[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS: PART II
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-4
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
51-491 WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
LANCE GOODEN, Texas JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey LUCY McBATH, Georgia
TROY NEHLS, Texas MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
BARRY MOORE, Alabama VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
KEVIN KILEY, California DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming CORI BUSH, Missouri
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas GLENN IVEY, Maryland
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
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C O N T E N T S
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Thursday, February 23, 2023
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 1
The Honorable Tom McClintock, a Member of the Committee on the
Judiciary and Chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration
Integrity, Security, and Enforcement from the State of
California..................................................... 3
WITNESSES
Dr. Robert Trenschel, President and CEO, Yuma Regional Medical
Center
Oral Testimony................................................. 6
Prepared Testimony............................................. 9
Leon Wilmot, Sheriff, Yuma County Sheriff's Office
Oral Testimony................................................. 11
Prepared Testimony............................................. 14
Jonathan Lines, Yuma County Supervisor, District 2
Oral Testimony................................................. 33
Prepared Testimony............................................. 35
THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS, PART II
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Thursday, February 23, 2023
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4 p.m., in Yuma
City Hall, One City Plaza, Yuma, Arizona, Hon. Jim Jordan
[Chair of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Jordan, Gaetz, Biggs, McClintock,
Tiffany, Bishop, Spartz, Cline, Van Drew, Nehls, Moore, Kiley,
Hageman, and Fry.
Also present: Representative Gosar.
Chair Jordan. The Committee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
We want to welcome everyone to today's hearing on ``The
Biden Border Crisis, Part II.''
I'd like to start our proceedings with Mr. Gosar, who's
been kind enough to let us come to his great district.
Where is Paul? I haven't seen--oh, here comes Mr. Gosar.
We'd like to ask Congressman Gosar to lead us in the Pledge
of Allegiance. If you would, if you'd all stand for the pledge.
All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Thank you. Paul, thank you.
First, I want to say thanks to the good folks here in Yuma
for hosting us. We've had a wonderful 24 hours. I guess it's
been 24 hours, Supervisor, seeing all kinds of interesting
things. We want to thank you for your hospitality.
To the mayor, thank you for the facility and for all your
hospitality as well, and our witnesses who we'll get to you. We
talked to doctor earlier today, and, Sheriff, we're glad to
have you with us, as well as so many folks from our law
enforcement community.
It's not easy. It is not easy being in law enforcement
today, so we want to thank all of you for what you do.
[Applause.]
Obviously it's even tougher when we're down here on the
border and dealing with what we have.
It's a shame that not one Democrat Member of Congress would
join us on this trip despite having weeks of advance notice.
It's disappointing, but it's not surprising. In fact, the
Democrats have called this a stunt. I would argue it's not a
stunt, not what we've--my guess is our witnesses wouldn't call
it a stunt, what we've learned today from them, what we've seen
last night on the border. It's disappointing that they're not
here.
Democrats dismiss the experiences of these real people that
we've had a chance to visit with the last 24 hours, people
affected by the Biden border crisis, and Democrats seem to
believe that solutions can only come from bureaucrats in
Washington. We actually think they come from the American
people.
[Applause.]
If Democrats were here and saw what we're seeing, maybe
we'd have a chance at ending this crisis and actually securing
our southern border.
According to Border Patrol agents, last night, there were
over 200 folks who crossed the border last night. We got to see
the unfinished wall. Everyone tells us that walls work, walls
help. Every agent we've talked to says that's the case, and yet
we saw places where it should've been finished but wasn't.
This morning we were at the Yuma Regional Medical Center.
We heard from Dr. Trenschel and his great staff about the $26
million in uncompensated care that they've had to administer.
Now, they're willing to help everybody, and they do, but it
would be nice to get actually paid for the great work that they
do, and some other concerns that they had, that impact the
residents of this wonderful community.
Of course we saw the damage--we heard from growers today--
the damage that happens to them, and the crops in the fields,
and a host of other issues that we'll get to in the course of
our hearing this afternoon.
By not being here and seeing firsthand is no excuse for
inaction. Numbers don't lie. The January southwest border
encounter number was 156,000, 30 percent higher--36 percent
higher than the total number of encounters in January 2021 and
January 2020 combined.
Let me just say that again. The number of encounters this
January, last month, were more than a third higher than the
last two Januarys of the Trump Administration combined. Yet, a
Biden Administration official touted this 156,000 encounter
number as the result of, quote, ``a highly effective border
security strategy.'' Only in Joe Biden's America is over 5,000
illegal migrants encounter per day on the southwest border a
cause to celebrate.
Never forget what happened on day 1. Day 1, January 20,
2021, Joe Biden said:
We're not going to build the wall anymore, we're not going to
keep the Remain in Mexico policy, and we're not going to deport
any illegal migrants who come in for an immigration violation.
So, think about that. They're not going to--there's no wall
to get over, you won't have to wait in Mexico to have your
asylum claim evaluated, and you will not get deported, you'll
get to go wherever you want. Well, it's no wonder so many
migrants want to come to the greatest country ever. That's the
situation he had.
He's also called on Congress to pass a massive amnesty
package. All these reckless actions let people around the world
know that our border is open, and the illegal border crossings
haven't stopped since that day.
Again, numbers don't lie: 4.75 million encounters since Joe
Biden's been in office. Nearly a million of those have crossed
in just the first four months of Fiscal Year 2023. Over 1.89
million illegal aliens encountered along the southwest border
have been released into American communities by the Biden
Administration.
There was 14,700 pounds of fentanyl were seized by Custom
and Border Protection officials during Fiscal Year 2022; 12,500
pounds of fentanyl seized by Customs and Border officials just
in the first four months of this fiscal year.
Americans are dying as a direct result of President Biden's
open border policies.
It's a shame that the Democrats did not join us today in
Yuma. They would have learned a thing or two. They could've
heard from the farmers and landowners and the growers that I
talked about earlier. They would've seen how overrun the
hospital is with illegal migrants and the cost to our
healthcare institution here in Yuma. They would've heard
directly from the people here in Yuma who live President
Biden's border crisis each and every day.
Instead, they've accused us of political grandstanding
because we're here trying to hear from real people outside of
Washington, DC.
Why don't Democrats want to hear from local law
enforcement? Why don't Democrats want to talk to hospital
administrators? Why can't Democrats be bothered to hear how
fentanyl continues to kill tens of thousands of people in
communities across this great country.
I think the answer--I think we know why. It's because
Democrats' open border policies caused this crisis, and rather
than choosing to do anything to fix it, they want to call it a
stunt and they want to play political games.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and I
hope we can discuss what Congress can do to help fix this
problem.
With that, I would like to recognize our Subcommittee
Chair--there he is--our Committee on Oversight and
Accountability, from the great State of California.
Mr. McClintock is recognized.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, as you know, the morning of inauguration day
2021, illegal immigration had slowed to a trickle and our
borders were finally secure for the first time in decades. The
border wall was nearing completion, the Remain in Mexico policy
had all but stopped phony asylum claims, and ICE was actually
enforcing court-ordered deportations.
By the afternoon of that same day, Joe Biden had reversed
these successful policies and initiated an unprecedented
illegal mass migration on a scale that no civilization in
history has ever survived.
Since that afternoon, this administration has deliberately
admitted into the interior of our country 1.9 million illegal
immigrants, 600,000 of whom have not even been given notices to
appear in court. While the Border Patrol has been overwhelmed
changing diapers and taking names, another 1.2 million known
got-aways have entered our country as well.
So, that totals 3.1 million illegal immigrants who've been
allowed into our country to violate our borders and demand
billions of dollars of taxpayer resources that were supposed to
be helping Americans. The 3.1 million is a population larger
than the entire State of Arkansas, a State that has Seven
Congressional Districts. That's just in the last 25 months.
The vast proportion of these people are homeless,
impoverished, and desperate. Gallup warned us last year that
there are 42 million people living in poverty in Latin America
and the Caribbean alone who intend to come here now that they
can, and they are.
There's no question that this policy is deliberate and
calculated. For two years, we couldn't get the Democrats to
hold a single hearing on this crisis, not one. In the first six
weeks of this session, Republicans have held two, and we've
come to the border today to ask the people who are at ground
zero to tell us of their experiences. Not a single Democrat on
this Committee has bothered to show up to listen.
If not already affected, every American soon will be,
because every community will soon face the practical effects of
this collapsed border.
We have to ask ourselves; how does it make our schools
better to pack classrooms with non-English speaking students?
How does it make our hospitals more accessible by flooding
emergency rooms with illegals demanding care? How does it
strengthen our social safety net by adding millions of
impoverished individuals to a system that's already strained to
the breaking point?
How does it make our children safer with fentanyl flooding
our neighborhoods and killing nearly 300 Americans a day? How
does it make our communities safer to introduce violent cartels
into them and make it all but impossible to deport criminal
illegal aliens?
How does it help working Americans to undercut them by
flooding the labor market with cheap, illegal labor?
We are here today to listen to our fellow Americans who
live with the full impact of this new and lawless age, one
that's rapidly making its way to every town and every
neighborhood in the country.
On my last trip to Yuma this past fall, I asked rank-and-
file Border Patrol officers what laws they needed us to write
to do their jobs. To a person, every one of them said the same
thing: We don't need new laws, we need to enforce our existing
laws.
[Applause.]
When President Trump faithfully executed those laws, our
borders were secure. There's still much that can be done
legislatively to assure this never happens again.
The law requires every asylum claimant to be detained until
their case is adjudicated. We need a Title 42-type mechanism to
assure that we have the capacity to enforce this law. Credible
fear standards need to be tightened to prevent the admission of
anyone who has a criminal record or who has passed through a
safe country. Unaccompanied minors need to be returned safely
to their own homes immediately. E-Verify should be required to
streamline compliance with the law that protects Americans'
jobs. The current abuses of parole authority must be stopped.
Well, the two parties are far, far apart on this issue, as
evidenced by the lack of any interest by the Democrats on this
Committee today to even address the crisis or listen to the
people who've been directly affected by it.
The trust gap is also immense. If this administration
refuses to enforce existing laws, why would anyone trust it to
enforce future laws?
This won't stop us from trying. That's why we're here
today. I'm afraid that this is going to get worse until the
American people demand that these policies be reversed.
History is screaming this warning at us. Countries that
cannot or will not enforce their borders simply aren't around
very long. We can't and we won't let that become the epitaph of
the American Republic.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. Well said.
[Applause.]
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
I want to introduce, we have three great witnesses today
who are--and I want to introduce them--who are here to give us
the facts, to give us the truth, not here to complain.
Complaining doesn't solve--what's the old--the great football
coach, Lou Holtz, said that, ``stop complaining about your
problems, 90 percent of the people don't care, and 10 percent
are glad you got them,'' right?
That is not what this panel is about. These are folks who
want to give us the facts and the truth from here on the ground
on the front lines, and we welcome them being here today.
Mr. Jonathan Lines has served as District 2 Yuma County
Supervisor for two years, a previous Chair of the Republican
Party of Arizona. He is now a Member of the Arizona-Mexico
Commission, serves as Vice-Chair of the new Water
Infrastructure and Finance Authority for Arizona and, of
course, as you all know, is a small business owner here in this
community.
The Honorable Leon Wilmot. Sheriff Wilmot has served in law
enforcement in Yuma, Arizona, for 38 years. This is our second
hearing, and this is the second hearing where we've had a
sheriff from this great State. We had Sheriff Dannels a few
weeks ago up in Washington, DC. It's interesting, I think he
served 28 or 38. I think you've served 38 years, and currently
serving his third term as sheriff of Yuma County. He's a
veteran of the United States Marine Corps--thank you for that
service too--and serves on the Executive Committee on the
National Sheriffs' Association.
Of course, our third witness is Dr. Robert Trenschel. He's
President and CEO of the Yuma Regional Medical Center where we
spent the morning. Amazing facility. He has nearly 20 years of
experience in senior management of medical care. Graduated from
medical school at Nova Southeastern University in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, which is dear to my colleague's heart here
from the great State of Florida, and was in private practice
from 1990-2000. Dr. Trenschel holds a master's degree in public
health from Florida International University in Miami, Florida.
We want to welcome all three of our witnesses and thank
them for appearing here today.
As I said earlier, I also want to welcome several Arizona
sheriffs. Now, I'm not sure if I got everyone listed, but I'm
going to go on my list, and if I didn't get you, I want you to
stand up and tell us who you are. I want to make sure I
pronounce these.
Lu Paz, Lu Paz, did I say that county right?
Voice. La Paz.
Chair Jordan. La Paz, OK, county sheriff--that's what a
Buckeye does when he gets to Arizona.
Sheriff William Ponce and Chief Deputy David Gray, are they
here?
Oh, right there, there we go. Thank you, thank you.
Pinal County Sheriff--did I get that one right.
Mr. Biggs. Pinal.
Chair Jordan. Pinal. You got to help me, Biggs. What the
heck.
[Applause.]
Pinal County, Sheriff Mark Lamb, and Chief Deputy Matthew
Thomas, thank you as well.
Cochise--I got that one right--Cochise County, Mark
Dannels. That's because I had that before. He was there two
weeks ago. I know Mark couldn't make it, but he was there in
DC.
