Just before voting with a majority of his House of Representatives colleagues to pass the Omnibus Appropriations bill to fund the federal government for the rest of fiscal year 2017, Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX-28) spoke on the House floor to praise the bipartisan compromise that led to the spending bill.

The bill, which passed the House 309-118, provides $22.5 billion in funding for year-round Federal Pell Grants, $2 billion in funding for the National Institute of Health, provides funding for 10 more federal immigration judges and supporting staff across the country, and $1.5 billion in funding for increased border security.

The budget compromise has zero funding for what Congressman Cuellar called a “medieval” border wall in his one-minute floor speech.

“This bill today is a compromise bill. This is a good bill because it’s the way Congress should be working. It provides an increase to the Pell Grants. It provides $2 billion to the National Institute of Health. It provides a solution to the citrus greening crisis that’s impacting our citrus growers in South Texas and other parts. It provides funding for 10 additional immigration judges and their support staff to help cut down the backlog of over half a million cases that we have, on top of the 55 immigration judges we had last year. [It provides] $1.5 billion dollars to improve the nation’s border security without funding the medieval wall. So again, I want to thank all my colleagues for working in a bipartisan way.”

View video of Rep. Cuellar speaking in favor of the budget compromise here: https://youtu.be/MSKJynTLtDo

 Download the video here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/595bzu4qeapuagh/RR0380.mp4?dl=0

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