[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 196 (Wednesday, November 29, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5656-S5661]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, I rise today to once again speak about 
a subject that President Biden and his administration are refusing to 
address, and that is this crisis on our southern border.
  I have been extremely outspoken about this topic--many of us have--
especially when it comes to the need for deterrence along our southern 
border, the alarming drug epidemic that continues to harm my State and 
the entire country, and the desperate need to make changes to our 
immigration policy and the laws that define our homeland security.
  The American people see the numbers, but it is not just numbers; they 
see the actual human effects within their own cities and States of this 
rampant illegal immigration. It can no longer be ignored. In just the 
past year, there have been more than 2.4 million illegal encounters on 
our southern border--we have all seen them on our television sets--and 
that is more than a 180-percent increase since fiscal year 2019. There 
have been 169 encounters with individuals on our country's Terror 
Watchlist--six times the number of the past year; and fentanyl seizures 
along the U.S.-Mexico border have hit record highs.
  I see my fellow Senator from Kansas. He has spent a lot of time on 
this fentanyl issue because it is so devastating to our States.
  More than 26,000 pounds of illicit fentanyl were seized along the 
country's southern border this past year, and this is just the data we 
know. It is hard to fathom that there are 600,000 ``got-aways''--those 
are people who were not even disrupted in their journeys--drugs and 
threats to our national security that are streaming across our border 
that we might have missed.
  This is truly and simply an unmitigated crisis. There is no doubt 
that this is leading to and sometimes already has created an 
unsustainable situation across this country. But don't just take my 
word for it. I will offer some quotes:

       The federal government's lack of intervention and 
     coordination at the border has created an untenable 
     situation.
       This issue will destroy New York City.
       A federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the 
     making.

  These are all direct quotes from Democratic Governors and mayors 
across the country.
  Across the aisle and across the country, we know that President 
Biden's rhetoric and lack of action on the southern border has created 
a historic problem. In fact, this is a 50-State problem. I hear about 
this topic from West Virginians frequently. Constituents have expressed 
border security concerns to me, things like the catastrophic, flawed, 
and failed Biden-Harris approach to immigration and the loss of control 
of our southern border; the vulnerable state that our communities are 
left in by the flow of human trafficking and illicit drugs currently 
coming across our border; and the need to bolster our national security 
with the increase in crossings by those on the Terror Watchlist.
  My home State of West Virginia is not a border State, so to speak, 
but we are all border States now. We are no stranger to the strife and 
grief created by the flow of harmful narcotics into our communities.
  From June 2022 to June 2023, West Virginia's provisional State data 
shows that an estimated 1,415 West Virginians died from overdoses. 
These are husbands, brothers, sisters, moms, and dads. It is 
indescribably sad.
  Drug overdoses caused over 5,200 emergency room visits, and our EMS 
teams responded to over 6,300 calls of a suspected drug overdose. These 
numbers are staggering, especially for a State as small as mine.

[[Page S5657]]

