District of Columbia Federal Immigration Compliance Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, let's have a candid conversation if we could, sir, with my colleague across the aisle about what is happening here.

Congress and America, we need to clarify for the citizens watching, Mr. Speaker, Congress has a unique authority, and therefore, responsibility for our Nation's Capital as opposed to other municipalities across the country. Why not Phoenix, New Orleans, Atlanta, et cetera? It is because they are not the Nation's Capital, that is why. It is because it is not reflected in the responsibilities that are enumerated for Congress for the District of Columbia, our Nation's Capital.

With the pendular swing of majority control that we observe in our Nation, from Democratic majority to Republican majority, my Democratic colleagues feel responsible to make changes when they have the majority, as do we.

When we were under Democratic majority control in recent years, since I have been in Congress, the Democrats supported and did not oppose some policy and legislative decisions at the municipal level in our Nation's Capital that we knew would injure our Nation's Capital in the realm of law enforcement.

That is where we are. Republicans have majority control in the House, the Senate, and the White House, so of course we are going to respond to the threat that we face within our Nation's Capital toward law enforcement.

This is my bill, and this is how simple it is: It requires the District of Columbia to comply with Federal immigration law. What is wrong with that, Mr. Speaker? My colleague stated two or three times in his opening statement that the District of Columbia does not obstruct Federal law enforcement. That is not true.

America has to read between the lines. When he says they do not obstruct, it means they don't, like, physically stop ICE from executing a warrant. What he is not saying, Mr. Speaker, is that the District of Columbia does not comply with Federal immigration law enforcement warrant detainers, which is the safest, most widely accepted means by which a human being that is in the custody of one jurisdictional authority is transferred to another jurisdictional authority safely and within the parameters of the law for the benefit of the individual and the community.

D.C. doesn't do that for Federal immigration detainers. If they have somebody in custody, Mr. Speaker, for whatever purposes, and that guy has a warrant for ICE, they know that there is a warrant for that man. Under normal circumstances, the custody of that individual would be transferred safely once the District of Columbia was finished with that individual. They don't do that with ICE. They subject their communities to dangerous circumstances and law enforcement to absolutely unnecessary danger.

My bill just mandates that the District of Columbia is the one city that Congress has authority over, and therefore, responsibility to be involved with things like this.

We shouldn't have to have this law.

Why? Because the District of Columbia should be following the Federal law in the first place. We shouldn't have to bring this to the floor. We shouldn't have to engage in this debate. I shouldn't have to explain these things. However, we are going to, by God, require that our Nation's Capital comply with our Nation's Federal law.

I encourage my colleagues to take a deep breath, step back and say, yes, our Nation's Capital will be subject to the very laws that this body passes. I appreciate the chairman's advocacy for my bill, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

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