[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 72 (Monday, May 2, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2238-S2239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Biden Administration

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, well, I think, from the President's 
comments at the Correspondents' Dinner the other night, it may have 
taken a year, but, finally, the President and the White House are 
starting to realize that they have lost the American people when it 
comes to their agenda. I think it is because you can only betray 
someone so many times before they stop giving you a 2nd chance, a 3rd 
chance, or even a 15th chance at doing something.
  After 16 months of alternating between anger, confusion, and fear, 
all Tennesseans can do is just have a laugh at what the White House is 
saying and how they are trying to spin what is actually happening and 
how they are trying to tell you that what you are seeing is really not 
what you are seeing. They know--the American people know; Tennesseans 
know--that much of what you hear coming out of this administration is 
coupled with a threat; it is coupled with a falsehood; sometimes it is 
even coupled with a mandate.
  Joe Biden has lost what little control he had, but rather than 
reexamining his priorities, he has decided to cause as much pain as he 
can before the Democrats lose power. This is a pattern. The Biden 
administration doesn't lead; they mandate. They don't come to Congress 
and say: Let's do this or that; they throw out an Executive order. 
Then, when those mandates and orders that they are tossing out like 
they are candy backfire, they come about this by trying to inflict as 
much pain as they can.
  When business owners pushed back on pandemic mandates that made their 
survival impossible, this administration didn't relent; they doubled 
down. They just accused everybody who disagreed with them of being a 
danger to their communities.
  We all heard the stories: Oh, they are putting profit over people. 
Oh, they don't care about their communities. They just want to keep the 
doors open.
  But no--what they wanted to do was serve their communities.
  When parents asked questions about what their kids were learning in 
school, the Justice Department threatened to throw them in jail if they 
protested curriculum influenced by critical race theory and other 
radical ideologies. When the administration saw their climate panic 
message wasn't resonating anymore, they came out with a plan to double 
down again and take away the few transportation and energy options 
people could still afford. Their response to historic levels of 
inflation is to tax and spend the American people into submission.
  See, this is the way they do it: If you are a parent, you show up to 
ask questions about what you are seeing your child study. Then they 
want to report you and say: You are the one who is causing a problem.
  Isn't it amazing how this administration has allowed cancel culture 
to infiltrate everything that they do?
  It is their way or the highway, as we would say in Tennessee, because 
they plan to run over you; they plan to cause pain. This is not 
governing; it is punishment--punishment for your beliefs; punishment 
for your actions; punishment for standing up for the Constitution, for 
democracy, for freedom of speech. They are going to punish you.
  Now, I thought that the administration had hit rock bottom with their 
response to the recordbreaking inflation they created, but their plan 
to address Joe Biden's border crisis has been what has taken the cake. 
It is foolish, and it is dangerous.
  The situation along our southern border is bad, and it is getting 
worse. Just this weekend, I spent some time out in West Tennessee. I 
was over in Benton County, which is the northwest corner of the State, 
and talked with Sheriff Kenny Christopher. He told me that his officers 
are finding fentanyl in about 80 percent of the drugs they seize. 
Everything is laced with fentanyl. This is marijuana, heroin, gummy 
bears--everything. Fentanyl is on the loose, running wild. Between 2020 
and 2021, 64,000 people in this country died from fentanyl overdoses, 
and 2,014 of them were Tennesseans. Where is this coming from? It is 
coming right across that southern border.
  It is so important to note that this is a problem that escalated 
after Joe Biden became President. The cartels knew, with the Border 
Patrol, that Donald Trump had its back but that now, with Joe Biden, it 
is running wide open. Every town is a border town, every State a border 
State. We are losing control over the flow of drugs. The cartels are in 
control of that southern border. You don't come across without them. 
Nothing comes across without them. They are so emboldened that every 
law enforcement officer I meet with can tell you what cartel hub--that 
is right, cartel hub--here in this country, on U.S. soil, is setting up 
their drug trafficking, human trafficking, sex trafficking operations. 
Control is lost at that border.
  In March, CBP recorded more than 220,000 encounters with people 
trying to illegally enter the country. Fortunately, they were able to 
use title 42 and expel about 100,000 of those 220,000 individuals.
  Title 42 has been a lifesaver for the Border Patrol. Don't believe 
me. Go ask them. They will tell you: That is a lifesaver. They have 
used it more than 1 million times to deny entry and ease the strain on 
their limited resources. They need it. They need title 42, and they 
will tell you they need title 42.
  So, of course, the Biden administration is getting ready to take 
title 42 away. Let's just open that border up. It is endangering our 
sovereignty, endangering our people. Every town is a border town, every 
State a border State; but let's throw caution to the wind, open the 
border. Come one, come all. We had 160 different countries come across 
that border last year. Let's see if we can break that record this 
year--that is what this White House is saying, total disregard for the 
American people. Because if you take away title 42, you are going to 
see not 6,000 illegal entries a day, you are going to see 18,000 
illegal entries a day.
  They know that this is what will happen. And do they have a plan? No, 
they don't have a plan. They are expecting that 18,000 people a day. 
That works out to over a half million a month--a half million a month.
  Now, you know, Secretary Mayorkas admitted last week in his hearing 
that he just didn't seem to have a plan, but he was expecting this to 
happen.
  In Tennessee, we have 345 cities, towns, and villages--345. Out of 
those 345 cities and towns, 90 percent of those towns have a population 
of 20,000 or less; so it is the equivalent of the population of a 
typical Tennessee town coming across the southern border every day. How 
long can we sustain that?
  Your State of Illinois, Madam President, you all have about 1,200 
towns and cities that are incorporated. You have got 102 counties. Out 
of those 1,299 incorporated towns and cities, 90 percent of those, 
likewise, are 20,000 or less in population. Or if you had a half 
million a month, that is equal to a Naperville, Aurora, and Rockford 
together. How long could Illinois sustain that?
  See, this policy not only affects the border with the United States 
and Mexico and those towns and communities and counties, it is every 
county in this country.
  When Mayorkas was speaking last week over in the House, what he 
didn't do was confirm that the administration has a plan to reduce 
illegal immigration or, indeed, if they care at all about

