Secure America Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks that I wanted to speak on today about law and order, I do have a couple of comments I wanted to make that came to mind as my colleague was speaking.

You know, I think that they are suffering not only from Trump derangement syndrome but a little bit of Democrat amnesia. I think they have forgotten that under Joe Biden, inflation hit 9 percent. It was the highest it had been in over four decades. They didn't seem to be concerned about costs or affordability, and every single day, Republicans work to get down the cost of gas and groceries. Every single day, we work on affordability.

Even a year ago, we had not one single colleague from the other side of the aisle--not one--vote for the Working Families Tax Cut, the Big Beautiful Bill. They all voted against it because they wanted a $4 trillion tax hike.

Now, why did my colleagues on the other side of the aisle vote in lockstep--every single Democrat? They want more money, more of your money that they can spend. They want to control it. They want you to give them the power so they can micromanage your life.

Inflation? They are all for it. When you talk about prices going up, they are all for it. Even Barack Obama said: Oh, your electric bills are necessarily going to go up because I am pushing the Green New Deal. And, boy, did they ever.

So I think that it is interesting. I wish that they would actually focus on the issue of affordability. I wish they would actually work with us when it comes to getting costs down, but they don't because they want more of your money.

Isn't it so interesting? They never get enough of the taxpayers' money. It is a gimme, gimme, gimme every single day. Money and power-- they are all about it. S. 2

Mr. President, I do want to talk this afternoon about a core responsibility of any representative government, and that is the responsibility to enforce the rule of law.

Now, questions that responsible governments will ask themselves is, Can we protect law-abiding citizens? Can we make certain that our citizens are protected from criminals? How do we get our crime rate down in our communities? How do we maintain law and order? Can we make certain that we are enacting justice, and we are punishing lawbreakers?

This is something that we as Republicans believe is a basic responsibility, but it has become painfully clear--and I think it should be regrettable--that our colleagues across the aisle do not see this as a basic responsibility. They are for sanctuary cities. They are for trying to make ``illegal'' legal. They put the interests and the needs of illegal aliens in front of the needs of law-abiding citizens.

Every single Federal immigration law that we have on the books--every single one of them--was passed by Congress, and that law was signed into law by a sitting U.S. President. Now, some of those were Republican, and some were Democrat. It is important to note that these laws actually reflect the will of the American people, and these immigration laws are just as legitimate as any other law that is on the books. Every one of them is legitimate.

But what we have come to know over the last few years is that our Democrat colleagues, many of them, see these laws as optional. They-- many of them--do not think we should have a border. They think we should have an open border. We saw what that did under President Biden when he laid out the welcome mat and you had millions of illegal aliens flooding our country and overwhelming our communities. When we went to the southern border to visit, we realized they were covered up with illegal aliens. Crime rates were soaring. Indeed, we saw across this country every State become a border State and every town become a border town.

We are seeing, once again, that our colleagues across the aisle are doubling down on putting illegal aliens and their interests in front of American citizens'. I don't think you see this in any other country on the face of the Earth, but for some reason, they have gotten it in their minds that they need to take care of those who are illegally in the country and that they should put the welcome mat out for them. Of course, what we have learned, as you look at the drug traffickers, the sex traffickers, and the human traffickers is that this is one of the most uncompassionate policies ever. The horror stories of what has been done to women and girls and children are absolutely horrific.

But that wasn't enough for our friends across the aisle. So, for 76 days, the Democrats kept the Department of Homeland Security shut down. They left the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, FEMA, the TSA, and other critical Agencies unfunded because they wanted to score political points with the radical left. They just tossed them aside. Can you imagine being told: We are going to use you as a pawn; you are not going to get a paycheck? It is absolutely astounding.

In Tennessee, I have done so many meetings in communities across the State, and I have done a lot of telephone townhalls. I did one last night. What you hear from people in these townhalls is: What do the Democrats think they are doing? Why? Why? At a time when there are so many threats, why would they jeopardize our Nation's security?

Well, as I said last night on the telephone townhall: The Democrats have a goal. They have been committed to this for years. They have not been able to pull it off, so they have got a new way of doing it, and it is called: Let's just shut down Homeland Security. Their goal is to defund law enforcement and to abolish ICE.

I have got a chart that shows some of the statements that have come from people on the left, from the Democrats.

