[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 20, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H1279-H1282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION AT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Clyde) for 30 minutes.


                             General Leave

  Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include in the Record extraneous material.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, tonight, I will be joined by a number of my 
colleagues to talk about the illegal alien invasion at our southern 
border and how it is victimizing our citizens.
  Last month, a grievous event tragically reminded the American people 
that every State is a border State.
  On February 22, Laken Riley, pictured here, a 22-year-old nursing 
student was murdered by an illegal alien in Athens, Georgia, on the 
campus of the University of Georgia.
  Laken's murderer was an illegal alien who should never, ever, ever 
have even been here. He illegally entered El Paso, Texas, in September 
2022 and was then released into the country via President Biden's 
significantly expanded parole program, an expansion that is 
illegitimate.
  He then took a young, beautiful life, Laken's life, in a brutal and 
violent way. Laken's father, John, described her as an amazing 
daughter, sister, friend, who was selfless and considerate of others, 
with a laugh that was infectious and lit up a room.
  He also highlighted her faith to me and noted that her love for the 
Lord guided her steps and shaped the way she lived her life.
  Mr. Speaker, Laken should be alive today, running, laughing with her 
friends, studying for nursing school, and spending time with her 
parents and siblings, but she is not, and this tragedy was completely 
avoidable.
  Her murderer is a dangerous criminal alien who took advantage of weak 
and bad Biden administration border policies. This horrific story has 
truly shaken our State and our entire Nation, and for good reason.
  Laken's young life and bright future were cut short at the hands of 
an illegal alien. Her murder was 100 percent preventable because her 
murderer should never have ever been in our country. Yet radical, 
dangerous policies failed both her and her family.
  Athens-Clarke County, the county where I have my business, the county 
where I have lived for 30 years, the county where as a Navy officer I 
taught when the Navy Supply Course School was in Athens-Clarke County.
  This county is one of four sanctuary cities in the Peach State. This 
sanctuary jurisdiction undoubtedly incentivized illegal immigration, 
putting families, small businesses, and students in greater danger. Yet 
Athens' Democrat mayor shamelessly claimed that there is no connection 
between crime and immigration.
  This is a flat-out lie, but it is a lie the mayor would rather tell 
than admit the truth: that his own policies played a role in Laken's 
murder.
  But the buck doesn't stop with the failed leadership in Athens-Clarke 
County. This goes all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
  As a candidate, Joe Biden instructed illegals to ``surge to the 
border.'' As President, he has ignored immigration law, destroyed our 
border security, and incentivized illegal immigration.
  Notably, Secretary Mayorkas has unabashedly carried out the 
President's marching orders, willfully establishing a wide-open border 
agenda that has violated our laws and emboldened dangerous criminals 
like Laken Riley's murderer to illegally enter the United States.
  Once aliens from across the world accept Biden's invitation, they are 
immediately released into our communities. In fact, Laken's murderer 
was released into the country due to the President's abuse of parole 
authority, which the Biden administration has weaponized to funnel 
millions of illegal aliens into the United States.
  For 3 years now, these open-border policies have been in effect. The 
result has been the Biden administration's intentional illegal 
invasion. According to recent estimates, nearly 7.3 million illegal 
aliens have entered the country under the Biden administration's watch, 
a number greater than the individual population of 36 States. That is a 
stunning and unsustainable figure.
  Clearly, we need to do more than secure the southern border. It is 
imperative that we also deport every solitary illegal alien who 
accepted the Biden administration's invitation to enter and reside in 
our Nation unlawfully.
  If we do not deport them, more Americans will suffer the tragic 
consequences of President Biden's open-border policies.
  The list of victims extends far beyond Laken Riley. In fact, a 32-
year-old illegal alien was recently arrested for sexually assaulting a 
14-year-old girl in Virginia. Another illegal alien was recently 
charged with first- and second-degree murder for a shooting that killed 
a 2-year-old child and injured his mother in Maryland. In Louisiana, an 
illegal alien was recently arrested for a series of violent crimes, 
including raping a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint and stabbing a man 
multiple times while robbing him. In Massachusetts, an illegal Haitian 
immigrant was recently charged with raping a 15-year-old girl in a 
hotel that housed asylum seekers.
  Now, let's go back a couple years. Honestly, what I just said 
happened just the last few weeks, and yet the Biden administration has 
done nothing.
  Let's go back a year or so.
  In July 2022, Kayla Hamilton, an American, was sexually assaulted and 
murdered in Maryland by a 16-year-old alien and MS-13 gang member from 
El Salvador who was allowed to enter the U.S. through the unaccompanied 
alien program.
  This 16-year-old illegal alien was initially apprehended by Border 
Patrol in Texas on March 23, 2022, and then referred to the Office of 
Refugee Resettlement.

