Deadly Immigration Policies

Floor Speech

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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I stand before the people's House today to bear witness to the dehumanizing, destabilizing, and deadly immigration policies of the Trump administration.

Pierre Damas Bel should be alive today. Instead, his family, friends, and community are mourning the tragic death of a young man who had his whole life ahead of him.

Pierre was an honor student, captain of his high school soccer team, and a lieutenant in the ROTC program. He wanted to serve the United States, but after losing his temporary protected status and being held in an ICE ankle monitor, his family says he experienced deep humiliation, fear, and despair. Children started picking on him at school for wearing an ICE monitor because they had lost their temporary protected status.

Pierre's death did not begin with that monitor. It began with a campaign to demonize Haitians, from the racist lies that our neighbors were eating people's pets in Ohio to unjustly--and against the congressional intent of TPS--ending protection for roughly 350,000 Haitians who have lived and worked lawfully in this country.

I have opposed these policies, Mr. Speaker, from the start because this is not an immigration that puts America first. It is cruelty. Mr. Speaker, we mourn the loss of young Pierre.

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