[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 87 (Wednesday, May 19, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H2606-H2609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NEWS FROM OUR SOUTHERN BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, since our last couple of floor periods, I 
had a chance to visit our southern border one more time, and I would 
like to point out what is going on there because I think it is the most 
important issue in America today.
  So that our listeners understand, there are two classes of people who 
come to our border. There are people who are caught or deal with the 
Border Patrol--and a lot of people want to be found by the Border 
Patrol because they think they can come into this country through an 
asylum process--and there are other people who sneak across the border.
  In April, our Border Patrol touched--or dealt with about 178,000 
individuals. A year ago, that number was 17,000. So we have voluntarily 
gone up from having the Border Patrol deal with about 17,000 to 
178,000.
  As we deal with more people who are touched by the Border Patrol, the 
Border Patrol has to spend more time doing paperwork, particularly with 
the children.
  We have another group of people coming across the border called get-

[[Page H2607]]

aways. Because they are get-aways, nobody knows exactly how many there 
are. We do have drones. We do have our new wall together with sensors. 
And we are guessing right now that the number of get-aways has gone 
from about 10,000 a month a year ago to 30,000 a month.
  We feel when you combine the two totals, we are going from about 
10,000 a month people coming across our border to--just guessing--70- 
to 80,000 people a month crossing our border.
  One thing I found at the border is that it is a misnomer to say most 
or all of these people are necessarily coming from Mexico or Central 
America. The last time I was down there, we looked at the three western 
sectors of the Mexican border. There are nine sectors. We looked at the 
San Diego, El Centro, and Yuma sectors.
  In the San Diego sector, the second most common nationality coming 
across at the time we were down there was Russian. In the other two 
sectors, the most common nationality for quite a while had been 
Brazilian.
  While I was there, we watched Border Patrol process a group of about 
40 people coming across. They weren't even from one country. It was a 
group, and some of the people were from Russia, some were from Romania, 
some were from Cuba.

  When we looked at the facilities the Border Patrol had down there, 
they had names of countries in--what else to call them--pens, where 
they were holding people. Sometimes a lot of people were kind of 
squished together.
  Another country that people are commonly coming from was Ecuador. I 
said a lot of people are coming here from Cuba. We saw a large pen for 
people from India, though, to be honest, nobody was in it. But in any 
event, people are coming here from all around the world.
  We also noticed at the border that the huge slats used to build the 
wall, which they had to cut short on, are apparently being stolen. 
Somebody paid for all these things that were supposed to be used to 
build a wall that was 30 feet high above the ground and 8 feet below 
the ground.
  We cut short the building of that wall right when President Biden was 
sworn in. We already paid for the equipment. There was a lot of 
equipment used to put together the wall that had been rented. 
Apparently that money was wasted. Right now, the slats used for the 
wall are apparently being stolen at night by people who are selling 
them on the market.
  One other observation about the wall: There has been an increase of 
traffic coming by boat in the San Diego area. And the reason the Border 
Patrol thinks that is true or the reason it is true is because of the 
effectiveness of the wall. Because the wall is doing a good job, people 
are more likely to get in a boat, go 20 miles out to sea and 20 miles 
back to come in.
  The people who are let in this country pending an asylum hearing are 
put all over the country. They are frequently left with a nonprofit 
organization, perhaps the Catholic Social Services, and they find 
somewhere for them everywhere you look.
  Another thing that you have to realize as things get worse with the 
wall is the number of drugs coming across the southern border. I had 
always wondered what would happen to the drug cartels as marijuana was 
legalized in the United States. One of the arguments for legalization 
of marijuana is it would weaken the drug cartels. Because they would no 
longer have to sneak the drugs across the border, that what would 
happen is that they would grow the marijuana in greenhouses here--
Colorado, Washington, where have you--and the drug gangs would dry up. 
Not so.
  I recently heard an anecdote in which a lot of marijuana was shipped 
across the border, and they couldn't find anybody to sell it to because 
the quality of marijuana grown in America is superior to the marijuana 
grown in Mexico. Because it is no longer that profitable to ship 
marijuana across the border, what happens is there has been a dramatic 
increase in more severe drugs: heroin; cocaine; meth; and the worst of 
all, fentanyl.
  We recently hit a new record in which we have had 90,000 deaths in a 
12-month period in the United States. In Milwaukee County, of which I 
represent a part, there were 540 deaths last year. Milwaukee County is 
not big like Cook County or some of these other counties around here. 
It is about a million people. 540 deaths in Milwaukee County is a huge 
deal. For whatever reason, I think the press has underpublicized it.

