[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 5 (Wednesday, January 10, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S61-S65]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, as we begin our new year, I rise to 
continue our discussion on one of the most pressing matters that has 
been so hard on our country. That is our open southern border and the 
responsibility for this Senate to take meaningful action.
  Since this Chamber last was in session, each of us has traveled back 
to our respective States and has had the opportunity to talk with our 
constituents about what they are thinking and what they are seeing. 
Hands down, I can tell you that the crisis on our southern border is on 
the tip of everybody's tongue in terms of asking questions. It is the 
No. 1 issue for my State of West Virginia. Time and time again, across 
a multitude of conversations, West Virginians have asked me pretty 
logical questions: When will enough be enough? When will President 
Biden finally wake up and realize that this is a crisis? What can 
Congress do to stop this? What are you--meaning me as a Member of the 
Senate--going to do about it?
  They see the numbers in the news--we saw them all through December, 
the mass humanitarian costs broadcasted on our TV sets daily--and the 
destruction that the flow of illicit drugs is doing and causing in our 
communities. So I share their frustration, and I have voiced it many 
times here on the floor. The crisis of our southern border is a topic 
that I have addressed repeatedly.
  The chronic failure of this President to act has led to the point 
where even my colleagues across the aisle--everyone--have begun to 
raise alarm as the consequences of the administration's bad border 
policy have become undeniable.
  One of my colleagues referred to the border as ``porous.'' That is 
kind of a nice way of saying it is open and very, very easy to get 
through. I am not sure what finally led to this universal recognition, 
but I do have some ideas. It could have been the 2.4 million migrant 
encounters this past fiscal year--2.4 million. I live in a State of a 
little less than 1.8 million. My entire State came through that border, 
and more. Or the month after month of record illegal crossings with the 
largest month being just this past December of 302,000 encounters. That 
is this past December. Or the over 10,000 illegal encounters that we 
are experiencing daily, which is the size of many of the small towns in 
my State, with the record being 12,600, again, in December--12,600 
crossings in December. Or the record 169 encounters with individuals on 
our Terror Watchlist just this past fiscal year, with an additional 30 
encounters the first 2 months of fiscal year 2024. These are people 
whom we know have terrorist ties; whom we know could be a danger to us. 
Yet we are catching them as they are joining this brigade of millions 
coming across our southern border.
  This is just an untenable national security crisis, one where we have 
no way of knowing how many terrorists have evaded apprehension and are 
now in the heartland of our country. This is a risk that we cannot 
take--not now, not ever. Yet very little, if any--and I would say 
none--has been taken by this administration to really remedy the 
situation.

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  There has been a lapse in this border security under the President, 
and a subsequent mass flow of immigration is creating a real-life 
humanitarian crisis of drug smuggling and human trafficking.
  In fact, there is somebody who is thriving during this. The cartels 
are thriving with this billion dollars of business with our wide-open 
southern border.
  It is important to remember that, really, I believe, this catastrophe 
is entirely the making of our President. And while congressional 
Republicans did not cause this, we are now taking the responsibility, 
along with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, of trying to 
address it and make meaningful progression.
  This is why we need substantive policy changes to address our broken 
border. It has become increasingly obvious that now is the time to act.
  Doing nothing will result in what? A continuation of 10,000 people a 
day, encounters per day, on our southern border and cover for the 
cartels to smuggle drugs and traffic people.
  Doing nothing will result in the news, like we got just, I think, 
yesterday or maybe earlier today. A New York City high school is being 
overtaken and housing migrants for shelter, and the students are being 
told that they should engage in remote learning. In other words, don't 
come to school; we are using the school to house illegal migrants, and 
you do remote learning in school.
  Well, what did we learn during COVID about remote learning? It is not 
good for our students. With a consistent remote learning program that 
we tried during COVID, you could see our falling test scores and a lot 
of mental health issues at the same time. So doing nothing will only 
increase the national security threats that our country is facing; 
therefore, doing nothing is unacceptable.
  In a moment as critical as this, we cannot let the perfect be the 
enemy of the good. We are currently in a historically narrowly divided 
Congress, making bipartisanship an essential component in getting 
legislation across the finish line. That is what our Senate negotiators 
are engaged in.
  We all talk about how bad the situation is at the southern border, 
but it is irresponsible to talk about the problem while refusing to 
solve it unless you get 100 percent of what you want. I have been here 
several years. I can honestly say there are very few times I get 100 
percent of everything I want in a bill.
  If we do not take this opportunity to make serious reforms, then the 
current crisis will continue with no end in sight. We cannot do that. 
