[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 13, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3280-S3284]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BORDER SECURITY

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I am on the floor today to talk about 
border security--a humanitarian, a national security, a community 
safety issue with direct connection to the drug epidemic we see in 
communities all around the country, including my home State of Ohio.
  I am also here to talk about legislation I introduced today with 
Senator Jim Risch to address this crisis. So we are in the middle right 
now of what is the biggest border crisis in the history of our country 
if you measure it by the number of people who are coming to the border 
unlawfully and, as the Biden administration says, people who are 
encountering the Border Patrol.
  The Biden administration claims that they have the border under 
control and that they are--and I am quoting--doing a good job. This 
chart, though, tells a really different story. It shows that as of May, 
which is the last month that we have records for, we had the highest 
number of border encounters on record. The second highest, by the way, 
was the month before: April. So you see this goes back to 2019. There 
was a surge here--144,000. Here, we have the inauguration of President 
Biden, and then we have had big increases--again, to the point that 
over the last couple of months, we have had record numbers of people 
who have come unlawfully to the border and been stopped by, apprehended 
by, the Border Patrol.
  This includes 239,000 total encounters at the border in the month of 
May--165,000 of which were single, adult migrants. This does not 
include those who were not encountered--in other words, those who 
slipped past the Border Patrol. We haven't been able to find a precise 
number for these individuals.
  The Border Patrol calls this group of people got-aways. But using a 
conservative estimate from the Border Patrol of 300,000 people who they 
think got away in the last fiscal year, you would then put the total 
number of unlawful entries at approximately 286,000 people in 1 month. 
If you annualize that, that would be 3.4 million people a year. Think 
about those numbers: almost 3\1/2\ million people a year coming to our 
border and attempting to gain entry unlawfully.
  Today, not all of those who are apprehended are allowed to come into 
the United States, and that is because under so-called title 42, 
roughly half of those individuals who are being apprehended, who are 
being encountered, are turned back. If they live in Mexico, they are 
sent back across the border. If they live in a country--say Ecuador or 
Guatemala--they are sent back, flown back to their country of origin. 
But these are people who are being turned away because of title 42.
  So what is title 42? It is a public health authority. It is an 
attempt by our government to limit migration in order to prevent the 
spread of communicable diseases--in this case, COVID-19. It allows the 
Customs and Border Protection officers and agents to tell unlawful 
migrants: You can't come to the United States for these public health 
reasons. It only applies, by the way, now to single adults; but, as I 
said earlier, that is the single biggest group. It comprises about 48 
to 52 percent--about half--of the people who are coming up to the 
border.
  So even with the use of title 42, which is acting to discourage 
people from coming to our border, we are experiencing these record 
levels. We are also experiencing these record levels in these hot 
summer months. Normally, when you get into the summertime where it gets 
really hot--look here at May, June, July, August--the number of people 
coming to the border goes down, not up. It is over 100 degrees in the 
desert and at the Rio Grande, at almost all of these border crossings 
along the U.S.-Mexican border. Yet we have more, not less.
  There is anecdotal information that this is because people are 
realizing that the administration wants to end title 42. They have 
proposed to do that. That is now in the court system. But the cartels 
are spreading the message, which is: Now is the time to come because, 
before, you were turned away by title 42. Now, like everybody else, you 
can come into the United States and stay. And we will talk in a moment 
about what that means.
  But I think that is probably true. Probably title 42 has something to 
do with it. But I think, also, it has to do with the fact that more and 
more people are realizing that if they do come to the border and don't 
get stopped by title 42, they will have a chance to come into the 
United States and live in the United States with their families, 
perhaps; if not, maybe bring in their families later. And everybody 
wants to come to America. We are a great country.
  We have our challenges, as we talk about on the floor here all the 
time. But, still, we are a country with so many opportunities for 
people, and folks want to come. And I don't blame them. I don't blame 
them. But we want them to come legally.
  And we currently have the most generous legal immigration system of 
any country in the world. About 900,000 people a year--almost a million 
people a year--come legally to the United States, most as legal 
immigrants, some as refugees. And so we encourage that, and we should.
  In fact, I think we should bring more people in legally, particularly 
to fill

