Providing for Consideration of H.R. Damon Paul Nelson and Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years and Relating to the Consideration of House Report and An Accompanying Resolution; Relating to the Consideration of Measures Disapproving of Sales, Exports, or Approvals Pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.Res. Condemning President Trump's Racist Comments Directed At Members of Congress

Floor Speech

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his scholarship and his passion, the chairman of the Rules Committee, my good friend from Georgia, and all those who have come to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, let me say that this is a somber moment. It is not a moment that I cherish. My privilege in serving the greatest country in the world has allowed me to serve with three previous Presidents. Not one time from the three previous Presidents have I ever heard the words that were uttered this weekend.

I believe in harmony. I just came out of a Helsinki Commission meeting, an organization that deals with peace around the world. We were talking about how we can impress upon the world to not use religion for hatred. Religion is love.

One of the answers I gave was to show the examples here in the United States, where religions from all different perspectives come together in a time of disaster and need. It is something that touches our heart.

When we vote for a President, we want that President to touch our hearts, to lift us up, and to make us better people.

I cannot argue with the fact that 49 percent of the American people believe that this President is a racist. It hurts my heart because I come in a skin color where I have been at the sad end of racist tactics and words. I am a product of busing. But it does not diminish my love for this Nation.

So it disturbs me for this wonderfully diverse group of new Members who have come to the United States Congress from all over the Nation, including the LGBTQ community, and among the 40 Representatives who came was the Representative from the Seventh Congressional District of Massachusetts, the State's first African American woman; the Representative of the 13th Congressional District of Michigan, the first Palestinian woman; the Representative from the 14th Congressional District of New York, the youngest woman; and the Representative from the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota, the first Somali American elected to Congress.

In the discharge of their duties, they went to the border--their passion, their youth, just as I had done--and saw the appalling conditions that children were held in. They came back and expressed themselves, protected by the First Amendment.

They used no violence. They only wanted to wake up the Congress, as all of us who went and could not accept the pain did. In fact, wherever I go at home, people are asking: What are you doing for the children at the border?

So, they didn't do anything extraordinary, in terms of what Members should do, having the responsibility of oversight.

Then came, in the last 72 hours, these words: ``So interesting to see `progressive' Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt, and inept anywhere in the world, if they even have a functioning government at all, now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth, how our government is to be run.''

Ms. JACKSON LEE. ``Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came?''

I will be introducing a condemnation resolution that recounts the life and legacy of this President while 49 percent of the people believe that he is racist.

I only ask that we come together today to do the right thing, to do what the 16th President said right after the Civil War: ``We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory'' will swell when again touched, ``as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.''

Today, if we condemn this language, it will say to America that we cannot accept this kind of behavior. That is what is bringing the country together, that we accept each other's diversity.

Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the Committees on the Judiciary and Homeland Security, I rise in support of the rule governing debate on H. Res. 489, a resolution condemning President Trump's racist comments directed at Members of Congress.

Mr. Speaker, on November 6, 2018, in an election widely regarded as a referendum on the performance and disapproval of the Administration of President Donald J. Trump, the American people voted to vest control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the Democratic Party to restore the system of checks and balances designed by the Framers in 1787 in Philadelphia.

The Representatives elected to the 116th Congress comprise the most diverse class in American history with respect to its racial, ethnic, and religious composition, and also includes the largest contingent of female Representatives and the most members ever of the LGBTQ community.

Among the cohort of the 40 Representatives first elected to the Congress in the November 2018 election are several whose membership is historic, including the Representative for the Seventh District of Massachusetts, the first African American woman elected from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; the Representative from the Thirteenth District of Michigan, the first Palestinian-American woman elected to Congress; the Representative from the Fourteenth District of New York, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress; and the Representative from the Fifth District of Minnesota, the first Somali-American elected to Congress.

In the discharge of their official duties as Members of Congress, these talented and dedicated Members of Congress traveled to the southern border of the United States to observe the living conditions and treatment received by migrants and refugees seeking asylum in the United States who are currently being held in detention facilities operated under control or supervision of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), some consisting of nothing more than tent villages cordoned off under highways.

