FIRST ON FOX – A bipartisan House coalition is moving to redirect COVID-19 relief money to beef up a program that helps telecom companies replace equipment made by Chinese Communist Party-affiliated companies. 

In 2020, Congress passed the bipartisan "Rip and Replace Program" at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which reimburses smaller communications providers across the country for costs from removing, replacing and disposing of equipment manufactured by Huawei Technologies Company and ZTE Corporation – both of which present significant risks to U.S. national security due to their close connections to the Chinese government. 

There are roughly 24,000 pieces of Chinese-made communications equipment throughout U.S. telecom networks, and disposing them is critical to protecting the U.S. from spying and other threats. However, the Rip and Replace Program is currently facing a $3.08 billion shortfall and is only able to cover 40% of the expenses for eligible applicants – many of which operate in rural areas, putting those communities at risk for loss of service. The program has already received 126 applications beyond its budget.

On Monday, Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, as well Select Committee on the CCP Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and his Democratic counterpart, ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, introduced the Defend our Networks Act, which will identify the funding needed to close the budget shortfall in the FCC’s program and transfer $3.08 billion in unobligated emergency COVID-relief funds to "Rip and Replace." 

HOUSE CHINA COMMITTEE ZEROS IN ON LATEST CCP EFFORTS TO STEAL AMERICAN AGRICULTURE IP

"If communication flows through Huawei or ZTE equipment, it should be treated as if it is being downloaded back to a server in Beijing with a full access pass for the CCP regime," Hinson said. 

"Chinese technology is embedded in communications networks across the United States, giving the Chinese Communist Party backdoor access to Americans’ personal information and sensitive data," she said.

"The Defend our Networks Act will ensure compromised Chinese telecom equipment is replaced with secure systems so that Americans, especially those in rural areas, have reliable, secure, and private connectivity," she said. 

Krishnamoorthi said he is "proud to join my colleagues in introducing the bipartisan Defend Our Networks Act to safeguard our communications infrastructure from potential vulnerabilities to the Chinese Communist Party."

GOP, DEM SENATORS TEAM UP WITH BILL TO PROTECT US FARMLAND FROM FOREIGN OWNERSHIP

"Communications equipment produced by companies under the influence of the CCP pose a serious risk to our national security, and fully funding efforts to replace the vulnerable components with secure ones is a vital step forward in safeguarding our technological infrastructure," he added. 

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., who also co-authored the legislation, praised the "strong coalition of bipartisan partners" moving the bill forward. 

"This year, the Federal Communications Commission said they can only cover less than half of the costs to remove dangerous Chinese technology from American telecommunications networks. That is simply unacceptable," she said.

MOST CHINA-TIED 'CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES' HAVE SHUT DOWN ON US COLLEGE CAMPUSES AFTER FUNDING LOSSES: REPORT

"I am proud to co-lead the Defend Our Networks Act alongside a strong coalition of bipartisan partners. This bill would strengthen the FCC's ability to safeguard our technology, ensuring that Americans can be confident, knowing that none of our telecommunications systems are vulnerable to attacks because they contain Chinese software," she added. 

Just a few months ago in July, Hinson demanded an audit of "potentially compromised" government telecommunications equipment after hackers breached the e-mails of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and high-level State Department who were involved in planning the Biden administration’s trip to China.

"If there is still telecommunications and video surveillance equipment produced by the PRC or PRC-linked entities in federal buildings it should be unplugged, ripped off the wall, and thrown where the sun doesn't shine," she wrote in a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

Donovan Archambault was 11 years old in 1950 when he was sent from the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana to a government-backed Native American boarding school in Pierre, South Dakota, where abusive staff forced him to abandon his community's language and customs.

Archambault emerged bitter from the experience and said he drank alcohol for more than two decades before he finally pulled his life together, earning a master's degree in education and serving as chairman of the Fort Belknap tribes.

"It was probably the most brutal time of my whole life," Archambault recalled Sunday, "and it all stemmed from the trauma we suffered in the Pierre Indian School."

