[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4711-S4712]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. President, on another matter, we know that a record number of 
migrants is continuing to cross our southern border, and the impact on 
Texas communities--the State I represent--has been overwhelming.
  Detention centers are over their capacities. Customs and Border 
Protection officers and agents are pulling double duty in their being 
law enforcement officers and caregivers to children, not because that 
is what they have been trained to do but because that is what they must 
do in order to take care of this flood of humanity. Nongovernmental and 
community organizations are unable to keep up with this pace of the 
thousands of people who have been coming across the border each and 
every day.
  Before the Senate recessed for the Fourth of July week, which was 
about 10 weeks after the President requested emergency funds, we 
finally passed a bipartisan bill to send much needed humanitarian 
relief. It includes additional funding for the departments and agencies 
that have depleted their resources in trying to manage this crisis, and 
it makes $30 million available in reimbursement for which impacted 
communities may apply--charges that should be the Federal Government's 
responsibility and not the local governments'. As I said, after some 
hand-wringing and delay, the House passed this bill, and the President 
signed it. I hope my constituents back in Texas who have been working 
tirelessly to manage this crisis will soon find some relief.
  It is important to remember, though, that depleted funding isn't the 
reason for the crisis; it is only a symptom of a larger problem. In 
other words, we are dealing with the effects and not the cause of the 
basic problem. Without getting to the root cause, we are only setting 
ourselves up for failure, which means we will be back here in another 
couple of months and will have to pass another emergency appropriations 
bill for an additional $4.5 billion to try to deal with the problem we 
can fix but have refused to.
  Sadly, this issue has become so politicized that few are willing to 
reach across the aisle and find solutions, and most of the proposals we 
have seen are ultrapartisan. The Democrats who are running for 
President support things like decriminalizing illegal border crossings 
or providing free healthcare to undocumented immigrants, both of which 
are unpopular, unsafe, and completely unaffordable. The vast majority 
of Americans oppose open borders and already struggle to manage their 
own bills. They certainly don't want to be burdened with the costs of 
people who enter our country illegally and don't pay taxes.
  We don't need these radical proposals to solve the crisis at our 
southern border. Both in the short term and the long term, we need 
bipartisan solutions that can provide some real relief. If we want to 
get to the root of the crisis and avoid making emergency funding bills 
the norm, we need to get down to brass tacks and talk about real 
reforms that, No. 1, will fix the problem and, No. 2, will stand a 
chance of actually becoming law.
  Right now, there is only one bill, to my knowledge, that has 
bipartisan and bicameral support, and that is a bill called the HUMANE 
Act. I introduced this bill with my Democratic friend in the House, 
Henry Cuellar, to address the humanitarian crisis at the border.
  First and foremost, the HUMANE Act includes important provisions to 
ensure that migrants in our custody receive proper care. It requires 
the Department of Homeland Security to keep families together 
throughout their court proceedings, and it includes additional 
standards of care. Beyond suitable living accommodations, the HUMANE 
Act requires each facility to provide timely access to medical 
assistance, recreational activities, educational services, and legal 
counsel.
  It would require all children to undergo biometric and DNA screening 
so family relationships could be confirmed so as to ensure these 
children would be, in fact, traveling with their relatives rather than 
with human smugglers or sex traffickers.
  In order to better protect children who would be released to Health 
and Human Services, this bill would place prohibitions on certain 
individuals who could serve as guardians. For example, no child should 
be released into the custody of a sex offender or a human trafficker. I 
would hope we could all agree on that.
  In addition to improving the quality of care for those in custody, 
the HUMANE Act would improve the ways migrants would be processed. It 
would require the Department of Homeland Security to establish regional 
processing centers in high-traffic areas, which would serve as a one-
stop shop by which the process would take place. This was a 
recommendation from the bipartisan Homeland Security Advisory Council. 
It would also alleviate the long wait times that are experienced by 
many asylum seekers. These centers would have personnel on hand from 
across the government to assist, including medical personnel and asylum 
officers.
  In addition to these changes, the legislation would also include 
provisions to make some commonsense improvements, such as additional 
Customs and Border Protection personnel and training for CBP and ICE 
employees who work with children.
  The HUMANE Act would make much needed reforms to improve the 
processing and quality of care for migrants. Importantly, it would also 
take steps to address the flow of those who enter our country by the 
tens of thousands each month.
  I spend a lot of time talking to folks who live and work on the 
border about the status quo and what we need to do to prevent this 
crisis from becoming even bigger. The most common feedback I get is 
that we need to close the loopholes that are being exploited by the 
people who are getting rich off of trafficking in human beings from 
Central America, across Mexico, and into the United States.
  One of the most commonly exploited loopholes is something called the 
Flores settlement agreement, which was created to ensure that 
unaccompanied children don't spend long periods of time in the custody 
of the Border Patrol. It was and remains an important protection for 
the most vulnerable people who are found along our border. It also 
ensures they can be processed and released to either relatives or to 
the Department of Health and Human Services pending the presentations 
of their cases before immigration judges when they claim asylum. Yet a 
misguided 2016 decision by the Ninth Circuit effectively expanded those 
protections from children to families.
  One thing I can say with some certainty is that human smugglers and 
traffickers are not fools; they are entrepreneurs. They are twisted and 
criminal, to be sure, but they are entrepreneurs. They know how to 
exploit the gaps in our system, and they know how to make money while 
doing it. They know, if adults are traveling alone, they could be 
detained for long periods of time before they are eventually returned 
home after presenting their cases before immigration judges. So now, 
rather than there being single adults who arrive at the border alone, 
adults are bringing children with them so they can be processed as 
family units, thus taking advantage of that expansion of the Flores 
settlement agreement and drawing out the process to the point at which 
it overloads the system. They realize they can bring a child--any 
child--and pose as a family so they will be released after 20 days, 
never to be heard from again.
  We have seen a massive increase in the number of families who have 
been apprehended. In May of 2018, roughly 9,500 families were 
apprehended. In May of this year, the number skyrocketed to more than 
84,000. So, in just 1 year, it went from 9,500 to 84,000. Now, are 
legitimate families crossing the border? Absolutely. Yet we know many 
of these people who claim to be related are fraudulent families who use 
innocent children as pawns to gain entry into the United States. 
Something that nobody wants to talk about is, often, these children are 
abused and assaulted along the way, and many arrive at the border in 
critical health.

[[Page S4712]]

  If we care about the welfare and the lives of these children, we 
cannot let these practices continue. It is unfair not only to these 
children but to the American people and to the immigrants who have 
waited patiently to enter the United States legally for people to be 
able to game the system, move to the head of the line, and break all 
the rules while doing it.
  The HUMANE Act would clarify that the Flores agreement applies only 
to unaccompanied children. It would also provide greater time for 
processing and immigration proceedings to take place before a family is 
released from custody.
  Eliminating this pull factor is an important way to stop the flow of 
those illegally entering our country because they know how to game the 
immigration system.
  While the HUMANE Act will certainly not fix every problem that exists 
in our broken immigration system, it is an important start. It is a 
necessary start. It is the only bill pending before the Congress that 
is bipartisan and bicameral, and I would encourage all of our 
colleagues who are serious about our responsibilities to get to the 
root of this humanitarian crisis to join us and get this passed and 
sent to the President for his signature.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.