Biden's Border Disaster

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEUSER. Mr. Speaker, on day one of the Biden Presidency, the President reversed many, if not all, of the successful border policies implemented by the previous administration, the Trump administration, that kept our Nation safe and kept our border secure.

Joe Biden ended remain in Mexico, halted border wall construction, loosened asylum requirements, issued a moratorium on deportations, essentially telling the world: Our border is open. Come on in.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Patrol, on any visit you make to the border, will tell you that just by instituting remain in Mexico, 75 to 80 percent of those trying to enter our country illegally would be deterred and would not enter.

These policy reversals led to, at the time, caravans of migrants in Mexico wearing ``Biden, thank you'' T-shirts as they approached the United States border.

Since that time, Mr. Speaker, there have been 8.5 million illegal border crossings, as well as an estimated 1.7 million got-aways, over 10 million illegal entries, most of whom we don't have any idea who they are or where they are throughout the United States of America.

So why did President Biden take these actions? Ideological idiocy? What he did was anything but humanitarian or rational. Migrants made this journey here, Mr. Speaker, under false, deadly pretenses. People have drowned. People are drowning. Probably today, Mr. Speaker, people are drowning in the Rio Grande and under false pretenses coming to our country.

People are being killed. The reports are that one-third of women are sexually assaulted. At the same time, drug cartels are getting rich, coyotes are getting rich, and much of Mexico, thanks to the Biden administration's wonderful policies, is a gangland.

Along with the suffering of the migrants, the American people are suffering. During Biden's time in office, there have been over 300,000 American deaths from fentanyl and other opioids which were smuggled across the southern border--nothing to smile about.

American teens and young adults are dying at alarming rates. To date, this administration has done nothing to correct course. We are experiencing all of this locally. Don't we all know an individual, usually a young person, who has died from a fentanyl overdose?

While it is no match for the cost of life that has been lost, we cannot forget the immense financial cost our cities, States, and taxpayers have incurred as a result of Biden's disastrous border policies, exponentially disastrous.

The Center for Immigration Studies reports the annual cost of Biden's immigration crisis to the United States is $452 billion of American taxpayer funds. The Federation for American Immigration Reform notes that the cost to my home State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is $1.64 billion per year.

Mr. Speaker, what about the crime epidemic? We now have something called migrant crime. Mr. Speaker, is there anything more horrific than we have seen from the Laken Riley situation, how an illegal from Venezuela made it across the border illegally, went to New York, committed all kinds of crimes, was let out by the weak, foolish, ideological prosecutors in New York, and then went on to Georgia and murdered a beautiful young girl?

To add insult to this injury, the Biden administration takes the American people for idiots by trying to blame this border crisis on Republicans and Donald Trump, after 3 years of Secretary Mayorkas and Vice President Harris and everybody else in the Biden administration telling us that the border is secure, along with 90 percent of the media.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are not buying it. The facts don't lie. Our eyes don't lie. No matter how many times they tell us they do, this unmitigated disaster is a direct result of this administration's weak policies, and it is the height of hypocrisy.

After causing this catastrophe, President Biden going to the border today is clearly nothing more than a sad, sorry attempt to save him from a political standpoint. This trip is not about solving the border problem. It is about solving a political problem that is getting worse.

Perhaps more shameful is Biden's attempt to blame those who want to protect our border for a lack of support for Ukraine. That, too, is outrageous. We can do both. The will of the American people matters. Let's not forget who we represent in our constitutional Republic.

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