Pramila Jayapal

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Raskin for his consistent brilliance and leadership. I so appreciate it. It has been a tremendous honor to serve with him here. I want to talk about another area that we haven't covered yet, which is the State and development programs budget. This is essentially our efforts around diplomacy and development around the world. This would be incredibly hard hit. The prime target is the United Nations. Climate change initiatives at the United Nations would lose all of their funding. The government would cut back its regular contribution to the U.N. and pay no more than 25 percent of the cost of U.N. peacekeeping operations. The budget would hit all of the multilateral development banks, like the World Bank, which would be trimmed by $650 million over 3 years, and cultural programs like the East-West Center in Honolulu. Today a number of Republican colleagues talked about how misguided this cut was, and it made me very hopeful, to be honest. Representatives Hal Rogers and Ted Yoho both agree that this cut is absolutely misguided. Several retired three- and four-star generals wrote a letter to Congress expressing their deep concern over these serious budget cuts that are being made to the State Department because they know that diplomacy goes hand in hand with any kind of defense that has to be put out there. You have got to have the two together. Here is what they said: ``The State Department, USAID, Millennium Challenge Corporation, Peace Corps and other development agencies are critical to preventing conflict and reducing the need to put our men and women in uniform in harm's way.'' In 2013, General Mattis himself said that if more funding for development wasn't provided, he would have to buy more bullets. Development programs are inextricably linked with our national security, and this President should not be cutting these funds if he wants to bolster national security. If he wants to bolster national security, then we should be investing more of our dollars into diplomacy and development as two of the other legs of a three-legged stool. Unfortunately, he is going in the opposite direction. Our aid and development efforts have to be well-rounded and holistic. I know this because I have worked in international development before all over the world. I have worked along the borders of Laos and Cambodia, in Thailand. I have worked across south Asia. I have worked in Latin America. I know and I understand that our relationships and our ability to build strong multilateral coalitions and to invest in the stability of countries as war is happening there is absolutely essential to preserving peace. The generals wrote: ``We know from our service in uniform that many of the crises our nation faces do not have military solutions alone-- from confronting violent extremist groups like ISIS in the Middle East and north Africa to preventing pandemics like Ebola. . . .'' This 29 percent cut is absolutely unacceptable and will not keep us safe. The billionaire's budget doesn't just cut funding for these programs, though. It also increases spending, and not for the benefit of our communities. This administration is calling for $3 billion to detain more immigrants, deport more people, and build a bigger border wall. The staggering increase to detain an unprecedented 45,700 men and women is unacceptable. Mr. Speaker, 167 men and women have died in detention since October 2003. The organization that I used to work at put out a human rights abuses report about the detention center controlled by the GEO corporation, private detention center way back in 2005 or 2006. We looked at all of the human rights abuses that were happening not only in that detention center, but we did research on what was happening around the country. Among the 35 death reviews in this recent report that came out that have been released through Freedom of Information Act requests, substandard medical care contributed to at least 15 deaths. And even when government investigations concluded that a facility violated government detention standards, the government fails to hold these private facilities accountable and make sure that changes are made to address deficiencies that lead to the loss of human life. Instead of spending $3 billion on immigration enforcement and detention, here is what we could do with that money: We could create 45,000 new middle class jobs. We could build 184 new elementary schools. We could hire about 55,000 new kindergarten and elementary schoolteachers. We could provide close to 337,000 Head Start slots for young kids. We could pay for nearly 311,000 people to attend a 4-year college per year. We could help States protect and save up to 12,000 at-risk wildlife and plant species in the United States every year for the next 2.3 years. By the way, we could also provide nearly 2.1 million households with solar energy. We could weatherize over 460,000 homes nationwide, saving the average household about $283 a year. And we could provide 10 million lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatments. Mr. Speaker, this budget is about profit over safety, privatization over public good. It is about war over peace and diplomacy. And it is about incarceration over rehabilitation. It is fundamentally about billionaires and lobbyists over the American people. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of a group of 11- and 12-year-old girls from my district who have noticed an unsettling trend in modern politics and who are absolutely determined to do something about it. They see bullying from leaders who are supposed to be their role models. They witness fear, intimidation, and vitriol being thrown at religious minorities, LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, communities of color. And, yes, I am also somebody else's baby. In the face of this hate, these girls have decided to take action by forming the D.C. Bully Busters. These change-making girls, not even old enough to vote yet, but certainly old enough to make their voices heard, have vowed to stand up against the bullying they are seeing in American politics. Mr. Speaker, if grade-schoolers can say that bullying, intimidation, and silently standing by are cowardly tactics that have no place in politics, then the adults who represent them must be courageous enough to do the same thing. On Friday, I will be proudly signing the D.C. Bully Busters pledge, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me so that we can let everyone know at every level that bullying is never acceptable.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to TrumpCare, the Republican plan to privatize Medicare, penalize working families, and prioritize the wealthy. The Republican majority is in denial about the tremendous gains of the Affordable Care Act in covering tens of millions of people across this Nation. In my home State of Washington, Mr. Speaker, because of the Affordable Care Act, the average annual premium increases have dropped from 18.5 percent, before the passage of the ACA, to 6.7 percent in 2017. The growth of individual enrollment reached nearly 320,000 people in 2015; and with Medicaid expansion in Washington State, the decline in the uninsured plummeted to 7 percent in 2015, from over 13 percent in 2009. 