Jamie Raskin

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Every major medical and mental health association in the United States of America, representing 1.3 million doctors--the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association--all reject this legislation that is being advanced here. They all support gender-affirming care according to the most up-to-date science and medicine. So if they are not speaking for the transgender community, which certainly they are not; if they are not speaking for all of the families and parents who are involved, which certainly they are not; if they are not speaking for the medical community and the scientific community, who indeed are they speaking for? They describe the position that these medical associations have as satanic. I mean, are they looking for an exorcism to deal with the reality of lives for millions of people in the country? Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hoyle).

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, we are invited to believe that the United States Congress is not only more competent to make medical decisions for America's children than their own parents, but that the United States Congress is more competent than all 50 State legislatures to run medical practices within their States. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier), who is both a mom and a pediatrician.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 10 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington. Madam Speaker, it is outrageous for the government to commandeer those decisions. Madam Speaker, I strongly oppose this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to all vote ``no.''

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Vermont (Ms. Balint).

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing. Madam Speaker, we obviously disagree vehemently on this bill, but this may be the last time that I get to share the floor with the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia. I thank her for her hard work and her thoughtful comments in CNN news recently which moved me when she said: ``I would like to say, humbly, I am sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It is very bad for our country. It has been something I thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated.'' Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and wish her and her family all the best in her future. Having said that, on the gentlewoman's bill, Madam Speaker, there are lots of people in the country who are not getting their kids vaccinated for different reasons and for different kinds of illnesses. A lot of people in the country reject that and oppose that, and perhaps the vast majority do. Does that mean we should come forward with a bill to the United States Congress to say that we are going to put in jail any parents who don't vaccinate their children because we think they are making the wrong decision for their children? In other words, we know better than the parents do, and we know better than the doctors do. We know better than the medical associations do, and we know better than all of the States do. Madam Speaker, I think that would be an absurd abuse of our power and, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) has been saying, a very questionable deployment of Federal power, given the fact that the United States Congress has limited powers that are supposed to deal with actual national and Federal issues, which is why medical care has always been left to the States to deal with. This is like a bulldozer going into everybody's house if you happen to be dealing with this particular kind of medical crisis. You don't have to agree with any particular decision that any particular family or set of parents have made. All you have to do is respect their right to make decisions with and for their own children. That is all that we are talking about. Do you know who is on this side and opposed to this legislation? Medical associations, like the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association, representing more than a million doctors in the country, are saying: No, don't let the politicians start finger painting all over the protocols for dealing with an actual medical problem that millions of people have had to deal with in our country. We will stand with the families. We will stand with the doctors. We will stand with the medical associations. We will stand with the States. We have got enough real work on our hands. Let's just try to get medical care and medical attention to the people of America. Millions of people are losing their access to health insurance and to Medicaid. Why don't we try to deal with that before we barge into the doctors' offices, and the living rooms and kitchen tables of America to try to take over what is a fundamentally private and personal decision that we should be trusting families to make for themselves? Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Peter and Cora Weiss's lifelong passionate dedication to peace, social justice and civil rights for all. I would like to ask for unanimous consent that two articles summarizing the remarkable lives of Peter and Cora Weiss. We just lost both of these fighters for human freedom and progress, and we are all poorer for it. In 1938, Peter fled Austria to escape Nazi persecution. Just a few years later he enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War II. Meantime, Cora volunteered with her mother to roll bandages for the Red Cross. They were deeply involved in defending freedom against fascism. As citizen activists, Peter and Cora became leaders of the national movement to stop the Vietnam War and halt the global nuclear arms race. Cora organized demonstrations in Central Park and Washington, D.C. that mobilized millions of Americans to demand an end to the Vietnam War and an end to nuclear testing. With his powerful knowledge of international institutions and the U.S. Constitution, Peter