Bill to Outlaw Wounding of Official Working Animals Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1115, I call up the bill (H.R. 4638) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that an alien who has been convicted of harming animals used in law enforcement is inadmissible and deportable, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. 4638.

Mr. Speaker, Freddie is a 5-year-old male beagle that was found on the side of a Georgia road and adopted into the USDA's detector dog program.

In August 2023, Freddie began his current job as a CBP agriculture detector dog at Dulles International Airport. He and his handler, Melissa Snyder, worked the early-morning flights arriving primarily from Central America and Africa. As of late last year, Freddie had conducted more than 590,000 searches, resulting in more than 2,000 alerts that led to more than 1,800 seizures of prohibited agricultural products and almost 2,500 different pieces of quarantined material.

Mr. Speaker, it was during this important work last June when Freddie alerted to luggage on a flight from Egypt. While Agent Snyder questioned the owner, this man violently kicked Freddie with sufficient force to lift Freddie off of the ground. Freddie suffered contusions to his right forward rib area. He was taken off duty for 2 weeks to recover.

It turns out that the Egyptian national was smuggling 117 pounds of meat and produce which were prohibited from entering the United States.

In the same month as Freddie's attack, leftist protesters in Los Angeles physically attacked horses used by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department for crowd control during an anti-ICE riot. Horses are used extensively by Federal agencies for crowd control and also for access to remote areas along the border frequented by human and drug traffickers.

Mr. Speaker, Congressman Calvert brings us this simple bill that says that if you are convicted of harming a law enforcement animal or you admit to doing so while you are a guest in our country, you will be immediately expelled and never be allowed to return.

It is true that we have good laws to punish such animal cruelty, and yes, such assaults can be defined as moral turpitude to bar admission. Yet, as we have discussed before on this floor, that finding can often require Byzantine legal proceedings that eat up many years and thousands of dollars of resources, if they are pursued at all.

Mr. Speaker, I know many of our Democratic colleagues support the border policies of the Biden-Harris administration, which encouraged the largest illegal mass migration in history. They allowed members of the world's most violent criminal gangs and cartels into our communities, suppressed American workers' wages, and cost taxpayers an estimated $160 billion a year to support.

I know that many are now vigorously and, in some cases, violently opposing the enforcement of our immigration laws under the Trump administration. They can't change these laws, so they seek to obstruct their enforcement and attack, harass, and threaten the law enforcement officers who are upholding them.

Some Democratic State and local officials have even revived the disgraced doctrine of nullification that we all thought had died with the Confederacy in order to defy Federal law.

There is a deep and irreconcilable divide between our parties that only the voters ultimately can resolve, but can't we at least all agree that kicking a 5-year-old beagle at an airport should disqualify a foreign national from entering our country ever again? That is the entire two-paragraph bill, and I hope we can put aside our differences and all support it.

I can't blame the ranking member for wanting to talk about everything except the bill before us.

I would simply remind him that this House has repeatedly voted to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. Every Republican in this House voted to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. It was the Democrats who have consistently opposed these bills and are holding them hostage in the United States Senate.

Why? Because they want us to stop enforcing our immigration laws, the laws that Congress itself enacted. If they don't like these laws, they should work to change them. They are serving in the very institution that writes these laws. Instead, they block funding for the Department of Homeland Security at a particularly vulnerable time in our Nation's history, and they attack the officials who are valiantly working to enforce those laws to keep us safe.

We have one Democratic Member of this House who is being prosecuted for assaulting an ICE officer, another deliberately doxed an ICE officer to a violent mob which then attacked that officer and sent him to the hospital. It shouldn't surprise us that they would oppose this bill to protect law enforcement animals. As the President observed a few weeks ago, these people really are crazy.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to stray too far from the topic, but I have to remind the gentlewoman that inflation peaked at over 9 percent under the Biden administration, specifically because of the massive spending bills that the gentlewoman supported.

Every dollar that you held the day that Joe Biden took office, Mr. Speaker, was worth just 79 cents the day he left office 4 years later. This administration is bringing inflation down, and real working wages are rising once again.

Now the Democrats have told us: Don't worry, this is already covered by the catchall ground for moral turpitude.

However, moral turpitude is in the eye of the beholder. It often requires years of lengthy litigation.

