Beto O’Rourke

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to it.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, I have no other speakers on this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu).

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, at this time I do not have a speaker, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer).

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, I have no speakers at this time. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, the gentleman from Texas says that the MQ-9 Reaper is not specifically addressed in this amendment. However, UAVs are--unmanned aerial vehicles--and the MQ-9 is one of them. The point that I am trying to make is that we do not need to further militarize the border at a time when it is safer than it has ever been and when, in fact, U.S. cities on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border are far safer than the average city in the interior of this country. If we need to send surplus military equipment elsewhere, let it be prioritized based on need, based on known threat. When we send security resources where we don't have proven threats, we take them away from where we do. That makes this country less safe. I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, I inquire as to how much time remains on my side.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, I yield myself 3 minutes. This amendment is a solution in search of a problem. In fact, I think it will exacerbate some of the security problems we already have. As the gentleman knows, the border security agencies can already apply for this excess military equipment, but I ask those representatives who represent the people who live on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border--cities like San Diego, California; Nogales, Arizona; El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville, Texas--whether they want UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles, which could also be MQ-9 Reapers, flying over their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, prying into their backyards each and every day. This is at a time when we are already spending $18 billion a year to secure our border with Mexico and when we are seeing less than zero migration from Mexico itself. In the year 2000, we had 1.6 million apprehensions. This last year, we didn't even reach 400,000 apprehensions. Of any border of which we are told by the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, by the Director of the FBI, by the Secretary of Homeland Security that there has never been nor is there now a terrorist, a terrorist organization, or a terrorist plot that is seeking to exploit the border with Mexico, what this does is further takes our eye off the ball where we have known risks and known threats to this country and to the homeland. It stokes fear and anxiety and, in some cases, hatred towards our neighbor to the south, towards those communities on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border--communities like my own El Paso, Texas, which happens to be the safest city in the United States today. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment that does not solve any problems and, I argue, would make some of the security issues that we already have worse. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. O'ROURKE. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Army Major Rita Catalina Rosales Gonzalez for her extraordinary dedication to duty and service to our nation. Major Rosales has distinguished herself through her service while serving as a Legislative Liaison in the Army's House Liaison Division from June 2015 to April 2016. A native of Monterrey, Mexico, Major Rosales immigrated to the United States when she was just ten years old. Feeling a call to service, she joined the Army in 2005 and served the first seven years of her career at Fort Bliss in my district of El Paso, Texas. While at Fort Bliss, Major Rosales served as a Patriot Launcher Platoon Leader; a Patriot Fire Control Platoon Leader and Battery Trainer; a Battalion Fire Direction Section Officer-in- Charge; a Brigade Chief Air Defense Fire Control Officer; and as a Battery Commander. Following her time at Fort Bliss, Major Rosales would later serve as a Public Affairs Officer in the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Major Rosales' service to our country also includes two deployments in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, once to the United Arab Emirates from 2008 to 2009 and once to the Kingdom of Bahrain from 2011 to 2012. Major Rosales' career has been marked by excellence, as evidenced by her selection as the Distinguished Honor Graduate of her Air Defense Artillery Officer Basic Course; the Distinguished Honor Graduate of the Patriot Top Gun Course; the Honor Graduate of the Air Defense Artillery Fire Control Officer Course; and the Honor Graduate of her Air Defense Artillery Captains' Career Course. As Major Rosales transitions to her role as a Battalion Operations Officer at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I am confident that she will approach this role with a continued commitment to excellence and selfless service. Her outstanding leadership, strategic vision, and keen judgment are in keeping with the finest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon her, the Office of the Army Legislative Liaison, and the United States Army.