[[Page S3281]]

some of the jobs that we need filled, the STEM disciplines we talk 
about a lot. We need people with the kind of training and background to 
help our economy grow. But we need people at every level of training. 
But we want them to come legally and through an orderly process that is 
more humane, that doesn't have all the issues--which we will talk about 
tonight--the humanitarian issues at the southern border.
  In terms of title 42, we all hope that this public health emergency 
isn't necessary going forward because COVID-19 ends. But in the 
meantime, this border crisis means, to me, that we have to keep title 
42 in place until we make some changes in policy. Otherwise, it will be 
not just a crisis. It will be totally overwhelming.
  As the Border Patrol says to me, they will lose operational control 
of the border. Some would argue that has already happened because so 
many people are coming over at record numbers. Often, the Border Patrol 
is distracted by one group of migrants, and another group comes in. And 
I saw this when I was at the border in El Paso. And anybody who has 
been down at the border has seen this.
  They are already in tough shape. But imagine if 48 percent of the 
people here who are now being turned away by title 42 are not going to 
be turned away and the number of other people who will come knowing 
that that avenue is now open to them. This will be overwhelming.
  It is very difficult right now, with the laws and the way the laws 
are being implemented, to keep that from happening. That is why we need 
a change in policy. It doesn't have to happen here in Congress. I think 
we should change the laws and introduce legislation today to do that. 
But the administration itself could make these changes.
  By the way, in the last administration, as you can see, the number of 
people coming across the border unlawfully and the number of encounters 
was very low. But the same was true in the Obama administration. After 
they had a surge of unaccompanied minors, they made changes in the law, 
and they reduced the number of people who were coming unlawfully to the 
border as well. It can be done, but there has to be the will do it.
  I am the ranking Republican on the Senate committee that has 
oversight responsibility for the Department of Homeland Security. The 
Presiding Officer is also on that committee. This Department of 
Homeland Security is preparing, they tell us, for a huge increase in 
migrants after title 42 has ended. So although they want to end it, 
they also know that if they do end it, there is going to be a huge 
surge because they are actually preparing for that.
  The way they are doing it is interesting. It is not so much keeping 
people from coming into the United States as expediting their flow into 
the United States. Among other things, instead of processing people at 
the border, their recommendation is go ahead and put people on buses or 
other forms of transportation and then do the processing later, perhaps 
on the buses or where they are going in the United States. So it is a 
way to move people through the process rather than come up with a way 
to discourage people from coming across the border illegally.
  DHS has planned, and then will facilitate, travel throughout the 
country rather than figuring out how to keep people from coming in the 
first place by telling them: Come legally, but please don't come to our 
border illegally.
  By the way, I think most Americans are very supportive of legal 
immigration. It is an important part of who we are. With very few 
exceptions of Native Americans, we all came from someplace else. All of 
us have proud stories of our immigrant forebearers--our parents, our 
grandparents, our great-grandparents. And it has enriched our country. 
It is part of the fabric of our Nation. It is what makes us special. 
But that is legal immigration. And it is not what we are talking about 
here.
  Who bears the brunt of this crisis? Well, at the outset, of course, 
it is the Border Patrol. We have got to provide them with the personnel 
and resources they need to complete their mission, as difficult as it 
is.
  When you go and meet with these people, the men and women of the 
Border Patrol, you come away just so proud of what they try to do every 
day. They are a combination of, you know, border agents trying to 
enforce the law, social workers trying to help people with their 
problems, healthcare workers trying to help when people get 
hurt. Unfortunately, as we have seen, a lot of people are getting hurt 
in this process. That journey north is a dangerous journey.

