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Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. Madam President, I want to echo the comments of both the esteemed Senator from South Carolina as well as the Senator from North Carolina. And I rise to address the same subject, and that is, to bring attention to the crisis that is taking place at our southern border.

You know, the cause of the crisis is very clear, and the numbers do not lie. In fiscal year 2022, Customs and Border Protection--CBP-- encountered nearly 2.4 million illegal crossings at the southern border. In fiscal year 2023, the number of encounters rose to nearly 2.5 million--2.5 million.

Now, since the start of fiscal 2024--that's what, just the first month--there have been over 240,000 illegal crossings at our southern border.

Put differently, this means that after just over a month--end of the fiscal year, this fiscal year 2024--nearly a quarter of a million people have tried to illegally enter the United States via the southern border.

And these are just the individuals that we know about. Reporting shows that since the start of fiscal 2024, there have been more than 23,000 known ``got-aways.'' Since the beginning of the Biden administration, there have been 1.7 million ``got-aways.''

Additionally, CBP has confirmed that a dozen individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist have attempted to illegally enter the United States through the southern border already this fiscal year, in just 1 month. And look what is going on in the world right now. And we have people on the Terrorist Watchlist trying to cross our border.

The American people can see the problem, even if the Biden administration can't or, worse, just continues to choose to ignore it.

This crisis is the result of the Biden administration's failure to secure our border--pure and simple. It is not an issue of not having comprehensive immigration reform. It is a failure of the administration to enforce the law.

The open border policies of the Biden administration jeopardize our national security because border security is national security.

I want to repeat that. And I will repeat it again.

Border security is national security. And Americans know it.

The situation at the southern border has turned every State into a border State.

Last month, I was in Jamestown, ND, to stand with the 817th Engineer Company of the North Dakota National Guard as they prepared to deploy for a yearlong mission to assist CBP in securing our southern border.

So now we have the National Guard down there trying to secure the border. But, again, they can't get the job done if they aren't given the enforcement authority to do it.

DHS writ large, as well as any other support down there, has to be given the authority to enforce the law. And the administration will not do it because the administration wants an open border policy.

As we continue to debate the upcoming supplemental appropriations package, we must include real, enforceable steps to secure our border. This should include benchmarks so we know the administration is enforcing the law and reducing the number of encounters and illegal entries.

The administration's current policies prioritize processing migrants who illegally come across the southern border and then providing them with housing, transportation, and other services once they enter the United States.

The administration is turning CBP into one of the most well-funded, government-run travel agencies in the world. Any supplemental funding must secure our border--our own border. That means ensuring that the administration reinstates the Migrant Protection Protocols--or the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy; enforces third safe country agreements; and resumes construction of the border wall.

Those things are all in place now. It doesn't require legislation from Congress. Those are measures that are in law now. The administration refuses to enforce them because the administration wants an open border policy.

And we need to include benchmarks to hold the administration's feet to the fire and ensure that these policies get enforced.

The Biden administration must address the border crisis, enforce the laws that kept monthly encounters to lower numbers under the prior administration--we are not guessing about this; we saw that it works under the prior administration--and take border security seriously, because, again, border security is national security.

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