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Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, on Sunday, our Border Patrol reported more than 7,500 migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border--7,500 migrants crossed the border on Sunday. Then on Monday, there were more than 8,000 arrests along the southern border as a new surge of migrants tried crossing on that day.

These numbers still haven't provoked any significant, meaningful response from the Biden administration, even though they are just shy of that single-day record for the year that was recorded in May after the end of title 42.

Every day, I think that there is going to be a response, a reply, a significant effort. It isn't necessarily a partisan issue. Democratic Mayor Eric Adams stated last week that New York City is being destroyed, and it will cost $12 billion after an influx of 110,000 migrants from the southern border have landed in the city. And while 110,000 migrants clearly are a massive number for any city to absorb, it is only a tiny fraction--a very tiny fraction--of the 2.76--2.76 million migrants who crossed the border in fiscal year 2022.

The unending catastrophic situation on the border has continued for so long that it seems like the Biden administration has grown numb to what, in any circumstance, would be considered a crisis--a crisis for the people who are crossing, a crisis for the people in the United States, a crisis for the people in New York City.

Gone are the days when the migrants showing up at our borders were from our neighboring country to the south. Now migrants are flooding in on trains from El Salvador, Haiti, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and most significant to me, China.

We have a gaping hole in our national security that stretches from California to Texas and, I assume, our other borders as well, and our adversaries are already using that circumstance to their advantage.

I visited the border with a bipartisan group of Senators earlier this year and witnessed Chinese nationals being apprehended--apprehended--by our border agents.

This week, it was reported that approximately 18,000 Chinese nationals had been encountered at the southern border. This is compared to 2,000 in 2022 and only 450--still a big number--in 2021. It was also reported that some of these individuals potentially had ties to the Chinese Communist Party and that not one of them was detained for any length of time.

This failure to respond to the arrival of the Chinese succeeded the FBI report that I had read, with great concern, about migrants with ties to ISIS who had been permitted to enter the country. The Customs and Border Patrol, which is overworked and understaffed, released an individual on the terrorist watch list into the country. The American people deserve answers from Secretary Mayorkas and from the Biden administration.

I have been on this floor previously, numerous times, like many of my colleagues, to make the case that the crisis at the southern border is causing an influx of illegal, deadly drugs--like fentanyl from China-- to enter the United States and is leading to the overdose deaths of thousands of Americans. I made the case that this is a humanitarian crisis as mothers and children attempt to make the long, dangerous trek across Mexico. Along the way, they face hunger, heat waves, human trafficking, and drug cartels. Caravans with thousands of migrants continue to march on our southern border. Border agents have been pulled away to deal with the record number of migrants and are left without the manpower to try and stop drug and human traffickers, spies, and potential terrorists.

For a long time, we have worried about people just coming across our border who are violating our sovereignty and taking our jobs; but it is even more significant and more critical that we respond now as our law enforcement deals with drug cartels, human trafficking, and now our national security--harmed significantly by those who enter our country illegally to do us harm.

President Biden must act to ensure the stricter enforcement of our immigration laws, reinstate the construction of a wall or fencing in areas that are largely unprotected, and the administration must send a message, loud and clear, that our border is closed to unlawful entrants.

It is way past time--way past time--we finished the wall and gave our law enforcement agents the tools they need to better protect our border. Instead, this administration is sitting on resources and paying storage fees for the unused border wall panels. With the President's lack of action, it is just an amazing circumstance we find ourselves in. Our national security is at stake, and we have failed to respond.

I would say that we can do more than one thing at one time. I also believe that the Senate should act to deliver lasting solutions to keep our border secure, to keep our communities safe, and to ensure the humane treatment of migrants. We could start by taking a vote on the Secure the Border Act. Securing our southern border shouldn't be--and I hope isn't--a Republican or a Democratic issue. It is not a Texas or a New Mexico or an Arizona issue. It is a national security issue.

Speaking of national security, I would be remiss if I didn't raise the importance of passing a supplemental appropriation that includes not only support for our efforts to contain the influx of people on our southern border and on our borders generally but that also includes money to support the efforts by the Ukrainian people to have a free country. While Ukrainian forces have not made a decisive breakthrough in their counteroffensive, they are making incremental progress that deserves our ongoing support.

The commitments made by our European allies now surpass America's, and the assistance that the United States has sent to Ukraine has been accounted for by multiple inspectors general. A failure on our part to remain committed would shake the confidence in the United States of allied capitals around the world. This, in turn, could lead to more aggression by more adversaries. Now is not the time to give up on Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is counting on our doing so. His only way to win--his only way to win--is to hang in long enough until the West-- until the United States--and our allies grow tired or otherwise become distracted. America's resolve against Russia's aggression should be unwavering.

The world is watching and judging American dependability. If we are found unreliable, the world will become an even more dangerous place. If we fail, the world becomes a more dangerous place. This is certainly about Ukraine, but it is about the security and safety of the people of the United States. Looking the other way is not an option.

What is happening at our southern border and, in fact, what is happening well beyond our borders in Europe needs a serious response. The security of our country, the security of American citizens, the security of Kansans depends upon it.

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