People Are Sick and Tired

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity, as always, to be here in the House Chamber and try to be a voice for the people across this country.

The people that I represent, of course, as does the Speaker and my colleagues, we each represent three-quarters of a million people, give or take, but we also try to be a voice for everybody. We try to be a voice for the people who don't have a voice.

The people that I represent and the people across this country that I talk to are sick and tired. They are sick and tired of being put in danger because radical, progressive Democrats, radical progressive politicians, radical progressive judges, radical progressive district attorneys, radical progressive NGOs, George Soros, the people funding all of these entities are pushing criminals onto the streets of our country and causing harm to Americans, Americans who have been here for generations or Americans who came here seeking refugee from, for example, Ukraine.

How many of my colleagues come to the floor of the House wearing a blue and yellow ribbon or a blue and yellow pin? They wear it for show, and they wear it to pat themselves on the back. They wear it to seem like they are the ones with a heart when other people question whether we should fund endless war. They wear it to say that they care.

But where were they when Iryna Zartuska was being brutally stabbed in public transit in North Carolina? Where is the media who were outraged when Daniel Penny, a marine, stopped a violent offender on a New York subway and then was the one being charged and prosecuted for a crime?

What if Iryna Zartuska had Daniel Penny sitting next to her so that she wouldn't have lost her life? As a refugee from Ukraine, she was coming to supposedly the freest and strongest and greatest country on Earth. She was brutally murdered because feel-good radical liberals with their jailbreak, let-all-the-criminals-out, open borders, take money from George Soros, DAs, and judges put these criminals on the streets. You have a guy who was a 14-time offender, 14-time offender sitting behind this beautiful girl, and he just stabs her to death on a train car.

Where is all the wailing and the gnashing of teeth from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle? Where are their blue and yellow ribbons today?

All the sanctimonious preaching sure is silent because they can't bear to acknowledge that if you don't enforce the law, if you invite criminals from around the world into our country with open borders, if you let criminals on our streets with foolish policies by radical judges and district attorneys, then, as my friend from Louisiana knows as a former law enforcement officer, our streets are no longer safe and the American Dream is no longer able to be achieved. The freedom we are supposed to enjoy is not possible without the security you are supposed to have under the rule of law.

We used a lot of big words from the Declaration of Independence all the way through today. We talk about a lot of great words: ``equal justice under the law,'' ``liberty,'' ``rights,'' ``freedom,'' but if you don't have the rule of law, none of it matters.

The reason people come to the United States, the reason they flock to our country from around the world, is because of the rule of law. Enforcing our constitutional rights, given to us by God, recognized by our Founders, defended with the blood of patriots, but enforced under the law.

They come here knowing they can invest their capital, build a business, and not have it taken away by the State. They know that they can walk the streets freely, or they think that they can walk the streets freely, and not be assaulted. They believe that they can raise a family, grow and develop a community, and live the American Dream that they have seen play out.

They want to come here, but then when people with their fake ribbons and their feel-good propaganda let criminals on the streets, ignore the rule of law, and walk away from the men and women in blue as they did in the summer of 2020 when our cities were burning and our law enforcement were being attacked, when they defunded the police in Austin, Texas, as the radical city council did there, then real people suffer. Americans get hurt, and the American Dream dies.

The suspect that I talked about with the brutal stabbing in North Carolina was 34 years old with a history of mental illness and a long rap sheet: multiple convictions for armed robbery, felony larceny, breaking and entering; more than 5 years in prison; and 14 criminal cases.

His own family had warned of his history of schizophrenia. His own sister said that ``he didn't seem like himself,'' when he was released from prison. He assaulted his sister, and now that guy is roaming the public.

His release from this incident was conditioned on a written promise that he would appear for his next hearing, only for him to be charged with murdering this young woman.

Why would North Carolina officeholders, politicians, and judges not confine or institutionalize this young man? Because a radical ideology has taken root, particularly in my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but my colleagues on this side of the aisle are not immune to the belief that you can put criminals on the street and not undermine the American Dream.

The so-called progressive prosecutor movement advocates for less incarceration and less policing: decarceration, procriminal policies that undermine public safety.

On January 22, 2025, San Antonio Police Department officers responded to calls at a San Antonio apartment complex reporting a suicidal individual who was armed and firing his weapon. When officers arrived, the suspect, Brandon Scott Poulos, fired upon the officers, striking one of them in the leg. Poulos wound up barricading himself in an hours-long standoff and shot an additional six officers before San Antonio PD neutralized the situation. Thankfully, all seven officers survived.

He was a 46-year-old with a history of erratic behavior. He was charged with DWI and assault. A few days before the shooting, he had been arrested for two charges of injury to an elderly person; one charge of assault, family violence causing bodily injury; and one charge of driving while intoxicated.

