florida votes no. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie, Mr. Growthman, Mr. Mr. Gman votes no. Mr. Knot. Mr. Knott votes no. Mr. Harris.
▶ 8:11:43Mr. Harris votes no. Mr. Ander. Mr. Schmidt. Mr. Gill.
▶ 8:11:49Mr. Gil votes no. Mr. Bombgardner. Mr.
▶ 8:11:55Mr. Raskin votes I. Mr. Nadler.
▶ 8:11:58Mr. Nadler votes I. Miss. Laugh.
▶ 8:12:01Miss Laughron votes I. Mr. Cohen.
▶ 8:12:04Mr. Cohen votes I. Mr. Johnson.
▶ 8:12:06Mr. Mr. Johnson votes I. Mr. Lou, Miss Dryal, Miss Dipol votes I. Mr. Korea, Miss Scandan, Mr. Nagus, Miss Mcbath, Miss Ross, Miss Balant, Miss Balant votes I. Mr. Garcia, Miss Camlager, Dove, Mr. Mosquitz, Mr. Goldman, Mr. Goldman votes I. Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I.
▶ 8:12:44Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Tiffany votes no
▶ 8:13:10clerical report.
▶ 8:13:11Mr. Chairman, there are nine eyes and 10 nos. Uh
▶ 8:13:14the amendment is not agreed to. question now.
▶ 8:13:18Mr. Chairman, I've got an amendment at the desk.
▶ 8:13:20You told me three. That's four. Well,
▶ 8:13:22we'll be out of here by 6:30 if you guys do the right thing. [laughter]
▶ 8:13:26We'll be out of We'll be out of here by 6:30 regardless of No, I'm I'm kidding. Uh, okay. The clerk will report.
▶ 8:13:33Amendment to the amendment. Not
▶ 8:13:34objection. Be considered as read. Point of order being reserved by the gentleman from Wisconsin. Uh, the gentleman's recognized to explain the amendment.
▶ 8:13:41All right. So obviously we've had some profound differences about the the body and the substance of this legislation. You guys have uh defended family detention. You have rejected uh amends rehea knowing willfulness requirement which was something that I always admired the gentleman from Texas for supporting before. But um we think a lot of constitutional principles have been absolutely discarded and abandoned in the proc in the process.
▶ 8:14:10I would hope at least when it comes to the question of the title of the legislation, we could all be together in defending the 22nd amendment to the constitution, which of course holds that no person can be elected more than twice to office. This was added in I think it was 1951 when it finally got added. And I don't think that we should send out any kind of confusing signal to the public by adding the words permanent Trump to a federal law.
▶ 8:14:38and a lot of the president's uh hardcore mega allies and supporters have been advancing the cause of Trump serving beyond the two-term constitutional limit. We've heard uh stuff like that from Andy Ogles. Uh I think we've heard it from Miriam Aden. Even Steve Bannon said that there was a plan, a strategic plan in place on this. And President Trump himself of course has repeatedly flirted with the idea in public.
▶ 8:15:06Um uh and this committee should not feed this dangerous fantasy that we will have any president serve permanently uh in violation of the 22nd amendment of the constitution. The president has already lavished praise on dictators uh who've declared themselves uh in office for life. People like Kim Jong-un, uh President Xi, the president of the CCP, and Vladimir Putin. um all of these autocrats who plan to serve for life.
▶ 8:15:36Uh that's not how democracy works and that's not how American democracy works. So please let's not feed this fantasy. Let's all agree just to remove those two words. It doesn't alter the substance of the bill and it and the new title will more accurately describe what you want to do in any event. And with that I submit it to the wisdom and the conscience of the entire committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh the gentleman yields back. We'll now turn to the wisdom and conscience of the gentleman from Texas.
▶ 8:16:07I thank the chairman. Um I I will only say this that what this reflects obviously HR2 uh which we passed in the last Congress predated the current administration. But what the bill reflects and the reason for the title is the implementation of the policies that HR2 set to carry out. We've seen an action. In other words, we now have proof.
▶ 8:16:34We have evidence of the success despite my colleagues on other side of the aisle suggesting at the time that we were passing HR2 that uh you know the sky would fall and so forth and so forth and then saying that you know well Congress had to act. Remember, we were dealing with the Langford bill out of the Senate. Remember, it's like Congress had to act. Well, we did need to act because we need to codify it, make it permanent.
