[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 54 (Monday, March 23, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1533-S1535]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Department of Homeland Security

  Mrs. MOODY. Mr. President, I, like you, I know, am incredibly 
frustrated at the lack of funding for one of our most important 
Agencies in the Nation--the Department of Homeland Security. Due to my 
Democratic defund

[[Page S1534]]

disorder colleagues, the political antics they have thrown up to block 
funding for this incredibly important Agency is being done at the 
expense of protecting Americans.
  We are now in week 6 of an ongoing DHS shutdown. While our country is 
actively fighting an adversary in the Middle East, it leaves our 
homeland vulnerable to attacks. Thousands of DHS employees have now 
missed multiple paychecks because of the show. At the same time, 
security efforts around the Capitol are being increased, so Democrats 
get to hide here in Washington, in the Capitol, safe and sound, while 
blocking funding to individuals around the Nation who can help protect 
Americans and keep our country secure.
  Let's not fool ourselves. Floridians and Americans alike know that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are pushing a shutdown of DHS 
funding because they don't want a secure border. They don't want to 
remove people that are here illegally and committing crimes. They have 
done everything they can to work against that.
  This shutdown is about way more than what they profess it to be. This 
is about blasting apart the security structure President Trump has 
rebuilt after Biden destroyed the border. For 4 long years, we watched 
as the previous administration disregarded the law and sowed chaos and 
destruction at our southern border, allowing a historic surge--
historic; some say up to 20 million people, many unvetted--to pour into 
this country.
  The shutdown has been dragging on so long because my colleagues on 
the Democratic side of the aisle cannot stand that the border is now 
secure again and DHS is doing its job. They cannot stand that the 
border isn't wide open. They can't stand that unmitigated illegal 
immigration has been halted. Because of this, they are throwing a 
temper tantrum, disguising this shutdown as anything other than what it 
is, and that is a mission to defund police.
  Under Biden's watch, approximately anywhere from 11 million to 20 
million people flooded into this country. Narcoterrorist cartels were 
enabled to bring massive amounts of deadly substances like fentanyl 
into our neighborhoods. It killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
  As the attorney general in Florida, I was among the first to call 
attention to the disregard of law and fought in court against the 
massive security breaches and shed a spotlight on how Biden and his 
administration disregarded their duty and put us all at risk. I took 
legal action to force them to simply follow the law and stop releasing 
dangerous people and violent offenders into our country.
  That once wide-open border was closed by Trump. It is closed. On day 
one, he took unprecedented action to close the border and started 
enforcing the law again. He took action against the drug cartels and 
the flow of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs to keep our communities 
safe. Under President Trump, DHS provided the most secure border in 
American history.
  It is such a stark difference in what the border looked like under 
the Biden years to what it looks like today. In fact, during the last 
month of the Biden administration, every single month saw more than 
100,000 illegal immigrant encounters at the southwest border. At the 
peak of the disaster, they saw upwards of 300,000 encounters a month. 
And we know that approximately 85 percent of those immigrants 
apprehended at the border were released into our interior.
  The judge who sided with Florida's lawsuit when I took Biden to court 
and stood up against the illegal actions of his radical 
administration--that judge who sided with Florida said it best: Biden 
``turned the Southwest Border into . . . little more than a speed 
bump.''
  ``[L]ittle more than a speed bump.''
  Then the American people fought back and elected President Donald 
Trump. Speed bump met the wall. On day one, Trump ended catch-and-
release, and we saw 10 straight months of zero releases--zero--compared 
to its peak in 1 month by Biden of 300,000. Total border apprehensions 
under the Trump administration's first year in office were lower than a 
single average month under the Biden administration.
  In addition to the millions of unvetted illegal immigrants Biden let 
into our country, according to at least 1 recent report that, 
shockingly, the mainstream media isn't reporting, they allowed 18,000 
known or suspected terrorists into the United States. This opens up our 
country to dangerous attacks from within.
  The current DHS shutdown is affecting President Trump's effort to get 
the unprecedented number of undocumented immigrants that may be a 
threat to this Nation and to our people out.
  Now with our country engaged in fighting in the Middle East and DHS 
hampered by my Democratic colleagues, we face unimaginable danger, and 
we have already seen violent attacks within our borders. In fact, DHS 
recently issued a memo warning Americans to be on guard against 
potential cyber or other violent attacks. Those attacks are already 
here.
  It is going to take time to clean up the disaster of the last 
administration, but we are well on our way. We were making great 
strides, and the other side of the aisle hates that. We know that U.S. 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been instrumental in preventing 
terror threats, removing more than 1,500 known or suspected terrorists.
  One of the saddest things that I think we learned after the last 
administration, and certainly as a mother--not just as Florida's 
attorney general but as a mother--we watched as hundreds of thousands 
of unaccompanied minors were trafficked across the border by cartels, 
and then the Biden administration took the last step--shipped them all 
over the country.
  From a grand jury investigation, we know that some were put with 
people they didn't even know. One ended up at a strip club. One ended 
up in an empty lot. We know many went into trafficking. It is the 
saddest thing imaginable for a child. Too many of these children were 
exploited and abused before, during, and after they came across that 
border with cartel members. All told, it is estimated that the Biden 
administration lost more than 450,000 children.
  Today, it is a different story. Under President Trump, DHS and the 
Department of Health and Human Services have located 145,000 of those 
unaccompanied children that the Biden Administration lost.
  The American people expressed their will when they said: Trump is now 
our President. We want to secure our Nation.
  They wanted to secure our border, and now my Democratic colleagues 
are obstructing the will of the American people by saying: Oh yeah? You 
have a President that is following the law? You have a President that 
is taking seriously his duty to protect this country and our 
communities? Well, watch what we do now. We are going to defund the 
police, we are going to defund those agents at the border, and we are 
going to defund those within that are protecting your communities and 
helping get those that are here right now--we saw this in Chicago last 
week; a murder by someone here, let in by the Biden administration--
here illegally--of a young college student again. And they want to tie 
the hands of the law enforcement officials charged with getting them 
out. That is nothing more than defunding the police that have taken 
oaths to protect you and your family.
  Someone needs to remind my colleagues across the aisle that the 
American people are our bosses. They want a safe border. They want safe 
communities.
  The shutdown of DHS has gone on long enough. We are in our 38th day. 
People are going without paychecks, people that are doing very 
important jobs, like our TSA officers, like our law enforcement 
officers, like our personnel at the border, thousands that are charged 
with keeping this country safe.
  Every day the Democrats on the other side of the aisle put politics 
above people, they show where their allegiances lie. I, for one, know 
who I am for. I am for the American people. I am for the people that 
wear a badge and keep us safe. I will always show up on this floor and 
make sure that the American people know who we are fighting for. The 
American people are our bosses.

[[Page S1535]]

  It is time we stand up for this country and for its people and put it 
first.
  Put simply, I implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to 
remember why they are here, to remember the country they profess to 
serve and the people they profess to serve. Put them first. And let's 
fund DHS.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.