[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 19, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S1257]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HAGERTY (for himself, Mr. Risch, Mr. Lee, Ms. Lummis, Mrs. 
        Hyde-Smith, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Daines, Mr. Budd, 
        Mr. Crapo, and Mr. Young):
  S. 1192. A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services with the authority to suspend 
the right to introduce certain persons or property into the United 
States in the interest of the public health; to the Committee on 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. HAGERTY. Madam President, in February, the Biden administration 
argued to the U.S. Supreme Court that title 42 will terminate in May of 
2023 with the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
  Removing one of the last tools available to Border Patrol agents 
during a record-shattering border crisis is intolerable. Congress 
should not stand by and refuse to address this obvious problem.
  Title 42 authority was initially based on the pandemic, and while I 
agree that the pandemic is over, the border crisis and the deadly drug 
overdose crisis that it fuels are worse than ever.
  Whether to maintain border security policy should not depend on 
whether there is a pandemic. That is why I am reintroducing the Stop 
Fentanyl Border Crossings Act today. This legislation would preserve 
continued use of title 42 authority to combat drug trafficking at the 
border.
  Clearly, the deadly epidemic has not ended. Deadly fentanyl is 
flooding American communities--deadly fentanyl, produced with the help 
of the Chinese Communist Party and smuggled by drug cartels across our 
southern border.
  More than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the last 12 
months, most of them from synthetic opioids like fentanyl. It is the 
No. 1 cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.
  The rise in fentanyl overdoses and deaths affects every State and 
congressional district. It kills the young and the old, the rich and 
the poor, in cities and in small towns alike. It is not a partisan 
issue, and finding a solution shouldn't be partisan either.
  When I talk to Tennessee sheriffs, they tell me that fentanyl is 
becoming more and more lethal, how a so-called ``bad batch'' can kill 
dozens of people. Once this deadly substance arrives in American 
communities, it is too late. We have to stop it before it crosses our 
borders. That is why I have reintroduced this legislation to combat 
drug smuggling.
  When I travel to the border, Border Patrol agents tell me that the 
cartels use human waves of illegal border crossers as cover to 
transport fentanyl and other deadly narcotics. While Border Patrol 
agents are diverted to manage caravans of border crossers, the gap in 
coverage is then exploited by the smugglers. In many cases, these are 
well-planned and carefully coordinated occurrences.
  The agents told me that ``the people don't stay at the border, and 
the drugs don't either.'' They also told me that title 42 is the last 
tool the Border Patrol has left to partially slow this ongoing tidal 
wave of illegal crossings. We can't afford to take away this tool in 
the midst of a crisis.
  Letting title 42 end without creating a permanent, new authority to 
replace it empowers drug cartels. It enables them to send migrants 
across the border at strategic points, bogging down Border Patrol 
agents with paperwork and processing that takes five times longer 
without title 42. This dramatic increase in processing times absent 
title 42 will significantly decrease the scarce resources available to 
actually patrol our southern border. Cartels will then use the longer 
and more frequent enforcement gaps to move more fentanyl across the 
southern border. We cannot allow this to happen.
  My legislation simply adds drug smuggling as an additional basis for 
using title 42 authority. It would help Border Patrol stop drug 
traffickers.
  This should not be controversial. Yet, last Congress, Democrats 
blocked its passage three times on the Senate floor. Now that we are 
staring down at the end of title 42, it is time to pass this bill. I 
hope my colleagues across the aisle will not let title 42 expire 
without action. We must protect the border security tools we have to 
stop the fentanyl flowing across our southern border before more lives 
are lost.
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