Joaquin Castro

“I want the House to vote against this bill. It takes away federal college aid from schools and students if a university boycotts Israel or settlements in the West Bank. Boycotts are a form of free speech protected by the Constitution. This bill hurts American students to protect actions by a foreign government.”

“Mr. Speaker, this bill is a bad idea. It tramples on the rights of Americans in order to protect a foreign government from the consequences of its own actions. Let me give you some context. The West Bank is currently experiencing the worst year of settler violence ever recorded. Israeli settlers have committed violence, terrorism, and many other things against Palestinians, with the goal of driving them out of the lands they have lived in for generations. It is an ethnic cleansing. They have assaulted and killed Palestinian Americans and laid siege to their homes. The Israeli Government has turned a blind eye to this violence and, in many cases, has actively supported it, protecting the criminals and not the victims. The same government has orchestrated a record expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, a violation of international law and a crime against the Palestinians who live there. Americans see this. The world sees this. Yet, what is the priority of our House of Representatives right now? It is not to stop the violence, not to stop the displacement, and not to protect the children. The priority of this House today is a bill that threatens to take Federal student aid away from American citizens and to protect this activity in these settlements. Don’t let anyone convince you that this bill is about anti-Semitism or even just about Israel. The bill’s language is written to include Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. It is in defense of an illegal act by a foreign government, and the victims will be American students. If this House should be debating anything on this issue, it should be sanctions on these settlements and not a bill that protects them. Let me lay out a scenario so that we understand exactly how this piece of legislation would work. If a university in Texas decided tomorrow to stop doing business with a company in South Carolina, California, or Idaho, it would face no consequences under American law. Make the same decision about Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and this bill strips American students of their Pell grants and American veterans of their hard- earned benefits. This bill holds American students’ education hostage to protect a foreign government. We would be doing this in flagrant violation of the United States Constitution. In the landmark decision NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the Supreme Court held that a politically motivated boycott is protected expression under the First Amendment. This isn’t an obscure case. It is the reason the sponsors of the bill wrote the word ``nonexpressive’’ into the text. Yet, every example that the sponsors point to is plainly political. A boycott is a political act. It is protected under the First Amendment, and you don’t have to even agree with the boycott to support an American’s right to engage in it. Every Member of this body raised their hand and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and I urge every Member of this body today to take that oath seriously and vote against this bill.”

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“We should get rid of ICE and shut down the Dilley detention center. ICE has become an abusive agency that targets, hurts, and kills people, including American citizens. Private companies are making money off of locking up immigrants and children.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today because we have all witnessed the brutality of ICE on the streets of America, and Members of Congress have witnessed that brutality behind the closed walls of detention centers across our Nation. ICE has become a rogue, abusive agency that should be disbanded. ICE agents are roving across our communities with impunity, killing people in cold blood, including U.S. citizens, while Donald Trump’s cronies profit. These ICE agents have not gone rogue alone. The entire agency has gone rogue under the direction of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. Masked ICE agents in unmarked cars are working with Trump allies, like Texas Governor Greg Abbott, to meet quotas that fuel the President’s mass deportation campaign. Every single day they are stopping, profiling hardworking Brown men on their way to construction jobs in the early morning, families on their way to school, going to pick up their kids, and H-E-B workers, grocery store workers in Texas getting off their shifts at warehouses and stores at night. Let us remember the names of those whom ICE has murdered. The first one was a San Antonian, Ruben Ray Martinez. There was another Texan, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Houston. Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero--these folks were victims of the ICE murders. In Texas alone, over a dozen people have died in ICE detention. These deaths are not accidents of an overwhelmed system. They are the results of this administration engineering a rogue agency to profit at the expense of vulnerable people. We must shut down places like the Dilley detention center, a trailer prison, where children as young as 2 months old are in prison. For each child who is thrown in there, for each pregnant woman thrown into Dilley, there is an American company, CoreCivic, with American investors who make more money for each child, each woman, and each person who is in prison. We have allowed for the commodification of child imprisonment in our United States of America under President Donald Trump. This must change. ICE should be disbanded. It has gone rogue, and we must shut down the Dilley detention center.”

“I support this amendment to stop sending American weapons to Israel. Israel is bombing civilians and taking over more land. We must cut off weapons if we want Israel's government to change its actions.”

“Madam Chair, Israel does not need and, quite honestly, does not deserve more American money for weapons. Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken Israel down an ugly path. The tragedy of October 7 has become a justification for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Self-defense does not include indiscriminately bombing homes, hospitals, churches, schools, or refugee camps. There were even credible reports of children intentionally shot in the head and chest. For decades, our Nation gave Israel billions to facilitate peace and a two-state solution. Instead, Israel has chosen more war and more occupation. Today, it occupies not only Gaza and the West Bank but parts of Syria and Lebanon. If there are no consequences, why in the world would Benjamin Netanyahu change what he is doing? Words are not enough. Condemnations are not enough. If we hope to change Israel’s behavior, we must use our leverage. The American people have seen this tragedy with their own eyes. They have made their judgment. They do not support giving Israel more weapons. Do not reward a wrongdoer. Now it is up to us in this Chamber to take action. Madam Chair, I support this amendment.”

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