[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3339-S3341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Border Security
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, we have had many discussions on what is
happening on appropriations bills. So I thought I could help clear some
things up.
Next week, the Senate Appropriations Committee will mark up a
supplemental appropriations bill. We are doing this to address the
humanitarian crisis, which it is, on our southern border. There is
absolutely no need for this to be a partisan process. So many of us,
Republicans and Democrats, agree we need to address the humanitarian
crisis on our southern border.
We have seen the news reports showing crowded conditions at Custom
and Border Protection facilities. We have seen the pictures of women
and children sleeping outside on the ground because the facilities are
full. I have gone through places where they basically have cages
holding children--and this is happening in America. And we have seen
the numbers of unaccompanied children in our care swell as kids come
across the border looking for help and compassion.
Now, most of these people are fleeing violence or dire poverty in
their home countries. Most know how dangerous the trek north will be,
but they feel they have no choice but to make the trek anyway. Some
have said they know they may die on the trek north, but they are going
to die from gang violence and the murderers back home if they do not.
They fear for their lives.
By the time they reach us, they are exhausted, they are scared, and
they are hungry. The vast majority actually just turn themselves over
to Border Patrol Agents as soon as they cross into the United States.
Rather than try to evade law enforcement, they look for the U.S.
authorities in uniform. They turn themselves in to them and are then
escorted by Border Patrol through the billion-dollar, actually useless,
Trump wall. They are not looking to do us harm. They are looking for
mercy.
Now, we may disagree about what has led to this crisis and what
changes may be needed to our immigration system. But I take issue with
claims from across the aisle that Democrats oppose any and all
solutions to address this crisis. Everybody knows that is simply false.
We have a responsibility to make sure that the people in our care are
treated humanely. After all, we are Americans. We ought to show the
world we stand for American values. As vice chairman of the
Appropriations Committee, I take this responsibility seriously.
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee
Resettlement--the Agency that cares for unaccompanied children who
cross the border--is running out of money. They are expected to exceed
their Federal appropriations by the end of this month. Because they are
running out of money, they have already begun to scale back on services
that are not critical for life and safety, including education,
recreation, and legal services. We ought to take action. Customs and
Border Protection processing facilities are vastly over capacity. That
not only creates dangerous conditions for the migrants who are in our
care but also dangerous conditions for our Border Patrol staff.
We have seen these pictures of men and women and children sleeping
outside with Mylar blankets in temporary shelters, under bridges, and
in overcrowded conditions inside facilities that cannot accommodate
them. I have seen this. It cannot continue. We have to do better. We
Americans have American values. We should act like it.
The Senate Democrats are willing to provide money to address these
problems. We have a responsibility to do so--Republicans and Democrats
both--but we also have a responsibility to put basic conditions on this
money. We want to make sure the taxpayers' dollars are appropriately
spent. We cannot provide a blank check, especially to this
administration.
HHS and DHS facilities have to meet appropriate standards. So the
care we provide reflects the fact that we are Americans with American
values. We must not let detainees languish outdoors in 100-degree
temperatures for more than 30 days without showering or changing
clothes--and that is happening.
Children in our care should only be housed in facilities that meet
State licensing requirements--not in cages. They should have access to
education, recreation, and legal services. DHS should not be using
information on potential sponsors for unaccompanied children to deport
them. We found that has happened. We had people willing and capable of
taking care of these children instead of the U.S. taxpayers spending
thousands upon thousands of dollars. Instead of saying thank you, we
say: Well, we are going to check your background. Maybe we should
deport you.
It makes me think about the number of people who have served in our
military and overseas that are immigrants and then get deported. Now,
that is hard to understand. It is probably easier to understand for
people who have refused to serve, but it is hard to understand.
That is no different than saying: Oh, you served our country, you
faced dangers, and you were shot at wearing the uniform of this
country. But we are throwing you out.
