Ted Yoho

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell Congressman Chris Smith how proud I am, that he is one of my heroes for doing what he is doing. The gentleman has never wavered on this. Mr. Speaker, as we approach the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it is a solemn reminder of the tragedy that continues to befall some of our Nation's unborn children. We should repeat this again on Mother's Day. For 47 years the Nation has allowed the sanctity of life to be questioned and infringed upon. All of us in this Chamber are here because we were granted the blessing of life. We were allowed to live our lives and decide what path we wished to embark upon. Unfortunately, not all Americans are allowed this choice. Some children are stopped before they can even defend themselves. I, along with many of my colleagues, cannot and will not accept that reality. A reality where we as a nation provide more protection for an unhatched bald eagle or a turtle embryo, i.e, an egg, than we do the children of our own species. It is my hope that on this anniversary we can pray for the souls of those children lost and work towards a future where all children are allowed to decide their own future in this blessed Nation of ours. Our Founding Fathers were grounded in the Christian principles this Nation was founded on. 2 Chronicles 7:14: ``If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.''

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, let's take a look at the chronological timeline since Donald Trump won the primary. I mean, this movement started immediately after that. You can go to Mark Zaid, the attorney for the whistleblower. You can go on and hear the Members of this body saying: We are going to impeach him. The vile words that came out of one of the Members from Michigan, saying: We are going to impeach this m-effer. Those people shouldn't even be allowed to serve in here with that kind of an attitude and hatred. They set a goal to impeach this President. They didn't have a reason, but they set a goal, and then they searched for that goal. It was the Steele dossier that was completely fabricated, paid for by the Clinton campaign and DCCC, completely dispelled as false, but yet they went down this. They dispelled the Mueller report. They kept going to find something. And then Adam Schiff said: We have irrefutable evidence that this President colluded with the Russians. That turned out to be false. The whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, and I could go on, but you guys have heard enough of that stuff. I want to come back to what our Founding Fathers said. This is Washington's warning to this Republic 223 years ago. The Constitution rightly sets a high bar for impeachment, but the integrity of the process also depends on the ability of legislators to vote their minds independent of party politics. Removing a President is too important, and lawmakers are given too much latitude to define high crimes and misdemeanors for it to be any other way; otherwise, excessively partisan politicians could overturn an election simply because the President is a member of the opposing party. It is in regards to this impeachment process that George Washington forewarned us of this moment in history when political parties ``may now and then answer popular ends,'' but ``they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men'' and women ``will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government. . . . '' That is what we have here.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3763, the Promoting United States International Leadership in 5G Act of 2019. I want to thank my colleague, the ranking member, Mr. McCaul, for his work on this piece of important legislation. Chinese state-run companies are investing in the fifth generation, or 5G, network development, and are seeking to dominate the global market in this space. This is an issue because the future of business, government services, medical services, consumer services, and much more will rely on 5G networks. In fact, by 2035, it is expected that the 5G technologies will create $12.3 trillion in sales activity and support 22 million jobs around the globe. Having Chinese state-run 5G networks powering our lives puts America and our allies' security at risk and will give China access to the daily data on people around the world. This should alarm all of us and cannot be accepted. Our daily lives rely on networks now more than ever, and the demands for advanced networks will only continue to increase, especially as the things that we use every day, even refrigerators, continue to be modified to need network connection. By full development, 5G should be able to power every network need in life. Further, 5G, by design, is meant to help power business equipment, from things like farm equipment that do not need constant connections but will need 5G data transmitted frequently. This is why it is so essential and this piece of legislation is so important. I hope this is a starting point and a point we can jump from, not just to rely on 5G, but to jump forward and leapfrog to 10G. I applaud this legislation because it is a great start.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to address my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and reiterate President Washington's warning to the Republic 223 years ago. The Constitution rightly sets a high bar for impeachment, but the integrity of the process also depends on the ability of the legislators to vote their minds, independent of party politics. Removing a President is too important and lawmakers are given too much latitude to define ``high crimes and misdemeanors'' for it to be any other way. Otherwise, excessively partisan politicians could overturn an election simply because the President is a member of the opposite and opposing party. It is in regard to this impeachment process that George Washington forewarned us as a nation at this moment in history. When political parties ``may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men'' and women ``will be enabled to subvert the power of the people to usurp for themselves the reins of government. . . . '' How wise he was. Vote ``no'' on this assault to our Republic, the Constitution, and against President Trump.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleagues, Mr. Buck and Ms. Lofgren, for attempting to do something to solve a problem that has gone on for a long time that has not been solved. Unfortunately, this bill will not solve that problem. This bill will create the same situation we have had since 1986, because this bill focuses on amnesty, not on a guest worker program that our producers need. I appreciate their efforts, but, again, I have worked around agriculture since I was 15, picking vegetables, loading vegetables, talking to farmers. And as a veterinarian, working for 30 years in that profession, I know the dairy situation. I have talked to the migrant, and I have talked producer. This bill will not fulfill that need. This bill will allow people to get amnesty. They will leave agriculture and they will go into another industry. Therefore, they are not going to solve the labor shortage of this country. That is why there are alternatives out there. We have got a bill that we worked on in a bipartisan manner, that we have got strong support in industry, and it solves this problem. It creates a dedicated workforce for agriculture. As you go through this bill, you see amnesty after amnesty. And, again, it does not solve the problem. Our bill allows people to enter the country legally. They are automatically enrolled in the E-Verify system. This bill promises to put the E-Verify system in place once it is implemented. We have heard that rhetoric out of Washington before. Once it is implemented, we will fix it. This is the wrong way to go because this bill, again, will not create a predictable, certain, and reliable workforce for our agricultural producers. And I hear over and over again, the biggest challenge to our producers is a labor shortage. We are getting to a point in this country where the next generation will not farm because of the unpredictability that this body has created, and this bill will not solve that. And we are getting to a point where either we are going to import our labor, or we are going to import our produce. A nation that imports its produce is not a secure nation. This bill will not fix it. This will make it worse.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to address the House on a very important topic. I am doing part three in a series of Special Orders on China. This includes the Chinese Communist Party complex, which is comprised of Xi Jinping, their emperor or ruler; the PLA, the People's Liberation Army; and the Chinese Communist Party and members of its politburo, their ruling class. China has an amazing history that spans thousands of years. Its culture has stayed, for the most part, intact until the 19th century. There have been multiple rulers and emperors recorded in the history books, and, at one point, China and most of Eurasia were under the control of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire. China went from a major economic power in the 18th century to a nation addicted to opium and entered their century of shame. China is entering another century of shame, and it is too sad because China should be applauded for the success they have had, to go from where they were in the 1960s to where they are today; yet it was done at the expense of coercion, corruption, a squashing of human rights, and just not being nice neighbors in the world. The purpose of this Special Order is to bring awareness to Members of Congress and the American people and other Western-style democracies around the world to the true intent of China and what China is doing. Today, China has become the second largest economy in the world, and they will soon eclipse the United States of America. In order to understand where China is going, one needs to know where modern-day China started. Mao Zedong, in 1949, was a Communist Army fighter, and he became the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and set out a 100-year plan. He had a vision for China. Unfortunately, their vision was to be the ruler of the modern world. That 100 years is 2049. They are 70 years into that plan, and they have worked it very astutely; and, like I said, they should be applauded. Yet it was done at the expense of other countries. As we know today, in the 21st century, with an over $300 billion trade deficit with the United States of America, that China has gained a lot of their gains in technology, in science, and in economics by the theft of intellectual property. Just the other day, my son was trying to download a movie. It was a brand-new movie. It had all Chinese captions in it, and it was a pirated movie that is brand new. And China has already--people from China have already black-marketed it. What they have done is they have become so astute at the black market and stealing intellectual property that it has cost this country, alone, over $600 billion, annually. We have had workshops up here, through the Department of Homeland Security, where they show bearings from different companies that are American companies that have gone to China, where China has copied the product identically. It is not the same quality, but it looks identical. They copied the product name, the logo, the packaging, and they are selling it cheaper than the manufacturers can produce it here. So what they are doing is they are ruining an American manufacturer. They are selling their cheap products here that break down, and it ruins the reputation of that company, and they eventually go out. I can't tell you how many times I have had people come into our office, and I had the privilege of being the chairman of the Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation Subcommittee last Congress. We had businesses come from all over the world. A lot of them have gone to China, and they tell us: Our game plan in China is to go there and to plan on making our profits in 5 years and get out because, by then, the Chinese businesspeople and the Chinese Government have copied our products and we are competing against our own product. This is something that we have created an initiative in our office, and we hope it becomes a foreign policy, and it is Manufacture the ABC model. That is, Manufacture Anywhere But China. Because, again, China-- when you hear what I have to say here, China is taking that money to take over the world as far as militarily and economically. We are going through a major tectonic shift in world power we haven't seen since World War II. This is something that we have heard from our generals, we have heard from our business people, and it is happening right in front of us. And yet every time we buy something from China, it is benefiting the Chinese Communist Government. There is a real clear distinction that I want to make, or definition: There