Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, next Friday marks an important deadline in funding the Federal Government. While we have been effective in passing appropriations bills that have funded 75 percent or so of the government, there is still a small but important portion left to be negotiated before we break for Christmas.

Part of the debate will be how we go about securing our border, especially as recently, several large caravans of men, women, and children have left their homes in Central America and made the long, dangerous trek to the United States via Mexico. The truth is that the caravans occur on a daily basis. Of course, most of that hadn't penetrated the consciousness of the American people because it took thousands of people en masse, in a big caravan, to actually get their attention and get the attention particularly of the President of the United States.

I bet it would surprise most Senators and most Members of the House to know that in 2017 alone, there were 396,000 people detained at our southern border--almost 400,000 people. These caravans, whether they are the large, massive caravans like we see in Tijuana or the minicaravans that occur daily in places like the McAllen sector for the Border Patrol--this is a big and important issue. But funding is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to border security and the migrant crisis.

I would like to say that I was encouraged by a story that I saw in the Washington Post dated November 24 entitled ``Deal with Mexico paves way for asylum overhaul at U.S. border.'' This article goes on to talk about a policy of ``Remain in Mexico,'' where the Mexican Government has actually provided work permits and offered asylum to Central Americans transiting Mexico. Some of them have taken the Government of Mexico up on those, but many of them want to come to the United States, understandably, and the problem is how to deal with these large numbers of asylum seekers. This development, if it proved to be accurate, I think represents an impressive change in policy on the part of the Government of Mexico in a very constructive sort of way.

I want to congratulate Secretary Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary Pompeo, and the entire Trump administration for undertaking this delicate and difficult negotiation because this really represents a sea change in the way the Government of Mexico regards the migrant crisis. In other words, it is not just our problem. They themselves regard it as part of the solution to this challenge.

But the truth is, we can't look at this issue like we are looking through a soda straw. I had reporters yesterday ask me ``Well, what about what is happening at the bridge in Tijuana,'' as if that were the whole story. We can't narrowly focus on just one part and refuse to see the full picture, and that is what I want to talk about here briefly.

We won't secure our borders and we won't solve the migrant crisis or improve our asylum system by simplistically looking at the problem. We need to look at this as symptoms of a far more serious problem. This is especially true as the issue of migrants illegally crossing our borders is not new. It has been happening for a long time. It is only recently that there has been no new net migration from Mexico because of improved economic conditions there, and we have seen the flood of people coming up from noncontiguous countries, like those in Central America. But of course it started with the softening of our borders and the disregard of our Nation's immigration laws, and it has continued with the rise of crime and corruption across countries in Central America.

We need to secure our borders, to be sure. You would not think that would be a controversial statement, but apparently some of our colleagues view our efforts to secure our borders with ridicule. They act as though this is not a problem, that this is something all about the midterm elections. Well, the midterm elections have passed, the problem persists, and we need to do something about it.

We do need to partner with Mexico, as I mentioned a moment ago, but also the Central American governments to fight against the cartels and the gangs who are terrorizing these countries and affecting ours in such a negative way, in a way that will help address this migrant crisis that we are seeing symptoms of at the ports of entry in Tijuana, for example.

In Tijuana, about 5,000 immigrants made their way there, and more are on their way. The truth is, every time someone successfully penetrates our border by exploiting gaps in our immigration law or by illegally entering the United States, it is an encouragement for more people to do exactly the same. Anybody who thinks that a caravan of 5,000 migrants coming from Central America is the last caravan that will attempt to penetrate our borders is engaged in a flight of fantasy because human nature ought to tell us that if it is successful, there are going to be more right behind them. We need to deal with this. We need to deal with the crisis that the Tijuana mayor has called a humanitarian crisis. That reminds me of what President Obama called the crisis of unaccompanied minors coming from Central America a few years ago when he was President; he called it a humanitarian crisis as well. We need to work together to try to solve it.

We know that this group of migrants isn't entirely made up of innocent asylum seekers fleeing poverty or violence in their home countries. The truth is, we haven't really been able to vet the people in the caravan. And that, of course, is one of the goals of our legal immigration system--being able to look at people as individuals and determine: Do you have a criminal record? Have you been deported previously for illegally entering the United States? It is true--I am confident that this mass of people does include people like criminals and other migrants who intend to exploit gaps in our immigration laws and some who have already been deported one or more times from the United States for violating our immigration laws.

