[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 80 (Tuesday, May 14, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2800-S2801]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Immigration

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, over the years, I have spent a great deal 
of time on the Senate floor highlighting the evolving challenges along 
our southern border.
  My home State of Texas shares a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, 
so any major shift in terms of who or what is arriving at the border is 
felt quickly by my constituents and by my State. In recent months, I 
have heard from the Border Patrol, local officials, nongovernmental 
organizations, community leaders, businesses of every size, and just 
average citizens alike about how the situation today is far more 
challenging than it has ever been before.
  In the past, the number of illegal border crossings have fluctuated 
by varying degrees, but now we have seen a complete shift not only in 
number but also in the ``who'' of those crossing. While we used to see 
single adults from Mexico, that is simply not the case anymore. There 
is no new net migration from Mexico, we are told. As Border Patrol 
Chief Carla Provost highlighted in a hearing last week, 68 percent of 
those apprehended are now families or unaccompanied children, and that 
is on purpose. The human smugglers have figured out what our laws are 
and how to exploit them in order to successfully place people in the 
United States by overwhelming our system. The 68 percent of families or 
unaccompanied children amounts to roughly 293,000 apprehensions so far 
this fiscal year--293,000. What is more, 70 percent of the 
unaccompanied children and families are occurring in just two Border 
Patrol sectors, the El Paso sector and the Rio Grande Valley sector, 
making the State of Texas and its border communities the hardest hit.
  The vast majority of those crossing aren't from Mexico. They are 
coming from Mexico, but they are actually coming through Mexico. So far 
this fiscal year, 74 percent of the Border Patrol's apprehensions along 
the southern border are people from Guatemala, Honduras, and El 
Salvador--what is called the Northern Triangle. This means that in 7 
months, nearly 341,000 people from the Northern Triangle of Central 
America made the decision to leave their homes and to make a dangerous 
journey in the hands of a human smuggler to illegally enter the United 
States. Here is another shocking statistic, Acting Secretary of the 
Department of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan recently noted that 
Guatemala and Honduras have seen more than 1 percent of their total 
population migrate to the United States in the first 7 months of this 
fiscal year--more than 1 percent of their entire population.
  While it is abundantly clear that the mass movement of people across 
our border is a problem that must be addressed, it is an understatement 
to say that Members of the Senate disagree on what a solution looks 
like. We spent a lot of time debating the semantics of the entire 
situation without making any real progress. I believe our strategy to 
alleviate this humanitarian crisis hinges on three important steps:
  First, we need stronger physical security at the border. The experts 
have told us that means three things: barriers and, in-hard-to-control 
places, people--that is law enforcement--and technology. That is what 
our frontline officers and agents need to do their jobs, and that is 
what we should provide.
  Secondly, we need to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement and 
Customs and Border Patrol with the authorities--that means the laws--
they need in order to effectively do their job. That includes closing 
the loopholes that are being exploited by the human smugglers and the 
illegal immigrants entering the country because they have figured out 
how to game the system. They know our laws better than most Americans 
do.
  Both of these are what are called pull factors--what attract people 
to come to the United States illegally. They are gaps in our physical 
security and legal system that encourage Central American migrants to 
make the dangerous journey north because their chances of making their 
way into the interior of our country are pretty high.

  There is a critical third step here. We also need to eliminate the 
push factors. That is what is driving people from Central America on 
that dangerous road north through Mexico into the United States. The 
reason so many of these families are leaving their home countries in 
the first place boils down to poverty and violence. We know these three 
countries in the Northern Triangle are plagued by crime, corruption, 
and a lack of economic opportunities. Sometimes it is difficult for 
Americans to grasp the deep-seated nature of these problems and why it 
is so tough to resolve them because it is such a far cry from what most 
have experienced here at home.
  In October of 2018, the International Organization for Migration 
conducted a survey of a group of Salvadoran migrants who banded 
together as a caravan to make the journey north. It found that 52 
percent of the people who were coming from El Salvador cited economic 
opportunity as their motive for leaving the region, 18 percent cited 
violence and insecurity, 2 percent said they wanted to unify their 
families, and 28 percent cited some combination of these factors. Now, 
this may not be the case for migrants from each country, but it paints 
a broad picture of how these challenges are affecting them.
  We must help these countries address their problems, but we can't do 
it for them. Looking at South America and the successful efforts we 
have had to help countries rebuild themselves into successful economies 
with security for their people, there is one that stands out the most, 
and that is Colombia. What is different about Colombia from the rest of 
these countries is we had, one, a bipartisan plan that was applied over 
many years by both Republican and Democratic administrations. We also 
had a strong partner, a leader, President Uribe in Colombia, which is 
something we are missing in Central America. Then we had a plan, as the 
name Plan Colombia suggests, so we knew what we were doing, and we knew 
how to measure success. We don't have any of these things now as part 
of our effort to help the Central American countries help themselves.
  Having said that, I think that is a challenge we need to rise to, to 
find a way of helping these countries create economic opportunities and 
security for their people so we can help relieve some of the strain on 
our own border.
  This morning, my colleague from Delaware, Senator Carper, and I 
participated in a discussion by the Bush

