Providing for Consideration of H.R. Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this closed rule and the sham underlying legislation.

As the Ranking Member on Homeland Security, one truism that I hear is that you do not negotiate with terrorists.

Yet, that is exactly what the House Leadership is asking us to do today.

When the President said, in September, that he has ``a great heart'' for Dreamers, we were hopeful that a deal could be reached.

However, since that time, the Trump Administration has executed a ``campaign of terror'' in furtherance of one objective--getting Congress to pay for a border wall.

On September 5th, the President announced the repeal of DACA.

Then, on September 18th, he announced the end of the TPS program to give safe haven to Sudanese nationals.

On November 6th, it was ended for Nicaraguans.

Two weeks later, it was canceled for Haitians.

In January, Salvadorans also lost these immigration protections.

Arguably the cruelest, most inhumane tactical maneuver of the Trump Administration came on April 6th, when the ``Zero Tolerance policy'' was announced.

The ``DACA crisis'', the ``TPS crisis'', and now the ``Family Separation crisis'' are all crises of the President's own making.

And it is people--it is children--who suffer.

Make no mistake, the measure before us today will not end the suffering.

Instead of family separation, it offers family detention, an approach that DHS' own advisory committee has stated is ``neither appropriate nor necessary for families'' and is ``never in the best interest of children.''

For these reasons, I urge a ``no'' on this rule and H.R. 6136, an Anti-Family Values bill.

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