[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 121 (Thursday, July 25, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H4943-H4944]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        MAINSTREAM MEDIA ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, let's address some problems that ought 
to be covered by our mainstream media, but I don't feel are adequately 
being covered. One more time, I would like to review what is going on 
at the border.
  So the American citizens know, our fiscal year ends on September 30. 
Sometime in the next 2 months as information keeps flowing out from the 
administration on the number of people crossing our southern border, we 
are going to hit the all-time high in the number of immigrants who are 
coming here, what I believe to be the all-time high.
  Right now, at the end of June, we have let in, in our current year, 
over 2.1 million immigrants. When the prior administration left, in his 
final year, we were probably around about 120,000. The American 
citizens ought to know, when we hit the all-time record, it was 20 
times as many people who had crossed the southern border as who crossed 
the southern border in fiscal year 2020.
  Of course, in addition to the skyrocketing high number, you have the 
huge cost of immigrants. Immediately when they come in, they are given 
school at probably 12 or 13 or $15,000 a year. They are housed 
sometimes in hotels. They are fed. They are given free medical care or 
largely free medical care, as President Biden promised he would do when 
he ran for President 4 years ago.
  I hope that when these final figures are released--they might be 
released in the middle of September, they might be released in the 
middle of October--the American public is immediately given time to 
digest the numbers.
  This is also a humanitarian problem, in addition to a huge fiscal 
problem. It is a humanitarian problem in that along with this group, it 
appears as though we are going to approach--probably won't get there--
but approach 90,000 unaccompanied minors.
  Can you imagine a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old child, without either 
parent there, being let into the United States? They will try to find a 
foster parent, and maybe it will be a relative, maybe it won't be, 
although the Biden administration no longer does DNA tests to make sure 
if somebody claims to be an uncle or a parent that they really are.
  There was a time we were upset about tiny numbers of people when 
their parents broke the law and they were separated from their parents 
for a week, 10 days, or something. Here we have a situation in which we 
are going to have almost 90,000 unaccompanied minors separated from 
their parents for life. Talk about a humanitarian problem.
  I should also point out that when we have an open border, people die 
making the dangerous trip--I have been at the border eight or nine 
times--be it drowning in the Rio Grande, be it drowning in the Pacific 
Ocean, or be it dehydrating in the Arizona heat.
  Every year, people are dying because they think they can come to this 
country because President Biden has created the expectation that people 
can come in this country without concern.
  I also want to point out, and I hate to be too tough on President 
Biden here because, of course, soon after he took office, he named 
Kamala the border czar. I would have thought at the time she would be 
so grateful for the responsibility.
  President Biden had rescued her from political oblivion after her 
Presidential run in 2020 came to naught, but when she was given this 
responsibility and opportunity to shine--and even if she didn't want 
the responsibility, Joe Biden gave it to her.
  Our boss doesn't always assign us responsibilities we want to have, 
but it was interesting that for over 3 years, nothing at all was done 
with the responsibility. It looks like then Joe Biden had to step in 
and do a little bit of something.
  It is something that as we go through our lives and the full impact 
of letting over 2 million people in this country every year hits this 
country, we remember the tandem of President Biden, and even more, Vice 
President Harris, who he assigned to solve this problem, what they did 
and the permanent crisis that we have.
  I should also point out because sometimes when people talk about the 
border, they say, oh, people just have to get here, and we have always 
been a country of immigrants.
  People should remember that if you look in 4-year increments, as far 
as I can tell, we are now hitting all-time records of legal immigrants 
coming in this country.
  We have legal immigrants coming in at about 850,000 people a year. I 
don't think we talk about that as much as we should. We have 850,000 
new citizens a year.
  The other thing while I am talking about the number of new citizens 
coming here, I would like to touch on where the people are coming from. 
I touch on it because there are people who like to tear down America, 
you know, Eurocentric, that sort of thing.
  I dug up where our new immigrants are coming from, and kind of from--
it may be surprising to the people who like to run down America and 
talk about being racist, that sort of thing. In the most recent year 
that I could find, 2022, immigrants from Mexico are coming to the U.S. 
and being naturalized the most, then India, then Philippines, then 
Cuba, Dominican, Vietnam, China, Jamaica, El Salvador, Colombia, 
Pakistan, Haiti, Iran, South Korea, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Brazil.

                              {time}  1315

  Those are the top 17.
  Madam Speaker, do you notice anything about those 17 countries that 
are the leading countries in sending us immigrants?
  None of them have a primarily European population. You have to get 
down to Britain where you come in at 18. The 17 countries that our new 
citizens are coming from the most are from all around the globe. None 
of them are from a primarily European country. I think that is 
something that we should tell our children and should be taught in 
class to counteract the people who like to run down America and scream 
racism, racism.
  In any event, to summarize, I hope that when we hit the all-time 
record of people coming across the southern border, which is going to 
happen sometime in September or October, it is the banner headline in 
this country as well it should be.
  The next issue that still has not been taken up but ought to be taken 
up is the large number of people in this country who are born into 
families in which they won't have a dad at home. Sometimes that is 
inevitable. However, it has changed America from a time when the Great 
Society kicked in until today.
  There are over 70 programs in this country in which it is much easier 
to get government benefits if one is a parent not married to the other 
parent.
  This is because we give out various things, food, medical care, and 
housing, if someone is perceived to be ``in poverty.'' If they are 
married to somebody with an income, then they are not in poverty. There 
are over 70 programs that you are eligible for that if you are married 
and the other parent has an income, then you would lose that program.
  You have a very generous earned income tax credit program that can 
get you $7,000 or $8,000; you have the food share program; you have, as 
I mentioned, the healthcare that you could lose if you married somebody 
with a decent income; and you have the rental assistance which can give 
you a benefit of over $10,000 a year.
  I don't know why politicians don't talk about it. I think it ought to 
be a subject for debate. There have always been people in this country 
who do not want children to be raised in what we call the old-fashioned 
nuclear family going back to Karl Marx and his disciples in the 1960s. 
His disciples are part of Black Lives Matter. It is not as if this 
decline in both parents at home happened in a vacuum. It happened I 
think because of government policies and the fact that there is a small 
but powerful group of Americans who wanted it to happen.

[[Page H4944]]

  We should have an open discussion on these programs. It hasn't been 
done I think because the press does not adequately describe for the 
public the generosity that will be given somebody if they stack these 
programs on top of one another. Obviously, nobody takes advantage of 
all 70 programs, but there are a whole lot of people who take advantage 
of six or seven of these programs and put themselves in a position in 
which financially they do not want to live in a two-parent household.
  In any event, these are a couple of the issues that I think have not 
been adequately covered in the newspapers. I hope they are in the 
future.
  To summarize, again, I would like to see a banner headline when 
sometime in September or October we have numbers released when we hit 
the all-time high number of what we will call illegal immigrants coming 
in this country. I would like to see the newspapers do a better job of 
covering the fact that our current, what else to call them, welfare 
programs appear designed to discourage Americans from having children 
raised by a married couple.
  I would like to have a little more information because when I ask 
people at random back home, they don't know the answer to these 
questions. I would like to have a little bit more publicity as to where 
the immigrants who are naturalized in this country are coming from 
because I think it would perhaps be a surprise to those people who like 
to educate our young people what a racist country we have when, in 
fact, the top 17 countries in which we get immigrants from are non-
European countries.
  I hope the press follows up on these what I think are vital issues.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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