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WHAT INJUSTICE LOOKS LIKE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, Mr. Speaker, and I rise tonight to preview a resolution that I hope to present to the entirety of the Congress for a vote. It is H. Res. 670.
I rise tonight to present this resolution because of what I have seen, by way of television, at the southern border. What I have seen is more than deplorable, more than horrific. For me, it is inhumane. And here is the resolution that I hope to have my colleagues give consideration to.
Resolution condemning the inhumane treatment of Haitian migrants at the southern border of the United States.
Whereas, some U.S. Customs--might I pause to indicate that we should accentuate the word some, not all, not all U.S. customs agents are engaged in this abhorrent behavior, this inhumane behavior. Not all. I would never say all. I would never intend all.
I am in Congress today, I believe, because of an uncle who was a deputy sheriff, and he was a person that I had great respect for, great admiration for, and he proclaimed when I was a very young child that I would be a lawyer. I didn't know what a lawyer was but, because of the respect that I had for him and the belief that he was right, I wanted to be a lawyer. And from that moment forward, from being a young child, less than 10 years of age, I wanted to be a lawyer. Hence, I went to law school and, by fortuitous circumstance, I happened to have been associated with a professor at the law school who was running for public office, which caused me to find my way into politics.
So I owe a lot to just a sentence, a statement from someone who was engaged in law enforcement that I had great respect for.
So, whereas, some U.S. Customs Border Patrol agents, not all, have treated Haitian migrants inhumanely, charging them on horseback, while using reins as lashes; now, therefore, be it resolved that the House of Representatives condemns and denounces the actions of those Customs and Border Patrol agents.
Note that I said of ``those'' Customs and Border Patrol agents, only the ones who engaged in this despicable behavior.
Resolved that the House of Representatives condemns and denounces the actions of those Customs and Border Patrol agents who confronted some, not all of the Haitians, but some Haitian migrants on horseback, using their reins as lashes.
I believe that the same House that has condemned its Members for conduct thought to be unbecoming; the same House that has condemned the behavior of people who are not associated with this House; it has been done. I believe that this same House should condemn the conduct of these agents, the conduct, what they did. Their conduct should be condemned.
Now, why do I take such a strong position?
I take such a strong position, because I know what injustice looks like. I have had persons in my lifetime to do some very ugly things and require some ugly things of me.
I was required to sit in the back of the bus. I know what injustice looks like.
I know what it tastes like. I had to drink from filthy, colored water fountains. White water fountain; colored water fountain. White water fountain; pristine, clean. Colored water fountain; filthy. But that is what I was relegated to.
I know what it smells like. I had to go into necessary facilities. That is what we call it in the law, but a necessary facility is nothing more than a toilet. And I was forced to go into these filthy toilets. And this is where I would have to wash my hands in a filthy facility with water that sometimes was colored in its own being. It was brown.
So I know what it looks like; I know what it tastes like; I know what it smells like. But I also know what it hurts like.
I know what it is like to be required to leave a seat so that someone else could take a seat. I know what that feels like. I know what it feels like to have to step off the sidewalk to let other persons pass. This was the segregated south that I grew up in.
I am a son of the segregated south. The rights and privileges that the Constitution recognized for me, my neighbors in the segregated south denied me. So I know what injustice is like.
I also know what invidious discrimination is like, but tonight let's just talk about injustice. And because I know what it looks like, I also know how it behaves.
Injustice is not static, it is dynamic. It is like this pandemic. It is like the virus. It can metamorphose.
Do not assume that the injustice inflicted upon some today will not be inflicted upon others tomorrow. Do not assume that injustice will only find its way to those who look like me. Injustice has a way of metamorphosing into a hate that can consume all of us.
With this understanding, I want to just share some of what I see as I reflect on what happened at the border.
This is something that I believe to be relevant, in that this is a depiction of where Black people were at one time in this country. If you will look to the far end of this picture, it is actually a portrait, if you will. You will see a person on a horse, and he has a whip and he seems to be screaming, and he seems to be about to use this whip; he is about to lash this person who is between him and another person on a horse.
Now, what is to be noticed about this is that the person who is on foot, this person seems to have his hands in a position of surrender; doesn't have a weapon; doesn't seem to be a threat to men on horses.
And if you will note, there is a rope that has him tethered to the horse or the man in front of it.
And if you will note, look at his eyes, if you can see his eyes. He has a look of regret and sorrow. He has a look of a person who wishes that he could somehow express something that would cause his condition to subside. He seems to be pleading with the person in front of him, possibly realizing what is about to happen as a result of what the person behind him will do.
