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ADDRESSING THE BORDER CRISIS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cloud) for 38 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the Biden border crisis, the unraveling of what was once a managed situation.
We are a compassionate Nation, but lawlessness is not compassion. Aiding and abetting cartels is not compassion. Putting policies in place that allow evil actors to abuse women on a journey is not compassion. Allowing them to grow and be funded into a destabilizing force in Central and South American nations that are trying to thrive and survive and create an economy for their own people, that is not compassion.
The policies that the Biden administration has put in place have caused this crisis at the border. It is different from the previous administration that came in, inherited a problem and had to put policies in place and make difficult decisions to come up with a solution. This administration inherited a solution and has put in place policies that have created a problem.
It was predictable. It was easy to avoid. It is unfortunate that we have to be here again to talk about this today, but we are here because the lives of those affected matter. They deserve it. They need their story to be told.
It is ironic that we are taking people off the border right now, our good men and women who signed up to protect and secure our border, to defend the Constitution, and to protect our communities. We are actually taking them off the border to sit at computers to do paperwork to process what has become a migrant humanitarian crisis.
We have essentially turned our brave men and women into the last mile, so to speak, for cartel activity. The business model that the cartels have to work throughout the world to bring people to our border, to charge them thousands of dollars each while they abuse them on the journey, while they put them into indentured servitude and then hand them over to our people simply for processing. That is not what they signed up to do.
The migrants deserve better as well, as do, certainly, our communities. We understand the strategy of the cartels to overwhelm our border and our resources with the humanitarian crisis and then sneak in drugs that destroy the lives of our young people and our families.
We have to fix this. We can secure our border. We can protect the lives of these people, and we can keep this Nation strong. We can help push back the cartel influence in our Nation and throughout Central and South America.
I have a couple of fellow Members of Congress and friends here who have valuable experience. I thank them for joining me today to help us with this conversation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman).
Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Cloud for organizing this Special Order on this topic that the country is dealing with today.
The Trump administration established strong laws against illegal immigration. President Biden has decided to disregard any success achieved by his predecessor and, instead, announced open borders to the world.
This problem was not created due to conditions abroad but by decisions made at home, and they were political decisions, unfortunately.
Since President Biden was elected, illegal border crossings have skyrocketed. In February 2020, the CBP announced that over 35,000 migrants tried to cross the border illegally. To put this in context, this past February, that number far surpassed 100,000.
Despite having the statistics to prove it, President Biden refuses to call this situation a crisis, which it is.
Aside from halting construction on the border wall as performed by President Trump, the Biden administration has reimplemented a system of catch and release and implemented selective enforcement of our immigration laws.
They have suspended the removal of most people with active deportation orders and even released COVID-positive detainees into our country. Really? If you go out of the country as an American and come in, you have to be tested. This administration has no policies in place to test or provide masks and definitely not to know what is coming into the country for other viruses.
The problems we are experiencing are more than politically motivated. They are counterproductive and put the safety of the American people in jeopardy. Our social systems and border officials don't have the capacity or the resources to handle an overwhelming surge in illegal border crossings.
Let me be clear, our immigration system needs judicial review and legislative reform. Americans want a secure southern border. Disregarding any form of success on our border is not the answer that we need.
As I said before, legal immigration has countless benefits to this great Nation. We have a right and a responsibility to know who and what comes into our great country.
Mr. CLOUD. I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller).
Mrs. MILLER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Congressman Cloud, for this very important Special Order. The House of hypocrites may be a more fitting name than this House of Representatives.
The Democrats have facilitated the building of a 10-foot-tall wall or fence with razor wire around the people's House, our national Capitol Building, and surround themselves with police and National Guard. Yet, the same people refuse to protect our Nation's border and the continued construction of our border wall.
Last week, the Democrats passed two bills that diminish our Second Amendment rights. The Democrats are the people who have told you we don't need guns and walls, yet they have surrounded themselves with guns and walls for months.
