Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. We are voting on yet another bill that just promotes racial profiling.

That is exactly what is happening because Americans right now who are Brown or Black or have an accent and who are American citizens are carrying passports with them. Why? It is because we are going to allow the targeting of communities that look like my district, to police them and to militarize them.

This bill strips away the right to due process. We already know that. I think that many of my colleagues who are supporting this know that.

This is going to target even legal permanent residents. The majority is going to separate families instantly without ever allowing anyone to be able to go to trial or even have a conviction. It is absolutely and clearly unconstitutional.

Everyone in our country has rights, and I want my residents to hear me say this again: Everyone has rights, no matter their status, in the United States of America.

This is what Republicans want. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to make racial profiling the law of the land and make discrimination the law of the land. That is what my Republican colleagues want. Republican Members want to go back to that kind of militarization and policing of targeting people who look like my mother and who look like my neighbors in the 12th Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, I will be very clear, though. What my colleagues don't get, and I want my residents to hear me when I say this, is that no President--none--has the power to end constitutional rights, the right to due process; not one.

Mr. Speaker, this is not about fixing our immigration system. The dollars and the people who support measures like this and the fear- mongering want a broken immigration system because, as the ranking member probably knows, they make money off of our broken immigration system.

If my colleagues really wanted to address it, let's get to the core issues of the fact of who is benefiting the most from not allowing our families and our loved ones who have been here for decades and years to be able to have a pathway to citizenship. It is because someone benefits from it, and it is unfortunate.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats will have the backs of our immigrant neighbors and even our American citizens who feel like they are being targeted by this law.

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