This is a sad commentary on our country. It is a sad commentary on what the United States of America was. It is a sad commentary. It is something we don't like to discuss. We don't want to acknowledge, we don't want it taught in our schools that this is the truth about a bygone era in this country.
But you can't escape the truth. Truth crushed to Earth will rise again. This is a sad commentary.
Let's move forward.
By the way, the prior depiction was from 1817.
This depiction occurred at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. All in Congress are aware of the Edmund Pettus Bridge because the Honorable John Lewis was here, and we all know his story of what happened at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
John Lewis and I were friends. The Honorable John Lewis and I were friends. We went to jail together several times. We talked to each other while we were in jail. John Lewis was in jail the same as he was with us. He was a wonderful, marvelous person, and I miss him. I believe we do, all of us.
But I remember him explaining how you cannot tolerate injustice. You can't. Those who tolerate injustice perpetuate injustice. Some things bear repeating. Those who tolerate injustice perpetuate injustice.
This gathering at the Edmund Pettus Bridge was about people who were no longer going to tolerate injustice. They made their minds up.
If you have ever been to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and if you haven't been there, you should go. The Edmund Pettus Bridge has a crest such that when you initially approach it, you can't readily see what lies on the other side. You don't know what your fate is, if there is something that would harm you on the other side.
{time} 1915
When you march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and you reach that crest, you can see what your fate is, if there are persons of ill will waiting for you.
These marchers, on what is known now as Bloody Sunday, were marching up the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery. They had no weapons. They had no means of defending themselves against persons who had clubs. But their fate, they saw. Yet, they marched on. As they were confronted by the constabulary, they marched on.
I have often thought, if they had resisted and put up a fight, would Bloody Sunday have the same representation, the same meaning that it has now because when these images were shown around the world, it gave a President the opportunity to take some affirmative action to bring about significant change.
But this is what was happening on Bloody Sunday. You see, there are men on horses. These men on horses are moving toward the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which you can see in the distance, and you can see that there are other men moving this way. In here, you have peaceful protesters, just marching.
This is a representation that a good many persons of African ancestry have indelibly printed within their memory. Bloody Sunday changed our lives because there were people who were willing to make great sacrifices so that we could confront injustice, not tolerate it. They didn't tolerate it.
Now, let's fast-forward. This is a depiction, a true and accurate depiction, I believe, of what I have seen televised and of what happened at our southern border.
If you didn't have to sit in the back of the bus, if you didn't have to step off the sidewalk to let others pass, if you have never had a cross burned--I say ``in my honor''--but burned in your yard, you may not see what I see. You may see agents doing their job, trying to make sure that people who are invading our country are prevented from invading our country. This is what you may see.
But I believe people of goodwill, regardless of who, when people of goodwill see this, people of goodwill are of the opinion that this is an injustice. I don't believe that people of goodwill who never have experienced what I have experienced and seen these other representations, I don't believe that people of goodwill can see a means by which we can justify this kind of behavior.
This is behavior that we cannot tolerate in a country that pledges allegiance to liberty and justice for all. You can't tolerate this in a country that requires in some places respect for the flag. I believe that you can respect the flag if you choose to. But there are some places in the country where people want to require--maybe I should say
``want to require'' you to respect the flag. I believe you respect the flag because you respect what it stands for.
I say the Pledge of Allegiance. You cannot tag me as a flag burner, but I respect those who want to burn it. You have every right to do so, and I will respect your right to burn it. But I am not a flag burner. I believe in the country and what it stands for, the ideals of this country.
If you believe in the ideals of liberty and justice for all--not all who were born here, by the way, but all, regardless of your race, creed, color, or your place of origin. This is what this country stands for. If you stand for this, there is no way you can tolerate this.
If you stand for we the people, if you stand for a more perfect Union, you can't tolerate this. It can't just be another thing that happened and let's go on with our lives.
I am not a person who believes that we should simply live and let live. I am not a live-and-let-liver. Live and let live, to me, means I live my life; you live your life; I am not going to get in your way and don't you get in my way. That is not my philosophy.
I believe in live and help live. If I see someone in harm's way, I believe I have a duty, a moral obligation, a moral imperative, to do what I can to help that person in harm's way.
These persons are in harm's way. We have a moral imperative to help these persons. That is why I am presenting this resolution. It is a part of a moral imperative.
To be very honest with you, I hope every Member will vote for it. I hope the leadership will allow it to come to the floor. To be very honest, to be totally, completely, and absolutely honest, if no one votes for it, I am going to present it.
I have a responsibility, and I am going to live up to my responsibility. I didn't come here to just get along so that I could move along.
