Sheila Jackson Lee: “Let me thank the gentlewoman from California for her astuteness, and, certainly, the manager of this legislation, and…”

“Let me thank the gentlewoman from California for her astuteness, and, certainly, the manager of this legislation, and our friends on the other side of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I simply want to try to craft the importance of H.J. Res. 46 that we will ultimately be debating today. As an original cosponsor, I was quick to try to bring order and to recognize the importance of the Constitution. Clearly, the statute might be interpreted to be used in a reckless manner. But it is precise in that it deals with the necessity of building military construction and other matters in the course of war that are an emergency. It might even cover rising gun violence, the fact that we have more guns in the United States than we have citizens. It might be that if there was a pending war on the southern border, one might determine that that is the case. It might be that, in 2001, the first sense of terrorism came when an individual crossed the northern border to attack the United States. If that had continued with throngs of terrorists coming across the northern border, the President then might have declared a national emergency. But we do not have that, Mr. Speaker. What we have is a person's desire. We understand that the apprehensions at the southern border have actually gone down. The combined 521,000 apprehensions for border and Customs agents for fiscal year 2018 was 32,288 apprehensions fewer.…”