Ice Under Attack
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I surely appreciate his passion. It is well-deserved.
I am so heartbroken for our country. In the past, Democrats and Republicans might not have agreed on maybe the path to get to where we were going, how we were going to do it, sometimes not even where we were going. Yet we loved our country, and we understood what our job was here: to support and represent America.
How can it be that we live in a society--people will say--I am sure they say it to you, Chip: You are so divided. Why can't you people in Washington, D.C., get along?
They will say to me: Representative, why can't you work with your colleagues on the other side of the aisle?
I want to. We look for every opportunity to, and I am just going to tell you: Look, I am going to call it the way I see it because my eyes aren't lying.
My friends on the other side of the aisle will tell you, will tell everybody, will try and get pictures: We stand with law enforcement. We stand with the police. We support them. Whatever they need, we are there.
They want to convince you of that because, of course, as law-abiding American citizens, it is the right thing to do.
Representative Roy, when I was growing up, if there was a criminal running down the street and an officer was chasing him, somebody would be a Good Samaritan and stick their leg out or say: He went that way and help out. But we are literally living in some dystopia where they say that somehow it is different because it is ICE. It is different because we can say ICE; Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
It is no different. These officers are no different than your local township police; the State police; Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms; the U.S. marshals. The good guys, that is who they are.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle literally are defending these people who came here to murder, rape, and rob. That is who they are defending. They are literally defending--there is no other way to cut it.
Rachel Morin died about 30 miles from my house. I don't live close to the Texas border. This is everywhere. Representative Roy and I both have daughters, 12 years old. Jocelyn Nungaray was 12 years old and was heinously murdered by two people allowed to come and stay here illegally. These are animals who did this.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. You are right, Chip. There are the good guys, and, unfortunately, there are the bad guys; there just are.
No one would think--I will just try to put it in any context I can. If I am driving down the highway and I see a police officer who has pulled somebody over for a traffic infraction, I don't stop and get involved and say: Whoa, whoa, whoa, what is going on here, Officer? How do you know--what do you think you are doing?
I don't understand why people who are getting involved in law enforcement activities don't understand that they are obstructing justice. Pulling in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who are trying to remove people from our country, who are here illegally and have had their due process, is not acceptable in any manner, shape, or form.
There is no one here who will do more to defend your First Amendment liberties to protest and seek redress from your government.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. But protesting does not mean impeding law enforcement. It does not mean blocking streets. It does not mean getting on an app on your phone--that is supported by George Soros--to track Immigration and Customs Enforcement, law enforcement officers, the law enforcement police, and track them down and impede their work to keep everybody else in the community safe.
Do you know what that is, Representative Roy? I have the definition right here. That is sedition is what that is. That is exactly what it is. No one wants to say it, but we are seeing it happen.
This is among Americans in our country. These are our neighbors. These are people right here in every town who somehow think that, suddenly, it is okay. Now, there unfortunately has been a death.
The death that happened recently is so tragic and unfortunate. Ms. Good, who lost her life, she could have protested peacefully and sought redress for the things that she thought were wrong about her government that should be changed. But she made a decision to inject herself into law enforcement, impede law enforcement, and make it a dangerous circumstance where an officer of the law had to make a split-moment decision about his life and also the lives of other people in his community.
Madam Speaker, Representative Roy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials live in your town. They are just like the township cop that you know who stands by your school in the morning when your kids are getting off the bus. They are the same people. They are the same people.
How is it that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can somehow make book and tell you that you must support violent murderers, rapists, robbers, gang members, drug traffickers, and human traffickers? It couldn't be more black and white, and it is so disappointing.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. I just have to ask you in this colloquy, Representative Roy from Texas: You say, ``the radical left,'' but I listened to you rattle off the statements of elected officials.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Not just Members of Congress, but Members of the United States Senate.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Governors of States, including the one that I come from. Is this the radical left, or are they our Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle?
Which one of our Democrat colleagues from the other side of the aisle, whether at the Federal level, the State, or the local level has come out to denounce the treatment by law enforcement at the hands of these people that are trying to thwart them and put their lives in danger for the sake of murderers? Which ones? Do you know of any?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. It is so outrageous.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Representative Roy, you and I have stood in this Chamber countless times, for countless hours, having the same discussion over the same people, the same people in this picture, over and over. There are countless others that aren't here who died from drunk driving incidents, died from drug overdose, human trafficked, lives destroyed forever. If only they got to stay alive, if they even had that opportunity to stay alive.
