Secure America Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1345, I call up the bill (S. 2) to provide for reconciliation pursuant to title II of S. Con. Res. 33, and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, if Republicans today were not willing to use budget reconciliation and depart from appropriations in order to pass a funding bill that would restore funding to ICE and CBP, then what would happen is my Democrat colleagues would be able to achieve what many of them have held for a long time as their objective, and have publicly stated was their objective, and that is to defund immigration enforcement, border enforcement, and abolish ICE. That is effectively what would happen if Republicans didn't act using budget reconciliation to fund ICE and CBP.

That would send us back to the Dark Ages, to the 4 years of open borders and the unprecedented lawlessness and chaos and crime with people, crime, gangs, and drugs pouring into our communities, into our States throughout our entire country, jeopardizing the safety of the American people.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point in this country that that is the stated or unstated goal of some of my colleagues. Certainly, it is the well-articulated and cited objective of the left.

Quite frankly, a lot of this shutdown and a lot of this obstruction is really the Democratic Party pandering to the left. But what would happen is the same thing that happened for 4 years when we had a Commander in Chief who refused to uphold his sacred oath to enforce the laws. He refused, with Democrat control of Congress and the White House, to enforce the laws and secure our southern border. Basically, he surrendered our sovereignty and safety to the paramilitary terrorist drug cartels on the other side of the border who were glad to make more money off of trafficking people than they did drugs. As a result, we had a complete meltdown in States like Texas who spent billions of dollars and were completely overwhelmed.

It is almost unfathomable today to think about it, Madam Speaker, because we have a daily apprehension number at about 196, but the average illegal crossing or apprehension under the Biden-Harris administration was over 5,000. I assure you, we would repeat that and it would be disastrous if we didn't do the right thing, if we didn't govern our great country, if we didn't open up the people's government and fund the important offices of ICE and CBP.

For 76 days, our Democrat colleagues held hostage the American people's safety and security. They held hostage the hardworking people at the Department of Homeland Security. It wasn't just ICE and CBP. We were completely dark at Homeland Security. We didn't have the safety protocols being administered by TSA. We didn't have our Coast Guardsmen keeping watch to prevent a terrorist attack at our ports. We didn't have CISA agents preventing an attack on our critical infrastructure, and, of course, we didn't have ICE and CBP functioning to enforce laws and to secure our border.

That is the dysfunction we have been dealing with, and we just said enough is enough.

We were sent here by the American people who gave President Trump an overwhelming victory. Every swing State, the popular vote, the electoral vote, gave us unified Republican leadership in Congress. The number one reason they did that was to restore the rule of law and to put the American people's safety and security first. That is exactly what we are doing today, in spite of the obstruction.

Listen, your granddad and my granddad taught us the same thing: If somebody tells you what they want to do and who they are, believe them.

For years, we have been hearing this incendiary and dangerous rhetoric that ICE needed to be defunded. Governor Tim Walz said that ICE officers are an actual threat. These are the people risking their lives to defend us and to protect us in our communities. He said that ICE was a threat to the public. Governor Pritzker said ICE was turning the country into Nazi, Germany. Chuck Schumer said ICE doesn't belong in our neighborhoods. Senator John Hickenlooper said that ICE was a reign of terror.

All this while the risks have increased because of the shutdown. We have an 8,000-percent increase in threats to the lives of our ICE agents and Border Patrol agents and a 1,300-percent increase in assaults. These are the dangerous games that Democrats are playing: to obstruct the President, so they can go brag as they pander to the left. Again, the reality is: It is a de facto defunding of law enforcement and abolishing of ICE.

We will prevent that today, because I am confident that my friends in the Republican Conference will do the right thing and put the American people and their safety first.

Those are my opening remarks.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I have the greatest respect for my friend from Pennsylvania, but that is about as good of Washington obfuscation as I have ever heard.

We are talking about funding ICE and CBP. If we don't do it today, ICE and CBP doesn't exist, criminals are running around in our streets, and we don't make good on the promises the American people sent us here to do.

They want to talk about tax policy. By the way, they are the party that didn't lift a finger when the tax cuts were going to expire and cause over a $1,000 tax hike for every family in this country. It would have been a 22-percent tax hike--this, on the heels of a cost-of-living crisis that they created by their failed economic policies and their unbridled spending, the likes of which we haven't seen in one half a century.

We can go through tax policy and the consequences of the American people having more money in their pockets because of no tax on tips and overtime, seniors getting a double deduction who are on a fixed income, and people who have suffered from Joe Biden's unaffordability crisis. I am happy to go down the line on that. People have more money in their pockets. The economy is growing. Inflation is down. Interest rates are down. The American people were paying $1,000 a month more in their mortgage as a result of the failed policies of my Democratic colleagues.

Today, this isn't the debate. The debate is the safety of the American people and resourcing our brave, hardworking law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), our Judiciary Committee chairman.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, Madam Speaker, you are going to hear gas prices, tax policy, healthcare, ballrooms. You are not going to hear anything about what is happening as a result of my Democrats not supporting us funding ICE and CBP, because defunding ICE and CBP after the 4 years of chaos and lawlessness is just completely indefensible.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the majority leader of the people's House.

