Providing for Consideration of H.J. Res. Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time to speak on this important issue.

Madam Speaker, I oppose this rule. I think we are talking past each other, as the previous gentleman from Maine just indicated. We want the government to reopen, but we want something called border security. I am told that this bill has $1 billion in it for border security, but we are not going to build a wall.

Now, here is the thing that happens. Down in Arizona, where we live-- we don't live 2,000 miles away from that southern border where the immigration problem is that the illegal border crossings are monumental--we actually see the humanitarian crisis. That crisis exists when people, who are coming to America, they don't go through the ports of entry, they are going between the ports of entry, in some of the most rugged land and terrain in the world, coming down from the Sierra Madres in northern Mexico in the summertime, blazing heat of 120 degrees or more; in the winter time, the evenings cool down to the 20s.

I saw people, just yesterday, being shown on the news, who are getting ready to try to make this trek. They are carrying plastic grocery bags with their supplies. They are dressed casually. They have no comprehension of the danger that they are bringing to themselves when they are coming across. It is a humanitarian crisis. Do you know what a border wall would do? It would provide a deterrent.

In the San Diego-San Ysidro port of entry, when that border wall was created, crossings declined almost 90 percent. It forced people to a different place. They began crossing away from the ports of entry at San Diego over to Arizona and Texas. So we built a wall around the Yuma port of entry. Do you know what happened? Those crossings decreased 75 to 80 percent. They moved on to more dangerous places in the desert, down towards Nogales, between Nogales and South Bisbee, between Naco and the Douglas port of entry. More than 100 individual's bodies were found last year trying to enter. It is a humanitarian crisis.

The opioids that come across the southern border: 141 tons of heroin seized coming across the southern border last year; 140 tons of cocaine seized coming across the southern border.

When I hear people say border security, they start talking about drones and unmanned aerial vehicles and sensors and cameras. Guess what? That does not deter anyone. We get to watch the videos of people coming across. But do you know what a wall does? It channelizes people. It forces them to go to places where we can interdict them. We provide hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian aid to people who are risking their lives trying to enter this country.

If it wasn't so serious, I would find it laughable to hear folks say, ``We are putting $1 billion into this as border security,'' because they don't want a political victory for President Trump. It is not about political victories. It is about national security, it is about humanitarian concern, and you are not going to get a better bang for your buck than to build a border wall.

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