Speech #1140044585

Speaker. I yield myself the balance of my time. It is time for this body to fix our broken immigration system to keep Americans safe. How many other victims like Kathryn Steinle need to make the ultimate sacrificeor the countless other Americans who are victims of other kinds of crimeat the hands of immigrant felons? It will be until this body chooses to fix our broken immigration system and restore the rule of law. This particular bill would only further dissipate the rule of law. It tells local law enforcement you have to either pay fines that drain your ability to enforce our laws or you lose grants that reduce your ability to enforce our laws. Either way. if this bill were somehow to become laweven though the President has indicated he would veto itit would drain away the very local law enforcement resources. the purpose of which is to keep Americans safe. Let us move forward to replace our broken immigration system with one that works. not try to pass the buck. Mr. Speaker. the buck cant be passed. It is the Federal Governments responsibility to secure our border and to establish immigration laws. It is the Federal Governments responsibility to deport criminals. No matter how this body may try to say that it should be cities and counties and sheriffs and police chiefswho are trying to do the dirty workwho are the result of our failure to take action. they need to make the decisions that are in the best interests of keeping their communities safe. With 10 or 12 or 14 million people in our country illegallysome of them immigrant felonswe are passing along the buck to local law enforcement with an impossible task. Rather than make that task more impossible by forcing them to pay civil fines or to lose important law enforcement resources. lets help them have the resources and policies they need to deport felon immigrants before they can commit crimes like the tragedy that occurred in San Francisco. I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule. to oppose this bill. and to reject this bizarre approach that we are seeking here today. which would have done nothing to have prevented this tragedy or any other like it. and would lead to countless more tragedies by taking resources out of the hands of those who are on the front lineson our streets. in our neighborhoodskeeping Americans safe. I yield back the balance of my time.