  According to the alien, members of his family paid $4,000 to a guide 
who smuggled them to the southwest border. On May 3, 2022, the Office 
of Refugee Resettlement placed the alien with a sponsor, his alleged 
first cousin in Maryland.
  As revealed in his case file, the alien had been arrested by police 
in El Salvador on January 21, 2020, for illicit association with the 
MS-13 gang. The illegal alien's case file also included information 
from law enforcement officials dated August 2022, noting that the alien 
had tattoos affiliated with gang activity.
  So how did he get here? Through the Biden administration's abuse and 
weaponization of the immigrant parole program. This 16-year-old 
murderer should never, ever have been allowed in this country.
  How many times do I need to say that? How many more Americans have to 
be murdered or raped or assaulted by an illegal alien for the President 
to act? How many more Americans have to be killed by fentanyl? How many 
more innocent Americans have to suffer?
  Right now, the President has the executive authority, the power to do 
everything, yet he continues to do nothing because this is all by 
design. So it is up to Congress to stop this madness by using our 
leverage, the power of the purse, to force the White House to do

[[Page H1280]]

the right thing for the American people, yet Republican leadership has 
failed to do so.
  Two weeks ago, this body passed the first half of the swamp's 
omnibus. While this horrendous, backroom negotiated bill had many 
flaws, one thing stood out to me more than the rest: My policy rider to 
defund sanctuary jurisdictions like Athens-Clarke County where Laken 
Riley was murdered was removed from the bill. It was surrendered by our 
leadership.
  Yet the bill passed under suspension with more Democrat votes 
supporting it than Republicans, but 132 Republicans still voted for it. 
They voted to keep funding sanctuary cities.
  Americans are sick and tired of all talk and no action. Members 
continue messaging against the border crisis, then turn around and fund 
the Biden administration's policies that are creating this madness.
  If we are going to truly secure the border and deport every illegal 
alien residing in our great Nation, then we have to fight. We need more 
Republicans willing to fight for the American people. I hope to see 
more of my colleagues join the fight when we consider the second piece 
of the swamp's omnibus, which includes funding for the Department of 
Homeland Security later this week.
  Despite still not having the bill text, we have a pretty good idea 
that this massive government funding package fails to secure our 
southern border. Key border security provisions were surrendered, yet 
leadership is touting more resources, such as more detention beds for 
ICE as a win.
  I disagree. Simply adding more resources without actually changing 
the Biden administration's open-border policies allows President Biden 
and Secretary Mayorkas to simply process and release more illegal 
aliens into the country. We don't need more Border Patrol agents that 
will simply be used as processing clerks.
  Let me be clear: Any Republican who votes for the swamp's second 
spending package that doesn't secure our border owns the border crisis 
just as much as President Biden.
  I am proud to have several of my colleagues here tonight to condemn 
President Biden's intentional illegal invasion as well as to discuss 
the power that Congress has to put a stop to this crisis.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), my 
friend.
  Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  It is my pleasure to join him in this Special Order to talk about one 
of the most important existential crises that we face in the country 
today, and that is our border crisis.
  Let's rephrase that. It is the Biden border crisis.
  So we have 9 sectors along the southwest border, each one 100 to 150 
miles wide and they cover many tens of thousands of miles into the 
interior.
  The Tucson sector, which is now the hot spot in the last 5 months, 
has had more than 312,000 encounters. In that small area, you have more 
than 2,000 a day who are being interdicted, and those are the people 
who surrender. It might be one of the most remote border areas on the 
southwest border on the Tohono O'odham Reservation at the San Miguel 
gate.
  It might be in Lukeville where, if you were paying attention, Bill 
Melugin sent to the world video footage from just a few days ago where 
the cartels had cut a hole in the fence and dozens and dozens of 
illegal aliens were coming in through that hole.
  That is what is happening. What are the numbers? Those are the 
numbers. The numbers reach into the millions every year.

