Shomari Figures

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3425, the Personnel Oversight and Shift Tracking Act of 2025, a bill that I am proud to cosponsor. This bill would require the Director of the FPS, the Federal Protective Service, to establish processes to strengthen oversight, performance, and accountability of contract security personnel engaged in the protection of Federal buildings and grounds that are owned, occupied, or secured by GSA. FPS law enforcement officers and the contract guards who support them risk their lives every day to protect Federal workers and the public by controlling access to government facilities and screening visitors for prohibited items. As part of these efforts, FPS investigators have covertly tested security at Federal buildings to ensure the accuracy of these systems and have developed a tracking system to ensure guards are qualified and posts are staffed adequately. Despite these efforts, however, guards failed to detect prohibited items in about half of the 27 covert tests that the Government Accountability Office investigators conducted just last year. Additionally, the new FPS tracking system has not worked well enough to replace the old paper-based system, as my colleague has just described. By improving FPS data collection and analysis and implementing the findings on these security tests, the agency will be able to better ensure the safety and security of Federal buildings, employees, the public, and the FPS officers themselves. Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation and urge all Members to do the same to make sure that we are holding our contractors accountable and doing everything we can to protect our Federal buildings and our personnel located within. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 3425, and I thank my colleague, Mr. Kennedy, for his leadership on this important matter. The POST Act of 2025 is something that I urge all of my colleagues to support, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3428, a bill to direct the GAO to review the three Mid-Atlantic River Basin Commissions and report on the practices and Federal responsibilities of each commission. The Mid-Atlantic River Basin Commissions serve an important role in the region by managing, protecting, and improving their respective river basins. The commissions were created to consolidate a complex web of State, interstate, and Federal efforts into one. For example, the history of the Potomac Basin Commission reminds us how the commission was formed in response to extreme pollution levels in our Nation's River that required a regional, cooperative response by all jurisdictions. Similarly, the Delaware River Basin Compact, signed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy and the then-Governors of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, created a commission with the force of law to oversee a unified approach to managing the river without regard to political boundaries. As a result of these commissions, water quality on the Delaware, Potomac, and Susquehanna Rivers has, in many ways, vastly improved, but threats such as population increases, land use changes, and the growth of impervious surfaces, chemical contaminants, and nutrient and sediment enrichment still require focused, regional attention. This GAO study will review these partnerships and how responsibilities are split between the commissions and the Federal agencies, as well as examine the transparency and communication practices of the commissions. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 3428 and urge my colleagues to do the same. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for his leadership on this issue. I support H.R. 3428, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Moore) as cosponsor of H.R. 4401.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I have listened to many of my colleagues' views on the issues before us today. I respect them all, and I respect their views. I don't disagree with many of the points that my colleagues who are in opposition are making, especially as it relates to executive conflict of interest concerns. Here is what I know. I know that the United States is lagging behind the rest of the world in regulating this industry. I know that the regulations in the CLARITY Act are better than none at all in this industry. I know that consumers will be better protected the day after this goes into effect than they were the day before. Now, is there more work to be done? Absolutely. We should do that. We cannot allow subjective ideas of perfection to override what are objectively steps in the right direction. The CLARITY Act is one act that I support, and this is an important first step. As we move forward, however, we must continue to make the necessary investments so that everyone can participate. Those are investments in technical training and education so that people have the knowledge and skills to actually understand and participate in a digital economy. This is also a time to commit ourselves to ensuring that we do not leave underserved and rural communities behind. I represent a district that is geographically predominantly rural. We still struggle with issues like not having access to the internet in many counties that I represent. You cannot participate in or leverage the benefits of a digital economy if you can't get on the internet. That is a fact. We must stand up for these communities and bring broadband and internet expansion resources to every community that we possibly can. Let's keep moving forward. Let's keep making sure that we are bringing everyone along with us. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, in his final op-ed, Congressman Lewis said: ``You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time.'' Some may take those as just wise words from a civil rights icon, but for me, I take that statement as a personal charge because I now have the privilege, the blessing, of representing not only the birthplace of the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama, but also the birthplace of John Lewis, the man who often referred to himself as the boy from Troy, which is a small town in Pike County, Alabama, which is now in District Two, a district, I might add, that exists in its current format today because of the Voting Rights Act, the very same Voting Rights Act that John Lewis risked his life to see enacted. Those words in that final op-ed, to me, are a charge to not forget where we have come from or what we have been through as a nation, but also a charge to be vigilant and to commit to ensuring that we never go back to certain days in this country's past. That charge is becoming increasingly more important by the day. It seems that every day there is another effort to set us back to times we thought we were beyond as a nation: from watching the current administration walk back school desegregation consent decrees to the closing of civil rights offices across the Federal Government, to straight-on attacks to efforts