[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 109 (Thursday, June 27, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4612-S4613]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I was coming to floor today to talk about 
legislation we just got passed in the last week in the Homeland 
Security Committee with the hopes that I can convince some of my 
colleagues to join us in this effort, and I will talk about that bill 
in a moment. But first let me, if I could, address the photograph and 
the comments from my colleague from New Jersey.
  He showed a tragic photograph that so many of my constituents and all 
Americans have seen--Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter 
Valeria, facedown in the Rio Grande.
  This man came from El Salvador. We don't know all the details yet, 
but clearly he was interested in coming to the United States and 
applying for asylum, as so many others have come--hundreds a day, 
thousands a week, hundreds of thousands a month now, overwhelming the 
infrastructure at the border, pulling 40 to 60 percent of our Border 
Patrol off the border to deal with the humanitarian crisis that has 
occurred.
  That tragic photograph--and it is a horrific photo of a daughter 
clinging to her father's neck, having drowned in the Rio Grande coming 
over from Mexico--should be a wake-up call. I agree with that, but it 
should not be a wake-up call to have us continue to point fingers 
around here at the other side and blame someone else for the problem. 
It should instead be a wake-up call for solutions--for bipartisan 
solutions--because that is all that works to be able to resolve these 
issues.
  I hope the first step will be taken today, because I just learned, as 
I came to the floor, that the House of Representatives is now 
considering taking up the legislation we passed here in the Senate just 
yesterday. It provides immediate emergency funds for humanitarian 
assistance at the border that is needed right now. We passed it with 
over 80 votes here in the Senate--82 votes, with 9 of our Members 
absent, I believe. Over 82 votes is very unusual for anything to pass 
around here, particularly something so substantial.
  It is bipartisan. It came out of the Appropriations Committee with a 
30-to-1 vote to get these funds and these resources down to the border 
now to help with this true humanitarian crisis that we are facing. 
Everyone must acknowledge that.
  The House was balking at that. They were sending us another bill that 
had some partisan elements to it that no Republican could support in 
the House--not a single one.
  Finally, I think they have decided to pick up our bipartisan bill and 
pass it, and thank God, because now the President can sign it and that 
aid can go down to our border immediately where it is needed.
  But I have to be frank with you. That humanitarian aid going down to 
the border is not enough because I don't think it would have had an 
impact on the tragic photograph that was talked about on the floor 
earlier.
  That incident did not occur because of the lack of humanitarian aid 
that is badly needed. That incident occurred because there is this pull 
factor to come to our country, particularly from these Northern 
Triangle countries--Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. This particular 
gentleman, Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, came from El Salvador.
  Then, there are push factors from those countries. And, again, this 
is causing so many families to come here, so many unaccompanied 
children to come here from these three countries in Central America.
  The traffickers are telling them: If you come to America and you ask 
for asylum, you will be let in.
  Let's be frank. These countries are countries that have real 
challenges and real problems.
  My colleague from New Jersey is right. We have sent a lot of American 
taxpayer dollars down to those countries, and he noted that the reports 
back from the administration and others are positive, saying it is 
beginning to make a difference. He noted that that funding is now being 
reduced or even eliminated in some cases, but it was during the time 
when that funding was there that the people started coming.
  So, yes, we should have more funding that is effective for those 
countries. I agree with that. The Millennium Challenge Corporation 
funding is the new way we send that funding. It is more effective 
because it says: What are you doing in Central America to improve your 
infrastructure, your conditions, your judicial system, your rule of 
law, and to fight corruption? We need to do all those things.

[[Page S4613]]

