OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Termination of National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019--Veto Message From the President of the United States

Floor Speech

Date: March 26, 2019
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: National Security

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Madam Speaker, I first want to say thank you to my colleagues in the House, Republicans and Democrats, and also in the United States Senate who voted to terminate the President's emergency declaration to build a border wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.

There is a humanitarian crisis at the border, but there isn't an invasion, and there is not an emergency of the sort that the President speaks of. What we have here is an act of constitutional vandalism, the President trying to take the power away from the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, the executive trying to steal the power of the purse from the Congress.

If Congress allows this to stand, then 15, 20 years, 30 years from now, we will look back upon this as a time that gave both Democratic and Republican Presidents incredible power to ignore Congress and completely go around this body to do the things that they will in terms of domestic politics.

There are landowners in Texas who are going to lose their land. This is the largest Federal land taking of Texas land, I believe, in history. Many people in Texas will lose their land. Many people will have their land values devalued, some of them very significantly, because of this.

Military construction projects in Texas are also at stake: $265 million worth of Texas military construction; projects at Joint Base San Antonio, which includes those in my district, $76 million; Fort Bliss, over $50 million; $42 million at Fort Hood; Red River, $71.5 million; Galveston Naval Reserve, $8.4 million gone because the President has decided--and this Congress will have submitted to his will--to go around Congress and unilaterally build a border wall.

Even those who support a wall should agree with us that this is not the way to do it. Congress funded over $1 billion, yet the President has gone around them to do more.

Madam Speaker, I hope my colleagues will stand with us and override this veto.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward