[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4900-S4901]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Immigration

  Mr. President, I did want to mention today, though--and to step back 
a little bit from the immigration conversation--there are a lot of 
issues with immigration that we deal with on a regular basis, but it is 
more conversation than it is solutions.
  It has been my great frustration that we talk about H-2B visas, 
refugees in asylum, talk about overstaying visas, temporary protective 
status, illegal entry, quotas and diversity lottery, and families. We 
don't ever seem to resolve the issue. We talk about it.
  The great frustration is, many of the issues we deal with right now 
on immigration are a direct result of Congress not fixing the issue. My 
encouragement to this body is to stop pointing the finger at the 
President and ask a very simple question: Why is there conversation 
about a zero tolerance policy and what does that really mean?
  In its most simple form, I think we could agree that if someone 
illegally crosses the American border into the country, they should be 
stopped and at least asked: Who are you? Why are you here? Because in 
the last year, 1.1 million people became legal citizens of the United 
States. They made legal applications, worked through that process, 
received a green card, were evaluated with background checks, and 
became citizens of the United States.
  Today, on the southern border between Mexico and the United States, 
there will be half a million legal crossings into the United States. 
The question is, for individuals who illegally cross the border, should 
we stop those individuals and ask: Who are you? What are you doing 
here? Why are you crossing into the country? Because not every person 
crossing into the country is just crossing for work that we would 
consider good work.
  Today, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released an announcement 
that the officers referred a 38-year-old male for further inspection as 
he crossed into the United States. Following a positive alert from a K-
9 unit, officers seized 21 pounds of cocaine from the vehicle's 
firewall. Not everyone who is entering the country is coming for a 
legal reason. Not everyone who is crossing our border is coming just to 
work. So the zero tolerance policy is really a question of should we 
stop individuals to evaluate someone who is illegally crossing the 
border--not one of the half a million people today who will legally 
cross the border? If you are one of the individuals not crossing the 
border legally, should we stop you, and should we prosecute you?
  Previous administrations used what they called prosecutorial 
discretion. They have taken folks in, and they released them into the 
country until they determined who to prosecute and who to not 
prosecute. This administration has stepped up and said: Let's take a 
moment where we are going to prosecute everyone and try to slow down 
the process.
  There has been a noticeable increase in something that a lot of 
people have not noticed, and that is the number of families coming 
across the border. Why would that be? It is not just individuals 
crossing the border as a family. It is individuals who are bringing 
children with them to cross the border because they have been treated 
differently over the past several years.
  Over the first 5 months of this fiscal year, there has been a 315-
percent increase in apprehensions of groups fraudulently claiming to be 
families. Let me run that past you again. This year, in the last 5 
months, there has been a 315-percent increase in apprehensions of 
groups who fraudulently claim to be families--not a 315-percent 
increase in families. These are smugglers who bring a child with them 
because they know if you bring a child with you, then you are treated 
differently at the border. Historically, you have been released.
  This administration has said to stop this. We are going to start 
prosecuting and try to figure out who is actually a family, who is not 
a family to figure out how to prosecute them because there has been 
such a dramatic change. The numbers are just increasing for family 
units that are coming.
  Let me run some of the numbers past you. According to Customs and 
Border Patrol, there is a 407-percent increase in the number of family 
units detained in June 2018 compared to June 2017. In May, it was a 
600-percent increase. In April, it was an 863-percent increase. We are 
seeing a dramatic shift in the number of units that are coming at us.
  No matter your view on immigration reform, increases of this kind of 
magnitude should cause us to slow down and ask simple questions. Are 
the loopholes in our law and the prosecutorial discretion to release 
families to show up later for a hearing causing more individuals to 
pretend to be families or more families to come? I think it is causing 
more individuals to come who are coming not as a family unit but who 
are pretending to be a family unit, though we also have, obviously, 
family units that are coming as well.
  A key issue we need to address is pretty straightforward. Of the 1 
million-plus people who come here legally, should we have greater 
respect for those individuals who have gone through the legal process? 
I believe we should. In fact, I had a small townhall meeting in Lawton, 
OK, just last week. There were lots of questions about keeping families 
together. I am one of those individuals who says, as often as we 
possibly can, the default position should be keeping families together, 
but for those individuals who were at this meeting in Lawton, all the 
questions were about what are we doing about immigration. How are we 
handling this? How are we prosecuting this? Are we treating people 
humanely? Those are reasonable questions for us as Americans.
  At the very end of the townhall meeting, one gentleman asked me: What 
about legal immigration? He asked it in a very specific way. Are there 
issues we should deal with, with that?
  I followed up with him and asked: Why do you ask that?
  The reason he asked that is because he is a legal immigrant. He went 
through the process and is in his final stages. In fact, just the week 
before, he had received his green card. He is a little frustrated with 
people who are treated differently--who came into the country illegally 
versus people who are actually doing it the right way.
  It has been interesting to me to watch this whole movement about 
abolishing ICE and saying maybe we shouldn't have ICE enforcement at 
all--no immigration and customs enforcement at all. The entity was 
created after 9/11 because the 9/11 terrorists were individuals who 
came into the country, overstayed their visas, and they were not 
stopped. ICE was created to help us with our immigration enforcement 
because we had just been penetrated by a group of individuals who were 
terrorists and killed thousands of Americans.
  After that was created in 2003, there is now this big movement, as if 
we have lost all we have learned since 2001. Now there is a whole group 
saying maybe we just need to abolish ICE entirely.

[[Page S4901]]

  Let me run through a few things on that. Last year, ICE seized 2,370 
pounds of fentanyl. That may not seem like a lot--just over a ton of 
fentanyl that they seized--but according to the DEA, 2 milligrams of 
fentanyl is a deadly amount to take in. Fentanyl is laced into heroin 
or into cocaine to dramatically increase the high, but if you have up 
to 2 milligrams of it, it is not going to increase your high. It will 
kill you.
  The amount of fentanyl that ICE seized last year is a deadly dosage 
amount for just over 537 million people; 537 million people could have 
been killed with just the amount of fentanyl that ICE seized last year. 
On top of that, ICE agents seized almost 7,000 pounds of heroin, and a 
total of 1 million pounds of narcotics were seized just in 2017.
  We also know that ICE freed 518 victims of human trafficking. They 
freed 904 children from child exploitation. They picked up 800 MS-13 
gang members as an arrest, and almost 5,000 gang members were taken off 
the street just by ICE.
  We hear a lot about ICE raids, as if ICE is wandering around 
neighborhoods looking to pick people up. I would like to remind folks, 
the majority of what ICE does is detain individuals at the border. In 
fact, last year, ICE agents removed 62,913 more people who were 
detained at the border than arrested in the United States.
  ICE agents are law enforcement. They are enforcing the law of our 
country. It is quite remarkable to me to hear some people, even in this 
Chamber, discuss with seriousness abolishing Federal law enforcement 
that is taking human traffickers off the street, has taken gang members 
off the street, that is taking legal doses of fentanyl off the street, 
and taking tons of narcotics off the street. Why don't we show them 
some respect?
  If there are things that need to be done to reform it, the ICE agents 
would be the first ones to step up to this body and say: Here are some 
ideas and things that can be done to reform it. Abolishing ICE is a 
ticket to lawlessness in our country.
  As a reminder, the President asked Congress 21 days ago to enact 
legislation that would allow families to stay together. This Congress 
has failed to act on that at all. As we all know, over the course of 1 
month, roughly 2,000 children were separated from their parents and 
placed in HHS custody while the parents were referred to the Department 
of Justice for prosecution. A great deal of attention, rightly so, has 
been focused on HHS to ensure that those children are reunited with 
those parents, especially those children under age 5. To do this, HHS 
has to first verify that adult is actually the parent of that child. As 
I mentioned before, just in the first 5 months of this fiscal year, 
there was a 315-percent increase of family units coming in that 
pretended to be family units but are really not family units.
  I heard a lot of criticism saying put that adult back with that child 
again. This should be easy, but it is not that simple. Many of those 
adults who came with that child are really not their parent. They were 
using them as a vehicle to get easy access into the country.
  What does that really look like? Well, let me give you a couple ideas 
on this. As we talk through the different numbers that are related to 
some of these children and how many of these children were connected or 
not connected with the adults who were with them, let me give you a few 
of these stats: Of those children who are 4 and under, 14 of those are 
not eligible for reunification because their parents have major 
issues--or those individuals claiming to be their parents.
  Let's just talk about the people who are parents whom we know are 
parents. Eight of those parents had serious criminal history discovered 
when they did the background check, including child cruelty, narcotics, 
and human trafficking. One had a warrant for murder and robbery. So as 
Americans, we are not reconnecting those eight. Five adults were found 
not to be the parent of the accompanying child at all. These were of 
the children 4 and under. One of those individuals faced incredible 
evidence of child abuse in the process. We are not reconnecting those.
  I hear a lot in the news of individuals saying every one of those 
folks needs to be reconnected as fast as possible. I hear a lot of 
criticism, saying they are doing DNA testing of these individuals. They 
are trying to figure out if that adult is really the parent of that 
child or has that adult picked up a child somewhere through Mexico or 
Central America to use them as a tool to try to get into the United 
States? I only wish that wasn't happening. It is.
  Reconnecting families is a major priority. I said before, and would 
say it again, our default position should be keeping families together, 
but part of our struggle is determining who are the actual families we 
can keep together and who are individuals who could very well do that 
child harm?
  So let's do this: Let's keep the attention on the reunification of 
families. Let's continue to ask very fair and reasonable questions of 
the administration as they are reconnecting these families. But let's 
also make sure this Congress actually acts on the issues that need to 
be addressed on immigration.
  Twenty-one days ago, there was a request in this body to deal with 
the issue of family reunification. It still has not been acted on.
  In February of this year, this body had a vote on dealing with what 
is called the Flores settlement. That is what causes the separation of 
these families. It is a settlement that goes all the way back to 1997. 
Every single administration since 1997 has struggled with the Flores 
settlement because the Flores settlement says that if you arrest a 
family illegally entering the country, the children of that family can 
be detained for only 20 days. That sounds reasonable, except that, on 
average, it takes 35 days just to have a hearing. So since that 
settlement all the way back in 1997, every administration has said: I 
either have to separate families, or I have to release those families 
into the country and hope they show up for a court hearing at a future 
date.
  By the way, we called and checked on some of the future court dates. 
If you are in line to get a court date--if you are released into the 
country and told to come in for a court date--the longest period of 
time that you will wait, depending on the region you are headed to, is 
4 years and 2 months from now. That is the next available date. So as a 
family unit, you are released into the country for 4 years, and then we 
hope you show up for your court date 4 years from now.
  This body knows all these numbers, and we have not acted to solve the 
problem. We need to address these issues. We need to be a country that 
continues to be open to legal immigration. We need to be a country that 
is open to workers--even workers who cross the border on both sides, 
north and south. We need to be a nation that deals with things like H-
2B visas and asylum and refugees. We need to continue to keep the 
promise that we are a nation built on a set of values and the American 
dream that says: If you want to come and live under the law and live in 
a land of freedom, where you can become anything you want to become, 
you are welcome to be here if you come legally.
  We need to be that Nation, but we also need to not just ignore 
illegal immigration and assume there aren't real problems with gang 
violence, the movement of drugs, human trafficking, and child-
trafficking, because they are real. Is it every family who comes 
across? Absolutely not. But are you OK with it happening at all? What 
if it is 1 in 10 who is child-trafficking or drug-smuggling? Is that an 
acceptable number, or should we know the people who are crossing the 
border and know the issues that are there?
  We can do better than this. Let's solve this. Let's keep the debate 
going, and let's actually resolve this in the days ahead.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.