Graham County Sheriff Preston Allred. Excuse me. Yes.
[Applause.]
Gila--thanks for the help--Gila County Sheriff Adam
Shepherd. Thank you, Sheriff. Thank you.
Yahopie, wow--
Mr. Biggs. Yavapai.
Chair Jordan. Yavapai. I would've never got that one.
Sheriff David Rhodes, thank you as well.
[Applause.]
Navajo--I would've got the last one--Navajo Sheriff David
Clouse, thank you as well for being here.
God bless you all.
[Applause.]
We need to--we will begin by swearing in our witnesses.
If you'd all stand and raise your right hand, our three
witnesses here.
Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
Let the record show that each witness answered in the
affirmative.
We're going to give you five minutes. You guys can be
seated. We'll start with Dr. Trenschel, and we'll go right down
the line, five minutes, and then the sheriff and then Mr.
Lines, and, yes, pass that microphone.
I'll give you a little mike tap with the gavel when you get
to about 4\1/2\ minutes, but we're going to be--we're among
friends here; if you got to go a little longer than 5-5\1/2\
minutes, that'd be fine too.
So, Doctor, you're recognized. Thank you again.
STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT TRENSCHEL
Dr. Trenschel. Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon, Chair Jordan and Members of the Committee.
I'm Dr. Robert Trenschel, President and CEO of Yuma Regional
Medical Center. Thank you for being here in person today to get
a firsthand account of the impact that open borders have had on
our hospital and community over the past year and more.
I've been in Yuma for close to eight years as CEO, and I
bring over 30 years of experience in healthcare administration.
Yuma Regional Medical Center is a 406-bed hospital that offers
a full range of acute care services. The closest hospitals that
do what we do are located 180 miles away in Phoenix or San
Diego.
Given our geographic location, our hospital and health
system hold a deep responsibility of keeping local families
close to home for care whenever possible. For many who live
here, traveling out of town for care is simply an unbearable
challenge. They depend on us to be here.
Our mission to meet the needs of the community is always in
the forefront of every decision.
I also want to acknowledge the work and heart of our staff
at Yuma Regional Medical Center who continue to work and care
for patients each and every day. They provide the same high
level of care for every patient. We do not treat anyone
differently, and we take pride in that. If your mother or
grandchild walks through our doors or if a migrant walks
through our doors, they will receive the same level of care.
We've had a significant increase in the number of migrants
crossing the border into our community. Our hospital saw an
increase in the number of migrants seeking care beginning late
fall, early winter of 2021. They arrive to our hospital
emergency room in a multitude of ways. Some patients come to us
via Border Patrol, who typically release them from custody upon
arrival. Other patients walk in, take taxis, some even come by
Uber.
As I've said, we're the only acute care hospital in the
area, which means diversion to another facility is not an
option. We are it.
Some migrants come to us with minor ailments, but many come
in with significant disease. We've had migrant patients on
dialysis, cardiac catheterization, and in need of heart
surgery. Many are very sick. They have long-term complications
of chronic disease that have not been cared for. Some end up in
the ICU for 60 days or more.
One of the largest cohorts we have seen are maternity
patients who present with little or no prenatal care. These
higher risk pregnancies and births result in higher
complication rates and longer hospital stays. Due to a lack of
prenatal care, many of these babies require a stay in our
neonatal intensive care unit, some for a month or more at a
time.
There are language and cultural concerns with migrant
patients. We work through those, but when you consider the
volume and associated case management that comes with it,
resources have to support this as well.
Migrants often require three times the amount of human
resources to resolve their cases and provide them with a safe
discharge as defined by CMS. That effort includes assisting in
locating families, making sure they have a safe place to go
when they are discharged, arranging, and sometimes purchasing
durable medical equipment when needed. We have paid for
emergency air transport when they need a higher level of care,
hotel rooms, taxis, and car seats.
We do all these things because it's the right thing to do
from a humanitarian perspective, but it also allows us to open
up a hospital bed sooner for another patient in our community.
None of these expenses are included in the $26 million
figure. Our reality is this: We have delivered over $26 million
in uncompensated care to these individuals in the 12-month
period from December 2021-November 2022. That's an auditable
figure.
Let me assure you this is not an approximation. That number
comes from a detailed review of unpaid patient bills directly
attributed to migrant patients.
The $26 million in uncompensated care is simply not a
sustainable business model. While this is a huge number that we
have validated, the point is that any number is not acceptable.
It is an unsustainable model to have a hospital like ours bear
the entire burden of paying for migrant healthcare. No business
or service can survive ongoing, large-scale expenses without
any offsetting revenue.
Because of this surge in migrant care, we've had to hire
additional staff at a time when healthcare labor post-pandemic
is higher than ever.
Every dollar in uncompensated care has a direct impact on
our hospital. Migrant patients are receiving free care. They
have no ability to pay. We have no ability to bill anyone. We
don't know their final destination. We don't know anything
about them. We cannot provide completely free care to the
residents of our community, so the situation is simply not fair
and understandably concerning to them.
Let me put this into perspective. The $26 million is equal
to the salary and benefits to support 212 bedside nurses. The
city of Yuma has 100,000 people, and we've had over 300,000
people cross the border here. That's three times the population
of Yuma coming across the border. We're the only hospital
within a three-hour radius, which means they come here.
We've contacted our State and Federal leaders, and no one
has a solution. They are willing to listen and are empathetic
to our situation, but so far, we have no solutions or
reimbursement for the care.
We've been at this for well over a year now. On behalf of
our entire healthcare team, I'm here seeking your leadership
support to find a payer source for the care we have already
provided and will continue to provide in the future, and to put
long-term solutions into action that will support our daily
commitment to be here for our community for years to come.
One hospital should not and cannot bear the healthcare
costs of a national migrant problem that is deeply impacting
Arizona and our community. We need a revenue source for the
patient population so we can sustainably provide high-quality
care to all comers and remain viable for the future.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Trenschel follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate your being
with us and your testimony.
Sheriff, you're recognized for five minutes. Yes, pull that
nice and close, and everyone in the room will be able to hear
you.
STATEMENT OF SHERIFF LEON WILMOT
Sheriff Wilmot. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair Jim Jordan and
distinguished Members of this Committee. I appreciate the
opportunity to address this Committee regarding the status of
our southern border from the perspective of our community and
local law enforcement.
I've served our border community for over 38 years with the
Yuma County Sheriff's Office, and prior to that as a member of
our military, serving in the United States Marine Corps,
stationed here at MCAS Yuma, located within Yuma County.
I've always been a genuine believer in my oath of office,
to protect my country and now Yuma County as a duly elected
sheriff for the past 11 years. I'm an active member of the
Arizona Sheriffs' Association, currently serve as an Executive
Committee Member for National Sheriffs. I'm a board member and
past Chair of National Sheriffs' Association Border Security
Committee, Executive Board Member at Western States Sheriffs'
Association, and an active member and past Chair of the
Southwestern Border Sheriff's Coalition.
All these associations share three objectives: Public
safety, national security, and addressing humanitarian issues
in our communities.
In my submitted brief, I have shared with you all an
overview of Yuma County and the history of our border. I have
personally experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of being
a border county.
Unfortunately, my office has always had to deal with
border-
related crimes, death investigations, and the smuggling of
illicit drugs, humans, weapons, and cash by our transnational
organizations--the cartels.
I am proud of our relationship with our Federal, State, and
local law enforcement partners that serve our communities.
I do want to take this opportunity to thank our Customs and
Border Patrol officers and agents who have worked tirelessly
and diligently to protect this great Nation. I also want to
thank all my fellow sheriffs that stand united for the rule of
law and the protection of their communities. Finally, I want to
thank my constituents for their patience and support in a time
of crisis and disarray.
To best understand my presentation, you need to understand
where we were two years ago. My county was one of the safest
border communities and counties based on our collective
governmental efforts, messaging, and yes, delivering a hundred
percent consequence delivery and enforcement efforts against
the criminal element supported by the rule of law.
Apprehensions by Border Patrol were an average of roughly
40 a day. When the policies of this administration changed, our
Federal agents immediately averaged 200 a day, then 400 a day,
to over a thousand a day in apprehensions along the river
corridor.
Chair Jordan. Wow, wow.
Sheriff Wilmot. The citizens of Yuma County and law
enforcement face a huge migrant crisis along the river
corridor. Last Federal fiscal year, you've heard, there were
310,000 give-ups. So far, this Federal fiscal year, we are
currently at 93,000 in Yuma County.
We had 28,000 known got-aways last Federal Fiscal Year in
the east part of our county alone, and so far, 5,000 this
Federal fiscal year.
Yuma County is an agricultural community, supplying 90
percent of the winter leafy greens to the whole of the United
States during the winter season. Because of the proximity of
the fields to the river corridor, it's visually an
environmental disaster on the river area ecosystem with the
tons of trash, pharmaceuticals, and biological waste being left
by those crossing the river illegally.
Yuma County Emergency Management alone has had to budget
general fund dollars to lease Porta-Johns to put down by the
river corridor to prevent the defecation in the fields.
The price tag for migrants being illegally smuggled by the
cartels begins at roughly $6,000 per person and up to $15,000,
depending on what country they're coming from. These smugglers
include juveniles being recruited, via social media, by the
cartels to smuggle not only humans and narcotics into Yuma
County, but children are also the pawns on the cartel's money-
making schemes.
Roughly 400-800 juveniles cross our border every day to go
to school in Yuma County. The cartels use them to body conceal
and carry narcotics across and tell them that the Federal
Government will not charge a juvenile for smuggling, so you
don't have to worry about being arrested.
Border-related bookings of undocumented immigrants
committing State crimes in Yuma County has cost us, in Federal
Fiscal Year 2021, $440,000, and last fiscal year, over
$300,000.
These charges included sexual exploitation of minors,
narcotics, assaults, kidnappings, burglary, and theft cases,
and of recent, we have one smuggler that was caught and is
being charged by our agency for committing murder on another
individual he was smuggling into this country.
All of this is borne on our local taxpayers' dollar. Our
Federal partners across the southwest border made 40,000
arrests of individuals with criminal convictions or individuals
that were apprehended and wanted by local law enforcement.
In 2021, over five million dosages of fentanyl were seized
on the Arizona border. In 2022, over 12,000 pounds of fentanyl
was seized on the southwest border.
From a local's perspective, there were 50 overdose deaths
between 2021 and 2022 in Yuma County.
We've also had to encounter 700-plus deaths in the desert
along the southwest border as a whole. In 2021, our agency
investigated 30 of those. In 2022, we investigated 70 deaths
just in Yuma County's desert.
In 2021, 1,821 encounters by my officers with individuals
that were smuggled into Yuma. In 2022, my officers encountered
over 4,600 who were being smuggled into the United States into
our county.
We've had to handle over 750 911 calls through our dispatch
center, on and above the ones that Border Patrol gets, from
migrants wanting to be rescued out in the remote deserts of our
county.
In 2021, I authorized an effort to identify and combat the
influx of illegal moneys into Yuma County. The ensuring effort
resulted in the discovery of the use of local banking
institutions to move moneys from the United States into Mexico.
In the four-month period of September 2021-January 2022,
two people and one business moved over $600,000 from U.S. banks
into Mexico. In a two-month period between April and June 2021,
one business moved over 300,000 alone.
As the initiative has expanded and matured in 2022, three
people were discovered to have moved about 1.6 million in a 10-
month period, in addition to another estimated 950,000 from
other accounts in a four-month period, for an estimated total
of over 2.5 million.
Our initiative continues in the latter part of 2022. Eleven
individuals were identified in Yuma County as moving roughly
over $3 million between the U.S. and Mexico in a three-month
period, and one company was identified as moving 1.9 million in
a 90-day period.
Chair Jordan. Wow. Sheriff, if you can, we got your written
testimony, so on that, maybe just, if you could just finish up,
and then we'll--we got your written testimony, it's been given
out to every member, and then we can get to Supervisor Lines.
Go ahead and finish up if you can.
Sheriff Wilmot. Absolutely. I will cut mine short and I
will leave you with this final statement.
We all serve the priorities of Americans based on our
shared oaths of office to keep them safe, enhance their quality
of life, and support the rule of law, absent political
affiliation or the concern of reelection. I ask each and every
one of you today to reflect on this statement as you serve
those that placed you into the office of trust.
Once again, I thank this Committee for the invitation and
the opportunity to provide testimony.
[The prepared statement of Sheriff Wilmot follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Sheriff, thank you. Very interesting numbers.
The financial dealings that you've uncovered too, the stuff
going on there is something new that we--I don't know that the
Committee had seen much of before. Thank you so much.
Supervisor Lines, thank you. You're recognized for five
minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. JONATHAN LINES
Mr. Lines. Chair Jordan, Members of the Congressional
Judiciary Committee, thank you for being here. For many of
you--Mr. Gaetz, Mr. Biggs, and my Congressman Mr. Gosar--
they've been here multiple times, as well as Mr. McClintock.
So, thank you for taking a personal interest in some of the
challenges that we have here along our border.
For many of the freshmen that just came into office,
congratulations, and hopefully you can come back to discuss
other things like great weather. Except for yesterday, we
noted.