  But let's be frank. Let's be honest. We have been doing that, and yet 
the push factor is still there.
  So I believe it is part of the answer, but I don't think logic 
applied to this situation means that you could say that it is all of 
the answer because we have been doing it.
  My taxpayers and other taxpayers, I think, around this country are 
willing to do more, but they also want to deal with the pull factor, 
and the pull factor is very simple. If you come to America and you 
apply for asylum right now, with the system being overwhelmed and with 
certain laws in place, including a court decision, you are released 
into the community, meaning you come into America. Most of the court 
cases that deal with whether you are successful or not in your asylum 
claim take over 2 years now. It takes over 2 years until you are before 
a judge for a hearing.
  When those court cases occur, we are told on the Homeland Security 
Committee, that about 15 percent of those individuals are granted 
asylum--15 percent.
  Now, in America, our wages are 10 to 20 times higher than they are in 
these Northern Triangle countries--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras. Is 
it any wonder that they come here seeking a better way of life? No, you 
would too. But we have to have a system of laws here in this country 
where, yes, we accept refugees and, yes, we accept people who have 
claims of asylum that are granted, but we don't have open borders.
  We have a system here, a system of laws, and it has clearly broken 
down now. Again, thousands come in every week, hundreds of thousands 
every month--mostly families, mostly children because of the way our 
laws work. I don't think we should be separating families, by the way. 
So, if you have a child with you or you are a child, then under a court 
decision you could be held only for a short period of time, 20 days 
maximum, in emergency situations. What happens is that people are 
released into the community.
  I will be frank with you. From what we have heard from Customs and 
Border Protection and from the Department of Health and Human Services, 
which are responsible for many of these detention facilities, they are 
so overwhelmed, they don't even have room for 20 days, so people are 
allowed to come into the community. Again, the court cases happen a 
long time after that, and people are granted work permits. That is why 
people are coming. It is a pull. They are saying: If you get to 
America, we will get you in.
  These traffickers are charging a lot of money. It is horrible. They 
are taking mortgages on people's homes. They are saying ``We will take 
half your pay for the next year,'' promising things that are frankly 
beyond what can be accomplished.
  A situation in Ohio occurred a couple years ago with kids from 
Guatemala. Unaccompanied kids coming from Guatemala were told: You can 
get in. It is good. We will take care of you. In this case, the 
traffickers took mortgages on the parents' homes. They brought these 
kids to the United States, to the Department of Health and Human 
Services, HHS, detention facility. They were then sent out to sponsor 
families, which is what they do. They take these minor children, 
underaged, and send them to sponsor families. Sometimes they can find 
families; sometimes they can't. In this case, our own government sent 
these kids back to the traffickers because the traffickers applied for 
the very kids they had brought up from Guatemala.
  Despite claims and promises to their parents that they would get a 
good education with a family taking care of these kids, do you know 
what they did with these kids? They put them on an egg farm in Ohio--
underage kids--and exploited them. They took away their pay, had them 
live in conditions none of us would find acceptable for any member of 
our family. They had them living in trailers, some of them under 
trailers, on mattresses without sheets, working 12 hours a day. Some of 
these kids were working 6 days a week, some 7 days a week. This is not 
America. Yet this was happening. Again, our system is broken. These 
traffickers were exploiting these children.
  Finally, in this case, law enforcement stepped in, and we have been 
able to indict and convict the traffickers. Thank goodness. But this is 
not a situation that can or should continue.
  In the tragic photo of the story I just told, the answer is not 
politically pointing fingers. Blaming Donald Trump isn't going to solve 
this problem. We need as a body to change the laws. We need as a body 
to provide more effective aid to those countries. That is true. The 
push factors and the pull factors both need to be addressed. But if we 
just play politics with this on both sides, we will have more 
unnecessary deaths. We will have more tragic situations.
  Again, I had planned to come and talk about something else, and I 
will, briefly. But I must say, with regard to this immigration 
challenge we face as a country, I hope the tragedy we have now all seen 
online and on TV serves as a wake-up call to get to bipartisan 
solutions that actually help solve this problem and stop the push 
factors and the pull factors that will continue to bring hundreds of 
thousands of people from these three countries to our border, which has 
overwhelmed us.
  Today there is a start. Today there is a start with the humanitarian 
aid package. Thank goodness.
  Tomorrow we need to get to work to talk about these bigger problems. 
I will say, I have worked on this with some of my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle. I heard the words today from my colleague from New 
Jersey about refugee processing centers. I think that is part of the 
answer. In the Obama administration, you could apply for refugee status 
from your country--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras--and not come to 
the border. The refugee criteria is almost identical to the criteria 
for asylum. The United Nations does this all over the world. I agree, 
that is a much better solution.
  Let's have these processing centers in the Northern Triangle 
countries. Let's have one in Mexico, maybe one in Mexico at the 
southern border with Guatemala, maybe one at the northern border of the 
United States. Let's deal with this processing problem. Let's determine 
who is qualified, who has a legitimate fear of persecution. Again, 15 
percent of them are now being granted. The other 85 percent are not. 
For the others, we have to say: You can apply to come to the United 
States as everybody else does, from Mexico, from the Philippines, from 
India, from countries in Africa, and we need to continue to be a 
generous country with regard to immigration. But we have to have a 
system of laws, and we have to stop these tragedies where people are 
being told by traffickers: You can make this journey to the north. It 
will be fine.
  It is not fine. It is arduous, it is dangerous, and you see the 
results.
  The trafficking that is going on of girls and women is all part of 
this too. It is not going to stop unless we as a group here in 
Congress, on a bipartisan basis, deal not just with the push factors 
but also the pull factors and deal with them realistically.

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