  Fentanyl overdose in this country has become the leading cause of 
death for Americans age 18 to 45. Something has to be done, and it has 
to be done now and fast.
  This crisis on our southern border raises grave questions about the 
national security of our own country. In addition to the 279 
individuals on the Terror Watchlist who have been encountered at the 
southern border since President Biden took office, U.S. Customs and 
Border Protection has arrested over 35,000 migrants with criminal 
convictions in just this past year.
  Nearly half of the migrants encountered on our southern border are 
coming from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, or El 
Salvador, with more than 24,000 Chinese citizens apprehended crossing 
into the United States from Mexico in the past year.
  Who are these people? We don't know. Yet many of them are living in 
all of our States.
  My point is, the immigration crisis on our southern border is now 
more multifaceted than ever, and the open-border virtual signaling from 
this administration has allowed that to happen. We truly have no idea 
who is entering our country illegally.
  At a time of heightened national security risk, this is a chance that 
we cannot be willing to take. There is currently a large-scale ground 
war in Europe, our ally and friend Israel is facing historic and 
unprecedented attacks of terror, and tensions in the Indo-Pacific 
remain on high alert.
  As Leader McConnell stated on this same floor yesterday, national 
security begins with border security. We can and should take needed 
action to mitigate the threats that we face. This starts by securing 
our southern border and making the policy changes necessary to defend 
our homeland from nefarious forces abroad.
  I keep saying ``policy changes'' because there are some who think if 
we just keep putting money into the situation, it is going to help the 
problem. All the money does is turn the asylum cases around faster. It 
makes more people have parole into the United States, and, there, 
again, is a cycle of unknown people throughout the United States.
  Time and again, Republicans have asked the tough questions and put 
forward the solutions necessary to stop the crisis that we have seen 
unfold. Nearly every elected official--Democrat and Republican--both in 
the executive branch and in Congress, has acknowledged that there are 
top-to-bottom changes that need to be done to our asylum system.
  That is what is being offered, and that is what needs to be 
delivered: changes to our asylum system--meaningful changes--meaningful 
changes to our parole system, and safe third country agreements. This 
will have meaningful effect on the problems that I have described.
  Now is the time to come to the table. Republicans stand for solutions 
that enforce and enhance not just the immigration laws that we have on 
the books but the policy changes that we are advocating for.
  We back our hard-working CBP agents and guards on the ground who are 
overwhelmed and undersupported, and we need to finish the border wall 
and provide the necessary level of deterrence that we desperately need.
  I have been encouraged by my colleagues' bipartisan efforts for their 
ongoing talks to deliver the immigration policy changes that are 
increasingly needed, but any agreement will need to find consensus by 
the entire body. I implore my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to 
recognize the importance of the effort and of this moment.
  We simply do not have time to waste. We need to come together, secure 
our southern border, and fulfill the other national security 
obligations that are demanded of a nation as powerful as ours.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. MARSHALL. Madam President, ``border, border, border''--I just had 
lunch with Speaker   Mike Johnson. He is a great friend and a 
classmate. We came in together. That is what he said. He said he wishes 
he could get all of us a T-shirt that said ``border, border, border.''
  In my office, this week, no matter what the question is, the answer 
is ``Secure the border.'' In fact, I think Speaker Johnson has been 
talking to some of the same people I have been talking to.
  I had the great time of my life these past 7, 10 days back home in 
Kansas. I got to spend time with my grandchildren, teaching them how to 
hunt and fish and sled in a very welcome 10-inch snow. I got to see a 
lot of friends and family members and share what is going on in their 
lives and get caught up. But no matter where I went, the No. 1 worry 
people had was about the concern for the safety and security of their 
own family.
  In Kansas--the heartland, the middle of the country, the middle 
State--people are concerned about their own safety and security, and 
why wouldn't they be?
  Since Joe Biden was sworn into office, over 10 million immigrants 
have come into our border, and over 1.5 million ``got-aways'' have 
occurred--10 million people crossing our border illegally, 1.5 million 
``got-aways.''
  This crisis at our Nation's border is the No. 1 most immediate threat 
to our safety and security. This is a true, clear, and present danger 
to our Nation.
  Just think about these numbers. Fentanyl is now the No. 1 killer of 
young adults in America. It kills a Kansan every day. Nearly 300 young 
Americans are dying every day from fentanyl poisoning, not to mention 
what is going on with human trafficking, the growth of the cartel, and 
the violence. As my dad the police officer taught me, the violence 
always follows the drug trafficking.
  But it seems like these numbers are falling on deaf ears at 1600 
Pennsylvania Avenue. Just look at September, October, and November. 
These look like they are all going to be record-setting months for the 
number of people crossing our border illegally in these months. But 
yet, for some unknown reason, the White House wants to take border 
security off the table in the supplemental bill.
  Why? That is what people are asking me back home. Why? That is the 
question Americans want to know.
  They point out the facts that we know well up here. Under this 
administration, we have seen 279 known terrorists try to cross our 
border, more than 24,000 Chinese nationals, not to mention some 80,000 
aliens of interest from countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and 
Syria who have breached our border. This is indeed an invasion of our 
border, and every American is now paying for it.
  As a matter of fact, it is now costing Americans nearly $500 billion 
a year--let me say that again, $500 billion a year--to house and take 
care of these illegal immigrants. Can you imagine how many Border 
Patrol officers, how much technology, how many drug dogs, and, yes, how 
much fence we could build for half a trillion dollars a year?
  Again, that is what Americans are asking me back home.
  It is time for this Chamber to step up to the plate and do what is 
right for the American people. For such a time as this, we need 
leadership. I am grateful, I am proud, and the American people are glad 
to hear that the leadership on this side of the aisle are saying we 
will deny cloture on this supplemental bill if there is not meaningful 
border security.
  This concept of a supplemental bill without taking care of our 
national security, of sending over $100 billion to foreign lands 
without addressing our own national sovereignty, well, it actually 
reminds me of what Abraham Lincoln once said:

