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Floor Speech

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Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, we are blessed to live in a nation that has withstood the test of time for 250 years. This country has had its fair share of problems, but we have been able to overcome and get by together, at the end of the day, because we believe in America and what it stands for.

America was founded on a core set of values that have persisted through the years and have given hope to so many who were seeking a better life. American values are rooted in liberty, equality, opportunity, self-governance, and the rule of law.

Liberty means freedom--freedom from tyranny, whether it is political, religious, or economic. Since our founding, individual freedoms have been the foundation of American society. You are free to choose what you believe, how you worship, what work you pursue, and how you build a life for yourself.

Equality means that, in this country, we don't have a caste system. We don't tell people they are stuck where they are born. We believe all men are created equal, and everyone has the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their background--an opportunity that makes this country very special.

You know, I used to tell my players all the time: This country owes you nothing but an opportunity to achieve what you want to achieve.

Now, you might get knocked to the ground and not make it to that point as soon as you would like, but the country that you love so much--that we all love so much--gives that chance to get back up and go again.

You know, we are the only country that does that, out of 200 in the world we live in.

What you decide to do with that opportunity, after you achieve it, is up to you. That is the American dream. That is what this country is about--the belief that, if you are willing to work hard, you can build a better life. The American dream is unique to this country alone.

For centuries now, people have fled dictatorships, failed governments, and oppression because they knew that dream was real.

Then there is the rule of law--the cornerstone for why our country is so great. No one is above the law--not citizen, not newcomer, not even the government itself. In America, if you live here, you are expected to follow the law, period.

Those are the values that have made this country great. Those are the values that drew generations of immigrants to our shores over 250 years. Sadly--sadly--today, we are not seeing immigrants with the same mentality moving to this country.

For most of our history, people have come here to become Americans. They came here to assimilate. They worked hard, they learned, they followed the law, and they contributed. That is what this country is all about.

Today, we are seeing large numbers--and I mean large numbers--of people coming to this country with no intention of assimilating into our culture or our way of life. People from third-world hellholes are being let into this country who have no desire to adapt to our way of life. They not only refuse to work, but they also choose to take advantage of America's welfare system, forcing hard-working Americans to bankroll their lives.

The question must be asked, why are we letting these people who don't share our values and refuse to assimilate--why are we letting them into our country?

The word ``assimilate'' is often treated with suspicion because it is often related to racism. But assimilation has absolutely nothing to do with race; it is about values. ``Assimilation'' doesn't mean you abandon your heritage or your faith or forget where you are from; it is about embracing a new, shared belief system.

People that came here in the past understood this. Examples would be Italian Americans, Greek Americans, German Americans who brought elements of their heritage with them, but they understood that they had new responsibilities. When they embraced this country, they embraced our values: respect the law, be committed to a constitutional government, and participate in the civic duties that enable a society to remain free.

So why are we letting people into this country that don't want to assimilate? Why are we doing that? Immigration is a privilege; it is not an entitlement. This country doesn't owe anyone entry. We don't owe anybody. And somewhere along the way, we lost the ability to discern who we choose to welcome into our great country. We lost it somewhere. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to solve this problem. It really doesn't.

Those who come to this country that want to assimilate, embrace this Nation's core set of values, and contribute to our society should be welcomed with open arms because we are all descendants of immigrants who loved this country. We should accept the best and the brightest, those who are hard workers, intelligent, with skill sets who can provide a quality service to their communities, and people who understand and share the core American values that we all have.

But the problem is that for whatever reason, Western civilization has been guilt-tripped into accepting anyone who wants to come here. That is wrong. That is not what this country was built on.

The Biden and Obama administrations brought in millions of immigrants who have done nothing to make the United States a better place to live--zero. Instead, they have been like leeches, taking advantage of the welfare system and are treating hard-working American taxpayers as their personal ATM machine.

In the last two decades, we have seen a dramatic--I mean, a dramatic--transformation in our society. It has changed and not in a good way. Every time you turn on the news today, you hear about immigrants robbing stores, killing Americans, sexually assaulting and raping women, protesting, and carrying their home country flags instead of the American flag. What is up with this? And where are these immigrants coming from who are committing most of these crimes? Well, you guessed it--from third world countries.

These aren't the kind of people we should be letting into the greatest country on the face of the Earth. It is a privilege, not a right, to live in the United States of America--a privilege--but unfortunately, our immigration system is absolutely broken.

