Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOODEN of Texas. Mr. Chair, I rise to urge my colleagues to support amendment No. 53 to H.R. 4665 that puts an end to international organizations circumventing our immigration laws.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration is an anchor that ties down our Nation's right to determine our own immigration policies and handcuffs our government from acting in its own best interest. The United Nations should not be making immigration laws for our country.

President Trump pulled us out of this compact; President Biden, I believe, wrongfully put us back in. What this amendment does is it restricts any funding that will go to compliance with this.

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Mr. GOODEN of Texas. Mr. Chair, I will quote Ambassador Nikki Haley, who said:

While we will continue to engage on a number of fronts at the United Nations, in this case, we simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws.

We don't need to outsource our lawmaking to the United Nations. One of the compact issues that I have is that it strongly encourages migrants who do not have permission to stay in the country of destination, they are able to return to their country preferably on a voluntary basis.

The United Nations should not be making immigration law for the United States. If we are admitting--which I am happy to hear my colleague admit--that we do have a crisis, the last thing we are going to admit on either side is that it is, in fact, orderly, which is what this compact seeks to achieve in an international body.

Mr. Chair, I support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. GOODEN of Texas. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. GOODEN of Texas. Mr. Chair, this amendment ends the United Nations International Organization for Migration taxpayer-funded slush funds, commonly referred to as the Refugee Travel Loan Program. While this may be a noble idea, a lot of Americans don't realize that what this money does is it first flows through the nongovernmental organizations that then, cheerfully, take a cut of that, 25 percent.

Mr. Chair, 25 percent of all of these moneys go through NGOs and they keep 25 percent. It is turned into a loan that is obviously never paid back. These numbers of refugees are continuing to be encouraged, and the caps continue to be encouraged to be raised by these nongovernmental organizations that are making money off of this program.

Mr. Chair, I would say to anyone who is for this, I hope they will join me in reforming this program, but until then, I don't think it is wise to spend American taxpayer dollars on something that is just enriching these NGOs on the backs of the American taxpayer.

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Mr. GOODEN of Texas. Mr. Chair, it is true that this is issued as a loan, but less than 1 percent of these have been paid back. These aren't real loans; these are giveaways of taxpayer dollars to refugees.

I don't have a problem supporting legitimate refugees, but what really bothers me is that these nongovernment organizations are taking a 25 percent cut. So the refugees are not even getting the total amount of this loan, but the enriched nongovernment organizations are.

That is why you hear from groups like Lutheran Family Services, Jewish Family Services, and Catholic Charities that say: We are happy to help with this refugee problem. We are happy to go down to the border. We are happy to help facilitate this loan program because we know that we are not going to be on the hook for any of this money, it is the American taxpayer. In fact, we are going to get a 25 percent cut of whatever fake loan we give out.

Mr. Chair, it is really un-American to force the American taxpayer to fund this ridiculous program. The fact that we have charitable organizations profiting off of it and encouraging more and more of it is offensive to me, as well.

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Mr. GOODEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I urge passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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