[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 37 (Thursday, February 29, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1051-S1052]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. President, now on the border, today, President Biden will visit 
the

[[Page S1052]]

U.S. border at Brownsville, TX, where he will meet with local leaders 
and border enforcement agents. Three hundred miles up the Rio Grande, 
Donald Trump is expected to visit the border at Eagle Pass, TX.
  When President Biden and Donald Trump visit the border today, 
Americans will see a glaring contrast between the sitting President who 
negotiated the strongest border bill we have seen in years and a former 
President exploiting the border for political gain and making sure 
nothing gets done.
  President Biden knows the border is a serious problem. So look at 
what he has done: He sat down with Republicans to draft the strongest, 
most comprehensive border security bill America has seen in decades. 
And we worked with him here in the Senate to make that happen.
  Let me say that again: President Biden knows the border is a serious 
problem, and that is why he sat down with Republicans to draft the 
strongest, most comprehensive border bill America has seen in decades.
  But what did Donald Trump do? Donald Trump deliberately sabotaged the 
very same border reforms he spent years calling for because he wants to 
exploit the border for the campaign trail. He explicitly took credit 
for the bill going down. ``Please, blame it on me''--those were his 
words.
  It was Donald Trump who sabotaged the bill with dramatic updates to 
asylum. It was Donald Trump who sabotaged a bill that reformed parole 
authority. It was Donald Trump who sabotaged the bill that provided new 
resources to Border Patrol agents. And it was Donald Trump who 
sabotaged the bill endorsed by the Border Patrol union, the Wall Street 
Journal editorial page, and the Chamber of Commerce--hardly liberal 
groups.
  So when Donald Trump goes in front of the cameras to lament the mess 
at the border, he should look in the mirror--he should look in the 
mirror--because he is the one who tanked the best chance we have seen 
in ages to fix it. Until Donald Trump said ``oppose it,'' it would have 
passed here in the Senate and even in the House. And when Republicans 
in Congress say they will shut the government down or bring this 
legislative process to a halt unless we fund the border, that is bull, 
because they are the ones who blocked the deal.
  Republicans are the ones exacerbating the border by pushing things 
like H.R. 2, which not only did not get a single Democratic vote, it 
wouldn't even solve the problem--it wouldn't even solve the problem.
  And, again, as I have reminded Speaker Johnson over and over again, 
he can't do anything without bipartisanship when we have divided 
government. So to simply write what you want and put it for a vote when 
it gets no Democratic votes is a path to not solving the problem but, 
in a sense, doing the same thing Donald Trump did: use it for political 
purposes, say the problem isn't solved for political purposes when you 
are the ones who prevented the problem from being solved.
  Republicans cannot--cannot--claim to be serious about fixing the 
border while voting against the very same border policies they have 
spent years calling for. Republicans can't can be serious about fixing 
the border when they say it is an emergency, and then when they have a 
chance to stop it, they refuse for crass political purposes.
  That is what happened in the last few weeks, and Democrats will make 
sure the American people know it.