  And with the cartels so involved and right there at the border, what 
happens in the desert, what happens on these trains, what happens in 
these trucks--we just saw this horrible incident of these migrants who 
were jammed into a semitruck, and more of them died, I think, than any 
other accident of that kind, incident of that kind, in our history. But 
this is inhumane, and this is part of what happens when you have these 
cartels involved in this process.
  We also have got to provide the Border Patrol with the ability to 
help control things at the border by finishing the border fence and 
putting the technology with the fence that was always intended.
  By the way, the technology tends not to be very partisan around here. 
Democrats and Republicans alike, I believe, mostly think we ought to 
have cameras. We ought to have sensors. We ought to know what is going 
on at the border. But when the order came down the first day of the 
Biden administration to stop the wall and to end what the Trump 
administration had started with Congress's approval and funding, they 
also said, Stop the technology.
  So in the El Paso sector, as an example, the wall is about 80, 90 
percent completed. Unfortunately, there are gaps in the wall where you 
literally have to have Border Patrol there 24 hours a day or people 
just come through it, which makes their job really hard. What they want 
to do is at least have the wall there to slow people down. And the 
technology there enables them to then go and deal with situations as 
they occur. But only 20 percent of the technology had been completed. 
So you have more wall than you have technology. And the wall is not 
that useful, frankly, without the technology, in my view. I think the 
technology is the key. But that is what is happening.
  And, by the way, to the taxpayers listening tonight, which is pretty 
much all of us, we paid for that wall. We actually paid for the fencing 
to be put up. Congress appropriated the money. And then the 
administration stopped it. So you literally see the steel beams and the 
pieces of concrete for the wall lying on the ground. And as one Border 
Patrol agent told me when I was in one of the sectors--most recently I 
was in the Nogales sector where there is a huge gap--he said, this is 
really bad for morale. And our Border Patrol agents look at this stuff, 
and they say: We have already paid for this. Can't we just finish the 
wall and put these fences up, the gates up, to keep these openings from 
attracting the cartels and the drug smugglers and the people smugglers? 
But that is where we are. So that is one thing our legislation does, is 
to correct that problem and help stop this crisis.
  It also says that title 42--we talked about earlier--won't be lifted 
until the COVID-19 emergency is over. Again, I think it ought to be 
lifted when we have policies in place that make sense. But a lot more 
is needed. The bill also mandates that the program the Biden 
administration ended, which said that as you come to ask for asylum, 
you should wait at the border--it is called the migrant protocols.
  There was just an agreement with the President of Mexico and 
President Biden a couple of days ago about more funding for the border 
area--and that is good--to provide more humane living conditions. But 
this was working to tell people, if you want to come for asylum, go 
ahead and apply. And while you are waiting for asylum, you can remain 
in Mexico. And if you get asylum, you come across. If you don't, you go 
home. What happened is, a lot of people just went home.
  The asylum process, which we will get into in a minute, is kind of a 
complicated issue. But in other ways, it is pretty simple, and it is 
the main reason for this, which is that people know if they come to the 
border and they claim asylum, which most people do, they have an 
immediate, what is called, credible fear interview. Sometimes, it is 
over the telephone now,

[[Page S3282]]

partly because of COVID. And that is a very low bar. And so people say 
what their issue is back home where they feel persecuted, and then they 
come in. And once they are told to come in, then they are told: OK, you 
can go to wherever you are going in America--let's say Cincinnati, my 
hometown, or Columbus or Chicago or Denver, wherever it is--and you 
need to check in with the ICE office--that is the immigration office in 
the interior of the United States--within 90 days.
  Some people do check in. Some people don't check in. But the point 
is, there is now a wait of somewhere between 6 to 8 years before your 
case is heard on asylum--6 to 8 years. Why? Because there are 1.5 
million--someone told me today 1.6 million; let's say 1.5 million 
people, that is high enough--waiting in line. That is what the backlog 
is.
  It just makes no sense to anybody, including, by the way, the 
Secretary of Homeland Security, whom I have talked to about this. And 
these long waits mean that you are there embedded in a community in 
America getting to know your community. You are joining your church. 
You are sending your kids to school. You are having children. You are 
part of the community. And then you are told after 6 to 8 years, by the 
way, your asylum application is being denied because you are an 
economic refugee, not an asylee. In other words, you haven't 
demonstrated a fear of persecution. You have come to this country, 
understandably, because there is great opportunity here. Again, we 
should be encouraging these people to come legally like so many other 
immigrants have over the years.

