Stacey Plaskett

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Evans), the Congressman and my good friend, whom I have the honor to serve with on the Ways and Means Committee. He is fighting for the people of his district in Philadelphia.

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague from Philadelphia who always stands up for the rights of the working class of those in cities and elsewhere who are struggling, the working poor. Mr. Speaker, I thank him so much for the work he is doing and for trying to maintain working neighborhoods in our many cities that are, through so much of these rule changes, so much of these executive orders, the ones who are being most affected. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), who is from the city of Newark, New Jersey, our good friend, my good friend, and champion as well, of those in the urban areas, as well as to others. He has recently taken on issues related to healthcare.

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, you can see we have had a lively discussion in recognition of Federal Judge Damon Keith. I would like include in the Record an article on his obituary from The New York Times dated April 28 of 2019. [From the New York Times, April 28, 2019] Damon Keith, Federal Judge Who Championed Civil Rights, Dies at 96 (By Robert D. McFadden) Damon Keith, a federal judge in the Midwest whose rulings championed equality and civil rights, notably in a landmark Supreme Court decision striking down Nixon administration wiretapping in domestic security cases without a court order, died on Sunday in Detroit. He was 96. His death was confirmed by his daughter, Debbie Keith. In one of the federal judiciary's longest and most prolific careers, Judge Keith, a Democrat, was a fountainhead of regional rulings with national implications. He attacked racial segregation in education, housing and employment; conservative efforts to limit African-American voting; and, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, secret hearings to deport hundreds of immigrants deemed suspicious. Judge Keith's tenure spanned more than a half-century, first as President Lyndon B. Johnson's choice for a district court judgeship in Detroit, with jurisdiction in Eastern Michigan (1967-1977), then as President Jimmy Carter's selection for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, presiding in Cincinnati over cases arising in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee. In a blistering 2016 dissent in an Ohio case that restricted early and absentee voting, Judge Keith accused two Circuit Court colleagues of scorning African-American voters and the memory of black people slain in the struggle for voting rights. In a frankly emotional rebuke, he incorporated into his opinion photographs and biographies of 36 such victims, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ``By denying the most vulnerable the right to vote, the majority shuts minorities out of our political process,'' he wrote. ``The unfettered right to vote is the bedrock of a free and democratic society. Without it, such a society cannot stand.'' One of America's oldest federal jurists, Mr. Keith served in the segregated Army in World War II, cleaned bathrooms at The Detroit News, attended historically black undergraduate and law schools and witnessed deadly riots in Detroit in 1967. In the most prominent case of his tenure, Judge Keith ordered the Nixon Justice Department in 1971 to halt wiretapping without court orders in its zeal to prosecute radicals accused of conspiring to bomb a Central Intelligence Agency office in Ann Arbor, Mich. As grounds, he cited the Constitution's Fourth Amendment freedoms from ``unreasonable searches and seizures.'' After the Sixth Circuit Court upheld Judge Keith's decision, the Nixon administration appealed to the Supreme Court. At stake, potentially, were warrantless wiretaps in many prosecutions that Attorney General John N. Mitchell had brought against antiwar activists and other opponents of administration policies. The high court, by 8-0, rejected the government's claim of constitutional authority to protect the nation from internal subversion by wiretapping ``dangerous'' radicals without court warrants. Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., who wrote the opinion, leaned heavily on the threat to free speech that he saw in the unbridled government wiretapping of dissenters. The American Civil Liberties Union said: ``If this claim had been upheld, there would have been virtually no limits to the range of governmental intrusion on the liberty that would have been implicitly authorized once the government invoked the talisman of `national security.' '' In another case, the Supreme Court declined to review Judge Keith's order to bus 8,700 of 23,000 students to desegregate public schools in Pontiac, Mich. His 1971 order, one of the first of its kind in the North, led to extensive busing, attacks on school buses, death threats against the judge and the convictions of Ku Klux Klansmen for dynamiting 10 school buses. But five years after Pontiac's busing began, The New York Times reported that bitter feelings that had all but paralyzed the school district had faded, and that busing had become a fact of life. ``Both blacks and whites are learning to understand each other better, to fear and distrust each other less, and to see individuals as individuals,'' the report said. In 1973, a year before Nixon resigned in the Watergate scandal, Judge Keith ordered the government to disclose whether it had used sabotage, agents provocateurs and ``other espionage activities,'' including a burglary at a law office, to make its case against militants known as the Weathermen. They were accused of plotting a campaign of bombing and terrorism. Later, government lawyers appeared in Judge Keith's court and withdrew their case against the Weathermen rather than undergo a hearing on how their evidence had been obtained. Defense lawyers said the Nixon administration had plotted its own campaign of domestic intelligence-gathering operations, including breaking and entering and wiretapping to foster a ``malicious prosecution.'' In 1979, Judge Keith and the Sixth Circuit upheld the Detroit Police Department's affirmative action program. A lieutenants and sergeants group had sued to overturn the five-year-old program, saying that white officers had been unjustly passed over for promotion. But Judge Keith wrote that promotion tests had been slanted against blacks, and that affirmative action ``undoes years of discrimination.'' And in 2002, the Sixth Circuit Court held that the Bush administration had violated the First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press by conducting hundreds of secret hearings to deport immigrants suspected of ties to terrorism. Other courts issued contradictory rulings, and the secret hearings went on for some time. But the case yielded one of Judge Keith's more memorable opinions. ``Democracy dies behind closed doors,'' he wrote. Damon Jerome Keith was born in Detroit on July 4, 1922, the youngest of six children of Perry and Annie (Williams) Keith, who had migrated from Georgia. Mr. Keith worked at the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant for $5 a day. Damon and his siblings, Luther, Perry, Napoleon, Marie and Annie, grew up in poverty. For a time during the Depression, the family received welfare assistance. Mr. Keith graduated from Northwestern High School in 1939. At West Virginia State College, he waited on tables and cleaned a chapel and the college president's house to pay his way. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1943. Drafted into the wartime Army, he served in Europe in a black unit largely assigned to kitchen duties. He was discharged as a sergeant in 1946. He received his juris doctor in 1949 at the Howard University Law School, where his mentors included Thurgood Marshall, the future first black justice of the Supreme Court, and William Hastie, the nation's first black federal judge. Mr. Keith received a master of laws degree at Wayne State University in 1956. In 1953, he married Rachel Boone, a prominent doctor in Detroit. She died in 2007. Besides his daughter Debbie, survivors include two other daughters, Cecile Keith Brown and Gilda Keith, and two granddaughters. In 1964, Mr. Keith helped founded one of Detroit's first African-American law firms and was named co-chairman of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. Three years later, he became a federal judge. He was chief judge for Eastern Michigan from 1975 to 1977, when he joined the Sixth Circuit Court. In 1995, he assumed senior status on the appellate court, with a reduced caseload. A lifelong Detroit resident, Mr. Keith received some 40 honorary doctorates and was showered with honors, including the Spingarn Medal of the N.A.A.C.P. and the federal judiciary's Edward J. Devitt Award. He was the subject of a 2016 Jesse Nesser documentary, ``Walk with Me: The Trials of Damon J. Keith.'' One highlight: When he was 69, one of the nation's most distinguished jurists and national chairman of a Williamsburg, Va., judicial conference on the Constitution's Bicentennial, he stepped outside the hotel during a break-- and was taken for a parking attendant. ``A white man drove up,'' he told a crowd screening the film at Howard University, ``and said, `Boy, park my car.' ''

