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Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, next week, we are scheduled to begin a trial of the Secretary of Homeland Security. It doesn't begin a conversation about homeland security in our country. That conversation started years ago now.

The American people are incredibly frustrated with what they are seeing on the southern border, and they keep saying it over and over again--remarkably so in a nation where inflation continues to be stubbornly high, where it is harder and harder to afford a carton of eggs and gasoline and all of the basics of life. In all of the areas that you would think the economy would be the No. 1 issue in the Nation, actually, national security and border security end up being No. 1, regardless of what State you live in. This is no longer a border State issue. Americans feel this is a problem.

Well, they should. In the past 3 years, more people have illegally crossed our southern border than in the previous 12 years combined, and it is not close--the number. We are approaching 8 million people who have illegally crossed our southern border just in the last 3 years.

Cities feel it. Americans feel it. School districts feel it. Communities feel it. Homeless shelters feel it. It continues to spiral into our country.

This is not some accident of migration, as the administration tries to say over and over again--that there is global migration that is happening everywhere. This was a series of Executive orders that were done in 2021 that were intentionally designed to change what is happening at our southern border, and they certainly have.

Decisions were made in 2021 by the Biden administration to be able to shift multiple things, starting with loosening enforcement. On day one of the Biden administration, stop any construction of the wall and announce it publicly: We are no longer going to do wall construction, not even repair.

Step No. 2, dramatically loosen the actual enforcement within the country so that fewer people would actually be deported when they came. So if you crossed the border illegally, it is a much greater likelihood that, once you get across, you will not be deported.

The third thing, they changed the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy--that simple policy to say that, yes, you can request asylum, but you can't just be released in the country. They shifted it immediately, and shifted it from ``remain at the border or in Mexico.'' Rather than being in detention, you could be released anywhere in the country on your own recognizance and to be able to go anywhere you want. That dramatically increased the number of people who were crossing.

They also shifted where the State Department is no longer negotiating deals with Central America--Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--to be able to stop migrants from moving through that direction. They have withdrawn those agreements from Central America, and the State Department stopped putting pressure on recalcitrant countries that wouldn't take their people back.

These are not accidental things. These were intentional actions.

But what I don't think the administration intended was how this has spiraled out of control. They sowed to the wind, and the Nation is reaping the whirlwind of it--almost 8 million people now who have illegally crossed our border.

And now it is no longer people from the Western Hemisphere. Literally, it is people from all over the world. Pick up any tracking, at any point, to be able to track what is happening at the border, and you will find thousands of people who are crossing from China, from Russia, from Pakistan, from West Africa, from all over Asia.

When I talk to people at the border--and I do talk often to them--one of the first things I ask is: What are the trends? What are you seeing?

And for the past year and a half, they continue to tell me: a greater and greater number of non-Spanish speakers who are crossing that border, who are males in their twenties, from all over the world, who are coming.

Just in the past year, we have picked up individuals who have al- Shabaab terrorist connections, picked up folks with Hezbollah terrorist connections, picked up folks with all kinds of different connections to all kinds of different terrorist organizations. And we have been able to pick up some, but some have gotten through or have been released. This is an issue I continue to be able to bring up that this administration is not managing. In the past year, there were over 70,000 individuals who were identified as what was defined as a ``special interest alien.'' These individuals crossed our border. The administration designated them as a ``special interest alien'' and then released them on their own recognizance into our country.

Let me clarify what that term is. A ``special interest alien''--this is their definition--is a non-U.S. person who, based on the analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security threat to the United States or its interests. Madam President, 70,000 of those in the past year have crossed the border and have been released into the United States.

This is no longer a simple migration issue; this is a national security issue, and it is one this administration has not only invited but they have now chosen to not even take seriously.

This body knows full well--I believe there are some things that can only be done by acts of this body: changing the definition of ``asylum,'' increasing the number of detention beds. There are multiple issues that we need to do and that we should take responsibility for. But this body should not sit and say that nothing can be done when the White House has authorities they are not using. We should do our job. The White House should do their job. Currently, that is not happening, and the threat continues to increase.

Next week, we start an impeachment trial which has never happened in the history of the Department of Homeland Security--that they would have an impeachment of the Secretary. That starts. But can I say to you, even if the Secretary is removed, the White House still created this policy. The Obama administration had multiple leaders in that role, but they had one policy. The Trump administration had multiple leaders in that role; they had one policy. This White House has a policy of maintaining an open border, and until this White House changes that policy and actually uses the authority they already have, none of this is going to change.

So my challenge is to us. We should do our job and work on the issues we should do, but this White House needs to step up because right now, they are just hoping that none of those 70,000 people they defined as a national security risk actually does an act of terrorism or crime in the country.

I don't want to just hope that someone we have defined as a national security risk doesn't actually carry it out. I think we need to actually enforce the law, I think we need to discourage illegal immigration, and I think we need to actually have a secure border, and I don't believe I am alone in that in this body or in our great country.

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