There are real dangers posed by allowing this massive illegal immigration invasion. We don't know who the people are that are coming or what their intentions are. We do know that a lot of them are bringing in drugs, women and children to be trafficked, COVID and other diseases, and weapons.
I call on President Biden and the Democrats to stop obstructing the enforcement of our immigration laws and facilitating this invasion on our southern border.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentleman from Florida
(Mr. Posey).
Mr. POSEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the good Congressman from Texas (Mr. Cloud) for leading this important discussion.
When I visited the border, I saw the dangers of open borders, not only for Americans, but for thousands of illegal immigrants smuggled across the border.
Open borders empower drug cartels. Cartels are ruthless and inhumane in their treatment of their human cargo.
President Trump secured agreements with El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala that curbed the flow of illegal immigrant caravans. Those agreements, along with the Remain in Mexico agreement, deprived the cartels of billions and billions of dollars and saved hundreds of thousands of immigrants from sexual abuse and exploitation at the hands of the ruthless drug cartels.
Sadly, on January 20, President Biden gave the ruthless cartels a green light to resume their exploitation of women, children, and young men when he signed executive orders effectively repealing those agreements, which had curbed illegal immigration and were defunding the cartels.
Now, the record-low crossings of immigrants and drugs have been replaced by record highs. Customs and Border Protection agents are overwhelmed and have resorted to catch and release, which rewards the cartels, further enriching those guys.
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Rather than abandoning border security, the Biden-Harris administration must abandon the failed policies that created the crisis.
Restoring our border is essential to putting the safety and security of Americans first, to protect immigrants from exploitation and harm, and to deprive the drug cartels of victims and revenue.
The worst is still to come if this administration continues down this reckless road.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Posey for his comments. It is interesting of him to point out the former ``Remain in Mexico'' policy that was removed under this administration. Ironically, if you are a U.S. citizen going to Mexico, you will have to remain in Mexico and not be allowed into our very own home country unless you have a negative COVID test. However, this is not happening with the migrants at the border currently.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I have the honor of representing Yuma County, Arizona. And as many of you know, Yuma is the epicenter of the Biden-created border crisis. When Mr. Biden says he is not going to enforce our immigration laws, when he says he is not going to build a border wall, it has dire consequences.
We are seeing the tragic consequences of that right now in Yuma. Mr. Biden's decision last month to release illegal immigrants in Yuma County on a daily basis has opened up a spigot of border crossings into my great State of Arizona.
Now my worst fears are coming through: Illegal aliens are flooding into Yuma. We have now ceded operational control of the border to the cartels.
In less than 2 months, the Biden administration has destroyed much of President Trump's progress in securing the southern border. The Biden administration's open border policy, coupled with Nancy Pelosi's amnesty bills taken up this week--this very day in Congress will only exacerbate the growing humanitarian health and security crisis along the southern border.
It is shocking to me that the House Democrats' answer to the Biden-
created border crisis is to take up legislation that would give amnesty, plus a path to citizenship, to more than 5 million illegal aliens. This is like pouring gasoline on a wildfire.
We should be enforcing the immigration laws we have on the books. We should not be giving amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Mr. Biden should never have halted final construction of the border wall. Unfortunately, Democrat's hatred for President Trump clouds their ability to work together towards commonsense reforms.
Instead, Democrats rammed their radical amnesty legislation through Congress, even with confirmed reports that suspects on the terrorist watch list have attempted to enter into our country.
What is happening in Yuma and all along the southern border is unconscionable. The crisis is only getting worse. Unfortunately, today's action on the House floor sends exactly the wrong message. We should not be incentivizing more illegal immigrants to unlawfully enter our country. Instead, we must condemn these attempts, enforce the laws on the books, and take all necessary steps to get our border under control.
God help us all if these two bills become law.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Gosar for his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale).
Mr. ROSENDALE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the open border policies of the Biden administration, which have created the worst border crisis in recent memory.
After the surge in 2019, the Trump administration built the wall system to secure our border, ended ``catch and release,'' and, most importantly, actually enforced our Nations' laws, making it harder and less desirable to come to our country illegally. And it worked. Illegal border crossings fell to record lows.