[[Page S2239]]

securing the border. Imagine that: a Secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security who does not believe in a secure border. You cannot 
make this stuff up. You can't make it up.
  For weeks now, a bipartisan group of Senators has pressed the 
Department of Homeland Security for their plan to secure the border, to 
secure this country. And for weeks, they have ignored our concerns.
  As of today, Chairman Durbin has no plan to summon Secretary Mayorkas 
for a hearing so we can ask him directly.
  Last week, however, things escalated during a hearing at the House 
Appropriations Committee when the Secretary confirmed that the 
administration is considering pulling staff and resources out of the 
VA-run facilities and sending them to the border.
  This is crazy. It is not part of the Department of Veterans Affairs' 
``Fourth Mission'' to help the Biden administration save face. But even 
if it was, the VA is already struggling to serve veterans.
  We are on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. Our case backlog for 
benefits, for healthcare, is over 260,000 cases. And you are going to 
take resources and medical personnel and administrative personnel and 
do what with them? Send them to the border.
  Getting basic care through the VA has become almost impossible. You 
hear it. I hear it. We all hear it from our veterans. And they know 
that these facilities are understaffed. This is why they are wanting to 
go to community care. And the Agency is experiencing a 15-year high in 
turnover for nurses.
  And what does this administration do? They say: We are going to take 
the people left working in VA healthcare and administration, we are 
going to shift them down to the border because the Border Patrol needs 
some help. Meanwhile, the people who have put on the uniform and have 
fought for this Nation can't get healthcare. And this administration 
acts like they don't give a ripping flip about any of it: the veterans, 
our Nation's sovereignty, securing the border, protecting our citizens, 
eliminating the impact of drugs that are flooding our streets. To make 
our veterans suffer, that is unconscionable.
  The administration knows that border encounters have consistently 
increased since the day they took power--they know this; they have 
watched it--and it appears that they have intentionally and 
purposefully allowed it.
  They know that as long as the border is open, that people from all 
around the globe are going to come. As I said, 160 different countries 
last year; of that, 42 known terrorist watch list individuals--42 of 
them.
  But rather than keeping title 42 in place or embracing ``Remain in 
Mexico'' or building a wall or giving the Border Patrol the resources 
they have asked for years to defend this border, this administration 
has decided the way to go about this is to let the veterans suffer. If 
they have waited 3 months, 6 months, a year, they can wait a little 
longer. That is their thought: Take the resources out of VA and send it 
to the border.
  There is nothing compassionate about this narrative. There is nothing 
caring. There is nothing right about this narrative.
  You know, it is the reason that--as the President said, he knows his 
approval rating is low. He knows there is a reason for it. He is not 
doing anything about it. He is choosing not to do anything about it. He 
is choosing not to shift his priorities.
  I will tell you, I have spent a lot of my adult life in the greatest 
creative community on the face of the Earth. We are surrounded by some 
writers and storytellers. And I would say that for some of the great 
authors and storytellers in the neighborhood, they couldn't mash 
together a plotline as convoluted as this one, because people would say 
that would never happen in the United States. You would never see us 
purposefully running up inflation or running up the cost of energy or 
opening our southern border and allowing terrorists and drug dealers 
and sex traffickers and human traffickers and gangs to run in.
  You would never knowingly allow cartels to set up shop on U.S. soil. 
You wouldn't do that. But this administration has, and they did it 
because they know pain is the point. Suffering is the point. We are 
going to do this to you.
  It goes back to what I said many weeks ago. We, as conservatives, 
have a vision for better days, for hope, for opportunity for all, for 
preserving the freedom of this great Nation, for preserving our rights, 
for protecting faith and freedom and families and hope and opportunity. 
And I fear that my Democratic colleagues, they have got an agenda. The 
agenda is what we are going to do to you in order to push a Marxist 
socialist agenda.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.