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Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it was such a joy to be in Tennessee last week and visit with so many of our local officials, and I had the opportunity to spend some time with some of our sheriffs. And one of the sheriffs made a point that I think deserves attention in this body today.

He said: Marsha, for years, we have measured the drugs we have apprehended in grams or ounces, but today everything is in pounds. That is the uptick in volume that our local law enforcement is seeing in our communities.

Now, the question is, Why is this happening? How is it that so much more is getting across that southern border? And my colleague from Ohio and my colleague from Missouri have each mentioned the problems that exists there--no ``Remain in Mexico,'' no wall.

And we are at a time here in this country where our supply chains are really being stressed, but the supply chains of the cartels seem to be doing just fine. Fortunately, our Border Patrol has been able to cause some blips and some problems with those supply chains, and they have been able to apprehend some of the drugs coming across our border.

In January, in a period of 7 days--1 week--our Border Patrol caught 47 pounds of methamphetamine in California, 3,800 pounds of marijuana in two raids in Texas, and 20 pounds of cocaine in Texas.

The street value was about $7 million that they pulled off of the street, but this is, unfortunately, a blip for the cartels--just a blip on their radar. These thousands of pounds of drugs are a footnote in the long history of the ``got-aways'' and the drug mules who keep these cartel supply lines flowing from South and Central America and into the United States.

Now, as my colleagues have said, until this administration decides they want to get serious about protecting our Nation's sovereignty and securing this southern border, this is going to continue.

Now, what does this cause in our country? What it means is every town is a border town, and every State is a border State. Until the Biden administration decides they are going to get serious on that border, it means that your town will function like a border town, your State like a border State. Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis are all experiencing some of the same problems that you are seeing on our Nation's borders.

And whether the State is Maryland or Wisconsin or Nevada, whether these are other States--Illinois, Colorado--what you are seeing are these problems that are brought about by an open border: gangs, cartels, human smuggling, sex trafficking.

So I would ask my Democratic colleagues, and I would hope they would ask the President: Where else do they think these thousands of pounds of drugs are being headed?

That is right. It is a rhetorical question, but they are coming to your neighborhoods, and your local law enforcement agencies are going to find themselves dealing with this.

Now, the Biden administration has said, repeatedly, that they want to focus their border policy on finding the root causes of illegal immigration. So Vice President Harris recently took her second trip to the Northern Triangle so she could try and figure out what the root causes are.

But while she is there and meeting with diplomats, the cartels' drug trade, along with their human trafficking trade, is booming. It is booming. The number of apprehensions across this southern border are at an alltime high.

And as my colleague mentioned, the ``got-aways''--the hundreds of thousands of ``got-aways,'' the hundreds of thousands of ``got-aways'' that are now in your communities--the hundreds or maybe even thousands of pounds of different drugs are coming into your communities.

We have been down this road before. We have made investments in the Northern Triangle to try and beat back the poverty, the corruption, and we are having the same problems. They are the same that they were years ago.

There is no buy-in on a policy. The only buy-in that this administration has managed to earn is the buy-in of corrupt officials and drug lords who have invested in our wide-open border.

Why is it that you have to pay the cartel to come in? Why is it that the cartels are moving these sex trafficking rings onto U.S. shores? Why is it that the cartels are setting up distribution centers in our cities? It is because this administration has that border wide open, and they see the opportunity to make big bucks, to really enrich themselves.

How can we expect to fight corruption when we encourage them to set up these business operations?

I would encourage my Democratic colleagues to take a look at the numbers that are coming from that southern border, look at numbers that were there from 2021, look at the numbers of not grams and ounces but pounds of illicit drugs that are being apprehended, talk to their local law enforcement about what they are finding on their streets, and then ask themselves: Are you doing everything you can to keep our communities safe? Are you doing everything that you can to keep our children and our grandchildren safe in their communities?

If you had to answer that question today, if the administration had to answer that question today, the answer would be an emphatic, no, they are not because the border is open. That policy is failing the American people; it is failing our communities that are truly struggling to keep drugs out of the hands of kids; and it is failing the thousands upon thousands of people who took you at your word--and then you have seen this border turned over to the cartels.

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