[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 20 (Tuesday, January 31, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S155-S157]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, over the past few days, we have seen a 
number of headlines with surprising announcements about the impact the 
Biden administration's new border policies have had. Reuters, for 
example, ran a story last week titled ``U.S. arrests of Cuban, Haitian, 
Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants plummet.''
  Dallas Morning News had a story titled ``Biden administration says 
illegal border crossings already falling under new policies.''
  The Wall Street Journal ran a story over the weekend with the 
headline ``Migrant Arrests Fell by Roughly Half in January After New 
Enforcement Measures.''
  Well, by reading those headlines alone, you might assume that the 
administration had finally done something it has refused to do over the 
last 2 years, and that is to take action to address the migration 
crisis, the humanitarian and public safety crisis that has been 
occurring at our southern border. You might think that they started 
using authorities they already had under existing law to enforce those 
laws at the southern border and deter would-be migrants from making the 
dangerous journey north. Well, if you made those assumptions, you would 
be wrong. That is not the case at all.
  As we know, the border has been operating at a state of crisis for at 
least the last 2 years. Last year alone, U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection encountered 2.4 million migrants, completely shattering 
previous records. Last month, we broke the record for monthly 
encounters. The Agency logged more than a quarter of a million--more 
than 250,000--border crossings in December alone.
  Here is the ugly little secret that the Biden administration so far 
has failed to acknowledge: Vice President Kamala Harris talks about 
going to Central America, talks about root causes of the migration 
crisis, and Secretary Blinken talks about root causes, assuming that 
this is a regional matter affecting Mexico and Central America and that 
it is primarily people who are coming to the United States strictly for 
economic reasons or to flee violence. But the fact of the matter is, 
people are coming from all over the world to our doorstep and seeking 
asylum.
  A couple of weeks ago, we had a bipartisan congressional trip to El 
Paso, an urban area. We then went to Yuma, AZ, which is a sleepy little 
agricultural community right there along the border of Arizona and 
California. The acting Border Patrol chief told us that they had people 
from 176 countries, speaking 200 languages, seeking asylum, coming to 
the Yuma port of entry.
  You might ask, how in the world is that possible? That doesn't sound 
like root causes; that sounds like a global network of human struggling 
that is exploiting our asylum laws to gain entry into the United 
States.
  Well, Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona, who was with us, said: Well, 
Mexicali, which is a relatively large city in northern Mexico, just 
across the border from Yuma, has an airport, and presumably people are 
flying into Mexicali from disparate places around the world because 
they know that if they show up at this port of entry in Yuma, they are 
likely to gain entry into the United States by claiming asylum, and 
they know that because of the backlog in asylum cases, their case is 
not likely to be heard for literally years and that if they did 
ultimately appear in front of an immigration judge, their chances of 
successfully gaining asylum, according to the legal standard under 
American law, was about 10 percent. So it doesn't surprise anybody that 
many of them don't show up for their court hearing but simply hope to 
evade detection and be able to permanently settle in the United States.
  This is what the Border Patrol calls ``no consequences'' associated 
with illegal immigration. What they have told me and anybody else who 
will listen is that if there are no consequences to coming to the 
United States and exploiting our asylum system or illegally coming to 
the United States, then people are going to keep coming.

  Indeed, that is what we have seen with an absolute lack of deterrence 
because of nonenforcement and because of the Biden administration 
border policies. People all over the world are taking advantage of the 
Biden administration's weak policies. They are crossing our southern 
border at an alarming rate, imposing huge burdens on the border 
communities in States like mine, like Texas, that do not have the 
resources to meet the demands of this crisis.
  It wasn't that long ago that Del Rio, TX, a small community of 35,000 
people, had 15,000 Haitians arrive in their city and claim asylum. As 
it turned out, many of those Haitians had been living in South America, 
having fled Haiti previously, but they had been living more or less 
peacefully in South America. But because they saw an opportunity to 
come to the United States and exploit this same asylum system, they 
showed up in Del Rio, TX--35,000 people--15,000 of them, overwhelming 
the capacity of that small city to deal with them.
  Until recently, the administration saw two options when it came to 
migrants. Option No. 1 was to use the authority granted under title 42 
to expel these individuals to Mexico. Of course, title 42 is a public 
health title that has been in place because of COVID. Option No. 2 was 
to parole them. Basically, that means to grant them permission to enter 
the United States, where they would await immigration court 
proceedings, which, as I said, because of the backlog, because of the 
sheer volume, will take years.
  Under the administration's so-called new plan, there is now another 
option for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. So that is 
four countries. There is a new option for people coming from those four 
countries. It apparently doesn't apply to the other 172 countries that 
the Yuma Border Patrol