▶ 8:16:58But what we've seen now is that these policies when they're enforced, they actually work because we've seen the results. We've seen the reductions uh at the flow at the border. We've seen the impact of the uh you know getting new immigration judges through through the policies that we've adopted. We've seen the complete uh uh you know reduction of the increase of the number of the unaccompanied alien children that were being abused. We've been able to go track down children.
▶ 8:17:27Um all of it is moving in the right direction. Fentanyl, all of the things have been reduced and improved because of the policies that the current administration has deployed. And I think credit where credit is due. the administration, um Tom Hman, the the much maligned Steven Miller, the people that are making decisions about what we should do with respect to the border.
▶ 8:17:48Um they have resulted in a um much better situation for migrants, for Texans, for Americans, uh for the people that were being negatively impacted. So with that, um I would urge uh opposition to the amendment and I would yield back. Y
▶ 8:18:10the gentleman from North Carolina.
▶ 8:18:11Mr. Roy, did I did I hear the ranking member say that he would support the bill if we agree to this amendment?
▶ 8:18:20I think I heard something to that
▶ 8:18:21I would oppose it a little less vigorously. [laughter]
▶ 8:18:25Is that is that like strenuously object from uh a few good men? No. I yield back to the gentleman from or uh yeah, I yield back to the chairman.
▶ 8:18:33Gentleman yields back.
▶ 8:18:34Move to strike the last word. gentle lady and then we'll go to the gentleman.
▶ 8:18:38I yield to the ranking member.
▶ 8:18:40Thank you, Miss Balon. Let me respond to my friend from Texas. Um, okay. First of all, this is legislation, as we've demonstrated repeatedly throughout the day, that departs from Trump's policies um in significant ways. Um, and it's gone way to the right even of Donald Trump. So, I don't know how fair that is. But in any event, assuming that you stuck 100% to uh cement into place what he wanted to do, you can't make it permanent because no Congress can bind another Congress.
▶ 8:19:09So that's just misleading the young people of America to say that we could have uh a a permanent uh legislative uh fix that doesn't move. I mean, take even our most successful uh legislation. Um, we've never named it like that after a permanent president. Um, we don't walk around talking about the permanent Franklin D.
▶ 8:19:32Roosevelt Social Security Act or the permanent Roosevelt Medicare Act or permanent Roosevelt Medicaid Act or I'm not even sure now that wasn't during Roosevelt. Somebody will correct me when when that was uh adopted. But in any event, we don't have the [snorts] permanent LBJ Voting Rights Act. And you know, we it's misleading to say that because the Voting Rights Act has been ravaged by a combination of right-wing mega attacks and the Roberts court. Nothing's permanent.
▶ 8:19:59We got to go out and fight for democracy and freedom every day, every week, every month, every year. And the legislation that we pass must stand the test of time. And so we're just feeding someone's ego, I'm afraid, when we say that we're going to call for the first time in American history, uh, a piece of legislation uh, the permanent blank president act.
▶ 8:20:24I mean, that just strikes me as bizarre and monarchical and totally anothetical to the spirit uh, of our own of our own country. And I I would not indulge anybody that fantasy. Although I did mention this to one Republican who said that um uh if you if you keep Permanent Trump in there, then it will guarantee that Speaker Johnson won't bring it to the floor because he's not going to want to submit uh the GOP caucus to the kind of uh criticism and humiliation that might follow from putting
▶ 8:20:54something like that on the floor. But really, I think we can all do without it. We could do it by voice vote if everybody agrees. Uh but if not, I'm going to insist on people voting either for permanent Trump or not for permanent Trump. Uh and Medicaid, by the way, was under President uh Lynden B. Johnson. So I I suppose we could move to amend it to say the the President Lyndon B. Johnson, president Lynden B. Johnson Medicaid Act. Uh but I'm going to yield to the gentle lady from Vermont.
▶ 8:21:22Uh I really appreciate the comments uh from the ranking member and one of the themes that we've struggled now for the last year and a half plus is that we have constant examples of the Republicans in Congress willingly giving up their article one powers to the president, continuing to bow to the executive instead of protecting the that
▶ 8:21:53we hold dear in Congress because we are the ones closest to the people. I think this is yet another example of my colleagues on the other side being willing to defer to bow down to give up their authority and their power to the executive and it makes me very uncomfortable and I yield back.
▶ 8:22:16yields back. Mr.