As negotiations continue, we await the text of a final agreement.
  The question that will soon be before us will not be whether this is 
a bill that each of us would have personally written--because it won't 
be--but, rather, if we will take this opportunity and make serious 
reforms--the most serious reforms in decades--to help stop the 
overwhelming number of encounters that our Border Patrol agents see 
every day and take back control of our southern border. We must bring 
order and process back to our immigration policies.
  I admire the steadfast and particular dedication of my colleague from 
Oklahoma, Senator Lankford, who has personally called many of us. He 
called me three times over Christmas. I know he didn't get much of a 
break with his family. He has displayed incredible strength throughout 
this process.
  I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to recognize the 
importance of this moment and the urgent need to respond to the 
challenges that we have in front of us.
  As always, I maintain my optimism--I am hoping next week we will get 
the text, and we can work that bill through this body--and remain 
confident in this Chamber's ability to deliver. We must take advantage 
of this opportunity.
  I have never been at the cusp of an opportunity like this in the last 
20 years on immigration that we have right now--something that will 
make a difference. So we have to take advantage of this, and we have to 
make sure that we are making meaningful changes as we are moving 
through this process.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, there has been a big conversation in 
this body that actually matches the conversation that is happening 
around the country right now. If you ask any random person on the 
street what are the key issues that they are thinking about right now, 
almost every poll that I have seen for the past several months has said 
people are concerned about the economy and they are concerned about 
border security. Just about every poll you have seen everywhere, that 
has been the one and two. Sometimes border security has been the top 
issue, sometimes it has been the second issue, but it has been in those 
top two over and over and over again. It is not just border States, and 
it is not just Republicans; it is Republicans, Democrats, and 
Independents alike.
  They see what is happening on the border, and they just want to know: 
What is the plan? Because the news came out that last September was the 
highest number of border crossings ever in the history of the country 
for any September. Then October was the highest number of illegal 
crossings of any October. Then November was the highest number of 
crossings of any November in our Nation's history. Then December came, 
and it was not only the highest number of illegal crossings of any 
December in our history; it was the highest single month ever, for any 
month in our history. Typically, December is a lower month, but 
instead, it was the highest month in our history, with the highest 
single day in our history and an average of 10,000 people a day who 
illegally crossed the border--right at 300,000 people in a single 
month.
  Just to put that in perspective, if I go--during the Obama 
administration, what we had in December and November exceeded any 
single year in the Obama administration--just those 2 months. During 
the early days of the Obama administration, we had 21,000 people a year 
who requested asylum--21,000 people a year who requested asylum on our 
southern border. We had that in 2 days in December. That is how things 
have shifted.
  That is why this is not a partisan issue; this is a national issue. 
People understand the national security implications of this, that we 
literally have thousands of people crossing the border every day, and 
we have no idea where they are. They cross the border, and I can tell 
you quickly how. They cross somewhere in the desert in Arizona, either 
through a gap that has been cut in the fence or in areas where there is 
a gap in the fence and they just go around it.
  They are given a couple different options. One is a parole authority. 
It is called 236 parole. You are just released in the country--take 
off. There is another one called a notice to appear. You will hear the 
common term ``NTA.'' There are just so many people crossing right now, 
we don't have time to be able to go through all the paperwork, so we 
are going to give you a piece of paper that says show up at an ICE 
office--and you can literally go anywhere you want to go in the country 
to do this--go anywhere you want to be able to go in the country, hand 
them this piece of paper and turn yourself in, and then get a hearing 
date set after that.
  It may be shocking to everyone: Not many people are actually showing 
up at ICE offices and turning themselves in. They are just disappearing 
into the country by the hundreds of thousands, month after month.
  In addition to that, if you come to our ports of entry and you are 
going to do an orderly entry, well, that has shifted, actually. Since 
earlier this year, this administration has started using a parole 
authority that is termed ``humanitarian parole,'' but they are using it 
in a way that no administration has ever used humanitarian parole in 
the history of the country. You see, earlier this year--actually, I 
should say ``last year'' now that it is January. Earlier last year, 
this administration announced to the world that if you will tell us 
ahead of time that you are coming, when you come to a port of entry,

[[Page S63]]

we will give you a work permit when you arrive--that day. So 1,500 
people a day come to their appointment at the port of entry, from all 
over the world. They show up. They are given a parole document called 
212(d), and they are given a work permit that day and released into the 
country.