                              {time}  1800

  That doesn't include the got-aways, both known and unknown. What 
countries are they coming from?
  I remember well being down in Yuma, and 25 men of military age came 
across. I said: Where are you from?
  Well, we are from Russia.
  We got the Russian interpreter on the phone, those of us from 
Congress.
  Then they said: No, no, we are from Ukraine.
  We actually happened to have access to a Ukrainian interpreter.
  Then they said: Oh, well, actually we really are from Russia.
  I have met them from Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, Burkina Faso. Every 
country, 180 countries are represented in that pool of people coming 
into our country illegally.
  What are the results? My good friend from Georgia has given you a 
litany of people who have been basically injured, killed, maimed, 
robbed, raped by people who have come into this country illegally.
  If you were to hear the left, they would tell you, oh, wait a second, 
you are saying everybody coming across, you are stigmatizing everyone.
  No, we are not stigmatizing everyone. What I am telling you is, if 
these people weren't here who aren't supposed to be here, none of this 
would have happened. I have friends who have lost children, killed by 
illegal aliens.
  What do Americans think of this? What do Americans think of this? 
Eighty-five percent of them said this is the most important issue. What 
do the left do on their little TV shows that few people watch? They 
laugh. They laugh that anyone would say that that is an issue in 
Virginia or in Georgia or in Montana or anywhere because they simply 
don't care about American life.
  Mr. Speaker, I join Representative Clyde in calling upon my 
colleagues, the Republican colleagues, to understand that we have got 
to demand enforcement from this regime. The way you get it is you 
actually leverage spending. That is what the Founders gave us.
  I call on my colleagues to leverage this minibus, this DHS CR to make 
sure we get enforcement. I also call upon the Speaker to bring up our 
border security bills every day, bring one up every day. Let's vote on 
one every day. Let's give these guys an opportunity to show that they 
really care about the border.
  Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona for those 
inspiring words. I agree with him absolutely, we need to bring up our 
border legislation every solitary week.
  Now, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins).
  Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity 
to address the disaster at our southern border. The grief that has been 
brought upon the American people in the past 3 years is unspeakable. It 
was brought on strictly by policy change.
  It is the exact same 1,954 miles of border that we had under 
President Trump. We have the same equipment, the same men, the same 
women. We are spending more money. We spent $20 billion more last year 
than we did 3 years ago.
  It is not about money. It is not about men or equipment. There is no 
enhanced desire by the cartels to make money. They traffic human beings 
and drugs. They have been doing it quite successfully for a long time. 
We had backed the cartels up very effectively by the time we hit 2019 
and 2020 under the Trump administration, under Trump policies.
  President Biden, once inaugurated, immediately began flipping those 
policies. This is what has happened. This is why you have had 12 
million illegal crossings in 3 years. This is why you have 300,000 
Americans dead, from opioids smuggled into our country across the 
southern border in the past 3 years. It is the number one cause of 
death for Americans 18-45 years old. We have never had that in the 
history of our country. It is drug poisoning. Our sovereignty has 
disintegrated at the southern border.
  This body, the people's House, acted last year. H.R. 2, the strongest 
border security measure in the history of Congress, was passed in May 
of last year with Republican votes and delivered to the Senate. There 
it gathers dust. What we demand of our colleagues in the Senate that 
are run by the Democratic Party, what we demand from the Democratic-
controlled White House is a clean vote on H.R. 2, the border security 
bill that was passed by the people's House in May of last year, 
delivered to the Senate in May of last year. We demand a clean vote. 
Let America see where does the Senate stand on border security. H.R. 2 
is the answer for the crisis that we face, the heartache, wave upon 
wave of human misery that our Nation has suffered for the last 3 years 
at the southern border. I appreciate this opportunity to address this 
ongoing disaster, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana. Those 
are strong words, and those are correct words.

