[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 18 (Wednesday, January 31, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H328-H333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1215
                       AMERICA'S BORDER SECURITY

  (Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, it has been nearly 100 days 
since my colleagues elected me to lead this Chamber, and I cannot 
express how grateful I am for their trust. This is the honor of my life 
and it means everything to us.
  Despite the challenges that we face day in and day out and the tough 
fights that lawmaking inevitably brings, I still believe that we can, 
again, be a shining city on a hill. I believe that we can champion, 
again, what I call the seven core principles of American conservatism, 
but really they are the seven core principles of America.
  They are our foundations. I believe that it boils down to individual 
freedom and limited government and the rule of law, peace through 
strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, human dignity.
  These are the things that made us the most successful, most 
extraordinary Nation in the history of the world. We are also the most 
benevolent, but it can't be maintained if we sacrifice those 
foundations.
  Today, however, I need to address the burning issue, the 
unprecedented challenge that we find ourselves in, demands that we all 
address, the issue of the day, and it is no surprise to anyone in this 
Chamber that that issue is America's border security.
  As I said here on the night that I took my oath, we have a 
catastrophe at our southern border. It is because the border has been 
deliberately opened wide that we see the terrific horrors that are 
taking place across our country right now.
  Here is a short list. From Texas to New York, waves of illegal 
immigrants are now overwhelming our communities. Just since the time I 
was elected Speaker, less than 100 days ago, more than 700,000 illegals 
have been welcomed into our country illegally by the Biden 
administration.
  American schoolchildren have been forced into virtual schools. Why? 
So migrants can sleep in their school buildings. Korean war veterans of 
the U.S. have been booted from nursing homes that were sold to house 
migrants. Our streets are being flooded with fentanyl. Hundreds of 
thousands of children and adults are being poisoned and losing their 
lives. Vulnerable children and women are being exploited and trafficked 
by cartels, and that is happening even within our borders.
  The fallout goes on and on and on, and I am here this morning to beg 
my colleagues to help us force the administration to take action. We 
have to stop this now and put Americans and America's border security 
first.
  In January, I took the largest ever congressional delegation down to 
the southern border. We had 64 Members, 64 House Republicans, 
representing more than half the States in this country. Why? Because 
now, every State is a border State.
  During our trip, we met with senior Border Patrol officials and 
officers and local sheriffs and ranchers and landowners and community 
leaders who are dealing with this crisis right there at the line, and 
we heard about how they are struggling to deal with the overwhelming 
surge of illegals who are flooding into our Nation.
  While the Senate and the White House were negotiating a so-called 
border security deal, one Border Patrol official, a 33-year veteran of 
Border Patrol, a high-ranking official in the agency, compared the 
situation this way. He said: What we are being asked to do right now is 
administer an open fire hydrant. He said: Please convey to our friends 
in Washington, we don't need more buckets. We need to turn off the 
flow. His metaphor explains the situation perfectly.
  Since President Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas assumed office, there 
have been more than 7 million encounters with illegal aliens just at 
our southern border alone.
  Mr. Speaker, 35 of our 50 States, including my home State of 
Louisiana, don't have a population that large, yet that is how many 
people have been apprehended in just the past 3 years.
  Among those who have been apprehended on the southern border between 
ports of entry, more than 300 individuals were on our terrorist watch 
list. The frightening question is, if so many terrorists were caught 
attempting to cross our borders, how many have entered undetected? We 
suspect it is a much higher number.
  We know that there are at least 1.8 million got-aways that we know 
have escaped CBP. Who knows what dangerous plans those got-aways are 
making and what foreign adversaries they may be speaking with?