  We just ask the question: How does that slow down immigration across 
the country? Because parole is actually not a status. Parole is 
actually listed in our law as a nonstatus. It is that you are actually 
here, but humanitarian parole was designed for a situation like what we 
had in Ukraine or it was designed for a situation where an individual 
has a funeral that they have to get to, but in their country, it takes 
too long to get a visa, and they couldn't get to the funeral, so they 
get humanitarian parole to be able to come in and get to that funeral. 
It is not designed to say ``You all come.'' It is not designed to be 
``Anyone from anywhere in the world just show up, and I am going to 
hand you a work permit when you get here and release you into the 
country at 1,500 people a day.''
  Americans see this. This doesn't make sense to people. They just want 
to know what we are going to do to get order where there is chaos. They 
are not asking for a political solution; they are just asking for a 
solution.
  This shouldn't be something that we don't address here. For 2\1/2\ 
months now, my colleague Senator Murphy, my colleague Senator Sinema, 
and a whole bunch of folks around the three of us--our other colleagues 
in this body and their staff--have worked together to try to get to a 
solution on how we can address this in a bipartisan way. This body 
requires bipartisan solutions. We have to have 60. So we have to work 
on hard issues.
  I would tell you, the House of Representatives did a very good bill 
called H.R. 2 that addressed a lot of issues dealing with immigration, 
but unfortunately the House didn't have any Democrats on board. In 
fact, they didn't even have all the Republicans on board that 
particular bill.
  They passed a very comprehensive set of solutions to be able to deal 
with border security. That is what they passed. This body has not 
passed anything to be able to respond. The House noticed a long time 
ago that this is something that needs to be addressed. This body has 
been allergic to working on how to be able to solve the border crisis.
  So for the last 2\1/2\ months, we have met in a bipartisan way to 
hammer out how do we solve this because it can't be ignored. The worst-
case scenario is for Americans to say, ``Who is going to do 
something?'' and for this body to say, ``Not it.'' We have to come to 
some solutions.
  Some of the issues are obvious. The vast majority of people coming in 
across the border will say, ``I have fear in my country'' because the 
cartels have told them, ``If you say the magic words, you will be 
released into the country because that puts you on a track for 
asylum,'' when actually what it does is it puts you into a 10-year 
backlog of claims that are out there. And people know, if I cross the 
border and just make a statement, I can be in the United States for the 
next 10 years.
  It is the greatest country in the world. There are billions of people 
who would like to be able to be here. That is a pretty easy entry--to 
be able to just come across, say the secret word, and you are in. We 
have to be able to resolve that.
  We as a nation should be able to filter through the people who are 
coming and to identify who actually qualifies for asylum and who is 
just wanting to come to be a part of the greatest Nation in the world. 
If you want to just come for economic reasons, there is a way to be 
able to do that, to go through the legal process.
  We allow about a million people a year to legally naturalize into our 
country. We are one of the most generous countries in the world in our 
legal naturalization process. We should continue to be able to do that, 
as we have for decades and decades.
  But for people who want to game the system, we are lawmakers. Why 
would we ignore people who are abusing the law? If we ignore the abuse 
of the law, what are we doing making law if it is not going to actually 
be enforced?
  So let's get back to identifying those who actually qualify for 
asylum. And those who are just gaming the system--turn them back around 
and say: Go through the legal processes. Don't run through the desert. 
Don't swim across the river. Don't come to a border agent and lie to 
them.
  Let's figure out a legal way to be able to address legal immigration 
and turn around illegal migration. We should be able to solve this 
issue. It is obvious to everybody. We should be able to bring immediate 
consequences when someone has actually violated our law.
  Currently, if someone crosses the border, it may be 10 years before 
it is addressed. If we can't deal with immediate consequences--as I 
have heard over and over again from parents and from every individual, 
a delayed consequence is a nonconsequence. So if the consequence is 
delayed 10 years, that is not really a consequence, and everyone knows 
it. So we have to be able to have immediate consequences, and we have 
to have solutions to this issue about just paroling 1,500 random people 
from anywhere in the world.
  If the standard to get into America is literally just fill out a form 
and tell them that you are coming first, and you are released into the 
country with a work permit in a nonstatus of parole, literally, that is 
an executive authority that could be taken away at any moment--
literally. The next President comes in, they can waive every single 
parolee on the first day, and it would be entirely legal because parole 
is not a status; it is just a release into the country.
  If we can't figure out how to be able to solve that when the mayors 
of Chicago and of New York and of Denver are saying: Why is this 
administration releasing people into the country between ports of entry 
and this other parole process or an NTA with no work permit and just 
releasing them by the hundreds of thousands, why is this happening--if 
we can't answer that question, then we need to be able to sit down at 
the table until we do.
