Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding, and I wish to congratulate Chair Granger and Ranking Member Visclosky for their tireless efforts to produce this bill to meet several unsettled security threats facing our Nation. The content of their effort addresses difficult, shifting challenges. With a National Defense Strategy delivered just months ago, this bill defends America against the revisionist powers of Russia and China and numerous rogue regimes throughout the world. It rebuilds our military from a deteriorated state resulting from nearly two decades of constant conflict. This bill faces these challenges head-on and provides an unprecedented $675 billion for defense, defending our Nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic. The funds will go a long way to strengthen troop levels, bolster cybersecurity and space operations capability, gird our commitment to our allies and partners in NATO, check sovereign threats to nations like Ukraine, and numerous other priorities. Most importantly, after 17 years of war and conflict, this bill prioritizes the health of our servicemembers, providing $34 billion for the Defense Health Program. It increases funding for defense health research in the areas of mental health, traumatic brain injury, opioid abuse and pain management, and a host of other critical health research efforts. While I am supportive of this bill, and trust Secretary Mattis to lead us ethically with the utmost integrity, recent news reports that seek to utilize Department of Defense assets on the domestic front raise cause for concern. I am apprehensive about the news that our military was asked to house undocumented adults and children as they await court proceedings. In conclusion, I am here today to urge my colleagues to support the defense bill. This legislation provides funds for much-needed technological advancements; strengthens the physical and mental health of our servicemembers; and reinforces our military strength for the future through major investments in readiness, force, and defense medicine.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, yesterday's Detroit Free Press reported that two babies were taken by the Department of Homeland Security from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border and flown in the dead of night last night to Grand Rapids, Michigan--one child is 8 months old, and another 11 months old--hundreds and hundreds of miles from home. Fifty more immigrant children have landed in foster care by spontaneous combustion in western Michigan. A staffer at Bethany Christian Services, which is assisting these displaced children said: ``Not only are they being separated from their family, they are being transported to a place that they don't know in the middle of the night.'' Mr. Speaker, taking children from parents presents a deep moral crisis for our Nation. The abduction of children from their parents is a crime against humanity. The Trump administration's kidnapping of children must end. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this important article from the Detroit Free Press entitled ``Torn from Immigrant Parents, 8-Month-Old Baby Lands in Michigan.'' [From Detroit Free Press, June 20, 2018] Torn From Immigrant Parents, 8-Month-Old Baby Lands in Michigan (By Tresa Baldas) Four days ago, a Homeland Security official proclaimed: ``We are not separating babies from parents.'' Yet in the middle of the night, two baby boys arrived in Grand Rapids after being separated from their immigrant parents at the southern border weeks ago. One child is 8 months old; the other is 11 months old. Both children have become part of a bigger group of 50 immigrant children who have landed in foster care in western Michigan under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance border policy. The average age of these children is 8, a number that has alarmed foster care employees who are struggling to comfort the growing group of kids who are turning up in Michigan at nighttime, when it's pitch-dark outside. They're younger than ever, they say. And they are petrified. ``These kids are arriving between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Not only are they being separated from their family, they are being transported to a place that they don't know in the middle of the night,'' said Hannah Mills, program supervisor for the transitional foster care program at Bethany Christian Services, which is currently assisting the displaced children. ``We have found on many occasions that no one has explained to these children where they are going.'' According to Mills, some of these displaced children got picked up right at the airport by a foster family, while others wound up at a foster care center, begging to talk to their parents. Many have gone 30 days or more without talking to their parents because their parents can't be located, she said. Bianey Reyes, center, and others protest the separation of children from their parents in front of the El Paso Processing Center, an immigration detention facility, at the Mexican border on June 19, 2018, in El Paso, Texas. (Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images) ``These kids are hysterical. They're screaming out for mom and dad,'' said Mills, who speaks Spanish and can converse with the children, noting only a handful have learned some English. Mills, who has worked with displaced, immigrant children for six years, said the foster agency is dealing with a new, troubling element: Getting unaccompanied children on the phone with their parents. Typically, this takes about three days, she said. But now it's taking up to a month or more because the parents are detained and the agency can't locate them. ``That's probably one of the most detrimental things,'' Mills said. ``At least if we can get a kid to speak with their parent, they can feel safe.'' Equally upsetting, Mills said, is watching children when they do finally get on the phone with a parent. For example, she recalled, a tearful 7-year-old on the phone with her mother asking her, `Are you OK? Are you hurt? Is someone hurting you?' ``All of it is incredibly upsetting,'' Mills said, stressing: ``The difference is, we're seeing so many more younger kids.'' Homeland Security officials were not available for comment on why infants and toddlers are being taken from their parents. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has steadfastly maintained that its goal is to protect the nation's borders, enforce immigration laws and send a strong message to immigrants that if they cross the border unlawfully, they will be prosecuted and their kids taken away. There is no federal law that mandates children and parents be separated at the border, though the practice has led to nearly 2,000 kids being misplaced in the past six weeks--a phenomenon that has triggered a firestorm of controversy. Many religious groups, social activists and immigrant- sympathizers are calling for an end to the practice while Trump supporters are saying let him do his job. On Tuesday, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights announced that it's assessing the impact of Trump's zero- tolerance policy on the state of Michigan and the detained immigrant children, stating it ``has a duty to make sure their civil rights are protected.'' ``We have received reports and are very concerned that the children arriving here are much younger than those who have been transported here in the past. Some of the children are infants as young as 3 months of age and are completely unable to advocate for themselves,'' Agustin V. Arbulu, Executive Director of Michigan Department of Civil Rights said in a statement. The American Association for Justice also condemned the family separation policy on Tuesday, stating: ``These actions are risking the safety and well-being of innocent children. We call on the administration to immediately halt this practice and to reunite these traumatized families. This is not who we are as a nation. We can and must do better.'' But the Trump administration is not backing down, stressing the policy is about preserving and protecting America's borders and upholding the law. Moreover, it insists, the policy is not new, claiming children have long been placed in foster care when their parents were criminally charged with an immigration violation. ``What has changed is that we no longer exempt entire classes of people who break the law,'' Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a White House briefing Monday. ``Here is the bottom line: DHS is no longer ignoring the law.'' She later added: ``We are a country of compassion. We are a country of heart. . . . We must fix the system so that those who truly need asylum can in fact receive it.'' President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans desperately searched Tuesday for an end game to the administration's contentious zero-tolerance immigration policy that has drawn fire from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Trump said Tuesday he wants the legal authority to detain the children along with the adults and ``promptly remove families together as a unit.''

