[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 46 (Thursday, March 14, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2397-S2398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
President Biden's Budget
Mr. President, on another matter, more than 5 months into the current
fiscal year, the Senate has finally made some progress on government
funding. Just so anybody listening understands where we are, we are
actually doing the work that we were supposed to do last year before
the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30. So we are actually
dealing with spending bills from 2023 in 2024 because we didn't do the
work then. So now, here we are stacked up, lurching from potential
shutdown to shutdown with various fiscal cliffs. We avoided one of
those cliffs last week when we passed 6 of the 12 annual appropriations
bills for fiscal year 2024.
These bills, as well as the six unfinished bills, should have been
signed into law before the end of September last year. Instead, the
monumental task of funding the government has lingered in purgatory in
the Senate as the majority leader has chosen to spend this Chamber's
limited time voting on nominations. As a result, we had to pass one
stopgap spending bill after another to prevent the government from
shutting down. And now the next funding deadline is just over 1 week
away.
Unless Congress passes six more funding bills by midnight next
Friday, portions of the government will shut down and countless public
servants will be left without a paycheck and the American people
unnecessarily inconvenienced. Well, that includes American troops that
will be left without a paycheck. It includes the Border Patrol. It
includes Customs and Border Patrol officers and other law enforcement,
many of whom will have to work without pay if that occurs.
I am deeply disappointed we find ourselves with this state of affairs
nearly halfway through the current fiscal year. This is Washington
dysfunction at its worst. This is the basic job of governing.
I do hope we will be able to make some serious progress in the next 2
weeks to fund the government and wrap up our work on fiscal year 2024
appropriations that we should have done last year so now we could work
on next year's before the end of the fiscal year in September.
Earlier this week, President Biden submitted his budget request for
fiscal year 2025, which begins in October. It is no secret that this
massive document is on the train to nowhere, but that doesn't mean it
is totally worthless. After all, a person's budget includes valuable
information.
Dating back to his time as a Member of the Senate, President Biden
has often repeated a favorite expression of his father's. His dad would
tell him: Don't tell me what you value; show me your budget, and I will
tell you what you value.
Someone could tell you they care about supporting those who are less
fortunate or saving for the future, but one will look at the budget and
tell that you really have other priorities. The same is true for the
Federal Government. It is easy for leaders to say they value a strong
military, just like it is easy to say we stand with Israel while
undercutting our ally.
I have worked here long enough to know you can't just listen to what
people say; you have to watch what they do.
President Biden's budget provides an unvarnished view of what he
values, and in countless ways--in countless ways--it contradicts what
he has said to the American people. It is a mountain of reckless,
burdensome tax hikes and far-left priorities with a $7.3 trillion
pricetag--trillion.
Just like President Biden, this budget request is completely detached
from the needs of our country. There is no better example than the
President's border budget.
Since he took office, our country has grappled with a completely
unprecedented crisis at the border, part of which I spoke about a
moment ago.
In 3 years, Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than
7.2 million migrants at the border. That is higher than the total for
the entire 12 years of the Trump and Obama administrations.
When this many individuals cross the border every day, the entire
system becomes overwhelmed. We don't have enough Border Patrol to
respond to the overwhelming number of people coming across the border
every day. We don't have the facilities to detain them for the amount
of time needed to process their asylum claims. We certainly don't have
enough resources to return individuals with no legitimate reason to
remain in the United States back to their home country.
We need more personnel, facilities, and resources to address this
crisis, as well as changes in policy, but the overarching issue that
needs to be fixed is the recordbreaking pace of migration. Everybody
knows that if a pipe breaks in your home, your top priority wouldn't be
to buy more buckets; it would be to turn off the water. That is what we
need to do here. We need to address the wave of humanity that keeps
coming and coming and will keep coming and coming. Unfortunately,
President Biden's budget wouldn't make any meaningful changes to that.
The only way to stop this unprecedented flow of migration is by
discouraging people from coming in the first place. That is called
deterrence. The Border Patrol calls it consequences.
When there are no consequences with coming here through illegal
channels, then people are going to keep coming. President Biden needs
to make it clear that anyone who does not have a legal basis to remain
in the United States will be detained and deported. Those are the
operative words here, ``detain and deport,'' or ``repatriate,'' if you
prefer.
