Emergency Security Supplemental to Respond to January 6th Appropriations Act, 2021

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, there are a lot of issues we are working through right now in the Senate.

Obviously, infrastructure is in conversation, and what is going to happen with some spending dealing with National Guard, Capitol Police.

We are working a lot on issues, like Afghan translators--trying to get those folks who walked alongside our soldiers for 20 years and risked their lives out of harm's way before the Taliban slaughters them.

We are engaged in a lot of issues. There are a lot of things happening behind the scenes. I thought it might be helpful to be able to give a couple of things I think we need to consider.

One is what is happening in the State Department right now. State Department engagement on the issues of passports is a major issue. It is a frustration for a lot of Americans. And I would tell you, a lot of Oklahomans that we deal with on a day-to-day basis on our team are very frustrated with trying to get their passport renewed. They didn't travel last year, obviously, with COVID, but now they want to be able to do some traveling in places where they can.

Good luck with that, as we have found. Right now, the backlog at the State Department is about 18 weeks. Today is the 29th of July. That means if you turn in your application for your passport today, you may get your passport December 2. Merry Christmas. If you plan on traveling Thanksgiving, you need to pay the extra fee to do an expedited delivery though we are at the end of July right now.

The problem?

The State Department still hasn't brought all of their staff back. They are not engaging. The rest of the country is open and operating, and the State Department is still studying how they are going to come back in, and millions of Americans are just waiting for their passport

I have spoken to leadership in the administration about this exact issue. In fact, I talked to some leadership who literally said to me: Oh, I wasn't aware there was a problem.

Listen, there is a problem, and it is not just in the State Department. It is in multiple other agencies. As America opens back up, trying to be able to manage all the issues with COVID, they are very aware of masks and vaccines and spacing.

But companies have figured out how to do this. For some reason, multiple agencies have not and it is causing real problems. It is not just problems in our economy with permitting and other things, some of the policies that have been put in place are causing real problems across our economy for just individuals.

We have an unemployment rate right now in June at 5.9 percent. We don't know what it will be for July, but it is getting better and better all the time. In Oklahoma, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. We have a lot of people employed because we turned off the extra unemployment benefits at the end of June and people came back to work. That is a good thing for them, for their families, for their kids, and for our economy. As we continue to be able to reengage, that is helpful.

But what we are seeing right now is inflation, consumer price increases like we have not seen in more than a decade. The Consumer Price Index increased by 5.4 percent. That is the most in 13 years.

We are watching the rapid rise in prices that Americans feel. It is a direct result of this $2 trillion bill that was done in March, where it paid people not to work, sent checks to individuals, and did lots of other benefits.

Many people, even economists from the Obama administration, said: Don't do this. It will cause inflation.

What have we seen?

In just the last 5 months: milk prices up, bread prices up, bacon prices up, price of gasoline up, price of wood up, price of building materials up, price of rental cars up, prices of used cars up, shortages in different supply chains--things we all identified in February and March and said we need to be attentive to.

If you dump $2 trillion into the economy, what does that do?

In the middle of this dialogue about inflation rising right now and everyone in America is seeing the rise in prices, there is a conversation about trillions of dollars more of spending--more of spending.

What effect do you think that will have? We have already seen the effect of what happened in March. What effect do you think it will have to add another, as is being forecast, $3.5 trillion more spending?

Sometimes we can't wrap our head around the issues of millions and billions and trillions because it all seems like numbers. There is a big difference between millions and billions and trillions. The best way I can describe this is, if you have a million seconds rather than a million dollars, a million seconds is about 11\1/2\ weeks. That is a lot. But a billion seconds is 31\1/2\ years. That is a big difference. Brace yourself because a billion seconds is 31\1/2\ years, but a trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

These are big numbers that are being thrown around and it is hard to wrap our head around how much spending is really going on, but the concept of throwing out $3.5 trillion is mind-boggling.

Let me give you one more. A trillion miles--if I were to say: How far is a trillion miles? A trillion miles is if you left Washington, DC, today and flew to the planet Pluto 334 times. From DC to our furthest planet 334 times, that is 1 trillion miles.

This is a lot of money that is being thrown around and has real consequences, knowing the debt and the borrowing and the tax changes, but how much things actually cost.

I am continuing to challenge my colleagues when they discuss all these big numbers and say: Let's throw all this money out there; it will have no consequence.

