[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 49 (Tuesday, March 16, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1545-S1547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, on January 20 of this year, President 
Biden declared the repeal of an emergency action at our southwest 
border. He withdrew that and said there is no emergency that currently 
exists there and paused all funding for the border wall system 
construction--stopped it. Wherever it was that day, it ended that day.
  The same day, he announced a 100-day moratorium on deportations in 
the country--stopped that. Within a few days, the courts stepped in and 
a Federal court said that you can't just stop actually executing 
faithfully the laws of the United States. The court halted

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then his halt of a moratorium on deportations. In this case, his actual 
request for a moratorium on deportation halt was for those who had 
actually gone all the way through the court system and a Federal court 
had asked them to be removed from the United States. That is what 
President Biden was trying to stop.
  Federal courts then stepped in and said that when the courts said 
they had to be removed, the executive branch can't just ignore that. 
They have to actually be removed.
  That opened the flood gates. Those two announcements together--that 
we are not going to do any more border construction, that we are going 
to stop that, and the announcement of the moratorium--started the 
process of a stir in Central America among the human smugglers to get 
the word out to say this President is going to allow to let people in 
and it is going to be different.
  Why would I say that and why would they say that? Because even in the 
time when I was sitting down with now Secretary Mayorkas in his 
hearings before he was actually confirmed, I asked him in those 
hearings: If there is a caravan coming to the United States right now 
with hundreds of people in it and growing, what is your message to them 
if you became the Secretary of DHS? What would you want to make sure 
those folks heard?
  His response to me in that hearing was: I would tell them to wait. 
Not yet. Not yet.
  The coyotes didn't hear it that way. They accelerated pushing people.
  What is actually happening on the border?
  Last weekend, I spent the weekend in Arizona just south of Tucson in 
Nogales, a small little town of 26,000 people that sits right on the 
border with Mexico. It is 26,000 on the American side, but on the 
Mexican side it is a city of 450,000. It is a very large community on 
that side and, literally, they have built up the community directly 
against the border.
  Much of that border fencing has been there a very long time. They 
built properties directly against that fence. They are Mexicans. They 
can do that. That is their property to be able to do that. That is not 
the issue.
  The interesting thing was to visit with folks from HHS taking care of 
the unaccompanied minors in the area, to visit with Customs and Border 
Protection that are actually handling the cross-border transition, and 
with Border Patrol leadership to go through that area and see it.
  Let me tell you a couple of things I saw this weekend to help you get 
the context. The folks who I visited with at HHS, who are there taking 
care of the unaccompanied minors coming in--and we are seeing a 
significant surge of unaccompanied minors because the Biden 
administration has changed the policy and said that if you are 18 years 
old and up, because of the pandemic, we are not going to allow you in. 
It is called title 42 authority. The Trump administration actually put 
that in place and said: During the time of the pandemic, we are trying 
to limit cross-border traffic. You can't just come in.
  The Biden team changed that and said: If you are 18 and up, you can't 
come in immediately. If you are 17 and down, you can
  So we are seeing a massive surge of unaccompanied minors right now. 
It is literally an invitation to say: You can come, but don't bring 
your family with you.
  When I sat down with the folks at HHS there, who are doing a 
fantastic job with the best they can to be able to take care of those 
kids, I asked them: What are you seeing?
  The vast majority of the kids that they are seeing coming across the 
border are 16- and 17-year-old males. When you hear the term, ``We've 
got all these kids coming across the border,'' sometimes, as Americans, 
we think these are 5-year-olds crossing the border. They are not. The 
vast majority of them are 16- and 17-year-old males coming across the 
border. They are also being transported to individuals who are here in 
the country who are family members and who are already present here in 
the country. Most of those are also illegally present in the country. 
They are uncles and aunts. They are cousins and brothers and sisters 
who are already here because we have separate categories of how we 
actually transition those kids to someone who can take care of them 
before we have the court hearing. Most of those court hearings will 
take 2 the years. They are crossing the border, these 16- and 17-year-
old males, and being connected with an uncle who is already here and 
many times, illegally, as well. They will have the next 2 years to be 
here before they have a court hearing and be able to go through the 
process--if they come to the court hearing.
  When I visited with the folks at Customs and Border Protection, they 
were frustrated with the lack of funding that has been given to them to 
be able to take care of the needs for that particular facility and help 
manage the number of people who are coming through. They need 
additional assistance because in that very old facility, they need 
additional barriers to just help them manage the flow of people as they 
come through.
