Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on March 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we are about to vote on an issue dealing with the national emergency here in the United States dealing with the pandemic.

There has been no great shock that we have functioned under a lot of additional authorities that are happening, but I want to provide a bit of clarity into this conversation as well.

The measure that we are dealing with right now dealing with COVID and the pandemic that is here, we also know there is a global pandemic; and improving the medical situation here doesn't necessarily mean improving the medical situation everywhere, nor should it change what is called title 42.

A quick explanation on this. The Surgeon General, the CDC, and HHS all work together with the President to be able to recommend that, based on the public health crisis that we are currently under, title 42 states this:

Whenever the Surgeon General determines that by reason of the existence of any communicable disease in a foreign country there is a serious danger of the introduction of such disease in the United States, and that this danger is so increased by the introduction of persons or property from such country that a suspension of the right to introduce such persons and property is required in the interest of the public health, the Surgeon General, in accordance with the regulations approved by the President, shall have the power to prohibit . . . the introduction of persons and property from such countries or places [they] shall designate.

That is title 42.

Why that does matter to us? Because in the last 2 years, our country along our border has been managing much of the border based on title 42. Now, it is no secret to anyone in this room--I would assume everyone in this room knows--we had the highest number of border encounters--that is people illegally crossing our borders--last year in the history of our country. Over 2 million people illegally crossed our borders. What some may not know is, last year, 900,000 of those were brought into the system in the United States; 1.1 million of those were turned around at the border with title 42 authority; meaning, because of the pandemic, because of the risk and the crisis, the introduction of additional individuals who are likely to have COVID, they were turned around at the border.

The concern is--and I have raised this concern over and over with CBP--what is your plan postpandemic for the title 42 authority?

Now, I want everyone to think about last summer--last summer what was happening in Donna, TX, last summer what was happening in multiple places along the border where our facilities were overrun with people and not manageable. That was when we were introducing 900,000 people into the country. What does that look like this summer if there are 2 million people in that group coming across?

That is why I want to make it very clear that what we are voting on now has no effect on title 42 authority. We continue to have serious health concerns, as title 42 states, in many other countries; and I have continued to encourage DHS to have a plan in place. Currently, they do not. It appears that their plan is, once title 42 goes away, all 2 million will get into the country. I think that is a serious problem, and I think it is something we should address.

In the meantime, we should not relieve title 42, and this vote does not change anything with the Surgeon General's decision on title 42. By the way, it is a Surgeon General position that has been in two administrations in a row to be able to be maintained on this.

So just to clarify, for this body, this vote has nothing to do with title 42; that is a Surgeon General responsibility; but this body needs to do additional oversight to make sure DHS is paying attention to what is happening at our southern border because we could very well have 1.1 million additional people illegally cross into the country, not just across the border and be returned but actually into the country in the days ahead.

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