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Floor Speech
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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Marshall for the work that he has done on this resolution, and I come to the floor today to support this resolution for a very simple reason. When you look at the job performance of Secretary Mayorkas, you have to say: He, indeed, has failed. He is a Secretary of Homeland Security who clearly does not believe in securing the homeland, because the border policy for the Biden administration which he is implementing is for an open border.
You can see it for yourself. You can look at the news reports. People are streaming across that open border between the ports of entry.
They are coming into this country illegally. And this administration, this Secretary of Homeland Security, they keep trying to be creative and find ways to make illegal legal. That is wrong.
So the Secretary has failed in his duty to secure that border. And as he has failed in those duties, he has also failed our Border Patrol agents. When you go to the border, as many of us have, what you hear from Border Patrol agents, what you see on the ground, is Border Patrol agents who are struggling to combat what is a crisis at our southern border. And it is all because of this administration's policies.
In addition, Secretary Mayorkas has failed the communities across this country, because they are suffering with record fentanyl overdoses, with drug trafficking, human trafficking, sex trafficking; and it is our local law enforcement that is having to address these issues. The Secretary has failed them because he failed in his job, and he has failed the American people who trusted him to go in and secure the homeland. But, no, that is not what has happened.
So House Republicans are going to proceed with their impeachment against the Secretary; and, hopefully, that is going to be the first step towards ending this record of failure which is really costing the American people greatly.
You have heard much about the numbers today. And, yes, indeed, you have got 8.5 million illegal entrants into this country. Now, 1.7 million of those are what we call known ``got-aways.'' That means they can see them on surveillance; they can't get to them. There is a category of unknown ``got-aways'' that they find after the fact.
We do not know who is entering this country. But what we do know is: This population of illegal entry into this country is more than the population of 38 of our States.
There are hundreds of individuals on the Terror Watchlist who have been caught at our southern border. They walked in illegally and tried to claim asylum. So far this fiscal year, which began on October 1, we have had 30--30--terrorists come to our border.
Why is it that they are doing this?
They are doing it because they think they can get away with it. They think we are not going to do anything to them; that we are going to let them sashay right on into this country and welcome them, give them a plane ticket to where they want to go, give them a cell phone, give them food, give them housing. That is what they are expecting because of this failed border policy.
Now, sometimes you hear some of my colleagues across the aisle say: Well, the border has been broken for years.
It hasn't been this bad. You didn't have 302,000 people in a month. You didn't even have that in a year. You also didn't have terrorists by the hundreds.
If you go back and look at how many terrorists tried to come to our border between 2017 and 2020, there were 11. So far, this fiscal year, we have had 30. You just heard my colleague give you the statistic of 279 since Joe Biden raised his hand and took the oath of office. This is the reason that our FBI Director Christopher Wray says everywhere he looks--not just some places, but everywhere he looks--is he seeing peace and calm? No. He says he sees red lights flashing. Think about that--red lights flashing.
Dozens of terrorists, hundreds of people from countries of interest, thousands of gang members and criminals, are walking into this country. They are not coming here for a job. They are coming here because crime is what they know. This is the reason that Alejandro Mayorkas has failed in his job.
Now, we talked a little bit about fentanyl. Since Joe Biden took office, we have had 50,000 pounds of fentanyl that has come into this country being seized at that border between the ports of entry--50,000 pounds. Fentanyl death is now the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages 18 and 45. You know, we could do something about this if there was the political will in Congress to do something about it.
When you look at the fact that our Federal agents tell us they think they are only catching 5 to 10 percent of the drugs that are coming into this country and we lost over 100,000 Americans last year to drug overdoses--about 70 percent of that was fentanyl; some of it was opioids--we need to do something about this. Securing that border would go a long way.
Supporting our Border Patrol instead of blaming them, that would go a long way.
I thank the gentleman from Kansas for bringing forward this resolution. It is time that Alejandro Mayorkas be removed from his position as the Secretary of Homeland Security.
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