Andy Biggs

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz) for sponsoring this legislation. Mr. Speaker, there is no legal authority for the U.S. to be involved in the Syrian civil war. There is no authority. Section 5(c) of the War Powers Act does not say, and I am quoting the chairman now, it does not say, ``without authorization.'' That is not the language. The language says, ``specific statutory authorization.'' You either declare war or you have specific statutory authority. Do you know what that 2001 AUMF says? It says those who ``aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.'' It doesn't say ``ISIS.'' It doesn't say ``Syria.'' It is talking about the events of 2001, as the gentleman from Florida just referenced. It is a quaint idea to say we are going to rely on that 2001 AUMF. I thought they were going to say they were relying on the 2002 AUMF. Either way, neither one works. You don't have authority, and you are going to be there and put U.S. soldiers in harm's way. This is a civil war. One Syrian analyst said this recently: ``Until we see the externals confront each other directly rather than on the Syrian ground, I don't see an actual end to the Syrian conflict.'' Do you know who the externals are? The U.S., the Russians, and Iran. That is the externals, and we have no authority to be one of those externals. The analyst went on to say this is a proxy war. That is what is happening. It is another U.S.-Russia proxy war. When the Syrian civil war began with protests during the Arab Spring of 2011, U.S. President Obama went to the regime in Syria and said: ``The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in the way. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.'' Is that our objective--regime change? Is that what it is? No. We don't know what the objective is. You can't even define what the exit ramp is. Assad responded that time by fueling the civil war, the exacerbation of that problem, and it has just grown. Now, you have us with our allies the Turks and our allies the Kurds. They are fighting against each other. They don't want each other. ISIS, in 2019, was declared to be defeated. Even the inspector general recently said they don't have an ability to cause damage and fear and harm in the homeland. The result is, in the last 13 years, the U.S. has spent more than $15 billion on humanitarian aid, and we don't even know what we have spent in Department of Defense costs. Do you know why? Because they are grouping it with what is going on in Iraq. We tried to obtain information. How much have we spent? Nobody will tell us. When General Milley says--by the way, he was the architect of that disastrous Afghanistan retreat, and he is a believer in a ``however long, no matter the cost'' approach in Ukraine. He insists we prolong our involvement in the civil war in Syria in order to help our allies. General Milley, who are our allies? Is it the Kurds? Is it the Turks? Who is it? Is it the Assad regime? He can't tell you. No one can tell you. All of this is being done, though, without legal authority. It is time for us to stop fighting proxy wars. It is time for us not to say next time we will take care of these AUMFs. We have had time. This is the time to get rid of them. I urge us to vote for this.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege today of honoring Jack Holder, who passed away on February 24, 2023, at the age of 101. Jack was a constituent and a U.S. Navy veteran of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, Guadalcanal, and dozens upon dozens of missions in support of the Allied Forces during World War II. Born Joseph Norman Holder on December 13, 1921, Jack was raised in a farming family in Gunter, Texas. Jack's father served in the trenches of World War I, and his uncle flew crop dusters over the family farm. With that heritage, it was only natural that combat aviation was a fit for Jack when he joined the U.S. Navy on April 24, 1940, at 18 years old. Jack attended boot camp and trained as an aviation machinist and mechanic in San Diego. He was then assigned to a flying boat squadron based on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Jack recalled how, soon after he lined up for roll call that fateful Sunday morning, the first bomb was dropped on Pearl Harbor only about 100 yards from him. He wrote how he heard ``the screaming aircraft with the rising sun insignia and loud explosions,'' and how, ``as I looked up, I saw a plane circle and head straight for us, so we jumped in a nearby ditch.'' Jack never forgot that moment, seeing the face of the pilot, hearing the roar of the plane's engine, and the sight of his guns aimed right at him. Nor did he ever forget the prayer he offered: ``God, don't let me die in this ditch.'' Thankfully, Jack was spared, and that ditch would become a makeshift machine gun nest that he would man for the next 3 days. After the attack at Pearl Harbor, Jack flew missions in support of Hawaii and Midway. At Midway, Jack's aircraft was the second to spot the Japanese fleet, but his was the first to transmit the fleet's position clearly to the USS Yorktown. Jack's crew would later fly 48 missions in support of the Solomon Islands campaign, including at Guadalcanal. Jack then transitioned to a Navy variant of the B-24, performing in 56 anti-sub patrols in the English Channel and assisting in sinking a German submarine. In total, Jack flew over 100 missions and was one of the select few who flew combat missions in both the European and Pacific theaters. For his brave service, he was twice awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and received six Air Medals, a Presidential citation, and six commendation medals. Jack was honorably discharged in 1948 and would go on to become a pilot and an aviation engineer. My office honored Jack several years ago at my Salute to Veterans event celebrating Veterans Day. I have heard over the years from constituents and veterans who attended the event that the retelling of Jack's courageous acts during and after the attack on Pearl Harbor formed a lasting impression that will remain in their hearts and minds forever. Jack, you were more than a constituent. You were a hero, a patriot, and a good friend. You gave so much to preserve this Nation in the face of tyranny. Your love for these United States, our Constitution, and our freedom were an inspiration to so many, and I pray that future generations will appreciate and follow your example. Fair winds and following seas, my friend. You will never be forgotten.