I'd like to welcome you to the most patriotic community in
Arizona as declared by Insurify. I serve my community in many
different capacities: As a county supervisor and sitting on
boards like the Yuma Community Food Bank, Amberly's Place, and
through service organizations.
Yuma has been my family's home since the 1930's, and
Arizona, our State, since the 1870's, prior to statehood.
Here's where we choose to carve out an existence in the desert.
I am sad to be before you today to discuss the failures of
the Biden Administration on the southwest border in the Yuma
Sector. Since the first days of this administration, we have
seen a significant deterioration in border security, despite
the massive efforts from the men and women who have been
working tirelessly to secure the border to safeguard our
national security.
Since President Biden took office, we saw a huge surge, a
record number of people crossing illegally from 106 different
countries. Seventeen of those countries are designated as
special interests because of the negative relationship with the
United States and a desire to do harm, and that has steadily
continued these many months.
Along with illegal entry into the United States across an
open border, the increase in trafficking of narcotics, both
human trafficking and drug trafficking, remain at an all-time
high, significantly greater than any other administration in
our history.
In addition to the known give-ups, we are extremely
concerned about the backgrounds and intentions of the got-
aways, the 1.2 million as noted, those who evade law
enforcement, enter the United States illegally, who are not
willing to give themselves into the custody of Border Patrol
for processing. These are estimated to exceed the 1.2 million
since Biden took office.
I've had many opportunities to visit with the border from
elected officials from all over the United States, and the
message they have shared with me is that this is not just a
Yuma, Arizona, problem, but that illegal entry, human
trafficking, and narcotics, especially fentanyl and
methamphetamines, has now compounded and pervaded across the
United States to affect every community across our Nation, now
making them too into border communities.
These leaders stood with us in asking the President to
fulfill his commitment through Secretary Mayorkas at his visit
last year, who had pledged to Mayor Nicholls and myself, to
close the Yuma gaps in the border wall and provide financial
support, safety and security for the men and women who are on
the front lines battling a very porous border, which support
has yet to materialize from the Executive Branch.
Today you'll have the opportunity, as you have, to hear
testimony--and I thought I was going to go first, so I have to
change this a little bit. You've heard their testimony, and now
you'll have the opportunity to ask them questions.
Last week, we learned that the average number of people who
entered illegally across the Yuma Sector is now percolating up
at 2,500 a week. Prior to, that number was 5,000-6,000 per
week. Yet, at the same time, fentanyl, methamphetamines, and
cocaine seizures were up between 200 and 400 percent because
the men and women in uniform were able to direct their
attention and efforts to border security, national security.
Fentanyl is the scourge of our Nation. It's being shipped
from Mexico--to Mexico from China. In conjunction with the
cartels, it is being marketed and sold to children through
social media apps. These stories are tragic when parents talk
about the loss of life of their sons and daughters due to
fentanyl and opioids.
My hope today through this hearing is that we can shed
light on the challenge we face as a small community, as well as
to remind the Nation, like many elected officials have done
after coming to see for themselves, that every community in the
United States is now a border community due to an abject
failure by this administration to control and stem the tide of
illegal entry along the southwest border and to commit to take
back control of the border from the cartels.
Mr. Chair, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lines follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Supervisor.
Now, I want to go to one of the experts in the U.S.
Congress on this issue and done so much to bring its attention
to colleagues in the Congress and folks around the country. The
gentleman from Arizona, Congressman Biggs, is recognized for
five minutes of questions.
Mr. Biggs. I thank the Chair. I appreciate being here in
Yuma, where it's always a very hospitable group of people that
greet us, and I'm grateful for that. It's reflective of the
unity of this community and how great you are.
We just heard from three great witnesses, and I also tip my
hat today to the officers and agents of CBP and law
enforcement. We recognize the challenges that you have.
I'm going to try to first undercut a narrative that our
colleagues across the aisle raise, and they tell you that 90
percent of fentanyl is seized at the border--at the port of
entry, right, port of entry, as if there's not a massive amount
of fentanyl and other drugs coming between the ports of entry.
So, I'm going to ask the panel: Why do you suppose that we
are more successful at interdicting drug smuggling at a port of
entry that has, I don't know, dogs, X-ray machines, material,
and more agents, than we would be between ports of entry?
Mr. Lines, you look like you're just chomping at the bit to
answer that question.
Mr. Lines. No, the sheriff winked at me and told me to go.
Mr. Biggs. Very good. Please.
Mr. Lines. Mr. Biggs, Congressman Biggs, thank you for the
opportunity. We learned last week, and this number we made
public toward the end of the month, but the narrative of 90
percent coming through the ports has been changed a little bit
in that because of the downturn over the January timeframe, 48
percent of the fentanyl was being intercepted between the ports
and 52 percent at the ports.
To combat that narrative, Border Patrol has now had the
opportunity, because they're not spending 1.5, 1.7 hours
processing each individual, and so they are now on the border
being able to provide national security and border security.
Mr. Biggs. Sheriff, do you want to add on that?
Sheriff Wilmot. I would just confirm what Jonathan Lines
just said.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
Sheriff Wilmot. With our agents being able to get back out
in the field, it's helped us intercept that.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Sheriff, I'm going to ask you a
question. You mentioned juvenile drug smuggling, juveniles
being used and exploited to smuggle drugs coming across, who
have legal purpose to enter the country--or legal authority to
enter the country through the port of entry. Please tell us
about that.
Sheriff Wilmot. That is correct. When we speak with our
port of entry personnel, they are the ones that typically are
the screeners when juveniles come across from Mexico to go to
school each and every day. The cartels exploit them by asking
them to carry fentanyl and other narcotics across the border
when they're walking into the United States.
These individuals are then apprehended by port of entry
personnel, who then get ahold of DEA or the local narcotics
task force, and then they end up getting charged as an adult
because of the amount of narcotics that they have in their
possession.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. I'm going to make a quick statement
and then try to get time to get to Dr. Trenschel to ask him a
question too. There's just so much. This is an incredibly broad
topic.
The violation of laws of this administration, I'm going to
point out four quick things. They've changed the parole--they
haven't changed it. They are violating the parole of the law--
the parole law. The parole authority typically would be a case-
by-case basis, 12-20 people a year, per year, until the Biden
Administration came in.
Last year, more than 300,000 people received parole, and
there's a promise of 360,000 more people this year from four
different countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
That's one violation.
The second is the no deport. One of you mentioned the no
deportation law. More than 1.2 million individuals have
received due process and an order of removal because their
asylum claim was bogus--found to be bogus by a court. This
administration has forbidden ICE to pursue, look, and deport.
The third thing is the violation of the first safe nation
international law. That's another reference to the Remain in
Mexico policy. If you had the First Safe Nation Law and you
enforced the First Safe Nation Law, which we did under the
Remain in Mexico policy, Yuma Sector, the last year of the
Trump Administration had fewer than 9,000 encounters. Last
year, well over 300,000 encounters. That's the third thing.
So, I will just leave it there, so I can ask Dr. Trenschel
this last question, because you said something that I think
every American needs to hear. You are actually expending
hospital funds--community hospital funds--to actually move
people to family members or elsewhere around the country. There
are many that you are sending, that you don't even know their
destination. Please expand on that and tell us what that looks
like.
Dr. Trenschel. Sure. So, when a patient comes into the
hospital, we have to provide them with a safe discharge, per
CMS, and we do that. So, a lot of that includes tracking down
their family members. We've had to fly them to their families.
We've had to air ambulance individuals for higher levels of
care. We've just had to--durable medical equipment,
wheelchairs, walkers, all these other items that we have to
provide for patients for a safe discharge.
Mr. Biggs. you're not being compensated by the Federal
Government or anyone else, and these individuals are not those
that have been brought for medical treatment by CBP through
some kind of legal mechanism.
Dr. Trenschel. Correct. Some individuals may have walked
in, declared themselves a migrant and we treat those. They
could've have come in by taxi. They could've come in by any
means, yes.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, thank you so much. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Thanks for all your good work.
The Chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration, the gentleman
from California, is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. McClintock. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Trenschel, you said that your hospital has incurred $26
million in uncompensated care over the past year. Obviously
that money doesn't come from nowhere. It comes out of what
you'd otherwise be spending. So, does this mean that there's
$26 million less equipment for your patients, $26 million less
staff to care for them?
Dr. Trenschel. It does. That extra revenue that we would've
brought in would've gone back into the community, and we do
that as a nonprofit. So, it would've been either to purchase
equipment, have additional access ports for patients here,
bring in additional physicians. It would've been used for the
benefit of our community for sure.
Mr. McClintock. Now, you say you serve all patients
equally, but it is a zero-sum equation, isn't it? A bed that's
taken by one person is not going to be available for another.
An hour of a doctor's time on one person is not going to be
available to care for another.
So, if your emergency room, for example, is packed with
illegal immigrants, doesn't that mean, just as a simple,
mathematical equation, that legal residents must wait exactly
that much longer for care?
Dr. Trenschel. Yes, it does. That's very true. We've had
that experience in our emergency room. We've had that
experience with patients who've had to delay elective surgery
because other urgent migrant patients have come in who needed
emergent surgery.
We've had to delay maternity patients with planned
inductions, because we've simply been out of space in our
maternity unit with migrant patients who've had deliveries.
Many of them just coming in at the same time for deliveries.
Mr. McClintock. Now, of course, virtually all these
migrants don't stay here. Where do they go?
Dr. Trenschel. We don't know where they go. Some may go to
Florida. Other--they really go everywhere. We don't know.
Mr. McClintock. So, this is going to be impacting every
hospital in the country?
Dr. Trenschel. Yes, yes.
Mr. McClintock. Sheriff Wilmot, are Mexican cartels
operating in Yuma County today?
Sheriff Wilmot. There is a cartel influence in Yuma County
between--we have two States in Mexico that border Yuma County.
We have the Baja California, which is the Sinaloa cartel in
Sonora.
Mr. McClintock. What are they doing on this side of the
border? What are the cartels doing on this side of the border?
Sheriff Wilmot. Well, they're the ones that are
orchestrating the smuggling of narcotics and the humans toward
the east part of the county.
Mr. McClintock. What are your greatest concerns for public
safety from their activity here?
Sheriff Wilmot. Well, obviously, first concern is the loss
of life and the impact on our local communities. It's also the
fact that when we have that many get-aways, and we know how
many countries have actually come through Yuma County, those
also being special interest countries, what is this country
going to expect to happen of these unknown individuals coming
into the United States? Where are they going, and what is their
intentions?
Mr. McClintock. Could we expect to see the kind of violent
cartel gun battles in our cities that we're now seeing in
Mexico?
Sheriff Wilmot. We have seen victims of that come into our
county as well as other counties along the U.S.-Mexico border.
We have not--
Mr. McClintock. Is it just a matter of time before we see
the same things here?
Sheriff Wilmot. I believe they've already seen it in other
States as of late.
Mr. McClintock. We saw it in Tulare County in California
just a few weeks ago.
Sheriff Wilmot. Yes.
Mr. McClintock. What is your warning to other communities
from what you've experienced here?
Sheriff Wilmot. We've been trying to warn other communities
for the past couple years in regard to the activities that
we're seeing here. It's not staying in the border, it's going
across the Nation, and I don't think you'll find a sheriff now
throughout the United States that doesn't say that they're
actually now a border county because of what the impacts they
have had in their communities.
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
I now yield to the gentleman from Florida, my friend, Mr.
Gaetz.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, I observe that the people of Yuma are
good folks, and they deserve a lot better from the Federal
Government than they have been getting, and whether or not
they'll get it depends heavily on the House of Representatives,
and particularly this group and whether or not we will fight
for them.
We don't have a single Democrat that we could even convince
to come to this briefing to get evidence from these experts.
You think we're going to get President Joe Biden and Chuck
Schumer to pass legislation without a fight, without demanding
that it go in must-pass bills? We have to use every bit of
leverage, or this is a deeply unserious exercise.
Now, Dr. Trenschel, about 1 in 4 of the migrants who use
birthing services at your hospital need neonatal intensive care
unit services, NICU, right?
Dr. Trenschel. That is true, yes.
Mr. Gaetz. That rate, 1 in 4, is way higher than with the
nonmigrant population, right?
Dr. Trenschel. Very much higher, correct.
Mr. Gaetz. You got about 20 beds at any given time?
Dr. Trenschel. Correct.
Mr. Gaetz. They fill up sometimes, don't they?
Dr. Trenschel. Yes, they do.
Mr. Gaetz. So, when you have those beds that are full up
because of the pressure of these migrant communities, where do
you have to send the residents of Yuma when they have a baby
that needs NICU?
Dr. Trenschel. We would have to fly them to Phoenix or
another venue.
Mr. Gaetz. That's 170 miles away?
Dr. Trenschel. Yes, it is.
Mr. Gaetz. There are few prayers that I have ever seen more
sincere and deeper than the prayers of parents when their
little babies are at the NICU. For all the folks on the left
who want to lecture to us about how humane an open border is,
there is nothing humane about putting a parent on a 170-mile
journey when they need NICU services.
