Fostering Undergraduate Talent By Unlocking Resources for Education Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOODEN. Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Biggs for yielding.

I rise today in opposition to the NO BAN Act, which would tie the hands of our executive branch, restricting our ability to act quickly and decisively to defend America from her enemies.

The President must have authority to act when our national security is at risk. When a situation demands we halt travel into our country, whether that be to protect us from a pandemic or other national security issue, the President must have the power to do so.

Democrats, on March 11 of this year, debated this very measure in the form of a bill, ironically, the same day that President Trump instituted his ban on European travel. Because they knew the optics would look bad, they pulled the bill down. If it was a bad bill then, it is a bad bill today.

Congress gave the President the authority we are discussing today when we passed, many decades ago, the Immigration and Nationality Act. In the years since, our courts have affirmed that authority on numerous occasions.

So why, then, do my Democratic colleagues want to take this critical authority away?

I would like to read an excerpt from a 1986 decision out of the D.C. Circuit, in which the court stated that the very authority we are debating today ensures that ``the Executive would not be helpless in the face of such a threat'' of an alien who posed a danger to the United States.

Furthermore, the court stated that ``the President's sweeping proclamation power thus provides a safeguard against the danger posed'' to our national security.

What far right extremist, ultraconservative judge wrote those words? No other than Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

The safety and security of the American people should not be a partisan issue. It ought to be everyone's highest priority. We should not jeopardize the well-being of our citizens for the sake of political victories. If enacted, the NO BAN Act would put American lives and our country's national security at risk.

Madam Speaker, I will be opposing this dangerous policy, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it is as well.

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