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, in looking at those things that this Federal judge fought for while he was alive, I think it is a great segue into the other discussion that the Congressional Black Caucus has been engaged in in this hour, and that is poverty. Many of the communities that this judge was fighting for were poor communities. Unfortunately, at this day and age, it is still primarily people of color who disproportionately are affected by poverty. But the Trump administration is on the verge of making an end run around Congress now, attempting to slash the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by fiat. The latest effort was a proposed rule that would open for public comments until April 10. This rule would restrict SNAP eligibility by limiting States' flexibility to help the jobless or underemployed workers in struggling regions. By the administration's own estimate, enacting this rule would substantially increase hunger and hardship, stripping at least 755,000 Americans of food assistance, though other estimates suggest it could be as much as 1 million individuals and cut SNAP by $15 billion, slashing more than 178,000 jobs over the coming decade. In the last Congress, Republicans and Democrats had a long, protracted conference on the farm bill, much of it related to SNAP. Much of it was because of discussions about ensuring that there is a safety net for those who regularly without it would go hungry. We see that this administration did not want to take what Congress ruled on--what the President even signed--and is now, through his own executive order, attempting to change the law. The administration's most recent attempt to cut SNAP comes on the heels of President Donald Trump's failed attempt to achieve similar SNAP cuts in that farm bill; cuts that Congress rejected on a bipartisan basis. This proposed rule is not just cruel. It is also bad policy. Making people hungrier will not help them find work any faster. It will only kick underemployment and unemployment workers when they are down. Most working-age SNAP participants who are not receiving disability benefits are working, but they are often in unstable jobs with volatile schedules, low wages, making them especially likely to being affected by the rule. I want to talk about how this is going to affect rural communities. In 2010, the U.S. Census found that 22 percent of the population in the Virgin Islands lives in poverty. Fifty percent of those living under the poverty level were families led by single mothers. The Congressional Research Service discovered that on average, children living in female-headed families were more likely to live in poverty than children living in two-parent households. Given that 76 percent of rural adults report that good jobs are scarce in their area, it is not as if they are not looking. The jobs are simply not there. Rural communities like mine in the Virgin Islands will be among the hardest hit by the President's proposed rule, as it will tie States' hands and remove the flexibility they need to help residents of high unemployment areas put food on the table. Indeed, while the urban areas experienced a net gain of 3.6 million jobs from 2007 to 2015, rural areas lost 400,000 jobs during that same time, meaning that many rural areas have struggled to recover still from the Great Recession. Moreover, rural populations already face additional barriers to work. For example, lack of access to broadband is impeding the growth of rural economies, hampering total employment growth, and the opening of new businesses. Additionally, rural economies have less industrial diversity than urban areas and, in some communities, in particular, the departure of a central employer has led to tremendous job loss. In the Virgin Islands, one of the world's largest refineries based in the Virgin Islands on St. Croix shut down in 2012, driving a decrease in jobs. At the time of the shutdown, the unemployment skyrocketed to 18 percent. In the same year, refined petroleum exports for the U.S. plummeted by 90 percent. Given these challenges, States need more flexibility, not less, in order to decide how best to protect and invest in rural areas, as the administration's economic policies have not decreased the widening urban and rural divide. I believe that my coanchor, as well, has examples how poverty is affecting Americans; not just African Americans. The purpose of the Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour is not solely to talk about African Americans but to really champion the issues of those Americans who do not often have a voice. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford) to discuss this further.

