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MANAGING THE CRISIS ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I stand here on behalf of the freedom-
loving members of the Republican Study Committee, the conservative conscience of the GOP Conference, and the largest caucus with over 150 members and our friend and fearless leader Jim Banks from the Hoosier State.
Mr. Speaker, we come to this Chamber with grave concerns, with profound grief over what is happening to this great Nation at the southern border, along the border of States like my home State of Texas. My citizens are on the front lines, and the citizens of the Lone Star State and border States are at ground zero of this self-inflicted crisis.
Just because the President won't acknowledge that there is a crisis doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Mr. Speaker, it is raging out of control. It is an unmitigated disaster, and as I said, it is self-
inflicted.
Reinstating catch and release while we are recovering from a pandemic? Are you kidding me? We have put mandates and restrictions on the American people who have sacrificed by staying at home. Some have lost their jobs. They don't know how they are going to make ends meet for their family.
Everybody stepped up, Mr. Speaker. They did what they were told to do in some cases, but they all acted responsibly for the sake of our country and their fellow man and the country that they love. And now, we are just letting people cross our border illegally, violate our sovereignty, break our laws, and then just be released into the interior of our country with no testing and no screening.
In Texas, Mr. Speaker, we are coming back. We have folks back to work. Kids are in school. My kids are in school. We feel normal again, and we are blessed to be in a State that puts a premium on individual liberty and personal responsibility. We have worked hard to get to where we are now.
We didn't like everything that was done to us by our government. We didn't like all the protocols and mandates, but we did the best job we could for the sake of our fellow Americans. Now, we have the potential for a flare-up in the pandemic because our hospitals are going to be overwhelmed again.
Our schools are already overwhelmed as they try to do right by their students, let them come into the classroom, have that support structure, knowing that to close your doors on these kids is to close a bright future for them. It is to lock them out of their greatest potential and to give them grief and all kinds of heartache and mental health concerns.
We have our police, who have been disparaged with cries to defund the police. They would be dismantled if the bill that passed the House supported by the Democrats ever became law and ripped away the tools that they have to not only keep our community safe but to protect them in the process. We have stripped them--or would if the bill passed--of their legal liability protections. All the while, we are putting more pressure on our local law enforcement to do the job that the Federal Government under this Commander in Chief has failed to do.
The Commander in Chief is supposed to provide for the common defense. He is supposed to be the exemplar for rule of law. He is the chief enforcer of the law. What kind of example is our President setting to just throw caution to the wind and let folks come into this country who are not our citizens, prioritizing them over the safety and health of our citizens?
I got to hear some of my colleagues express concerns over women's rights and protecting women from abuse. We all support that, and our hearts go out to any victims of abuse in this country or any country. But meanwhile, because of the policies that have been passed by this President, reinstating catch and release, empowering sanctuary cities, repealing the stay in Mexico policies, halting funding for the border wall, all of these things have sent a message that we are open for illegal business.
If you ask the cartels, business has never been better. We are lining their pockets while they exploit vulnerable people who are hopeless. They are being exploited.
Mr. Speaker, one out of every three women are sexually assaulted on their trek to this country. That statistic is from Doctors Without Borders. Children are used as a passport, trafficked by these cartels. We have empowered these cartels. This is a disaster on so many levels, and I am glad my colleagues are here to express these same sentiments in their own words.
Mr. Speaker, I will end with this. It is clear there is a cause and effect here. It is clear that policies have consequences. They incent behavior, and the behavior is causing chaos at the border.
I believe this President is obsessed. This is just a fundamental question, why our President would allow this to happen. I believe he is obsessed with undoing anything that has the name ``President Trump'' on it, regardless of its merits. I believe he is equally obsessed with placating the left and their radical agenda. I have come to that conclusion.
Mr. Speaker, we are going to speak to this. We are going to tell the truth. We are going to lay out the facts. We are going to call on our President to do the right thing and prioritize the American people and their safety and security.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague and fellow Member from Texas for yielding.
Our country's future will forever be changed based on how we manage or refuse to manage Biden's border crisis. And, yes, it is a crisis.
Steady merit-based legal immigration is stabilizing. It provides a talented pool of workers, effectively permits patriotic assimilation, and enriches our culture. We can debate how best to achieve those objectives and what immigration levels or numbers are in the best interests of our Nation and our citizens, but what is not open for honest debate, or at least debate that honestly places the interests, safety, and security of American citizens first, is the need to secure our border and eliminate illegal immigration.
