Policy Solutions to the Border Crisis
Floor Speech
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, before I yield time to my colleague from Utah, I want to quickly highlight and reiterate the importance of what we are doing here as the House GOP.
House Republicans, during the holiday break, took the time, over 60 of us, to go down to the border to be able to share what is truly going on. We get to hear, hopefully, today a little bit more about this.
At no point in our Nation's history has the situation on the southern border reached the levels of policy failure, humanitarian disaster, and security threat that it has under the Biden administration.
Many of my House Republican colleagues witnessed firsthand the tragedy at our border last week. It is out of control, and the Biden administration has completely dropped the ball on this issue and threatened the safety of every American community in the process. The issue is, it is more simple than this.
To President Biden, the gig is up. You took office and thought: Let's just reverse everything that the Trump administration had been doing. Let's not necessarily evaluate whether it was successful, whether it was the right policy. Let's just kind of use our executive pen to reverse everything.
It is very simple to consider Migrant Protection Protocols, the remain in Mexico policy, catch and release. These are simple policy changes that would have an immediate positive impact.
Many of my colleagues were able to see this, to witness this, again, firsthand this past week, and I look forward to hearing from Representative Burgess Owens from the great State of Utah for more on this issue.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Owens for his firsthand look.
I spent time at the border--I believe it was in the late spring--and the same situation continues on. The solutions are right in front of us, and we just need the Biden administration to recognize that.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for speaking very plainly and very simply. These solutions are right in front of us.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Murphy and I sit on the same committee, Health in the Ways and Means Committee, and if his remarks seem personal, it is because they are. He has had such a close experience with this, and no one makes the point better that all of our providers' costs continue to go up because of bad the monetary policy that we have seen, particularly in the last few years. When we constantly tell these providers, You are going to have to do more with less, they have to make decisions, and this is ultimately the worst possible thing for our patients.
The crowding-out effect that we have going on in our economy right now, particularly with things related to government funding, there is no situation where it is worse than this. The inability for us to get after our true debt and deficit drivers will continue to crowd out, so these types of cuts are forced on providers, and we have to be willing and adult enough to be able to figure that out.
So thank you for that, Dr. Murphy.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Dr. Bucshon, for another incredible perspective on this looming issue that seems to just be year over year over year, and we cannot continue to put our medical providers in this situation.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I echo the gentleman's sentiments, and I will continue to speak on it today. The solutions at the border are simple. We have got actual data that can just be reimplemented and we can get rid of the politics involved and just do something right by our Nation. We look forward to an opportunity to leverage this moment to get this border policy through. The things in H.R. 2 make absolute sense.
I am looking forward now to the remarks of my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Joyce).
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank Dr. Joyce for coming down over the holiday break.
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Mr. MOORE of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his remarks emphasizing the need for good healthcare.
I hear this from several of my friends, family, and constituents back home. I think one of the most alarming things that we are seeing right now in the healthcare provider world is that--when I grew up, a lot of my friends' parents were physicians. They would always encourage their child to go into medical school and pursue a career that they loved so much. This may just be an anecdote, but I am literally seeing that next generation of current providers saying: Try something different.
Again, that may just be my experience. I don't think it is because I have heard a lot of it from other colleagues of mine. We can't look back at this time and say we didn't address this issue of not doing right by our providers, by our rural healthcare and making sure that they have what they need to be able to navigate the costs that are continually increasing and being able to provide for their patients.
As Dr. Murphy also talked about, we have to have private practices being able to stay nimble and focused on their specific community and not just build big conglomerates. Small business is the backbone of our Nation, and that needs to exist also in our healthcare market.
As I close here, let me just turn to the other topic that we talked heavily about today which is the border. I spent some time at home the last few weeks, and as I met with and had different forums back home with constituents, I explained to them that one of the biggest problems is the way that policy works in Washington, D.C.
It is in a very partisan and difficult circumstance back here. I don't think anybody on either side of the aisle would disagree with me that it becomes very difficult. When we factor in the Senate that requires a 60-vote threshold--every bill needs to be bipartisan in the Senate--that requirement isn't here in the majoritarian rule House, but that is what we live with. Particularly when there is split government, then we have difficult decisions and difficult things to navigate.
The point that I made to them was that with my Democratic colleagues, we often can find the first three or four provisions of a particular issue that we agree with, but then that is when it becomes difficult because if Democrats want the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh item, then they will say, no, we are not going to vote on any of the things we agree on until we get some of these things we want, even though we agree on the baseline.
We do it too. We have certain things that we want to make sure we get so we are going to leverage that so we don't get the basics done.
I can't think of a scenario where this applies more than our border crisis right now. I don't want to make this political. I remember a little while ago when there were 34-odd migrants that suffocated in the back of a truck. It was like a blip on the news feed. It was so quick. It came out as a news cycle. That is the danger of what is going on right now. We have empowered the cartel networks that we should be united against. We have empowered the cartel networks to own the border.
I heard a staggering statistic--I don't have the number in front of me--on what we have calculated on how much money those cartels are making on a weekly to monthly basis. It is terrifying because that number is going directly into the drug trade.
The fentanyl crisis is one of the biggest impacts this has on our community. I held this huge roundtable back in Utah with the caretakers, law enforcement, and advocacy groups. It was a very nonpartisan conversation, and it was so, so concerning on what was going on.
This is what I want to tell the American people: We actually agree that we should do a lot of the elements in H.R. 2. We should shore up that protection and border security. However, then we need to make sure we streamline the visa process, and we need to make sure we get a stronger workforce here.
I am here to tell you, Mr. Speaker, we actually largely will agree on that aspect of a comprehensive immigration reform.
My biggest criticism of President Biden and his administration has been that he immediately removed or reversed the Migrant Protection Protocols, the remain in Mexico policy that the Trump-Pence administration had done. ``Well, we are a new administration. We have to reverse all those things.''
A lot of the energy things were done by executive order. It was also this border policy. I think we are seeing now it is okay to have made a mistake if you are willing to be the adult and say: ``Look, we actually should reimplement some of this stuff.''
It is what the American people need. It is what the polling will tell us. It is what we largely agree, that there are some basic things that we can get done.
I think not telling the cartels: ``Hey, if you just get folks to the border and get them across, they are going to get lost in the system. You are going to be in there, and you are going to be fine.'' That is what they are telling them. The immigrants who are coming here, it is not the experience they are having because they get lost in the system and then are forced to go into the drug trade or forced to be part of the workforce of the Sinaloa cartel once they rush the product through the borders however they get it, whether it is a port or nonport. I don't care how it comes through.
Once that product gets here, then these individuals get leveraged to do that because they have no other options because they were lied to by the cartels.
If we can agree on some basic stuff, let's implement it. If we shore up and get back to times that we saw in previous Presidencies, we can then go and actually work on some of the other immigration policies that also need reform.
I am committed to doing that, and I hope that we can address that. If we leave the border with this type of policy that we have seen create a beacon for these cartels, then we will not be able to accomplish anything.
If it has to be done all in one bill, that is unrealistic because it is just a bigger beacon. It is just more opportunity for the cartels to try to get more people through, and it is nonsensical.
I hope for every opportunity to tell the Biden administration that this is actually better for you politically. I hate to say it, but this is what the American people need.
That is what my colleagues are trying to emphasize. That is why over 64 of my colleagues last week spent time down there. The same things that I saw months ago when I visited Eagle Pass are continuing. They are not getting better. There has to be policy change.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues for attending today's Special Order and sharing their thoughts on these very important issues, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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