Providing for Consideration of H.R. Securing America's Future Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, what we are doing here today is simply insane.

For 8 years, Republican leaders have blocked every attempt to debate bipartisan immigration bills. They blocked Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform. They blocked the bipartisan Dream Act, which has 203 cosponsors.

Speaker Ryan has refused to consider the Dream Act, all while shedding crocodile tears over the 700,000 Dreamers for whom America is the only home they know. Instead, he has held the Dreamers hostage, used them as bargaining chips, used them as leverage to waste tens of billions of taxpayer dollars on a senseless wall and to militarize our southern border.

Now, as our Nation is haunted by imagines of children being ripped from their parents' arms and by the sounds of their cries, Speaker Ryan decides this is the time to bring two of the most hateful, bigoted, anti-immigrant pieces of legislation I have ever seen to the House floor for debate under a closed process--no amendments, no committee hearings.

This is a scandal, Mr. Speaker. Republicans should hide their faces in shame.

It didn't have to be this way. If the bipartisan queen-of-the-hill discharge petition was allowed to move forward, we could be having a real debate on immigration. We could take up these two hyperpartisan anti-immigrant bills, and we could also consider two bipartisan bills to protect the Dreamers, namely, the Dream Act and the USA Act.

The petition was nearing 218 signatures, but Republicans couldn't stand considering anything they disagree with. They couldn't even stand debating them. This rule will kill the discharge petition because Republicans fear a fair fight.

This is an insult to this institution and to the many Members on both sides of the aisle who have waited so long to vote on these bills.

The Rules Committee even came back at 10 p.m. for an emergency meeting to fix a so-called drafting error in this bill.

Do you know what the drafting error was?

$100 billion. That is right. Republicans almost accidentally gave President Trump $125 billion for his border wall instead of the $25 billion. That is quite an error, although I am sure President Trump would have loved it.

Oh, my God. This is what happens when you jam bills through with no hearings, no markups, no CBO score, which would have caught this enormous mistake.

Mr. Speaker, the President's executive order will only lead to keeping these children behind bars, some with and some without their parents, in unlimited, indefinite detention. And these Republican bills turn this cruel policy into the law of the land.

This is not a solution, Mr. Speaker; this is cruel and inhuman punishment.

The President of the United States must stop his vicious approach on immigration. It is immoral. And he must stop his hate peddling and he must stop his lies.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this rule that kills the discharge petition; reject this rule that kills any hope for action on bipartisan immigration bills. I say to my colleagues: Have zero tolerance for this rule and have zero tolerance for these bills.

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