The Bexar County Magistrate's Office--Bexar County is where San Antonio is--issued a protective order against Poulos with instructions not to contact the family members. Three days later and less than 24 hours before the January 22 shooting of seven San Antonio cops, Poulos violated his protective order by visiting a prohibited residence and threatening to kill himself and to shoot at any officer.

The Bexar County D.A. in San Antonio, led by a progressive prosecutor, has imposed criminal leniency initiatives that have not only put law-abiding Americans in danger but also police officers, too.

The fact is, we are letting the inmates not just run the asylum, but letting the inmates run our communities. Then, under the Biden administration, we are inviting other countries to dump their prisons out into our communities. The radical progressives who allowed that to happen, supported it, and encouraged it are now attacking President Trump for daring to undo the damage, reverse the open borders and secure them, and then try to remove the dangerous criminals who are walking the streets of the United States because of the radical progressives and their open-border policies.

I know my friend from Louisiana has a lifetime of service, not just as a Congressman, but also in law enforcement. I wonder if my brother from Louisiana would like to expand upon my thesis that the rule of law is the central element of a strong and prosperous United States and that when our radical progressive friends undermine it by releasing criminals, leaving our borders open, refusing to enforce the law, and handing down light sentences, it endangers our people and undermines the very American Dream that people seek to achieve when they come to our land.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to see if my friend from Louisiana can stick around a little bit longer.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Louisiana because of his long history of distinguished service, and he knows what he is talking about.

I know that the gentleman from Louisiana came to my home State of Texas when the people that I represent were ravaged by the floods that affected our community in Kerrville, Texas, the gentleman dropped what he was doing to come up and help when we were in the search and in the rescue.

I just want to say to the gentleman, as a representative of the thousands of people who came to our State to try to help at a time when our people were hurting, but also people around the Nation were affected because of what happened to the camps--that I am proud to represent and that we will rebuild and that we will have going forward to have these wonderful children be able to learn the gospel and spread the gospel and become lights into the world.

I know that my friend from Louisiana would allow us to indulge a favor to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter) to have a 1-minute remark about something that is important to him, but I wanted to take a moment to share my prayerful solidarity with my brother from Georgia because he had a family member, a young girl who was unfortunately lost in that terrible flood, and I bring that up because we were all affected by it. We had so many loved ones who were impacted, but the faith of that community and the faith of the people in this Nation and the faith of the people in Texas who have come together under the cross that stands up on that hill in Kerrville and the people who have generously contributed now $150 million and counting that are going in to help those people, and the first responders who showed up on the scene and the people like my friend and the former sheriff, my buddy from Louisiana, who dropped everything to come up represents all that is good and great about this great Nation, who show up to help each other when we need to.

Honoring Judith Jurgensen Melroy

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, since we are talking about the rule of law, I will not regale you with stories of my misspent youth on St. Patrick's Day in his fair city of Savannah.

I will say that earlier my friend from Louisiana was talking about the importance of the rule of law. We were talking about the context of criminals being let out prematurely, not giving them the ability to actually come to a place where they can again interact with society. We can talk about the mix with mind-altering drugs. We can talk about the misdiagnoses. We can talk about all of the things that we can and should do better. I know that my friend from Louisiana, a devout Catholic, a devout believer in the healing power and the grace of our Saviour, I know that he, like I, believe in the power of forgiveness and being able to work to rehabilitate and that we are called to do that. However, that is not an excuse for irresponsibly, programmatically, and politically putting individuals on the street who have no business being there.

In that same vein, I know that my friend from Louisiana is a staunch believer in a secure border, as most Americans are. I want to make a couple of points and see what the gentleman thinks. So when you look at the damage that was being done by the previous administration, not as most people think, by just ignoring the border and letting people get in, but rather encouraging and purposefully pulling people into the United States by virtue of the misapplication, misinterpretation, and straight-out disregard of the law to abuse our compassionate parole and asylum policies meant and reserved for those in dire need of protection from political persecution and other areas defined in the law for special purposes. For instance, you might be granted parole to care for a sick loved one legally in the United States. You might be granted some specific purpose for that one individual because we are a compassionate Nation.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, led by the previous President, led by the previous Secretary, led by the previous Vice President, purposely bastardized the law for political purposes, endangering children who were raped on the journey, using this human chattel callously for political purposes, flooding our communities with criminals from other countries.

Now, the President of the United States who ran on reversing that is doing so, and President Trump, Steve Miller, Tom Homan, Secretary Noem, the brave men and women of ICE, the brave men and women of Border Patrol, all of our law enforcement should be roundly commended for doing their job. I can tell you the relief of those great men and women to have a President and a Secretary that has their back and that believes in them and has allowed them to carry out their mission under the law, rather than accusing them of whipping someone they fully knew did not happen.