is not a separation between a Chinese business and the Communist Party; it is all one and the same. Members of the Chinese Communist Party have to be--by mandate, have to be--on their board of directors. When we have an American company that goes over there, they have to have members of the Chinese Communist Party embedded on their board. When we have an American company that goes over there, we have to give up--our companies give up about 51 percent of our companies so that the Chinese Government has the controlling interest. In addition, they have to give up intellectual property to have the right. It boggles my mind that an American company will give up intellectual property. I ask them: Why are you willing to do this? They say: Well, they have got such a huge market. They have got 1.3 billion people. I just want to shake them by the shoulders and say: Don't you understand that they are taking your information, they are taking your intellectual property, and they are competing with it and using it against you? But, more importantly, don't focus on the 1.3 billion people in China. Look at the rest of the world, because there are 6.4 billion people outside of China. That is where your market is, and that is where I would encourage you to manufacture, anywhere but China, so that we are not empowering that nation. They have a philosophy that states there cannot be two suns in the sky at the same time, implying one must be removed. This has been repeated over and over again in the last 100 years. They are 70 years into their 100-year plan. Xi Jinping, their leader, has an initiative called Made in China 2025, where all things produced and consumed around the globe come from China, and they have done a great job. I wish we could applaud their success, but not when it comes at the expense of us or other countries around the world. To kind of lay out, again, where China is going, Xi Jinping stated in 2017 that the era of China has arrived. No longer will China be made to swallow its interests around the world. It is time for China to take the world's center stage. Again, it is a reference that there cannot be two major competing powers in the world at the same time. One has to be removed. And Xi Jinping says this very succinctly in 2017. So let's look at the facts. Let's look at what China has done to Tibet. You know, Tibet was a very peaceful culture. It still is for the people who are still around. But the Chinese Government, under Deng Xiaoping, infiltrated the Tibetan region with Han Chinese, which are the predominant Chinese sect or personality or sector of China, and they have overruled the Tibetan area and driven the Tibetans out. Not only that, they have addicted a lot of the Tibetan monks to heroin, and so they are repeating what happened in the heroin wars of China. In the South China Sea, China has encroached on sovereign nations around the area. They have got these fictitious nine-dash lines that they adhere to that are their historical sailing routes from ancient times. They claim all that area; since they sailed it in the past, it is theirs. It is a ridiculous notion. In fact, the Philippines sued them at the Court of Arbitration in The Hague. China lost the lawsuit, but they ignored the ruling, and so they took over islands. They have made islands. They have damaged the coral reefs in that area where they have made islands--or land masses, because I refuse to call them islands since that gives credibility--and then they have militarized them. When Xi Jinping was here in 2015 with President Obama, he lied to our President and the people around the world and said that he had no intention of militarizing those land masses that they dredged from the bottom of the ocean. Yet, today, they are militarized, and they have done this over and over again. Again, they are making deepwater ports in areas that are encroaching and getting closer to the United States mainland. And they are doing this, again, to reinforce their goal of being the sole superpower in the world. Why else would they be investing all this money in the five brand-new aircraft carriers that are going to be the state of the art? This is something we see over and over again. And they have encroached on the sovereignty of nations, of the ASEAN nations--the Philippines is part of that, Vietnam, Brunei--to the point where they are encroaching on their exclusive economic zones and forcing these countries to yield up their natural resources so that China can benefit from them. China has developed what we call the Belt Road Initiative, or the One Belt, One Road we hear a lot about. I have heard it referred to as the One Belt, One Road, and it goes one way; and it goes to enhance China, not the countries where they do economic development. We have seen so many examples around the world where China has taken development money to build infrastructure projects, where they give out bad loans. It kind of reminds me of the robber barons of the 1800s in this country, where they go in and give out these high-interest loans with bad terms. The country can't pay it back. They are a poorer country. And then China winds up taking over strategic land masses. Probably the best poster child example of that is what happened in Sri Lanka, where they went in there. They lent them money. Sri Lanka couldn't pay it back. China foreclosed on that loan, took over their deepwater seaports. And again, this is their strategy, to take over deepwater seaports so that they can control the shipping lanes. And then they took over 15,000 acres of land in addition to that for 99 years, to the point where the Sri Lankans have got to go back and renegotiate this deal. We are seeing them do this in South America. We are seeing them do this in Africa, in Central America, and it is going all over the world. And, again, you have to go back to what the original intent is: To be the sole superpower in the world. China has pushed very strategically to corner the markets on rare Earth metals. Virtually today, the United States of America and other countries--I know for the United States of America, we get 90 percent of our rare Earth metals directly from China. The other 10 percent come from countries that get it from China. And we have seen China use the rare Earth metals market demand that they have to coerce nations like Japan to allow them to go into Japanese territorial waters to fish, and Japan had no other choice. They have threatened to do that to the United States of America. This is something that is not acceptable for our national security. I sit on the agricultural committee, too, and what I found out is that China controls 100 percent of the vitamins and minerals that go into our livestock feed. This, again, is a national security interest. China today controls 85 to 90 percent of what we call the APIs, that is the active pharmaceutical ingredients that go into all of our medicines around the world. And the bad thing about that is that they have the controlling interest of the pharmaceutical ingredients, the active portion of that, which is bad enough, but what they do is they have changed the formulation of the original drugmaker and manufacturer by using different reagents and solvents, so it changes the active ingredients. So what we have found out is that the product is tainted, it is not as effective. And we found cases where there is a high risk of cancer from using these products. And, unfortunately, some of these products are anti-cancer drugs that are, in turn, causing cancer to the rate of one in 6,000. Again, this is something that we need to understand: Every time we buy a product and it comes from China, we are reinforcing this, and we are growing their economy stronger and their military stronger. We can look at their other economic threats that they have done. Back in 2013 and 2014 South Korea was changing presidents. South Korea was being taunted by North Korea, and they continually have been, about being attacked. And so they took one of our THAAD systems, which is a terminal high altitude area defense mechanism, and China retaliated, not against North Korea that was making all the threatening gestures, but they retaliated against South Korea. And the reason they do this is because South Korea is a western-style democracy, which would threaten China. So the way they retaliated against South Korea is they went after their largest department chain called Lotte Department Stores. They virtually shut them down in mainland China. They went after Hyundai. Hyundai sales dropped precipitously. They revoked tourism visas going to South Korea. So, instead of going after North Korea for these provocative gestures, they go after South Korea for their own defense. And then the agreement we had after the Korean conflict was that we would provide them defensive mechanisms. And so, we see the same thing going on in Hong Kong today. The thing I have learned, and the thing that is very evident is, China cannot exist around a western-style democracy where freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of thought is expressed, because in China the highest power in the Chinese Communist Party is the party. And it is their doctrine. So you can't have people that are free thinking, and it is very self-evident when you see what is going on in Hong Kong today. We are approaching 7 months of protests in Hong Kong, where you have over 25 percent of the population protesting because what China did is through their chief executive officer, Carrie Lam--who is a puppet of Beijing--she introduced an extradition bill. And when Hong Kong was turned over from Great Britain back to China in 1997, there was a 50-year period of time where Hong Kong was supposed to be a self-ruled autonomous region with an independent judiciary system. Twenty-two years into it, Xi Jinping, the emperor of China, has said that as far as he is concerned that deal is null and void. And so they went ahead and put in this extradition bill, which breaks their judicial system, and it caused the protests. And we have seen this over and over again, the way China did this with the Tibetans. They did it in Tiananmen Square, where they had a mass massacre of people that were standing up for democracy and freedom back in the 1980s. And here we are, we are seeing it happen again, and China is not backing off on the suppression of human rights. We got visited by the students of Hong Kong that were in the protests. They came to our office. These are true freedom fighters in the modern 21st century. These students were standing up, and these were the ones that were burning the Chinese flag, and they were the ones waving the American flag because of what that represents around the world. And our American flag is bigger than a Presidency, it is bigger than a Republican party or a Democratic party. It is an ideal that people around the world look at as a model of what they want to accomplish. And it is great to know that this body passed the Hong Kong Democracy Act this week, and it is a strong signal to put sanctions on the people of China who have said to the people of Hong Kong that no form of punishment can be too strict or strong for the protestors, that they must be brought into line. And then we can look at the Xinjiang province where it is mostly a Chinese Muslim province. There is approximately 10 million Uighurs that live in that area. The Uighurs are Chinese Muslims. They come from different areas, Kyrgyzstan and all that region of western China. And they practice their Muslim faith. But China, again, can't be threatened by anything that is outside the Chinese Communist Party doctrine. And so what they have done is they have built modern day concentration camps where over a million, the estimates are one to two million, Uighurs are placed into these reeducation camps. And I have met with the students and the children of people that have been interned in these camps, and they were CPAs, their parents, they were doctors, they were pharmacists, they were lawyers, and they were professional people. But the Chinese Government says these people needed to be retrained so that they could have adequate jobs to provide for their families. I remember the words of Dwight Eisenhower when he went into Nazi Germany and he saw the concentration camps, and he said, ``Never again.'' And if we, as a civil society of free-thinking people around the world, are allowing this to happen, shame on us. And we are allowing this to happen, again, every time we buy a product that is made in China. The Uighurs that go to these reeducation camps, they are using them as slave labor. It is well documented. The other thing I found interesting in our Foreign Affairs Committee is we had a hearing on this, and they were telling us about the crematoriums they have. Now, crematoriums are obviously there to cremate people after they are dead. But my question is: Why is it in their advertisement, they are asking for armed people that are well at fighting to guard these crematoriums? If you are going to cremate dead people, why do you need