Speech #CREC-2017-04-27-pt1-PgH2903-2_t1

This is the Trump era.'' Mr. Speaker, those were the words of the Attorney General, the former Senator from Alabama. The Attorney General has launched a campaign to paint immigrants as criminals, rapists, gang members, and ``cartel henchmen.'' In his prepared remarks at the border a couple of weeks ago, the Attorney General planned to say the following: ``It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.'' When he gave the speech he edited out the words ``this filth'' because, I guess, calling immigrants from Latin America ``filth'' was even too extreme for this Attorney General. But it remains on the DOJ website. In fact, as far as the Attorney General is concerned, any immigrant who is here illegally is a criminal. He has ordered the government to prosecute immigration violations, even minor ones, to the full extent of the law and to make prosecution of immigrants a top priority--on par with murder, drugs, counterfeiting, and kidnapping. He has ordered every one of the 94 U.S. Attorney Offices to appoint a special prosecuting attorney so that immigrants are considered public enemy number one, nationwide--not drug dealers, immigrants. According to the latest Federal data, 46 percent of all new Federal criminal prosecution is immigration related--not narcotics. The second highest crime prosecuted accounts only for 14 percent of new Federal cases. In the new Trump era, a felony prosecution against an immigrant who has been living and working here peacefully for decades is three times important than a felony prosecution of a drug dealer. And that imbalance is not enough for the Attorney General. He wants to prosecute immigrants beyond the full extent of the law by turning misdemeanors into felonies, and turning felonies into aggravated felonies. They think it will not look so ugly when the U.S. is deporting moms and dads who have raised successful families--or deporting children who grew up in the U.S. from the time they were toddlers--if the Attorney General and his team can look and tell the American people they were just thugs, gangbangers, and rapists. Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump want more immigrants criminalized, felonized, and deported. Yes, we are truly in the Trump era. But let's be frank. This is not a surprise when Donald Trump descended the gold escalator and announced his candidacy for President. Almost the first words out of his mouth were Mexicans are rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and immigration is turning America into a war zone. When he was a Senator from Alabama, the Attorney General made a career of associating immigrants with crime and doing his best to defeat reforms that would strengthen legal immigration and reduce illegal immigration. Deportation, criminalization, and restricting legal immigration were the bedrock of this Attorney General's approach when he was a U.S. Senator. Our legal immigration system already works fine according to both Senator and Attorney General Sessions, no matter that some people who are receiving their visas today applied for them when Bill Clinton was President and that those applying for visas today will probably get them when Chelsea Clinton is President of the United States. Mr. Speaker, when your constituents say, ``Hey, why don't those immigrants come here legally?'' or, ``Why don't they just go back and come back legally?'' the answer is clear: as a Senator, our Attorney General made sure that that was impossible. Next week, millions of Americans will take to the streets to demonstrate against mass deportation, the border wall, prison beds, and drive-by deportations. But it is not because we are soft on crime or love immigrants more than the people who were born here. No. We have a different vision of what the United States is and should always be. We are not an incarceration nation, a nation hostile to other countries and their people. We are a great nation, a nation that, in her greatness, is a beacon of hope to refugees, a land of opportunity for entrepreneurs, and a democracy with separate branches of government that act as effective checks and balances on unlimited power. The American people are sensible, fair, and pragmatic, and are correct when they reject the idea that a wall makes sense in the 21st century as the centerpiece of our immigration policy. We are not persuaded by the poetry of the Attorney General when he stands at the border and says: ``It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.'' No, we think of another, better poem, the one at the Statue of Liberty, the lady with her torch in the harbor, who shares our deeply held values as Americans and says every day to the entire world at that harbor: ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.''