We have a moral imperative to be helpful. Let me expound upon this imperative for just a second or two.
There is something called TPS, temporary protective status. TPS has been accorded to Haitians who are residents in the country prior to a certain date. TPS means that we won't send them back to Haiti because we have concluded that it would not be safe for them to go back to Haiti. So, we are not sending them back.
That is TPS, except if you are at the southern border, except if you are at the southern border and you are trying to get into this country. Then we send you back, and we do so under another section of the law.
But I have to ask myself: How can we rationalize saying that it is okay to send them back, these persons, when we already have said that other persons from the same country deserve temporary protection, the temporary protective status?
Then you have to ask yourself about these people. Where are they from? Where did they come from just before getting here? Where did they come from? My guess is they didn't swim across the Gulf of Mexico a week or two before. No, the facts are that they didn't and that many of them have been living in places south of the border for years, some more than 10 years.
So, we decide that persons who are protected with TPS, not these persons, but who are going to go to a country where persons are not going to be sent because it is not safe to send them there, we decide that is where we are going to send these people who haven't been there in 10 years--not these specific people, but Haitians who are out there among the throngs of people, out there among the throngs under the bridge at the southern border. We decided we are going to send them to Haiti.
I was in a hearing just recently with the experts, the people who know. My question was: When we send people to Haiti who haven't been there in a decade, what do we give them? What kind of help do we give them?
Well, here is what we give them: a cell phone and some money, not a lot of money. At the time, there was no real answer as to how much. My guess is not a lot.
By the way, this doesn't just happen to Haitians, this sending back. Mr. Jose Escobar, who lives in my district, went to report to the authorities with his wife and child. They took him from his wife and his child, with $20 in his pocket, and sent him to El Salvador. He hadn't been to El Salvador in 15 years.
He came here by virtue of a desire to escape harm's way. His mother received TPS, brought him here as a child, about 15 years of age, but he didn't get TPS--some mixup in the paperwork. So they had been trying for years to right the wrong in terms of the mixup in paperwork.
It took 2 years to bring Mr. Escobar home. But my staff and I worked for 2 years, and I went to El Salvador myself multiple times. We brought Mr. Escobar home.
I am not giving up on the Escobars of the world, and I am not giving up on these persons. I don't know them, but I have a moral obligation to make sure that an injustice is not tolerated.
Now, let's talk about one additional thing.
I suppose I could leave this up. Maybe this person had done something wrong. I can't see why we would have this, what appears to be the reins of the horse moving in his direction.
But here is what is interesting. In all the shots that I saw, the reins were always on the side where the people were. The reins weren't off on this side. They were on the side where the people were. If you want to make the argument that they were not using reins as lashes, you can. But I find it highly coincidental--too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence--that the reins are always on the side with the people.
I think I will leave it.
Friends, these are similar moments in time, moments in time that can impact the rest of time. Tolerate this and you are not seeing the last of it. That is why I believe that we in this House should take up a resolution that condemns the actions.
I am not condemning the person. I am condemning what the person is doing. He is entitled to due process. But in the court of public opinion, and based on what my eyes see, this behavior should not be tolerated.
Someone has said, well, you need to hear his side of the story. I don't mind hearing his side of the story. But I also understand what I see.
You can explain anything away in today's culture and today's time with the mindsets that we have in this country. You can explain anything away. But I believe my eyes. You don't have to believe yours. I believe my eyes. This is wrong. This is an injustice, not something that this House should tolerate.
I have already sent the letter, I believe--as I was leaving my office, I asked my staff to send it--to leadership, asking that the resolution be heard.
It is not a privileged resolution. For those who don't know, a privileged resolution is one that does not require the consent of leadership to be brought to the floor for a vote. This is not a privileged resolution, so we have to have the consent.
{time} 1930
It is no secret that I am making the request. I have great respect for all of the leadership in this Congress, on both sides of the aisle, but I want to let people know that I am going to ask that the resolution be voted on. It is very simple. It is not difficult to comprehend. There is nothing enigmatic about it. It is very pragmatic, in my mind's eye.
But I want it to be brought to the floor. And I want people to know that we who represent the people of this country--we who represent the people of this country will not tolerate this kind of behavior.
I believe that if we do so, we will prevent many other persons from having to suffer the same kind of injustice. I think we have a moral imperative to bring this to the floor.
I will close with this. C. A. Tindley shared these words that I will paraphrase. He reminds us that:
``Harder yet may be the fight;right may often yield to might;wickedness a while may reign;Satan's cause may seem to gain.There is a God that rules above,with hand of power and heart of love;''And when I am right, that God will help me fight.Harder yet may be the fight.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 164
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