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleagues of the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty by Emma Lazarus: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuge of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp besides the golden door. That is the America that I know. That is the America of liberty for all. The New Colossus (By Emma Lazarus) Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. ``Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!'' cries she With silent lips. ``Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, last night, Ohio was subjected to another Trump administration ICE worker raid involving rounding up 146 workers at meat processing plants in Salem, Canton, and Massillon, Ohio, making Ohio among the top States in the union where these workers have been poached. Again, Detroit-based ICE agents swooped into Ohio, fully armed, to round up dozens of workers who toil in one of the least attractive jobs in our Nation, cold, bloody, slippery, and, yes, dangerous, hard jobs in the meat processing industry, jobs U.S. citizens don't want. My message to President Trump: Stop the barbaric tactics. Stop breaking up working families. If we don't fix this system, these agricultural jobs will be offshored, and we will be importing even more of our food. Let us set up a dependable system to regularize the hiring of workers. Heartland States like Ohio are capable of creating a level playing field for businesses and workers from our country and abroad. To take the crime out of seeking employment in the Americas requires amending NAFTA and CAFTA by updating those accords to address continental employment standards. The President campaigned on reforming NAFTA. Well, Mr. President, we are making you an offer you shouldn't refuse. Show our workers and our companies some respect. We will meet you at any time, at any place to broker a better deal for Ohio and heartland workers.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight, and have chosen not to attend the Congressional Baseball Game, because I think I have an important message that needs to be heard. I rise to elevate an economic and humanitarian issue that is manifesting itself across Ohio, our Nation, and our continent. Millions upon millions of workers, many landless workers essential to getting America's work done in agriculture and other sectors, live and toil in an eerie, shadow existence. These workers often are exploited due to our broken immigration and legal systems, which afford them and their work no respect. Our beloved father, Steven, would say: ``They are caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea.'' Let's take a peek inside who some of these workers really are. These workers dare to climb skyscrapers and install the steel beams and pour concrete across our country, one slip away from death. They embrace harsh work circumstances, going into the brutally hot Sun in the south and west, picking your vegetables and fruits for 12 to 16 hours a day at high season. In our vast tobacco fields, they work from sunup to sundown, picking off flowers from tobacco plants in the blistering 110-degree heat as their fingers and hands numb from the nicotine and their sweaty sunburned bodies turn ripe for melanoma skin cancer, and they have no health insurance. They work in hot steam chambers cleaning our laundry in the big cities and in the very, very difficult environments of slaughterhouses using electrified cutting equipment, and they are covered in blood in those slaughterhouses for the meat that we eat. They trudge through manure in dairy farms; and they harvest mushrooms sold in every store, in the grocery stores around this country; in cold, damp, dark, underground caves, walking through horse dung. They catch, by hand, thousands of chickens every night in the dark, hot coops that generally have 25,000 or more chickens each, where the stench and the dust are life-threatening. They clean bathrooms in amusement parks, along State turnpikes, and in airports. And why do they do this work? To survive, while holding out hope for a better life for them and their loved ones. Without these workers, our tables would be bereft of the food we depend upon. America could not feed itself. Without these workers, companies would have to pay higher wages and offer health insurance to do the work. Indeed, many, many, many millions of these workers are uprooted, actually, continental labor refugees, spit out of vicious and violent economic and political systems across the Americas. Yet continental trade compacts like NAFTA and CAFTA were designed purposefully to create this landless class of laborers to purposely undervalue them and their work. NAFTA caused millions of these workers to be upended and lose their small farmsteads in Mexico, precipitating the largest human exodus from the land in modern history. And, reciprocally, in our country, millions of Americans lost their jobs in factories and farms across the Nation as our jobs were shipped south. Trade agreements have failed workers on this continent in their homelands; and many of those south of our border fled--fled--to find ways to make a living, drawn by worker shortages in many countries, including our own, finding work in the most unappealing jobs, jobs our citizens won't take. Now, for those who came here to work, they face even more cruelty by the Trump administration and many Members of this body, too, as their children and families are being ripped apart. And I am going to tell you a story about that in a second. News reports are beginning to reveal the edges of this ugly system of de facto human bondage. Our Nation, founded in slavery, fought a bloody Civil War over whether the economic system of the South would be extended west, and we have not completely healed from that war even till today. Sadly, American history has not been immune from subjugating and indenturing workers. This situation of penniless workers in bondage is the modern-day version of a continuing continental exploitation of labor. It is an old story, repeating itself in a new chapter. Last Tuesday, in a very well-known greenhouse operation in my district in Erie County, Ohio, near Sandusky, the home of the roller coaster at Cedar Fair, this well-regarded greenhouse operation was raided at the height of this spring season by dozens and dozens and dozens of Federal Immigration, Border Patrol, and IRS officials. At least 114 male and female workers were detained, removed to jails, and are being questioned somewhere. But where? Those who are parents have been cruelly separated from their children, with no provision