How many more rapes, assaults, murders, stories of these people scamming American taxpayers out of their money do we need to hear before we say enough is enough?

Our immigration system is broken, but no one wants to fix it--nobody in this building or on the other end of this building. Yet, when attempts are made to fix it, Washington resists.

Take temporary protected status for instance. The U.S. House of Representatives a few weeks ago recently voted to extend temporary protected status for roughly 250,000 Haitians. When the Trump administration announced that they were going to terminate the temporary protected status of Haitians, the DC swamp had an absolute meltdown.

You can't do that. These will be voters for us.

As usual, the swamp came out in full force to ensure that these people remained on American soil, putting American taxpayers in harm's way.

According to a House Judiciary Committee report, 91 percent of Haitians with temporary protected status--91 percent--entered the United States illegally and over 50 percent of them are in households that are on at least one welfare program--53 percent. Mind-boggling.

Temporary protected status was never--was never--supposed to be a permanent amnesty program. It was supposed to help people temporarily, give them time to get back on their feet. That is not what is happening. Programs meant to be temporary are becoming permanent right in front of our eyes, and we are not doing anything about it. Policies meant to be limited are being expanded. The American taxpayers are left out in the cold, and the American people are paying every single dime for this huge amnesty bill--billions.

Let me be clear about something: America, this country, is a Christian nation. We are called to love our neighbor and to minister to the poor. That is our job. But we have enough Americans in this country who are in poverty for us to look after and barely enough money to take care of them. We can't take care of all the poor people in the world, folks. That can't happen. For us to remain a society that is free, with values, we have to take care of our own first, and then we take care of other people.

Another problem we are having is immigrants who come here and bring their radical beliefs with them. I have talked to this on the floor many times in the last few months. These people openly chant ``Death to America.'' Yet we allow them to live here among us. You can't make it up.

Middle Easterners who are predominantly Muslim come here, take advantage of our welfare system, which most do, and they refuse to assimilate. Their entire goal is to turn this country into a Muslim country and to be governed by the Islamic cult and Sharia law.

Now, there are good Muslims who come to this country, who embrace the values that we have, contribute to society, don't follow Sharia law, and they are 100 percent welcome to be here. This is not about one group; this is about a group of people that want to change our country and want to kill every American in this country.

The Center for Immigration Studies published a report stating that more than half of the noncitizen households from the Middle East use at least one major welfare program. Think about that. We are having to fund most of these people that are coming here.

Islamists aren't coming here looking for a better life. That is a true fallacy. They are coming here to impose their radical beliefs on us and to mooch off the American taxpayers. ``Game, set, match.'' That is exactly why they are here. They are coming to impose everything they possibly can on the United States of America, get by with it, and tear us down at the same time. They have no interest in adapting to American national identity. They want to change the national identity to mirror their death cult Islamic beliefs. You heard that. They are here to kill us all. They believe that.

Just look at what is happening in Europe. In Europe, they stopped enforcing their own laws. Europe stopped forcing immigrants to adapt to their way of life, and now they are dealing with the consequences.

We are about 10 years behind Europe. Europe is gone. They are being run by a different cult. They have lost all their values. They have lost everything that was built in Europe and in a lot of these other European countries because they closed their eyes, and they thought they were doing the right thing. And politicians got them in trouble.

We should be learning from that, not repeating it.

Americans, open your eyes. Look what is happening. We are losing. We are losing our country as we know it to people that want to destroy us.

But this issue doesn't just affect today; it affects us today and future generations.

Mass migration is destroying our educational system. Listen to me--it is destroying it. Go to any high school, and I can show you examples. More and more American kids are entering the classroom hearing multiple languages being spoken around them every day and having a difficult time making friends because they are now the minority in the schools. We are having enough problems with our education system, and our kids can't understand the language the other people are speaking. That goes with our higher education, which has teachers and professors coming from other countries that can't speak English that are teaching our kids in higher education, and our kids are paying a fortune to go to these 4-year schools.

Enough is enough. This is an English language country, and that is how we speak. That is how we communicate.

Approximately 5 million students in U.S. public schools are classified as English learners. Five million can't speak English in our public schools across our country. It is destroying us. That is 10 to 11 percent of our K-through-12 population and growing every day, and we have our eyes closed.

Our kids already have enough problems. Many of our kids were set back during COVID. It was disastrous. What the Federal Government did to our kids by closing our schools was a disaster, and it was our fault, the people in this building right here, but we are running and hiding now when the truth is coming out.