redefined international human rights law in the United States and abroad. Cora and Peter Weiss were champions of free speech and social justice but in Cora's own words, she ``wasn't making a revolution.'' She ``was just working hard and long.'' May we all work so hard and so long to achieve peace and justice in our own time. I include in the Record the following article honoring Peter Weiss from the Vineyard Gazette. Peter Weiss, a trailblazing attorney and a tireless advocate for human rights, international law and the abolition of nuclear weapons, died Nov. 3 at the age of 99, one month shy of his 100th birthday. The cause was old age. Born in Vienna, Austria, Peter led a life defined by resilience, hope, intellect and a profound commitment to justice and peace. Fleeing Austria in 1938 to escape Nazi persecution, Peter and his family spent three years in France before finding refuge in New York City. This early experience of injustice and displacement contributed to his lifelong dedication to defending human rights and holding those who violate them accountable through the rule of law. Peter served in the U.S. Army during WWII at a top-secret prisoner of war camp outside Washington, D.C. where German- speaking Jewish soldiers hosted and interrogated Nazi POWs. After the war he was stationed in Berlin, working to dismantle Nazi-aligned industrial cartels. Following his service, Peter finished his undergraduate education at St. John's College in Annapolis in 1949, where his study of the Great Books had a profound influence on his life and work. He earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1952 and set off on a long professional legal career that included countless hours of pro bono work. Peter joined Langner & Parry, an intellectual property law firm in New York City, in 1955. In 1969 he was a founding partner of a successful international trademark firm, Weiss, Dawid, Fross & Lehrman. He represented a wide variety of clients, from Bozo the Clown and Laurel and Hardy to Chanel and Budweiser. He retired from trademark law at the age of 80. With his education and a moral compass as strong as any, he never wavered in his belief that the rule of law should prevail. ``I have a friend who likes to needle me by saying `law is the dead hand of the past laid upon the present,' '' Peter once told a group of law students, ``to which I usually reply, `law is the burning vision of the future leading us onward.' Of course, we are both wrong. But I still prefer my version.'' Throughout his professional career, Peter was involved in a wide range of political activities and movements. He was the chair, president or vice president of many organizations that he served or created. These include the American Committee on Africa, Center for Constitutional Rights, Institute for Policy Studies, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, and New Jewish Narrative (formerly Americans for Peace now). In addition to his work to abolish nuclear weapons, he supported decolonization in Africa, and years later helped to write the constitution for the newly independent nation of Eritrea. He also supported the U.S. civil rights movement, an end to the American war in Vietnam, the dictatorship in Chile, and the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, to name a few. Peter was a visionary leader in the fight against nuclear arms, which he saw as the ultimate threat to the human race. He co-founded the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy in 1981 and served as the founding president of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms in 1988. In 1996, he and his colleagues brought a case before the International Court of Justice where half the justices sided with their position that the threat or use of nuclear weapons was a violation of international law (https://www.armscontrol.org/ act/20160907/news/world-court-delivers-opinion-legality- nuclear-weapons-use). One of Peter's most well-known and groundbreaking cases was in the field of human rights. Peter, together with Rhonda Copelon, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, rediscovered the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), an obscure commerce law from 1789 that gives federal courts jurisdiction over international tort claims brought by non-U.S. citizens. The legal team successfully used the ATS to win a landmark case in the 2nd District Court of Appeals, Filartiga v. Pena- Irala. The 1980 decision found a Paraguayan official living in the U.S. accountable for the torture of the son of an opposition leader in Paraguay. This groundbreaking precedent established that people who violated international human rights law could be held accountable in the United States. In spite of on-going crimes against humanity, Peter was never a cynic. He loved to mentor young people considering a career in law, reminding them to use their knowledge and skills for social justice. His life was driven by many passions in addition to the law and the truth. He loved language--reading novels and poetry, the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle and writing. Peter never missed giving a toast and wrote one for every occasion. He had a well-known dry sense of humor. As he wrote about himself years ago, his hobbies were ``playing tennis and suing the president.'' For example, he sued Richard Nixon over the U.S. secret bombing of Laos during the Vietnam War. He wrote short form poetry where his humor found a home. He loved opera and classical music, like his mother Paula, who lived to be 104, and also exposed his children to the Beatles, Richie Havens, Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, and jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Mose Allison. He loved art, films, and theatre. Peter was a devoted husband to Cora, a dedicated feminist and noted advocate for peace education and the abolition of war. Their partnership of 69 years exemplified a shared mission of advancing peace and