[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 72 (Monday, May 2, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2236-S2238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, when it comes to addressing the many 
challenges facing America today, the Biden administration's preferred 
strategy is to blame someone else.
  President Biden has tried to blame the previous administration for 
the supply chain challenges, and he has also tried to blame the 
administration for his deadly and dangerous withdrawal from Afghanistan 
in a precipitous fashion, which our friends and allies simply were left 
to read about it or hear about it in the newspaper and hustle to get 
their own people out of Afghanistan, as we were as well.
  And now we are seeing the blame game being played out again on the 
border. Last week, Secretary Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland 
Security, claimed the administration inherited, in his words, ``a 
broken and dismantled system,'' a defense we have heard before.
  Now, there is no question that our immigration system is in need of 
reform. As a matter of fact, we have been working on that the entire 
time I have been in the U.S. Senate. But as I have said before, we 
never fail to fail when it comes to fixing our broken immigration 
system.
  But the fact of the matter is the Biden administration is playing on 
the same field as previous administrations. Presidential authorities 
haven't changed. Congress hasn't passed sweeping reforms that make it 
difficult to enforce our laws at the border. Yet, here we are, 
experiencing record levels of illegal immigration into the United 
States.
  Just to provide some historical context for how bad President Biden's 
first year in office stacks up against previous administrations, 
consider this: During the first year of the Obama administration, an 
average of 44,000 migrants were apprehended each month--that is each 
month--along the southwestern border. During the first year of the 
Trump administration, that number was cut in half because the Trump 
administration had different policies with regard to removing people 
who were illegally coming across the border, or if they were claiming 
asylum, making them wait until their claims were ruled on by an 
immigration judge in Mexico rather than being welcomed into the United 
States and never to be heard from again.
  So 44,000 a month for the Obama administration; 20,000 a month for 
the Trump administration. But during the first year of the Biden 
administration, numbers took off like a rocket.
  An average of 176,000 migrants were apprehended at the southern 
border each month. One more time: 44,000 for President Obama; 20,000 
for President Trump; 176,000 for President Biden. That is nearly nine 
times as many migrants as we were seeing just 4 years ago.
  Again, Congress hasn't passed any major laws that have caused this 
dramatic increase. President Biden has the same authorities as the 
previous administrations. He has been in office for more than a year 
and has had plenty of opportunity to use the authorities Congress has 
given him to address this humanitarian and national security and public 
safety crisis.

  He has even had plenty of time to work with Congress to pass 
bipartisan bills, like my Bipartisan Border Solutions Act, which I 
introduced with Senator Sinema. And we now have a number of bipartisan 
cosponsors, and it was filed in the House with bipartisan support as 
well--Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, and Tony Gonzales from the 
largest contiguous border district in Texas and in the country--a 
Republican.
  So we introduced this bill. We laid it out for the administration, 
thinking that maybe, just maybe, if their poll numbers got bad enough, 
they would be looking for a lifeline, they would be looking for a way 
out.
  But the Biden administration has shown zero interest. The President 
has even threatened to end the use of title 42, which is a public 
health law that gave the Border Patrol some tools to repel illegal 
immigration by single adult males.
  The Border Patrol told me a long time ago, even toward the end of the 
Trump administration, during the middle of the pandemic, that if they 
lost use of title 42 as a means to control immigration--admittedly not 
something that it was designed for but something they were able to use 
it for--they would lose control of the border completely.
  So far we have heard no suggestions by President Biden what he 
intends to do. We know title 42 won't be there forever. COVID won't be 
a pandemic forever. But what we would like to know--and I think what 
the American people deserve to know--is what they are going to do in 
terms of enforcing the law of the land once title 42 goes away.
  Well, last week, Secretary Mayorkas released what he called the 
``Department of Homeland Security Plan for Southwest Border Security 
and Preparedness.''
  Well, this plan is largely a recycled and repackaged version of the 
same vague promises that we have heard all along--bolstering resources, 
increasing efficiency, and administering consequences for unlawful 
entry.
  Even the portion of this proposal that includes specifics, such as 
increasing the use of expedited removal, are completely unrealistic. In 
order to use expedited removal--and that is the means by which the 
Border Patrol encounters someone and says: You can't come into the 
United States and will be removed--you have to have enough manpower to 
process migrants and enough space to keep them in custody until that 
can happen.
  Without detention space, the promise of using expedited removal is a 
hollow one. Given the current pace of migration and the amount of beds 
that Customs and Border Protection has to detain people who are subject 
to expedited removal, given the current pace, the number of beds is a 
mathematical impossibility.
  Secretary Mayorkas said the Department of Homeland Security has 
increased the number of beds in Customs and Border Protection 
facilities and can now hold approximately 18,000 people.
  Again, under the Biden administration, we have seen 176,000 people a 
month coming across the border. Secretary Mayorkas is bragging about 
18,000 detention beds. Obviously, those beds would fill up quickly and 
be overwhelmed.
  In March, an average of 7,000 migrants crossed the border every day. 
The administration has predicted that if title 42 is lifted, which it 
has attempted to do and still intends to do so, that number could reach 
12,000 to 18,000 migrants every day--12,000 to 18,000 every day. And, 
obviously, all of those 18,000 beds for detention facilities would fill 
up in a single day.
  That is why I believe that this plan is not worth the paper it is 
written on unless the administration actually follows up to execute it; 
and, clearly, we are not seeing action, and, clearly, the arithmetic 
doesn't work for Secretary Mayorkas's plan. They are going to have to 
engage in the same sort of

