[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 116 (Thursday, July 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3297-S3298]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Well, Mr. President, on another matter, I am eager to head home this 
afternoon to Texas, where, as I mentioned, the weather is a little 
warm. We have been having, I think, about 33 days of plus-100-degree 
temperatures. And as I was telling some of my colleagues here, no, it 
is not a dry heat, which is usually the response when you tell somebody 
how hot it is. They say: Well, at least it is a dry heat.
  It is not. It is very hot. But it is summertime in Texas, so we 
expect it, and we adjust to that.
  But we are going specifically to the Rio Grande Valley, which is that 
1,200-mile strip of land that is contiguous to Mexico, between Texas 
and Mexico. And we are going with some of our Senate colleagues so they 
can see for themselves what Senator Cruz and I have seen before and 
have come to learn as a result of talking to the world's best experts 
in what is happening at the border, and that is the people who live and 
work there.

  The men and women who live and work along our border are the experts 
and the best people to talk to and learn from, which is one reason why 
I continue to be disappointed that the Vice President, having been 
appointed border czar or immigration czar, has yet to make a 
substantive visit to the border to do what we will do this afternoon 
and tomorrow, which is to listen and learn. And maybe--just maybe--it 
would prompt a change in the failed policies which have created a huge 
humanitarian crisis. Well, the folks who live and work on the border 
know the strain this has placed on local law enforcement, on their 
hospitals, on their schools, and the danger it creates for their 
communities.
  Just to be clear, I am not talking about safety concerns in those 
communities. Cities in the Rio Grande Valley and along Texas's southern 
border are not dangerous and lawless places, but the people who pass 
through there can be. And amid the 3 million people that the Border 
Patrol has encountered in the last year and a half, there, 
unfortunately, presents opportunities for people with criminal records 
and people who are members of gangs and drug traffickers to be obscured 
by the vast flow of these 3 million people.
  But once people cross the border, they want to get to places like 
Chicago, San Diego, New York, Seattle, Atlanta. These are all places 
that have a presence of the drug cartels. What I don't think enough 
people realize is once the drugs come across the border--the same drugs 
that took the lives of 108,000 Americans last year through drug 
overdoses--once those drugs come across the border, the network by 
which they are distributed is largely criminal street gangs, who are 
also responsible for most of the violence in our communities across the 
country because they are fighting each other for territory, for market 
share, to sell these illegal drugs to unsuspecting consumers.
  This is another reason for the spiking crime waves that we have seen 
in recent months across America. People want to act like this is 
something that is just contained in cities like Chicago, that it is a 
local problem. No. This is a systemic problem that flows from the Biden 
administration's unwillingness to provide any level of controls to 
people coming across the border or to deter people from making the 
long,

[[Page S3298]]

dangerous journey and perhaps dying in the process.
  I have been in Brooks County, which is where the Falfurrias 
checkpoint is. What happens is the smugglers smuggle people across the 
border, they put them in stash houses, and then periodically they will 
get them in some vehicle and travel up the highway. But that is why we 
have Border Patrol checkpoints about 50, 60 miles inland. But what will 
happen is the smugglers will tell the migrants: Get out of the car and 
meet me on the north side of this checkpoint.
  And maybe, if they are lucky, they will get an old milk carton full 
of water and maybe a power bar, something to sustain them. But I have 
seen the bleached bones of migrants who have been left behind and 
simply died in the process, and recognizing the extreme temperatures 
that exist, particularly at times like this in places like Texas, it is 
no surprise that a number of these migrants don't make it.
  Well, our Border Patrol is simply the frontline in our law 
enforcement efforts along the border; but due to the failed policies of 
the Biden administration, the Border Patrol is unable to do the job 
that they swore to do, which is to defend and protect our borders, 
because they are simply overwhelmed by the number of people coming 
across.
  Last month, the Rio Grande Valley Sector agents arrested 10 MS-13 
members, one of the most violent gangs in the world, and 2 other gang 
members within a 4-day span--12 gang members in 4 days. And that was in 
just one of 20 Border Patrol sectors. Since October, the Border Patrol 
has arrested more than 450 gang members, and we have already surpassed 
the total for the entire previous year.
  And the scary thing is, these are just the ones who were caught, 
because we know, with the volume of people coming across, there are 
what the Border Patrol calls the get-aways, and they estimate that as 
many as 300,000 more people are getting across the border unbeknownst 
to the Border Patrol because they are simply preoccupied with these 
huge numbers, and they get away into the interior of the country.
  And once they get across the border, particularly if they are people 
who have an intention to do harm and commit crime in the United States, 
they will end up in Boston, Sacramento, Detroit, Miami, or any other 
city in the United States.
  Somebody said: Well, every city is a border city now, and, for all 
practical purposes, that is true. Folks who live thousands of miles 
from the border can't write this off as a problem for somewhere else. 
This is a national problem. Gangs and cartels are sending their 
henchmen to our cities and our communities. They are trafficking in 
fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and other deadly drugs, along with 
guns and human trafficking.
  They are what one person called years ago commodity agnostic. In 
other words, they are in it for the money. They don't care how they 
make the money. They don't care about the people. They are just in it 
for the money. And in doing so, they are ushering in crime and violence 
and creating unsafe communities all across our country.
  This administration has ignored the crisis at our southern border in 
an effort to appease open-borders members of their political party. 
They have created a gateway for cartel and gang members to come into 
our country and wreak havoc on our communities.
  Criminal organizations are very sophisticated. Their business model 
is to overwhelm our capacity to stop them and to make that buck by 
selling people drugs or other contraband in the communities all across 
our country. So the situation at the border is not simply about 
immigration. It is about security. It is about public safety. It is 
about knowing who is crossing the border and coming to live in your 
community.
  So I am eager to get back home to the Rio Grande Valley to talk to 
some of these women who are doing heroic work on the frontlines of this 
crisis, who are getting no help from the Biden administration.
  As I said, I wish President Biden would come to the border. We would 
welcome him and show him what we have learned ourselves from our 
frequent trips there. Maybe if the President saw and learned about the 
impact of the failed policies of his administration in person, he would 
begin to take this crisis seriously.
  Every State is impacted by the security breakdown at the border, and 
something needs to be done before the situation becomes even more 
dangerous than it currently is.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from Illinois.