There is so much outrage from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Yet, I can't remember, and so I am going to ask you, Representative Roy from Texas. I can't remember one time my colleagues on the other side of the aisle came to talk about Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, the officer, the young lady, not one.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. No.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. President Trump did not. President Trump is credited with having the most secure border in history.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. No. As I recall, about 10,000 people a week were coming across the border illegally.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Secretary Mayorkas told us, President Biden told us he could not solve that problem unless we passed legislation. We needed to--this Chamber was delinquent. There was nothing that could be done until we took action. As it has been said, we didn't need to take action. We needed a different President.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Tens of thousands.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. None of mine.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. I don't want to speculate either. I will leave that to people that are listening and people that are thinking through the situation.
You talked about things that are untrue. I want to let you know that, of course, I represent 760,000 great people, hardworking, tax-paying, America-loving individuals in south central Pennsylvania, and I have gotten some complaints. There is some rhetoric and some claims being made about Immigration and Customs Enforcement in central Pennsylvania.
I talked to Immigration and Customs Enforcement today and asked them, because there were claims that enforcement officers were chasing people down the street, demanding their papers, going door to door looking for people, staking out certain activities, business activities, or recreational activities to just see who would come in and ask for their papers.
Representative Roy, I am proud to report what I knew inherently that that is all a lie. That is all propaganda meant to scare people and meant to stop law enforcement from doing its job.
I am so disgusted by the names that our men and women that wear the uniform, that make a commitment to put their lives in danger to keep everybody else safe that they are characterized by elected officials and leaders in our community the way that you have described to me this evening. It is outrageous. Not only is it outrageous, it is dangerous, and it is irresponsible. It is leading to not only the division of our country and our communities, but it is leading to people suffering injuries and worse. That, Representative Roy, is on them.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Sure.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Of course, I agree. As you bring it up, I think to myself how heartbreaking it is knowing--I look at these pictures here of these wonderful young people with their whole lives ahead of them. If we had been able to do that during the first administration, these five people would be alive, likely would be alive, right?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Because we have failed here--not because Chip has failed, not because I am not willing to vote for it. We have to get it on the floor. Let's face it, Representative Roy, the great Representative Roy from Texas, how many votes are you going to count on for Laken Riley, for Jocelyn Nungaray, for any of these people? How many votes are you going to count on to keep them alive from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle?
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. Of course. We passed it in the House, but that is not enough. That doesn't change anything. We can pass everything we want to in the House, with or without our friends on the other side of the aisle, but if we can't get a vote and passage in the Senate, it doesn't get to the President's desk.
I would just say this: What I think would be interesting to see, when we talk about--look, quite honestly, it is a travesty to me that we should have to pass such a bill that only American citizens vote in American elections. That should be obvious.
You don't invite some person from some other State or some other town into your home to ask them about your important family decisions. Yet, somehow in America, my friends on the other side of the aisle, my colleagues over there, think that that is what we should do.
They should put a vote up in the Senate to show the American people who stands with them and who stands with letting those people in our country illegally, killing, raping, robbing, and giving them the vote. If they can't get the vote, then they need to find a way to break the filibuster and make sure that we stand up for Americans.
Madam Speaker, to my friend from Texas, we weren't elected by people from other countries. We weren't elected by Tren de Aragua or the Cartel of the Suns. We were elected by the American citizens. That is who we are here to represent.
If somebody wants to represent them, well, God bless them, but they should let the American people know by their votes and go out and decry it to everybody. Amazingly, in some cases, some of our colleagues actually are.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. PERRY. It is their country. Of course, the United States of America is the most generous country ever in history. Certainly with immigration it is more generous than every other nation and more generous than all nations combined.
However, what no one ever envisioned was tens of thousands, daily or weekly, in the amount of tens of millions of people pouring into our country illegally with no interest in being American but being in America.
Now what do we do about it?
We have a President who has vowed to solve that and who has vowed to fix that. He got elected on that promise, and now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle reject following the law if it means following the law.
So I think that it is the height of disrespect, quite honestly, for people to come to our country illegally, tell us that we are awful people, try and change our country into the country they came from, have us pay for it, and then disrespect us while they are doing it by killing our citizens and while sending our tax dollars to the terrorist organizations in the country that they left.
It is unacceptable at any and every single level.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source