President Biden's open border policies threaten our security, overtax our resources, jeopardize public health, and turn every town into a border community.
As others have said, without a border, we don't have a country; we have a landmass, one that is currently under invasion. That is an invasion that is with complicit approval from the President's policies and the support of the Democratic Party, and this is especially egregious and inexcusable.
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The fact is that, in the 56 days since President Biden was sworn in on January 20, illegal immigration has surged and our southern border has been overrun.
We are not stopping illegal immigrants based on their inability to provide for themselves and not be a burden on our economy, our social services, our education system, our healthcare system.
We are not stopping illegal immigrants based on whether or not they test positive for COVID.
We are not stopping illegal immigrants based on whether or not they have a criminal record.
We are not stopping illegal immigrants based on whether or not they intend to do us harm.
The bottom line is that we don't even know who is coming, and we don't even know why they are coming.
Meanwhile, the President sends FEMA to the border, not to help prevent the emergency crisis of illegal crossing, but actually to help illegal aliens get into our country.
And how does a Democrat majority respond?
With two new amnesty bills that will incentivize and reward lawless, illegal behavior with amnesty and citizenship.
Memo to the President and Democrat majority: You get more of what you incentivize.
We can only conclude this is what they want.
Mr. Speaker, these two bills combined will provide amnesty to some 5 million illegal aliens, including some with criminal backgrounds. These two bills make it more difficult for law enforcement to detain or deport illegal aliens. These bills will facilitate chain migration, leading to more non-merit-based immigration. And these two bills inexcusably provide no provisions to address the Biden border crisis.
Just today, in apparent recognition that the crisis is not playing well with the American people--you know, the forgotten citizens of the country--NBC news--not exactly a conservative news outlet--is reporting that the Biden administration is telling Border Patrol that they can no longer talk to the media or do ride-alongs that enable the media to see firsthand what is happening at the border. Instead, Border Patrol is supposed to let all communication come from Washington.
The American people are not stupid. They know what is going on, and they don't want America to be turned into a sanctuary nation.
Mr. Speaker, we, on the Republican side, are going to fight for them. We are going to fight to protect the country we have today, and we are going to fight to protect the country we want to have tomorrow.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his remarks. He talked about the incentives. We talked about cause and effect, and we talked about the consequences of bad policies.
Mr. Speaker, we have had double the apprehensions this year in January over last year in 2020, well over twice as many illegal crossings in the month of February. We are now 5,000-plus a day of people pouring into this country, 500 a day of illegal minors trafficked here by the cartels. And the CBP tells us that there will be over 120,000 by the end of the year. It will be a record year. Those are the results. And the facts don't lie, whether this President or our colleagues believe it or not.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the great State of Texas
(Mr. Babin), who represents Texas 36th Congressional District.
Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, as co-chair of the House Border Security Caucus, I very much appreciate the opportunity to come to the floor with the Republican Study Committee to talk about the most pressing issue our Nation is facing today, right now; and, sadly, it was entirely avoidable.
There are no ifs, ands, or buts. The crisis on our southern border is a direct result of President Biden's failed immigration and border security policies--miserably failed.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have predictably done what they do best: Blamed President Trump and his administration.
But anyone with a pulse can see that this border crisis started the very day that President Biden was sworn in. On his first day in office, Biden stopped construction of the border wall, ended the national emergency declaration on the southern border. He stopped the migrant protection protocol so asylum-seekers would have to wait in Mexico.
And rather than utilizing the title 42 health restrictions to protect Americans during this pandemic, Biden and his administration are releasing COVID-positive illegal aliens into Texas to worsen the pandemic and fan out across this country.
He would go on to stop deportation, stop enforcing immigration laws, bring back ``catch and release,'' and end the hard-won changes that President Trump had initiated to control our southern border.
He has specifically said that Americans will not be prioritized--
repeat: Will not be prioritized--over illegal immigrants for access to COVID-19 vaccines, and promised citizenship to millions upon millions of migrants here illegally, which does nothing but incentivize more illegal crossings. All of this in less than 2 months.
Who on earth is surprised that there is a massive border crisis?
