Secure the Southwest Border Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. BECERRA. I thank the ranking member for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I agree with those who have said that doing nothing is not an option. But making matters worse should not be an option either. Stripping children of the chance to establish their credible fear of death or endangerment is a crude and cold way of dispensing justice in America. That is not the American way.

This bill is a patch, not a solution. It lasts 2 months. So we will be right back here, trying to solve this challenge again, in September. Governing and budgeting in pieces is what leads to government shutdowns. That is not the American way.

This bill robs Peter to give to Paul. How does this bill fund the money to pay for the border work that has to get done? First, it strips emergency funding to tackle devastating wildfires that the President has requested because the States have requested it. Second, it takes $407 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief fund, money which would be used to help people who have been devastated by wildfires and other natural disasters.

Madam Speaker, if we had passed immigration reform a year ago with the bill that passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis--which on this floor, we have been denied a vote on for more than 380 days--we would not be looking at a crisis on the border the way we are today. But that is the difficulty we have.

When you don't fix the broken immigration system, this is what you encounter. And these piecemeal approaches aren't going to solve anything. We are going to be right back at it in September. That is not the American way. We provide justice to people. We make sure we dispense it the way we should, and we take care of our emergencies.

Let's get this done the right way. Let's do two things: let's give the emergency funding that the people need at the border to run this process right, and then let's finally on the floor of this House have a vote to fix a broken immigration system.

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