Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Chairman, we are sitting here 10:30 at night, and I am mystified that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are preaching about this issue, which is already the policy of the administration, and yet we are not funding the $4.5 billion request from the administration to deal with the problem at hand.

Our border is being overrun. My friend from Texas knows this, we know it, if you go spend any time on the border. We had 144,000 people apprehended on our southern border. HHS has taken charge of nearly 41,000 unaccompanied alien children this year, a 57 percent increase from last year. I could go down stat after stat after stat.

Little girls are being abused on the journey and cartels are profiting while we ignore it. Talk to the mayor of Uvalde, Texas, and throughout the southern area of Texas, talk to the people about what is actually happening in the communities.

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Mr. ROY. I cannot believe, for the life of me, that we can't come together in a bipartisan fashion to pass $4.5 billion to fund the necessary beds, to fund what is necessary to house these children.

When people talk about kids in cages, are they directly attacking Border Patrol? Have they spent time with Border Patrol who are trying to figure out whether a kid's dad is actually the dad or whether it is somebody who is using that child?

That is happening today while this body waxes on about whatever amendment we are throwing on the floor right now that is already part of the administrative policy. We are not actually addressing the problem. And the American people sent us here to do that: Oh, by the way, oh, no, we are demanding votes.

Heaven forbid this body votes. Heaven forbid we follow the Constitution, which says something about a quorum. Maybe we should actually be in this body voting on the things the American people sent us here to do, like secure the border and ensure the safe passage of migrants in the United States of America under our rule of law.

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