Henry Cuellar

Mr. CUELLAR

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), the distinguished Democratic leader.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Trone), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and we have no further speakers. Mr. Chair and to my good colleague, Mr. Joyce, we are apart right now. I know we are going to get together, but I do want to remind some of our colleagues that we had an opportunity under the current bill that we have right now. We added in the last couple years $2.4 billion. That is a 15 percent increase for border patrol agents, pay increases, add more Border Patrol agents, ICE, CBP, the other folks in. We had the moneys to do that, but at the end of the day--and I will just take one example--we gave money to Homeland, a 15 percent increase, yet there are only two Members--when we all voted--on the Republican side that actually supported the appropriations bill, Homeland. So if we care so much about Homeland, why did we vote ``no'' on the final appropriations bill? I know some of us are going to vote ``no,'' and I am voting ``no'' on this one, but on the final one, I will support the final appropriations bill. The other thing is as the Democratic leader, Mr. Jeffries, said, we have 3 days to work this out, and by passing this bill to the Senate it is not going to get there. I would just like to remind Members that we ought to be working on preventing the shutdown. If you look at the shutdowns that we have had since the 1990s, in 1995 it was a Republican House that had a 5-day shutdown. That was November 13, 1995. On December 15, 1995, there was another Republican- led House with 21 days of a shutdown. Then on September 30, 2013, again, for 16 days it was a Republican-led House that allowed the shutdown. Then on January 19, 2018, another Republican-led House shutdown lasted for 2 days. Then on December 21, 2018, there was another Republican-led House shutdown for 34 days. So, again, I hope that on Saturday or on Sunday at 12:01 there is not another Republican-led shutdown. We are asking you please give us input. Let's sit down. Let's talk about it. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Joyce and his staff. I know we can do this together. We will be voting ``no'' on this, but I know at the end of this process we will be voting together on this on a ``yes'' bill. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I support this en bloc amendment. It contains a series of bipartisan amendments in support of the Members' priorities on both sides. This is the way we ought to do it--bipartisan. Certainly, I have no objection, and I encourage adoption of this amendment because it supports shared priorities, including counter fentanyl detention, Border Patrol checkpoints and ports of entry, investigations for missing and exploited children, and more technology for the frontline officers and agents. Mr. Chair, I support this en bloc, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel).

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, this is a bipartisan amendment. I support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment. There are already avenues for victims of crime to engage with both the Department of Homeland Security's Victims Engagement and Services Line or the Department of Justice's Office of Victims of Crime. The Department of Homeland Security has protection for victims, and the Department of Justice also has the Office of Victims of Crime. This office would be duplicative of those efforts and would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. We are doing that already. Frankly, when you say this, you are basically taking the position that crime only occurs when you have a migrant. The stats do not support this conclusion. In fact, the Department of Justice released a study in 2020 and found that undocumented immigrants had substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across the range of felony offenses. I don't care where the attack came from. I want to support the victims. I want to support the victims, and that is what the Department of Justice's Office of Victims of Crime does. Let's support that office and provide it more funding. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment. Again, the Department of Justice Office of Victims of Crime supports everybody. They don't ask you where the crime came in. They will support you. This office would be duplicative of those efforts and would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. Let the Victims Engagement and Services Line office and the Office of Victims of Crime do their job. Let's make sure that they get the support. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I understand what my colleague is talking about. We do want to make sure that we address border issues, but we have to make sure that we address it in the right way. I will talk about the report. In fact, I will be happy to tell you that I also get frustrated sometimes when we don't get the reports, and I will be happy to work with you and with the chairman to get you that report. I will tell you that in the bill already, there is a $25 million hold for this report. If you add another $10 million, does that make the pain more painful? Keep in mind that this account doesn't just fund bureaucracy. It also funds suicide prevention efforts and other health security measures. It funds child welfare professionals for tender-age kids in DHS custody. It funds the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties also. I also get frustrated when we don't get the report. If you add another $30 million, another $40 million, will that get you there? You mentioned the border. Keep in mind that we are concerned, and I want to make sure that we control our border. If you want to stop drugs, as one of our colleagues said, most drugs will come in through ports of entry, but we are not putting the emphasis on ports of entry. We need to do a lot more, more canines, more technology. If you want to look at the people who are illegally here, I remind everybody that the number one violator for visa overstays, which have been millions over the years, has been Canada. I don't hear any of you talking about putting a wall between the U.S. and Canada. I say that because, again, we have to be smart on how we address it. I invite you down to the border. I love when people come in and spend a few hours. I live there, and I will tell you, I will take the biggest cities in your State--I would say if you take Atlanta and, on the border, I take Laredo, murder, rape, and assault, we have lower crime rates than the city, per 100,000. If you look at the national crime rate for murders, the border crime rate is lower. We have to look at crime as one issue and then look at migration. I am with you. I hate open borders. I want to make sure that we work together, but we have to do this in a bipartisan way. I feel their frustration. There are some reports I wish we could get faster. I will work with them and the chairman to get this report to them. Mr. Chair, for those reasons, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CUELLAR

Mr. CUELLAR. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. CUELLAR. Again, I understand where the gentleman is coming from, but, if we look at it, even the prior administration also understood that the way to address this issue is to put those gates there because of the flooding. Congress has been looking at this issue with CBP for the last 15 years, and, while it is not perfect, I do understand the prior two administrations have come to the same conclusion, and that is: Deal with the monsoons, the flooding, and they put those doors to make sure that things are not washed off. Keep in mind that we are spending about $36 million a mile for every fence that we put up. That is $36 million a mile. With about $3 to $5 million, we can get the best technology that can include drones, that could include sensors, that can include so much of the technology to address that. Again, if you spent $36 million a mile for a fence, all you need is a $100 ladder that would take care of the problem that you have. Again, I will show that, even in Texas, Mr. Chairman, people are concerned about the flooding over there, and that is why the fence is put a quarter mile or a half a mile away, so all the landowners that are over here, they lose their property because you are putting the fence on this side, so the renters, the property, the private right is gone because of the fence. All you have is the river over here. People just walk over here to the fence and claim asylum. We have to have repercussions at the border. Whoever is supposed to stay, stay. Whoever is supposed to be deported should be deported. Again, we cannot play defense on the 1-yard line, called the U.S. border. We need to extend the perimeter out there. Again, I feel, Mr. Chairman, that the wall might be damaged because of the water or the flooding, but, again, the past administration--the Trump administration, the Biden administration, and the Bush administration-- all came up with the same conclusion when they got asked to look at this issue, and they said: You have to put doors or gates so the rain or the floods don't wash away the fence. Mr. Chair, I understand where my colleague is coming from, but I will ask the floor to vote ``no.'' Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.