American Dream and Promise Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLINE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for her remarks. She alluded to a number of reforms to our legal immigration process, and yes, I stand ready to work with the gentlewoman on those issues, but none of the legal reforms that are necessary to balance this legislation are in this bill.

In fact, this bill is called the American Dream and Promise Act, but if we are looking for reforms that will secure our border, we are dreaming. The only promise being kept is the promise to put people who are here illegally ahead of legal immigrants in line for citizenship. It is a grave disappointment and a violation of this document, the Constitution of the United States.

The American people might think, when tuning in, hey, great, we are finally addressing immigration, so maybe we will find a way to secure our borders. But this bill has no language to secure our borders, no language to build the wall, no language to help children and families in terrible conditions at the border, no language to reform our asylum programs or our visa programs to make them more efficient, and no language to stop the thousands of caravans of illegals crossing over the border, over 5,000 each and every day.

Instead, it does the exact opposite. It incentivizes illegal immigration. It incentivizes the dangerous journey that these families are taking.

We have heard a lot from the other side about individuals here illegally who are achieving, but we can cite every individual who is currently facing enormous danger, children facing enormous danger on this journey to the border, one in three women who are facing sexual assault on this journey to the border, families right now who are deciding whether or not to put their children at risk of death by marching up to the United States because they are hoping that there is an incentivized program like this in place when they get here.

We need to take action to control our border. We will never stop the flow of illegal immigration coming into this country until we get serious about securing the border and until we follow through on the enforcement mechanisms that Congress has and continues to put in place. Until we do that, human trafficking, drug smuggling, and cartels will continue to thrive.

This bill is unfair to immigrants who have obeyed the law to enter our country legally. America welcomes all who are coming to our Nation who respect the rule of law and want to contribute to our society. Unfortunately, they will be left to wait while USCIS attempts to process the millions of applications that today's legislation would authorize.

It creates a system that is ripe for fraud and abuse. It includes a laundry list of unverifiable documents that can be used to obtain green cards.

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in this legislation that fixes what is wrong with our immigration laws. This is the wrong way to go. I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will quit playing politics with people's lives and work with this side of the aisle to fix our broken immigration system and replace it with a system based on merit.

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