[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 153 (Thursday, September 22, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4950-S4951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, new data from the U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection shows that the crisis at the border isn't going away even if 
that may be the wish of the Biden administration. In the last year, 
Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 2.3 million 
migrants at the southern border, which is an all-time high.
  I know some people think, well, these are economic migrants or people 
fleeing violence and persecution. Some of them are asylum seekers who 
might potentially qualify, although the data indicates that, if in fact 
they end up showing up for their immigration court hearing years after 
they claim asylum, because of the backlogs, only about 10 percent 
qualify for asylum. Then you have the economic migrants. You have 
criminals. You have drug smugglers. It is a hodgepodge. And while many 
people turn themselves in in order to invoke our asylum system, which 
is broken and results in many people being given a notice to appear for 
a future court hearing that they never show up for, the situation at 
the border remains a public safety threat and a humanitarian crisis.
  Customs and Border Protection is the first line of defense against 
dangerous threats to the country. Over the last 11 months, the hard-
working men and women of CBP have arrested nearly 700 criminal gang 
members and have stopped more than 140 people on the terrorist watch 
list from crossing the southern border. They have interdicted more than 
645 pounds of illegal drugs, including 13,600 pounds of the deadly 
synthetic opioid fentanyl. I think it takes roughly the point of a 
pencil lead, a couple of milliliters, of fentanyl to kill a person. So 
you can imagine what 13,600 pounds would do, and these are only the 
drugs that we have caught. Nobody believes that we catch even the 
majority of the drugs coming across.
  CBP seized illegal currency, weapons, ammunition, counterfeit goods, 
and other products that could hurt the American people or our economy.
  I want to just take a moment to thank the Border Patrol agents and 
Customs officers who take on this challenging and important work every 
day. Sometimes they are met with nothing more than derision or ridicule 
or a lack of support for their important work. These men and women put 
their own health and safety at risk to keep our borders and keep the 
American people safe, and they don't receive nearly the level of thanks 
that they deserve.
  Coming from a border State, as you might imagine, I have visited the 
border many, many times. I always enjoy talking to these men and women 
because they are, frankly, the experts about what we need to do in 
order to fix what is wrong about the borders. They are true 
professionals, and they know more than just about anybody else I have 
talked to about what the problem is and what the solutions are.
  Many of these officers and agents have worked for Customs and Border 
Protection for years, some even since its founding in 2003. They have 
seen migration surges over the years, but as they have told me many 
times, they have never seen anything quite like we are seeing today.
  An average of 6,600 migrants are coming across the southern border 
every

[[Page S4951]]

day. They will tell you: We simply don't have the capacity to manage 
that sort of tsunami of humanity. We don't have the facilities or the 
resources, and we certainly don't have the personnel. The only way we 
are able to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs is to divert law 
enforcement officers from their other important mission.
  Frankly, that is part of these transnational criminal organizations' 
plans: They overwhelm the Border Patrol, divert their attention, and 
then, in the hole that is created in border security, here come the 
drugs.
  Agents who would normally be on the frontlines, stopping cartels from 
smuggling drugs, are now serving meals and changing diapers.
  When you consider all of those stats that I mentioned--hundreds of 
thousands of pounds of illegal drugs, 700 criminal gang members, 141 
people on the terrorist watch list--there is an important qualifier to 
remember: Those are just the ones we know about. With law enforcement 
being shifted from patrol to caretaking duties, we are leaving major 
security gaps that are being exploited by the cartels and criminal 
organizations.
  There is a whole category of migrant that comes across the border 
known as the got-aways. The asylum seekers will typically show up and 
turn themselves in, but, frankly, I think it is the got-aways--hundreds 
of thousands of people--that you have to worry about because they don't 
want to encounter law enforcement because they either don't have any 
legal basis to enter the United States or they happen to be 
transporting illegal drugs or have a criminal record on their own 
right.
  There is no question that our security mission is taking a hit. Every 
day, cartel and gang members are trafficking and moving guns, drugs, 
illegal currency, and just about any other commodity that you can think 
about. And when they succeed, border communities aren't the only ones 
that see the impact.
  As you can see, cartels and transnational criminal organizations have 
a presence in cities across the United States. Once cartels make it 
across the border, they head to places as diverse as Chicago, Detroit, 
Atlanta, New York, San Diego, or just about any other city where they 
can do business, including Bangor, ME, and other places in Maine.
  These aren't the only people who are coming to the United States. 
These are not people coming to build a better life. They are coming 
here to prey on innocent Americans for their own gain.
  Last year, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's Chicago Field 
Division spoke about what happens once these drugs and criminals reach 
his backyard.
  He said:

       Cartels use every possible means to get drugs from Mexico 
     into the United States and then into the local markets. And 
     in Chicago--

  For example--

     that means predominantly to the gangs that control the drug 
     markets in Chicago.

