Jared Polis

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleague from Texas, we have so many speakers on our side of the aisle--in fact, both sides of the aisle--folks like Mr. Fincher and others who want to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. If he has additional time, I know that our Members would also appreciate the opportunity to talk about it, as our time is running short. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee). (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), a member of the Oversight and Government Reform committee and a former member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Heck), a leader in the bipartisan efforts to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank and a member of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bills, H.R. 3236, the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act, and H.R. 1994, the VA Accountability Act. Yet again, we have a grab bag rule that covers multiple bills on wildly different subjects--in this case, transportation and veterans care--in one bill; and yet we have a closed rule that is pushing through a last-minute deal that kicks the can down the road yet again on highway reauthorization when there is reason to believe that, if we simply stayed in town and worked another week, we might be able to work with the Senate to get to an end point with regard to a long-term reauthorization. The closed rule here limits the discussion of alternatives on the issue of transportation funding. Even worse, the bill has two entirely unrelated aspects. I have never heard of a crazier name than the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act. This is part of the problem of this body over the last several years. Republican leadership has moved towards doing more and more omnibuses and minibuses. That means combining disparate bills--transportation, veterans--into one bill, which isn't healthy for the accountability of this body among the electorate. If you vote against this bill, for instance, because you don't like the transportation provisions, does that mean you are against veterans? If you don't like the veterans provisions and you vote against this bill, does that mean you are against transportation? How easy it would be to simply have two votes on each of these bills so Members on both sides of the aisle can vote their conscience and our constituents can hold us accountable. Of course, it is necessary to give the VA the authority to transfer $3.3 billion for healthcare services. There is strong agreement on both sides. We could run the bill through on suspension. We wouldn't even need to open it up for a rule. It would pass with more than a two- thirds vote. But there are problematic additions attached to that part of the bill. It is also combined with yet another temporary fix for our Nation's highway system, instead of trying to stay in town another week and work on a more permanent fix to help meet the needs of the transportation arteries of our country. As you know, Mr. Speaker, 54 percent of our Nation's major roads and bridges are rated poor or mediocre. Forty-five percent of Americans don't have access to public transit. Congestion produced by our legislative failures here wastes valuable time and money and detracts from the growth of the American economy. It is estimated Americans will lose 8.4 billion hours and 4.45 billion gallons of gas over a decade. That means the average consumer is wasting $800 a year and 5 full days of their life away from their kids, away from their family, simply sitting in traffic. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. My constituents are no strangers to traffic. If you have been to Fort Collins, one of the largest cities in my district and home to one of our great universities, you will find that on highway 25 my constituents endure gridlocked traffic at rush hour, doubling or tripling their commuting times. Expansion of highway 25 and high-speed rail along highway 70 and highway 36 have been given completion dates of decades from now--60 years, in some cases. Try to imagine being told your doctor wants to slowly break down blockages in your arteries over a period of 60 years. You won't make it that far. Our communities need to do something about traffic now. Tourism and commerce are the lifeblood of Fort Collins, Boulder, and our mountain communities like Vail, Frisco, and Breckenridge. For these towns to survive and thrive, we need to tackle our transportation funding needs head-on. From our other speakers, you will hear a lot about the Export-Import Bank, the one item that somehow, with this grab bag that includes veterans and transportation, there is a strong bipartisan majority for reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank. In fact, 67 Senators in the Republican-led Senate voted to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, and yet somehow that item didn't make the grab bag. If Congress fails to act, one of the most important items is it will result concretely in the loss of tens of thousands of American jobs and make American companies less competitive for exports at a time when global competitiveness and the global economy is more important than ever, which was left out of this grab bag of bills. I understand ideological issues with the Export-Import Bank. In a perfect world, I would agree with my colleagues who argue we shouldn't need to do this kind of effective