she testified in court for her father, but less than 3 days later,
Ofelia lost her battle to cancer.
  Mr. Speaker, I get emotional because there is a hypocritical party
who talks about children and families and standing up for them, but for
some reason, Ofelia, Kevin, and Steven are not the kind of children
they are willing to stand up for. They are United States citizen
children, by the way.
  Because I refuse to accept that we must endure these atrocities, we
must reject the cruelty that is robbing our children and families of
their future. Instead, we should be doing everything we can to ensure
that children like Ofelia, like Steven, and like Kevin have everything
they need to thrive.
  Instead, we have children, until their dying moment, fighting for the
livelihood of their parents. It is why I have said in the Committee on
Homeland Security--and I am going to say it on this House floor--that
we must abolish ICE. We must end immigrant detention, and we have to
dismantle the Department of Homeland Security that under the premise of
protecting us from domestic terrorism has abused our civil rights every
single day and has killed U.S. citizens and more than 50 people this
past year.
  It is why I encourage my colleagues to join me as a cosponsor of H.R.
7190, the Melt ICE Act, as a meaningful step forward. The reality is
that I can't have colleagues here saying that all people are created
equal, but somehow immigrants don't fit that definition.
  I cannot stand here and hear a party talk about being pro-family but
deny the livelihood for so many families.
  Mr. Speaker, we have been talking about this fourth anniversary of
the Dobbs decision, but I want to talk to you about what is happening
to pregnant women in detention right now. For the party that says that
they want to protect unborn life at all costs, why is it that immigrant
women in detention don't fit that definition?
  We must confront a painful but necessary truth: DHS' violence and
immigration enforcement have denied immigrants the right to personhood.
Immigration detention denies people access to reproductive healthcare
and represents forms of government control over immigrant bodies.
  Do you know how I know this? I know this because of a report that at
least a dozen pregnant girls, some who are as young as 13 years of age,
and at least half of whom got pregnant because they were raped, are
being held right now in a facility in San Benito, Texas, funded by
American taxpayer dollars; and a report that at least 400 pregnant
women were deported between January 2025 and February 2026.
  It is critical that we acknowledge that immigrant and reproductive
justice is interconnected. Both immigrant and reproductive justice is
rooted in a shared struggle against the structural systems of racism,
xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, trans phobia, and economic oppression
that police bodies and restrict bodily autonomy.

  We must affirm the dignity and humanity of all people, including our
immigrant neighbors, and condemn any policies that treat people as
unworthy or inadequate of healthcare and fundamental rights or bodily
autonomy.
  Mr. Speaker, as I think about where we are in this precise moment, I
want to invite my colleagues to remember what we said are the founding
ideals of this country, because we cannot talk about standing up for
injustice and continue to fund the injustice we are seeing around the
country when it comes to our immigrant communities.
  It is why I thank my colleagues who joined today's Special Order
honoring Immigrant Heritage Month, and I want to close with this
message: The question isn't whether change is possible. It is whether
we have the courage to demand it. I cannot understand how some people
here can think it is acceptable to terrorize children and then say that
they are the ones fighting for children in the same sentence.
  Shame on every person in this country who wants to lock up children
in cages, who wants to lock up children and separate them from their
loved ones and their communities. Shame on those who are willing to
deny children air, sun, play, laughter, joy, and every single thing a
little one needs to be able to thrive.
  Mr. Speaker, President Mandela said: ``There can be no keener
revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its
children.''
  This House has to reckon with the reality that when it comes to
immigrant children, you should be ashamed of yourself in the way that
you are operating. Incarcerating children is an evil, morally bankrupt
practice that calls into question any commitment our Nation claims to
have about their preciousness.

                              {time}  1900

  We must unleash our collective outrage. We must demand that no other
children experience what Steven, what Liam, and the more than 3,800
children detained by ICE have endured.
  So let's demand an end to mandatory detention, to private detention
facilities that are profiting off of the pain of our children, to
family detention, to warehouse detention, and to the profiting off our
pain by corporate billionaires and campaign donors to the President.
  And may we remember that every child is our child, and a fight for
affordable housing, universal healthcare, climate resilience, humane
immigration reform, thriving wages, labor rights is our fight, as well.
  I reject a world where, during Immigrant Heritage Month, Palestinians
in need of medical care cannot get visas to access care in the United
States; where children grieve detained fathers on Father's Day; where
deported sons are tortured in prisons in El Salvador; where children
are held in U.S. for-profit detention centers; or where a mother in
Durango, Mexico, cries in the lap of her dying 18-year-old son after
being separated by a cruel and inhumane immigration system.
  I refuse to accept that we must endure these atrocities. The
suffering is too great. The pain is too great to bear.
  So instead, Mr. Speaker, let us move forward with a loving wisdom
that we are, in fact, precious and beloved; that we are bound together;
that we belong to one another; and that every single child, regardless
of legal status, is our child.
  And may we honor our history by recognizing the human rights and
constitutional protections afforded to all in this Nation and all those
who seek refuge and protection.
  I am ready to build that world together today, and to do so let's
melt ICE, let's dismantle DHS because, frankly, Mr. Speaker, anything
less is unacceptable.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                           REPUBLICAN UPDATE

  (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Roy of
Texas was recognized for 30 minutes.)
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time here on the House floor.
As always, I wish it was a little more filled with my colleagues
involved in robust debate on the issues of our day and the issues that
present our work here in the House to solve problems for the American
people.
  I want to say something quick that I think is really important as we
are having a lot of debates this week, and a lot of people are raising
questions about bills that we are bringing up and what we are moving
and what we are not moving, the President making a decision today. I
want to address where we are as a country because I think it is really
important for us to establish what we have accomplished under this
President over the last 18 months and under the leadership of this
House and this Senate.
  I am going to get into some disagreements in a minute, and I am going
to get into some things that I think we ought to do. But let's be very
clear about the State of this country and how much we have improved the
State of our Nation over the last 18 months.
  Mr. Speaker, 18 months ago, our borders were wide open. Eighteen
months ago, the people of Texas that I represent were in danger.
Eighteen months ago, we had criminals pouring into our communities in
Texas and fentanyl pouring in and destroying homes and families.
  The President came in and didn't need changes to the law to do the
work of actually securing the border and did so. He did so with the
great men and women of ICE and Border Patrol and the leadership of Tom
Homan, the now two Secretaries of Homeland Security,