[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 10, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4752-S4753]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. President, in the last 2\1/2\ years of this administration, we 
have seen an incredible situation when it comes to immigration and our 
border. We have seen, unfortunately, some of the saddest and most 
heartbreaking scenes involving children at the border between the 
United States and Mexico.
  The pattern started with the President's announcement shortly after 
he was sworn in that he was imposing a travel ban on Muslim countries. 
That created chaos at our airports and continues to separate thousands 
of American families.
  Then the President stepped up and repealed DACA, the Executive order 
program created by President Obama that allowed more than 800,000 young 
immigrants to stay in this country without fear of deportation and to 
make a life in the only country many of them had ever known.
  Then the President announced the termination of the Temporary 
Protected Status Program, a program we offer--and have throughout our 
modern history--for those who are facing oppression or natural disaster 
in their countries. President Trump announced that he was going to 
terminate it for several countries, affecting the lives of 300,000 
immigrants.
  Then came the disastrous separation of thousands of families at the 
border--2,880 infants, toddlers, and children separated from their 
parents by the Government of the United States. This zero-tolerance 
policy finally was reversed by President Trump after the public outcry 
against it.
  Then what followed was the longest government shutdown in history 
over the President's demand that he was going to build a border wall, 
even at the cost of shutting down the Government of the United States 
for 5 weeks.
  We've also seen the tragic deaths of 6 children apprehended at the 
border and 24 people in detention facilities in the United States.
  The President then announced that he was going to block all 
assistance to the Northern Triangle countries--El Salvador, Guatemala, 
and Honduras, the source of most of the immigrants who come to our 
border--and that he would shut down the avenues for legal migration, 
driving even more refugees to our border.
  Now, on President Trump's watch, we have an unprecedented 
humanitarian crisis. We have seen that crisis exemplified by the 
horrifying image of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month-old 
daughter, Valeria, who fled El Salvador and drowned as they tried to 
cross the Rio Grande 2 weeks ago.
  We have seen this crisis play out in the overcrowded and inhumane 
conditions at detention centers at the border.
  In April, I visited El Paso, TX. What I saw in the Border Patrol's 
overcrowded facilities was heartbreaking.
  In May, I led 24 Senators in calling for the International Committee 
of the Red Cross and the inspector general of the Department of 
Homeland Security to investigate our Border Patrol facilities. I never 
dreamed that I would be asking the International Red Cross to 
investigate detention facilities in the United States. They do that, 
but usually you are asking them to look into some Third World country 
where inhumane conditions are being alleged.
  After being in El Paso, after seeing what is going at our border, I 
joined with 23 other Senators in asking the International Red Cross to 
investigate the U.S. detention facilities.
  Later that same month, the inspector general of the Department of 
Homeland Security released a report detailing the inhumane and 
dangerous overcrowding of migrants at the El Paso port of entry. The 
Inspector General's Office found that overcrowding is ``an immediate 
risk to the health and safety'' of detainees and DHS employees.
  One week ago, the Inspector General's Office issued another scathing 
report, this time about multiple Border Patrol facilities in the Rio 
Grande Valley. The Inspector General's Office asked the Department of 
Homeland Security to take immediate steps to alleviate the dangerous 
overcrowding and prolonged detention. They stated: ``We are concerned 
that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk 
to the health and safety of DHS agents and officers, and to those 
detained.''
  Congress recently passed legislation 2 weeks ago that included $793 
million in funding to alleviate overcrowding at these CBP facilities 
and other funding to provide food, supplies, and medical care to 
migrants. The bill also includes critical funding for the Office of 
Refugee Resettlement to care for migrant children.
  We must now make sure that this money is spent effectively by the 
Trump administration. We gave them over $400 million in February, and 
they came back to us within 90 days and said: We are out of money. I 
would like to know how they are spending this money, and I want to make 
sure it is being spent where it is needed.
  There is a gaping leadership vacuum at the Trump administration's 
Department of Homeland Security. Think of this: In 2\1/2\ years, there 
have already been four different people serving as head of that 
Department. Every position at the Department of Homeland Security with 
responsibility for immigration or border security is now being held by 
a temporary appointee, and the White House refuses to even submit 
nominations to fill these positions.
  Two weeks ago, I met with Mark Morgan, one of those temporary 
appointees. In May, President Trump named him Acting Director of U.S. 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Mr. Morgan was asked at that time 
to carry out the mass arrests and mass deportations of millions of 
immigrants the President had threatened by his infamous tweets.
  Shortly before I met with Mr. Morgan to ask him about the mass 
arrests and mass deportations, there was a change. They took him out of 
that position and named him Acting Director of U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection. He went from internal enforcement to border enforcement. 
Now he is in charge of solving the humanitarian crisis that President 
Trump has created at our border.
  The Trump administration can shuffle the deck chairs on this Titanic, 
but we must acknowledge the obvious: President Trump's immigration and 
border security policies have failed. Tough talk isn't enough. We need 
to do better.
  This morning, I met with Dr. Goza, the president of the American 
Academy of Pediatrics. She came to give me a report about her visit to 
several border facilities that has been well documented and reported in 
the press. She said that it was hard for her, as a doctor for children, 
to see these things and realize they were happening in the United 
States.
  Yes, children are being held in caged facilities with wire fences and 
watchtowers around them, some of them very young children. As a 
pediatrician, she told me those things have an impact on a child--on 
how that child looks at the world and how that child looks at himself.
  She said that she took a lot of notes as she went through these 
facilities, but it wasn't until she got on the airplane on the way home 
that she read

[[Page S4753]]

through them. She said: Then I started crying. I am supposed to be a 
professional who can take this, but I couldn't imagine what we were 
doing to these children at the border. There just aren't enough medical 
professionals there--not nearly enough.
  The United States is better than that. We can do better than that. We 
can have a secure border and respect our international obligations to 
provide a safe haven to those who are fleeing persecution, as we have 
done on a bipartisan basis--Democrats and Republicans--for decades.
  I stand ready, and I believe my party stands ready, to work with 
Republicans on smart, effective, and humane solutions to the crisis at 
our border. I suggest that the following be included:
  Crack down on traffickers who are exploiting immigrants. That is 
unacceptable.
  Provide assistance to stabilize the Northern Triangle countries. That 
is long overdue.
  Provide in-country processing and third-country resettlement so that 
migrants can seek safe haven under our laws without making the 
dangerous and expensive trek to our border.
  Eliminate the immigration court backlog so that asylum claims can be 
processed more quickly.
  We have authorized more than 100 immigration court judges, and this 
administration can't find people to fill them. They want more judges. 
They have authority to hire 100 more, and they have been unable to do 
it.
  We need to ensure that children and families are treated humanely 
when they are in the custody of the U.S. Government.
  Eventually, the history of this period will be written, and there 
will be accountability, not just for the officials in government but 
for all of us--those of us in the Senate and the House and those in 
journalism and other places. We are going to have to answer for the way 
these people have been treated. Whether or not they qualify for legal 
status in the United States, I hope we can hold our heads up high and 
say that, at least from this point forward, we are going to show them 
that we are humane and caring people. No matter where they come from, 
no matter how poor they may be, we will take care that children are 
treated in a merciful way and a compassionate way; that the adults are 
given appropriate opportunities to exercise whatever rights they have 
under the laws of our country; and that at the end of the day we can 
hold our heads high because we have done this in a fashion consistent 
with the values of the United States of America.
  We haven't seen it yet. It is time for the President to acknowledge 
that get-tough, bizarre tweets just aren't enough. We have to have a 
policy that makes sense to bring stability to our border.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.