[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3342-S3344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Border Security
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about the
border--not the important need to secure the border, which I am for,
but I want to talk about the humanitarian crisis we have seen occurring
at the border. Frankly, the Senate and the House--the Congress--have
been watching that occur for too long.
It has been several weeks now since the administration notified
Congress that the money that was allocated for what would have been a
traditional set of challenges at the border is about to be spent and
that there is no money left for some of these issues we have to deal
with at the border in a particular way.
We have seen the flood of people approaching the border to be not
only incredibly different in numbers but incredibly different in
context. Probably 20 years ago, 90 percent of the people who came
across the border were coming directly from Mexico.
By the way, when that happened, the law was changed so that if they
came across from Mexico, you could send them right back to Mexico.
Hopefully, our neighbors in Mexico are working with us to still have
some potential to do that with people who come across the border and
come through Mexico--not necessarily Mexican in their nationality but
come through Mexico to the border--to go back and wait for what needs
to happen for their case to be heard in Mexico rather than here.
Most of the people coming today are coming from Central America--
Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In the last year, I think the
principal place that has people coming to our southern border--over 1
percent of the population of all three of those countries has come from
those countries collectively.
Clearly it is a problem, but it is especially troubling to look at
the numbers of children who are coming to the border unaccompanied.
Just last month, about 130,000 people came to the border. You can
multiply that by 12 pretty quickly and see 1 million people or more
coming to our border to come in without the right kinds of documents.
Another million, by the way, come into
[[Page S3343]]
our country through the normal process. We have about 1 million
immigrants a year who legally immigrate to the United States. We are
not a country that does not want people from other countries to come
here; we just want them to come here based on the law and the
requirements for everybody else who would like to come to the United
States.
Of that 130,000 people who came in May, 11,507 of them were children
without families. It is really important for us to understand as we
discuss this that we are not talking about children who came with their
families and were separated from their families once they got here.
There are plenty of those children coming right now with families
because it is pretty clear that saying you want asylum and saying you
have children with you and your family is one of the things that check
a couple of boxes that more likely will have you in the United States
waiting for your case to be heard sooner rather than later. But these
are 11,507 children who came by themselves. About 30 percent of them
are under 12, and about 70 percent of them are between 12 and 18.
You have 11,000 children coming a month. We think in the calendar
year, that will be about 88,000 children--not in the calendar year but
in the fiscal year, the spending year, the year that started October 1.
We already believe that number is going to approach 88,000.
Usually, within 72 hours of those children showing up at the border
by themselves, the Department of Homeland Security transfers them to
the Department of Health and Human Services, which is much better
positioned to take care of them than they otherwise would be. The
Department of Health and Human Services enters into agreements with
Lutheran charities, Catholic charities, and other groups--almost always
not-for-profit--that would provide shelter on a clearly understood
basis. This is something where HHS knows the kinds of housing these
children are going into, provides shelter, provides medical care, and
provides other services, such as education, that are provided by these
groups that contract with us. As part of their goal, they also make an
effort to find a safe and appropriate place as soon as possible for
these kids to be with relatives who are already in the country or an
alternative that would be appropriate.
Of the 14,000 or so spaces that we have--beds is one way to look at
this, places to sleep--people are going into and out of those as soon
as we can find somewhere safe for them to go. So, ideally, children
would stay a very short time in one of these facilities while the
Department of Health and Human Services, working with that security
provider--security for the children--finds a sponsor. Again, it is
usually a family member. But other people stay a long time.
The older teenagers tend to be harder to place, frankly. For some of
the Central American countries, they don't have the family connections
that immigrants at the border have had in the past, so there is no
family to put them with. Some of these older teenagers wind up staying
longer than they would want to or that we would hope that they would
have to, but it is just the way it is.
Of those 11,507 kids who came to the border in the month of May, a
few of them may have been in the facility for less than a day. Some of
them may still be in the facility they went to because there is nowhere
safer than that for them to go right now.
The problem is that Health and Human Services is running out of
space, and they are also running out of money. In April, Secretary
Azar, the head of Health and Human Services, came to Congress and said:
I just want to give you a warning. We are going to be out of money on
this current pace by sometime in June.
By the way, we are now in June, and Congress has not stepped up and
done what is necessary to take care of these kids.
Let's think about all the alternatives that can happen. One of the
alternatives is you just provide less assistance. Maybe the education
goes first and the recreation time goes second, and you wait longer to
get into the transitional space that we would want you to be in, and
you are waiting more than 72 hours.
The other alternative is totally unacceptable, which would be what
you would do with people who are over 18. You say: OK, if you are 18 or
28 or 38, we will hear your case at some future time. We are going to
release you into the United States, and you come back at a future time,
and we will hear whether there is merit. We will decide your case at
that time.
Well, you can't release a 12-, 13-, or 14-year-old boy or girl into
the United States and hope that is going to be a good thing for them to
have happen to them. With the inadequate funding, they stay in
facilities with the Border Patrol longer than anybody would want them
to.
As I said, the administration estimates that by the end of
September--that would be the end of our spending year, the one we have
allocated money for--there will be about 88,000 kids who have come
across the border by themselves, and the American people would want you
to take care of them until you can find a safe place for them to be. No
thinking American would say: Well, just let them go back across the
border by themselves. Let them out in the United States and see what
happens to them. Nobody would think that.
That is 88,000. The previous high was 59,000 in 2016. It looks like
already we are probably just about to get to that number right now.