subsidy for exporters; but if other countries are doing it and it is permissible under WTO and trade rules, we would truly be idiots to unilaterally disarm and not engage in a legal practice that facilitates the credit of American exporting businesses. Effectively, it would lead to the exporting of more jobs overseas and making American companies less competitive in selling their products. So, by all means, let's have the discussion around multilateral adjustments to the type of credit facilities that countries can engage in with exporting countries, but let's not look at unilateral disarmament that makes America less competitive and destroys jobs. You will hear a lot about how simple it would be, my colleagues would indicate, to simply get this done before we leave. Isn't it worth another week of our time to save tens of thousands of American jobs? The second part of the rule, H.R. 1994, the VA Accountability Act, one of the main problems with it is it would create a culture of fear that would imperil the services our veterans need and deserve. The tragedy in the Phoenix VA system is an example. It became known because of a few courageous whistleblowers. Had this legislation been in place, this tragedy could have been swept under the rug for many more years. Without whistleblowers and strong whistleblower protections, the VA hospital debacle in my State of Colorado, in Aurora, could have even been a worse situation, if you can imagine that. This legislation is not just bad for whistleblowers, it is also unconstitutional. Supreme Court case law has clearly outlined the due process that employees have before their jobs are taken away. This bill turns its back on due process and allows any VA employee to be fired on the spot for retribution. The limited process provided in this legislation is far below the constitutional requirements, which is why the President has promised to veto this bill. All this bill is attempting to do is destroy the whistleblower and professional civil service system and, thus, the livelihood of thousands and the quality of service to our veterans. The appropriate action is to get the VA to do their job through appropriate legislation which creates true accountability, which this bill fails to achieve, or discuss how we might reform the dollars we allocate to the VA to best serve our veterans, however possible. We will debate an alternative today by my colleague, Mr. Takano of California, that would retain due process but allows the VA to immediately fire any employee who poses a health or safety risk to veterans. Additionally, it prevents employees from staying on paid administrative leave--even being bounced around the VA--by limiting the time to 2 weeks, a similarity to one of the positive aspects of the bill before us today. Mr. Takano's legislation, for example, would have allowed the VA to immediately fire those responsible for the Phoenix scandal and kept in place the whistleblower protections that allowed us to find out about the Phoenix scandal. Mr. Speaker, for these reasons, I oppose the rule and the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to allow the House to vote on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, as proposed by Mr. Fincher yesterday. It is the same exact language that passed the Senate by a vote of 67-29. Mr. Speaker, the Export-Import Bank allows American businesses to compete in global markets and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip, to discuss our proposal.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk to change the title of the bill to the ``Deny Americans the Right to Know Act.''

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Vermont for yielding. I rise in opposition to H.R. 1599. This legislation, which should be called the Deny Americans the Right to Know Act, or DARK Act, represents a major threat to consumer information. States have the right to determine their own local laws relating to GMO labeling, and the Federal Government shouldn't interfere. I frequently hear Republicans talk about states' rights and talk about the big, bad Federal Government; but when it comes down to it, here they want to take away the rights of States and counties and the voice of people, instead to support huge corporations and companies. Polls prove again and again Americans want to know what is in their food. Nine out of ten Americans support genetically engineered labeling, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Whites, Latinos, Blacks. What else can bring everybody together? This isn't a ``handful of activists'' we are talking about here. We are talking about 90 percent of the American people. It is the right of States to be able to determine how they label their food. States are doing it as we speak, just as they do with many other things: sell-by requirements; labels on bottled water around deposit requirements; States requiring origin of seafood and catfish, whether it is farm raised or wild caught. It is a vibrant discussion across the States that we should not preempt here in Washington at the behest of a couple major world corporations. We are talking about the rights of hundreds of counties and States and tribes to talk about how close to schools and hospitals pesticides can be used that relate to genetically modified organisms. Do we really want pesticides used to kill superbugs sprayed across your 5-year-old child's playground? These are the States that we are talking about, not a handful of activists. It includes States like Texas, where legislation has been introduced. This bill will remove everything that has the right to know for people and for States. We need to stand up to fight for the right to allow States and consumers to make these kinds of choices for themselves. That is why I cosponsored my colleague from Maine's substitute amendment, which will remove the preemption language from the bill. I urge my colleagues to oppose the DARK Act and to support consumer transparency.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. POLIS