I believe the United States is the most generous country in the world when it comes to legal immigration. We naturalize almost a million people a year, and we are the better for it. We have always considered ourselves to be a nation of immigrants but not uncontrolled illegal immigration. That is a recipe for chaos and danger. We have always been a nation that believed in some order, and the rule of law was important when it came to naturalizing people and becoming part of the great American family. We have always provided refuge to those who fled their countries based on persecution because of their religion or their race or their political orientation or their nationality or because they belong to a particular group. We expect those who enter our country to respect our sovereignty and the rules and laws of the U.S. Government. There is a process for coming into the country legally, and that is the process that should be followed here.

I might say that when a mob of migrants tries to break through the border barriers in Tijuana, it is fundamentally--in addition to everything else I said--unfair to the people who stood in line and tried to enter the country legally and waited their turn for them to break to the head of the line and try to enter by force.

Unfortunately, there are organizations that exploit our generosity and use our borders as a transit corridor for all sorts of illegal activity, including drugs and human trafficking. Believe me, if you look at the trial that is occurring in Manhattan today, El Chapo, you can learn a little bit about the complex, big, lucrative business that being head of a drug cartel entails.

Unfortunately, transnational criminal organizations--another word for cartels--have overrun some of the legitimate governments in Central America, and it is no wonder that people are fleeing. Therein lies the root of the current problem. The cartels and the gangs have figured out that it is quite lucrative to traffic migrants to the United States. Based on what I have read, maybe $6,000 to $8,000 is paid to a drug cartel--one of these transnational criminal organizations--to transport a person from Central America to the United States. That is a pretty good, lucrative business. Unfortunately, it is illegal and dangerous too.

This is exactly the same business model that is used to transport drugs into the United States. Last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, 72,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the United States. About 50,000 of those were opioid-related. Some of those were fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Some of those were prescription opioids. But a significant portion of those were heroin, and 90 percent of the heroin that makes its way into the United States comes from Mexico.

This is the dirty business of the cartels, these transnational criminal organizations--trafficking migrants and children and women for sex and illegal drugs. They are commodity agnostic--whatever will make them money, they will engage in, no matter how vile, how cruel, or how dangerous. They have no morality whatsoever and no regard for life at all. The cartels know we are a generous country and take full advantage of our gaps in border security and immigration laws. As long as we fail to address this issue, we are complicit in making these cartels richer. By our own inaction, we are facilitating their illegal and dangerous enterprise.

This is not just a problem with immigration or drugs or smuggling; it is about all of these issues combined. It starts with the reign of the cartels and gangs in countries like Mexico and countries in Central America. Gangs like MS-13 and Barrio 18 in Central America threaten the safety and stability of the people who live in those countries. They fill an endless circle of supply and demand and operate in a vacuum of power with impunity. But their terror does not stop at their border or our border. Like the mob we have seen on TV, they are crashing through borders and threatening our border communities. They are interrupting legitimate trade and commerce through the ports of entry.

We saw that the port at San Ysidro was shut down because it couldn't accommodate the mob of asylum seekers and conduct legitimate trade and traffic at the same time. So it has a very real prospect of threatening to disrupt not only the U.S. economy and jobs but that of our Mexican colleagues as well. I think that is part of what has gotten the attention of the Government of Mexico. Their life blood is trade with the United States. If that is prevented because of the mobs of people coming across, trying to break through barricades and enter our country illegally, then that threatens that life blood and their economy.

My home State of Texas shares a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, and about 40 percent of my constituents are of Hispanic origin. The communities along the Texas border are vibrant, and they rely upon the millions of dollars of legitimate trade that pours through our ports of entry. Texas is home to 29 air, land, and sea ports of entry. That is more than any other State in the Nation. About half of the U.S.-Mexico trade moves through a Texas port of entry.

As the volume of commerce that crosses our borders has tripled in the last 25 years, Customs and Border Protection has struggled to keep up with the staffing needs. The infrastructure is old and is being exploited, too, particularly by drug traffickers, who move their high- value cargo through the ports of entry.

Texans who live and work in those regions know they can't afford the cartels' continued exploitation of our flawed system. So we need to look at how we can address the thousands of migrants who look to cross our borders and the cartels who exploit our laws while we still protect legitimate trade and travel. Any solution we find must try to strike a balance between compassion for the migrants and respect for the rule of law and fundamental fairness to those who are doing it the right way.