[[Page H1281]]

  Now I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding 
to me. I appreciate him getting this time on the floor for us to 
address such a pressing matter as the national security of the United 
States and the well-being of her citizens.
  The truth of the matter is, the national security of the United 
States and the well-being of her citizens in terms of safety and 
security is not well. We are in danger in our country, on our streets, 
in our homes from people who are being let into the United States under 
the not just misguided but purposeful policies of radical progressive 
Democrats led by Joe Biden and as exemplified by my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle in this body and in the Senate purposely 
releasing people in the United States they know to be a danger to our 
people.
  They are using parole policies and asylum policies that we put in 
place out of the goodness of our heart to help people around the world, 
they are using those very narrow exceptions to the rules that secure 
our border to release thousands of people without vetting them 
or, frankly, without even caring, into the United States. The result 
has been the murder, death, rape, assault of American citizens.

  My friend from Georgia mentions Laken Riley. I hate to politicize one 
family's devastation in the last month. She has obviously gained 
notoriety and caught the attention of the American people, but there 
are hundreds, thousands of examples of devastated families, whether you 
are talking about from fentanyl poisoning or the absolute disaster that 
is a mom in Texas finding her cheerleader daughter dead in the bathtub 
in her own home when she went to go see her perform cheerleading in 
Texas. That happened in December. Where is the bill named after 
Lizbeth? Where is the bill named after Kayla Hamilton, who was raped 
and murdered in her own home in Maryland, just up the road from here in 
the Nation's Capital. What about the 2-year-old who was murdered in 
Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside of the Nation's Capital, by 
somebody let out on mass parole by radical, progressive Democrats who 
don't give a rip about our Nation's security or the well-being of our 
citizens. That is the truth.
  However, there is a worse truth, in my opinion. In the face of the 
observable endangerment of the American people by radical, progressive 
Democrats, Republicans who campaign against it are going to vote 
tomorrow--or the next day or whenever they decide to jam us with a bill 
that we have not yet read--to fund this. Republican colleagues who will 
spend this year campaigning against open borders and campaigning 
against the destruction of the lives of Americans at the hands of open 
borders led by Democrats--I want to be very clear, it is led and being 
carried out by radical, progressive Democrats--but my Republican 
colleagues will campaign against it, yet tomorrow they will fund it. 
Tomorrow or Friday or Saturday, whenever we get the bill--we haven't 
seen it yet--they will spend $1.2 trillion funding Defense which, by 
the way, is woke; funding State and Foreign Operations which, by the 
way, includes the United Nations and the World Health Organization; 
funding all manner of programs that are not good for this country, but 
notably the Department of Homeland Security carrying out these mass 
paroles, carrying out these mass asylums, carrying out the release of 
people into the United States, issuing memoranda saying that ICE should 
not actually pull these people up and then deport them from the United 
States. We will be funding that.
  Now, not all of us. My friend from Georgia, my friend from Virginia 
who has joined us, my friend from Louisiana who spoke a minute ago, we 
won't vote for it. Republicans could stop it. We could stop it. Some 
are choosing not to. Why? Why? I think that is a question that should 
be asked.
  When Republicans hold the House Chamber, why would they take the 
power of the purse and provide funding, hundreds of billions of 
dollars, why would they give this administration funding to carry out 
policies that release dangerous criminals onto the streets of the 
United States, including the known dangerous Venezuelan gang member, a 
prison gang member released into this country who killed Laken Riley? 
In my own district in New Braunfels, they found just last week a drug 
lord who is on the terrorist watch list or the most dangerous watch 
list for the FBI, 10 Most Wanted, found in New Braunfels, Texas, which 
I represent. I take my family there all the time. This drug lord was 
just found and arrested.
  This administration is endangering America. My Democratic colleagues 
are all too happy to do it, but my Republican colleagues are all too 
happy to campaign against it, and then not do a dang thing about it 
when they write the check to fund it. Not one Republican should vote to 
fund this atrocity. Not one Republican.
  I would debate any Republican who wants to come to the floor right 
now and debate me on it. You know what? Not one of them will. Not one 
Republican will take me up on debating the issue of using the power of 
the purse to fund the endangerment of the American people.
  Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Roy. I thank him for 
his work in the fight to secure our border.
  I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends, the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Clyde) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for 
speaking so effectively on this issue.
  We cannot talk enough about the border. In my district, we just did a 
survey asking my constituents what is the most important issue, what is 
the number one issue facing the country, and the southern border was 
the overwhelming response. They realize that is hundreds of miles from 
them geographically, but it is coming home to them in my very district 
in Bedford and Campbell Counties, just outside greater Lynchburg. They 
are otherwise as peaceful and as safe places to live as anyplace in the 
country. Both of these counties have recently had sexual assaults 
committed by illegal aliens allowed into this country. Wait, let me 
check myself: helped into this country, purposely helped into this 
country by this President and his open-border policies.