  If you are concerned, as most Americans are, about the spike in crime 
that we have seen recently, well, a whole lot of that crime is caused 
by criminal street gangs committing various crimes, including selling 
illegal drugs and using guns to kill one another as part of their way 
to protect their market share and their territory. Those are the same 
gangs that fuel the overdose epidemic, the same gangs that perpetuate 
crime and gun violence, the same gangs that engage in deadly conflicts 
over territory. That is the cruel reality here.
  It is a self-perpetuating cycle, and it starts at the border. So even 
though you may not be a border State, at least a southern border State, 
you are affected because, as you can see, the network of distribution 
of illicit drugs coming across the border affects almost every major 
American city. And it is not just cities. A lot of our rural areas in 
Texas and elsewhere are affected as well.
  And we are reading increasingly about young people, unknown to them, 
consuming fentanyl in a fatal dose and dying, and it is happening every 
day, in every community around the United States. And 71,000 Americans 
died of fentanyl overdoses last year alone. This is where it comes 
from; this is how it is distributed; and those are the consequences. So 
no community in America has been spared the pain and suffering from 
this pandemic of drugs. In 2021, as I mentioned, 108,000 Americans died 
from drug overdoses; 71,000 of those 108,000 died from fentanyl.
  You know, I remember on September 11, 2001, when terrorists diverted 
aircraft and killed about 3,000 Americans. We declared a war against 
terrorism when 3,000 Americans were killed here in the homeland. Yet 
108,000 Americans died last year as a result of these open borders and 
our broken policy, and it doesn't seem to get the attention it 
deserves.
  Of course, being a border State, communities in Texas are dealing 
with the consequences of this humanitarian crisis and these drugs on a 
daily basis. Last weekend, three people in Wichita Falls died from 
suspected fentanyl overdoses. The oldest victim was 21; the youngest 
was 13. In the last couple of months, four students from the Hays 
County Consolidated Independent School District, right outside of 
Austin, died from a fentanyl overdose. All four were between the ages 
of 15 and 17.
  Across the State--indeed, across the Nation--families are mourning 
the loss of loved ones who have died from an overdose of these drugs, 
many of whom had no idea what they were consuming; they thought they 
were taking something else and ended up finding that it was laced with 
fentanyl--because the amount of fentanyl it takes to kill you is 
microscopic. The alarming increase in supply across our borders 
foreshadows even more devastation in the months and years to come.
  Here is my point. The Biden administration needs to start taking this 
problem seriously. Cartels and criminal organizations are exploiting 
the security gaps at the border and sending these drugs and the 
criminals along with them to communities not just in Texas, not just in 
Arizona, not just in California or New Mexico, but all across the 
United States.
  Addressing this security breakdown at our border has got to be a 
priority. We can't ignore it because it is not going to get any better. 
This is not just about migrants and immigration. It is about that, but 
it is not just about that. It is about security. It is about public 
safety. It is about knowing who is crossing our border and reaching 
into our local communities.
  Cartels are sociopaths. They don't really care about people, 
including the migrants that they smuggle into the United States. If you 
go to Falfurrias, TX, which is in South Texas at a border checkpoint 
about 70 miles from the border--which is where, once migrants are 
stuffed into a car or a van or some other vehicle, they are then driven 
up the highway to these Border Patrol checkpoints; then they are told 
by the coyotes, which is the colloquial name for these human smugglers: 
Get out of the car and walk around the checkpoint because we can't risk 
going through the checkpoint with you there where we might be 
discovered. And so they do.
  And so you go to Brooks County, TX, which is where the Falfurrias 
checkpoint is located, and they have asked the Federal Government for 
help to bury the bodies of migrants who die from exposure walking 
around that checkpoint in Falfurrias, TX, because it gets hot in Texas, 
particularly during the summer, and many of these migrants have come 
from far, far away and are suffering already from dehydration and other 
exposure.
  But my point is the cartels don't care anything about them. They will 
leave them to die. They are just another way to make a buck. But the 
cartels terrorize more than just the migrants themselves; they 
terrorize communities across our country. And they seized on the Biden 
administration's weak policies to grow their foothold in the United 
States.
  These transnational criminal organizations are getting rich smuggling 
migrants and smuggling drugs into the United States and killing 
Americans in the process. It is past time to do something. The Biden 
administration is being outmaneuvered by the cartels, and until we see 
leadership from the President, communities all across this country will 
continue to pay the price.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.