I will tell you, the people in Oklahoma feel what is going on. They may not know, but they feel it in the prices every day, what is going on in supply chains, and they are very aware. And the No. 1 question that I get asked when I am out and about in places in Oklahoma is: Where is all this money coming from?

It is a fair question.

There is this back-channel conversation right now happening on immigration as well. Right now, the news is focused on 10 million other things, and I literally have people in my State saying: Things must be going better at the border now because I don't hear about it much anymore.

I will smile at them and I say: I happen to be on that committee and be very engaged in the issues of border management and border security. Things are not getting better; they are getting worse.

March was the highest number of illegal crossings in 20 years. It was beaten in April; it was beaten in May; it was beaten in June. Current trend, that will be beaten in July. Just last week--just in 1 week, last week, the Rio Grande crossing--just that one sector in 1 week had 20,000 interdictions--in 1 week. At one time, they had 15,000 people who they were detaining.

So what is happening with that?

I keep hearing from the administration that we are going to take on the root causes. The root causes is a simple way to say we will deal with this later. Because if you want to talk about root causes, it is a statement saying that, basically, the problems are in Central America; we can't stop it.

Well, that is a nice note, except for here is a list of the countries that have crossed our border illegally just this year. It is over 100-- over 100 countries where individuals have illegally crossed the border.

So what about Brazil? What about Chile? What about Colombia? What about Guinea? What about Indonesia? What about Mauritania? Are we going to go after the root causes there? What about the Philippines, Indonesia, Romania, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates?

This is just a few of the people who have illegally crossed this year in big numbers.

Listen, this whole conversation about root causes is a distraction. We do need to be engaged in the Western Hemisphere. We do need to deal with our drug addiction in this country that causes the flow of drugs to be able to move through South America, Central America, Mexico into the United States. We do need to be aggressive in how we are handling cartels. But to somehow believe that if we poured enough money into the Northern Triangle that suddenly this would all end is false.

We are the greatest country in the world. The root cause of immigration into this country is the great power of the United States, both for freedom and for our economy. People from all over the world want to come here.

We have a million people a year who legally come to the United States--legally, a million--and folks who don't want to wait in line, who pay a cartel and move through Mexico to be able to get here literally from all over the world. If we do not enforce our borders, these numbers will continue to rise as they have every single month in this administration. Every month, the numbers get bigger.

We have got to get on top of this. I wish I could say the administration is taking it seriously. I wish I could say they have a plan. I wish I could say they have released out their studies that they said they were going to do. But they have not released out their studies. They have not released out their plans, and I continue to ask week, after week, after week.

The first hint that I got of what they planned to do came out in their budget. In their budget, they reduced funding for ICE, and they reduced the number of bed spaces for ICE. I was shocked. The numbers continue to skyrocket, and in their first release of what they plan to do on it, they asked for a 1,500-bed space reduction in ICE capacity for detention.

Now, honestly, when I got it, I thought: I can't believe they are putting this in print, but I already knew that it was going on. Why did I already know that it was going on? Because, as I have tracked the numbers all the time, I have watched the number of deportations and ICE detentions dramatically decrease. While some people are focused on the border, they lose track of the fact that not only is this administration not enforcing our southern border, they are not enforcing the interior of the country.

We have 6,000 ICE agents in the United States, 6,000 professional law enforcement-career folks who are in the country, arresting individuals who are illegally present in the country, with the first priority being criminal illegal aliens. That is their first priority, the safety and security of the United States. Of the 6,000 agents in the United States, in May, they did 3,000 total arrests--3,000 among 6,000 agents in a month. That is a record low because the administration changed the rules for ICE agents on who they could interdict.

The first big rule change they made is that ICE agents cannot arrest someone who is not legally present unless they get permission from regional leadership by name to arrest that individual. This means, if they go into a place to arrest someone and they encounter one person they received permission to actually arrest but also find three other criminal aliens there, they cannot detain or arrest them. They have to leave them and request by name later to go back and get them. And guess what. They are not there. Shocking. And it is not all criminal aliens. There are only certain criminal aliens they are now allowed to actually detain. That is a big shift from every previous--every previous-- administration.

Let me give an example that I actually gave to Secretary Mayorkas and asked specifically about some recent frustrating moments from our ICE agents.

Just a few days ago, ICE reached out on a previously deported alien by name. This person had been convicted of a sex assault of a minor under age 14. The alien was at large, and they asked permission to be able to go after this alien and to be able to do a street arrest. Remember, they had been deported before. They knew they were in the area. There were previous sex offender convictions. They were denied the ability to go after that person. They were told, no, they don't meet the standard.

