End the Border Catastrophe Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this cruel, unworkable and inhumane modified version of the Republican border bill H.R. 2. What is the point of this exercise? The majority could barely pass this legislation last year over bipartisan opposition, and now it is going to magically pass it in the House with a two-thirds majority. Give me a break. That is not what is happening here.

They say when someone shows you who they are, you should believe them the first time. Well, the majority has shown us who they are on this issue over and over and over again. They consistently reject bipartisan solutions, including a bill that was drafted in the Senate by the second most conservative Republican Senator. Yet, the majority and Republicans in the House and the Senate decided to kill that bill.

You know why? Because Donald Trump said kill the bill because we want to keep immigration out there as an issue that doesn't get solved, doesn't have any solutions, but has some empty talking point messaging bills that continue to demonize immigrants and create xenophobia in a country that has depended on immigrants to build this country and continues to.

Republicans have said it out loud over and over again. They don't want solutions. They don't want to solve problems. They just want to preserve the issue for the election. This bill is going nowhere. Let's just be clear about that. The situation at the border is directly linked to the fact that the legal immigration system has been left in chaos because it has not been modernized in 30 years to meet the needs of this country.

Who has stopped that modernization? Republicans have stopped it over and over again; when the legal process is so backed up that it takes decades for legal residents to get their children into the country, when employers can't simply get the workers that they need to hire approved because there is a backlog of 2 million people who haven't been processed or when we have so few immigration judges that asylum seekers wait for over 8 years to get their cases heard.

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, when asylum seekers wait 8 years to get their cases heard, then, yes, people turn to unscrupulous actors, including cartels, who promise them get in by going to the border. The only people talking about the open border and encouraging people to come across the border are Republicans who continue to put that message out there.

Are we looking for solutions, Mr. Speaker? No, we are here debating a bill that has no chance of becoming law and is an empty messaging bill that does absolutely nothing to reform our outdated immigration system. Let's get back to governing.

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