▶ 8:22:17Chair, the gentleman from uh California is recognized. I just wanted to uh assure the ranking member that Donald Trump can of course serve a third term. It only requires a constitutional amendment passed by twothirds of both houses and ratification by three4s of the states. Absent that, it's not going to happen. And I am concerned about the ranking members paranoia over Trump third term. I think it's clearly overwhelmed his sense of reality. And Mr.
▶ 8:22:47Chairman, I'd ask unanimous consent to submit an article entitled, "Is [snorts] Trump derangement syndrome real?" No therapist would render such a derogatory and partisan diagnosis, but I've seen it in my practice by Jonathan Alpbert, Wall Street Journal, November 12th, 2025.
▶ 8:23:02Without objection,
▶ 8:23:04gentlemen is back. The gentleman from New York, who I think introduced legislation on the first day of Congress to address the third term issue, if I remember correctly.
▶ 8:23:13That's right. Actually, it was 2 days after he floated it to uh the Republican conference saying, of course, it was a joke only until me your colleagues actually introduced a resolution to to do it. Um I'm glad though we at least all agree that it requires a constitutional amendment. It's funny, Mr. Mr.
▶ 8:23:35McCling that you mentioned Trump derangement syndrome because I hear that a lot sent our way but imagine a scenario where let's say someone has a very successful career in uh outside of this body that perhaps uh they were let's see federal prosecutor successful lawyer a judge um I'm g I don't know all of the backgrounds
▶ 8:24:05of of my colleagues, but really proven themselves. And they run for office and they win a seat into And then they come to Congress and somehow someway they are convinced to bow down to worship the president of the United States. Let's just say forget about the president, just another person.
▶ 8:24:35And that when the president says he wants to create something called Trump accounts, you all think that's a great idea. Or the Trump gold card. Fantastic. You know what? Let's support the Arc Dump. That is Trump derangement syndrome. this narcissist who insists on naming absolutely everything after himself. He's now even signing currency.
▶ 8:25:06And none of you will stand up and say the obvious, which is it's absurd. It's absurd that someone is so insecure that he needs to have his name put on everything. But what's even more deranged is that you all go along with Why do you need Trump's name on this bill? Mr. Roy, you're the sponsor of it. You're not even going to be here.
▶ 8:25:36You and I, we're going to go out and we're going to start a law practice together or something. But you don't need to kiss his ass anymore. What is the point of putting Permanent Trump on this bill?
▶ 8:25:51I I could have used that clip in my In any event, let's stop talking about Trump derangement syndrome and throwing it our way because it's pathetic and humiliating and embarrassing that such accomplished people need to swallow all of their integrity and bow down to another individual uh whoever that individual may be. I yield back.
▶ 8:26:22The gentleman yield.
▶ 8:26:22Yes. I I want to thank the very distinguished gentleman from New York for his uh characteristically eloquent and cogent remarks. And we're another person in this committee we're going to be missing a lot next year, Mr. Goldman. Uh and I thank you for having the foresight to introduce legislation about this on the second day of Congress. I had forgotten that you had done that. But of course, everybody knows it's not Trump derangement syndrome that's a real thing.
▶ 8:26:48It's deranged Trump syndrome which is a real thing which is a president uh who wants Dulles airport named after him and one of our Republican colleagues advanced that another Am I over?
▶ 8:27:00No, we should
▶ 8:27:02Oh, you just want to be nicer to the president. Okay. I don't think he's watching right now. All right.
▶ 8:27:06He's the gentleman knows he's the president of our great country. And there's there's ways that the president should not be spoken about. You guys know that. But never
▶ 8:27:14Some people want him on the $20 bill. Some people want the $100 bill. I want him on the 11 trillion bill because that's how much he's added to the national debt. And I think we should we should make him his own deal. We've got legislation today to add him to Mount Rushmore, rename Palm Beach Airport, give him the Nobel Prize, uh congressional gold medal, make his birthday a federal holiday, $250 bill, and so on. Um, look, let's not play into that. We're the House Judiciary Committee. Come on.
▶ 8:27:41We don't have to name our legislation after President Trump. If it stands on its own two feet, it stands on its own two feet. And I agree with uh the gentle lady from Vermont who says that it's an insult and a front. It's a it's almost an a demonstration of a lack of self-respect to say that we've got to hinge this to Donald Trump. If you believe in the stuff that's in there, then stand by the stuff that's in there. But we are the lawmaking branch.
▶ 8:28:07The president's job is only to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and that's what the president should be spending his time on. And if he's watching, nothing personal, Mr. President. And I would just add before we uh end this and and vote on it that the president could have enough confidence to actually allow other people to call this bill or other bills something named after him just like Barack Obama did with Obamacare
▶ 8:28:37which was not the official name but that's the kind of leadership we're looking for.
