[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 16, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4835-S4837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, last Friday I joined the Vice President of 
the United States and a number of our colleagues on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee for a trip to the Rio Grande Valley and, 
specifically, to McAllen, TX.
  The Rio Grande Valley Sector, headquartered in McAllen, is ground 
zero for the humanitarian crisis on our southern border. I know some of 
our colleagues refused to acknowledge that this was indeed a 
humanitarian crisis on our border, but that seems to have waned in 
recent days in light of the overwhelming evidence. In fact, in 2014 
President Obama himself called it a humanitarian and security crisis, 
and it has gotten nothing but worse.
  Of all the sectors, it is head and shoulders above the rest in terms 
of apprehensions of people trying to enter the country illegally. In 
fact, 46 percent of all apprehensions along the southern border last 
month occurred in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. Across

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the entire border, 68 percent of those apprehended in June were 
unaccompanied children or part of a family unit. In the Rio Grande 
Valley, that figure shot up to a whopping 79 percent.
  People may be asking themselves: Why are unaccompanied children and 
families--that is, an adult with a child--the ones predominantly coming 
across the border? It is because human smugglers know our laws better 
than we do, and they are exploiting the vulnerabilities in our asylum 
laws in order to make a lot of money. They charge roughly $5,000 to 
$10,000 per person whom they deliver across the border from Central 
America or from anywhere around the world. As a matter of fact, the 
Border Patrol told us on Friday, when we were in McAllen, that just in 
the last year they had detained people from 60--six-zero--different 
countries coming across the border at the Rio Grande Valley Sector. 
That is because these human smuggling networks are really worldwide. If 
you want to come from Bangladesh or Syria or Iran or Russia, all you 
have to do is make your way to Central America, hire one of these human 
smuggling networks, and they will work your way up across the border 
into the United States. This is a national security as well as a 
humanitarian crisis.
  As of July 1, the Rio Grande Valley Sector had 8,000 migrants in 
custody. They are overwhelmed, to be sure. This is placing a huge 
strain on our resources. Our Border Patrol stations were never designed 
to hold that many people.
  The men and women who apprehend and care for these migrants have been 
unfairly criticized and mischaracterized as bad guys, but last week I 
got to see once again that they aren't the real villain in this 
scenario. In fact, they are the heroes.
  The Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley, and those along 
the entire border, are pulling double duty as law enforcement officers 
and caregivers. They are hired to be law enforcement officers, but they 
have had to basically end up handing out juice boxes and diapers to 
unaccompanied children or family units because that is what we are 
seeing flood across our borders. One minute they are stopping fentanyl, 
heroin, and methamphetamine from coming across the border and they are 
stopping dangerous criminals from entering our country, and the next 
they are comforting crying babies and providing sustenance to children.
  Balancing an overcrowded facility and a constantly growing list of 
responsibilities is no easy task, but it is not their fault. It is 
Congress's fault because only Congress has the authority to provide the 
change in the laws necessary to stop this endless flood of humanity and 
this overwhelming of our resources, both human and 
infrastructure. These dedicated agents handle these demands with 
professionalism and compassion.