It is a new day in America where the flow across the border is statistically zero, as it should be, compared to the millions that flowed in for 4 years under Joe Biden. The Trump administration has, to the best of my understanding, arrested some 359,000 individuals for removal in the first 7 months of this administration, 70 percent of whom had pending criminal charges or convictions contrary to the allegations of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Why are our colleagues on the other side of the aisle protesting the removal of murderers, sex offenders, drug traffickers, child abusers, gun criminals, gang members threatening our communities, killing our citizens like Jocelyn Nungaray or Rachel Moran, Laken Riley?

For the other 30 percent, they are illegal aliens who broke our immigration laws. They literally broke our laws.

I know that the gentleman from Louisiana feels so strongly that we should back up our law enforcement community that he raised a privileged matter on the floor of the House involving one of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who has been indicted for interfering with law enforcement, and not just interfering with law enforcement, interfering with ICE, the law enforcement personnel which she is charged with overseeing in her service on the Committee on Homeland Security.

I know the gentleman rightfully brought that matter before the House. My colleagues will continue to address that matter in the future.

I wonder if the gentleman could speak to the importance--to this body and our leaders of this country, the 435 people in this Chamber, the 100 on the other side of the building, the President, and the people who report to him, the judges in the Supreme Court and throughout our courts in the country--the importance of enforcing the law, of standing alongside, not blindly, but standing alongside our law enforcement community to protect the rule of law that he so artfully described with respect to our jails and the enforcement of laws in our communities, but also to enforce our border in concert with local law enforcement and how important it is that we stand alongside them, that we stand up and hold ourselves accountable for doing that work and the proper oversight and the proper leadership to secure our Nation.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins), my good friend.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from (Louisiana) Mr. Higgins.

Mr. Speaker, I want to put a name and a face on the environment that was created by our colleagues and by the previous administration in endangering people.

We talk about: Say his name. Say the name of Jimmy Friesenhahn. In San Antonio, a father of a young daughter, a veteran of the Marine Corps, Jimmy fell victim to the pro-criminal policies and the open border that my friend from Louisiana just described.

On May 4, 2025, a mere 4 months ago, he was working as a security guard at a restaurant on the west side of San Antonio. The perpetrator, Wilmer Vladimir Ruiz-Ortega, attempted to enter the bar. He was stopped by Jimmy to be searched for contraband.

Jimmy identified a handgun. It led to a struggle, which resulted in the suspect gaining control of it, firing it, and striking Jimmy at least once. Jimmy medically died on the scene but was revived. It struck him in the neck, leaving him with a spinal injury, along with a ruptured esophagus and vocal cords.

He was in the ICU at San Antonio Military Medical Center with life- threatening injuries for months. Doctors say he will never fully recover.

The suspect is a 29-year-old illegal alien who entered the United States as a got-away. He was arrested in San Antonio and charged with a DWI in 2020. He was let go on a personal reconnaissance bond but failed to show up.

The Bexar County DA downgraded the DWI. He pled guilty to obstructing a passageway, but he violated the probation. He got arrested again. He was let go after posting a bond of $1,500. He failed to show up.

He was arrested a fourth time in November of 2024. He was sentenced to time served. He assaulted a girlfriend and fled the scene. After shooting Jimmy, then the Bexar County DA only pursued aggravated assault charges and set his bond at $200,000. He is not in jail. He was granted house arrest.

Jimmy was a father and a veteran. His brother said Jimmy always put himself before others. Why do the people entrusted with securing our communities and enforcing the law not put Jimmy before the illegal alien who shouldn't have been here, should have been removed, and shouldn't have been let out five times to carry out and perpetrate this kind of crime?

The American people are asking: What happened? What happened to our country?

As far as a refugee from Ukraine, do you remember when our colleagues waved all the Ukrainian flags on the House floor?

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Mr. ROY. Where were they today, Mr. Speaker? Were they waving the Ukrainian flag to honor that young girl who was brutally murdered by a criminal released by a radical progressive funded by radical progressives?

They are nowhere to be found. They are MIA.

The legacy media, also run by radical progressives, can't even bring it up. They can't even put it on the television. They don't dare to talk about it because it doesn't fit the narrative.

The American people are sick of having their way of life that their forefathers fought, bled, and died for, and that their brothers, sisters, moms, and dads worked to build for them and to pass down to their kids, ripped to shreds by people who don't give a rip about the rule of law, the Constitution, or our way of life as God-fearing Americans who say that we put our trust in God right above the flag that those brave men and women wore into combat so that we could be here and live supposedly free.