Supervisor Lines, we hear Secretary Mayorkas come to us all
the time on the Judiciary Committee and testify that the most
important partnerships above all else for the Department of
Homeland Security are the partnerships with local officials. We
hear it time and again.
So here is my simple question for you. Has Secretary
Mayorkas ever lied to you?
Mr. Lines. Yes.
Mr. Gaetz. What was the substance of that lie?
Mr. Lines. So, the mayor and I had the opportunity to visit
with Secretary Mayorkas, and the Yuma Sector Chief, as well as
the chief of the entire Border Patrol at sector headquarters
almost a year ago. During that meeting, he committed to, after
reviewing the border, both from the ground and the air, to
specifically address, quote, ``9 of the 11 Yuma gaps,''
unquote.
Mr. Gaetz. How many of those gaps have been addressed?
Mr. Lines. To date so far, none. We see infrastructure on
two, and yet they will not deter anyone.
Mr. Gaetz. This is my fourth time here with you.
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gaetz. I think if I come any more often, I'm going to
be eligible to vote in Yuma County.
Mr. Lines. Thank you for coming back, Matt. District 2 is
great.
Mr. Gaetz. It seems as though it's not a great mystery
where the pressure points are, where we have gaps in the wall,
and where we have recalcitrant tribes. So, in those
circumstances, should we observe that this is a lack of
capability or a lack of will to go and plug those holes?
Mr. Lines. A lack of will. We've followed up multiple
times, as well as Yuma Sector Border Patrol staff and--with
Under Secretaries, and we were told time and time again that
they were issuing contracts, that we would have it no later
than June of last year, then no later than September, then no
later than November. Every time it kept getting pushed out
while--
Mr. Gaetz. So, would a reasonable person observe that this
is on purpose?
Mr. Lines. My wife says I'm not a very patient person, but
I was patient every time that I called, and they continued to
push this process out. It's not reasonable.
Mr. Gaetz. Well, the American people are losing their
patience, we ought to be losing ours, and while we greatly
appreciate the three of you being here to answer our questions,
the day will come soon when Secretary Mayorkas has to come and
answer our questions.
To my colleagues, if he'll lie to Mr. Lines and lie to the
community here, then he will lie to us, and he will lie to the
American people, and that's why I'm very proud to cosponsor
Representative Biggs' Articles of Impeachment against Secretary
Mayorkas, because this is not a lack of ability, it is a lack
of will.
[Applause.]
Mr. Lines, I'll give you the last word.
Mr. Lines. Mr. Gaetz, thank you very much. To what Mr.
McClintock was saying as far as the cartel violence, over the
last 14 months, the sheriff and I have been made aware of over
200 assassinations in San Luis Rio Colorado, where the cartels
are targeting law enforcement. This last weekend we had another
officer shot and then retribution the following night.
So, when you talk about that violence, it's here at our
border. They are in control, and we want to take our control--
our border control back, and we need an administration that has
the will to secure our borders. That's what we're asking you to
do. I thank you very much for being here.
Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Chair, my time's expired. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman from Florida.
I now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Tiffany.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you very much.
Let me followup on that. Sheriff, do you believe the U.S.
Government has control of the border here with Mexico?
Sheriff Wilmot. I believe that we are trained, and our
Border Patrol partners are trying very hard, but the cartels
are the ones that are creating the narrative and controlling
the activities all along the 2,000 miles of international
boundary.
Mr. Tiffany. Do you have the ability to identify migrants
who are inadmissible to the United States for criminal reasons
or prior deportations?
Sheriff Wilmot. We do not have access to that.
Mr. Tiffany. Is ICE or CBP actively assisting you in
processing the migrants, in your charge?
Sheriff Wilmot. In the law enforcement aspect, we work with
them quite a bit in regard to those that are in my jail. As far
as the immigration side, that is something that is not in our
wheelhouse. I can tell you that, because of their constraints,
that I've actually cross-deputized our Federal partners in the
different entities to be able to seek State charges against
individuals that the U.S. attorney would not charge for crimes.
Mr. Tiffany. Have you had--say that last part again, the
United States attorney.
Sheriff Wilmot. The part in regard to the United States
Attorney not wanting to charge an individual for a crime, then
I've cross-deputized them so they can take that case to a
county attorney to get prosecution.
Mr. Tiffany. Have you had any detainers issued by ICE for
migrants in your facilities?
Sheriff Wilmot. Yes, I have.
Mr. Tiffany. As a result of the illegal migration coming
across our border, are they harming the environment?
Sheriff Wilmot. Absolutely. The vast amount of trash,
pharmaceuticals, garbage, clothing that's being dumped along
our river corridor has been astronomical, and the impacts for
our farmers in their fields as well.
Mr. Tiffany. When we had a hearing just a couple weeks ago,
we had a Judge Samaniego, from I believe El Paso, and Sheriff
Dannels on the panel. They had very divergent statements to say
in regard to fentanyl, that the reason for fentanyl--the
expansion of its use in our country and the devastating
consequences was not because of the border being open. That was
the case being made by Judge Samaniego.
Sheriff Dannels said that it is a result of the borders
being opened over the last couple years that fentanyl use and
its migration into the United States has gone up exponentially.
Who's correct?
Sheriff Wilmot. I would tend to support Sheriff Dannels'
statement in regard to that. I would agree with his statement
as well.
Mr. Tiffany. So, you've seen--are you saying you have seen
the same thing as Sheriff Dannels in Cochise County?
Sheriff Wilmot. We have seen the same type of activity
where individuals were recruited to come and pick up
individuals that entered this country illegally between a port
of entry and come to pick them up because it's a money-making
adventure. They've also been found to be in possession of
narcotics too at the same time.
Mr. Tiffany. Has Secretary Mayorkas secured the border?
Sheriff Wilmot. No.
Mr. Tiffany. I just have one further question and then a
final statement, Mr. Chair.
Do any--to Dr. Trenschel--do any of the NGO's out there,
nongovernmental organizations, have they compensated you for
any of the uncompensated care that you're providing for
migrants?
Dr. Trenschel. No, they have not. We've not received any
compensation from anyone.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you.
I'm just going to close with this. You know, folks, set
aside--we've had the most number of people that are on the
terror watch come across our border in the last couple years,
in the history of the United States of America.
You can set aside the human trafficking. You have the
largest--your U.S. Government, via the Biden Administration, is
running perhaps the largest human trafficking--or complicit in
perhaps the greatest, biggest human trafficking operation in
the history of the world, along with the cartels, along with
the International Organization of Migration, a United Nations
outfit, and others.
Set those things aside. Just fentanyl alone should be a
national emergency in America, and I can't believe we do not
have colleagues on the other side of the aisle that are not
here today, and even if they're not here today, that are not
calling for the same thing that we're calling for: At a
minimum, secure the border to stop the fentanyl, or at least
reduce the amount of fentanyl coming into America that has made
every State, including my State of Wisconsin, a border State.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Bishop, for five minutes.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
That does it.
I sit up here and I wonder what you must be thinking, who
are here, kind enough to spend your time watching us today, and
you must be troubled that only one of the major parties is
here. You must be discouraged as you ponder what it would take
for the Federal Government to fix this problem. I appreciate
your hospitality and your interest, and I love everything I've
seen about Yuma.
How many fentanyl deaths in Yuma this year, Supervisor
Lines, in the past year?
Mr. Lines. Mr. Bishop, I was just able to submit data that
I acquired from the hospital. That number continues to
increase. The average nationwide is 1 in 100,000, and yet we've
had 16 fatalities directly attributable to fentanyl, so more
than 16 times the national average.
Mr. Bishop. How many ODs?
Mr. Lines. Sixteen--well, there were 117 overdoses, and 16
of those were fatal.
Mr. Bishop. Sixteen deaths, right? So, you're way above the
national average in that key thing.
You made a point earlier that about--this was very
interesting, because a lot of our colleagues in Washington say
over and over and over again that the uncontrolled immigration
between ports of entry really doesn't contribute to the illicit
drugs because they come through the ports of entry. You've
touched on that already. You've said your data that Border
Patrol has furnished to you is that about half--about half--I
hope everybody's listening in Washington--about half of the
seizures are occurring between ports of entry.
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir.
Mr. Bishop. It means it is coming from this uncontrolled
problem. Yet, we have colleagues that--Katie Porter said at a
hearing, she's a Democrat from California, she said last week
at a hearing:
We had a change in President in 2020 and some changes in border
policy, and what we can see here is that the facts show we are
seizing a lot more fentanyl, and for me, as a mom, that is a
sign of success.
I don't even know what to say about that.
Border Chief Raul Ortiz said a couple of weeks ago--put a
tweet out that said that Yuma--let's see ``so far, in Fiscal
Year 2023, we have seized over 476 pounds of fentanyl between
ports of entry along our southwest border.'' That's enough to
kill 100 million people. I'd say that's a problem even that
Washington should be able to recognize.
I want to use my remaining time--Supervisor Lines, I hope
you won't be offended. I was taken with a moment of
conversation between you and me at the lunch before we came in
here. I hope you won't mind my sharing it with the Committee
and with those attending, because for me it connects to the
issue that we are grappling with.
As extraordinary as your story is, I would say that--and I
don't articulate it to single you out but to recognize that the
law enforcement officers who are sitting next to and behind you
and the healthcare professionals, like Dr. Trenschel, and the
men and women attending this, there are hundreds of lives who
likewise have fulfilled and even exceeded their potential to
contribute to building and sustaining a culture that has proved
the most successful in the history of mankind for the
flourishing of human beings.
Everyone wants his family--his or her family and children
to thrive. I submit that what we're talking about is not really
a question of the stresses on the safety net--the provision of
food for the people who can't provide if for themselves, the
provision of medical care, the jail, the detention services,
keeping the community safe--this is about how we maintain and
protect a culture that has been the most successful in the
world. That is what is at stake too.
You and your wife have 11 children, and with three
remaining at home, your wife has undertaken developing
subdivisions.
Mr. Lines. Yes, she has.
Mr. Bishop. You have four grandchildren. Your children are
hardworking and productive, and yet you've made time not only
to serve in office but as a charitable leader, particularly as
Chair of the Food Bank, et cetera.
So, you've not only reckoned with the task of--the awesome
task of figuring out how to provide for 11 children, but you've
produced and served in a way to demonstrate just how
constructive and productive human lives can be.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bishop. So, I'm grateful to you for having us here, for
your hospitality in this great community, to show me that yet
again, and to remind all of us that we must act. We must act.
The first thing we must do--I'm going to finish this way,
because I think everybody's got a responsibility to say: What
are we going to do?
Matt Gaetz summarized it correctly, that it is a question
of will. The first thing to preserve this culture we must do is
we must restore order.
The best vehicle at hand--Chip Roy of Texas is not here
today, can't be here today, but his H.R. 29, which says to the
Secretary of Homeland Security: Notwithstanding any other
provision of law, with respect to every migrant that you
encounter, you must detain or turn away.
You cannot just release them into the country, you cannot
continue doing this to all our support services, our safety net
on which our culture depends, you cannot do this to our
culture, or we will surely face, not only what you just--the
shocking information you just mentioned, Supervisor Lines,
about the assassinations. I haven't heard that story, I'm
afraid to say.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bishop. So, I'm grateful to you for having us here, for
your hospitality in this great community, to show me that yet
again, and to remind all of us that we must act. We must act.
The first thing we must do--I'm going to finish this way,
because I think everybody's got a responsibility to say: What
are we going to do?
Matt Gaetz summarized it correctly, that it is a question
of will. The first thing to preserve this culture we must do is
we must restore order.
The best vehicle at hand--Chip Roy of Texas is not here
today, can't be here today, but his H.R. 29, which says to the
Secretary of Homeland Security: Notwithstanding any other
provision of law, with respect to every migrant that you
encounter, you must detain or turn away.
You cannot just release them into the country, you cannot
continue doing this to all our support services, our safety net
on which our culture depends, you cannot do this to our
culture, or we will surely face, not only what you just--the
shocking information you just mentioned, Supervisor Lines,
about the assassinations. I haven't heard that story, I'm
afraid to say.
There was this--on January 5th of this year, I think it's
Culiacan, Mexico, there was a warfare, there was a war between
the Sinaloa Cartel and the Mexican Army with helicopter
gunships firing against people on the ground and burning cars,
blocking the entrances to the town so that the people were
cowered in their homes.
That will occur in the United States of America if we do
not get control of this problem. It sits squarely as the
responsibility of the Federal Government, and we must have the
will to act.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. Well done. Well done. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Indiana is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Spartz.
Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's my pleasure being here today. I can tell you one
thing: That the great State of Indiana will stand with the
great State of Arizona to protect your border, I can assure
you.
[Applause.]
People do care, because it's not an issue of one State,
it's a national security issue. Unfortunately, we can debate
and deliberate on a lot of issues and have disagreement, but
we're always able to come together to protect our country.
This is a crisis. It's a national security crisis. It's
unacceptable. It's unfortunate that my colleagues from this
Committee couldn't come here today to see what's really
happening, the impact of real life.
I just want to have a couple questions to this panel. I
grew up in a Communist, totalitarian regime, under mob rule.
So, have lots of guns and ammunition. We have constitutional
carry in Indiana. So, I am good to go, but that's not where we
want to go.
