Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendment to H.R. Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security At the Southern Border Act, 2019

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MITCHELL. 3401, with the Senate amendment thereto, and concur in the Senate amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MITCHELL. Madam Speaker, it is nice to know that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle now recognize it as a crisis.

The President asked 58 days ago for a supplemental appropriation to deal with this issue. It was ignored. We have tried 18 times to bring up a bill on the floor to deal with supplemental appropriations for humanitarian aid at the border, and it was ignored.

My friends on the other side of the aisle said they want to improve the bill. They want to ignore the fact that the Senate took up the House bill and overwhelmingly rejected it on a bipartisan basis.

Then they passed a bipartisan bill 84-8, which doesn't happen over there very often. We have gone through a list of those who voted in favor, including Senator Schumer and Senator Durbin, yet somehow the House wants to ignore it. At least the majority in the House want to ignore it.

How they want to improve the bill, you may ask? Well, let's start by simply reducing or eliminating border security, that appears to be optional to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They want to take a hatchet to ICE. These are law enforcement personnel.

My son is a police officer. He puts on a vest every day. If you told me we were going to withhold payroll or overtime when they are doing the job, I would be offended, I would be disgusted, and I am, at this moment in time.

Let me ask how many over there would put on a vest, go out and do the job, and then hear, we may or may not pay you? Do I see any hands raised? I doubt it.

Law enforcement is struggling to do a job, an extraordinarily tough job, and we want to make it harder. So let me suggest, as the UC request was made, that we take up the bill that was passed by the Senate and we pass it.

And I ask for your attention over there, sir, unless, of course, you decided that policy is being made by a fragment of your conference, unless you decided that you are going to turn over the gavel to a fragment of your conference to make decisions for you, which may well appear to be the case. But let's be honest to the American people and tell them that a fragment, a small portion, of your conference is now functioning as a Speaker of the House.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source