Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to call attention to the humanitarian crisis that is happening right now in the State of Texas, another one happening right now in Del Rio, TX--yet another consequence of President Biden's and Vice President Harris's dangerous refusal to enforce our laws or to protect our border, a refusal that is causing people to die; that is causing young girls to be trafficked; that is causing drugs to pour into our State; and that is causing our communities to become much less safe.

Right now, thousands of Haitians are camped under a bridge in Del Rio, TX, after illegally entering our country. Six days ago, I went down to Del Rio myself to see firsthand what was going on and why this was happening. The sheer number of people under the bridge took my breath away. People were struggling enormously, including infants, including young children, and I learned from authorities on the ground what had happened and that this was a man-made crisis. To understand what occurred, we have to go back to September 8.

On September 8 and in the weeks that preceded it, there were between 700 and 1,000 people under that bridge in Del Rio. That was about the traffic that was coming in each day illegally. Then, on September 8, the Biden administration made a political decision. There were some 900 Haitian illegal immigrants who were scheduled to board planes and be deported back to Haiti. Roughly, 85 percent of the illegal immigrants crossing at Del Rio are from Haiti originally. On September 8, the Biden administration canceled those planes. It informed those 900 Haitians that they would not be deported but that they would, instead, be allowed to stay in the United States, and what happened next is simple.

Those 900 picked up their phones, and they called their friends; they called their families; they texted their friends and families. Between the period of September 8, when the Biden administration canceled those flights back to Haiti and September 16--8 days later when I was in Del Rio--the 700 people under the bridge had become 10,503. That is what the total was the day I was there--10,503 packed in in deplorable conditions. They had already crossed into the United States. They were packed under that bridge because the Border Patrol lacked the capacity to process anything close to that number, and within a couple more days, the 10,503 had become 15,000 people.

To put that in perspective, the city of Del Rio has a population of 35,000 people. Nearly half the population of Del Rio was under that bridge. We have seen bread and water and toilet paper and basic necessities flying off store shelves in Del Rio, which wasn't expecting to have to handle such a massive influx of illegal immigrants.

The people of Del Rio are concerned; they are dismayed; they don't understand why the Federal Government refuses to enforce the law. Law enforcement is concerned and dismayed and doesn't understand why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won't enforce the law. The mayor in Del Rio is a Democrat, and he is frustrated and dismayed with the crisis the Federal Government has caused.

In the past month, I have traveled throughout South Texas, doing roundtables--sitting down with farmers and ranchers, sitting down with sheriffs and local law enforcement, sitting down with elected officials. A great many of the elected officials in South Texas are Democrats. South Texas, historically, has been a very Democratic region of the State. To a person, every elected Democrat with whom I sat down was horrified at what was happening.

More than one elected Democrat in South Texas said to me: If the National Democratic Party is the party of open borders, I can't be for that.

You know, in this body, we listen to lots of elected officials from States that don't have a border with Mexico pontificate on how enforcing the border is somehow cruel. I will tell you what is cruel: having 10,503 people underneath a bridge, in shantytown conditions, where children, where women, where men are sleeping out in the elements and where even more come.

One of the things that strikes me about that Del Rio influx is many of those individuals had already been granted asylum in Mexico. So they had come from Haiti to Mexico. They had been granted asylum--they were living legally in Mexico--but when the Biden administration canceled the flights back to Haiti and word got out of, ``Hey, come to Del Rio. It is olly olly oxen free. If you come to Del Rio, you can stay in America,'' it took 8 days for 700 people to become 10,503.

The Biden administration has also shut down five Border Patrol checkpoints in the Del Rio sector area of responsibility so they can redirect personnel just to process the mass of illegal immigrants under the bridge in Del Rio, and, of course, it is at those checkpoints that trucks carrying illegal immigrants or trucks carrying drugs into our country are caught.

So, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pulling the personnel away from that, we know yet more illegal immigrants will stream into this country. We know yet more women will be raped and sexually assaulted by human traffickers. We know more children--more little boys and more little girls--will face physical assault and sexual assault from human traffickers. We also know that more heroin, more fentanyl--more illegal drugs--will pour into our States. And, by the way, not just the State of Texas, but every State in the Union will have more people die from illegal drugs because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to enforce the law and are pulling law enforcement off of their job of protecting our communities.

On Monday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas went down to Del Rio. Let me say I am glad he did. Joe Biden hasn't been to Del Rio. Kamala Harris hasn't been to Del Rio. She is ostensibly the border control czar, but the czar can't be bothered to actually go to the southern border where the crisis is occurring.