                              {time}  2110

  I think one of the reasons for the big increases is because you are 
seeing more and more dangerous drugs coming across the southern border.
  I would like to give a tip of the cap to the dogs that the Border 
Patrol uses at the border. When we were down there, we saw dogs who had 
detected fentanyl located in a gas tank. Of course, a gas tank smells 
so much, you figure there is no way that a dog could detect that 
because the smell of the gasoline is so strong. But even there, the 
dogs had detected it.
  The thing is, the dogs could only sniff so many cars coming across. 
It would be a good idea if the Border Patrol would get more dogs.
  In any event, if you want to talk about an underpublicized problem: 
90,000 deaths in America last year from drug overdoses. At least at the 
drug administration in Milwaukee County, they speculated that the drugs 
that killed every one of the 540 people down there, either the drugs 
themselves or the ingredients for the drugs came across the southern 
border.
  Now, you might say: Can we do anything to prevent this? Can we do 
anything to prevent there being 17,000 up to 178,000 contacts coming 
across the border? Yes.
  Why did we not have a problem a little while ago, and what changed 
it?
  First of all, President Trump had negotiated something called the 
migrant protection protocol in which people were held on the Mexican 
side of the border pending a hearing for asylum. Because of that, less 
people showed up in the first place. President Biden got rid of 
President Trump's agreement with Mexico to hold people at the southern 
border. First of all, more people are let in right away, and secondly, 
it advertises to prospective illegal immigrants around the world that 
now is the time to come.
  Secondly, we had an asylum cooperative agreement with the Central 
American countries to hold people south of the Mexican border. In other 
words, if somebody wanted to come up from Venezuela and said, ``I need 
protection. I need asylum,'' they were held in Central American 
countries. Obviously, if they were concerned that they were being 
persecuted by the government, why would you have to come to the United 
States? It would be perfectly fine to stay in Guatemala, stay in El 
Salvador, wherever. That agreement was torn apart.
  Finally, we changed the way we are dealing with COVID. Given the big 
deal we make about COVID, it is kind of surprising the Biden 
administration is letting people in without being tested for COVID, but 
they are.
  Between these three things, we have managed to go to probably about 
10,000 people who we don't want coming here a month to an unknown 
number, but probably 70,000 to 80,000.
  I am afraid what will happen is that number will continue to grow. 
One of the reasons it is so much greater than it was in the past is 
because the gangs that help people get here charge people to come here. 
They charge $3,000 for a Mexican to cross the border, about $5,000 for 
a Central American. I am told $9,000 to $10,000 for a Brazilian.
  Obviously, as it is easier to come here, the drug gangs will educate 
people in other countries and market in other countries to see if they 
can get here.
  Other comments that I learned at the border: We already, in this 
fiscal year, have 6,000 arrests. That is over twice the amount we had 
in the entire last fiscal year. And these are for very serious crimes.
  I also want to point out that usually you frequently only know if 
somebody has committed a crime or if somebody is a criminal if they 
committed a crime in this country. You don't know if they are coming 
here to escape from another country. So, we are letting an increased 
number of a criminal class in this country.
  It is estimated that 33 percent of the women who come to this 
country, on their way up, as they walk through Mexico, are abused. Some 
of these women may find they have to pay the

