[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 57 (Thursday, March 31, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H4066-H4070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RESCINDING TITLE 42 OF THE SOUTHERN BORDER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Roy) for 30 minutes.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for coming down here and
talking about the importance of farming in the United States. One of
the things we are dealing with, obviously, and talked about, is some
fertilizer shortages. I know that firsthand, seeing some of the farms
in the district I represent, West Texas and so forth. And we have got a
lot of issues we have got to address.
And I just want to note, as a Texan--we had my fellow Texan down here
just a little bit ago--that here we sit again. Here it is, March 31, in
an empty Chamber again. It is the close of a quarter, a fiscal quarter.
Members got their places to go, their dinners to go to.
We just ran through a handful of votes today. No amendments. No
debates.
Here is the people's House in all its glory. No debate. No
discussion.
Did we have a single debate here in the people's House about what is
happening at our southern border today? Any discussion at all?
Does the Speaker of the House of Representatives give a rat's rear-
end about South Texas or the rest of this country; about the ranchers
that are dealing with a flood of people coming across our border,
endangering them and their families? No, they don't care. They don't
care at all. But I can tell you, we in Texas care. And the leadership
of this body better start caring soon.
And let me just say something to all my fellow Republicans who just
funded this government two weeks ago. Those of you who cut a deal, a
deal with the devil, you are responsible for this, too. You funded this
government. You funded the government that is allowing people to come
across our border, that is empowering cartels, that is allowing
migrants to get abused, that is causing ranchers to lose their
livestock, ranchers to be endangered, fentanyl to pour across our
border.
And now this administration has the gall to shut down Title 42 while
Americans are still wearing masks on airplanes, while we still have men
and
[[Page H4067]]
women in uniform being forced to get a needle stuck in their arm from
the power of government. And the leadership, so-called leadership, of
our government has the gall to shut down Title 42. The one thing
allowing us to stop the flood at our border, even partially.
March of this year. This year. Right now. March, 200,000
apprehensions; 100,000 turned away under Title 42. But now the head of
the CDC, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security
Secretary, is saying we are going to stop using Title 42.
Well, then what in the hell are you going to do? Nothing. Other than
process more immigrants coming across our border who are not truly
seeking asylum. But that is what is happening. And what is actually
happening at our border right now is there are shootouts going on as we
speak on a daily basis, between the Gulf Cartel--technically, the
Jalisco New Generation Cartel, but Gulf Cartel CDG warring with Cartel
del Noreste of Los Zetas.
And we are talking about dead people, dead bodies. People getting
shot in their car. Bullets firing, flying all over our southern border.
Dead individuals.
This young girl here, head blown off. All of this is happening every
single day. All while American kids are dying from Xanax laced with
fentanyl.
And again, I want to be clear here. When you take Title 42 away--you,
Secretary Mayorkas; you, CDC Director Walensky; you, my Democratic
colleagues who are countering and funding it; you, President Biden--
when you take away Title 42, the blood is on your hands.
{time} 2000
And we're talking about dead Americans, dead migrants, destroyed
communities in Texas, empowered cartels. Literally last night in
talking to people coming across the border, saying they are spending
$3,000 to $5,000 to come up from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba. There were
13,000 apprehensions from Russia in the last 5 months.
We are about to see an unprecedented explosion on our southern
border. Again, this administration not only doesn't care, it is
purposeful. It is 100 percent purposeful. Endangering the people of the
United States, endangering migrants while--in the false name of
compassion saying it is good for them, empowering cartels, knowing they
are doing it. Knowing for the most part you do not have a legitimate
claim for asylum.
They are purposely not enforcing the laws of the United States. They
are purposely not using the tools at their disposal, like now ending
Title 42. For what reason? For crass political purposes. That is your
modern Democratic Party. Using migrants for political purposes and
endangering them and Americans in the process.
It is a gross violation of the oath taken to defend the Constitution
of the United States. It is fully and entirely impeachable and every
Republican should be agreeing to impeach Secretary Mayorkas on day one
when we come into this body and we are in charge of the House of
Representatives next January after the absolute feckless destruction of
this country by an incompetent, destructive Democratic majority in this
body, an incompetent destructive and flat out reckless administration
refusing to enforce the laws of the United States. That is what is
happening.
Oh, you going down there ranting on the floor again about the border?
Well, excuse me, but it is Texas. And Texas needs to be starting to
take a little action to tell the rest of this country to shove it up
its rear end because Texas is taking it on the chin because the
leadership of this country is forsaking Texas, hurting Texas, hurting
my neighbors, hurting my community.
