Border Crossings Fuel Other Crises

Floor Speech

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Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss an issue that is an unprecedented issue, the border crisis that we are facing in this Nation that is fueling other crises: national security, public safety, health, and fentanyl, all a burden on the hardworking taxpayers and the American people.

On October 3, following court orders, the Biden administration said that it would reinstate the remain in Mexico policy by mid-November. I rise today to point out that we are now in December, and no such action has been taken.

Since President Biden has taken office, CBP has encountered more illegal immigrants than in 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined. In October, 164,303 illegal immigrants crossed the border, the highest number in recorded history and 80 percent higher than the previous record for the month of October, which is from October 1999.

Mr. Speaker, 1.7 million people have crossed the border in the past year, which is roughly the same as the population of President Biden's home State of Delaware and Vice President Harris' home city of San Francisco combined.

These border crossings are creating many issues throughout our country. First, let's talk about safety and security.

In the first month of this fiscal year, October, CBP arrested over 680 individuals with criminal convictions and dozens of known gang members, including 23 members of MS-13. That is in just 1 month. Multiple individuals on the FBI terrorist watch list have also been encountered over the last year.

As a native New Yorker who was just blocks away from Ground Zero on 9/11, I can tell you that I was shaken to my core by reports that Panama was in the position of having to deny over 52 al-Qaida affiliates at their border who were coming to the United States.

Last month, a 24-year-old man, who posed as an unaccompanied minor while illegally crossing our border, entered this country and then murdered his foster parents in their Florida home.

When is enough going to be enough for this administration and for my colleagues in the House?

Let's talk about fentanyl. Every Member of this Chamber knows the widespread pain plaguing our communities. We all have constituents who are suffering from the loss of life caused by an abundance of drugs being smuggled into our country. Counterfeit narcotics laced with fentanyl are being mass-produced in Mexico with chemicals from China and are streaming over our open borders. The DEA is telling us so. They say that 80 percent of fentanyl in the United States has come over our borders, smuggled by the cartels.

In the first month of this fiscal year, 2022, October, CBP seized over 1,000 pounds of fentanyl. That means that in just 1 month, CBP seized enough fentanyl to kill 236,775,024 people, American citizens. The U.S. recently recorded its highest number of drug overdose deaths in a 12-month period, surpassing 100,000 for the first time.

Over 170 people overdosed on drugs during the first 9 months of 2021 in my community of Staten Island, and I know other Members have similar stories, too. Fentanyl was present in about 80 percent of the completed toxicology reports for the 2020 fatal overdoses in Staten Island.

So I ask my colleagues, whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the drug cartels, or are you on the side of the American people?

I visited the border. I met with the CBP agents. I rode with the Texas Department of Public Safety. I can't say the same for our President, can't say the same for our Vice President, can't say the same for the Speaker.

Despite all this, the Biden administration has halted the construction of barriers while American taxpayers still foot the bill for a contract that has been in place. We are paying every month, yet the barriers aren't going up.

Instead, they want to further incentivize illegal border crossings by giving illegal immigrants $450,000 of taxpayer money, a total slap in the face to the taxpayers who bust their butts and pay taxes and expect this government to perform properly.

The Biden administration now, in its misguided Build Back Better--or, I should say, build back broke--bill, wants to reward illegal immigration by granting mass amnesty, free college tuition, and childcare to those who unlawfully crossed.

As a daughter of immigrants, I think it is incredibly important that we enforce our laws and give people opportunity, but let's make sure they are doing it the right way.

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