[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 102 (Tuesday, June 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3638-S3639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. President, Leader McConnell has indicated he plans to have the 
Senate consider legislation next week on the administration's request 
for supplemental appropriations to handle migration at our southern 
border. As I have said many times, Democrats want to provide the 
necessary resources to secure our borders and ensure that everyone who 
arrives there is treated humanely; however, the sheer chaos of this 
administration's policy, the sheer mismanagement, the erratic nature 
when the President says one thing one day and another the next, mean 
that we must be precise and careful about how we do it.
  The fact is very simple: President Trump's immigration policies are 
inhumane, erratic, fleeting, and impossible to carry out at the same 
time.
  Right now, on the Homestead Air Force Base in Florida, the Trump 
administration has authorized a for-profit company to build a temporary 
shelter for migrants that is little better than an internment camp. We 
have heard routinely about the separation of children from parents, 
about the horrible conditions at the DHS facilities, about children--
children--in cages. That is as un-American as anything.
  This past week, I read in the New York Times the story of a 4-month-
old boy. It wrenched my heart. He was separated from his parents--a 
cleavage so severe at an age so young that the boy has suffered a great 
trauma. He is now more than a year and a half old. He is back in his 
home country of Romania with his parents. He still can't walk on his 
own. He still hasn't spoken.
  What are we doing to these innocent children? What are we doing? 
Stories like these are heart-wrenching; the policies that create them, 
unconscionable; and so often, the policies are announced according to 
the President's whim. Every day, the President seems to have a 
different crazy idea, often contradicting his previous thought--a 
national emergency declaration to build a wall, tariffs for Mexico, 
shutting down the border entirely.
  Last night, the President tweeted that ICE was planning mass 
immigration arrests and removal. The President seems to just invent a 
new policy in the morning by tweet with the sole purpose of rallying 
his base.
  Ideas like deporting millions of immigrants inside our border have 
been dismissed by government officials in charge of immigration as 
unrealistic. The very people the President puts in charge say this 
policy can't happen. It doesn't bother him. Maybe he was doing this to 
talk about it at his rally tonight, his election rally in Florida. But 
I will tell you something. He tried this before the 2018 election--big 
crisis at the border. It didn't seem to work. What appeals to a base--a 
rather narrow base of the President's supporters does not appeal to the 
American people when it comes to being erratic, inhumane, harsh, and 
ineffective on immigration.
  Members of both parties should be weary--weary--about giving the 
administration additional funding if it is not going to be used to 
secure our border or provide better conditions for migrants and asylum 
seekers, especially children.
  Again, just remember what the President has called for in the last 
few months, none of which have happened and none of which have curbed 
the flow at the border--so many different things, none of which make 
sense. Remember the national emergency declaration to build a wall. 
Remember the tariffs with Mexico. Remember the shutting down of the 
border entirely. And now mass immigration arrests and removal. It is a 
policy that is erratic, unsuccessful, ineffective, and maybe worst of 
all, inhumane--even taking a 4-month-old from his parents and leaving 
that child with a trauma probably for the rest of his life.
  We Democrats have a proposal that is common sense, that would 
actually do things. At one point, the President seemed to support it, 
but that was fleeting like every one of his other proposals on 
immigration. Here is what we propose. I hope the President is 
listening, and I hope, at least, our Republican colleagues are 
listening, because we can actually get something done.
  We propose to provide more immigration judges at the border to reduce 
the backlog in cases.
  We provide for the allowance of asylum seekers to apply for asylum 
within their home countries. Why are these people fleeing? The 
President would have Americans believe they are all drug dealers and 
MS-13 members. There are a few of those, and they shouldn't be let in, 
and they shouldn't be given any mercy. Yet the vast majority of these 
people--you have seen the pictures--is made up of parents and children. 
Sometimes their daughters have been threatened with rape by gangs or 
their sons have been murdered or they are going to burn down their 
houses or burn down their businesses if they don't go along with the 
gangs. Who wouldn't flee? Who wouldn't? So let them apply for asylum 
and not have to pay the coyotes and not have them make this dangerous 
trek of 1,000 miles from their own countries. It is a good proposal. At 
one point, the President entertained it. Let's do it.
  Finally, we provide security assistance to Central American countries 
in order to crack down on the drug cartels, the violent gangs, the 
corruption, and the lawlessness.
  These are the things we should be doing--having more immigration 
judges to reduce the backlog; allowing for asylum seekers to apply for 
asylum in their home countries; and providing security assistance to 
crack down on the drug cartels, violent gangs, and the coyotes.
  Yesterday, unfortunately, the State Department did the opposite. It 
announced it would cut off all further security assistance, including 
over $400 million of already obligated assistance to Guatemala, 
Honduras, and El Salvador, until the countries reduce the number of 
migrants coming to the United States. Talk about cutting off your nose 
to spite your face.
  What an insane, insane new policy idea from the President--even 
crazier than some of the others. The Trump administration is actually 
doing the

[[Page S3639]]

one thing that will make the migration problem drastically worse. He 
will then blame somebody else, but everyone can see what is going on. 
It is almost as if the administration wants the problems at our borders 
to continue so the President can demagogue the issue for political 
purposes. This policy is complete nonsense.
  So, as Leader McConnell moves to the administration's supplemental 
border requests in the near future, I urge my Republican colleagues to 
study our legislation. Unlike what the administration is doing and 
proposing, our policies are reasonable, measured, and actually suited 
to the problem at hand.