Providing for Consideration of H.R. Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Condemning Actors Seeking to Defraud the United States Government, and Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives That Governmentwide Fraud and Improper Payment Prevention Reforms Will Meaningfully Improve the Financial Prosperity of the United States, and That Federal Program Eligibility Should Be Verified Before Payment; and Providing for Consideration of S. Secure America Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this rule and to the underlying bills.

At its core, this Republican reconciliation budget bill is a statement about priorities, and the priorities reflected in this bill could not be more out of step with the needs and values of the American people.

Families across this country are struggling to afford housing, groceries, childcare, and healthcare. Americans are dealing with rising costs, economic uncertainty, and the consequences of another unending war in the Middle East.

Americans were promised lower prices and stability, but instead, they are watching gas prices climb back up to $5 a gallon while inflation continues to rise and squeeze household budgets.

Against that backdrop, Republicans have decided that what the country really needs is to spend another $70 billion on ICE and Border Patrol. This is on top of the roughly $140 billion Republicans already provided to those agencies last year, much of which remains unspent.

Taken together, Republicans are proposing to spend nearly a quarter trillion dollars, all deficit spending, to expand detention camps, fund mass deportation, increase surveillance, and accelerate an immigration crackdown that has already caused enormous harm across our country.

Republicans are doing this while simultaneously claiming that America cannot afford investments in schools, housing, nutrition assistance, or healthcare.

Let's be honest about what this reconciliation bill represents. Republicans spent years pretending to be deeply concerned about deficits and debt, claiming to be the party of fiscal responsibility. They have attacked virtually every Democratic proposal to help working Americans and families, saying that those measures are fiscally irresponsible, but they have used their control of Congress and the White House to add trillions with a t, trillions of dollars, to the debt by giving tax cuts to their wealthy friends and corporate donors.

Now, Republicans are adding hundreds of billions more in debt to put more masked and armed ICE agents on our streets and to build out a nationwide network of corporate detention camps. Apparently, deficits only matter when tax dollars are used to help everyday Americans instead of Trump's billionaire buddies.

Mr. Speaker, it is also telling that Republicans are using a completely partisan process to ram through this S. 2 legislation. Once again, they are using the partisan reconciliation process to pass a budget because they have refused to negotiate through the normal appropriations process. Specifically, they have refused to enact any reforms to address the lawless behavior of ICE and Customs and Border Protection under the Trump administration.

Democrats proposed bipartisan funding solutions for DHS. We proposed reforms, accountability measures, and guardrails after repeated abuses by ICE and CBP resulted in chaos and death on American streets. We asked for basic transparency and oversight after the killings by Federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, American citizens. We asked that ICE and CBP be held to the same standards as every other responsible law enforcement agency in this country.

Republicans said no. They said no to everything. There is not a single provision in this bill to rein in these rogue agents at DHS.

The Senate rejected amendment after amendment that would have imposed even minimal constraints on these agencies. The House bypassed committee consideration altogether. Why? It is because Republicans know the American people do not support the chaos that this administration is inflicting.

They know Americans don't want masked and armed Federal agents rampaging through their neighborhoods, at their kids' schools and soccer games, and in shopping malls and workplaces.

They know Americans are alarmed when lawful residents, law-abiding community members, and even citizens, are roughed up or detained by ICE.

They know people are questioning why the Federal Government is building expensive detention camps across the country, capable of imprisoning tens of thousands of people, while Americans can't find housing and their kids don't get enough to eat.

The reports of what is happening in those detention camps are increasingly horrifying. In the past year, there have been unprecedented numbers of deaths and suicides; reports of inedible and inadequate food; hunger strikes; lack of medical care leading to serious injury and death; and children, babies, suffering extreme mental and physical illness.

Republicans know that Americans are increasingly recognizing that this administration is not arresting and deporting these so-called worst of the worst. Instead, it is using immigration enforcement as a political weapon to distract and scare people so they don't see how this administration is selling our future to the highest corporate bidders.

This bill isn't just about funding levels. It is about whether our Republican colleagues are willing to place any limits, any limits whatsoever, on immigration agencies that, under this administration, have repeatedly demonstrated contempt for our Constitution, for basic American values like fairness and decency, and for the dignity and humanity of immigrants, even those who are in this country legally.

The administration's record here should concern every American regardless of party. We have seen our government target protesters and political opponents. We have seen our government spy on citizens opposing its unlawful tactics.

We have seen people with no criminal record deported to dangerous countries that they have never lived in, based on hearsay or lies.

We have seen the expansion of child and family detention, despite decades of evidence that it permanently injures children.

