[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 116 (Thursday, July 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4797-S4799]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise to address one of the most pressing 
crises the American people are facing today. Our refusal to address the 
border crisis is inexcusable.
  Right now, Texas and other border States are being overwhelmed by 
thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants who are flooding into 
small communities monthly. The inaction of the U.S. Congress leaves 
these communities responsible for paying for where these illegal 
immigrants will stay, for how they will receive medical care, and for 
where they will go when they are released.
  From Brownsville to McAllen, to Laredo to Eagle Pass, to Del Rio, to 
El Paso, and beyond, Texas communities are at their breaking point in 
terms of resources and manpower in dealing with this crisis. I am 
hearing from elected officials throughout South Texas--Democrats and 
Republicans--that the crisis has reached a breaking point.
  Our hard-working Border Patrol agents are also struggling with the 
enormous influx of illegal immigrants. It has been reported that there 
are now more illegal immigrants in custody than Border Patrol agents on 
the southern border and thousands more being apprehended daily.
  Since last October, over half a million illegal immigrants have been 
apprehended at our southern border, many of them having traveled 
through Mexico from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Over 200,000 
of these illegal immigrants were single adults, and over 56,000 of them 
were unaccompanied children.
  During this time, the Border Patrol also apprehended nearly 700 gang 
members trying to illegally enter the United States. In the month of 
May alone, the Border Patrol apprehended over 144,000 people coming 
through the southern border--144,000 in a single month. If that pace 
were to continue for a year, we would be looking at nearly 2 million 
apprehensions in just 1 year. That is a staggering number of illegal 
immigrants for Texas and other border States to take in.
  Instead of acknowledging that this crisis exists, instead of doing 
the responsible thing and taking action, congressional Democrats 
instead have stubbornly clung to open-border fantasies. Speaker Pelosi 
has called the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants coming 
through our border a ``manufactured crisis.'' Some of our colleagues on 
the Presidential trail have called it a ``fake crisis'' and 
``fearmongering of the worst kind'' or have said that climate change is 
a more serious crisis. All I can tell them

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is to go to the border. The crisis at the border is very real, despite 
what the Democratic talking points say.
  Last week, I visited the Rio Grande Valley, as I have done many times 
in representing the State of Texas in the Senate. I have toured the Rio 
Grande Valley Centralized Processing Center, the largest immigration 
processing center in the United States. I also traveled to Rincon 
Village, which is ground zero for illegal border crossings near 
Mission, TX. What I saw there was staggering. When I was in the Rio 
Grande Valley, the RGV Sector Chief told me that in 2014, just 5 years 
ago, roughly 2 percent of single adult men crossing illegally into the 
Rio Grande Valley had a child with them. Today that number is roughly 
50 percent. It went from 2 percent all the way up to 50 percent. The 
word is out among traffickers, among smugglers, among others seeking to 
illegally enter the United States that coming with a child is a get-
out-of-jail-free pass. According to the Border Patrol, family unit 
apprehensions have increased by 463 percent since last year, with 
increases of 2,100 percent in El Paso and 1,034 percent in Del Rio.
  I also learned of a recent pilot program that used rapid DNA tests to 
discover whether these family units were real. Nearly 30 percent were 
found to be fraudulent in the Rio Grande Valley. In other words, the 
adults bringing kids into the United States illegally weren't related 
to the children.
  One of the most tragic elements of the crisis is the number of 
children who are being trafficked, who are being physically abused, 
sexually abused, and neglected. Often they are being used as pawns.
  That is not all. In the Rio Grande Valley, 60 percent of Border 
Patrol Agents are now helping to process and care for children and 
family units. That means only 40 percent are dedicated to border 
security. More than half the Border Patrol agents in our Nation's 
busiest crossing point for illegal immigrants are not on the border 
stopping narcotics traffickers and stopping human traffickers because 
they are instead changing diapers. Instead, they are caring for 
children because the volume is so massive.
  Just recently, the Rio Grande Valley Sector canceled their horseback 
patrol because they lacked the manpower because they are instead caring 
for the massive influx of illegal immigrants. On average, they make 30 
trips to the hospital a day. On average, in the Rio Grande Valley 
Sector, one child is born each day to an illegal immigrant who has come 
over. Last week, 12 people died.