made for the children. This is a photo. I will say something about that in a second, of what was going on last week in Ohio. The reverberations of this raid in Ohio will be felt across a greenhouse and nursery industry at high season when these companies must have workers. They are highly dependent on thousands of seasonal laborers to perform the necessary work, and I am talking just in Ohio, tens of thousands of workers. The same is true in our border State of Michigan. I worry about these workers, and I worry about whether these firms will find the workers to perform the work at such a key time of the year. There simply aren't enough hands left to do the work. Men and women workers, some of whom had worked for this firm for nearly two decades, were surrounded by ICE officers who came out of another State, Detroit, Michigan, heavily armed with rifles. They even tied the hands of citizens of our country behind their backs before questioning them. Border Patrol helicopters whirred overhead as workers were handcuffed and made to lie down on their bellies before being taken by bus to detention centers hundreds of miles from Erie County, where this raid occurred. As far as I have been able to determine, the women workers, most of whom are mothers, have been placed in the Calhoun County Jail near Battle Creek, Michigan, and the men, in a facility, the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio. I took particular note that Immigration and Customs Enforcement must have notified the Associated Press that took this picture of the impending raid, as the reporter traveled all the way from Michigan to take this particular photo and report on the raid. But the same notification was not extended to the local press nor, for that matter, to local Ohio law enforcement officials who knew nothing about this raid. It certainly looks like the Trump administration seems intent on staging a big show on immigration, but where is its interest in real solutions? Was this raid really about security? or is it more about intimidation? or is it trying to divide Americans along economic and racial lines? I was told the greenhouse workers put up no resistance. They were peaceful. When I asked ICE if I could visit the workers in one of the detention centers this past weekend, I was told arrangements could not be made, even though these workers work in the district I represent. This is simply unacceptable. ICE, which reports to the superlords in the Trump administration responsible for this, have been over a day late and a dollar short in their answers back to us in their communications. Yet people's lives and their children's well-being are at stake. Stonewalling is simply not an option. So I intend to head to Michigan in a few days to try to find the detention center and, hopefully, speak to some of the women. I understand if I do so, we have to do it over a videophone or something. And I will say to the Department of Homeland Security I expect a full report on the status of each of these workers, as well as evidence they are being treated with dignity and respect in the county jail. I hope to share more publicly about what I learn with my colleagues here in the House, as well as the people of Ohio's Ninth District. I want a full effort and report on what is at issue with each of the persons apprehended. I want to know where each is located, as well as what can be done to minimize the trauma for their children being separated from their parents. So how did America get to a point where people who work hard with their hands for a living are rounded up like cattle and their children taken from them to places they know not where? Some of these children may be Dreamers, Americans who have grown up in the United States whose immigration status needs to be addressed. So let's do it. Today, we learned that next week this House, apparently, will vote on two competing measures that relate to immigration. One is from Mr. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, H.R. 4760, called Securing America's Future Act of 2018. That bill only gives temporary status to young people who have grown up in this country. It makes deep cuts to legal immigration. It prevents legal immigrants from sponsoring their family members to enter the United States, and, of course, it boosts enforcement. It is a punitive bill, certainly not a very hopeful bill. And even if it could pass this House, it is not going to pass the Senate. Then there is this mysterious new bill that Speaker Ryan calls a compromise bill, and the compromise bill we may vote on next week still isn't written. It follows the framework, we are told, set forward by the White House, legal status for Dreamers, increased border security, including funding for a wasteful, ineffective border wall, an end to the diversity visa lottery, and curbing family-based legal immigration. Wow, there are so many people who have come to our office who want to marry someone who is waiting in another country. How many decades are they going to have to wait? Just an hour ago, a summary provided said this: This second measure would authorize funding for construction of a border wall sought by President Trump and give a path for so-called DACA populations to apply for a 6- year, indefinitely renewable, nonimmigrant legal status, after which they can apply for newly allocated green cards. We will see. Count me as a skeptic. To date, the Trump administration has failed to help young Dreamers who have been here their whole lives. To date, the Republican congressional majority has failed to provide a pathway for these Dreamers. The majority has failed to act on comprehensive immigration reform, which we really need. Years of inaction by House Republicans who hold the majority have brought us to this point. And we had a measure down here on the floor that had garnered 216 signatures to bring a set of votes to the floor that could really have addressed this problem, and the majority jerked it off the ledger the other day. Rather than blaming workers and harming U.S. companies, let's put the blame where it belongs: on the trade agreements that the United States has been passing since the 1990s that set us on a treacherous and greedy path of bad trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA that threw millions of workers out of work in our country, and millions of workers and small businesses in countries like Mexico lost their work, treated like chattel on this continent. We need a renegotiated NAFTA. These bad deals have never resulted in a positive trade balance for our country. Instead, they displaced millions of workers in North America. U.S. plants