I sometimes wonder, listen, if I have come here illegally,
I would really not have to go through all the struggles I had
to go for the last 23 years.
So, my question is for Dr. Trenschel.
When I was listening to you, I thought, like, OK, as a
legal immigrant, a legal citizen in this country, you have to
pay for healthcare, you have to get insurance, you have to work
and do all those different things.
Isn't it we're creating perverse incentives for people to
come here illegally? Because it's not just hurting people that
try to be within the system, but, actually, you get a free
ride, and we have now illegal immigration to welfare.
So, I would like you to comment on that.
Dr. Trenschel. I agree. We're required by law to see all
comers and to provide the same level of care we do to everyone
else. When a migrant comes in that crosses the border without
insurance, without a payment plan, we give them the same
healthcare we provide to the other residents of our community.
We have no ability to bill. We don't know where they're
going. We don't know if their name is right. We don't know
anything about them.
Ms. Spartz. It's unfortunate that we're starting to
incentivize the lawlessness in our country.
I have a question to the sheriff. I think really my
colleagues on the other side are always talking about this
human trafficking and what was happening, and it's really--it's
a humanitarian crisis, too, because these people become slaves.
It's like modern day slavery. To the cartels, it was a lot of
big money made on these people. I understand they're desperate,
but we created perverse incentive.
So, I want you to comment on human trafficking and the
issues of getaways, how dangerous it is.
Sheriff Wilmot. I'll use the word from the Yuma Border
Patrol Chief: It's narco-slavery, every bit of it, that we are
seeing along our border, and it's gone to the interior
throughout the United States.
There's indentured servitude in a lot of these States and
counties because of the cartels controlling the narrative right
now. So, there's not been many sheriffs that I have ran into
that have not had to investigate those types of crimes.
We've seen in the past where you had indentured servitude
discovered by Border Patrol agents happening in the Carolinas,
3,500 cases of children being used, as recycled to get more
people in.
So, we have seen the indentured servitude. If you can't
pay, you're going to pay another way.
Ms. Spartz. So, thank you for your service.
I would like to let you know we have great sheriffs in the
State of Indiana. If you need help, let us know, because if we
cannot fix it at the Federal level, States can also step up and
help each other.
Mr. Lines, some quick question. Even though I have a little
problem with being called flyover State, so I need to work on
that. Hopefully you'll visit Indiana more often because we have
a lot of great things. It's a great State, as well as you have
a great State here, too. It's far from a flyover State, but
actually farther.
I want to just have a quick question for you. With what we
have happening right now with agriculture, and I was actually
surprised at some of the numbers, isn't it really pose some
issues with food safety and food security, what's really
happening at the border?
Mr. Lines. So, it's a challenge along the border. Our
agriculture practices here in Yuma exceed the expectations and
even the minimum standards or the maximum standards of any
growers against any region in the United States. They have
about a 500-page volume that they use, it's self-imposed, to
make sure, and they have hired people to watch over.
We have had entry into fields. At that point in time,
depending upon what they have been able to locate, they either
plow it under or remove it altogether.
Ms. Spartz. It would add that additional cost placed onto
the consumer, right?
Mr. Lines. It's an additional cost, yes, absolutely.
Ms. Spartz. Because it's extra cost that everyone has to do
because ultimately you have to be able to survive and pay money
to be able to run your business.
Mr. Lines. Ms. Spartz, may I comment a little bit just on
the narco-labor, narco-trafficking of human trafficking?
It was interesting, just before the China virus hit, the AP
did a story, and they were talking about the L.A. Basin
specifically, but they estimated that between 65-75 percent of
all manual labor was undocumented in the L.A. Basin.
That remains a challenge and a problem today, because many
of these people, as they come across the border, are still
subject to the cartels to pay a debt and are indefinitely
remanded to their service. They actually never leave.
Ms. Spartz. Thank you. It's unfortunate.
I yield back.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentlelady.
The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Cline, is recognized for
five minutes.
Mr. Cline. I thank the gentleman.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here. I want to
thank the people of Yuma for being here, too. We stand with the
people of Yuma.
My constituents are far, far away from here. They are in
the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, another farming community,
another agriculture community. We have many ties that bind us
to Yuma.
We also stand with you in protecting the national security
of this country, making sure that we secure our border, and we
will do everything in our power to do that.
We recognize it as a national security crisis. The things
that we have seen and heard here during this visit have
reinforced that view.
My decision to cosponsor legislation that was introduced by
Warren Davidson from Ohio to authorize the use of military
force to ensure that, Sheriff, you have those resources that
are needed to secure this border and make sure that the cartels
do not continue their march into this country, into this
community, and into our neighborhoods and our homes, we will
make sure that you have those resources, sir.
Thank you.
We did see some things that just show and demonstrate the
brazenness of what is transpiring here in this community when
it comes to the cartels.
On the drive down to the border, to San Luis crossing, we
had in our convoy cars that slowed down, that entered, that
forced their way into our line of vans. I didn't think anything
of it. I thought someone was trying to exit. I couldn't figure
it out. It was only today, after, we realized that they were
cartel members who were infiltrating our caravan to try and
figure out what we were doing, what we were looking at.
Just being able to have that close reinforced just what a
security crisis this is on this side of the border.
Sheriff, I've heard of cartel violence erupting similar to
the cartel violence that's erupting across the border from Yuma
in Texas, leading to members of the cartel actually escaping
into the United States and asking for asylum. Have you ever
seen that happen?
Sheriff Wilmot. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question.
Yes, Yuma has seen it. Cochise County has seen it. Texas
has seen it.
Mr. Cline. That is shocking and just goes to show just how
porous the border has become, how abused it is, when cartel
members themselves are creating the violence that's happening
and then trying to escape the violence by taking advantage of
the very laws that are protecting the citizens and enabling
them. The lack of the enforcement by the Biden Administration
is enabling them to take advantage of those laws.
Mr. Lines, I want to followup on a conversation we had a
little bit earlier. My eyes have been opened to the breadth and
depth of the impact of this porous border and this lack of
enforcement by the Biden Administration on society in Yuma, but
also across this country on districts like mine.
We talked about the impact on hospitals. We went to the
hospital. We saw the NICU. We saw the emergency room. We know
that there's a finite number of beds, and that when there's a
bed being occupied by someone here illegally, there's a bed not
available to someone here legally, someone who is a resident of
Yuma.
We talked about the food banks and the agriculture. We met
with farmers. We listened to them talk about the impact of
people, thousands of people crossing their fields, and just one
incident taking away a whole entire set of acreage from being
able to be harvested.
What other areas are we talking about here where this open
border is having such an impact? Talk about the schools, talk
about transportation, other areas.
Mr. Lines. Everything that you discussed has been a
challenge.
Most recently, I had a call from an ESL teacher who said
that she had a significant number of students being enrolled
into her classes that did not speak either English or Spanish,
and many of them Eastern European or Central Asian. So, there
is a concern that we will continue to see that type of influx.
For the most part, people have not been taking up residency
in Yuma. So, it was surprising to me that an ESL teacher was
calling me to say, ``I now have a new challenge here in my
classroom,'' and it wasn't something that she expected to
confront.
Mr. Cline. In terms of housing--
Mr. Lines. Oh.
[Applause.]
Mr. Lines. Well, the sheriff can speak specifically to the
jail. I appreciate everything that he's done as a county
supervisor, and we work hand in hand.
His Federal reimbursement is at 10 percent. So, when he has
cross-deputized the Border Patrol officers to go and assist,
because the U.S. Attorney General won't prosecute, he then is
faced with those challenges, and it's up to the county to make
him whole.
Sheriff, do you want to talk a little bit more about that?
Mr. Cline. Well, let me just--
Mr. Lines. OK. Or, Mr. Cline, sorry about that.
Mr. Cline. Let me just wrap up and say, I've been a
prosecutor, I've used the ICE detainer process to have illegals
who have committed crimes in Harrisonburg deported and made
sure that the community is kept safe.
I've talked to troopers who pull over vans on Interstate 81
in my district who encounter the human trafficking that crosses
the border here in Yuma. I see the criminal aspect of it in my
district.
Never have my eyes been opened to the impact on healthcare,
education, housing, food, and agriculture that this porous
border is having. I'm going to go home with this information to
ensure that we fight even harder to secure this border so that
the people of Yuma are protected, but the people of the Sixth
Congressional District are protected. We stand with Yuma, and
we stand with our citizens.
Thank you all for being here today.
Mr. Lines. Thank you, Mr. Cline.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Van Drew, is recognized
for five minutes.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Chair.
As I was sitting up here, first, great testimony all
around, it really is, if you think about what these gentlemen
and ladies are saying.
I was thinking of how tired of it I am, how worn out of it
I am, how tired I am of the President lying. I know people
don't like to say it that way. I'm a little rough around the
edges. I don't care. He doesn't tell the truth.
[Applause.]
I'm tired of Secretary Mayorkas even worse, because with
the President you can kind of tell when he's lying. He gets
that weird look in his face, which is most of the time.
Mayorkas will look you dead in the face.
I used to be on the Homeland Security Committee. We
interviewed him I think three times. Every time I would ask
him, ``Is there anything going on, on the border, is anything
wrong, are there any problems, anything we should do?'' he
said, ``We fully have it under control.''
Then not long after I would go to the border, and you would
find that you actually watched the people illegally crossing
and getting through. He just wouldn't face the facts. He
wouldn't tell the truth.
I'm tired, to be honest with you, of Congress people--and
I'm not always partisan, I'm not, but it happens to be on the
other side of the aisle--not fulfilling their constitutional
responsibility.
They owe it to you to be here today. They owe it to America
to debate these issues. They owe it to America to prove why
what they've done is a good thing. You know why they're not
here? Because they can't prove it, because they can't show it,
because they know it's bad.
To the gentlemen over there, both Mr. Bishop--all you guys
actually said it. This is more. This is more than just Yuma.
It's a big deal in Yuma. I know that. This is the United States
of America under attack. We're losing our country.
If you think about it--
[Applause.]
I don't want to digress, because we only have a certain
amount of time and there's a couple of questions I want to ask.
Think what's going on. There's all this stuff at the border,
all over our border--which is now all over the country, by the
way.
I tell the folks in New Jersey, they say, ``Gee, you're
going all the way to Arizona.'' Because guess what? It's in New
Jersey, too. People are dying of fentanyl. Guess what happens?
It comes through the border. It's in Michigan. It's in New
England. It's everywhere. It's everywhere because of what these
people did to a situation that we had fully under control.
I agree that you have those hearings, you have hearings for
impeachment. I'm there. I'm voting for it. I've cosponsored it
with you. I'm proud to do it because I really believe we have a
case where somebody--Mayorkas--has committed treason, has
broken the rule of law, and deserves not to be there anymore.
What he's done is too bad.
[Applause.]
What we pay in taxes. Do you know how much this costs us?
Billions upon billions of dollars. What we're doing to our
kids, with our safety. You don't really have the words to say.
It's easy to fix. It was pretty much fixed. Get the fence
up everywhere. Get the electronics that are needed up. Get the
Remain in Mexico policy back. Get the immediate returns of
illegals that do make it through right back to where they came
from.
Get agreements made with Mexico. If they don't want to
listen to the agreements, you make it clear, like it's been
done in the past, that you're going to be in a lot of trouble
trade-wise if you don't, so you better do it.
We can do this. We're the most powerful nation still. We're
working at demeaning ourselves, but we are still the most
powerful nation on the face of the Earth.
[Applause.]
So, it's time to stop it. It's time for us to move on. It's
time for us to get back. It's time for us to bring our America
home.
So, Supervisor Jonathan Lines: Cartels. Let's just really
quickly just make clear. I want people to understand. They make
a relationship. It's almost like a contract with the people
that they get across the border, which are a lot of them.
Once they get across the border, they get them fixed up to
go to a particular area in the United States, and then they own
them. Then they push the fentanyl on your kids and my kids,
whether it's in New Jersey, New York, or Arizona. Is that
correct?
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir.
Mr. Van Drew. Spreading--how do I say this? We're spreading
all this throughout the area. I know we know the answer to
this. Has it gotten worse in the last two years? It's a stupid
question, but I'm going to ask it anyhow.
Mr. Lines. There's no question that's stupid, right, just
the unasked question.
Mr. Van Drew, it has exceeded anything that we could have
ever imagined.
Mr. Van Drew. Exactly.
Mr. Lines. We've had more than 600,000 people come through
Yuma since this administration took office.
Mr. Van Drew. So, we get this administration in. They make
you just do a lot of paperwork. We don't protect our people. We
don't protect our Americans. Things have gotten worse. Costs to
the hospital.
Again, I know you said it, but I want everybody to really
think about this. Is anybody helping?
Dr. Trenschel. No.
Mr. Van Drew. No, Doctor, they're not.
Dr. Trenschel. No, they're not.
Mr. Van Drew. You know what? When you go in with your
maternity and your maternity patients, guess what? It's the
job, and they're doing a good job, of health professionals and
nurses. They have to take care of the people that are sickest
first. That's just the Hippocratic Oath. They've got to take
care of those people.
