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Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about the fitness for office of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. My remarks are not directed at Mr. Mayorkas's character--I don't know him other than in the context of the Secretary of Homeland Security--nor do I direct my comments toward any other aspect of his life: his status as a husband, father, brother, son, neighbor, or anything else. But in this context, we have to evaluate the job that he is doing, and Secretary Mayorkas does not have the confidence of the U.S. Senate or those we represent to continue to defend our border integrity and protect our country. It is the very job he is called to do.

We have to remember that we have three branches within our Federal Government: one that makes the law; one that enforces the laws, or is supposed to; and a third that interprets them where people disagree as to the law's meaning.

His role is narrowly focused on interpreting a narrow category of laws, including and especially those designed to protect our border security. He has simply refused to enforce the laws he is charged with administering.

Under his watch, we have had at least 8 million people come into this country illegally. Over 8 million unauthorized individuals are among those who we know came in unlawfully, and the numbers keep going up. We have been breaking all kinds of records--the exact wrong records to break. We broke a record just last month when we had 302,000 encounters with illegal immigrants just in December alone. Those are just the ones whom we saw, whom we are aware of. That is the highest number we have ever seen in recorded history.

Under the watch of Secretary Mayorkas, this administration has incentivized parents--parents across the globe--to send their young children, their young sons and their young daughters, on a dangerous journey to the United States, where they end up in the hands of traffickers, where many of them end up as indentured servants and many of them subjected to the sex trade. A substantial portion of them--a majority of them, according to some estimates--are subjected to sexual abuse, to rape and other atrocities. More than 430,000 unaccompanied children have come into the United States illegally under his watch.

Now, in the meantime, he has tried to paper over those, to make lawful entries out of those who have entered unlawfully. He has created 13 separate illegal parole programs designed to increase the flow into the country by the hundreds of thousands, trying to make illegal immigration look legal when it is not, using this parole authority-- parole authority that is there for a specific purpose. It is there to serve a humanitarian or a public-need purpose, and it has always been understood to be something that is there only on a case-by-case basis, not categorical.

In other words, if we are aware of somebody with a humanitarian purpose--somebody's grandmother has died and they need to attend the funeral in the United States--they may come in for a short period of time and then leave. If they need a certain type of medical treatment that is available only here, they can be paroled in for a short period of time, and then they are expected to leave.

The public purpose is also individualized. Somebody speaks an obscure language. Somebody is on trial, and we need an interpreter who can't be found inside this country. We bring someone in for a short period of time, and then they leave.

It is always on an individualized basis and always on a temporary basis. He has run afoul of those by creating at least 13 of these illegal parole programs.

So with these kinds of numbers, how on Earth can he claim to have the border under operational control? He can't. He can't. Yet, somehow, he does so. To do so, he has to accept this made-up definition of ``operational control''--a definition without any connection to actual statutory or operational requirements.

On his watch, CBP has decreased its vetting procedures--those designed specifically to deal with people coming from China, including military-age Chinese males, who are crossing our southern border in unprecedented, alarming numbers.

Under his watch, we have seen a dramatic increase in known terrorists who have entered through our southern border. Mr. President, 279, in fact, have been caught at our southern border since Biden took office.

Now, by election day of 2024, we will have seen at least 10 million illegal immigrants that will have crossed over our southern border.

Under his watch, the amount of deadly fentanyl coming into this country has increased--increased dramatically. In fact, a report out in October of 2023, just a couple of months ago, indicates that there were 6 billion--with a ``b''--6 billion lethal doses of fentanyl that entered our borders across our southern boundary. That means that you could kill three-fourths of the entire population of the world; you could kill every American 54 times with that. This is poisoning. This is a weaponized tool that could kill Americans and is killing Americans in droves. This is not free. This is not a victimless crime. There are victims littered all over the Western Hemisphere, all over the world, but especially here in America.

Under his watch, the administration willfully ended the carefully negotiated and very effective ``Remain in Mexico'' program put in place by the previous administration, which required those seeking asylum, crossing on land through our southern border, to wait in Mexico, to await final disposition of their asylum claims during the adjudication of those claims here in the United States. They just ended it, then they litigated it, then they were told by a court to reinstitute it, and then they have been drawing that out in a rope-a-dope fashion.

Under his watch, the administration has decreased willfully its ability to detain those required by statute to be detained even though illegal entries have increased dramatically.

A recent CBS poll found that 75 percent of Americans say that the situation across the southern border is a crisis or at least very serious.

The House Judiciary Committee report stated that between January 20, 2021--the day Biden took office--and March 31 of last year, the Biden administration removed from the United States only 5,993 illegal aliens who were placed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge during that time.

In other words, let's think about what this means. Of the at least 2.1 million aliens released into the United States since January 20, 2021, the Biden administration has failed to remove through immigration court removal proceedings 99.7 percent of those illegal aliens.

It is a new day. It is 2024. Secretary Mayorkas, just as he has had all along, still has the legal authority to enforce the border, but he still refuses to do so.

The crisis at our southern border, make no mistake, is not the consequence of inadequate statutory text. It is not for want of legislative authority. He has that authority, just as the previous President did, but, unlike the previous administration, this administration refuses willfully to enforce it. I find it ironic and counterproductive that the U.S. Senate continues to negotiate with Secretary Mayorkas on border security issues even as he refuses--as he has done from the very beginning--to enforce the border, creating this humanitarian crisis and even as he is facing, as a result of that, impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives even as we speak.

We found him not to be capable of negotiating in good faith on this. Why? Because he refuses to enforce existing law which, if he did enforce it, would bring this crisis to an end abruptly.

The crisis at our southern border--and it is a crisis--is unacceptable. Americans are demanding accountability. We must fire Secretary Mayorkas.

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