Veteran Service Recognition Act of 2022

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, DHS Secretary Ali Mayorkas has repeatedly asserted, including in sworn testimony to multiple committees of this House, that the southern border is secure. This, of course, is a lie, and not even a subtle one.

We know the numbers--a stunning 4.1 million encounters since inauguration day, when Joe Biden reversed the Trump administration's enforcement measures. In the same period, another 1 million known got- aways have entered the country while the border patrol has been overwhelmed changing diapers and arranging for transportation for thousands of illegal crossings each day.

So how do our Democratic colleagues react to this unprecedented illegal immigration they have unleashed?

Do they call on the Biden administration to stop the releases?

Do they call on the President to actually enforce U.S. immigration law or at least stop incentivizing this mass illegal immigration?

No. Instead, they produce this bill, that readmits immigrant veterans who were later deported, mainly for committing criminal offenses.

This needs to be clearly understood. A noncitizen who joins the military promising to defend our country, and instead commits crimes against the citizens of our country is subject to deportation, and rightly so.

This bill adds a political advisory committee, handpicked by Mr. Mayorkas that, in effect, can override our deportation laws, and it invites criminal offenders who have already been deported back into our country. It presumes they are of good moral character despite their criminal offenses simply by producing a green card. This is astonishing.

Let's be very clear, that the vast majority of legal immigrants who enlist in our military do so because of patriotism toward our country, and they are exemplary citizens and exemplary members of our Armed Forces. In recognition of their service, we offer them special avenues for naturalization under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

That is as it should be. About 3 percent of U.S. veterans today are foreign-born, and many of them have chosen to become U.S. citizens. But that is not what this bill is about. This bill is about the bad apples who have been ordered deported for breaking our laws.

Since its creation in 2002, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has naturalized over 148,000 members of the U.S. military.

If an alien servicemember or veteran is removed from this country, it is only after that alien has had their due process in immigration court and an immigration judge has issued a final order of removal.

Alien servicemembers and veterans are also afforded a special process upon encounter by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, under which, through a totality of the circumstances approach, ICE agents determine whether arrest and placement in removal proceedings are the appropriate actions to take.

However, in this bill, the Democrats have decided that an advisory committee of people chosen by Secretary Mayorkas is better equipped to determine whether an alien's actions warrant removal than a trained ICE official.

Yesterday in the Committee on Rules, the chair of the subcommittee even indicated that these random people chosen by the Secretary would be better than a trained immigration judge at determining whether an alien should be able to stay in the U.S.

During the Committee on the Judiciary markup, my Republican colleagues offered an array of amendments aimed at ensuring alien servicemembers, veterans, and their family members who committed serious crimes would not be able to benefit from the provisions in this bill that prevent removal and allow green cards to be issued.

We tried to prevent individuals with convictions for things like drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, explosives trafficking, perjury, domestic violence, obstruction of justice, and even illegal voting from being able to benefit from the bill's provisions, but the Democrats rejected nearly all such amendments.

They did reluctantly agree to exclude murderers, rapists, and child sex abusers as beneficiaries of this bill. I suppose we can claim some progress.

They couldn't even bring themselves to accept an amendment to preclude aliens who have DUI convictions from benefiting from this bill. They decided that five DUIs were too many. So, ridiculously, the bill allows aliens to have four DUI convictions and still benefit from this bill.

Democrats in committee also opposed an amendment to ensure that alien veterans who benefit from the bill were honorably discharged from the military. Right now, as the bill stands, it only requires that the alien have been discharged under other than honorable conditions.

Democrats also rejected a Republican amendment that would have given the victims of a crime committed by the alien servicemember a say in whether or not the alien should face immigration consequences.

This bill once again lays bare the true objectives of the Democrats. First, ignore the 4.1 million illegal aliens encountered by Border Patrol and the 1 million got-aways as well, blurring the distinction between legal immigrants who obey our laws and the millions of illegal immigrants that the Democrats are now happily allowing to stream into our country. Then, they introduce bills like this that blur the distinction between the many legal immigrants who have honorably served in our Nation's Armed Forces and the handful of bad apples who have broken our laws and have been ordered deported for doing so.

