Access to Counsel Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Madam Speaker, I am the daughter of immigrants. My mother came to this country as a refugee, and we are speaking about those who are seeking refuge in our country.

When my mother came to this country, there was a process. There was order. I visited the border a couple of weeks ago, and there was just absolute disorder and chaos.

It is shocking that this body refuses to take any action, that the Vice President, after 28 days of being appointed to oversee this issue, refuses to go to the border and see what I saw, hear what I heard.

You need to have a discussion with Customs and Border Protection before taking any action on legislation. They will tell you that they are being overrun by the cartels and the smugglers, who are taking over the border and making half a billion dollars a month doing it.

The action we are taking here today will do nothing to help the 9- year-old girl that we saw in this facility who was gang raped on her journey here. How come nobody cares or has the compassion to do anything about those individuals who are being exploited by the smugglers and cartels? That is what we should be discussing here today.

To go into one of these facilities and see these children, sleeping on top of each other--capacity of 250, and they have 4,000 people jammed in there. No COVID testing. Nobody cares about the public health crisis that is creating.

So you have a humanitarian crisis, a public health crisis, and on top of it a national security crisis. Thousands of criminals being caught at the border and nobody is doing a damn thing about it.

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