to ensure that the playing field is balanced for everybody, regardless of what you look like. It seems to me that we are forgetting where we came from as a nation, forgetting the times when people who look like me did not have the opportunity or the privilege to live in the same America as people who don't look like me. These are not just efforts by this current administration to overtly roll back equal protections and access, but even in this very body, where just recently we passed legislation that imposes student loan borrowing caps on Americans who want to be doctors or lawyers, and those caps are less than the average cost of those degrees. To some people, they may say that is just race-neutral. Those lessons of history that John Lewis was speaking of teach us a different lesson. They teach us, in practice, that means fewer Black people will be able to become lawyers, and fewer Black people will be able to become doctors. That means fewer opportunities. That means fewer Black parents can tell their kids that they can literally be anything they want to be when they grow up. They must now caveat that by saying: If we can afford it, you can be a doctor. If our credit is good enough, you may be able to be a lawyer. That same history that clarifies what those recent actions mean tells us that, no matter how dark the days may be now, no matter how dark the motives or the efforts are, no matter how dark the outcomes may be, those spaces can never be as dark as they once were because the light of progress made hangs forever in those spaces. The light of John Lewis hangs forever in those spaces. This is not a moment of complacency. We cannot afford to be complacent in this moment. We must aggressively continue the fight, as my colleagues have so eloquently laid out here tonight. We must continue the fight for justice, learning from our past and building upon the legacy of John Lewis and others, which demands that, in moments like this, we stand firm, keep the faith, and continue the struggle.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to wish the happiest of birthdays to the most beautiful woman on the planet. She is my wife, Dr. Kalisha Dessources Figures. I thank her for her investment in me. She has made me a better man, a better father, and a better person. A lot of Members say it, but I can say 100 percent there is no world in which there is a Congressman Shomari Figures without the support of my wife. Mr. Speaker, I love her, I thank her, and I wish my love the happiest of birthdays.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the rule to make in order the amendment at the desk that protects against any cuts to Medicaid or SNAP.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the critical importance of both SNAP and Medicaid, not just to Alabama's Second District but in every congressional district across this country. When I took this position, like all of my colleagues, I took an oath not just for this position but I took an oath to the people that I represent. That is to not forget where I come from. I took an oath to places like Mobile, Montgomery, Phenix City, Evergreen, and Greenville. I took an oath to the neighborhood I grew up in, in Toulminville, to not forget the type of district that I come from. For me, what that district looks like is about one in four households rely on SNAP benefits. Over 200,000 people, almost a third of the population in the State of Alabama, are enrolled in Medicaid. The individual median income in my district is just about $31,000 a year. I come from a district that is not the wealthiest in this country. It is not even close to the wealthiest or well-off. These aren't just statistics. These are real people I see when I go home to my district. These are children, seniors, working parents, and people with disabilities. These are neighbors. These are people who I grew up with in church. These are people I went to school with. These people depend on these programs to survive, not because they want to but because they have to. Cutting these benefits would force impossible choices amongst some of these people between food, medicine, utilities, housing, and overall stability. It wouldn't reduce the need because the need would still be there. The hunger would still be there. The poverty would still be there. It would shift the cost onto our hospitals, our schools, and emergency services. Alabama SNAP does more than just provide food for people. It also supports, as it does across this country, our local grocers and grocery stores. All of the statistics show that SNAP is a net positive return on the local economy. We have to recognize that Medicaid keeps working families healthy. Mr. Speaker, 61 percent of Medicaid recipients in the State of Alabama are working. The majority or remainder are either children or people with disabilities. These programs are not luxuries. They are lifelines that people need to get by. Let's stop pretending that these are just numbers in a budget and these are not real people. Protecting SNAP and Medicaid is not about politics. It is not about priorities. We are not in a position where we can't afford it. We spend almost $4 million every trip Donald Trump takes to Mar-a-Lago. It is not a question of resources. It is a question of priorities.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, we are talking border security, and the same administration just let in El Chapo's family. El Chapo's family. I rise today as somebody representing one of the poorest districts in this country. The individual median income is around $30,000. Mr. Speaker, one in four people in my district receive SNAP benefits, and one in four people in my district receive Medicaid benefits. These people cannot afford to lose healthcare access. They cannot afford to lose access to SNAP benefits. The truth of the matter is, the truth is people will lose those benefits, all in an effort to make long money even longer. My question is: Is their money being longer worth people in my district's lives being shorter? It is not. It never will be. It never can be. We have to stand up for these people. I came to Congress to be a voice for people who need things like Medicaid and SNAP benefits. Every day I am here, I will push back against efforts to cut back on these benefits.