[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 199 (Monday, December 4, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S5701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                 National Security and Border Security

  Madam President, on an entirely different matter, the Senate has less 
than 2 weeks to pass supplemental legislation on urgent national 
security priorities. As I have said for months, that means addressing 
both grave threats to America's interests overseas and a glaring border 
security crisis right here at home.
  Senate Republicans know that national security begins with border 
security, and we have made it crystal clear that, in order to pass the 
Senate, any measure we take up in the coming days must include serious 
policy changes designed to get the Biden administration's border crisis 
under control. Apparently, some of our colleagues aren't ready to take 
that reality seriously.
  Senator Lankford, Senator Graham, and their fellow Republican 
negotiators are still at the table, working diligently on solutions, 
but from the White House to the Capitol, Washington Democrats are 
wasting time with bizarre public scoldings. Instead of engaging 
actively in the border security discussions required to complete a 
viable national security supplemental, the Biden administration has 
chosen to lecture--lecture--Congress with a brag reel of its supposed 
leadership in countering Putin in Europe.
  The administration's account glossed over its record of self-
deterrence toward Russia, insisting that ``the time to help democratic 
Ukraine fight against Russian aggression is right now.''
  If only President Biden had felt that sort of urgency in late 2021 
and early 2022, as I and other Republicans urged the administration to 
give Ukraine the lethal assistance it needed to resist Putin's 
escalation. If only this lethal assistance--and critical investments in 
cutting-edge capabilities for U.S. forces--hadn't required so much 
prodding.
  Last week, at the Reagan National Defense Forum, the previous 
administration's former National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien, made 
the case for supporting Ukraine.
  He pointed out, rightly, that helping degrade the military power of a 
major U.S. adversary is in America's national security interest and 
that we shouldn't hesitate to give Ukraine the weapons it needs to do 
the job. He observed that the Biden administration's ``self-
congratulatory talk'' doesn't square with its ``parsimonious'' approach 
to actually getting decisive weapons to the battlefield. As he put it, 
President Biden's team ought to ``stop patting [itself] on the back.''
  For their part, it is time for Senate Democrats to start 
demonstrating they are more interested in reaching a productive outcome 
in border security discussions than in wringing their hands in the 
press. The junior Senator for Connecticut has concluded that beginning 
to stem the humanitarian and national security crisis on our southern 
border amounts to ``closing the border indiscriminately.'' Apparently, 
restoring a functional asylum and parole system, orderly points of 
entry, and meaningful enforcement of our immigration laws is a bridge 
too far for Senate Democrats.
  Let's be absolutely clear on what we are dealing with here. Let's 
establish exactly what it is that the Democratic leader has called 
``extraneous'' to America's national security.
  On President Biden's watch, CBP has recorded 6.5 million--million--
encounters at the southern border and 1.7 million known ``got-aways.'' 
Last fiscal year's alltime record apprehensions at the southern border 
included 169 individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist--a massive 
increase.
  The Biden administration tried to convince the American people that 
they were serious about this historic crisis by having asylum seekers 
download a smart phone app. Instead, week after week, all we can see 
are numbers that somehow keep getting worse.
  Meanwhile, liberal State and local officials told us that the 
increasing chaos of their ``sanctuary cities'' could be mitigated if 
only we raced to give work permits to that ever-growing population of 
illegal aliens. Now, setting aside the fact that that creates the exact 
wrong incentive, the Biden administration has already tried this 
approach and failed. In New York City alone, just 2 percent of recent 
arrivals have even applied. President Biden's officials have even 
admitted that they expected this unserious approach to produce a 
further surge in arrivals.
  As recently as 2 weeks ago, the White House was trying to sell its 
flawed, insufficient supplemental proposal as a solution to the crisis. 
As the junior Senator from Tennessee has pointed out, the President's 
answer to the border crisis wasn't to enforce immigration law; it was 
to turn ICE into a concierge service for illegal aliens.
  Washington Democrats appear to be hell-bent on exhausting every half-
baked idea before they get serious about actually fixing our broken 
enforcement system and securing our southern border. That is the job 
the American people expect them to do. That is the foundation of 
America's national security. And time is running out.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.