Bipartisan Immigration Reform
Floor Speech
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Ms. SLOTKIN. Mr. Speaker, I came out today to address the issue that is top of mind for so many Americans: Immigration.
We find ourselves at this existential moment on the issue. As a Nation of immigrants, where nearly every single one of us has our own immigration story to tell, we know in our bones that our immigration system is broken. It is not working for, literally, anyone.
When I say ``anyone,'' I mean, everyone. It is not working for our businesses, who desperately need vetted immigrant labor. It is not working for the immigrants who are walking a thousand miles in some cases to cross our border. It is not working for our border agents and for our customs and border folks who are trying to manage an astounding number of people coming over the border. It is not working for our communities who are having people bused to them. It is not working for the strain on those cities and the services. It is not working for anyone.
We can say with clarity and certainty that immigration system in a Nation of immigrants is broken, and there is blame enough to go around.
Democrats, Republicans, multiple White Houses, multiple administrations, Congress plays a big part in this, Washington departments and agencies over many, many years have used this issue to play politics rather than actually doing anything about it.
Finally, as you can see from the speeches here tonight, there is agreement that we have a problem, right?
The first step you can take to dealing with your problem is admitting you have a problem, but the fundamental question is: What are we going to now do about it?
I am a national security person by trade. I am a former CIA officer, a former Pentagon official. I did three tours in Iraq alongside the military. My whole life before I came to this body was about protecting the homeland from external threats.
Not only that, but I come from Michigan, a northern border State. I was just at our border in Detroit this past week where I got to see a healthy, functioning border and what it looks like.
There is no greater responsibility for those of us who are elected than to protect our citizens, and no greater responsibility than to work on solutions that do just that.
Two months ago in December, I thought we finally had gotten over a major hump. We were at a moment where Democrats and Republicans here in the White House, in the Senate, across the country were all saying that we needed to work on immigration.
The Speaker of the House, the Speaker of this body, wrote to President Biden personally, saying that if the President wanted more things on Ukraine, it was ``dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our Nation's border security laws.'' Those were his words.
In the Senate, a group of Democrats and Republicans did what people pay them to do, what they actually expect them to do, which is sit in a room, negotiate, argue, debate over policy to deal with the extreme pressure on the border, and they came to a solution.
Yesterday, we got our first look at what that proposal actually is, but no sooner was it out, than it is now sailing down the river like a dumpster fire, being trashed by the very people who negotiated it, being trashed by the very people who asked for it, being trashed by the Speaker of the House who desperately said: I won't consider any future assistance without border security.
No piece of legislation is ever perfect, but it does help us curb who is coming in. It gets people working legally in our businesses like on our farms, which desperately need that labor. In the meantime, these people would be paying taxes, paying into Social Security, paying into Medicare.
I can't understand why we continually refuse to take up bipartisan solutions like the one that is being debated in the Senate and the one that we are presenting on today, the Dignity Act. We need something to move the ball forward.
I know that all of us are willing to work with anyone across the aisle on solutions, but you have got to come to the table and acknowledge we have a problem and say you want to work on the solution.
Just two months after the Speaker laid out this existential problem with border security where he said: What is happening at the border is nothing short of a catastrophe and demanded immediate changes to the administration policy and to our laws.
He has now reversed course. He did a complete 180, changed his views and now we can't talk about the border.
Why? Because former President Donald Trump told him to.
He is out there saying that I am in control of my caucus. If you have to say you are in control of your caucus, you are not in control of your caucus.
Donald Trump told him he didn't like the bill. He told Mitch McConnell he didn't like the bill. The thing we have been working on as a healthy bipartisan negotiation falls apart in a day because Donald Trump wants to make ads about it; he wants to do political rallies about it; he wants to use it as a club against Joe Biden; he wants to use it for himself instead of doing what the country expects, which is dealing with the crisis at the border.
The leaders who were elected to protect their constituents are bowing to this pressure with barely a bat of the eye. It is embarrassing actually. It is sad to watch, but definitely embarrassing, and another sign of how toxic and ill our politics have become.
I was trying to think about what would happen when I was a CIA officer or at the Pentagon if I had identified a real national security crisis with facts and data, if I had said this is a threat to our country, talked about it publicly, constantly came back to it to raise attention to this issue, and then refused to do anything about it? There is a term for this in the military. It is called dereliction of duty. It is a fireable offense.
The next time I hear one of my colleagues railing about the border, railing about immigration in the same breath that they are refusing to actually do anything about it, I am going to remember that in other places other than this body, that is completely unacceptable, that it is a joke to care about something and then ignore it.
Remember this, our colleagues had the chance to work on this issue. If they don't like that bill, come and talk to us about the Dignity Act. Come to the table to negotiate, but stop choosing yourself instead of your constituents and the safety of the country.
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