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell the gentleman that his remarks were very enlightening and thoughtful. The logic of this administration and what they are thinking just does not make sense. In the end, it is going to cost us more. As you said, how is denying 1 million children lunch benefiting us as a country?

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, if you want to be calculating about it, how is it helpful to us in the long run? If you don't want to do it out of Christian goodness, out of the depths of humanity, then think about the long-term ramifications. Think about what it does to us to have 1 million children not being fed properly, not being able to think in a classroom, to be able to function, and to be able to do their work. What will that do to us 10 years from now? How many dropouts will there be? How many young people will be unable to function, to be able to read and write, and to be able to find a job? That will cost us, I am sure, entirely more money.

Ms. PLASKETT. In the last Congress, and again in this one, I am a member of the Agriculture Committee. I recall that when that farm bill initially was presented, the ranking member at that time and now the chair, Collin Peterson, and many of the Democrats were aghast that we weren't going to have hearings, that there wasn't going to be a markup, and that there wasn't going to be discussion on the farm bill which contains essential nutrition programs in there. It wasn't until it got to the Senate that we were able to have in conference a discussion about SNAP because the Republicans over here decided that that was not important. They didn't want to fund it, they didn't want to take care of children, and they didn't want to take care of families of those with disabilities and of veterans who rely on SNAP programs, on supplemental nutrition programs. It wasn't until we got to conference that that happened. The President signed the farm bill, and lo and behold, here comes the boomerang where he is trying to ram this through by executive order and by proposed rule changes to the law. People in this law it doesn't just affect, and if you are not interested in families that are single-parent families, female-run families, African American families, what about those veterans who are affected? What about those with disabilities? The proposed rule purports to apply only to able-bodied adults without dependents. But what people are unaware of is that under the rule, 11 million people with disabilities who receive SNAP assistance could lose that assistance under the rule as people who face limited work capacity due to disability or poor health are regularly misclassified as able-bodied for the purpose of SNAP. That means those individuals between the ages of 18 and 59 who have at least one physical, functional, or working limitation and are not counted as disabled under SNAP may, in fact, be affected. So this is cutting across so many individuals.

