[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7823-S7824]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. McCONNELL. First, for the information of all of our colleagues, 
later this morning I will introduce a continuing resolution that will 
ensure continuous funding to the Federal Government. The measure will 
provide the resources necessary to continue normal operations through 
February 8.
  Let's review why this step was necessary.
  Even in the face of a great need to secure the border and following 
good-faith efforts by the President's team, our Democratic colleagues 
rejected an extremely reasonable offer yesterday. It would have cleared 
the remaining appropriation bills, which had received bipartisan 
support in committee, and provided an additional $1 billion to tackle a 
variety of urgent border security priorities.
  I am sorry that my Democratic colleagues couldn't put their 
partisanship aside and show the same good faith and flexibility that 
the President has shown in order to provide the resources our Nation 
needs to secure the integrity of our borders as well as the safety of 
American families, but this seems to be the reality of our political 
moment. It seems like political spite, for the President may be winning 
out over sensible policy--even sensible policies that are more modest 
than border security allocations that many Democrats themselves have 
supported in the very recent past.
  Faced with this intransigence--with Democrats' failure to take our 
borders seriously--Republicans will continue to fulfill our duty to 
govern. That is why we will soon take up a simple measure that will 
continue government funding into February, so that we can continue this 
vital debate after the new Congress has convened, because--make no 
mistake--there will be important unfinished business in front of us, 
and we owe it to the American people to finally tackle it.
  Just last week, U.S. Customs and Border Commissioner Kevin McAleenan 
told our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee that the United States 
faces a border security and humanitarian crisis--a border security and 
humanitarian crisis.
  These are some of the facts. In the past year alone, we saw a 30-
percent increase in apprehensions by CBP, including nearly 6,700 
apprehensions of individuals with criminal histories and a 50-percent 
increase in apprehensions of known gang members. We have seen a 75-
percent spike in methamphetamine seizures since fiscal 2015. So it is 
quite obvious that shoring up our borders is an urgent need for our 
national security--no question about it.
  Secure borders are what the American people expect and they deserve. 
That is why it continues to be a major focus of President Trump and his 
administration. Already the President's approach to border security is 
yielding undeniable results. In each of four CBP sectors where physical 
borders have been improved or expanded--El Paso, Yuma, Tucson, and San 
Diego--illegal traffic has dropped by at least 90 percent.
  While you wouldn't know it from listening to the far-left special 
interests, this administration's focus on border security actually 
follows similar commonsense efforts that used to be a bipartisan 
consensus.
  It used to be a bipartisan consensus. In 2006, for example, the 
Secure Fence Act, which is designed to strengthen physical security 
measures at the border, received the support of no fewer than 26 of our 
Democratic colleagues, including the current Democratic leader, along 
with Senators Feinstein, Carper, Nelson, Stabenow, Wyden, and Obama.
  In 2010, President Obama signed a bill to increase the CBP's physical 
presence down at the border. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent, 
by the way.
  So let's not pretend there is some bright-line principle that 
separates the billions of dollars that our Democratic colleagues were 
willing and eager to spend on border security in the recent

[[Page S7824]]

past and the resources now requested by the President and his team. 
There is no big difference in principle. There has just been a shift in 
the political winds on the far left. This is knee-jerk, partisan 
opposition to the administration's reasonable and flexible requests. 
This is making political obstruction a higher goal than the integrity 
of our Nation's borders. Frankly, it is just political spite, and the 
American people know it when they see it.
  So the Senate will continue our work on the remaining bills--the 
products of much bipartisan hard work and collaboration, and, in the 
meantime, we will turn to a clean continuing resolution later today so 
we can make sure we don't end this year the way we began it--with 
another government shutdown because of the Democrats' allergy to 
sensible immigration policies. That is what they did at the beginning 
of the year.
  We need the government to remain open for the American people. We 
need to wrap up our work for this year, and I hope that my Democratic 
friends return next year ready to join the President, this Senate 
majority, and the American people in our desire to secure our border.

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