  Only about 15 to 20 percent of those people who apply for asylum 
today are getting asylum. So think about it. If you are part of the 80 
to 85 percent who are not going to get asylum, there is sometimes not 
much of an incentive to enter into this process and go through the 
hearings and so on.
  The consequence if you don't go through the hearings is that you are 
then subject to removal. However, we are just not removing people 
today. So this past year, the latest numbers we have are that 59,000 
people were deported, or removed, from America. About 66 percent of 
those people had a criminal background. But, remember, this is out of a 
couple hundred thousand people going through the process. So there is a 
very small chance that you will ever be removed or deported. Even 
though you went through the process, you were denied asylum. You stay 
in the United States. And, you know, the next administration could 
change that. This administration could change that. But right now, this 
asylum process, which was created to give lawful presence to people who 
were unable to be in their home country because of persecution, is not 
being used properly. It is being exploited by people who know that 
because of our system and our huge backlog, if they say that they are 
part of a group that is being persecuted they can come in. And even 
when they are denied asylum, they can stay. That is the way it is 
working.
  What we have found is that folks who come here are almost entirely 
focused more on the economic side. There was a survey conducted by the 
Migration Policy Institute recently, which, by the way, is a pro-
migrant institution. It found that 90 percent of the Central Americans 
making the journey to our southern border are coming for what? For 
work. They are coming for work because they come from poor countries. 
They don't have a lot of opportunity in their country. I don't blame 
them. If I was a father living in Honduras and couldn't find a job or I 
was a subsistence farmer just barely making it and I had a few kids and 
I wanted them to have a better life, I would come, too.
  But that is not what immigration is all about. It is a system where 
you come legally, yes. But if you come illegally, you have got to be 
told you have to go back and apply like everybody else. Otherwise, 
America would be overwhelmed. And it is being overwhelmed and will be 
even more overwhelmed if title 42 is taken away. There are hundreds of 
millions of people--maybe billions of people--around the world who 
would love to come to this country. We take for granted our 
opportunities, our freedoms; but others don't.
  So we have to have a system. We have to have some sort of a border. 
And, really, that is the question that is before us today in this body: 
Are we going to have a system that makes sense or one where, again, you 
have a million and a half people who are waiting to have their hearing. 
When they have their hearing on asylum and they are denied, they still 
aren't removed; so they can stay. And, again, meanwhile, they have 
family and kids and connections to the community. It is really not fair 
to them. A much better system would be to say, OK, apply for asylum in 
your country, or if you don't feel comfortable there, apply from a 
third country. Then you will know, yes or no, before you come up to the 
border, don't make that dangerous journey north. Don't put yourself in 
the clutches of these coyotes, these human smugglers, these 
traffickers, who are heartless. What they are doing is they are going 
down to Central America or Latin America or really all over the world. 
People are coming from hundreds of countries now. And they are saying, 
you know, give me money. Give me 10,000 bucks, and I will get you to 
the border, and you can just walk across.
  People are signing up--sometimes with their life savings. And 
sometimes as, again, we talked about earlier, there are assaults along 
the way. There are all kinds of horrible stories of how women, 
particularly, are mistreated on the way up. It is a dangerous and 
inhumane process.
  At the end of the day, our system is pulling these people to the 
border. The administration is now implementing a new asylum rule 
recently to try to deal with this problem because they realize it is 
just not working. However, the new system that they are putting in 
place isn't working either, and there is a reason for that. Their 
theory is we should adjudicate the cases at the border. I agree with 
that. I would rather adjudicate them outside the border in the country 
of origin or a third country, but have the adjudication be right at the 
border; make the decision right there, yes or no. Let people know.
  The problem is what they are doing right now is they are putting 
asylum officers at the border, making a decision, adjudicating as 
people come across. And if it is a no, people are not being sent home. 
But rather, people are being told if it is a no, you can appeal it to 
the regular system, so get back in line with the 1.5 million people.
  What we are learning is that, of course, people are smart. They are 
talking to the asylum officer. They are getting a yes or no. If they 
are getting a yes, that is great; they are getting in. That is a small 
percentage. If they are getting a no, they say, That is fine, I am 
going to appeal it to the regular system.
  It really isn't an answer to the problem. If you want an answer to 
the problem, what you would have is processing centers along the 
border. It would be expensive because there are so many people coming 
over now, so many people applying for asylum. But have a process where, 
quickly, you can adjudicate these cases. In the meantime, you would not 
have people be released into the interior but have them stay there to 
find out what the outcome of the case is.
  This pull system is bad for everybody except the smugglers. They are 
the ones who profit. They are the ones who are going to folks in places 
like Honduras or Ecuador or, again, far-flung places--places in Eastern 
Europe, places in Asia--and telling people, Give me a bunch of money, 
and I will get you into the United States.
  We recently had this tragedy I mentioned in San Antonio. Fifty-three 
migrants were left for dead in the Texas heat in the back of a tractor-
trailer. They were just abandoned by their smuggler. They left them 
locked inside of this tractor-trailer. It is not the first time this 
has happened. But as I said earlier, 53 is probably the worst smuggling 
tragedy in our history.
  I went to Latin America last year. I met with the Presidents of 
Mexico and Guatemala, Ecuador, and Colombia. It was interesting. They 
all said the same thing. You would be surprised to hear what they said. 
People think they must enjoy this process because so many of their 
citizens are going to America, they can then send money back to their 
family and it must be good for everybody. It is not.
  They are losing some of the best and brightest in their country, and 
these

