At Tuesday's House Rules Committee hearing, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) questioned lawmakers about the Save SBA From Sanctuary Cities Act, and defended former President Biden's border policies.
00:04Thank you so very much for recognizing me, Madam Chair,
00:08and thank you for being here, Chairwoman.
00:10And I love it when there's two chairwomen,
00:12chairwoman and ranking member.
00:14But I do think that it is important that we stay rooted
00:19in fact.
00:21And the reality is there were no open borders during Biden.
00:26And in fact, Biden has deported more immigrants than Trump
00:31has, although he has done horrible things,
00:34like deporting children who have brain cancer.
00:38They have deported citizens.
00:40They have acted in a manner that it is incredibly callous.
00:44But I wanted to give you some time, ranking member,
00:48to be able to answer some of the accusations that were made
00:53in a way that will allow you to do so without being interrupted,
00:58ranking member Velazquez.
00:59Well, let me say that the law, the Small Business Act,
01:08requires and state clearly that an unlawful citizen person cannot
01:16access loans by the SBA, by the small business.
01:21That is clear.
01:23But here we have it.
01:25You know, the Republicans in the Financial Services Committee
01:28and in the Small Business Committee, they raised the issue of, you know,
01:34Democrats imposing requirements and all these regulations
01:38that are impacting and killing small businesses.
01:41But you are, they are advocating for this in this bill.
01:46This bill shows the hypocrisy of the Republican majority.
01:52The majority oppose both the CSPB Section 1071 rule
01:58and the Beneficial Ownership Requirements rule
02:01because it was onerous against small businesses.
02:05With Section 1071, that information was voluntary.
02:10And now, under this legislation, it's a requirement.
02:14They have to comply.
02:16So, it's just unbelievable.
02:19No oversight, no information shared with us on sanctuary cities,
02:27how many of these offices will be closing down,
02:30what is going to be the cost to SBA.
02:33Forty percent of the workforce are going to be eliminated, fired off,
02:41and they are taking on more responsibility, like student loans.
02:47Since when?
02:47That is the mission of SBA.
02:49So, you know, I think that what we're finding today is what we find every time
02:56this Rules Committee meets and takes up legislation is time and again,
03:01Republicans are standing with the biggest corporations
03:04and the wealthiest Americans instead of with small businesses.
03:09And their actions continuously hurt mom and pop businesses.
03:14I need to tell you that when I go across my district
03:18and I've gone and met with small businesses,
03:20and they are terrified of what?
03:22They don't ever talk to me about immigrants as being the problem.
03:26The tariffs are the problem.
03:30I have met with every store I go into,
03:33whether it's I'm buying something for myself
03:35or I happen to be in one of our rural areas,
03:37our stores and our small mom and pop businesses are suffering
03:42because of the tariffs.
03:43And the Republicans have refused to even take them up.
03:46They don't have the courage to exercise their constitutional duty
03:52to take up the tariffs.
03:55And instead, they do things like that,
03:57which will cost SBA a lot of money in there.
04:01It's a vengeful.
04:03I mean, Trump is sort of, and Republicans allowing him
04:08to have a policy of vengeance.
04:11So they want to blame immigrants for all kinds of things.
04:16They want to blame immigrants for all kinds of things,
04:18and that's not the issue right now.
04:20The issue is what mom and pop businesses are doing.
04:23In fact, it's so bad that we had small businesses sue the Trump
04:28administration over those tariffs,
04:30and they won the initial case, the initial determination.
04:36And what those small businesses in that case said
04:38are the same things.
04:39There's uncertainty.
04:41There's chaos.
04:42We don't know whether Trump is going to be a taco again or not.
04:48Trump always chickens out.
04:51But when Trump is playing his game of chicken,
04:55all small businesses can't order their inventory.
05:00They don't know whether they should raise the prices.
05:04It keeps hurting them.
05:06Do you want to respond to that issue of what the tariffs are doing
05:09to our small businesses?
05:10Well, small businesses are hurting under this administration
05:15trade policy.
05:16And that is the issue.
05:18They'd rather come here and talk about sanctuary cities,
05:23but they don't want to discuss the real issue.
05:25The Wall Street Journal Small Business Index
05:28found 58% of small businesses say the economy has gotten worse,
05:3342 points worse than in January.
05:3766% of small businesses believe tariffs are having a negative impact.
05:4451% anticipate a recession.
05:47And a staggering 59% less economic uncertainty
05:53as their top challenge.
05:55So, but rather than focus on this issue that matter most
06:01to small businesses like tariffs, this administration is focused
06:06on hollowing out the agency, closing regional offices,
06:11imposing onerous requirements to small businesses and to lenders,
06:16impacting access to credit for small businesses,
06:20and eliminating funding for 15 valuable counseling
06:24and training programs at a time when it matters most for small businesses.
06:30And we keep hearing false statements, like this whole idea that the bad billionaire bill they passed
06:37last, last time we were in this rules for two nights straight, what was it?
06:43What was it?
06:44What were we up?
06:45What were we up?
06:46You were up with the rest of us, right?
06:48I mean it was like two nights where we didn't sleep.
06:52And we worked nonstop.
06:53But we kept hearing things that were not accurate.
06:57Like the idea that that bad billionaire's bill is not going to raise the deficit.
07:02When every, every analysis, every economist says it will raise the deficit.
07:08And we hear Republicans saying it's not going to raise the deficit.
07:11When we hear them trying to blame immigrants for Medicaid, saying $1.4 million, they do not
07:18receive Medicaid.
07:19Now if certain states choose to provide that, that is up to the states.
07:23But they are not receiving federal Medicaid dollars.
07:26And Republicans complete, keep repeating those lies.