[[Page H2608]]

money they are supposed to give to the gangs by being trafficked, and 
that is a horrible thing. I don't know where these people are in this 
building who purport to be concerned about human trafficking, but one 
way women can pay their way, for their $5,000 or $8,000 or whatever, is 
obvious. The current system encourages that.
  Another problem with it is when people cross the border, and it is a 
very mountainous border, whether you are in Arizona, whether you are in 
California, whether you are in New Mexico, you can wind up dehydrating 
to death. The drug gangs that show people how to get here do not take 
people necessarily all the way to civilization. They take them across 
the Mexican border, and they may say there is a town 10 miles that way 
or 15 miles that way. There may or may not be a town that close.
  The Americans do put jugs of water out for people and hope they 
survive. But last year, in the Tucson sector alone, they found 100 
people dehydrated to death, which is another problem that you have with 
this hodgepodge at the border.
  Another problem that you find out is the children who come across the 
border, sometimes the children are people who are borrowed or rented or 
whatever from other people and are not related to the people who claim 
to be their parents or relatives in some fashion. Sometimes, we are 
able to identify that with DNA testing. Sometimes, we don't.
  Children come up, maybe young children, even 7- or 8-year-old 
children, have fastened to their clothing who they are supposed to 
contact when they come here. The United States, under a bad court 
decision--in my opinion, a bad court decision--those children, rather 
than, say, being sent back to their parents in Honduras, may be sent to 
their supposed aunt or uncle in New York.
  In the United States, when the children come to the border, they 
provide transportation to get those little kids to somewhere in the 
United States. The idea being that once one child comes here, 
eventually, the rest of the family is going to follow.
  All the way across the board, we have a very dangerous situation. I 
implore the Biden administration to do something about this, and I 
implore the American public to get upset about this and demand that 
their Congressman does something.

  I think the first thing we have to do is, of course, beg the Mexican 
Government to reinstate the migrant protection protocol, beg the 
Central American governments to reinstate the asylum cooperative 
agreements, and do what we can to immediately test for COVID the people 
coming across the border.
  The next thing we have to do, Mr. President, is address the Vice 
President. The Vice President was appointed over 8 weeks ago now to be 
the czar for the southern border. I have been at the border three times 
this year. You do not know what is going on at the border unless you 
literally sit down, talk to the Border Patrol agents, talk to law 
enforcement of the counties that are on the border, talk to the 
ranchers who have to live with people crossing their land.
  Clearly, Vice President Harris is not interested in finding these 
things out. I have made bad hires in my life. I have assigned people to 
jobs that maybe they couldn't do that well. I beg President Biden, who 
says he is a moderate, to find somebody else to be the border czar.
  The current situation in which we have the number of people let in 
this country rocketing up is just unacceptable. If Ms. Harris, or Vice 
President Harris, can go 8 weeks without visiting the border, it 
clearly shows that she is insubordinate, is not interested in doing a 
good job. There must be somebody else in the Biden administration who 
can pick up the slack and express some interest in closing our border.
  I should digress and point out that this does not mean we are anti-
immigration. In 2019, almost 850,000 new citizens were sworn in, in 
this country. There are work visas, as well. There are plenty of ways 
to come into this country legally, but we do not need this massive sea 
of people coming here illegally.
  Again, I implore the American public. When we see the Border Patrol 
touch 178,000 people a month, that is unacceptable. When we talk about 
30,000 getaways, that is not acceptable. The numbers are going to 
continue to spiral up as we have had public comments from both the 
President and Vice President that indicate they are not interested in 
enforcing our laws.

