[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 5 (Thursday, January 10, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR WALL WILL NOT WORK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 2\1/2\ minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, a wall is not remotely capable of dealing 
with the magnitude of our continental challenge to civil order. The 
forces of commerce, greed, addiction, and lawless cartels and gangs are 
too insidious. They will surmount any wall. They already have.
  The President's demand for $5 billion for a wall, whether concrete or 
steel, simply won't work. Why? Because most illegal narcotics are 
already shipped here hidden in cross-border commercial cargoes fueled 
by the flawed and underfunded NAFTA and CAFTA continental trade deals. 
Millions of trucks, autos, ships, railcars, and planes carry massive 
and increasing shipments of cargo traversing over our borders as 
continental trade increases exponentially.
  Recall that NAFTA and CAFTA sucked out millions of living-wage jobs 
from our country, depositing them in Mexico and Central America to 
exploit penny-wage labor south of our border. Finished goods were then 
U-turned back north.
  NAFTA and CAFTA negotiators promised higher wages for all. Nothing 
could be further from the truth. Even laborers south of our border earn 
less now than before NAFTA passed. There is more poverty here and there 
as the transnationals shipped our jobs out to earn higher profits by 
gutting our workforce and while exploiting workers in Mexico and 
Central America. On both sides of the border, workers lose and 
investors win.
  This is a map of the Laredo checkpoint. There are 16 lanes of traffic 
just at that one point on our border. The problem is the drugs are 
often hidden in those commercial cargoes. We need more agents to check 
cargo, but we also need technology to find the hidden narcotics that 
are there.
  In addition to that, we see China shipping fentanyl and carfentanil 
into our country, including through the U.S. mails. We have no 
scientific way of detecting those killer drugs.
  So, if you really want to look at solving the problem, it is 
important for the President to know that legal ports of entry are the 
primary route through which illicit drugs arrive here in our country. 
There are 48 such crossing points, plus 330 points of entry along the 
U.S.-Mexico border, the most frequently crossed border in the world. 
Approximately 350 million documented crossings occur there annually.
  We need to regularize that entry into the United States. We need more 
manpower and technology. There is no way we can solve this problem with 
a wall.

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