[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 99 (Thursday, June 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3452-S3453]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BORDER SECURITY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, all this week, I have been calling 
attention to the fact that the Democrats over in the House spent 6 
weeks ignoring the urgent need for more funding on the crisis on our 
southern border. I have recited one quotation after another from the 
administration leaders who are responsible for securing our Nation and 
caring for individuals while they are detained. They are pleading with 
us to act.
  ``We are at a full-blown emergency. . . . The system is broken.'' 
That is the Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. It 
couldn't be more clear.
  ``We are running out of money. We are functionally out of space.'' 
That one is from the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
  I have also run down the underlying statistics. The flood of people 
attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border has continued at historic 
levels. Our border agents are overwhelmed. Our facilities are filled 
beyond capacity--in some cases, with more than seven times more men, 
women, and children than their intended capacity.
  This is a full-fledged crisis, and everybody knows it. The status quo 
cannot hold. Already, the Department of Homeland Security is having to 
move people and money away from other important efforts to triage more 
help toward the border.
  The administration has been saying this is a crisis. The officials on 
the ground have been saying this is a crisis. My Republican colleagues 
and I have been saying repeatedly this is a crisis. And lest anyone 
think this is some partisan exercise, the New York Times editorial 
board has been saying it is a crisis. There were two editorials over 
the last several weeks. The first headline says: ``Congress, Give Trump 
His Border Money,'' and ``When Will Congress Get Serious About the 
Suffering at the Border?''
  Those are headlines in the New York Times, not frequently allied with 
this administration. Everybody seems to understand that, except 
Democrats over in the House.
  It is not as if our House colleagues are too busy working on 
pragmatic, bipartisan legislation with any shot at becoming law. No, 
here is what they are up to. One House committee spent yesterday 
holding a hearing on pathways to single-payer health insurance--in 
other words, barking up the tree of Medicare for None, their big 
proposal to take away every American's private health insurance, to 
take away Medicare as we know it, and force everyone into a new, 
untested, one-size-fits-all government system. That is what they are up 
to over there. That is the score. They have no time for the border 
crisis but plenty of time for socialist daydreams.
  Even my colleague the Democratic leader has admitted the Democratic-
controlled House is the problem here. We have even heard it from House 
Democrats themselves. One told reporters that his progressive 
colleagues weren't convinced the emergency funding was necessary. One 
Democratic Congressman says progressive colleagues were not convinced 
that emergency funding was necessary.
  So it seems ``the resistance'' has convinced Washington Democrats 
that they need to come down to the left of the New York Times editorial 
page. There is not much space over there to the left of the New York 
Times editorial page.
  But Senate Republicans are not going to be deterred. The crisis at 
the border hasn't gone anywhere, and neither has our resolve to address 
it. Next

[[Page S3453]]

week, the Senate is going to move forward. The Appropriations Committee 
will vote again. I hope Democrats in the House of Representatives will 
finally realize ``the resistance'' doesn't pay the bills. No more 
political posturing, no more automatic knee-jerk opposition to 
absolutely everything the administration asks for--it is way past time 
for action.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, let me express my appreciation to the 
majority leader for highlighting this crisis at the border. There is no 
State more directly impacted in our United States than the State of 
Texas.
  We, obviously, share 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, and 
this is a humanitarian crisis. As the majority leader said, not only 
the New York Times editorial page, but Barack Obama in 2014 called far 
fewer numbers than are coming across today a humanitarian and security 
crisis then, and it has gotten nothing but worse.
  I appreciate the leader's bringing this to a head and holding Members 
accountable. We know that people talk a good game sometimes, but there 
is nowhere to hide when it comes to an up-or-down vote on this 
emergency appropriations bill.
  I would add that there are other measures taking place. The chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee, as the Presiding Officer knows, is working 
on a bill that would address the underlying asylum laws, which are 
being exploited by the human smugglers who are getting rich moving 
people across Mexico from Central America into the United States and 
charging them between $5,000 and $10,000 a head--sometimes more. It has 
been the unwillingness of the Democrats to engage on that underlying 
asylum law and a fix there that has precipitated or contributed to this 
humanitarian crisis.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator from Texas yield for a question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I will.
  Mr. McCONNELL. As a member of the Judiciary Committee involved in 
this, is there any indication there might be bipartisan support for 
authorizing this legislation that you all are working on in committee?
  Mr. CORNYN. We hope to see. And we will see one way or the other when 
we vote on this legislation next week.
  I am happy to say that my Democratic colleague Henry Cuellar from 
Laredo, TX, which is more directly impacted probably than any place on 
the border, joined me in one proposal we call the HUMANE Act, which 
would deal with this underlying asylum issue.
  We have been working with the chairman, Senator Graham, to come up 
with a consensus piece of legislation that will really plug the dike 
that has been breached now, which has caused this humanitarian crisis.
  There are a number of ways we can deal with this.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I would say to my friend that the answer here is not 
just the money but an actual adjustment of U.S. law to more directly 
affect the crisis that we have. We need to do both, correct?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I agree with the majority leader. We do 
need to do both.
  I would also add, for those who were disturbed by the President's 
invocation of his tariff authority to try to bring the Mexican 
Government to the table to negotiate some changes in the way the 
Mexican Government deals with this flow of Central Americans coming 
across its country, none of that would have been necessary if our 
Democratic colleagues had simply worked with us both on the underlying 
legislation and on this appropriations bill.
  Frankly, the President was put in a corner, and there was not much 
else he could do. I am grateful he was able to get a result. Only time 
will tell whether those numbers actually go down from the 144,000 last 
month.
  But while the Democrats are sitting on their hands and maybe talking 
a good game, I am glad to know we at least have leadership in the White 
House and here in the Senate.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would it be safe to characterize this as a situation 
in which we are actually getting more cooperation from the Mexicans 
than we are from the Democrats in Congress?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, that is a sad but true statement. It is 
unbelievable to me that the Mexican Government, under President Lopez 
Obrador, is doing more than congressional Democrats to try to solve 
this humanitarian and security crisis, but that is where we are.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I would just add that I hope there is success in the 
Judiciary Committee to achieve some kind of bipartisan consensus so 
that we can solve the entire problem, not just the humanitarian crisis.
  I thank the Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader again for his 
leadership and for his comments today.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hyde-Smith). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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