Yes, President Biden owns this border crisis. The truly sad reality is this isn't Biden's first rodeo. When he was vice president, he saw surges on the border, and he knows full well what exactly that means.
He saw children being used and recycled by smugglers. He saw women and children physically abused, raped, and even murdered by the cartels, who fully control our southern border now, empowered by President Biden. He even saw American families torn apart after a loved one was killed by a dangerous criminal illegal alien.
He should know better. And you know what? He does know better. Unfortunately, he is controlled by politics and his radical leftwing base, and he won't turn back now.
The American people deserve to know that President Biden is taking advantage of them through this crisis. And while the American people were locked down for a year because of the pandemic, illegal aliens roamed free. While they worked hard, paid their taxes, and saved just to get by, illegal immigrants cost them billions every year with free education and healthcare.
My great State of Texas and the other border States cannot take another minute of Biden's border crisis. The President of the United States needs to step up and he needs to lead. Lives are at stake.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his remarks. He mentioned as one of the policies that this current President has put in place through a unilateral action--by the way, he has done more executive orders than the last three or four Presidents combined--was to repeal or rescind the national emergency declaration. But it is so rich, so rich that at the same time he is doing this, the Democrat leadership of the House under Speaker Pelosi has lined the streets around the perimeter of the Capitol with the National Guard. The height of hypocrisy.
Mr. Speaker, the American people aren't buying this. They are not. The Speaker called the walls at the southern border protecting our fellow Americans and communities immoral, until she erected razor-wire fencing around the people's House. It is offensive. It is shameful, and it is an outrage. And it is a double standard, if I have ever seen one.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Hern), a good friend of mine, and a colleague representing Oklahoma's First District.
Mr. HERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from Texas for yielding. I appreciate him leading this Special Order on such an important issue in our great country.
Mr. Speaker, we are here today to shed light on a situation that is getting worse by the minute. The longer Joe Biden and his White House ignore the crisis on our border, the more challenging it becomes to get it under control.
But one would have to wonder: Is that what he wants by allowing this to continue on?
Under President Trump, border security was a top priority. He was ridiculed for that top priority of securing our Nation, the sovereignty of our Nation. Illegal entries plummeted under President Trump, and over 450 miles of border wall were built at the fighting and scratching every single way against our Democrat colleagues' desires.
Mr. Speaker, Biden's trend has been to reverse and dismantle anything and everything that President Trump touched over the last 4 years, no matter who it may hurt. On day one of his Presidency, he unconstitutionally halted congressionally appropriated funds meant to secure and strengthen our southern border. He indicated a complete reversal on border policies, refusing to condemn Democrats who call for open borders. This led to thousands of immigrants to believe our borders were open and they could enter with no consequences. They even had shirts promoting the idea that Biden should let them in.
Mr. Speaker, it has been less than 2 months since Biden took office and already the situation at our southern border has reached unprecedented levels, levels like we haven't seen in 20 years. Border agents are reporting the number of illegal entries, especially children, is higher than we have seen in decades.
Detainment facilities--what the Democrats have now called reception centers and concentration camps; that is what they called them under President Trump--are over capacity. Children are being sent to Dallas, hundreds of miles away from the border, to be held at the convention center.
Americans returning from abroad are required to take COVID tests before reentering our own country, but Biden is allowing thousands of migrants into the country without even testing them for COVID, packing facilities way over capacity.
Hypocrisy is nothing new to this administration. In spite of everything I have already said, Biden refuses to call it a crisis. CNN is even calling it a crisis, but Biden doesn't want to label it. He doesn't want to own it, calling it an inherited mess from the Trump administration. Every single person in America knows that is not true. To make it worse, House Democrats rejected any amendments on their partisan immigration bills this week.
My amendments asked that known gang members not be eligible for amnesty.
How could you not allow that to be added to this bill?
That we create a tax credit for employers who want to do the right thing and implement E-Verify in their companies to make sure they are hiring legal American workers, and that illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in our country not be eligible for amnesty. Now, everywhere--except for in Congress--any good American would want those in the bill. But not here, not my Democrat colleagues.
These are all commonsense ideas that a vast majority of Americans support, but Democrats would rather have open borders with no consequences for those who break the laws in our country.
