[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 37 (Thursday, February 29, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H743]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAILED BORDER POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I am fascinated by my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle being so fixated on Ukraine when our porous 
southern border, our U.S. borders, are causing so much harm to our 
American economy and losing American lives such as Laken Riley here 
most recently.
  We have been fairly generous to Ukraine since their problems have 
started with Russia. Indeed, the amount of money they received is at 
least 20-fold more than what we are even talking about that would 
secure our own southern border.
  Now we see President Biden will be chasing former President Trump 
down to the border--in reality, a desperate attempt to stabilize his 
plummeting poll numbers on the issue, but let's not be kidded by that.
  Today's visit, much like Biden's first and only other visit to our 
southern border, will be basically a photo op.
  He will be visiting Brownsville, Texas, an area of the southern 
border that, according to reports, has had virtually nonexistent 
activity in recent days, weeks, and months compared to all the other 
places along the border where you can see plenty of footage of tens of 
thousands of people coming across. Create a distraction here by going 
over there.
  This is nothing more than a smokescreen and an attempt to distract 
American people from his disastrous policies and the chaos he has 
unleashed at our southern border.
  For the past 3 years, President Biden has not only ignored the crisis 
at the southern border, he is directly responsible for it.
  Since his first day in office, he has worked to implement his own 
far-left failed policies which have basically turned every town in the 
whole country into a border town and destroyed countless American 
families. We then talk about this issue here on the floor since the 
media doesn't seem to want to cover that very well.
  There are over 60 instances of President Biden and his administration 
taking actions that undermine our Nation's border security.
  The first thing he did when he came into office was to get rid of the 
procedures and the policies that President Trump had put into place.
  Yet, recently in the press, he is yelling at Republicans, saying: You 
need to back some of our border policies we are working on. Really? Put 
back in place the policies that already worked.

  These eight items, he could do all of these without having Congress 
fund or come to agreement on a bipartisan fashion on any of them: end 
catch and release, reinstate the remain in Mexico policy, enter into an 
asylum cooperation agreement, end parole abuses, detain inadmissible 
aliens--wow, wouldn't that be something--use expedited removal process, 
rein in taxpayer-funded benefits for all illegal aliens--wouldn't that 
be a relief for families who are struggling--issue a proclamation to 
suspend or restrict entry in the United States.
  Those are actions he could take on his own without having to battle 
through both sides of the aisle in both the House and Senate.
  We would be happy to do that as Republicans. Republicans have been 
standing for these types of policies all along.
  It all changed under the Biden administration. That is why we have 
suffered these last 3 years with the mass amounts of people coming 
across our border illegally and invading our country.
  We know border security is national security. That is why the bill we 
passed, H.R. 2, earlier on is the right policy.
  Yet, it is sitting there languishing under Senator Schumer and the 
Senate Democrats who won't bring it up for a vote or discussion.
  Instead, they gave us a watered-down immigration bill that would 
allow 1.8 million illegal immigrants a year into our country with 
immediate work permits, benefits, and the ability to stay even longer, 
thereby codifying illegal immigration.
  We are going to automatically concede 1.8 million can come in 
illegally without process, and we are going to give you stuff. Calling 
that a border security package and then reaming Republicans for not 
being for that, it is not even a funny joke.
  Let's look at the numbers. Since Biden took office, there have been 
7.2 million illegal crossings of our southern border; 8.7 million 
entries nationwide.
  The total number of illegal immigrants who have entered through our 
southern border is greater than the population of 36 of our individual 
States.
  Let's not forget about the terrorists. Mr. Speaker, 340 individuals 
whose names appear on the terrorist watch list have been stopped trying 
to cross the southern border.
  So far in 2024, there have been 58 individuals whose names appear on 
the list who have been stopped trying to enter the border. How many 
haven't been stopped?
  The total is more than the encounters in all fiscal years 2017, 2018, 
2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 combined. That is how bad it has gotten to 
this point.
  It is not just terrorists crossing our border. It is also Chinese 
Communist Party nationals. Mr. Speaker, 20,000 Chinese nationals have 
illegally crossed the southern border since fiscal year 2024 began in 
October.
  Just last week, 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley's 
life was taken. How many more examples like that have to happen because 
of Biden's wide-open policy and today's photo op? We must do better.

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