Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Deutch-Foster amendment, and I commend my colleagues for addressing one of the major problems in this bill. Once again, this bill sets an arbitrary minimum of 34,000 ICE detention beds, whether or not ICE needs them, whether or not the population it is managing on a given day warrants detention. This detention bed mandate denies ICE the flexibility it needs to manage its enforcement and removal resources in response to changing circumstances. It prevents ICE from making full use of cheaper alternative forms of supervision when it's appropriate. The specific number of beds is not the main issue here. The problem is attempting to micromanage detention operations from the floor of this House and doing it, by the way, in a way that wastes money and reduces flexibility. I've never understood why we would want to do that, and yet this keeps appearing in the bill produced by our majority colleagues. Once again, we need to remove this provision, and I commend Mr. Deutch and Mr. Foster for focusing attention on this so effectively. I urge adoption of their amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.”