[[Page H329]]

  Understand, the situation at our border presents a clear and present 
danger to our national security, and it demands that it be addressed.
  Even officials within the executive branch are saying so. FBI 
Director Christopher Wray told the Homeland Security Committee in 
November that these got-aways are a great concern for the agency, and 
that all 56 of our joint terrorism task forces are trying to identify 
who these people are.
  While we don't know how many terrorists are inside our border, it is 
an unknowable number, we do know that fentanyl is pouring into our 
communities like an open sewer.
  Right now, the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 46 is 
fentanyl poisoning. Fentanyl seizures have increased 2\1/2\ times since 
President Biden took office. That is just the seizures. The rest of it 
flows right in.
  Even as some of it is seized, we know much more is making its way 
into our schools, in our neighborhoods, and virtually every community 
in America.
  Just a quick snapshot of my State in New Orleans, in my home State, 
95 percent of the drug overdoses in New Orleans are caused by fentanyl.
  We see that this poison is ripping families apart.
  Victoria McCulley from Baton Rouge was only 29 years old when she 
lost her life to fentanyl. She was buried by her parents, leaving 
behind her brother, her sister, and young son.

  Alex Stinson is another victim. Like Victoria, he was from Baton 
Rouge. Sadly, also like Victoria, he died from fentanyl poisoning 
before his 30th birthday, leaving behind a heartbroken mom and dad and 
sister.
  Near Slidell, Louisiana, just last week, a precious 2-year-old child 
was found dead in her home with fentanyl in her system.
  Moms and dads, brothers and grandmothers, all of us are losing loved 
ones to a drug that is being smuggled across the border in droves. It 
is a parent's worst nightmare--burying a child. Sadly, because of our 
open border, more and more parents are having to experience that 
unspeakable tragedy.
  That leads the American people to ask a very important question, and 
it is one that we have been asking on this side of the aisle for a 
long, long time: Where in the world is Secretary Mayorkas on all of 
this?
  He is the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. It is his 
responsibility to prevent these harmful drugs from flowing into our 
country and to secure that border, and he has done nothing of the sort.
  As we have heard from Border Patrol agents, he is doing exactly the 
opposite. He is handicapping law enforcement. He is limiting their 
ability to catch narcotics like fentanyl. He is making it virtually 
impossible, as they say in their own words. They told us down at the 
border in Eagle Pass, it is impossible to do the job they were trained 
to do.
  Perhaps the Secretary is busy identifying more people on the list 
that he can release on parole. Because, just since fiscal year 2022, 
Secretary Mayorkas has released into the country more than 1.5 million 
aliens. He just sent them out into the country on what they call 
parole.
  Remember, the Immigration and Nationality Act states very clearly 
that parole should only be used on a case-by-case basis and a temporary 
basis, but millions of illegals right now are being granted parole and 
spending many years in the United States before they are ever even 
expected to appear before a judge. Some of them are given a piece of 
paper that says we will see you in a decade. It is absurd.
  This mass parole is neither temporary nor selective. It is a clear 
violation of Federal law. It is dangerous. It is subversive. It is 
intentional.
  To make matters worse, we have learned that the Biden administration 
