Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a bad idea. It tramples on the rights of Americans in order to protect a foreign government from the consequences of its own actions.

Let me give you some context. The West Bank is currently experiencing the worst year of settler violence ever recorded. Israeli settlers have committed violence, terrorism, and many other things against Palestinians, with the goal of driving them out of the lands they have lived in for generations. It is an ethnic cleansing. They have assaulted and killed Palestinian Americans and laid siege to their homes.

The Israeli Government has turned a blind eye to this violence and, in many cases, has actively supported it, protecting the criminals and not the victims.

The same government has orchestrated a record expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, a violation of international law and a crime against the Palestinians who live there.

Americans see this. The world sees this. Yet, what is the priority of our House of Representatives right now? It is not to stop the violence, not to stop the displacement, and not to protect the children. The priority of this House today is a bill that threatens to take Federal student aid away from American citizens and to protect this activity in these settlements.

Don't let anyone convince you that this bill is about anti-Semitism or even just about Israel. The bill's language is written to include Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. It is in defense of an illegal act by a foreign government, and the victims will be American students.

If this House should be debating anything on this issue, it should be sanctions on these settlements and not a bill that protects them.

Let me lay out a scenario so that we understand exactly how this piece of legislation would work.

If a university in Texas decided tomorrow to stop doing business with a company in South Carolina, California, or Idaho, it would face no consequences under American law. Make the same decision about Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and this bill strips American students of their Pell grants and American veterans of their hard- earned benefits. This bill holds American students' education hostage to protect a foreign government.

We would be doing this in flagrant violation of the United States Constitution. In the landmark decision NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the Supreme Court held that a politically motivated boycott is protected expression under the First Amendment. This isn't an obscure case. It is the reason the sponsors of the bill wrote the word ``nonexpressive'' into the text.

Yet, every example that the sponsors point to is plainly political. A boycott is a political act. It is protected under the First Amendment, and you don't have to even agree with the boycott to support an American's right to engage in it.

Every Member of this body raised their hand and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and I urge every Member of this body today to take that oath seriously and vote against this bill.

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