[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1728-S1729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 132
Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President.
It is obvious to just about everyone outside of Washington that the
situation on our southern border is a crisis. I can't believe that
anyone wouldn't believe that it is a crisis, but there are some who
would answer that it isn't a crisis.
President Biden and the DHS Secretary refused to call it a crisis. It
is not just a challenge. They called it a challenge. This isn't a
challenge. This is a crisis. Ask anyone you see on the street if it is
a crisis--people lined up, coming in illegally.
You don't have to take my word for it. Look at the facts. We have had
a 173-percent increase in border apprehensions compared with 1 year
ago--173-percent increase. This past February, apprehensions were at
the highest total for February in 14 years.
DHS admits that we are on track for the most illegal migrants in more
than 20 years. This is on the border. This is today. This is what is
happening.
Last week, mainstream media news reports found that the
administration is restricting information Border Patrol agents are
allowed to share with the media about the crisis. The border agents
claim that they are under an unofficial gag order. These are the border
agents. These are the ones who do this for a living. They are down
there. They are protecting our laws, stopping illegals from coming in.
That is what their job description is, and yet they are under a gag
order.
They don't want the media to find out. And they are being told to
deny media requests for ride-alongs at the border. Now, that is so the
media can tell the people of America what is going on down there, and
they are being denied that opportunity.
The DHS Secretary claims that he is committed to openness and
transparency, but this is not openness and transparency. This is hiding
from the people what is going on.
Maybe this administration is doing this and refusing to call it a
crisis because their policies have invited this surge. This surge is
coming as a result.
President Biden has frozen funds from Congress directed for the
building of the wall. He ended the ``Remain in Mexico'' asylum policy
that was put there by the previous administration. It is a crisis.
Illegal aliens know Biden is opening our borders up, and they intend
to take advantage of that. And the illegals are wearing the Biden T-
shirts. Do you see this photograph over here? There they are. Biden, we
are coming in.
I know a lot about the southern border because I have been there
countless times, seeing firsthand the problems on both the Mexican side
and the American side of the border. I was a builder and developer for
30 years down there. I know that border. I was there for 30 years, all
the way from Brownsville to McAllen, TX, on both sides. I know the
individuals that are down there who are the career people protecting
our borders.
I am disappointed that the administration is reversing the progress
we have made over the past 4 years and shocked that they simply won't
acknowledge it is a crisis.
The border security should not be a partisan issue, and I am glad
there are a few Senate Democrats who share my concern about this
crisis. I applaud them for speaking out. It took guts to do it.
Well, I have got a resolution, and I am going to introduce this
resolution. I introduced it, actually, already. I think every Senator
will agree with it. It is a simple resolution.
We haven't checked this out yet, but I think this might be the
shortest resolution in the history of the U.S. Senate. I am going to
read it to you.
It simply states:
It is the sense of the Senate that the current influx of
migrants at the Southern land border of the United States
constitutes a crisis.
That is it. Nothing more.
So, with that, Mr. President, as in legislative session--this is a
unanimous consent request, Mr. President. I am making it right now.
As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 132, submitted earlier today. I
further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to and that
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table
with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from California.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
Colleagues, what is happening at the border right now is not just
another policy matter to me; it is personal.
When I see the young Latino children, alone in an unfamiliar setting,
being spoken to by law enforcement and other authorities in a language
that they don't understand, I actually can't help but think of my three
boys. My boys are the same ages as many of the kids presenting
themselves at the border seeking asylum.
They look just like those kids. I see the fear and desperation in the
eyes of the children at the border, and I don't have to imagine how my
boys would look and feel under such circumstances. I have tasted that
already.
In 2018, we were on a family trip in Arizona--June of 2018. It was
the height of Trump's cruel family separation. We took a detour to
Tornillo, TX, to demand humane treatment of the children who were being
intentionally separated from their parents by the previous
administration.
On the way there, I tried to prepare my boys, mentally and
emotionally, for what they were about to see. And it was my youngest
son, Diego, who was 3 years old at the time, who turned to me and said:
Dad, Donald Trump is putting kids in cages. We got to go help them.
My heart broke. Imagine how the children on the border today are
feeling. Imagine how scared they must be. Consider how traumatic their
young lives have already been and how anxious they are for the basic
safety and comfort that so many people take for granted.
Let's think of their parents' anguish, to be so desperate to protect
their children, to be so afraid for their safety, let alone their
future, that they make the heartbreaking decision of sending them on a
dangerous 2,000-mile journey to the U.S. border all alone, knowing that
as risky and as dangerous as that journey is, it is safer than to stay
in their own community.
Let's be clear. These are children. These are families, not that are
well-off, trying to game the system. These are families who are
desperate. Their communities have been ravaged by hurricanes, the
COVID-19 pandemic, and in so many cases, decades of violence. Their
families are threatened by gangs with torture and murder if they stay
home. Asylum seekers aren't just seeking a better life. Many are simply
just trying to stay alive.