is now just simply releasing 85 percent of the illegals who come across 
that border right into the country. They are coming to a neighborhood 
near you.
  For reference, by the way, if you are watching the metrics, in 2013, 
the Obama administration detained 82 percent of illegal aliens. How do 
we go from detaining 82 percent to releasing 85 percent? It only 
happens if this is by design. It only happens if it is an orchestrated, 
intentional effort by the administration to do exactly that, and that 
is what the evidence shows.
  John Adams famously said, ``Facts are stubborn things.'' These are 
the facts and you can't look away.
  This is only part of why Chairman Green and the House Homeland 
Security Committee marked up Articles of Impeachment last night. They 
wrapped that up at about 1:15 this morning, and they did very important 
work for our country. We will be moving forward swiftly on those 
articles. It is long overdue, but Secretary Mayorkas is only part of 
the problem.
  Earlier this month, I released a memo documenting 64 specific actions 
that the Biden administration has taken to undermine our border 
security and to promote the mass release of illegals and dangerous 
persons into our country. Here is just a couple of the many alarming 
actions. This is all public. Everybody can go see this.
  The day he took office, the very first day that he walked into the 
Oval Office, President Biden revoked Executive Order 9844. Do you know 
what that did? It ended construction of the border wall that Congress 
had already paid for. Everybody has seen the images on TV. The material 
is out there rotting in the sun and the elements. Why? Because Joe 
Biden decided unilaterally he didn't want a wall.
  In February 2021, the administration stopped applying title 42 
expulsions to children and by doing that, incentivized families to send 
unaccompanied children through Mexico under the watch of cartels and 
traffickers.
  Since then, the administration admits it has lost track of more than 
80,000 unaccompanied children somewhere in the U.S.
  When we were down at Eagle Pass at the Del Rio sector, we went 
through one of these processing centers and what we saw down there was 
heartbreaking and infuriating. You see these small children, they are 
unaccompanied minors. Some of them can't even speak the language, 
obviously. They have interpreters there, but they don't even know who 
they are. These are young children. They don't know what their full 
names are, where they hail from, who their parents are. They sit them 
there and they ask them some preliminary questions, and if the children 
don't know it, do you know what they do? Literally, they take a sticker 
and they put it on the chest of the little child that says Jane Doe or 
John Doe.
  What happens to them after that? Border Patrol says they don't know. 
Their job is just to process them. They are released, presumably, into 
the hands of NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, who are being funded, 
by the way, by American taxpayers who do something with the children 
and then they just disappear.
  We know 80,000 of them are missing. We don't know where they are. 
Have they been put into trafficking rings? We can only guess.
  We know that some of these kids are being trafficked for free labor 
and being forced to do things that are too appalling for us to 
articulate on this floor.
  Everybody here knows that is happening, and we are not demanding the 
President stop it. He can. He has the power to do it.
  I will continue.
  In October 2021, the Biden administration revoked the Migrant 
Protection Protocols that have been instituted under President Trump. 
That is the policy that we all know colloquially as remain in Mexico, 
right?

