Providing for Consideration of HR 5230, Secure the Southwest Border Act of 2014; Providing for Consideration of HR 5272, Prohibitions Relating to Deferred Action for Aliens; and Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendment to HR 5021, Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2014; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H. Res. 696. This rule would provide for consideration of a supplemental appropriations bill that clearly demonstrates its Republican authors either have no idea what is needed to address the current situation at the border, or they are more concerned with scoring political points than making public policy.

The resources provided under the bill are both inadequate to provide the necessary humanitarian relief and misdirected toward so-called border security efforts that are unlikely to have any real effect on the number of unlawful border crossings.

For example, deploying the National Guard to the border when children and families are already running to the Border Patrol agents is a waste of taxpayer money; instead, we should be providing the Border Patrol with the funding necessary to move additional experienced agents to the Rio Grande Valley, which is what their leadership has indicated they need.

This misguided bill has also included provisions to undermine due process for unaccompanied children, many of whom are refugees fleeing terrible violence in their home countries.

Mr. Speaker, we are better than this as a Congress and as a Nation. I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and the underlying supplemental.

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