[[Page S156]]

chief has said that they have encountered. But under the 
administration's new plan, there is an option for Cubans, Haitians, 
Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans that will allow them to remain in the 
United States legally for 2 years and receive work authorization.
  What more of a magnet do you need for people to come to the United 
States than to give them a work permit and to say: You can stay here 
legally for 2 years while you await your court proceeding. All they 
have to do is submit information online before crossing the border and 
wait for the administration to give them the green light.
  Well, the Border Patrol, in educating me and others about what is 
happening at the border, they talk about push factors and they talk 
about pull factors. The push factors, we all understand. That is 
poverty, violence, people wanting a better life. We don't begrudge 
people who want a better life, want a piece of the American dream, but 
we do--we should--insist they come to the country through legal means, 
not illegal means, not exploiting vulnerabilities in our asylum system.
  But there is no greater pull factor than this idea that there will be 
no consequences to coming to the United States, that you will 
successfully make your way into the United States, into the interior, 
and you will be able to stay. That is the ultimate pull factor, and 
that is the reason there is zero deterrence under President Biden's 
open border policies. Apparently he wants to continue that when it 
comes to people coming from these four countries.
  Well, there are several problems with this plan that I alluded to. 
First of all, it is not a solution to the open border policies that 
currently exist. It doesn't discourage migrants from making the long, 
dangerous journey; it just artificially lowers the numbers.
  Here is what I mean by that. Before this so-called new policy, if a 
migrant from one of these four countries was apprehended at the border, 
they would be encountered by the Border Patrol and either removed under 
title 42, repatriated, or paroled into the country.
  Every month, Customs and Border Protection reports a total number of 
migrants released into the United States, giving us an understanding of 
just how big, what the magnitude of this crisis truly is. Last month, 
for example, more than 130,000 migrants were paroled into the United 
States. One hundred thirty thousand were given the paperwork to move 
into the United States.
  The administration has taken a lot of heat for the fact that it is 
engaging in catch-and-release at an unprecedented pace. Basically, what 
that means is that rather than being detained while your asylum status 
is determined--and, as I said, the vast majority will not ultimately 
qualify if they appear in front of an immigration judge--catch-and-
release just makes this worse.
  Rather than stop the practice and actually detain and remove migrants 
without legitimate asylum claims, the Biden administration came up with 
this new policy to, in effect, cook the books. The 30,000 migrants a 
month who enter the United States as part of this new program won't 
even be included in the monthly statistics that have become a huge 
political albatross for President Biden. If migrants enter the United 
States on a legal basis, which is exactly what this program provides, 
they will never be tallied as part of the migration crisis.
  They have taken 30,000 people and said: OK, we are going to make your 
entry into the country legal--so, by definition, it is no longer 
illegal immigration--by a wave of the magic wand.
  In short, this new policy lets the administration roll out the 
welcome mat for tens of thousands of migrants while making it seem like 
the numbers have actually gone down, which they have not.
  Problem No. 2 is that any progress is all but guaranteed to be 
temporary.
  According to the administration, we have seen a 97-percent drop in 
the number of illegal crossings for migrants from these four countries, 
and, as I said, these are just 4 of the 176 countries represented by 
the folks who show up at the one Yuma Border Patrol crossing currently. 
So it is just four countries.
  It appears, now, that there are thousands of migrants who would have 
previously arrived at the border who are now waiting for the Biden 
administration to approve their online application. But what happens 
after those 30,000 spots are filled? What happens when it takes months 
rather than weeks for migrants to receive the green light?
  I can tell you exactly what will happen. Migrants from these four 
countries will start coming across the border illegally once again.
  Will they be expelled under title 42? Will they be paroled into the 
