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Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it is common knowledge that America's southern border has been in crisis since President Biden took office 3 years ago. Since then, 6.7 million--6.7 million--migrants have shown up at the border, only to be released by the Biden administration into the interior of the United States.
That 6.7 million people is higher than the Obama and the Trump administration combined, and that was over a period of 12 years. In just 3 years, we have experienced more illegal immigration than we did in the preceding 12 years.
Well, despite the eye-popping statistics, leaders in the Biden administration have repeatedly tried to mislead the American people into believing everything at the border is just hunky-dory. In other words, they are saying: Don't believe your lying eyes.
President Biden has consistently attempted to downplay concerns about the border crisis. Of course, my State, the State of Texas, which has 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, we are a ground-zero. But the President has even refused to visit the border until last January, nearly 2 years into his presidency, and then he did sort of a drive-by in El Paso after much of the evidence related to the crisis had been cleaned up.
At one point, the President defended his decision not to go to the border by saying: Well, there are more important things to do. What an abdication of responsibility.
Other leaders in the administration have offered weak and unconvincing claims that there is no reason to be concerned. Some have just lied. That sounds harsh, but there is simply no other reasonable conclusion.
In the fall of 2022, Vice President Kamala Harris, the appointed border czar by President Biden, said: We have a secure border.
I don't know how she reached that conclusion, other than maybe being just wishful thinking. She certainly has traveled to the border. She certainly hasn't studied the phenomenon associated with this mass migration of humanity across our border into the United States.
And then the Biden official principally responsible for border security, Alejandro Mayorkas, made a nearly identical proclamation, saying--this is under oath, penalties of perjury--he said: The border is secure.
Well, it is easy to see that these statements are demonstrably false. After all, the American people can turn their TV set on and watch news footage of migrants streaming across the border, caravans making their way to the border mostly to just turn themselves in because they know the Biden administration will release them into the countryside. We see photos of migrants lining the streets and sidewalks of our major cities like New York and Chicago, which are more than 1,000 miles away from the United States-Mexico border.
We watch as people in communities die from fentanyl poisoning and know that the vast majority of that fentanyl comes across the border from Mexico.
Evidence of the humanitarian and security crisis at the border is all around us, but the administration refuses to be honest, refuses to be honest with the American people about the scope of this crisis as well as their response.
Here is just one of many shocking examples. Last May, the chief spokesman for President Biden, the White House Press Secretary, tried to address the concerns over the administration's catch-and-release policies. She said:
The claims that [Customs and Border Protection] is allowing or encouraging mass release of migrants . . . is just categorically false.
That was in May of 2023. What was false was her statement. Migrants were being released in the United States with no immigration court date and no way of keeping tabs on their whereabouts. When one of the catch- and-release policies was vacated by a Federal court, the court's final order likened the administration's actions to posting a flashing sign on the border. That sign says ``Come in. We are open.'' That is what one court likened the Biden administration's border policies to--a welcome sign.
In the months since the White House Press Secretary made these obviously false comments, the Biden administration is taking catch-and- release to a new level. They have made that ``Come in. We are open'' sign even brighter and even bigger, and they have laid out a welcome mat in addition.
Well, surprisingly, after falsely stating that the border is secure time and time again, Secretary Mayorkas, who traveled to Eagle Pass this last week, met with frontline law enforcement officials. He told the Border Patrol agents that the current release rate of migrants caught crossing the border illegally was 85 percent--85 percent. There is no way to reconcile these two statements.
You know, some people say: Well, we need to build a wall.
Well, border infrastructure is important, but people can turn themselves in and be released, and the wall doesn't make much difference.
Yes, we need technology. Yes, we need more Border Patrol. But unfortunately the Border Patrol are being overwhelmed now, and the Biden administration has made it their policy simply just to release people coming to the border. This, of course, is a huge magnet or what the Border Patrol calls a pull factor encouraging more and more people to come. That is why you are seeing unprecedented levels of illegal immigration during the Biden administration, because people realize: Here is my opportunity, and no one is going to stop me.
Well, the main people benefiting from this, of course, are the transnational criminal organizations and the drug cartels who get paid by the head or by the pound. It is part of a really ingenious business model by the cartels because they know that if you flood the zone with people and you make $5,000, $10,000 a head for each person you smuggle into the United States, then you can overwhelm the Border Patrol so that they get offline in order to process the migrants, and then here come the drugs--the drugs that took the lives of 108,000 Americans last year alone.
The statement of Secretary Mayorkas in January 2024 that over 85 percent of illegal border crossers are released--this was not made in a press release or made in a speech; this was overheard as part of a private conversation and only after these Border Patrol agents, who are putting their lives on the line to enforce the laws that Congress has written--when they pressed him on the comments he made earlier last week.
