Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, and Providing for Proceedings During the Period From June Through July 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this Congress once provided a check on excessive executive power. But today, in this House, it is all lapdog and no watchdog. Even terrified toddlers torn from their mother's embrace are not beyond the limit of this Congress.

Until very recently, limitation amendments like those I authored to this bill to protect taxpayers from having funds misused were routinely approved for debate--no more.

Just as Trump undermines our democracy, so too do these House Republicans refusing to permit even the pretense of a fair debate on key national issues.

Having enabled Trump's separation of children from their parents, often with their silence, Republicans have blocked amendments that I and 41 of our colleagues sponsored to prevent our military bases from being converted into internment camps for children and, in some cases, their families.

Our military bases have an important mission. It is to ensure our national security, to ensure the utmost readiness for our troops, who may be called into action in many different parts of the globe at the same time. It is not their job to take care of 20,000 people, as the administration has requested, on two Texas military bases. The function there is a totally different one from that to which we have committed in this defense bill.

These are real people, real children. They are toddlers who have been torn from their parents in places like McAllen, which I once represented; real children who cry themselves to sleep every night, held without their freedom and without their loved ones, while some of my former constituents are shopping right down the street.

My constituents at home now in San Antonio, San Marcos, Lockhart, and Austin care about this. Over 1,000 people have reached out to my office, their hearts breaking for these children.

Trump is truly testing the waters of dehumanization, seeing how many people blink an eye when he calls for suspending due process, guaranteed by our Constitution, for people who don't look like him.

I do believe in a no-tolerance policy. The no-tolerance policy that I support is no tolerance for bigotry, no tolerance for the demonization of foreigners which regularly spews forth from this White House, no tolerance for using cages to hold children as hostages.

No matter how grievous the wrong, how insulting the tweet, my colleagues sit here, idle and silent, silently blocking debate on congressional checks on this authoritarian-loving President who seeks to amass more and more power.

Perhaps what we need in this House is a strong, professional ENT--an ear, nose and throat physician--because Republicans have lost their voice when it comes to standing up to Trump on much of anything. You could say that Trump's got their tongue.

Whatever the reason, they are not there standing up for the children, won't even permit a debate on the issue of whether our military bases should be converted to this perverted purpose.

Mr. Speaker, I will never yield to a President who knows no limits, and we will not yield in raising the issue of these children, their separation, and the detainment of their families indefinitely. We must speak out and use every opportunity afforded in this House to defend their presence and to defend a better policy and the use of our tax dollars for what they were intended, not to detain, indefinitely, these babies.

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