Issues of the Day
Floor Speech
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Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have a colloquy with the gentleman from Arizona regarding an illustration relative to the CBP One app.
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Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Think about this, Mr. Speaker. If this Biden Federal Government was the local police and home burglaries were up, you have got rising crime, home burglaries, which are up under the Biden administration. In this case, if there were too many break-ins into homes across the country, their solution would be for the police to schedule the break-in with the criminals, meet them at the house, and let them in?
That is essentially what they are doing. These illegals are coordinating with the government to schedule their illegal entry into our country, and they count that differently within their numbers than if they just go to the border on their own with the criminal cartels instead of scheduling it with our own Department of so-called Homeland Security.
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Mr. GOOD of Virginia. It is not any way to live. I have heard our Speaker say and members of our Conference echo him when he says that the border is the hill to die on, that the border is the fight to have.
My question to them is: What does that mean? When members of leadership or members of our Conference say the border is the hill to die on, what do they mean by that? What are they prepared to do?
This was my sixth trip in my 3 years in Congress. The first one was led by our friend from Arizona, and this most recent one was also led by Mr. Biggs from Arizona.
What struck me about this time was even though they knew we were coming--they knew at least a larger contingent was coming the next day. We got there a little earlier the day before, as you know, Tuesday night last week before the main deal on Wednesday.
I have never seen the brazen, bold amount of flow that we observed, dozens at a time while we were there.
In my previous experience, we were talking to ranchers, local law enforcement, National Guard, Border Patrol, and residents who live on the border, but we looked a little bit official. We have these Border Patrol guides, some friends guiding us and so forth, so it is pretty sparse. Not this time. They were coming across right in front of us by the dozens, most of them military-age males, single males, coming across themselves, not concerned.
They are looking for Border Patrol personnel to surrender to, to get the free travel, the free housing, the free healthcare, the free social services, the free education if there are children involved, and to be taken up and taken care of at taxpayer expense.
However, as we talked to the chief of that sector that we were at, the Del Rio sector, this past week, he told us that of the 240 miles there that they were responsible for, only about 4 miles had been patrolled during this recent period of time when there were thousands coming across because they were all so busy processing.
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Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Out of 240. The sector chief that we met with told us 4 out of 240 miles had been secured or patrolled, I should say, during this period of time before we had gotten there because the Border Patrol agents were busy processing illegals into the country.
We talked to a judge, as Mr. Biggs mentioned, who said when she orders individuals detained, they are still released.
We talked to a senior DHS official who told us that they don't know where 75 percent of the people who they have released into the interior of the country have gone over these last 3 years.
They acknowledge that they have apprehended 8 million and released essentially 8 million. Last year, it was 3.2 million, and they only released, or returned, rather, 140,000.
Mr. Speaker, 3 million last year released in the country, and they don't know where 75 percent of them are because, as Mr. Biggs says, they get a piece of paper saying they have a notice to appear at a court date in the future.
We will get in touch with you if we can find you and tell you when that court date is a few years down the road.
They catch 100 on the terrorist watch list from the dumb ones who surrender to the Border Patrol and who don't think they are going to get caught because we are so generous and do so little vetting at the border. They still caught 100 among the 8 million who come and surrender to Border Patrol.
How troubling is it that there are an estimated 2 million, at least, got-aways, the ones who don't surrender because they are trafficking the women and children. They are trafficking fentanyl and other harmful drugs. They recognize the terrorist ties and the criminal backgrounds. They don't surrender.
There are an estimated 2 million. How many dangerous individuals might be among that 2 million? What percentage do you think it might be? Ten percent? So 90 percent are confused and don't know about all the free stuff? They don't know to use the CBP app? They don't know to surrender to Border Patrol to get all the free stuff? If only 10 percent of them are bad guys, that would be 200,000. About 2,000 people perpetrated the Hamas attack in Israel.
When we have let individuals in this country from 170 different countries. They are coming from China, Russia, the Middle East, hostile nations. We don't even know where they are coming from.
That is on top of the same administration, by the way, that brought 200,000 people here from Afghanistan in 2 weeks and didn't vet them either. Most of them were military-age males. They claim they were doing it to bring our interpreters and our translators.
I know General Perry served in the military and wore the uniform, and our friend who has joined us here, Mr. Crane, served in the military and wore the uniform as a Navy SEAL.
I went to Fort Pickett to visit those Afghanis in my district after they had brought several thousand there to house them. I took a Marine veteran who works in my district office. We went together to visit that fort. We did the official tour first.
They told us we couldn't come. By the way, they allowed a colleague of mine from the Virginia delegation--they allowed her to come from the neighboring district, but they didn't want me to come. She gave a very different report than I did, by the way.
We said we are coming anyway. We had DHS and military personnel show us around. After we were done, we did our own wandering around. We went and talked to the Afghanis who were there. I remind you that these are the translators and interpreters. Guess how many of them spoke English? About 1 out of 10.
They finally acknowledged they didn't vet those people, and they don't know where they are. You wonder to what end and to what limit.
Why would our own President perpetrate this border invasion on purpose? Why would he do this? When in the history of our country has our own President done more to intentionally harm the United States than what this President has done? If he sealed the border today, irreparable harm has been done.
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Mr. GOOD of Virginia. It was $1.6 trillion, later increased and scored up to $4.6 trillion. And the deal that we heard about announced over the weekend, the deal between Senate and House leadership is $1.66 trillion, $20 billion higher than what the current score is for the omnibus that we appropriately attacked, criticized, and fought against a year ago.
We are now being ask to vote for an increase in spending for the very policies that we campaign against, Mr. Crane, Mr. Biggs, that we run against, that we rail against, that are destroying the country, and the spending levels that are bankrupting our kids and our grandkids while this border invasion continues.
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