  The remain in Mexico policy kept asylum seekers in a safe haven third 
country while they were seeking asylum in the United States. You know 
why that works so magically well? Because it sent a message around the 
world that you shouldn't pay your lifesavings to a cartel to traffic 
you through Mexico and drop you over the U.S. border because you are 
not going to be dropped over the U.S. border. Save your time and 
treasure and trouble. Don't take that dangerous journey because the 
word goes out on social media to countries all around the world they 
are not going to let you in.
  Is that the most commonsense rule you have ever thought of? The 
President doesn't agree. President Biden doesn't agree because he 
stopped it. He issued an executive order to stop that commonsense rule.
  A senior Border Patrol officer told us on that trip to Eagle Pass 
that if President Biden, by the stroke of a pen,

[[Page H330]]

would issue an executive order today to just simply reinstate remain in 
Mexico, they think that that would stop the flow by 70 percent, 7-0.
  He does not seem to care. I told President Biden this myself on 
multiple occasions, most recently, a couple weeks ago on the phone. I 
read him the law that says he has all this authority, but he refuses to 
act.

                              {time}  1230

  That is even despite court orders, by the way, that instructed the 
administration to reinstitute remain in Mexico while the litigation was 
going on.
  Do you know what they did? They ignored it. The administration 
refused it.
  I can keep going. In September 2022, the Biden administration 
reversed a 2019 DHS public charge rule. What was that about? They began 
granting entry to aliens who we all know will be a burden to taxpayers 
to receive immigration benefits.
  This matters because it is one of many instances in which the Biden 
administration is actively incentivizing illegals to come to the United 
States. We have laid out the welcome mat and told everybody around the 
world: Come on, come on. You know what? The U.S. taxpayers will take 
care of you.
  Do you know how much it is costing the American people at home, all 
of our constituents? Billions and billions and billions of dollars. To 
do what? To provide for people who are intentionally breaking our laws. 
Billions and billions of dollars to house them, educate them, clothe 
them, and take care of them.
  Why should we bear that burden when they break our laws? That is what 
our constituents are asking, and more people in this Chamber need to be 
asking it, as well. We are asking it on the House Republican side. We 
need our Democratic colleagues to join us.
  Instead of threatening illegal aliens with deportation, we are 
rolling out the welcome mat, including for aliens who will drain 
resources. Here is the other tragedy: Those resources, the precious 
taxpayer dollars, are intended for and paid by American citizens. 
However, when you drain those resources and you spend them on illegals 
from other countries, you cannot take care of your own. It is a 
travesty.
  You can also see this with how DHS has abused the CBP One app. We 
have got an app; and we have made it even easier now. In January 2023, 
they expanded the use of the app so aliens could just make appointments 
and then be released immediately right into America's interior.
  Sure enough, guess what? Ninety-five percent of all illegals who 
simply scheduled appointments through the app were released right into 
the United States on what they call parole. That is right, all they 
have got to do is just download the app because they all have 
smartphones, many of them coming over the border. Download the app, 
make an appointment, and the President of the United States will 
release you into a network of NGOs who will put you on a plane to the 
destination of your choice, without any identification, by the way, 
while Americans are waiting in line to get through TSA.
  It is all on the dime of the American taxpayer. Ask yourself, is that 
right? Is that just? Is that good for America or anybody else involved? 
It is not.
  The open border combined with the incentives to come have produced a 
catastrophic year for our Border Patrol agents. In September 2023, U.S. 
Border Patrol recorded more than 270,000 illegal alien encounters at 
the southern border in one single month. That was the largest ever up 
to that point. However, guess what? That record was broken just a 
couple months later because this past December 2023, CBP recorded more 
than 302,000 encounters, almost double the population of my hometown of 
Shreveport, Louisiana. In just one month, 302,000 people just walked 
right into the country, and we saw it down there with our own two eyes.
  Most recently, as President Biden has failed to exercise his 
constitutional obligation to police the border and protect Americans, 
now he has undermined Texas' ability to protect its citizens, its 
residents. Texas has a constitutional authority to take care of its 
people. The first job of the government is to protect its citizens.
  When the Texas Governor has acted to do that, the Biden 
administration and the President himself have intervened. They have 
taken him to court. They are cutting the razor wire. They are taking 
away the measures that the State of Texas has taken out of desperation 
to protect its own people.
  I could go on and on and on about all this: the numbers, the actions, 
the 64 actions that we have documented that President Biden has 
specifically taken to open that border up. It is crystal clear, his 
policy choices and Secretary Mayorkas' refusal to comply with the law 
are driving this border catastrophe.
  The Biden administration has replaced detain and deport with catch 
and release. Instead of order, they have chosen for us disorder and 
chaos. Rather than securing the homeland, they have ceded the homeland 
to cartels and traffickers.
  By the way, at the Del Rio sector alone in Eagle Pass, Texas, they 
told us it is estimated that the cartels, I think, are making $3.5 
million a day trafficking human beings into the country. Do the math. 
They are making over a billion dollars a year bringing undocumented 
children, trafficked children, victims right into the country, and they 
are just bringing them in.
  They are doing this intentionally. They have chosen disorder and 
chaos. They have ceded the homeland to the traffickers and the cartels. 
The Department of Homeland Security has effectively become a taxi 
driver to just help traffickers complete the last few miles of their 
human smuggling operation, and they are making billions of dollars in 
the process. It is all absolute madness, and it is dismantling the 
safety of our communities.
  The House Judiciary Committee, where I served before I became 
Speaker, recently released a report showing that right now there are 
more than 617,000 aliens on ICE's nondetain docket who also have 
criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. That is right. You 
heard it right. That means that more than half a million known 
criminals, illegal aliens are in the U.S. in our communities, free to 
reoffend and victimize American people.
  Another sad secondary effect of this is that the President's actions 
are also creating a permanent underclass in our society, an underclass 
of noncitizens who receive many of the benefits of citizenship. He 
is inviting chaos and disorder within our land that is tearing at the 
very fabric of our society.

