[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 93 (Tuesday, June 4, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H4308-H4310]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CRISIS AT THE BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recount observations I 
have after spending 2 days of the Memorial Day recess at the Laredo 
Sector of the Texas border.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Schweikert for giving me good 
information on his musings. I feel very honored to follow Congressman 
Schweikert.
  Now, we have a crisis. I think it is perhaps the biggest crisis of my 
lifetime, as far as the future of America, going on at our border.
  In May, 133,000 people attempted to cross the border and were 
recorded by the Border Patrol. It is worth remembering that they do not 
record everybody. There are people who sneak

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through. And it is worth remembering that there is a smaller number of 
people who are apprehended by Customs agents at the designated points 
of entry.
  By point of reference, the 133,000 people in Mexico can be compared 
to 48,000 people who crossed in January. In other words, over time, for 
whatever reason, we have a dramatically greater number of people coming 
into this country. I will point out that this is the most, in many 
years.

  Many years ago--say, 15 years ago--if we looked back and found 
100,000 people crossing the border, it was nowhere near as serious. At 
that time, we would frequently have people come, and they would be 
caught and sent back. The same person may try three or four times, so 
it wasn't as many people crossing the border.
  I should also point out, of the 133,000 caught by the Border Patrol, 
11,000 are unaccompanied minors.
  I frequently hear people complain that we are breaking up families. 
What is going on is that young children--in any event, people under age 
18--are coming here on their own.
  Another thing that is going on is that we are seeing people from more 
or different countries come across. I assume that is because the word 
is out, not only in Mexico and Central America but even in the Eastern 
Hemisphere, that the United States is not enforcing our immigration 
law.
  In the Laredo Sector, if Members talk to Customs folks, the number 
one country for people coming across the border is Venezuela. Number 
two is Cuba. Number three is Congo. So even from the Eastern 
Hemisphere, people are flooding here.
  While I was down there, the Border Patrol caught a group of 116 
people, all Africans coming in from Congo, Angola, and Cameroon, 116 in 
one haul.
  What does this mean? First of all, in addition to great changes in 
our country, it means the Border Patrol is overwhelmed. The amount of 
paperwork, understandably, wherever we are today, there is a tremendous 
amount of paperwork. The amount of paperwork the Border Patrol has to 
do takes them off the border, takes them off the reason they 
volunteered to be part of the Border Patrol. This means even more 
people are coming across the border.
  Furthermore, the Border Patrol has to work in dangerous positions. We 
have followed them as they have followed the Rio Grande River in the 
Laredo Sector in the middle of the night with one person per vehicle. 
We can imagine what it is like patrolling on very slow roads with a lot 
of foliage on both sides of the roads. Some of the environmentalists 
wouldn't let them cut it down. We may have groups of 9 or 10 people 
coming across the border. Very dangerous.
  The first thing that should be done is, immediately, this Congress 
ought to appropriate more monies for the Border Patrol. Right now, they 
have 2,000 empty positions, and the number of positions they have is 
drawn out over a much smaller number of people.
  We also have to improve the equipment the Border Patrol has and 
increase the number of dogs. While down on the border, we watched the 
great job dogs can do in pursuing people. It is expensive for these 
dogs. But be it at the designated points of entry where they sniff out 
drugs or sniff out cash, or out in the field with the Border Patrol, 
they make them much more effective.
  It is ridiculous that our Border Patrol also has equipment that is 
sometimes not as good as what the cartels have. The cartels control the 
border. With the exception of these big entourages, nobody gets across 
the border without approval of the cartels.
  The next thing to point out, as we deal with people coming across the 
border, when the cartels bring them across the border, they may not 
take them to safety. They may just direct people in a certain direction 
or so far as they are escorting people to a place where they can be 
picked up in the United States. If somebody is too weak and can't make 
it, they don't call 911. They just leave them there to dehydrate and 
perhaps die.
  In the last year, in the Tucson Sector, about 250 people were found 
dehydrated or dying of something.
  This is another result of the United States' open border policy in 
which we encourage people who are expecting us to ignore immigration 
laws to come to the United States.
  In the Laredo Sector, it is not quite as bad. About 50 people die of 
dehydration every year. But there, where many more people cross the Rio 
Grande, it is not unusual to have people drown. In the 2 days that I 
was there, they found another person who had drowned.
  The reason they drown is that people think it is shallow enough to 
walk across the Rio Grande, but there are people who can't swim. We 
have a situation in which there is an undertow in the Rio Grande, and 
people, including children, wind up dying there.
  Again, how do we deal with it? We should be creating a situation 
where people think we are enforcing our laws, so they are not tempted 
to do such dangerous things.
  Another thing we found out is that, among people who are crossing the 
border, if they are not part of a family unit, they are much more 
dangerous than they were 10 years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago, the type of people crossing the border 
might be the types looking to work on a farm in Wisconsin. It is much 
more common to get the criminal element, much more common to get the 
MS13 gangs from El Salvador. That is kind of a subjective determination 
from the Border Patrol, but they find it of great concern because they 
love their country, and they see whom we are letting in our country and 
where the future Americans are going to come from.
  What can we do to stop 133,000 people from coming in this country 
every month? We have to stop the carrot that keeps people coming.
  First of all, we should deal with birthright citizenship. Again, the 
United States is one of only two of the 40th wealthiest countries in 
the world that allows people to become citizens because they were born 
here.
  We hear more stories of people coming over here. Women are coming 
over here 8 months pregnant, having a baby, knowing that the baby will 
be an American citizen. And eventually, because of family-related laws, 
they will be able to come into the country.
  Secondly, and President Trump can do this alone, I believe, we have 
to get rid of the practice of giving work permits to people who come 
here for asylum purposes, knowing that they probably will not show up 
for an asylum hearing. Giving a work permit encourages people to break 
the law.
  Then, we need more judges on the border with regard to these 
immigration problems. Right now, what goes on is that people come here 
looking for asylum. They are given a court date 2 or 3 or 5 years out.
  I am told that they even tell Border Patrol agents that they know 
they are ineligible for asylum. They tell Border Patrol agents that 
they will not show up for their hearing in 5 or 6 years. That has to 
stop.

