Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would like to speak for a couple of minutes--I know the time at 4:45 is otherwise obligated; I will be briefer than that--about President Calderon's visit to the United States, his joint session speech to Congress, and a border security amendment I intend to offer, hopefully, as soon as tomorrow.

As you know, Mr. President, President Calderon addressed a joint session of Congress, and I was fortunate enough to have a very brief conversation with him in the anteroom before he came to the floor of the House, during which time I told him I admire his commitment to fight the drug cartels in Mexico.

During his remarks before the Congress and to the American people, President Calderon said some things I thought were very important for all of us to hear.

First of all, he said Mexico has gone ``all-in'' against the cartels--with increased commitments and personnel and equipment--and, unfortunately, is suffering significant losses and casualties in the fight. There have indeed been 23,000 Mexicans, approximately, since 2006, who have lost their lives in Mexico during these drug wars.

President Calderon also reminded us that Mexico is one of our most important trading partners, primarily as a result of NAFTA--the North American Free Trade Agreement. He pointed out that Mexico has, notwithstanding its other challenges, managed to keep its budget deficit low relative to its GDP--a record of fiscal discipline that should give us some embarrassment in Washington.

President Calderon acknowledged--and I think this is very important--that the lack of economic opportunities available in Mexico are a primary cause of illegal immigration into the United States.

While I admire some of the things President Calderon said, I do think he crossed a line he should not have crossed when he used this setting--a speech to a joint session of Congress and to the American people--to lecture Americans on our own State and Federal laws. For example, he criticized America's gun laws and seemed to suggest that we should somehow consider relinquishing our second amendment rights in order to help them disarm the cartels.

With all due respect to President Calderon, America's second amendment rights are not a proper subject of international negotiation with Mexico or any other nation.

Then President Calderon went on to criticize Arizona's immigration law last week on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue--at the White House and at the Capitol--which I also believe was inappropriate under the circumstances.

There is no doubt there is fear and frustration all along the border--fear that the border violence that is raging just to the south is going to spill over into the United States, and frustration that Washington, DC--especially Congress and the President--is not doing enough about it. Arizona's law was written in response to this fear and frustration.

It is important to note--and this is a key fact that needs to be corrected on the record--that the Arizona Legislature amended their law to make clear that ethnic and racial profiling by law enforcement officials is strictly prohibited. That was a necessary and important change. But it doesn't appear President Calderon or many of the critics--including the President of the United States, the Attorney General, or the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security--have actually even read the 10-page bill, which you can read online if you have access to the Internet. I have found it always helps in any discussion to actually know what you are talking about, to have actually read the bill so that you can have an intelligent conversation and perhaps then differ about policies.

But to misrepresent the contents of the bill, not having read it, is simply inexcusable.

To be sure, a patchwork of State laws is not the optimal way to fix our broken immigration system. We need sensible reforms at the national level. I am prepared to work in good faith with anyone committed to immigration laws that make sense in terms of our national security, in terms of the restoration of the rule of law, in terms of our economy and our values.

But some of the criticism of Arizona's law by the administration has been just simply misleading and counterproductive. Just last week we learned that a State Department representative--Michael Posner--actually apologized to China for the Arizona law, saying: ``We brought it up early and often.'' Early and often in talks with one of the most repressive regimes in the world? Unbelievable.

President Obama himself has set a bad example, repeatedly criticizing Arizonans for taking action while his own promises for immigration reform have gone unfulfilled.

The problem raging on our southern border is that the Federal Government needs to do more to improve our border security. That is something on which we can all agree and should all agree.

How bad is the situation? Well, this morning the El Paso Times reported:

Mexican Federal police were attacked by a drive-by shooting during the weekend as Juarez surpassed 1,000 homicides for the year.

Ciudad Juarez--within several hundred feet of the city of El Paso in the United States--has lost 1,000 people to the drug wars just this year.

As I mentioned, it is estimated that 23,000 Mexicans have lost their lives in the drug wars during the last 3 years.