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of a true hometown hero, a legendary trailblazer, a family friend, a mentor to me and many others, and the former Secretary of Labor for this great Nation, Alexis Margaret Herman. I had the privilege to work on a Presidential campaign myself, President Obama's campaign. Before I decided to join that campaign, I called Alexis Herman because she had worked on several Presidential campaigns. I then pursued career opportunities at the White House. Again, I called on Alexis Herman because she too had worked in the White House multiple times. When considering a run for Congress, the seat that I now hold today, I again called Alexis Herman. That is not because I had known her my whole life, it is because few people could advise on the level that she could. Mr. Speaker, to understand Alexis Herman, you have to understand where she comes from. She was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, my hometown. She came of age with a number of people and some names who you would recognize if you are from the Mobile area. They were people who all were born within a 10- to 15-year range of each other, African Americans, names that some know around the world, like Hank Aaron, but others like my father, Michael Figures, and Thomas Figures, General Gary Cooper, Lonnie Johnson, Yvonne Kennedy, Sam Jones, and this body's very own Sanford Bishop. They were all born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, in generally the same timeframe, and went on to break through a number of barriers, color barriers and otherwise, throughout their careers and make significant contributions to this Nation. Mr. Speaker, Alexis Herman's parents prepared her for the life that she had. Her father was actually the first Black person elected in the State of Alabama to any position post-Reconstruction. This led to him being very active and motivated in Black voter participation. It led to him one day actually being run off the road by the Klan. His five-year- old daughter, Alexis Herman, sat in the car and listened as her father was beaten by the Klan. Her mother was a schoolteacher who Alexis had actually witnessed being thrown off of a segregated bus as a child. This produced Alexis, who went on to be a fighter for civil rights and a fighter for women's rights. She first stood up as a young woman when she challenged why African-American students at her parochial school were not allowed to participate in religious pageantry. She was suspended for that, but that was just the beginning. When she finished school after graduating from Xavier University, she came back home to Mobile, Alabama, and helped desegregate other parochial schools. She then helped get African Americans jobs and apprenticeships at the shipyards for the first time in Mississippi. That led her to doing similar work in Atlanta and helping to diversify some corporations there. That caught the attention of a young Georgia Governor named Jimmy Carter, who was running for President. He ultimately named her, at just 29 years old, the director of the Women's Bureau at the Department of Labor. Mr. Speaker, her journey took her from a segregated Alabama to serving as an adviser to Jimmy Carter and, ultimately, serving as the director of the Office of the Public Liaison, as it was called at the time, under President Clinton. That led to her being a member of the President's Cabinet as the Secretary of Labor where, under her tenure, unemployment fell to a 30-year low here in the United States. She worked to promote job training opportunities for low-income Americans. After that, she didn't quit. She always reached back. She always gave back. She always served as a mentor to give advice to people like myself, who wanted to pursue similar career tracks. That led her to sitting in the boardrooms for companies like MGM, Coca-Cola, and Toyota, some of the biggest companies in the world. She never forgot where she came from. She never did. In January of this year, when she was quietly battling a condition, she took time to send me a text message that read: Shomari, as you take your seat, congratulations. Your dad would be looking down on you proudly. Happy New Year. Mr. Speaker, as I stand here today as a Member of Congress, someone who has followed in her footsteps, it is not only my father who I seek to make proud in this moment, but it is Alexis Herman. I can stand here today because of people like her.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on an urgent issue that affects the health, well-being, and prosperity of Black families, not just across the State of Alabama that I call home, but across this country, the staggering healthcare disparities that persist across this country and across too many counties in districts like mine, the Second Congressional District of Alabama. Let me be clear at the outset: I do not subscribe to the notion that healthcare is a luxury, that healthcare should be available to those who can afford it, that healthcare should be dependent on where you come from, where you were born, the ZIP Code that you reside in. I believe that healthcare is a basic human right. We know Jesus gave it for free. I subscribe to the notion that no one should be left without access to a doctor, a hospital, or an ambulance simply because of where they are from. The disparities should not be as drastic as they are for people of color. Yet, in places like Barbour County and Washington County and Conecuh County across my district, the data tells the devastating story about who has access to care and who has historically been left behind. I know this is not just unique to Alabama. We see it in South Carolina. We see it in Massachusetts, as my colleague just spoke about. We see it in Mississippi, Georgia, and other places as well, where Black residents face higher rates of those chronic, preventable diseases and illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes. They suffer disproportionately from things like stroke and heart attack. Too often, they live miles from the nearest hospital or clinic, particularly in these rural areas, these rural parts of America, where we are seeing hospitals closed. We are seeing them shut down. We are seeing it more difficult for them to even access basic care. We see in places across Alabama where maternal mortality rates for Black women are more than double that of White women. I am proud to be from the State of Alabama, but I am not proud of all of its health statistics. In fact, I am not proud of most of them. Alabama is America's worst State for maternal mortality. More women die after childbirth in the State of Alabama than anywhere else in America, period. That is not just Black women, that is women in general. The disparity for Black women is alarming, more alarming in that context. It is just unacceptable. We are seeing across the State of Alabama, particularly in our rural counties, which if you know anything about the South, those rural counties in the South typically have higher Black populations, going back to the historical role and the historical place that they were for slavery, and the descendants stayed there. We are seeing hospitals in these rural communities shut down. This leads to cuts in just general healthcare services, and they create healthcare deserts, forcing folks to drive in some cases, literally, hours for basic care, in some cases well over an hour to be able to get to a hospital. Just in my home State alone, in this district that I ran in, we saw several hospitals close just across the 13 counties that compose my district, just while I was running for office. Just while I was running for office, we saw at least four shutter. We are on pace in my district alone to see every single hospital close within the next several years that are not located