It is about time that it stops. It is about time that Republicans on
this side of the aisle stop giving lip service to border security,
choose to actually do their job and not fund the government that is
refusing to enforce the laws.
I listened to Republican leadership down here on the floor a few
weeks ago trying to tell me, oh--thank me for giving us more money for
ICE and Border Patrol. Well, how the heck is that working out now? More
money for more processing of more migrants getting abused by cartels.
More money for more processing of more migrants to come into Uvalde,
Texas, where the mayor just texted me 5 minutes ago. Tell them--in case
you are wondering, that is you Democrats across the other side of the
aisle, and by the way, Republican leadership--Tell them to come and see
the--I will edit his remarks--crap show they have created 500 to 1,000
a day in Eagle Pass in Del Rio. No vetting.
These are human beings, Texans, people we represent, our communities.
I promise my colleagues on the other side of the aisle they don't give
a whit. They sit in their smug chairs in their committee hearings
saying: Oh, this is all made up. There is nothing to it. It is all
lies.
Just like the lie that President Biden said and his press secretary
said when he accused Border Patrol agents of whipping people. They are
flat out lies. Where are those Border Patrol agents now? Have they been
returned to their job? Has a report come out? No.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Virginia
(Mr. Good), my friend who accompanied me on a trip to the border about
a month ago or so. He is a good friend and he understands what is
actually happening at our border.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas.
We don't have a finer patriot and a more courageous warrior for freedom
in the Congress, and I appreciate his leadership on this and so many
issues. I appreciate him leading this discussion here on the floor
tonight.
Never in the history of the country has our own President done more
to intentionally harm the country than this President has done in his
first year in Congress. Never in the history of the country has a
President done more to harm the United States than this President has
done willfully and intentionally than what he has done with the border
in his first year.
We are averaging 7,000 illegals across the border a day right now.
The administration is admitting that. They are allowing 7,000 illegals
across the border a day. I had a constituent say to me on the phone
just 2 days ago: Nothing this administration is doing makes sense
unless they hate the country. Nothing that this administration is doing
makes sense unless they hate the country.
Whether you are talking about the crime crisis, the inflation crisis,
our diminished standing on the national stage, the spending crisis, the
energy crisis, what we are doing to American energy and making us
depend on foreign nations who hate us. I think at the top of that list
is what we are doing at the border.
When I ran for the first time 2 years ago I identified the greatest
threats to the country. I believe those threats are our education
system, indoctrination of our kids K to 12 and college campuses, our
runaway radical spending that is bankrupting our future, and then our
immigration and border situation. Nothing has changed my mind to that
effect in my first year here.
Mr. Speaker, I have been to the border four times and I am well-aware
that Virginia's Fifth District is not geographically physically located
at the border. We just had an MS-13 gang member convicted of murder in
my hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, who illegally came across the
border. This President's policies are making every town a border town,
every State a border State.
Everything and everyone that comes across that border comes under the
control of the Mexican crime cartels. It has threatened the security of
our Nation. It is an economic security issue. It is a health security
issue. It certainly is a national security issue.
The projection that I am seeing with the ending of Title 42--the
egregious attempt to end Title 42--the projections I am seeing is it
will take it from 7,000 a day to 18,000 a day. That is 7,000 a day to
18,000 a day, perhaps even tripling what has already happened. We had 2
million crossings a year ago. Extrapolate that out for 4 years.
Are we going to allow this President to have 8 million come across at
the current pace? My most recent trip to the border that my friend from
Texas was mentioning was to Del Rio, Texas. He led a trip to Del Rio,
Texas. You might remember, that is where we had Bidentown just a few
weeks ago with 20,000 Haitian migrants assembled under the bridge there
in Bidentown in Del Rio, Texas.
[[Page H4068]]
While we don't have that still today because they distributed those
migrants--those illegals--into the interior of the country, which they
are doing all the time, by the way. Flying and bussing illegal aliens
in the dark of night wherever they want to go throughout the country
with no requirement of a court date to appear. It is a pinky promise
that we will get back with you in the future and give you a date to
appear.
While we don't have 20,000 in Bidentown under the bridge right now in
Del Rio, Texas, right through that corridor, Border Patrol and the
ranchers and the sheriffs that were there told us it is 1,000 a day
through there. So every 3 weeks you got a repeat of what we saw with
Bidentown just a few weeks ago in Del Rio, Texas.
Does this administration care? Every resource they have committed or
directed to that border has been to facilitate--to willfully, purposely
facilitate--more illegals crossing into our country and to hide it from
the American people.
