Last
week, Renee and I joined so many of our fellow
North Carolinians in mourning the passing of my
friend, Congressman Walter Jones. We
continue to pray for his wife, Joe Anne, their
daughter Ashley, and their entire family. I
was honored to attend his funeral with my
colleagues in the North Carolina delegation.
During the service, we paid tribute to his
decades of service – in the North Carolina
National Guard, our General Assembly, and
finally, in Congress. He
was a man of character and strong faith who made
caring for our men and women in uniform a top
priority — he will indeed be missed.
After
attending the funeral, I made the trip to
Washington to vote on a spending bill. You
might have heard about it by now, but I wanted
to share with you my thoughts and why I voted
against it. I
believe the spending bill passed by Congress
fails to make border security a priority while
significantly increasing government spending
that’s not critical to our national security.
The bill
provides just over $1 billion for new border
fences – less than a quarter of President Donald
Trump’s request. At
the same time, it could hinder ICE’s ability to
hold criminal illegal immigrants by seeking to
cut the average daily population in ICE
detention by nearly 10,000. This is at a time
when we have unprecedented waves of people
trying to illegally cross our borders. The
Deputy Director of ICE had this to say about
reducing the amount of detention space, “…we
will be forced to release criminal aliens in our
custody…we will be limited in our ability to
respond to state and local law enforcement
agencies making arrests for these crimes…putting
an artificial cap on the ability to detain
individuals who pose threats will lead to
disastrous results.”
Unfortunately, it seems like Nancy Pelosi and
Chuck Schumer have no interest in securing our
border and protecting our citizens. This
bill wasn’t a compromise – it was barely a drop
in the bucket. It’s
a shame Pelosi and Schumer are unwilling to do
what’s necessary to fix the national security
and humanitarian crisis at our border, because
it seems pretty straightforward that we’d want
to stop human trafficking, the flow of drugs and
illegal immigration across our southern border.
As your
voice in Congress, I have repeatedly expressed
my full support for President Trump’s goal to
secure our border, and I strongly agree with the
president that this should be done through
Congress. Congress failed to act, and the
president is now being forced to pursue
executive authorities to address the crisis at
our border. I
have asked this administration not to tap into
already appropriated military construction funds
that our troops and their families need at
places like Fort Bragg, where we still have
millions of dollars in repairs needed from
Hurricanes Matthew and Florence.
Across
the country, our military installations are
facing aging infrastructure challenges which
undermine the readiness and lethality of our
Armed Forces. This
past year, we provided $10.3 billion to address
our vast military construction needs, ranging
from supporting families with quality schools
and housing to providing next-generation
training capabilities. The
investments we have already made are critical to
the long-term stability of the military.
Again,
it’s a shame President Trump is forced to have
to use such extraordinary measure to secure our
border when Congress could have — and should
have — acted. Border security and fixing our
broken immigration system shouldn’t be partisan
issues; that just seems like common sense to me.
Until next week,
Lane
Ross Designs