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to recognize the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10354, locally known as the Madrid-McLaughlin-Navarrete Post, located in the Mission Valley of El Paso, Texas. I am pleased to recognize them as a distinguished Veteran Service Organization. The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10354 was founded on April 15, 1952 and named after three outstanding El Pasoans: Daniel Madrid, an Airborne Trooper with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment who died while serving in Europe during World War II; Francis J. McLaughlin, a service member with the U.S. Army who died while serving in the South Pacific theater during World War II; and Manny Navarrete, a U.S. Army retiree who returned to El Paso after transitioning out of the military and continued his service to our country though his active participation and advocacy with Post 10354. Since its inception, Post 10354 has dedicated itself to serving veterans, current service members and their families, and community members throughout the El Paso community. Today, the Post is made up of 143 members. Collectively, these members contribute 3,000 volunteer hours a year as a Veterans Service Organization, mainly focused on assisting veterans file their benefits claims, appeals, and other medical requests with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Other examples of Post 10354's service to the El Paso community includes their biannual picnics with food, music, and youth activities; food drives during the holiday season; and partnerships with El Paso schools, including the Ysleta Independent School District, where they encourage and work with students to identify opportunities to give back to the El Paso community. I thank the VFW and the Madrid-McLaughlin-Navarrete Post 10354 for their commitment to honoring our veterans and helping to strengthen the El Paso community's dedication to public service. I am glad that Veteran Services Organizations like these exist in my district, and I thank them for their selfless service.

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend internationally renowned artist and pride of El Paso's Segundo Barrio, Gaspar Enriquez. Mr. Enriquez's art is synonymous with the Chicano movement and El Paso. His celebrated works have been displayed across the country, from the Tucson Museum of Art, to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in Austin, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of Art and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Born in 1942, Mr. Enriquez was raised in El Paso's Segundo Barrio, a neighborhood known as the cradle of the Chicano movement and the soul of El Paso. The neighborhood served as the inspiration for Mr. Enriquez's art, always present in the faces and landmarks depicted in his art. As a teacher and mentor for 33 years at Bowie High School, Mr Enriquez worked to inspire the youth of Segundo Barrio teaching self- expression through art. Mr. Enriquez is a continuing source inspiration and pride to our community.

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and recognize the Veterans of Foreign Wars Davis-Seamon Post 812 as an exceptional veteran service organization in my district of El Paso, Texas. Post 812 is named in honor of First Lieutenant Hart Davis and First Lieutenant Alexander Rives Seamon, both of whom were killed while serving our country during World War I. The Davis-Seamon Post was founded in 1921 and is the largest Veterans Service Organization in El Paso, with 835 members dedicated to serving veterans, active duty service members, reservists, their families as well as others in the El Paso community. As part of its commitment to serving El Paso veterans after they have transitioned out of the military, the Davis-Seamon Post enlists the help of a service officer that advises veterans on their eligibility for VA benefits. This relationship ensures that our community's veterans receive updates on changes within the VA as well as timely access to the benefits they have earned and deserve. Members of the Post have also organized numerous welcome back and farewell dinners for soldiers and their families, feeding more than 140,000 people since 2001. The Davis-Seamon Post has also taken great pride in preparing and serving Thanksgiving Day meals for service members and their families returning home from Afghanistan. In the spirit of helping others and creating a community of inclusivity within El Paso, the Davis-Seamon Post regularly donates its space to other local veteran service organizations and has partnered with different community groups to address the issue of veteran homelessness in El Paso. The Davis-Seamon Post also furthers its ties to the community by encouraging its membership to invite guests to its events so they may become familiar with its mission and service to veterans and members of the military. I am proud to know that a veterans service organization like the VFW Davis-Seamon Post 812 exists in El Paso. Their support and care for our veterans is longstanding and their efforts will help in continuing to make El Paso and our region a better place to live.

