Waiving Requirement of Clause 6(a) of Rule XIII With Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions Reported From the Committee on Rules, and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules
Floor Speech
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Rules Committee met to report a rule that would provide for same-day authority for any resolution reported from the Committee on Rules related to the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the southern border, border security, and related immigration law through September 5, 2014. Additionally, the rule provides suspension authority through September 5, 2014, on the same topics.
Mr. Speaker, this rule is very straightforward. It allows the House the maximum flexibility to deal with the crisis on the southern border during the district work period by providing both same-day and suspension authority through September 5.
Any legislation considered during this time period would still need to go through the regular process, by either a rule for consideration by the Rules Committee or under the standard suspension process. This resolution just allows for expedited consideration of those matters while preserving as much of the district work period as possible.
Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, obviously, my friend and I are going to have a disagreement about the nature of the bill that I think will, in rather short order, be before us. Let's go back and look at a little bit of history here.
The administration was warned in 2012 and 2013 that we were going to have a crisis on our hands if we didn't do something, that we were going to get a flow of unaccompanied minors. They did absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, the President of the United States submitted a budget to us which cut money for enforcement and detention at the border, which cut money for support of people that were here while they were being processed, and that cut money for aid to the countries where most of these folks are coming from. That is real foresight.
So we have been confronted with a crisis, and a crisis that, in our view, the President contributed to by unilaterally changing whole sections of the immigration law and leaving the impression, probably unwittingly, I would say, but leaving the impression to many people that, if we get to the United States, we are going to be able to stay.
There is no question criminal elements have picked that impression up, broadcast it. Thousands of people have sent them tens of thousands--millions, really--of dollars and put children on a perilous journey of over 1,000 miles to this country.
Now we are trying to act on that, and we think, number one, if we don't do that, the societies from which they are coming are going to be disrupted. And we have been told very clearly by the leaders of those countries: We would like our children back.
Number two, if we don't stop this process, we are going to continue to enrich cartels to an extraordinary degree. Frankly, as one border agent told me, he said, from a cartel standpoint, this is actually easier than drugs, because with drugs we try to interdict you every step along the way, and if you get to the border to cross, we continue to try and interdict you. In this case, we actually, once they bring an illegal unaccompanied minor here, complete the transaction. So it is encouraging the flow, and that is dangerous for the young people involved.
We all know that in the course of that journey there is a risk that sex trafficking will take place. There is a risk that people will be lured or forced into drug dealing. There is a terrific physical risk. We know a lot of those folks are abused in the course of this process or sexually assaulted, so we need to stop this flow. We need to do it in a humane and appropriate way.
The President, by the way, has suggested that this is due to the 2008 law which we all passed, in good faith, to deal with sex trafficking. I personally don't think that is the case, but if that is true, then we ought to make some tweak to that law. We don't need to repeal it, but we need to make sure that we do something so that we don't have an enormous backlog here and we can actually handle the flow appropriately.
We have waited in vain for the President to tell us what that tweak is. I mean, it was his Secretary of Homeland Security that actually raised this issue and said we need to be able--he said this in testimony in front of the United States Senate--we need to be able to treat people coming from the three Central American countries essentially the same way we treat Canadian and Mexican minors that arrive at our border. That was the position, but we have not seen any more requests.
So if you look at our bill, frankly, number one, it is going to take care of that problem with a tweak. Number 2, we are going to provide additional moneys to handle this process through the end of the fiscal year and the end of the calendar year. Number 3, then we can work, because there will probably be additional resources needed next year, under the caps in the Ryan-Murray budget agreement and redirect that flow of money from less urgent to more urgent problems.
So we think it is a responsible way to proceed. I think, essentially, that is
what we are going to try and put before the House. Regardless, once we pass something, then the Senate can pass something.