605,000 Washingtonians also gained coverage through Medicaid expansion. All of these gains, Mr. Speaker, are in jeopardy as TrumpCare threatens to strip 20 million people, many of whom voted for Mr. Trump, of their health care. Across the Nation, older Americans will be forced to pay premiums five times higher than what others will pay for health care. Four hundred of the wealthiest families in America will be handed a tax break worth $7 million a year, all on the backs of working families. According to the Tax Policy Center, under TrumpCare, the top 0.1 percent of earners would receive an average tax cut of $197,000, while older Americans would face increases of almost $7,000 each. Under TrumpCare, many employers will stop providing coverage, letting their employees fend for themselves with a tax credit. Compared to the subsidies that Americans have today, the tax credits will end up being a tax hike. Not only does TrumpCare impose radical new restrictions on a woman's right to comprehensive health coverage, it defunds Planned Parenthood, robbing women with nowhere else to turn of essential preventative care and affordable contraceptives. Mr. Speaker, these are sad, sad facts. But the stories from hundreds of my constituents are even more heartbreaking. Lynn told me: If I were to get a bad illness, it would kill me financially. And the stress alone from having my health insurance taken is causing me health problems already. Luke wrote to tell me that when his wife needed emergency gall bladder surgery while he was a student, the bills would have been crushing. He said: Without the ACA, we would have been saddled with nearly $40,000 in hospital bills, ER, one surgery, and one overnight stay. Kristy shared: Without contraceptive care that is covered in the ACA, I would never be able to afford my IUD. I might have an unwanted pregnancy, and I wouldn't be able to afford another child. This means so much to me as a woman, a mother, and as a human. I am able to have power to make decisions about my family, and this means the world to me. The lessons and stories like this, Mr. Speaker, are what we should be incorporating into our legislative deliberations, not cynical attempts to penalize people for wanting to have basic health insurance coverage for themselves and their families. What is worse, the Republican majority seems intent on obscuring the real cost of this misguided proposal. Mr. Speaker, the majority deserves this President. They are cut from the same cloth and relying on the power of obfuscating the truth. Since President Trump is not being forced to be transparent about his taxes or his financial entanglements with foreign interests like Russia, the Republican majority doesn't think that they need to ask the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to offer the true picture of how many people will be hurt by their bill and how much it will cost the American people. This is simply no way to govern. At the most fundamental level, health care is a human right and not a luxury, as our Republican colleagues would have us believe; a healthy population is a healthy workforce; a healthy workforce is a healthy economy; and a healthy economy is a healthy nation. TrumpCare puts all Americans at risk. Let's work together to protect and expand our health care and put this mess behind us.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose potential deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. According to many recent press reports, the EPA budget to restore our critical Puget Sound in my home State of Washington is facing a 93 percent cut. What is worse is the EPA, overall, is potentially facing a 25 percent budget cut, resulting in a loss of 15,000 jobs. Let us be clear that the EPA is the entity that ensures clean air, clean water, and strong human health. Because of the EPA's work on accountability and oversight of strong environmental regulations, we have seen progress on pollution mitigation, shoreline restoration, water treatment, and education projects that are aimed at protecting our sound and our environment. This administration's cuts will be devastating to our environment. By signing an executive order to move forward on Keystone and the DAPL pipeline, appointing Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA, and rolling back environmental regulations, we are showing overt hostility to protecting our environment. We need to be investing in our environment and not slashing it, and we need to make sure that we restore our environment and preserve it for our future generations.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed.

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended. Simply put, Mr. Speaker, this amendment restricts the President from making public statements to promote his own business interests in the same way that the bill restricts statements by agencies on pending rules. If we intend to hold agencies accountable for their statements, we should certainly be willing to hold the President of the United States to those same standards. Donald Trump's enormous web of business interests and conflicts of interest make it clear that it is necessary to explicitly expand this restriction to the President. It is deeply disturbing, Mr. Speaker, that the President has refused to release his tax returns or create a blind trust for the proceeds of his assets. Numerous U.S. Presidents have placed their financial holdings into a blind trust that is managed by a trustee without any input from the President. This allows for the President to minimize any conflicts of interest and any suggestion that the Presidency of the United States is being used for his own personal profits. This President, however, has avoided those calls for him to sell his assets or place them into a blind trust. Instead, documents obtained through public records requests show that President Trump has moved the assets over, just in name, to his son and a longtime employee, but that Trump himself, the President of the United States, is the sole beneficiary of all of those trusts. In other words, there is no wall erected between his businesses and his Presidency, and anyone who wants to buy influence can simply do so openly. His entire Presidency can be seen as a promotion of his business interests and be used by domestic and foreign governments to curry favor and produce benefit to his personal empire. Trump Tower in D.C. is one example of this. The building, which is leased to him by the Federal Government, stipulates in its lease that ``any elected official of the Government of the United States'' may not derive any benefit from that agreement. At 12:01 p.m. on Inauguration Day, Trump was in violation of this clause. That lease should be terminated effective immediately. Just last week, the Kuwaiti Embassy held its annual event to celebrate the country's national day at the President's D.C. hotel. The event was initially scheduled to take place at the Four Seasons, and, in fact, a ``save the date'' went out with the Four Seasons location. But Kuwait canceled that reservation just a few days after the election, and moved the event to the President's hotel after that happened. These are not isolated instances. They constitute a pattern of conflicts of interest every time a foreign government holds a reception or rents a room at a Trump property, a problem so important to this country that it was put into the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution of the United States of America. The American people should also be deeply concerned about conflicts of interest at the President's Mar-a-Lago resort. On January 1, 2017, just 2 months after the election of Donald Trump, the exclusive resort doubled its membership initiation fee from $100,000 to $200,000. When Trump took Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there, it created even more free publicity for the resort as several social media posts were made throughout the weekend. Conducting government affairs in public settings not only has serious national security concerns, but indicates that anyone who wants to be a member of the club will have access to the President of the United States, and the President will personally profit off of their membership. Mr. Speaker, the American people have a right to know what the entire web of conflicts of interest are, but we have yet to get this information because we have not received--we have yet to get any information from this President, his tax returns, or any of the documents that help us to ensure that he is complying with the Constitution of the United States of America, that document that he swore to uphold and protect, so that we can make sure that he is not using the highest office of this land to profit. The American people have the right to demand that this President put their interests first rather than his own business interests. I urge all of my colleagues to pass this motion to recommitment and demand that we uphold our Constitution, protect this democracy and the duty of this President to work not for the business interests, but for we the people. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from Maryland for your tremendous work already in these 7 weeks and schooling us all on the Constitution and making sure that we continue to recognize the tremendous responsibility that we have here in this body to protect that Constitution and everything that it stands for. Last night's State of the Union Address deserves a response for lots of reasons and, unfortunately, none of them are good. Last night, we heard from this President a toned-down version of his campaign speeches. The speech was well delivered. He stuck to his script. It may be the first major address that he has conducted where he did stick to the script. He had a lot of diligence in that. And he even started with some very necessary recognition of the anti-Semitic acts that have been taking place across the country, and he denounced those acts. He denounced the killing of an Indian American in Kansas. I, too, am Indian American, and I know that that killing hit home hard for many of us across the country who wonder if we, too, are going to be the targets of hate. The President did say that he denounces hate, that there is no place in this Nation for hate, and that, in fact, we need to do a lot of work to make sure that we preserve this place, this country as a country that is safe for everybody. Unfortunately, it took a while to get there, and his words belie the rhetoric that he has put out there in the past. In fact, I think that this President has not spoken out against the kind of hate and, in fact, has sometimes said things that encourage his followers to act in ways that simply do not meet the rhetoric that he had yesterday. The first place that that was so obvious to me was in the space of immigration. Now, I have been an advocate on immigration for many, many years. I have worked across the aisle with friends and colleagues in the U.S. Senate, in the U.S. House of Representatives. At that time, I was an advocate. But together, we understood the tremendous contributions of immigrants to this country, and we understood that unless you were Native American, that, willing or unwilling, everybody in this country has been an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants. And so to come into the Chamber and yet again hear the fear-mongering and the characterization of immigrants, undocumented immigrants, as this enormous swath of people who simply all they do is commit crimes is simply a travesty and a disservice to the millions of people across this country who work every day to pick our vegetables, clean our homes, serve us in so many different capacities, as well as to all of those who have come through the legal immigration system, but with many challenges. You know, it took me 18 years to get my citizenship. I went through visa after visa after visa. I understand the barriers. But for this President to continue to focus on a stereotype of undocumented immigrants as criminals is simply disingenuous, unfair, and, frankly, un-American. DREAMers and refugees and immigrants and others who have helped build this country were the guests of many of us Democrats in the Chamber. We each brought incredible men and women to join us for the State of the Union; people who we feel demonstrate the resilience and the strength and the courage of immigrants across this country. I was proud to be joined by an amazing woman, a good friend named Aneelah Afzali, who is the executive director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network, an initiative of the Muslim Association of Puget Sound. Aneelah is a Harvard-trained lawyer. She is an incredible snowboarder. She is a 12th Man Fan. She loves the Seahawks, and she is a strong advocate for a community that has been, frankly, terrorized since the passing of the President's Muslim ban. Now, of course, courts have said that that ban is unconstitutional. The President seems to be accepting that it is unconstitutional, but we also know that he has reshaped that ban to continue to target people simply for the country from which they come, simply for the region that they come from. The reason we invited all of those guests to be here in the Chamber with us is because we wanted to send a message to this President and to our country that we are strong as a country because of our diversity, that we are better for the perspectives and the values that people bring, and regardless of what religion you are, we all, as the President said yesterday, do bleed the same blood, and we all believe in the promise of the United States of America. We wanted the President to understand and our colleagues in this body to understand, when we pass laws, when we approve of executive orders, to target people simply based on religion or place of origin, that we are doing a tremendous disservice to this country and we might be violating constitutional laws in some of these cases, but that America deserves better in terms of how we position what immigrants have done for this country. Now, the President last night kept talking about these heinous crimes that immigrants commit. In fact, he had some people here in the Chamber, his guests, who were tragically affected by the murder of individuals in their families who were killed because of a single, undocumented immigrant. A heinous crime committed by an undocumented immigrant is simply not representative of the millions of law-abiding immigrants across our country. This is a continuation of what the President did during the campaign: fear-mongering and otherizing people. The reality is that, just like Dylann Roof's horrific murders in South Carolina cannot be representative of all Caucasian Americans, there is no way that one undocumented immigrant or even a couple of undocumented immigrants can be representative of 11 million who have served this country, helped build our economy, helped drive our industries, and who contribute so much to our country every single day. The President also seemed to paint this picture of immigrants as driving up crime, that when you have undocumented immigrants, then you have higher crime. In fact, the statistics show that immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than native-born Americans and that our sanctuary cities, the cities around the country that have policies that are friendly to immigrant communities, including undocumented immigrants, that those actually are safer as cities than comparable cities that are not sanctuary cities. That was a report that came out, and it is an important one for people to understand. Why? Because, when you have trust and when you understand that the fix that we need is for a system that is broken, an immigration system that has been broken for a very long time, the way to address these issues is not to criminalize and otherize and fearmonger about people who are trying to help our country, but to actually get to work on a real fix for our immigration system. I was initially pleased that the President talked about fixing a broken immigration system, but then he said we are going to look at a merit-based system. Now, I would not have been able to come to this country under a merit-based system because I came here by myself when I was 16 years old. My parents sent me over here. They had very little money in their bank account. They used their $5,000 to send me by myself because they felt like this was the place I was going to get the best education. And if you look at a merit-based system, what you do is you exclude the millions of people who have actually come to the United States seeking refuge from famine, from devastation, from drought, from persecution. You exclude all of those people. You also exclude all of the families who are trying to reunite with their loved ones when they come here and they bring their spouse or they bring their parent or their child. That whole system of family-based immigration that the United States has built so much of our country around, that, too, would be excluded. Unfortunately, this President is still not at a place where he has said and embraced the idea of comprehensive immigration reform, an immigration reform that has been, until this