Secretary Mayorkas, in Del Rio, said: ``We are very concerned that Haitians who are taking this irregular migration path are receiving false information that the border is open.''

Well, I wonder why they think the border is open. Maybe it is because the Biden administration halted the deportation flights to Haiti. Maybe it is because Joe Biden is releasing Haitians who illegally cross the border at Del Rio into the United States at a staggering scale. Maybe it is because Joe Biden halted construction of the border wall the day that he became President. Maybe it is because Joe Biden reinstated the failed catch-and-release policy or maybe it is because Joe Biden, on day 1 of the Presidency, ended the incredibly successful ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, which was an international agreement that President Trump had negotiated with the Government of Mexico that provided that when people crossed illegally into Mexico, that they would remain in Mexico while their U.S. asylum case was proceeding.

That agreement was phenomenally successful--so much so that last year, in 2020, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.

I want to point out to you that some of the Democratic Party, some in the media like to say: Well, this problem has been with us a long time. This problem is not Joe Biden's fault; it is not Kamala Harris' fault. We can't solve the crisis at our southern border.

If you hear elected Democrats saying that, if you hear the corrupt corporate media saying that, you know they are not telling you the truth.

Why is that? Because last year, 12 months ago, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. We know how to solve this crisis. The ``Remain in Mexico'' international agreement worked, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, for political reasons, decided to tear up that international agreement and declare open season on our southern border.

This year, since Joe Biden has been President, over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have come into the United States. We are on pace for more than 2 million this year, which is the highest rate in 20 years.

Do you want to see how much policy and politics matter? We went from the lowest rate in 45 years last year to the highest rate in 21 years this year. And it is all because of politics, because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had made promises to the open-border radicals in their party.

I will tell you, I have been to the border. I have been to the Biden cages. For 4 years, Democrats went on and on and on. The corrupt corporate media went on and on and on about kids in cages. You couldn't turn on the evening news without hearing ``kids in cages.''

What they didn't tell you is that Barack Obama built those cages, and, today, under Joe Biden, the cages are bigger and they are more full than they were before.

Every Democrat who stood up and lamented ``kids in cages'' and the House of Representatives--Representative Ocasio-Cortez has a famous photo of her grasping her head by the kids in cages. Well, I am going to give a simple challenge for Representative Ocasio- Cortez and for every Democrat in this body: Go see the Biden cages with your own eyes.

I have seen them--the Donna tent facility, with over 4,000 people, with little boys and little girls on top of each other. Just a couple of weeks ago, when I was in the Rio Grande Valley, the rate of COVID positivity in the Biden cages was over 22 percent.

And all the Democrats who talked about this, if they don't go, if they don't denounce the Biden cages, then they are telling you that they are hypocrites; that they didn't believe it when they said it; that they didn't care about it when they said it; that it was all politics. It wasn't about their kids.

Why does Joe Biden refuse to go to the Rio Grande Valley? Because if he goes, the TV cameras will come with him.

Why does Kamala Harris, who is supposed to be the border czar--she is supposed to be in charge of this--why won't she go to the Rio Grande Valley? Because if she went, the TV cameras would come and would show the Biden cages.

And the Democrats are counting on the corrupt corporate media to suddenly say: Nothing to see here. Fifteen thousand Haitians under a bridge in Del Rio? Nothing to see here.

Does anyone want to know what Joe Biden's favorite ice cream flavor is? That is the news. Never mind 1.2 million illegal immigrants. Never mind when I took 19 Senators down to the border. We went out on the river and saw a man floating dead in the river who died trying to cross illegally. Never mind the South Texas farmers and ranchers, the moms who told me: I won't let my teenage kids go out on our ranch without being armed with a loaded firearm because there are so many human traffickers and narcotics traffickers that it is dangerous for them to go out on their own ranch.

Never mind the South Texas farmers and ranchers, who told me at roundtables how tired they are of going out and finding dead bodies.

Do you want to understand what is happening? You say there is no crisis? Come to Brooks County. I invite every Democrat here to Brooks County. Brooks County in South Texas, it is just north of the border. Brooks County, over and over and over again, there are dead bodies of illegal immigrants.

The traffickers who are bringing them in, they are not nice guys. They are not humanitarians. They don't give a damn. That means, if one of the illegal immigrants is a pregnant woman, is a young child, is elderly, is sick, they just abandon them. They leave them in the rough terrain in the summer heat, and, over and over again, the farmers and ranchers encounter dead bodies on their property, where the traffickers have abandoned them.

