On the recordMay 11, 2023
I will support legislation that fairly and appropriately addresses the serious shortcomings in our country's immigration laws, but, unfortunately, H.R. 2 is not that bill. H.R. 2 is a false promise to the extreme Republican base. The Senate has already made it clear that this bill is dead on arrival. But even if the bill somehow passed, it does not provide funding to build a wall, nor hire more Border Patrol officers, nor retain those we already have. A cornerstone of H.R. 2, and its first major provision, is a return to Donald Trump's quest to build a wall along our southern border. But the Republican bill doesn't even provide the money to pay for it. The bill calls for a wall that is at least 900 miles long, but it would not stop the flow of fentanyl. The Sinaloa cartel in Mexico routinely drives by the wall that is already there, flies over the wall, and tunnels underneath it, as we learned during the DOJ takedown of the Sinaloa cartel a few weeks ago. The wall would also be a financial disaster. H.R. 2 presumes that the wall would be funded with unspent money that has been allocated for the wall. But former President Trump siphoned away much of the unspent funds for the wall from other departments and the programs for those funds were eventually returned to them. According to the CBO's analysis, another 160 miles of the wall would have to be built to reach the 900-mile mandate that is in the bill.…