[[Page S3283]]

people are going through, again, this arduous process to get to the 
border, and the inhumanity of that troubles these Presidents. They all 
told me basically the same thing, which is: Why don't you guys fix your 
laws and stop this pull factor?
  We talk about the push factor in poor countries. I mentioned Honduras 
earlier. That is certainly true. By the way, we spent over the last 5 
years about $3.6 billion of American taxpayer money to help in the 
economics of the so-called Northern Triangle in the Central American 
countries.
  I am for spending money in these countries to try to help with their 
economy, but with the corruption, with all the issues they have, it is 
very difficult to imagine those countries in a short period of time 
having any kind of economic opportunity that equals what we have right 
here in this country, so there is going to continue to be that push. We 
should try to alleviate it. It will continue to happen.
  But the pull, this policy we have is just pulling people north. What 
they said to me, these Presidents of these countries, was: You have a 
legal immigration system where people know they can just get into your 
country. Why don't you change that? Why don't you change that?
  Again, it is not just people from Mexico and Central America. It is 
people from all over the world.
  By the way, for some of these people, the Border Patrol is 
increasingly concerned because they come from countries where a lot of 
people want to do us harm. So, increasingly, we are seeing people 
coming to our country who are, as an example, on the terror watch list.
  Back in 2017, 2 people; 6 people in 2018; none in 2019; 2020, there 
were 3; 15 in 2021. This fiscal year, 2022, there are already 50 
individuals on the terror watch list. Why? They know if they come to 
the U.S. border, they can get across. I am sure this number is higher--
that is what we know--because, again, a lot of people are so-called got 
aways. Let's say 20 percent.