shut down here, and trade deals like NAFTA thrust cheap labor into the market, forcing wages down across the continent, including in Mexico. Border crossings doubled into our country after NAFTA's passage, including illegal entries of desperate people under desperate circumstances. Those trade deals disrupted the markets that small farmers in Mexico and Central America relied on to support themselves. Who would not flee desperation? You would, too, if your livelihood disappeared. Think about it. The best estimate suggests 11 million undocumented immigrants have assumed some of the hardest, low-paying jobs inside our economy since NAFTA's passage and, 10 years after that, CAFTA's passage. Employers and employees are transfixed by a rigged global economy that pits businesses and workers across this continent against one another. Who benefited from that? Ask yourself that question. Answer the question. Many workers have endured long journeys by foot, train, and boat as labor traffickers indebted them to make it across our border. Others who work here simply stayed beyond the expiration of their temporary visitor permits. The situation is more complicated than many people realize. The reality is about 60 percent of the unauthorized population of workers here has been here for at least a decade. A third of undocumented immigrants 15 years of age and older live with at least one child who is a U.S. citizen by birth. So do we close our eyes to all of this and what has happened on this continent or do we fix it? The renegotiation of NAFTA presents a precious moment, and I am with the President on renegotiating NAFTA, but with what provisions? The chance to create a just economic model for all of North America that respects and recognizes both employer needs and labor rights should be in a trade agreement. Renegotiation could have a monumental impact on not only economic opportunity for millions, but also correct distorted, migratory patterns in labor markets made so much worse by NAFTA. Instead of lifting up workers and improving their plight, achieving good jobs with living wages, the current NAFTA-CAFTA system forces workers in a harsh system that equates to a modern-day versions, yes, of slavery. Workers understand that standing up and complaining about abusive conditions will mean termination because an employer can report them to immigration authorities. So the guillotine always hangs over their head. A renegotiated NAFTA can bring workers out from under the shadows. It will benefit business. It will benefit workers, and it will benefit our communities and our continent. When workers are asked why they endure all this, almost all have the same reason: survival and a hope for the American Dream. For those that have come here from other places and work here, they are performing the jobs the rest of America chooses not to do. Rather than end this miserable underground system of indentured servitude, Republicans have chosen inaction time and time again. NAFTA and CAFTA need to be renegotiated to institute a legal system that gives workers standing in the law, not exploitation, whatever side of the border they live on. Now, Republican lawmakers fail to acknowledge the vast role American foreign policy has played in creating the conditions in North America that push and pull workers on their perilous trek, destabilizing their way of life. You cannot solve this problem without solving the NAFTA and CAFTA problem. Recall, President Reagan worked with Congress to pass the last comprehensive immigration reform bill in the 1980s, and at the same time, unfortunately, the United States Government negotiated with international development institutions to develop new policies that favored large multinational corporations but undercut workers, including the smaller farms and businesses that created economic opportunity for communities in our country and south of our border. In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement--boy is that a misnomer--was sold to Congress as a way to keep Mexicans home and to make sure that American workers were cared for. Well, guess what? NAFTA actually threw millions of Americans out of work and also millions of Mexican farmers and small businesses were displaced. These upended workers sought opportunity wherever they could find it. Indeed, immigration to the United States from Mexico doubled post-NAFTA as millions of U.S. citizens saw their jobs shipped south of the border. And those south of the border, who couldn't even afford food at that point--a desperate exodus began and people were willing to work for penny wages. A decade later, Congress passed CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, further undercutting agricultural workers and small entrepreneurs throughout the rest of the southern tip of North America. So these policies trapped Latin America workers between a foreign policy that drove them from home and a U.S. domestic policy that kept them in the shadows, while driving good jobs out of the United States to low-wage environments. Ask yourself: Who would benefit in that kind of system? Look at the profits of some of the companies and the CEOs of those companies that did that. We also know, far too many employers take on undocumented workers and exploit them for their willingness to work long hours for no pay. President Trump, please know, walls will not solve these passive economic inequities our trade policies created. Only fixing NAFTA and CAFTA will. Our Nation needs comprehensive, continental immigration reform that should include an E-Verify employee system to take the onus off the employers to verify a worker's status, and to give workers standing on this continent. No border wall can succeed against the enormous pull of our vast economy's needs, including for labor, as employers complain every day to me they cannot find the workers they need. Let me conclude in my remaining minutes with a few stories that came out of this horrendous raid that occurred in northern Ohio. Maria Sandra worked at this greenhouse and was present the day of the raid. She recalls clocking in at 7 a.m. These workers work hard. She walked to her van to get her sunscreen and gloves when she heard vehicles slamming on the brakes in the gravel. The officers got down with large weapons so she figured they were looking for a dangerous criminal. Then she says: I realized it was immigration. Two men came up behind me screaming at me to walk. I told them I have my ID and my Social Security card. They screamed louder: Walk. I picked up my phone and they told me to put it away, that I couldn't use it. I was so scared seeing how they