[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12320]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             BORDER CRISIS

  Mr. NELSON. The administration sent several Cabinet Secretaries and 
high-ranking appointees to brief all Senators last evening on the 
crisis of the children on the border, and it appears they are getting 
their arms around addressing the problem of the children and the 
humanitarian crisis on the border. However, it is the opinion of this 
Senator that they do not recognize the root cause of the problem. If 
the administration would listen to their four-star general, the head of 
the United States Southern Command, General Kelly, and the testimony he 
has already given to the Armed Services Committee of what is the 
problem, then we could get to the root cause of the problem and stop 
these future humanitarian crises.
  The problem simply is that we are not devoting the time and the 
resources--the money--to the interdiction of the big drug shipments 
coming out of South America into Central America. They come in big 
shipments from Colombia through Venezuela by air or sea on the eastern 
side, from Colombia through Ecuador or originating in Ecuador out on 
the western side, coming into three Central American countries--
Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. As a result, their drug lords 
have completely taken over those countries. As a result, the violence 
is the highest. Honduras is now the murder capital of the world. As a 
result of that drug violence--and there is very little law and order--
the whole system is corrupted. For parents with children, it is logical 
that they would want to send their children to a safer environment.
  The administration has to address this issue with regard to going 
back to what we did so successfully in Plan Colombia--interdict the 
drug traffic before it gets to those Central American countries because 
once it does in the big shipments, they then break it down into smaller 
packages and it goes north.

                          ____________________