  The President can put a stop to this. President Biden and Secretary 
Mayorkas have designed this catastrophe. Now, rather than accept any 
accountability or responsibility for what they have clearly done, 
President Biden wants to somehow try to shift the blame to Congress for 
his administration's catastrophe by design. It is absolutely laughable. 
No one is falling for this.
  My counter is this: If President Biden wants us to believe he is 
serious about protecting our national security, he needs to demonstrate 
good faith and take immediate action to secure the border, but he won't 
do it. He needs to immediately stop the mass release of illegals into 
our country, but he won't do it. If he wants our House Republican 
Conference to view him as a good-faith negotiator, he can start with 
the stroke of a pen. However, he has got to do it quickly.
  Last week, I received a letter from former top FBI intelligence 
officials, including the former Assistant Director, Directorate of 
Intelligence.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of this letter be 
included in the Congressional Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. DesJarlais). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentleman from Louisiana?
  There was no objection.

[[Page H331]]

                                                 January 17, 2024.
     Hon. Mike Johnson,
     Speaker of the House, Washington, D.C.
     Hon. Charles Schumer,
     Majority Leader, Washington, D.C.
     Hon. Mike Turner,
     Chair, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 
         Washington, D.C.
     Hon. Mark Warner,
     Chair, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, 
         D.C.
     Hon. Mark Green,
     Chair, Committee on Homeland Security, Washington, D.C.
     Hon. Gary Peters,
     Chair, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
         Affairs, Washington, D.C.
     Subject: The United States is Facing a New and Imminent 
         Danger
       Dear Mr. Speaker, Senate Majority Leader, and Chairmen: As 
     former senior executives of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation with deep experience combatting dangers to the 
     nation, we write to express our concern about a current 
     specific threat that may be one of the most pernicious ever 
     to menace the United States.
       The danger arises from the nature of the threat itself. 
     Wars and espionage and bombings and riots are sadly familiar 
     delivery systems of instability, intimidation, and 
     insecurity. The country has faced these and more throughout 
     its history and has held together, though not without 
     struggle.
       The threat we call out today is new and unfamiliar. In its 
     modern history the U.S. has never suffered an invasion of the 
     homeland and, yet, one is unfolding now. Military aged men 
     from across the globe, many from countries or regions not 
     friendly to the United States, are landing in waves on our 
     soil by the thousands--not by splashing ashore from a ship or 
     parachuting from a plane but rather by foot across a border 
     that has been accurately advertised around the world as 
     largely unprotected with ready access granted.
       It would be difficult to overstate the danger represented 
     by the presence inside our borders of what is comparatively a 
     multi-division army of young single adult males from hostile 
     nations and regions whose background, intent, or allegiance 
     is completely unknown. They include individuals encountered 
     by border officials and that possibly refused into the 
     country, along with a shockingly high estimate of 
     ``gotaways''--meaning those who have entered and evaded 
     apprehension.
       In light of such a daunting, unprecedented penetration by 
     uninvited foreign actors, it is reasonable to assert that the 
     country possesses dramatically diminished national security 
     at this time. The nation's military and laws and other 
     natural protective barriers that have provided traditional 
     security in the past have been thoroughly circumvented over 
     the past three years.
       In 2021, the demographics of those crossing the porous 
     southern boundary started to shift. Young men from around the 
     world traveling alone and holding questionable motivations 
     dramatically increased in number to become the most common 
     profile of those breaching the nation's borders. A startling 
     number have been found on the terrorist watchlist or are from 
     countries designated as State Sponsors of Terror distinctly 
     unfriendly to the United States.
       This is particularly alarming in light of the Hamas terror 
     attack on Israel last October 7. Those of us who have fought 
     terrorism know that, historically, successful terror attacks 
     invite mimicry. We know, as well, that terror leaders 
     intentionally cultivate throngs of young men possessing a 
     certain easily-manipulated personality type to carry out 
     atrocities.
       It is stark to say so, but having a large number of young 
     males now within our borders who could begin attacking 
     gatherings of unarmed citizens, in imitation of 10/7 and at 
     the behest of a foreign terror group, must be considered a 
     distinct possibility. We would be remiss not to call out this 
