Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this misconceived and under-resourced legislation. For a while, it looked like we might do better than this. As the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, I was pleased to take part in a delegation to Guatemala and Honduras, ably led by Chairman Kay Granger. But as successive versions of the Republican bill have surfaced over the past 2 weeks, in an apparent quest for votes only among Republicans, they have reflected less and less of what we learned on that trip. The bill under consideration provides less than $1 billion for the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Justice, and State--far below the President's request, what is being considered by the Senate, or what is required to deal with the crisis on our borders and beyond. The bill only provides funding for anticipated needs for the remainder of this fiscal year, a mere 2 months. I would object to that less if the majority had any plans for actually completing our appropriations bills before the end of September, but we all know that they do not. Indeed, it appears unlikely that our Homeland Security Appropriations bill will make it to the House floor. The approach taken in this legislation shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue before us. This isn't a border security crisis. This is a humanitarian crisis.…”