Secure the Southwest Border Act of 2014

Floor Speech

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this so-called appropriations bill. I say ``so-called'' because it really is mainly about ill-advised and mean-spirited policy changes. Rather than providing the necessary funds to deal with the humanitarian crisis at the border, this bill mainly reduces protections for young people facing violence that we can hardly imagine.

For awhile, it looked like we might do better than this. As the ranking member of the Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, I was pleased to take part in a recent delegation to Central America ably led by Chairwoman Kay Granger. But as successive versions of the Republican bill have surfaced over the past 2 weeks, in a quest for votes only among Republicans, they reflected less and less of what we learned on that trip. That was true when I said it yesterday, and it is even more true of the bill before us now.

By the way, to respond to a claim we have heard tonight: Not a person we talked to any time, anywhere blamed the surge in unaccompanied minors on the President's decision to prioritize the deportation of dangerous criminals. That is just not a credible proposition.

The bill under consideration provides less than $1 billion to the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Justice, and State, far below what is required to deal with this crisis. And what of the money that is in the bill? Most of it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue before us. This isn't a border security crisis; it is a humanitarian crisis. We don't need to deploy the National Guard or surge our border capacity, because we are not failing to catch individuals as they cross. In fact, these young people are turning themselves in!

This new, worse bill brought before us mere hours ago would entice Texas, and potentially other border States, with Federal dollars, to use the National Guard to militarize the southern border. At the same time, it underfunds the additional judges that I thought we agreed were needed. We all know that we need to deal with the claims put forward by these young people who present themselves.

So, Mr. Speaker, let's pass an appropriations bill that reflects our country's values and actually addresses the problems we face. Let's also face up to our responsibility to pass comprehensive immigration reform, as the Senate did a year ago. This bill moves us in exactly the wrong direction. I urge its rejection.

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