The Biden administration needs to detain every person who crosses the
border without legal authority and return every single person who
doesn't have a legal basis to remain in the United States. The
President's budget, which shows what he values, doesn't provide the
resources to do that.
One example is a request for detention beds. That is part of the
``detain'' element that I mentioned. The administration has asked for
34,000 beds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That may sound
like a lot, but with the volume of people coming across the border,
those beds fill up quickly.
For example, during the first 4 months of the fiscal year, we
averaged about 240,000--nearly a quarter of a million--migrants each
month. That is about 8,000 crossings each day. If we are generous and
assume that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement actually acquires all
34,000 beds and that they are empty on day one, those beds would be
filled in less than 5 days.
Migrants who are placed in expedited removal and who are seeking
asylum are supposed to complete a credible fear screening--a process
that typically took about 13 days last year. If the administration
wanted to do things by the book--that means follow the law--we would
need the capacity to hold every single person who crossed the border
for 2 weeks just to figure out whether they are making a credible claim
for asylum and then a longer period in which to evaluate those claims.
To reemphasize the point, that is just to figure out if an asylum
claim is plausible on its face before an immigration judge determines
whether it is supported by any evidence. At current levels, that means
we would need more than 100,000 beds just to figure out whether
migrants were making facially plausible claims, without even
determining whether those claims are supported by real evidence.
As I said, the winning formula is detain-and-deport, not catch-and-
release, which is the Biden border policy. The President's budget
doesn't provide nearly enough resources for things like removal flights
either.
Given the unprecedented pace of illegal border crossings during the
Biden administration and the rate at which new migrants are arriving,
certainly they see the welcome mat waiting for them--not a red light,
not a blinking yellow light, but a green light. ``Come on in''--that is
the message that is being sent.
ICE needs a dramatic funding increase for air charter flights, for
example, and it needs enough resources to return migrants to their home
countries, but the administration has once again failed to give the
Agency the resources it needs to carry out its mission.
[[Page S2398]]
Our Border Patrol and our Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
officers can't do the job we have asked them to do because the Biden
administration has undercut them in endless ways. This is hardly a
surprise. The administration has constantly treated Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement like a corrupt, criminal group instead of a vital
law enforcement Agency, which is exactly what they are. Vice President
Harris, the President's own border czar, once compared ICE to the Ku
Klux Klan. How outrageous is that from a supposedly responsible public
servant, the Vice President of the United States?
This administration has never been serious about the border, and its
budget continues to prove that. Instead, the President's budget focuses
on managing the crisis--not fixing it, not solving it, but managing it.
Rather than establish deterrence by eliminating catch-and-release and
instituting detain-and-deport, the administration is just building up
more resources to try to avoid the public relations disaster when we
see people sleeping in the streets in places like Del Rio, El Paso, and
Laredo, just to name a few places.
The Biden administration has asked for $4.7 billion for a
``contingency fund'' that could kick in when conditions warrant extra
capacity, but really, despite the efforts to try to gloss over what
they are doing, this is really about facilitating the recordbreaking
flow of migrants into our country.
Once again, President Biden has proven that he has no desire--zero--
to stop the flow of people into the country. Instead, he wants to make
that process more efficient, as if 7.2 million aren't enough. But with
his poll numbers in the tank, President Biden keeps saying he wants to
address the border crisis, but he has no one to blame but himself. Yes,
this is a manmade crisis, and that man is Joe Biden.
This is not the plan of someone who is interested in making a real
and an honest attempt to solve a problem. This isn't a good-faith
attempt to achieve operational control at the border, enforce the law,
and deter illegal immigration. Unfortunately, it is just more of the
same--more of the same policies that created the mess we are in right
now.
President Biden may say he values a secure border, but his budget
reveals his true values, and that is that he does not.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, before I address recycling and composting,
I just want to say something with respect and affection to my friend
from Texas.
About a month ago, Democrats and Republicans joined together here on
this floor to pass bipartisan legislation to provide for better--much
better--security at the border and to make sure that folks from other
countries who have a desire to work, the ability to work, are not a
threat to our safety or security--that they could be provided an
opportunity to help make this a better country.
It was a bipartisan vote, Democrats and Republicans. So I just want
to commend the Republicans who joined the Democrats in voting for it.
The legislation has died in the House, at least for now, and my hope is
that the House will see fit to join us in the Senate to pass
commonsense, much needed border security legislation.