justice around the world. They did everything together, from inspiring countless individuals to take up the cause of social justice, to watching the sunset every summer on Martha's Vineyard. His first trip to the Vineyard was to the once referenced ``Socialist Hill'' in Menemsha in 1956 on his honeymoon with Cora. They stayed in the guest house of Leo and Gert Huberman and shortly thereafter they bought the Captain Flander's House across from Flander's Lane where they summered until moving to Aquinnah, formerly known as Gay Head. They purchased land communally with three other families and have never missed a summer in 69 years. Drinking a dry martini with Cora by his side and watching the sunset over the North Shore was a favorite ritual they loved to share with their family and many friends on the island. Their daughter, Tamara Weiss, has been a Chilmark resident for 30 years. Peter's legacy is preserved not only in the legal precedents he established and in his deep ties to his family and many friends, but also in the vast archive of his personal and professional papers housed at Tamiment Library at New York University. Peter is survived by his beloved wife, Cora, their three children Judy, Tamara and Danny (Anne Stewart), grandchildren Jules (Emily), Noah (Kelsey), Maria (Gabi), Catherine, (Brianna) and Simon, his former son-in-law Gary, and a global community of activists and legal professionals who carry forward his vision of a more just and secure world. His indomitable spirit, intellect and compassion will continue to inspire generations to come. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to organizations supporting human rights and nuclear weapons abolition. I also include in the Record the following article honoring Cora Weiss from Natalie Schachar of The New York Times: Cora Weiss, who was active for more than half a century in support of gender equality, international peace, the anti- Vietnam War movement, civil rights and nuclear disarmament, and who helped organize some of the most important mass demonstrations of the 1960s, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 91. Her death, at a hospital, was confirmed by her son, Daniel Weiss. In 1961, Ms. Weiss was raising her children in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx when she was told about Women Strike for Peace, a new group organizing demonstrations against nuclear weapons testing. Would Ms. Weiss be interested in joining the Riverdale chapter? She was. With other women across the country, she soon found herself reading up on the deadly ingredients of an atomic bomb and sending off her children's baby teeth to be tested for radioactive isotopes resulting from nuclear fission. Many of the teeth were found to have elevated levels of strontium-90, a carcinogenic element associated with nuclear testing that had also been detected in food. That finding boosted the group's visibility, attracting attention to its campaign to ban nuclear tests. By October 1963, President John F. Kennedy had signed an agreement with Britain and the Soviet Union to prohibit atomic testing in the atmosphere, space and under water. The rally concluded with some protesters burning flags and police officers firing tear gas. Still, the day was hailed as significant in helping to turn public opinion against the war. Soon after, Ms. Weiss flew to Hanoi to meet with the North Vietnamese Women's Union, proposing to carry back mail from prisoners of war. The trip led to the creation of the Committee of Liaison With Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam. Ms. Weiss served as co-chairwoman of the organization, which eventually ferried thousands of letters and packages back and forth. She also helped organize a major antinuclear demonstration in Central Park in Manhattan on June 12, 1982, drawing a crowd of about a million. ``She was courageous and brave and patriotic,'' Darren Walker, the former president of the Ford Foundation, said in an interview, ``and demonstrated that one can have love of country and still challenge America to be better.'' For her part, Ms. Weiss told the Columbia Center for Oral History in 2014, ``I wasn't making a revolution, I was just working hard and long.'' Cora Rubin was born on Oct. 2, 1934, in Manhattan, the daughter of Vera D. Rubin, an anthropologist specializing in Caribbean studies whose work on marijuana use in Jamaica landed her on an early cover of High Times, the magazine about cannabis culture. Her father, Samuel Rubin, owned a cosmetics company. When Cora was young, the family moved to Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., in Westchester County. Raised in a liberal Jewish household, she was exposed to animated political discussions with guests like Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady, who would drop by to chat and help with fund-raising. (Ms. Roosevelt would often spend time at her Hudson Valley retreat in Hyde Park, N.Y.) ``We talked community politics, what was happening in Croton, in the community,'' Ms. Weiss recalled. ``Antisemitism was rife, racism was rife, the war was rife.'' She became an activist early on, helping her mother roll bandages for the Red Cross, taking coffee and doughnuts to young men preparing to go to the front lines of World War II, and knitting clothes for relief efforts. Those experiences inspired her interest in bringing an end to war, she said. After graduating from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York, she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. There, she met a newspaper editor leading an effort to recall Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the crusading anti- Communist who was attacking the loyalty of political opponents. She helped set up the Madison headquarters for a campaign called ``Joe Must Go'' and began going door to door to gather signatures for a petition. It was an early lesson in the frustrations of grass-roots political organizing. Despite getting enough signatures, the