[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 63 (Thursday, April 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S2411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, while many folks in Washington, DC, 
remain ambivalent about what is happening along the southern border, I 
am here to report that we are reaching a breaking point.
  Every month, Customs and Border Protection releases the total number 
of people who attempt to cross the southern border. The total includes 
those who cross illegally between the ports of entry, as well as those 
deemed inadmissible at a port of entry. Just to give you an idea of the 
size and scope of the numbers we have been dealing with in the past, 
since June 2014--the month that President Obama referred to this as a 
``humanitarian crisis''--more than 66,000 individuals were encountered 
along the border. At that time, we thought 66,000 was a huge number, 
but it pales in comparison to what we are seeing now. Last month, more 
than 103,000 people attempted to illegally cross the border. That is 
103,000 up from 76,000 the previous month.

  A few weeks ago, I know we got into a debate about what did and did 
not constitute an emergency or a crisis at the border. I don't care 
whether you call it a crisis or an emergency, but the entire system is 
breaking, and it is unsustainable. This is the highest number of people 
who has attempted to enter the country that we have seen since 2007.
  The mind-boggling figure represents the strain that is being felt by 
the personnel--those being U.S. Government employees--whether they be 
Border Patrol or Customs or whoever is trying to manage the influx of 
the migrants. The men and women of the CBP lack both the manpower and 
the facilities to appropriately respond. The already understaffed 
Agency is reassigning personnel to try to make do, but 40 percent of 
the Border Patrol's manpower is spent processing migrants and providing 
care and transportation, and many of the agents are taken off their 
patrol lines to do this work, which leaves areas of the border 
vulnerable to exploitation by drug cartels and others.
  The detention centers at which these migrants are housed and 
processed are relatively small facilities that are not designed for 
these kinds of huge numbers. They were originally built to house single 
adults for a short period of time, but the skyrocketing number of 
unaccompanied children and family units is now putting a serious strain 
on those resources. Last month alone, there were more than 53,000 
families and nearly 9,000 unaccompanied children who were apprehended 
at the border--53,000 families and 9,000 unaccompanied children. 
Customs and Border Protection simply lacks the facilities to hold these 
children, and it lacks the personnel to provide appropriate care.
  Do we really want the Border Patrol handing out juice boxes and 
diapers as opposed to interdicting dangerous drugs and other contraband 
that come into the United States? I don't think so. We know they are 
desperately asking for additional detention space and staff to be able 
to manage the migrants who are in custody.
  Why is it so important they be detained? It is because, if we engage 
in the practice that has come to be known as catch and release, then it 
is doubtful we will ever see these migrants again, even though they 
will be notified of their time to appear in front of immigration judges 
months--maybe even years--into the future. They will simply melt into 
the landscape. If they were to have bona fide reasons to claim asylum 
but were to fail to appear for their hearings in front of immigration 
judges, they will have waived those rights and be deported if they are 
ultimately located in the United States.
  We know customs inspectors have been reassigned from their duties at 
ports of entry to do things like process migrants and provide 
transportation. With fewer customs agents on the job, you are now 
seeing lengthy delays at the ports and checkpoints along the entire 
border. In what is just right across from El Paso, TX, truckers have 
been reported as sleeping in their vehicles for hours and sometimes 
days so they will not lose their spots in line.
  I have heard from some of the car manufacturers that require there be 
a flow of their supply chains into Mexico and vice versa, so they are 
literally hiring aircraft to fly from Juarez to El Paso because that 
11-minute flight is faster than a trucker waiting 24 hours in line. 
Also, when many of our car manufacturers that depend on just-in-time 
inventory can't get their inventory just in time but have to wait 24 
hours, it disrupts their manufacturing lines and endangers their 
businesses. Of course, it is easy to see how this could have a ripple 
effect on the entire border and the American economy.
  This slowdown isn't just affecting businesses along the border; it 
has businesses across the country worried. Mexican products feed the 
supply chain for many manufacturers in the United States, and these 
slowdowns affect production. While folks who live far away from the 
border may have just chosen to look the other way until now, they don't 
have a choice anymore. The system is breaking.
  The ripples will soon be felt across the country unless Members of 
Congress, on both sides of the aisle, work together and are serious 
about enacting a solution. We know what we need to do, but politics is 
preventing us from getting it done. It is time to provide our frontline 
officers and agents with the personnel, the resources, and the legal 
authorities they need in order to do the jobs we have asked them to do. 
Yet, without support from Congress, we are sending them into a losing 
battle, and we are setting our economy up for a disaster.