pretty much in just Mobile or Montgomery. That is unacceptable because it creates conditions that make it tougher for Black people to be able to receive care, for all people to be able to receive care. The disparities in access we know are well documented, so we know that that burden will disproportionately hit the African-American community. This is places that have contributed so much to this Nation, places like Tuskegee, Alabama, that gave us so much, places like Troy, Alabama, that gave us John Lewis, places like Montgomery, Alabama, where their largest hospital is in bankruptcy right now. We have to be cognizant of the impact that this is going to continue to have on the African-American community, and we have to be focused on solutions, but we also have to understand how we got here. This is not just something that we stumbled upon. It is not that the data didn't show us that this was coming. This is the result of historic underinvestment and the direct result of policy choices historically and policy decisions that we continue to make to this day. I am in Alabama. We are one of just 10 States that has not acted on the common wisdom of expanding Medicaid, and that is exacerbating the issues that we have from a healthcare standpoint. We haven't expanded Medicaid. This is in a State that for all intents and purposes has pretty much the lowest life expectancy in America. I think we are technically third by some decimal points, so congratulations, we live a few weeks longer in the State of Alabama than, say, West Virginia and Mississippi. It is nothing to really be proud of. We are at the bottom of the barrel. Yet, we haven't expanded Medicaid, which is one of the reasons that the first piece of legislation that I joined when I was fortunate enough to be sworn into this body was the COVER Now Act, which would allow counties and cities to be able to get Medicaid expansion funding directly and get through the resistance that the State has put up now for well over a decade. We have got to do better than that. We can continue to ring the alarm, but we have to do better. We have to. We have to address the underlying causes and the underlying issues here. We have to understand that these counties where these hospitals have been closing that insurance remains out of reach because the jobs aren't there. We have to understand that preventative care in many of these places is also just a dream because the condition of the communities don't warrant healthcare practitioners setting up shop there or staying there. I don't care who you are. I come from Alabama, we treat Nick Sabin, and rightfully so, as the greatest college football coach of all time, but I can tell you one thing about this: Nick Sabin could not close a recruiting pitch to a business to come relocate in a county that does not have a hospital. I don't care who you are. Businesses don't want to relocate there. Hell, businesses don't even want to remain there. How do you get retirees to want to come back home where they grew up and set up shop, and you tell them, we don't have a hospital, we don't have a geriatrician? Seven of the thirteen counties in my district don't even have a pediatrician. We have to get serious about addressing this issue in the community. It is an existential threat, it truly is. We know the other statistics: Black Alabamians are more likely to suffer from diabetes and amputations that result from them or to die from untreated cancers or undiagnosed cancers or late-diagnosed cancers and experience preventable complications from just general chronic illnesses. When it comes to kidney disease and dialysis access, the results are alarming. People in the State of Alabama have been trying to get me to come visit as many healthcare facilities as possible to shed light and to give more context behind what's really happening in the healthcare system in the State of Alabama. The dialysis community brought me in for a tour last week in Montgomery, Alabama, at the DaVita Center. You see these nurses and technicians that are doing God's work in keeping people alive, but one thing jumps out at you. You can't help but see that every patient in there looks like me. Every kidney dialysis patient looks like me, and so I asked: Is this just a certain day or is this how it goes? They had representatives from five or six facilities there, and all of them said the same thing: No, our patient rolls are about 90 percent Black. That is because this is impacting people of African-American descent and Black people in this country in the way it is not impacting other races. We have an obligation, a moral duty as a nation to figure out why. That is why cuts to things like NIH aren't productive. It is not helpful. It is harmful. If you ever want your conscience to be shocked, walk into a dialysis treatment facility in probably any community in this country, then do the statistics yourself. Ask yourself why that is and why can't we figure that out. Why are we not investing more resources, more time, and more attention and focus on trying to improve healthcare outcomes for Black people in this country? We have to. We must. We must start this process by expanding Medicaid in States like mine, the State of Alabama. We must do that. Nobody should have to choose between getting treatment and putting food on the table. There are too many people who should be able to go see a doctor who are not because they refuse to expand Medicaid. We also have to invest in our healthcare infrastructure, particularly in our rural healthcare infrastructure, bringing back those hospitals and clinics and bringing in telehealth hubs, leveraging every resource we have to improve healthcare outcomes. We have to increase funding for Black maternal health initiatives because these are problems we should not be having in 2025. In 2025, we should not be having nearly as many women die from childbirth complications and pregnancy-related causes as we do. When you look at the disparities racially, it is stark. It is shocking. We have to get to the bottom of why that is. We have to continue to address those environmental health threats in places like Alabama and across the country, where you see disproportionately higher rates of cancer in certain communities because they are located in certain places. We have to be serious about this. It is a privilege to be able to speak on the importance of this issue, especially under the leadership of Representative Clyburn.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, all of my colleagues today are speaking about this bill, and it is personal to me because I represent Alabama. I represent the birthplace of the civil rights movement. I would be remiss not to mention that election integrity was not an issue that my colleagues had been pushing until Donald Trump told them that they should be pushing this issue. Americans have confidence in elections. For me, it is about too many people doing too many things too courageously for me to be able to stand here today. There are names like James Reeb, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. These are people who died for me to be here today. Congressman John Lewis, who most of you served with, died for me to be here today. This bill would make it tougher than it has ever been in American history to register to vote at a time when we have the technological ability to be able to verify election eligibility, but we don't want to do that. We want to make it tougher for people to actually get registered to vote, and that is not what we should be doing. We should be making it easier for people to vote.