Here, you have got Representative Omar:

Abolish ICE.

Representative Mark Pocan:

Abolish ICE.

Isn't that radical? Imagine that. Doing away with law enforcement is not radical?

You have got another one, Ramirez, and she is saying:

Abolish ICE. Dismantle DHS.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez:

Abolish ICE.

Jim McGovern:

Abolish ICE.

See, the list goes on and on.

You have some of our Senate colleagues:

We need to abolish ICE.

Replace ICE.

Abolish ICE.

This is what they are trying to do.

ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and when you hear all of these statements--``not one more dollar for ICE,'' they say, or ``ICE is beyond reform,'' they say, or they even say ``Abolishing ICE isn't radical''--they continue to push to abolish ICE.

Now, the sad thing, in my opinion, is that this isn't a fringe position in today's Democrat Party. It has become a mainstay of their political agenda.

Can you even imagine the chaos that would ensue if we wiped this Agency, which is responsible for protecting Americans from cross-border crime and illegal immigration--if we wiped that Agency off the map? There would be more crime, more sex trafficking, more drug trafficking, more human trafficking, more terrorism, and more lives lost.

Since President Trump returned to office, we have seen the consequences of this rhetoric on full display. You can look at what is unfolding right now in New Jersey. For days, far-left rioters have assaulted law enforcement outside Delaney Hall, which is an immigration detention facility near Newark. By all appearances, these are professional protesters; and yes, indeed, we have all seen them. We see them in the halls of these buildings. We see them out on the sidewalks. They are paid professional protesters. That is their job. Outside the facility, they have set up entire supply stations with masks, hard hats, goggles, and duct tape. This didn't just drop out of the air and land there on the table. It was purchased. It makes you wonder who is paying for all of this--for people to be out there and being paid to be a protester.

The New Jersey State attorney general even admitted that most of the arrested rioters were--guess what--from outside New Jersey--like I said, paid political protesters. Some of these paid political protesters have thrown rocks at officers. Others have pushed barricades at the police.

One rioter screamed at an ICE agent:

Your children, your wife, all dead! I have your face . . . You're dead.

Imagine if that were being shouted at you as you did your job. Imagine if somebody were screaming at you that they were going to kill your kids and that they were going to kill your wife and that they were going to kill you. They had your face. They knew who you were.

This is what these agents are facing. Nothing compassionate about that, is there?

Of course not. Absolutely not.

The death threats to ICE agents are up 8,000 percent. The assaults on ICE agents are up 1,300 percent.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, what they are doing is enforcing the rule of law. They are enforcing laws that this body has passed and that a sitting U.S. President has affixed his signature to and signed into law--but no. We have colleagues across the aisle who are saying: We don't like that one, so let's just not enforce it.

I think that is sick because, instead of condemning the violence, you have got the State's--New Jersey's--Governor, who is a Democrat, who has stood shoulder to shoulder with the rioters. After days of clashes, she sent the State police to secure the area, not to ensure the safety of Federal law enforcement but--and I am quoting her in her words--``to avoid escalation from ICE.''

See what she is doing there? She is blaming the ICE officers, who were abiding by the rule of law. She is not blaming the paid political protesters, who are not peacefully protesting; they are there shouting. They have got their hard hats. They have got their signs. They have thrown rocks. She is citing the unrest to call for the closure of Delaney Hall. This is how radical Democrats have become. They will allow organized mobs to assault our Federal law enforcement. Then they will cite violence as a reason to stop law enforcement from doing their jobs.

While the Democrats try to abolish ICE, Republicans are doing everything possible to uphold the rule of law. It is why we are moving forward with a public security reconciliation bill that will provide the funding necessary for ICE and CBP for years to come. As I said, we are doing this through reconciliation. That is the same process we used to pass the Working Families Tax Cut.

I will remind you again: Not one single Democrat voted for the tax cuts. They wanted the $4 trillion tax hike so that they could have more of your money.

What we are saying is: Come on. Join us. Vote for this reconciliation bill. Let's fund these vital Agencies by a simple majority vote. There are plenty of bills that I and others have put into place that we should pass to make certain that we deal with this issue of illegal immigration and so that we support our men and women who are working with DHS.

This bill is going to come before us today and tomorrow. I encourage swift passage.

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