armed guards at the crematoriums? Unless they are not dead? And, again, we have seen this happen in history. And this is going on today. And it is something that the American people need to wake up to. I know Members of this body are waking up to it. But it is people around the world that need to wake up to this and shun China until China changes their behavior. We can't make them do it, but we can change our habits and buy elsewhere and have people produce products everywhere else. We were proud to pass in the last Congress the BUILD Act, which develops the United States International Development Finance Corporation. This is something that we can offer to countries as a way to do development finance in other countries. We can partner up with countries that have a development finance corporation like Japan, the U.K., Australia, Great Britain, and we can do major infrastructure projects. The difference between us doing that and China is we are going to do it for the development and the betterment of that country, understanding that if we help them build an economic base through infrastructure, they will develop an economy, and through that economy we will develop more trade and so then that country benefits, not China. We have seen China go into Cambodia, bring in Chinese workers, Chinese material, build casinos. They build Chinese restaurants, Chinese hotels that are run, controlled, and worked by Chinese nationals, not the people of Cambodia. So there again, it is an example of how China comes in and does these projects for the benefit of China, not for the benefit of the local economy. I was down in South America, and I was talking to one of the Members of Congress down there whose brother happened to be a mayor of one of the small towns. The Chinese embassy had given that mayor two fire trucks. Now, the Congressman was going to have a meeting with the country of Taiwan, and the Chinese embassy found out about it. And they didn't call the Congressman in Chile, they called the mayor, his brother, and said, If your brother takes that meeting with Taiwan, you will not get any more favors from us. And this is just one of their ways of underhandedness and coercion that they do to force people to do what they want. In China today they have the largest collection of CCT cameras, which are the closed-circuit television cameras that monitor their citizens. So today in China they have what they call the good citizen score. They monitor people, and if you don't do something properly, like you jaywalk or you went through a red light or you threw something on the ground, it is scored. You don't know what your score is, but you will find out if you want to go to a restaurant, they may prevent you from going in there. If you want to travel, they will prevent you from traveling. But you won't find out until you show up. And this is a way to control their people because, again, the thing they fear most is free thought. In China what we do know is Xi Jinping came from a family that was an elite family. His father was one of the leaders of the Communist Party. But he wanted Xi Jinping to understand the rural life, so in his teenage years they sent him out to a rural area where he had to live in a cage and dwell in a cage in a village. He did that, so today he can relate to people that are out in the rural areas. When he became powerful and moved up in the political process, and this is around 2012, 2013, what he did is he started to eliminate anybody that was a potential threat to him. So they either did forced retirement, and in the five biggest cities in China today the people that were ruling, those mayors either had forced retirement or they disappeared, or they are in prison. He has replaced them with pretty much henchmen of his that will follow his orders. They are doing this in their own country. They are doing this in Hong Kong. They are doing it in Tibet. And they are going to do it in other parts of the world. We have seen them doing this with the Uighurs in the Xinjiang province. My hope today is that people will hear this. And this message will get out to where when people buy a product, they have a choice. It might be a little bit cheaper, but every time you buy that product, you are buying a product that is feeding an economic engine and a military whose sole purpose is to be the dominant power in the world and to make us secondary or worse. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I just want to give my strong support for S. 178. I look back over the years when we have seen this, and we have had these discussions in our Foreign Affairs Committee about the atrocities that are going on in the Xinjiang province. Last year we talked about the concentration camps that we see going up, and then there were reports about the crematoriums that were going in. And we read advertisements to hire guards for the crematoriums. They must be physically fit, they must be able to defend themselves, and they need to know how to use a weapon. So they had armed crematoriums set up in this province. My question is: Why do you need armed crematoriums if it is a crematorium to burn people? You know, the dead. And I think the intent of what China is doing is self-evident. And America, as the leader of the free world, and all countries that believe in freedom and liberty, they must stand up against this injustice because this is going on around the world. And if you believe the words of General Eisenhower at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps after the end of World War II when he said: Never again. Never again will we allow this to happen. But it is happening right now. And it is happening in an area that we know in a country that is suppressing freedom around the world. We see it in Hong Kong. We have seen what they have done with Tibet. They want to do it to any country or any population that is against the Communist Party, the Chinese Communist Party. And this is something, if we don't do this, this will go on. And this is where the world needs to wake up, and they need to say, any time we buy something made in China, we are empowering this country and Xi Jinping and the Communist Party complex to do the same thing over and over again. It is time we make a strong stand and S. 178 is a great start to doing this. I look for strong support in the House. I look for it to be signed into law and that we send a strong signal from America, being the leaders in the free world, to the rest of the world to follow suit and send a strong signal back to China that this is not going to be tolerated. We will not put up with this. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the sponsors of this bill for doing what they are doing, because this is a message for the people around the world who don't know what is going on. It is this body that is kind of leading the charge on this, and I am proud to be associated with it, so thank you all.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, as the international community is well aware, Beijing's standard procedure for dealing with unrest is well documented. In the end, Xi Jinping will leave no stone unturned in his quest to destroy democracy. The party will spare no one in their fight to protect communist ideals and power. Chief Executive Lam will be Beijing's sacrificial lamb and removed for two reasons: one, the Communist Party must save face and have a scapegoat; and two, Xi Jinping and the Communist Party must maintain their authority and not show weakness. Communism fears free thought and cannot survive in it. And I am honored to stand with the Hong Kong protestors in their important cause. I urge my colleagues to also stand with the courageous individuals in Hong Kong and pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. ``Jia you'' to our Hong Kong friends standing up for your basic human rights.

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I just want to give a shout-out to the bipartisan nature of this bill. Both sides are working strongly on this. Chairman Engel, thank you. Mr. McGovern, thank you. Chris, thank you for doing what you have done. It is true leadership. And to see Speaker Pelosi down here, I think it speaks loudly to how America stands on this. In September, I, too, had the honor of meeting with a few of the courageous leaders of Hong Kong student unions. They were advocating for peace, liberty, and freedom. These are basic innate human rights that have been taken away from Hong Kongers by the authoritarian overreach of the Chinese Communist Party Complex, which is comprised of Xi Jinping, the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, and leadership within the People's Liberation Army. As protests in Hong Kong continue into the sixth month, Xi Jinping still refuses to take responsibility for this unrest. The cause is simple: theft of basic rights and freedoms, not a separatist movement or foreign influence. Members of this body have been accused of being the cause of the protests. Speaker Pelosi was named individually. Senator Schumer, Marco Rubio, and I were named as the cause of the Hong Kong protests. This disdain was sparked by the introduction of the infamous extradition bill by Chief Executive Carrie Lam at the command of the CCPC and has grown into what are known as the five demands. Had Xi Jinping and his cohorts just honored the 1997 international agreement between Great Britain and China, which allows Hong Kong to remain a self-ruling, semi-autonomous province, none of this would have occurred. Not upholding one's contract has consequences. Disregarding contracts breaks trust and dishonors the country, its leaders, and its people. The narrative that the Chinese Communist Party Complex has created for itself is that China cannot and should not be trusted and that the party will go to great lengths to dismantle free societies in their backyard. The survival of democracy and freedom exposes the failures of communism. Xi Jinping, along with his cohorts' lack of acknowledgment of their failures, whether from deliberate denial or complete ignorance, was demonstrated by Mr. Han Zheng, China's Vice Premier, who said he believes antigovernment protests are damaging the ``one country, two systems'' formula, and again, are caused by a separatist movement and foreign influence. While sitting next to Chief Executive Carrie Lam, he continued, ``We firmly support the Special Administrative Region Government to adopt more proactive and more effective measures'' to solve the social problems. Since I wrote this, they have come out and said they expect to have brutality ramped up to bring these people under control. The proactive and more effective measures referred to by Mr. Han Zheng are intimidation, brutality, imprisonment and death.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I voted electronically but it did not register. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 615.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, Michel de Montaigne once said: ``Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.'' This quote describes Sergeant First Class Bryan Jenkins of Gainesville, Florida, who tragically lost his life during a military exercise last week in Georgia. Throughout his 18-year military career, he has distinguished himself as a true patriot. Sergeant First Class Jenkins has a long list of accomplishments. He went on two tours in Iraq and also earned 14 different military awards. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Shana; his three children, Branson, Bryanna, and Delilah, as well as the families of the other two colleagues, Corporal Thomas Walker and Private First Class Antonio Garcia who were also killed during this exercise. The impact that Sergeant First Class Jenkins had on those around him will not soon be forgotten. We thank him for all the sacrifices he made for this great Nation. He truly was a man of honor.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the importance of strong U.S. diplomatic engagement to counter aggression from our adversaries. The World Expo is the largest diplomatic exhibition and an invaluable opportunity to demonstrate American leadership to an audience of over 25 million visitors. The United States has proudly participated in the World Expo since 1851 and has hosted 11 expos. Over a 6-month period, the United States will showcase our values and our commitment to rule of law. Without the United States' attendance at important international forums like the World Expo, we risk losing out to countries like China and Russia. In fact, China has committed over $100 million for their participation in the 2020 World Expo with the goal of promoting their Belt and Road Initiative. And get this: Huawei 5G technology is the provider for the whole World Expo. They have also signaled interest in competing to host a future expo. China is at the forefront of our strategic long-range diplomatic, security, and economic policies here in Washington. We must stop Communist China from achieving global dominance. Make no mistake. This is their goal. Under Xi Jinping's leadership, the Chinese Communist Party is challenging America's leadership like never before; stepping up territorial aggression against our partners and allies, openly engaging in unfair and illegal business practices, and exporting authoritarian ideologies across the globe. Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative and associated debt traps have set the stage for economic and diplomatic coercion and military expansion. That is one of the reasons I introduced the BUILD Act last Congress--and through bipartisan support it got passed and was signed into law--that creates the United States International Development Finance Corporation. If we, the American government, are not there, how can we compete against China's Belt and Road Initiative? As part of this program, China has tried to build military bases in the South Pacific to cut us off from partners like Australia and New Zealand, and they are going to continue this expansion. In Africa, they have a military base next to ours in Djibouti. China has even made major roads in the Western Hemisphere, controlling both sides of Teddy Roosevelt's Panama Canal. I was down in the countries of Chile and Argentina not too long ago, and China is looking and trying to push really hard to bring 5G cable from China to South America. This is something that American leadership cannot--we cannot stand by idly. And if we are not there at the World Expo to promote our U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, how else are we going to get this word out? This is something that is a national security interest. In addition, China has also cornered the market on rare earth minerals. They control over 85 percent of the API, which is the active pharmaceutical ingredients, in all the vitamins, antibiotics, and drugs that we take. They have 100 percent of the vitamins and minerals used in our livestock feed. China, when they ship that product back, it is impure. It doesn't meet FDA standards. China has been at the forefront of 5G technology, as I mentioned. In fact, Huawei, which the U.S. has deemed a national security threat, has received the contract for this expo. As we work to combat this continued and ever-increasing aggression, we must ensure that our partners know the United States intends to remain present. The United States' absence at important international forums like the World Expo only gives China the opportunities to spread their ideals; ones they claim are merely ``socialism with Chinese characteristics.'' But make no mistake, it is communism through and through. We cannot let China fill a void left by the United States. The stakes are too high. And understand this: If the United States doesn't show up--there are only two countries that don't show up. One is the United States and the other is Syria. I don't want to be in that category. This is a bill that we ask everybody to support. It is good for America. It is good for American business, and it is great for national security. Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, Mr. Smith and Mr. Sherman, whom I have the pleasure of serving with on the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation, for raising this important topic. I rise today to bring attention to three very important and timely measures that the House will consider this afternoon. These bipartisan measures passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously, and they include H. Res. 543, by Representative Sherman; H.R. 3289, by Representative Smith; and H.R. 4270, by Representative McGovern. I am proud to say that I am a cosponsor of all three. Over the past 5 months, mass civilian protests in Hong Kong have begun to shed light on the deterioration of the Chinese Communist Party's influence outside of mainland China. Rising resentment in Hong Kong is not simply a result of the ill-fated extradition law championed by Chief Executive Carrie Lam, but the continued encroachment on freedom and liberties by President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. Despite the 1997 Sino-British agreement, leaders in Beijing continued their high-intensity political pressure campaign to subdue dissent within Hong Kong, which has emboldened the people of Hong Kong to stand up against Beijing, but more for freedom. This is illustrated by the people of Hong Kong raising and waving the American flag while burning the Chinese flag. The protestors now maintain five demands that Mr. Sherman already talked about: withdrawal of the extradition bill; drop charges against the protestors; launch an investigation into the police forces; and universal suffrage, which would allow voters to directly pick their leaders instead of hand-picked leaders of their chief executive by Beijing. As the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation, I have been extremely outspoken against the continued deterioration of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong. The passage of these important pieces of legislation will send a strong message to President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party that these abuses will not be tolerated by the international community. Keep in mind that China and Great Britain signed this international agreement in 1997, where it stated that Hong Kong would be an autonomous region, self-ruled, and have an independent judiciary system. Only 22 years into it, Xi Jinping has said, as far as he is concerned, that agreement is null and void, and so you see the people of Hong Kong standing up in protest. Because they have experienced freedom and liberty, they are willing to risk their life. I just had a group of Hong Kong students come in. These are the people who are right in the forefront of the protests in Hong Kong, and they came to our office begging for help from the American people, from the American Government. Now, granted, Hong Kong, we all know, is a province of China. But we also know there was an agreement, for 50 years, it was to be autonomously ruled with an independent judiciary committee that Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China have canceled, and I think this is a message for all people of the intent of what China is doing. We, as Members of Congress, have so much more that we represent. It is not a political body where we fight back and forth and discuss different things. What we represent here in America is what people around the world are willing to risk their life for and to stand up, in front of the face of adversity, to one of the emerging superpowers of the world and say: We do not accept your communist authority rule. We want you to honor liberty and freedom. See, the people of Hong Kong, they have experienced freedom and liberties. Xi Jinping and the Communist Party can't understand that because they have never experienced freedom or liberty. As supposedly the greatest deliberative body on the planet, this transcends way beyond what we do here. This is standing up for ideals that people around the world are willing to die for, and it is this body that can send a strong message to the Chinese Communist Party, to Xi Jinping that says we will not let liberties and freedom be taken away from people who have claimed that, who have known that all their life, and that that should be honored by those who are trying to take it apart. Before they want to take it apart, I suggest Xi Jinping and the Communist Party try freedom and liberty: Try democracy for a while; you might like it. I think these are three very important bills that should pass through this House unanimously and should pass through the Senate to show that we stand in solidarity with the folks, our friends in Hong Kong; and, if not, if we don't send a strong message, it will embolden China. I hope manufacturers and all businesses around the world that do business in Hong Kong are paying attention to this, because they are the ones that are creating a business environment that feeds China so that they can continue these terrible acts of suppression of liberties and freedoms. I hope the business community will say: You know what, we stand with the American people. It pains me when I see people like the NBA or other organizations, corporations that will bow down to China, and they do it for profit. It is time that we stand up not just as Americans, but people who are the bearers of liberty and freedom around the world that the rest of the world looks to.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to call attention to the issue of human trafficking, which is still alive and well today. The United States has been ranked among the top three nations of origin for victims of human trafficking in 2018, according to a recent report by the State Department, and is the number one consumer of sex trafficking worldwide. This is absolutely unacceptable, and as a Member of Congress, we must use all means necessary to rid our Nation of human trafficking and keep people safe from this kind of abuse. That is why, this week, I will be introducing two bills to help combat this. They are the Prevent Trafficking in Our Schools Act, and the COMBAT Act of 2019. The Prevent Trafficking in Our School Act instructs the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of Education to develop a pilot program to train school officials and teachers to identify signs of trafficking in our schools and educate these same officials on the prevalence in our community. The COMBAT Act addresses the fact that the U.S. does not have an official count for domestic human trafficking by requiring a report to Congress on the prevalence of human trafficking happening within the United States. I ask for support on these bills.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, on September 30, 2019, northeast Florida will help Winton Carter celebrate his 100th birthday. The year Mr. Carter was born, World War I formally ended with the Treaty of Versailles, alcohol was officially illegal with the formal start of Prohibition, and Boston's Babe Ruth was traded to the New York Yankees at the end of the season. Even more amazing is the life Mr. Carter has led serving our country. Mr. Carter received a Purple Heart after being wounded by shrapnel in his thigh while under continuous fire, fighting the Japanese on the island of Saipan in World War II. He was there for the famous raising of the American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. Mr. Carter also later fought in the Korean war. After 22 years in the military, he retired as a Marine master sergeant and served a total of 40 years in government service, which included recruiting future Marine heroes. Mr. Carter is a widower, having celebrated 60 years of marriage to his wife, Norma Jean. He is the father of two, and he loves to talk about the Lord. Therefore, it is on this day, September 19, that I proudly acknowledge Mr. Winton W. Carter on the House floor, and I ask you to join me in wishing him an early happy birthday. Observing National POW/MIA Recognition Day

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to take this time to honor those who were prisoners of war and those who remain missing in action, as well as their families, in observance of National POW/MIA Recognition Day. We are forever indebted to those who sacrificed everything so that we may enjoy the freedoms granted to us by the Constitution. ``You are not forgotten.'' This is a central phrase of National POW/ MIA Recognition Day. It is our job as a nation to stand behind those who are currently serving, those who have served, and those who have never returned from service who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Through international relationships, many of those who have fallen have been returned back to our country and to their families, and we will continue to do the search and return our MIA soldiers. It is our responsibility as a nation to never forget or quit searching for the men and women who paid that ultimate price. We must continue to honor them in the years to come. Honoring First Responder John Lankenau

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to take this time to honor one of my constituents, John Lankenau. As the anniversary of 9/11 just passed, we must always remember those who we have lost and honor the heroes who sacrificed their lives for others. On September 11, 2001, Mr. Lankenau was assigned as a hazardous material specialist in Albany, New York. On that tragic day, as the second plane flew into the towers, Mr. Lankenau was requested to respond to New York City to assist first responders at Ground Zero. Upon arrival, Mr. Lankenau was requested by name to conduct the first hazard surveys of Ground Zero. He worked until early morning, taking air and soil samples on the wreckage site. Mr. Lankenau remembered how dangerous it was, maneuvering through the wreckage and fearing that there was a possibility that one of the adjacent buildings could collapse, causing more fatalities. He spent the next couple of weeks going back and forth from home, continuing to assess the hazards and the conditions at Ground Zero. It is my greatest pleasure to represent men like Mr. John Lankenau in the United States Congress. I commend him and the rest of the first responders on 9/11 for their character, their courage, and their commitment to serving others. I thank them, these true heroes, for their service. Congratulating University of Florida on Its Ranking

