Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment that I believe should enjoy bipartisan support on all sides. America being the land of the free, home of the brave, where liberty and justice for all is how we live. We recite those words every day when we come to the floor to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

This is simply an amendment which says in America, law enforcement will respect the individual dignity of each person and operate on the basis of what would indicate criminal behavior, not race, not national origin, not religion.

The leaders of four separate important caucuses in this Congress have come together and are in support. That includes the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, which have all come together to say this is an important thing for all of us to support.

Everyone here in this body appreciates the hard work of DHS employees and what they do on a daily basis to keep our country safe. We thank them and value the work that they do. And we appreciate all law enforcement, especially when they put their lives at risk for our safety. No one questions law enforcement in general. But you should know, and there is no doubt and there is ample evidence to demonstrate, that there have been occasions in which individual Americans have been singled out, and this is not what our Nation is about. It's not the policy that we should support; and, therefore, we should support an amendment which says that discrimination has no place in the administration of the law.

Occasionally, reports of racial, ethnic, and religious profiling do surface. We see them in the media and reports in the civil liberty unions. In fact, I have reports in my hand, Mr. Chairman, ``Immigration Enforcement: Minor Offenses With Major Consequences by the ACLU,'' and ``The Growing Human Rights Crisis,'' which details how people have been singled out based on impermissible criteria. And so it is important for us to affirm in America, after all we have gone through to create liberty and justice for all, that we've got to affirm this principle here today.

Too many Americans who were simply going about their business have been discriminated against based solely on race, ethnicity, and religion. It's wrong when it happens, all of us can agree. And it's not what our country is all about. This amendment I'm offering today simply says it's contrary to our values. Our amendment is straightforward. It simply cites the Constitution and existing anti-discrimination laws to affirm that no funds made available by this bill can be used to engage in racial, ethnic, or religious profiling.

This is not a controversial amendment. It affirms core American values hard fought for not only in the civil rights movement, but many others, even including the Civil War. Nor it is partisan. In fact, it was a former Bush administration official who said, ``Religious or ethnic or racial stereotyping is simply not good policing.'' So that's not coming from me. That's an official from the Bush administration, and I quite agree with what he said.

So I urge all my colleagues to stand with me and vote in favor of this important amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source