officials from the f.b.i. and c.b.p. brooke is live in dallas. >> we sat down with agents, border patrol agents in el paso and also the f.b.i. this group of people were the first to really identify, discover tren de aragua as a gang, then sound the alarm to the rest of the country. we wanted to talk to them. no one knows tren de aragua like them. we just got back from el paso. new video here of what the border looks like. you could see not a lot going on. illegal border crossings are at the lowest in years. at the end of 2022 in the el paso sector, border patrol agents noticed a surge of venezuelan. that peaked in 2023 with more than 71,000 venezuelans crossing the border just in the el paso sector according to the cbp. agents started realizing they had a real problem with criminals taking advantage of this flow and soon they identified the violent tda gang. with no support from venezuela border patrol agents said they had to start from scratch and partnered with the el paso f.b.i. and together they learned about tda, id

the ntsb, f.b.i., coast forward, army and all orrs who cribbed. i want to thank those from local jurisdictions, hospital, mental health providers, even caring neighbors and support services who offered on the scene support to emergency responders and who continue to support those impacted. mr. speaker, mental health is critically important and i want to stress how many people have been impacted by this tragedy. and connect folks to resources to help. and finally, i want to thank all the air traffic controllers, employees who have returned to their jobs and worked tirelessly to keep our air space safe. it's got to be incredibly difficult working in close proximity to this tragedy, seeing the recovery efforts while completing your jobs. my heart goes out to you and we thank you for your professional. i in this trying time. mr. speaker, in sorrow and shade humanity i wholeheartedly support this measure. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from kansas is recognized. mr. mann: i yield to mr. babin. mr. babin: mr. speaker, i rise today

open borders for dictators puts all americans at risk of more 9/11 attacks imminent as warned by the f.b.i. trump is reinstituting existing laws to protect american families with peace through strength. congratulations, national day of the republic of bulgaria, appreciating the ambassador, our valued nato partner of bulgaria, dynamic member of the european union, is the beautiful republic of bulgaria. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives. sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on february 27, 2025, at 3:50 p.m. that the senate passed house joint resolution 35. appointments, united states senate caucus on international narcotics control, board of trustees of the john c. stens i center for public service training and development. signed, sincerely, kevin f. mccumber. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the hughes communic

of the targets of this abuse are women and young girls, young boys can be targeted as well and the f.b.i. has warched there is a growing threat of sextortion targeting young people where they extort their victims both sexually and financially. and in sore instances, the results can be even more devastating and catastrophic. and that was the tragic situation that south carolina state representative brandon duffy and his family experienced in 2022. representative duffy would you please share what happened with your son. >> july 27, 2022, i lost my oldest son to suicide. we quickly found he was being extorted online and a female at another college requested images to be shared back and forth and as soon as he shared those images, he took his life. hour and 40 minutes from the time he was caughted until the time he took list life. at that time, i never heard of the crime of sextortion. i was always a more liberty-minded politician. i hate to say that word. and i wanted freedom as much as possible. but as i started looking into this i saw big tech operates of big tobacco of today's generation

i'll never forget the testimony of the f.b.i. director telling us that in just one year, i believe it was 2023, over 20 kids had committed suicide just because of the pornography and pictures that had been put out there when they were innocently sending a picture to what they thought was a girl friend or boyfriend. i'm hopeful this hearing will be the beginning of actually passing these bills into law. representative gulfy, you and i met through senator cruz and the bill we have. and we have an additional bill with senator cornyn that's really important, shield act. and as you know, the threat of dissemination alone can be tragic, especially for kids. we need to enact the online safety act, which passed the senate on a 91-3 vote. some of these are stalled out in the house. we need to get the federal rules in place for safeguarding our data. according to a recent study, social media platforms generated $11 billion for ads directed at kids. i am supportive as mentioned by senator durbin of the legislation that he and senator graham

people like kash patel at the f.b.i., john ratcliffe at the c.i.a., and r.f.k. jr. at h.h.s. i was proud to support every single nominee and i'm pretty confident every single nominee will win senate confirmation which has never happened before. with respect to passing an america-first agenda, the first step in that was what we voted on last week, a budget reconciliation bill. i was proud to work with our house oversight committee as a major committee of jurisdiction on the budget reconciliation bill. we've pledged to come up with $50 billion in savings to go along with the first real effort in the entire eight years i've been in congress by this body to actually save money. to cut wasteful, unnecessary expenses. which is what the mandate was all about. this is what president trump campaigned no not just in kentucky on, but -- campaigned not just in kentucky on, but all across america on. i pledge to continue to work with president trump. next he's asked us to pass a continuing resolution. it's a shame that congress is broken. in the entire eight years i've been here, the sena