The fear is palpable on this side of the border. I must tell you, I have
never seen it quite this way. From Laredo, TX, to McAllen, TX, to El Paso--where people are accustomed to the novelty and the unique nature of our international border with Mexico, and they believe in maintaining those ties for economic and other reasons--people along the border in Texas, the longest section of the U.S.-Mexican border, are more apprehensive and concerned about what lurks just beyond the border. That fear ranges from cartels actively recruiting students in our public schools to gangs in order to help them with their drug-smuggling operations.

The Border Patrol has developed ``Operation Detour'' to show our students how the cartels treat the young people they recruit. The response to this video presentation has reportedly been powerful.

For example, in McAllen, TX, in the Rio Grande Valley, a 14-year-old girl made an emotional exit halfway during the presentation. She told the Border Patrol her father had recently been the victim of a cross-border abduction and her family was afraid to report the kidnapping to authorities for fear of retaliation from the cartel that took him.

In Rio Grande City, TX, another city in the Rio Grande Valley, kids were crying midway through the first video because the night before a classmate had died while running drugs.

Mr. President, our children are living in fear, but the White House's budget for border security shows it is living in denial. The President's budget request for fiscal year 2011 cuts the Secure Border Initiative by more than 25 percent, and we know the Department of Homeland Security is considering the elimination of the SBInet Program with no alternative or replacement in place.

The SBInet Program is a Secure Border Initiative. This is supposed to be the virtual fence that, along with boots on the ground and tactical infrastructure, are designed to help us contain and control movement of people across the border. Yet it has been cut by some 25 percent.

The President's budget also cuts the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program--or the HIDA Program--by over 12 percent.

The White House even wanted to make cuts--albeit modest--to the Border Patrol by about 181 agents, before those of us in Congress made clear this was simply unacceptable. Rather than cutting, we need to be growing the size of the Border Patrol and the boots on the ground.

Mr. President, the amendment I intend to offer at the first opportunity--hopefully, tomorrow morning--says border security is a priority, not an afterthought. This amendment will fix six priorities to improve border security.

First, it will fund additional equipment that can help protect our border, including helicopters and Predator drones. We have been fighting with the Federal Aviation Administration to try to get them to quit dragging their feet in authorizing the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol our southern border, to help the Border Patrol and other law enforcement officials do their job. We are just beginning to see some headway, but they are incredibly undersourced with the lack of helicopters and the lack of additional Predator drones.

Second, my amendment will fund additional personnel in several law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Immigrations and Customs Enforcement; Custom and Border Protection; and the Counterdrug units of the National Guard.

The third thing my amendment will do will be to fund improvements for task forces and fusion centers that enhance interagency cooperation.

Fourth, it will fund additional personnel and facilities to improve detention and removal activities under Federal law.

And, fifth, it will create a $300 million grant program to assist State and local law enforcement officials who operate within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border. Because the Federal Government simply hasn't done enough in terms of border security, local and State law enforcement have had to step up, and they need the additional help that this grant program will provide to those local and State law enforcement agencies operating within 100 miles of the border.

Finally, my amendment will provide $100 million to fund infrastructure improvement at our ports of entry. This amendment is urgently needed, and I must add that it is fully funded. The total cost of my amendment is roughly $2 billion. This cost is fully offset using unspent stimulus funds because we know the White House predictions about the uses of those stimulus funds have been discredited.

Remember, we were told if we voted for a $787 billion unfunded--borrowed money--fund in order to get the economy moving again, unemployment would be kept to no more than 8 percent. Now, with unemployment at 9.9 percent, roughly, we know that stimulus program has been unsuccessful.

Two-thirds of the American people believe, according to Rasmussen--or I believe it is a Pew poll--the stimulus funds simply have not created or helped to retain jobs. We know during the period of time the White House predicted 3 1/2 million jobs would be saved and created that 3 million jobs have been lost or destroyed by the recession.

This amendment represents a clear choice: a choice between funding the Nation's priorities, such as border security or funding the same failed stimulus strategy. It is a choice between paying for our Nation's priorities or adding more debt to our national credit card, already nearly maxed out at $13 trillion.

I would urge all my colleagues to support this amendment and help send the message to our border communities and across our country that the Federal Government acknowledges and accepts and embraces its responsibility to help keep them and our Nation safe.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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