[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 2, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. President, it was just a couple weeks ago that 
President Biden asked the Nation--he asked Republicans: What are 
Republicans for?
  I want to make it clear tonight that I am for border security. I am 
for law and order.
  I have been to the border three times in the past 4 to 5 years, and 
what I saw there was a crisis. And if I could, I just want to paint 
just for a minute what that crisis looks like.
  Having been overseas doing medical mission work, I think I know a 
humanitarian, a health crisis when I see it, and this was a 
humanitarian crisis, a health crisis--thousands of people sleeping 
underneath a bridge. They just traveled across Mexico for days, maybe 
weeks, maybe months.
  And as a physician, I looked out there, and what did I see? I saw 
people who were dehydrated, malnourishment, dehydration from diarrhea, 
from dysentery, scabies, tuberculosis.
  The Border Patrol was overwhelmed. The doctors were overwhelmed, the 
nurses, the dentists--everybody was overwhelmed. That is what I would 
call a humanitarian crisis.
  One of the biggest humanitarian crises going on, though, is human 
trafficking. As an obstetrician/gynecologist in Kansas, believe it or 
not, we would have to take care of young women who had been abused from 
human trafficking. Maybe they had chlamydia, maybe they were having a 
miscarriage, but I am just shocked at the amount of human trafficking 
going on across the border.
  In fiscal year 2021, 145,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended at 
the southern border. And I want to emphasize, this is young girls and 
young boys that are being abused and sold into sex slavery.
  Of that 145,000, about a third of the minors that were released to a 
sponsor we lost contact with. Are we turning children over to human 
trafficking? I think that is what we are all concerned about.
  So I think certainly there is indeed a humanitarian crisis, a health 
crisis there.
  Just to talk a little bit more about the border--and we will put that 
up here and renegotiate the microphone.
  Look at the statistics from last year alone. Two million people were 
apprehended at the border last year--2 million people. Do you realize 
that there are 14 States in this country with less than 2 million 
people?
  And beyond that, as I spoke with the Border Patrol there, they told 
me for every person they apprehend that two got across the lines, so 
probably an additional 4 million people came across, a total of 6 
million. There are 30 States in our country with a population of 6 
million people.
  Furthermore, what we are doing is making the cartel rich. Again, what 
I was told by Texas Rangers and Border Patrol officers is the cartel is 
making $3,000 to $9,000 per person. And, of course, if it was some 
person maybe from the Middle East, a little bit harder to get across 
the border, they were getting $20 to $30,000 a person as well.
  I haven't talked yet about the national security crisis. I think we 
have all seen the films and the reports of single adult males being 
flown on nighttime flights across the Nation being released, migrants 
using arrest warrants as forms of identification. I think, you know, 
America is not stupid. We see what is going on.
  I want to talk about fentanyl for a second. So probably 90, 95 
percent of the fentanyl coming into this country is made in China, 
coming across our southern border.
  An average month of fentanyl being seized at the border was over 800 
pounds. That is almost a half a ton of fentanyl. That would kill 200 
million people. Now, this is a drug that if a drug dog sniffs it, it 
kills them. It makes them stop breathing. Most normal people, if they 
just had a small, small amount in it, it would make them stop 
breathing.
  This is the national security crisis going on--more young people 
dying from fentanyl overdose than from COVID--and that is just part of 
the national security crisis.
  You know, I kind of started off this discussion saying what I am for; 
that I am for border security. I want to tell you how we can fix the 
problems there, and these are solutions every American knows.
  DHS, several years ago, came up with a $25 billion budget to control 
the border. I couldn't think of a better way to invest $25 billion of 
American dollars--to build a wall where it needs to be built, to finish 
the wall, to put the gates in that are sitting there rusting away. We 
could start with that.
  We, of course, need more boots on the ground, more technology, more 
drug dogs--but $25 billion would significantly improve the situation on 
the southern border.
  Next, the administration can fully and in good faith enforce the 
``Remain in Mexico'' policy and then catch-and-release practices.
  And, finally, this, of course: work with Mexico. Let's go back and 
ask Mexico to help us to get the control, the security on the border; 
ask them to work on their southern border, which is much easier to 
control and, of course, work with our Border Patrol on our common 
border.

  This is a crisis that America sees. Every townhall I do, someone is 
going to bring it up. Every one of them, without any question, someone 
is going to ask me--they say: Why does President Biden want this 
crisis?
  I say: Well, what do you mean, he wants it?
  They say: Well, obviously, he wants this crisis because it would 
still--it would be so easy to fix.
  So if we see the problem, we know the solution--that would be my 
question for President Biden. Do you have the will to fix this crisis?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.