We have seen Americans exercising their First Amendment rights to object to these cruel and unlawful policies. We have seen them be falsely labeled as domestic terrorists.

We have seen government agents invade our homes and arrest citizens with no warrants.

Of course, we have seen those agents detain and even kill American citizens with no due process in the most grotesque violation of our fundamental liberties and rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Congressional Republicans appear okay with this chaos, so today, they plan to give ICE another $70 billion to supercharge these abuses without making any reforms to the agencies that have inflicted them.

Paired with this awful reconciliation bill is a package of so-called anti-fraud bills. For the last 1\1/2\ years, Republicans have lectured the country about waste, fraud, and abuse while doing nothing to address the real fraud that plagues government programs and turning a blind eye to blatant corruption coming from this White House, or whatever is left of it.

Even if we only look at DHS, ICE, and CBP, the scale of fraud and abuse is staggering and should require close examination by Congress before dumping another $70 billion on those agencies. Of the $140 billion given to ICE and CBP last year in the big, ugly bill, over $100 billion remains unspent. We are supposed to believe that it is a good use of taxpayer dollars to give these agencies another $70 billion when they already have more money than most standing armies in other countries and more than they apparently can responsibly use.

At a minimum, Congress needs to look at where that money is going. That is because, as the gentleman from New York suggested, when the government spends that amount of money, the fraudsters take note.

The scale of money involved in this legislation and last summer in the big, ugly bill is staggering. A great deal of it already has and will, inevitably, flow to politically connected contractors and private prison corporations that have spent years cultivating influence within the Republican Party.

Perhaps that is why our Republican colleagues have no interest in oversight of the beneficiaries of their quarter-trillion-dollar spending spree. Companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic, both major donors to Trump's Presidential campaign and congressional Republicans, have received multibillion-dollar no-bid contracts to operate ICE detention facilities, building a massive private prison camp system across our Nation.

GEO alone has reported an 800-percent increase in its profits. Just last week, a watchdog group reported that GEO had made a quarter- million-dollar dark money contribution to a super-PAC aligned with Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, one of the bill's biggest boosters.

In addition, DHS has purchased dozens of warehouses to be used as detention camps, with the government paying grossly inflated prices, in some cases, several times over the assessed market value of the property by hundreds of millions of dollars, and paying this to investors with direct financial ties to the President and his administration.

Furthermore, most of those facilities were not designed to house people, leading to additional taxpayer costs to renovate them and imposing massive burdens on local infrastructure, governments, and services.

Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and her special adviser, Corey Lewandowski, awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to their friends and associates through costly contracts, including a $200 million ad campaign funneled to their friends, tens of thousands of dollars spent on hairstylists and makeup, $20,000 to rent a horse, and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on multiple luxury jets.

While we agree with our Republican colleagues that we should all be concerned about and investigate fraudulent government spending, we wonder whether they will ever acknowledge that fraud and corruption are the defining features of the Trump administration and whether they are going to leave Americans holding the bill.

This administration has increasingly erased the line between public policy and political patronage. Americans see it in the contracting process. They see it in Trump's pardons to donors and allies, including corporate criminals who stole taxpayer dollars and seniors' investment funds. They see it in the President's proposed slush fund to give himself and the election deniers and rioters who attacked this Capitol on January 6 $1.8 billion. He wants to give $1.8 billion to cop-beaters and conspiracists, Proud Boys, pedophiles, insurrectionists, election deniers, and even the MyPillow guy.

Republicans may argue that Trump has backed off this plan, but we know this is a charade. Once this reconciliation bill passes, I guarantee you the President will revive his fund. Just 2 days ago, the President doubled down on his support for his slush fund. You would be naive to think it is dead.

Mr. Speaker, the White House and congressional Republicans are openly using government power to punish and divide people and to enrich themselves and their friends. Republicans have shown no real interest in solving the problems facing Americans at their kitchen tables and in the real world or in combating fraud, waste, and abuse by the most corrupt administration in our Nation's history.

People want affordable housing. They want stable jobs and good wages. They want functioning schools and safe communities. They want competent government and a basic sense that their elected officials are trying to improve their lives, not pad their own pockets.

The scale of spending here can't be ignored. It is nearly a quarter trillion dollars. That amount of money could transform entire sectors of American life if it were directed toward public needs instead of ideological crusades.

Congress could dramatically expand affordable housing. We could stabilize struggling hospitals and community health centers. We could strengthen public schools, modernize infrastructure, reduce child poverty, provide affordable childcare, or lower healthcare costs for millions of Americans. We could even reduce the deficit that our Republican colleagues claim to care so deeply about.