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to highlight my alma mater, the University of Florida, which I represent in Florida's District Three. The University of Florida, under the guidance of its president, Dr. Kent Fuchs, has again risen in the U.S. News and World Report rankings to number seven among all public universities in the United States. This is the third year in the row the University of Florida has advanced in that ranking. The University of Florida incorporates all health disciplines, is one of the largest engineering schools in the country, and has a top-rated veterinarian school, which I graduated from in 1983. It is just one of the few schools in the Nation to have won major sports team national championships and titles in football, basketball, and baseball. I guess that is why it is great to be a Florida Gator. Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about another crisis that has not been dealt with on this House floor, and that crisis is the immigration crisis we have. We hear a lot about the climate crisis. Crises are the things that are happening right now that we must respond to. But so many of the things that we face in Congress are issues that may be a crisis for some along the border, or some who are being advanced by people coming into the country illegally, but if Congress were to act, these crises would go away. There is time to deal with climate change, and there is time to deal with the crisis on the border, but we must act. I have a photo here from June 2014, when my colleagues on the other side said there was a crisis, and it was under President Barack Obama. This is still going on at the border. I look at these people, and they look like people who want opportunity. They are coming to this country. I have this other photo, and there are families, women, children, husbands. They look like people who are wanting to come into this country for opportunity. Congress has failed, and it has not just failed this Nation, but it failed these people in the policies that we don't have because of political divide. We talk about how we want to fix the crisis on climate change, but we don't come together on that. We want to talk about the immigration crisis, but we don't come together on it because it becomes a wedge and a tool that people use in politics for the next election. They say, well, they are against that, and that is why you have to vote me back in. That happens on immigration. That is why immigration doesn't get fixed. I am convinced of that. So we have proposed a guest worker program that will solve probably about 90 percent, what our estimates are, of the people who are coming across our southwest border. I think we are all in agreement that the people coming across our southwest border are not the rocket scientists; they are not the engineers; they are not the health professionals. They are the people who are working in the lower skills--agriculture, hospitality, and construction--but yet they are so needed in this country because, without them, this country won't work. We can't grow the fruits and vegetables, and we can't build the buildings. So what we have proposed is a guest worker program. If you would picture a banner, Madam Speaker, ``Guest Worker Program.'' And understand, it is not immigration reform, because ``immigration,'' if we use that word up here, they part. This side blames the Republicans of wanting to deport everybody. On my side, we will say this side wants to give everybody amnesty. Neither is true. So they walk away and nothing gets done. We have seen this year after year for 36 years. So the banner bill will say, ``Guest Worker Program.'' It will have three silos: One will be agriculture, which is the one I am heading; one will have hospitality; and one will have construction. I will talk about the agriculture program. The way this works is it does three things: It creates a prescreened pool before people come into the country, which is number one. Number two is it addresses the people who are already here illegally. Number three, it reforms the H-2A program, which is a temporary seasonal program of 10 months, and it makes it stronger so it serves our producers better, but it also protects the migrant worker. This is something that should not be a partisan issue. This is something that I have shared personally in this Chamber with over 50 Members of the House of Representatives in a bipartisan way; I have shared it on the Senate side in a bipartisan way; and we have shared it with outside industries around the country. In fact, I am getting calls from people from Wisconsin, from Indiana, from Pennsylvania, and from California who want this bill passed. Basically, what this does, briefly, is, on the H-2A program, which is a temporary worker visa program--for 10 months, it is supposed to be. The way the program works now is somebody will come in on an H-2A program for temporary work. They will get a waiver, and that waiver will be for 1 year. Then they can get another waiver up to 3 years. What we have seen is people just kind of fade off the grid, and they wind up being in America illegally. They may have come in legally, but then they transfer and become a person here illegally. Then they live in the shadows, and they are afraid to come out for fear of deportation. The other thing is they come in on an H-2A visa currently, and they may leave the agriculture permit that they came in on and work construction and get hired by construction. Or they may go into another field, and so the permit that allowed them to come in, they don't honor. So with our program, we tighten up the restrictions on H-2A. People come in on a guest worker H-2A visa that dedicates them to the sector of agriculture, and they are dedicated to be in that sector because that is what they have agreed to come in on. They can stay up to 11 months is what we are proposing, then they go back home, and then they can come back. The other thing we do is the prescreening portion of this bill works this way: We will have a country-to-country agreement between, say, the country of Honduras and the United States. It is a state-to-State Department agreement. So, if a person from Honduras or anywhere in Central America wants to come to the United States, they apply. They must be a minimum of 18 years of age. They have to apply individually. If they are married and the spouse wants to come in, that spouse applies, but they have to be a minimum of 18, no children. They apply. That information from the country they come from goes to our State Department, and it would be basically passport information: their name, their address, age, and things like that. Our DHS will take that information. They will do a background check. Once they clear the background check, that person who applied as an applicant, they are permitted to come into the country, but only after a job is available. When a person applies, they can apply to a sector. Maybe it is dairy; maybe it is fruits and vegetables; or maybe it is a citrus program. Once they get accepted into the country and a job is available, they get issued what we call a GWIC card, which is short for ``guest worker identification card,'' and it will look like any other kind of identification. It will have smart card or smart chip technology. It will have the individual's picture on it. Once a person gets this card, they are permitted to be in the country for a 5-year period of time. For 5 years they can stay in this country, and they can renew 4\1/2\ years into the program. After that, they can continually do that, provided they stay a person of good standing in the Nation. They can get a driver's license number. It will be a guest worker driver's license number that has to be renewed every 5 years. It will start off in the State they get approved in and when they pass the test. But that will allow them to drive in the country legally. It gives them a chance to come into the country legally, whether they want to be a temporary worker or a 5-year, year-round worker. We have a restriction in there that they have to commit to work 75 percent of the year in the agriculture sector, on the guest worker program for agriculture. That person has taken on the responsibility and commitment that they will work in ag, and ag only. On both programs with the H-2A or the 5-year guest worker program, that individual is automatically entered into the E-Verify system. So when our employers take somebody out of the pool, they are automatically using E-Verify. That person, again, is free to travel the country. If they come in, say they want to do citrus in Florida, that season is over usually by mid-June. They can go to North Carolina and work with another crop, or maybe the State of Washington or New York, and they can stay indefinitely in the country for that 5-year period of time. But they must work a minimum 75 percent of the year in the United States in agriculture. If they choose to leave agriculture and work in construction and they get picked up or found out and they get hired illegally by a contractor, what happens is they have broken the terms of their agreement, and they will be deported for that. That identification number will be a 15-digit identification number with the initials ``AG'' at the end of it for agriculture. So that person, when they are put into the E-Verify system, if they are hired by an ag employer, those have to jibe. If that person tries to go to construction, then his number won't work in a construction entity. If an employer tries to hire somebody illegally who is permitted to work in agriculture and they want to hire them in construction, then they are subject to a $2,500 fine per person per incident. This is something that we hear over and over again from our producers and our contractors in the hospitality industry. They need a guest worker program, and our goal for this was to create a reliable, a predictable, and a certain workforce for the labor of this country. The second part of the 5-year program is this: For the people who are in the country illegally, they can apply to this program. What we have done is we have moved ag labor from the Department of Labor to the USDA. So for that group of people who are in this country illegally, they can apply to this program. The program will be run by the United States Department of Agriculture, and they will run a program that says: For this time period, if you are here illegally and you want to apply to this program, then you can apply with the understanding that we are not looking to deport you. We are looking to get you to a legal status in this country for 5 years at a time. While that person is applying, he is what we call the applicant. During that process, they are protected from being deported. Background checks will be run. We realize that some people are going to have fender benders. They may not have shown up for a court date or didn't return a library book. We understand that, and they will be given due time to get right with the law and clear up their past. When they get accepted into the program, they become a participant. During that time period as a participant, they are here for 5 years at a time and can renew 4\1/2\ years into it. They get the GWIC card, and they get the 15-digit identification number that dedicates them to work in the ag center. They are not dedicated to a certain employer, and they can renew 4\1/2\ years into it. If they came in illegally with a family, their family is also protected during that period of time when a background check is being done. Once that is cleared up, that family is protected for up to 5 years at a time. Again, when they renew, that family is protected. It is not a pathway to citizenship. If somebody wants to become a citizen, then they apply for citizenship just like anybody else who wants to become a citizen of our great Nation. In this program, again, what we are looking for is to create a reliable and predictable workforce for our agriculture sector, and it gives the flexibility of the individual to move around the country to fulfill the needs that migrant worker has. We did a roundtable throughout the State of Florida over the August recess. We stopped at 10 different areas in my State. Florida is a large agriculture State. People think of it as beaches and palm trees, but we are also the number one producer of sweet corn in the country, number one in watermelons, number one in citrus in the Nation, and we have over 300 specialty crops. So we are very heavily dependent on migrant labor. As we traveled around our State, we got a tremendous amount of feedback from all the different sectors. We sat down with the migrant