Guess who's waiting with their children? Guess who's
waiting with their families? Guess who's paying for all of it?
You know the answer.
Am I correct, Doctor?
Dr. Trenschel. Yes, you are.
Mr. Van Drew. Am I correct that your nurses had to go out
and buy safety seats for these people because we used so many
in the last big tranche of folks that came over? They went out,
and the hospital had to pay for them, and they had to go
everywhere in the area to buy safety seats because they didn't
have any. Is that true?
Dr. Trenschel. Yes, that's true.
Mr. Van Drew. Is it true that when we spoke today to a food
bank, that she told us that some of the people, believe it or
not, that were illegals and had come over expressed
dissatisfaction with the food? Is that true?
Mr. Lines. Yes, that's--
Mr. Van Drew. I'm not making this stuff up, right?
Mr. Lines. Yes, Mr. Van Drew, that's--
Mr. Van Drew. I'm so tired and worn out of it, and so are
you. We're tired of it.
Twenty-six million you're in the hole, right?
Dr. Trenschel. That's correct.
Mr. Van Drew. Who's going to pay for that?
Dr. Trenschel. We are.
Mr. Van Drew. I'm looking at you. Americans.
So, it is time to change. It is time we had a real
Secretary that did a real job. It's time we had, I'm sorry, a
real President.
It's time we have Congressmen--guess what? These guys will
go into any meeting no matter how much of a disadvantage you
think you are to really talk the issues.
When you believe in something, when it's in your heart,
when you know it's right, you're going to stand up and you're
going to fight for it.
They can't. Because you know what they know? At the end of
the day, they're hurting our American people, and they're
hurting America, and it has to come to an end.
I thank you guys so much for what you did.
Sheriff, thank you for what you do. I know you guys put
your lives on the line all the time. People are dying. People
are getting hurt. This isn't just some imaginary things like
we're told when we go back to Washington, and we will do
everything that we can.
Dammit, I hope we have those impeachment hearings.
Thank you, Chair.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. Thank you.
The gentleman from Alabama is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In Alabama recently, I was told that in Birmingham we
seized enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child in
my entire State.
So, I tell everybody this. This may be affecting border
communities, but it's a crisis for our entire Nation, and so
we're going to try to address it.
Sheriff, this is my third trip down, and so I want to talk
a little bit. Some things that just kind of stuck out when I
was asking the agents along the border that kind of concerned
me and really kind of, as I talk about it, is something that
kind of--it strikes a chord with a lot of people.
You were saying earlier that the price that you're seeing
now to come across the southern border, it's ranging from
6,000-15,000. Is that correct?
Sheriff Wilmot. In Yuma County, yes, sir.
Mr. Moore. Now, who's getting that money, Sheriff?
Sheriff Wilmot. The cartels.
Mr. Moore. The cartels.
Of course, when we talk about inflation, the money we
print, everything has gone up. A few years ago, I heard it was
$4,000 just south of the southern border and then the Triangle
Nations further south.
We had a price for Syria of up to $20,000. Are you seeing
some high prices from other countries around the globe as well?
Sheriff Wilmot. That's my understanding, yes, sir, when
you're looking at Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and
Russia. Russia has been an increase where I think Border Patrol
roughly 70 a day was the number that they were encountering
just from Russia.
Mr. Moore. What's the price on a Russian now coming across
the border?
Sheriff Wilmot. I wouldn't think that it would be that
much, yes, sir.
Mr. Moore. I would imagine. I don't know. I haven't heard
the Russian price.
We actually seized some Chinese nationals, the sheriff's
department in Texas, and it was $80,000 each.
Folks, they're not coming here to do us any favors, just so
you know.
Sheriff, my question now. You said that--so we got a price.
What about if somebody--have you guys heard--and maybe other
law enforcement officers would know, too--what if they don't
have the money to pay the cartel? What are the options then?
Sheriff Wilmot. So, the option is that they're--it's
indentured servitude, slavery. They're going to be sent to a
certain location. I've found pieces of paper down on the border
that list the location that they're ordered to go to, and
that's where they will work off their debt, depending on what
you're capable of doing.
Mr. Moore. Wait, wait, wait, now, Sheriff. So, you're
telling me that Biden's policies on the southern border are
actually creating American--are slaves from around the globe.
Is that correct?
Sheriff Wilmot. Correct.
Mr. Moore. Wow.
So, the Democrats who accuse us of all the awful things
that we do, they're actually enforcing polices now that are
creating slaves in this country?
Sheriff Wilmot. It's lending to that right now.
Mr. Moore. So, not only are they creating slaves, but I
also heard when I was on the border, and I found this rather
intriguing, if somebody was coming across the border and they
actually didn't have the money and they didn't want to be an
indentured servant, is it true that they can backpack now
heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine and pay that passage? Is that an
option as well?
Sheriff Wilmot. That is an option.
Mr. Moore. So, the Democrats' policies--two things now. So,
they're creating slaves and drug mules. Is that where we're
going with this? No wonder they don't want to come talk about
it, right?
So, now that we've got this issue of slaves and drug mules,
I want to change over to a little something I saw. This is
troubling to me.
I went to Fort Bliss, the emergency intake center--you guys
heard of this? Fort Bliss, to handle all the unaccompanied
minors coming to this country.
As I was there, the admiral is running it, and I'm like,
``Sir, why don't we send these kids''--these are unaccompanied
minors now--``back to their home country, back to their town?''
the admiral said, ``Well, they don't know where they came
from.''
So, these kids are from--I saw one, I know he's probably no
more than five, and I saw some probably--the average was 16-17-
year-olds. So, they're saying these kids, these unaccompanied
minors, do not know where they came from.
I said, ``Well, where are we going to send them to?''
``Oh, we're going to send them to a Google address in the
United States of America.'' Then we don't background check the
people we're sending them to.
So, one of my friends here, I remember earlier, hit on
this. We are actually, with taxpayer dollars, are now
trafficking children, and we're paying to get them there on
American taxpayer dollars and putting them in God knows what
and God knows where.
So, the thing that really--I think Andy Biggs has mentioned
this--is we've lost 20,000 children. Mayorkas said himself in a
hearing he does not know where 20,000 of these children are.
That's just staggering to me.
So, Sheriff, is it mostly heroin and cocaine now and
fentanyl, or is it just mostly fentanyl?
Sheriff Wilmot. Unfortunately, for Arizona and California
right now we're the worst and the top as far as fentanyl, and
below that is methamphetamine.
To address your other comment, what you're looking at is a
ploy by the cartels marketing in a way to work with Mayorkas on
the reunification policy that he put into place. So, if you
send your child across as a child that's by themselves, then
you can be reunified when you come at a later date and time.
So, the cartels are exploiting every policy that this
administration has put into play.
Mr. Moore. It's almost like they're better at the game than
we are, right? I mean, they know before we know what's
happening.
I know that they're talking about the new rules that the
Biden Administration wants to enforce, and basically that just
adds another step.
My understanding--last night I was talking to one of the
border agents--is once the illegals, when they cross into the
country, they want that MTA, that motion to appear in court. Is
that correct?
Now, Mr. Lines, could you tell me for sure, when they get
this MTA, does that automatically qualify them for benefits?
Mr. Lines. Yes, it does.
Mr. Moore. So, you're telling me they come into the
country, they turn themselves in, and then they get the MTA,
and they are qualified for benefits from the American taxpayer?
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir.
Mr. Moore. Do we have any idea how much those benefits run
or any idea? Have you heard that, Mr. Lines?
Mr. Lines. Up to $800 a month.
Mr. Moore. Eight hundred a month.
So, I understand, too, we give them a cell phone.
Mr. Lines. Yes, they do.
Mr. Moore. Have you heard that we actually give them a cell
phone? My kids would probably rather come across the border,
honestly, sometimes.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir.
Mr. Moore. So, we give them a cell phone that they can jail
break and use it however they want. My understanding--go ahead,
Lines. I'm waiting. I want to hear what you've got to say.
Mr. Lines. No, no. Well, it's just they give them the phone
so that they know where they're at, but we have a 95 percent
failure rate to appear for those motions.
Mr. Moore. So, you mean they take our phones, but they
don't take our phone calls? Is that what you're telling me is
going on?
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir. It's the worst date.
Mr. Moore. Man, that does sound like my kids.
Mr. Lines. Yes.
Mr. Moore. Now, Doc, one last thing and then we'll get off
and I'll give Mr. Jordan--I didn't have a timer over here, Jim.
Am I over time?
Chair Jordan. You're definitely over time.
Mr. Lines. The benefits continue, Mr. Moore.
Mr. Moore. I'm definitely over time.
Mr. Lines. The benefits continue.
Mr. Moore. The Chair has said I'm definitely over time.
Chair Jordan. You can ask your last question.
Mr. Moore. Last question, Doc.
So, 100 percent of the immigrants, when you deliver the
children, you have to give them car seats, I understand. So,
because the Federal Government requires you. Isn't there some
rule that says that you can't send a child away from a hospital
without a car seat?
Dr. Trenschel. Correct. CMS rule. We cannot do that.
Mr. Moore. So, we're buying all the car seats as we send
them on their way and paying for all the healthcare, and you're
$26 million in debt, basically.
Dr. Trenschel. Correct.
Mr. Moore. Very good.
Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman from Texas is recognized for five minutes,
Mr. Nehls.
Mr. Nehls. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank Dr. Trenschel and Mr. Lines for your
leadership in this community. You're doing a great job going to
visit that hospital.
My oldest daughter just graduated from Texas Tech. She's
now a NICU nurse in Houston, Texas. You guys are doing a great
job over there.
Of course, Sheriff Wilmot, it's good to see you. I see
Sheriff Lamb there and all the other sheriffs. Thank you for
your service.
Some of you know that I served in law enforcement for 30
years. I was a sheriff in Fort Bend County, Texas, for eight
years before I decided to run for the swamp. I will never
forget; I will never forget where I came from. I am with you. I
support the Thin Blue Line.
[Applause.]
Sheriff Wilmot, in our first hearing, we had a hearing a
couple weeks ago some of my colleagues mentioned on the Biden
border crisis, we had a Democrat witness there. He was the El
Paso County judge. He testified, and I quote,
There is no invasion of migrants in our community. Nor are
there hordes of undocumented immigrants committing crimes
against citizens or causing havoc in our community.
I was able to quickly, quickly discredit his testimony by
producing numerous, numerous articles of crime in his community
as a result of this invasion.
Then I also did a quick search, Sheriff, of crime here in
Yuma. I point out one here, a former gang member arrested by
border agents in Yuma. This guy was a gang member, convicted
felon, been arrested by border agents in Yuma, an illegal
immigrant, was arrested for entering the U.S. from Mexico. He's
25 years old. Was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in
Santa Barbara, California.
Served three years now, served three years in prison, which
was enhanced for being a criminal street gang. After completing
his sentence, he was removed from the U.S., and he will be
prosecuted for reentry. So, this guy's coming back. No problem.
He can just come back.
I highlight this guy here. He's the alleged migrant killer
arrested after a four-month run. Sheriff, you mentioned this
guy in some of your testimony. He killed, I guess, somebody on
his way up here.
Folks, you don't want this guy to be your neighbor. You
don't want this guy in your neighborhood at all.
Just another guy. This was here on January 17, 2023. You
arrested him four months later. At the Yuma County Detention
Facility for second degree murder after having been arrested by
border agents for trying to come back, to try to come back into
the U.S.
This child molester here, he was caught hiding in the
brush. Again, February 17, 2022. He was a child abuser,
convicted child abuser from Honduras. You arrested him, took
him to Yuma here for processing, looked at his record.
Montgomery County, Maryland, circuit convicted Vargas in
December 2009, first- and second-degree child abuse for
fracturing the skull of a newborn while babysitting for his
girlfriend.
He got seven years, served seven of the 25 years in
Maryland, before being placed on supervisory probation. Removed
to Honduras in 2018, and now here he is coming back.
This just goes on and on, 1,400 border crossers charged
with coming back, reentry. It just goes on.
Sheriff, I want to ask you the same question I asked our
former witness. Are the aliens crossing illegally committing
crimes across this country?
Sheriff Wilmot. Absolutely.
Mr. Nehls. Joe Biden, are you listening?
Mayorkas, are you listening to the sheriffs?
Sheriff Wilmot. No, they are not.
Mr. Nehls. Sheriff, you have--in some of your written
testimony--
[Applause.]
Sheriff Wilmot. Sorry.
Mr. Nehls. In some of your written testimony, Sheriff, you
talk a little bit about the rising crime due to Biden's border
crisis. How has it impacted your agency with response times and
resources?
I mean, my guys are chasing criminals all over my county in
the whole southwest Houston area.
How has it affected your ability to keep these people in
your community safe?
Sheriff Wilmot. Thank you for the question, sir.
In regard to our response times, when we have to respond
out and do a rescue out in the desert, which is about 40-50
miles away from civilization, that ties up our resources from
doing their normal service delivery to the community that we
serve.
When we're processing the crime scenes out in the desert,
when we're investigating the calls of the thefts, burglaries,
rapers, and the delayed rapes and robberies that happen to some
of the immigrants coming to the border that we have to handle,
it taxes your resources and otherwise takes away our ability to
do proactive enforcement versus reactive.