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues who have used the excuse--because they believe it--that we must first secure the border before we can do anything else, before we can improve our relationship with Mexico, before we can capitalize on the shared production platform that is the United States and Mexico today, where 40 percent of the value of everything that we import from Mexico originated in this country, is connected to jobs in this country; I invite my friends who use securing the border as an excuse not to move forward on immigration reform, despite the fact that we have 11 million people here who are living in the shadows, who, despite that, do their best to contribute to this country each and every day in service to this country and creating jobs in this country, in serving those in this country; I invite you to see the truth, to look at the facts, and to understand that our relationship with Mexico has never been more important, our border with Mexico has never been more secure, by any metric we want to look at. Whether it is apprehension, whether it is the total spent on the security of that border, whether it is the number of men and women, 20,000, who are patrolling that border with our closest partner-- certainly the closest trading partner in the State of Texas, I would argue the most important country for the United States--whether you look at it economically, demographically, historically, or culturally, I hope these facts, this truth, this light that we are working to shed on the issue, will help my colleagues to make better decisions, better policies, and move forward in the self-interest of this country, every district, and every person we represent, to do the right thing when it comes to Mexico, to do the right thing when it comes to immigration reform, and to do the right thing in the interest of the United States. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. O'ROURKE. I thank my friend from Texas, amidst all this heat and the rhetoric around Mexico, our relationship with that country, the cost or benefit of immigration, that he is able to shed some light using the facts, sharing the truth, so that we understand our shared interdependence, shared benefit, and the value of the relationship between the United States and Mexico. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time remains?

