[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 51 (Thursday, March 18, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1657-S1658]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BORDER SECURITY

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, whether the administration wants to call 
it a challenge or a mess--or pick your word--a calculated word choice 
does not change the magnitude of what is currently happening on our 
southern border.
  Hundreds of unaccompanied children are being detained on a daily 
basis, completely overwhelming the capacity of the Border Patrol and 
Health and Human Services to deal with it--witness the two new centers 
opened up in Midland, TX, in West Texas, and a new one at the Kay 
Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas that will house 
approximately 300,000 young men.
  At one point, there were more than 4,200 children in custody, nearly 
3,000 of them held beyond the 72-hour time limit set by the Flores 
Settlement. For comparison, there were about 2,600 children in custody 
at any given time during the peak in 2019, so 2,600 now to 4,200.
  In many cases, these children don't make the dangerous journey north 
with their parents but in the care of human smugglers--coyotes, as they 
are called. Parents pay these smugglers thousands of dollars to bring 
their children to the United States.
  In some cases, along that long, treacherous journey, whether it is 
from Central America or from Mexico or anywhere else--because these 
children are not just limited to Mexico and Central America--these 
children are kidnapped by the smugglers on their way to the border 
because they know having a child in their custody will give them 
preferential treatment and allow them to stay in the country. Sadly, we 
know that, too often, children are mistreated, abused, or even sexually 
assaulted on the way to the United States.
  There is a lot of work that has to be done from the moment the Border 
Patrol first encounters these children until they are transferred into 
the custody of Health and Human Services, but the Border Patrol lacks 
the physical space or the personnel or the resources to provide this 
number of children with the care and support they need and also to 
carry out their duties, especially during a deadly pandemic.
  On Monday, I spoke with the Border Patrol sector chiefs and the 
Office of Field Operations Directors from across Texas. We talked about 
the surge in unaccompanied children and the cascading consequences this 
crisis has had on our other border missions.
  As Border Patrol officers encounter, transport, and care for these 
children, they are often invariably diverted from their job securing 
the border, and so security gaps are left along the rest of the border. 
This is not an accident. This is really part of the strategy that the 
human smugglers and drug smugglers have: flood the zone, preoccupy the 
Border Patrol taking care of children, leaving gaps that can then be 
exploited, either by more human smugglers or by drug smugglers.
  We all know that large amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, 
fentanyl, and the like come across our southern border. Ninety-two 
percent, according to the DEA, of all the heroin in the United States 
comes from Mexico.
  So these smugglers and their really criminal organizations that ply 
in different commodities and different things, they flood the system to 
distract the Border Patrol and then exploit the vulnerabilities to 
bring people, drugs, weapons, and money across.
  One of the Border Patrol chiefs told me that Customs and Border 
Protection needs to be able to identify and classify the migrants they 
meet, and it is being strained, which is impacting national security. 
For example, last Friday when I was in Carrizo Springs and in Laredo 
with my friend Henry Cuellar, a Democrat representing a border district 
in Texas along the Rio Grande, the sector chief told us that, just so 
far this year, migrants from 54 different countries were detained 
coming across the border in the Del Rio Sector. Now, I think that sort 
of gives you a better idea that this is not just a localized 
phenomenon; these are criminal networks with really connections all 
around the world. If you want to come from Mexico, for example, it will 
cost you a few thousand bucks. If you want to come from Central 
America, you pay a little bit more of a premium. If you want to come 
from Europe or a Middle East country, it will cost you even more. But 
it is only a matter of money because that is the only thing that these 
smugglers and these criminal organizations care about.
  But then people from 54 different countries, some of which are 
countries of special interest to the United States for national 
security purposes--54 countries represented just so far this year in 
one sector, and I am sure the other Border Patrol sectors have similar 
stories.
  What is more, since October, the Border Patrol has encountered more 
than 4,000 criminal aliens, nearly double the amount from the previous 
fiscal year in less than half the time. In order to qualify as a 
criminal alien, you have committed significant crimes, like assault, 
battery, domestic violence, sexual offenses, even manslaughter and 
homicide. Of course, these are just the ones we know about and who were 
actually detained. Many more--we don't know how many more, but many 
more get through unobstructed across the border.
  While Border Patrol is overwhelmed by the sheer number of people 
crossing