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The best way to address the problems in our immigration system, the best way to address the lack of security for American citizens, the best way to ensure that there are not others like Kathryn Steinle and others that have fallen victim to immigrant felons is to fix our broken immigration system, secure our borders. Only Congress can do that. Now, the President has taken the first steps to help keep Americans safe by suggesting certain policies like DACA and DAPA programs. Now, DACA is being implemented; DAPA is, unfortunately, tied up in the courts. What these efforts allow our law enforcement agencies to do is to focus their efforts on criminals like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez rather than violators of our civil law. It would be better if this body could put those concepts into statute or, better yet, make sure that we can differentiate between noncriminals and criminals within the law. An immigration reform bill would reduce the risk of tragedies like this and help keep Americans safe by helping law enforcement identify people who are here illegally, and it would bring people out of the shadows. Identifying the portion of our people that are here illegally that qualify for relief and for prosecutorial discretion would help our law enforcement agencies narrow their focus and targets to individuals like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez. Immigration reform efforts like H.R. 15, which was the comprehensive bill from last Congress, would modernize our immigration agencies, increase enforcement and resources tools, technology, and border security to prevent tragedies like this from occurring. Doing the difficult work of having a meaningful debate around immigration reform is the only way we can ever be able to keep Americans safer and reduce the likelihood of this kind of incident. A vote for this particular bill won't do anything to address these systemic problems. Had this been the law, it would not have prevented this tragedy, nor does it do anything to address the problems plaguing our immigration system. Instead, it threatens and bullies local law enforcement and says to them, either expose yourself to civil liability--which is very real. My agencies in Colorado have been forced to pay--they have been forced to pay--$30,000 or $40,000. So pay legal fines, or we are going to cut your grants. Look, it is a natural tendency of people to pass the buck, and Congress is basically trying to pass the buck to local law enforcement for our failures here in this body. Mr. Lopez-Sanchez should not have been wandering the streets of San Francisco or any other American city. He should not have been allowed to illegally enter. In fact, he had been caught at the border four or five times, and he had snuck across other times. We need real border security, and we need to finally enforce our law and get serious about restoring the rule of law, which this bill would only make an even bigger joke. Rather than restoring the rule of law and encouraging cooperation between Federal, State, and local authorities in cases that involve immigrant felons, this bill would punish local law enforcement for prioritizing public safety and community policing over trying to do the job that Congress and the Federal Government are supposed to do. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. It is time for this body to fix our broken immigration system to keep Americans safe. How many other victims like Kathryn Steinle need to make the ultimate sacrifice--or the countless other Americans who are victims of other kinds of crime--at the hands of immigrant felons? It will be until this body chooses to fix our broken immigration system and restore the rule of law. This particular bill would only further dissipate the rule of law. It tells local law enforcement you have to either pay fines that drain your ability to enforce our laws or you lose grants that reduce your ability to enforce our laws. Either way, if this bill were somehow to become law--even though the President has indicated he would veto it--it would drain away the very local law enforcement resources, the purpose of which is to keep Americans safe. Let us move forward to replace our broken immigration system with one that works, not try to pass the buck. Mr. Speaker, the buck can't be passed. It is the Federal Government's responsibility to secure our border and to establish immigration laws. It is the Federal Government's responsibility to deport criminals. No matter how this body may try to say that it should be cities and counties and sheriffs and police chiefs--who are trying to do the dirty work--who are the result of our failure to take action, they need to make the decisions that are in the best interests of keeping their communities safe. With 10 or 12 or 14 million people