Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. NEWHOUSE. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend Mrs. Hartzler from Missouri for putting this evening together to help us make some important points about a very important issue facing our country. So I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me some time.

I just wanted to relate a couple of instances. Madam Speaker, last June I had the opportunity to tour the same southern border area that President Trump toured just this past week. In fact, he was briefed by some of the same officials that I was, including Acting Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz of the Rio Grande Valley sector. It was a very interesting conversation.

Chief Ortiz said, so far in 2019, his sector has apprehended people from 41 countries around the world. On a single day, Chief Ortiz's sector apprehended 133 people from countries other than Mexico or countries in Central America.

Madam Speaker, we absolutely have a crisis at the border. It is a humanitarian crisis. Even President Obama said as much back in 2014.

President Trump now is, rightly, citing the growing numbers of families and unaccompanied minors crossing the border as a crisis, yet he is met with partisan criticism for saying so.

The numbers will tell you the truth. Just last month, 20,000 migrant children were brought illegally to our country--20,000. Our border facilities just are not equipped to handle this influx of families and minor children. We are being overrun. Therefore, this results in a humanitarian crisis.

Securing the border and coming to a solution on immigration reform should not be a partisan fight, but, rather, we should see this as an opportunity to find the common ground about which the gentlewoman was speaking.

Americans support a deal to secure our border, reform our immigration system, and--another point--provide certainty to DACA recipients.

Just this weekend, I polled my constituents on this very solution. You know what they told me? Madam Speaker, 69.8 percent said they support a border security and DACA solution compromise deal. President Trump has made it clear that he is open to a broader immigration reform deal that includes DACA recipients if the border is secured.

So I think our time to achieve both is right now. The fact that we have a crisis at the border must be addressed. But congressional Democrats must be willing to make a deal with President Trump to support broader solutions for our Nation.

Speaker Pelosi's flippant comment of being willing to only give a single dollar for a barrier at the border, that is a slap in the face to the men and women, like Chief Ortiz, who are working selflessly to keep our Nation safe.

Madam Speaker, let's reopen the government, secure our border, and reform our broken immigration system. We can do all those things.

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