point, traditionally bipartisan--68 bipartisan votes in the U.S. Senate in 2013 for a comprehensive immigration bill that would have brought $1.5 trillion into our economy over the next 10 years by legalizing and providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants but, perhaps equally importantly, would have provided the dignity and respect to undocumented immigrants in a very different way than what the President spoke about last night. My colleague Mr. Raskin talked a little bit about health care and the Affordable Care Act, and during his speech, the President, unfortunately, again renewed the theme that the Affordable Care Act has been a disaster. He talked about his ideas for health care, and he said some things that maybe all of us could agree with. He said that we deserve health care that lowers costs for people. Yes, I would like that. He said that we deserve health care that increases quality of care--absolutely. But unfortunately, neither the President nor Republicans in this Chamber have offered us a replacement plan. So to repeal the Affordable Care Act which has provided so much benefit to people--more than 20 million Americans gained health care through the Affordable Care Act. But if Republicans succeed in repealing it, 30 million people will lose it. The 150 million Americans with preexisting conditions will see their protections stripped away, leaving them vulnerable to a lack of coverage. You cannot protect the most expensive and the most valuable provisions of the Affordable Care Act if you do not continue to keep the pool large enough, full of healthy people, so that those provisions actually become affordable. And you need to ensure that the pool is large enough through the individual mandate. So we have not seen a plan that improves health care, and it is important that we recognize we have improvements to make. There are too many Americans across the country that still, today, don't have access to health care in the way that we would like them to. But the solution for that is a Medicare-for-all plan, a public plan that allows us to take profits out of the business of health care. It should not be a business. It should be about making people better. It should be about making people well and not about making corporations rich. That, I think, is a very important piece. The President said that he would support a plan that would actually provide us with the ability to negotiate for prescription drugs for Medicare. That would bring down the cost for those prescription drugs. I am all in for that plan, and that is why I hope the President supports the bill that was introduced. Senator Cantwell introduced a bill yesterday that would allow the United States to import more affordable drugs from Canada while also allowing Medicaid to negotiate drug prices directly, and that would lower the costs for our seniors and for others who rely on those lifelong medications. I am so proud to have sponsored that same bill in the House. That is the solution that we need to move to is lowering the costs of prescription drugs, lowering the cost of health care, increasing the quality of the care that we provide. Let's talk about the environment for a minute because the President mentioned yesterday that he cares about clean water and clean air, but at the same time, the President has proposed in reports that have been published in the news that he intends to cut the Environmental Protection Agency by 25 percent, the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. Scott Pruitt, our new Secretary of the EPA, has talked about putting in place plans to repeal progress on climate change. The President also signed a rule to essentially roll back progress on the Clean Water Act, and we are talking about cutting agencies and staff of the EPA across the country. The reality is that we need to be thinking about how we preserve our planet for the next generation. I have got a 20-year-old son and he says to me: Mom, this is one of the most important things you can do is preserve the planet for me and for my kids. That is what we need to do is look at the science of climate change, look at the ways in which we can strengthen our ability to protect the environment, instead of what this President has said he will do, which is to repeal so many of the rules that the Obama administration put in place to make sure that we check the notion that corporations should be able to mine our land, literally and figuratively, for profit while destroying it for the future. Budget and taxes, this was a really interesting one. One of the most common refrains of President Trump's campaign was that he was going to drain the swamp, and last night he talked about that. He said he promised he would do it, and he is now draining the swamp. He has put a ban on lobbyists. Unfortunately, what he didn't talk about is that, even with the ban on lobbyists, it is as if he is draining that swamp and then pumping it into another spot, which happens to be his Cabinet, that is filled with people who represent Goldman Sachs ties, the CEO of ExxonMobil, plenty of other elites who--we don't begrudge people to make some money, but these are people who have made profit off of a vast majority of Americans losing their income. These are people, frankly, who lobbied the United States Government so that those corporations could do better and so that they, as CEOs, could do better while caring not at all for the broad interests of people across this country. Based on these picks, it is clear that the President's priority is for the wealthiest in our country and not, as he promised over and over again, for the working people in our country. Now, I would love to be proven wrong on this. But unfortunately, all of the tax plans, all of the proposals that we have seen so far, or, at least, the blueprints that we have seen so far would not do as he said last night. Last night, he said he wants to provide a huge tax cut or tax relief for middle class families. We would love to see that. Unfortunately, the plan looks, in fact, like it is going to provide relief to the top tier of income earners in this country and not to the middle class. He has talked about a $54 billion cut in domestic spending, and I wanted to have people understand exactly what $54 billion amounts to because most of us don't really know. We can't really imagine that because we don't have $54 billion lying around. If we added up the entire budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, the entire budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the entire budget for the National Park Service--and I should give you these numbers because they are interesting: $8 billion for the EPA, $5.85 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $3.1 billion for the National Park Service, $2.9 billion for the Department of Energy efficiency and renewable energy program, $1.6 billion for the Fish and Wildlife Service, and $1.2 billion for the U.S. Geological Service--you still don't get to that $54 billion. There are a whole bunch of others that are in that list. You still don't get to $54 billion, even if you remove all of those agencies. So the work that we have to do is really to have people understand that if we are going to cut nondefense discretionary spending by the amount that he is talking about increasing our defense budget by, our military spending by, then you are going to have to cut into the very programs that help middle class families to continue their lives and have dignity, respect, pull themselves up and know that they are going to have food on the table and a roof over their head and be able to send their kids to college and be able to retire in security. All of these programs help people to do that, to have opportunity in this country, which is why America is such a great country because we provide that kind of opportunity. But if we decimate our nondefense discretionary spending by cutting it by $54 billion, then we are taking away that opportunity from millions and millions of families. This is not how we build up our communities. Our budget is a demonstration of our values as a country. We have to understand that this is a time of tremendous