People Are Sick and Tired
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy), my colleague and friend, for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I would prefer not to have to expound upon this topic. What I would prefer is that my colleagues in this body, on both sides of the aisle, embrace the very somber responsibility of encouraging and supporting the laws of our land.
Yet, we find ourselves in a position as conservatives where our warnings of the past echo upon a nearly empty Chamber as we discuss the horrors of the day and the crimes that have been committed upon the citizens we are sworn to serve that need not have been committed. This is because of the culture that we have allowed to spread across our country, as my friend has spoken on, that we have allowed elected officials to embrace, that culture that has woven its way into the fabric of our country that pushes back against the prevention of crime and the enforcement of law, and sells this idea that we are somehow a less compassionate nation if we do not continually release career criminals upon the streets. There is this notion that we can somehow enforce criminal law with social vagaries; this idea that somehow if we will just be very, very nice to the criminal element, they will just stop committing crimes upon the law-abiding of our country.
We have to stand against the existence of that concept, certainly in this body that is responsible for being the voice of we the people. In cases where horrors are forced upon our innocent citizens by career criminals that should have well been institutionalized or imprisoned for many, many years, we have a responsibility to speak out.
I would say that it is far from compassionate, as a citizenry, to continue to release career criminals. I would offer to yourself and the country, Mr. Speaker, for your consideration, maybe my fellow citizens have to realize that the best shot that some of these guys that are in the game on the criminal side of this thing, the best shot they have at rehabilitation is jail, the very best shot.
I have seen it again and again and again in my career. I have had criminals that I have taken off the street, that have lived a life just immersed in drugs and crime and alcohol and violence. And maybe for the first time in their life they were truly treated with the respect of man to man is when I arrested them and took them off the street and walked them through the booking process. I told them then that they have a potential for a better life and a better day, but their path to a brighter future comes through my jail. I advised them to take that time in that jail to reflect upon their life and the potential that they have to turn themselves around.
Years later, Mr. Speaker, I have had these same guys come to me, who are now free, and say thank you. Thank you for talking to me the way you did and handling me the way you did and making me realize that my path to a better life began through jail.
The fact that this horrible man should brutally stab this innocent woman, that is part of the national narrative right now. The fact that we are dealing with that horror brings us to hold accountable every judge that let him go and every prosecutor that refused to force charges upon that man, every elected official and politician that stood for cashless bail. Every member of our society that stood on the wrong side of this thing should take a deep look in the mirror.
I say to my friend, Mr. Roy, who is a gentleman who supports the enforcement of law, he is a good and compassionate man, a father and husband, he is determined to serve his country, and asking our fellow man, Mr. Speaker, to hear this message: enforce existing laws, prosecute violent criminals, incarcerate those who are convicted, and maintain that incarceration until they are reformed or their sentence is complete.
We say this not just for ourselves, but for the murdered, for the lost, for the forgotten, for the unseen victims of crime across our country.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Yes, sir.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me additional time to address these issues.
Our sovereign border, Mr. Speaker, our southern border is 1,954 miles long. I have scouted every mile by airplane, helicopter, four-wheel drive vehicle, on horseback, and on foot. I have scouted every mile.
That 1,954 miles of southern border on the American side of our border, the northern side of that border, is patrolled by some of the finest law enforcement professionals that the world has ever known. It is absolutely within the reach of those law enforcement professionals to effectively enforce our laws on American territory and American soil to the north of that 1,954-mile sovereign border.
Mr. Speaker, the southern side of that sovereign border is 100 percent controlled by criminal cartels.
Mr. Speaker, if we have an American Government executive authority that determines by its policy it is not going to enforce the law with a certain vigor that is required, when on the other side of the sovereign border, there very well-funded, well-armed, and organized criminal cartels, we are effectively partnering with those cartels.
There is a partnership in whatever criminal activity they are engaged in. At our southern border, the criminal cartel traffic human beings and drugs into our country. In 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, the executive branch of our government--the prior President and Secretary of Homeland Security--effectively partnered with the criminal cartels to traffic human beings and drugs into the heart of our country.
The impact that we had to bear was immeasurable. It delivered generational trauma into our country. That was a policy decision and a series of expansion of that policy over the course of 4 years that led to millions upon millions upon millions of illegals coming into our country.
In many cases, they themselves were victims of the lies that the former executive branch put forth into the entire cartel pipeline, deep into South American and through Central American. Rather than a law enforcement professional body, they drew these illegals into our country where they were waived in by a Federal law enforcement body transformed into a reception and processing force. The negative impact was 100 percent the result of policy.
Our colleagues across the aisle told us for years, Mr. Speaker: We need more money. Why don't Republicans give more money to the Biden administration? Well, Congress should pass more laws.
We said for those years: More laws are not required. Enforcement of existing law and the will to do so is what is required. More money is not required.
It is the same 1,954 miles of border, the same personnel, the same roads, the same physical barriers, the same communications systems, and the same surveillance systems. In 2 weeks under the new administration, we went from 8,000 to 10,000 illegal crossings a day to almost zero because of a change in policy.
The guilt and the deep accountability of every injury and every dead American, every injured family, that responsibility lies with those who develop the policy that encouraged the illegal trafficking of human beings and drugs into our country.
Over 200,000 Americans are now dead. They can't vote for either party. They are dead from drugs trafficked into our country in those 4 years. They are dead from fentanyl poisoning.
There are 435 of us here and 100 Members of our colleagues across campus in the Senate. There are 535 children of God, Democrat or Republican, by God, who are absolutely responsible for the decisions and laws that come out of the American Congress.
Article I gives us the authority and, therefore, the responsibility to be the voice of we the people. For 4 years, that voice cried out to be heard. Enforce the law. Protect the citizens. Restore the sovereignty of our border. Now, thank God, we have.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for allowing me to address these concerns.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Where are they now?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source