The whole purpose of this bill is to take those years of litigation, delays, and appeals and make a simple and clear statement to every guest in our country: If you are convicted of or you admit to harming a law enforcement officer, you are out of here, and you are not coming back. The act itself is defined as disqualifying for entering or staying in our country. You still have to be convicted of that act or admit to that act, so you either have your day in court with all the due process rights, or you waive those rights by admitting to the act. However, once you have done so, there is no further room for interpretation or delay.

What is so hard for the Democrats to admit that a person shouldn't kick a dog and expect to remain a guest in this country?

Democrats also tell us that this bill would require a conviction for harming an animal before the provisions of this law can take effect.

Listen carefully, Mr. Speaker. The bill does either require a conviction or an admission of guilt. It is the admission that is something that the Democrats just accept.

Let me put it to them as plainly as I can: An admission of guilt is an admission of guilt. This isn't something just blurted out in their sleep. There are already many offenses that fall under the same process, and the standards are rigorous.

The alien's admission has to be explicit, unequivocal, and unqualified. The immigration judge has to find that the admission fits within the relevant statutes and that the admission is based on reasonable, substantial, and probative evidence.

Nothing in this bill denies the alien due process. They can either go to trial or they can waive their right to due process by admitting guilt.

The Democrats clearly aren't interested in due process. They are interested in gumming up the process so that aliens can remain in this country even after such a patently reprehensible act as kicking a 5- year-old beagle that is assisting law enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, nothing in this bill prevents a miscreant from being convicted and punished for their actions. What it does is simply removes the years of delay that can prevent the deportation of an alien after they have been fined or incarcerated if they are charged.

Under Democratic sanctuary laws, I would remind us, the criminal aliens who are incarcerated, instead of being turned over to ICE for deportation, are released back on our streets. That is the whole point of these sanctuary laws.

Mr. Speaker, it shocked the country when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor to affirm that the first duty of the Federal Government is to protect American citizens and not illegal aliens.

It mystified us when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor to acknowledge families devastated by heinous crimes committed by illegal aliens.

It shocked us when not a single Democrat would rise on the floor even to honor our war heroes or the U.S. hockey team.

It should astonish us that the Democrats could oppose a simple bill that says if a guest in our country harms a law enforcement animal, like a 5-year-old beagle or a horse, they are no longer welcome here and need to leave.

On reflection, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the Democrats are strangely tolerant of protesters kicking, punching, and attacking ICE officers as they enforce the very laws that Congress has enacted.

So, what is an injured dog to them as long as the perpetrator is a foreign national? What is an injured dog to them as long as they are injured enforcing laws that the Democrats don't like?

This isn't just about Freddie the beagle. It is about whether we will tolerate violent predators imported into our country. If they will kick a dog in the presence of a law enforcement officer, you can be sure they will do far worse when that law enforcement officer isn't present or the victim is a defenseless girl on a subway.

Do we want such people in our country? The Democrats do; the Republicans don't. A time for choosing is approaching. Until then, we will have this vote, which should be revealing as Americans consider their future.

Mr. Speaker, I include the CBO cost estimate for this bill in the Record.

H.R. 4638, BILL TO OUTLAW WOUNDING OF OFFICIAL WORKING ANIMALS ACT OF 2025 AS REPORTED BY THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY ON DECEMBER 12, 2025 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By fiscal year, millions of dollars-- ----------------------------------- 2026 2026-2030 2026-2035 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Direct Spending (Outlays)........... * * * Revenues............................ * * * Increase or Decrease (-) in the * * * Deficit............................ Spending Subject to Appropriation * * * (Outlays).......................... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * = between -$500,000 and $500,000.

Increases net direct spending in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2036? No.

Increases on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2036? No.

Statutory pay-as-you-go procedures apply? Yes.

Mandate Effects:

Contains intergovernmental mandate? No.

Contains private-sector mandate? No.

H.R. 4638 would make an alien (a non-U.S. national) inadmissible to or deportable from the United States if that person admits to or is convicted of harming animals used in law enforcement.

Under current law, harming animals used in law enforcement can be deemed to be a crime involving moral turpitude; the admission of or conviction for such a crime makes an alien inadmissible or, in certain cases, deportable. Therefore, CBO expects that only a few people would be removed from the United States based solely on enacting this bill. Because some of those aliens might he eligible for federal benefits-- some of which are provided through income tax credits--CBO estimates that enacting the bill would decrease direct spending and increase revenues by an insignificant amount over the 2026-2035 period.

The CBO staff contact for this estimate is David Rafferty. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis. Phillip L. Swagel, Director, Congressional Budget Office.
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