Now, Members of Congress with oversight responsibility of these
Agencies should be able to have access to detention facilities. The
Trump administration should not request these resources
[[Page S3340]]
from Congress and then not tell Congress what they are going to do with
it by saying: We sure as heck are not going to let any Member of
Congress--Republican or Democrat--see what we do with it.
Money appropriated for humanitarian assistance should be used for
humanitarian assistance. It should not be diverted to pay for a wall,
which would do nothing to solve this humanitarian crisis.
Now, these should not be controversial propositions. They are
reasonable conditions to include. They should get bipartisan support.
We can do it if Republicans want to, but what we are not going to do is
allow the Trump administration to use this humanitarian crisis to
supplement funding for an enforcement agenda that is not only
controversial but also ineffective and cruel.
For example, the President has asked for funding to increase ICE
detention facilities by 7,600 beds. There is no need for this increased
funding. We should not provide it.
The administration's inclination at every turn is to just use
detention to solve our immigration problem, while not actually working
to solve our immigration problem, at enormous cost to the American
taxpayers. It is expensive, inefficient, and it is wrong. The other
thing is that it does not work. Alternatives to detention exist. They
are safe, effective, and enormously less expensive to the taxpayers.
The administration needs to use the resources it has for ICE
detention services to house those people who truly present a danger to
our communities. Yes, house somebody who is a criminal. House somebody
who has a criminal record. But do not lock up every man, woman, and
child simply for being here without proper documentation, spending
thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars to lock up a 5-year-old.
They are really not the people we should worry about. But the Trump
administration's dramatically escalating the arrest and detention of
immigrants who have no criminal record makes no sense. It is an
enormous waste of taxpayers' dollars.
We carefully negotiated ICE bed levels in the fiscal year 2019
Homeland Security appropriations bill just a few months ago, which got
strong bipartisan support. That was just a few months ago; there is no
reason to revisit it now just a few months later.
Congress should also ensure that funding it approved 2 years ago--
overwhelmingly, by both Republicans and Democrats--to deal with the
root causes of immigration from Central America is spent for those
purposes. If we do not deal with the reasons people are leaving their
countries, of course they are going to keep coming. That is just common
sense, and that is why we appropriated these funds. That is why
Republicans and Democrats voted to appropriate these funds and the
President signed those appropriations bills. We should insist they are
used for the purposes that Republicans and Democrats voted for them to
be used.
When President Trump decides to withhold a half a billion dollars of
that funding, that is self-defeating. That does about as much to stop
illegal immigration as tweeting about it does.
So in addition to being ready, willing, and able to help address
humanitarian issues at the border, Democrats are also advocating for
longer term solutions that both parties should support if we are
serious about solving this crisis.
As some Senators recall, when I was chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, we had months of hearings, weeks of markup, hundreds of
pieces of information coming, and witnesses, and I brought a
comprehensive immigration bill to the floor 6 years ago. There were 68
Senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, who voted for it. Even
though it passed the Senate, the Republican Speaker of the House
refused to bring it up.
The irony is that yesterday the Acting Homeland Security Secretary
testified that if we had enacted that bill--the bill I brought to this
floor, which 68 Senators voted for--it would have made a difference in
the current crisis. It is unfortunate that the Republican Speaker
blocked it.
He did say it would violate the Dennis Hastert rule, and they had to
uphold that. Well, no, it violated common sense by not bringing it to a
vote.
So as we did back then, any immigration reform we consider today has
to be done on a bipartisan basis. That is how we got the big vote here.
I know that these are controversial matters. Of course they are. That
is why we struggle over them. But bipartisanship is the only way to get
things done around here.
Given the urgency of the need on the southern border, I hope my
Republican colleagues will not use this bill as a vehicle to force
debate on divisive immigration proposals that should be left to the
authorizing committees, not to the Appropriations Committee. If we turn
this into a protracted debate about immigration reform, we will only
delay much needed humanitarian assistance on the southern border.
