[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 113 (Monday, July 8, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S4685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BORDER SECURITY

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, last week, the DHS inspector general 
released a report detailing horrid conditions at border facilities. 
This is the President's own DHS inspector general saying how bad 
conditions were. Then we found reports of a secret Border Patrol 
workers' Facebook group that revealed a toxic culture at U.S. Customs 
and Border Protection. Everything we had heard anecdotally, everything 
we feared about the mindset of CBP proved to be true in that Facebook 
group.
  Over the weekend, the New York Times and then the El Paso Times 
released the latest account of conditions at the Border Patrol station 
in Clint, TX. A facility built for 100 adults has become a modern-day 
internment camp for up to 700 children at a time, many locked up for 
weeks on end. Some children go without beds to sleep on. There are food 
shortages and insufficient sanitation. For heaven's sake, we read 
reports of children suffering from outbreaks of scabies, lice, and even 
chicken pox. This is cruelty--cruelty--once again.
  These awful conditions show that for too long, the CBP has operated 
as an agency out of control. It must be reined in immediately, 
beginning with its leadership. Internal investigations will not suffice 
because CBP leadership--particularly Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan--
is far too callous in their treatment of children and their families. 
Too many of the CBP leaders have had this attitude for too long, and it 
has infested itself down to too many who are the rank and file in that 
agency. We need untainted professionals to be brought in from outside 
the CBP structure immediately.
  President Trump turns to his typical tactics of denial, distortion, 
and distraction. President Trump should be focused on fixing the 
problems that exist instead of blaming others. The truth, of course, is 
that we should never have been in this situation in the first place. 
The suffering imposed on migrant children is the result of the 
administration's own mishandling of family arrivals through Central 
America.
  While Donald Trump says he is serious about fixing our immigration 
challenges, he has done just about everything to make matters worse.
  President Trump, you want to fix the border? Then do what Democrats 
have been asking you to do for a long time--let the asylum seekers 
apply for asylum in their home countries, increase the number of judges 
to process the cases, and, for heaven's sake, restore aid to those 
Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to 
help them crack down on gang violence and cartels so people will not 
flee for fear of their lives from the gangs.
  President Trump, stop finger-pointing at Democrats for this mess of 
your own making. You are the President. As this problem festers and 
gets worse, the American people realize you are the Chief Executive. It 
is your problem to solve.
  We will join you, if you have anything reasonable to propose, but 
just finger-pointing at Democrats for this mess of your own making, 
President Trump, is like poking holes in your own umbrella and then 
blaming the clouds when you get wet.
  I urge President Trump and Senate Republicans to seriously consider 
these measures because unless we make structural reforms to our 
immigration system, we have done nothing to reverse what is happening 
at the southern border.

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