       You can fool all the people some of the time and some of 
     the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people 
     all the time.

  Let my message today be clear. Let's bring on the hard work, late 
nights, and weekends. That is what Kansans do. We work hard. We have 
those values of a hard work ethic. I am certainly willing to do just 
that, to work hard to get to border security.
  Look, on this side of the aisle, we are not going to waver. We are 
not going to quit. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to secure 
our border and to get this right for once.
  I urge every Republican to vote down cloture of this outrageous 
supplemental package unless we see true, meaningful border security 
included.
  We have got solutions that this body can send to the President's desk 
today that wouldn't cost a dime. Changing

[[Page S5658]]

the asylum policy alone can result in as many as 75 percent less people 
entering our Nation illegally--75 percent. If we just turn off the 
siren of asylum, we can cut back on those crossing our borders some 75 
percent. That would free up the Border Patrol officers to do the job 
that they were hired to do: catching the bad guys, stopping the 
fentanyl, stopping the human trafficking, rather than playing a 
nursemaid to nearly 10,000 illegal people every day.
  And also from a policy standpoint, we have to limit the President's 
abuse of his parole powers, which has enabled over 1.5 million 
immigrant parolees to enter our Nation under his watch.
  Our insistence that these measures be included in the supplemental 
bill are not partisan. They are not hard-right distractions, as has 
been alleged. But it is an attempt to protect the lives and well-being 
of the Americans who elected us and their families and to ensure the 
sovereignty of this great Nation.
  This is a national security issue, not an immigration issue. It is 
imperative. It is a must that any supplemental bill include provisions 
to address these border issues. Any package agreed upon by all or some 
of the Senate Republican conference must actually be effective at 
controlling our borders.
  A measure that is advertised as stopping the torrent of illegal 
migration but does not in practice would be a devastating blow to the 
credibility of Republican Senators on this issue, over the long term, 
and unacceptable to the people we represent. This is why I urge every 
Republican in this body to vote no on cloture on any bill that does 
not, at a minimum, include policy changes that meaningfully address the 
flood of illegal immigration at our southern border.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Rosen). The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my 
colleague from Kansas.
  Coming from Texas, this is a familiar topic because we have a 1,200-
mile common border with Mexico, and illegal immigration, drug 
smuggling, and everything that goes along with it has been something we 
have had to live with pretty much alone for a long time.
  But now, as we have heard some people say, every State has become a 
border State, and every city is a border city, because what happens at 
the border does not stay at the border. You get migrants who ultimately 
make their ways to big cities like New York, Washington, DC, and 
Chicago.
  The mayor of New York says a few thousand migrants showing up in New 
York will destroy New York City. Well, what about the 7 million people 
who have come across the southern border and then released into the 
interior of the United States, released at the Texas-Mexico border?
  There is not a lot of empathy, not a lot of sympathy for what we have 
had to endure in our border communities and by the people of Texas, not 
to mention the billions of dollars that we have had to spend of 
taxpayer money, by Texans, to do the Federal Government's job. It is 
outrageous.
  The part that is most tragic is, of course, all the lives lost to the 
drugs that come across the southern border. What the Biden 
administration does not seem to understand--or they seem to be in 
willful suspense of their power of disbelief--is that the 71,000 
Americans who died of fentanyl overdoses last year, those drugs come 
from synthetic opioids made from precursors that come from China, go to 
Mexico, and are made into something that looks like a pharmaceutical 
product--relatively innocuous. But fentanyl poisoning is the leading 
cause of death of Americans 18 to 45 years of age.
  I keep asking myself: What is it going to take? What is it going to 
take for the Biden administration to wake up and do something about it, 
to do its job? Well, obviously, 7 million migrants--that is not enough; 
