Pete Aguilar: “I would like to thank the chairwoman for her leadership throughout this process. It has been 3 weeks, colleagues, since…”

“I would like to thank the chairwoman for her leadership throughout this process. It has been 3 weeks, colleagues, since the end of the longest shutdown in American history--35 days--where we saw friends and neighbors who hurt, where this body didn't do enough to push back against a shutdown that hurt our communities and hurt individuals throughout this country. This is a compromise bill, and we are here today to reflect that good will and that good faith effort of Democrats and Republicans negotiating together to find compromise. But let's talk a little bit about what this bill would do. This bill protects our national security. This bill works to improve the only true crisis that we have at our southern border, which is the humanitarian crisis. This bill invests in technology and in ports of entry. This bill ensures that we have the resources to protect this country. This bill also unlocks the other appropriations bills that will fund the Environmental Protection Agency, make investments in the Census, and make investments in transportation. What this bill will not do is this bill will not fund the President's wall from sea to shining sea, a wall that he said Mexico would pay for. So we tried another path. We tried a bipartisan path of working together to iron out our differences and to come to an agreement, to keep government open, to protect our national security. That was the focus of the conferees, and that is what we sought to accomplish.…”