Speech #1140025593

Speaker. later today. the House will consider amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. That is the bill that tells the military what to do with all the money we give them. In the committee of jurisdiction over the military. the Democrats and Republicans whose job it is to examine these issues voted to include two studies of how immigrants are or are not included in military recruitment. Republicans are in the majority. so on the Republicanled Republican majority committee these two amendments won their votes and were added to the bill. The Gallego and Veasey amendments were included. But no matter how many times Republican leaders have appeased the hardliners on the fringes of their right flankto disastrous consequences. I might addthey have chosen to capitulate one more time and ruled last night that amendments can be stripped from the bill today. these two reasonable amendments. It is another glaring example of why the Republicans. from their Presidential nominee all the way down to their local government candidates. are in very. very deep trouble when it comes to the immigration issue. One amendment simply asked the Secretary of Defense to study the impact of letting immigrants who grew up for years in the United States. who have passed a criminal background check. and who have a legal work permit to be in the United States. it asked the Secretary to study whether including them in military recruitment would help diversify our military. A study. The second did not call for any action or any study at all. It simply said it is a sense of Congress that the Secretary review whether recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals be allowed to serve in the military. It is kind of telling the top brass: This is what we think you might want to do. That is the program where 700.000 young immigrants came forward. got right with the law. and got a work permit after they passed a criminal background check. But do you know what the Secretary of Defense "reviewing" something is. when it comes to the hardliners? Do you know what "studying" something related to immigrants who have deferred action is to the nativists? Do you know what the contingent of hardcore antiimmigration guys in the Republican Conference started shouting? You guessed it? The A word.