108,000 dead Americans--apparently that doesn't get President Biden's 
attention. How about the 300,000 children, the unaccompanied minors who 
have been placed with sponsors in the interior of the United States?
  The New York Times documented that in 85,000 cases, when a call was 
made 30 days after the child was placed with a sponsor, there was no 
answer. There have been some terrible stories about forced labor and 
very dangerous jobs. But it doesn't take imagination to realize that 
what the Biden administration has done is lose basically 300,000 
children. We don't know whether they are going to school. We don't know 
whether they are getting the healthcare they need. We don't know 
whether they are being trafficked for sex, forced into involuntary 
servitude. We don't know.
  The only conclusion I can reach is that the Biden administration and 
the President of the United States don't care. He doesn't care because 
if he did care, he would do something about it.
  Well, because we have been met with complete intransigence by the 
Biden administration and by the majority here in the Senate when it 
comes to solving some of these problems on a bipartisan basis--there 
are many of us who would be willing to work on a bill. We have worked 
on bills. I see the Senator from South Carolina, who bears the scars of 
having worked on the immigration issue many years, as have I. This is a 
tough, hard issue.
  But enough is enough. We are not going to proceed to this emergency 
supplemental that the President has asked for unless and until policy 
changes are made to our asylum policy, the catch-and-release policies, 
that will stem the flow of millions of migrants across the border only 
to be released into the United States. It will not happen, I am 
confident of that.
  I won't go through the statistics. Let me just mention one example. 
It makes no sense for migrants who come from places like Haiti to move 
to South America--to avoid what are admittedly dire circumstances in 
Haiti--only to live in South America and then, when the opportunity 
presents itself, to show up in Del Rio, TX, and claim asylum. They have 
escaped the circumstances which caused them to leave Haiti and are 
living in a safe third country. So why is it that under the current 
policies, we say: OK. If you make it to the U.S. border, we will let 
you in if you claim asylum.
  Well, you are claiming a credible fear of persecution based on what 
happened to you in Haiti, not what happened to you in South America. 
Yet this is a huge flashing green light and a ``welcome'' mat for 
people anywhere around the world who want to make their way to our 
southern border.
  Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas has said the city of Eagle Pass has 
lost at least $500,000 during the closure of a bridge due to the influx 
of migrants.
  One of the things we did during President Trump's tenure in office, 
which I think was one of the most significant, was we passed the U.S.-
Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement in recognition of the fact that our 
economies in North America are intertwined and that millions of 
American jobs depend on that flow of legitimate trade and commerce 
across our international bridges.
  But, again, one of the other consequences of President Biden's border 
crisis is that even the benefits of that trade and legitimate commerce 
are being denied because resources at our bridges and ports of entry 
are being overwhelmed.
  I mentioned New York City. Last year, more than 130,000 migrants 
arrived in New York City. That city spent $2 billion to manage the 
crisis. That is a drop in the bucket compared to what the State of 
Texas has had to do over recent years. But it is no surprise that the 
mayor and others in New York have taken notice. I think that is the 
point.
  Governor Abbott knew that if the Biden administration was going to 
ignore the plight of border States like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and 
California, that maybe he would care if these migrants showed up in New 
York City.
  Now, polls have shown that New Yorkers are overwhelmingly concerned 
about the influx of migrants in their State and in their city. Eighty-
two percent said it was a serious problem.
  So why doesn't President Biden--maybe he doesn't care about a red 
State like Texas, but he should care about a blue State. The truth is, 
he should care about the entire United States, but let's just maybe 
question why he would ignore the pleas of Mayor Adams and the voters in 
New York State--a State that probably was responsible for his margin of 
victory in