  This is a crisis. By refusing to address our border crisis, we invite 
child smuggling and child abuse. That is shameful, and that is a 
tragedy. We know how many illegal immigrants are being apprehended. We 
know more and more illegal immigrants are trying to get into our 
country, and we know Border Patrol doesn't have the manpower or the 
resources to handle a humanitarian crisis of this scale. It is a fact, 
and it is a reality that our Democratic colleagues need to face.
  Nobody who is compassionate, nobody who wants to be virtuous, nobody 
who cares about other human beings would want to perpetuate what is 
happening at the border for even a single day. We should be angry. We 
should be angry at politicians who say this is a made-up crisis. We 
should be angry at politicians who keep the loopholes in place that 
ensure that more and more children--more and more little boys and 
girls--will be abused at the hands of human smugglers.
  While the passage of the $4.5 billion border supplemental bill a few 
weeks ago was a good first step, Democrats in Congress need to finally 
do their job and work with Republicans and work with President Trump to 
secure our border. We need to build a wall. We need to enforce 
immigration laws already on the books. We need to reform our amnesty 
laws to prevent asylum abuse, and we need to support the brave men and 
women of the Border Patrol with all the resources they need to 
effectively secure the border.
  I have introduced legislation to secure the border using the billions 
from El Chapo's criminal fortune that the Department of Justice is 
seeking to have criminally forfeited and use El Chapo's ill-gotten 
goods and those of other drug lords to build the wall. The EL CHAPO Act 
would reserve any amounts criminally forfeited to the Federal 
Government as a result of criminal prosecution of El Chapo or other 
drug kingpins for the building of a border wall and other border 
security assets.
  I am also a cosponsor of the WALL Act, which would fully fund the 
border wall by closing existing loopholes that provide illegal 
immigrants with Federal benefits and tax credits, all without affecting 
the benefits and tax credits used by American citizens.
  These bills are just two commonsense ways to secure the border. 
Everyone should support taking money away from murderers, from drug 
smugglers, and from human traffickers such as El Chapo and using it to 
prevent murder, drug smuggling, and human trafficking--all without 
costing American taxpayers even a dime or adding anything to the 
Federal deficit.
  We also need more judges. We need to close the loopholes in our 
asylum system. Right now, immigration courts have a backlog of about 
900,000 pending cases--nearly a million. Increasing the number of 
immigration judges and providing an expedited process for asylum claims 
is necessary so migrants who don't qualify for asylum can be quickly 
returned to their home countries rather than released into the United 
States.
  These reforms are necessary, and they need to happen. We know how to 
solve this problem. We don't have to ask theoretically because we have 
seen it happen specifically. In the first 6 months of 2017, right after 
President Trump was elected and sworn into office, illegal immigration 
dropped nearly 70 percent. It plummeted. I remember going back down to 
the valley in early 2017 and asking the Border Patrol agents: Why did 
the illegal crossings drop? We hadn't built a wall yet. We hadn't hired 
new Border Patrol agents. What changed? What those Border Patrol agents 
told me was the only thing that changed is the human smugglers, the 
traffickers, now believed there was an administration in office that 
would enforce the law that would deport them if they came here 
illegally. That one change--the traffickers believing the 
administration would send them home--dropped illegal immigration 70 
percent.
  Then what happened? Why did we see this enormous deluge we are seeing 
right now? Well, the answer is the Congress put loopholes in the law 
that mandate the release of children. In a short timeframe, and under a 
court decision called the Flores decision, adults with a child get 
released as well. That process is what is known as catch and release. 
It means someone who is apprehended is given a court date some months 
or years into the future and then are let go on the hope that they will 
magically show up. Far too many of them don't show up.
  What happened in the summer of 2017 was illegal immigrants would pick 
up the phone and call their friends or family back home and say: The 
policy hasn't changed. They still let us go. We still get to stay. 
There are still no consequences. Come on over.
  Even worse than that, smugglers learned that bringing a child is the 
ticket to crossing illegally into this country. There was a portion of 
the detention facility I saw in the valley that the officers refer to 
as ``daddy daycare'' because it was simply filled with young single men 
who had little kids with them. Five years ago, 2 percent of single men 
had kids. Today, 50 percent of single men have kids because if you grab 
a little boy or a little girl, you can come over. I will tell you 
because of the loopholes Congress has put in place, Border Patrol has 
been forced to release people who are convicted murderers, forced to 
release people who are convicted pedophiles, forced to release adults 
with sexual assault convictions and children in their custody. Why? 
Because it is so expedited that by the time they find out about the 
convictions, they have been forced to release them already.
  This is cruel. It is inhumane. When the rapid DNA testing is showing 
that nearly 30 percent of the adults are not related to the kids, it 
explains why we are hearing more and more reports of children being 
rented or sold by the cartels.
  This has to stop--the political posturing from the Democrats who are 
running for President and the Democrats in Congress who are refusing to

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solve this problem. It is past time for those games. It is time to 
solve this crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.