Just this week, four people on the terrorist watch list were caught attempting to illegally entered our country. If we lower the standards and restrictions on our border, we know we never would have caught them. We wouldn't have even known that they were here. That should scare us all to death.
Mr. Speaker, I and many of my Republican colleagues have been to the border to see this terrible situation firsthand. I would encourage every Member of Congress to go see it. And for that, I thank my colleagues for standing up here tonight at this hour, for speaking up on this crisis. It is so important to the American people and the sovereignty of our Nation.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma, our neighbor to the north, for his remarks. He mentioned that some political opportunists were characterizing these detention facilities under the leadership of President Trump as concentration camps. They called the men and women in uniform, our sons and daughters, who were called to duty to come alongside the Border Patrol agents to secure our southern border and defend our people, ``storm troopers.'' They referred to our attempt to humanely and safely detain the unaccompanied minors as ``kids in cages.''
Mr. Speaker, where are they now? Where are they now?
Where is the outrage?
Where is the indignation?
Where is the name calling?
How soon we forget.
Mr. Speaker, 13,000 children are being detained right now in far worse conditions and far more crowded than before.
Where are those colleagues of ours that were clanging gongs and sounding the alarm?
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Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the great State of Wisconsin (Mr. Tiffany), my colleague, who represents the Seventh Congressional District.
Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, America's border is under siege, and it is a siege that this administration continues to encourage with each passing day.
They say it is not a crisis or an emergency, even as they have dispatched FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to help manage the disaster that they have created.
In February alone, the shortest month of the year, overwhelmed border patrol agents encountered more than 100,000 illegal aliens crossing our southern border, including 30,000 unaccompanied children and minors. And that does not include the countless illegal aliens that slipped through undetected.
Mr. Speaker, as many as 25 percent of the illegal aliens that the border patrol apprehends are testing positive for COVID--and not all are being tested.
Thanks to the administration's catch-and-release policies, many of these aliens immediately board buses and fan out across the country, making every State a border State. That includes my State in the far north, Wisconsin, because I hear it from sheriffs and law enforcement all over northern Wisconsin, especially the drugs that flow in, the fentanyl, the methamphetamines, that flow into our communities killing our citizens.
Drug seizures were up more than 50 percent last month driven by huge spikes in meth and heroin, deadly poisons that ravage our families. In what is fast becoming a Washington tradition, the other side has tried to pass the buck and blame the border disorder on the last administration.
This is a tired talking point; one we will hear repeated over and over to explain away the policy failures of the one-party government they control. But facts are stubborn things.
This tidal wave of drug and human trafficking is a direct result of White House promises of amnesty, and the rollback of the commonsense border security safeguards put in place by President Trump. That is why it began at the end of January.
So what is their answer to this crisis? It is to pour gasoline on the fire by passing two amnesty bills that will give legal status to at least half of the estimated 11 million illegal aliens already in this country, including criminal aliens who have been convicted of multiple DUIs, drug and weapons violations, and even voter fraud.
One of the bills even includes an unbelievable provision allowing for the reimportation of foreigners who were deported as long as 4 years ago, bringing them back and giving them green cards. This is a slap in the face to the legal immigrants who have followed our laws. This is a slap in the face to American taxpayers, millions of unemployed Americans, and countless American families who have lost loved ones to the scourge of drugs like meth and fentanyl.
Even worse, it is a financial bonanza for the human traffickers and foreign drug cartels who prey on the vulnerable and profit from their misery.
So let's get this straight. The first act of this President was to open the borders and close our schools, or make sure that they stay closed. The first act of this President was to open the borders, the pipeline that brings the drugs and the human trafficking into America, but they closed the pipeline that gives us energy independence in America.
Mr. Speaker, it is time for the administration to stop pretending that this crisis isn't happening, and to start defending the American people.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, listening to the gentleman, it is just hard to believe that in the greatest country on planet Earth, that this is what we are allowing to happen. Reimporting people who violated our laws, had due process, and we did what the law says, detain and deport.
Today, under Present Biden's deluge of executive orders, they are released and rewarded: free healthcare, compliments of the taxpayers of the United States; free education, compliments of the taxpayers of the United States. We spend $12 billion in Texas alone on illegal immigration, and the price has just climbed higher and higher under this President.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop), my dear friend, representing the Ninth Congressional District.
Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, my friend, Mr. Arrington, for hosting this Special Order, it is an extraordinarily important topic.
Here is another angle on it. Tomorrow, on the floor of this House, Democrats will pass two mass amnesty bills, H.R. 6 and H.R. 1603. Consider that at the very time Democrats are bringing these amnesty bills to the floor, what promises to be the largest surge of illegal immigration on the southern border in at least 20 years, is building toward an unknown climax. The Biden administration has precipitated a humanitarian crisis so big that even they can no longer deny it.
Less than 2 months after terminating President Trump's declaration of an emergency on the border, Secretary Mayorkas of the Department of Homeland Security, has been constrained to send FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to facilitate the Nation's response to this crisis.
Today, in the Committee on Homeland Security, I asked Secretary Mayorkas about the deliberate and absurd rhetoric used by the administration: Come, but don't come now.
I was unable to secure from Secretary Mayorkas a straightforward acknowledgment that it is always wrong to incite migrants to enter the United States illegally.
And, amazingly, when I asked the Secretary whether he and the Biden administration had been expected or were surprised by the crisis that is now blooming on the southern border, he was caught off guard. He said he had no expectation whatsoever. I couldn't believe it, and I don't think the American people can believe it.
Just like the Biden administration's rhetoric, these bills signal economic migrants that if they make the dangerous trek through Central America and Mexico, they will be met with amnesty, taxpayer-funded healthcare, housing, and anything else you can think of.
Whether it is gutting the migrant protection protocols, otherwise known as ``remain in Mexico,'' and stopping border wall construction, the administration's message to migrants is clear: Come. Take your lives in your hands, brave the gangs, the coyotes, the smugglers, take the risk of sexual abuse. Come.
Today, the Democrats are augmenting that clear-as-day message with more promises of amnesty, and that will be the bills tomorrow, which everyone here know will fuel more illegal migration.
Let's face it, Democrats are committed to a regime of open borders, where any person from anywhere in the world has a right to enter the U.S. for any reason, even if that means migrants are assaulted or killed on their way to the border. And Democrats feel better about themselves. They assume a superior moral position by pursuing such a policy.
It is no wonder, but apparently no cause for reflection by the Biden administration, that the CBP very recently apprehended four individuals on the terrorist watch list crossing the southwest border. Secretary Mayorkas admitted that today, and then went on to say: Well, it is nothing unusual, more or less. Amazing.
I have heard some of my friends on the other side of the aisle complain that Republicans are not offering solutions.
Let me offer three: End all talk of amnesty. Reinstate the migrant protection protocols that provide more for their safety than the policy does now articulate. And finish building the wall. Let's resume a responsible border policy. Let's consider, for once, the interests of the American people.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. Speaker, again, I would say that America is the most generous Nation, not only the most powerful, but the most generous. We represent 5 percent of the world population, and we represent 20 percent of the immigrant population. We welcome freedom-loving, law-abiding people who want to make America their home and make a better life for their family, but only if they respect our laws and our sovereignty and the safety of the American people.
Millions of people wait for years to have legal status in this country, and this President has just created lawlessness and chaos, just like that, with a pen and a cell phone. The unilateral actions have been reckless and endangered not only our citizens, but the poor people that are making this trek on account of his message: Don't come now, is what he says, but come now. Come one, come all. It is a free-
for-all at the border, is what his policies say loudly and clearly.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my dear friend from the great State of Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), he represents Arkansas' Fourth Congressional District.
Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, the Republican party has historically been, and I believe is still today, the voice for those who have no voice. We value life and believe all people should be treated with dignity.
I appreciate the gentleman from Texas for leading this discussion tonight, for his compassion for people, and for his passion to serve Texas and America.
Mr. Speaker, tonight, I not only rise to address the growing crisis on our southern border, but to be a voice for the persecuted. In an interview aired this morning, President Biden told migrants not to come to the United States, but still refused to recognize the situation as a crisis. Actions speak louder than words. It doesn't matter what you say when it doesn't match what you do.
Such a directive is pointless, considering there are no policy changes to de-motivate the migrant surge, the likes of which the United States hasn't seen in 20 years. Our facilities and agencies are being overwhelmed by the surge.
President Biden offered an open invitation for parents to send their children across the border without fear of being turned away. The result is catastrophic. While there have been migrant surges in the past, there has never been such a prolific number of unaccompanied minors.