[[Page S5659]]

the last Presidential election. Well, he continues to ignore it.
  In fact, the Senate majority leader, from New York, where Mayor Adams 
is mayor--a major capital city there--despite the fact that Senator 
Schumer represents that same State, he has criticized the Republican 
effort to actually address the Biden border crisis. He has called it 
partisan and hard right.
  Well, frankly, that is all the majority leader and our Democratic 
colleagues have been willing to do. But we are not going to miss this 
opportunity to get true policy changes which help stem the flow of 
illegal migration across the border.
  It is clear that the President and Secretary Mayorkas, who has been 
an absolute, unmitigated disaster as Secretary of Homeland Security--I 
told him at the last hearing we had: I have lost confidence, any 
confidence, in your willingness to do your job. You should resign.
  Well, he continues to show up and testify under oath and to lie when 
he says the border is secure. Well, anybody with eyes in their head can 
tell that that is not true. And he has told the Border Patrol: Don't 
actually tell anybody what is happening at the border.
  Well, enough is enough. We are not going anywhere on this 
supplemental appropriations bill until and unless acceptable provisions 
are made to change the policies that currently implement the Biden 
border crisis and to staunch the flow of drugs and people across the 
border.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I just want to pick up where Senator 
Cornyn left off. He has been a great person to try to work with to find 
a solution to our immigration problems.
  But what we are dealing with on the Senate floor is not an 
immigration issue.
  To my Democratic colleagues: I have worked with many of you on 
solutions to immigration, comprehensive immigration reform.
  We are now having to deal with a broken border from a national 
security lens--172 encounters that we know of, of people on the 
Terrorist Watchlist. In fiscal year 2021, it was 15. So it is going 
through the roof.
  So we have to get control of our border for our own national security 
sake. Terrorism is on the rise. The world is on fire. Now is not the 
time to have a broken border.
  The numbers are really astounding. In September, we had the highest 
encounters at the border in recorded history. In December of 2020, we 
had the lowest in decades. In fiscal year 2023, which ended September 
30, 2.5 million people. Since President Biden has been in office, 6 
million people. That is larger than the State of South Carolina.
  So one of two things is going on regarding the border. The Biden 
administration wants it to be this way for some reason or they are 
incompetent. If they are incompetent, they need to listen to people who 
have actually tried to secure the border successfully and work with us 
to get it done. If they want it to be this way, it is going to end if 
you want money for other countries.
  I have been involved in about every game there is on immigration 
reform, but I am here to tell my Democratic colleagues: I am not going 
back to South Carolina and say I provided money for Ukraine and Israel, 
which I desperately support, unless we fix in a real way the problems 
at our border. That is unsustainable for me.
  The Speaker of the House was just addressing the Republican Senate. I 
think he understands the need for Ukraine funding, but he says border 
security has to be real for the House Republicans to be able to do what 
they need to do.
  To my Democratic colleagues: You are fighting us in a way that makes 
no sense to me. I understand why we should send money to Ukraine. You 
had me at hello. I understand why we need to help our friends in 
Israel. I don't understand why you fight the changes that would bring 
back order out of chaos.
  Is that the position of the Democratic Party, that the policies that 
led to this overwhelming surge in illegal immigration are not subject 
to change?
  We are not going to vote for legislation that doesn't stop what is on 
this chart, period. Look at the line. Fiscal year 2020, 458,000 
encounters; fiscal year 2023, 2.5 million. It has to stop.
  Look at the asylum system that is being completely gamed. It has 
become a joke. It needs to stop.
  Parole. We have had some major efforts to reform asylum. Senator 
Lankford is doing a good job.
  To my good friend Senator Bennet, I want money for Ukraine. I support 
Ukraine funding. I think a lot of Republicans do. But we have to have 
real reform on the border. And your statement that Ukrainian aid should 
be separate and apart from the border is not going to happen.
  Parole is meant to be a case-by-case analysis based on two things: 
There is an urgent humanitarian reason for the person to come in under 
parole or a significant public benefit--any alien applying for 
admission to the United States. That is the law that is being abused.
  Past administrations granted parole in a handful of cases. There had 
to be an urgent humanitarian reason or the individual in question had 
to provide a significant public benefit. The Biden administration is 
using the parole statute to allow people in by the hundreds of 
thousands without any individual analysis, in my view.
  So all I am asking to do is follow the law. Quit using the parole 
statute to allow hundreds of thousands of people in, in violation of 
the law. If we went back to what the law says, most of this would stop.
  Secretary Mayorkas, here is what he said to Senator Lankford:

