On the recordJanuary 17, 2019
I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time to speak on this important issue. Madam Speaker, I oppose this rule. I think we are talking past each other, as the previous gentleman from Maine just indicated. We want the government to reopen, but we want something called border security. I am told that this bill has $1 billion in it for border security, but we are not going to build a wall. Now, here is the thing that happens. Down in Arizona, where we live-- we don't live 2,000 miles away from that southern border where the immigration problem is that the illegal border crossings are monumental--we actually see the humanitarian crisis. That crisis exists when people, who are coming to America, they don't go through the ports of entry, they are going between the ports of entry, in some of the most rugged land and terrain in the world, coming down from the Sierra Madres in northern Mexico in the summertime, blazing heat of 120 degrees or more; in the winter time, the evenings cool down to the 20s. I saw people, just yesterday, being shown on the news, who are getting ready to try to make this trek. They are carrying plastic grocery bags with their supplies. They are dressed casually. They have no comprehension of the danger that they are bringing to themselves when they are coming across. It is a humanitarian crisis. Do you know what a border wall would do? It would provide a deterrent.…
