Speech #1140044581

Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. The best way to address the problems in our immigration system. the best way to address the lack of security for American citizens. the best way to ensure that there are not others like Kathryn Steinle and others that have fallen victim to immigrant felons is to fix our broken immigration system. secure our borders. Only Congress can do that. Now. the President has taken the first steps to help keep Americans safe by suggesting certain policies like DACA and DAPA programs. Now. DACA is being implemented. DAPA is. unfortunately. tied up in the courts. What these efforts allow our law enforcement agencies to do is to focus their efforts on criminals like Mr. LopezSanchez rather than violators of our civil law. It would be better if this body could put those concepts into statute or. better yet. make sure that we can differentiate between noncriminals and criminals within the law. An immigration reform bill would reduce the risk of tragedies like this and help keep Americans safe by helping law enforcement identify people who are here illegally. and it would bring people out of the shadows. Identifying the portion of our people that are here illegally that qualify for relief and for prosecutorial discretion would help our law enforcement agencies narrow their focus and targets to individuals like Mr. LopezSanchez. Immigration reform efforts like H.R. 15. which was the comprehensive bill from last Congress. would modernize our immigration agencies. increase enforcement and resources tools. technology. and border security to prevent tragedies like this from occurring. Doing the difficult work of having a meaningful debate around immigration reform is the only way we can ever be able to keep Americans safer and reduce the likelihood of this kind of incident. A vote for this particular bill wont do anything to address these systemic problems. Had this been the law. it would not have prevented this tragedy. nor does it do anything to address the problems plaguing our immigration system. Instead. it threatens and bullies local law enforcement and says to them. either expose yourself to civil liabilitywhich is very real. My agencies in Colorado have been forced to paythey have been forced to pay$30.000 or $40.000.