On the recordNovember 29, 2023
Madam Chair, apparently, the plan that has Mr. Miller salivating includes mass roundups, mass incarceration, permanently ending DACA, and the construction of camps to hold migrants waiting to be processed and presumably later expelled from the country. This is the leader from the Republican Party--his platform on immigration. I wonder if MAGA Don thinks that he will build these camps on public lands. I hope not, but who knows, perhaps he even thinks Mexico will pay for it. Seeking asylum is a human right. We should be discussing how we can best support migrants in this time of crisis by providing additional resources to guarantee safety and well-being during the immigration process. We should be supporting cities like New York that are responding proactively to this crisis. Instead, we are taking up a bill that micromanages and limits local decisionmaking authority. If the Republicans wanted to protect our parks, they would have passed an appropriations bill that would not cut nearly half a billion dollars from the National Park budget. Such a cut would result in the loss of 1,000 park staff and will reduce the agency's maintenance and preservation funding. These extreme cuts are going nowhere in the Senate, and President Biden has promised to veto, so why waste that time. To protect our parks, we should empower our Federal land management agencies by providing them with the necessary resources to fulfill their mission and the mission to the American people.…





