American Dream and Promise Act of 2019
Floor Speech
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Mr. ROGERS of Alabama. Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding and for his leadership on this issue.
Madam Speaker, there is a crisis at our southwest border. In fact, we are on track to break nearly every record from recent history.
Just last week, CBP apprehended a single group, one group, with 1,036 people in it at the border. Madam Speaker, we couldn't fit that many people in this Chamber, and we certainly can't fit them in a single Border Patrol station.
This bill does nothing to address this crisis. Instead, it tells an entire generation of illegal immigrants that breaking our laws is rewarded.
This is not rocket science. We have seen this before. In 2014, a wave of unaccompanied children came to our borders, driven by smuggler propaganda citing DACA and other amnesty policies.
The smugglers have doubled down. They call children permisos, or permits, and use them to get scores of adults, unrelated to the children, across the border.
Securing our border and enforcing our laws is the only way to break this cycle.
Ranking Member Collins introduced legislation to close the asylum loopholes that are fueling this crisis. That is the bill that should be on the floor today.
We also desperately need to provide supplemental funding to get us through this crisis. Last month, I asked the House to provide $4.5 billion that DHS requested to address this humanitarian and security crisis. Despite urgent pleas for additional funds from frontline personnel responsible for caring for unaccompanied children, Democrats refused to add the funds to the supplemental.
Today, the majority again rejected those funds during the previous question vote. Democrats haven't approved a dime to address this crisis.
Because of the political dysfunction in their own Caucus, they stubbornly refuse to put forward real solutions. Instead, they put forward a bill today that is sending a clear message: Democrats would rather reward illegal immigrants than secure our border, enforce our laws, and fix this crisis. It is disgraceful.
Madam Speaker, I oppose this bill.
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