Speech #1140082665

A resolution offering the full House to file an amicus has never been done before. Last week. I proudly joined 222 congressional colleagues in sending a amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of immigrant communities and deferred action. House Republicans are welcome to do the very same. However. to send a brief in the name of the full House and the American people is unprecedented and unwarranted. DAPA. Deferred Action for Parental Accountability. and expanded DACA. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. created by the Presidents 2014 Executive Order. would give over 5 million immigrants living in our country todayincluding an estimated 182.000 immigrants living in Harris County. Texasthe opportunity to no longer live in fear and a shot at the American Dream. The Presidents Executive Order that created DAPA and expands DACA is entirely within the Department of Homeland Securitys legal authority to grant or deny applications for deferred action. Congress has explicitly passed laws delegating broad immigration enforcement authority to the Executive Branch. There is a strong historical precedent for DAPA: During the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. deferred action was granted to hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the 1980s and early 1990s. All of this would be completely unnecessary. Mr. Speaker. if the House Majority had stood with the American people in the last Congress and passed comprehensive immigration reform. Instead. we will be voting on an unprecedented resolution that has little. if anything. to do with fixing our nations broken immigration system and everything to do with the political season. I sincerely hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. many of whom I have worked with for years and consider good friends. will not allow the Peoples House. or their party. to adopt the antiimmigrant views of Donald Trump. Mr. Trumps demagoguery and fearmongering against immigrants who came to this country for a better lifejust like our forefathers and foremothers before usmust not be allowed to become the sanctioned policy of Congress. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand with me and vote against this needless and unprecedented resolution.