Granger Remarks on Disaster Relief MTR

May 10, 2019
Statements
WASHINGTON – Today, top Appropriations Committee Republican Kay Granger (R-TX) delivered the following remarks on the Motion to Recommit for H.R. 2157, the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2019.
 
Madam Speaker, my motion amends the bill by adding the additional $2.88 billion dollars the Administration has said is needed to care for the unaccompanied children that continue to flood our southern border.
 
I am offering this motion because the bill we are considering today does not address this need.
The children who come across our border without a parent become the responsibility of our Federal government. 
 
As of the end of April, nearly 13,000 unaccompanied children were in the care of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
 
We are told that if these trends continue, the Department will soon run out of funds to care for these children and face anti-deficiency act violations.
 
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hurd, offered this same amendment in a Full Committee markup of the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill just two days ago.
 
At that time, the Chair told us that the amendment would not be supported because we could not wait for a regular appropriations bill to be enacted. 
 
We were told this funding was needed now.  By including the funds in this emergency supplemental bill, we will do just that.
We are giving our colleagues on the other side of the aisle another opportunity today to provide the funding necessary to continue to care for these children.
 
Whatever our positions may be on border security, I think we can all agree that we have a responsibility to ensure that our agencies have sufficient funding to do what we have asked them to do.
 
I urge a yes vote on the motion and yield back the balance of my time.