  My colleagues and I had the opportunity to hear from several of these 
agents, including Chief Patrol Agent Rudy Karisch. Chief Karisch talked 
about the work his agents do to provide quality care to those in 
custody, particularly medical care. In his sector alone, that equates 
to an average of 32 hospital runs each day--32 hospital runs each day--
to ensure that migrants receive the care they need.
  As these agents know too well, many of the people who cross the 
border do so because they are deeply familiar with the loopholes in our 
immigration laws, and they are eager to exploit them, as I described a 
moment ago.
  One of those loopholes is something called the Flores Settlement 
Agreement, which was created as a way to ensure that unaccompanied 
children don't remain in Border Patrol custody for long periods of 
time. It was expanded in, I believe, an unintended and unnecessary sort 
of way to effectively expand this protection for unaccompanied children 
to families as well.
  As a result, we can't detain those families for more than 20 days, 
the adults in particular. As a result, we see the dramatic increase in 
the number of families arriving at the border. Why not? What is to 
discourage them or dissuade them?
  As we learned during our visit, many of these migrants coming across 
the border are not families at all. Tim Tubbs is a deputy special agent 
in charge for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security 
Investigations, HSI. He discussed the rise in fraudulent families. In 
other words, by that I mean adults claiming to be the parent or family 
member of a child when, in fact, they are not related at all.
  In April, ICE HSI sent more than 400 employees to the southern border 
to investigate these fraudulent claims of family units. In the roughly 
90 days since, more than 352 fraudulent families were discovered across 
the southern border.
  He described one case of a Honduran man that illustrates why leaving 
these loopholes untouched is so dangerous. Again, only Congress can 
change that. He mentioned the fact that a 51-year-old man negotiated 
with a pregnant Honduran woman to purchase--to buy--her baby when it 
was born. For the equivalent of about 80 U.S. dollars, this man 
purchased her child and then traveled with human smugglers into the 
United States. If you have a child with you, it is a ticket to entering 
the United States and exploiting those gaps in our immigration laws.
  Deputy Agent Tubbs said HSI also uncovered an organization that 
recycled--recycled--approximately 69 children in order to smuggle 
people into the United States. In other words, once you successfully 
get to the United States, these children are sent back and used over 
and over again in an endless loop to smuggle more adults into the 
United States under the guise of being a family.
  We can point the finger of blame at the Border Patrol for being 
overwhelmed for not having facilities that were designed to handle the 
influx of this number of people, but that would be a terrible 
miscarriage of justice. The fact is, Congress needs to look in the 
mirror. The only people who can change the laws under our Constitution 
is the U.S. Congress and the President. The President has called time 
and again for Congress to fix these loopholes in our immigration laws 
to begin to stem the tide of humanity coming across our border.
  Our broken laws are fueling this behavior. Unless we take action to 
close those loopholes that invite more people to illegally enter into 
our country, the problem will only continue to grow.
  Amid calls from many of the so-called progressive Democrats running 
for President to do things that make illegally crossing the border 
legal--in other words, rather than protecting the sovereignty of our 
country, securing our borders, they want to actually make entry into 
the United States legal--the work being done by our Border Patrol and 
our Health and Human Services and other nongovernmental organizations 
at the border to keep our country safe and care for migrants in their 
custody cannot be overstated.
  The key to solving this crisis isn't opening the door to more illegal 
immigration; it is removing the pull factors that encourage people to 
come here in the first place. Of course, you can imagine, if the door 
were wide open, how many people would come from other countries into 
the United States at will. They would flood our country. That is part 
of what is happening now because they don't see any limits or any order 
or any rules being applied to who enters our country.
  We are a proud nation of immigrants. We naturalize almost 1 million 
people a year. This isn't about being anti-immigrant. Immigrants have 
made our country stronger. Legal immigration is the key distinction.
  Our friends across the aisle seem to be the champions of illegal 
immigration. We want our legal, orderly, lawful, rules-based 
immigration system to work so it can be fair to everybody, rather than 
let people who have been waiting in line for years to come into the 
country legally see people jump in line ahead of them and enter the 
country illegally. That is not fair to them, and that is not a rules-
based and lawful and orderly system of immigration.
  I have introduced legislation that will take major steps to achieve 
filling those gaps, plugging those holes in our asylum and immigration 
laws. It is called the HUMANE Act. This bill would close the Flores 
loophole, streamline the processing of migrants, improve standards of 
care, which we all want to do for individuals in our custody, and 
require additional training of customs and Border Patrol and 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees who work with children.

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  This bill is, to my knowledge, the only bipartisan, bicameral 
solution that has been offered. It is bicameral. My friend and 
colleague in the House, Henry Cuellar, from Laredo, TX, and I have 
cosponsored this bill--bipartisan, bicameral.
  As we consider this and other legislative proposals, I hope our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle will finally get serious 
about taking the required action.
  Chairman Graham of the Judiciary Committee tried to organize a 
bipartisan trip to the border, believing that would be an important 
step in helping us witness together the facts on the ground and then 
hopefully work together to try to solve the problem.
  I am disappointed that none of our Democratic colleagues accepted his 
invitation. I hope this is not an indication of what our immigration 
reform discussions will look like moving forward: no desire to help, no 
desire to solve the problem, no desire to work together on a bipartisan 
basis. I hope that is not where we are, but I am fearful that is 
exactly where we are.
  I appreciate the Vice President taking the time to visit Texas once 
again and getting a chance to see the frontline challenges our officers 
and agents are facing. I would thank Mrs. Pence as well for 
accompanying the Vice President.
  Despite the challenges this humanitarian crisis has brought, the Rio 
Grande Valley remains a wonderful region, characterized by a thriving 
economy and a vibrant culture. You would be hard-pressed to find more 
generous people. They have been extraordinarily generous to the 
migrants who found their way to our front doorstep and are trying to 
take care of them in a compassionate sort of way, but, frankly, they 
are overwhelmed too.
  I thank the men and women of the Border Patrol, as well as local 
officials, businesses, and members of the border communities who 
continue to assist with this humanitarian crisis. It would be nice if 
Congress, on a bipartisan basis, would lift a finger to help.