interior? Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure. Once the line 
gets too long, we will be right back where we started, only with an 
added challenge: There will be a new population of tens or even 
hundreds of thousands of people living and working in the United States 
on what is supposed to be a temporary basis. As Ronald Reagan once 
noted, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.
  Third, the new program normalizes migrants coming to the United 
States based on facts that would not qualify them under our current 
laws for asylum. The administration's description of urgent 
humanitarian reasons that would qualify a Haitian migrant for the 
program, for example, points to gang violence, the aftermath of an 
earthquake or a cholera breakout that worsened political, economic, and 
social conditions. Now, we can all agree that these are terrible 
conditions, but they don't meet the standard for a valid asylum claim.
  That leads to perhaps the biggest problem of all: that the 
administration circumvented--did an end run--around Congress to 
implement this policy, which has basically teed up an even bigger 
headache.
  President Biden is following in the footsteps of President Obama by 
creating a new category of immigrants without consulting with or 
getting the agreement of Congress. As we saw with President Obama and 
the deferred action for childhood arrivals, his use of Executive action 
10 years ago has now created more problems for this population of young 
people who came here as children and who are now adults because the 
courts have so far said that President Obama didn't have the authority 
to do what he purported to do.
  By the way, if you go back and do an internet search and see what 
President Obama said shortly before he granted this deferred action for 
childhood arrivals, I think he said, perhaps as many as 17 times--I 
could be off a little bit--that he did not have the authority. He said 
he did not have the authority to do what he ultimately did, and, 
unfortunately, now the courts are agreeing with him, putting the 
livelihood and future of these young people in jeopardy.
  It has been more than a decade since DACA was established, and the 
fate of these young people is still being litigated in court. It is a 
terrible circumstance to find themselves in, and this won't be any 
different.
  The Biden policies will allow migrants to live and work in the United 
States for 2 years, and then what? Well, will they leave voluntarily? I 
doubt it. Will they be apprehended and removed by Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement? No, I doubt that. Or will this be another group of 
migrants who will live in the shadows?
  There is no question that our immigration system is broken. I have 
yet to find a person--a responsible person--who thinks our immigration 
system is working the way it should. It is big, it is outdated, it is 
inefficient, and it is not serving our Nation's interests well. But if 
the President wants to undertake immigration reform, as he says he 
does, this is not the way to go.
  By end-running Congress to try to establish new categories of 
immigrants, he is poisoning the well. He is making it harder for us to 
do what many of us would like to do, and that is to take on the 
monumental task of securing the border and creating a legal immigration 
system that serves our Nation's interests and one that we can be proud 
of.
  But, by poisoning the well, the President is not gaining new allies. 
He is just ensuring that more people will resist any potential 
legislation that we might take up soon. So despite what the initial 
data may suggest, what the spin doctors here in Washington have been 
selling to the news media, which has gullibly been accepting that, as 
if this is somehow a big deal for a negative trend in terms of illegal 
immigration, it is not so. The President hasn't

[[Page S157]]

solved the problem. He has just swept it under the rug, and he has, 
arguably, made it worse.
  This crisis is complex, but the solution isn't. The administration 
needs to engage with Congress and enforce our immigration laws that are 
on the books and those that are being exploited by the international 
criminal networks that are smuggling people into the United States on a 
daily basis.
  We need to work together to address those gaps that are being 
exploited. If migrants from any country see that the United States is 
quickly detaining and removing people who do not have a legal basis to 
remain in our country, the flow of illegal immigration will drop 
dramatically. That is the only viable path forward and where the 
administration should focus its time and effort.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

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