  Who are these people? Well, some of them are probably pretty smart 
individuals who know how to get away from Border Patrol, do the 
distraction and sneak in. That worries me and it worries me because we 
are allowing people to come into our country who we would not otherwise 
allow.
  We have seen this increase of people coming into the country who are 
on the terror watch list, but we have also seen, again, a lot of people 
coming in who we just don't know anything about because they don't 
count them at the Border Patrol. We have seen more caravans and we see 
more migrants are on the way. Why? I think it is because of this 
general pull factor. The fact is people know, if they come here, they 
know they are going to be able to get in.
  I think it is also because of title 42 because the smugglers are 
using that--cartels are spreading the word: Title 42 is on its way out.
  Read about it in the front page of your paper because that is where 
it is because this administration wants to end it, so they are saying 
now you can go to the border and you will be let in under the policies 
like the asylum policy and the single adults--48 percent of whom 
roughly have been turned away. Forty-eight percent of the total by 
title 42 would no longer be turned away. I think that is why we are 
seeing this. It is giving the coyotes, traffickers, and smugglers 
opportunity to make lots of money.
  By the way, that is hurting all these countries, too. If you talk to 
the Presidents of these countries, including President Obrador of 
Mexico, what he will tell you is the cartels are taking over more and 
more of his country because they are making more and more money because 
of this--and, significantly, because of the drug issue we are going to 
talk about in a second. We know that the cartels are involved in human 
trafficking. We know they are involved in drug smuggling. We know they 
are involved in smuggling people.
  I was with the Border Patrol in El Paso last year. We were out at 
night. We saw a group of migrants coming, and the Border Patrol was 
going to that location to stop them and question them. Meanwhile, we 
heard on the radio the drug smugglers had come across. They could see 
it. They knew it. They could tell by the backpacks they were wearing, I 
guess, and clothes they were wearing--dark clothes, young men--that 
they were smuggling. But they couldn't do anything about it because 
Border Patrol were processing the migrants who had come in.
  So I am watching the migrants coming in--actually talking to some of 
them and Border Patrol--and meanwhile, on the radio, they are saying, 
You have to go to this other sector, this other area to stop these drug 
smugglers. We can't; we are distracted. The processing takes some time.
  The other big issue, in addition to the unlawful entry into the 
United States--smuggling, all the inhumanity that surrounds that--is 
this drug issue. I have spent a lot of time working on this issue on 
the prevention side--helping on treatment and recovery options and 
doing more on prevention. We were making some progress until, 
unfortunately, we were hit with this pandemic. And during that time and 
since, drug use has gone up again. But we were making progress, in 
part, because we were helping on the demand side of the equation.
  But also on the supply side, we were keeping some of these drugs out 
of the country. We did it primarily through stopping the deadliest of 
all, which is the fentanyl--which is a synthetic opioid--from coming in 
through the U.S. mail system. We passed a law called the STOP Act. It 
kept China from poisoning our communities by sending this stuff through 
the mail system, which was happening. That was the primary way it was 
coming in.
  What has happened? During the pandemic--kind of coincidental with the 
pandemic--we had more people isolated, more people losing their jobs, 
more people turning to drugs. You had Mexico begin to take the central 
role in terms of fentanyl. A lot of it is precursors from China, so 
China sends the precursors to Mexico, but Mexico is now making the 
fentanyl--often into pills--Xanax or Adderall or Percocet.
  If you buy any drugs on the street, know that those drugs could kill 
you. Don't be fooled. There are so many counterfeit drugs out there 
now. That is one of the preferred ways that the Mexican cartels are 
bringing these drugs in.
  Again, fentanyl is, of course, the deadliest of the drugs. About two 
thirds of the overdose deaths in America are currently because of 
fentanyl. We now have a record level of overdose deaths every year in 
America, over 100,000 last year. There is no reason to believe that it 
will be less than that this year based on early data we have, sadly. In 
my home State of Ohio, it is the No. 1 killer by far.
  Look at what has happened with the seizures of fentanyl. This is the 
fentanyl that has been seized. Here are projections for the rest of 
this year if they continue as they are--obviously, record levels. When 
you have this huge surge of fentanyl coming in, what happens is you 
have a lower cost in the drug--supply and demand, right? So there is a 
huge supply, and the demand for these drugs continues.