pushed people and put us together like animals on their way to a slaughterhouse. The officers tied everybody up. I kept saying, I have my documents. I will show them to you. But they ignored me. They began separating us into two lines. Everybody that was White was let go. I was there so long that I had to use the bathroom. They refused to let me go until many others had to go. We were taken, tied, to the restroom, accompanied by an officer with a big gun. I kept asking: Why are you doing this? I have all of my documentation in my van. They asked me: Are you a citizen? And I said: Yes. They laughed at me. I had never felt so humiliated. I can still hear everybody crying. When they finally ran my social, they escorted me to my van, still tied. They told me to leave and I said: How can I drive with my hands tied? Another officer came with scissors to untie me and actually cut my wrist. I pulled away in pain and he got angry and said: Why did you move? I said: Because you cut me. I stormed out of there in fear. I have never experienced anything like this in my whole life. I was treated like a criminal with no voice or rights. Gloria Reyes works at Corso's and was there the day of the raid. Gloria's coworker, who was arrested, asked Gloria to drop off her lunch bag at home and check on her children. Gloria's coworker, whose name she would prefer not to give out because of fear of the children being taken, has three children: a little boy, a little girl, and a baby. Gloria went to that house and when she knocked, she said she could hear them behind the door shushing each other. Gloria says: I knocked for a while and just kept saying, son, open up. I won't hurt you. I just came to drop off your mom's lunch. The eldest finally opened the door but wouldn't let me in. He broke down crying and asking questions I couldn't answer because I didn't know where any of them were. I tried to calm him down and said everything would be okay. I went back to take the children food, but nobody answered the door. I don't know if they are okay. Those children only have their mother. I have been here in this community 42 years, and I have never seen anything like this. Families are being broken without caring of what would be of the children. Working is not a sin, and all of those people just wanted to better themselves. We work hard, sometimes taking shifts from 7 a.m. until midnight. What the government is doing is wrong. People are suffering. The American children are suffering. Another woman who worked at Corso's writes that she escaped the raid and she wants to remain anonymous because she fears that she might be hunted down. She said: I never expected anything like this to happen. When I saw them coming, I ran, and I ran, and ran until I hid under a bed of flowers. I buried myself under the dirt and cried in silence. All I could think about is my kids. I have three. A lot of us have small children who need us. My skin itched of the mud stuck to my body drying. Is this America? Is this America? I prayed to God for strength. I hid there for 8 hours in fear of being taken or that maybe ICE would still be around. I still feel like I am there suffocating. When I came out, I asked someone who also works at Corso's for a ride. The entire complex was silent. Lunch boxes were left everywhere. There was a void in the room. As I got home, I was scared to get out of the car. I looked around the neighborhood to make sure there were no officers around. Walking through the door and hugging my son was a relief. However, I hurt when he asks me: What is going to happen now? I don't know what to say. All I know is, I have to provide for them. I am alone and I don't have a dime to my name. If I had a voice, I would tell the government that we don't hurt anyone. We are humble people who are just working to better our lives. I would tell them to put their hands on their hearts and realize they are hurting people. Children are suffering. Please stop. A young girl, age 13, who resides in a place named Willard, her mother was taken in the raid. She said: I was still in bed when I could hear someone banging on my door. Right after, there was banging on my bedroom window, so I got up to see what was going on. As I opened the door, my neighbor in panic and tears asked where mom was. I said: She is working. Why? She asked, had I spoken to her? I began to say no when she interrupted me by saying she had been arrested at her job along with many others from our town. My neighbor said: Call your dad. I was so confused and even dumb because I didn't know what to do. I couldn't even remember my dad's phone number. My dad didn't answer, so I panicked. I cried on the floor hugging a picture of my mom. All I could do was cry and hope it wasn't true. Not her. My father eventually walked through the door and just hugged me tight and we cried. I have little sisters and they kept asking: Mommy, mommy. I would just say: She is at work. It was even harder to tell my little brother. I played a song, ``I Am Not Alone,'' and I prayed and prayed. That night my sisters wouldn't go to bed, insisting to wait for my mom. I went to sleep at 4 a.m. just thinking every time my mom gave me advice and how I wish I had listened every time. My dad didn't go to work the next day. I think everybody is scared. Everyone says: Be strong. It is going to be okay. But all I can think about is, when will I see my mom again? When will I hug her again? Now I have to take care of my sisters. But looking at mom's empty chair at the table, just doesn't seem fair. I hope the American people who are listening tonight think about these human beings that honestly don't deserve to be caught between our government, the Mexican Government, and the governments of the southern tip of North America. NAFTA and CAFTA have to be renegotiated and workers of this continent have to be respected. We have to treat people like human beings and there must be a legal system that protects them all. ``God Bless America'' and God bless this continent. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR

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

