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Floor Speech
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Mr. LANKFORD. It feels like ``Groundhog Day'' here on the Senate floor, trying to bear with all the problems. I wish we could all get in one room and be able to actually talk to each other like human beings and people rather than just rant.
Fourteen days ago--2 weeks--14 days ago, the White House sent over a proposal to my Democratic colleagues and said: We understand there are issues with ICE. We understand there are issues with CBP. So let me make a proposal to you of some options that we can do that we should be able to agree on--14 days ago.
Those options included mandatory body-worn cameras for ICE agents and CBP--mandatory--name tags for every single agent, to be able to have an identifier for every single agent that is out there; to be able to make sure that selective sensitive sites did not have ICE involvement in those selective sites; deescalation training for all of our Federal officers to be able to know the techniques for how to be able to step down from a violent protester that is screaming in their face and waiving a camera in their face; a full, open investigation of the two shootings that happened in Minneapolis; reducing the footprint of the number of agents in Minnesota; a change in the way that warrants are actually used across the country.
The White House laid all of those things out, 14 days ago, that one of my Democratic colleagues, who is on this floor, said to me was an entirely reasonable offer from the White House--14 days ago. And since that time period, radio silence from my Democratic colleagues. The White House had no response.
TSA agents are not being paid, FEMA agents are not being paid, and Cybersecurity folks are not being paid while we wait for the counteroffer.
What is happening is good politics from my Democrat colleagues. They feel like this is good politics to be able to continue and to be able to press in that some folks on the far, far, far left want to defund ICE and want to show there is a huge fight to be able to take on ICE.
The result of that is 250,000 people--families, individuals--that work with DHS wait for an answer--wait. This has got to get resolved. The politics in this moment have got to stop.
I was here last Thursday saying all of us should stay and stay over the weekend and not leave until this is resolved, and everybody just left.
A quarter million DHS employees are looking at this room right now and saying: Stop bickering about this. Just solve it. Whoever has got the paper, just answer it. Just go back and forth.
Let's figure this out. Let's actually just solve this.
So we have tried multiple times to say: Let's fund it.
The White House has made good-faith offers to say: Here are offers to be able to get some dialogue going if somebody will actually talk back to me.
But while we wait on the politics to cool, in the meantime, I need to offer again what we started with at the very beginning, and that was just this: Can we at least open things up for 2 weeks, like we did at the beginning?
We started this battle weeks and weeks and weeks ago, and we started it with: OK, we agree on all of the other appropriations bills. We don't agree on this one because it has funding for ICE, because it has funding for CBP in it. And so we can't get agreement on that.
Can we at least just keep the status quo and keep debating so that the fight is here in this room, rather than affecting families that literally are trying to get grocery coupons and gift cards from people so they can feed their families. Can we at least, at a minimum, do 2 weeks, like we did at the start of this? If we can't agree on everything, let's at least keep this open.
Now, this body knows I have been fighting for years to say: We should never have a government shutdown at all.
I literally don't know how many times I have been on this floor talking about this issue, saying government shutdowns should be a thing of the past.
We should be here 24/7 until we solve the problem and hold all those Federal workers harmless.
If we can't get to that, which we have not been able to get an agreement to at least do that, then let's at least have a continuing resolution that pays everyone at DHS for the next 2 weeks while we keep arguing until we can resolve our issue.
156, H.R. 4553. I further ask that the substitute amendment, No. 4353, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
I just wish all that was so that was just stated. The White House presented a set of ideas on paper on reform, put them into legislative text, and handed them to Democrats 2 weeks ago--2 weeks ago--and said: Here are the reforms we would agree with that you have asked for: badges, body-worn cameras, deescalation training, process reforms--all those things they put out there. For 2 weeks, my Democratic colleagues have determined that politics is better than the actual solution, and so they have just said: Let's do the politics.
The problem with politics on this is that a quarter million DHS employees are not being paid right now, so it doesn't make good politics for them. They are trying to figure out how to feed their families.
By the way, again, I had a TSA agent from Oklahoma City--who do, by the way, a great job--say to me just last week: I feel like my paycheck is bipolar; I just never know whether it is going to be there or not. That is because my Democratic colleagues have shut down the government just over and over again as their protest against Trump. I get it. They don't like President Trump. They voiced that. But I don't know what my FEMA agents that are working on tornado relief in Oklahoma have to do with their frustration with ICE.
So they come to bring a proposal and to say: Well, FEMA has had a bias and President Trump has had a bias against California with FEMA. And I smile honestly and think: You know, last year--or a year and a half ago, I guess, now--President Biden's FEMA instructed FEMA agents not to go to the houses in disaster areas that had a Trump yard sign in their front yard. So if you want to talk bias of FEMA, the Biden administration FEMA not going to help on disaster relief on houses that had a Trump yard sign--let's talk bias. So I don't agree with that at all.
Here is what we need to do: Stop this, sit down like grownups, and actually solve the problem--because this whole issue of ``I will fund everything but ICE and CBP'' doesn't really work for the ICE and CBP families. I know you may be mad at them, but, you know what, those secretaries and those assistants and those folks that work in all those offices have lives and families as well.
Can I tell you what CBP does? It is not just border patrol. CBP also is managing what is happening at our ports of entry. Let me be specific on this. There are 9,000 CBP agents that work in California, and 2,000 of those CBP agents are working at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port of entry. They are handling the port stuff coming in and out right now. They are not dealing with border patrol. They are not dealing with ICE. But my Democratic colleagues say ``We can't fund CBP,'' including those families that are in California at the Long Beach port. They have nothing to do with all of this. They just want to get a paycheck and to be able to know where they are going.
It has been very, very clear that if we don't fund ICE and CBP--my Democratic colleagues have been very clear: We are not going to fund them. We see the strategy. The strategy is very clear. Those folks won't be paid. They will eventually quit. And they will get what they want--no Border Patrol, no ICE--because all the families have quit.
Make a counterproposal if you disagree. Do something. But let's get off the dime on this and actually get this resolved for those quarter million families.
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