During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jesús García (D-IL) spoke in opposition to Republicans' reconciliation process and its underlying legislation.
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00:00I move to strike the last word. Today is a shameful day in the House Judiciary Committee
00:07as Republicans move forward with their plan to trample on the Constitution and the working
00:13families so that they can give tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations. Let's take
00:19a step back and ask where our country is 100 days into the Trump administration. The economy is in
00:26the toilet with people losing thousands of dollars in retirement savings and no progress being made
00:32on the affordability crisis affecting ordinary Americans. The executive branch is being gutted.
00:40Nothing has been done about actual waste fraud and abuse like the nearly trillion dollar budget given
00:47to the Pentagon which has never passed a financial audit. Instead Republicans have turned over the
00:54keys to Elon Musk who's trying to dismantle agencies that fight for workers and consumers
01:00over billionaires like him. Republicans have fought against diversity, equity, and inclusion
01:06talking about merit. Meanwhile Trump has anointed some of the most embarrassingly incompetent and
01:14unqualified cabinet members in our nation's history like Pete Hedsef and Kristi Noem and to distract the
01:21country from the incompetence and the giveaways to billionaires and corporations. This administration
01:27is terrorizing immigrant communities. They are rounding up entire families, targeting unaccompanied
01:33children and people with no criminal history, denying them due process and defying judges and shipping
01:41them to Guantanamo Bay and spending millions in taxpayer dollars to jail them in a mega prison in El Salvador.
01:48They're even deporting U.S. citizen children with cancer. That is pure evil. But it doesn't stop
01:56there. Republicans know their agenda is unpopular. So they're running authoritarian crackdowns to stifle
02:04legitimate protest and dissent. They're throwing people in jail and deporting them on the basis of
02:11protected speech, attacking colleges and universities, and even going after law firms. All of this is
02:18cruel, it's incompetent, but it's also unconstitutional. And that's why Trump is losing in court. Over 100
02:26court orders have been issued blocking his actions, many by judges appointed by Presidents Reagan, Bush,
02:33and even Trump himself. And the people of this country are realizing that none of this is in their
02:39interest. That's why Trump has the lowest 100-day approval rating of any president in the past 100 years,
02:47and why he is underwater in every single issue. But Republicans don't serve working families. They
02:55serve billionaires and wealthy corporations. So here we are, faced with this cruel bill. Instead of doing
03:02anything to tackle the affordability crisis, Republicans are using reconciliation as the vehicle
03:09to advance their cynical agenda of giving trillions of dollars in tax breaks to people like Donald Trump
03:15and Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, while cutting vital resources for our communities. Things like Medicaid,
03:23food assistance, and school lunches, Pell Grants for students, health care, and infrastructure.
03:30They're also going to gut asylum and spend tens of billions in a giveaway to ICE, a rogue agency that's
03:37terrorizing communities and trampling on civil liberties and the Constitution itself, because they've been
03:43directed to do so by this president. Just look at what's in this bill. They want people fleeing
03:48violence and persecution to pay a thousand bucks so they can apply. They want people to pay $550
03:55every six months to work. They want people to pay $900 to appeal rulings against them. They are
04:02commodifying the immigration system. And these giveaways to ICE, $45 billion for detention facilities,
04:10which in 13 years worth of their current detention budget. Over $1.3 billion for the office of
04:17principal legal advisor. $40 million to screen children for tattoos and other supposed gang
04:24affiliations. None of this makes sense for working families. I know this firsthand. My district is home
04:32to predominantly Latino immigrant and working class families, and my constituents are not asking for more
04:38tax breaks for Elon Marks. They're not asking for CFPB, the National Labor Relations Board, or the FTC to be gutted.
04:48They're not asking for Medicaid or food assistance to be cut. So I'm proud to stand with my district in
04:56opposing this assault on our communities. I yield back.
05:00Gentlemen.