Sorry, Not Sorry for Immigration Enforcement

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, the Democrats are outraged that the largest illegal mass migration in history, which they unleashed on our country, must now be followed by the largest repatriation in history.

Democrats insist that they don't object to removing violent criminals, but that is a demonstrable lie. The whole point of the Democrats' sanctuary laws is to protect criminal illegal aliens from being turned over to ICE for deportation. Instead, they released them back into our communities, where many have gone on to commit even more heinous crimes.

Recently, when Federal officers served a criminal warrant on a southern California marijuana farm, activists staged a riot. Officers liberated 12 minors forced to work at this facility. Eight of them were among the 465,000 unaccompanied alien children that the Democrats placed with poorly or unvetted sponsors during Biden's administration.

It appears the marijuana farm was employing scores of illegal aliens to undercut their competition, in flagrant violation of U.S. labor and immigration laws.

Now, let's start with some simple truths. If we don't enforce our immigration laws, we have no immigration laws. If we have no immigration laws, we have no border. If we have no border, we have no country. We have gotten a glimpse of what that means as foreign flags are waved by violent mobs setting fires, ransacking businesses, and terrorizing motorists in our sanctuary cities.

What do our immigration laws actually say? They say, clearly and unambiguously, that any and every adult who illegally enters our country shall be detained. Those are the exact words of the law: ``shall be detained.'' The Democrats simply ignore it.

They have a right to challenge their detention through a writ of habeas corpus. If they are charged with a crime, they have a right to a trial by jury, but at no time do they have the right to be released back into our communities. Under the law, they ``shall be detained.''

Unless they are charged with a crime, they have the right to leave detention any time they want for any country that will admit them. What they don't have is the right to remain in our country unless a judge determines otherwise.

That is why the administration is expanding detention facilities, because that is what the law requires if our borders are going to mean anything.

The Democrats call these concentration camps, but the detainees are free to leave for home anytime they choose. Indeed, that is the purpose, to provide temporary shelter while transportation is being arranged.

Deportation is not a punishment and requires no criminal charges. It is a simple administrative act. Challenging it does not invoke a right to freely enter and stay indefinitely. You either wait here in detention or in another country that will accept you. Those are your options.

Reportedly, more than a million illegal aliens have already decided to return home, an option for which our government will arrange transportation, a $1,000 stipend to help them resettle, and a right to apply for legal entry. If they wait until they are encountered by ICE, they will be taken into custody, deported, and forbidden from reentering. That is a choice.

What about those who, after breaking our immigration laws to enter the country and breaking our labor laws to work here, have broken no other laws? That doesn't mean there aren't victims. For years, American families have struggled as the flood of illegal labor has taken their jobs and suppressed their wages.

During Biden's 4 years, most new jobs were taken by foreigners, and Americans' real wages declined. Just 6 months into the Trump administration, most new jobs are now taken by Americans, and real wages are growing once again. That is not a coincidence.

Supporting this impoverished, illegal population costs American taxpayers an estimated $160 billion a year. It flooded classrooms with non-English-speaking students, packed emergency rooms with illegals demanding care, and overwhelmed homeless shelters and food banks meant to help Americans. Worst of all, the most violent and dangerous criminal gangs in the world accompanied this population into our country and have now taken deep root in the Democrats' sanctuary cities.

This is why we must enforce our immigration laws to the letter, as this administration is doing. America admits more legal immigrants under our laws than any nation on the planet and will continue to do so, but that does not give license to millions of foreign nationals to violate those same laws.

That is the simple truth the Democrats refuse to acknowledge.

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