Lauren Boebert

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I see nothing wrong with taking a stand as an elected official to hold unelected, rogue bureaucrats accountable. The one way that we can effectively do that is through our House rules, utilizing the Holman rule, to affect the salary of these bureaucrats who are abusing their position, not taking it seriously, or should not have been appointed there in the first place. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment to reduce the salary of the Department's acting chief diversity and inclusion officer, Constance Mayer, to $1. Simply put, Ms. Mayer is working in an office that should not exist doing a job that should not exist. In addition to hundreds of ambassadors, the Department already boasts a whopping 55 personal envoys, representatives, and coordinators with overlapping responsibilities. Special positions, like Ms. Mayer's, often create both resentment within the Department's existing bureaucracy and confusion among foreign governments as to who is actually setting policy. At the direction of Joe Biden's DEI executive order, the State Department produced and published a 19-page equity action plan, the first sentence of which proclaims: ``Addressing systemic racism . . . is a core tenet of President Biden's foreign policy.'' The core problem with this plan is that it does not identify a clear set of problems, and it does not prescribe specific, measurable solutions. It simply cuts the American social justice template and pastes it into a plan that is supposed to inform U.S. foreign policy across the world. This office is also functionally redundant. To the extent that it has a mission, the responsibilities of the chief diversity and inclusion officer overlap with the Office of Civil Rights, which is charged with propagating ``fairness, equity, and inclusion at the Department of State.'' This job is yet another unaccountable, ideologically motivated, politically charged senior office with vague goals and no yardsticks for measuring success. The Federal Government's obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion needs to come to an end. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to remove this unnecessary position that has proven to undercut our core American values and waste more taxpayer dollars. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I just want to clarify, once again, that the diversity inclusion officer should not exist. This office is functionally redundant to the extent that it has a mission. The responsibilities of the chief diversity and inclusion officer overlap with the Office of Civil Rights, which is charged with propagating fairness, equity, and inclusion at the Department of State. This is yet another unacceptable, ideologically motivated, politically charged senior office with vague goals and no yardstick for measuring success. That is why I am offering this amendment to reduce the salary of the Department's Acting Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Constance Mayer, to $1. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of Palestinian Affairs Officer George Noll to $1. On March 13, the Office of Palestinian Affairs in the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem posted on Twitter photos of its director, George Noll, visiting the Tomb of Lazarus north of Jerusalem. The post referred to the tomb as ``an important religious site maintained by the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Tourism.'' Mr. Noll praised the Palestinian Authority's ``work preserving beautiful historical and religious sites like this throughout the West Bank.'' We all know the truth. Instead of preserving beautiful historical and religious sites throughout Judea and Samaria, the Palestinian Authority is deliberately destroying them. Shortly after this exchange, the State Department published its Country Reports on Human Rights practices. The section on Israel was incredibly hostile. This report attacks Israel for denying prison furloughs to Palestinian terrorists, fighting terrorism, and preventing unrestricted illegal immigration. From Noll's praise for the Palestinian Authority, which is committed to erasing Jewish history, to the State Department's denunciation of Israel's right to defend itself and enforce its laws, the Biden administration's abusive treatment of Israel needs to end. As we all know, the Palestinian Authority is also known to pay the families of terrorists lavish monthly pensions for attacks against Americans and Israelis as a part of their so-called Martyr's Fund. The taxpayers here in this country should not be footing the bill to pay a government employee to praise a terrorist organization. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment that ensures no funds to enforce or implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for international travelers. This simple, straightforward amendment will ensure that Joe Biden's bureaucrats can never, ever again implement or enforce another ludicrous and unscientific vaccine mandate for international travel. When this rule was in place from 2021 to earlier this year, it made everyday life so much harder for so many people, from tearing apart family reunifications to punishing companies overseas for doing business with America. Just a few stories my congressional office has come across include: The mother of a Dutch tourist who died on the Appalachian Trail was unable to come to the United States to collect her son's body; A woman's fiance who lives in Canada has been unable to visit her on American soil for the past 3 years; A man working for a company in the United Kingdom who is unable to travel to the United States for business meetings; and A family in New Hampshire with Canadian in-laws has been unable to have Canadian family members visit for Christmas in the United States since COVID started. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have already started ramping up the new round of COVID hysteria. Last month, it was reported that TSA team members were told that they will receive new guidelines on how the restrictions will evolve and that by mid-October, pilots, flight staff, passengers, and airport patrons will be required to once again wear masks. Allegedly, administration officials were told that it was not a matter of ``if'' but ``when'' COVID numbers rise, the Biden administration plans to roll out a new round of COVID restrictions. Moreover, numerous Federal agencies have reported purchasing more COVID-19 equipment and have awarded contracts to private companies to help enforce COVID-19 pandemic-era safety protocols. Joe Biden's unilateral vaccine mandates posed an existential threat to our system of government. It is long past time Congress takes our Article I authority outlined in the Constitution to rein in Biden's overreaching mandates that are trampling on our liberties. The Biden administration fumbled the bag on handling COVID last time around. We should all be concerned that hysteria regarding the new COVID-19 variant will be used as justification to return to shutdowns, mandates, restrictions, and so much more, despite the fact that the evidence shows that these measures did nothing to combat this virus. COVID is over. Let's ensure Biden's bureaucrats don't have the power to impose unpopular and unconstitutional liberty-stripping vaccine mandates again. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and put an end to this COVID hysteria led by the ``branch Covidian'' Joe Biden. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the gentlewoman's concern for lives lost in America, and I would hope that the gentlewoman would join our efforts in securing our southern border. This administration has stripped title 42 away that prevented illegal aliens from coming into our country who may pose some sort of threat with an illness or a virus. If they were serious about COVID-19, this should never be something that they would want to eliminate. Instead, it is American citizens and those trying to travel to our country and from our country who are restricted by these unconstitutional vaccine mandates. If the gentlewoman is concerned about the numbers of lives being lost, maybe she should join us in supporting our efforts to secure the southern border, where there is a flow of fentanyl coming into our country killing 300 Americans a day, making every State a border State. It is hard to take any of the paper masks seriously when we know that they don't work. It has been proven time and time again while they are on their seventh booster shot and still supposedly getting COVID. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of Shawn Skelly, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness. That salary shall be reduced to $1. As the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Mr. Skelly is the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense and the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness on all matters related to the readiness of our Armed Forces. In that capacity, he is supposed to develop policies and plans, provide advice, and make recommendations for total force readiness programs, reporting, and assessments of readiness to execute the national defense strategy. Like many of Biden's bureaucrats, Mr. Skelly is failing at his job and the basic responsibilities. On his watch, the Army missed their recruiting goal by 15,000 soldiers last year, and all other branches were forced to dig deep into their pools of delayed entry applicants to meet their recruitment goals. On top of that, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard are all expected to fall short of their recruitment goals this year. Mr. Skelly has also been with the Biden administration since the beginning and was appointed to the transition team--some irony there-- in November of 2020. As the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, Mr. Skelly played an instrumental role in the disastrous and shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan that killed 13 of America's finest, 13 American heroes in that embarrassing surrender to the Taliban. As DOD's highest ranking trans official, this delusional man, thinking he is a woman, embodies and espouses the wokeism that is causing significant harm to our military readiness and troop morale. The military shouldn't be focused on this woke agenda and combating climate change. With Mr. Skelly at the helm of readiness, these misguided policy pursuits will continue to be at the forefront of DOD's priorities. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore the focus of our Department of Defense to defend our Nation. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I guess delusion runs deep in the Democratic Party. I would go on the record to say that science is a friend in this case and, sure, if you want to call Mr. Skelly a ``her,'' his chromosomes are still X-Y, and we trust the science over here rather than delusion and playing dress-up and imaginary games with our military readiness. Our military needs to be lethal and able to defend our national security, not pander to the woke extremist left and make up fairy tales. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I just want the Record to reflect that there is nothing hateful about truth. Again, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore the focus of our Department of Defense to defend our Nation. I look forward to this Holman rule being utilized to reduce the salary of Secretary Shawn Skelly, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, to $1. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise in favor of my amendment, which will reduce the salary of Norvel Dillard, director of Diversity and Inclusion Management at the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion of the Department of Defense, to $1. Norvel ``Rock'' Dillard is a part of Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin's attempt to woken and weaken our military. He works in an office that should not exist doing a job that also should not exist. Our military is not a social experiment, and we definitely should not be treating it like one or spending taxpayer dollars to do so. Woke ideology undermines military readiness. It undermines cohesiveness by emphasizing differences based on race, ethnicity, and sex. It undermines leadership authority by introducing questions about whether promotion is based on merit or quota requirements. It leads to military personnel serving in specialty areas for which they are not qualified or ready. It takes time and resources away from training activities and weapons development to contribute to readiness. Unelected bureaucrats at the DOD need to be held responsible for their failed leadership, which has distracted from DOD's mission and jeopardized the United States military's ability to defend our country. From the botched Afghanistan withdrawal that left 13 American soldiers dead to the implementation of a woke agenda that has weakened our military and caused recruitment to suffer, bureaucrats like Norvel Dillard have continued to put a leftist agenda ahead of our national security. The Federal Government's obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion needs to come to an end, especially at DOD, where our brave servicemembers volunteer to put themselves in harm's way to fight for freedom. They don't care about the skin color of their brothers and sisters in uniform. They care about completing the mission and going home to their families. Our Defense Department should have the same mindset. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore the focus of our Department of Defense to defend our Nation. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle agree that there is a recruitment crisis. Why is that? I think it is because our brave men and women who put their lives on the line to serve our Nation dutifully, with honor, don't see a true Commander in Chief in office. They don't see true leadership that they can be proud to serve alongside, to serve under. I don't believe that our brave men and women see that they will be taken care of when they put their lives in harm's way to defend our Nation, to defend our allies throughout the world. Let me ask my colleagues a broad question: This Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, did that save our 13 servicemembers in Afghanistan, or did it distract from the actual mission? I heard from my colleagues, Mr. Chair, on the other side of the aisle that this was a way to ridicule and disrespect. I think it is ridiculing to promote someone who does not have the qualifications needed for a position just because of how they identify, their race. This is what is ridiculing. This is what is disrespectful. This woke agenda, this DEI, this movement that the left has created, I see it as a way to erase women. I heard my colleague on the other side of the aisle talk about, in the 1970s, there was a recruitment effort to bring more women to our military, and if that were the case today, if that were the mission today, to offer a more diverse military and recruit more women, well, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would simply put men in a dress and put them in heels. Heck, I got some red lipstick you could borrow. That is not the answer. The answer is readiness. The answer is that we are all equal under the law, and you do not promote someone simply because of these qualifications. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman Rule to reduce the salary of Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis, Kenneth Wainstein. In 2020, Mr. Wainstein claimed that President Donald Trump's leadership was a threat to the rule of law and endorsed Joe Biden for President of the United States. I will tell you what is a threat to the rule of law: blatantly violating Federal immigration law and intentionally facilitating a complete and total invasion at our southern border. I will tell you what is a threat to the rule of law: refusing to cooperate with State and local law enforcement officials as required under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. I will tell you, Mr. Chair, what is a threat to the rule of law: pursuing a radical open border agenda, purposefully and willfully circumventing every safeguard, check, and balance required by law, allowing terrorists and deadly drugs like fentanyl to freely flow into our great country. This administration has presided over the largest influx of illegal immigrants in American history. Since they took power, there have been over 6 million illegal crossings of