[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 29, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5653-S5654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. RICKETTS. Madam President, we have a humanitarian and national 
security crisis at our southern border. Just last month, Customs and 
Border Protection encountered 241,000 contacts, people coming across 
that southern border. That is three times the amount that we had in 
October of 2020.
  Since Joe Biden has been President, there have been 6.6 million 
border contacts and 1.8 million ``got-aways.'' And the ``got-aways''--
those are the folks whom Customs and Border Protection, CBP, saw but 
couldn't encounter, couldn't get to. That is more than President Obama 
and President Trump's administration combined.
  Children are being trafficked; people are dying; and the cartels are 
profiting. And my colleague from Iowa just referenced the southern 
border. In total, we have seen 172 people on the Terrorist Watchlist 
try to enter our country in the last year--169 at the southern border. 
And to put that in perspective, that number used to be in the single 
digits every year. Last month, it was 12. We are encountering more 
people on the FBI's Terrorist Watchlist in 1 month than we used to get 
in an entire year.
  Border security is national security. Certainly, the events in Israel 
should bring home to us the danger of a border that is not properly 
protected. And it is President Biden's policies that have led to this 
humanitarian and security crisis.
  Now, I have been down to the southern border four times, just 
recently as well, and I have talked to the folks at CBP, and, yes, they 
need some resources. Things like the aerostat blimps have been hugely 
successful in being able to counter the cartel's drones to monitor 
people trying to come across the border. So there are resources that we 
can provide to our southern border to help strengthen. But you know 
what the No. 1 thing they told me they needed? It was a change in 
policy because it is the policy that is driving all these people to 
take this dangerous journey to illegally cross into our country.
  Well, now the Senate is going to take up border security, and 
President Biden's solution is to ask for more money to help process all 
the people coming across the border. That is not going to fly. If you 
are just processing them more efficiently coming across the border, you 
are not deterring anybody from coming across our border. It is the 
policies that are sending a message to people to come here illegally. 
The policy needs to change. So as we consider a bill--perhaps a 
supplemental bill where we are going to have border security in it--it 
must contain policy changes. The policy is what caused this. We have to 
change the policy.

  But what are some of those policies? We see that we have an asylum 
system and a parole system that are broken. We need to address that, 
and then we must have a first safe country policy. You may say, what is 
a first safe country? Well, if you are seeking asylum and you are 
fleeing your home country,

[[Page S5654]]

what this policy says is you stop in the first safe country and you 
apply for asylum in the United States from there, not from within our 
own country.
  I know there are people who don't like this idea, but let me tell 
you, Canada has this policy. So, for example, if you are traveling from 
Mexico through the United States to get to Canada and you want to seek 
asylum in Canada, you have to remain in the United States. That is 
their policy. That is the Canadians' policy.
  Do you know who else has that policy? The United Kingdom. In fact, I 
have a chart right here with all the countries that have that policy--
Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Ireland. In fact, not only does our 
northern neighbor have this policy, but 29 other countries have this 
policy that you have to remain in the first safe country. What does 
that mean? It means that if you are coming to our southern border, you 
must remain in Mexico. That is a part of the policy changes that we 
need to have. We must bring back ``Remain in Mexico.''
  President Biden has direct responsibility for the humanitarian crisis 
on our southern border. Children are being trafficked. People are 
dying. The cartels are profiting off of all of this. He is responsible. 
If he is not going to act, we in the Senate must act.
  My Republican colleagues and I have put forward commonsense solutions 
on how to address the issues at our southern border. We must have these 
policy changes if we are going to pass any sort of supplemental that is 
going to include additional funding for anything else.
  The No. 1 issue we have here is addressing the humanitarian and 
national security crises. That is a priority for the American people, 
it is a priority for my Republican colleagues, and my Senate Democratic 
colleagues must make that their priority as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.