[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 199 (Monday, December 4, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5704-S5706]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Supplemental Funding

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the majority leader has said he plans to 
schedule a vote on President Biden's $106 billion supplemental funding 
request as soon as this week. He knows, as well as I do, that, as 
written, this proposal stands zero chance of becoming law. If Senator 
Schumer puts this funding request on the floor of the Senate, I believe 
the cloture vote--the requirement here that 60 Senators agree to cut 
off debate--will fail. In the

[[Page S5705]]

House, the legislation is so unpopular that it will never even make it 
to the floor for a vote.
  The strong opposition to the President's proposal is completely 
warranted, not for what it includes so much as for what it does not 
include. The supplemental is supposed to be all about national 
security, but it fails to deliver anything on one of the most urgent 
national security priorities, and that is the crisis at the southern 
border. National security begins with homeland security, right here at 
home, and we have a major security vulnerability right here on our 
Nation's doorstep.

  Since President Biden took office, we have logged more than 6.5 
million illegal crossings at the southern border. On top of that, there 
have been roughly 1.7 million people who have gotten away. They call 
them ``got-aways,'' the Border Patrol does. They are people who have 
been identified--at least by their physical presence--on a camera or a 
sensor, but when the Border Patrol shows up to try to find them, they 
are nowhere to be found.
  The truth is, the Biden administration has zero idea of who these 1.7 
million people are or what they are capable of or what their intentions 
are. They could be people just simply coming here to work. They could 
be terrorists. They could be carrying illegal drugs that took the lives 
last year alone of 108,000 Americans. They could be people with long 
rap sheets. They could be convicted murderers or child abusers. We 
simply have no idea, and that is the point. Uncontrolled illegal 
immigration is dangerous.
  The migration crisis has precipitated another crisis. When thousands 
of people are pouring across the border each day, it provides a perfect 
diversion for drug cartels in allowing them to move fentanyl, for 
example, across the border. Fentanyl alone took the lives of 71,000 
young people last year alone. Fentanyl poisoning is the No. 1 cause of 
death for those Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 years old. As I 
have said, we are losing somewhere around 110,000 Americans a year.
  In all the time I have been working on this issue, I have never seen 
anything like the current situation at the border. Texas, as you know, 
has a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, so this is ground zero for 
the Biden border crisis, but this is unlike anything we have ever seen 
before.
  President Biden, during his time in office, has shattered every 
record on the books when it comes to illegal border crossings. In less 
than 3 years, he has set new records for the most crossings in a single 
day, in a single month, in a single year. I say ``he'' has because this 
would not happen if President Biden would simply use the laws that are 
already on the books to try to bring some control out of this chaos.
  It is important to realize this didn't just materialize out of thin 
air. It was a direct result of the Biden administration's refusal to 
enforce the law. Instead, the Biden administration has sent a signal 
that our borders are open to anyone who can show up at our borders, and 
that message has gotten through loud and clear.
  A recent story in the New York Times highlighted just how far the 
President's open borders message has traveled. In the past year, more 
than 24,000 Chinese citizens have been apprehended at the southern 
border. That is more than the previous 10 years combined. Many of these 
individuals claim asylum, but whether or not their claims are 
successful really doesn't impact on their ability to stay in the United 
States. As the New York Times noted, those who are not granted asylum 
end up staying anyway because China usually will not take them back.
  It is no secret that word travels fast. When a group of migrants 
reaches the southern border and is allowed to remain in the United 
States, then people watching on television or people on the other end 
of a telephone call are told: I made it. You can too. So they keep 
coming. Chinese citizens now represent the fourth largest group making 
the trek to our southern border. That is astonishing, and it ought to 
be concerning.
  The reason so many people from around the world are making this 
expensive and dangerous trip is that they are all but guaranteed by 
Biden administration policies to be able to stay. There is absolutely 
no deterrence, no consequence. The Border Patrol has told me countless 
times that the migrants used to run away from them, but now they run to 
them and turn themselves in, knowing that they will be able to stay. 
Migrants used to go to great lengths to avoid being arrested because, 
once it happened, it was most likely game over. Law enforcement would 
detain the migrants and determine whether they had a legitimate cause 
to remain in the United States, but if they didn't, they would be 
removed or repatriated to their home countries. If someone wanted to 
claim asylum, law enforcement would conduct a credible fear screening 
to determine whether they had a colorable case for asylum, but if they 
did not, they would be returned to their home country. That is what the 
Border Patrol calls consequences and what I would call a deterrent for 
people coming who know they don't have any arguable legal basis to be 
able to stay.
  But, today, that entire story has been flipped on its head. Personnel 
and detention facilities are so underwater that the normal processes 
have gone out the window. When thousands of migrants are crossing the 
border every day, law enforcement simply doesn't have the ability to 
detain each and every person long enough to determine if their claims 
to stay in the United States are legitimate. Today, migrants want to be 
arrested or detained by Border Patrol because they know they are highly 
unlikely to be removed. In fact, they are all but guaranteed a 
yearslong stay, probably, even openly, with a work authorization.

  Today, migrants are quickly processed and released while they await a 
court date that is years away. Recently, we had a hearing in the Senate 
Judiciary Committee where some of the immigration judges who have the 
most experience in considering these cases testified that only about 15 
percent of the people who ultimately appear in front of an immigration 
judge legally qualify for asylum. That means 85 percent of the people 
in that line do not. Yet what is causing this huge backlog is the 85 
percent who prevent the 15 percent from getting their cases heard on a 
timely basis.
  Since President Biden took office, the immigration court backlogs 
have more than doubled; now it is more than 2.9 million cases. As a 
result, the wait for a court date just keeps on growing.
  You know, that is part of the plan of the smuggling organizations 
that get rich by smuggling individuals into the United States. The more 
people they can move into the United States, the more money they make, 
and the more they can stack up immigration court hearings, the more 
they can ensure that people are actually released rather than detained. 
Then the smugglers win, and we lose.
  Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported that, in New York, 
court dates were being assigned in the year 2033--not 2023, the present 
year, but 2033, a decade away.
  With each day that passes, it becomes clearer and clearer that money 
alone will not fix the problem. After all, the border crisis isn't the 
result of scarce resources but of an intentional refusal by the Biden 
administration to actually enforce the law. It is clear we need more 
than funding to solve this crisis. What we need are policy changes that 
will lead to real change--in other words, stop the exploitation of our 
asylum laws and of our catch-and-release policies. President Biden has 
proven he is not up to the job. He apparently doesn't care. He has had 
nearly 3 years to do something meaningful to stop this crisis, but he 
has simply refused to do so.
  Congress has a responsibility to act, and this national security 
supplemental is the best place to force action. Whether or not 
Democrats will admit it, the border crisis is a major national security 
risk, and it has to be addressed. I know it is not easy, as border 
security and immigration are some of the thorniest issues we debate 
here in Congress, but we will not continue to fund broken policies that 
have contributed to the situation we find ourselves in today. We need 
and will insist on real, substantive changes.
  This side of the aisle has been clear that a security supplemental 
must include funding and policy reforms to address the crisis at the 
southern border, and if that doesn't happen, we will not proceed to the 
rest of the supplemental. Yes, there is a bipartisan

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group of our colleagues working on a border provision that includes 
both funding and policy changes. I am eager to see what they come up 
with, but unfortunately it looks like we are running out of time. That 
means that if Senator Schumer, the majority leader, puts a bill on the 
floor that fails to address the crisis at the border with real, 
substantive policy reforms, we will not proceed to that bill.
  National security begins at home. Our security cannot come second to 
that of other countries around the world, our allies, even those like 
Ukraine and Israel.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.