NATIVE AMERICANS JOIN CALL FOR REPARATIONS OVER MINNESOTA TREATMENT OF TRIBAL LANDS

NATIVE AMERICAN WOMEN REFUSE TO LIVE IN FEAR AMID SOARING CRIME, ARM THEMSELVES AND TAKE GUN CLASSES

Decades after the last Native American boarding schools stopped receiving federal money, the traumas inflicted by the abusive institutions are getting belated attention through a series of listening sessions hosted by federal officials across the U.S.

For over 150 years, Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into the boarding schools, which systematically abused students to assimilate them into white society. Religious and private institutions ran many of the schools and received federal funding as partners in government programs to "civilize" Indigenous students.

Sunday's event at Montana State University in Bozeman was the last of 12 stops on the "Road to Healing" tour by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico who has prioritized examining the trauma caused by the schools.

The effects of the trauma have rippled through generations, fueling alcoholism, drug addiction and sexual abuse on reservations, said Jennifer Finley, a council member for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes whose grandparents went to one of the boarding schools.

"When we talk about historical trauma I always think, ‘If only that’s all we had.’ But we have fresh traumas piled on top of it every single day," she said.

The U.S. enacted laws and policies in 1819 to support the schools and some continued to operate through the 1960s. An investigative report released last year by the Interior Department identified 408 government-backed schools in 37 states or then-territories, including Alaska and Hawaii.

BIDEN TOUTS PRO-NATIVE AMERICAN EFFORTS DESPITE AXING OIL DRILLING THAT SUSTAINS TRIBES

The schools renamed children from Native American to English names, organized them into military drills and compelled them to do manual labor such as farming, brick-making and working on the railroad system, according to federal officials. At least 500 children died at the schools, according to the report — a figure that's expected to increase dramatically as research continues.

One of Haaland’s deputies, Rosebud Sioux member Wizipan Garriott, has described boarding schools as part of a long history of injustices against his people that began with the widespread extermination of their main food source — bison, also known as buffalo.

Tribes also lost their land base and were forced onto reservations sometimes far from their homelands.

Victims and survivors of the schools have shared tearful recollections of their experience during prior listening sessions in Oklahoma, South Dakota, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska and other states.

They told stories of being punished for speaking their native language, getting locked in basements and their hair being cut to stamp out their identities. They were sometimes subjected to solitary confinement, beatings and withholding food. Many left the schools with only basic vocational skills that gave them few job prospects, officials said.

Myrna Burgess, a Northern Cheyenne elder, said Sunday that she and her classmates faced escalating punishments for speaking their home language. First time they'd get hit with a ruler on the back of the hand. After a second offense they'd have to turn their hand over, to get hit on the palm. Another offense brought a strike to the back or head, she said.

"That was child abuse right there, but no one ever went to jail," she said.

Archambeault said many of his classmates did not survive long enough to tell their stories and instead became victims of suicide, alcohol and violence that he traces back to the treatment they received at school.

A second investigative report is expected in coming months. It will focus on burial sites, the schools’ impact on Indigenous communities and also try to account for federal funds spent on the troubled program.

Montana had 16 of the schools — including on or near the Crow, Blackfeet, Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations. Most shut down early last century. Others were around recently enough that their former students are still alive.

A Native American boarding school school in the town of St. Ignatius on the Flathead Reservation was open until at least 1973. In southeastern Montana the Tongue River Boarding School operated under various names until at least 1970, when the Northern Cheyenne Tribe contracted it as a tribal school, according to government records.

NATIVE AMERICAN GROUP THAT WANTED 'REDSKINS' REMOVAL IS FUNDED BY SOROS FOUNDATION, OTHER LEFTIST ORGS

The St. Labre school at the edge of the Northern Cheyenne continues to operate but has not received federal money in more than a century, according to government records.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition has tallied an additional 113 schools not on the government list that were run by churches and with no evidence of federal support. By 1926, more than 80% of Indigenous school-age children — some 60,000 children — were attending boarding schools that were run either by the federal government or religious organizations, according to the coalition.

The coalition's deputy chief executive, Samuel Torres, said Haaland's tour was a positive first step in addressing the schools' legacy. Next, he said, Congress must approve proposals to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, where survivors could continue airing their stories and the federal government's role in the abuse could be further documented.

"Boarding schools lasted over 150 years. It's going to take more than a couple of years of investigation," Torres said. "It's going to require generations. But this is where it has to start."