There has been no effort by this administration in this President's
first year to stem it, to stop it, instead, they try to facilitate and
hide it from the American people. Now they want to make it worse, two
or three times worse with what they are doing with Title 42.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, I just want to pick up on something that the gentleman
from Virginia said and see if he would agree. If Title 42 goes away,
our country is completely open to anyone who wants to come. Would the
gentleman agree?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Absolutely.
Mr. ROY. Everyone who has been turn away, it has almost entirely been
done under Title 42.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. That is right.
Mr. ROY. Now, for the listeners at home, Title 42 is a health code
provision allowing our officials in government to turn people away if
we have a communicable disease environment, like we do during the COVID
pandemic. Now, we can do it for any number of communicable diseases,
but we got that in place now.
Roughly half of the folks have been turned away under Title 42. Would
the gentleman agree?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Yes, but they are turnarounds coming right
back.
Mr. ROY. So to that point, would it surprise the gentleman that under
the administration we have turned away 1.7 million people under Title
42?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Since 2019 when that was instated, right?
Mr. ROY. Yeah, including the time under the Trump administration. So
1.7 million times during the pandemic all the people that were turned
back would likely have been let in and released into the United States
under this administration. Some of those are repeats.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. That is right.
Mr. ROY. Something along the lines of a million people that would
have been released into the United States last year. Does the gentleman
agree?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Absolutely.
Mr. ROY. Another point. Of the people that have come into the United
States and are being encountered, these are all not just nice people
looking for a job, are they?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. There are 160 different countries.
Mr. ROY. One hundred sixty different countries. Roughly, 10,763
criminal noncitizens and at least 3,662 have been arrested thus far in
fiscal year 2022. The combined timeframes include roughly 85
convictions of manslaughter or homicide, 604 sexual offenses, and 2,892
convictions of illegal drug possession and trafficking. Based on
reports at least 14 illegal migrants who are on the terrorist watch
list were stopped at the southern border in fiscal year 2021.
The biggest problem is what?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. The got-aways.
Mr. ROY. The got-aways. The more than half a million known got-
aways--known--known got-aways--last year. So if we have got people we
are catching on the terrorist watch list, if we have got criminals
convicted of sex crimes, convicted of murder and manslaughter that we
are catching--but that is all people the Border Patrol is running
across and they are often turning themselves in. All of those known
got-aways, do you think those are just the angels seeking a nice job?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. These aren't the ones dressed head to toe in
camo with the carpet shoes on who are evading capture, are they?
Mr. ROY. It would be.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. How about that.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Perry), one of the great patriots and I am proud to call him my friend.
Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas, he has been the
consummate crusader on this issue. If not for him, this would even be
more ignored in Washington, D.C., than it is already. I just think
about a scant month ago--a month and a half ago or so--the President of
the United States stood right there and talked about securing the
border.
It is unfathomable to me. We used to not say lie in the world of
politics about your opponent or the other party, but I don't know what
else that is other than a lie. I come from Pennsylvania, we are not on
the border where Mr. Roy represents, where his communities and his
State is being completely overrun. Pennsylvania is far from the border.
We got Route 81. We got Route 83. The fentanyl comes up.
The President took an oath to faithfully discharge the laws of this
country, but just abrogating them. You just wonder who is he
representing? Whose citizens is he representing because the people in
my community, the people all across the country are dying at record
levels from drugs coming across the southern border, and nothing is
happening to stop it.
It is not only people coming here illegally and taking your jobs--all
these different languages that your school has to teach now. Somebody
is going to pay for that. Who can afford this? Whose job is it to
safeguard America? If it is not the President's job, whose job is it?
Chip Roy is trying. Bob Good is trying.
We can't keep Title 42 in place. Even better yet, the question should
be: Why isn't Remain in Mexico in place? Seek asylum the correct way.
Stay in the first country you come to if you are indeed oppressed and
you are suffering political retribution for your beliefs or religious
persecution--the first country you come to.
The first country you come to when you travel through Mexico--when
you fly into Mexico from one of the other 160-190 countries on the
planet isn't the United States, it is Mexico. Yet, the President says
the border is open. These people aren't coming to the White House,
ladies and gentlemen, they are coming to your house. They are coming to
your community. They are not going to Joe Biden's house in Delaware.
They are not coming to Pennsylvania Avenue. They are coming to your
house and your community and they are bringing the drugs with them,
human trafficking.
And for goodness sakes--your taxes--75 percent of the people on this
side of the aisle just supported more spending for this. You know what
it does? Bob Good is right. You are not going see them all piled up
under the bridge in Del Rio because we are going to hire more people to
move them more efficiently into your town because they don't like that
look.
