Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, my friend, Mr. Gianforte, for giving me the opportunity to speak about this bill. I am from Arizona, so border security has been for years and still is the number one issue that people in Arizona care about. They welcome legal immigrants, but they also want to make sure that Arizona and our Nation are secure and that illegal drug trafficking is mitigated. We used to see mostly single male adults crossing our border, and they would evade the Border Patrol officers; but, recently, however, thousands and thousands of illegal migrants are coming from Central America, and they are being coached by the cartels, who charge them $5,000 to $8,000 a person. They are saying: Let's go up there and turn yourselves in to the Border Patrol officers, because there is a loophole, and just claim asylum. And they know that, once they are in, they are in the United States and they can stay. {time} 1500 Instead of running away from Border Patrol, they turn themselves in, claiming asylum, so our immigration courts are overloaded and legitimate asylum claims languish amidst frivolous claims. This backlog is severe. It is a nonpartisan challenge facing our immigration courts. A recent report stated that backlog cases in immigration courts exceeded 1 million claims. This backlog has rapidly increased over the last decade, and as the backlog increases, so do wait times. Sometimes, it takes years for these cases to proceed through the courts.…”