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Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, 12,080, it is not just a random number; it is the highest number of crossings ever in a single day across our southwest border. That is the record, 12,080. We have never had a day more than 12,080 crossing our southwest border.

You might ask: What day did we set the record for the most number of crossings across our southern border? And my answer would be yesterday. Yesterday was the highest number of illegal crossings in the history of the country. September was the highest September ever in the history of the country for illegal crossings.

October was the highest October ever in the United States in the history of illegal crossings. November was the highest November ever in the country in the history of our Nation for illegal crossings. And there is the highest number ever in the history of the country-- yesterday.

What is really happening? The numbers continue to be able to skyrocket. If we look at what is actually occurring with the number of illegal crossings, they continue to accelerate day after day, month after month, unchecked.

We face very real threats in our Nation, and it is not just me saying that. People may recognize the FBI Director, Christopher Wray, who just this week in a hearing was asked about the threats that we are facing in the United States after October 7. He was asking what he saw with that, and his answer was, ``I see blinking red lights everywhere.''

``The threat level has gone to a whole other level since October 7,'' in the United States.

Yesterday, of those 12,080 people who illegally crossed the border, the vast majority of them were released into the country today. They had no criminal background check. They didn't have to prove their ID of what country they were from because right now the soft-sided facilities that are housing migrants all along our southern border are currently running at 400 percent occupancy.

So the goal is, get them through and into the country, hand them a piece of paper, and--literally--ask them to promise to turn themselves in, in the future at some point, just go because we need your space because there are more people coming.

At the same time the FBI Director is saying, ``I see blinking red lights everywhere,'' we are literally releasing thousands of people, day after day, no criminal background check, no evaluation of their history--many of them we don't even know what country they are from-- and releasing them into the country.

In the last 2 years, this White House has designated on our southwest border 70,000 people they designated as what they call ``special interest aliens.'' These are individuals who are coming from areas known for terrorism, but we had no background information on these individuals.

What happened to those 70,000 individuals? They were released into our country with a piece of paper saying: Please turn yourself in, in the days ahead, because we have no room to be able to house you here. That is what is happening.

Am I the only one who noticed this? Well, let's see, the mayor of El Paso has said that ``the city of El Paso only has so many resources and we have come to . . . a breaking point right now.''

The mayor of New York City is talking about this, and he said that ``this issue will destroy New York City,'' as they are over capacity in every spot that they have got.

The mayor of Chicago has called this an ``international crisis'' that he is actually experiencing in Chicago to try to be able to manage this.

As the stories come out on this over and over again, this is a New York Times story that came out:

Migrant-smuggling is now a $13 billion business. Mangled limbs. Raped women. Congressional inaction is a boon to bad actors.

From the New York Times.

So my question is, What are we going to do about this? Currently, it has been nothing.

So what are we going to do about this? About 6 weeks ago, the White House sent over a request for supplemental funding. They labeled it a national security supplemental. They asked for funding for Israel, for Ukraine, for the Indo-Pacific, and for border security. In fact, what is interesting is the second highest request they put in the entire piece was actually for border security. And then literally within days, the administration put out an op-ed that said the funding request for border security is a tourniquet. What we really need is a change in policy.

That same day, Ali Mayorkas from Homeland Security, President Biden's Homeland Security Director, was in front of a hearing that I was in. I asked him some very specific questions during that:

What are the things that need to be able to change [in our system]?

He said:

Senator, we need . . . the ability to remove individuals who do not qualify [for asylum] with efficiency and [with] speed.

Secretary Mayorkas went on to say:

The asylum system needs to be reformed from top to bottom.

I asked him again:

[Are] policy changes needed?

Secretary Mayorkas said:

Yes, policy changes are needed.

The issue is not is the need there. The issue is not is there a problem in our immigration system. The issue is not is this a crisis at our border. Everyone knows that it is a crisis that literally the people working on our border have no tools in their hands to be able to stop this issue.

This needs a solution from Congress, and it requires all of us having the determination to say: 12,080 people that crossed our border yesterday is not sustainable.

So what is the request? It is pretty straightforward. It is what anyone would look at and, quite frankly, what DHS has talked about for years--not just this DHS; the Trump DHS, the Obama DHS have all asked for these issues.

They are looking for some very basic things. They want to know how to be able to manage the asylum requests. That accelerated and took off during the late half of the Obama administration.

If I can take us back in history to ancient history, in 2010, there were 21,000 people who asked for asylum a year on our southern border-- 21,000 people a year in 2010. That is now every 2 days of what we are facing now.

What the request was, at the end of the second term of the Obama administration, was that we have got to reform our asylum system. We have got to be able to process people at the border. We have got to be able to not change the rules of what asylum means but change when we actually do the screening--do it right there, to be able to manage those issues, so that people who qualify for asylum under our law are able to come into our country lawfully and people who do not qualify for asylum cannot come into our country unlawfully.

We all know it is happening. Every administration has identified it. So far, this body has been unwilling to be able to act on it.

We also know that, every day, the cartels actually run our southern border. They are a ruthless criminal organization that we have experienced firsthand in my State. There is drug smuggling. There is human trafficking and what they have done to literally millions of people whom they have trafficked from around the world. We need to take control of our border, not give control to the cartels.

I would challenge anyone in this body to be able to go to our southwest border and ask any Border Patrol agent: Do we have control of our border?

Most every one of them will respond the same way, because I have heard it over and over. There is situational control of our border. It is just on the south side, not on the north side, because the cartels are managing who is actually coming in, in what order, and how it is actually done. And they are paid, as the New York Times article detailed, billions of dollars to be able to traffic people into our country. They are the ones who are managing it.

So the simple, straightforward issue is, As the United States of America, are we going to manage our border or are the cartels going to manage our border? Are we going to be able to have a system where we allow people who qualify for asylum to actually get a hearing on a timely basis or are we going to take people and push them into the country? And then real, legitimate asylum seekers don't get a hearing for years, and people who don't qualify for asylum--and we all know it--disappear into the country and live underground.

This is the decision that we have got to come to. President Biden asked for a national security supplemental and included into that border funding and then a request for policy changes. It is time to be able to address this issue.

And I will tell you what I will vote later on today. Republicans are going to speak clearly to say: We will not move to a national security bill that does security for other nations and ignores our own. We will not do it.

And we believe the American people, regardless of party--I don't find many people who want chaos on our southern border. They want an orderly process. I also don't find people who are opposed to immigration. They are just opposed to illegal activity on our border, unchecked activity on our border.

So let's get back to an orderly process. Let's have a system that actually works for everybody in the process, and let's not put the national security for other nations ahead of the national security of Americans. Let's do it together.

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