House Republicans' Legislative Efforts This Week

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, I thank Vice Chairman Moore for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it has been 279 days since House Republicans passed H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023. Since then, there have been more than 1.4 million additional illegal immigrant encounters at our southern border. That number doesn't include encounters from January 1 through today, but we have every reason to believe those numbers will be more of the same, more of what we have come to expect month after month.

In fact, December marked 33 straight months in which the total number of illegal immigrant encounters surpassed even the highest month under President Trump.

And just a few days ago, we learned encounters for fiscal year 2024 have already surpassed 1 million which, as everyone in this Chamber knows, began on October 1 of last year. That is about 100,000 more than Border Patrol experienced during the same period last year.

House Republicans continue to believe that the White House could act today to curb the unprecedented flow of illegal immigrants crossing our Nation's borders. President Biden knows there are multiple executive actions at his disposal to tackle this issue. He knows because he signed more than 90 executive orders in his first 100 days in office just on immigration.

President Biden created the crisis intentionally at the southern border. It is the policy of his administration to allow these illegals to come into our country.

We have laws on the books right now that the administration continues to usurp or refuse to enforce. The House-passed Secure the Border Act of 2023 would put a stop to that. It would force the administration to end its unconstitutional, large-scale, catch and release operation. It would require construction of the border wall to restart and increase the number of Border Patrol agents, and also provide bonus pay.

H.R. 2 would also strengthen and streamline our existing asylum process. And--this one is critical--it would finally put a stop to the flagrant abuse of executive immigration authority taking place under the Biden administration.

There have been more than 8.3 million illegal crossings nationwide and more than 7 million crossings of our southern border alone since President Biden took office. We know also of at least 1.7 million got- aways, and we know there are tens of thousands of people we don't know who are on parole. We don't know where they are, and we have no way of tracking their locations.

The Secure the Border Act of 2023, the House-passed, commonsense measure is the strongest border security bill we have seen in a long while, and yet it has been sitting on Leader Schumer's desk in the Senate for almost 9 months. It deserves serious consideration so that we may begin to slow the flow of illegal immigration by forcing President Biden and his administration to follow the law and gain control of our southern border.

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