Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, border security is one of the government's most important responsibilities. A sovereign, successful Nation's self-determination and safety depend upon it, and we are no exception.

Our border security rests exclusively with the Federal Government. And the Department of Homeland Security--a Cabinet created in 2002, I believe, in the aftermath of the September 11 attack--is entrusted with this paramount duty of protecting our border.

Fusing homeland with security for its name wasn't an accident. That wordage casts the Department's purpose to protect the country from external threats, both from people and from products. And Americans pay for that Department handsomely and for its responsibilities about $52 billion a year.

However, a grave, unprecedented crisis exists at our southern border. Our television reminds us of that fact daily. Foreign nationals are illegally crossing into our country from Mexico by the thousands every day. I heard recently that last month was the biggest number coming in for over 20 years. But illegal immigration isn't the only crime cascading over our borders.

Mexican cartels are importing deadly drugs and trafficking humans. These horrific, unabated events make very clear that the cartels effectively control our southern border. They actually manage who and what enters our country from Mexico.

But the danger is preventable. The trouble exists because the current administration deliberately refuses to secure the border.

Homeland Security's border dereliction is inexcusable, and it happens to be life-threatening, not only from drugs but from criminals and for national security because terrorists have been arrested.

Communities across all States, then, are plagued by the crime and the drugs killing Americans by the tens of thousands every year. The figure from 2020 is over 93,000 Americans dying from drug overdoses--a 31- percent increase from just the previous year. That exceeds the Rose Bowl's capacity, as just one example of comparison.

One drug is very prolific: Mexican fentanyl, probably fentanyl coming through Mexico from China. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. It is 50 times more potent than heroin. An infinitesimal amount, even as small as a grain of salt, can cause a death. The cartels are producing the deadly drug and smuggling it into the United States at record highs. They are also adding fentanyl to other drugs for increased potency and, of course, increased profits--often without the user of that drug even knowing that fact--and sometimes even market that fentanyl-laced drug into heroin.

Unsurprisingly, then, deaths result. From January 2019 to June of 2019, almost 62 percent of the overdose deaths involved a fentanyl- related substance.

The authority scheduling fentanyl analogs expire next month. Congress must act to permanently schedule these drugs and punish the cartels and the drug dealers who spread this poison across our communities.

We are a nation of compassion, but we are also a nation of laws. We are not obligated under any charade of compassion to ignore border crime, particularly the surge of deadly drugs killing tens of thousands here each year. But the government, as we see, sits idly by as cartel drugs poison Americans and unleash drug-related violence upon our communities.

Border security is essential in keeping our public safety threats and a cartel-controlled border presents our greatest criminal threat.

The Federal Government must be a staunch ally to the States in stopping the crime. The cartels benefit immensely from an unsecured border, and they are not exactly screening for threats to our national security and public safety.

We have reached a critical juncture and must choose who actually controls the southern border, and, consequently, our self-determination and our safety. Violent drug cartels or home security--which is it? The choice directs our future.

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