I have taken, of course, numerous trips to the border to meet with the Border Patrol, and I have heard from many of them on this issue. When migrant caravans cross our borders, Customs and Border Protection not only has to deal with this massive humanitarian crisis, but it has to ensure that the cartels can't take advantage of opportunities that have been opened up by the fact that the Border Patrol is now consumed with trying to process children and families through the ports of entry in accordance with U.S. law. The cartels know that and take every advantage by moving their drugs through the ports of entry or between the ports of entry because they know the Border Patrol is otherwise occupied with paperwork and other distractions.

We need to work more closely with our allies in Mexico and Central America to keep commerce alive, which, as I said, is the lifeblood of the economy. By helping in Central America, we can begin to address the root problems that have forced many to flee.

At the same time, we need to secure our borders and protect our free trade. As I said, if our ports of entry are clogged with thousands of migrants, legitimate trade comes to a standstill. That not only hurts our economy, particularly in border communities along the U.S.-Texas border, but also our southern neighbor's, Mexico.

The fact of the matter is the United States cannot alone bear the burden of this mass migration. We need our partners in Central America and Mexico to work with us to find solutions for these migrants, which is another reason I was encouraged by the article I mentioned in the Washington Post, which talked about the ``Remain in Mexico'' program as one way to begin to address some piece of this migrant crisis.

My friend Henry Cuellar, a Member of the House of Representatives, who represents border communities in South Texas, likes to say that we should focus on pushing back our borders. I think that is right. Border security ends at our border, but it starts in Central America and Mexico.

This week, the incoming President of Mexico, Lopez Obrador, will be sworn in. I hope to be at that inauguration on Saturday, December 1, in Mexico City. Soon-to-be-President Obrador said he is committed to dealing with the violence in Mexico that has been brought about by the cartels and gangs. I know the United States also shares a commitment to working with this new government in helping to reduce that violence.

Our two governments should continue to work closely together because our interests are aligned. Both of our countries want security, and we want the prosperity that comes from legitimate trade. Both of our countries want to see a decrease in the cartel and gang violence. Our relationship is an important one, and it must continue to be nurtured and to evolve because the gangs and the cartels surely will continue to adapt.

By partnering with governments in Central America and Mexico, we can help those countries in bolstering their economies, providing security for their people, and restoring the relationship between their communities and law enforcement to one that will be built on trust so that their people will feel safe again in their homes.

I stand ready to work with others on this issue, but neither I nor my Republican colleagues can do it alone. This will take a full bipartisan effort, and it is going to take a more serious approach than I have seen in some press accounts in which people want to focus, as with a soda straw, on one narrow aspect of the problem when it is much more complex and much more dangerous than that. So I would invite all of our colleagues to join us in enforcing our laws and securing our borders and protecting our economy by securing free and fair trade.

Those who say that by enforcing our laws one is somehow anti- immigrant are engaged in a slanderous lie. It is simply not true. Immigrants who come to the United States legally, who have waited patiently in line, deserve the respect and deserve the reward of their complying with the laws on the books. Somebody who jumps to the head of the line and violates our laws, who has no respect for the safety and security of our border communities, and who wants to facilitate the business model that the cartels have, by moving poisonous drugs or migrants for employment or by trafficking children and women for sex, has no regard for our border communities, for the rule of law, or for those migrants who come to the United States legally and appropriately.

This is not a onetime crisis. You can't be against human trafficking but for allowing migrants to be used as human commodities and to freely enter our country illegally. It is the same people who are bringing them into the country. You can't be against the opioid and drug addiction crisis but for allowing the cartels to exploit our borders by exporting their poison. You can't sit back and say you want to help migrants who flee their countries but not engage in bipartisan solutions. You simply can't have it both ways.

I hope we will take another look at this humanitarian crisis, as the mayor of Tijuana is calling it and as President Obama called it a few years ago when we saw this flood of unaccompanied minors coming across our borders from Central America, and deal with it with the seriousness and the gravity that it deserves. I look forward to working with my colleagues both in the House and the Senate, as well as with the administration and our partners in Central America and Mexico, to find solutions that address the migrant crisis without abandoning the rule of law or opening our borders or encouraging others to ignore our immigration laws.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

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Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Mississippi (Mrs. Hyde-Smith).

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