[[Page S2237]]

catch-and-release game which the human smugglers and the drug cartels 
have been playing on for the foreseeable past. And particularly now, 
they know that they can continue to overwhelm the resources at the 
border, and then the drug cartels run drugs into the country. And those 
will then be distributed by criminal gangs in every major city in 
America. So this plan is not worth the paper it is written on. It 
clearly won't solve the problem.
  Administration officials can blame someone else as long as they want, 
but it is clear the American people aren't falling for it.
  We saw, in the last couple of days, President Biden's own pollster 
said one of the reasons his poll numbers are so bad is because of the 
chaos and dangers associated with the border.
  What we are seeing--and what the American people plainly see--is a 
complete and intentional policy breakdown that is the sole 
responsibility of the Biden administration. And these failures come 
with serious consequences for the American people.
  When thousands of migrants are coming across the border every day, 
Border Patrol doesn't have the time to deter illegal immigration and 
dangerous gang members and other criminals from coming across the 
border.
  Here is why. Several months ago, I visited Del Rio's Border Patrol 
Sector and spoke with a group of about 30 Border Patrol agents at the 
muster. When they were asked to raise their hand if they would be 
working out in the field--that is, on the border--not a single hand 
went up. These men and women who would normally be out on the 
frontlines stopping dangerous criminals and dangerous drugs from 
sneaking across the border are going to be tied up in paperwork with 
bogus asylum claims and administering these programs like this new 
program that Director Mayorkas is bragging about.
  Because of the huge surge of migrants, we are going to continue to 
see the Border Patrol wrapped up in administrative duties like 
paperwork, watching unaccompanied children, and transporting migrants, 
and they will not be on the frontlines in this war that we are seeing 
play out, particularly the drug war playing out on our border.
  When the Border Patrol is taking care of an unaccompanied child, they 
can't be on the frontlines. If they are knee-deep in paperwork, they 
can't identify and stop dangerous individuals and drugs from coming 
across the border, and the drug cartels know it. As a matter of fact, 
this is part of their game plan. Flood the border with so many people 
that the Border Patrol can't manage it, divert them from their law 
enforcement function and turn them into babysitters for unaccompanied 
children, and then the drug cartels will move their poison across as if 
they have established a four-lane highway. This is a dangerous 
situation that is putting our entire country at risk.
  Criminal gangs that are located in every major city in the United 
States, including Chicago and cities in Texas, are the distribution 
networks for the drugs that are brought across by the drug cartels. 
They see the gaps created by fewer officers on the frontline, and they 
are taking advantage.
  So we not only see foreign gang members, we also see a network of 
domestic gang members who are engaged in violence, gun crimes, 
robberies, and other crimes that have threatened the safety of people 
in our cities across the country. But we also see dangerous criminals 
coming across the border itself.
  Last week, I spoke about a string of arrests that the Border Patrol 
in the Rio Grande Valley Sector accomplished. Border Patrol arrested 
half-a-dozen gang members in less than a week's time. Some of these 
individuals were members of the notorious MS-13, a brutal criminal 
organization whose motto translates into, roughly, ``kill, rape, 
control.'' These are the types of individuals who are making their way 
across the border when the Border Patrol is busy filling out paperwork 
or taking care of unaccompanied children and unable to perform their 
law enforcement functions.
  MS-13 is one of the most dangerous gangs on the planet. They have 
been known to kill their victims using knives, machetes, and baseball 
bats. In one murder in California, the victim's heart was cut out. Five 
years ago, an MS-13 member had a dispute with a high school student. A 
group of gang members kidnapped the young man, cut off his hands, and 
then killed him. Stopping members of MS-13 and other international 
criminal gangs from reaching the United States should be a public 
safety imperative.
  American families are already deeply concerned about violent crime in 
our country, with the boneheaded idea of defunding the police and the 
blame game when it comes to law enforcement, making it harder for 
police to be hired and retained by law enforcement agencies across the 
country. Criminals are having a heyday. Crime has spiked in virtually 
every major city across the country. I believe it is a combination of 
both the drugs that are trafficked by those criminal gangs as well as 
the impression that we don't respect and honor the public safety 
function performed by our local police departments. But to my point 
here, we can't allow the southern border to act as a corridor for more 
violent criminals to reach our communities.
  While overall border encounters skyrocketed in 2021, the number of 
gang members apprehended by Border Patrol actually decreased. Now, you 
might think that maybe that is a good thing, but you would be wrong, 
because last year alone, Border Patrol estimates that there were as 
many as 300,000 what they call getaways. In other words, if the Border 
Patrol is tied up with paperwork or babysitting or transporting 
migrants and is no longer on the border, they don't know who is coming 
across the border, but they guesstimated it was as many as 300,000 
getaways in the last fiscal year alone. So the fact that we haven't 
been able to count more gang members this year is hardly an encouraging 
picture given the status quo.