We could do both. Pass the appropriations bills, but then let's have
a real debate, as we did a few years ago, on immigration reform,
something that got two-thirds of the Senate--Republicans and
Democrats--to vote for it.
As I said at the beginning, consideration of a supplemental
appropriations bill to address the humanitarian crisis should never be
a partisan issue. We all want to make sure that we appropriately care
for the vulnerable families seeking refuge at the United States of
America's border.
I urge all Members to focus on areas of agreement in this package.
There are a lot of areas we can agree on, Republicans and Democrats.
Focus on it, pass it, and get assistance out the door as quickly as
possible.
I see another Senator is waiting.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, thank you for the recognition and
opportunity to speak with my colleagues about an issue that I think is
so incredibly important.
We just heard the Senator from Vermont discuss the issue at the
southern border. I made a return trip--one of many I have made to the
southern border over the past decade--this past Friday. I have to tell
you, I thought this situation was just a terrible situation a decade
ago. As I have continued to visit and work on issues that deal with
illegal immigration, illegal aliens, working on immigration reform over
the past decade, many times with great frustration because we cannot
achieve bipartisan agreement, I saw a situation on the southern border
this trip that was far worse than I ever could have imagined.
In the middle of all of this are some very brave Border Patrol
agents, ICE agents, DHS agents, Coast Guard that are there providing
healthcare--they are carrying out their job every single day. I am
grateful to them for their service. I am so impressed by their resolve
to protect this Nation--to protect it.
There is a lesson we could learn from these Border Patrol agents. As
they go out, underfunded, disrespected, not knowing what they are going
to encounter, there is a lesson that every single American could learn.
These men and women are dedicated. They show up. They do their job.
They value--they value--citizenship in this country. They value this
Nation's sovereignty. And one of the things they know is that
citizenship--citizenship--is something the American people should hold
very dear. It should not come to somebody illegally approaching our
country. It should not come to somebody who is coming here to do us
harm.
I will tell you this: To enter one of those reception centers or
retention centers in the El Paso sector--which is there in Southwest
Texas and right on the New Mexico-Mexico border--is to enter an area
where you can just feel the chaos and the uncertainty. It permeates the
air.
People know this is difficult. The American people should know this
is very difficult. It is a terrible situation that our men and women of
the Border Patrol are dealing with--to see young mothers alone with
their babies, waiting for answers from a Federal agency about where
they are going to go or what is going to happen to them because
somebody in Central America lied to them--a cartel lied to them,
misrepresented to them what they were going to see.
I heard from a Border Patrol agent that there are adults who are
saying:
[[Page S3341]]
Well, this is not what we were promised. This isn't what we were
expecting. Maybe we should just go back home. They were lied to.
This is why we need to get busy with changing the asylum laws, the
magnet that is pulling people here. Change this. It is why I applaud
the efforts of the President for making certain that we are dealing
with Mexico--having them secure their southern border, having them call
out the National Guard to make certain these cartels are not able to
operate in Mexico.
Our Border Patrol--as I said, I am just so grateful we have them, and
without Americans knowing, they are blessing our lives every single day
because they show up and do the job that is in front of them without
proper resources because there has not been bipartisan agreement here.
Then, every day they go home, and they have encountered people who
have measles, mumps, H1N1 flu, TB, scabies, lice. That is what they are
exposed to every single day as they do their job. Healthcare is not
their job. Securing the southern border is their job, and everybody who
is against giving the Border Patrol what they need to secure that
border needs to begin to think twice about that and have compassion for
these men and women who are on the frontline.
The appalling conditions absolutely shock the conscience, but they
didn't surprise me. This is what is happening because people think they
can get by with coming here illegally. Last month, 144,000 migrants
crossed the border--last month. In Tennessee, that is just under the
size of Clarksville, TN. Think about a whole city coming in.
In the first 8 months of this fiscal year, 411,000 unaccompanied
children and families made that same journey.