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, to listen to some in this country, and certainly some of my colleagues, Mexico represents nothing more than a threat to the well-being, the safety of this country, and to every son and daughter in every community within the United States. It is also a threat, some will tell you, to our economy, to our financial well-being in our homes, in our cities, in our States. This vision of Mexico and our relationship with that country and where the two join at the U.S.-Mexico border is dominated by this kind of anxiety, this scare-mongering, and an attitude of fear that neglects the truth, the facts, and the opportunities that our relationship with our closest partner on the world stage truly presents. It is my hope tonight to share with my colleagues the facts, the positive truth about what Mexico represents to all of us, certainly in the communities along the U.S.-Mexico border, El Paso, Texas, the city that I have the honor of representing and serving in Congress, the State of Texas, where I will be joined by colleagues who represent districts deeper into the interior of Texas, but really to everyone everywhere in the United States. When I listen to some of my colleagues, who can be forgiven much like those in ancient history who, not having traveled to distant lands or across the oceans, could only envision monsters or frightening things that were going to come and get them should they venture past what they knew and what was safe and what was home to them, those who do not know Mexico, who do not live on the U.S.-Mexico border may understandably have their thoughts and their concerns dominated by this anxiety and fear. It is my hope, as someone who lives in and represents part of the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border, to shed some light using facts and using real people, real U.S. citizens, real Mexican citizens, and real people from El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, which together form the largest binational community in the Western Hemisphere and one of the largest binational communities anywhere in the world. When you hear people who are concerned about Mexico and what it represents to the United States, that fear is often dominated by two different areas. One is economic and the other is fear about our security in this country. Let me lay some of those fears to rest. Let me address some of those concerns at face value using the facts and figures from the United States-Mexico relationship and, again, from the district that I represent in El Paso, Texas. Let me start with some of the economic concerns and address them with the economic facts and the economic argument. Some of my colleagues may not know this, but Mexico is our third largest trading partner. And for some States--like the State of Texas, like the State of New Mexico, like the State of Arizona, like the State of California--Mexico represents our number one trading partner. For many other States deeper into the interior, Mexico represents our second largest trading partner. But the volume of trade between our two countries is unlike any other, even among our top trading partner, China, for with Mexico, for every dollar of import value that we bring into this country from Mexico, 40 cents of that dollar was value that originated here in the United States, components, manufactured goods that were built here in America by Americans, by U.S. citizens that were exported to Mexico for final assembly and manufacture before reimportation into the United States. It is why when we export to Mexico, we win; when we import from Mexico, we win. That volume of trade between our two countries is responsible for one out of every four jobs in the community that I represent, El Paso, Texas. It is responsible for more than 400,000 jobs in the State of Texas, more than 6 million jobs throughout the United States. I want to make clear that our relationship with Mexico does not just benefit border communities like mine or border States like Texas. You look at New York, 381,000 people depend on our relationship with Mexico for the jobs they go to each and every morning. In Ohio, the number is 224,000. In the State of Washington, 128,000. In fact, every single one of our 50 States has a significant trading and jobs-based dependent relationship with Mexico. Were we to jeopardize that with harmful rhetoric or wrong-headed policies, we would not just jeopardize this historic relationship with our partner to the south, we would jeopardize the very well-being and lifeblood for 6 million American families spread throughout this country. In fact, if we don't do a better job of facilitating the trade we have with Mexico right now, we run the risk of losing the jobs we already have. The Department of Commerce estimates that for every minute of delay on our international ports of entry that connect the United States and Mexico, because we are not getting more trade into the United States from Mexico and out of the United States into Mexico, we lose about $166 million. For every minute of delay, $166 million lost to the United States economy. Now, let me talk about the security argument. I just heard from my colleague from Iowa that Mexico and Mexican immigrants, whether they are undocumented, whether they are pursuing a better life in this country, whether they are--as almost all of them are--net contributors to our economy, to our communities, to the safety of our cities, that somehow they represent this terrible threat, the primary threat for our country, and the sky and everything with it is falling should we not be able to deport these 11 million undocumented immigrants from communities like Washington, D.C., from El Paso, Texas, from Fort Worth, from throughout the United States. I would like to share something with my colleagues and with you, Mr. Speaker, about the effect that immigrants have on the safety of our communities. As I mentioned, I represent El Paso, Texas, which, with Ciudad Juarez, forms one-half of the largest binational community anywhere in the world. Twenty-four percent of the people that I represent were born in another country, most of them, the country of Mexico. And I will tell you, it is not in spite of that fact that we have so many migrants in our community but, in large part, because of it that El Paso is this country's safest city of over 500,000. So of all large cities in this country, from Los Angeles on the West Coast to New York on the East Coast, El Paso is this country's safest city. And it has been not just in the past year, but for years before this last one; and for the last 10 or 15 years, it has been rated one of the top five safest cities in the United States. And that is because the relationship that we have with Mexico. The migrants who come from that country are coming to this one to build a better life for themselves, certainly; but more importantly and connected to our relative safety, they are building a better life for their kids. They are keeping them focused on their studies, on contributing to their communities, on staying out of trouble and getting ahead and doing better. That is what I want you to know when we talk about security connected to immigration and when we talk about security relative to Mexico. I also want my colleagues, who themselves are taxpayers, and the taxpayers they represent to know that today we spend $18 billion a year to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. In the last 10 years, we have doubled the size of the Border Patrol force, from 10,000 agents to 20,000 agents, and we are reaching, if not already past, a point of diminishing returns where we can do no more good by spending more dollars and by adding more agents to already swollen ranks of the Border Patrol. Let me give you some facts that bear that out. In the year 2000, we had 1.6 million apprehensions at our border with Mexico. This last year, in 2015, we had 330,000 apprehensions. Another way to look at this is that, in 2005, the average Border Patrol agents on the southern border, our border with Mexico, made 106 apprehensions a year. Ten years later, 2015, last year, the average agent made 17 apprehensions the entire year; and in El Paso, again, one of the most critical sectors for our connection with Mexico, the average agent made 6 apprehensions all year--not in a week, not in a month, but 6 apprehensions for the entire year. So El Paso is the safest city. Other border cities on our side of the U.S.