With the time between now and September 30 left in the spending year,
we have already had more kids come than we had in the previous high
year.
Congress, which appropriated money for what we thought would probably
be no more than 59,000 kids during the course of the year, didn't
appropriate enough money. So we knew we might not appropriate enough
money, so we had a transfer authority, where you could take some
money--up to a certain amount--from other accounts, and you could
transfer that into the account to take care of more kids than we would
have thought. That money is gone too.
The Department is being forced to cut back on some of the things they
have tried to provide for children who have come into our care through
certainly no fault of ours and maybe not much fault of theirs--
redirecting money from programs like refugee programs that are designed
to help people who come truly as refugees. That money is now being used
for unaccompanied children.
Remember, Health and Human Services is legally required to take care
of these children but is also legally required not to spend money they
don't have. If Congress doesn't act quickly--and we intend to act on
this bill within a week--HHS, the Department of Health and Human
Services, will have to tell the grantees--these normally not-for-profit
organizations--well, if you just keep taking care of these kids, at
some point we will give you the money we had agreed to give you to take
care of these kids. But between now and then, you spend the money and
hope you will be reimbursed. It is kind of like a government shutdown,
except just for this one group of people--unaccompanied children. It is
a government shutdown. There is going to be no money available. These
critical services--you go to the outside groups that have been willing
to step forward and provide shelter, and you say: Just keep providing
the shelter, and we will pay you if we can. Some of these groups may
have all kinds of money and be able to afford to do that. My guess is,
not so much so, and not many of them will have.
So we need to step up. We need to adapt to this change in
circumstances that we didn't anticipate. We anticipate that as many
people might come as has ever came before, but we didn't anticipate
that maybe 30 percent more people would come in this category than ever
came before.
In the disaster bill we just passed--by the way, this is a shameful
thing to have to say--it took over 8 months for Congress to cover the
disasters that Congress has normally covered right away. Health and
Human Services has asked for money in an emergency funding situation to
take care of this. Congress should take this request seriously and pass
this funding before there is no money from any source to take care of
even the basic needs that these unaccompanied kids in our country need
to have taken care of.
[[Page S3344]]
Over the weekend and 2 weeks before, the New York Times--which is no
advocate, by the way, for the Trump administration--basically said:
Give the administration the money. This is a legitimate crisis, and it
needs to be treated like that.
In their last editorial, they said: ``Unequipped to deal with the
crush, border facilities and migrant shelters are dangerously
overcrowded, and the staff is overburdened.'' They went on to say:
``Dysfunction, disease, and even death are a growing reality.'' The
Washington Post said the same thing.
Let's deal with this immediate humanitarian crisis. Let's deal with
it like the people whom we work for expect us to deal with this. Let's
get this humanitarian crisis taken care of before we see a human
catastrophe occur. I hope we can do it, and I hope we can do it
quickly.
With that, I yield the floor.
nomination of rodney smith
Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, Judge Rodney Smith has an
impressive record of honorably serving the State of Florida, and I am
proud to support his confirmation as a district judge for the Southern
District of Florida. After receiving a bachelor's degree from Florida
Agricultural and Mechanical University and a law degree from Michigan
State University, Judge Smith worked as a personal injury attorney. He
then pursued a career in public service as a senior assistant city
attorney for the city of Miami Beach, before his appointment to the
Miami-Dade County Court in 2008. In my role as Governor of Florida, I
had the honor of appointing Judge Smith to the Eleventh Judicial
Circuit Court in 2012. Judge Smith will continue to serve our State and
Nation well on the Federal bench.
nomination of thomas p. barber
Madam President, I am honored to support Judge Thomas Barber to serve
as a district judge in the Middle District of Florida. Judge Barber
graduated from the University of Florida in 1985 and received a law
degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1992. Since
then, Judge Barber has served as an Assistant State Attorney, an
assistant Statewide prosecutor, and a circuit judge for the Thirteenth
Judicial Circuit of Florida. Our citizens deserves judges like Judge
Barber that are committed to enforcing our law, not legislating from
the bench. With his long and distinguished history of public service, I
have no doubt Judge Barber will serve Americans honorably as a Federal
judge.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes
following the first vote in this series be 10 minutes in length.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Barker
nomination?
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Montana (Mr.
Daines).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr.
Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker)
and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 91, nays 5, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 155 Ex.]
YEAS--91
Baldwin
Barrasso
Bennet
Blackburn
Blumenthal
Blunt
Boozman
Braun
Brown
Burr
Cantwell
Capito
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Cassidy
Collins
Coons
Cornyn
Cortez Masto
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Cruz
Duckworth
Durbin
Enzi
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Gardner
Graham
Grassley
Hassan
Hawley
Heinrich
Hirono
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Inhofe
Isakson
Johnson
Jones
Kaine
Kennedy
King
Lankford
Leahy
Lee
Manchin
McConnell
McSally
Menendez
Merkley
Moran
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Paul
Perdue
Peters
Portman
Reed
Risch
Roberts
Romney
Rosen
Rounds
Rubio
Sasse
Schatz
Schumer
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Shaheen
Shelby
Sinema
Smith
Stabenow
Sullivan
Tester
Thune
Tillis
Toomey
Udall
Van Hollen
Warner
Whitehouse
Wicker
Wyden
Young
NAYS--5
Gillibrand
Harris
Klobuchar
Markey
Warren
NOT VOTING--4
Alexander
Booker
Daines
Sanders
The nomination was confirmed.
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