Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I hear a lot from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that this is not how people should be treated, whether it was with respect to the first broader amnesty bill, with respect to the Dreamers, or whether it is this bill with respect to farmworkers, which is, in fact, an amnesty bill. But the fact of the matter is that nobody on this side of the aisle and nobody I know in Texas disagrees that the system is broken and that we need to make sure that people are treated fairly and treated appropriately. Nobody disagrees with that.

The problem is that what we are doing is putting this bill in front of any kind of enforcement mechanisms that will prevent the continued abuse of human beings because we refuse to do our actual job under the Constitution of the United States to secure our border.

We are just refusing to do it, and then we pass legislation in the name of helping people who, yes, are stuck in a system because we created this system because it is so badly broken. You then create the magnet, Madam Speaker, that empowers cartels and continues the vicious cycle.

Today, when this passes off the floor, there will be a lot of backslapping and congratulations: Isn't this great, isn't this awesome, and aren't we so proud of ourselves for what we are doing for these immigrants, these workers?

But we are not doing a darn thing to actually fix the system that prevents the flow, prevents the danger, prevents the cartels, prevents the abuses, and prevents essentially the indentured servitude that this bill would actually create for the farmworkers in question, leaving them stuck with Band-Aids of having to work certain hours as farmworkers, continuing the process, by the way, while we continue to encourage sex trafficking, human trafficking, crimes, violations, and children being abused.

As I said before, as we sit here in this august body--not actually amending, by the way, just bloviating--while we are sitting here, some little girl is getting raped in Mexico on a journey because of the pressure that we are causing by empowering cartels to do it. That is occurring, and we are just whistling, and we are just sitting here, burying our head in the sand.

Like I said, go give the press conferences and go pat ourselves on the back as a body for being pro-immigrant. How is it pro-immigrant to have wide-open borders being exploited by cartels, wide-open borders with narcotics coming across, and wide-open borders with human beings coming across it?

By the way, when the media says this Biden crisis has ended, if they ever acknowledge it exists, it will be because numbers are going down in facilities because catching and releasing is going up. That is what is going to occur.

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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, that is what is going to occur. My fellow citizens back home in Texas and Americans, when those numbers go down in facilities, don't kid yourselves; illegal immigration will continue.

They will be catching and releasing illegal immigrants. They will be dropping numbers down at facilities. They will close the FEMA facility in Midland. We will have as much illegal immigration as we have right now, and the other side will claim: Oh, the crisis is going down.

That is what is coming at us. And today, we are passing amnesty instead of securing the border of the United States.

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