-Mexico border are much safer than the interior of the United States. We are spending record sums, and we are seeing record-low levels of apprehensions. We are literally seeing less than zero migration from Mexico now, and we have been for a number of years. When I hear my colleagues about securing the border before we proceed with immigration reform or any other sensible, realistic, logical policy with regard to Mexico, it begs the question when they ask if we secure the border: How much more secure can we get? How many more billions of dollars do you want to spend? How many more miles of walls do you want to construct? How many more thousands of agents do you want to hire? How many fewer apprehensions can we have? How far below zero can our immigration from Mexico reach? The last point on the security issue that I want to stress for my colleagues is this one. Despite the rhetoric, despite the anxiety, despite the fear that is often provoked on cable TV or even in this Chamber, there has never been nor is there now any credible terrorist organization, terrorist threat, or terrorist who is using the southern border--our border with Mexico--to infiltrate the United States. And I have that on public record from the Director of the FBI, the Director for the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. The danger of continuing to surge more resources where we don't have a problem is that we take our eye and our money and our men and women off those places where we know we have had threats in the past, like our international airports. In fact, even at our northern border with Canada, attempts have been made in the past, and certainly with homegrown, home-radicalized terrorists or potential terrorists in our communities. That is where we know we have a threat. That is where we need to pursue that threat. It doesn't mean that we do not remain vigilant against the potential for a terrorist threat coming along our border with Mexico; but I would argue that, with 20,000 agents, $18 billion spent a year, drones flying overhead, 600 miles of wall, we are very vigilant against the potential for any terrorist incursion from Mexico. Before I yield to my good friend from Dallas-Fort Worth, I want to talk a little bit about the people who actually live in this binational community that I have been talking about, El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, where, between the two communities last year, there were 32 million crossings. Thirty-two million times someone crossed from El Paso into Ciudad Juarez or Juarez into El Paso. I thought I would share with you, through these pictures to my right, some of the remarkable people that I live with in the El Paso-Juarez community and some of the amazing people that I represent. The first person that we are looking at is Armando. I started with Armando at the end his day as he closed up the plant that he manages in Ciudad Juarez. Even though he and his children live in the United States, are U.S. citizens, and attend U.S. public schools in El Paso, Texas, he crosses over the border into Mexico every morning. He works a hard day managing a plant there; and then he comes back over into the United States, where he pays his U.S. property taxes, his U.S. income taxes, where he contributes by going and helping to coach his son's soccer game, which is where we took this picture with Armando and his wife. He is one of these 32 million people that is crossing the border. He is somebody that has come from Mexico that is contributing to this country, whose children are growing up here. He is someone that I am very proud to have in my community. This next slide shows a picture of Israel. Israel lives in Ciudad Juarez but attends school at the University of Texas in El Paso. In its infinite wisdom, the State of Texas granted instate coverage for citizens of Mexico to attend schools in our communities in the State of Texas because we know that Texas will be the net beneficiary of their talent and their human capital. So Israel gets up very early every morning, sometimes before 5 o'clock, so that he can make it over the international bridge in time to get to the University of Texas at El Paso, where he is an all-star student and also works at the Keck Lab, which is one of the premier additive manufacturing facilities at any academic community in the United States. These are 3-D printing jobs that are the future of manufacturing technology. And if we do right by Israel, Israel is going to want to spend his life and his career and add value and add tax base and add tax income and create jobs in our country, in the community that I represent. That is why I crossed the bridge with Israel to learn a little bit about him and his experience. This slide shows a picture of Vicky, whom I joined in downtown Ciudad Juarez. She is walking up Avenida Juarez. Another block or two and we will pass the Kentucky Club, which I want everyone to know we did not go into. It was before 5 o'clock. But Vicky, who is a Mexican national, is carrying her shopping bags because at least once a month she comes over to the United States, to my community, to spend her hard-earned money in our local retail establishments and other stores to do the shopping for her and her family. In fact, Mexican nationals like Vicky spend about $1.4 billion in the El Paso community annually. That supports tens of thousands of retail jobs and small-business owners that I represent here in the House. This is the face of the border, the face of Mexico, the face of our connection. This was Vicky, with whom I crossed the border a couple of weeks ago. This next slide shows Manuel, who is driving a load of Werner ladders. Werner is the largest ladder manufacturer in the world. They manufacture about 70 percent of those ladders in Ciudad Juarez. The inputs for those ladders come from all over the United States. They are connected to jobs in this country that go over to Mexico. They are connected to jobs there and then reimported here for export for benefit of the United States and Mexico. Here he is crossing his load--his part of the $90 billion in U.S.- Mexico trade that crosses our ports of entry that are connected to those 6 million jobs spread throughout the United States. If we could get those bridges moving a little faster, get more CBP officers to facilitate that trade, we can get more loads of ladders moving across, more jobs connected in the United States to trade and manufacture in Mexico. It is good for my community, good for each of the communities represented by the Members here in the Chamber tonight. And the last slide I will show you is Lisa, and you can see that I jumped into the backseat of her car as she left the plant that she works in in Ciudad Juarez. She moved down to El Paso from Michigan about 20 years ago. She has been working in Ciudad Juarez every day with other U.S. and Mexican citizens, creating value in both countries, economic growth in both countries. And so here we are in her car, about to cross back into El Paso, Texas, where, again, she pays her taxes, where she contributes to her community, and where she is the face of the U.S.-Mexico relationship and why it is so important not just to preserve it, not just to respect it, but to grow it and to capitalize on it and create more jobs, more opportunities, more growth in both of our countries. I thought these five El Pasoans and Juarenses, whom I have the pleasure of living with in El Paso, the honor of representing here in the House, might tell you a little bit of a different story than the one that has prevailed and dominated from people who do not live on and, frankly, do not understand the border or our relationship with Mexico. But someone who does and who is here with me tonight, represents a congressional district in Fort Worth and Dallas, who understands the importance of our relationship with Mexico better than almost any other person that I have worked with, is Marc Veasey. I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Veasey).