Mr. Nehls. What we all know in this room, what we all have
witnessed under Former President Donald J. Trump, the greatest
President in my lifetime, that border crossings were down--
[Applause.]
Yes, yes. Border crossing were down, and our country was
proud to uphold the rule of law.
When you look at our United States Constitution, and you
see that it's the Federal Government's responsibility to secure
our southern borders--we could talk about it. I sent a letter
to Biden calling him to invoke that Guarantee Clause.
If you don't understand, if you look at Article IV, Section
4, there's an ``invasion clause,'' folks, and I'll just read
it.
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union
a Republic Form of Government and shall protect each of them
against invasion.
We are being invaded, yes?
[Applause.]
Article I, Section 10 states, self-defense clause, reserves
to the States the sovereign power to repel an invasion and
defend their citizenry from the overwhelming and imminent
danger.
Your attorney general is doing a hell of a job. Our
attorney general is doing well as well in Texas trying to
invoke it.
Let's just say this. The American people are the victims
here. We are the victims. We must take the fight to the
cartels, to the enemy, and we must use extreme prejudice to
eliminate them off the face of the Earth.
I yield back.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from South Carolina is
recognized, Mr. Fry.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to be here. I
appreciate you, Chair, holding this hearing right here at the
center of our border crisis.
To the good people of Yuma, thank you for having us. Thank
you for showing us. I'm a freshman. So, this has been
incredibly eye opening for me.
Mr. Chair, I remember our first, my first committee hearing
this year, the first one ever, when the ranking member said
that we were imagining a border crisis.
My first question to the good people of Yuma: Are you
imagining a border crisis?
Is the border secure here in Yuma?
Has the border gotten worse under President Biden?
Final question: Do you think this administration has
faithfully executed their obligation to secure that border?
We got a ``hell no.''
Thank you to the panel.
From the short time we've been here in Yuma, one thing is
very crystal clear to me, and it's that President Biden's open
door, open border policy is an abject failure to the people of
this country. We have seen firsthand the prioritization by this
administration of illegal immigrants over the people of
America.
Illegal immigration, obviously, you know this here in Yuma
more than anyone else, it deprives your community of safety in
your homes and in your community of healthcare. It costs the
taxpayers billions of dollars. It destroys property, farmers,
where you are at. It destroys families through fentanyl
poisoning.
Congressional Democrats should be here, Mr. Chair. It's
actually a shame that we were ``imagining'' a border crisis.
Everything that we've seen, thus far, proves exactly that we
are not, that you see it.
Of course, in my home State of South Carolina, as has been
talked about, we are a border State. Myrtle Beach is not just
famous for its beaches and Chinese spy balloons. It also has
record fentanyl overdoses that happen year after year.
The first question to the sheriff.
What Federal policies were in place under the prior
administration that really helped, in your opinion, secure that
border?
Sheriff Wilmot. I thank you for that question, because I
also told Secretary Mayorkas the same thing.
The Operation Streamline was the most successful program
that we ever had, and that was 100 percent prosecution for
anybody that entered this country between the port of entry and
denied them the access.
Mr. Fry. Would you say that the Biden Administration has
been able to control the cartels in two years?
Sheriff Wilmot. No, sir.
Mr. Fry. What policies do you think promote or enable the
cartels to act more freely across the border or even in our
country?
Sheriff Wilmot. Well, when they removed the migrant
protection protocols that were put into place, plus Operation
Streamline, and they got away from any kind of prosecution at
all, that just enabled the cartels to do what they're doing
today, and they continue to escalate in their capabilities.
Mr. Fry. Mr. Lines, you tweeted back in January that the
border was 100 percent not secure, that it was wide open. Do
you believe that still to be the case?
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir.
Mr. Fry. OK.
In both you and the sheriff's experience, what are you
seeing from real world impacts that you're hearing from people
out here in the community that are happening from a crime
perspective or a cartel perspective in their homes or
neighborhoods?
Mr. Lines. We've had some home invasions. Those were few
and far between just because border patrol has been able to
interdict.
Yesterday morning one of the farmers you heard from this
morning testified that his daughter was returning home from
feeding her 4H project and was almost hit by a van full of
people being smuggled across the border.
So, we continue to see those types of instances. He's had
two of those experiences in the last six months.
One of the things that--and I apologize, but I should have
addressed when Mr. Cline asked, but it's been a negative impact
in our community, is the ability of 911 services to respond
adequately, and that's been a severe challenge.
I met with the first responders from every group in Yuma,
and they shared with me their concern or the ability to be able
to respond when they continue to receive a high volume of 911
calls from the border.
Now, not all those people were actually looking for medical
assistance. They were simply tired of waiting to be processed
because they had somewhere to go and someplace to be.
So, that has affected the people of this community, and I
was absolutely blown away to hear them tell me that. They do
not care about the value of life, and that is something
directly related to the cartels.
Mr. Fry. Sheriff, what instances have you heard from the
residents here in Yuma of crime or cartel activity? Talk about
that. Have you heard these similar instances?
Sheriff Wilmot. Absolutely, sir, and you can refer to my
document that I submitted as well.
My jail already this last year had over 55 individuals
booked into custody that had entered this country illegally and
committed sexual exploitation of minors. They're trespassing.
The smuggling of narcotics not only for use but for sale and
trade. That's the majority of what I have in my jail right now
for those kinds of offenses.
Mr. Lines. Mr. Fry, over at Amberly's Place, our youngest
victim coming in for a sexual assault was 10 years old. The
challenge is that we don't know in which country it occurred
and by whom. So, we're able to collect the data, but because of
jurisdictional challenges, there's no one to prosecute. So, a
10 year old was violated by someone under cartel control or by
the cartel itself.
Just here, at Morelos Dam, Congressman Biggs and I have had
the opportunity to walk around and pick up Plan B, and that was
an area commonly referred to as the rape tree. So many people
coming across were victims of the cartel where they exacted
that last price and denied them their dignity.
Mr. Fry. Thank you to the panel for being here.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman.
The gentlelady from Wyoming is recognized for five minutes,
Ms. Hageman.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you.
Others have asked you questions. There have been some
excellent questions today. You've provided some incredibly
helpful testimony.
I'd like to take a little bit different approach. I want
you to know that I think that maybe you believe here in Yuma
and along the border that you've been forgotten and that we
don't care. But you haven't, we do care, and it's why we're
here.
We read the statistics. We see the film on the 5 o'clock
news. We hear about the fentanyl deaths. We have some awareness
of the human trafficking across our borders and spreading
across our country.
Reading about it is fundamentally different than being here
and seeing it for ourselves and in talking to you about what
you've been experiencing.
I want you to know that everyone on this Committee has
heard you, they are listening, and they want to represent you.
They want to represent your voices. They want to hear what you
have to say.
I want to thank this entire community for your candor. I
want to thank you for your willingness to talk to us and engage
with us and to show us what you're dealing with.
I want to thank your growers and producers for providing us
with fresh and healthy food and for creating the beautiful Eden
and oasis carved out of the surrounding desert.
Thank you to our law enforcement, our sheriffs, our Border
Patrol, and our police officers. Thank you to our local
business owners and community leaders for what you do.
Again, I want to be your voice, and to do that, I'm going
to read to you some of the notes that I have taken just in the
last day or so in visiting with the folks that we've had the
opportunity to talk to.
Now, you've heard some of this information, but I want to
make it very, very clear: These are not Republican talking
points. These are not an effort to just attack the Biden
Administration for the sake of attacking the Biden
Administration. These are my notes of my conversation with your
fellow citizens.
As we've already talked about, there's $26 million in
uncompensated care for illegal immigrants in just one year.
There is no payer source for those fees. The folks that come
here are sick, not all of them, but a lot of them. They have
hypertension, they need dialysis, they need heart surgery, and
they need intensive care.
Twenty-five percent of illegal babies that are born here
end up in NICU because they don't have any prenatal care.
We have to assure that we give a safe discharge, is what
our medical professionals told us, which means that they have
to provide wheelchairs and walkers and transportation. They may
have to make contact with a family member.
None of the NGO's that are working with the Biden
Administration to further this agenda have offered to pay these
costs, and the Feds have refused.
You cannot discharge a baby without a car seat, and so
basically the hospital has been out purchasing car seats
throughout the entire surrounding area. Many of these babies
have brothers and sisters that also need car seats. So, they
may end up buying two and three car seats for the same family.
The hospital has essentially had to set up a hotel upstairs
because they can't discharge the patients. They had one baby in
NICU for almost two months. So, the mother had to live there as
well.
There are lots of signs of abuse with the female migrants
that are coming across. It is a Federal law that the facility
treats everyone who comes to the hospital. In other words, the
Federal Government requires you to provide care but refuses to
pay you for it, the ultimate in an unfunded mandate.
You've had illegal immigrants in ICU for over 30 days, some
as long as 90 days. You've had to transfer residents to other
places, as there have been times when there aren't enough ICU
beds because the illegals are taking them. It takes two to
three times the amount of resources to take care of an illegal
as it does a resident.
One woman at the hospital very compassionately noted that a
loss of one person to fentanyl is one too many. In other words,
they're very compassionate about what you're dealing with. The
illegals, the increase in illegal immigration has coincided
with an increase in fentanyl overdoses.
When Trump was President, there were 810 people seeking
asylum in 2020. In 2021, it had gone up to 110,000, and in
2022, it was 310,000. That's just in the Yuma Sector alone.
These people are processed here and then they're sent to
communities throughout the entire country as the cartels are
telling them where they must go to pay back what they have to
pay to be brought across to the United States. The CBP has
essentially become a concierge service for illegal immigrants.
You have aliens from over 100 different countries entering
this area. The cartels are controlling all aspects of the
border. They earned $3.2 billion last year in human
trafficking.
The Biden Administration is jeopardizing our food supply
and our food security, and they're prioritizing illegal aliens
over and above American citizens and legal immigrants.
These are real life facts told to us and as expressed by
real life citizens from this very community. Again, I will say
it: You're not forgotten.
We will never make life better in foreign countries by
destroying the United States of America.
[Applause.]
We will never make foreign leaders do a better job of
taking care of their poor or prosecuting their criminals by
sending them across the border illegally.
We must protect our borders, we must recognize that
citizenship matters, and we must enforce the law.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. Thank you. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, is recognized for
five minutes.
Mr. Kiley. Good afternoon.
Sheriff, could you please summarize the ways that the
cartels are involved in illegal border crossings?
Sheriff Wilmot. So, you have the Jalisco New Generation in
Baja California, then you have the Sinaloa Cartel in Sonora,
Mexico, on our very southern border.
So, the Jalisco New Generation, theirs is the movement of
bodies that are coming across the river corridor, so they are
the ones that are coordinating. They actually have contacts in
different countries that have been identified as being the
travel agents, for lack of a better term, to get the people
here and to be able to control that coming across.
So, right now, between midnight and 4 a.m., 40 at a time
come across down by the river corridor.
So, the Sinaloa Cartel, they are the ones that are doing
the narcotics side of it. So, they coordinate between those
that can afford and cannot afford to be able to pay the price,
and they utilize those people to smuggle the narcotics in,
whether it's on a vehicle through the port of entry or whether
it's through the remote deserts of our county.
Mr. Kiley. Thank you.
So, would it be fair to say that the relaxation of border
policies has redounded to the benefit of the cartels?
Sheriff Wilmot. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Kiley. I mean, just to be blunt, it's been a bonanza
for them, right? It's expanded their business opportunities for
their criminal enterprises, has it not?
Sheriff Wilmot. Absolutely. They have scouts that are in
our mountains. So, they can watch Border Patrol's actions out
in a remote part of our desert. So, they can coordinate the
loads getting through, whether they're human or narcotics.
Mr. Kiley. So, we know who is benefiting. So, then we have
to ask: Who is paying the price?
Well, first, of course, is the victims of fentanyl. In
2020, Border Patrol seized 4,800 pounds; 2021, it was 11,200;
2022 fiscal year, it was 14,700; and in just the first four
months for the 2023 fiscal year, 12,500.
I have a chart here showing basically a quadrupling in
overdoses here in Yuma just over the course of a few years. Of
course, this is not a localized matter. Throughout the country,
fentanyl poisoning is now the leading cause of death for young
people, more than car accidents, more than suicides, more than
anything.
Sheriff, is it your opinion that fewer Americans would be
dying of fentanyl poisoning if the border was as secure as it
was at the start of this administration?
Sheriff Wilmot. Absolutely.
Mr. Kiley. In addition to the victims of fentanyl, we then
have the victims of human trafficking as well.
Supervisor, I believe we discussed earlier some evidence
that you've seen of the increases and the impact of human
trafficking here in Yuma?
Mr. Lines. Yes. So, in the first three months, we've seen a
350 percent uptake in human trafficking, people who have come
forward seeking assistance on their own who have declared that
they have been trafficked. If nine were willing to do it, I'm
sure that there are many more out there looking to free
themselves of that bondage.
Mr. Kiley. Sheriff, is it your opinion that fewer people
would be suffering through the horror of human trafficking if
the border was as secure as it was at the start of this
administration?
