PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3494, DAMON PAUL NELSON AND MATTHEW YOUNG POLLARD INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEARS 2018, 2019, AND 2020; RELATING TO THE CONSIDERATION OF HOUSE...
Sheila Jackson Lee (Democrat, TX) \u2014 2019-7-16

I thank the gentleman from Maryland for his scholarship and his passion, the chairman of the Rules Committee, my good friend from Georgia, and all those who have come to the floor today. prgtoken , let me say that this is a somber moment. It is not a moment that I cherish. My privilege in serving the greatest country in the world has allowed me to serve with three previous Presidents. Not one time from the three previous Presidents have I ever heard the words that were uttered this weekend. prgtoken I believe in harmony. I just came out of a Helsinki Commission meeting, an organization that deals with peace around the world. We were talking about how we can impress upon the world to not use religion for hatred. Religion is love. prgtoken One of the answers I gave was to show the examples here in the United States, where religions from all different perspectives come together in a time of disaster and need. It is something that touches our heart. prgtoken When we vote for a President, we want that President to touch our hearts, to lift us up, and to make us better people. prgtoken I cannot argue with the fact that 49 percent of the American people believe that this President is a racist. It hurts my heart because I come in a skin color where I have been at the sad end of racist tactics and words. I am a product of busing. But it does not diminish my love for this Nation. prgtoken So it disturbs me for this wonderfully diverse group of new Members who have come to the United States Congress from all over the Nation, including the LGBTQ community, and among the 40 Representatives who came was the Representative from the Seventh Congressional District of Massachusetts, the State's first African American woman; the Representative of the 13th Congressional District of Michigan, the first Palestinian woman; the Representative from the 14th Congressional District of New York, the youngest woman; and the Representative from the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota, the first Somali American elected to Congress. prgtoken In the discharge of their duties, they went to the border--their passion, their youth, just as I had done--and saw the appalling conditions that children were held in. They came back and expressed themselves, protected by the First Amendment. prgtoken They used no violence. They only wanted to wake up the Congress, as all of us who went and could not accept the pain did. In fact, wherever I go at home, people are asking: What are you doing for the children at the border? prgtoken So, they didn't do anything extraordinary, in terms of what Members should do, having the responsibility of oversight. prgtoken Then came, in the last 72 hours, these words: ``So interesting to see `progressive' Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt, and inept anywhere in the world, if they even have a functioning government