       We need . . . the ability to remove individuals who [do] 
     not qualify [for asylum] . . . with efficiency and speed.

  Why are so many people coming? Word is out that if you get into 
America, you ask for asylum, you never leave. We release you into the 
interior of the country, years pass before your asylum claim is heard, 
and you are here in America, and you never leave.
  We have to change the asylum laws so that you actually have to apply 
to the first safe third country you pass through, not just here in 
America. And we should not release you until your claim has at least 
been adjudicated at the initial stages. And 90 percent of the asylum 
claims are eventually denied; so, clearly, the screening system needs 
to change.
  So long story short, we are not going to pass a supplemental that 
doesn't have policy changes to dramatically stem the flow at the 
border. This is not an immigration negotiation. There is not going to 
be a DREAM Act provision attached to this. This is about locking the 
border down in a fashion to give the public confidence that as a 
nation, we have the ability to secure our own border.
  To all of my friends on the other side--and on this side--who have 
negotiated immigration reform in the past, President Biden's 
irresponsible handling of the U.S.-Mexican border has made it virtually 
impossible to do an immigration deal any time soon. No Republican in 
their right mind would vote for a comprehensive immigration bill until 
the Democratic Party can prove that they are capable of securing the 
border.
  Everything we worked for all these years has been lost. Your approach 
to the border during the last 3 years has made it impossible to do 
immigration reform until we first secure the border, not as part of an 
overall effort to deal with immigration, but you need to prove to us 
and the people of the United States you can and will secure our border. 
Until you do that, no deal.
  How this ends, I don't know. I just know this: I am OK with aid to 
Ukraine. I am more than OK with aid to Israel. I am insisting on border 
security that is meaningful. I am not asking for H.R. 2. I am not 
asking for everything I would do to secure the border if I were King of 
the country. But I have been around this issue enough to know what 
works and what doesn't. The policy changes we are insisting upon 
regarding asylum and parole need to be implemented to regain control of 
our border. And that is not too much to ask.
  I look forward to working with our colleagues on the other side--and 
you--to find a way to help Israel, who are in dire straits, find a way 
to keep Putin from going past Ukraine, bring some sanity back to the 
world. But you are

