[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 43 (Monday, March 11, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H1061]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ILLICIT FENTANYL CROSSING OUR BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Joyce) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, in 2022, more than 100,000 
Americans lost their lives due to an overdose.
  Sadly, nearly 70 percent of those deaths involved some form of 
illicit fentanyl. These drugs, which are created in China and then 
manufactured, compounded in Mexico and then trafficked across our open 
southern border, took the lives of enough Americans to fill Beaver 
Stadium at Penn State University.
  These deaths are the result of a southern border that has been thrown 
open to cartels and their operations by a President who refuses to 
enforce our laws. By inviting mass illegal immigration, President Biden 
and Secretary Mayorkas has stretched our border resources too thin and 
allowed the cartels to move their deadly drugs with impunity.
  It is time to pass a border bill that will fully fund the resources 
that our Border Patrol agents so desperately need. It is time to return 
to the remain in Mexico policy, and it is time to put a stop to the 
fentanyl poisonings that have taken far too many American lives.


                            Runaway Spending

  Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, last week during the State of 
the Union Address, the American people saw a campaign speech, not a 
plan to fix the economy that President Biden's failed policies has left 
in shambles.
  In the first 2 years of his disastrous administration, President 
Biden passed reckless spending bills that sent inflation soaring by 17 
percent.
  Today, a mother visiting the grocery store will find that the price 
of juice is up 30 percent, the cost of beef is up 10 percent, 
vegetables are up 5 percent, and the price of bread is up 3 percent.
  Ultimately, these costs add up. Over the course of a year, the 
average American family is paying an additional $11,000 just to afford 
the basics that they need. Pennsylvanians cannot afford the government 
red tape in spending that has caused this runaway inflation. 
Pennsylvanians and all Americans certainly cannot afford the budget 
that President Biden is proposing, which would only amount to yet 
another year of runaway spending.


                         Surging Violent Crime

  Mr. JOYCE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, as crimes continue to surge 
in cities across the U.S., it has become clear that calls to defund the 
police and attempts to interfere with law enforcement have put our 
communities and our families in danger. Across 32 major cities, car 
thefts have increased by 33 percent, and here in Washington, D.C., 
carjackings are up nearly 100 percent.
  Sadly, President Biden has ignored this crime wave and has refused to 
address the victims who now worry about living in their own homes.
  Surging violent crimes in our cities makes all Americans more 
vulnerable, and it is time for radical Members of this body to finally 
show their support of police officers.
  It is time for us to send a clear message that we will always stand 
with the men and women in blue.

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