I am sad to say, Mr. Speaker, that the other body was unable to do anything yesterday and it has adjourned and gone home. Frankly, we were unable to get things done yesterday in a way that I think I certainly would have liked, but we stayed here, and we are going to continue to work through the problem, present a product. Hopefully, the Senate will come back and do the same, and then we can proceed legislatively and provide the resources and legislative corrections that are needed to deal with the situation.
I am pleased that we are in session. I am pleased that we are working toward a solution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to disagree with my good friend, the minority whip, on a point.
I don't think the Senate left yesterday because of anything the House did. It failed to act, and it left. It went home because it couldn't pass a bill. That is something we are not going to allow to happen here. We are going to pass legislation. We are going to get our part of the job done.
The Senate, then, will be free to come back and pass something, and we can go into a conference and do exactly what my friend suggests, work out a compromise. So hopefully that is where we will end up in this process.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The gentleman may be surprised to find that, actually, we are not too far apart on the issue.
Now, currently, we have over $700 million still on hand to deal with wildfires. The gentleman and I actually cosponsored legislation that our friend from Idaho (Mr. Simpson) has offered so that we can actually deal with this and change the structure of how we fund wildfire fighting. I suspect that issue will come back again. As a matter of fact, I was willing to work during the budget process with some of my friends on the other side of the Rules Committee to actually write the change into the budget. We had the votes on our side, working with our friends, to do that. For some reason, the Democratic amendment was withdrawn. I don't know why, and I cast no aspersions. But that is an area where we would like to work with you. I don't think it is particularly appropriate to be done in this bill.
This bill is about dealing with the crisis on the southern border. It shouldn't be a Christmas tree or a grab bag. If we need additional resources, we should come back to do that. Again, we have sufficient resources on hand. Congress will be back in session in September, back in session after the elections. So I think we are going to have multiple opportunities to deal with this.
I look forward to working with my friends on this particular issue when those opportunities occur.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to disagree with my friend on the root of this issue. I don't think whether or not we passed immigration reform has anything to do with the border crisis. I really don't. Frankly, what is occurring there would be illegal had we passed what the Senate passed. So it just simply doesn't address the problem.
What the problem here is, by our own actions in this country, we have sent a message that if you get here, you can stay, whether you are legally entitled to or not. And it is going to take so long to process you, you will essentially never be sent back.
And we have allowed criminal cartels to distort our position and to make tens of millions of dollars off of this. That needs to be stopped. That needs to be reversed. It is not helpful to anybody.
Now, again, we may differ on the ideas. Although, I would point out for the record once more, the administration did ask: Please do something about the 2008 law. They asked that a month ago. And then they have sort of gotten quiet since then. We don't hear anything else about that.
They have asked for resources. We have looked at what they need. We said we will be willing to do that. We are going to take them from existing moneys. We are not going to spend new money. This is an urgent priority. We think you are right. We are going to redirect that. And by the way, if you are going to need additional resources next year, we will work with you again there. We are going to do it under the Ryan-Murray budget cap. We are not going to go outside the process. And we are using that.
I think my friend from Maryland, the minority whip, is correct. We are using exceptional procedures--but they are procedures within the traditions of this House--to react to a crisis situation, and we are trying to stay here to get our work done and hopefully challenge the Senate to come back and do the same thing. So we are working the process and the crisis as best we can. With that, we will continue to work.
And I will reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. I yield myself such time as I may consume, Mr. Speaker.
I think we need to step back from the emotion a moment and look at the realities of the situation. Number one, anybody that seeks refugee status in the United States can go to any of the embassies in the country and request it. You don't have to travel 1,000 miles. You can go request it, and we will look to see whether or not you qualify.
Number two, the President of the United States has said that the vast majority of these children will be returned. That is not us. That is the President. He has said that. We are trying to do it and work with him in an expeditious way because we think sooner is better.
Number three, we are not returning them to criminals. We are returning them to the custody of their governments, their own officials, who are probably better situated to make these decisions than we are 1,000-plus miles away.