Too many policymakers act like asylum seekers are just choosing to
come here, when there is really no choice at all.
So I am deeply disappointed to see so many Members of Congress, both
in the House and in the Senate, depicting desperate, young children at
the border as some sort of threat to our Nation. As though 15,000
practically orphaned children trying to assimilate into our country of
330 million is some sort of existential crisis for our Nation.
The real crisis is the immigration laws that are so broken that
children have to make a treacherous 2,000-mile journey to seek asylum
here. The real crisis is that this situation distracts us from the more
than 11 million undocumented immigrants who have been living in the
United States for years, working and paying taxes in communities all
across America while living
[[Page S1729]]
in constant fear of deportation. They are our neighbors, our teachers,
our nurses, our grocery store workers, our childcare providers. They
are the essential workers whom we have all thanked each and every day
throughout this pandemic who live in constant fear that their lives
will be upended and their families ripped apart at any moment,
depending on the politics of the day in Washington.
The real crisis is that we have strayed so far from our founding
principles as a Nation of immigrants and that we have strayed so far
from the creed emblazoned on the very statue that we erected to welcome
immigrants into New York Harbor saying:
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning
to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my
lamp beside the golden door!
So I am disappointed but, sadly, not surprised that this resolution
is nothing more than a cynical attempt to perpetuate the semantic
nonsense of the day. Our constituents didn't send us to the Senate or
to Congress to identify problems. They sent us here to develop and
enact solutions.
I am more than willing to sit down with my colleague here to try to
come up with some solutions to address what is happening at the
border--solutions that address the lack of resources and the broken
processes left by the previous administration, solutions that recognize
the fundamental humanity of these desperate children and families who
simply want to live to see their next birthday, and solutions that stay
true to the values of this Nation.
I have an amendment to the resolution at the desk to strike the text
of the Inhofe resolution and to insert the following:
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that our
outdated immigration laws and the lack of a pathway to
citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who
form the backbone of communities across the United States
constitutes a crisis and that the United States Senate must
take up immigration reform this year.
I ask that Senator Inhofe's request be modified as follows: that the
Padilla substitute amendment at the desk to the resolution be
considered and agreed to; that the resolution, as amended, be agreed
to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon
the table with no intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification?
Mr. INHOFE. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Is there objection to the original request?
Mr. PADILLA. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I hope everyone heard this. I haven't met
the Senator from California real well yet. I look forward to it. I look
forward to serving with him, but I hope that everyone heard what is
going on now: Just open the borders.
You know, people in other countries--I won't mention some of them
because I don't want them to be put in an awkward position--they say:
Why in the world don't we have stronger borders in the United States of
America? And we don't.
Our previous President, I talked to him this morning. I talked to
former President Trump this morning, and I talked about what is going
on down there at the border. And the reason I am familiar with this--
much more familiar than the Senator from California or anyone else--is
that I worked down there for 30 years on that border, all the way from
Brownsville, TX, to McAllen. I know the border people down there. I
know the agents down there. And for them to tell me that they have been
told not to talk to the media about what is going on--I hope everyone
knows what is going on right now, today. This is going on.
You know, President Trump is all for people coming into America the
legal way. He has made that very clear over and over again. He has
spent time down on the border, both borders, making sure that we can
have a legal--one of the most gratifying things in my job as a U.S.
Senator, and I have been in these Chambers now since 1994--one of the
most enjoyable things is to go to naturalization ceremonies. And you
talk to these people who have come and worked to come across legally to
our country. I defy you to find any one of these individuals who
ha come here legally and gone through this naturalization process--they
know more about the history of this country than people on the street,
than people who were born here and people who are serving here in the
U.S. Senate. They know the language. They learn the language. They did
it the hard way. How do you tell them: You have gone through all this
in the process of becoming legal, but you didn't have to do that. You
just march right in. They are inviting you in. They want you in.
Put it back up. Yes, that is what is going on right now. That is what
is going on at the border. So I want everyone to know what is happening
now.
We can be sympathetic to a lot of people, but the idea of saying that
we had a President who was putting kids in cages, come on. Let's get
real. We don't want to do that. We don't have to do that. We just want
to make it very clear to the American people that we have borders, and
we ought to be protecting these borders.
A lot of the people who come in, they aren't necessarily from Central
America or from Mexico. These are--a lot of them are terrorists coming
over. They are coming from the Middle East, coming from all over the
world, coming into our porous borders.
Now, is that what people want? No, it is not. Overwhelmingly, they
have rejected the idea of open borders, letting everyone come in.
Well, we are to going stay with this, and I am going to resubmit this
very simple resolution, as follows:
It is the sense of the Senate that the current influx of
migrants at the southern land border of the United States
constitutes a crisis.
It is a crisis.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.