Recognizing National Nurses Week

Floor Speech

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Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize National Nurses Week and honor the extraordinary nurses serving North Texas and communities across our country.

Every single day, nurses are there for us in life's most difficult and vulnerable moments. They are the first hand a newborn feels, the calm voice in an emergency room, and a compassionate presence beside patients and families facing uncertainty.

Nurses do far more than provide medical comfort. They advocate for patients, comfort families, educate communities, and hold together a health system that too often asks them to do more with less.

Over the past several years, we have seen nurses carry unimaginable burdens, from staffing shortages to burnout, while continuing to show up for their patients with professionalism and compassion. They deserve more than our gratitude. They deserve safe working conditions, fair pay, mental health support, and investments in our own healthcare workforce.

To every nurse serving in hospitals, clinics, schools, veterans' facilities, nursing homes, and community health centers, I thank you. Congress and your country honor your service, your sacrifice, and your unwavering commitment to caring for others. Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets

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Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Republican Keeping Violent Offenders Off Our Streets Act.

Let's be clear about what this bill does. It does not make our communities safer. It does not meaningfully address violent crime. What it does is continue a failed approach to a criminal justice system that punishes Texans in poverty instead of protecting public safety.

We have already seen the consequences of this approach in Texas and across the country. Cash bail systems have created a two-tiered justice system where wealth determines freedom. If you are rich, you can buy your way out of jail. If you are poor, you can sit behind bars for weeks or months before ever being convicted of a crime.

In Texas, we have watched State leaders exploit fear around bail reform while ignoring deeper problems in our justice system. County jails are overcrowded. Courts are backlogged. Public defenders are overwhelmed. Too many people accused of low-level, nonviolent offenses are trapped in jail simply because they cannot afford bail.

This bill attacks charitable, nonprofit organizations who provide bail assistance. Whether you are eligible for bail should depend on the nature of the offense, your flight risk, and your prior criminal history, not whether you have the funds to post it.

If this Congress truly wants to address violent crime, then we should invest in evidence-based solutions: funding mental health services, reducing court backlogs, supporting victims, strengthening community violence intervention programs, and ensuring judges have the resources to make individualized decisions based on actual risk, not a person's bank account.

This bill ignores those solutions in favor of political talking points and fear-mongering. Americans deserve a justice system that is fair, constitutional, and focused on real public safety, not one that criminalizes poverty and expands mass incarceration.

I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill. Immigration

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Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, for too long, this Republican Congress has failed the American people on immigration. We have allowed a broken system to remain broken: one that is too slow, too chaotic, and too unfair for everyone involved.

The American people deserve an immigration system that is fair, fast, and final--fair for families seeking safety and opportunity, fast enough to reduce years of backlog that leave people in limbo, and final so that decisions are made efficiently, transparently, and with integrity under the rule of law.

We will not fix our immigration system by abandoning our constitutional values. We will not restore order by stripping away due process rights or criminalizing people without giving them a fair hearing before the law.

That is why I voted against the Lakin Riley Act and the Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act. While supporters claim these bills are about safety, they expand mandatory detention and enforcement powers in ways that undermine due process and threaten our basic constitutional protections.

In this country, we do not decide guilt or innocence without a hearing or access to an attorney. We do not throw away civil liberties because of political pressure or fear. Due process is not a loophole. It is a cornerstone of American democracy. It protects citizens and noncitizens alike from government overreach and ensures that our laws are applied fairly and consistently.

We can modernize our immigration system and protect public safety while still upholding the Constitution. Those goals are not mutually exclusive. In fact, our system works best when we defend both security and justice together.

We need comprehensive immigration reform that expands legal pathways, addresses workforce needs, invests in immigration courts, and creates clear, enforceable rules that reflect our values as a Nation.

America has always been strongest when we lead with both compassion and the rule of law. As a Member of Congress, I will never vote to sacrifice one for the other.

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