This is the woke insanity that grips the Democratic Party today. Thank God the voters have just broken their grip on the House of Representatives.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct that the legislation emanating from the Judiciary Committee doesn't have anything to do with the border because the Democrats, having created this monumental crisis, refused to do anything to address it.

Instead, we are left with bills like this that set distractions on the most important question facing America today.

Mr. Speaker, we can now plainly see the effect of the Democrats' open border policies on communities across our Nation; the strain on our schools, our hospitals, our public safety, working class wages and opportunities, and social services.

No civilization has ever survived the magnitude of illegal mass migration that the Democrats have unleashed upon our country in the span of just 23 months; and Gallup warns us there are another 42 million people living in poverty just in Latin America and the Caribbean who intend to come here now that they can.

When Secretary Mayorkas appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, he couldn't tell us how it benefits the American people to have their classrooms packed with non-English-speaking students, their emergency rooms flooded with illegals demanding basic care, how their families will be safer with increased gang activity and fentanyl inundating communities, or how working families will be made better off by flooding the labor market with cheap illegal labor, or how taxpayers are served by footing the bill for supporting a largely unskilled, uneducated, and dependent population.

Now, where is this bill taking us? Well, we already know because we have already had a taste of it. For a while, we allowed aliens on temporary visas and even illegal immigrants here under DACA to enlist so that they could claim a fast track to citizenship. It was called the MAVNI program.

One MAVNI enlistment, Ji Chaoqun, was found to be a Chinese spy. A number of foreign nationals who enlisted in our military were subsequently deported for committing crimes. That program was such a debacle that the Obama administration, the architects of DACA, had to suspend it in 2016 because of the danger it posed to national security.

Now, foreign nationals who come to America legally, who obey our laws and seek to serve our country because of a love of it and of the principles upon which it is founded, are one of our greatest strengths.

Eleven years ago, I spoke at the funeral of Corporal Gurpreet Singh, whose family had emigrated from India legally 11 years before.

Let me tell you a little bit about Gurpreet Singh. His father described him this way. He said Gurpreet ``was always a very patriotic man for the U.S. From the time he was a little boy, he knew he wanted to serve in the U.S. military. Gurpreet was very proud of his service with the Marines.''

Corporal Singh was wounded in combat, chose to return, overstayed his assignment in order to relieve a friend, and was killed in action in Helmond Province, June 22, 2011.

Yet, the Democrats are either unable or unwilling to tell the difference between a Chinese spy like Ji Chaoqun and an American hero like Gurpreet Singh. It appears the Democrats are attempting to equate the heroism, devotion, and fidelity of heroes like Gurpreet Singh with the convicted criminals that a court has ordered to be deported from our country, or the lawless, illegal mass migration the Democrats are not only ignoring, but actively aiding and abetting with their policies.

Now, even if every convicted criminal the Democrats are trying to benefit with this bill were meritorious, wrongly convicted of crimes and exemplary in every way, we are still talking about an infinitesimal fraction of those who are being allowed into our country every day by the dangerous policies of this administration. That includes 120 known terrorists we have intercepted, and God only knows how many more among the 1 million got-aways who have entered our country on Joe Biden's watch.

The Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee has done nothing to address this crisis; the Judiciary Committee has done nothing to address this crisis; and the House has done nothing to address this crisis, a crisis that literally began on Inauguration Day when Biden reversed the policies of the Trump administration that had finally secured our borders.

I can assure the American people that 28 days from today, all of that is going to change.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I would remind my friend that every alien who serves in our military has the right to naturalize; but that does not give them a right to commit crimes against our country, and that is what this bill does.

This amendment sets 90 days as the deadline for promulgating regulations to implement this bill, a bill that overrides the laws governing deportation of aliens who commit crimes in our country if they have enlisted in the Armed Forces. It raises some disturbing questions.

Why is it that the bill surrenders legislative prerogatives to the executive? If you are going to write the law, then write it in its entirety in the open.

Yes, we have been granting these powers to the executive branch for a very long time. The point is that 10 times more laws are written by the bureaucracies than by the body solely vested with lawmaking authority, but we will save that discussion for another day.

