Denouncing the Biden Administration's Open-Borders Policies, Condemning the National Security and Public Safety Crisis Along the Southwest Border, and Urging President Biden to End His Administration's Open- Borders Policies

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H. Res. 957.

Today, the Republican majority has brought up a pointless resolution that does nothing to address the situation at the border and repeats the same tired and untrue talking points about the border.

I, too, want to be clear: The border is not open. No matter how many times the Republicans repeat it, it doesn't make it true. Every time Republicans go on television with these false claims, the only people that are being empowered by those false claims are the cartels who use those false claims to then entice families to come to the border believing that it is open.

The fact is that Republicans have not had any interest in doing anything to fix the border because they want to keep chaos at the border until the election. They want to use immigrants as a political tool to ramp up fear and xenophobia in the run-up to the election.

Don't just take it from me, Mr. Speaker. Take it from my Republican colleagues themselves. On the issue of immigration, Representative Nehls said: ``I'm not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden's approval rating.''

On the issue of holding Ukraine aid hostage for unworkable border policies, Representative Crenshaw said: ``Some might even be afraid of giving up the border as a campaign issue. They don't want a solution.'' That is from Republicans, not from Democrats.

That is the truth. There are real changes that are needed to immigration policies that haven't been updated in 30 years. Some even have bipartisan support, but none of them have moved because Republicans don't really want a solution to this. That is why time and time again when Republicans had a chance to support more resources and personnel for the border, they voted ``no.''

In 2021 and 2023, nearly every current House Republican voted against providing additional funding to increase staffing and resources at ports of entry to combat smuggling of people and drugs.

When my colleague from Arizona says that everyone is coming to the border, he is not wrong in that we have taken away all of the legal pathways for people to actually be able to come here and the only one that seems to be remaining open is now the border.

When he says that agents aren't out there, it is because they are processing; then you should want to fund agents to be able to process so that we can have border agents that are out in the field doing the work that they need.

The President's supplemental funding request for the border actually does include more money for immigration judges and asylum officers that would help process people in a legal and orderly fashion. It has money for cities to be able to help people work and support themselves as they wait for their immigration papers to be processed.

Furthermore, we could pass the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Worker Modernization Act, which are both bipartisan, to help bring real solutions to a broken immigration system.

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Ms. JAYAPAL. However, Republicans won't agree to that. Why? Because it would help make the situation at the border better, and they don't want that under any circumstance.

They would rather continue the cruelty:

The cruelty of seeing migrants fleeing horrific circumstances thanks to Republican Governors who use their own military to block Border Patrol agents from doing their jobs and saving lives;

The cruelty of blaming immigrants for everything just to try and win elections;

The cruelty of separating mothers from their babies.

That is the extreme Republican playbook.

Let's stop wasting everyone's time with this empty rhetoric and work on some real solutions. Vote ``no'' on this fact-free resolution.

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