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Floor Speech

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Mr. PADILLA. They can't decide if immigration reform is the responsibility of Congress or if it is the responsibility of the President. They can't decide if the border is in crisis or if they would rather wait until after the election to talk about it or try to do something about it.

Today, in this resolution, they are doubling down on declaring an ``invasion'' and vilifying immigrants, while preventing the Federal Government from keeping order on the border.

My first message to my Republican colleagues here today is this: Make up your mind. Do you want to get serious about immigration reform or not?

They can't do it, and these past few weeks we saw why. Republicans believe that fear of our border translates into turnout at the ballot box. And because they believe that a narrative of chaos and fear would help Donald Trump in November, they are saying the quiet part out loud. They are saying it. They are repeating it. They are amplifying it on social media.

It is the same reason that they can greet Secretary Mayorkas at the negotiation table during these supplemental negotiations with one hand, while with their other hand they file baseless impeachment articles against him.

Today's resolution is just as unserious as it was the last time that they brought it up.

Let's put aside, for a moment, the obvious constitutional concerns, put aside, for a moment, and discuss what giving immigration powers to Governors would look like.

Colleagues, the fact is, you don't even have to imagine. Let's look at what is happening in Texas. Governor Abbott has shown us the cruelty and lawlessness of what it would lead to: unconstitutional legislation to terrorize immigrants in Texas, putting them at risk of racial profiling and civil rights violations; razor-lined buoys that have pushed asylum seekers and their families, including small children-- nursing babies, colleagues, nursing babies--into dangerous waters with deadly consequences--you want to know why we talk about humanity; this is happening--and razor wire along the border that prevents Federal officials from doing their job of securing the border; State governments preventing Federal officials from doing their job.

Is that what you want? For the self-proclaimed party of law and order, Republicans are acting like anything but.

Now, let's not lose sight of the very real danger of this kind of action and this kind of rhetoric. The idea that immigrants are invading has radicalized people in our country to perpetuate terrible violence in the not so distant past, including the 2019 shooting in an El Paso Walmart, where a White nationalist murdered 23 people, Hispanic families who were back-to-school shopping.

My colleague from Kansas asked something about being able to sleep at night. Since that day, I have not been able to sleep as well at night for fear of the same happening in my community, to my family.

Now, I agree that the asylum system is outdated and in need of modernization. We must have a border that is more secure and more orderly and humane. But there is absolutely not an invasion happening, as our Republican colleagues have tried to portray. People arriving at our borders are seeking protection for themselves and their families, seeking refuge from violence and political persecution from oppressive regimes, exercising their legal right to seek asylum--a legal right to seek asylum that we established back in World War II.

Today's resolution would represent a fundamental disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law, and it would undoubtedly lead to more cruelty at the border and throughout the country, for that matter, not just at the border.

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