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Floor Speech
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Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I am here today to join my colleague from West Virginia and others in, again, calling on the administration to secure our southern border.
Last Thursday, I traveled to Brownsville, TX, with my colleagues to show support for the Border Patrol agents and see firsthand the situation at the border as title 42 expires. I traveled repeatedly to the southern border; and each time I go, I see more and more people coming across illegally.
I have been to McAllen; I have been to Del Rio; I have been to Eagle Pass; I have been to El Paso, Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia-- both sides of the border. As I go each time, more and more people are crossing the border illegally.
In the 3 days leading up to the end of title 42, Border Patrol reported 10,000-plus encounters each day and almost 83,000 for the week. In the first 6 months of fiscal year 2023, CBP encountered more than 1.5 million individuals--that is 6 months--1.5 million individuals in 6 months. That compares to about 2\1/2\ million crossings illegally last year. That means, at the pace we are on, it will be more than 3 million coming illegally this year.
This truly is a crisis, and it is one that has been caused by the Biden administration's unwillingness to enforce the law and reinstate policies that have been shown very clearly to work in the last administration.
In Brownsville, we saw the crisis firsthand. And we met with Border Patrol professionals who told us what needs to happen to stop the flow of illegal immigration. And we can get a handle on this right now if the Biden administration will simply enforce the law. We know this from our Border Patrol professionals, the experts on the frontline. They are the ones telling us this. That includes enforcing the migrant protection protocols--MPP--or the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, which would require people seeking asylum at the southern border to wait in Mexico while their case is adjudicated, and enforcing the Safe Third Country protocols--again, as the prior administration did--so that individuals seeking asylum from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and other countries must wait for their claim to be adjudicated before they come into the country.
But instead of requiring individuals seeking asylum to remain in Mexico or to submit an asylum claim in the first safe country they cross into, the Biden administration is creating a demand pull for these individuals because they not only allow them to cross illegally and come into the country, but they allow them to stay in the country illegally, and they also provide a work permit and benefits.
So when Secretary Mayorkas says: Oh, the border is closed, that is not the message that goes to South America. And, now, actually, more than 100 countries where people are coming across our border illegally from more than 100 different countries. The message that the coyotes and others tell the people that they are trafficking across the border is: We will get you into the country. You will be able to stay. You will get a work permit and you will get benefits.
So, of course, they are going to come, and they continue to come. And what the Biden administration is doing is they just process them faster. They just process them faster. With the expiration of title 42, Alejandro Mayorkas says he is enforcing title 8, but he is not.
Here is what he is doing: When individuals come across the border illegally, initially, he is saying, under title 8: Well, you have to have an asylum claim, and that has to be adjudicated; so you can't stay.
All that individual has to do is say: I want to appeal that, and they get a preliminary hearing. They are given a phone number. They don't even have to go to the hearing. They are given a phone number. They call the court, and they say: OK. I am appealing the claim; I am here for asylum. And they are given an alien identification number, they get a work permit, and they get benefits. They don't have to go to the court. Their hearing is just calling up on the phone. Then they are scheduled for a court date 3 years, 5 years down the line while they are in the country. That is not enforcing title 8.
And that is why more and more people are coming. That is why 2\1/2\- plus million came last year, and there will be 3 million-plus coming this year.
What are you seeing around the country? Now in New York, they are putting migrants who come here illegally in gymnasiums in schools. What is it, 20 schools? And Mayor Adams complains about Governor Abbott sending people up to him. Well, Mayor Adams should call the White House because the White House has sent up 10 times as many people as Governor Abbott has. So maybe he is complaining about the wrong person. But that is what is going on.
How about fentanyl? How about the drugs that are pouring into our country illegally, affecting every State? How about human trafficking? How about human trafficking? How about all the things that are happening to these people as they are coming up here in the hands of the coyotes? How about the people who don't have $8,000 to $12,000 to pay the coyotes, to pay the cartels to come here? What do you suppose happens when they get here, that the coyotes and cartels say: Oh, that is fine, don't worry about paying back that $8,000 or that $12,000--not only for you but for your kids. Or maybe they are indentured servants until they can pay off that debt.
And how do they pay off that debt? What do they have to do? What are they bound to when they are up here? That is the kind of human suffering that is being created by this border policy, and the reality is it can end right now. It can end right now.
The Biden administration says: Well, Congress needs to pass a law. Well, what good does it do for Congress to pass a law if the Biden administration won't enforce the laws they have right now? We are a compassionate country. We allow 1 million people--1 million people--to come here every year, legally. But we have got to enforce our border, and that is not being done. And every American needs to understand that the Biden administration doesn't need more tools or more laws to secure the border. They have the tools. They have the law to do it. They just won't; they want an open border.
Border security is national security. You are seeing that impact. You are seeing people come from more than 100 different countries. A lot of those people aren't vetted, and that doesn't even count the ``got- aways,'' the people who cross between the ports of entry whom our Border Patrol professionals don't have time to stop because they are so busy processing more and more and more migrants that come here illegally under the Biden administration's policies.
It is way past time to end the border crisis that the Biden administration has created. Border security is national security.
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