[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 77 (Thursday, May 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2760-S2761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday, the Judiciary Subcommittee on 
Border Security and Immigration that I chair held a hearing on the 
humanitarian and security crisis along the southern border. One of the 
witnesses we heard from was Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost, who 
leads the dedicated law enforcement officers who safeguard our Nation's 
borders every day. She has been with the Border Patrol for 25 years, 
and she has witnessed firsthand the ebb and flow of border crossings 
during that entire quarter century.
  Chief Provost announced the most recent data that shows how dire the 
situation along our southern border is. She described these numbers as 
off the charts, which I think is a gentle way of putting it.
  Before I get to the numbers, let me provide some context. In October 
2018, the start of the fiscal year, Customs and Border Protection 
encountered nearly 61,000 migrants at the border. That is higher than 
any month in the previous fiscal year. At the time, we were all alarmed 
by the increase, but last month's numbers completely eclipsed those 
levels. Chief Provost announced at our hearing yesterday that in the 
month of April, CBP encountered more than 109,000 illegal immigrants 
along the southern border. From October to April, we jumped from 
roughly 61,000 to 109,000 per month, a 78-percent increase over just 
the 6-month period.
  In addition to that enormous monthly total, she told us about the 
record-breaking daily total last week. Border Patrol apprehended 5,200 
people in a single day--the highest number on record. The problem is 
that we can't simply send these migrants home under the current state 
of the law. So the more individuals we apprehend, the more detention 
space we need. If we don't have the detention space, these individuals 
would simply just be released into the American population. We will 
never hear from most of them again, unless they commit some other 
crime.
  But the fact of the matter is, we are overtaxing the capabilities of 
the Border Patrol, of Customs and Border Protection, of the local 
communities, and of the nongovernmental organizations that try to 
assist these migrants while they are in our country and in our custody. 
On certain days over the last month, CBP has had more than 14,000 
people in custody, far greater than the capacity they are able to hold.
  People may ask: Why do we have to detain people? Why can't we just 
let them go and tell them to show back up for a future court date?
  We know from sad experience that the majority will not return for 
that court date, even if they have legitimate claims for asylum. We now 
know that there are more than 700,000--I think approaching 800,000--
backlog immigration cases waiting to be heard by an immigration judge. 
This, again, is overwhelming our capacity to deal with these on an 
individual basis.
  Back to the numbers, earlier this week the Rio Grande Valley Sector 
announced that their stations and processing centers were holding more 
than 7,000 illegal immigrants, and that is just one Border Patrol 
sector. In a recent television interview, Acting DHS Secretary Kevin 
McAleenan accurately described these facilities as being similar to 
police stations. Suffice it to say that CBP does not have the 
facilities or resources to manage that many people in a police station-
like environment.
  If you think that sounds pretty grim, just wait because it gets 
worse. We aren't only overwhelmed by the number of individuals coming 
across the border but by the types of people who are arriving. I am 
talking about children and families who are mostly from Central 
America. We were told that, all told, Border Patrol encounters, in a 
given year, individuals from 140 different countries.
  Since the criminal organizations that smuggle people into the United 
States are open for business, they are more than happy to take a 
Bangladeshi, a Yemeni, somebody from Iraq or from Afghanistan or, for 
that matter, from Iran and bring them across the border into the United 
States.

  When our detention facilities were built, they were designed to hold 
single adults for a short duration, which used to account for the 
majority of people apprehended. That is simply not the case anymore. 
The human smugglers and criminal organizations that charge $5,000, 
$6,000, $7,000 a head to bring people into the United States have 
studied our laws and have learned how to exploit the loopholes and the 
gaps. That

[[Page S2761]]

is why the composition of these migrants has changed so much over the 
years from single adults to children and to families.
  In April, 68 percent of those apprehended were either families or 
unaccompanied children. This has put the Border Patrol in a very 
awkward position. Chief Provost noticed that her agents were spending 
now about 40 percent of their time processing migrants and providing 
care and transportation. She had a picture--a chart--that she 
demonstrated with a Border Patrol agent nursing a baby with a bottle 
and another Border Patrol agent cradling an infant in his arms. In 
other words, instead of being on the frontlines against illegal drugs 
coming across our border--which contributed to the deaths of 70,000 
Americans last year alone and where 90 percent of the heroin and 
synthetic opioids known as fentanyl come principally from Mexico--
instead of fighting that scourge and stopping that poison from coming 
into the United States, our Border Patrol has now been diverted to 
being, essentially, a childcare center handing out juice boxes and 
diapers. They aren't processing or stopping illegal immigrants or the 
human traffickers.
  Trying to deal with these record high numbers, we know that the 
numbers of people coming across are far exceeding the resources 
available for the Border Patrol. With so many more people to process 
and more manpower needed, the Border Patrol has been taken off the 
line, leaving areas of the border vulnerable to exploitation by human 
smugglers and drug cartels.
  Think about it. If you are a leader of a drug cartel trying to move 
heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, or other illegal drugs into the 
United States, why wouldn't you try to flood the Border Patrol with 
children and families so they would be taken off the line and 
distracted to take care of these individuals, as opposed to stopping 
those drugs? Of course, this is part of a larger plan.
  Unfortunately, the Congress is doing little, if anything, about it. I 
don't think it takes an expert to see that things are bad, and I hope 
my colleagues can recognize that we need to act before they get worse. 
This is a problem that the President can't solve on his own and the 
Border Patrol can't solve on its own. This is about the legal 
authorities that the U.S. Government has to deal with this chaos and 
this humanitarian crisis at our own border. It takes a change in laws 
passed by Congress. So we must act on a bipartisan and bicameral basis 
to respond or this is going to get worse and worse.
  Yesterday Chief Provost compared the current situation to holding a 
bucket under a faucet. It doesn't matter how many buckets you have if 
you never turn the water off. Well, that is what we need to do--stop 
the flow of people trying to enter our country illegally.
  Last week, Congressman Henry Cuellar--my friend, a Democrat from 
Laredo, TX--and I introduced a bill called the HUMANE Act, which would 
at least slow that faucet to a drip and provide serious relief for the 
personnel who serve along the border. It focuses on the problems posed 
by high numbers of unaccompanied children and families, whom we do not 
have the capacity to adequately care for. It requires the Department of 
Homeland Security to keep families together through court proceedings--
something we all should agree to--and provides safeguards to prevent 
children from being placed in the custody of dangerous individuals--sex 
offenders, human traffickers, and the like.
  It also requires the Department of Homeland Security to establish 
regional processing centers in high traffic areas and to improve the 
processing of humanitarian relief claims by requiring those to be 
processed at ports of entry.
  Finally, it mandates the hiring of 600 new CBP personnel to alleviate 
the personnel strain and get more of these highly trained men and women 
back on the frontlines. I hope we will have the opportunity to review 
this legislation soon in the Judiciary Committee. Chairman Graham has 
told me he is willing to do that, and I hope our friends in the House 
will take it up soon.

  America would never think of sending our men and women in the 
military to war without providing them the training, the equipment, and 
the support they need in order to fight and win our Nation's wars. Yet 
somehow we have sent the Border Patrol into a battle that is designed 
for failure. They simply don't have the numbers. They don't have the 
resources. We don't have the facilities in order to deal with this. We 
can't just try to staunch the flow while it gets worse and worse and 
worse and worse. Instead of putting another bucket under the faucet as 
it runs wide open, we need to turn that faucet off, and the only way we 
can do that is by Congress acting. It is on us, and we must act and act 
soon.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.