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford).

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, when the gentleman talks about the working poor, I think about those individuals in the Virgin Islands where we have limited jobs. Many of these individuals have jobs in government. You have an individual who is the head of a house, a husband-and-wife house, making $20,000--three children, a wife--trying to make ends meet off that kind of salary. They qualify, as we now have it functioning, for assistance for their family--for Medicaid, in some instances. But this administration is trying to take that away. Are they going to take it away from those people who are doing what they say they are supposed to do? They are out there working as best they can. They are trying to take care of their families. This Congress has provided a safety net to them, and now we are going to strip that away. This is untenable, and this has to stop. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire of Mr. Horsford the timeframe that individuals have to send a letter to their Member of Congress, to send a letter to this administration to let them know what their thoughts are. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford).

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I think people don't understand that SNAP benefits represent $1.40 per person, per meal--$1.40. I can't get a cup of coffee in Washington, D.C., with $1.40, but that is the benefit we are giving per person, per meal, for SNAP benefits. We should not be talking about cuts to SNAP. We should be talking about how to increase this benefit to the American people, to American children, to our elders, to veterans who are relying on this. Something must be done. As the Congressional Black Caucus, we are here to raise the alarm. Raising the Federal minimum wage would save, even if we raised it to $12 an hour, $53 billion over the next 10 years, nearly four times as much as the proposed rule, by ensuring that workers earn more so that they are better able to afford food, instead of punishing labor market struggles with hunger, as the gentleman said. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford) for any additional thoughts he may have as we close out this Special Order hour, and I thank the American people for listening.

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, House Democrats have an opportunity to create substantive, innovative, and cost-effective legislation that will bring jobs and economic growth to America through an infrastructure bill. As co-chair of the New Democratic Coalition's Infrastructure Task Force, we are actively drafting policy priorities to be considered for a House infrastructure bill. It is important to have Americans of all sectors' voices as we do this, and last week the infrastructure listening sessions were hosted by Representatives Colin Allred and Marc Veasey in Dallas and Joe Cunningham in Charleston. New Democrats are intensely focused on receiving and implementing forward-looking and practical ideas to help everyday Americans use infrastructure that supports job creation and advancement, multiple forms of transportation, policy proposals to mitigate climate change, and streamline bureaucracy. It is my hope that the President and Republicans will join us as we focus on four pillars for an infrastructure deal: modernize America's infrastructure and seek new revenue, create an infrastructure bank to finance the project, create incentives for communities most in need to finance those projects through grant programs, and encourage innovation and reform through responsible regulatory streamlining and the utilization of public-private partnerships that work. Building and renovating roads, bridges, ports, greener schools and hospitals, and broadbands all need the support of Congress to advance the flow of America's goods and services. It is what we need to do to keep our dominance in the economy.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Chair, I join my colleagues today to speak out on the President's intent to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement by supporting H.R. 9 and specifically in support of Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon's amendment that is before the floor right now. The President's intent to withdraw from the climate agreement is perilous, misguided, and ignores the increasingly stark reality of the impacts of climate change in our Nation as well as in the world. Rising sea levels are already having devastating impacts on hundreds of vulnerable communities across the country and around the world. Last week, I visited Charleston, South Carolina, and listened to the mayor of Charleston discuss how they were urgently working to heighten the seawall in Charleston directly as a consequence of drastically increasing carbon emissions, and likely related to warming sea water and the rise in sea level and volatility that has caused so much damage. The catastrophic effects of global warming were manifested in 2017 and 2018 natural disasters, where the Nation saw unprecedented natural disasters, from the deadliest wildfires in California to the worst hurricanes that hit the East Coast and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The vulnerability of the island territories is particularly important, as they are isolated and have specific energy issues and concerns that other places do not due to their isolation and being surrounded by and part of the ocean environment. Madam Chair, I thank Congresswoman Gonzalez-Colon for her work on this amendment, which requires a report on the impact of climate change in the U.S. territories that pays particular attention and consideration to their unique energy needs and systems and the climate change vulnerabilities faced by communities in this jurisdiction. Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment and passage of H.R. 9.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, basic healthcare coverage for 23 million everyday Americans and thousands of people in my district of the Virgin Islands is at risk of being undermined because our friends across the aisle fail to have the same urgency about these impending calamities. Virgin Islanders are at a critical junction. We face a daunting and devastating Medicaid cliff on September 30, 2019, an absolute collapse in Medicaid. Our Republican colleagues continue the work to dismantle healthcare for millions of Americans right now. They voted to eliminate protection for preexisting conditions and to strip their healthcare coverage. Last weekend, the Trump administration escalated its attack on Americans' healthcare by supporting a Federal judge's ruling that the entire Affordable Care Act should be thrown out. Today, I ask my Republican colleagues: What side will history find you on, protecting American families or the need to protect partisan interests? A demonstration of this was the Republican-controlled Senate's failure last week to advance a disaster aid package that includes billions for American families still recovering from 2017 natural disasters. Be on the right side of history.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment.

