Correspondence - Item 27 - Laserfiche WebLink

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House Rules Committee Testimony 5/21/25 Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, the hour is late. You should get the Marco Polo Award, not for distance but rather for stamina. 19 hours. I do have 5 amendments. I'm going to be brief, but these amendments are very important. These deal with a very important American issue which is immigration. My first amendment, number 59, will deal with our men and women in uniform. Less than 1% of Americans serve in our armed forces. Imagine a situation where a soldier stationed overseas, all of a sudden he gets a phone call that his spouse has been arrested by ICE and deported because he or she is undocumented. That is not the way we want to treat our soldiers or men and women in uniform. They make enough sacrifices, but to have their spouses deported is unconscionable and un-American. My amendment would simply say that the Secretary of Homeland Security may not use any funds under this subtitle to remove an alien who is a spouse of a member of the armed forces on active duty.This is an important issue. I hope this committee will look upon it as an important issue for men and women in uniform. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, my second amendment, number 61, deals with immigration as well. Question is, why would ICE agents go to schools, elementary schools to enforce ICE laws to deport individuals.Why would you want to terrorize children? My amendment simply says none of the funds made available by this title may be used to conduct an immigration enforcement action at an elementary school. Why in God's name would ICE show up to an elementary school?To threaten to deport children. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, my third amendment, number 64, deals with those men and women who defend our country, Homeland Security officers at our borders, at our ports of entry.And what we ask is you respect their collective bargaining rights. My amendment says that none of the funds made available by this title may be used to undermine or cancel any collective bargaining agreements covering an employee of the Department of Homeland Security.Again here, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, we have individuals that sometimes work 16-hour shifts because it's so short in terms of personnel. They deserve to be represented by a collective bargaining contract. Chairman and Ranking Member, my next amendment, number 230. We often say in this country, all gave some and many made the ultimate sacrifice when we're honoring our veterans.Again, less than 1% of Americans actually serve our nation. A lot of our veterans go off and fight, come backwith invisible wounds that later on turn into PTSD and they get into trouble with the law. A lot of these veterans, Green card holders, when they join the military, are promised that they will be American citizens when they are honorably