Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I thank Chairwoman Lowey for the recognition and the opportunity to speak.

Madam Speaker, this vote is a tribute to the thousands of Federal patriots who have shown up to work for the past 25 days, working with no pay. This must end today. I call on my colleagues in this body to vote to support our hardworking public servants.

This bill is a clean continuing resolution. It comprises short-term funding through February 1 for all the agencies and departments currently shuttered for no good reason. Those include the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the State Department, the Interior Department, the Agriculture Department, the Department of Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, and many more agencies.

The President is not serving this Nation; he is not serving it well as he uses his authority to harm our Republic. Civil service workers are the bonds that hold our country together.

The Commander in Chief is hurting our Nation and holds our entire government hostage to his harebrained notion that you can stop drug trafficking and migration with a wall. The drug traffickers must be laughing up a storm. They already ship it here hidden in legal cargo. They dug tunnels under the 650 miles of border that already exists. They figured that out. And they have been flying contraband material over our border. They boat illegal contraband in here from our coastal ports, and they ship it from China through even the Postal Service, and we don't have a mechanism to detect fentanyl in the mails.

To secure our Nation and our border, our Nation first needs to open all our government agencies for the American people who are paying the bills, open those departments and pay the men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting our borders and protecting us. Once the government is open, we can spend the next weeks discussing how best to fund mechanisms that will truly improve our security. This could include thorough inspection of all cargo.

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Ms. KAPTUR. This could include enhanced electronic surveillance between ports of entry. This could include additional personnel at all ports of entry to increase checks. And, frankly, in communities like I represent, it should involve increasing DEA agents to take care of the gangs that are trafficking in these illegal materials.

But most importantly, we need a President who understands you don't stop the drug trade or undocumented migration of individuals by shuttering the entire Department of Homeland Security or furloughing the border agents or making them go to work with no pay. He has got the wrong answer for what America needs to address in border security.

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