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for organizing this. In years past, I would imagine that this particular issue would draw people from both sides of the aisle to come and protest the marriage of Big Business, Big Tech, and Big Government, to silence dissenting voices in this, what once was the freest Nation in the history of the world. Censorship is an authoritarian tool used to keep power by suppressing dissent. It is done, in our case, under the myth of keeping Americans safe. Conservatives, though, are playing against a stacked deck. This administration is doing the stacking. Last year, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security attempted to establish the Orwellian disinformation governance board, ultimately having to walk that back but, in reality, they just gave it another name and they will continue to try to suppress conservative voices. We learned months later that Facebook implemented a special portal where government officials can request the censorship of specific posts. Ahead of the 2020 election, unelected, deep state bureaucrats coordinated with major social media companies to ensure that the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop would be suppressed, right before an election. Users could not even share a link to the New York Post story to read the report for themselves, and Twitter even locked the New York Post's account and others for simply sharing the report. Facebook spied on individuals' private messages and reported users to the FBI if they questioned the 2020 election. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and others removed a sitting United States President from their platforms. Meanwhile, Twitter allowed Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to tweet horrific messages and tweets, without so much as deleting the tweets. And we wonder, we wonder, why Americans feel threatened by their own government, and why polling consistently tells us that our governmental institutions are viewed with disrepute by the American people. The moderators of these platforms have put their thumb on the scale of debate and have targeted conservatives over and over. But censorship does not just occur online, it can occur in the chilling of speech and the removal of debate altogether. We see that on college campuses, where students are fearful of retaliation if they express a conservative viewpoint. We have seen this administration target concerned parents attending school board meetings to protect their First Amendment activity by likening them to domestic terrorists. Recently, we have watched as Democrats, instead of promoting free speech, wrote a letter demanding that AT&T, that Alphabet, Hulu, Apple, Comcast, Roku, et cetera, remove three conservative media outlets from their programming. They have taken down OAN, and they have now notified Newsmax they are going to take them down. We know what happens in nations where you have the Big Government utilizing the power of the marketplace through Big Business, and now the marriage of Big Tech. We know that that leads to something that I call fascism. That is what we see happening in this once and, hopefully, future great Nation today. The idea, `` . . . that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.'' That statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the Westchester Conference of the American Library Association. I am suggesting that we have the courage to allow free speech, free thought, free debate in this great Nation.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Hinson) as cosponsor of H.R. 106. She was inadvertently added through a clerical error and did not intend to cosponsor the legislation.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Clerk, I rise to place into nomination the name of my friend from Florida, Byron Donalds, for Speaker of the House. You know, we are coming off an election just 2 months ago, a little less than 2 months ago, actually. What did that election tell us? Well, there were 5 million more Republicans who cast their ballots and told us that the American public wanted a change. They wanted a change from the policies of the left that has taken over the Democratic Party. It said they wanted a change, a change from this administration, this administration that has inflicted so much pain economically. We have seen crime explode. We have an administration that won't even acknowledge that there is a crisis on the border. I tell you to go on down to the border. I have invited this administration to come with me to the border. Let's see it firsthand. The American public said they want a change. They want something new. They want something different, and we are on a path that just continues. Where were we just 12 years ago? An $11 trillion national debt. Do you know where we are today? Almost three times that. Both parties share blame in that. We have to bring that under control. You bring that under control not just by changing the rules of an institution but by changing the leadership. I am told this process is painful. It is embarrassing, I am told. Do you know what it is? It is not dysfunction, and it is not imperiling. What it is, is the exchange of ideas and expression of support for people you want to be your leader in the next Congress. I think it is incredibly healthy, actually, for the American people to see that we are on the floor, something that my colleagues across the aisle so rarely like to be. They enjoy the proxy voting, I guess. They have sat there--I will give it to you. They have laughed, and they have chuckled, and they have pointed fingers at us and said, oh, see here. But do you know what? As my friend from Florida just said, we are together. We are having an internal fight. It is being displayed. I wish it wasn't necessarily being displayed, but the American people can see it. But I can tell you this: When this is over and done with, I know which side of the aisle is going to be laughing, and it is going to be the side that is unified in taking on the issues that Americans care about, the issues that the other side has not only ignored but has put upon the American people. We used to be energy independent. It seems so long ago. It was 2 years ago, actually. We are going to restore American energy independence. Do you know how you reduce inflation? You stop devaluing your currency. You stop blowing out the waters by spending $1.7 trillion on an omnibus bill that has many