They are not hired to stop them, they are hired to more efficiently
have them come to your town and your community, including the people on
the terrorist watch list, criminals, the fentanyl, the human
trafficking coming to your town. Well, thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. ROY. I would ask my friend from Pennsylvania if he is aware that
our colleague and colleague in the House Freedom Caucus, our friend
Yvette Herrell from New Mexico, introduced legislation a year ago--
actually over a year ago to require the use of Title 42. Is that right?
{time} 2015
Mr. PERRY. That is right. And all we need is enough people to sign
it. Whether you are a Democrat or you are a Republican, these folks are
coming. The fentanyl is coming to your town. The overdoses are coming
to your town. All you have to do, if your leadership says: We refuse to
move this bill that the American people want, maintain this Title 42,
all you have to do is go down and sign that piece of paper,
[[Page H4069]]
and we can do it. Leadership can't hold us up.
But they don't want to do it, do they?
Mr. ROY. They do not. And I want to make sure for every American out
there to understand the truth. If you are disgusted about what is
happening at our border, if you are concerned about what is actually
happening to our communities, there is a way we can solve the problem
without Speaker Pelosi making the decisions. Because that is how things
work. We don't ever debate, we don't ever amend, and we don't actually
have discussion in the people's House. The Speaker in a backroom
decides what happens on the floor, vote ``yes'' or ``no,'' walk out,
and give a press conference
But we can do something about that. There is a tool. It is called a
discharge petition. We have a discharge petition at the desk to try to
empower the actual Representatives of this country. We have 200 and I
think now eight Republicans on that discharge petition.
Mr. PERRY. How many Democrats?
Mr. ROY. We have zero Democrats--not one Democrat--on that discharge
petition. Now, I want everybody to think about that. The Democrats in
this body apparently are so beholden to the radical idea of wide-open
borders and not implementing Title 42 while Americans are being forced
to wear masks on airplanes, and while Americans are getting a jab
needle stuck in their arm by force of government if they are in the
military or Border Patrol or any other Federal employee while there is
still a Federal health emergency in place under order of the President.
Mr. PERRY. We are firing people who were on the front lines at the
beginning of the pandemic without it, where there was no vaccine
present, right?
They went out. They went out and risked their lives not knowing what
they were dealing with, and now unless they take the jab, now they are
out of work.
Mr. ROY. So while that is in place, we have a discharge petition
where we can bring to the floor and vote to force enforcement of Title
42 in this country, and not one of our Democratic colleagues will join
us in that.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. How many Democrat Members have we got from
Texas?
Mr. ROY. We have 13.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. That would get us past 218, wouldn't it, 13
plus 8, 208?
Mr. ROY. It sure would. I think there are somewhere around 50
Democratic Members from border States if you count New Mexico, Arizona,
California, and Texas.
So where are my Democratic colleagues in border States?
I think they ought to be asked. I want to know why won't my
Democratic colleagues from border States or anywhere else in the
country say they believe that we ought to enforce Title 42?
Because guess what? There are a few Senators who have said so.
Isn't that right?
Mr. PERRY. There are a few Senators. I think there are a few
Representatives who said so, too. They can put their money, so to
speak, where their mouth is. You can say it, but you can take some
action. Talk is cheap, right? Take some action and walk down there and
sign the paper. And once one does, maybe a few more will because their
constituents--their bosses, their citizens, and their communities--are
being wrecked, too.
Mr. ROY. It is a way to wrestle control of the people's House away
from a handful of self-anointed individuals who are wrecking this
country in the name of so-called democracy.
Does my friend from Virginia agree?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Absolutely. You mentioned Secretary Mayorkas.
He has said the border is secure. The border is secure he has said,
when as you know we have lost operational control of our border.
The Mexican crime cartels are making hundreds of millions of dollars
a month off sex trafficking, drug trafficking, child trafficking, human
trafficking, you name it. Everyone and everything that comes across
that border comes under the control of the Mexican crime cartel.
There is no humane component to it. They are finding dead bodies at
the border of people who were trying--they starved or they got
dehydrated or they just couldn't make the journey or something happened
to them on the way. And you talk about Remain in Mexico policy, instead
of Remain in Mexico policy, the MPP, that was in place under the Trump
administration. We have got the United Nations using our own resources
that we pay the United Nations to help illegals cheat our asylum
system. So the United Nations is taking resources that the United
States is giving to them to use to train illegals on how to cheat our
asylum system and how to gain access into our country by claiming
asylum.