So let's be real. Nobody is stripping any rights away from anyone. We actually have a situation--a 2008 law--where a loophole has been exploited by criminals. That is what is happening. And we are trying to stop the loophole and keep people from embarking on a dangerous journey and discourage people from giving thousands of dollars of their hard-earned money to criminal cartels to participate in that. That is the effort that is underway here.
Nobody would have fewer rights than the people that are currently here from Mexico or Canada. We would still have the ability to adjudicate issues. The process would be a lot faster and, we think in that sense, more humane and more efficient and more expeditious.
And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, again, I just want to make the point to my friend. Nobody is trying to strip away the rights from anyone. The 2008 law has been abused. Those people have found a loophole in it, and they have clogged the legal system. We have offered not a repeal, but a relatively minor fix.
The President of the United States and his administration have also said this law is at fault. As a matter of fact, they are actually the ones who put that suggestion out there. The President of the United States is the person who said the vast majority of these people need to go home and will eventually go home. So if he has a better way to do this, we would love to see the proposal.
What he sent us was a funding proposal with no fix at all. It is a proposal aimed at better managing the flow of people, but not reversing that. It is a proposal, frankly, that goes well beyond this fiscal year, well beyond this calendar year, and allows him basically to operate outside the budget agreement limits--the caps--that we have all agreed to. We don't think that is appropriate. We think you reprioritize money toward the more urgent issue.
We agree with the President. This is an urgent issue. We are willing to find the savings in other parts of the budget. We are not willing to break the budget, and we are not willing to break the budget caps that both sides agreed to. That is really, I think, the essence of the difference. We are trying to offer a solution. It may not be the final solution.
I hope the Senate will offer their solution. We can go to conference, and we can work with the President, but so far, the only ideas that have been put forward to actually fix the problem, I think, have largely come from our side of the aisle.
I am sure that won't last indefinitely. I think my friends will do the same thing, but certainly, they dominate the Senate. The Senate can do the same thing. Sooner or later, they will get it done.
We will continue to work on this, but for right now, again, nobody's aim is to strip anybody's rights away, but we are going to try to confront an urgent crisis, and we are going to try and do it in an expeditious way, in a responsible way, and in a limited way.
We can come back here and look at the larger issues in September and after the election. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I couldn't disagree with my good friend from Texas more. I think everybody on both sides of the aisle cares about these children. Now, we care about them enough to restore the cuts that the President made in the aids to the country of origin.
We care about them enough to restore the cuts that he made in his budget to our own border security. Yes, our border security does need to be armed, not to deal with children, but to deal with the criminals that brought them here and abused them in the process. That is what we are talking about here.
Now, there is nothing to be gained by continuing this flow. Even if some of you would like every particular person that got here to stay--and, again, I quote the President, the ``vast majority'' will not be allowed to, will be sent back--stopping the flow is what we ought to be focusing on and stopping people from giving thousands of dollars to criminal cartels to bring these children to the borders and abuse them in the process. The quicker that stops, the better off we are.
We are willing to work with the countries of origin, I think, on both sides of the aisle. We had the President up here saying, pretty emphatically, that they needed some assistance in dealing with that. We think that is appropriate. We try to do that in legislation, and frankly, we have done it in the foreign operations bill, where we are more generous to the countries of origin than the administration has suggested we should be in its own budget.
Mr. Speaker, we are interested in dealing with the problem, but we are also interested in helping countries keep their children in their country, which they tell us they want to do.
We are also interested in making sure those children are never subjected to this journey, which I think all would agree is difficult and dangerous, and we are also extraordinarily interested in making sure that the criminal cartels who are making profit off this are discouraged from doing this, that they can't go and tell their potential customers: Give us the money and put your kid at risk, but if we actually get them there, there is a good chance they will stay.
That false promise, that dangerous promise offered by criminals victimizing innocent people is frankly what we ought to be focused on and what we are trying to focus on.