I ask you: Is that humane? Is that compassionate, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris policy that encourages, that puts people in harm's way and results in people dying?

When we were down at the border, we saw a young girl who had been gang raped by the human traffickers who had brought her to America. The rate of sexual assault is staggering, particularly among the girls and young women, so much so that a significant percentage of young women, before they take the harrowing trip with the traffickers, will implant a birth control because they know the odds of their being sexually assaulted are so great.

And I will tell you, as I was doing the roundtables, one of the things I saw also was the colored wrist bands. So the traffickers are global cartels that are criminals. They are vicious criminals. They charge anyone--a young man, a young woman, a little boy, a little girl--thousands of dollars, anywhere from 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, $8,000 to cross into the United States.

By the way, do you know there is 100-percent operational control on the border--100 percent--on the southern side? Nobody crosses the border without the cartels' permission. If you do, they will kill you. Every person who crosses the border does so after paying the cartels, because you will be killed otherwise.

But often, when they come, they will cross, and they will end up at a stash house. I have been to those stash houses. I have been out on the midnight patrols with the Border Patrol. You go into those stash houses, and there are colored wrist bands that they put on the illegal immigrants, and the colors correspond to how many thousands of dollars they paid and how many thousands of dollars more they owe.

Often, when they get here, the cartels will say: Thank you for your x thousand dollars. We want y thousand more.

Tragically, it is at those stash houses in the United States where many of the sexual assaults occur. And so these immigrants, many of whom are young children, teenage children, when they get here, the Biden administration delivers them to their final destination. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their administration are the last mile of the human trafficking network.

But for the 14-, 15-year-old boy who arrives in Atlanta, who arrives in New York, who arrives in Detroit, who arrives in Nashville--many of those 14- and 15-year-old boys owe thousands of dollars to the cartels, which means they arrive in your city--you might think Georgia is not a border State. But when teenagers are arriving in Atlanta owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, they work for the cartels, and the cartels know who their family is and where their family is, and they risk their mother or father being murdered if they don't work for the cartels to pay off the cartels.

The young women have it even worse. There are teenage girls who make the decision: I want to come to America; I want to come to the promised land.

We have been a beacon of hope to millions throughout our history. They don't realize they are stepping into Hell on Earth when the traffickers take them and then take them to a cartel facility in whatever city they end up in, where many of those teenage girls, still owing thousands of dollars to the cartels, have to work to pay off that debt by forced prostitution. Young girls forced into a life of sex slavery because the alternative is murder at the hand of the cartels. This is happening.

The fact that Joe Biden doesn't want to talk about it, the fact that Kamala Harris claims it is not happening, the fact that the corrupt corporate media ignores it, it doesn't stop the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are suffering.

Mr. President, you and I are on the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have had four hearings in the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee on amnesty. In case the American people missed it, we get that the Democrats want amnesty for every illegal alien. That is not lost on anybody.

We haven't had a single hearing on the humanitarian crisis at the border. We haven't had a single hearing on the Biden cages.

Is it really the case that no Democrat in this Chamber cares about the children being assaulted, cares about the children catching COVID, cares about the illegal immigrants being released by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with COVID into our communities?

I get, politically, that this is an inconvenient topic to discuss. It is not the political narrative Democrats want to address. But every Democrat in this body needs to ask: Did you believe one word of the rhetoric you said during the Trump administration? Or was it all politics?

And, by the way, I saw the kids in cages, and I went to them directly when Obama was President. I saw them when Trump was President. I saw them when Biden was President. The difference last year is that we had the lowest numbers in 45 years. We were fixing the problem last year by enforcing the law.

Joe Biden has created this crisis through political divisions.

I make one final point: right now, 10 to 15,000 Haitian illegal immigrants under a bridge in Del Rio, TX. It is easy for Democrats to say: Well, that is not my problem.

It is easy for Democrats to say: I have never been to Del Rio. What do I care about those folks in South Texas.

I ask you: How would this issue be different if those illegal immigrants--if their point of entry was Martha's Vineyard? How would this issue be different if their point of entry was Silicon Valley, perhaps right outside the headquarters of Google--15,000 illegal immigrants under bridges?

The corrupt corporate media doesn't care. The Democrats, I hope, will demonstrate that they do.

And I will tell you this: The American people care. What is happening at our southern border is wrong, and it needs to end.

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