Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman so much for his tremendous leadership on helping to bring this bill to the floor. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, the Access to Counsel Act. It is the Access to Counsel Act. I don't know if my friends on the other side have heard that. I am not sure how access to counsel helps empower cartels. I am not sure if my colleagues on the other side have read the bill. This does not fund counsel, and it actually doesn't give a right to counsel. We could debate that in another bill. This gives access to counsel. It brings us one step closer to upholding our country's principles of due process and fairness by ensuring that individuals with lawful status have the right to call a lawyer and receive assistance if they are detained at ports of entry or in airports. So why did this bill come about? The Access to Counsel Act was the very first bill I introduced as a Member of Congress in 2017 in response to President Donald Trump's Muslim ban. On the day that Donald Trump announced that ban, I rushed to my local airport in Seattle. What I encountered and what we saw at airports across the Nation was a sham of our democracy. People from seven Muslim-majority countries--all with legal access to be in the United States--suddenly found themselves held for upwards of 30 hours, deported, and in some cases pressured to sign papers giving up their legal status without even the ability to call an attorney or a family member.…”