     potentially grave threat in the most direct terms. The 
     warning lights are blinking.
       And yet, this very real concern does not seem to be getting 
     the focus it logically deserves. The Director of the FBI has 
     correctly assessed an elevated threat level since 10/7. But 
     relatively little discussion has followed highlighting 
     unsecured borders as a significant cause of this increasingly 
     dangerous environment. It is a troubling concern that needs 
     illumination, not avoidance.
       Any violation of the nation's immigration laws increases 
     risks, but the surge in numbers of single, military aged 
     males descending upon American cities and towns is alarming 
     and perilous. Additionally, they are not just from terror 
     linked regions, but from China and Russia as well--hostile 
     adversaries of the U.S. with aspirations to devastate 
     national infrastructure.
       For these reasons, elements of this recent surge are likely 
     no accident or coincidence. These men are potential operators 
     in what appears to be an accelerated and strategic 
     penetration, a soft invasion, designed to gain internal 
     access to a country that cannot be invaded militarily in 
     order to inflict catastrophic damage if and when enemies deem 
     it necessary.
       This new reality, this ``never seen before'' threat 
     deserves greater attention. The borders need to be secured 
     against these young men and those already here illegally must 
     be identified and removed without delay. This will take the 
     coordinated, cooperative efforts of the FBI, Department of 
     Homeland Security and the rest of the Intelligence Community 
     to achieve.
       We encourage these actions and much greater Congressional 
     attention to this threat. The country has been invaded, an 
     invasion that will continue as long as the nation's enemies 
     perceive it will be tolerated. Until it is stopped, the 
     United States is extraordinarily less safe and secure. 
     Knowing all of this, it would be a shameful travesty if some 
     terrible attack, a preventable attack, were to occur against 
     innocent Americans or the infrastructure that keeps the 
     nation safe and functioning.
       The government will have failed grievously in its duty to 
     protect.
           Sincerely,
     Mr. Kevin R. Brock,
       Assistant Director, Directorate of Intelligence; Federal 
     Bureau of Investigation (Ret.); Principal Deputy Director; 
     National Counterterrorism Center (Former).
     Mr. Chris Swecker,
       Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division; 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation (Ret.).
     Timothy J. Healy,
       Director, Terrorist Screening Center; Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation (Ret.).
     Ruben Garcia, Jr.,
       Executive Assistant Director, Criminal; Cyber, Response, 
     and Services Branch; Federal Bureau of Investigation (Ret.).
     Mr. Mark Morgan,
       Assistant Director, Training Division; Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation (Ret.); Acting Commissioner, Customs and Border 
     Protection (Former); Chief, U.S. Border Patrol (former).
     Mr. David Szady
       Assistant Director, Counterintelligence Division; Federal 
     Bureau of Investigation (Ret.).
     Mr: Jody Weis,
       Special Agent in Charge, Philadelphia; Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation (Ret.); Superintendent, Chicago Police 
     Department (former).
     Mr. David Mitchell,
       Special Agent in Charge, Milwaukee; Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation (Ret.); Commissioner of Safety, Tennessee; 
     Director of Homeland Security, Tennessee (former).
     Mr. William Gavin,
       Assistant Director, Inspection Division; Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation (Ret.).
     Mr. Timothy McNally
       Assistant Director, Los Angeles Division; Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation (Ret.).

  Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. In the letter, the signers said that 
America is facing a new and unfamiliar threat. As my colleagues know, 
you never want to hear our intelligence leaders speak about an 
unfamiliar threat, but these former FBI officials told us that we are 
suffering a soft invasion along our southern border. They are stating 
what is obvious to all of us.
  They noted that we are experiencing a surge--listen to this--of 
military-aged, single men who are pouring into our country over the 
southern border from adversarial nations, by the way, and from 
terrorist regimes.
  When we were at Eagle Pass in the Del Rio sector on January 3, with 
64 House Republicans, they told us that between 60 to 70 percent of the 
people coming across the border right there at that epicenter are 
single, adult males. They are military aged. These are not huddled 
masses of families seeking refuge and asylum. These are people coming 
into our country to do only God knows what, and we are allowing it. The 
Biden administration is allowing it.
  We have noted that they are coming from adversarial nations, from 
terrorist regions. We have no idea what they are planning. In fiscal 
year 2023, Border Patrol encountered illegals from 170 different 
countries, including hundreds from Iran, Syria, thousands from Russia, 
tens of thousands who