  The Senate is where hard things get worked out. This is a hard thing. 
This is something that has not been resolved in more than 30 years. I 
understand we have differences of opinion. So does America--except in 
this one issue. They want this solved. America wants a resolution on 
this. So I encourage us, as a body, to keep negotiating, keep working 
at it. We are not going to solve everything; we never do. But we need 
to solve as much as we can because this is one of the biggest issues in 
the country. And I will tell you, this is one of our greatest threats.
  In the past year in the flood of people crossing our border, tens of 
thousands of people who came across our border, this administration 
declared as a national security risk. The term they use is ``special 
interest alien.'' Tens of thousands of people who crossed were given 
that designation, ``special interest alien,'' and then released into 
the country.
  We have no idea where they are. These were identified at the border 
as a national security risk. But because we are not managing our border 
and we are overrun with capacity, the option they have is releasing 
them.
  For the sake of our Nation's national security and our future, let's 
actually go back to following the law. Let's actually create a process 
where when we pass law, we expect it to actually be enforced and to be 
done. We can do a hard thing. That is our job.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, before the Senator from Oklahoma leaves, 
I was wondering if he would yield for a question.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Yes, I would.
  Mr. TILLIS. Senator Lankford, you have done an extraordinary job of 
negotiating what I think is going to be a successful compromise that is 
going to get support from Republicans and Democrats. But as you were 
going through this work, in the years that you spent studying this 
issue as a ranking member and chair in a committee of jurisdiction, I 
have got to believe you have looked at, let's say, Canada, for example. 
There are a lot of people who think that Senator Lankford and those of 
us who are trying to support Senator Lankford are being draconian and 
being out of step with the Western World.
  But, Senator Lankford, could you just briefly describe how what we 
are

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trying do compares to, say, our partner to the north, Canada, their 
laws?
  Mr. LANKFORD. I don't run into many people who call the Canadians 
extreme. Not a derogatory statement towards the Canadians, but they 
have a pretty consistent system on it. If you crossed from the United 
States into Canada and ask for asylum, they would first ask you: Did 
you cross through the United States of America before you came into 
Canada? And if your answer was yes, they would turn you around and 
immediately return you back to the United States and say you can't 
request asylum here in Canada if you haven't requested asylum in the 
places you have already traveled through. That is the law in Canada.
  Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, may I ask one followup?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Senator Lankford, isn't it true that tens of thousands of 
people who cross our borders today--and who may, ultimately, request 
asylum--have looked past an opportunity to safely relocate in the 
country they are seeking asylum from, likely transited to another 
country where they could have declared asylum, and, in some cases, 
passed through four or five or six different safe jurisdictions before 
they made the dangerous trip through Mexico, across the Rio Grande 
border, and present themselves at the border? Is that an accurate 
assessment of what hundreds of thousands of people have done during the 
Trump administration?
  Mr. LANKFORD. Senator Tillis, that is correct that during the past 
several administrations, we had millions of people who have actually 
crossed our border, have either never requested asylum--at the border, 
they declared they were going to ask for asylum but, literally, never 
did, never filled out the paperwork, never even tried because they knew 
they weren't eligible--or they travelled through multiple countries on 
the way, never requested asylum because they wanted to come to America, 
which I don't blame them. It is the greatest country in the world. But 
that is not what asylum is. ``Asylum'' means I have fear in my entire 
country. There is no safe place in my country, so I fled to the next 
safe place. That is what the international definition of ``asylum'' is.
  Mr. TILLIS. I thank Senator Lankford through the Chair.
  Madam President, I want to spend a few minutes on this subject as 
well.
  We are reaching a milestone that I think is critically important. 
Since President Biden has entered office, the number of encounters at 
the border, 8 million--8 million--since President Biden entered 
office--that population exceeds the population of 30 U.S. States--the 
population of 30 individual U.S. States. That is the number we are 
talking about here.
  And, ladies and gentlemen, a lot of them are the people who we just 
described. Of course, the United States wants to be a haven for people 
who are fearing for their lives, suffering from oppression. But the 
goal of asylum is to get them immediately out of that dangerous 
situation--not to suddenly decide that I want to go through two or 
three or four other jurisdictions because what, ultimately, I want to 
do is get to the United States.