Unfortunately, on his first day in office, in an act of spiteful partisanship, President Biden undid all of that with the stroke of a pen. The results are clear and disturbing. February border apprehensions were tripled what they were last year under President Trump, with a number of accompanied children in custody already shattering a record.
This truly is a humanitarian crisis of our time. On the treacherous trip to our country, illegal aliens are subject to abuse, rape, gang violence, and harsh weather and terrain. Once they arrive, often they are forced into sex slavery or indentured servitude to pay off their debts to coyotes or the cartel. Open borders and amnesty are not compassionate. They are heartless. The level of human suffering taking place on the border due to President Biden's policies is truly tragic. The result of these policies was completely predictable.
When I visited the border just over a month ago, agents told me troubling stories of illegal aliens, specifically citing President Biden's immigration policies as the reason they decided to come to America. And this week, House Democrats passed amnesty measures that will only make the situation worse.
Mr. Speaker, I urge President Biden and House Democrats to reconsider, set aside partisanship, and work with us to secure our border, enforce our laws, and address the humanitarian crisis at the border before it is too late.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentleman from Arizona
(Mr. Biggs).
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Mr. Cloud, for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, earlier today, Democrats ignored President Biden's inhumane border crisis and passed two amnesty bills. The bills actually encourage illegal immigration.
Here is the way it works: The cartels have operational control of our border. They do. No one crosses the southern border unless the cartel says it is okay. The cartels are advertising now. NGOs funded by this government are advertising down in the Northern Triangle states in Mexico: ``Come north.''
They give brochures how to get here. And what happens is caravans are forming now. But more than that, we have got people lining up at the borders to come across. It is a treacherous journey.
Mr. Speaker, parents are giving their kids to coyotes to bring forward. And these people have no respect for human life. No respect. And that is because of the policies of this administration. And I will tell you what I heard someone on the floor of the House state today, and I am going to quote it.
They said, ``This bill is not amnesty. It does not grant anybody amnesty. It allows individuals to get right with the law and become legal workers in the United States.''
That is the definition of amnesty. Look it up in Merriam Webster.
Earlier this week, Secretary Mayorkas admitted, ``We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than at any time in the last 20 years.''
Let that sink in: More than any time in the last 20 years.
And the answer to this by our Democrat colleagues is to pass amnesty.
Mr. Speaker, we hear moving stories that all Dreamers came to the United States as little children, graduated from high school as valedictorians and are now working as doctors saving lives.
If that were true, why did these bills include waivers for illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes?
Why didn't these bills include language to require that illegal aliens who will get amnesty at least have graduated from either high school or college?
The contents of the bills the House passed today do not match the rhetoric of the open borders crowd. We can spend hours talking about the heartfelt stories, what happened to people, kids who I have seen, who have been rented out and used multiple times to take advantage of these policies. Time doesn't allow for me to do that, but we must continue to fight this horrible scourge because it is a humanitarian crisis.
Don't paper over it claiming that you are compassionate when you are enticing people to put their lives in the hands of people who don't give any consideration for human life.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
Indeed, it is true that these cartels have a weird, perverted thinking when it comes to people. For them, they are just a business product. In their mind, they can sell a kilo of coke once, but they can get residual income from a human life.
It is pathetic, disturbing, troubling, to say the least, that we, by our policies, empower this kind of activity on our southern border.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert).
Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, my good friend, Congressman Michael Cloud, for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, the Biden regime has focused all its time and energy on benefiting those who have done it all wrong. Fascist governors imposed draconian lockdowns and sent their States into economic disaster. So Biden passed the blue State bailout.
Did you commit a felony? This administration wants you to vote.
And now this administration wants to give special privileges to those breaking Federal law and crossing the southern border.
Mr. Speaker, it is past time that we fix the broken immigration system and secure the border. That is my hard line. That means building the wall, properly funding Border Patrol, and enforcing the laws we have on the books--exactly what President Trump did, which led to record low illegal crossings. This is the right and humane thing to do.