  The Border Patrol has told us explicitly that gang members exploit 
migration surges in order to evade arrest. In other words, record 
levels of migration provide excellent cover for gang members and other 
criminals. They can either try to blend in with a larger group or they 
can identify and exploit the security gaps created by the Border 
Patrol's processing or caring for other migrants. Sadly, both practices 
are common these days.
  When we look at all this data, there is one really important point 
that we need to remember. These are just the ones we know about. They 
don't include the getaways. They don't include the other dangerous 
criminals who have successfully snuck into our country or how many who 
were caught and then released because their gang affiliation was not 
yet known by law enforcement. We would much rather stop these criminals 
at the border than wait for them to reach our communities and endanger 
our families.
  In addition to the great work already being done by law enforcement 
generally, there are initiatives like Project Safe Neighborhoods at the 
Department of Justice. This is one way that law enforcement is trying 
to wage war against these criminal gangs who use guns to commit acts of 
violence. It is a partnership between Federal, State, and local law 
enforcement that uses data-driven, evidence-based, and trauma-informed 
practices to reduce violent crime. But in order for them to be 
successful, we have to stem the flow of people coming across the 
border.
  Programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods are exemplars of what law 
enforcement can do if we just give them a chance, if we just give them 
a level playing field to compete on rather than being overwhelmed by a 
tsunami of gang members, criminals, and illegal drugs.
  We have a responsibility to close the security gaps at the border to 
prevent even more dangerous individuals and drugs from reaching our 
communities, but again, based on the lack of interest expressed or 
actions taken, the Biden administration doesn't seem to care. The 
Border Patrol has made no secret of the fact that it lacks the 
personnel, resources, and policies that only Congress can provide to 
carry out their mission. Agents do not feel like the Biden 
administration has their back, and it is for good reason.
  Since President Biden took office, we have seen no meaningful action 
to address the humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border. 
The Biden administration has ignored the needs of Federal law 
enforcement officers in order to appease, apparently,

[[Page S2238]]

part of its political base who doesn't believe that there should be any 
border controls, who believes our borders should be open and are 
oblivious to the danger that poses. So, make no mistake about it, this 
is both a humanitarian and a security crisis, and the Biden 
administration's refusal to act has only made things worse.
  We know the American people see crime as a big problem, and there are 
a lot of reasons for that, but the Biden administration needs to 
address the security breakdown at the border because what is happening 
there has made our communities even more dangerous.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.