  They are demeaning and devaluing the concept of asylum. And the 
problem is, they are getting those who want to come here--and we should 
take it as a compliment that they want to come to the United States--
but they are elbowing out and sapping the capacity for the United 
States to make absolutely certain that people who have a legitimate 
case for asylum are even being heard. I wonder about how many thousands 
of people who desperately need to get to the United States--it is their 
only option--are not getting there because we are focused on this 
population.

  Ladies and gentlemen, we have to do something. This is dangerous. You 
know, for a time, conservatives were really in the wilderness, being 
viewed as inhumane, insensitive, saying we have to have an orderly 
border process. I have been saying that. I am also somebody who thinks 
we should probably legally immigrate another 250,000 to a half million 
more than we do already. We immigrate about a million.
  Let me tell you the other problem we have here that is inherently 
unfair. I already talked about people who legitimately should be given 
asylum--probably not, because we don't know who they are. We are 
dealing with a flood of 300,000 in the month of December alone. Of 
course, they are going to be collateral damage in the form of people 
who want asylum.
  But now the American people are waking up to it. There was a time 
when it was purely a shirts and skins--blue jersey Democrat, red jersey 
Republican--argument. It is not the case anymore. The American people 
expect this administration to do something. And I am glad.
  I am also glad we have James Lankford at the tip of the spear 
negotiating on behalf of Republicans. He has negotiated--I am part of 
the working group; I have seen progress. He has negotiated something 
that I think is important.
  We cannot miss this opportunity. The stakes are too high, and the 
American people agree. Nearly half of those who responded to this 
poll--which was an even distribution, ideologically speaking--nearly 
half of them think we have an emergency at the border. They are right. 
I have been there several times. They are right. People are dying.
  Cartels are making nearly $1 billion a year charging tolls to come 
across the border. If you try to cross the border without an armband or 
recognition you paid a cartel, you are likely going to die or you are 
going to get one more chance before you get beaten up. That happens 
every day at the border, ladies and gentlemen. I am not exaggerating. I 
have been there. I have seen it. I have heard the stories.
  Fortunately, now we have a majority of Americans that expect this 
administration to come to the table and negotiate in good faith with 
conservatives and people like me who have negotiated several bipartisan 
deals to solve this problem. If any Democrats are concerned with how 
far the negotiations are going, I don't think that they need to. This 
is not a political loser for people who are concerned with voting on a 
bipartisan compromise. In fact, it is politically smart.
  At the end of the day, I hope political advisers and everybody that 
is up for election next year know: You know what, you don't even need 
political courage to do the right thing here, because the good policy 
of border security is also good politics for the overwhelming majority 
of people that need a vote for this bill.
  We are going to have 30 or 40 people on this side--not 30 or 40--I 
think we will probably have 25 or 30 Members in this body that won't 
vote for it. Some will be because it didn't go too far; the others will 
be, it didn't go far enough; some of them are closer in cycle. It is 
very difficult to explain; I get that. But we need about 70 votes 
coming out of this Chamber to create a momentum to get it done in the 
House. I am going to be one of those 70 votes.
  I also want the American people to not only wake up to the reality 
that people are abusing our system--they are taking our attention away 
from people we should desperately find a path to getting to the United 
States--and they are also jumping line. That is what I will leave with 
you. How angry do you all get--I love going to a good sporting event or 
a good comedy show. You get there early sometimes because you want to 
get a good seat if there is general admission. How angry do you get if 
you are standing in line for hours and, all of a sudden, somebody jumps 
in front of you? Well, imagine if you have been waiting years--more 
than a decade--to legally follow the process to be one of those million 
people a year that gets citizenship, when you see millions of them 
coming across the border every year breaking line. These people that 
are working hard, obeying our laws, respecting it, doing it by the 
book--they are breaking line, and it is actually elongating the time 
for them to get into this country. It is unfair at every level, and it 
is unsafe.
  The only people who are loving the stalemate that we have in this 
Nation today are the cartels who are charging from $5,000 to $50,000 a 
person to get you across the border. Not everybody has $5,000, though. 
So you know what they do? They say, well, you don't have to pay. But 
once you get across the border, you are going to participate in 
criminal enterprises until we think

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your debt is done. That is not an exaggeration either. Talk to law 
enforcement. Talk to people in these communities. These cartels are 
like a cancer metastasizing through illegally present communities, 
exploiting them, and causing some people who may not have had a 
criminal record in the country of their origin to become criminals 
here.
  There are a million different reasons why we need to get this border 
compromise done. I hope this Congress is the Congress where people set 
aside politics, do the right thing, make this country safer, and show 
respect for people trying to come to this country legally by making 
sure that their place in line is reserved.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Rosen). The Senator from Louisiana.