[[Page S2801]]

Center and the Atlantic Council on how to promote economic growth in 
the Northern Triangle. I think it is very helpful for these think tanks 
to gather experts and come up with proposals we can consider and then 
vote on. Frankly, it is very hard for Congress--we don't have really 
the bandwidth to come up with proposals from the start, so it is 
helpful to have smart people from around the country, experts, who can 
help advise us.
  We know this: One of the most fundamental problems standing in the 
way of prosperity for Central America is the security crisis. Because 
of endemic corruption and powerful criminal organizations, a genuine 
rule of law is missing in these countries and has been for generations. 
We have had some successes partnering with our closest neighbor in this 
crisis, Mexico, and I believe we can continue to build upon some of the 
programs we already have in place there. For example, the United States 
has partnered with Mexico in recent years through programs like the 
Merida Initiative to combat drug trafficking, transnational organized 
crime, and money laundering. There is a need for increased security 
cooperation and burden sharing to lessen the regional insecurity and 
damage caused by the growing influence of cartels, gangs, and 
transnational criminal organizations. We have directed funds toward 
strengthening communities and empowering the Mexican criminal justice 
system and judicial system to help combat the rampant culture of 
impunity that exists in Mexico, and I believe we have made some 
marginal gains, although there is a lot of work that needs to be done. 
We have also shared intelligence and cooperated in providing various 
forms of security.
  The Bureau of International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement 
continues to work to develop programs to combat international narcotics 
and crime, especially in Central America, but U.S. funding for this 
program in Mexico has stagnated. Additional aid for this program would 
combat transnational criminal organizations, improve drug interdiction, 
and train Mexican law enforcement and judicial personnel.
  Moving forward, we should begin to look at the effectiveness of these 
existing programs so we can take full advantage of the work they do and 
ensure they are modernized to confront the evolving epidemic. It is 
nearly impossible to determine how or if this money is benefiting the 
people hit hardest by this crime and corruption, and that needs to 
change. It is no news that the Trump administration has recently 
announced its decision to suspend aid to Central America. While I 
believe aid to these countries is important in providing any semblance 
of long-term stability, I also think it is important to fundamentally 
examine where this money is going, what we are trying to achieve, and 
how effective these programs are at achieving that goal. That seems 
pretty simple, pretty straightforward, but we actually don't have a 
plan, and we don't have any metrics to measure our progress.
  We know the problem is getting worse because the number of people 
showing up on our border just continues to increase.
  If we are going to ask the American taxpayer to foot the bill, we 
have a fiduciary duty to them to make sure the money is going to be 
well spent in pursuit of American interests. We can't do that right 
now.
  Every dollar should be responsibly spent on initiatives to strengthen 
security cooperation, improve governance, enhance public security, and 
promote prosperity through pro-growth reforms.
  If that is not the case, then we need to take a hard look at how we 
can improve our foreign aid program.
  We need to provide the resources and training to help Central 
American countries stabilize their governments and their economies. 
But, again, we can't do this for them. We can't want an outcome more 
than they do. They need to want this. They need to provide the 
leadership to be a partner with us to help execute an agreed-upon 
common plan, and then we need to be able to show the American taxpayers 
that their money is being well spent because we are making measurable 
progress.
  When the people begin to see the opportunity and safety in their home 
countries, making a long migration northward becomes less of a 
necessity.
  I hope we can have these continued discussions here in Congress over 
the coming months. But even more than that, I hope we can focus on this 
as a problem that needs to be solved--one that is above politics and 
beyond politics and one that really threatens the security and safety 
of our own country because not only do we know that migrants come to 
the United States fleeing poverty and violence, but we also know these 
same criminal organizations transmit drugs into the United States. They 
move people for human trafficking and sex slavery, and this is a 
challenge for our country, as well as the entire region.
  We can do this if we will simply focus on it and work together on 
this as a problem to be solved. But, again, we can't do this for these 
countries in Central America.
  I think President Trump was correct to suspend the money we are 
spending there until we actually have a plan and a willing partner to 
work with to implement and execute this plan in a way that can 
demonstrate measurable progress.
  We have a model in Colombia where this has worked in the past, but 
around the world where the United States is engaged in nation building, 
there are not a lot of models for success. There are a lot of examples 
of failure because of the complexity and difficulty of this, but this 
is something that should be getting our attention and something that 
should be a priority for all of us.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HYDE-SMITH. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.