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, as the designee of Ranking Member Lowey, I move to strike the last word.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to point out that, if one looks at the fine print in our bill, the account, actually, for fossil is increased by over $50 million over the current year. That is a pretty healthy increase. We are not really cutting anything in that bill if we take the funds that you are offering here. Fossil will still see a $30 million increase over this year. It isn't being cut to the bones or anything like that. In fact, we are adding flesh to the bones of the fossil accounts. I think it is important to support the Beyer-Eshoo-Esty proposal here in this amendment because we are creating the future with ARPA-E. Nobody knows what ARPA-E means in the average neighborhood of our country. It really is not just the moonshot; it is the Mars-shot. It is the highest level of energy research we do. When I saw Members from Massachusetts down on the floor here a little earlier, I thought to myself: When I saw the Russian tanker come in last year with natural gas because parts of the East Coast couldn't heat their homes in the wintertime, I have to tell you, I am worried. Every American should be worried. We should be developing energy on many fronts. An all-of-the-above strategy is exactly what this country should be doing. We shouldn't be peeling away funds for the highest level of research that we do in our Nation. Truly, ARPA-E helps us become a global leader. It is transformational in what it does. It is a model for others to imitate. It is smart, it is agile, it is fast-acting, it is nonbureaucratic, and it is bold-- qualities that both Republicans and Democrats like. Last year, actually, many Republican officials and business leaders, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said ARPA-E is a blueprint for smart Federal investments that boost our global competitiveness. And surely it does, because I can remember a time when America was not running its way to energy independence. It was, in fact, completely dependent on imported sources of energy. ARPA-E has been nothing short of remarkable. One hundred and thirty- six projects have attracted over $2.6 billion in private sector follow- on funding. I repeat: private sector. While I do support fossil--and Ohio is a State right now where we have a lot of coal, we have a lot of natural gas. We even have some oil being brought up with the natural gas. I support all that. But we know one thing about that: it is finite. It is not going to be there for future generations. ARPA-E leads us into a new future, and this amendment moves us in the proper direction. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the Beyer-Eshoo-Esty amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the ranking member from New York, Nita Lowey, for yielding me this time and for the wonderful work she has done on 12 bills, and this is but the first. I also want to thank the chair of the full committee, Congressman Frelinghuysen, whose service has been so meritorious. We miss his service on the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Committee directly, but he has moved up to greater things. I also thank Chairman Simpson and the members of our fine subcommittee and our staff on our side of the aisle, Jaime Shimek and T.J. Loudermilk, and on the majority side, Angie Giancarlo, for their hard work on this bill under rushed circumstances. I value the hard work that all of you have put into this bill and the dispatch with which Chair Simpson has moved through the process, including with great cordiality. Our bill contributes to ensuring the critical availability of energy and waterway improvements for domestic stability and national security, not just for today but for the tomorrows to come. Energy is the power that flows and drives our economy and courses through our Nation. Sometimes people even forget it is there binding our country together at the community level, connecting our Nation from coast to coast, and ensuring our superior defense posture globally. Our Nation has made enormous strides in increasing our energy independence by developing a broad portfolio of power sources, with no bill more important than this one in reaching the strategic goal of energy independence for America's independence. But it is not yet time to declare mission accomplished. Today, the price of oil is on the rise again, standing 50 percent higher than it was 1 year ago, due at least in part to unrest across our globe. It is no secret that every time in recent history--and I am talking 40, 50 years--that fuel prices exceed $4 per gallon our Nation sinks into deep recession. Actually, energy can become a tourniquet that throttles economic growth, and rising fuel prices means our Nation could be headed there again. So we must not lose sight of the ultimate goal of energy independence for American independence. Largely, thanks to the bipartisan budget agreement, the chairman has been able to provide increased funding levels to that end across much of our bill. Turning to the water and waterway elements in our bill, all essential to human life, our bill significantly increases funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure continued forward progress in all regions of our country across all project areas, including navigation and environmental restoration. All projects are job creators and benefit future economic growth and environmental improvement. I am grateful for the chairman's continued partnership to address the Asian carp threat to our freshwater Great Lakes ecosystem, as well as for funding to keep our Great Lakes ports open to shippers, which drive economic investment in the Great Lakes region. And, unfortunately, while the chair has been generous in the funding of most programs, the bill cuts over $400 million in funding from this year's levels for next year for some of the highest priorities to those of us on this side of the aisle. Let me enumerate them: energy efficiency and renewable energy, where America is making great strides and nations like China seek to blunt our lead; transformational science driven by the highest level of research in our country, the advanced research and energy we call ARPA- E; and, finally, in the third important area of nuclear nonproliferation. Those accounts should not be cut. They all exist within the Department of Energy budget. These programs invest in new horizons to move our country and economy forward through innovation, creating jobs along the way. Think about this: Nearly 3.2 million Americans now work in clean energy industries alone. Those are jobs that didn't exist 35 years ago. Energy means jobs, and new energy systems means economic growth. I remain troubled by the continued unsustainable spending in the Department of Energy's weapons program. Instead of working to rein in costs, just over a month ago, the administration submitted a budget amendment to begin work on a new, low-yield ballistic missile, as proposed in the Nuclear Posture Review. I remain unconvinced this new capability will actually improve our nuclear deterrent.

