[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 113 (Monday, July 11, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3196-S3197]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, for over a year, officials in the 
Biden administration have operated under the assumption that if they 
keep repeating their far-left propaganda, they will be able to trick 
the American people into believing that everything is OK. Don't believe 
what you see. Don't believe what you are reading. Don't believe what 
you are hearing from friends and neighbors. Just believe us. Everything 
is fine. Prices aren't high. Crime is not high. The border is not open. 
Everything is just fine.
  The problem is, Tennesseeans know better than to believe this. They 
have figured it out. They know the economy is not in a good place. They 
know high gas prices are not Putin's fault. They know that spikes in 
crime and drug overdoses--this is not normal. But most importantly, 
they know that standing aside and letting the country fall apart is not 
what a normal Presidential administration does; it is far from it.
  The White House has worked overtime trying to convince the American 
people that reports of the chaos along our southern border are 
exaggerated. This is one of the most dangerous falsehoods the Biden 
administration has tried to sell, and here is why. In May--May, this 
month of May--this year, Border Patrol encountered more than 177,000 
unique individuals trying to cross the border.
  Border Patrol doesn't have the manpower or the resources to control 
this wave of illegal immigration. I know it. I think my Democratic 
colleagues know it. Certainly the ones who have taken the time to go to 
the border know it. And, no doubt, the Biden administration knows it.
  As I said, in May of this year, 177,000 different individuals were 
encountered trying to cross that border. Now, Tennesseeans are very 
worried about this, and they want to know why the President is not 
worried about this. For goodness' sake, he has never taken the time to 
go to the border. He has had five decades to go down there and look at 
the border, and he has never taken the time to do it.
  It really is pretty simple for ``we the people,'' the citizenry of 
this country--the issue of whether the Democrats wish this country well 
is no longer up for debate. They know that the left has abandoned them, 
the people. They know that. They are seeing it every single day, 
whether they are shopping for groceries, filling up the car. They see 
it. They see it by the crime in the streets, the gangs. They know it. 
They see it with the human trafficking and the suffering and the drugs 
that are killing precious American lives.
  Now, unfortunately, President Biden lost the opportunity to persuade 
the American people otherwise on day 1 of his administration when he 
chose to turn the American Southwest into a free-for-all. Since then, 
things have only gotten more dangerous.
  During the first 4 days of this month, law enforcement officials 
arrested 3 members of MS-13, an 18th Street gang member, and multiple 
convicted sex offenders as they tried to enter the country. On July 6, 
they seized more than 1,000 pounds of meth from one single smuggler--
that is right, one smuggler. Do you think the drug dealers are 
emboldened? Think about that--1,000 pounds of meth. So far this year, 
they have seized almost 8,000 pounds of fentanyl, which is enough to 
kill a small country.
  Here is the question I would pose to the President: How many people 
and how many pounds of drugs made it in while Border Patrol agents were 
busy with the smugglers and criminals they managed to catch? Where did 
the ``got-aways'' go? What did the ``got-aways'' have with them?
  Well, that is a rhetorical question. We know exactly where they went, 
and we know what they have with them. Do you know what, Madam 
President. They are coming to our own cities, communities, towns, our 
own backyards.
  My Democratic colleagues may be happy to ignore the problem, but on 
behalf of Tennesseeans, I will not ignore the problem. The threat is 
too great.
  If you ask any law enforcement officer--any--they will tell you that 
this issue of the southern border is a matter of life and death. Not 
just on the border but in each of our 95 counties in the State of 
Tennessee--in each of our towns and cities--this open border is a 
matter of life and death. In Tennessee, our sheriffs and police chiefs 
want the border secured.