Then the Democratic Party 20 years ago passed a law that prohibits
the requirement of proof of citizenship to vote. Now, of course, they
don't want any ID in order to vote, and you have got the President
promising amnesty to anybody who is here illegally.
Do you think there is incentive to cheat our voting system and to
vote illegally when there is no requirement of proof of citizenship,
there is no ID to vote, and you have got the promise of amnesty?
We have essentially got illegals with a license to vote here in this
country right now, and here we want to continue to ramp it up, to take
it from 7,000 a day to an estimate of maybe 18,000 a day by eliminating
Title 42.
Mr. PERRY. Would the gentleman also agree that it is not only the
U.N. that your tax dollars are going for, actually in this body they
voted recently to pay for attorneys to go help those folks who came
across the border illegally navigate the system.
Now, you go try that. You go break the law wantonly and then appeal
to your Federal Government to pay for your attorney to get around the
law that you just broke wantonly.
Mr. ROY. Both my friends, the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the
gentleman from Virginia, you guys are both fathers, correct?
Mr. PERRY. Indeed.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Yes.
Mr. ROY. Do you think that there is anything compassionate--when my
colleagues on the other side of aisle like to talk about their
compassion for migrants who are seeking to come to this country, do my
friends think there is anything at all compassionate about a little
girl getting raped in a stash house in Houston, Texas, as we speak?
Or being driven up and put into the sex trafficking trade up I-35 or
across I-10 in the southern part of the United States?
Or trafficked to anywhere throughout the rest of this country?
Do you think that is compassion?
Do you think it is compassionate for a young woman to be getting shot
up in a cartel warfare happening at south Texas, happening along the
Rio Grande in northern Mexico?
Is that compassion?
Is it compassion?
Mr. PERRY. What about the rape trees?
We have been to the border. We have seen the little shoes all stacked
up at the border. These are little children. And Representative Roy is
absolutely right, as trophies, can you imagine little girls, or
somebody's--anybody's--little girls, little girl panties hanging from a
tree as a trophy?
This is what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to
acknowledge, like it is not happening, like it has never happened. But
it is happening every single day. Somebody--somebody--has got to do
something about it.
Mr. ROY. Is it compassionate for the young man or young woman of the
100,000 or so last year who died from drug overdoses to take Xanex and
it be laced with fentanyl and die?
Is that something that is compassionate?
My friend from Virginia, do you think these are compassionate things
to be doing?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. The number one killer of Americans between the
age of 18 and 45 last year was drug overdoses. And yet we are allowing
the most dangerous drugs, fentanyl and other dangerous drugs, to stream
across the border.
The only way you get across the border, the Mexican border, into the
United States is to pay the Mexican crime cartels. Border Patrol and
the local sheriffs will tell you: If you try to cross apart from the
cartels, they will kill you. You come either beholden to them,
essentially an indentured servant, with pledge of your family back
[[Page H4070]]
home if you don't have the cash up front--they will kill your family if
you don't pay--or you work it off. You work it off by trafficking drugs
across or trafficking children or trafficking women across the border.
There is nothing compassionate about that.
Mr. ROY. One of my good friends who was a former Texas Department of
Public Safety expert on these issues dealing with cartels just sent me
a text showing me video from last night at the border, and individuals
they were recording were saying they were paying $3,000 or $5,000 to
get across the river.
How is that compassionate?
They are going to have to make a monthly payment to cartels. A lot of
those payments are going to come in the form of sex trafficking and
labor trafficking.
I have about 1\1/2\ minutes remaining. I would just say--and I thank
my friends for joining me down here on the House floor--that this is a
solvable problem right now. This could be stopped right now. It could
be stopped right now.
Mr. PERRY. This hour.
Mr. ROY. This hour. This moment.
But where is President Biden?
Where is Secretary Mayorkas?
Other than purposely ignoring the laws of the United States to
endanger the American people and the migrants who seek to come here,
where are they?
And why shouldn't we be impeaching Secretary Mayorkas for failing to
faithfully execute the laws of the United States and causing death and
destruction to Americans' property and to American people in the form
of drug overdoses, in the form of the endangerment of our citizens and,
again, the migrants who seek to come here?
I would ask that question of all my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle: You can take this back and wrestle it away from the
administration. Sign that discharge petition. Let's have a vote. Let's
have a debate.
What are my colleagues afraid of?
The truth?
What are they afraid of?
The rule of law?
What are they afraid of?
A secure America?
Migrants who get to come here safely?
Put aside the politics and stand up for our country. That is our job
as Members of the House of Representatives.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen from Virginia and Pennsylvania for
their leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from
engaging in personalities toward the President.
Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair, not to a
perceived viewing audience.
____________________