Secure the Southwest Border Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill and also to the bill that will follow. We have a humanitarian crisis on our border in this country, and neither this bill and certainly not the next bill on DACA does anything to address it.

These children are fleeing unimaginable violence and fleeing a life that they simply can no longer bear. It is not a problem of border security. These children are turning themselves in. They are simply fleeing the violence in their home countries, and they are not just coming to the United States. Belize, Costa Rica, and other countries have seen an uptick from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras because of the unimaginable violence there.

Instead of dealing with this, we have a bill that is hopelessly inadequate in terms of funding. We will not provide enough judges and enough people to give these children the due process they deserve, and even worse than that, we are stripping them of any rights and any protections by sending them back as quickly as possible without the due process that this House voted for in 2008, was signed by President Bush, that gave these

children the due process they deserve.

Then we are going one step further to undermine the ability of children who were brought into this country through no fault of their own, the DREAMers that we have long supported, and we are telling them that now they will not be allowed to stay in this country. This is a humanitarian crisis, not a border security issue.

I urge us to vote down both of these pieces of legislation.

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