                              {time}  2115

  That has got to stop, and the way to make it stop is hire more 
judges, put those judges right on the border, and do not let people in 
the country assuming that they are here legally.
  I mean, they are going to wind up with a work permit and they are 
going to wind up being part of our culture even though they are here 
illegally.
  Next thing to do, and I am not going to spend a lot of time on this 
because we talked about it before, but every Border Patrol agent I have 
talked to in the Tucson sector, or in the Laredo sector, says we need a 
wall. In summary, we must act now or we will lose our country. We 
cannot continue to take 100,000 people crossing the border 
inappropriately every month.
  I want to point out, I am not talking about legal immigration. Every 
year in this country, we swear in 700,000 new people as citizens. In 
this country right now, we have about 4 million people here on work 
permits. So it is not like we are anti-immigrant. A lot of people can 
come here.
  When I talk about the 130,000 people who came here in May and largely 
wind up in the United States, I am talking about people who are coming 
here and should not be here.
  We are being inundated and it will eventually sink our country. I ask 
President Trump to do all he can. It is very obvious that Congress does 
not get the degree of the crisis. We should have appropriated the money 
already, instead of what we did yesterday, as we spent more money on 
welfare programs.

[[Page H4310]]

  By the way, we know from talking to people, even in Wisconsin, that 
there are a lot of people here illegally who are getting welfare, to 
boot. President Trump should revoke the work permits that people are 
getting if they are here for asylum reasons because we know the vast 
majority of people who are seeking asylum probably are not eligible for 
it, and we do not want to encourage more of that.
  In any event, I encourage my colleagues to take this crisis at the 
border, 130,000 a month, seriously. I encourage the press to do more to 
report on it because, obviously, this is permanently going to change 
America. I encourage President Trump to do all he can do without the 
assistance of Congress, because the reason we are getting so many more 
is the word is out.
  Again, it is not just in Mexico or Central America. The word is out 
in South America. The word is out in Cuba. The word is out in Africa. 
The word is out in Asia. America is not enforcing our immigration laws. 
And until we turn around the attitude that is out there among people, 
that perception, we are going to continue to have growing numbers.
  It is going to go over 130,000. It is going to be 150,000. It is 
going to be 170,000 a month. America is really going to be inundated, 
and we have to act quickly.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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