▶ 8:28:43Yields back.
▶ 8:28:44Gentleman yields back. The question occurs. from California is recognized for a UC request.
▶ 8:28:48Gentleman from California for a UC
▶ 8:28:50Mr. Chairman, yes. Unanimous consent to enter the following into the record.
▶ 8:28:55First article, Republican farmer relies on immigrant work. Sees his party erasing it. New York Times, March 27th,
▶ 8:29:05Second. In red states, anti-immigrant bills are failing as businesses push back. Washington Post, April 19th of this year.
▶ 8:29:12Without objection. Third article. Trump immigration officials seek to amend freight ties with businesses as arrest spike. Washington Post, July 19th of this year. Without
▶ 8:29:22Immigration reform is key to building a skilled workforce. National Association Homebuilders November of 2025.
▶ 8:29:30And then business
▶ 8:29:32business groups quietly push back on Trump's immigration rates exus March 2nd
▶ 8:29:39Thank you. Question.
▶ 8:29:40Question occurs on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Maryland.
▶ 8:29:44Gentleman from Maryland.
▶ 8:29:46All those in favor say I.
▶ 8:29:48Those opposed? No. No. Opinion of the chair. The nos have it. The amendment is not agreed to.
▶ 8:29:52Recorded vote, please, Mr. Chair.
▶ 8:29:53Recorded vote has been asked. Uh the for the clerk will call the role.
▶ 8:29:57Mr. Jordan,
▶ 8:29:59Mr. Jordan votes no. Mr. Isa, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Mcccleintoch. Mr. Mcccleintoch votes no. Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Tiffany votes no. Mr. Massie Mr. Roy Mr. Roy votes no Mr. Mr. Klein
▶ 8:30:16Mr. Klein votes no Mr. Gooden Mr. Van
▶ 8:30:20Mr. Vandrew votes no Mr. Nells Mr. Moore Mr. Moore votes no Miss Haggman Miss Lee of Florida
▶ 8:30:29Miss Lee of Florida votes no Mr. Hunt Mr. Fry Mr. Kylie I
▶ 8:30:35Mr. Kylie votes I Mr. Growthman Mr. Not Mr. Not votes no Mr. Harris Mr. Harris votes no Mr. Ander Mr. Schmidt
▶ 8:30:46Mr. Schmidt votes no Mr. Gil Mr. Mr. Raskin
▶ 8:30:53Mr. Raskin votes I Mr. Nadler
▶ 8:30:56Mr. Nadler votes I miss Lofrren
▶ 8:31:00Miss Lofrren
▶ 8:31:02Miss Lofrren votes yes Mr. Cohen.
▶ 8:31:09Mr. Cohen.
▶ 8:31:12I can't believe they named such an insignificant bill for Trump. It should be a big bill for Trump, not just an insignificant bill. This is an
▶ 8:31:20Yes or no?
▶ 8:31:22Yes or no? That's a difficult question, too. I'll say yes.
▶ 8:31:25Mr. Cohen votes yes. Mr. Johnson.
▶ 8:31:30Mr. Johnson votes yes. Mr. Lou. Miss Gry, Miss Dryal votes I. Mr. Corey, Mr. Ka votes I. Miss Scandlin, Miss Scandlin votes I. Mr. Negus, Miss Mcbath, Miss McBth votes I. Miss Ross, Miss Ballot, Miss Balent votes I. Mr. Garcia, Miss Camager, Dove, Mr. Mosquitz, Mr.
▶ 8:31:52Mr. Goldman votes I. Miss Crockett, Miss Lee of Pennsylvania. Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes I.
▶ 8:31:59Mr. Gill, you're not recorded. Mr. Mr. Gil votes no. Mr. Gooden votes no
▶ 8:32:24quick report. Mr. Garcia, you're not recorded. Mr. Garcia votes I
▶ 8:33:57Mr. Fitzgerald.
▶ 8:34:00Mr. Fitzgerald votes no.
▶ 8:34:03Demand a recount. Mr. Chairman,
▶ 8:34:07clerk will report. Mr.
▶ 8:34:08Chairman, [clears throat] there are 14 eyes and 14 nos.
▶ 8:34:11The amendment is not agreed to. Question now occurs on the adoption of the amendment. No, we got to go here. Questioning the bill is amended. Right.