07:31They keep repeating lies over and over again, without proof.
07:37And that's what you're demanding, aren't you, Ranking Member of Liesl?
07:40Transparency.
07:41Show us the evidence, not just the statements.
07:44And we are not seeing any of that.
07:46But we keep seeing them siding with big corporations, where people like Musk, Musk even says that bad
07:51billionaire's budget is a bad thing, although he made a lot of money, maybe billions of dollars
08:00more that he's made since he's been associated with Trump.
08:03You know, the Trump organizations have made billions of dollars from these tariffs, doing these tariffs, right?
08:11So let's start talking about what's really good for small businesses.
08:15And the problem isn't illegal immigrants, because they are not getting those loans.
08:19The problem is the tariffs and the economic policies of President Trump.
08:25And with that, is there, unless there's anything else you want to add, Ranking Member Velasquez?
08:32We cannot continue to implement policies with total disregard to the ability of members of Congress
08:41to have the information provided by the administration.
08:45So the disregard for oversight and request for information, those are important issues for us to be able to do this in a responsible way.
08:58And for that, it would serve both Republicans and Democrats to have good information coming from the administration.
09:06So that should be a bipartisan request and something we could work on together, don't you think, Madam Chair?
09:12And with that, I will yield back.
09:14Thank you, Ms. Leonard-Fernandez.
09:16Mr. Griffith, you're recognized.
09:19Thank you, Madam Chair, if I could just set the record straight.
09:22I'm not sure exactly what the gentlelady was saying when she said that we were saying things that weren't accurate.
09:30And I'm not telling you I know that it's accurate or inaccurate.
09:33All I know is that 1.4 million illegal aliens being on Medicaid, particularly Medicaid expansion, is a CBO, Congressional Budget Office number.
09:46I didn't make it up.
09:47The committee didn't make it up.
09:48That's a Congressional Budget Office.
09:50No, I'm not going to yield.
09:50I'm just saying the facts.
09:52It's a Congressional Budget Office number that was given to us as members of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
09:57That's where that came from.
09:58It's not something we made up.
09:59We didn't just pull that out of the air.
10:01It seems like today we're being accused of just pulling stuff out of the air.
10:04I don't know what the number is.
10:06I make, Madam Chairman, I make no statement as to that.
10:10I have personal knowledge of the illegal aliens who may or may not be on Medicaid expansion.
10:17But the Congressional Budget Office said that by specifically saying they couldn't get it, we were going to take 1.4 million illegal immigrants off the rolls.
10:26So you can have it both ways, I would say, Madam Chair.
10:29The folks who want to say that we're taking these people off of Medicaid, particularly Medicaid expansion, can't be saying that at the same time as saying they're not there or that we're making that number up.
10:43That number came from the Congressional Budget Office.
10:44Now, people who listen to me over the years know that I don't put a lot of stock in Congressional Budget Office numbers, which is why I'm not personally endorsing the number.
10:56I'm just saying that's what they said.
10:59That's where the number came from.
11:00It's not something that Republicans made up.
11:02And with that, Madam Chair, I'm going to yield back.
11:10Thank you, Mr. Griffith.
11:12Mr. McGovern, do you want to take a moment?
11:14Well, first of all, let me thank both the witnesses for being here.
11:16I apologize that I was out of the committee room for a while.
11:20We had a leadership meeting.
11:21So let me just, having said that, let me just say I agree with every single word that the class was just said.
11:29So I want to associate myself with her.
11:31But in terms of the CBO issue, I think I'll go back and I'll double check what they said about undocumented immigrants and health care.
11:42But if I'm not mistaken, they made a distinction between what is federally funded and what is state funded in terms of who is getting the health care.
11:51And there is a difference, especially when it comes to the stuff that we oversee.
11:56But I will be happy to get the details and pass them on to the gentleman.
12:00I yield to the gentleman.
12:02And I think that that is really important, that you can't take a number that is in a CBO score.
12:08That is about $1.4 million that states may be providing in their decision and then say that it is Medicaid and federally funded.
12:24And I will send you, Madam Chair, a request to enter into the record, an article by factcheck.org stating,
12:34a false claim about illegal immigration and Medicaid.
12:39Without objection.
12:41And in here, it actually very clearly says that a state program is by definition not Medicaid.
12:51And that's the difference, that when you refer to the fact that there are people,
12:57and each state may make that determination, but that is not Medicaid.
13:00That is not federal funds, because undocumented cannot utilize Medicaid.
13:07So we should stop using that number.
13:10Unless you want to say there are 1.4 million who might be using state programs.
13:18But that's not what we fund.
13:20What we fund is Medicaid.
13:22And so over and over again, we see these kinds of numbers being used by Republicans.
13:29And in fact, one Republican senator, when it was pointed out, when she was talking about these 1.4 million,
13:38when Senator Ernst did, you know, when somebody said, well, you know,
13:41if you kick all these people off of Medicaid and, you know, that people are going to die,
13:47because if you don't get health care, you can die.
13:51And her response was, we're all going to die.
13:55I mean, I would think that we would have more empathy in this room than to say, well,
14:01it doesn't matter because we're all going to die.
14:03Let them die.
14:04That's how that is heard.
14:05It is heard as let them eat cake.
14:07It is heard as if though the people on Medicaid do not deserve to have health care,
14:13do not deserve to live.
14:15And I think that the people on Medicaid do deserve to live.
14:18They do deserve to have health care.
14:20They should not be brushed aside and say, but we're all going to die.
14:26And I think that that is a key difference on how we look at the moral values of these issues
14:32when we face them.
14:34And thank you very much.
14:35I yield that to them.
14:36I thank the General Lady, and I, again, thank our two witnesses for being here,
