Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

My amendment would prohibit Federal Homeland Security funding from being diverted for Operation Lone Star, ensuring that Federal Homeland Security appropriations are spent on Federal operations like Border Patrol.

Operation Lone Star, unfortunately, has been defined by corruption, incompetence, and cruelty. Two years ago, the Governor of my State of Texas launched Operation Lone Star, a destructive $4.5 billion political stunt that has led to a Federal civil rights investigation, the tragic deaths of 8 National Guard servicemembers, and a formal diplomatic complaint from our Nation's and Texas' largest trading partner.

Under the guise of border security, Governor Greg Abbott has embarked on an unprecedented campaign of government overreach--seizing private property, destroying livelihoods, and turning American border cities and towns into war zones where helicopters buzz overhead and armed troopers pull over American citizens for looking too much like immigrants.

At the beginning of the summer, Governor Abbott installed invisible razor wire in the middle of the Rio Grande and built a 1,000-foot string of floating deathtraps that are separated by serrated blades and secured to the riverbed with a net that is designed to catch and drown the families who reach it.

During the August recess, I went down to Eagle Pass, Texas, to see the impact of Operation Lone Star for myself. Standing on the banks of the river, I could see scraps of clothing and shoes stuck in the razor wire mesh that Governor Abbott's troops have installed on the border.

The wire isn't tall enough or strong enough to stop anyone who is desperate enough to cross, but it is sharp enough to leave them bloodied and broken.

When families finally make it to U.S. soil, Operation Lone Star troopers have been arresting the fathers and sons on trumped-up trespassing charges and locking them up for months at a time, some without the ability to reach their families, while bussing their wives and children to cities that are thousands of miles away and also to other States, including New York, Colorado, California, and Illinois.

Mr. Chair, Americans want border security. They also want an efficient and orderly immigration process. Operation Lone Star interferes with that. It hurts the Federal Government's effort, and it damages Border Patrol's efforts.

When Democrats were in the majority, we voted for billions of dollars in funding for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and we fought to rebuild a functioning immigration system from what had been left behind by the Trump administration.

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Chair, I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Chair, Operation Lone Star isn't border security. It is just plain out brutality. There is a difference between treating people like human beings and treating them like animals.

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Casar), my good friend.

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Chair, cruelty and incompetence, these are what define Operation Lone Star. Unfortunately, the era that we are in in American politics for those across the aisle is marked by fearmongering because they have no solutions to the real issues that confront Americans--education, healthcare, jobs. They can't even get a budget together, so they try to scare everybody. They try to use these brown-skinned immigrants to scare everybody. That is what this is about. They are either going to send this money to Border Patrol or they are going to send it to Greg Abbott so he can go on FOX News and be celebrated.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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