Border Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I thank my colleagues. I will be brief.

I want to thank my friend Senator Murphy for bringing us to the floor this evening to talk about the need to fix our southern border with bipartisan--bipartisan--action.

Senator Murphy did outstanding work earlier this year, along with Senators Sinema and Lankford and others, by doing what many thought impossible: producing a real, necessary, and bipartisan border bill.

When our bill was first released, a lot of our Republican colleagues were surprised with how strong it was. But then, as we all know, Donald Trump came barging in and told his MAGA supporters to kill the bill.

Democrats have not walked away from this issue. We believe, if you are going to call something an emergency, then we cannot wait to act. We hope, despite Republicans' opposition a few months ago, that our colleagues are willing to join us to secure the border, as they said they wanted to do. After all, how many times have we heard from our Republican colleagues through speeches, press conferences, letters that fixing the border cannot wait? They said it cannot wait. Well, we don't want to wait any longer.

Just listen to the words from the other side going back years about the need to act.

This crisis requires swift, serious, and substantive action.

That was what my colleague from Wyoming said recently.

How about this:

[T]he time to act on it is yesterday.

That is what Speaker Mike Johnson said, standing at the border at the beginning of this year.

How about the words of Donald Trump:

Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country.

That is what Donald Trump said in his 2019 State of the Union Address.

And, you know what, Democrats agree Congress should act. We believe the status quo cannot continue. But here is the thing: The only real, long-term solution to the southern border is bipartisan legislation. That is the only way you get things done around here--bipartisan-- bipartisan legislation like the bill we had here in the Senate 3 months ago, bipartisan legislation like the one we wrote to hire thousands more border agents and thousands more asylum officers and invest billions to stop the flow of fentanyl and other drugs.

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board--hardly a friend of this side of the aisle--here is what they said:

A Border . . . Bill Worth Passing.

The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called it ``a commonsense measure.''

Maybe most importantly, the president of the National Border Patrol Council--a union, extremely conservative, very close with President Trump--called it ``far better than the status quo.''

I ask my Republican colleagues: If a border security bill was good enough to win the support of actual border agents, shouldn't it have been good enough to win the support of the Republican Senate?

If we want to fix asylum and stop fentanyl and hire more agents, shouldn't we pass a bill that actually fixes asylum, stops fentanyl, and hires more agents? That is precisely what our border bill would have done. That is precisely why we made such a strong push to pass it in the Senate 3 months ago. And that is precisely the bill that Donald Trump killed in a vain attempt to gain an edge on the campaign trail. He was clear about what he did. He said, ``Please, blame it on me,'' as if it were all a game to Donald Trump.

I am used to Donald Trump saying it. Speaker Pelosi and I were at the White House when he was thinking about shutting down the government, and he said: Blame it on me. It didn't work out so well for him. It is not going to work out so well for him this time either.

The American people do not have the luxury of playing partisan blame games. They want bipartisan action to secure our border. Democrats stand ready to work with Republicans to pass bipartisan border security. We hope our Republican colleagues stand ready to take action too.

Madam President, I want to thank my colleagues for being here. Democrats are going to continue to pursue this issue. We believe the public agrees with us.

Passing a bipartisan bill is a lot better than making a lot of speeches, doing a lot of finger-pointing, and getting nothing done on the border.

I again thank my colleagues. I thank Senator Murphy for his great leadership. We have a number of our colleagues here tonight. I thank them for coming. It shows the importance we give to this issue.
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