recall effort floundered when many were deemed illegible. She met Peter Weiss, a lawyer, during her work as chairwoman of the university's international speakers club, recruiting social justice activists to talk on campus. As head of the International Development Placement Association, a precursor to the Peace Corps, Mr. Weiss had been invited to speak. They married in 1956, the same year she graduated with a bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology. Mr. Weiss died in November at 99. In addition to their son, Ms. Weiss is survived by two daughters, Judy and Tamara Weiss; five grandchildren; and a brother, Reed Rubin. A lifelong supporter of the United Nations, Ms. Weiss was particularly proud of her work in helping to draft United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which affirmed the importance of the role of women in the peace process and in protecting their security. It was unanimously adopted in 2000. Later in life, as president of the Hague Appeal for Peace, a coalition of antiwar groups, she became involved in global peace education. ``I've decided that it's the only sustainable thing,'' Ms. Weiss said. ``You can march, you can protest, you can make phone calls, you can write letters. But education is the closest thing, I think, to a sustainable form of social change.'' Ash Wu contributed reporting.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the public service of Rev. Dr. Della J. Owens-Barber in advance of her fourth anniversary banquet as Senior Pastor at the Saint James Christian Church on December 7, 2025. Rev. Dr. Owens-Barber is a dedicated pastor, scholar, community leader, and advocate for spiritual and social transformation. Over the past decade, she has played a key role in the nationwide campaign to advance a powerful moral agenda to end poverty. As National Security Director for Repairers of the Breach, Rev. Dr. Owens-Barber has been a steadfast leader of the Poor People's Campaign and has championed an agenda against poverty and inequality. At a recent Poor People Campaign's Moral March on Washington, D.C., she spoke on behalf of millions of Americans who are uninsured and underinsured. As a result of her unflinching leadership in the campaign to address the needs of poor Americans, she has been both praised for her determination and arrested for non-violent civil disobedience. She has been central to the outstanding work of both Repairers of the Breach and the Poor People's Campaign. Rev. Dr. Owens-Barber is an accomplished leader in her ministry, developing robust programs that engage and empower senior citizens, organizing community food giveaways and promoting mental health awareness. She has also fostered intergenerational connection through worship, education and outreach. Rev. Dr. Owens-Barber previously led a distinguished career in law enforcement, higher education, youth development and social justice leadership. Rev. Dr. Owens-Barber earned advanced degrees in Criminal Justice and Theological Studies and a Doctor of Ministry. She continues to lead community service through the North Carolina Council of Churches where she serves on the Board of Directors, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and health advocacy networks. I am honored to recognize Rev. Dr. Della J. Owens-Barber on her fourth anniversary as Senior Pastor at the Saint James Christian Church and salute her for her passionate service to her community and our country.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina for his leadership on this issue. I am pleased that we are considering the bipartisan Trafficking Survivors Relief Act, which will provide relief to victims and survivors of human trafficking who have been unjustly criminalized as a result of their trafficking. Victims and survivors of human trafficking have been waiting nearly a decade for us to make this relief available to them at the Federal level. The heroic survivors of the global Epstein trafficking conspiracy have raised the conscience of our Nation about the nightmarish consequences of human trafficking for the victims of it, and they strongly support this legislation, which is part of the long, overdue reckoning that America must have with all of the double standards and coverups that have affected women and girls who have been entered into the trafficking criminal underworld. While we have found far too less opportunities to work together in this broken session of Congress, I am glad that the majority has finally chosen to bring this much-needed consensus reform forward to the floor to protect trafficking victims and survivors, and I look forward to its swift passage. Mr. Speaker, human trafficking is a multibillion-dollar criminal industry that overtakes the will and the freedom of nearly 25 million people around the world every year. Traffickers exploit their victims by forcing them to provide labor, services, and commercial sex through violence, fear, coercion, and manipulation. While awful, their exploitation doesn't stop there. Traffickers often force their victims to commit other crimes, including prostitution, money laundering, fraud, drug trafficking, robbery, and theft. This leads trafficking victims to be arrested and prosecuted without consideration of their status as victims themselves. They are often then made to serve prison sentences and left with criminal records that can stop them from finding employment, suitable housing, or qualifying to receive the treatment that they need to recover from trauma and rebuild their lives. When they are unable to start fresh or move on because of the obstacles that they face as a consequence of the crimes that they were forced to commit, victims and survivors often return to their traffickers or fall victim to new predators. We cannot allow this cycle of trauma, criminal exploitation, and victimization to continue in the lives of so many untold victims. While all but three States now allow trafficking survivors some form of criminal