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, today I rise with a deep sense of responsibility to highlight an issue that is disappointing that we have to highlight. We just spent the weekend, myself and colleagues on both sides of the aisle from both the Senate and the House and people from around the country and around the world, down in Selma, Alabama, and Montgomery, Alabama, commemorating the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, which recognizes the importance of voting rights. We reflected on the lives of the people who marched across that bridge 60 years ago for me to be able to stand here today and for people who look like me to be able to have a fair opportunity to participate in our electoral process. They were led on that day by a former colleague of many Members here, Congressman John Lewis. Before Mr. Lewis was nearly killed in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, he was nearly killed a few years earlier in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a Freedom Rider, and he was on the bus of Freedom Riders himself with other young college students at the time, both Black and White, as they came from Birmingham into Montgomery, Alabama. They were abandoned by the State highway patrol escort that they had on that day. When they got to the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station, there were hundreds of Klansmen and Klan supporters awaiting them who unleashed a brutal and savage attack on them nearly killing them, including a U.S. Department of Justice official who had been sent to monitor the freedom rides. The reason I stand here today is because several years ago we had the wisdom to designate that Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station as a national historic landmark, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places here in the United States, and the National Freedom Rides Museum is now housed in that building. Last week, just before we went down to Alabama, DOGE, in its infinite wisdom, decided to list that building for sale. That strikes a chord with people in the State of Alabama, both Democrats and Republicans. That strikes a chord with me as someone who sits here today who is the product of the Voting Rights Act. We think we will win on this one. We hope that they will see the logic in preserving American history. After all, just a few years ago we saw people literally lose their minds over efforts to remove the monuments that have been placed around this country in recognition of those who fought to keep people who look like me enslaved. I think we will win this one, but we shouldn't have to keep doing this. We shouldn't have to stand up for pieces of history in this country. We shouldn't have to stand up for pieces of history related to our civil rights, related to voting rights. We shouldn't have to deal with an administration where it seems every single week we are having to stand up again, whether it is talking about the Tuskegee Airmen and their rightful place in history, whether it is repealing an equal opportunity executive order that has been in place since the 1960s, whether it is seeing this administration hit pause on Federal scholarship funding to land-grant institutions for historically Black colleges but not hitting pause on the same funding for land-grant schools that were not historically Black colleges. It is a shame. We should not be doing this. We have to do better. We cannot keep running the clock back in an effort to appease this administration's efforts to whitewash history. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in honor of John Lewis, in honor of the civil rights workers, both known and unknown. We will stand with you. We will fight for you because we will not sell our history. We will not go down silently. We will not go down quietly, and we certainly will not go backwards.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege last night of sitting in this Chamber yet again, and I witnessed a lot of my colleagues cheering as the President rattled off the numbers, the statistics, and the data of how many people he has terminated and has laid off or fired. Whatever my colleagues want to call it, people are out of a job. As I sat here, I sat in a little bit of amazement because these aren't just statistics that we are talking about. These are people. These are real people. These are real lives. These are not just data points in a spreadsheet. These are real families that we are talking about. These aren't just numbers in some speech or in some press release that my colleagues put out expressing joy over the misfortune of hundreds of thousands of people. These are real people, some of whom I know, some of whom I have met, and some of whom my colleagues know. These are people. These are people, yet last night, many people in here cheered as the President took pride in announcing his terminations of them. The Bible says: ``Do not gloat over your brother's day, the day of his misfortune.'' Gloating is what we saw. Gloating is what we have seen. Gloating is what we continue to see. Cheering is what we continue to see. We have seen hand clapping and high fives over people losing their jobs, people losing their livelihoods. We have seen cheering at the downfall of people, cheering as if these people are somehow just invisible numbers and invisible things, cheering as if these are not people who are paying mortgages, cheering as if these are not people who are paying student loans, and cheering as if these are people who are not paying car notes or putting their kids through school or taking care of their elderly parents or paying for a wedding or are new parents. These are people. These are people. These are real people. These are real lives that we are impacting, and yet we sit in here and we cheer. We cheer the downfall. The sad part about it is that regardless of how you feel about the Federal Government, regardless if you feel that these jobs were unnecessary or unneeded, even if you feel that way, I think we can all agree that there is a better way to treat somebody than sending a 20- year worker, a 15-year worker, a 10-year worker an email on a Saturday night saying you are out of a job on Monday morning. There are better ways to run a country. There are better ways to run a business. It is not necessary to mistreat people that way. You can incentivize people who are close to retirement to retire early. You can freeze hiring. You can give people a 6-month, a 9-month, a 