thousands of earmarks in it. You start taking on crime. You start fighting violence. You start fighting the overgrowth of our budget and restore our economy. You start incentivizing jobs. You recognize that the American middle class is being squeezed, and that those who are in more difficult economic circumstances are being squeezed by an economy that has this inflation that attacks energy. You bring your border back under control, and this side is going to bring that border security under control. We recognize it is a crisis. It is a crisis when, in 2020, the Yuma sector had 9,000 encounters, not for a 5-day period, but for an entire fiscal year. Under this administration, with these policies, 9,000 encounters is about a 5-day period in the Yuma sector today. You don't know what it is like unless you see that happening. We are on a suboptimal path. It has to change. To make a change, it can be difficult. It can be short-term uncomfortable. But when you move to the correct path, all of a sudden, things ease up and you can start having success. The direction here, in my opinion, is to someone like Byron Donalds, a man who is living the American Dream and is an example and a mentor for millions who need hope. Here is a man who has worked his way up. He is not a novice. He has the experience. He has the chops to be the Speaker. He is a man who has a lovely family, and they are politically engaged. They know what is going on. He has worked in Florida politics. He has worked in the legislature. He has respect. He has the quiet confidence that a leader needs. I look around this body today. I know it is hard for you to believe-- and it is hard for me to believe sometimes when I am here, as I have the great honor and privilege of serving with you--but you represent the cross-section of America, the great American experiment. The experience that you bring and the knowledge that you bring is unique. The road to recovery is through this body. I believe if you want to make changes, you have to make changes. Maintaining the status quo is not an option today. I believe we have reached an existential crisis in this country. I look across the aisle, and I see the left has captured virtually every institution. It is time that we reassert ourselves and put America back on the road to recovery. The person who I think is most capable and will do the most credible job to lead us back that way is my friend from Florida, the Honorable Byron Donalds, who I am pleased and proud to nominate as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to S. 4003, the Law Enforcement De- Escalation Training Act of 2022, which would duplicate existing programs. S. 4003 creates a new Federal grant program to provide training for law enforcement officers on de-escalation techniques, participation in crisis intervention teams, making referrals to community-based service providers safely responding to individuals in a behavioral or mental health crisis, and alternatives to use of force. It requires the Department of Justice to develop training curriculum in collaboration with mental health providers, law enforcement agencies, civil rights organizations, and other stakeholders. It also authorizes $133 million in new money over the next 4 years with no offsets. There are several problems with this legislation. First, the COPS Office at the Justice Department currently funds programs that already do what this bill purports to support. For instance, the COPS Office funds the Community Policing Development De-escalation Training program through two different mechanisms. Through one mechanism, the COPS Office provides $3 million over the next 2 years for the expansion of a network of regional centers to provide nationally certified de-escalation training opportunities for law enforcement. The other mechanism, Law Enforcement Agency De-escalation Grants, provides nearly $12 million in grant funding over the next 2 years to support whole agency de-escalation, implicit bias, and duty-to- intervene training efforts. These programs are appropriated and up and running as we speak tonight. We should not be creating new programs that are duplicative of current programs without at least examining the efficacy of the currently funded programs. Second, this legislation represents a departure from traditional law enforcement techniques, one that advances a soft-on-crime approach. In recent years, these kinds of approaches to fighting crime have been a boon to criminals and have led to our current crime epidemic. We need to seriously address this crime epidemic, not fund duplicative programs that would keep cops in cars. Finally, this bill is yet another step in federalizing our local police departments. The bill imposes onerous reporting requirements that would be created with input from liberal special interest groups which can amount to a backdoor way to defund the police. Law enforcement organizations that fail to meet rigorous reporting requirements created by input from some organizations that advocated for defunding the police would lose training funding under these programs for 2 years. Local policing is a function of local government. The Federal Government should not be imposing its will over these departments and expanding its spending program with this bill. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, as I offer this in closing and continue in our opposition, we have programs that take care of this already, those that are already expending $15 million. This has $130 million- plus, and actually adds federalization of policing that's going to be overseen by Federal agencies and special interests. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. I oppose the EAGLE Act and encourage all Members to do the same. The Biden administration has created the absolute worst border crisis in our history, and congressional Democrats have done nothing to address it. They won't even acknowledge that there is a crisis, with the exception of the gentleman in the Chair. The crisis is real. It is having a negative impact on communities across the country, but President Biden has more important things to do than visit the border. I visit the border on a regular basis, and every time I do, I hear a similar message. First, the brave men and women of the Border Patrol are being overrun. They are tired of the administration not supporting their efforts to secure the border. Second, illegal aliens enter every day because they believe that the Biden administration is going to let everyone stay. Thirdly, our communities are running out of resources to deal with the real-world impacts of the Biden border crisis. Cities like New York City and Washington, D.C., complained when a few hundred illegal aliens were sent to their communities, but cities in Arizona are dealing with large groups of illegal aliens every day. We are now told, with title 42 expiring, that they will do direct releases into Arizona's communities because there is just simply no place to even hold them to process them. Since President Biden took office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 4 million illegal aliens at the southwest land border. During the same time, the Biden administration has simply released more than 1.4 million of those illegal aliens into the country. Under this administration, those aliens will never be removed from the country, and the 4 million number does not include the hundreds of thousands, probably more than a million, got-aways who enter the country illegally without being apprehended by the Border Patrol. For example, in November alone, there were more than 73,000 known got-aways, with estimates of at least one unknown got-away for every known got-away. That is a total of 150,000 people. We don't know where they came from. We don't know where they are going. We don't know what their intentions are. The numbers continue to get worse. Over the weekend, Border Patrol reported more than 16,000 encounters in 2 days, and that does not include known and unknown got-aways. But according to DHS Secretary Mayorkas, the border is secure. In fact, he testified under oath that DHS has operational control of the border. A week later, he backtracked on that statement because DHS does not have operational control of the border, despite the fact that he is required to achieve and maintain operational control of the border. Congress even defined what operational control means so that there would be no ambiguity. It is this: ``The term `operational control' means the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.'' I look forward to Secretary Mayorkas testifying before the Committee on the Judiciary next year and explaining whether he stands by his previous testimony that he is maintaining operational control of our border. We know what he will say, because last month he told the Committee on Homeland Security that he believes the border is secure. The Democrat-led Committee on the Judiciary hasn't held a single hearing on the crisis, and many Democrats on the committee deny that there is a crisis. At a hearing earlier this year, one Democrat committee member referred to this crisis as the ``supposed crisis at the southern border.'' I wonder if she still thinks it is just a supposed border crisis. Some of us in this room today know the reality of that border crisis. The committee hasn't held a single hearing on the flow of fentanyl into this country. The committee hasn't held a single hearing on the increase in the number of Border Patrol encounters with illegal aliens on the terrorist watch list. You would think that the committee would be concerned with the fact that in fiscal year 2022, Border Patrol reported encountering 98 illegal aliens on the terrorist watch list. To put that in perspective, for the years 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined, Border Patrol only reported encountering 11 illegal aliens on the terrorist watch list. Secretary Mayorkas couldn't even tell the committee if any of the illegal aliens on the terrorist watch list who were encountered by CBP were still in the country.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, he has no idea where those individuals are. Republicans on the Committee on the Judiciary have repeatedly asked for hearings. Those requests have been ignored. Instead of conducting oversight, Democrats have advanced bills to provide amnesty and further weaken our security, which are incentives to those who wish to illegally enter the United States of America. The EB-4 issue, as explained by my colleague from California, Ms. Lofgren, it does not change the impact, as it provides an incentive for the cartels in their human trafficking expeditions. The EAGLE Act will do nothing to secure our border or address the crisis that this administration has created, but it will dramatically alter our illegal immigration system in ways that most Members do not understand or fully appreciate. Even the American Immigration Lawyers Association has opposed the bill. They acknowledge that the bill will benefit immigrants from a few countries, namely China and India, while adversely impacting those wishing to legally immigrate to the United States from almost all other countries. Instead of rushing to pass this bill today, the House should be debating and passing legislation to require Secretary Mayorkas to enforce the law, to finish construction of the border wall, and to provide CBP and ICE with the resources they need to enforce the law.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, it is really an incredible thing to be here. Before I came to Congress, I had heard of Louie Gohmert. I had no idea that he would be a friend nor how iconoclastic he is. He is a one-of-a- kind American. I have a volume of stories. I mean, the way he eats a doughnut, for instance. We could talk about all of these things. I won't do that. He is larger than life. He is a fearless conservative. He has been on the front lines fearlessly fighting. Thomas Massie was talking about his memory. It is copious. It is encyclopedic. You can never go wrong with saying, ``Hey, Louie, what happened here?'' Because he is going to know. He has been a friend of the friendless and a champion who offers the balm of Gilead to those who have a lost cause. He has just been an iconoclastic individual. He is going to be missed terribly. I tell you what, Louie, we are going to miss you, your personality, your fun, your joie de vivre--that is French, Louie; you might not have recognized that--your love of life, all the things that you brought to us. But we are going to miss your guitar playing--a little bit, anyway. We are really going to miss your ribs. I don't know if anybody else is going to be able to smoke some ribs up on the balcony of the office building over there. Maybe not. But we are sure going to miss them. We are sure going to miss you, my friend. God bless you. Godspeed.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I hereby remove my name as cosponsor of H.R. 8814.