[[Page S5660]]

going to have to work with us. And we are not looking for half 
measures. We are smart enough on our side to know what works. And I am 
not into doing a deal that doesn't work.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, I appreciate the words of my colleague 
from South Carolina. I fully support everything he said. And I want to 
come up and speak again to the challenge that we have at the border and 
why we need to take action now and why that action needs to be taken as 
part of a supplemental that includes funding for Israel and Ukraine.
  The situation at the border simply has gotten out of control. But I 
think it bears repeating; it has been said by some of the folks who 
spoke before: We are talking about a fourfold increase.
  Donald Trump was President for 4 years. President Biden has been 
President for 3 years. And in 3 years, we have nearly four times the 
crossings that we did in the Trump administration.
  Now, let's say some of that is because we had title 42 and COVID. 
That is fine. We can argue that. But we can still recognize this is a 
two- or three-time increase in illegal crossings.
  Now, we have lost operational control of the border. We don't have 
situational awareness at the border.
  Let me explain what that means. When you have 1.5 million people who 
we know came into this country illegally--they paid money to a cartel--
$5 to $50,000, depending upon what country they came from--to get into 
this country illegally. But some of them specifically want to go 
through a sector that the cartels specialize in making sure that you 
never have to encounter a border agent. They are called ``got-aways.'' 
Over the last 3 years, 1.5 million ``got-aways'' have entered this 
country.
  Now, I have been to the border several times. Once you cross the Rio 
Grande River, most people are going to go present themselves to a 
Border Patrol agent, and then you are going to be processed. You are 
either going to get screened for asylum or you are going to get 
paroled. But from the time you cross the border until the time you are 
released into the United States, it is a matter of days or a week. So 
why would somebody spend money--why would 1.5 million people spend 
money to expressly avoid being detained, unless they have a bad record, 
unless they have criminal intent or malign intent?
  Ladies and gentlemen, we have apprehended people at the border who 
are on the Terrorist Watchlist. So we have lost operational control of 
the border by a fourfold increase in crossings. We have lost 
situational awareness because we don't know where these 1.5 million 
people are. We only know that they set foot on American soil, and it is 
highly unlikely that they went back.
  Now, I hate to almost draw this parallel, but I think it is 
important. One of the things when Israel is able to be successful in 
their response to Hamas, Israel is going to have to go back and say: 
How did this even happen on October 7?
  Well, we know. And I think a part of that analysis is going to be 
that they had lost situational awareness on the threat coming from 
Gaza. Now, people may say it is an unfair comparison. I don't think it 
is. When we have almost 8 million people by the end of this 
administration here illegally, is it fair to say that a few of them 
hate America, that they could be terrorists, and they are on the 
Terrorist Watchlist? There is a compelling Homeland Security reason for 
securing the border.