in our country illegally--some of them immigrant felons--we are passing along the buck to local law enforcement with an impossible task. Rather than make that task more impossible by forcing them to pay civil fines or to lose important law enforcement resources, let's help them have the resources and policies they need to deport felon immigrants before they can commit crimes like the tragedy that occurred in San Francisco. I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule, to oppose this bill, and to reject this bizarre approach that we are seeking here today, which would have done nothing to have prevented this tragedy or any other like it, and would lead to countless more tragedies by taking resources out of the hands of those who are on the front lines--on our streets, in our neighborhoods--keeping Americans safe. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my distinguished colleague on the Rules Committee.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As the gentleman from Georgia might recall, when the Democrats controlled the Senate last session, they did pass comprehensive immigration reform with strong Republican and Democratic support. More than two-thirds of the body supported securing our borders, expelling felon immigrants, and keeping Americans safe. Had this body simply acted on that bill, as we repeatedly tried to get them to do, we quite likely would not be facing this tragedy that we face here today. Until this body acts, there are likely to be more victims, more American victims, of criminal immigrants. It is not the fault of the Democrats. We, with the Republicans in the Senate, put together a bill that would have addressed it. It is the fault of this body, the House of Representatives, that failed to act. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record a Statement of Administration Policy with regard to this bill, which includes that the President's senior advisers would recommend that he veto this bill. He then goes into some of the same arguments we have been talking about with regard to why we need to secure our border and grow our economy and make sure that we can fix our broken immigration system. Statement of Administration Policy H.R. 3009--Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act (Rep. Hunter, R-CA, and 44 cosponsors) The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3009. This bill fails to offer comprehensive reforms needed to fix the Nation's broken immigration laws, undermines current Administration efforts to remove the most dangerous convicted criminals and to work collaboratively with State and local law enforcement agencies, and threatens the civil rights of all Americans by authorizing State and local officials to collect information regarding any private citizen's immigration status, at any time, for any reason, and without justification. The Administration continues to believe that it is critical to fix the Nation's broken immigration system through comprehensive commonsense legislation that builds on existing efforts to strengthen border security, cracks down on employers hiring undocumented workers, streamlines legal immigration, and offers an earned path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants to get right with the law if they pass background checks, contribute to the Nation's economy by paying taxes, and go to the back of the line. While the Senate passed comprehensive legislation with strong bipartisan support over two years ago that would do just that, the House of Representatives failed to take any action. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that legislation would also grow the Nation's economy by 5.4 percent and reduce Federal deficits by nearly $850 billion over 20 years. The Administration continues to urge the Congress to address all of the problems with the Nation's broken immigration system and take up commonsense legislation that will offer meaningful solutions to those problems. The Administration also believes the most effective way to enhance public safety is through sensible and effective policies that focus enforcement resources on the most significant public safety threats. The Administration has put in place new enforcement priorities that do just that, focusing limited resources on the worst offenders--national security threats, convicted criminals, gang members, and recent border crossers. The effectiveness of these new priorities depends on collaboration between Federal, State, and local law enforcement. Every day, the Federal government fosters State and local collaboration through a variety of mechanisms, including policies, programs, and joint task forces. The Department of Homeland Security's Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) enables Federal immigration enforcement to work with State and local law enforcement to take custody of individuals who are enforcement priorities, including public safety and national security threats, before those individuals are released into communities. PEP is a balanced, commonsense approach to enforcing the Nation's immigration laws. It replaced the Secure Communities program, which, by establishing a ``one-size-fits-all'' approach to State and local cooperation with Federal immigration enforcement officials, discouraged some localities from turning over dangerous individuals to DHS custody. Secure Communities was embroiled in litigation and widely criticized for undermining State