Emergency Declaration

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the resolution the House will vote on later today that would terminate the President's declaration of a national emergency.

The need to secure our borders isn't just a matter of good public policy, it is our highest calling, and it is our constitutionally prescribed duty as guardians of our citizens' safety.

When our Founding Fathers penned our Constitution and changed the course of history, they charged the Federal Government in the preamble with the preeminent responsibility to provide for the common defense. But they didn't just stop there. They went on and not only empowered, but they commanded that the Federal Government shall protect every State in the Union against invasion.

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, as the American people and, especially, the citizens of the great State of Texas know far too well, the Federal Government has abdicated its most important responsibility and has been derelict in its constitutional duty to defend our borders and provide for our defense.

For too long, politicians have pontificated and they have postured that they would stop illegal immigration and that they would secure the border, but the fact is they haven't. Anyone who has been to the border or worked along the border or lives along the border knows that this is a crisis. This is a national emergency.

We know that, just last month, apprehensions at the southern border spiked 84 percent compared to the same time last year, with 120,000 apprehensions in the last 2 months alone. Homeland Security personnel spent 28,000 man-hours to render basic medical services to folks who were coming across the border.

New migrant caravans continue to form and march toward our cities along the border where our Border Patrol agents are already overwhelmed with migrants from other caravans.

And in the first caravan of 8,000 people that forced their way into Mexico--they forced their way into Mexico--where they should have stopped as the first safe country when they were applying for asylum, we know that 600 of that first caravan of 8,000 were known criminals.

Additionally, because of our porous borders, drugs continue to flood into our country, poison our communities, and destroy our families.

Just last year 70,000 people died from drug overdoses in this country. Ninety percent of those drugs are coming from across the southern border. If that is not an emergency, I don't know what is.

No one is on the front lines of this fight more than the State of Texas. Since 2011, 186,000 illegal aliens have been charged with more than 290,000 crimes in Texas alone.

When you combine the total cost of illegal immigration from healthcare services, education, and incarceration, it is over $12 billion for the State of Texas. It is over $150 billion for the United States.

We are $22 trillion in debt. We will have two of our biggest safety- net programs insolvent in less than 20 years, and we are spending $150 billion on illegal immigration.

We know that constructing physical barriers, when combined with boots on the ground and technology, are effective at stemming the tide of illegal immigration.

We know walls work because we have seen it when we have deployed them in El Paso, San Diego, and Tucson, and we have stopped illegal immigration or stemmed the tide 90-plus percent.

So, instead of letting this crisis continue to worsen, this President took action, using authority not that he invented but that we in Congress explicitly gave him under the National Emergency Act.

It is not like the President is setting new precedent or breaking new ground. Other presidents have declared national emergencies 50-plus times, and I know President Clinton declared it a national emergency to fight drug traffickers--rightfully so--and President Obama against transnational criminal organizations.

This President loves this country. He wants to do his job. He doesn't want another one of our sons and daughters to die of drug addiction or overdose. He doesn't want crime to run rampant in the streets of the United States.

The President understands his first job as Commander in Chief is to keep our citizens--our people--safe, and I stand with him.

Madam Speaker, today I will be voting for our President, for his constitutional, legal authority to defend this country, to protect our borders and our citizens. I will be voting for the safety of the American people today and the safety of our communities, not just in west Texas but throughout this country.

Again, President Trump is doing the right thing. He is doing the responsible thing. He is doing the constitutionally necessary thing. And I am behind him 100 percent.

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