OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Termination of National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019

Floor Speech

Date: Sept. 27, 2019
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Defense Immigration

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Mr. ROGERS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In the last year, nearly 1 million illegal immigrants attempted to cross our southwest border. Let me put that into perspective for you.

One million is more than the population of Delaware, or South Dakota or North Dakota or Alaska or Vermont or Wyoming. One million is approximately the population of Austin, Texas; San Jose, California; or Jacksonville, Florida.

For months, migrant families and children arrived at the border in droves thanks to sophisticated smuggling operations. Coyotes told vulnerable populations that a child was their ticket into the United States--whether or not it was their child. The massive groups of migrants overwhelmed our border patrol facilities, leading to overcrowding and unacceptable conditions for migrants and law enforcement alike.

At the high-water mark of this crisis, more than 50 percent of the border patrol agents were pulled off the front lines to process, transport, and care for the record numbers of migrant children and families. The men and women of CBP have worked hard to manage this crisis while Democrats in this House were busy talking about a fake emergency at our border.

The administration has taken extraordinary steps like the migrant protection protocols, DNA testing to catch child smugglers, and interpreted new rules to reduce abuse of our asylum laws.

While the President is doing everything in his power to manage the crisis, House Democrats have done nothing. They steadfastly refuse to do anything to fix our broken immigration system, to protect vulnerable families and children from human smugglers, to reduce the asylum backlog, or expand migrant processing and long-term housing. Now they want to take away the President's authority to respond to this crisis and prevent another one from happening. It is disgraceful.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this resolution.

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