Political Quotes

“Mr. President, at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, an omnibus appropriations bill was filed to keep government operating for the remainder of this fiscal year. This bill, which will be voted on by the House on Friday, includes a straight and clean extension of a program called the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. This program has been plagued with fraud and abuse, but more importantly it poses significant national security risks. Allegations suggesting the EB-5 program may be facilitating terrorist travel, economic espionage, money laundering, and investment fraud are warnings against this bill too serious to ignore. Yet they are being ignored. The omnibus bill fails to include much needed reforms. The spending bill being considered by the House and Senate is a major disappointment. I am frustrated that despite the alarm bells and whistleblowers, warning us in Congress about the EB-5 program, Republican and Democratic leadership in the House and Senate decided to simply extend the program without any changes. This was a missed opportunity to protect America. What makes this especially frustrating is that the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees--both Republican and Democratic--agreed on a bill. We had consensus. I appreciate the support of Senator Leahy, the ranking member of the committee. I also commend Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, Congressmen Issa and Lofgren. In a bipartisan way, we worked this bill out.…”