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Chair, the Violence Against Women Act is the cornerstone of our Nation's response to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking. VAWA's community response model helps abuse victims find safety and receive services, while holding thousands of perpetrators accountable for their actions. I would like to commend Congresswoman Karen Bass, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and leadership for their commitment to making this legislation a priority of this Congress. Mr. Chair, the U.S. territories, including my district of the U.S. Virgin Islands, along with Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa, are eligible for the Violence Against Women Act programs under the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services. For example, the Sexual Assault Services Formula Grant authorized under VAWA provides funding to support rape crisis centers and assist individuals who have been sexually assaulted. The Office on Violence Against Women awards no less than 1.5 percent of the total amount appropriated for the program to each State, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are awarded a base amount of 1 quarter of 1 percent of the total appropriation. In fiscal years 2017-2018, the smaller territories each received just $60,000 in funding under the Sexual Assault Services Formula Program. My amendment would double the minimum amount made available to these U.S. territories under the program. This funding is sorely needed at this time. According to mental health professionals in the Virgin Islands, a recent increase in domestic violence cases can partially be attributed to the residual stress of the disastrous hurricanes of 2017. Even before this uptick, however, the territories were massively underequipped to shelter and protect the victims of violence, and the situation has only worsened since. Mr. Chair, my amendment would similarly double the minimum amount made available to the small territories for transitional housing services, including housing for victims for whom emergency shelter services are unavailable or insufficient and to move individuals into permanent housing. In the Virgin Islands, assistance for emergency and transitional housing is crucially important, as the territory has seen housing costs skyrocket since the aforementioned disasters. Without this assistance, many women have no hope of escaping life-threatening situations. There is currently one domestic violence and abuse program on St. Thomas offering a hotline and emergency shelter. On the island of St. Croix, there is one program which offers a hotline and emergency shelter to victims. Undeniably, there is a need for more funding to provide additional services. This amendment takes a positive step towards addressing the additional funding needs to adequately assist and protect women and children of the Virgin Islands and other territories who lived through the horror of violence this bill seeks to protect them from. I would like to acknowledge and thank the Women's Coalition and the Virgin Islands Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Council on St. Croix and the Family Resource Center on St. Thomas for their passionate and continued work to provide services and training on prevention to the victims of abuse and their families. I would also like to acknowledge and thank my colleague across the aisle, Congresswoman Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen of American Samoa, for cosponsoring this amendment to improve services for women and children in the U.S. island territories. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Chair, I just want to thank my colleague and my good friend--indeed, my sister--from the neighboring island of Puerto Rico for her support of this legislation and, as a member of the larger island, speaking on behalf of the smaller islands and territories. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the disparities in pay between men and women in this country. Today, women are paid only 80 cents for every dollar paid to men, resulting in a gap of $10,169 each year. The gap exists in every State, regardless of geography, occupation, education, or work patterns. This disparity is worse for women of color. On average, Hispanic women are typically paid 53 cents; Native American women, 58 cents; and Black women, 61 cents for every dollar paid to White, non-Hispanic men. The Paycheck Fairness Act would help to close these punishing gaps by eliminating loopholes in the Equal Pay Act. The wage gap between America's men and women denies women $900 billion in income each year. Across the country, this disparity directly affects children. In my district of the Virgin Islands, 32 percent of families with children live in poverty. Of that number, 76 percent are headed by a single mother. We know that families who live in poverty have higher rates of instability and that children living in poverty perform worse in school than their counterparts. By paying each woman the $10,000 they lose per annum to the wage gap, we can do the right thing, and the fiscally responsible thing, and raise millions of families above the poverty line.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, I rise to highlight the budget proposed by the President of the United States. A budget is a statement of our values as a Nation--a moral document-- what we prioritize and what we hope to accomplish. The President released his budget proposal yesterday and, while I cannot say I am surprised, President Trump's budget, once again, shows his disregard for the values of the health and well-being of families across America. Just 3 months after signing the farm bill, President Trump proposes a 14.8 percent cut to USDA's--agriculture's--annual budget. This would hinder the Department's ability to implement the bipartisan farm bill Congress just passed overwhelmingly. With sharp cuts to the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program and elimination of the Value Added Producer Grants, these cuts will hurt farmers in the Virgin Islands, as well as other places in our country. Far from building a stronger Nation, the President's budget would devastate the pillars of economic security for farmers, seniors, and families across America. I wholeheartedly reject this destructive budget request.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, the President's emergency declaration is, in fact, a power grab to go outside the bounds of the law and get what he failed to achieve in constitutional legislative process. After failing to convince the American people and Congress to pay for his ineffective, wasteful, multi-billion-dollar concrete wall, the President is now trying a desperate end run around Congress with his unlawful emergency declaration. The President is declaring an emergency over a crisis that does not exist. The statute only applies to national emergencies that require use of the armed forces for military construction projects ``that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.'' The border wall is not a military construction project. It does not require the use of the military. The immigration law is the responsibility of the Federal immigration enforcement agencies, not the military. The President's declaration violates Federal law and that is the crisis. This is a crisis, a crime against our Constitution. It is an assault; it is a rape, what the President is doing now, against the Constitution, against this legislative body. I am just in another world that I, as a constitutional, strict constructionist, am on this side of the aisle on an issue like this.