We are unable to live free because we are not secure. We are not secure because radical politicians, judges, and NGOs are working furiously for political gain and political purposes to advance a radical Marxist ideology to undermine our security.

It is a war on our way of life. It is a war on Western civilization itself. It is a war on the Constitution and the rule of law.

Every day that goes by is another day in which the very things that built this country are under assault, including, I might add, and in no doubt controversially, our belief in the Almighty God and His Son punished for our transgressions on the cross and our collective belief in Him as a nation that built this country.

This country and too many of its citizens have turned their backs on that truth.

The fact is, and the last point I will make, is that those radical progressives with their remaking of America with wide-open borders--and open borders include unfettered visas from all corners of the world--is purposely driven for economic, political, and other purposes, but usually involving the buck and power.

There are people who are advancing sharia law and advancing an Islamist political worldview directly and purposely in conflict with our Western values and our Constitution. It is a declaration of war on our way of life.

In Houston, just this weekend, an imam affiliated with the Nation of Islam was going around claiming to be patrolling Muslim-owned shops, telling them to stop selling alcohol and lottery tickets because they violate Islamic law. As communities in Texas are built upon large pieces of land, hundreds of acres, they are building up Muslim-only cities. This is purposeful.

We had Nigel Farage and others testifying in the Judiciary Committee this past week.

I asked Mr. Farage if the advance of Islam and the importation of sharia law are consistent with Western civilization, the Western civilization responsible for providing more peace, more prosperity, better living conditions, and more freedom for more people than the world has ever seen. His answer was, of course, no, it is not.

Our friends across the pond can barely find themselves able to defend what little free speech remains on their island. A comic, a comedian, came to the United States and made a joke about transgenderism. I don't even know what the joke was. He flies home to the U.K. and is arrested for hate speech even as the Parliament is advancing an Islamophobia bill, to which I ask: Who is going to win that war? Who is going to win that fight? We either believe and uphold the values of Western civilization or we don't.

Mr. Speaker, you can believe what you want. You can believe in God or not. You can go to church or not. What you cannot do is advance a radical ideology deeply at odds, directly in conflict, and purely designed to undermine the very values that have built this Nation and the advance of freedom around the world because, at our core, our values are built on our faith.

This Nation is more likely to crumble under its own weight, its own errors, than it is by invasion unless we meet the moment, unless we stand up, and unless we say never again.

Never again will we allow the power of government to be rained down upon the American people with mandates of masks and vaccines in the name of fear and in the name of healthcare.

Never again will we allow open borders to trample our community, endanger our citizens, and filter dangerous narcotics into our communities.

Never again will we allow the Chinese Communist Party to buy up our lands, our meatpacking facilities, and our critical medical production companies.

Never again will we allow our communities to get overrun with forced Marxist, DEI, and critical race theory ideology that undermines the very fabric of our community.

Never again will we allow the lawless and dangerous criminals to be on the streets because a faraway judge or bureaucrat getting paid off by an NGO says so.

Never again. Never again.

This moment of reprieve and this moment of common sense in which President Trump is restoring a modicum of what we need to restore the rule of law and secure borders and enforcement of the law and removal of criminals is meeting resistance at every turn. Even this moment of reprieve in which the President, President Trump, is restoring common sense by eliminating DEI, CRT, and all this stuff in our agencies and our Pentagon, even this moment of reprieve is just that, a moment of reprieve from the march of the Marxist, tyrannical ideology that is deeply at odds with our founding principles and who we are as a Judeo- Christian nation and as people who believe in something bigger and better for our kids and grandkids that is rooted in the sacrifice of the millions who came before us.

This reprieve must be met with the energy and the resolve of those who died before us: the men of the Alamo, the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, the men on the fields of Lexington and Concord, the men and women who have answered the call to defeat terror, the men and women in blue who actually stand on that thin blue line even when they are abandoned.

All of those who have answered the call deserve Members of this body, Members of the Senate, elected leaders across the country to risk even an ounce of what those men and women are willing to risk. They must risk the election certificate upon which they hold like a death grip.

I say to my colleagues: Do something bigger and better. Take this moment of reprieve and say never again. Never again will we endanger our citizens; never again with open borders; never again with criminals on our streets; never again with drugs; never again with tyrannical mandates, vaccines stuck in the arm; never again with radical ideology and transgender ideology politically motivated harming our young women, undermining their advancement; never again.

Never again do we yield to the corporatists who gobble up our small businesses and undermine our way of life. Never again will we yield to ideology in the name of political expediency, but rather, stand up and defend this the greatest country that the world has ever known without which people will be relegated to a world without the American Dream backed by the security and safety of the people willing to lay it all on the line to defend it.

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