12-month heads-up that we are phasing out your job, but to get rid of people in the manner in which this administration has done it is simply indecent. It is, as my 5-year-old son would say, just not nice. It is not how you treat people. It is not how we should be treating people in America. We should not be cheering and gloating over the downfall of people who did nothing wrong but show up to work. It is not right. Meanwhile, all of this is done allegedly to save money. Yet, if we were serious about saving money, the President would lead by example and not by exception. We know that practically every other weekend the President is traveling down to Mar-a-Lago on trips that cost the American taxpayer, on average, about $3.5 million per trip. That is not even including the money that Members of this body spend in going to join him down there for meetings that they could have here in Washington, D.C., for free, but we are allegedly saving money. That is the goal. We are not achieving it because my colleagues are pushing a budget that is going to add trillions of dollars to the national deficit while firing hardworking men and women while we continue to spend $3.5 million per trip for the President to go gallivanting to Mar-a-Lago. That is something that DOGE should look into. Mr. Speaker, if we are serious about saving money, they should look into that. That is something that they should seriously look at. We spend $3.5 million per trip. Tell Mr. Musk to go and ``DOGE'' that because that is something that is real. That is something that is within the President's power to be able to stop. Yet, we come in this Chamber and take pride in firing and announcing the terminations of hardworking men and women.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Mfume for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a question similar to many of the questions we just heard the distinguished gentleman from Maryland raise as it relates to historical events that happened across the country, particularly in Tulsa, but it is a question that gets to the core of what he is saying, and that is: Who are we as Americans? Who are we as a nation? Who are we as a people? In the flurry of activity that comes out of this administration and that comes out of the White House it is easy to overlook certain things that the administration is doing that are impacting people whom we may not see every day that we may not even know. One of those unfortunate occurrences happened late last week when the administration decided to revoke the temporary protected status of half a million people who are in the Nation legally from the nation of Haiti. Now, the TPS program, the temporary protected status program, is specifically designed to provide temporary status, legal status--not permanent status, not citizenship, but temporary status--to people who are from nations who find themselves in situations similar to what is going on in Haiti right now, where they are wrapped in a situation of a destabilized government, a not-too-long-ago assassinated President, a situation where gangs are literally controlling large swaths of the country, over 85 percent of the capital city. It is not safe for people to be pushed back into those environments. This is one that is personal to me because I have had the privilege in life to have met a man named Gerald Dessources who came to this country from the nation of Haiti. He worked his way through college, refined his English by listening to Sesame Street and by listening to Martin Luther King's speeches. He went on to become an engineer at a Fortune 500 company here in the United States in New York. I have had the privilege to get to know a woman from Haiti by the name of Katlyn Dessources, who immigrated here as a young child following her mother who was pursuing that American Dream of making life better for her children. She too worked her way through to her American Dream. She has been a healthcare worker for decades. The two of them, Gerald and Katlyn, it didn't stop with them. Those same values they brought with them, that same dream that they brought with them from the country of Haiti, they instilled that in their children, their four daughters, one of whom is a schoolteacher, one of whom is a speech pathologist, one of whom is an Ivy-League-educated gynecological oncologist in North Carolina, and the fourth of whom holds four different degrees from three different Ivy League schools, and I have the privilege of calling her my wife and the mother of our children. They come from Haiti. They are evidence of what Haitians have produced for this country and contributed to this country. For us as America to ignore the current conditions of what is happening in Haiti, to turn our backs on people who need us most, this is a Nation that prides itself on being that beacon of hope. This is a Nation where when you look at one of our most famous landmarks, the Statue of Liberty, it says: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'' However, by ignoring the conditions that are currently present in Haiti, we are not living up to that model. We are not living up to that creed. What we are doing is sending people back to an environment where they are certain to meet ends that we would not wish on anybody. We see the reports of gang violence in the streets. We see the reports of women being raped. We see the reports of children being forced to partake in armed conflict. We see the reports of food insecurity. We see the reports of people who no longer own the homes that they left because they are now under the control of armed gangs. We see the reports that Haiti doesn't have a police force that can protect its people. They don't have a military force that can protect its people. Yet, we are sending people back to that environment. It is not safe, and it is not the right thing to do. There are ways to lead with strength but decency. There are ways to enforce the law in a manner that recognizes reality and exudes compassion. This is not that. This is not who we are as Americans. We can do so much better than this. We can be that place of refuge. We can be that place that America and the world still look up to as standing up for people who need us most. Again, TPS is not about permanent citizenship. This is about a temporary place for people to be safe from gun violence and armed conflicts, from being kidnapped and held for ransom. That is what will surely happen to some of the people who are returned back to Haiti. These are people who are a proud people and who are a hardworking people. My wife's family is just one example of that. They are just one example. There are millions of Haitian Americans who make vital contributions to this country every single day. For us to turn our backs on them now is simply not right. It is indecent. It is inhumane. Quite frankly, it is un-American. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge, I plead, and I beg of the White House to reconsider its restriction on TPS and extend the protection for the Haitians who are in America.