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remind you and my colleagues that Congress appropriated billions for disaster relief for Hurricanes Irma and Maria. In the latest effort, however, to find funding to build a wall, the White House and top budget officials continue to discuss shifting disaster funding to pay for a wall that a foreign nation was to pay for and now must be borne by people still recovering from disaster. The 2017 hurricane season was one of the worst on record. Among the hardest places hit were Puerto Rico and my home, the Virgin Islands of the United States, which not only lost power across the islands, but many vital pieces of infrastructure were heavily damaged and destroyed, and, most tragically, lives were lost. This disaster significantly impacted the Virgin Islands, destroying the island's infrastructure, with the loss of our only two hospitals, multiple schools, thousands of homes, and it left residents without electricity for a period of 9 months. The total damage to the Virgin Islands is estimated at $10.8 billion--$10.8 billion in a place that only has a $1 billion budget-- $6.9 billion for infrastructure, $2.3 billion for housing, and $1.5 million for the economy. Diverting disaster funds from this community would create a security risk and make them even more vulnerable. Mr. Speaker, shifting disaster relief funds appropriated by this body from my district and others impaired by the 2017-2018 natural disasters would create a catastrophic economic disaster. Disaster funding from the Army Corps was critical to disaster recovery, including power restoration, studies, repairs, and construction projects in the Virgin Islands and other territories and States impacted by the national disasters. The Army Corps of Engineers, however, has barged more than 25,000 cubic yards of construction and demolition debris from the territory. However, approximately more than 6,000, almost 7,000, cubic yards remain on the island, still to be removed. There is still so much work left undone. Individuals are still without roofs. After extensive debate and discussion with FEMA, the roof repair program is just now, a year and a half later, repairing the thousands of roofs and homes destroyed. The STEP roof program has been extended to March 1. The STEP program debris removal is still in progress throughout the territory. The hurricanes left not one but two hospitals overwhelmed with debris and destroyed--our only two hospitals--and, now, worksheets still have not been approved by FEMA for the rebuilding of those hospitals. The modular hospital is still not in place. Students have only recently, in this month, moved into the modular classrooms. Can you imagine? School reconstruction has not begun. Our communities still have a long way to go to get in the disaster recovery and rebuilding process. Mr. Speaker, nowhere else in this country would this be allowed. This would not be allowed in any of your colleagues' homes. However, before and after the storm, Virgin Islanders put their heads down and did the work. They pitched in and helped one another because that is all we had at that time, and the benevolence of other people, until you, Congress, until you, colleagues, gave them the disaster funding that was needed to rebuild. Mr. Speaker, unlike other places, the Virgin Islands doesn't have five or six Members of the House or millions of constituents living in your own districts. The Virgin Islands didn't have thousands of people on the news media or chefs or playwrights bringing musicals to our island to draw attention to the devastation in our home. The Virgin Islands had me, and I pray they have you--they have you, Mr. Speaker; they have you, colleagues--to continue the fight for them, for these Americans, to tell the White House that they should not shift disaster funding to build a wall away from Americans living in territories for something that a foreign country was to pay for in the beginning.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, I also rise to share a shutdown story from my district in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Vanessa Thomas, a resident of St. Thomas, shared a heartfelt story with me on her personal experience with the government shutdown. In 2017, less than 2 years ago, she lost her home in the two hurricanes that we had. Her home insurance is through the USDA Rural Development program. Prior to the shutdown, she did not receive homeowners insurance payments regularly. Now, with the shutdown, she is forced to use her own money to pay for materials and labor to repair her home. She has to choose between having her daughter sit out a semester in college or saving her home. This is one among many stories that are threatening residents of our country. Today, I strongly urge the President to end this shutdown now, immediately. Today, we cannot continue using Federal employees and Federal funds as pawns in a political game.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Chair, I thank the gentlewoman from New York--her and her staff, as well as the members of the committee--for putting together this supplemental disaster appropriations, H.R. 268, which seems to address many of the issues that the territories and other areas that have been affected by disaster are continuing to face. Additionally, it is sending a strong message to the administration about the slow walking and the additional restrictions that they have put in funding that Congress had already passed both here in the House as well as on the Senate side and the President himself sent. So this disaster supplemental bill contains much-needed support for ongoing disaster recovery efforts in my district, the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as Puerto Rico and other disaster-affected States and territories. For the Virgin Islands, this bill, as well as for Puerto Rico, addresses Federal cost share for all FEMA public assistance grants, including for debris removal and emergency measures to protect public health and safety--if you can believe, we are still dealing with debris removal--and for permanent infrastructure restoration for the duration of the recovery from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Additionally, of the funds provided for EPA programs, while I am very pleased to see that $74.6 million is set aside for the Virgin Islands to improve drinking water and wastewater systems resiliency, this is a very positive relief package for Americans in our island territories still reeling from unprecedented disaster, still reeling from a place where our hospitals are not back in operation and where our children just went back to a full day of school this October after over a year. I am pleased that the House will be sending a firm message to the administration that its recent decision not to continue the waiver of cost share of public assistance to the Virgin Islands would severely hinder the territory's ongoing recovery. I also take this opportunity to express my strong opposition to diverting disaster funds to build a border wall, which would create a true national emergency.