In that interview, interestingly, the Secretary was asked about reports that as many as 70 percent were released into the United States, and he said, ``[That] would not surprise me at all.'' He said, ``I know the data.''
``I know the data.''
Well, this is the guy who said the border is secure time and time again under oath--lying to Members of Congress in official proceedings before congressional committees.
He didn't say: Well, the rate is actually higher than 70 percent. Instead, he said: I know. He said: I know what the numbers are, and it is not 70 percent; it is 85 percent.
Well, Secretary Mayorkas may be able to dissemble and prevaricate here in Washington, but our frontline personnel--our Border Patrol, our Department of Public Safety personnel who are working at the order of Governor Abbott, as well as the National Guard, who are trying to do the job that the Federal Government and the Biden administration have refused to do--they know the truth.
The fact is, the American people know the truth. They know that President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, the White House Press Secretary, the Vice President--all of them have tried to mislead the American people about the truth.
No area along Texas's southern border has been spared by the chaos of the Biden border crisis, but Eagle Pass--Eagle Pass, TX--has been dealt an especially tough hand. Over the past few months, migrants have flooded this section of the border, and it is not uncommon for agents to see thousands of migrants in a single day.
This is not a major city with a lot of resources. Eagle Pass is a small border town with a population of roughly 28,000 people. It simply doesn't have the capacity to house, feed, or transport this many individuals.
At various points, migration levels have been so high that Customs and Border Protection did not have the resources to manage both lawful crossings and unlawful migrations. As a result, the administration shut down vehicle and rail processing so officers could help process migrants.
Well, it is not surprising to say that frontline officers and agents in Eagle Pass know the impact of the crisis better than just about anyone. According to reports, they pushed Secretary Mayorkas on his comments, and the Secretary finally acknowledged the truth. It was a remarkable event of candor amidst a fog of lies, prevarication, dissembling, and misleading.
This is just the latest example of the Biden administration misleading, downplaying, and outright lying about the border crisis. They don't want the American people to see the widespread catch-and- release policies in action because they know the backlash would be severe.
Here we are, about 11 months from the next election, and President Biden has finally realized this is a huge liability for him politically. Our Democratic colleagues are recognizing that this could be the difference between winning and losing the Senate.
When 85 percent of illegal border crossers are released, it serves as a magnet for even more migration. This is another thing that is lost on the Biden administration. When you lay out the welcome mat, when you say ``If you come to the border, we will just release you into the interior,'' it is just an incentive for more people to come.
There is no grand mystery on how to stop this trend. While the immigration policy can be complicated, the solution is not. We need consequences--consequences. We need to make clear that anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained and removed. That is the key to establishing deterrence, and we have seen it used successfully in the past.
Let me just interject here that legal immigration has been one of the biggest blessings this country has ever experienced. We among all the nations in the world are the most open to people who want to come here for a better life, but we ask them to do it through legal, humane, and orderly channels. And we naturalize about 1 million people a year. But President Biden has outsourced our immigration policy to the drug cartels and criminal organizations, and it is a disaster.
Well, we know how to address this problem. In 2005, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and spoke about the Department's response to a surge of migrants from Brazil in that case. The Department launched what they called Operation Texas Hold 'Em, which involved detaining and then removing the illegal Brazilians they apprehended. As Secretary Chertoff noted, word spread fast. Word spread fast. After 30 days, the number of Brazilians dropped by 50 percent, and in 60 days, it dropped by more than 90 percent.
This is evidence--clear and convincing evidence--that consequences work, and the only way to address this crisis is through deterrence that comes with imposing consequences for people coming illegally rather than legally to the United States. We need to make it absolutely crystal clear that anyone who does not have a legal basis to remain in the United States will be detained and removed.
The Biden administration is ultimately responsible for enforcing our laws and delivering consequences, so without their buy-in, it will be nearly impossible to address this crisis in a significant way. But that does not mean we shouldn't try. I have very little confidence that the Biden administration will experience an epiphany and all of a sudden decide to enforce the law when they have refused to do so over the last 3 years, but we have to do the best we can.
Frontline border communities and law enforcement are buckling under the weight of this crisis. Fentanyl, which took the lives of 71,000 Americans last year alone, and other deadly drugs are pouring across the border and killing American citizens. Migrant children are being exploited and abused. All the while, the cartels and criminal organizations that get rich based on these policies are leaving a trail of death and destruction that the Biden administration has enabled.
The U.S. Senate has a responsibility to address this crisis head-on as part of the security supplemental that President Biden has requested, and I hope and pray we can make some progress.
I want to express my gratitude to the Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Lankford, for leading the effort on the part of the Republican conference. I know others, like Senator Sinema, Senator Murphy, and others, are working in good faith to try to reach a reasonable conclusion. But I know all of us want to see an end to this current crisis, and any even incremental progress we might make as a result of our debate and vote on the national security supplemental will represent progress.
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