insecurity for Americans across our country. Wealth inequality is at the highest level that it has been in a very long time, and people do not see the opportunity for themselves. They elected this President, in part, because of the promises that he made; and so if he is going to follow through, that would mean protecting those social safety net programs. It would mean investing in the environment for the future. It would mean expanding Social Security and Medicare. It would mean saying that the answer to health care is actually a Medicare-for-all program, a way to make sure that every American does not have to be one healthcare crisis away from bankruptcy. The President also talked about education last night, and he said it is the civil rights issue of our time. I couldn't agree with him more, but I do not understand how you go from that place to then saying that the answer to that is school choice. Ninety percent of the kids in this country go through the public education system. That is what my son went through. We need to make sure that we preserve the ability for people in this country to send their kids to good public schools. We should be investing in our public schools, investing in our teachers, making sure that we provide the tools and the resources to teachers so that in our public schools--the place where our kids are going to spend the most amount of their days--that they are getting the kind of education that allows them to earn a future, contribute back to the country, be trained for all the jobs that we need to fill right here in the United States of America. We should be investing in preapprenticeship programs. We should be investing in debt-free college for all of our young people because it is ridiculous that a young person has to choose between being $45,000 in debt or not going to college, not seeking a higher education. Higher education is what gave me everything that I have today. It was my parents' belief in me and my future and the $5,000 that they had in the bank that they used to send me here so that I could get a college degree. I was 16 years old, and now I have the tremendous honor of standing in this Chamber, the U.S. House of Representatives, in the greatest country in the world, going from being an immigrant to being a United States Representative. I want every American--no matter what color you are, no matter whether you are rural or urban, no matter whether you have money or don't have money--I want you to have a great public education that you can go to. That is choice. That is real choice. Choice is not privatizing our public education system, and then saying, hey, 10 percent of the people get to go to that, and then everybody else is going to go to schools that don't give them that opportunity. Real choice is about having an investment in our public education system as the doorway, the gateway to a future of opportunity. Mr. Speaker, the most important thing I think is that last night's address was a softer tone. It was a disciplined speech, and there were some good statements. Unfortunately, the rhetoric of last night doesn't match the actions. It doesn't match the executive actions of the last 7 weeks that have thrown this country into chaos on immigration. It doesn't match the fact that we still don't have a replacement plan that will make things better for health care, not increase payments, not give giveaways to insurance companies, not decrease subsidies so that health care can be affordable. His speech last night did not reflect specifics around how he is going to accomplish some of the good things that he said he was going to do. And it continued to put fear into people's hearts and minds about who our neighbors are, about the immigrants across this country who have done so much to build and contribute. He is the President of the United States. He has a remarkable microphone. He talked about unity last night. But unity means being a President for everybody, and it means not creating stories that somehow draw pictures of an immigrant community that is full of crime, inner cities that are full of crime. That is not the inner cities that I know. If he is talking about inner cities in Chicago and other places, we should be talking about how to fix crime, but not calling everybody who lives there criminals. We have got to understand that our country deserves a body in this Chamber, in this United States Congress that really preserves the opportunity, the dreams, and the ability for everybody in our country to know that they have got a fair shot. That is what America has been for so long for so many people across the world. When he talks about improving the vetting of refugees to this country, let me tell you, I know a lot about this issue. There are 20 steps you have to go through if you want to be vetted into this country as a refugee. All of our multiple intelligence agencies, multiple agencies in other countries, the United Nations and others are involved in that vetting process. Our own intelligence agencies vet people. Out of the seven countries that he put on the list for the Muslim ban, the 9/11 hijackers didn't come from any of those countries. They came from another country that is not on that list: Saudi Arabia. So if we are really going to think about how we improve our security in this country, we should be thinking about economic security that gives people the opportunity that they need in this country, the ability to fill our jobs with well-trained folks from this country, and then we continue to allow immigrants to come in as we need them. But don't allow them to come in because we are not training enough people and we are not investing in people right here in this country and then criticize those immigrants for taking these jobs. Let's raise our wages. Let's invest in apprenticeships. That is good in rural areas, and that is good in urban areas. Let's invest in our community and technical colleges. Let's provide opportunity for people who are ready to take that opportunity. Let's be compassionate. It is Ash Wednesday today. I am not an observing Catholic, but I think today--because I went to a Jesuit university--and I think today of what we were taught in that university about compassion. I think it is time for us to recognize that true greatness for our country doesn't come from fear mongering. It doesn't come from otherizing. You can tap into that. You can mobilize people around that. You can enrage people around that. Ultimately, true greatness and the greatness of this country has always come from our ability to have a vision of opportunity for everybody and to actually work to perfect this Union, to actually work to make democracy real, to actually work to engage people in a vision that says we are all better off when we are all better off. That means that my boat rising lifts your boat rising. It is not about fighting over the spoils that are too small for us anyway. It is not about whose pie we are eating. It is about having more pie for everybody and ultimately opportunity, education, jobs, higher wages, health care, paid family leave, the ability for people to live with dignity and respect, racial justice, all of the fights that this country has been having for a very long time. Some we have won, and some we have won a little bit on, and some we have won a lot on. We still have a ways to go. What I hope we do, as we think about the state of the Union of this country, is understand that our state of the Union is strong when our communities are strong. Our state of the Union is strong when we invest in our future. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, today I stand here for this Special Order on behalf of our Congressional Progressive Caucus, and we have decided that we would like to use this Special Order hour to address our reactions to the President's address to the Union last night. Before I offer my part of those remarks, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my friend and colleague.