Ninety days is an absurdly short period of time to write the regulations, publish the regulations, allow for full public input for the regulations, rewrite the regulations in light of public comments, and publish the final version. It begs the question: Why?

Is it possible that the supporters of this law know exactly what they want to do and have no interest in listening to the public? That has been the history of the left's approach to defending the public safety and the Nation's sovereignty, so it would not much surprise me if this is the case.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that it is clear that the supporters of the amendment are simply trying to rush a bad bill into implementation without the public having any opportunity to see the ramifications of this bill's provisions.

As I said earlier, we tried to get into the bill a provision that would allow the victims of these criminal aliens to testify as to the impact of the crimes on their lives, and the Democrats rejected it.

Notice and comment periods themselves require 30 to 60 days after the notice of proposed rulemaking is published for the public to submit comments about the proposed rule. After that, the agency has to comb through and respond to all of the submitted comments. There is simply no way to comply with Executive Order 12866's economic analysis requirement for a significant rule, and that is certainly what this is, within a 90-day period of enactment.

It is apparent that the Democrats are trying to rush out an interim final rule on this bill before the American public has any opportunity to see what they are doing. We can only conclude that the Democrats know that the American people are not going to like what they see.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment and a ``no'' vote on the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VICENTE GONZALEZ of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and the underlying bill and assure justice is served to all who have served our country.

Mr. Speaker, a vote against this bill and against this amendment would be on the wrong side of history.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered. Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

This is a 5-minute vote.

