Providing for Consideration of H.R. Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Consequences for Social Security Fraud Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protect Our Communities From Duis Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for his service. We will be missing him next Congress, but we still have some more time and work to do together.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to talk about the bills that are sitting here in front of them because they are going to vote against at least three of them. We know that because they did it in Judiciary Committee.

These bills are pretty simple. If you are here and you evade Border Patrol, you can't stay here or come here. If you are here and you have committed Social Security fraud, you can't stay here or come here. If you are here and you have committed a DUI, you can't stay here or come here. Judiciary Democrats voted against all three of those. Let's put aside that if you are here, illegally, you should be deported anyway.

Then there is if you are here and a member of Hamas, or participated in, or facilitated the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, you cannot stay here or come here. Now, on that, it was passed unanimously. We will see what happens when it comes to the floor when some of the folks not on Judiciary Committee look at the bill.

I find it interesting that a blanket statement is made that some of us take our orders from former President Trump. Well, if somebody has a phone line into Mar-a-Lago, why don't you give him a call? I think he would be surprised to hear that I take orders from former President Trump, in light of the recent time I have spent around the country.

I would tell you this: I don't take orders from the former President. I know that we shouldn't make this a political issue. I know this is an issue we should solve, but I don't think that is what the former President was saying.

I think the former President was saying this bill in the Senate is garbage, that it will make the problem worse; that we have all the power we need now to secure the border, and that the current President and current administration are ignoring it, and, indeed, purposely avoiding the law in order to flood America, which is endangering Americans; fentanyl flowing in; empowering cartels; empowering China; terrorists coming into our country; and criminals coming into our country. That is the truth. What the former President knows is that the bill being negotiated in the Senate is not a good one. He is calling that out.

However, I can assure you, I don't take orders from the former President, nor do I take orders from Somalis in Minnesota, but some people do. That is the truth.

The fact here is, we have legislation before us right now to address real problems for the people that we represent. I can tell you we do in Texas. We have a bill being negotiated in the Senate that is being deemed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as, Oh, a reasonable solution. A reasonable solution, when we had a bill last year that would actually secure the border with H.R. 2, which would close loopholes being exploited by our Democratic colleagues.

I had witnesses in a recent hearing on the Constitution and States stepping into the breach. The first assistant attorney general of Texas and the former attorney general of Arizona, they all testified under oath that there is an invasion. They all came forward to say that it was the right of the Governors, the right of the States to step in.

I had the ACLU witness acknowledge to me: I said, Hey, if cartels are coming guns a-blazing, they come across the river, can you defend yourself?

He said, Well, if it is a violation of State law, sure.

I said, Oh, really? That is an interesting piece of information to hear from the ACLU, that the State, that the Governor can, in fact, do what is necessary to defend the people of his State based on the laws of that State and, frankly, based on every understanding of what a leadership of a sovereign would do, and that is the truth.

Right now what we have are Democrats in the Senate wanting to hide behind a bill they know has no chance of moving through because, frankly, if it were passed, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are concerned about us campaigning on this, making it a political issue.

If that legislation were passed, the issue would still exist because the legislation wouldn't do anything to stop it. It sets a floor, not a ceiling. It sets a standard of 5,000 a day. Come on in, 1.8 million folks. That is the truth, if you read the bill.

The reality is, the gentleman talks about, Oh, we have 38,000 people in detention. Well, the truth is, we had 900,000 people get released last year; 900,000 got released. That doesn't count the ICE releases, that doesn't count the 50,000 a month of got-aways. These are the numbers we are talking about, and they are on an extraordinary level.

I remind everybody that here before us is legislation that all it does is try to layer on a commonsense ability to remove bad actors, DUIs, those affiliated with Hamas, Border Patrol having to chase people in high-speed chases, and those committing Social Security fraud. My Democratic colleagues don't want to talk about it because they are not going to support those commonsense measures.

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