[[Page H332]]

have come in from China. Tell me that is not dangerous.
  In this letter, law enforcement and intelligence leaders are warning 
us that we may very well suffer a preventable terrorist attack here on 
the homeland if we don't immediately secure that border and remove 
these dangerous terrorists from inside our borders.
  House Republicans, of course, have acted. Last year, we passed the 
Secure the Border Act. This legislation would address the catastrophe, 
fix the asylum and parole processes that are so broken, and support our 
Border Patrol agents. The Senate could take that bill up today. Chuck 
Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have been sitting on it in 
their majority for 9 months. They could do it right now. They could 
vote on that and send it to the President's desk, but they won't.
  Why? Because they are apparently okay with this, as well.
  While there may be some who think that it is not a good time to act, 
I disagree. Good policy, like a strong border, securing our Nation, and 
defending our sovereignty is always good politics. It is the right 
thing to do. It is the moral thing to do. It is the constitutional 
thing to do. It is the commonsense thing to do. I cannot, for the life 
of me, understand why the President won't agree with that.
  I have asked him myself, repeatedly: Mr. President, do something 
about it. He hems and haws and pretends that he doesn't understand what 
his authority is. He knows what it is.
  To be sure, we are not going to agree to a fix that doesn't actually 
solve the problem. We would be derelict in our duty if we did that. We 
know what the problems are, and we know how to fix them. Just like the 
Border Patrol official told us on that trip to the Rio Grande, House 
Republicans are not here to supply more buckets. We are here to stop 
the flow.
  Stopping the flow is not rocket science. It takes political courage. 
It takes transformational policy changes, and we know what policy 
changes will accomplish that. This is not conjecture. It is not 
Republican talking points. This is what the experts at the border, at 
the epicenter, tell us is necessary and needed, and it is insane that 
we will not supply it.
  We are also taking action this very week, right now. We are doing 
this every day. I thank Representatives Ciscomani, McClintock, and 
Moore for their hard work on four very important bills that the House 
is considering even this week. These bills will hold foreign persons, 
like criminal aliens, accountable for their crimes and keep them out of 
our communities.
  One of those bills is the Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act, 
named for Border Patrol Agent Raul Gonzalez, who died in the line of 
duty while pursuing a group of illegal aliens. It would provide stiffer 
penalties for aliens who attempt to evade arrest by the Border Patrol.
  We will also consider a bill to ensure that aliens who are convicted 
of drunk driving are both deportable and inadmissible. Believe it or 
not, they are not currently.
  The third bill would provide stiffer penalties for illegal aliens who 
engage in Social Security identity theft.
  The fourth bill would ensure that aliens who have ties to Hamas and 
the Palestine Liberation Organization will not be granted entry into 
the United States.
  These bills are obviously commonsense measures to protect the 
American people. They should gain the support of Republicans and 
Democrats, but my guess is not many Democrats will support it.
  The Republicans in the House will continue to press for secure 
borders to ensure America's immigration system serves the national 
interest and does not benefit aliens who are a danger to our own 
people.
  Last Friday, President Biden came out in support of the Senate's 
deal, which we haven't seen yet. There is no text yet, but from what we 
have heard, this so-called deal does not include these transformational 
policy changes that are needed to actually stop the border catastrophe.
  Among the reported details of the bill--again, I am working off 
reports because I haven't seen the text, but apparently, reportedly a 
new authority would be created in the law so the President can ``shut 
down the border once daily crossings exceed 5,000 a day.''
  You heard that right. It is illegal to cross our border, but 
apparently we are concocting some sort of deal to allow the President 
to shut down the border after 5,000 people break the law.
  Why is it 5,000?
  If you add that up, that would be a million more illegals coming into 
our country every year before we take remedial measures. It is madness.
  We should be asking: What kind of enforcement authority kicks in at 
5,000 illegal crossings a day? The number should be zero. Zero. I don't 
care what congressional district you go into in America, poll people at 
random on the street, and ask them: Hey, should we allow 5,000 people 
to break our law each day to get a million into the country or should 
we stop it at zero and enforce our law?
  I don't know another word to describe it. It is madness. Anything 
higher is simply surrender. Anything higher than zero is surrendering 
our border, surrendering our sovereignty and our security. It is 
important to point out--and I want to make this very clear--in the 
President's statement on Friday, he falsely claimed that he needs 
Congress to pass a new law to allow him to close the southern border. 
It was a false claim. He knows that is not true.
  The President has been around Washington for a long time, and the 
President repeated his claim yesterday on the White House lawn. He 
said: I have done all I can do. Just give me the power I have asked 
for.
  Moments after his comments, the President's own spokeswoman 
contradicted him and said: There are things that are within his power 
to secure the border.
  Well, hello, of course there are. The law is very clear. Anybody can 
google this. Any American citizen can just pull this up and read it for 
themselves. Let's set the record straight. What he said is demonstrably 
false. I have explained it to him specifically. I read the President of 
the United States the law, the black-letter law, on the phone about 
2\1/2\ weeks ago. I said: Mr. President, it says very clearly you have 
all the tools and the executive authority necessary to reverse the 
catastrophe that you have created. He has those tools right now, and he 
has since day one.
  The Immigration and Nationality Act, for example, coupled with recent 
Supreme Court precedent, give the President ample authority to suspend 
the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens or impose any 
restrictions he may deem appropriate.
  That is the broadest authority that Congress probably has ever given 
a President, and it has been there for a long, long time. In fact, the 
very provision that I just read you was used by the Obama 
administration more than 19 times. It has been used, I think, 69 times 
by Presidents since 1980, but not by President Biden. He pretends it is 
not there.
  Any attempt by this President to pretend that he is a bystander 
bereft of any ability to secure the border is patently absurd, and we 
are going to continue to remind the American people of that. If we take 
a step back, and we consider the current catastrophe at the border, we 
can all see that our country is at a critical decision point.

