Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[Page H364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
END THE SHUTDOWN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Brown) for 5 minutes.
Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, there is a crisis in our country,
but it is not at our southern border. There is a crisis mounting at
every airport, every national park, in the homes of furloughed Federal
employees and stop-work Federal contractors across this country, from
Los Angeles through Kansas City to Baltimore. It is a crisis that is
hurting the lives of countless Americans whose food won't be inspected,
whose water may not be clean, whose flight may not be safe, and whose
bills may not be paid. It is a crisis of the President's own making.
Right now, we are on the verge of the longest government shutdown in
our Nation's history, a shameful display of what happens when the
President governs solely to appeal to his political base, rather than
on behalf of all Americans.
Why are we here, Mr. Speaker? Because the President has committed
himself to a wall that many experts say is ineffective. It is
ineffective; it is expensive; and it is downright absurd. It has become
a vanity project that began as an applause line in a campaign speech in
which then-candidate Trump deemed the entire migration of people from
the south rapists and criminals.
It is clear, the wall is the only policy objective that matters to
the President, and he is willing to say or do anything to get it. He
will push hundreds of thousands of American families into suffering for
his wall, and he has gone so far as to threaten us with a declaration
of national emergency if he doesn't get his way, a declaration of
national emergency not because we are in the middle of one, but,
rather, as the President put it, because he can't make a deal.
What is this national emergency on the border that the President is
so concerned and afraid of? The past 2 years have seen border crossings
drop to a historic low. Most undocumented immigrants in this country
are visa overstays.
Mr. Speaker, 0.1 percent of all Border Patrol arrests in 2018 were
members of MS-13. Yes, that is a problem that we are sadly and
tragically familiar with in Maryland, but that doesn't make it a
national emergency.
Most drugs smuggled through the southern border come through official
ports of entry, not between them. And despite the President's false
claims, there aren't thousands of terrorists coming across the border.
Customs and Border Protection, an agency in which the President has
considerable confidence, said they encountered six people with names
that are like those on the terrorist watch list. Last year, more
suspected foreign terrorists were apprehended at the northern border
than at our southern border.
Sure, we need strong border security, and not just at our southern
border. But the President knows this isn't a national emergency but,
perhaps, an alarm to his own political future.
What will hurt our security and create a real crisis is if he takes
money away from the Armed Forces to fund the wall. If the President
used funding from the military construction budget, facilities used by
our men and women in uniform--like shipyards and aircraft hangars,
ammunition supply points and training ranges, and childcare centers and
family housing--those would continue to slide into disrepair. This
would impact military readiness and the quality of life for our
military families.
Or the President could decide to use money from infrastructure
projects from the Army Corps of Engineers, projects meant to protect
cities like Houston or Ellicott City in Maryland from flooding and
would threaten tens of thousands of Americans who may find themselves
in a real emergency during the next hurricane season.
The use of these authorities, like the deployment of our troops to
the border, is irresponsible, unnecessary, and misguided.
Mr. Speaker, we don't have a crisis on the border. We have a crisis
in the Oval Office. To President Trump, the wall, his symbol of
division, matters more than substantial improvements to border security
and true comprehensive immigration reform.
If President Trump wants to address the real crisis in our country,
let's end this shutdown and pay the people who work for the people.
Let's reduce our silent backlog, protect Dreamers, and fix our
dysfunctional immigration system. We need real action and a bipartisan
solution.
____________________