record relief, there is still no Federal pathway to clear criminal convictions or records in this situation. H.R. 4323 would correct this inequity by allowing human trafficking victims to petition to have their convictions vacated for certain offenses and to expunge their arrest records for other offenses if the offenses were committed only as a consequence of their trafficking. This bill would also provide an avenue of relief for victims and survivors facing prosecution for certain Federal offenses relating to their victimization by establishing a human trafficking defense. The defense will also be available as a post-conviction remedy. To ensure that survivors have access to all of the remedies provided, this bill makes clear that a grantee may use grant funds from the Office of Justice Programs and Office on Violence Against Women for legal representation for post-conviction relief. For far too long, we have closed our eyes to the true horrors of human trafficking and allowed victimization to fester simply by allowing survivors of human trafficking to be classified and treated as criminals. I am pleased to support this essential and thoughtful bipartisan bill, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath), the distinguished ranking member of the Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Georgia.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purpose of closing. Mr. Speaker, I pick up on the words of the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia, who is the ranking member of the Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Subcommittee on Committee on the Judiciary. To be forced into a human-trafficking network, like the Epstein network, is to suffer a double trauma. There is the original trauma of the exploitation and the abuse, and then there is the added trauma of being stigmatized yourself as being a criminal: a prostitute and someone forced to engage in other criminal activity by the trafficking network. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that, on a bipartisan basis today, we are able to move forward to address this problem and to give some relief to the victims and the survivors of a human-trafficking network. Again, I recognize the survivors from the Epstein global international child sex-trafficking conspiracy who have raised the conscience of the country and changed America's mind about the fundamental importance of our addressing this. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for working with us on bringing this legislation forward, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. McBath for yielding, Mr. Roy for his leadership on this, and Mr. Biggs for his comments. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bipartisan legislation. The Founders thought that Federal law would be strictly limited in two different ways: one, according to the subject matter; and two, according to number. The subject matter of Federal criminal law requires that the conduct being proscribed be tethered to a particular Federal jurisdictional nexus, like interference with Federal interstate commerce or assault on a Federal officer in doing his or her duty, or seditious conspiracy against the Union, which is why the vast majority of crimes are prosecuted at the local level like assault, murder, armed robbery, theft, and so on. Federal law would also be limited, the Founders thought, according to number because the Federal criminal laws would be organized around certain specific principles forbidding criminal conduct that is clearly harmful to everyone. As my colleagues have said, what we have seen is the endless proliferation of criminal offenses, some of them statutory, some of them regulatory, oftentimes in a kind of political reaction to a particular event that might have been criminal already under a more general category. This legislation will allow us to get on top of the problem. It will direct the Department of Justice and other Federal agencies to compile a comprehensive report describing every Federal statutory and regulatory criminal offense carrying penalties. These have grown substantially over the last four decades, despite several previous attempts by the Office of Legal Policy at DOJ, the American Bar Association, and several scholars to determine exactly how many Federal offenses there are. There is simply not a single comprehensive accounting of Federal criminal offenses to be found anywhere in the Federal Government, and that is a pretty remarkable statement in itself. Through the bipartisan Count the Crimes to Cut Act of 2025, Congress and the people will finally get an inventory of all Federal statutory and regulatory criminal offenses. Thanks to this bill, we will know the specific elements of each offense, the potential criminal penalties, the mens rea requirement, and the number of prosecutions that have taken place each year for the preceding 15 years for every listed offense. Now, what is the danger of having too many criminal offenses? Some people might just say, let's let sleeping dogs lie. What is the problem with having proliferation of offenses that may be opaque, inscrutable, obscure, and duplicative? One danger is the citizen doesn't know what kind of conduct and behavior is actually expected of him or her. That leaves the citizen in a state of confusion and potential anxiety. The other major danger is that an unscrupulous executive will use this nearly endless arsenal of criminal offenses to target political foes or vulnerable communities. In a free society, anything that is not specifically prohibited is allowed to you. That is what it means to live in a free society. In an authoritarian society, anything that is not specifically allowed to the population is considered prohibited and a danger to the government. Mr. Speaker, the proliferation of endless criminal offenses moves us down that spectrum from being a free society much closer to an authoritarian society. We all have a right to know exactly what the criminal law entails at the Federal level.