The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 220, nays 208, not voting 3, as follows: [Roll No. 503] YEAS--220 Adams Aguilar Allred Auchincloss Axne Barragan Bass Beatty Bera Beyer Bishop (GA) Blumenauer Blunt Rochester Bonamici Bourdeaux Bowman Boyle, Brendan F. Brown (MD) Brown (OH) Brownley Bush Bustos Butterfield Carbajal Carson Carter (LA) Cartwright Case Casten Castor (FL) Castro (TX) Cherfilus-McCormick Chu Cicilline Clark (MA) Clarke (NY) Cleaver Clyburn Cohen Connolly Cooper Correa Costa Courtney Craig Crow Cuellar Davids (KS) Davis, Danny K. Dean DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DelBene Demings DeSaulnier Dingell Doggett Doyle, Michael F. Escobar Eshoo Espaillat Evans Fitzpatrick Fletcher Foster Frankel, Lois Gallego Garamendi Garcia (IL) Garcia (TX) Golden Gomez Gonzalez, Vicente Gottheimer Green, Al (TX) Grijalva Harder (CA) Hayes Higgins (NY) Himes Horsford Houlahan Hoyer Huffman Jackson Lee Jacobs (CA) Jayapal Jeffries Johnson (GA) Johnson (TX) Jones Kahele Kaptur Keating Kelly (IL) Khanna Kildee Kilmer Kim (NJ) Kind Kinzinger Kirkpatrick Krishnamoorthi Kuster Lamb Langevin Larsen (WA) Larson (CT) Lawrence Lawson (FL) Lee (CA) Lee (NV) Leger Fernandez Levin (CA) Levin (MI) Lieu Lofgren Lowenthal Luria Lynch Malinowski Maloney, Carolyn B. Maloney, Sean Manning Matsui McBath McCollum McGovern McNerney Meeks Meng Mfume Moore (WI) Morelle Moulton Mrvan Murphy (FL) Nadler Napolitano Neal Neguse Newman Norcross O'Halleran Ocasio-Cortez Omar Pallone Panetta Pappas Pascrell Payne Peltola Perlmutter Peters Phillips Pingree Pocan Porter Pressley Price (NC) Quigley Raskin Rice (NY) Ross Roybal-Allard Ruiz Ruppersberger Rush Ryan (NY) Ryan (OH) Salazar Sanchez Sarbanes Scanlon Schakowsky Schiff Schneider Schrader Schrier Scott (VA) Scott, David Sewell Sherman Sherrill Sires Slotkin Smith (WA) Soto Spanberger Speier Stansbury Stanton Stevens Strickland Suozzi Swalwell Takano Thompson (CA) Thompson (MS) Titus Tlaib Tonko Torres (CA) Torres (NY) Trahan Trone Underwood Vargas Veasey Velazquez Wasserman Schultz Waters Watson Coleman Welch Wexton Wild Williams (GA) Wilson (FL) Yarmuth NAYS--208 Aderholt Allen Amodei Armstrong Arrington Babin Bacon Baird Balderson Banks Barr Bentz Bergman Bice (OK) Biggs Bilirakis Bishop (NC) Boebert Bost Brady Brooks Buchanan Buck Bucshon Budd Burchett Burgess Calvert Cammack Carey Carl Carter (GA) Carter (TX) Cawthorn Chabot Cheney Cline Cloud Clyde Cole Comer Conway Crawford Crenshaw Curtis Davidson Davis, Rodney DesJarlais Diaz-Balart Donalds Duncan Dunn Ellzey Emmer Estes Fallon Feenstra Ferguson Finstad Fischbach Fitzgerald Fleischmann Flood Flores Foxx Franklin, C. Scott Fulcher Gaetz Gallagher Garbarino Garcia (CA) Gibbs Gimenez Gohmert Gonzales, Tony Good (VA) Gooden (TX) Gosar Granger Graves (LA) Graves (MO) Green (TN) Greene (GA) Griffith Grothman Guest Guthrie Harris Harshbarger Hartzler Hern Herrell Herrera Beutler Hice (GA) Higgins (LA) Hill Hinson Hollingsworth Hudson Huizenga Issa Jackson Jacobs (NY) Johnson (LA) Johnson (OH) Johnson (SD) Jordan Joyce (OH) Joyce (PA) Katko Keller Kelly (MS) Kelly (PA) Kim (CA) Kustoff LaHood LaMalfa Lamborn Latta LaTurner Lesko Letlow Long Loudermilk Lucas Luetkemeyer Mace Malliotakis Mann Massie Mast McCarthy McCaul McClain McClintock McHenry McKinley Meijer Meuser Miller (IL) Miller (WV) Miller-Meeks Moolenaar Mooney Moore (AL) Moore (UT) Mullin Murphy (NC) Nehls Newhouse Norman Obernolte Owens Palazzo Palmer Pence Perry Pfluger Posey Reschenthaler Rice (SC) Rodgers (WA) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rose Rosendale Rouzer Roy Scalise Schweikert Scott, Austin Sempolinski Sessions Simpson Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smucker Spartz Stauber Steel Stefanik Steil Steube Stewart Taylor Tenney Thompson (PA) Tiffany Timmons Turner Upton Valadao Van Drew Van Duyne Wagner Walberg Waltz Weber (TX) Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westerman Williams (TX) Wilson (SC) Wittman Womack Yakym Zeldin NOT VOTING--3 Cardenas Gonzalez (OH) Rutherford

So the bill was passed.

The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.

A motion to reconsider was laid on the table. Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress Baird (Bucshon) Bass (Cicilline) Beatty (Neguse) Brooks (Fleischmann) Cole (Lucas) DeFazio (Pallone) Demings (Blunt Rochester) Doyle, Michael F. (Pallone) Duncan (Norman) Dunn (Cammack) Frankel, Lois (Meng) Gallego (Cicilline) Gosar (Weber (TX)) Gottheimer (Pappas) Grijalva (Neguse) Herrera Beutler (Moore (UT)) Johnson (TX) (Pallone) Kildee (Pappas) Kinzinger (Rice (SC)) Kirkpatrick (Pallone) Lieu (Beyer) Lowenthal (Beyer) Moore (WI) (Beyer) Newman (Correa) O'Halleran (Pappas) Palazzo (Fleischmann) Pascrell (Pallone) Pressley (Neguse) Rice (NY) (Morelle) Roybal-Allard (Correa) Ruppersberger (Sarbanes) Ryan (OH) (Correa) Simpson (Fulcher) Sires (Pallone) Stanton (Huffman) Steube (Franklin, C. Scott) Titus (Pallone) Welch (Pallone)

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