  And the American people are great. I want to get quickly to the 
negotiations that are being led by James Lankford. The American people 
now, a majority--we are not talking a plurality; we are talking about a 
majority of American people--Democrats, Independents, Republicans--
agree that we have a major problem or crisis at the border. Biden needs 
to fix this problem. Biden needs to fix this problem for Senators that 
are running up.
  This is not a situation where it is just Republicans saying we want a 
secure border. We always do; we always will. This is now the American 
people in the electorate saying that we need to fix it.
  So when we get into negotiations, of course, we have to change asylum 
policy and, of course, we have to change parole policy. And, of course, 
that is going to make some Democrats get out of their comfort zone.
  The last thing I will leave you with, in the last Congress, ladies 
and gentlemen, I participated in every single bipartisan bill that was 
passed out of the Congress in the last Congress. I took a lot of heat 
from the right for doing that. And I did it for good reason.
  Now, the Democrats can say that they had a bipartisan vote in the 
last Congress, but they didn't. All 51 of them voted for something I 
worked hard to get 11 or 12 or 15 Republicans to vote on. So now it is 
time for Democrats to demonstrate their commitment to bipartisanship. 
It is time to let some of their Members get out of their comfort zone 
or vote no on the supplemental, while the other ones who recognize this 
is a problem and that the American people have disapproved of this 
administration's handling of it, now it is their time to be bipartisan. 
Now it is their time to recognize that parole reform and asylum reform 
is critical to reducing the future flows.
  And I hope that my colleagues will, because as someone who has tried 
to be bipartisan and respectful of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle, I have no intention of supporting a supplemental bill that 
doesn't have meaningful bipartisan border security that we can measure 
on an almost immediate basis in terms of reducing the future flows.
  I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who I 
thoroughly enjoyed working with on bipartisan efforts in the last 
Congress, will see that this is an opportunity, this is their time to 
demonstrate the same courage, to get out of their comfort zone and do 
what is right for the American people.
  I yield floor.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
allowed to speak for 5 minutes and, also, that Senator Menendez be 
allowed to speak for 5 minutes as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I want to echo the comments of both the 
esteemed Senator from South Carolina as well as the Senator from North 
Carolina. And I rise to address the same subject, and that is, to bring 
attention to the crisis that is taking place at our southern border.
  You know, the cause of the crisis is very clear, and the numbers do 
not lie. In fiscal year 2022, Customs and Border Protection--CBP--
encountered nearly 2.4 million illegal crossings at the southern 
border. In fiscal year 2023, the number of encounters rose to nearly 
2.5 million--2.5 million.
  Now, since the start of fiscal 2024--that's what, just the first 
month--there have been over 240,000 illegal crossings at our southern 
border.
  Put differently, this means that after just over a month--end of the 
fiscal year, this fiscal year 2024--nearly a quarter of a million 
people have tried to illegally enter the United States via the southern 
border.
  And these are just the individuals that we know about. Reporting 
shows that since the start of fiscal 2024, there have been more than 
23,000 known ``got-aways.'' Since the beginning of the Biden 
administration, there have been 1.7 million ``got-aways.''
  Additionally, CBP has confirmed that a dozen individuals on the 
Terrorist Watchlist have attempted to illegally enter the United States 
through the southern border already this fiscal year, in just 1 month. 
And look what is going on in the world right now. And we have people on 
the Terrorist Watchlist trying to cross our border.
  The American people can see the problem, even if the Biden 
administration can't or, worse, just continues to choose to ignore it.
  This crisis is the result of the Biden administration's failure to 
secure our border--pure and simple. It is not an issue of not having 
comprehensive immigration reform. It is a failure of the administration 
to enforce the law.
  The open border policies of the Biden administration jeopardize our 
national security because border security is national security.
  I want to repeat that. And I will repeat it again.
  Border security is national security. And Americans know it.
  The situation at the southern border has turned every State into a 
border State.

[[Page S5661]]

  Last month, I was in Jamestown, ND, to stand with the 817th Engineer 
Company of the North Dakota National Guard as they prepared to deploy 
for a yearlong mission to assist CBP in securing our southern border.
  So now we have the National Guard down there trying to secure the 
border. But, again, they can't get the job done if they aren't given 
the enforcement authority to do it.
  DHS writ large, as well as any other support down there, has to be 
given the authority to enforce the law. And the administration will not 
do it because the administration wants an open border policy.
  As we continue to debate the upcoming supplemental appropriations 
package, we must include real, enforceable steps to secure our border. 
This should include benchmarks so we know the administration is 
enforcing the law and reducing the number of encounters and illegal 
entries.
  The administration's current policies prioritize processing migrants 
who illegally come across the southern border and then providing them 
with housing, transportation, and other services once they enter the 
United States.
  The administration is turning CBP into one of the most well-funded, 
government-run travel agencies in the world. Any supplemental funding 
must secure our border--our own border. That means ensuring that the 
administration reinstates the Migrant Protection Protocols--or the 
``Remain in Mexico'' policy; enforces third safe country agreements; 
and resumes construction of the border wall.
  Those things are all in place now. It doesn't require legislation 
from Congress. Those are measures that are in law now. The 
administration refuses to enforce them because the administration wants 
an open border policy.
  And we need to include benchmarks to hold the administration's feet 
to the fire and ensure that these policies get enforced.
  The Biden administration must address the border crisis, enforce the 
laws that kept monthly encounters to lower numbers under the prior 
administration--we are not guessing about this; we saw that it works 
under the prior administration--and take border security seriously, 
because, again, border security is national security.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be completed 
prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.