[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 10, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1440-S1441]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Immigration

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to oppose 
President Biden's Executive orders on immigration.
  Now, there are more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the country 
today. This is a group equivalent to the population of the entire State 
of Georgia, and this number has nearly tripled in the last 30 years. In 
fact, some experts say the number is a lot higher than that. Folks at 
Yale and MIT and the researchers there said it could actually be twice 
as high; it could be 22 million people in the country illegally. Well, 
that is more than the population of the entire State of New York.
  So it appears to me that illegal immigration is making a mockery of 
our borders. Yet President Biden and this administration refuse to 
admit, even as of this morning, that there is a crisis at the southern 
border.
  Now, if you talk to law enforcement all across the country, they will 
tell you that many of the problems that they face every day are 
problems related to our open southern border. The Drug Enforcement 
Administration has said for nearly a decade now that the vast majority 
of illegal drugs in America come here across the southern border.
  Now, I am a doctor. I will tell you, these drugs have killed 
thousands of Americans. They kill thousands of Americans every year. 
They tear families apart. They lead to heartbreaking stories. They rob 
people of their God-given potential.
  Our law enforcement, our Coast Guard, our border agents, they do 
heroic work every day to intercept drugs, to stop human trafficking. 
They can't do it alone. They need the support of the U.S. Senate.
  Well, during the debate last week over the spending bill, we had a 
chance to give them support. Senator Cruz introduced an amendment to 
prevent checks from going to illegal immigrants. Democrats blocked it. 
Senator Cotton introduced an amendment to cut the bailout funding to 
sanctuary cities. Well, these are cities that actively try to prevent 
Federal agents--actively try to prevent Federal agents from enforcing 
our immigration laws. Democrats blocked the amendment.
  So no wonder we have a crisis at the border. Democrats seem to be 
advertising to the entire world: Come here now. If you come here 
illegally, you can get a check, possibly.
  If you are an immigration enforcement officer, Democrats seem to 
block them from doing their own job. President Biden has already issued 
at least seven Executive orders on immigration. In just over a month in 
office, President Biden has already proven to be the most open-border 
President in U.S. history.
  Now we face an entirely predictable crisis at the border. That crisis 
rests squarely at President Biden's feet. On his first day in office, 
President Biden shut down construction of the southern border wall. By 
the time the day was over, President Biden stopped all deportations for 
a hundred days. It didn't matter to President Biden what you were going 
to be deported for. No. Now, maybe you are a serious criminal. 
President Biden says: You can stay longer. A court has already stepped 
in and said this is illegal, this Executive order.
  President Biden has, astonishingly, brought back the idea of catch-
and-release--catch-and-release. He has ordered our immigration agents 
to release illegal immigrants into the United States, and he is doing 
it in the middle of a pandemic. Senator Cotton and I sent a letter to 
the President raising this concern. It is now harder to go to church in 
some parts of America than it is to cross the border into America.
  Under President Trump, if you wanted to apply for asylum in this 
country, you had to remain in Mexico. That was the policy. The policy 
of ``Remain in Mexico'' was based on the standards of international 
law. To get asylum, you have to show that you can't live safely in your 
home country because of persecution--understandable. Yet the fact is 
that most illegal immigrants don't come here because of persecution. 
They come here for economic reasons. They want a better job. They want 
better schools for their kids. They are understandable motives; 
nonetheless, they are not standards for asylum.

  Now, another requirement for asylum is that you have to go to the 
nearest safe country and seek asylum. You don't get to pick anywhere 
you want to go in the world. You have to go to the nearest safe 
country. Yet people around the world know that our asylum system here 
in the United States has become a sham. It is no secret that it is easy 
to game the system, and it is being gamed regularly in the Biden 
administration.
  So they often stop in at least one other safe country, and they apply 
for asylum here. President Biden now says: You don't have to wait in 
Mexico. Cross the border. We will give you a court date years from now, 
years from now, and after they give you the court date, they release 
you into the United States. Even those who know they don't qualify and 
will not qualify for asylum, they come anyway because they know they 
get released into the United States. It happens all the time.
  Just before the new administration took over, the Department of 
Homeland Security published a report about this. According to the 
Department, our border agents apprehended 3.5 million illegal 
immigrants along the southern border between 2014 and 2019. Only 8 
percent of them--only 8 percent, 1 out of 12--ended up receiving legal 
protection from being deported, but the Department says half of them 
are still here in the United States. How does that happen? They didn't 
show up.
  President Biden has also started an unprecedented expansion of the 
refugee program. The most refugees that this country has ever resettled 
in a single

[[Page S1441]]

year was 85,000 in President Obama's final year in office. President 
Biden wants to break the record. He wants to increase it to 125,000. It 
will be the most, by far.
  President Biden has told his administration to bring back the 
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA. Now, this 
is a program for people who were brought here illegally while they were 
children. It is not the children's fault. Yet DACA is illegal, plain 
and simple.
  President Obama has admitted it. Liberal activists asked him to do 
it. At least 10 different times President Obama said: No, I can't do 
it. It is illegal. Then an election year came. He decided to do it 
anyway.
  As you and I know, we are a nation of compassionate people. We are 
giving. We are generous. We have the most generous immigration system 
in the world. The issue before us is one that should be handled by 
Congress, not by Executive order--not through an illegal Executive 
order, and DACA is still illegal. I expect a court will ultimately 
strike it down.
  So this is some of what President Biden has done by Executive order. 
At the same time, he is trying to cram an even more radical agenda 
through Congress. Last month, President Biden's immigration bill was 
introduced in the Senate. It already has the support of 26 cosponsors 
on the Democratic side of the aisle. It includes the majority leader, 
Senator Schumer.
  Well, this bill will give illegal immigrants not just amnesty, 
citizenship--citizenship. Democrats in Washington tried that in 2007, 
the year I arrived in the Senate. The American people picked up the 
phone. They actually shut down the phone lines, shut down the 
switchboards here in the U.S. Senate. They were all calling in to say 
no.
  Democrats in Washington tried it again in 2013. The American people 
picked up the phone again. The American people said no. And we said no 
in the Senate. We said no in 2007, no in 2013. The American people are 
going to say no again in 2021.
  Now, President Biden has issued, signed a lot of Executive orders; 
many of them, the ones I talked about with people at home this weekend 
in Wyoming, very unpopular. Polls show his immigration order is the 
most unpopular of them all.
  President Biden should keep in mind that it was a very close election 
in November. We have a 50-50 Senate, very narrow margins in the House. 
The American people, for the first time, are finding out just how 
liberal Joe Biden is. Many of them are already having buyer's remorse. 
They didn't believe he would be this radical and his actions would be 
this scary.
  President Biden needs to listen to the American people. The American 
people don't want a radical, extreme, dangerous, scary agenda. We want 
safe communities. We want laws obeyed. We want a secure border. It is 
time to stand up to this radical agenda.
  Our immigration system is broken. Instead of breaking it further, we 
should work together to fix it. Let's protect our communities, protect 
our American workers, and secure our southern border.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.