So now our kids are being left behind in the classroom because school resources are being reallocated for kids that come from other countries. We need to be spending money on our kids to give them better lives. We are leaving our kids behind, and our country will not survive without teaching and developing the next generation.

The purpose of our immigration system should be to benefit hard- working American taxpayers. Do you think mass immigration is benefiting this country? Absolutely not. There is not one benefit to it. It is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

You know, mass immigration is a leech that is slowly bleeding this country dry, and politicians and the people across our country better open their eyes. There has been a lot of talk over the past few years about deportation, and I am 100 percent for what President Trump is doing. They have to go home. We can't afford it. The American taxpayers--they need help. We can't help people if we can't help ourselves.

We also need to have a national conversation about who we want in this country in the first place. The American taxpayer deserves that right to say who is here and who is not. Politicians are taking credit for letting all these people in. They need to be taking credit for destroying this country.

We need to be asking ourselves, what is our national identity? Many of our immigration laws were made decades ago.

They were made in a different time. That is why tomorrow I will be introducing the Assimilation Act. My bill is simple.

It says America has a right to set immigration policy in the national interest. It says our systems should favor people who will work hard, contribute, support themselves, and strengthen the United States of America. It says we should move away from chain migration policies and away from visa lottery systems that treat every entry into the United States like a raffle drawing.

What an embarrassment.

It says legal immigration should place higher value on skill, merit, economic contributions, and the ability to succeed without becoming dependent on the American taxpayers. It says temporary work programs should serve the American economy, not undercut the American work. It says we should take visa overstays seriously, address parole abuse, and restore credibility to the rule of law.

And it says that citizens in the United States should, once again, reflect commitment, character, and real civic integration.

Now, none of this means America shuts the door. America has always been a nation that can strengthen immigration--history proves that. But it works only when our borders are enforced, the rule of law is followed, and when those who desire to come here build a better life and are expected to assimilate into American culture, not destroy our culture.

Without those conditions, the logic of immigration begins to change. Obama and Biden were hell-bent on changing the immigration landscape of this country. They were letting them in right and left.

A nation can't survive, folks--a nation can't survive--and won't survive when mass migration occurs and there isn't any expectation of assimilation. It is never talked about.

Come on in. Do whatever you want. Preach whatever you want. Teach whatever you want. Destroy whatever you want. We are not going to watch you.

We better open our eyes. There is no obligation for immigrants to commit to participate in the way Americans live. If we don't do that, we will lose our country. We have to start pushing assimilation.

So in that case, I believe we are seeing this right now in the United States. Immigration is no longer a good thing for our society. It is not doing us one bit of good. It is destroying the American dream. It is destroying our generation and the generations to come.

There is a reason why we stopped all immigration in the 1920s. Did you know that? We stopped it all for the same reasons. We had to get back on our feet. Folks, we are $39 trillion in debt and rising. We can't afford these people that can't help themselves.

Mass migration without assimilation will erase our country's identity. We are turning into Europe and in serious danger of losing the core of who we are.

I want to be clear about this. The United States has zero obligation to roll out the red carpet for third-world countries around the world-- zero. We are here to help America first. We have enough of our own problems without taking up everybody else's.

America is a nation built on shared values. People from all walks of life could come here and live peacefully because they understood what being an American meant. Do they know that today? That is what has always made it exceptional because people know what America is about, our core principles. But in a country as diverse as ours, it can only function properly when we accept the duties of citizenship and our Constitution.

Folks, the United States is at a crossroads. We are at a crossroads. We will decide to try sharing a common civic identity, or we will go the way of Europe and let mass migration without assimilation erode the civic duties and responsibilities Americans boldly carried out over the last 2\1/2\ centuries--250 years.

For too long the national conversation around immigration and citizenship has been framed almost entirely in terms of give them rights, protection, benefits, while saying less about loyalty, duty, and shared obligation to make this country better.

A free country cannot survive solely on entitlement. This country was built on hard work. It requires citizens who understand that American life is not just something to receive. It is something to uphold.

If the United States is to remain what it has long claimed to be, it must be clear about the answer to a simple question: What does it mean to be an American?

And we must be willing to insist that the answer still matters because when a nation loses the courage to define itself, it invites others to redefine--redefine it--beyond recognition. We cannot allow people to redefine our country.
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