These policies are a driving incentive for parents to give their children to coyotes and traffickers who will abuse and use them, causing lifelong trauma. Over 500 children are crossing the border daily, including unaccompanied kids as young as 6 years old. These children are threatened and coerced by cartels to carry drugs over the border and exploited by sex traffickers.
One in three women--one in three women, Mr. Speaker, will be assaulted as they attempt to make the journey.
I just witnessed my colleagues from across the aisle spending an hour honoring women's history. What kind of history are the left's policies writing for these women? Young women, young women as young as 13 years old are being lured to Texas with the promise of a job in the service industry, and instead, are being sexually abused and trafficked.
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What we are seeing now is but a fraction of what we could see in the coming months. This is the Biden administration's responsibility, and President Biden owes the American people answers.
But President Biden is not alone. The majority party is neglecting their oversight responsibilities and aiding and abetting these dangerous actions.
I am calling on President Biden and congressional Democrats--who I remind you are the majority in both Chambers--to take responsibility for the border crisis and work to fix it and to take responsibility for the trauma these children will endure on the journey across the border.
Customs and Border Protection has informed Congress that four people on the FBI's terrorist watch list were apprehended at the border. If four were caught, how many got through? What is their intent?
One day, Democrats are the arsonists, and the next week, the firefighters. They have pulled this trick on every issue, including energy, Medicare, and now our border. To bring partisan immigration bills to the floor without even an opportunity to amend the bills is bad governance anytime, but it is downright insensitive during this crisis.
We are a nation of immigrants, and I support all legal immigration. But open border policies are a direct threat to our national security and have created a humanitarian crisis. We should secure our borders and work on bipartisan legislation to address immigration issues, but Democrats refuse to even enforce existing laws.
Mr. Speaker, what good is a new immigration law when there is no evidence that it will be enforced?
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for his heartfelt comments.
Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time remains.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 21 minutes remaining.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, as you have heard from my colleagues, there are many levels and dimensions to this crisis. It is a national security crisis, Mr. Speaker. It is a public health and safety crisis. It is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, and it is only going to get worse until this President embraces the reality, resists the left's influence, and steps up and becomes the leader that our country needs at a time like this.
I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for joining us in this Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman), who represents Wisconsin's Sixth Congressional District.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, we have already talked tonight about the numbers which come from the crisis at the southern border.
During the Obama administration, Mr. Speaker, if you had 1,000 contacts a day with people trying to sneak in this country, that was a lot. We are now at around 3,000 a day. February of this year compared to February of last year is up 173 percent. That is shocking. It didn't have to be.
What incompetence did it take to get such a massive swing of people coming across our border?
President Trump had something called the migrant protection protocol. When people tried to sneak in here and claim asylum, they were sent back and held by the Mexican Government pending a hearing. This was a great victory for President Trump.
Maybe just because he is President Trump, it means you don't like him, Mr. Speaker, and you had to get rid of him like the protection protocol. So, we are back to the old days.
Rather than being held south of the border, waiting to see if you can come here, you are escorted into the United States, turned over to some nonprofit organization, and told to disappear somewhere in the United States to show up for a hearing which you don't show up for. And that is, more than any other reason, why we have this problem.
Another thing they have changed is that President Trump had worked on a deal with Central American countries so that people trying to come up here from South America and other Central American countries were held south of the Mexican border. One more good policy, but let's throw it overboard and see what happens.
By doing this, not only do we let more people in the country, but we enrich and empower the drug cartels. The drug cartels are charging about $3,000 for every Mexican they let in here, about $5,000 for every Central American, $8,000 to $9,000 for every Brazilian, and up to
$20,000 for every Asian.
When you are making that kind of money, Mr. Speaker, you know very well the drug cartels will recruit as many people as they can to come into this country.
Of course, nowadays, it is unlike years ago when they used to find marijuana. Now when people come across the border, it is fentanyl, meth, and heroin. So, in addition to the huge amount of humanity moving across the border, we have that many more drugs to kill the people of our country. I am sure the American people already remember we are losing about 80,000 people every year to illegal drug use, so much of which comes across the southern border.
As has been mentioned by other speakers, there is an increase in sexual assaults as people try to come across the border and are escorted by the drug cartels.