Again, we will continue to work toward that end. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that we have a good product. I think that we will. The House will consider it, and then we hope the Senate actually comes back from its district work period and deals with it as well, and we will go from there.
That is the reason for the rule. That is the reason, so we can act during this multiweek district work period, should the opportunity actually occur to do that.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
We have had a very passionate and--in many cases, compassionate--debate. I want to recognize that quality in many of the speakers, my friends on the other side. I have no doubt about their passion. Frankly, I have no doubt about their compassion. I know they want to do the right thing.
I also want to point out, Mr. Speaker, that this bill actually is, as my friend from Massachusetts suggested, a mechanism to keep us in session and working on the problem, so that we have the ability between now and September 5 to actually act and act quickly. I think that is a very important thing.
It is important, too, to think back about the nature of the problem that we are dealing with. In the last 3 years, the number of unaccompanied juveniles arriving at our borders has gone from about 6,000 to--the estimates I hear this year will be somewhere like 90,000 and may well reach 150,000 within the next year or two.
The administration, according to news reports and testimony, was actually warned about this in 2012 and 2013. Frankly, they didn't prepare for it. I am quite certain they didn't anticipate it.
They actually submitted a budget this year that called for cuts in many of the areas that we are clearly going to need to deal with this huge--and unanticipated, I guess, on their part--influx of unaccompanied juveniles.
Worth noting for the record, we actually restored a lot of those cuts in the foreign operations bill that has now cleared the full Appropriations Committee. I am glad we did.
The administration then, when confronted with this crisis which it did not anticipate, told us this was due to the 2008 sex trafficking law. Frankly, I am somewhat skeptical about that because this influx didn't happen in 2009, 2010, or 2011. It only begun to be remotely visible in 2012. That coincides, by the way, with some of the President's unilateral abrogation of immigration law.
I think that is probably more likely to be the cause, but regardless, the administration has pointed to the 2008 law. The President has done that. The Secretary of Homeland Security has done that.
So far, they have offered no formal solution, although in testimony before the Senate, the Secretary of Homeland Security said he would like the law changed, so that people arriving at our borders are treated the same way as Canadian and Mexican juveniles. That was his request, not a repeal of the law, but that was--at least in testimony--his suggestion.
The President has said that, regardless, the great majority of these children will eventually be returned home. He sent us a request recently to deal with the crisis in terms of the financial resources that he needs.
He did not send us a fix, he did not send us a proffered legislative solution, just simply a mechanism for money that would go around or go outside of the Ryan-Murray budget agreement that we had agreed upon.
What has been our response? I would be the first to acknowledge this is a difficult problem to deal with. That is why the administration, I presume, has not offered us a solution.
That is why the Senate, which tried to pass one yesterday, gave up and went home. It is not an easy problem. Indeed, yesterday, we weren't able to bring legislation to the floor that would actually address the problem.
The difference between this body and the other body is this body decided to stay here and continue to work on it and try to come up with a legislative response. That response, undoubtedly, will include a fix, a tweak, an amendment to the 2008 law.
If my friends have a better solution, then I would hope the administration or the Senate or somebody offers that. So far, it has been as if we blame the problem on the 2008 law, but we are told you can't change the 2008 law.
That position is both intellectually and politically, I think, indefensible. If this is the problem, tell us how to fix the problem. If you won't tell us, we will suggest one, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
We have also decided to look at the financial issue, and there is no question additional resources are needed to handle this influx, secure the border, add additional judges, and add additional courtroom facilities to handle an enormous backlog.
So we say, well, we are not going to give you a 13-month blank check, but we will redirect resources from within the existing budget toward what we agree is a more urgent problem, and we will help you get through this fiscal year and this calendar year, and then let's sit down and talk about what is necessary for fiscal year 2015 and try to do that within the Ryan-Murray budget agreement. I think that is what we are going to do.
So we are willing to work with the administration in these areas.
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