Ms. PLASKETT

Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about an important forum my colleagues and I will be hosting tomorrow. While this month of September marks the 1 year anniversary of Hurricanes Irma and Maria making landfall in the Virgin Islands as a Category 5 storm, the aftermath of the storm is still an everyday reality. According to the Hurricane Recovery and Resiliency Task Force report summary, total damage is estimated at $10.8 billion. Earlier this month, I visited local schools as they opened for the new school year, and the conditions are troubling. The Virgin Islands Board of Education reported a drop of almost 40 percent in student enrollment, and Puerto Rico's Department of Education closed 265 schools last summer in the aftermath of the hurricanes. Only 19 of the 33 public schools throughout the territory reopened on time, and many of those are in no shape for learning: a lack of school supplies and classroom resources for students; students resorting to either standing or sitting on crates, floors, and desks; libraries with few or no books; and unfinished construction. Let's not be fooled, however. The level of damage to the schools in the Virgin Islands is due, in part, to the continual cuts over the years to the children of the Virgin Islands' education by funding from this body, the U.S. Congress. On Thursday, September 27, I and other congressional Democrats will host a forum to discuss the state of public education and related recovery efforts in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The forum's most important mission will be to discuss new ideas and plans to speed up the recovery process to place our schools in a better economic state. We must do better.