                              {time}  1245

  We are at a moment where we have to decide right now as a Congress, 
as a people. We have to decide as the American people if we have 
borders or not.
  We have to decide if we believe in the rule of law or not. We have to 
decide if we are a sovereign Nation or we are not.
  House Republicans do believe that America has borders and that we are 
a sovereign Nation. We believe we must set limits on the number of 
immigrants who enter, obviously, and the American people have a say on 
immigration policy.
  Understanding who enters and enforcing our immigration laws are 
critical components to maintain a sovereign country. If you do not have 
sovereignty, you do not have a country.
  I also believe that border security is part of our solemn obligation 
to safeguard the well-being of our citizens and uphold the principles 
that define who we are as a Nation.
  In no sense is border security somehow an act of hostility to 
neighboring

[[Page H333]]

countries. It is exactly the opposite; because a weak border weakens 
America, a strong border is good for America, a stronger America is 
good for everybody around the world, and everybody in this Chamber 
should acknowledge that.
  Just as we lock our doors at night to protect our homes, we secure 
our borders to protect our homeland. My friends, that is our sacred 
obligation.
  We in the House Republican Conference desperately want to protect our 
homeland because we want to ensure that all of our children and 
grandchildren can continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty that we 
have enjoyed and that we have loved and experienced, and we can 
continue this grand experiment in self-governance we began in 1776.
  Here is the question. I will leave you with this: Does President 
Biden want that? Does President Biden believe in the rule of law? Does 
President Biden believe that we are a sovereign Nation? Does he believe 
that Americans and not those from other countries should be put first?
  Every American citizen should be asking these questions of the 
President and helping us demand his answers. We won't stop. We are 
going to continue.

                          ____________________