Providing for Consideration of H.R. 37, Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 185, Rgulatory Accountability Act of 2015; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 240, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this rule.

Let us be perfectly clear about what is happening here today. House Republicans are holding our national security hostage to the extreme policies of their most radical Members. I speak from experience, having been

one of the three or four that started this committee back after 9/11. You know that.

A vote for this rule and the poison pill amendments that will follow is a vote to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, plain and simple. It is a vote against the brave men and women in our Border Patrol, Secret Service, Coast Guard, and local public safety departments who put their lives on the line every day.

As the cochair of the Congressional Fire Caucus and the Public Safety Caucus, I am outraged that this stunt will jeopardize important funding under the Fire and SAFER grants programs. It provides community firefighters with the equipment they need and the ability to hire additional firefighters to help keep the risk of loss of life and property damage at a minimum.

I welcome a debate about immigration, but this is another ruse. This is an exact ruse. Whether you are talking about border security or whether you are talking about ``amnesty,'' it is a ruse. It doesn't matter whether it is this or something else to stop immigration, House Republicans have done nothing but run from that conversation.

Speaker Boehner has been sitting on a bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill since June of 2013. He has done nothing to move the bill through the House. He hasn't proposed an alternative. And if you don't like the President's executive actions to help address our broken immigration system, why haven't you put your own on the table?

Policies like the President's executive order provide responsible solutions to prevent families from being torn apart. Don't we want family unification? Don't we support that? In the bowel of our values, don't we support that more than anything else: keeping families together?

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Mr. PASCRELL. Republicans have no solutions for these families--and they are out there. They are all over. It is quite simply unbelievable that they are willing to put politics before national security and shut down the Department of Homeland Security to block the President from implementing his solutions.

Let's end this charade now. You want to have a debate about immigration? Great. We welcome it. But we will not play along with this dangerous plan to jeopardize the safety and security of the American people. I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule.

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