[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.
____________________