Ms. KAPTUR. We owe it to the American people to have a full discussion and debate before wandering down a path to new varieties of nuclear weapons, including security, cost, and schedule. The bill, again, includes several unnecessary and controversial policy riders, everything related to the Waters of the United States to new language legislating an ongoing court case in the northwest. I ask my colleagues to vote no when I offer an amendment to eliminate all of them. One of our biggest concerns is the damage this bill does to other bills. It is like musical chairs: if we succeed with our bill, then the 11 bills that follow may not have sufficient funding. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for leading us to this point. We are very proud to be the first bill on the floor this year, 2018, in the appropriations process.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of my fellow Great Lakes colleague's amendment and thank him for raising the issue. I think the Great Lakes have finally arrived at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As the gentleman knows and as I have made clear to the Corps, our Great Lakes Members and myself are very supportive of the proposal for a Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Study. The study will take an inclusive view of how to make our coastline more resilient, with an eye toward using more sustainable, green, or natural infrastructure to reduce runoff, mitigate erosion and flooding, and protect property. This approach will ultimately save money as the Corps looks to fulfill its mission in the face of changing environmental hazards. And I have to say, over my many years of service, we finally have at the Corps not just civil engineers, we have environmental engineers. We have raised a new generation of Americans who understand the relationship between structures and the environment. It is a new day at the Corps, and nobody welcomes it more than this Member. Mr. Chair, I want to thank the gentleman for offering this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise to strongly support Congresswoman Tsongas' amendment. In our country today, there are 12 wind projects in various stages of development, spanning 10 States off the east, west, and Texas coasts and, of course, in the Great Lakes as well. These offshore projects alone represent over 5,000 megawatts of potential offshore development. We don't have a kilowatt to waste. These projects can create thousands of manufacturing, construction, and supply-chain jobs across our country and drive billions of dollars of local economic investment. We know we will need workers to do these clean energy jobs. And I can guarantee you those towers are very high. So I definitely support funding for training activities in this regard for the future. The Department of Energy already has workforce training grants for solar, and, therefore, I would very much wish to carry over that effort as well to the Wind Power Technologies Office. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the gentlewoman for offering this important amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I rise to support my good colleague, Congressman Keating, and his amendment dealing with spent nuclear fuel. We need a solution all across our country to spent nuclear fuel stored on dozens and dozens of sites across our country. We thought we had a solution. $14 billion has been invested in the Yucca Mountain facility, and yet because of opposition from those who were not consulted in Nevada before that site was constructed, our Nation has been at a standstill. So I want to compliment the gentleman from Massachusetts for bringing up this issue. Northern Ohio, a vast region that I and other Ohio Members represent, has more than one nuclear power plant that is faced with spent nuclear fuel onsite. We know that the Department of Energy is doing tremendous work in this arena, very fine work, but we simply can't continue to just keep talking about this. We actually have to begin to store fuel in a much safer way. This amendment would build on the work that DOE has been doing to continue to invest in such a critically important area as spent nuclear fuel and its permanent storage. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the Keating amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding and rise to strongly oppose the Gosar amendment to completely eliminate the ARPA-E advanced energy research program, which helps propel our Nation forward as a global leader. I could just say to the gentleman from Arizona, for some of the firms that have contacted me, the Chinese are hacking into their intellectual property every week as they struggle to maintain a global lead in new energy technologies. Yes, ARPA-E is a pioneering program. It was designed to be that way. Yes, it is high risk. Yes, it is high end, so much so that the private sector won't do what ARPA-E is conducting. The research is so high in science that most companies in this country can't even touch it. And, frankly, I don't want the Chinese designing our future. They are actually doing research before the private market can drive it forward with a commercial product. I would like to point out that, in 2011, an American Enterprise Institute-Brookings Institution breakthrough study called for ARPA-E to be funded at $1.5 billion, annually, because of other countries around the world beginning to do research in a way that was competing with our own. The American Energy Innovation Council, a panel of many of the Nation's top business leaders, including Bill Gates, have called for ARPA-E to be funded at $1 billion a year. And last year, Republican officials--oil and energy executives, business leaders, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--told Congress, ARPA-E is a blueprint `` . . . that boost our competitiveness by keeping America at the forefront of global energy technology research.'' These are some of the best people in our country. We ought to be listening to them. We are their representatives. As the program focused on new possibilities, new patents, ARPA-E has been nothing short of remarkable, with 136 projects attracting nearly $3 billion in private sector follow-on funding. They won't do the research, but they will take what we have invested and really do something in the marketplace with it; but beyond just the marketplace, something that might have something to do with our defense, for example, something to do with our national security-- inventing the future. And yet we have come to expect this administration, they want to eliminate funding, and some of their allies here in the Congress want to eliminate funding. You eliminate the future if you do that. You really do eliminate the future. So I rise and strongly oppose this amendment. Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the Gosar amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank Congresswoman Lee, my colleague on the Appropriations Committee, for offering this very important amendment, and I rise in support of it. Please let me remind my colleagues who may not agree with our position that if this particular proposal for developing a low-yield nuclear weapon were so important, why was it not included in the administration's initial budget submission to us? The process by which this has been handled for a nuclear weapon--if this were a conventional, then maybe there is a little room there for maneuver. But in terms of a nuclear weapon, it has many consequences beyond the weapon itself, including the understanding of our allies and including many of the treaties that are currently in place. I was actually shocked when the Secretary of Energy and many people from the Department of Energy came before our committee and they could not answer any questions on this. The nuclear security agency, when they came up before our committee, at that point this had not been proposed. It came in late; it was thrown over the transom. And I think the manner in which this has been handled is actually terrible. We have the most capable and sophisticated nuclear arsenal in the world. It is credible enough to deter and respond to any threat right now. We have what we need. But if we are to alter the combination of weapons that we have in our arsenal, then, for heaven's sake, why not come up under regular order? We owe it to the American people and to our allies to have a full discussion and debate and assess how others will react to what we are doing and what we need to respond to. This may not be the most perfect response. And we don't want to wander down a path to a variety of nuclear weapons without the kind of debate on deterrence, on security, on cost, on schedule, and on relation to existing systems that we have in place in our own country or others. So I really think the manner in which this was handled was absolutely awful. For something that deals with nuclear weapons, this Congress deserves more respect, the American people deserve more respect, and the world community deserves more respect. We are not saying we will never support this, but this is not the time to support this. I think the Congresswoman has proposed the proper amendment, and that is to strike the low-yield missile at this point.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank Congressman Connolly for yielding me his last minute and rise in support of this very important amendment to move $97 million to the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account. Without question, we are going to undergo modernization of our entire nuclear stockpile in this country. We are going to spend well over a trillion dollars. In addition to that, we have had discussions this afternoon and debate about this new low-yield nuclear weapon, which many people have misgivings about in view of the way it has been handled in committee here. There is no more important time in terms of the world, when we look at many unstable regimes that hold nuclear weapons within their stock, for us to have the most capable people with the most technical expertise to advise, not just people here in the United States, but our friends and allies abroad and international organizations concerned about nuclear proliferation. So the gentleman's amendment increases our ability, doesn't harm our ability, to monitor and verify arms control agreements and prevent other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. I support the amendment. I think it makes sense with what we are doing with our own arsenal and what is happening globally. It makes ultimate sense that we should never cut these accounts.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for yielding, and I rise in opposition to this amendment, not completely understanding what it is the gentleman is objecting to. I know that you have an individual about whom you are upset. The gentleman is from the State of Arizona. Am I correct?