Mr. FIGURES

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of New Jersey (Mrs. McIver).

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this Special Order.

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to co-anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour along with my distinguished colleague from Oregon (Ms. Bynum). For the next 60 minutes, Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people about Black History Month, an issue of great importance not only to the Congressional Black Caucus but to Congress, the constituents we represent, and to all Americans. It is a privilege to be able to stand here today. Black History Month is not just an opportunity to reflect on our past, but it is certainly an opportunity to uplift our present and renew the cause to fight for our future. I begin with a story because Black History Month is often thought of as a time to recognize those historical figures that we all know: the Martin Luther Kings of the world, the John Lewises of the world, Rosa Parks, and others. Black History Month is about more than just those who are known. It is about a lot of those who are not known. I begin with a story of a few young men in the State of Alabama. Following what history has come to label as the end of the civil rights movement in 1968, in 1969, four young men had been intentionally recruited to break down a color barrier at the University of Alabama's law school. Eight young men walked through the doors of the University of Alabama School of Law in the fall of 1969. Among them was a young man named John, a young man named Ronald, a young man named Booker T., and a young man named Michael. This was a time when the civil rights movement had ended, the struggles to realize the progress that America has made throughout the decade-plus of fighting and protesting. It was about leveling those playing fields and equaling the opportunity and access for people like these young men. They walked through the doors as the first African Americans to come into the University of Alabama's law school, and they would all ultimately become lawyers: John England, Booker T. Forte, Ronald Jackson, and Michael Figures. Black history in America is a story of resilience and excellence and an unshakeable pursuit of justice, an unshakeable commitment to making this country, as Martin Luther King would say: ``Be true to what you said on paper,'' for all of us. From the Halls of Congress to the streets of our communities, Black leaders and educators and entrepreneurs and activists have shaped this Nation. Yet, we know that honoring this history isn't just about reflection. It is about action because that is what we owe people. That is what we owe people. I come from Alabama, the birthplace of the civil rights movement, a place at a time when this Nation and this world was experiencing injustices that we cannot fathom today; and a place where people, based simply on the color of their skin, could not eat in certain places, work in certain places, be educated in certain places, or live in certain places. The people of Alabama, particularly Montgomery, Alabama, stood up at a point when many cities and towns and people in those cities and towns across this country had a rightful fear of standing up in that way. Montgomery said: No. In 1955, when they launched a bus boycott, little did they know that they were giving rise to the greatest civil movement that the world has ever seen and that the world has ever known, led by a young minister who was a mere 26 years old at the time: Martin Luther King, Jr. This movement would give rise to what America proudly holds itself out to be today. That is that place of equal opportunity, that place of equal access, and that place of equal justice. This is a movement that was rooted in people. It was rooted in people who had a faith in a nation that, when we look back at history, we wonder: How could they? How could they? How could people who came from such a history of segregation and degradation, slavery and Jim Crow, how could they remain steadfast in a commitment to a country? How could they have that love for a country that history had shown them did not love them in the same manner? They held it because they knew that the greatness of America was really about what America could be and what it could be for them. Even if they came here in the bowels of slave ships, even if they slaved as laborers in cotton fields, they knew that America one day could be better for them and could be better for their children and their grandchildren. That is what Black History Month is about. It is about recognizing the unwavering faith that people, who had every reason not to have such faith, maintained in this Nation and the contributions that they made to making America be true to what it said on paper. When you have understanding and an appreciation where Black people in this country have come from, literally from the bottom, literally with nothing, literally as second- and third- and fourth-class citizens and noncitizens initially; when it is understood that when this building was built, people who looked like me could only be here for three reasons: To either build it, clean it, or serve food; when it is understood that when this country was formalized in a Constitution people who looked like me were not deemed to be an entire person-- barely just more than a half a person--three-fifths of a person is what Black people were counted as, then it is understood why many of us are very sensitive to efforts to attack things like diversity and efforts to attack things like equity and inclusion, because we know that we come from a culture and from a people who had to deal with adversity, inequity, and purposeful exclusion for centuries; when all we wanted was a level playing field; when all we wanted was the same opportunities as others. We never asked for special treatment. We never wanted to be recognized in any way that others were not recognized, but they held on to that faith for this Nation, and they led us to being