OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Providing for Consideration of H.R. Pay Our Homeland Defenders Act; Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Expressing the Support of the House of Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Defending American Property Abroad Act of and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

Date: March 25, 2026
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. HARIDOPOLOS. Mr. Speaker, I like that recent quote I heard on the floor just a few minutes ago: Let us not forget the dishonesty here. That is a very rich comment. I see the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee is here. They worked out a deal in order to fund DHS, not part of it but all of it, and the one part they keep leaving out is the idea about ICE.

ICE is somewhat important. Ten million people entered this country illegally and so many of them--as we have seen on the website, wow.dhs.gov, which has outlined clearly the crimes that were committed. You need ICE agents to actually go after people who committed the crime, not just of coming here, but crimes committed once here.

Many of these are violent crimes. We can go through name after name of tragedies, destroyed lives. They want to play politics with this.

This idea of we are wasting time--we are wasting time for one simple reason: They won't fully fund DHS, all of it. The reality is, right now, not just 10 million people have entered this country, but we are in a conflict overseas. We have seen twice in Michigan, once in Texas, and once in Virginia that the homeland is under attack, and they play politics. As a person who has been here since 1996, the rules are pretty simple. We all know them. You need 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything, and they play this game like we didn't take a history class.

As a history teacher myself, let's go back and teach history the right way instead of playing games. More importantly, let's actually fund the homeland so that we can keep our people safe because there are people in harm's way and we need ICE agents, not just playing whack-a- mole with different agencies.

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