Ms. KAPTUR. The State of the gentleman is under this Western Area Power Authority. We don't have that sort of power umbrella in our region of the country. I have read all about the fights in the West among all these Western States, a dozen and a half Western States: Arizona fights with California; California fights with Washington; Washington fights--it is unbelievable. So I am a little reluctant as a non-Westerner to believe anybody until we get a proper tribunal to assess whether what you are saying is correct or not. For all I know, this man put some power in another State that hurt Arizona. I don't know. I look at the controversies out there, and I just think that this amendment targets one person and reduces their salary to one dollar without any trial, without any tribunal. It sort of reminds me of the way in which the gentleman's side of the aisle handled the firing of the chaplain and then, because we finally tried to get some justice here, he was brought on. Mr. Chair, you don't do this to people. We have a judicial process in this country, and you have to go through the proper channels. I think we have to focus on fair ways in which to adjudicate if, in fact, there is something going on out there. I really question whether what is really going on here is a fight between Arizona and adjoining States.

Ms. KAPTUR. I yield to the gentleman.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I would just say, you know, there used to be an old expression. They asked Jesse James, ``Why do you rob banks.'' He said, ``That is where the money is.'' So I think about the situation we face in our country today. I am not willing to take the money out of this budget, which I consider critical to America's security at home and abroad, and meanwhile, in other fora, to give trillions of dollars to the top 1 percent in this country who aren't really interested in what we are doing here much, don't appreciate it sometimes. I am not willing to leave off the hook the Wall Street bankers that took us into the 2008 recession, not a single one went to jail. It is interesting where the gentlewoman is looking for money. One of the reasons I chose to be on this subcommittee is I am sick of going to war for energy. Too many people from my region have died. I think part of America's solution is becoming energy independent and being able to conduct war where we have to. This bill allows us to do that for the sake of the Republic. I think the gentlewoman has a good intention to try to balance the budget. I think she is looking at the wrong end of the telescope.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to thank Congresswoman Jackson Lee for yielding and for the incredible work she does representing the Gulf region in its fullness. I understand, through her and through my own studies, the damage done by Hurricane Harvey and the need for studies such as these to advance flood control projects to mitigate future damage. I think she has been such an articulate spokeswoman, reminding us that times are changing and we have to pay attention to coastal communities. I have to also mention that there are funds in the supplemental bill we passed earlier this year for purposes such as these, and we have plussed up the Army Corps budget in this particular bill. So I think that will serve Texas very well. And the gentlewoman mentioned the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. We are all deeply concerned. So I thank my colleague for offering this amendment. I thank her for her great leadership and urge all of our colleagues to support her amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Ms. KAPTUR. I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment, though I think he intends it well. I want to inform him that the Department of Energy has said it does not have plans to purchase additional heavy water from Iran. So I think this amendment is really irrelevant. Frankly, I would rather that the United States take whatever Iran has rather than letting them sell it to Russia or somebody else. But the Department of Energy has clearly said they don't have plans to purchase additional heavy water from Iran. And so the gentleman's amendment is unnecessary, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Chairwoman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I just wanted to say, the gentleman who is offering this amendment, I oppose the amendment, and you and I view the world very differently. I view the Government of the United States as a bulwark for social and economic stability in this country. If I look at why we have a deficit going back, one of the reasons is oil wars. This department is one of the most important departments in the country to lead us to energy independence as a country. I don't think we should do what you are asking us to do here. If we look at our trade deficit, we haven't had balanced trade accounts since the mid-1970s. Adding trillions of dollars to our trade deficit every year is making it harder to fund Social Security and Medicare, programs that are essential to social stability in this country. If we look at the 2008 crash and the trillions of dollars that cost us as a country, nobody on Wall Street went to jail. It is interesting to me where people want to pick away, pick away, pick away when you look at the big money, the moneys for war, the money for paying for imported goods as opposed to producing here at home, the causes of what happened in 2008, and there was no justice that was given to the Republic. So, to me, energy independence is critical, if you look at the trillions we have added to the deficit because of war. So we look at the country through different ends of the telescope, I think, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I really think the result of your amendment will be less investment in the Republic, less investment in water resource infrastructure and energy development, and less investments that create good jobs and have substantial returns on investments such as modernizing our ports and all of the infrastructure that helps us to achieve social and economic stability in this country, which isn't easy to do. So I thank my colleagues for listening, and I would urge opposition to this amendment.