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Command Sergeant Major Lance Lehr on his retirement from the United States Army after 30 years of service to our country. An esteemed and respected member of the Armor and Cavalry community, Command Sergeant Major Lehr most recently served as the Command Sergeant Major of the 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss. In this role, he served a community of over 30,000 active duty servicemembers and 47,000 family members. He also played an integral role in strengthening the relationship between Fort Bliss and the El Paso community. Command Sergeant Major Lehr's distinguished career includes assignments across the United States, Germany, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He has served as a Scout driver, gunner, and Vehicle Commander; Scout Platoon Sergeant; Operations Sergeant; First Sergeant; and Operations Sergeant Major at the battalion and brigade level. He also had the extremely rare privilege of serving as a Command Sergeant Major for three different battalions; the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division; and the National Training Center and Fort Irwin. His deployments include Bosnia-Herzegovina, as part of Operation Joint Guard, and Iraq, as part of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, and Operation Spartan Shield. As Command Sergeant Major Lehr embarks on a new chapter in life, it is my hope that he may recall, with a deep sense of pride and accomplishment, the outstanding contributions he has made to the Fort Bliss and El Paso communities and to the United States Army. I would like to send him my best wishes for continued success in his future endeavors.

Mr. O'ROURKE

Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Colonel Michael L. Amaral on his retirement from the United States Army after 30 years of service to our country. An esteemed and respected member of the Army's Medical Service Corps, Colonel Amaral most recently served as the Deputy Commander for Administration at Fort Bliss' William Beaumont Medical Center. In this capacity, he managed the day-to-day operations of a facility comprised of over 3,700 staff members and over 72,000 beneficiaries. He also played an integral role in strengthening the relationship between Fort Bliss and the El Paso community. Colonel Amaral's distinguished career began as a platoon leader with the 54th Support Battalion in Germany, and included assignments with the 44th Medical Brigade at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; the Walter Reed Army Medical Center; the TRICARE Regional Office in Rosslyn, Virginia; and within the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. During this time, he deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. As Colonel Amaral embarks on a new chapter in life, it is my hope that he may recall, with a deep sense of pride and accomplishment, the outstanding contributions he has made to the William Beaumont Army Medical Center and to the United States Army. I would like to send him my best wishes for continued success in his future endeavors.