  I have got to tell you, to so many Tennesseans, it is laughable--
laughable--that a White House spokesman would stand behind that podium 
and look at the people and say: ``The border is secure.'' Who do they 
think they are talking to? Do they think that people are not watching 
the footage? Whether they are watching it on TV or streaming it or 
looking at it on social media, they can see that this border is not 
secure. They are talking to friends and relatives who live in a border 
State, who live along that border, and they are telling them some of 
the horrific stories that they are witnessing every single day in their 
communities.
  We know for a fact that the cross-border drug trade is alive and 
well. Who is getting rich off this open southern border? Take a guess. 
It is the drug cartels--the drug cartels--with enormous profits growing 
into a global organization. That is right--global.
  So far this year, people from 150 different countries have come 
across our southern border. Chinese nationals are not trying to come in 
here on a visa. They don't wish us well. The Chinese Communist Party is 
hard at work. The Chinese Communist Party is paying the cartels $50,000 
a pop to get people into our country that they want to by bringing them 
across the southern border.
  The Tennessean, which is our newspaper in Nashville, TN, recently 
reported a truly horrific story about a multimillion-dollar crime ring 
that is operating right out of Middle Tennessee. That is right. The 
drug cartels are not fearful because Joe Biden has the welcome mat out: 
Border open.
  The kingpin was working directly with the Sinaloa drug cartel. That 
is the one that primarily has the Arizona border. That is the one that 
is bringing a majority of the drugs through Arizona. They like to focus 
on fentanyl.
  The traffickers who are working underneath this hoodlum are as 
brutally violent as their friends down in Mexico. We know they are 
responsible for multiple horrific assaults, kidnappings, at least one 
murder, and the mutilation of a 22-year-old woman. They are also linked 
to a local gang who terrorizes the streets of Nashville. That is right, 
a drug kingpin working directly with the Sinaloa cartel. That is what 
they are doing in Tennessee.
  The violence does not stop at the border. The violence in this 
country increases because of that open border and because of the 
unwillingness of this administration to do anything about it. This 
violence is bleeding into every town, every State, and it will not stop 
until we have leaders in the White House and an administration who are 
willing to put themselves in between these monsters and the American 
people.
  The fact that we can't talk about this without provoking hysteria in 
the ranks of the Democratic Party tells me we are heading in the wrong 
direction, but don't take my word for it; just read a number of polls 
that are out there. I hope the President takes to heart that 33-percent 
job approval rating that the New York Times reported on today. That is 
about as significant a message as could be sent to this administration. 
Only 33 percent of the American people approve of what this 
administration is doing.
  This administration has normalized things that even 5 years ago would 
have shocked the conscience of your average Democrat. We talk about 
spending in trillions of dollars now--a

[[Page S3197]]

trillion here and there, $6 trillion for COVID, and let's spend another 
$2 trillion on ``Build Back Broke.'' The numbers just keep piling up. 
We talk about apprehending 170,000 people at the border in a month--not 
in a year but in a month. We talk about drug seizures in measures of 
pounds, not ounces.
  I was talking with one of our sheriffs in Tennessee, and we were 
talking about this issue.
  He said: You know, Marsha, we used to apprehend drugs, and it would 
be in grams or it would be in ounces, and now nearly every seizure is 
in pounds.
  That is the change. The drug cartels are not fearful of being caught 
or stopped at that border. They have figured it out.
  Sadly, this is life in Joe Biden's America, but none of this--none of 
it, nothing, not one part of what you are seeing in Joe Biden's 
America--is compatible with an optimistic vision for the future, with 
that phrase ``a more perfect Union,'' ``equal justice,'' ``equal 
opportunity''--none of it. Why? When Tennesseans look at what Joe Biden 
and the Democrats are doing, what they are seeing is a political 
machine acting like they are on a deadline. They are burning through an 
agenda that the American people did not ask for and they definitely do 
not want.
  Do they want higher taxes? Absolutely not.
  Do they want an open border? They have said time and again, no.
  Do they want higher crime? No.
  Do they want drugs--fentanyl--killing 71,000 Americans in a year? No. 
No.
  Do they want the highest inflation that we have had in 40 years? No.
  Do they want a foreign policy that doesn't work? We have a disaster 
in Afghanistan. We have the Chinese Communist Party, after we have 
Russia and Putin out here, acting like they are in control. We have the 
axis of evil--Russia, China, Iran, North Korea--out trying to recruit 
friends and allies into their axis of evil to not wish us well. Is that 
what the American people want? No, it is not.
  Do they want mandates? Do they want lockdowns? No, they do not. That 
is not what they want.
  The people of this country still have a vision for the future, but it 
is hard to keep hope alive when the people in control of the government 
have, obviously, lost control of this country.

  I love going around Tennessee, and I love having great conversations 
with people who will tell you they are Democrats or Republicans. They 
want to know if the Democratic Party is delusional. Are they obsessed 
with a socialist agenda? Are they out of touch with what it feels like 
to not have money to fill up the gas tank, to not have money to buy 
that full bag of groceries?
  The idea that their President would allow our border to be open to 
drug cartels and smugglers to take advantage of us, the people, 
terrifies Tennesseans, but it is also something that makes them angry 
because they know Joe Biden could do something about this if he wanted 
to. They know that the Democratic Party, which runs everything in this 
town--the House, the Senate, the White House--could do something about 
this if they chose to.
  Law enforcement, Border Patrol, and advocates who work with drug 
addicts and the victims of human smuggling are in almost unanimous 
agreement on a few points.
  First, what I have heard from them is this President, President 
Biden, must keep title 42 in place until there is a plan for how they 
would replace it. Title 42 is essential. This President must embrace a 
Remain in Mexico policy, and this President must do what the Border 
Patrol has asked to be done for three decades, and that is to build the 
wall and give them the tools they need to get their job done. These are 
all of the things that President Biden could choose to do right now.
  So why is he refusing to take action?
  If you know, the American people would really like to have an answer 
because they look at the chaos coming from this administration, the 
chaos at the border, and the chaos on our streets, and they know that 
this country deserves better.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  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.
  The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
scheduled vote occur immediately.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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