Upon their return to the Capitol, these Members of Congress reported their shock and horror regarding the appalling and inhumane conditions to which detainees were being subjected by CPB at a public hearing of a House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

On July 14, 2019, the President of the United States reacted to the criticism of his Administration's treatment of detainees by these Members of Congress in a series of unhinged tweets that questioned their loyalty to the United States and implied that due to the circumstances of their birth they had no right to exercise the responsibilities and privileges of duly elected Members of Congress.

Specifically, the President tweeted that it was:

So interesting to see ``Progressive'' Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly . . . and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.

The President's statements are false in that three of Members of Congress he impugned are in fact natural born citizens and the fourth is a naturalized citizen.

Although the recent statements of the President are inaccurate and offensive, they are consistent with prior statements he has made to stoke to division, discord, and disharmony among the American people.

Let us not forget that the current President of the United States burnished his political reputation by claiming falsely for more than 5 years that his predecessor was born in Kenya and not in the United States and thus was an illegitimate President.

The current President of the United States launched his 2016 campaign for the Presidency by saying of persons from Mexico seeking to immigrate to the United States: ``They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists.''

The current President of the United States claimed that a Hispanic federal jurist could not preside over a court proceeding to which then presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization were defendants accused of civil fraud because ``He's a Mexican!''

In January 2018 the current President of the United States is reported to have inquired of his advisors: ``Why are we having all these people from (expletive deleted) countries come here?'', referring to persons from countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

And most contemptible of all, on August 15, 2017 the current President of the United States said he regarded as some ``very fine people,'' the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Ku Klux Klansmen who descended on the peaceful community of Charlottesville, Virginia to advocate racism and who were met by peaceful counterprotestors in a clash that the white supremacists turned violent and resulted in the death of Heather Heyer and left injured many other innocent persons who were gathered to affirm the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and to honor the sacrifice of unsung American heroes who devoted their lives to the ongoing quest to continue perfecting our union.

Mr. Speaker, the recent and past statements and actions of the current President of the United States demean the office he holds and falls short of the standard set by the 16th President, whose administration was devoted to unity, healing, and ending racial division.

In his famous March 4, 1861, Inaugural Address, President Abraham Lincoln foretold the reasons why the efforts of the current President of the United States to rend our union are destined to fail:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Before closing, Mr. Speaker, I think it appropriate to share my perspective on immigration and significant and positive impact it has in the development of this, the greatest nation in human history.

Like the Framers did in the summer of 1776, it is fitting that we gather in the nation's capital on a sweltering July day to reflect upon America's long and continuing struggle for justice, equality, and opportunity.

After all, all that any of us wants is an honored place in the American family.

I am often reminded that as I speak there is a family somewhere about to begin a dangerous but hopeful quest.

Somewhere south of the border, maybe across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Laredo, Corpus Christi, or Brownsville or maybe just south of Tucson or San Diego or Douglass, Arizona.

Somewhere there is a family in the Old Country anxiously about to embark on their own journey to the New World of America.

They come for the same reason so many millions came before them, in this century and last, from this continent and from every other.

They come for the same reason families have always come to America: to be free of fear and hunger, to better their condition, to begin their world anew, to give their children a chance for a better life.

Like previous waves of immigrants, they too will wage all and risk all to reach the sidewalks of Houston or Los Angeles or Phoenix or Chicago or Atlanta or Denver or Detroit.

They will risk death in the desert; they will brave the elements, they will risk capture and crime, they will endure separation from loved ones.

And if they make it to the Promised Land of America, no job will be beneath them.

They will cook our food, clean our houses, cut our grass, and care for our kids.

They will be cheated by some and exploited by others.

They work in sunlight but live in twilight, between the shadows; not fully welcome as new Americans but wanted as low-wage workers.

Somewhere near the borders tonight, a family will cross over into the New World, willed by the enduring power of the American Dream.

I urge all Members to join me in supporting H. Res. 489.

All American should take pride in and celebrate the ethnic, racial, and religious diversity that has made the United States the leader of the community of nations and the beacon of hope and inspiration to oppressed persons everywhere.

And in addition to the love and pride Americans justifiably have for their country, all persons in the United States should cherish and exercise the rights, privileges, and responsibilities guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.

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