[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 112 (Monday, June 28, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H3161]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            NO END IN SIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Nehls) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NEHLS. Madam Speaker, Vice President Kamala Harris was named 
border czar on March 24, 2021. It was 93 days later when she finally 
went down to visit a border community amidst this unprecedented 
humanity crisis. There is just one problem: she didn't actually visit 
the border.
  Last Friday, Vice President Harris hopped off her plane in El Paso 
for a few hours on her way to California. She quickly toured a border 
patrol station 10 miles away from the actual border avoiding a visit to 
ground zero.
  And what do I mean by ``ground zero''? I mean the actual border where 
thousands of migrants are flooding across daily, like the Rio Grande 
Valley sector where over 50,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in 
May alone, which is 128 percent, more than the entire El Paso sector.
  Or in the Del Rio sector where every afternoon buses on the Mexican 
side of the border pull up and they unload hundreds of migrants who 
cross the Rio Grande River in knee-high water.
  I saw it myself firsthand when I visited the Del Rio sector in June. 
While I was there getting a tour of the actual border, a couple of men 
crossed the Rio Grande over to the American side, and when they got to 
the bank of the river, DPS agents and I questioned them.
  We asked them where they were from, why they were here, and why they 
thought they could get into America. They told us they were from Cuba 
and they had come here to work. Then they told us something that 
shouldn't surprise anyone: They thought they could get into America 
because President Biden said they could come.
  Within minutes, agents of Border Patrol pulled up in a van, loaded 
with other migrants who had crossed down river, and away they went. 
Situations like this are happening in the thousands every day along our 
border. And Border Patrol is the one being forced to pick these 
migrants up, process them, straining their manpower and resources, 
resulting in our border being completely open for criminal illegal 
aliens who want to cross undetected.
  Americans have been hearing about this Biden border crisis for 
months, and they see nothing changing. They see the cartels are getting 
rich trafficking these migrants across our border. And they hear the 
horror stories of children being abandoned and abused during their 
journey to our southern border. All of this has a real world impact on 
Americans.
  As a former county sheriff in Texas, I know all too well the second 
and third order effects of an unsecure southern border. Americans will 
undoubtedly become victims of crime from the illegal aliens 
successfully avoiding detection when they cross. Like Ms. Bowie who was 
run over and killed while I was sheriff by an illegal alien who had 
been deported six times prior.
  Our open border will strain local law enforcement and border State 
resources who are tasked with cleaning up the mess. A mess created by 
the Biden administration's failure to stem the flow of illegal aliens 
pouring across the border.
  But it really doesn't need to be this way. The Biden border crisis 
all started when Biden reversed the Trump administration's remain in 
Mexico policy and stopped construction of the wall. We can get back to 
operational control of our southern border if the Biden administration 
just reverts back to the Trump administration's policies. Until then, 
there simply is no end in sight.

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