Teresa Leger Fernandez: “This entire Congress, Republicans have tended to use titles for their bills that are extremely misleading. For example…”

“This entire Congress, Republicans have tended to use titles for their bills that are extremely misleading. For example, today's rule includes the so-called Protecting our Communities from Failure to Secure the Border Act. Interestingly, though, this bill does not actually secure the border. In fact, it does not include any resources for States to deal with migrants who are awaiting processing. How is that protecting our communities? Let's invest where we need to address this issue. Instead of addressing real problems at the border, Republicans are bringing up this unnecessary legislation to attack vulnerable migrants under the guise of protecting public lands. Remember, this is a public lands bill. It came out of the Natural Resources Committee. If they really cared about protecting public lands, they wouldn't have passed an Interior appropriations bill out of their committee that cuts nearly a billion dollars from the Federal land management agencies that are tasked with protecting these public lands. The concern really isn't about protecting public lands, and it is not really about addressing the real immigration concerns. If they were really, truly interested in that, they would work with us to address the root causes of migration. The most effective way to control the number of asylum-seekers arriving at our ports of entry is to help them stay in their home countries.…”