and local community policing efforts. PEP builds collaboration between Federal, State, and local law enforcement that allows for the most effective enforcement while enhancing community policing and trust. The Congress should give PEP a chance to work, instead of displacing that collaborative approach--which prioritizes the worst offenders--with the coercive approach of this bill, which makes no such differentiation. Finally, the bill would condition Federal money on State and local governments allowing their law enforcement officials to gather citizenship and immigration status information from any person at any time for any reason. The Administration believes that such blanket authority would threaten the civil rights of all Americans, lead to mistrust between communities and State and local law enforcement agencies, and impede efforts to safely, fairly, and effectively enforce the Nation's immigration laws. If the President were presented with H.R. 3009, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto this bill.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me the 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill. The rule here today provides for consideration of H.R. 3009, a bill that I strongly oppose that wouldn't even solve the problem that it attempts to here today. First, a little bit about the process. This is a closed process that reflects the practice of shutting down debate on the House floor. We should be talking about how to protect Americans like Kathryn Steinle. Instead, we are limited to debating a bill that, even if it had been the law, would not have affected this case or others like it or secured our borders. We are not even allowed to introduce amendments that would secure our borders here before the House floor. We have not had a single hearing on this bill, and it has not been marked up in committee. It simply appeared before the Judiciary Committee. It simply appeared before the Rules Committee yesterday fully formed. We talked for several hours about many of its flaws there. But, unfortunately, nevertheless, it has been advanced under this rule to the House floor. This bill is not a fix. It is not a solution to anything. It is a heavy-handed way to attack communities that are simply trying to find solutions to what is fundamentally a Federal problem. Yes, Mr. Speaker, dress it up however you like. It is our fault, the institution of Congress' fault, the Federal Government's fault, that we have failed to secure our borders. It is the Federal Government's fault that there are 10-, 12-, 14 million people in our country illegally, some of them felon immigrants. That is not the fault of any city or county or State. Our law enforcement professionals--sheriffs, police chiefs--are doing the best they can with the facts on the ground which work against them because of this body's failure to act. This bill before us is simply an attempt to provide a false solution to a tragic incident, this in spite of the fact this body has refused to bring forward a single bill to fix our broken immigration system or secure our border. The murder of Kathryn Steinle was a terrible tragedy. It should not have occurred. There were so many breakages along the way and things that could have been done to prevent it. But this action is primarily a way to highlight our broken immigration system. It is a disgrace, for instance, that our immigration enforcement agencies dedicate significant resources to pursuing tens of thousands of individuals with no criminal history while the enforcement of our laws against serious felons like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez, as a result, is limited to something like a phone call or an email from the sheriff in San Francisco. ICE, the agency with sole authority to pursue, detain, and deport people within our borders--an agency with a budget of more than $5 billion annually--is to blame here for its perverse allocation of resources. Mr. Speaker, ICE should have pursued this individual vigorously, and ICE is responsible for the fact that this man was walking the streets of San Francisco instead of in Mexico; but, rather than take responsibility for this tragedy and commit to making the necessary changes to prevent anything like this from happening in the future-- like, for instance, encapsulating the President's DACA and DAPA programs in statute so that our limited enforcement resources can be focused on criminal felons rather than tens of thousands of individuals with no criminal history--instead of doing that, this body is threatening local law enforcement with reducing their funds to keep communities safe. Mr. Speaker, this bill before us would do even less to address this issue in a meaningful way. This legislation undermines local law enforcement, tramples the 10th Amendment to our Constitution, and directly undermines the authority and judgment exercised by local law enforcement agencies that are simply trying to do their job as best they can in light of a Federal failure--a Federal failure--to deport felon immigrants, a Federal failure to secure our borders, and a Federal failure to establish enforcement priorities in statute. These decisions behind policing communities and ensuring public safety are made by those in those jurisdictions. We shouldn't have reactionary politicians in Washington threatening to cut off funding to sheriffs and police chiefs to make their communities less safe and lead to more victims of felons, both immigrant and American. That is why this bill is opposed by the Conference of Mayors, Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, the Fraternal Order of Police, and many other law enforcement professionals. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which we began the session of Congress by reading, makes it clear that it is the Federal Government's responsibility to create and enforce immigration policy. No matter how much this body tries to pass its failure on to cities, States, and counties, it will always come back here because only the Federal Government can secure our borders, only the Federal Government can establish enforcement priorities in statute, only the Federal Government can provide a pathway to citizenship, and only the Federal Government deports felon immigrants. Despite this, however, Congress has displayed a complete and total unwillingness to even begin the debate on fixing our broken immigration system, instead choosing to threaten local law enforcement for our own failures in this town, Washington, D.C. Mr. Speaker, I tried to reinitiate this debate just yesterday in the Rules Committee by introducing an amendment to this bill that would have allowed us to address the systemic problems by considering comprehensive immigration reform, including border security. Unfortunately, on a party-line vote, my measure was voted down and, therefore, in favor of maintaining this status quo. Instead of having a meaningful debate on how to make our immigration system work in our favor and keep Americans safe by keeping immigrant felons off the street and securing our border, the Republicans are instead insisting to push this bill through the House, threatening local law enforcement without hearing, committee debate, or even the opportunity to amend it with good ideas from Democrats or Republicans. Felons and egregious immigration violators like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez should not be free to walk the streets of this country, but until this body gets serious about securing our border and creating enforceable laws with the resources to enforce them, people like Mr. Lopez-Sanchez will walk free and will continue to harm Americans. Mr. Speaker, this legislation will effectively require local enforcement of immigration laws, effectively trying to foist off our responsibilities on beleaguered local law enforcement agencies who, with their limited resources, are making the best judgments they can to keep their communities safe. Federal courts have found that the DHS detainer policies violate the Constitution. Because ICE detainers request that a person be held in local custody for up to 2 days beyond the time they would otherwise be released, Federal courts have concluded that ICE detainers cause a new period of detention, and they are unconstitutional. ICE has flouted this requirement for years, issuing detainers based on investigative interests alone; and these dragnet detainer issuances practices have caused the detention of countless people who were not criminal felons, felon aliens, who are not removable--even U.S. citizens in some cases. The Federal courts finally caught up with this practice and found them to be unconstitutional and are holding local agencies under civil liability for honoring detainer requests from ICE. In Colorado, for example, the Arapahoe County sheriff was forced to pay $30,000 to a victim of domestic violence who was, herself, arrested when she called the police for help. She was then held in the Arapahoe County jail at the request of Federal immigration authorities for 3 days after a judge had ordered her release. Another case in Jefferson County Sheriff's Office was forced to settle for $40,000. Now, detainers are a form of communication and are therefore, in a reasonable reading of this proposed law, included. Effectively, you are presenting impossible choices to local law enforcement. You are telling them, on the one hand, subject yourself to civil liability or subject yourself to the cutting off of Federal grants to support your efforts. Either way, Mr. Speaker, it is a loss for the safety of American citizens and a loss for law enforcement, all because this body fails to own up to the fact that only we can fix the problem; only we can secure the border; only we can replace our immigration system with a comprehensive approach that makes sense and has the resources to enforce it, the Federal resources to enforcement. This isn't some theoretical matter that some intellectually curious law review cooked up. Jurisdictions in my district have been found civilly liable for enforcing detainers and been forced to pay. Lawsuits are being filed, and local law enforcement agencies that serve as proxies for ICE are losing. If you want to tell cities in my State to enforce unconstitutional policies, why not take on the liability federally? Will this body pay the settlement from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office? Will this body pay the settlement of $30,000 from the Arapahoe County sheriff? The Republicans are making it clear that they don't have a plan to keep people like Kathryn Steinle safe. They don't have a plan to secure our borders. They don't have a plan to address our broken immigration system. This bill today is just another piece of evidence of this body's, this institution's failure to keep Americans safe. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).