Mr. Speaker, if anybody is living in fear, it is because of the fear- mongering that we continue to hear from our Democratic colleagues, and it is no wonder. It starts at the top. The nominee, or the anointed Presidential nominee of the Democrats in the last Presidential election, Ms. Kamala Harris, compared ICE to the KKK. We heard references to the Gestapo, and a reign of terror is what we just heard. It is no wonder that there are people in the streets obstructing and putting at risk the lives of our law enforcement officers who are trying to clean up our neighborhoods from the deluge of gangbangers and criminals who have flooded cities and towns all across this great Nation.

It is a travesty to hear such denigrating terms and to see my colleagues in the United States House Chamber vilifying people who wear the uniform on behalf of all of us and our families.

As I said, assaults are up by 1,300 percent, death threats by 8,000 percent. It is a wonder more law enforcement officials and ICE agents haven't been hurt.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, who is going to get hurt: lots of people across this land if ICE and CBP were defunded on account of not having willing Republicans to fund them fully, not just for 1 year but for 3 years, so we never end up here again being held hostage by shutdowns and defunding of our law enforcement.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, just to be clear, we are attempting here in a Republican-only exercise to fund ICE and CBP at last year's operating budget plus inflation. That is all we are talking about.

Their position is that they want to zero it out. In fact, they already have. They refuse to fund ICE and CBP. They would effectively abolish it.

This is not a slush fund unless you are calling what is the normal and regular operating budget of our immigration enforcement and Border Patrol officers a slush fund. It is regular, normal funding, and we are going to do it not for 1 year but for 3 years, so that we don't end up here again.

Mr. Speaker, it has often been said that budgets are statements of our priorities and our values. Repeatedly, President Biden would propose cuts to the Department of Homeland Security. The last year he was in office, in fact, Homeland Security was cut by 3.5 percent.

Remember, this is all while we had record numbers of illegal immigrants flooding into this country, record numbers of immigrants who were on the terrorist watch list, record numbers of criminals, record numbers of drugs killing Americans at record levels, about a plane load of Americans dying a week.

Meanwhile, my Democrat colleagues found time to give $800 billion in tax subsidies to green energy corporations. Think about that: Tax cuts for the rich, rich green energy corporations.

Tens of billions of dollars with a cell phone and a pen by Joe Biden, those moneys were given to illegal immigrants for healthcare that hardworking U.S. taxpayers funded.

According to NumbersUSA, we are spending about $9,000 per illegal immigrant in this country. Mr. Speaker, that is more than we spend on our most vulnerable U.S. citizens for Medicaid.

Mr. Speaker, it is true. We did put tens of billions of dollars in the first reconciliation bill because the Democrats' open-border policies absolutely wreaked havoc on the current system. It overwhelmed us.

My State spent $14 billion to do the job the Federal Government wouldn't do. We didn't have the infrastructure. We didn't have the boots on the ground. We didn't have the judicial process set up to take on the millions of people, over 10 million people, over 5 million of them released, not apprehended and held accountable, caught and released, so the system was overwhelmed.

We needed to infuse some capital to boost the infrastructure so we could seamlessly work through that. We are talking about regular operating budgets now and not what we had to put in for the system that was overwhelmed by the record numbers of illegal immigrants. We are talking about last year's budget plus inflation.

The bottom line is, my Democrat colleagues stand on the position of defunding immigration enforcement and effectively abolishing ICE.

I think that is an untenable position in this country. Only a few radicals hold that position. Most people know what we are up against and what these hardworking, brave people do for us.

Mrs. BIGGS of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the Secure America Act gives Border Patrol and ICE the resources they need to keep doing what is working.

Southwest border apprehensions are down 94 percent compared to the Biden administration. For this fiscal year's totals, CBP encounters are already 13 percent lower than April 2024 alone, and CBP has seized 61 percent more drugs this fiscal year than during the same period last year. That means fewer illegal crossings, more fentanyl stops, and stronger enforcement.

This bill invests in agents, officers, technology, and the tools needed to dismantle cartels, stop human trafficking, and remove criminal illegal aliens from our communities.

President Trump has proven that a secure border is possible. Now, Congress needs to back him up.

South Carolina families deserve safety, sovereignty, and a government that puts America first.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the Secure America Act.

Mr. Speaker, it is notable that not once has any reference been made by my Democrat colleagues to the victims of crimes perpetrated by criminal aliens on them and the loss, pain, and suffering of their families--not one time.

No, not once, have we heard, Mr. Speaker, any reference with respect, with honor and dignity, to the law enforcement officers who wear the uniform, who fight the fight to keep us safe, risking their lives to rid this country of the threats to our neighborhoods and our families-- not one time. We heard reign of terror. We heard gestapo. We hear all these things. Not one time.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, we are talking about last year's budget, plus inflation.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, as the good book says: Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

Our treasure as Republicans and our hearts, as the American people have reflected in this last and most historic election, is with the law-abiding citizens of this great Nation and the brave men and women who risk their lives to defend it every day.

This is regular budget, normal budgets, and this is the least we can do to support those folks who stand on that thin line to defend our sovereign borders and our safety.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my Democrat colleagues do not defund the ICE and Border Patrol.

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