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7, which took the lives of more than 1,200 innocent civilians, and the subsequent war of mass destruction in Gaza, have been nothing less than a catastrophe for humanity. More than 70,000 people have been killed to date, including an estimated 20,000 children. Hostages kidnapped by Hamas were abused, shackled in cages, and isolated in underground tunnels--in some cases, for more than 2 years. Many were killed there. According to UNICEF, the Gaza Strip is now home to the world's highest concentration of child amputees. More than 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed in the violence. The world breathed a sigh of relief that a tenuous cease-fire was finally reached and that all the living hostages were returned home. Alas, the cease-fire continues to be breached. Violence and suffering continue to afflict the people of the region, including escalating vigilante settler violence in the West Bank. Getting to a just and lasting peace in the region will require the creative leadership and hard work of statesmen and stateswomen. It is past time to break out of the brutal and circular logic of terrorism and violence and war and instead address the underlying political problems destabilizing the region. We must stay united around these goals and committed to the continuation of a strong peace process. Madam Speaker, in the meantime, we must all agree to the aim of this bill, which passed the House with bipartisan support in the last Congress. No one affiliated with Hamas, nor anyone involved in the horrific and lawless attacks of October 7, should be admissible to the United States or eligible for any immigration benefits whatsoever. That is an obvious point of political and moral consensus in our Chamber. However, I am afraid this is another missed opportunity for us to work across the aisle in a bipartisan fashion because it departs dramatically from the Judiciary Committee's traditional practice. This bill is essentially what we call a visa sanctions bill. For decades, we have relied on pre-negotiated, bipartisan, and bicameral texts for every such visa sanctions bill. This legislation today departs from this bipartisan practice by directly amending the Immigration and Nationality Act, the INA, to impose visa sanctions. To put into perspective just how anomalous this approach is, consider our response to the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath of that catastrophe, we revised our immigration laws to overhaul significant parts of our immigration system, and we created the Department of Homeland Security. Even then, we did not amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to specifically reference the events of September 11 or to bar the individuals involved in the planning or commission of those outrageous terror attacks from entering or remaining in the United States. The reason for that is plain. The laws that we have in place already bar noncitizens who engage in terrorism or are involved with terrorist organizations from entering the United States. For any of those noncitizens who happen to be here, our laws clearly allow us to remove them and prevent them from obtaining any immigration benefits. These laws were designed to apply broadly to any individual or organization engaged in terrorism without having to specify them by reference to specific historical events or attacks. Under sections 212(a)(3)(B) and 237(a)(4)(B) of the INA, any noncitizen who has engaged in any terrorist activity, provided any material support to terrorists, or is a member or representative of a terrorist group or organization that enforces or espouses terrorist activity is presently inadmissible to the United States and is presently deportable. Hamas has been designated as such a terrorist group since 1997. We already plainly have the legal tools to keep any noncitizen involved with Hamas, as well as any noncitizen who was involved in the horrific terror attacks of October 7, out of this country forever or to deport them from the United States if they are already somehow here. This approach is, alas, symptomatic of the syndrome we just discussed in the last bill of the proliferation of redundant legislation and redundant language simply to make a point. The Judiciary Committee's standard visa sanctions language, which was carefully crafted with the majority and minority on both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, would allow us to achieve all the aims of this legislation without departing from negotiated sanctions language and amending the INA in an unprecedented and incongruous way. Amending the INA to impose visa sanctions sets a strange and potentially self-defeating precedent where new statutory language becomes necessary every time a new terrorist group or event emerges. Nonetheless, we strongly support this legislation today, whose purpose is incontestable and essential. I hope we can both pass this bill and return to our bipartisan and bicameral practice for dealing with visa sanctions whenever the occasion presents itself. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, again, we restate our support for this bill and its purposes and only hope that we can return to the traditional visa sanctions method of dealing with particular events. In the meantime, I wonder if the gentleman would yield for a question. I wonder how this legislation with the new language would apply to the case of Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of the crypto firm Binance, who was prosecuted for and convicted of and sentenced to jail for taking money from a number of terrorist groups, among them Hamas, as part of his crypto venture. He was convicted of violating the Bank Secrecy Act and turning a blind eye to terrorists, including Hamas, cybercriminals, and child abusers. I am wondering if the new language would cover Changpeng Zhao, who just received a pardon from President Trump.

Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close. Madam Speaker, again, I strongly support this legislation. We need to be doing whatever we can to eliminate terrorist forces and those who are providing critical material support to terrorist forces all over the world, which is why I raised the case of Changpeng Zhao, who is the former CEO of the crypto firm Binance, who was recently pardoned by President Trump. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 616, the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association Charter Amendments Act of 2025. I was proud to lead this bill, along with our former colleague, Congressman Steve Chabot, in the 117th Congress when the bill passed the House by unanimous consent. Sadly, the bill stalled in the Senate at that time. However, I am delighted to see that our colleagues across the Capitol were finally able to come to an agreement this Congress and move this important legislation. S. 616 makes technical changes to the Foundation of the Federal Bar Association's charter that will give the foundation the flexibility it needs to advance its significant mission in this century. The changes made would enable the foundation to swiftly meet the needs and priorities of the organization and improve the administration of Federal justice for all of our citizens. It is critical for attorneys who practice in the Federal judiciary to have the professional support that they need to illuminate the legal issues that they are litigating on and to advance the interests of their clients. The Foundation of the Federal Bar Association provides just that support, and it is crucial that the foundation be allowed to grow and to serve our people with flexibility. I thank our colleagues Senator Kennedy and Senator Whitehouse for working together to get this bill finally across the finish line. I urge all of our colleagues to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this cynical and silly resolution. I am not a socialist myself, but a Tom Payne Democrat, a champion of strong democracy, universal freedom, and equal rights for everybody, but this resolution is ridiculous. From its first paragraph, it promotes the fallacy that socialist ideology leads to social collapse. In fact, many of our strongest democratic allies on Earth, including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland, lead strong, democratic socialist governments and thriving societies and economies. Yet, House Republicans base their entire resolution on this falsehood and advance a false equation between democratic socialism and Communist dictatorship, a preposterous assertion that contaminates the entire resolution. The resolution even tries to conscript to these ideological deceptions the words of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, enlightenment liberals who lived long before socialist ideology even existed and would detest the fanatical, theocratic politics of the MAGA movement and the plutocratic billionaires and plundering CEOs who are running these things behind the curtains. Thomas Jefferson is quoted embarrassingly in this resolution for the proposition that to take property from one to give to another is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association. This is a bizarre argument, not only because Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, a decade before the word ``socialism'' even existed and was in common use, but it is also bizarre because Jefferson shamefully owned more than 600 enslaved people over the course of his lifetime. Whatever his many other virtues, and he had many, his entire livelihood was based on appropriating the labor of other people against their will and stealing their property that they should have had in their own bodies and in their own lives. The resolution is completely disoriented. It plainly feeds into the decades-long Republican obsession with labeling the great programmatic achievements of American democracy as socialism, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, public education, and public health measures in the Affordable Care Act. By defining essential, democratic public programs as socialist, and in claiming that socialism inevitably leads to Stalinist communism and social collapse, these plutocrat Republicans are plainly working to undermine the living standards of the working-class majority of America and rip up the social fabric of the country. Meantime, President Trump's heroes and best friends in the world are Communist dictators. If House Republicans really want to oppose the promotion of socialist ideology, why don't they write a letter to President Trump and condemn his worship and admiration of Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-un of North Korea? He said they have a ``unique'' relationship and a very ``special friendship.'' Former KGB officer Vladimir Putin thinks that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest catastrophe of the 21st century. Of him, Trump said, ``Putin, very smart,'' and, ``Will he become my new best friend?'' What about the chief of the Chinese Communist Party, President Xi? Trump described him as a ``brilliant man,'' and that he has ``the look, the brain, the whole thing.'' President Trump has no problem with the actual horrors of communism today, like the Chinese Government's massive human rights violations against the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and political dissenters in their country. ``He's a brilliant guy,'' and, ``He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.'' How about Vladimir Putin's persecution and poisoning of human rights and anticorruption activists like Alexei Navalny? Of him, Trump said: ``I don't know exactly what happened. . . . We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look.'' I am voting ``no'' on this pathetic, disorienting resolution, which is divorced from reality and drenched in rightwing ideology. It will only serve to accelerate MAGA's attempts to defund the essential social programs that are central to American democracy and that were built by the American people, like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which they call socialism but which serve our people.