Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3009, Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring this rule forward on behalf of the Rules Committee.

The rule provides for consideration of H.R. 3009, the Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act. The Rules Committee met yesterday evening and heard testimony from both the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, in addition to several Members interested in this important issue.

This rule brought forward by the committee is a closed rule and provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

We are bringing this rule forward today because both the safety of American people and the integrity of our system of laws depends on its passage. No institution, body, or agency has the right to selectively apply the law or selectively enforce the law.

The same individuals who claim exemption from our immigration laws demand equality under our criminal laws. Do we really want to live in a country where an agency claims the authority to pass political judgment on you and your circumstance to determine if the law applies to you?

This is precisely what the administration is proposing. Not only are their actions contrary to public safety, they fundamentally undermine the most basic concept of law.

I believe that sanctuary cities are unacceptable. That is why I was a part of the effort to prohibit them in Georgia and why I am so committed to continuing this fight here in Congress.

The tragic and preventible death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco at the hands of an illegal immigrant is the latest example of why we have to address sanctuary cities and enforce the law. Hear me, Mr. Speaker. Kate is not the only victim.

According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, of 74,911 Federal crimes in fiscal year 2014, 27,505, or 36 percent, were committed by those here illegally.

During an 8-month period in 2014, sanctuary cities released more than 8,000 criminal illegal immigrant offenders the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was seeking to deport.

According to a new report released by the Center for Immigration Studies, of these 8,000 released, approximately 1,900 were arrested for successive crimes during the 8-month timeframe.

I believe San Francisco's hands are soaked in blood now. They choose to protect criminal illegal aliens over an innocent American woman.

Beyond the public safety threat posed by sanctuary cities, the Federal Government has the responsibility to be good stewards of tax dollars entrusted to them by hard-working Americans.

There is no reasonable explanation, in law or policy, as to why the Federal Government should send money to cities in the form of grants or reimbursements to help them enforce the law when they are blatantly ignoring the law.

It is a waste of taxpayer money to send this money to States for purposes of law enforcement when they clearly aren't using it for that purpose.

The situation before us today is one dangerous political hypocrisy. The administration has vocally stated immigration law lies with the Federal Government and the Federal Government alone.

In fact, their entire case against Arizona was premised on that point. That was when States were trying to enforce the law.

When States don't enforce the law, essentially playing into the administration's failure to enforce the administration's claims, there is nothing they can do. It is sort of an interesting proposition.

Last week I questioned the Secretary of Homeland Security about the issues of sanctuary cities. The Secretary stated there was nothing that DHS could do and that he didn't feel it was productive to try and force the cities to cooperate.

The administration jumped all over States that help enforce immigration laws, including suing Arizona for enacting laws to protect its borders and its citizens.

I ask: Where is the outrage by the administration over San Francisco's failure to follow the law? Where is the lawsuit?

It is not surprising that the administration is only outraged when States are acting in a manner that doesn't meet their political goals.

DHS refuses to make sanctuary cities comply with the law while, at the same time, DOJ is now requiring law enforcement in Maricopa County, Arizona, to provide services in Spanish to jail inmates and to have Federal oversight for all workforce enforcement raids. This kind of political hypocrisy is the kind that has already cost the life of Kate Steinle.

The administration wants a nonenforcement policy, but it is up to Congress to make the administration follow the law. That is exactly why the Rules Committee is bringing forward this rule and H.R. 3009.

Sanctuary cities ignore and shield illegal immigrants at the expense of law-abiding Americans, and the administration, through its failure to defend and enforce this law, is complicit.

Listen, Mr. Speaker, I believe that sanctuary cities should be descriptions of cities that provide safe and secure places for law-abiding citizens, not the definition for cities choosing to provide safety for those flaunting our immigration laws.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I just want to hit a couple of points here. It was stated by my friend from Colorado about the issue of San Francisco and pursuing individuals, such as this one who committed murder; and the fact is ICE did ask for him to be held. San Francisco made the choice to let him go, which is leading us to the issue today before us, and we want to continue.

Also, this one assertion that this is a false solution debate--when is it a false solution to actually have to be here and discuss actually enforcing the law? I think that is exactly what we are doing here. If you choose to enforce the law, that is what your proper role should be, and if not, these are the penalties that will be put in place.

I think we will continue this process, Mr. Speaker, and at this time, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise and just, again, part of this is really--and even if you look at the Administration's view on this bill and others, it is almost an Alice in Wonderland effect. What is up is down and down is up. We are looking at this, that enforcing the law hurts enforcement of the law and that it is backwards.

Now, there are issues that need to be addressed. One of the issues is that we have a communication problem. I agree. We have got a communication problem. When they say, ``Hold him; he is going to be deported; he is deportable; he is not someone we want on our streets'' and San Francisco and other sanctuary cities choose to release him, that is a communication problem. I will agree with my friends across the aisle on that point.

To say that punishing views--how about enforcing the law? The last time I sat in my law classes, we didn't enforce views; we enforced laws. I think that is what we are bringing up here.

I can't let it pass. I talked about this before, and as a Member who believes that there are immigration issues that we need to address and as a member of the Judiciary Committee--which, by the way, has held hearings dealing with this subject--in fact, just last week, the Secretary of DHS was in. I questioned him directly about this, and it is amazing. He has no real opinion about sanctuary cities as he told me in his testimony.

I find that rather amazing in that he would say that there would be a problem not enforcing these laws, and when I asked about other laws that we want to enforce--is it okay for cities to turn their back on those laws--there is not an opinion there.