help workforce. I am a veterinarian by trade, and I worked with horses and cattle. I have been around agriculture since I was 15. I have talked to the migrant. I have talked to the people. I found out by asking them: Did you come here legally or illegally? They would tell you because we had a great relationship. They would say: I came here illegally. You can ask them: Do you want to become a citizen? Some do, some don't. Most of them just want the opportunity to come here and work. When we were in south Florida going through talking to some of the producers, they were saying people from Honduras can come here and work a season, maybe 5 months. The amount of money they make in 5 months is equivalent to 5 years in that nation. I saw this as a way that we can fulfill the needs of our producers and fulfill the needs of food security for this Nation but also fulfill the needs of that worker who wants to come here for a better life, and they have the opportunity to become a citizen if they go through the normal channels. The other thing this does, and I didn't mention this, is there is a $2,500 fee for that 5-year permit, which breaks down to $500 a year. For the person who came in illegally, the first time they apply and get accepted into this program and become a participant, there will be the $2,500 fee for the permit, but there will also be a $2,500 fine because they have agreed that they have broken the law coming in. That puts that argument to rest of, well, they broke our law. These people realize that. They acknowledge it. They paid the fine, and we can move forward. I thought it was interesting, when we went down and did our tour around the State, that the producers said: You know, it comes down to this. This Nation will either import their food, or they are going to import their labor. This is a national security issue. I look at these workers--I have worked with so many of these people over the course of the years, over the last 30 years, and they are great people. My heart goes out to them because I know they want a better future. I know they want to live an American Dream--maybe not in this country, but maybe the Honduran dream. If a person can work 5 months here and have the equivalent of 5 years' pay in their home country, it can change lives, and it will develop an economy down there. So what I ask our Members of Congress to do is get this information. They can go to our website, yoho.house.gov. They can go to the legislation tab and click on that. That will have a drop-down screen, and there will be the ag guest worker program. We have two short videos on that that explain this program. We have a 10-page white paper that explains this program. We have a bill that is already written--it is right at 110 pages--that we look to introduce. This is not a solution to immigration. It is a solution to the workforce challenges we have in this Nation in agriculture, hospitality, and construction. By doing this and coming to agreement on border security and enforcing the laws already on the books and by giving people a legal portal to come into this country legally--they are prescreened before they come in--and by allowing people who are in this country illegally to become legal, we have solved a big crisis that this body has been unable to fulfill, and we honor the American people. It causes more division in this Nation, more division in this House, and it just grinds the wheels of progress for this Nation to an end. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, for bringing this bill up, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul), my good friend and colleague, the lead Republican on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. I can't tell you how important this bill is, and I rise today in support of H.R. 3352, the Department of State Authorization Act of 2019. You heard how long it has been since we have passed this. It recently passed out of the Foreign Affairs Committee with wide bipartisan support. This is the hallmark of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and it shows the good work that is done and how important this is, and that is why the Foreign Affairs Committee is the most important committee in the House. This legislation helps support the important work that the State Department does and its diplomats do to protect our national security. I have had the honor to travel on codels that are so important, and I encourage Members to do that, because it strengthens America's foreign policy, our engagement, and it leaves a belief in those other countries that America is here to be allies. What I am always amazed at is the hard work of our State Department employees; and not reauthorizing a bill that gives them the ability to work, it kind of affects their attitude. So this is a critical bill to be approved at this time. Despite the essential need for a fully functioning, operational Department, this is the first time in 6 years that there has been a comprehensive Department of State authorization bill. It is the duty of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Congress as a whole to provide our departments with the necessary tools to advance the United States' foreign policy. Again, I thank Chairman Engel and Ranking Member McCaul for including the language from my bill, H.R. 1677, which repeals certain foreign affairs reporting requirements within the State Department. This provision will repeal, again, the unnecessary, redundant requirements that are outdated and no longer needed. I would also like to commend my colleagues in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the staff for coming together and supporting a bipartisan bill that will protect America's national security. We must not let partisan divide continue to handicap our diplomats and their mission. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support the passage of this bill.

Mr. YOHO

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I have a three-part series, and I would like to open at this moment and yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), my good friend.

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I am entering into the second phase of my Special Order. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of Rosewood and reflect upon the tragedy that happened in 1923. Rosewood was a small, rural town in my district. It is in northwest central Florida, in between Otter Creek, Chiefland, and Cedar Key. It was built around the pencil mill and turpentine industry. It was a mixed town of Blacks and Whites. In 1915, it had a population of approximately 355 people. The town had started to become segregated. The neighboring town of Sumner was developed at the time and was primarily White. In January of 1923, a young White woman claimed that a Black man had assaulted her. The accusation started a riot, ultimately resulting in the burning of the entire town and the death of countless members of the Rosewood community. Within hours of the violence starting, many survivors fled to the surrounding woods, where they hid and waited for a rescue train that was sent there to take people out of the area of violence. At the end of the week, only one building remained standing, and to this day, the death toll is still unknown, and no buildings remain. The story by the young White woman was found to be a lie. She was the Black man's lover. Her significant other beat her, and she lied and blamed the young Black man to save face. The Rosewood massacre, which occurred just outside of my district, is one that went nearly forgotten for over 60 years because of the destructive nature of prejudice and hatred caused by the survivors who lived in fear, rarely sharing their stories, even with families and close friends. I firmly believe that in order to learn from our history, we have to make an effort to remember it. We should memorialize these events, and that is why we put up plaques. We put up markers or statues, lest we forget it, and within a generation or two, the mistakes of the past are repeated because the next generation will grow ignorant of the struggles of the past. When the stories of Rosewood first started recirculating in the 1980s, it brought in a new level of awareness to the State of Florida and the understanding that we, as a society, cannot be complacent in senseless acts of violence. It even inspired a movie in Hollywood to illustrate the ugliness of the past hatred and the violence. Violence and prejudice have no place in our society, and we have a duty to ensure that this type of tragedy never happens again. Today, in Rosewood, a marker stands just off the highway memorializing the town that never returned. Survivors and their descendants have shared their stories, hoping that Rosewood's memory would not be erased. One of these is a constituent of mine, Ms. Lizzie Jenkins, who has been working on this tragedy for the last 25 years. Her goal and ours is for individuals to remember and to never forget the hatred, the racism of the past, and to honor those who suffered in the past so future generations do not repeat the pain, suffering, and mistakes of the past. She has a dream to accomplish this, and that is to create the Rosewood Museum. Madam Speaker, it has been almost a century since the Rosewood massacre. By remembering and learning from this tragedy, we can work towards a future full of acceptance. Knowing Ms. Jenkins, I can confidently say that there will be a Rosewood Museum. Solving the Problem at the Southwest Border

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I would like to move on to the third portion of my Special Order. We are going to talk about how to solve the problem at the southwest border and how to move beyond border security. I just listened to an hour of people ranting and putting blame on this President for the hatred, the racism he has caused. I heard the Member on the other side talk about the ban on Muslims. We can't move forward and fix things if we use false narratives. There was not a ban on Muslims. President Trump put a ban on countries. In fact, they are the same six countries that President Obama put a ban on and recommended to put a ban on. There was never a ban on Muslim countries. I went to Indonesia on a codel, a bipartisan one, and there was a Member of this Congress from the other side who asked the Indonesian Prime Minister at the time: What is the sentiment in a Muslim country about a ban from our President--President Trump at the time--about the Muslim ban that he has placed on there? He knew good and well that President Trump didn't ban Muslims in this country. He put the ban on the same six countries that President Obama did, but there was no complaint. I bring that up just because, if we are going to solve the problems of this country, one that this body--look at it. It is empty. There are two Members of Congress in here, and they have been complaining--I am sorry. I stand corrected, Madam Speaker. There are three Members of Congress. But if we are going to fix this problem, it is going to take more than three of us. I am sure everyone agrees. They sit there and they give great speeches about how it is tearing our country apart. The President is tearing our country apart. What a shame this is, the hatred, the vitriol that is coming out of the White House, how people are being taken away from their families, and there are no toothbrushes or diapers, or they are sleeping on floors. I am just glad the other side is acknowledging that there is a crisis, but for the first half of the year, there wasn't a crisis. They refused to say there was a crisis. There was a Special Order here last week, and my good colleague, Mr. King, was here. We had other Members, and we had pictures from 2014 when President Obama was here. It was funny because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were railing about the crisis in 2014. There have been times in this body when the Democrats had the majority in the House, the Senate, and the White House. There were times, and I was there, when the Republicans had the same majority, the House, the Senate, and the White House. It saddens me because this discussion about our having to fix these things, when both parties were in control, they didn't do it. What really saddens me is I see people using political opportunities for their next election. I heard a lot of that tonight. There were no solutions in that. We talked for an hour last week about the crisis at the border, the situation at the border, and the atrocities at the border. The drug cartels are profiting from this. We stay as a divided House. I implored President Trump--and I will do it again tonight--that he needs to call Congress back in session when we reconvene tomorrow, and I would do it every time this body goes on a break until we fix our border security and until we come up with an immigration bill. I want to move into what I really want to talk about. In order to move forward, we have to have solutions. I have been here for 7 years, and I have seen ``comprehensive'' come