our southern border. That's right-- 6 million. Under this administration's watch, illicit fentanyl has killed more than 100,000 American citizens. Furthermore, 151 people whose names appear on the terrorist watch list were stopped. I applaud our brave men and women who serve as our Customs and Border Patrol agents who were able to detain these 151 people who are on the terrorist watch list. They were trying to cross our southern border, an all-time record of known terrorists on the watch list crossing into our country, beating the previous record also held by the Biden administration in fiscal year 2022. This is more than the encounters in all fiscal years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined. In August, we discovered that a smuggler with ties to ISIS was helping migrants enter the United States from Mexico. This madness needs to end. This has all occurred on the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis, Mr. Wainstein's, watch. The American people deserve to have a Department of Homeland Security committed to securing the homeland, not sitting idly by as terrorists flock across our wide open southern border. My amendment is supported by the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, NumbersUSA, and the American Accountability Foundation. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and hold Mr. Wainstein accountable for not doing his job and for his role in facilitating the worst border crisis in our Nation's history. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of Ur Jaddou, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, to $1. Ms. Jaddou is a radical leftist. Before joining the Biden administration, she worked for an open borders group called DHS Watch. While at DHS Watch, Jaddou called for stopping Border Patrol funding and referred to CBP as President Trump's ``personal militia.'' Ms. Jaddou has also previously called for the mass release of illegal immigrants. Someone like this should not be in a position of influence at the Department of Homeland Security. She has no regard for the rule of law. Ms. Jaddou proposed and finalized the rule Procedures for Credible Fear Screening and Consideration of Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and CAT Protection Claims by Asylum Officers, which removed ICE attorneys and the adversarial process from the credible fear asylum application process. The rule violates the jurisdiction of Department of Justice immigration judges as stated by section 103 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Homeland Security Act. Ms. Jaddou also heavily prioritizes USCIS resources to adjudicate and issue employment authorization documents for millions of illegal aliens, parolees, and ever-expanding populations of temporary protected status instead of adjudicating lawful nonimmigrant and immigrant applications. These misguided amnesty pursuits have rapidly increased the USCIS' pending backlog to over 9 million cases.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Jaddou previously pushed other amnesty policies in her role as USCIS during the Obama administration. Specifically, she aggressively tried to expand parole in place in order to bypass Congress and implement mass amnesty. Jaddou has also defended the unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, falsely claiming this is a permissible exercise of discretion by the Secretary of Homeland Security. As an attorney, she should know only Congress has the authority to authorize this type of program. With that, Obama and DHS should have never unilaterally created this amnesty program. Jaddou in her current role is literally enabling and supporting the Biden border crisis. In August alone, there were 232,972 illegal immigrants encountered at the southern border. Customs and Border Patrol has seized 25,500 pounds of fentanyl so far in fiscal year 2023. Of course, that is only what has been seized, not what we know is coming into our country illegally and killing Americans, at least 300 a day. Biden's bureaucrats like Jaddou are literally allowing deadly fentanyl to easily flow into our communities and kill our children. My amendment is supported by the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, NumbersUSA, and the American Accountability Foundation. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and hold Ms. Jaddou accountable for her blatant disrespect for the law of our Nation. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I do appreciate my colleague on the other side of the aisle and his efforts to promote border security. He and I have had conversations about the border. I realize that he represents a district on the border, and I appreciate his sincere concern for what is taking place. Unfortunately, we do have an invasion. My colleague mentioned that much of the fentanyl that is coming into our country is being found at the ports of entry. We know that it is being found at the ports of entry, but unfortunately, our Border Patrol agents are overrun, they are overworked, and there is just too large of a surge for them to handle everything that is happening at the border. Certainly, we want more funding to secure the border, but we don't want more funding for our Border Patrol agents to simply be process agents and bring people into our country in these mass amounts that we are seeing. I do appreciate my colleague and his efforts to work with us to secure the southern border, and I look forward to future conversations, as well. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.