                              {time}  2120

  Now I would like to touch briefly on another crisis that I hope the 
American public expresses their concern about during our 3-week recess.
  There have always been people trying to destroy America. And America 
is such a hope for people all around the world, both our example and 
the fact that we do have many immigrants coming here. There have been 
various ideologies which have been used to overthrow our government, or 
change our government so it is no longer in accordance with our 
Constitution.
  John Adams said our Constitution is fit for a moral and religious 
people and not fit for anyone else.
  There was a time when Marxists traditionally felt they could 
destabilize the American population and that way have a rebellion in 
the United States. Eventually, they gave up hope on traditional 
Marxism, or at least gave up hope for a while.
  The reason they gave up hope is, quite frankly, the American middle 
class was so prosperous. And in America you could find just by going to 
work, working hard, saving some money, you could buy a house bigger 
than what you would find in any other country. And as a result, the 
lure of Marxism, which took over in China--albeit with some mistakes 
made by the American Government--which took over in Russia, which took 
over in Cambodia, resulting in maybe over 100 million deaths of 
Marxists caused in other countries, not to mention the destruction of 
the churches, the destruction of the family. That failed.
  More recently, the left-wingers in our university system has taken it 
upon themselves to talk about critical race theory. Now under classic 
Marxism, they try to take over by educating the American public that 
they should be bitter and angry, and they should want to revolt so that 
they could own the factories or own the big houses, and have a 
revolution that way.
  The new effort is to try to create anger based on race, and they call 
it critical race theory. And they want to tell people that if you don't 
have all you have, it must be because of racism. If you don't have the 
nice house you want, if you don't have a big amount in your savings 
account, or whatever, that is the problem.
  Recently, I ran into a little bit of what I will call critical race 
theory in one of my local high schools. In the high school, a teacher 
educated a class, which was devoted to racism, mentioned that in the 
past year, 4 percent of the kids in this high school were Black, and 20 
percent of the kids who were arrested were Black. The teacher told the 
kids, of course, or implied to the kids that this was the result of 
racism.
  There is a problem twice. First of all, you are educating people in 
the United States of America, which we have just covered, the whole 
rest of the world wants to get in here. You are educating kids that 
America is not worth preserving, America is not worth fighting for, 
America is a bad country.
  Secondly, you educate people that if they are arrested for drugs, for 
fighting, what have you, or if the police interact with you, it is not 
a matter of you did something wrong, it is a matter of racism.
  I can't think of any clearer way to make sure that people do not 
progress in our system than telling them that if they do something 
wrong, the punishment was not because they deserve the punishment, it 
was because of racism. But this is the mindset that is out there right 
now in our schools. It is the mindset that is out there in our large 
businesses and in our military.
  I think people have to educate themselves as to what critical race 
theory is, because clearly, the goal of critical race theory is to make 
people not proud or not respect the United States and, furthermore, 
make people bitter and angry, and tell people rather than work hard--
you work 45-50 hours a week, try to afford a house, try to have 
children, buy a car--it tells people if you don't have all you want, it 
is because of racism.

[[Page H2609]]

  And there is no way teaching our young people that is going to lead 
to anything other than resentment and a great deal of unhappiness. I 
think it is obvious that America does not have the racist problems that 
other countries have. And I beg people to read about countries like 
India, countries like Somalia, where minor ethnic differences result in 
deaths, huge amounts of discrimination.
  Here in the United States, in recent years, Asians, and before that, 
many other different so-called minority groups outdid financially--
finances aren't everything--but financially exceeded the native-born.
  We can see that America is not a racist country because I talked 
about, a second ago, people from all around the world are trying to get 
in here, and almost nobody ever wants to leave. So when it really comes 
to saying it is bad, no one wants to leave, but the whole rest of the 
world tries to come here, be it from Africa, be it from Latin America, 
be it from the Indian subcontinent, be it from Southeast Asia.
  So many wonderful people come here. My district has a lot of Hmong 
who are tremendously successful, despite coming from a very different 
background, loving America, taking full advantage of the opportunities 
that are there.
  However, if we let this pernicious ideology get in our schools and 
get in our businesses, it will be a success for the left-wing groups 
that have always wanted to destroy the special country that is America.
  And I encourage parents and grandparents and employees to report or 
publicize when they are forced to put up with this stuff in the schools 
or in the businesses.
  There is something for our wonderful American listeners to deal with 
over the next 3 weeks.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities towards the vice president.

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