CONGRESSWOMANJACKSON LEE OPPOSES KING AMENDMENT TARGETING DREAMERS BECAUSE IT FORCES ICE AGENTS & PROSECUTORS TO PRETEND THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VETERANS WHO CAME TO THIS COUNTRY AS UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS & ALIENS ENGAGED IN OR SUSPECTED OF ESPION
WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee released the following statement today after voting against an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2014 (H.R. 2217), which would prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from using federal funds to implement enforcement guidance governing the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to ensure that scarce resources are targeted toward aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety:
“The reason I went to the floor to denounce the amendment offered at the eleventh hour yesterday by Congressman King is because it is one of the most hypocritical, irresponsible, and mean-spirited legislative proposals brought to the House floor this year. It is hypocritical because supporters of the King Amendment have been claiming for months that their refusal to compromise on budget issues and their support for sequestration is motivated by their belief in the importance of setting spending priorities. Yet, the King Amendment would deny ICE the ability to use its limited resources in the most efficient manner to achieve its highest priorities which is apprehend, detain, and remove aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety.
“The King Amendment is irresponsible because it seeks to prevent trained, experienced, and professional agents and prosecutors from exercising their discretion and acting on the basis of what everyone knows to be true: that there is a vast difference between a terrorist bent on harming America and DREAM Act kid studying hard in school so he or she can graduate and join the Armed Services and willingly risk his or her life to defend the country. This inefficient use of resources wastes taxpayer dollars and does nothing to keep America safe.
“Third, the King Amendment is mean-spirited because it would have ICE target its limited resources on innocent, law abiding, young people who were brought to this country as children and would have them deported to a foreign land even though America is the country they know as home and the only to which they have ever pledged allegiance.
“As member of Congress, I have traveled many times to Iraq and Afghanistan and always the highlight of my visit was meeting the young men and women who are willingly risking their lives to defend the country they love more than life. Right now, at this very moment, there are more than 5,000 soldiers fighting for us in Afghanistan and elsewhere who are not yet American citizens but who dream that one day they will become citizens of the nation they gladly risk their lives to defend. The King Amendment, however, would have ICE agents and prosecutors pretend to see no difference between one of these veterans who came to this country as an undocumented immigrant and an alien engaged in or suspected of espionage or terrorism.
“The King Amendment wastes the money of hard-working taxpayers. It does nothing to make America safer. And, just as bad, it is inconsistent with American values of justice and fair play. That is why I am proud to have spoken in opposition to it when it was debated on the House floor last night and to have voted against it today.
“We must address our broken immigration system through comprehensive reform, and I am encouraged that bipartisan legislation has advanced in the Senate and that a bipartisan group of Members continues to meet to discuss the prospects for introducing legislation in the House. I strongly urge the Senate to remove this provision when it considers this appropriations bill.”
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Congresswoman Jackson Lee is a Democrat from Texas’s 18th Congressional District. She is the Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security and a senior member of the House Committee on the Judiciary.