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Secure the Border Act of 2023

Floor Speech

By: Judy Chu
By: Judy Chu
Date: May 11, 2023
Location: Washington, DC

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Ms. CHU. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2, the child deportation act.

This bill is not a serious attempt to fix our broken immigration system and to address the humanitarian crisis at our southern border. Rather, H.R. 2 is an anti-immigrant MAGA wish list.

It would put kids in cages and allow them to be held in Border Patrol facilities for up to 30 days, 10 times longer than current law.

It would place unaccompanied children at risk of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and violence.

It would bar nongovernmental organizations, like the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities, from working with our government to shelter immigrants, creating dangerous and inhumane conditions for our border communities.

It would decimate our asylum system by creating new and arbitrary restrictions for asylum seekers, all while gutting programs such as humanitarian parole that have been proven to reduce the number of arrivals at our border.

It would exacerbate the crisis by tearing down our humanitarian assistance programs while reassigning border agents away from stopping the transport of illegal drugs like fentanyl.

H.R. 2 will cause irreparable harm to children and families, undermine our international leadership, and hurt our economy.

Yesterday, House Democrats presented a serious framework for how to fix and modernize our immigration system. The U.S. Citizenship Act, or USCA, recognizes that a robust, humane, and efficient immigration system makes America stronger.

It would actually alleviate the humanitarian crisis at the southern border by helping the President address the root causes of migration and providing resources to humanely and efficiently process children and families who seek asylum here.

It would also reunite families, fix our visa backlog, protect immigrant workers from unscrupulous employers, and ensure no future President can ban entire groups based on religion.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.

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