Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. Any Secretary of Homeland Security plays a very critical role in national security. Secretary Mayorkas has served our country as U.S. Attorney, director of USCIS, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security and now Secretary. I know that we hear a lot from the other side of the aisle where they say that the Secretary has not achieved operational control of the border. Operational control of the border was first defined in the Secure Fence Act of 2006, and neither the Border Patrol chief nor the Secretary has yet declared operational control since then. If you look at it, two Republican Presidents, Bush and Trump, neither of them obtained operational control. Two Democrats, Obama and Biden, also have not obtained operational control. I know how important the Constitution is to my colleagues, and I would ask you to say that by targeting salaries it is simply unconstitutional, as pointed out in the United States v. Lovett, a Supreme Court case from 1946. If we are going to uphold the Constitution, the Court has said that targeting salaries is not the right way. We all want to secure the border, but targeting somebody's salary does not get us to the end that we want to get to. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.”