Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, folks in the audience, and folks that are watching this on TV, this is all theater. This is all just political theater.

Everybody knows. I know. My good friends on the other side of the aisle know that this isn't going to solve anything. This is not a solution.

If we were serious about solving this, we wouldn't be voting on another bill here that doesn't fix anything, that is never going to be moved through the Senate, that is never going to be signed by the President.

If we were interested in opening the Federal Government, we would be negotiating. We would be talking about what our differences are about border security.

Remember, this is a bill that includes the funding for border security. That is why we have this partial shutdown, because we have a disagreement about border security. And we are trying to work it out, but we can't work it out just by running the same bills that don't do anything and that are never going to move through the Senate and aren't going to be signed by the President.

It is time to get serious.

Last year, this government was shut down for a few days over amnesty. Now it is shut down because the other side doesn't want to talk about border security. You put amnesty and the lack of border security together, and that is open borders. That is completely open borders.

Just on the news, if you were watching the last couple days, more caravans heading north out of Central America through Mexico to the United States border. That is what is happening right now while our Border Patrol agents are out there working but not being paid.

Here come these folks. We don't know what their circumstances are. I am sure there are a lot of fine people in there. I am sure there are children in there, and the horrors that they are going to suffer on this trek north up through the desert in these points between the points of entry.

Madam Speaker, the most recent numbers out of Homeland Security in November, 51,000 people--that is the ones we caught--51,000 people came across the border between the ports of entry.

If they were coming to the ports of entry, this wouldn't be half of a problem, but the problem is they are coming between the ports of entry. That is one month, 51,000. And those are the ones we caught. We don't have any idea how many other ones made it through.

And yet some folks are saying: Well, we are going to give you an extra billion dollars to fix this problem.

It is not an extra billion. It is the same billion, and it is to fix problems at the ports of entry.

Madam Speaker, the problem is between the ports of entry and the ports of entry. But we are not going to do anything about the ports of entry. The billion dollars we are talking about is to muddle around and maintain things at the ports of entry but do nothing between the ports of entry, nothing at all. That is the status quo.

That is why we are in this argument, because we are saying we cannot withstand, we cannot maintain the status quo of 51,000 people a month coming illegally across our border and do nothing.

We are pleading with the other side: Please, let's do something. Let's do something different than the status quo, because the status quo gives us 51,000 people coming illegally across the border.

And they are saying: Well, we are just going to run the same bill to open the government and do nothing.

We cannot abide that. The American people cannot abide that.

People are working, Madam Speaker, without being paid while people pour across our border, and we are expecting them to stop them. They don't have the resources because we are not providing them.

It is time to end this needless show of work. We are here working, right? We are all here working. We are not doing anything to solve the problem.

What it is going to take is somebody to sit down at the table and say, ``Look. See here. This is what I think the issue is,'' and find some solution somewhere in the middle. But you can't do that if you are not willing to have a discussion.

We are asking to have a discussion so we can get past this, so people can get paid and the American people can be assured that their government is securing their border, their property, their country, and stopping all these illegal immigrants from coming in; and making sure that, if they are going to come in--and we are a country of immigrants.

My grandmother, my great-grandmother came here from Colombia, South America, with the shirts on their backs. They came through Ellis Island because we had a process. We are all immigrants, and we welcome immigrants more than any other country on the planet, but we want you to come legally.

We have a process. We don't want you to just pour across the border into our country with gang-related violence, with fentanyl, with opioids that are killing people in our own communities, all these drugs and crimes and violence. We are asking you to come to the ports of entry and quit pouring in between the ports of entry. But our laws now invite them to do that, which is why they are coming.

So I just beseech you, Madam Speaker--and I thank you for your indulgence and for your time--let's quit this show. Let's quit this charade. Let's quit this theater. Let's get serious for the people who are working, for the American people who expect more, and get down to negotiation, come to a solution, and move on with things, the important things that plague our Nation.

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