This past weekend, when I was out with the Border Patrol, 12 people
in 3 groups were apprehended right in front of me. That was in the
timespan of 30 minutes. There were four from Honduras, and eight were
from Cuba. That is just a handful of the approximately 1,000 illegal
aliens per day who are apprehended in the El Paso sector.
Ninety percent of those people come as family units, clogging a
system designed to process adults traveling alone. The sheer number of
people our agents are struggling to process and control is staggering.
Right now, the facilities at the El Paso border station house are
taking in 1,247 illegal aliens. That facility is built to accommodate
123. At just one station in the El Paso sector, $26,000 a day is spent
on food, just food--food. Where are they getting this money? It has not
been appropriated. They are taking it out of their operations budgets.
This is why they need us to surge resources to the southern border--
resources for more agents, resources for more technology, resources for
a border wall to stop illegal entry into this country.
If it were just a question of numbers, the situation may seem more
manageable. But as I mentioned, disease, drugs, and a frightening
disregard for the law have transformed these border stations into
refugee zones.
Right now, agents at camps are working overtime every single day,
trying to keep up. Loopholes in regulations controlling the release of
unaccompanied minors to purported custodians are endangering the 11,507
children who crossed the southern border in May of 2019.
I want to be certain everybody understands this: 11,507 is the number
of children who crossed that southern border in the month of May.
To make things worse, we are seeing child predators and traffickers
cross the border in increasing numbers. Girls as young as 10 years of
age are being given pregnancy tests--10-year-olds--because traffickers
or adults who are not family members are the ones who are bringing them
in. This is an area where my colleagues across the aisle need to work
with us and put a stop to this. We don't know if these children are
going to smuggling rings, or sex rings and being sent to a pimp, or to
labor gangs and being sent to a boss. We don't know because many of the
people who are the so-called custodians who are accepting these
children, who are their sponsors, guess what, they are in the country
illegally.
On June 7, border agents seized enough fentanyl to kill nearly 2
million Americans. I was there in that port when they seized 5 kilos,
but the drug lords and the cartels are undeterred. They are so bold in
this; do you know what they are doing now? They are posting Facebook
ads soliciting mules to run their deadly product across the border. We
have to do better. This is something that should no longer be up for
debate.
I sponsored the Accountability for Care of Unaccompanied Alien
Children Act to codify information-sharing agreements between the
Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human
Services. This would help protect minors from the ravages of
exploitation and human trafficking, but that protection isn't possible
if there are not going to be agents able and available to check on who
is attempting to claim these children.
I know some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not
for these agencies sharing this information, but let me tell you
something. If this is going to help keep children safe, if it is going
to keep them out of these sex trafficking and human trafficking gangs,
we need to know who is a criminal alien, who is in this country
illegally, and these children do not need to be sent to them.
We know the White House in May sent an emergency request for $4.5
billion in funds to increase shelter capacity at the processing
centers, to feed and care for the detained migrants, to hire agents and
staff, and to bolster law enforcement's ability to shelter and protect
unaccompanied minors. Our border agents need this money to protect our
border and to protect our Nation's sovereignty.
Yesterday, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, acting DHS
Secretary Kevin McAleenan expressed serious concerns for Border Patrol
agents who are forced to play the part of a translator, caregiver,
counselor, and nurse.
Let me ask a question. What do my colleagues think would happen if
the Border Patrol decided they had had it? They had had it. They were
tired of it, and they were not going to show up for work, to work
overtime, to work hard hours, to do a job they are not trained to do.
They are trained to protect the border; they are not trained to be a
caregiver and a nurse. What would happen if they reached the breaking
point, and they didn't show up--because, let me tell you something,
this border has reached a breaking point.
It is time for us to realize, yes, there is a crisis. It is a
humanitarian crisis; it is a national security crisis, and it is time
that our Border Patrol be shown the respect--the respect they deserve
by funding the needs that they have to protect each and every one of us
and to help keep this Nation safe and secure.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.