Floor SpeechBipartisan2026-01-08

AMERICANS IN STATE OF DESPERATION

ImmigrationHealthcareGun PolicyDefenseCrime & JusticeVeterans

Context

On 2026-01-08, Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL-10) delivered a floor speech titled "AMERICANS IN STATE OF DESPERATION" in the House. The speech addressed immigration and also covered healthcare, gun policy.

Full Text

AMERICANS IN STATE OF DESPERATION

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 5 (Thursday, January 8, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 5 (Thursday, January 8, 2026)] [House] [Pages H145-H146] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] AMERICANS IN STATE OF DESPERATION (Mr. Frost of Florida was recognized to address the House for 5 minutes.) Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, Americans are in a state of total desperation. For weeks, Floridians have been calling my office in tears. They are looking at their budgets with panic while President Trump rips away their healthcare, sends ICE to neighborhoods, deploys soldiers to new global conflicts, and floods billionaire and megacorporations with free money. People cannot pay their bills, and Republicans here in Washington, D.C., are totally unfocused, busy defending the latest cruelty done by the administration. Healthcare open enrollment ends next week. Enrollment is down. Americans can no longer afford their coverage. We are in a healthcare crisis. Democrats don't control the House, the Senate, or the White House, but we still managed to get this bill to the floor to extend the Affordable Care Act tax subsidies. We are fighting with every tool, with every option we have to save healthcare for our people. I am voting ``yes'' to get this bill passed this week. I encourage every single Member of Congress, whether they are a Democrat or Republican to do the same. I say this as someone who represents a community in the State of Florida, the largest Affordable Care Act marketplace in the entire country. We have millions of people in the State of Florida that will be impacted by this, and I encourage everyone to vote ``yes.'' Renee Nicole Good Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I rise today deeply disturbed, distraught, and angered by the shooting and the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent that happened just yesterday in Minneapolis. This is a direct result of Trump's dangerous weaponization of our immigration system and Federal law enforcement. This is the direct result of an agency that is so emboldened by the President that they truly feel like they can do anything with zero impunity and zero accountability. It shows up in small ways, like when I showed up to tour an ICE facility in my own community and was asked by a Federal agent, in a very condescending way, how old I was, to what we saw yesterday, which was the killing and shooting of a U.S. citizen in her own damn community. [[Page H146]] Then yesterday, on the Oversight Committee, my Republican colleagues voted ``no'' on a simple subpoena so we can get information, documents relating to the murder of a U.S. citizen by a Federal agent. Then my colleagues broke into this righteous debate: Let the process play out, let DHS do their investigation, the agent gets due process. Yes, all persons in the United States are entitled to due process. Renee Nicole Good didn't get that due process because the agent was the judge, jury, and executioner in the middle of a residential neighborhood. There was no process or due process before the administration that runs our Nation labeled her as a domestic terrorist just minutes after this happened. We won't allow this President to gaslight us, and we won't allow this administration to lie to us about what we have seen before our very eyes. Not only am I going to vote ``no'' on any funding bills that gives this agency more resources to do this type of thing and terrorize our communities from the State of Florida to across this entire Nation, but I am going to continue to show up physically at bases of operation, field offices, detention centers, and the so-called Alligator Alcatraz to conduct oversight and work with our communities to keep our people safe. Renee Nicole Good was the mother of three, had a daughter and a son aged 15 and 12, and a 6-year-old with her husband who tragically died in 2023. She was a devout Christian who participated in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger. According to multiple reports, she was a poet, a writer, a wife, and a mother. She had lived most of her life in Colorado and briefly moved to Kansas to stay with her parents after her second husband, a military veteran who suffered from PTSD, died in 2023. We will honor her life with action, of course fighting to end gun violence because what happened yesterday was gun violence, but also to fight to end ICE's campaign of terror on our communities and our people. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Newhouse). Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President. ____________________

View original source →

AMERICANS IN STATE OF DESPERATION Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 5 (Thursday, January 8, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 5 (Thursday, January 8, 2026)] [House] [Pages H145-H146] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] AMERICANS IN STATE OF DESPERATION (Mr. Frost of Florida was recognized to address the House for 5 minutes.) Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, Americans are in a state of total desperation. For weeks, Floridians have been calling my office in tears. They are looking at their budgets with panic while President Trump rips away their healthcare, sends ICE to neighborhoods, deploys soldiers to new global conflicts, and floods billionaire and megacorporations with free money. People cannot pay their bills, and Republicans here in Washington, D.C., are totally unfocused, busy defending the latest cruelty done by the administration. Healthcare open enrollment ends next week. Enrollment is down. Americans can no longer afford their coverage. We are in a healthcare crisis. Democrats don't control the House, the Senate, or the White House, but we still managed to get this bill to the floor to extend the Affordable Care Act tax subsidies. We are fighting with every tool, with every option we have to save healthcare for our people. I am voting ``yes'' to get this bill passed this week. I encourage every single Member of Congress, whether they are a Democrat or Republican to do the same. I say this as someone who represents a community in the State of Florida, the largest Affordable Care Act marketplace in the entire country. We have millions of people in the State of Florida that will be impacted by this, and I encourage everyone to vote ``yes.'' Renee Nicole Good Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I rise today deeply disturbed, distraught, and angered by the shooting and the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent that happened just yesterday in Minneapolis. This is a direct result of Trump's dangerous weaponization of our immigration system and Federal law enforcement. This is the direct result of an agency that is so emboldened by the President that they truly feel like they can do anything with zero impunity and zero accountability. It shows up in small ways, like when I showed up to tour an ICE facility in my own community and was asked by a Federal agent, in a very condescending way, how old I was, to what we saw yesterday, which was the killing and shooting of a U.S. citizen in her own damn community. [[Page H146]] Then yesterday, on the Oversight Committee, my Republican colleagues voted ``no'' on a simple subpoena so we can get information, documents relating to the murder of a U.S. citizen by a Federal agent. Then my colleagues broke into this righteous debate: Let the process play out, let DHS do their investigation, the agent gets due process. Yes, all persons in the United States are entitled to due process. Renee Nicole Good didn't get that due process because the agent was the judge, jury, and executioner in the middle of a residential neighborhood. There was no process or due process before the administration that runs our Nation labeled her as a domestic terrorist just minutes after this happened. We won't allow this President to gaslight us, and we won't allow this administration to lie to us about what we have seen before our very eyes. Not only am I going to vote ``no'' on any funding bills that gives this agency more resources to do this type of thing and terrorize our communities from the State of Florida to across this entire Nation, but I am going to continue to show up physically at bases of operation, field offices, detention centers, and the so-called Alligator Alcatraz to conduct oversight and work with our communities to keep our people safe. Renee Nicole Good was the mother of three, had a daughter and a son aged 15 and 12, and a 6-year-old with her husband who tragically died in 2023. She was a devout Christian who participated in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was younger. According to multiple reports, she was a poet, a writer, a wife, and a mother. She had lived most of her life in Colorado and briefly moved to Kansas to stay with her parents after her second husband, a military veteran who suffered from PTSD, died in 2023. We will honor her life with action, of course fighting to end gun violence because what happened yesterday was gun violence, but also to fight to end ICE's campaign of terror on our communities and our people. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Newhouse). Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President. ____________________