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution. For many people, particularly women, title X funding literally means the difference between receiving reproductive health care or being forced to go without birth control, critical cancer screenings, and other preventive care. For the 4 in 10 women who access health care at title X-funded providers, cutting this funding would mean cutting their access to health care altogether. For people of color, rural communities, and those who struggle to make ends meet, cutting title X funds will certainly have a disproportionate impact. Let's be very clear that these funds are not controversial, but the Republican majority in Congress and anti-choice groups are doing their best to create a false narrative in order to demonize this funding, which has done nothing but improve the lives of millions of people. Cutting this funding would actually increase the number of unwanted pregnancies by nearly 1 million in just a year alone and would increase abortions by 33 percent. Women need title X so they can continue to make decisions with their doctors. It is 2017, and a woman's uterus is not a political football.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my hometown, the city of Seattle, on its historic decision to terminate its $3 billion relationship with Wells Fargo Bank over its financing and support of the Dakota Access pipeline. Last week, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to divest from Wells Fargo, making it the first major city to do so. Led by Native American and environmental activists, our city made an important statement about the vision that we have for our community and for our world. That vision centralizes both the rights of our native brothers and sisters, and our environment. Just like it did with the $15 minimum wage, Seattle continues to be a leader and a model for the rest of the country, and activists and cities around the United States have picked up the torch. We stand united in prioritizing our environment, as it is deeply connected to the health of our communities. Rather than allowing dangerous pipeline projects to continue, putting millions of people at risk, we should be focused on being leaders in the international fight against climate change. I am committed, Mr. Speaker, to taking every opportunity to protect our resources and fight for a bold alternative energy plan that includes a just transition that creates great union jobs and puts us on a sustainable path forward.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I introduced my first bill, H.R. 1006, the Access to Counsel Act; and it was a great pleasure to work with my colleague in the Senate, Senator Kamala Harris, who introduced that companion version. The legislation is a direct response to the President's misguided Muslim ban. In the chaos following the release of the executive order, people across the country were detained at airports and denied opportunities to consult with hundreds of attorneys who were there ready to provide legal support. Some of these people were deported without any access to due process. Even now, we are getting reports of people who are literally relinquishing their legal permanent resident status without consulting with anybody because they don't understand what they are signing. Detention and deportation without due process happens far too often, even though due process is a right that we hold so dear as Americans. For years, we have heard these cases of people being denied the right to counsel, and my bill, the Access to Counsel Act, ensures that anyone who is detained by CBP or held in ICE custody will get access to counsel. This is a commonsense measure, and I know that there are many who are fearful of what will come next. I want them to know that we will continue to fight for their rights and for their access to due process.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I want to just conclude our earlier Special Order where many of my colleagues spoke out in strong opposition to the Muslim ban that was just signed by President Trump. I would like to read a short paragraph from the letter that we have now submitted to Secretary Kelly. It has been signed by over 110 of my colleagues in the House. It requests that we have an immediate emergency meeting and briefing. I include in the Record the entire letter, and I will just read a short portion. ``The Executive Order is both controversial and confusing. For example, the International Rescue Committee called the Order `harmful and hasty' noting `America has the strongest, most successful resettlement program in the world.' Over 4,000 academics, including 25 Nobel Laureates, have signed a petition denouncing the Order, writing `this measure is fatally disruptive to the lives of these immigrants, their families, and the communities of which they form an integral part. It is inhumane, ineffective, and un-American.' '' House of Representatives, Washington, DC, February 1, 2017. Hon. John F. Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC. Secretary Kelly: We write to strongly condemn the President's executive order issued January 27, 2017, titled ``Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,'' and the ensuing actions taken by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its agencies, in particular Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to implement the order, and to request an urgent briefing regarding the same. We hope you will urge the President to immediately rescind the Executive Order, which has created profound chaos and fear among refugees and immigrants who have been admitted to the United States, as well as their families. As a nation of immigrants that has been a refuge for people fleeing persecution from around the world, these actions are contrary to who we are as a nation. We understand that you met yesterday at 4:30 PM with Chairs and Ranking Members of relevant Committees to discuss ``recent executive actions.'' You should understand that such a time limited meeting with a subset of Members and Senators in no way obviates the need for the briefing we are requesting for all Members. Such full Member briefings are a frequent occurrence on Capitol Hill after important events such as the issuance of the January 27 Executive Order. They allow all Members to benefit from the knowledge and experiences of the executive branch so that we may be well informed in our legislative and oversight affairs and serve our constituents best. The full Member briefing regarding the Executive Order is particularly needed given the unsettling events of last evening--the abrupt firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and the termination without explanation of Daniel Ragsdale as acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The need to brief the full Democratic.Caucus is also necessary as we now understand that guidance concerning the January 27 Executive Order has been provided to Members of the Republican Conference, but not the Democratic Caucus. According to yesterday's Washington Post, ``substantive guidance [concerning the Executive Order was given] to congressional Republicans . . . late Saturday. . . . In a two-page memo that offered some details on the policy . . .''