Open Up the Government and Secure Our Borders

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Speaker, it is always good to go back home, and this weekend was especially rewarding for me. My wife and I left D.C. this past Friday afternoon, flew through Dallas, and landed in Wichita sometime shortly after sunset.

As we hopped in my truck, the snow had started to fall, and it was a beautiful Kansas evening. We got home and got to see our two boys. I woke up the next morning early, went to Sterling, Kansas, for a business meeting, then went over to Salina and got to meet some more of my friends.

On the way home, I got to listen to the radio. I listened to a Kansas State Wildcats basketball game and heard the Wildcats win that game by 1 point. And then when I got home, a special treat: I got to watch both the Kansas University basketball team win and watch my Kansas City Chiefs win. And I got to watch those games with my two boys. So it was a trifecta for Kansas, a great day.

The next morning, I woke up early for church and went to early service, and basically had to hop in my truck and come back to D.C. that same afternoon.

On the way back to the airport, I got a little bit of time to reflect; and one of the things that had come to mind was something that my good friend, my mentor, the former majority leader, one of the longest serving majority leaders in the Senate, Senator Bob Dole, had told me.

One thing Senator Dole says every time I see him is to always remember where I am from. And I think I get that. I think most of us get it, that where we are from is so very important to us, and I have always done a good job with that.

But the other thing that he talked about--I approached him one time when we were having a tough issue here in Congress, one of the first issues I had to vote on. What he told me, rather than giving me an answer, giving me his opinion, was to go back to Kansas, and the people of Kansas would tell me what to do.

So what is ironic as I went back home for these meetings and to go to church is that, everywhere I went, I heard the same thing. I heard the same thing from people in church that I had no idea that they knew so much about what was going on in Washington.

In Salina, in Sterling, everywhere I went, people asked me: When is Congress going to give the President his money to build the border?--a very simple question. So that allowed me to kind of ponder the issue a little bit more.

I have stood beside the President since day one on this issue. When I was running for Congress, I made national security, border security the top priority on what I was going to stand for; and today, I have been to that border.

As a physician of 25 years and now a Congressman for 2 years, I would tell you this: There is, indeed, a humanitarian crisis on the border as well as a national security issue on the border. Whether it is concerning the 2,000 people who come across that border illegally every day--every night we house some 40,000 people. We give them a bed. We feed them. Every day, two tons of illegal drugs come across our borders.

Mr. Speaker, that sounds like a humanitarian crisis to me and sounds like a national security crisis to me. People then often ask me: ``Well, why don't we compromise?''

And I will tell you this. I feel like we have compromised already. The President, myself, most Republicans, we asked for $25 billion to secure those borders and to provide humanitarian help for people.

We thought we probably needed to build 1,000, maybe 1,500 miles of border. We compromised from those numbers back to asking for just $5.7 billion, and now we are asking for moneys to build about 234 miles of not a wall, but a barrier, a fence.

I think that that is compromise. And, Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you come back to the table now and negotiate in good faith.

Mr. Speaker, people often talk that this has to be an either/or opportunity, that we either have to have border security or show compassion.

We can do both. America can do both. We can have border security, we can provide for the humanitarian needs of people, and we can come up with a compassionate, long-term immigration process.

This system needs to be totally overhauled. I am all in. We have had several great bills that we have tried to get through.

So, Mr. Speaker, please come back to the table. Let's open up the government, and let's secure our borders.

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