[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 104 (Thursday, June 20, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4168-S4169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, there is a difference between a refugee 
who was fully vetted, that America has welcomed historically and should 
continue to, and we will. We worked for decades to be able to honor 
refugees and to be able to do our part in what is happening around the 
world. That same standard for refugees, where an individual is 
identified, the family is vetted, they go through the process both at 
the U.N. and through the United States to be able to identify how to be 
able to help that family, that same definition for ``refugee'' is also 
used as a definition for ``asylee.'' It is the same definition, but 
there is a dramatic difference between the two.

[[Page S4169]]

  The refugee has been fully vetted. We know who they are; we know the 
situation; we know the crisis that their family has gone through; and 
our Nation, like multiple nations around the world, engages to see what 
we can do to help that family in trauma. That is who we are as 
Americans. It is whom we will continue to be.
  The challenge is when we have thousands of people cross our southern 
border requesting asylum whom we don't know who they are, who are not 
vetted, that begin to take advantage of American generosity, and it 
becomes a challenge for us to be able to filter who really qualifies as 
a refugee/asylee as they are crossing the border and who is just taking 
advantage of our system.
  That is a challenge. It has been a challenge for us for years, but it 
has dramatically accelerated in the last 3 years. This year we will 
have 2\1/2\ million people that will cross our southern border. The 
vast majority of those will ask for asylum, and they will be released 
into the United States awaiting a hearing, sometimes 8 to 10 years in 
advance, to be able to make their case that they qualify. In the 
meantime, we don't know who they are. They have not been vetted. We 
don't have background information for those individuals.
  Last week, the FBI picked up eight individuals with direct ties to 
ISIS that were in our country, that in the last 2 years had crossed our 
southern border--had blended in with the rest of the folks who 
requested asylum--requested asylum and then disappeared into our 
country.
  Thankfully, our FBI was able to pick up that these eight individuals 
were in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, preparing to be able 
to carry out acts of violence in our country. We are grateful for the 
work of the FBI to be able to do that, but why aren't we filtering 
these individuals at the border?
  We are not evaluating criminal history even in the country they are 
coming from. How do I know that? I know that because I work with DHS, 
and I am fully aware of what their process is. We fingerprint 
individuals, and we see if they are on the Terror Watchlist; that is, 
we know them, we have been tracking them internationally, or if they 
are on the Interpol international criminal list.
  But if they are on a list in their own country, we don't know that. 
Last week, Victor Antonio Martinez was picked up in my State, in Tulsa, 
OK, sitting in a sports bar in Tulsa, where he had left out from 
Maryland after murdering Rachel Morin, a mother of five.
  Now, he had fled to Maryland because he had carried out acts of 
violence in Los Angeles in a violent home invasion in Los Angeles. So 
he carried out an act of violence in Los Angeles, went to Maryland, 
murdered a mom there, then was headed to Tulsa. What do you think was 
about to happen in Tulsa?
  Oh, by the way, did I mention, he fled from El Salvador because he 
murdered someone in El Salvador. So he fled El Salvador, came to our 
southern border, requested asylum, came into the United States, 
attacked a family in Los Angeles, murdered a mom in Maryland, and then 
was arrested in my State, in Tulsa.
  Please don't tell my folks in Tulsa, there is nothing to worry about 
on illegal immigration, this is all going fine at the border. We don't 
believe it because a violent, multiperson murderer was on a national 
crime spree, and my State was next before he was picked up and 
arrested, now extradited back to Maryland for the crime there.
  In New York, earlier this year, Raul Castro-Mata from Venezuela shot 
at two New York police officers. He is one of those folks from 
Venezuela that had come across asking for asylum. Earlier this month in 
Texas, an illegal immigrant was arrested when he had broken into a 
private business and had committed a pretty large robbery there. In 
Florida, a SWAT team got into a shootout with an illegal alien who had 
killed a police officer just a few months ago.
  In Washington State, an illegal alien from Mexico was driving, and he 
killed a Washington State police officer. The car was going 107 miles 
an hour. He was under the influence of marijuana at the time.
  Listen, I am fully aware that not everyone that crosses the border is 
going to carry out acts of criminal activities. I am fully aware of 
that. All I am doing is asking a simple question: Are we checking 
criminal history at the border for the thousands of people that are 
coming across the border? And the answer is no.
  For the eight people that were picked up last week that were ISIS 
terrorist connected, those eight are individuals that were listed as 
special interest aliens. They are 8 of the 53,000 special interest 
aliens that had entered our country this year across the southern 
border.
  Oh, and if you think that number is big, last year the number was 
70,000 special interest aliens were released into our country last 
year.
  These are individuals that this DHS has declared, at the border, a 
potential national security risk. Yet instead of detaining them, the 
vast majority of them have been released on their own recognizance 
around the country somewhere.
  Listen, this body knows full well I am willing to work with anyone on 
either side of the aisle to be able to solve this issue. Between now 
and the election, we are going to have another million and a half 
people illegally cross into our country--between now and the end of the 
year.
  We have had 10 million people illegally cross in the last 3\1/2\ 
years--10 million. If we don't stop this, every day we have folks that 
are coming in to find work, to connect with families, and folks that 
are also coming in to commit criminal acts. They are not fleeing from 
poverty. They are fleeing from the law in their own country, and they 
are carrying out acts of violence in ours.
  When we can't tell the difference between the two, why are we 
defaulting to open rather than defaulting to closed? Why are we 
literally telling the people in my State: That guy sitting next to you 
at the sports bar--we didn't know if he was a criminal or not, so we 
just let him in. We didn't know if he had committed murder in his own 
country, so we just let him in.
  Why are we doing that? Why is that happening today on our southern 
border, and what are we going to do to stop it? I am going to continue 
to come to this floor to bring this up because it is not getting 
better.
  The Executive action the President took 2 weeks ago to declare they 
are going to put new limits in place--everybody here should check the 
facts on it. We had the same number of crossings yesterday that we had 
4 weeks ago before that Executive action went into place. That 
Executive action hasn't changed the numbers. What has changed is the 
way they are counting the numbers. They are now not including in the 
count the people who come to a port of entry who are not legally 
present. They are now not being included, so the numbers look smaller, 
but look at the asterisk and the fine print of who now is no longer 
being counted in the publicly released numbers. The numbers haven't 
changed; the way they are publishing the numbers has changed.
  Then this week, the President announced a new amnesty program for 
folks who are here in the country. That is now his 95th Executive 
action announcing to the world that if you get across our border, you 
can stay. It is inviting people to be able to come into our country 
illegally. That is the wrong message to the world. It is a message we 
need to address, and we shouldn't just wait around until it gets better 
on its own.