[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 70 (Tuesday, April 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2506-S2507]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to serve with the 
Presiding Officer on the Committee on Homeland Security. Part of our 
responsibilities on homeland security is to make sure, to the extent 
that we can, that our borders are secure. We do that in a variety of 
ways. We do that, in some cases, with our Border Patrol officers. We 
have a lot of them. We appreciate the work they do.
  We also have, in many places, particularly along the border of 
Mexico--as the Presiding Officer knows--a lot of fencing that is there. 
We have a lot of roads that our vehicles can travel along to have 
mobility on the ground. Our President has proposed, at least earlier 
this year, that we spend about $25 billion to build a wall, maybe 10-, 
15-, 25-feet high along the 2,000 miles between the Pacific Ocean and 
the Gulf of Mexico.
  I have never been convinced that that is the best way--to put all of 
our money in the basket--that that is really the best way to better 
ensure the security of our border with Mexico. As it turns out, most of 
the folks who are coming into the United States from that part of the 
world are not Mexicans. Actually, more Mexicans are going back into 
Mexico than Mexicans coming across the border into the United States.
  Most of the illegal immigration--not all but most of it--is coming 
from three countries: Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The reason 
why they come here is because their lives are miserable. They are 
miserable because we buy drugs. We have this insatiable appetite for 
illegal drugs. So a lot of them are trafficked through Honduras, 
Guatemala, and El Salvador.
  We send money down to those three countries for the drugs, and we 
send guns down to that part of the world. When we catch bad guys in 
this country from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, we send them 
back to those three countries.
  So part of the security of our southern border involves actually 
trying to help those three countries figure out ways to keep their 
people home, rather than wanting to come to our country. Part of it is 
making sure that they have decent lives to live. Twenty years ago, as 
you all may remember, a bunch of gunmen rounded up the supreme court 
justices in Colombia, took them into a room, and shot and killed them--
shot them all to death.
  It was a time when the government was tottering and there was a 
question of whether they were going to survive in Colombia. Some very 
brave people stood up in Colombia and said: No, no, we want to survive, 
we want to fend off the drug cartels, and we want to fend off the 
leftist guerillas. Ultimately, they were successful. It has taken 20 
years.
  They worked on something called Plan Colombia to help turn around 
their country. We came in, and we helped them. They did the heavy 
lifting, and we helped out as well. I like to say that it is sort of 
like at Home Depot: ``You'' can do it--using, in that case, Colombia--
and ``we'' being the United States.
  A similar kind of thing is going on in Honduras, Guatemala, and El 
Salvador. They have come up with their own Plan Colombia. You might 
call it ``Plan Central America.'' The three countries have come up with 
things they are responsible for doing to improve the quality of life 
for their folks and the ability to have economic growth and opportunity 
and hope. We are helping out as well. We have done

[[Page S2507]]

that in some appropriations bills for the last fiscal year. We are 
trying to spend a little bit more. Wisely invested, it will be a 
fraction of what they are actually spending on their own.
  To the extent that those three countries can be more attractive to 
people who live there, that actually helps a whole lot in terms of the 
pressure on our own borders. Plus, it is the right thing to do. The 
other thing I would mention, as to our energy policy in this country, 
is that sometimes we have had an ``all of the above'' energy approach. 
It is not just coal, it is not just wind, it is not just solar, it is 
not just geothermal, it is not just nuclear, and it is not just natural 
gas. It is all of the above. It is conservation as well.
  We need a similar approach to continuing to protect our borders, 
whether it is in the South or other places. But it should involve a 
variety of things. There are some places along the 2,000 miles where it 
will actually make some sense. There are a lot of places where a fence 
makes more sense. There are a lot of places where it makes more sense 
just to pave the roads alongside the border.
  The Presiding Officer actually spent, as he said, his ``misspent 
youth''--but I will say his youth--earlier in his life where he and 
other kayakers were in boats along the Rio Grande River. Part of border 
security is boats along that stretch of the river, that stretch of the 
border because it is literally hundreds of miles where the border is 
defined by a river. So in some places, boats make sense. In other 
places, boat ramps make sense.
  Sometimes it makes sense to have drones up in the air that can 
surveil up to 100 miles into Mexico for folks coming our way. Sometimes 
it makes sense to put helicopters, sometimes fixed-wing aircraft. But 
you can't just send them up with binoculars. You need to put the right 
kind of surveillance equipment on there. We have that equipment. The 
key is to put it on the aircraft.
  Sometimes stationary towers going up 200, 300 feet makes sense. 
Sometimes it makes sense to make those mobile. Sometimes we can put 
those surveillance systems 5,000 feet up in the air to look literally 
100 miles into Mexico to see what is coming our way. If we have the 
right surveillance system, they could see not just during daylight, 
sunny skies, but they could see at night. They can see in fog and dense 
fog. So the key is all of the above--it is not any one thing--and to 
find out what works. The other thing is, maybe to continue to support 
and ask our Border Patrol: What do you guys and gals think? What do you 
think makes sense? And listen to them.
  No, I am not smart enough to figure out how much money we put exactly 
in each one of those, but I think it makes sense, depending on what the 
needs are and on the advice of the folks who really are the experts on 
the ground, what they suggest, and we can do an ``all of the above'' 
approach. But we also have to consider that the reason most of the 
illegals are coming to our country is that they live their lives in 
misery. If we don't do something to help them help themselves, we are 
going to be falling short of where we want to be.
  I just wanted to share that before we recognize the next Senator.
  I am looking forward to the inaugural address of the new Senator from 
Illinois.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I am honored to be on the floor for the 
maiden speech of my colleague Senator Duckworth.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.