Current Border Insecurity

Floor Speech

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Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is good to be here.

I am glad my friend is raising awareness. I am going to go as quickly as I possibly can because I don't know how much time I am going to take up.

But let's talk about fentanyl for just one quick second. Local reporting out of Tucson was that last year 13 million fentanyl pills were seized in Arizona alone--13 million. DEA has said 40 percent of all pills seized have a lethal dose of fentanyl in them. I want you to think about that, Madam Speaker. You add that 13 million and you take it into what agents and local law enforcement has told us, and that is they only interdict 8 to 10 percent. That means you have got over 100 million fentanyl pills floating around.

The cartels control all of the border between every port of entry on our border with Mexico. Let me give you an example, Madam Speaker, of the story out of southern Arizona recently just in the last couple weeks.

A lady was found wandering around. Local law enforcement deputies found her and assisted her.

What did she have on her possession?

A bag full of pills. They wanted to know what this was, was this an illicit drug or illicit? What is going on?

She said: These are morning-after pills. I knew when I would be coming across the border that I would be raped multiple times so I brought a bunch of morning-after pills.

That is fact. That is what is happening. It is not humane on the border. I find myself baffled by this.

So let's talk about cartels a little bit more. In a story from just early January--and I have been down to the border and talked to this team since then, a cartel, a Mexican cartel put out a hit on Cochise County sheriffs' deputies--two of them--because they are on the border team. There is a small border team down there. They are very effective. They had a hit put on them by a cartel.

So what happens? What happens?

Why is the Biden administration ignoring this crisis?

Let's take a look at something else. In September of last year I said: How many unaccompanied children have been brought into the country?

One hundred ten thousand roughly.

They finally responded to a series of questions I had just this week.

They said: We have lost contact with 20,000 of those children.

They basically have lost 20,000 unaccompanied children.

This is the border under President Biden.

Now, in Cochise County, 82 miles, a remote border crossing area, between the Border Patrol and the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, about 16,000 illegal immigrants are detected every month in a huge, huge county. Two years ago the county recorded an average of 4 to 500 illegal aliens per month. Let's give it to you more starkly, Madam Speaker: under the Trump policies, we slowed down illegal immigration. Under the Biden policies, we went from 4 to 500 people a month in this massive county to now 16,000 a month.

What are they paying the cartels?

A minimum of $1,000, but typically more like $4,000 per person coming in. Most of these folks don't have $4,000.

So what happens?

They become indentured servants of cartels, and they are located in-- and I know Mr. Davidson is going to show you a map, Madam Speaker--they are in virtually every community in this country.

There is a reporter named Jorge Ventura. Jorge does a lot of work on the border issues. And I want to talk to you about cartels again and how they have infiltrated not just the border but they are also beyond the border. A year ago there were illegal marijuana farms in southern California. There are about 100 in L.A. County. It is a huge county both geographically and population wise. Its neighboring county, San Bernardino County, had about 2 or 300. Today over 200 illicit marijuana farms are in L.A. County and over 1,100 in San Bernardino County.

Now, why is that important?

It is important for you to understand that those are coming in from cartels. The mayor of Lancaster, Rex Parris, said in July of last year that it is the cartels. They had seized more than 16 tons of marijuana worth about $1.2 billion, and the mayor said: ``We are very, very close to driving down the freeway and seeing bodies hanging from the overpasses. That is what is coming.''

Why does he say that?

Because the cartels are ruthless. They have little value for human life. When you hear about children, toddlers being thrown over a border fence, that is the coyotes.

Whom do they work for?

The cartels. When you hear of children 2, 3, and 4 years of age wandering around in 115-degree heat in Arizona's desert without an adult present and without water, that is the cartels. They don't care about human life. This is a business enterprise, and the product is to move people and drugs into the country.

So what happened just a week ago, not even a week ago?

Prosecutors in Mexico in the town of San Jose de Gracia in the western State of Michoacan said that they can't determine how many people were killed because attackers cleaned up the scene and removed any bodies.

Mexicans have been left wondering what happened to about one dozen men who disappeared after they were seen lined up against a wall by drug cartel gunmen in this small village.

In a video filmed by a resident of the town that was later posted on social media, bursts of gunfire break out, smoke covers the scene, the camera cuts away, and all the men, perhaps as many as 17, were killed.

That is what cartels do. Cartels do not care about human life. And when I have had multiple briefings, as I go down to the border virtually every month of every year, I wonder where the border czar in this administration is. She got to El Paso, almost made it to the border, and didn't quite get there. It is kind of like when she went over to Ukraine, she made it to Germany but didn't make it into Ukraine.

I look, and I say: What happened?

Why is this happening?

And my briefers tell me the border is controlled by cartels. Between every port of entry no one enters this country without a cartel knowing about it.

When I was in the Tucson sector right before Christmas, I went down and you see 2 miles of fencing, and there is 8 feet of gap, then another 2 miles of fencing, and then it just stops, and then it goes for literally 60 miles with no fencing other than the Normandy barrier. I went to the gap, and I am standing there looking into Mexico. You can see, Madam Speaker, that gap is where all the pathways lead, and there is all the debris and crud that is out there.

I said to my folks who were with me: Please videotape it because I am going to explain what was going on here.

I didn't bother to tell CBP, because I get down a lot. Sometimes I tell them I am going to be there. An agent rolls up.

He said: Who are you talking to?

He didn't know who I was.

I said: I am not talking to anyone. I am doing the video here for my constituents.

He said: Oh. I thought you were talking to the cartel scouts.

I said: What do you mean?

He said: We literally chased--before we detected you, we chased four cartel scouts back up through that gap, and they sit in a hooch on this little bluff.

That is where the cartel scouts are as they are sending people through.

The way it works is this. They will send a group of 100 people to some place, maybe the San Miguel gate down near Sassabe, near the Tohono O'odham Reservation. That takes the four or five people that are trying to patrol that area. They will go to that gate. They have to process those individuals. It is so remote that it takes literally hours to remove those people and get them bused to a detention facility and processed.

In the meantime, they will see what we call ``known got-aways,'' dozens of known got-aways rolling through other parts of that border. They are dressed in camouflage. They are wearing carpet shoes. They have got backpacks filled with fentanyl and methamphetamine on their backs.

I am just telling you, I appreciate my friend from Ohio, his efforts, and this very important piece of legislation. And I call upon this administration, don't tell the American people--I am reminded of the ``Darkest Hour.'' It is a movie with Winston Churchill. The King says to Winston: Don't lie to the people. Tell them the truth.

I am asking this administration: Tell the people the truth. They can take it. They understand.

Because last year, over 2 million, about 2,500,000 people, entered this country illegally; another 1.2 to 1.3 million entered legally. Now, of those 2.5 million, probably about 1.5 million are wandering around this country. They are somewhere in this country today. This administration let them go.

Madam Speaker, we have to get control of our border. I find it remarkable that the deputy Homeland Security director was saying that we really need to protect the borders, that you won't have a sovereign nation without a protected border. But he wasn't talking about our border, which isn't protected. He was talking about the Ukrainian border.

I asked them to have the same concern and care for the U.S.-Mexico border as they profess to have for the Ukraine border.

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