. The Executive Order harms our families, economy, and national security. Over the weekend, individuals--some of whom have been lawful permanent residents for decades--were found stranded outside the United States, leaving families in turmoil. Technology companies, including industry leaders like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, report that the Executive Order could directly impact their employees and hinder their ability to attract the best talent from around the world. In addition, the policy reflected in the Executive Order is counterproductive to our national security. We understand that scores of American diplomats stationed across the globe are drafting a formal ``dissent memo'' to register their objections, stating that the order will ``not achieve its aim of making our country safer'' and will instead result in a ``drop in international good will towards Americans and a threat to our economy.'' We need to develop relationships with Muslim countries and others seeking to combat terrorism. Unfortunately, the Order alienates many of the groups we need to have working alongside us. The Executive Order is both controversial and confusing. For example, the International Rescue Committee called the Order ``harmful and hasty'' noting ``America has the strongest, most successful resettlement program in the world.'' Over 4,000 academics, including 25 Nobel Laureates, have signed a petition denouncing the Order, writing ``[t]his measure is fatally disruptive to the lives of these immigrants, their families, and the communities of which they form an integral part. It is inhumane, ineffective, and un- American.'' The Order has resulted in widespread confusion, as hundreds of individuals have been improperly detained at our airports, at least four federal courts have issued stays concerning the Order, and protests have broken out at airports and other venues nationwide. At the time this letter was sent, 16 State Attorneys General have condemned the Executive Order. In the interest of exercising proper Congressional oversight of DHS and CBP and of holding agencies accountable, we write to urgently request an emergency briefing this week with you and others at DHS and the Administration concerning the Executive Order. Among other things, we would like to receive the following, either at or in advance of the briefing: Any DHS guidance, directive, or policy regarding interpretation and implementation of the Executive Order, specifically is it pertains to current visa holders seeking entry into the United States, visa applicants, lawful permanent residents, dual citizens, and U.S. citizens, as well as clarification on the status of the individuals from the seven designated countries in the Order who are applying for or renewing immigration benefits. Details on individuals who have been prevented from entering the country, including the airport at which they arrived, location of detention, number provided with interpretation services, number who have been released broken down by airport, number of individuals who were sent back broken down by nationality, and a breakdown of the immigration status of those being detained and those who were sent back. The manner in which DHS is complying with the various court-issued stays of removal, including the number of individuals who have been provided access to counsel. What, if, any accommodations are being considered for interpreters and translators from the seven designated nations who have worked with our military and intelligence, as well as notable academics coming to do research in the

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my friend and colleague, and I thank my other colleagues also who are here today to shine a light on the abuses that happened last week and last weekend with the executive order that was passed and signed into law by this President. Mr. Speaker, this order is in direct contrast with the values that this country was built on: foremost, to be a refuge. That is how so many people in the history of this country have come here. Instead, our President has chosen to close the doors on people who are fleeing violence in their home countries, and it is based on their religion. This ban is discrimination in its purest form. It does not make us safer. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I believe that doing what we did has actually put fodder into the hands of those who really do wish to do us harm by being able to say that America hates Muslims, that America hates Islam, and that America hates immigrants and refugees, none of which is true to the history and the founding of this country. The reality, Mr. Speaker, is that the International Rescue Committee has said that it is more challenging for refugees to get into the United States than anyone else. They are the most heavily vetted group there is. As you can see here, there are 20 steps involved in the process, and those who do get approved have been through the most rigorous background checks, fingerprinting, and questioning. Instead of making us safer, this ban is simply throwing people into chaos. Many of us over this last weekend went to our airports across the country--Dulles; New York; Seattle, Washington, my hometown. We were called to the airport because there was chaos that erupted across the country, chaos that erupted at the airports, because people who had legal documents to come to the United States were coming in and being told that the executive order meant that they no longer could actually stay here in this country. Mr. President, what happened then for me, when I went to the Sea-Tac Airport at 1 in the afternoon on Saturday, I found a Somali family who had been waiting, a U.S. citizen woman who had been waiting to be reunited with her husband. She believed that finally she was going to get to hold him in her arms. Instead, Mr. Speaker, what happened is that he was put on a plane and sent back to Heathrow, but perhaps somewhere else. We were not given any information about what was going to happen to that gentleman. We found out that there were two additional individuals who were already put on a plane ready to be deported. We, along with the ACLU, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and our governor, were able to file for a temporary restraining order. We were able to take that restraining order on our phone to the plane and say: Stop this plane. That literally, Mr. Speaker, is how we were able to get those two people off of the plane. We were able to then get them legal counsel after much intervention. Mr. Speaker, it should not be this way. This is a country that was built by immigrants. It is a country that has welcomed people from across the world to come here as a refuge, as a sanctuary. My State of Washington is one of the top States in the country for refugee resettlement. The reality is we are destroying the very principles of compassion, of humanity, of being a refuge, of building this country with immigrants and refugees. Literally thousands of people came to the airport to say: We welcome refugees; we welcome immigrants. This is not the America that we know and love. We are better than this. This is not the first time I have had to fight against these illegal deportations. After 9/11, we had similar situations, not as bad as this, but we had the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, NSEERS. It required that men from 25 Muslim and Arab countries were going to be fingerprinted and registered. This was under the Bush administration. At the time, Attorney General John Ashcroft said: You are either with the terrorists or you are with us. That is a false choice, Mr. Speaker. The reality is that security and liberty do not oppose each other. They go hand in hand, and we cannot sacrifice one for the sake of the other. Mr. Speaker, we were able to fight that, and we finally did end that special registration program, but now here we are again. We know the shame of history when we have not been on the right side of it. We know that in 1942, 125,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were put into internment camps, and it took us a very long time to come back and apologize. Mr. Speaker, when we did, we said we will never do that again. Yet, here we are for the first time again instituting a religious test as to who can get into this country. Let us be clear that it is a Muslim ban. It does not mean that every single Muslim country necessarily has been targeted yet. But what it does mean is that Muslims are being scrutinized in a different way simply for being Muslim. A constituent of mine called my office this week to tell me another very disturbing story, and she told me that I could tell it here on the floor. She was passing through immigration into Houston on her way back home from Seattle. Dr. Angelina Godoy was traveling back from Central America where she was doing research. She is a U.S. citizen. She said she was so alarmed by what happened to her that she wanted to call and get it on the record. Angelina is a human rights professor and she has traveled through immigration many times. This was the first time she said she had experienced anything like this. Her immigration officer asked her about her political views. When she said that she was deeply concerned about the President's actions, he asked her