  It gets worse every day. We have spoken many times, and we need to 
continue to speak about Laken Riley, the young lady from Mr. Clyde's 
area of Georgia, brutally murdered by an illegal alien helped into this 
country by this President's open-border policies.
  To what lengths will this administration go to keep the borders open? 
They are fighting the very State of Texas, which is trying to secure 
their own border, trying to defend their own citizens, and the 
administration is literally suing and fighting and challenging them and 
prohibiting them from securing their border and defending their 
citizens and trying to keep them safe.
  Just in the last couple of days, we had a Lebanese illegal who worked 
for Hezbollah for 7 years, who thankfully was apprehended. He said that 
he was coming to go to New York City to make a bomb. How many like that 
individual might be among the 2 million got-aways? Not the 8 million 
who come and surrender to Border Patrol to take advantage of the 
generous Biden policies: the free housing, the free travel, the free 
healthcare, the free social services, the free education, and all the 
rest. The Biden administration takes the ones who surrender in with 
open arms at taxpayer expense, provides them with benefits that 
American citizens do not receive, makes sure, by the way, that they 
have their Second Amendment rights in place, as we saw in the State of 
Illinois just recently.
  However, then there are the 2 million who don't want that and 
actually pay the cartels more to evade apprehension, to evade encounter 
with Border Patrol because these are the criminals. These are the gang 
members; these are the traffickers of drugs and children and sex 
trafficking and the ones with the criminal backgrounds. How many more 
among that 2 million are like that individual from Lebanon, the 
Hezbollah member who said he wanted to go to New York to make a bomb?

                              {time}  1815

  What is going to happen this Friday? We think it is going to be 
Friday. We don't have bill text yet. We are going to vote--not myself 
and my friend from Georgia--but we are going to vote to

[[Page H1282]]

fund this government, to give this administration billions of dollars 
more to continue facilitating this very border invasion that we have 
talked about for these past 3 years.
  We even heard in a meeting of our own Republican Conference this 
morning that some of our members didn't care when we got the bill text. 
They didn't care if it was 72 minutes, they said, or 72 hours. They 
were going to vote for it anyway, irrespective of what the contents 
might be.
  They didn't care what was in it. They didn't care how that estimated 
$1.2 trillion was going to be spent. They didn't care what the policies 
were going to be.
  They just wanted it passed by Friday, I guess so they could go home, 
so they could go to their fundraisers. Yet, we are going to fund this 
government and these policies that we campaigned against.
  I don't need 72 hours to vote ``no'' against a bad bill that doesn't 
reverse the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer policies under which the American 
people are suffering.
  I don't need 72 hours to evaluate that and vote ``no.'' If I was 
going to vote ``yes'' like some of my colleagues, I might want to 
actually have 72 hours to know what policies I was owning and that I 
was responsible for funding before I cast my ``yes'' vote.
  The last thing I will say to my good friend from Georgia: Why should 
we not attach H.R. 2, the border security bill?
  If we are going to fund Chuck Schumer's and Joe Biden's spending bill 
with the policies that we stand against and spending levels that are 
$60 billion higher this year, why not at least attach border security 
to it, H.R. 2, and demand that the Democrats choose between shutting 
down the border or shutting down the government because they don't care 
about the border invasion?
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Clyde for yielding time.
  Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and I 
applaud his efforts to stop President Biden's illegal invasion. He is 
right. We need to attach H.R. 2, the border security bill, to this 
particular funding legislation.
  I thank all of my colleagues who participated tonight in this Special 
Order. We can and we must do more in the fight to protect Americans 
from Joe Biden's open border policies.
  The most powerful way we can do this is through the power of the 
purse. We have an opportunity to take a stand against the Biden 
administration's intentional illegal invasion through the funding 
fight, and I urge my colleagues to do so. Otherwise, more avoidable 
tragedies like Laken Riley's murder will continue to devastate our 
Nation, and we will create more victims of our citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________