[[Page S1658]]

our border, including the alarming number of children sent by 
themselves, the Border Patrol isn't able to properly surveil or 
apprehend potentially dangerous individuals and substances.
  We have experienced migration surges in the past, most recently in 
2014 when President Obama called it a humanitarian crisis and then 
again in 2019. We know how dangerous the journey to our border is for 
migrants, especially children. We know that spring and summer are often 
the busiest time periods. In other words, what we are seeing now is 
just a foreshadowing of what we expect to see in the coming weeks and 
months.
  We also know that these criminal organizations pay attention to what 
our leaders are saying here in the United States. Congressman Cuellar 
and I, when we were in Carrizo Springs, were able to talk to a number 
of young men, teenagers, and asked how they heard about the border and 
their ability to get across. They said, well, they saw it on TV or 
heard from family members here in the United States or saw it on social 
media that now is the time to come, with a new administration that is 
not committed to border security, and so this was the time to make 
their run across the border.
  But these organizations do pay attention, and unfortunately the 
actions of the Biden administration not only contributed to another 
surge this year, but they also made likely that it would be bigger than 
any other in recent memory.
  The President campaigned on policies that would lead to this very 
outcome. After all, when you send a message that migrants can come to 
the United States even with the flimsiest asylum claims and stay for 
years until they are resolved and don't even really have to show up for 
their court hearing because of the backlog of 1.2 million cases in our 
immigration courts, what do we expect to happen?
  What the Border Patrol tells me is that this is a combination of push 
factors and pull factors. The push factors we are familiar with. Who 
wouldn't want to come to the United States for a better life? Who 
wouldn't want to avoid the violence and crime associated with some of 
the gang activity in Central America? We all understand that. But the 
pull factors are the sense that you can actually successfully get into 
the United States through illegal means or by making a false asylum 
claim and then overloading the system and basically navigate your way 
into the United States without any negative consequences.
  I believe we need to set up a system that honors and respects all 
legitimate asylum claims, but this isn't it. We need to find a way to 
move the children and other people claiming asylum to the head of the 
line so they can present their claims to an immigration judge. But, as 
you can imagine, only about 10 to 12 percent of the asylum claims are 
actually granted, and if your only concern is making it into the United 
States, maybe you don't want to go in front of an immigration judge. 
But then again, those who don't, the immigration judge, when their 
appointed court date comes, issues a default order of deportation. So 
if you had a valid asylum claim that would have been granted by a 
judge, you have lost that by virtue of your nonappearance at your 
hearing.
  Well, Secretary Mayorkas said we are on track to see the highest 
number of border crossings in almost 20 years, and I can't say that I 
am surprised. There is simply no way to rewind time and prevent this 
crisis from happening, but it is absolutely urgent first that the 
administration acknowledge it and then work with Congress to address 
it.
  I would encourage the President to follow his own advice, which is to 
listen to the experts. The experts I listen to when I travel to the 
border are Border Patrol, Health and Human Services, and the Office of 
Refugee Relocation. Those are the three Federal Government Agencies 
that deal with this crisis. I would be glad to welcome him to my State 
and introduce him to the dedicated men and women along the border who 
provide valuable services but who simply are overwhelmed and 
undersourced.
  The communities in which they live along the border are beautiful, 
vibrant communities with outstanding local leaders, but they also feel 
like they have been abandoned by the Federal Government. They are the 
ones who are disproportionately impacted when you see a flood of 
humanity come through their borders, and they try their best, through 
nongovernmental organizations or just out of simple human mercy and 
sympathy for the plight of these migrants, to help them any way they 
can. But they, too, are overwhelmed. They are doing everything they can 
to manage the crisis, which they had no hand in creating, and they 
should not be expected to manage it without help from the Federal 
Government that is, indeed, responsible for our border.
  Law enforcement, mayors, county judges, nongovernmental 
organizations--I have a long list of folks that I would be happy to 
share with the administration if they would be willing to listen. 
Indeed, one of the most significant things I think that President Biden 
could do, like he did after the polar vortex, the big freeze we had in 
Texas, the 120-year weather event--he was good enough to come to our 
State and talk to the first responders. I think he would benefit 
greatly if he made another trip on Air Force One down to the border so 
he could do what I have had the opportunity to do, and that is to talk 
to the experts and the people on the ground who understand this crisis 
and who have some, I think, very constructive ideas about how to deal 
with it.

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