  When I visited with Border Patrol, we drove just a couple of miles 
out into the desert, just to the west of this town of 450,000 people, 
to go see the new fence that is being constructed. It may be hard to 
see it in this, but miles and miles of new fencing are going in.
  But on the day of January 20, construction was halted. In this 
particular area, there are miles and miles of fencing except for these 
gaps in the fence. Those gaps were put in there to be gates. So if they 
have to take care of the fence, they can get access to both sides of 
this. These miles and miles of fencing are done except for the gate 
area, and, literally, the steel for the gates are laying on the ground.
  Why in the world would you do construction and have it stop to say 
you can build everything except close the gates?
  The Border Patrol team has literally drug over some of the steel just 
to be able to stack it in front of the gaps that are in the fence here 
to keep vehicles from driving through and try to put different barriers 
there and try to slow down the traffic.
  For every one of these gaps along these miles and miles of fence, 
they are having to assign a Border Patrol agent there just to be able 
to sit at that gap because it is the obvious place to literally be able 
to walk through the fence.
  There is only one reason that you would have a fence like this for 
miles and miles and leave it open as a gap--to allow people through. 
Worse than that, all the way through this construction area is just a 
dirt path they used for construction. But in the contract itself, it 
was set up to allow for the fence construction first. Remember, this is 
a wall system. There is technology and wall.
  Walls are medieval, I get that, but there is a reason we still use 
fences in our backyard and still a reason we use fences as barriers 
because they work. They slow people down from actually crossing that 
barrier.
  But it is a wall system in place. For miles and miles and miles in 
the contract and as it is written, they put up the fence first, close 
up the gates second, and then they finish the road so Border Patrol can 
actually pass through here, even when it rains in this area, to have a 
simple road passage there. Then they put in ground-based sensors so 
they can detect when people are walking across. Then they put in lights 
and cameras--all the technology we talk about in this room. I can't 
remember how many times I have heard my Democratic colleagues say: 
Fences are old. Let's just do the technology. Technology can help 
manage this.
  In this situation, the contract is out and done. The fence is already 
installed, except for the gates, but no technology is there. So, 
literally, the Biden team stops before what even they claim is the 
effective part to stop people illegally crossing the border. The $1.6 
billion was paused--that $1.6 that goes to simply closing the gates and 
installing the technology. That is what remains. This is nonsensical.
  I understand the Biden team and some of my Democratic colleagues want 
a more open border. They have been clear on that. This does not provide 
security for our Nation. This is the result of saying: I don't want any 
more wall.
  This is a nonsensical system on our southern border, with literally 
open areas that you could drive a truck through and where Border Patrol 
agents have to then sit at. Rather than

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monitor large areas, they are stuck monitoring the open door.
  Listen, we can have arguments about immigration, but, supposedly, we 
all agree we should have border security--at least we used to. This 
doesn't make sense. But this is now the reality, and it will sit like 
this for we don't know how long--maybe forever--until we as a nation 
determine this has to change.
  It is an open invitation.
  Have things really changed significantly on the border? Let me give 
you an example that is pre-COVID--pre-COVID, February of last year, 
before COVID came through. So don't say that things have changed in 
COVID. In February of 2020, we had under 40,000 people who were 
apprehended crossing our southern border that month--under 40,000 pre-
COVID. That is a transition and an arrest process.
  This February, with the only thing changing being the change of 
Presidents, we had over 100,000 people illegally crossing the border. 
One year later, we go from less than 40,000 to over 100,000.
  This is a manufactured crisis that is happening on our border: a 
halting of closing up the holes in the fence; statements that we are 
going to do a moratorium, that we are not going to have anyone deported 
anymore; changing the rules on unaccompanied minors to basically invite 
them to come into the United States; and, again, statements like, 
``Caravans, I will just tell them to pause; we are not quite ready for 
you yet.''
  That is really not going to be a pause at all. That is going to be an 
invitation. That is not me saying that. It is the thousands and 
thousands of people who are coming to be able to connect with relatives 
who are already here and to be able to walk through a process, to be 
able to go around our visa application process and go around legal 
immigration.
  I remind us as a country that we allow a million people a year to 
legally come to the United States and become citizens--a million people 
a year. We are not a stingy nation in engaging with legal immigration. 
There is a right way to do it, and we welcome people to do it the right 
way. This is welcoming people to do it the wrong way, and that does not 
help our security as a nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.