Case No. 2. Another person who was previously deported had a previous conviction for indecency with a child, sexual contact. They were a registered sex offender. They believed they were in the area. They were asked if they could pursue an arrest. Regional leadership told them no, they could not.

Case No. 3--this just happened last week--is of a previously deported alien, twice. So this means they were for the third time in our country illegally. There were previous convictions for alien smuggling--that is, trafficking of people--theft, and illegal entry. They knew they were in the area. They asked if they could do the arrest. Regional leadership told them no.

I could go on and on.

ICE has a different set of rules now from what they had in the past. It is not just criminal aliens anymore; it is that they have to be really high criminal aliens. I could give you lists of people who have multiple DUI offenses, and ICE asked if they could detain them, and they were told no.

Listen, we have all said in this room that we should engage with criminal aliens and that criminal aliens should be deported. I don't know of a person in this room who hasn't said it. We stopped in May deporting criminal aliens. Are we going to do nothing about that?

If you don't believe me, call Secretary Mayorkas. He will send you a copy--that I have as well--of the interim guidance that was put out in May for ICE agents, limiting who they could deport and the process for deportation. I have asked him specifically: If someone goes to pick up a criminal alien and there are other aliens who are there, can they be picked up? The answer has been no.

We have a problem not just on our southern border but what is happening in our country and the issue of enforcement, and we would be wise if we would pay attention to this.

I am fully aware that there are many individuals in this body who do not like the southern border wall. That has been a topic of great debate in this room for several years. But is this body aware that in January of this year, when President Biden ``paused'' the border wall construction and said: I am going to spend 60 days studying it, that 60-day study is still not complete 200 days into the Presidency? He has still not completed the 60-day study.

On top of that, the pause of that construction, during that time period, we are still paying contractors to not do construction. So far this year, we have paid contractors $2 billion--billion with a ``b''-- not to construct the wall. Now, you may think it is a waste to construct the wall. I do not. But please tell me you at least believe it is a waste to not construct a wall and still pay contractors--to not construct a wall.

We are currently paying contractors $3 million a day to watch the materials that had been delivered by January 20 that were sitting on the ground--for steel, for fiber, for cameras, for lighting, for roads. We are paying $3 million a day to have them watch the materials on the ground to make sure they are not stolen--$3 million a day. That is a waste.

As people cross our border in record numbers, a new policy has been instituted on our southern border, called a notice to report. This, again, has never been done by any administration. A notice to report is when the line gets too long on the southern border, with people crossing the border, when they are trying to check everyone in--if the line gets too long, Border Patrol is instructed to grab the folks in the back of the line and give them a notice to report. That is a card telling them where ICE Agency offices are around the country, and they can just go ahead and go and turn themselves in at whatever ICE Agency they want to turn themselves in to anywhere in the country. So far, 50,000 people this year have been given one of those cards at our southern border and told ``turn yourself in wherever you go in the country''--50,000.

My shock, as I am trying to track the number, is that 13 percent have actually done it. I was surprised the number was that high. But that means 87 percent of the people who we have handed a card to and said ``turn yourself in wherever you go in the country'' have not. Eighty- seven percent--we have no idea where they are of the 50,000 people who were released into the country because the line was too long at that moment

Listen, we can disagree about a lot of things on immigration, but handing people a card and saying to just travel anywhere you want to go in the country and turn yourself in when you get there--can we at least agree that is a bad idea? Can we at least agree that paying contractors $2 billion not to construct the wall is a bad idea? Can we at least agree that criminal aliens who had been previously convicted and are being picked up for another charge should at least be deported in the process? Can we at least agree, if you want to deal with the ``root causes'' in the Northern Triangle in Central America, that it does not deter the people from over 100 countries who have crossed our southern border this year illegally? There is a bigger problem. Can we at least agree that we should address this?

We have a great deal of work to be done. I would encourage all of us to get the facts, to get the details of what is really happening, and to understand that when over a million people have illegally crossed the border just this year, that we know of, that is a problem. It is a problem that hasn't been there in the past anywhere close to this kind of number, and we should address it in this body.

I have written letters. I have made phone calls. I have done reports. We have done research. I have sat down with Secretary Mayorkas. I have held nominees for DHS. I have done everything I can do to bring this issue to the forefront. Although others seem to ignore it, this is an issue that we should not ignore. National security is not something we should be flippant about, and not everyone crossing that border is just coming for a job. We should engage.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source