[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 88 (Thursday, May 20, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3174-S3175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BORDER SECURITY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, our Nation's 
southern border is still in crisis. The Biden administration still 
won't admit it. Much of the media would prefer not to cover it, but the 
facts are clear, and they are unacceptable.
  A few days ago, Customs and Border Protection issued its report on 
the month of April. The number of encounters with illegal entrants was 
3 percent

[[Page S3175]]

higher in April than it was in March. The crisis is still growing. 
Encounters with single adults on the border were 613 percent higher 
last month versus April of last year, when the Trump administration put 
emergency measures in place. Encounters with unaccompanied children 
were up 2,217 percent year over year. Let me say that one more time: 
2,217 percent more kids, without parents, at our border on President 
Biden's watch.
  The administration has tried to boast that the number of 
unaccompanied kids in the custody of the Department of Homeland 
Security has gone down. It has. It is because they have transferred 
large numbers of kids from DHS to HHS. There are now more than 19,000 
children in the custody of Health and Human Services, and hundreds more 
are arriving every single day.
  We know why all of this is happening. When Washington Democrats spent 
years reciting the mantra ``Abolish ICE; abolish ICE,'' people 
listened. When our new President spent his campaign signaling he would 
support a weaker border when he expressed that he supported providing 
government healthcare to people here illegally, people actually took 
note. Now the Democrats cannot get control of the crisis that they have 
stoked.
  The Vice President--supposedly, the point person to fix illegal 
immigration--has yet to even visit the southern border.
  Apparently, Secretary Becerra's operation at HHS has, in some 
instances, left migrant children stranded on buses for multiple days--
exactly the kind of unacceptable mismanagement that Senate Republicans 
feared we might see under an HHS Secretary without relevant healthcare 
or management experience. Last week, HHS announced it would be taking 
money that was meant to replenish the Strategic National Stockpile--
money to fight this pandemic and future pandemics--to help with the 
migrant crisis.
  Well, today, the Senate will consider another amendment from the 
senior Senator from Wisconsin. It would stop the Biden administration 
from canceling contracts that are already in place to build a wall on 
our southern border. Perhaps our Democratic colleagues will help us 
begin to address the border crisis this administration has caused.

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