[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 3, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1468-H1469]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CRISIS AT THE BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Underwood). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, first of all, I will let you know, so we 
break the suspense, I will probably be more like 5 minutes, so it is 
easier for everybody.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk one more time about the crisis at 
the border.
  One more week has gone by, and for 1 more week, Donald Trump is out 
there alone fighting to preserve the integrity of our border and who 
the future citizens of the United States of America are.
  Donald Trump is a fan of immigration, that is why, on his watch, we 
are now up to around 750,000 people being sworn in legally in this 
country every year, and there has been no effort made to really 
substantially reduce that number.
  Nevertheless, we do want to pick our immigrants. We want our 
immigrants to be people who have come here legally and are 
appropriately vetted, and Donald Trump is doing what he can--without 
any help from Congress, I might add--to make sure that that happens.
  The first thing that Congress has to do is to make permanent the 
Public Charge rule. Donald Trump has correctly said, even for legal 
immigrants, we are not going to take people in this country if we 
expect they would be permanently, or close to permanently, taking 
advantage of the programs our government has to offer.
  Right now, 63 percent of the noncitizens, compared to 35 percent of 
the native-born, are on some sort of government program. We have a hard 
enough time at this time of trillion-dollar deficits taking care of our 
own citizens who have fallen on hard times without taking the people 
who are on hard times from all around the world.
  Donald Trump is putting his finger in the spigot, but we know the day 
will come when we have a different President. When we have a different 
President, I am scared to death the new President will go back to the 
old method of anybody can come here, and, if they come to our country 
for free Pell grants, if they come to our country for free food, if 
they come to our country for free medical care, if they come to our 
country for free housing, we will let them back in.
  Madam Speaker, I wish President Trump would always be able to prevent 
that, and I am sure he is going to continue to prevent that as long as 
he is President; but, if you look at the other people running for the 
job, I wouldn't bet that even by this time next year, and certainly 
within 5 years, we won't be back to the days of being the welfare 
magnet for the Western Hemisphere or the entire world.

  Madam Speaker, I call on Congress to step up and pass legislation 
that a future President cannot undue, stating that we are not going to 
have more people here as a public charge.
  Secondly, a couple weeks ago, I went down to the border one more time 
and had a chance to talk to local law enforcement, some of the citizens 
on the border, as well as the Border Patrol. They are appreciative of 
the things that the current administration is doing.
  I saw 12 miles of wall being built at the Arizona border. I saw that, 
while it might be possible to get around the wall, it would be very 
difficult. I don't think most people could climb a 30-foot wall, much 
less get over the concertina wire on top, much less get down the other 
side.
  But, again, those are actions from President Trump. I wish, in the 
future appropriations bill, Congress would fully fund that wall like 
the Border Patrol, who sees what is going on every day, wishes they 
had.
  President Trump has reached an agreement with the Mexican Government 
so that people coming here seeking asylum pending their hearing can be 
held in Mexico rather than coming across, living in this country, 
having children with birthright citizenship, and taking advantage of 
laws that law-abiding people from other countries don't have.
  Again, President Trump has reached an agreement with Mexico, and that 
is why we have gone from 80,000 or 90,000 people, at least, coming in 
the border in May of last year to under 2,000, we

[[Page H1469]]

believe, more recently. But, again, that is another victory that could 
be short-lived.
  We heard again, currently, it could easily be over 90 percent of the 
fentanyl, of the meth and heroin come across the border. This should be 
a national crisis. More people are dying on an annual basis from this 
scourge than died in the entire Vietnam war.
  Nevertheless, it is still treated as no big deal, and Congress is not 
going out of its way to do anywhere near what it should to prevent 
these drugs from coming across the border, which are killing our 
citizens.
  Furthermore, the drug cartels who control that border are breaking up 
families and taking advantage of young people, 14-, 15-year-olds, to 
smuggle across the border.
  Why do they do it? Because they know, in the United States, we are 
not going to incarcerate people who are 15 years old for sneaking drugs 
across the border.
  It amazes Border Patrol that, a few times, some potential immigrant 
commits a crime and they are separated from their children; meanwhile, 
the drug cartels have thousands of people separated from their parents 
to do their dirty work and barely a peep from the average American 
Congressman who is so worried about things otherwise.
  We also had a chance to look at the Nogales border and see what is 
going on there and the possibility that people are going over the wall. 
We heard, again, we could use more dogs on the southern border, not 
only to detect drugs coming across one way, but to detect cash coming 
across the other way--something else that, if this Congress really 
cared about our border, they would do something about.
  We heard, again, about the dangers of having the drug cartels control 
our southern border rather than our Border Patrol, wealthy drug cartels 
that may be paying off some American citizens who live on the border 
and may be paying off Mexican military, maybe Mexican police. When they 
sneak people over the border, it is not unusual to have these people 
dehydrate in the Arizona desert. It is not unusual to have these people 
drown in the Rio Grande River.
  The fault is the inactivity of the American Congress to really secure 
these borders so we don't continue to empower the Mexican drug cartels 
that are not only causing people to die coming here, but are also 
corrupting the Mexican Government, resulting in the high homicide rates 
that we see south of the border.
  Madam Speaker, I call upon Congress to act to immediately hire more 
Border Patrol, to hire more dogs, to make sure we have enough funding 
for the wall, to permanently cause people trying to come into this 
country to have to stay south of the border pending their asylum 
hearing, to change the asylum laws so that anybody can't just say ``I 
am in danger in my home country'' and come here, and, above all, to 
change the public benefits rule so that our future immigrants are 
uniformly hardworking people who are going to be an asset to America 
rather than the current situation in which they are apparently 
disproportionately the type of people who come on the government.
  We are all willing to take care of the people in the United States 
who have fallen on hard times, but the idea of going back to the days 
in which people all around the world know that the United States of 
America is the welfare magnet for anyone is ruining our country, and it 
is hard to imagine people who don't take these actions as anything 
other than people who want to permanently change our country.
  Madam Speaker, I call on Congress to take action that President Trump 
would suggest so that, if, God forbid, anything happened to him, we 
still are in a position to protect our border and save our great 
country.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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