  On the streets of Columbus or Cleveland or Cincinnati or Dayton or 
your town, wherever it is, it is likely that this cheap but really 
deadly fentanyl is something that people are being exposed to. Some 
people are falling prey to it, again, often thinking they are taking 
another drug.
  There are a couple of students at Ohio State University who overdosed 
and died just before I gave a talk there at graduation earlier this 
spring. They were taking what they thought were study drugs, 
apparently: Adderall. A third student lived, but was in critical 
condition. This is the deadliest of drugs.
  In 2021, we seized double the fentanyl from the previous year, four 
times from the year before that. Again, so far this year, we are on 
track to match the most fentanyl seized ever. In May--just 1 month, in 
May--there was enough fentanyl seized at the border to kill 200 million 
Americans, more than half of our population in 1 month. People say: 
Well, gosh, why are you so worried about the border? Let people come 
across--open border--whatever.
  Here is the consequence.
  Again, it is hurting Mexico, too, and it is hurting lots of other 
countries. But in terms of Mexico, this gives the cartels enormous 
power and money. And, yes, ultimately, I think the most important thing 
to do is to reduce demand. I do.

[[Page S3284]]

  Again, we are making progress now. We had about a 20-percent 
reduction in 2018. We need to get back to that. This Congress took the 
lead on much of this.
  But we also have to deal with the supply side and stop this enormous 
surge of drugs that is coming over and poisoning our communities. That 
is part of what is happening on the border. A few months ago, I was in 
Nogales, south of Tucson, to ride with the Border Patrol and go to the 
port of entry there. They are doing a very good job with what they 
have, but they need better equipment.
  This is one thing Congress can do. They need help. They need more 
resources. They need better technology. They need to be able to scan 
cars and trucks that are coming in, particularly for these drugs that 
we talked about. A relatively small package of fentanyl this size can 
kill 1,000 people. A few specks could kill you. It is easy to hide it 
in a car or a truck.
  We now know that less than 2 percent of passenger vehicles and less 
than 20 percent of commercial vehicles coming into the United States 
are scanned for these illegal drugs like fentanyl. This is just 
unacceptable. Congress has appropriated more funding for this. That is 
good. Let's get it moving. We should be scanning all vehicles, in my 
view. A smuggler with multiple pounds of fentanyl concealed in a hidden 
compartment might be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of 
dollars. They know they have a good chance of getting across without a 
search. They take the risk.
  It is not just a gap in our security; it is a gaping hole. And, 
again, it leads to this flood of cheap fentanyl and other dangerous 
drugs. The southern border has faced the worst unlawful crisis that we 
have ever had, going back to the first chart. This tells the story, in 
red.
  The men and women of the Customs and Border Protection whom I have 
met over the years are doing the best they can. They are doing their 
best at the ports of entry. They are doing their best as Border Patrol 
between the ports of entry, but they need help. That is what 
legislation does. It provides them with the help they need to be able 
to respond to this crisis.
  We welcome legal immigration. We always should. They enrich our 
country. And we are a nation of immigrants, and we are proud of that. 
But we are also a nation of laws, and we are also a nation that cares 
about the inhumanity of the current system and the flood of cheap, 
deadly drugs coming through our border.
  I urge the Biden administration to change course, to fix this broken 
system, to follow the law, including the law on detaining people, to 
reform the asylum process so it stops acting like a pull factor and is 
used for what it is intended for, to truly help those who are seeking 
asylum for the right reasons, to stop these policies that send a green 
light to the smugglers, to the cartels, to the drug traffickers, and 
that is causing so much human suffering along our southern border.
  I urge the administration to act. In the meantime, again, we are 
introducing legislation. I urge my colleagues to help us with that. 
There is no reason that we can't work in a bipartisan way to deal with 
what everybody has to acknowledge is a huge crisis at our southern 
border.
  I yield the floor.

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