I want to point out that the drug cartels control that southern border. If you try to come here without their approval, Mr. Speaker, you are in big trouble. I will give you an anecdote from the last time I was down there. Three people tried to escort other people over the border. Two of them were skinned alive and died. The other was partly skinned alive and told to go back south to Mexico and tell everyone what happens if you try to come across the border without going through the drug cartels.
Just as another indication of the huge problem we have at the border, last year, which was an unusually hot year, they found, in the Tucson sector alone, 100 bodies of people who dehydrated trying to come here.
Under President Trump, Mr. Speaker, you know how good it can be. They went from a point where they were letting 100,000 people across the border, which was about 2 years ago, back down to, around December, about 10,000 people crossing the border. They did that with the migrant protection protocol, with dealing with Central America, and by being concerned about COVID.
So, what to do now? I am sometimes asked how the United States got in this mess, and I am talking about a wide variety of issues. Where would the Founding Fathers say they screwed up?
Until this, I always felt that if I look at the three branches of government and say between the legislative, executive, and judiciary, our Founding Fathers would have never believed the judiciary could have such complete lack of respect for the Constitution. But now, I have to answer something else.
The press sometimes considers themselves the fourth estate. There are rumors right now that the Department of Homeland Security has put a gag order on the Border Patrol agents who always have so many interesting stories down there. If I think of our Founding Fathers now who wanted a free press, as disappointed as they would be in our President, as disappointed as they would be in our Congress, and as super disappointed as our Founding Fathers would be in our judicial branch, I think the area they would be most disappointed is in the fourth estate. The bootlicking sycophants of the fourth estate are just horrible. These toadies are ruining the country.
Wake up. Insist on being able to talk to the Border Patrol. Get down to the Border Patrol and find out exactly what is going on.
Mr. Speaker, my final plea tonight is for the press corps to wake up, get to the southern border, and report what is really going on down there.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I think that this administration and our current President, Joe Biden, would do well to take a page out of President Trump's playbook, and I mean this with all sincerity.
The reason people by the millions followed this unconventional, nonpolitician businessman and leader is because they were convinced he would fight for them. It is because they watched as he followed through on what he promised he would do for them. And lastly, Mr. Speaker, it is because he put America first.
Perfect he was not, but I will tell you what, Mr. Speaker, with every fiber of his being and ounce of strength in every waking moment, he was vigilant in keeping those promises, and one of them was to secure the border and stop illegal immigration once and for all.
Politicians have come and gone. They have made the same promises but to no avail. President Trump reduced illegal crossings by 75 percent.
We know what to do in this Chamber. We know the policies that would work to protect our fellow Americans, secure our border, and stop this chaos and madness that has ensued as a result of these reckless, unilateral decisions that this President is making.
We know what to do, Mr. Speaker, but there is no political will to do it. The message, as we have said, is clear. It is demoralizing and insulting that the leadership of this administration and our Commander in Chief have prioritized illegal immigrants over our own citizens.
I am wearing a mask in the people's House. Most of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, have been vaccinated or have had COVID. We have social distancing, and we are still wearing masks. What a pathetic posture as we just release hundreds every day, thousands upon thousands--some say the infection rate is upward of 20 percent--into the interior of our country and into our communities while we the American people have spent trillions of dollars and made untold sacrifices to help our country get back to its feet. It is just unbelievable.
Those poor Border Patrol agents, who have had to hear that they too should be defunded, are hamstrung, at best. They see the revolving door.
How would you like to go to work every day, Mr. Speaker, with a clear mission, and a righteous and patriotic mission, to secure the border and protect your citizens and have a Commander in Chief who says come one, come all, and has such little regard for the rule of law and for those who risk their lives every day to enforce it?
These are just the cold, hard facts. It is the truth. I believe, and always have, in the American people's good judgment. While some folks may have had an aversion to the style and personality of the last President--I can appreciate that--they have to look back and say that he achieved unprecedented results that left this Nation safer, stronger, and more prosperous than we have been in recent history, if ever.
Mr. Speaker, I pray our country will return to that level of strength, and I pray this President will embrace the facts and reality. I hope he comes to visit border States like Texas and listens to the cries that have gone unheard from his administration, from the people of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and throughout this land who need him to step up and be our Commander in Chief.
Mr. Speaker, I am done, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 50
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