At some point, Americans are entitled to ask a very simple question: When does this administration actually start improving people's lives?

Mr. Speaker, the country deserves better than this. We deserve leadership focused on solving problems instead of manufacturing fear and diverting taxpayer dollars. We deserve a Congress that lowers costs instead of inflaming divisions. We deserve immigration policies rooted in law, accountability, and humanity, not political theater and authoritarian tactics. We deserve fiscal responsibility. This reconciliation bill fails every one of those tests.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this rule, reject this reconciliation bill, and reject this dangerous vision for our country.

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad that my colleague from Arizona brought up the impact of immigration on our Social Security system. The fact that immigrants pay into our Social Security system but are not eligible to take benefits out has actually acted to extend the life of that system and is a very important component of keeping that system working, in addition to all the benefits that immigrants bring to our country.

Simon).

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. SCANLON.

Mr. Speaker, Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Ruben Ray Martinez are all American citizens killed by Federal agents in our names, and our colleagues are unwilling to stand up and do anything to prevent that kind of senseless death in the future.

Instead, they try to get sympathy, which naturally should be provided to anyone who has suffered a family member's loss, but they can't lecture us that this is about human trafficking when DHS and the Department of Justice have pulled the resources from human and drug trafficking prevention and corporate crime prosecution. They have pulled those resources to direct them toward their massive deportation and detention effort. Eighty percent of the people they are detaining have no criminal records. It is all distract and divide.

Mr. Speaker, I am so glad to hear my colleague from Iowa express support for the safety of our law enforcement officers, and I would like to offer him and the whole caucus the opportunity to live up to that sentiment.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to allow the House to take an up-or-down vote on an amendment to S. 2 authored by Ranking Member Raskin, which would prohibit anyone who was convicted of or pleaded guilty to assaulting a law enforcement officer on January 6, 2021, from receiving a settlement payment from the Department of Justice.

This taxpayer-funded slush fund to compensate insurrectionists and Trump allies is a disgrace. Even though the DOJ has paused this effort, the President on Sunday said he loves the idea and doesn't know what is going to happen to it. Since my Republican colleagues seem unwilling to kill this slush fund outright, maybe they will at least accept some restrictions on who can get legal settlement money from the Federal Government and from taxpayers.

This next vote is very simple. Democrats want to vote to enshrine the following language into law: ``The Department of Justice may not use taxpayer funds to make settlement payments to individuals convicted of or who pled guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers at or around the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.''

These individuals beat and injured dozens of law enforcement officers with bats, bike racks, fire extinguishers, and flag poles on January 6. They should not receive taxpayer-funded payouts.

If there are just a few Republicans who agree and are willing to join us in defeating the previous question, we could fix this right now.

Mr. Speaker, underneath all the rhetoric we have heard today, this debate comes down to a very simple question about what kind of country we want to be and what we believe government should do for the people it serves.

As Americans struggle with rising costs, economic uncertainty, and the consequences of this reckless and expensive war in Iran, Republicans have chosen to spend nearly $210 billion in taxpayer dollars on ICE and CBP.

At every turn, this Republican majority says that there is no money for housing, for schools, for healthcare, for SNAP, for WIC, or for food for infants and children. Yet, somehow, there is always enough to fight forever wars, to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and to drive chaos and division into our communities.

The tragedy is that Congress could choose a different path. We could invest in our communities instead of detention camps. We could lower costs for working families instead of enriching lobbyists, consultants, and private prison companies. We could protect constitutional rights and strengthen public trust instead of rewarding agencies that have repeatedly abused both.

We could implement humane and sensible immigration policies that support, rather than suppress, our economy and economic development, and that don't scare away foreign visitors, whether from Niagara Falls in the Buffalo area or from Independence Hall in my district, where we are seeing the direct impact of bad immigration policy on visitors for our 250th anniversary and for the World Cup.

These are the choices before this House. This legislation is not a serious attempt to solve problems. It is an ideological project built around fear, division, and the concentration of executive power.

Think about what this bill will do. Republicans are about to spend exorbitant sums to put more masked agents on our streets, to spy on their political opponents, and to build a sprawling network of detention camps, private corporate detention camps, capable of imprisoning tens of thousands of who? Political enemies? It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this authoritarian project is going.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and demonstrate their support for law enforcement by denying payments from the President's slush fund to the people who attacked law enforcement officers here at the Capitol on January 6, and I urge my colleagues to reject this dangerous waste of taxpayer money.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. SCANLON. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source