a better place. Coming from that background, several actions of this administration strike a little bit differently. It stings a little bit more when things happen like the rolling back of an EEOC order that has been in place since 1962 that was meant to make sure that people were not discriminated against. It means something a little bit different when the administration hits a pause on funding to 1890 land-grant institution scholarships while not hitting a pause on that funding to 1862 land-grant institution scholarships. It hits a little bit differently when Auburn University, a predominantly White institution, is not impacted, but Alabama A&M University and Tuskegee University are impacted. One must ask: What is the difference between an 1862 school, a Texas A&M and Auburn University and LSU, and an 1890 school, an Alabama A&M and a Tuskegee? When one looks at the facts, it is the fact that the 1890s were historically Black colleges and universities. That stings a little bit differently. It hits a little bit differently when there is an understanding of the history of where people come from, that one of the first actions that had to be taken after the administration came in was going to bat to make sure that the Tuskegee Airmen remained a part of the curriculum in training our Nation's airmen--something so basic, something so nonpartisan, something that we should all be able to agree on--that a group of men who went and put their lives on the line for a world, for a country, that, when they returned home, they were still called the N-word. They were still forced to sit in the back of the bus. They were still told to take off their uniforms. They were still told that they were not good enough. They still could not send their kids to school in much of this country's public school systems. Yet, because of a diversity, equity, and inclusion ban, we had to go to bat for them. It wasn't just Democrats. There were Republicans, too, who saw that that was an issue that we should not have. Senator Katie Britt from my home State was there with us, as was the Congressional Black Caucus and other Members across this country. It is the attacks that we see on such things that hits a little bit differently during Black History Month because it is a failure to acknowledge the history. It is a failure to acknowledge a group of people who persevered through the worst of circumstances in this Nation, a group of people who literally emerged from bondage, a group of people who emerged from torture, from rape, from kidnapping, and from family separation. That is why it means so much to us. That is why it is important that we recognize Black History Month because contributions have been made by dozens of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people, millions of people who were not supposed to be in this country as citizens. Yet, here we are, and here we stand. Although, when this building was built, there were zero Members who looked like us, there now stands 62. We know that we have an obligation to stand up and respect that history because Black history is not just for me. It is not just my history. That young man named Michael Figures who walked into University of Alabama's law school, he would have a son. He would have four sons. One of them is named Shomari Figures, who stands here today as a Member of Congress because of the fights of him and the fights of those known and unknown before him. Black history is not only my history. Black history is your history, whether you like it or not. It is our history. Black history is American history. Black history is who we are. That is why we must continue the fight to make sure that we honor the contributions and the sacrifices that so many people have made. It is to make sure that we do not go back, to make sure that it is clearly understood that our efforts throughout the civil rights movement and since have only been to make sure that we have a level playing field, have only been to make sure that I can't be excluded when I have the exact same qualifications as you. I stand here today as a proud son of a father and mother who have both made Black history in their own right. I stand before you here today as the proud grandson of men who set the stage. Most Black people in this country don't come from privilege. I consider myself to be blessed. I think here in Congress, a lot of the time, we see a lot of people born on third base thinking they hit a triple. That is the unfortunate reality of where we find ourselves-- people forgetting where they came from, people forgetting what we went through, people forgetting how we got here in the first place, people forgetting the struggle, people forgetting what we overcame, people forgetting what we could not have and why we fight so hard for what we do have and to be able to maintain it in the future. I don't forget. I won't forget. I cannot forget because every day I walk in here is a reminder of what was sacrificed for me. Every day that I have the privilege of calling myself a United States citizen, a United States Representative, is a reminder for me of what it took for myself and for people like me to be able to stand here. I know I was born on first base because my grandparents made sacrifices for my father to be able to step up to the plate and swing for the fences, and swing for the fences he did. He broke down color barriers in his own right. He gave his life to public service, and he died one day at a dinner table, but what did not die with him was an appreciation, an understanding, a recognition of where we have been, what we have been through, how we got here, and what we must do to ensure that future generations enjoy the same opportunity. Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bynum).

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath).

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of Ohio (Mrs. Beatty).

Mr. FIGURES. Mr. Speaker, I yield to another distinguished gentlewoman from the State of Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).