why she wasn't concerned with all the refugees that were flooding into our borders. And he used that word ``flooding.'' When she said she didn't think that they were flooding in, he told her that she can't tell him that based on the fake news she is seeing on television. Mr. Speaker, this is incredibly disturbing. Are we going to now check the views of every U.S. citizen who is coming into the our borders to see whether they agree with these executive orders or not? Well, I am here to tell you that it may be the thought that fear and patriotism together is the way to suppress dissent. We will not be suppressed with fighting for the very values that make us great. In cities around the country, what gives me hope is that people stood up to stand up against this hatred. The Muslim ban is unconstitutional, and we are standing here today to demand that it be repealed. You can see here the chart that I referred to earlier. There are 20 steps that you must go through in order to be screened. Syrian refugees are probably the most screened individuals in our country today. And there are 5 million Syrian refugees who are pouring out of the country. Mr. Speaker, this is not a time to turn our backs on them. This is a time to make sure that we are taking care of the women, the children, the families, the majority of refugees to this country who are women and children and families. The majority who have family members here that they are waiting to be reunited with, that is who we are talking about, Mr. Speaker.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I ask that this House bring up H.R. 724, which would rescind President Trump's refugee ban on children, like 16- year-old Afghani boy Sardar Hussein, who lost his family in a car bomb and now hopes after nearly 2 years of ordeal to get on his flight to America.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, for hours at Sea-Tac International Airport on Saturday, I worked with colleagues from the Port of Seattle, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, the ACLU, and our Governor to get people who were being held to be released because of President Trump's Muslim ban. In the utter chaos, I found a gentleman who had come from Somalia to be reunited with his wife. He had all of his legal papers; but, instead, he was blindly turned away without any due process. We were able to get two other individuals released--one from Yemen and one from Sudan--after a brutal and determined effort to literally stop the plane that they had been boarded onto in order for them to be deported. This wasn't just in Seattle, Madam Speaker. This happened at airports across the Nation. Our office has been contacted by dozens of people who are absolutely terrified. These are students, legal permanent residents, and businesspeople who do not know anymore what their place in this country is. Simply put, this is un-American and unconstitutional. I, myself, immigrated when I was 16 years old, and it took me 19 years to become a citizen. I am intimately familiar with the barriers that people face in our immigration system, and I hope that all of the Members of this Chamber will welcome immigrants the way we always have.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill. This weekend, millions of women made it clear that they demand respect. Instead, for their efforts, they have received a trip to 1984 where, once again, a paternalistic White House signed executive orders infringing on a woman's right to choose. H.R. 7, the bill we are considering here today, is the next notch in the Republican belt that will take away our control over our own bodies. I have years of experience working in family planning, and I can tell you that this bill takes away our ability to plan our families properly and to make decisions about our own bodies, a decision that should be left to a woman and her physician. Make no mistake, this isn't a healthcare issue. It is part of an extreme rightwing political agenda that puts women's rights on the chopping block. H.R. 7 tells millions of women that their voices don't matter and their rights don't count. Passing this bill will create even more barriers for women, including women of color, trying to access quality health care. I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided and heavy-handed bill.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of immigrants across our country. As an immigrant myself, I understand the sacrifices and hardships that immigrants experience. My parents sacrificed their very small life savings to send me to the United States at the age of 16 by myself to pursue college. That is why I stayed in my district last Friday to host an immigration roundtable with directly impacted constituents. Like many of us, Mr. Speaker, they have heard reports that this new administration intends to deport millions of people across our country rather than working towards a comprehensive reform of our immigration system, similar to the one that was passed in the other Chamber with 68 bipartisan votes, unfortunately, never brought to the floor of this Chamber. I heard from children, Mr. Speaker, afraid to go to school out of fear that their parents will be taken away while they are at school. I heard from people whose lives are still in limbo because they have no idea what is going to happen next. But despite their fear, they still are ready to stand together and fight for their futures, and their courage and resilience is truly inspiring. We owe it to them to fight alongside them.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this budget resolution. It begins the gutting of the Affordable Care Act, stripping health care for millions of working families across the Nation, including over three-quarters of a million in my home State of Washington. Here is the bottom line: This repeal will put into chaos small businesses, hospitals, and community health centers. I have one of those in Seattle called the International Community Health Services, which provides culturally appropriate health services to anyone in need. Recently, an elderly woman at ICHS shared her fears about the ACA repeal. She and her husband, a heart attack survivor who went through bypass surgery, rely on Medicare and Medicaid for affordable health services. They have an annual joint income, Mr. Chairman, of $14,000, and they would be unable to afford quality care if the ACA repeal happens and, let's be clear, with absolutely no better plan to replace it. Mr. Chairman, the budget resolution is a moral document. It does translate our values into commitments, and it should tell the world what the United States stands for. Looking at this budget resolution, I cannot help but conclude that our moral compass will be broken if we pass this resolution. I urge my colleagues to oppose this immoral budget resolution.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, the immoral effort to take away health care from millions of working families across the country has begun. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, thousands of families in my home State of Washington have been able to get quality health care, and now the Republican majority is set to strip away that healthcare coverage from those struggling to make ends meet. If they succeed, three quarters of a million Washingtonians will lose their health care; 55,000 young people in our State will be kicked off their parents' healthcare plans; being a woman, once again, becomes a preexisting condition where women would again have to pay out of pocket for basic, preventive screenings and birth control; nearly 4 million Washingtonians, covered by their employers, would see their costs increase and coverage decline; and 50,000 Washingtonians who gained health care through Medicaid expansion will lose it. Mr. Speaker, health care is a fundamental right and not a privilege. Instead of rolling back the progress we have made, we should be strengthening and expanding health care to cover all who live in our Nation.

Ms. JAYAPAL

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. President, I object to the certificate from the State of Georgia on the grounds that the electoral votes were not--