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, Mohammed bin Salman's visit to Washington this week has been a disgrace to American democracy. The President of the United States scolded a reporter as insubordinate and then tried to explain away bin Salman's central role in the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post journalist, who was ambushed in Istanbul, strangled, drawn and quartered, and dismembered by bin Salman's 15-member security detail, according to U.S. intelligence. Mr. Speaker, our Constitution overthrew kings. It opposes cruel and unusual punishment. It bans titles of nobility, and yet the President's foolish actions will embolden vicious monarchs, autocrats, and theocrats all over the world. This warm welcome dishonors the Constitution and the American people. We must be doing a lot better than this.

Mr. RASKIN

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today, 4 months and 3 days after Mr. Khanna and Mr. Massie introduced their discharge petition, perhaps the most famous discharge petition in American history, the people's House unites across party lines to draw a moral line. We draw a line against the rape and sexual violation of children. We draw a line against the global criminal trafficking of girls and young women to service the pleasure of rich and powerful men who believe they are beyond all law and all morality. We draw a line to put the voices of the victims and the survivors first. We ask the Senate to join us without changes rather than obstruct this bill with dilatory amendments, legislative graffiti, and self- dealing, million-dollar jackpot provisions for lucky Senators. Just pass the bill. We are finally voting today because a bipartisan discharge petition, led by Representatives Massie and Khanna and signed by 218 of us, overthrew the determined obstruction of the Speaker. This forced vote means the House will no longer acquiesce in this astonishing real-time coverup of a multibillion-dollar global sex trafficking and child rape ring that has ravaged the lives of more than a thousand girls and young women. We are here today because these victims, these survivors, these citizens, these inspiring women who have come to Washington are demanding nothing less than justice and the complete truth about who is responsible for their vicious abuse, including those responsible for enabling it, ignoring it, bankrolling it, and covering it up. We join them today in rejecting any more dangerous lies about the crimes they suffered. No, child sex abuse is not a hoax. It is a crime. Human trafficking is not a hoax. It is a crime. These crimes are a curse on children and young people across America, in universities and elementary schools, in churches and mosques and synagogues, in Boy Scout troops and college sports teams, in summer camps, anywhere the powerful and the rich believe they have the opportunity and the impunity to exploit the young, the poor, the powerless, and the vulnerable. We must face the truth and find the coconspirators still at large in one of America's most extensive and sophisticated sex trafficking and child abuse rings in history. Release of the file will expose the role of everybody who facilitated and covered up these crimes like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon, which executed billions of dollars in transactions related to these offenses, as well as any bank executives who participated in the sexual abuse of girls and young women. We must expose everyone who covered up these crimes like Alex Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami, Donald Trump's Labor Secretary, who gave Jeffrey Epstein an unbelievable sweetheart plea deal, immunized unnamed conspirators, and killed an investigation into Epstein's financial crimes that could have brought down the entire criminal network. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I should just point out that we have heard now from the two distinguished chairmen of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and they have spoken almost exclusively to denounce Democrats. We have a bipartisan coalition here demanding the truth about the largest child sex abuse and trafficking ring perhaps in American history, certainly in this century, and they want to just throw stones at the Democrats. What a remarkable failure of leadership we are seeing from the other side. I imagine that the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will follow up his spectacular failure in trying to impeach President Biden with his spectacular failure in trying to block the resolution we brought to the floor today. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garcia), the very distinguished minority leader on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from California.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Kamlager-Dove).

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Clark), the minority whip.