up in healthcare, and I have seen ``comprehensive'' come up in immigration. What I have learned is that when you put ``comprehensive'' in front of a cause, it doesn't happen. It is political speak that says it is not going to happen because the room becomes divided, and everybody uses it as a political tool for the next election. What I want to do is, instead of trying to do comprehensive immigration reform, I want to focus on a small bite of the apple. We have a proposal. We have legislation that we are working through the House in a bipartisan manner. We have shared this with over 40 Members of Congress in a bipartisan manner, and we have shared this with the Senate in a bipartisan manner. It is a guest worker program. The bill will be a guest worker program. There will be three silos, agriculture, hospitality, and construction. These are all positions that, in general, are in the lower-skilled fields. They are not rocket scientists, and they are not engineers. These are the skills that we need in our labor workforce for agriculture, for food security, for construction, and for our hospitality. In the past, we have not had a good program for people to come into the country legally and stay in the field that they have decided to work in. This bill will be under a banner, but there will be three separate bills. The first bill will be a guest worker program for agriculture, and that is what I would like to focus on tonight. America has the lowest-cost food of the industrialized world because our farmers can produce so well. But they can't benefit from that if we don't have the workers willing to go out and work in the fields. I was a person who, at the age of 15, worked in produce. We loaded trucks. The produce came in from the farm, and we loaded the produce. I did that to work my way through college. Yet, today, people said that domestic people, Americans, won't do that work. I disagree with that, and I think we put a stigma on that. In order to fix this, we have to have a labor solution, or our farmers won't be able to keep farming. The goal of this bill is to create a dependable, reliable workforce. The way this program would work is it would be in two phases. The first phase is that we create a prescreened pool of workers before they come into the country. We will have a relationship and an agreement between country A and our State Department. If we pick out a country, Guatemala, the Guatemalan state department will have a relationship with our State Department. When a person applies, he becomes what we call the applicant. The country he comes from will verify the person's date of birth and their residence. Then, they will verify that this person has not been involved in violent crimes, drug activity, or gang activity. Once they apply, that information goes through the Department of Homeland Security. They do a background check. They do it on their international database, and they do it on the domestic database. If that person clears the database, then that information goes to the USDA. We moved the agriculture labor workforce from the Department of Labor to the USDA, where it can be better monitored to fulfill the needs of agriculture. That person does not come into the country until a job is open. The employer in this country, an agriculture producer, still has to advertise for domestic help. When that position is not filled, the producer can ask for that worker to come in. That worker comes in under the agreement that they are going to work in the agriculture sector. They have to be a minimum of 18 years of age. It is not chain migration. If they have family members who want to come in, they, too, can apply, but it applies to them individually. Once they get accepted into the program and come into the country, they become a participant. At that time, they get issued a guest worker identification card that we call a GWIC card. That GWIC card will have 15 digits in there for security. In addition, it will have the initials ``AG,'' designating that that is an agriculture worker permit. When the worker comes in, they now have been allowed into the country legally. The work permit goes on for 5 years. That means they can stay in this country for 5 years at a time. They have to work a minimum of 75 percent of the year in agriculture, but it allows them to move back and forth to their host country seamlessly because we have an agreement between two countries. The person can travel around the country to work a seasonal crop. In Florida, our citrus harvest is done usually by mid- to late June. That would allow that worker to go from that farm up to New York, Maine, or Washington State to work crops. He also has the ability to go back home. That permit is good for 5 years at a time. He can renew 4\1/2\ years into it, and he can do this indefinitely. There will be a cutoff age. We are recommending approximately 50 or 55 years of age. There is a fee of $2,500 for that. The second part of this program will be dealing with the people here who came in illegally. Our proposal would allow a person to apply to this program under the understanding that the Federal Government is not here to deport them. The Federal Government is here to give them a way that they can get into a program and have legal residence here. During that period of time, when the applicant is applying, there will be a waiver over that person, meaning that he won't be deported. A background check will be done. If DHS says this person is okay, then he can enter this program. If that person has minor violations--a fender bender, didn't return a book to the library--he will have a period of time where he can get straight with the legal system. Upon completing that, he enters into the guest worker program and becomes a participant. He, too, pays a fee of $2,500. That is to go for running the program. In addition, there will be a fine for coming into the country illegally. What has been proposed is approximately $1,500 to $2,000 for the first time they apply to the program. Every year a person renews, 4\1/2\ years into this program, there will be a $2,500 fee, and that is subject to change as the times change. As a person comes into the program, they get issued the guest worker identification card, which is called the GWIC card, and that will be embedded biometrics. We gave the list to the DHS to pick out what they think is necessary from facial recognition pictures, DNA, fingerprints, and retinal scans, all that they can choose from. We asked them to put enough of those biometrics in there so that card is secure. In addition, it will have a 15-digit code that will be a hack-proof, secure card. As I said, there will be the initials ``AG,'' designating that person as a guest worker in this country in agriculture. He is allowed to get a driver's license. If he passes the test in a State, then he will get a guest worker driver's license. It would not be used for voter registration. It is something to give that person a driver's license so that he can work on a farm. If that person who is here illegally gets accepted into the program and has a family who came in with him illegally, as he is applying to the program, there is a waiver over his family. If he gets accepted into the program, or they get accepted into the program, his family is also good to stay in the country for 5 years at a time, provided the participant renews 4\1/2\ years into it. If his children came in illegally, then they are protected until the age of 18, at which time they have to make a decision to apply to one of the programs. There will be three sectors. It will be agriculture, hospitality, and construction. At that point, again, as I said, that person can move around the country. They can work crops wherever they choose. They can go back home knowing they can get back into this country. E-Verify will be a component of this, and it would work such that, as a person enters the program, their data is already in DHS. When they go to start their job, the employer puts their smart card, the GWIC card, into a reader. It identifies the person, a positive identification. We have eliminated probably close to 100 percent of the fraud that occurs with the current system. We request that the individual worker has to check into a Federal office on a monthly basis. Every town in America has a Federal office, either a courthouse or a post office. Part of the $2,500 fee goes to pay for the equipment in there. It would be inexpensive equipment. It would be the same equipment that we use when we go to do a retail sale like at a big box store. You put your card in there; it reads it; and it tells DHS and USDA where this person is. The employer also is required to use E-Verify. This will be seamless because he is pulling people out of a pool who are already prescreened and who are in the E-Verify system. They go through this system. E-Verify will become mandatory once we get 75 to 80 percent of the expected population that we need in our guest worker fields. At that point, all employers will be using the E-Verify system. The beauty of this system is that we have given a portal for people to come into this country legally. We have given them a way to stay in this country for up to 5 years at a time. Then, we give them a way that we can monitor bad players who sneak into the country or employers who are hiring people here illegally that suppresses the wages of domestic workers. If an employer hires people outside of the system once it is mandatory, when they get caught, it is a $2,500 fee the first offense, per offense per individual. If it is a repeat offender of an employer, then that fine will go up, and they are subject to jail time. The beauty of this is if a worker leaves a guest worker program in either agriculture, hospitality, or construction, and they try to work in a different sector and are found out by the people who are doing the inspection, they have given up their right to stay in this country on a guest worker program. The things that we hear back about that is that people voluntarily enter this program. They have agreed to work in agriculture and agriculture only or one of the other sectors. If they work outside of that, they have agreed that they have broken that. This is a policy that is self-policing when people get found out. For the people who choose not to enter any of these programs, they are here illegally, and they will be dealt with according to the laws on the books. We are asking to have sequencing done on this, and the first part of that is we have to agree on border security. It is interesting because I hear this fight over border security, but when I go on trips and talk to my colleagues on the other side, they always tell me that they agree with border security and that we have to have border security. If we agree to it, let's do it. Again, this body is empty other than us three. I think the President should call us back. Let's get border security. Let's get this done, Madam Speaker, so that we can move on to the next thing. We have to have enforcement of the laws on the books. We are providing a guest worker program for the majority of the people whom we need in our labor force for lower skills. The third part of the sequencing is that we can deal with Dreamers and DACA down the road. We can't do that until we do border security and have a way for people to come into the country legally, to work in this country legally, and to take that group who came in illegally and put them in a legal process. Madam Speaker, this is something we have shared with probably close to 60 people in a bipartisan manner. We have shared this with agriculture groups from all over the Nation, from California to Maine, New York, Washington State, Florida, Minnesota, and North Dakota, and from every sector in agriculture, from dairy to pine, timber, fruits and vegetables, citrus, and fruits and nuts. Everybody tells us this is the most commonsense reform they have seen. We have shared it with ranking members of different committees on the Democratic side. They said this is something they plan to help support. I am excited because of the bipartisan nature in the House. We have shared this with Senators, and the Senators are working with us to make this happen. Our goal is to make this happen this Congress. We are looking for people to go to our website, https:// yoho.house.gov, to get more information. We have a short video that covers this. If we do nothing, we are going to have a repeat of the last 30, 35 years, when Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to 3.5 million to 4 million people. This body has sat there and argued and blamed the other side for inaction or blamed the other side for hatred and racism or blamed the other side for wanting to give everybody amnesty. If we do nothing, this problem will grow and grow and divide this Nation more. This is the time to act, and I would hope people would come back to Congress over the break and let's get something done. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), my good friend, to say something.

Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), for the things he stands for. He is just a true patriot who loves America. The gentleman brought up a great point. The current system allows people to use the Social Security number. So you can come into the country. You get issued a Social Security, or people will eventually, as they come in, gravitate and get on an I-9 form. They will use a fraudulent or a fake ID number, Social Security number. They are a dime a dozen out there. There are people, counterfeiters, out there doing that. What happens is it gums up the system. It is like an accounting nightmare, and it creates confusion for the people who are supposed to regulate this. So it gets to a point where they can't even track the people because there are so many fraudulent numbers. Where there is confusion, there is inertia, and that is why nothing gets done. And I think you look at the current system, because it is not workable. The H-2A was designed for seasonal agriculture workers, but we do not use it that way because it is not enforced. They are supposed to come in for 10 months, and then they go home. But the current system is you can get a waiver, and that waiver can go on for 3 years. And if it is not enforced, they forget about the waiver and they just kind of fall into the society, and nobody knows where they are at. The beauty of this system is there is an identification number. We are proposing 15 digits in length, with the designation of ``AG'' in there, agriculture, plus the smart chip in there that has the biometrics. So we separate guest workers from the rest of the population. So we have a database of just guest workers that will be a lot easier to track. It will be a lot easier to know where people are. As people have to check into the system, the onus is on the worker. They can check in at their place of employment. They can check in at a post office. They can check in at a Federal courthouse. And so it is going to be easy for people to stay compliant. If they are not in compliance with checking in, they will have a grace period. They have to become compliant. If they are not compliant after a period of time, they are subject to deportation. One of the things we talked about is what happens if somebody creates a deportable felony, and that would be something like, maybe, vehicular homicide from a DUI, which we have seen too many of those in the news. They would be subject to deportation. If they are here with a family that they came in illegally, they got accepted into this program, if that were to happen, they have put their family at risk of deportation. I don't like that part, but it is also that we need to look at the other side of that. We have allowed people to come into this country to be a guest worker. I have had the experience of being a veterinarian, practicing for 30 years, in large animals. We dealt with cattle farms, dairy farms, horse farms, people who did row crops, fruits and vegetables. Just name a crop, and we have pretty much dealt with it. I have gotten to a point where I talked to a lot of people who were here as migrant workers, and I sympathize with them. Heck, I was still working on the farm. That was one of my ambitions of going to vet school. I wanted to be outstanding in my field, and I wound up being outstanding in everybody else's field. But we got to know the immigrant, and we got to a point where we could ask them: Are you here legally or illegally? They were so honest. They say: I came in illegally. And I even asked them: Did you pay a price to come in? They said: Yeah, $2,000, $5,000, $8,000. And it shocked me that people were paying. And this was probably 12 years ago, 11 years ago. And I would ask them: Do you want to become a citizen? And it would amaze me how many of these people said: No. I just want the opportunity to come here, make a living, and go home. So one of the impetuses behind this was let's create a system where people can come, fulfill the need we have, and fulfill the need they have. I have stayed in touch with some of these people. They have made enough money to go back home, create a farm of their own, and they don't have to come back. But they will refer people into the system. So if we can streamline that and make it easier for people to come in when we have border security, they can come in the legal way. There is no need to sneak in. If we can take that group that came in illegally and they move into this, the ones that know they probably don't have a bad record, they have moved into the system. So we can start cleaning up this mess. And the gentleman and I just shared the analogy of working cattle. When we have all of our calves, we sort out the ones over here: the males over here; the females over here. So it is a way to sift through the problem we have. If we do nothing, the problem is going to grow. The H-2A system right now, one of the flaws with that, as I said, it was supposed to be a 10-month program. People come in. Our producers are paying $1,200 to $2,000 to get a person into the country for the permit, to get them the transportation and all that. When they come into the country, about 25 percent of the people that come in on an H- 2A abscond. They go off the grid, and the producer can't get people to come back that they have hired to work and they have made that commitment. With this system, that person will have that ``AG'' designation. The H-2A program will have the ``AG'' designation, and with the H-2A program, the goal is to make it a 10-month seasonal program. After 10 months, you go home. You have agreed to that. If you only want to work 16 weeks, you work the 16 weeks and go home. So it gives flexibility to the worker. It gives flexibility to the producer. It creates food security for us because this is something we need. And we get rid of the adverse wage effect and we go to the prevailing wage, which usually is about 115 percent above minimum wage. But as you and I know, people who work in agriculture, and if they are picking crops or shipping stuff, they are making $250 to $300 a day. They work their tails off because they are appreciative of the opportunity they have, as you said, because they want to live their dream. And they may become a citizen down the road. There is no citizenship with this. It is a way for people to come in and work. We get rid of the touchback provision of Bob Goodlatte's bill last year, and that comes from feedback from our dairy folks and other industries: I need year-round workers. A touchback does not work, because we have had these people who have been in here illegally for 5, 10, 15 years. Let's work together as Americans to solve a problem so that we can sift through this and end people coming in illegally. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman if he has any other thoughts that he would like to add, he can feel free.

Mr. YOHO. The gentleman is exactly right. I have had producers call me. When I was in the district, they brought that up, the no-match letters. They are in a tizzy. If we go back prior to President Obama, there were no-match letters. This is what is wrong when you have bad policy. When you get rid of a program or a requirement that is working, people get complacent. They are like: Hey, I don't have to match up to Social Security, so there is no reason for me even to apply legally. Then, when you try to reinstate it, you get angry people, and it gums up the system again. That is why, if we have a good system in place, there is no reason to back away from it because this will be a policy that will live beyond you and me. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. YOHO. I think that is a great thing. That is something we do need to go into. Then, we need to have the alternative. The gentleman brought up a good point that I have experienced, too, talking to our producers. If you get an I-9, which is the form to apply for a job, if there is a Social Security number, if you question that and don't hire that person because you think it is not legal, he has the right to sue you, and he will win. If you don't question that and hire that person, the Department of Labor or ICE shows up. They are going to fine you for hiring a person that you didn't verify. It is a mess. How did we become the great country we are with such a--I was going to say messed up system, or something like that. This is not rocket science. This is a simple program, and there is a commonsense reform. One of the things I didn't bring up, and I think the gentleman had asked me about this, is that the ID number is also a tax number. Taxes will be taken out of that. That is why I don't want Social Security associated with it, because Social Security denotes benefits, that if I am paying this, I get benefits. Those are not tied here. Money that goes in will go to other resources. What we are proposing is that we are going to make a requirement that each person who comes in as a guest worker has to have a catastrophic health insurance policy. If you come in here and drive a car, you have to have insurance. This will be something that we are sitting down with the insurance companies about. We have a pool of about a million people who are going to need some form of catastrophic health insurance. The other thing we are proposing is, if they are here legally, and they have a guest permit to work here, we go to direct primary care. These are companies around the country--it was amazing. I went and visited one. If you are between the ages of 18 and, I think, 25 or 30, your monthly cost for your health insurance is $25 a month--$25 a month. If you want blood work, it is $40 a month in my town. If you want an MRI, it is $250. That is affordable healthcare. The beauty of this is the employer can bring in a group of people. He can get direct primary care for a small amount of money. We will allow him to deduct that cost. Then, there is catastrophic health insurance. We have covered health insurance. We have covered driving insurance. We have covered a way for people to come in. We have given them a number so that we know where they are. They are not gummed up in our Social Security system. We have started to separate into different silos or categories and envelopes where they should be so that there is rational thought to this. The gentleman brought up rationalizing. I shouldn't have used that word. Rationalizing is to make rationale a lie. That is used too often up here. We want to make commonsense reforms to have a program that works for the immigrants, works for our employers, and works for our Nation. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.