Sheriff Wilmot. Absolutely.
Mr. Kiley. Then we have the migrants themselves. In 2022,
856 died attempting to cross the border. That was 300 more than
it was in 2021 and three times as many as it was just in 2020.
Sheriff, is it your opinion that fewer migrants would be
dying crossing the border if the border was as secure as it was
at the start of this administration?
Sheriff Wilmot. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kiley. So, there you have it. We have a set of policies
that has been a bonanza for the cartels, for foreign criminal
organizations, and this windfall is being underwritten by pain
and suffering and death.
That's why this is not a partisan issue. Usually we have to
weigh costs and benefits, we have to adjudicate competing
values. Here it's just bad all the way around. It's negative on
both sides of the ledger.
So, how does this make any sense? Well, it really only
makes sense when you look at it from a political perspective.
We had a set of border policies that were working. Everyone
here will tell you that. This administration came into office,
and to make a political statement, not only reversed those
policies, but swung the pendulum radically in the other
direction, exploding whatever bipartisan consensus there was on
this issue and ushering in a crisis unlike we have seen in
American history.
So, I'm not interested in criticizing our colleagues on the
other side of the dais for not being here. I want to encourage
them to come here, talk to the supervisor, the sheriff, and the
hospital, see what we have seen.
I want to work with anyone who is interested in getting
this crisis under control. That includes the President, who I
implore to accept responsibility, to admit his policies have
failed, to find a new Secretary of Homeland Security. Let's all
work together to replace pro-cartel policies with pro-America
policies.
[Applause.]
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields
back.
Mr. Lines, who benefits? That seems to me to be the
fundamental question, right? Who benefits?
We talked earlier. On January 20, 2021, the first day,
President Biden says no more wall, no more Remain in Mexico, no
more detain and deport.two years ago this was the safest border
county in the country. Today we have what's been described here
in the last two hours.
Sheriff Wilmot. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. So, it sort of raises the fundamental, who
benefits from this border that's no longer a border, from this
open border chaos on our southern border? Who benefits from
that?
Does our healthcare system benefit, Mr. Lines?
Mr. Lines. No, sir. No. Directly benefiting the cartels.
Chair Jordan. Does our law enforcement benefit, Sheriff
Wilmot?
Sheriff Wilmot. No, sir.
Chair Jordan. How about first responders, Supervisor? Does
first responders, does that benefit--
Mr. Lines. No, sir.
Chair Jordan. How about the taxpayers? Do the taxpayers?
How about the growers and ranchers and farmers that we
heard from earlier? Do they benefit from this chaotic policy
that was put in place on day one?
How about the legal residents? How about the citizens? Do
they benefit?
Mr. Lines. No.
Chair Jordan. That's the takeaway here. How about now, who
does benefit, though?
Do the cartels benefit, Supervisor Lines?
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir, 100 percent.
Chair Jordan. Do the drug dealers benefit?
Mr. Lines. One hundred percent.
Chair Jordan. Yes, and the scary thing is, the sad thing
is, too, the people--many times the people who are being
trafficked across, they don't really benefit either. Things
that happen to women, things that happen to kids, we've talked
about that.
So, this is the crazy thing. This brings us back to what my
colleague and friend from Florida said earlier in today's
hearing. I don't think they're going to change. I don't think
Joe Biden is going to change. Because any administration that
puts in policies that harm the citizens, law enforcement,
taxpayers, farmers, ranchers, and everyone, it seems, and only
benefit the bad guys, the cartels and drug dealers, I don't
know that they're going to change without a fight.
Mr. Lines. Mr. Chair, I think that it's good to remember
the source of all fentanyl, and that's being shipped directly
from China to the cartels to come and poison the people of the
United States.
Chair Jordan. Yep. Yep.
I would just add this to it as well, and this is in your
testimony, Supervisor. In your testimony, you were asked, I
believe by Mr. Gaetz, I think you said Secretary Mayorkas lied
to your face. That was your testimony here today under oath,
here today you took the oath when we swore you in, you said the
Secretary.
So, if you have an administration that you pay for, your
tax dollars pay for the Federal Government, they come here,
they promise to work with local government, work with the local
community to better the situation and then don't deliver on
their promise, the only way we're going to fix this is a fight.
The way our system works, the way our system works is when
you have split government, you have to do it on the
appropriations bills. We are going to have to attach on the
appropriations bills: Hey, look, if you don't start enforcing
the law, as Mr. McClintock pointed out, if you don't start
enforcing the law, we're not going to fund certain things. Not
our law enforcement, not Border Patrol, we need that, but other
things. We're going to have to do that if we're going to remedy
this situation.
Mr. Lines. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. That's how bad it is. That's how serious it
is.
We came here today to just underscore and hear from people
who have been living it now for two long years, to hear from
you all so we can go back and tell our colleagues: Look, we're
going to have to fight. We're going to have to fight for the
good people of Yuma County, the good law enforcement folks in
Arizona, people providing healthcare, the mayor of this great
town, and, as our other members have pointed out, folks all
over the country, because every county is now impacted by five
million illegal migrants coming into our country in the past
two years. That's what we pledge to do.
So, I want to thank you all for being here today.
We're going to close with the gentleman who represents this
fine community for five minutes, who has been a good friend of
mine in Congress for a number of years, who does an outstanding
job at serving the folks of his great district here in Arizona.
Mr. Gosar is recognized for five minutes.
[Applause.]
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
So, I'm going to hit two things. I'm going to try to hit
this a little differently.
It's been alluded to by some of my colleagues. Ben Franklin
was asked: ``What kind of government did you give us? A
republic, if you can keep it.''
What is key to a republic? The rule of law, accountability,
and defined, defensible borders.
Now, let's take an example of one of those republics that
fell: Rome. They actually invited the conquered to conquer.
Now, think about that. Think about that.
The reason I bring that up is that we've been bamboozled by
the other side in the press that there's only 10 or 11 million
illegals in this country. That's not true. The Ivy League study
in 2014, 2015 that showed there was between 33 and 36 million.
You add another six million that has come across during this
tenure, you're over 40 million illegals.
Now, why do I bring that up? Well, in a population of 360
million, maybe 10 million doesn't really make much of a
difference, but when it's 40 or 50 million, they're changing
culture. That's where this is going, changing culture.
Now, the other thing is, is I keep hearing over and over
again: What could you do about it?
As has been alluded, we're one of the three stools. Well,
there's the power of the purse. The Chair actually just brought
this up. That fight's coming. That was part of the fight that
the 20 held out for, to get that rule change.
[Applause.]
Mr. Gosar. It's even better than that. We have an
opportunity that if they were never authorized by Congress,
that we can defund them. This is going to be so much fun. Can
you say ATF? Can you say OPT?
So, now, we take the fight to them. Why is this important?
Because we have to have that power of the purse.
That also means that we have to get rid of the national
emergency on COVID. It seems kind of strange that I'm bringing
this up, but when you're under a national emergency, the
Executive Branch has 120 additional powers, and one of them is
to move money around. So, let me share with you an example.
Congress in its wisdom a five-years ago authorized $2.some
billion to go to COVID testing. It disappeared. It was rerouted
by the administration for illegal immigration housing.
Now, let's step back. This last fall, there was an omnibus
bill of $1.7 trillion passed, and it was passed intentionally
under the COVID national emergency. That means that simply not
one of those dollars that Congress has obliged to send has to
be spent that way, not that it will.
I hope I'm sharing with you that they can get a lot more
latitude. So, that power of the purse has to return. OK.
We also have to do our job. In the national emergency,
would you be surprised to find out that once upon--once a
declaration of a national emergency occurs, that Congress,
must/shall, no later than six months later, convene to decide
whether to continue that national emergency or kill it.
I dropped that bill twice. Ms. Pelosi killed it twice.
So, the magic about this is that once you start the
process, it has to go through. It's a privileged motion. So,
we've actually enabled our Senate minority to actually take
this up, because we've already passed it out of the House. So,
play smarter, not harder.
The appropriations process is going to be the big fight.
You have a debt ceiling and you have these appropriations.
Finding these programs, rules, agencies that are not authorized
by Congress is a good step in the right direction. Because we
have to get back the levity of equal justice under the law.
We've been asleep at the wheel for a long period of time,
folks. We saw this in the Obama Administration, the Fast and
Furious, Benghazi, the IRS, countless. Who's paid the penalty
for it? Nobody's paid the penalty for it.
That they can do this to a President. They throw everything
at him, and not one thing has been found on the guy. That's one
of the founding principles that's failing now in our Republic.
So, trust is a series of promises kept. I hope that you'll
look at us, and when appropriations season comes, they told us
they were going to march up there. They were going to get the
power of the purse, because maybe we could earn your trust
again.
I'm going to end, because I'm a person of accountability. I
do animes, I take full responsibility for those things. So, I
believe that there has to be a personal touch to this. So, let
me go through the roster of who's not here:
Mr. Nadler from New York, Ms. Lofgren from California, Ms.
Jackson Lee from Texas, Mr. Cohen from Tennessee, Mr. Johnson
from Georgia, Mr. Schiff from California, Mr. Cicilline from
Rhode Island, Mr. Swalwell from California, Mr. Lieu from
California, Ms. Jayapal from Washington, Mr. Correa from
California, Ms. McBath from Georgia, Ms. Dean from
Pennsylvania, Ms. Escobar from Texas, Ms. Ross from North
Carolina, Ms. Bush from Missouri, and Mr. Ivey from Maryland.
Until we start putting names and holding people
accountable, we are not going to get anywhere close to our
goal. We, the people.
Thank you, gentlemen. I thank you, Chair, for the privilege
of sitting in and charging in your parade.
Chair Jordan. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. Thank
you, Paul.
[Applause.]
I would just close, I'll remind everyone it's a great
country. My favorite scripture Verse 2, Timothy 4:7. Paul is
the old guy giving advice to the young guy Timothy, and he says
what? Fight the good fight, finish the course, keep the faith.
I tell people I love that verse because of the action in
it. It's not a sissy, wimpy verse, it's an American verse.
Words of actions. Americans aren't timid people. We are people
who get the job done. We fight, we finish, we keep faith with
the principles that made our country special.
That verse characterizes this community, and we have so
appreciated your hospitality over the last 24 hours. The mayor,
the supervisor, hospital administrator, sheriff, and everyone
else we've had a chance to visit with, the Border Patrol
agents, law enforcement, first responders, all the folks we've
got a chance to visit with.
You are living that verse here, and we appreciate it, and
we owe you that same kind of commitment in the U.S. Congress.
You pay our salary. We're supposed to fight for you. Your two
guys from Arizona are definitely doing that. The rest of us
need to do the same, and we pledge to you that we will. We
understand how serious this situation is.
I'll finish with this final story. I share this all the
time because it had an impact on my wife and me. This is
probably 10-12 years ago. We live north of Dayton, Ohio, near
the town of Urbana, and about 12 years ago we had some good
friends of ours in Dayton said, are you guys free for dinner.
It was the summertime of the year. They said, ``yes, well, come
down, we're going to meet us down here at our place in the
Dayton area, we're going to go out to dinner.'' They said,
``before we go to dinner, we're going to tour the Wright
brothers' home,'' and we said, ``great. We like history, we
like, seeing that. We live in the house we raised our family,
it was built in 1837, and we liked old things and history,''
and said, ``sure.''
So, we go down there. We pay the lady at the door with the
historical society, like, $5, and they take you on the tour of
this home, and you learn all kinds of neat things about these
two amazing Americans.
You learn about the bicycle shop, you learn about the
things they tinkered and built and the stuff they did and all
the things they were into, and it's a fascinating tour.
The tour ends in Wilbur Wright's bedroom, and they tell you
a few more things about this particular Wright brother. Then
they finish the tour by showing you two pictures.
First picture they hold up was that very first flight,
1903, and this thing they called a plane in Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina. When you see that picture, your first thought was,
wow, how did that thing get off the ground? How did that
contraption fly? The truth is, it barely did. It flew like a
hundred feet, got like 10-12 feet off the ground. They show you
that picture, and you're like, OK, that's kind of neat, because
you sort of remember that from when they taught you that in
school, 7th or 8th grade, whenever you learned that. You're
like, OK, that's kind of neat.
They put that picture down, and then they hold up a second
picture--1947, Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in a
jet. I was like, wow, that I didn't know. I must not have been
paying attention that day in school or something. I didn't know
that.
I'm thinking, that's amazing, in 44 years, we go from two
guys flying a hundred feet in this jalopy contraption of a
thing they called a plane to another great American breaking
the sound barrier in a jet. It's amazing. They put that picture
down. That was the end of the tour.
Polly and I start walking out, and as we're walking out, I
thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, why did they stop there?
I represent Wapakoneta, Ohio, hometown of Neil Armstrong, who
22 years later stepped on the moon.
Think about it. Sixty-six years, we go from two guys flying
a hundred feet, to another American stepping on the moon. One
lifetime. One lifetime, this country did that. I would argue,
no other country is capable of doing that, only this Nation,
the greatest country ever.
You can't fault people for wanting to come here. They just
got to do it legally, and that's what we're going to fight for
and make sure the law is enforced.
Thank you all very much. Our Committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:10 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[all]