Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding time, and I thank him for his leadership on this important issue.

We are here because we are discussing the importance of border security for the United States of America, a question of our sovereignty, the basic duty of a sovereign nation to secure its borders.

I had the great privilege of spending some time with the men and women of the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas this past week--2 days--with my fellow Texas freshman Congressman Dan Crenshaw. What I saw was alarming.

What we learned from Border Patrol is that there will be upwards of 400,000 people crossing the border through the Rio Grande Valley sector this year alone. And of that 400,000 people, 200,000 of them, give or take, won't even be apprehended because the men and women of the Border Patrol don't have the tools they need, don't have the fencing and the barriers they need, don't have the ability to drive a vehicle parallel--lateral--to the Rio Grande River, don't have the radio signal to be able to communicate on the border.

We found that, of the 200,000 people who will be apprehended, 90 percent of them will be captured and released because we have judicially mandated capture and release today. We have judges who have told us that we have got to capture people and then release them back out into our communities without going through the proper processes to truly vet asylum and truly vet what we are dealing with. The result of that brings tragic consequences.

The Gulf Cartel in Mexico will make $130 million this year--$130 million--trafficking human beings across the Rio Grande Valley sector. They are integrated with FARC. They are integrated with terrorist networks. They have operational control of our border along Texas, and we are just acting like there is nothing to see.

The Speaker of the House had us in session for less than 48 hours last week with a handful of show votes. What do we have this week? More votes just that are kind of plodding along, suspension votes.

We are not having a robust debate. This Chamber is virtually empty. We are not having a robust debate about our border and our national security and about the lives of American citizens and the lives of the migrants who seek to come here.

There are migrants today who are endangered and enslaved to the cartels. There were 54 people found in a stash house last Friday when I was with Border Patrol, in a house in Houston, who are now being held hostage by cartels to pay their money back because the cartels brought them into the United States.

How is that compassion? How is that somehow beneficial to migrants?

That is the truth. Those are the facts when we talk to our men and women in the Border Patrol.

Let's talk about the women, the young girls, who are abused on the path. I was on the Rio Grande River, and I spoke to a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old girl. My son Charlie is going to turn 10 this year. These girls were traveling with no parents. They want to have a better life.

I want to welcome folks to the United States of America, but you have got to have legal channels to make it work, both for our safety and the safety of the migrants who come here.

It is extraordinary that we are even having this debate. I cannot believe that this body, the people's House, is ignoring this great tragedy that is going on on our southwest border, with real human lives.

And it is not just the migrants. It is American citizens like Jared Vargas in San Antonio, Texas, which I represent and I am proud to represent. Jared lost his life last July at the hands of somebody here illegally. His beautiful mom, Lori, is still brokenhearted, having lost her wonderful son. His twin brother, who goes to college in Kerrville, in my district, lost his twin brother; and his sister lost her brother because an illegal immigrant who was here, who was caught, released, caught, released, stopped by law enforcement, let go, 2 days later murdered Jared Vargas.

How can we allow this to happen in the greatest country and the most powerful nation the world has ever known? How can we allow American citizens to die at the hands of illegal immigrants who are here who shouldn't be here, who have broken our laws previously? How can we allow American citizens to die at the hands of the terrorists who are moving drugs into and out of our country through cartels, die because of dangerous fentanyl and dangerous heroin that are coming across our borders at the ports of entry and, yes, between the ports of entry, which the data fully backs up?

It is not just coming through the ports of entry. It is, in fact, coming across on loads across the Rio Grande River, which is not policed.

We have a duty to defend our border.

One last point: Fencing, walls work. In the Rio Grande Valley sector, in the eastern section next to the Gulf of Mexico, there is 35 miles of fencing. In the western section, in McAllen, there is far less fencing and far fewer roads. Ninety-four percent of the traffic comes through the McAllen portion of the Rio Grande Valley sector.

We have a duty to defend our borders. American citizens like Jared Vargas, who lost his life, and the Vargas family, who is now without their family member, and the United States of America deserve better. The migrants who seek to come here deserve better.

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