Getting children out of the hands of cartels and coyotes, and making it clear that the American government will put those coming the right way, the legal way, they will be rewarded. But, no, this administration has become a marketing wing for the cartels, urging folks from all around the world to flood our southern border.
These cartels are making billions of dollars on human smuggling alone, and billions more on drug trafficking. The result of Biden's collaboration with cartels is the highest number of unaccompanied minors we have ever seen. Thousands of criminals, and even individuals on the FBI's terrorist watch list, crossing our border.
Mr. Speaker, this administration is incentivizing unaccompanied minors to make the hazardous and potentially fatal journey across our southern border. That is child abuse. This administration has signaled that we will not fortify our southern border, and we have seen those on the terrorist watch list try to enter. That is a dereliction of duty. And we have seen this administration fail to uphold and enforce the laws of our Nation. That is a betrayal of the American people.
The most moral thing we can do is build a wall and secure our southern border. It is shameful and immoral to signal to poor and desperate people that if you break our laws, if you cross our borders, if you somehow make it, if you somehow don't get caught and survive, then we will take care of you with our hard-earned tax dollars. Let's ask California how that is working for them.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Boebert for her remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the good gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).
Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to shine a light on the current crisis that is plaguing our southwest border. Customs and Border Protection agents has stated that they are encountering more than 3,000 illegal immigrants per day. It has also been reported that Customs and Border Patrol encountered the highest number of illegal aliens recorded in the month of February in over 7 years, at 100,441 encounters.
The Biden executive order terminating the construction of the wall caused this crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made it worse. The Biden border crisis stands to threaten not only U.S. communities along the southern border, but also Americans throughout the interior. And as a result of the Federal Government's inaction, local border communities are stepping up to fill the void.
But, unfortunately, these localities do not have the authority to retain these illegals who plan to travel to dozens of cities throughout the country. We must do everything in our power to protect Americans from unnecessary exposure to the coronavirus.
It seriously troubles me that the Secretary of Homeland Security acknowledged just yesterday in a committee hearing that the Department not only does not know how many illegal immigrants have been released, but they are also not testing all of them for COVID- 19 before releasing them. Let that sink in.
The Department charged with protecting the homeland lacks an executable strategy to ensure that all illegal immigrants are properly screened and tested before they are released into the interior.
In order to right this wrong and stand up for the safety of all Americans, I will be introducing the COVID-19 Border Protection Act, a bill that repurposes COVID relief funds, funds from Democrats' nearly
$2 trillion package slated to be sent overseas, to test immigrants who are encountered by Federal officials at the border and quarantine those who test positive. I took an oath to protect all Americans, and this bill does just that.
The crisis at the border is unacceptable and it exemplifies the threat posed by the rollback of Trump-era policies that were tough on illegal immigration.
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Illegal immigrants should not be allowed to enter our country to begin with, and a wall would help do just that. But they should certainly not be allowed to enter and spread the COVID-19 virus. All Americans should be appalled with the crisis at the border.
I call on my colleagues to join me in rejecting the administration's America second policies and get tough on illegal immigration.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, we are indeed a compassionate Nation, we recognize that everyone on this planet are people created in the image of God. We understand that people are hurting all over the world.
The solution for that, however, is for us to be that shining city on the hill, for us to be an example to the world. For them to know that if you live by the same principles that have made this Nation into one of the brightest beacons of freedom through all of human history that you can achieve the same results.
We want people to prosper everywhere. We want every nation to prosper, and that is why we are so intent on stopping this terrible scourge that is at our southern border. These cartels are wreaking havoc in the lives of these people, and we have to put an end to this.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article titled ``Color-Coded Passage: Why Smugglers are Tagging U.S.-Bound Migrants with Wristbands.''