We have talked about this. We have had immigration hearings. We have begun the process of marking up legislation to secure our communities, to secure our borders, and to do those things; but before we start throwing in the nature of saying there is all wrong with the Republican majority on something that we have not done, I just want to go back and remind--I am still one who at the time was out there watching the proceedings from my home in the State of Georgia, where we were doing everything we could to balance the needs of our State and our economy during shutdown and during a depression, recession--whatever you want to call it--and we were trying to balance budgets, and we were watching this issue up here, but what I saw was that we are told today we are waiting for Republicans and the Republicans have all this bad agenda.

At the same point, when this body was controlled by my friends across the aisle, when the other body across the way--the Senate--was controlled by my friends across the aisle, and when the administration was new and in their early stages of developing their strategy for solving all the world's problems, what they chose to do was wreck health care and to work against community bankers. They chose that.

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to hit a couple of points here. It was stated by my friend from Colorado about the issue of San Francisco and pursuing individuals, such as this one who committed murder; and the fact is ICE did ask for him to be held. San Francisco made the choice to let him go, which is leading us to the issue today before us, and we want to continue.

Also, this one assertion that this is a false solution debate--when is it a false solution to actually have to be here and discuss actually enforcing the law? I think that is exactly what we are doing here. If you choose to enforce the law, that is what your proper role should be, and if not, these are the penalties that will be put in place.

I think we will continue this process, Mr. Speaker, and at this time, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the argument, and this is why we have this time. But I do want to just remind again, from my previous statement, bringing up a bill last Congress reminds me of back when I used to coach kids in football. There was always that struggle you wanted to put as many kids in, you wanted everybody to play, and you still wanted to win the game. There was that balance that you always had.

It reminds me of one time it happened to be one of my own kids. Now, that is pretty hard when you are coaching one of your own kids and you get to the end of the game and you didn't put him in like you thought you were going to because the time had run out on the game. And you go to him--fortunately, he was my son. I was driving home, and I said, ``I am sorry.'' I called his name and I said, ``I am sorry I didn't get you into the game. The time had run out, but I had every intention of getting you into the game.'' That is about like saying last Congress when the Senate was Democrat but the House was Republican and we have different ideas and different views that we are bringing forward. I simply go back to the time when that did not exist, when time was still on the clock and they chose not to do anything.

Also, it is a good distracter from what we are talking about today: cities enforcing laws, finding solutions, and doing so. That is simply what this bill does, that is what this rule provides for, and those are the things that need to be talked about. This is the discussion that needs to be had, and this is the discussion the American people are having all over, including, by the way, San Francisco, who is reevaluating their policy even now.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

This is an interesting argument, as I stated before, because it really defies, in many ways, logic.

The best way to help prevent what has just happened is to enforce the law. It is not to give a substantive, wishy-washy: Well, I won't enforce this. I don't want to enforce this. I am making a political judgment.

In fact, that is really what the law should be there for, is to say: This is the law that has been passed through the political process, but this is the law for everyone.

When you have the debates in Congress, that is what the political argument is for. I don't disagree with my friend from Colorado, as this is the part that we are supposed to debate; but once it leaves here and it is printed and it is law and it is signed, it is to be enforced.

To really argue that, on this side, we don't want to enforce, and, on this side, we want to enforce, where does it end--when we don't want to enforce drug laws? trafficking laws? employment law? Where does it end?

I am sure there are political differences in many cities, possibly in my own district of the Ninth District of Georgia, where cities say: I am not sure I like this employment law. I am not sure I like having to deal with compliance, with Federal law. We will just ignore it. No. It is about enforcement.

Lopez-Sanchez was requested by ICE. Whether you are talking about limited resources or whether you are talking about a lot of resources, it doesn't matter. They requested him to be held.

San Francisco said no. It is San Francisco's choice--their political choice, their life choice. It was a life choice for this young lady. Her life is gone.

It is not an economic choice--it is a life choice--and their choice led to a life's being taken. It is not about whether you like the law or not, and it is not about whether you have a view on the law or not--it is about whether you will enforce the law or not.

I struggle with this as I understand about the interest of immigrant communities, and I understand about good policing. My father was a State trooper.

I understand the relationship between communities and of their all working together to provide a safe community; but sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for those who abide by the law--those who are here legally, those who want to live a prosperous life and just get up and go to work and not have to worry about being shot on the street by somebody who is being sanctuaried because he is here illegally--not once but multiple times over.

As has already been stated, this is not a judgment call. San Francisco could see this. They could see his record. They could see he had been detained for illegally entering. This is not something that was, frankly, even close. They chose.

The question remains: Do we enforce or do we not? The question remains: Do we want to be under a rule of law or do we want to have something else?

It has been brought up many times today of a bill in the last Congress that was passed by the Senate that would be the panacea for everything and probably would help this. That was the implication given.

I have just one question to those who make that assertion: If San Francisco and other sanctuary cities won't enforce the law now because of their political views, what gives them any idea they would for a new law?

We have got a fundamental problem here, Mr. Speaker. The fundamental problem is: Is political rule of law going to happen or is the rule of law going to happen?

Pass any bill you want, but if we allow them to ignore it without consequence, then you have no standard, you have no basis for debate, you have no place to move forward.

You can pass everything you want to and have the President sign it in beautiful ceremonies; but if we allow political subdivisions in this country to just continue to pick and choose, then we have got a problem.

Now, if there are issues, let's solve them here. Let's have the debates--I agree--but this isn't up for debate when it leaves here.

So pass whatever you want to pass. Will San Francisco enforce it? I don't know--maybe, maybe not--but when they released and when other sanctuary cities release them and say: We are not going to hold. We are not going to do these things, then they have made a choice. Unfortunately, in this case, they made a life choice, and that beautiful life is gone.

This rule simply says enforce the law. This rule--this bill--says we have law. It is what we have got right now. It is not your aspirational goal. It is the law. Simply enforce it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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