▶ 8:34:25Question is on the adoption of the amendment in the nature of a substitute. This will be followed immediately by a vote. All in favor reporting the bill. All those in favor say I.
▶ 8:34:32Those opposed no.
▶ 8:34:35Depending the chair, the eyes have it
▶ 8:34:38and the amendment nature of substitute is adopted. And the amendment nature of substitute is adopted.
▶ 8:34:45Question is on favor reporting the bill.
▶ 8:34:49Roll call.
▶ 8:34:51Let me see. I thought all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? No.
▶ 8:35:00Opinion of the chair. The eyes have it in the amendment that
▶ 8:35:04would like to request a roll call vote. Mr. Chair.
▶ 8:35:06Uh roll call being requested. The clerk call the role.
▶ 8:35:09Mr. Jordan. Yes,
▶ 8:35:10Mr. Jordan votes yes. Mr. Isa, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Mcccleintoch,
▶ 8:35:17Mr. Mcccleintoch, votes I. Mr. Tiffany,
▶ 8:35:19Mr. Tiffany votes I. Mr. Massie, Mr.
▶ 8:35:24Mr. Roy votes I. Mr. Fitzgerald,
▶ 8:35:27Mr. Fitzgerald votes I. Mr. Klein,
▶ 8:35:29Mr. Klein votes I. Mr. Gooden, Mr. Gooden votes I. Mr. Vandrew,
▶ 8:35:34Mr. Vandrew votes yes. Mr. Nells, Mr. Moore, Mr. Moore votes I. Miss Hagman, Miss Lee of Florida, Miss Lee of Florida votes I. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Fry, Mr. Kylie,
▶ 8:35:48Mr. Kylie votes I. Mr. Growthman,
▶ 8:35:51Mr. Growthman votes I. Mr. Knot, Mr. Knots I. Mr. Harris, Mr. Harris votes I. Mr. Ander, Mr. Schmidt.
▶ 8:36:01Mr. Schmidt votes I. Mr. Gil,
▶ 8:36:03Mr. Gil votes yes. Mr. Bombgardner, Mr.
▶ 8:36:08Mr. Mr. Raskin votes no. Mr. Nadler,
▶ 8:36:10Mr. Nadler votes no. Miss Laughrren, Miss Lafrren votes no. Mr. Cohen,
▶ 8:36:15Mr. Cohen votes no. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson votes no. Mr. Lou, Miss Jipal, Miss Jipal votes no. Mr. McCra, Mr. Ka votes no. Miss Scandlin, Miss Scanland votes no. Mr. Nagus, Miss Miss McBth votes no. Miss Ross, Miss Balot, Miss Balant votes no. Mr. Garcia, Mr. Garcia votes no. Miss Camager Dove, Mr. Mosquitz, Mr. Goldman,
▶ 8:36:46Mr. Goldman votes no. Miss Crockett. Miss Crockett votes no. Miss Lee of
▶ 8:36:52Miss Lee of Pennsylvania votes no.
▶ 8:37:24Clerk report. Mr. Chairman, there are 16 eyes and 14 nos. Uh the eyes have it and the bill is order to be reported favorably to the house. Members will have two days to submit views. Without objection, the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating all adopted amendments and staff is authorized to make technical and conforming changes.
▶ 8:37:49Gentleman from California wish to be
▶ 8:37:53Uh yes, Mr. Chair. Um I uh was happy to support this measure today to advance it to the floor. I think it's a uh return to common sense border security policies that have had broad bipartisan support uh for a very long time. this last administration was really an anomaly in this respect and this is a bill that will assure that such an anomaly uh does not happen again.
▶ 8:38:18That being said, I am very concerned about the impact it might have on a particular community uh and that is uh Ukrainian Americans, many of whom uh live in the Sacramento area uh which I represent.
▶ 8:38:32And so, uh, before this bill comes to the four, uh, I'm going to want to make sure that that issue is addressed, uh, that we assure that this legislation will not negatively impact their status, their ability to work, uh, and that, uh, these are folks who are contributing to our communities, uh, to our economy, uh, in countless ways, who came here legally, whether you agree or disagree with how that was done, uh, in the past.
▶ 8:38:56And so I want to see that we do everything we can to end the legal state of limbo uh that they're in right now and that we certainly don't make it worse uh with this legislation. So that I yield back.
▶ 8:39:06Gentlemen yields back. This concludes committee's business for the uh today's meeting. The meeting is adjourned.