It has recently come to light that a number of the migrants are coming over with wristbands. The question was asked, Why? Color-Coded Passage: Why Smugglers Are Tagging U.S.-Bound Migrants With
Wristbands
(By Adrees Latif, Laura Gottesdiener, Mica Rosenberg)
Penitas, TX.--Along the banks of the Rio Grande in the scrubby grassland near Penitas, Texas, hundreds of colored plastic wristbands ripped off by migrants litter the ground, signs of what U.S. border officials say is a growing trend among powerful drug cartels and smugglers to track people paying to cross illegally into the United States.
The plastic bands--red, blue, green, white--some labeled arrivals or entries in Spanish, are discarded after migrants cross the river on makeshift rafts, according to a Reuters witness. Their use has not been widely reported before.
Some migrants are trying to evade border agents, others are mostly Central American families or young children traveling without parents who turn themselves into officials, often to seek asylum.
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector, which spans more than 34,000 square miles (88,000 square kilometers) along the border in southeast Texas, have recently encountered immigrants wearing the bracelets during several apprehensions, said Matthew Dyman a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The ``information on the bracelets represents a multitude of data that is used by smuggling organizations, such as payment status or affiliation with smuggling groups,'' Dyman told Reuters.
The differing smuggling techniques come as Democratic President Joe Biden's administration has sought to reverse restrictive immigration polices set up by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump. But a recent jump in border crossings has Republicans warning the easing of hardline policies will lead to an immigration crisis.
U.S. border agents carried out nearly 100,000 apprehensions or rapid expulsions of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in February, according to two people familiar with preliminary figures, the highest monthly total since mid-2019.
PURPLE BRACELET
``They run it like a business,'' said Cardinal Brown, which means ``finding more patrons and looking for efficiencies.'' Migrants can pay thousands of dollars for the journey to the United States and human smugglers have to pay off drug cartels to move people through parts of Mexico.
``This is a money-making operation and they have to pay close attention to who has paid,'' she said. ``This may be a new way to keep track.''
Criminal groups operating in northern Mexico, however, have long used systems to log which migrants have already paid for the right to be in gang-controlled territory, as well as for the right to cross the border into the United States, migration experts said.
A migrant in Reynosa--one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico across the border from McAllen, Texas--who declined to give his name for fear of retaliation, showed Reuters a picture of a purple wristband he was wearing.
He said he paid $500 to one of the criminal groups in the city after he arrived a few months ago from Honduras to secure the purple bracelet to protect against kidnapping or extortion. He said once migrants or their smugglers have paid for the right to cross the river, which is also controlled by criminal groups, they receive another bracelet.
``This way we're not in danger, neither us nor the
`coyote,' '' he said, using the Spanish word for smuggler.
One human smuggler who spoke on conditions of anonymity, confirmed the bracelets were a system to designate who has paid for the right to transit through cartel territory.
``They are putting these (bracelets) on so there aren't killings by mistake,'' he said.
Migrants and smugglers say the use of bracelets to designate who has paid for the right to cross the river is a system required by the cartels that control waterfront territory in the conflict-ridden state of Tamaulipas.
In January, a group of migrants were massacred in Tamaulipas state just 40 miles (70 km) west of Reynosa. Twelve local Mexican police have been arrested in connection with the massacre.
Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, a migrant in Reynosa said this: ``He paid one of the criminal groups in the city after he arrived a few months ago from Honduras to secure the purple bracelet to protect against kidnapping and extortion.''
``He said once migrants or their smugglers have paid for the right to cross the river, which is also controlled by criminal groups, they receive another bracelet.''
So basically, cartels are going throughout, they are recruiting people to come, charging them thousands of dollars. At each step along the way they have to pay another fee to get across the territory that is controlled by cartels.
One human smuggler who spoke up, of course, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the bracelets were a system to designate who was paid for the right to transit through cartel territory. And this is what he said: ``They are putting these bracelets on so there aren't killings by mistake.''
This is what we are allowing, and it is tragic. We can do better than this.
We can mitigate the influence that the cartels are having at our border, and communities throughout my State, in particular, in Texas, and throughout our Nation. We can mitigate this humanitarian and this national security crisis, and I encourage the White House to do so, and for this House to take up legislation to secure our border as well.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 51
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