Dhs Illicit Cross-Border Tunnel Defense Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 4209, my bill, the DHS Illicit Cross-Border Tunnel Defense Act. I thank my colleague from New Jersey for his support.

It is important to say that this is one step. It is not the solution for all the problems that we face at our southern border, but it is one important piece.

Since President Biden took office in January 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has had over 2.2 million migrant encounters along the southwest border.

Due to the sheer numbers of migrants that are flooding across the border, CBP personnel, including Border Patrol agents, are often diverted from their essential jobs, their daily tasks to process migrants, most of whom crossed the United States-Mexico border illegally between ports of entry.

With Border Patrol agents occupied with other tasks and not patrolling the border, the security of our southwest border, and, therefore, the security of our Nation, has been crippled while cartels take full advantage.

In addition to the record number of migrant encounters, CBP has been interdicting growing quantities of illegal narcotics, especially methamphetamines, fentanyl, and other fentanyl-laced drugs, along the border.

For the first time, the United States has reached a tragic record, an unfortunate number of over 100,000 drug overdose deaths in a 1-year period. I want to repeat this: over 100,000 overdose deaths directly related to fentanyl in this past year, the most ever recorded in the United States. Additionally, according to the CDC, fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45.

In one of the communities that I represent, Odessa, Texas, law enforcement officials have reported 22 fentanyl overdoses in just 90 days. Parents nationwide are scared for their kids, and there is good reason for that fear. Fentanyl-related deaths nearly doubled the death rates from COVID-19, car accidents, cancer, and even suicide.

We need a plan, a strategy. A cornerstone of this strategy must be to stop the supply of drugs that are flowing into our country.

Mexico is now the primary source of fentanyl and synthetic opioids entering the United States. Of course, smuggling those drugs across the border comes with the risk of packages being seized by our border and law enforcement agencies. To minimize this risk, in 1989, the Sinaloa Cartel built their first-ever narco tunnel, as has been heard this morning on this House floor.

Back then, narco tunnels were short and unsophisticated. Over time, the cartels have learned and perfected these tunnels. They are longer, more sophisticated. They come with lights, with ventilation systems, with rail carts. They facilitate the movement of drugs and other illicit commodities, including the trafficking of people, bulk cash, and weapons.

Since 1990, law enforcement officials have discovered more than 230 of these cross-border tunnels, and there are likely more tunnels that exist between Mexico and the United States that are yet undiscovered. That is the heart of this bill.

CBP's tunnel technology program has matured over the years. Under the direction of U.S. Border Patrol, this program has been testing and acquiring technologies that do three essential things: predict tunnel locations, detect and project the paths of the tunnels, and confirm a tunnel's existence and location through mapping and measurements.

As CBP develops enhanced capabilities that will do the detection of the tunnels, drug cartels have become more emboldened, and they are creating more elaborate and harder-to-detect tunnel systems. Without this critical legislation, CBP truly lacks the ability to scale their tunnel interdiction and remediation operations.

The DHS Illicit Cross-Border Tunnel Defense Act addresses this issue by requiring CBP to develop a counter tunnel operations plan that would address risk-based criteria for interdicting and remediating illicit tunnels.

They will also look at the processes for sharing information on these tunnels, key indicators of tunnel construction to educate field personnel, and require an assessment of technology and personnel needs.

Additionally, this legislation would authorize funding for CBP to counter tunnel interdiction and remediation operations.

With the surge of illicit border activity both above and below ground, CBP needs resources to combat illicit cross-border tunnels to secure our homeland and protect our national security.

Passage of this legislation will disrupt and dismantle cartel smuggling operations, safeguarding American communities from the illegal narcotics problem that we see is completely devastating our country, including my home State of Texas.

Border security is national security. I thank Chairman Thompson and Ranking Member Katko for bringing this important legislation to the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my bill, H.R.

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Mr. PFLUGER. Herrera Beutler).

Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Pfluger for his leadership on not just this legislation but the issue as a whole because securing our border is so important for Americans and really for security in the rest of the world. It is not an extreme view to make sure that we have control for the safety and security of our people over our borders. So I thank the gentleman for his leadership here, and I am very proud to lend my support to this legislation.

I recently met with a Joint Narcotics Enforcement Team in Lewis County, southwest Washington which I represent, and it is a community bisected by the West Coast's largest freeway, I-5, that runs from Mexico to Canada. These officers reported confiscating hundreds of thousands of pills laced with fentanyl, not to mention record amounts of other illicit drugs.

They told me, about 95 percent of the drugs that they have confiscated come via Mexico and the amount that they confiscate is just a tiny fraction of the flood of drugs that are never seized by law enforcement.

That means what is happening on our borders has a direct and devastating impact on the lives of those in southwest Washington and across our Nation.

A big factor in the success of these drug cartels is underground, illegal tunnels along the southern border.

Last year, U.S. officials found a 183-foot-long subterranean tunnel near the border used by drug traffickers to conduct illegal activities completely undetected by border patrol.

The bill I helped advance for House consideration today would help the Border Patrol shut down these illegal underground tunnels used by cartels to smuggle drugs and conduct human trafficking underneath our southern border.

This is a commonsense and very necessary step to slow the trafficking of drugs and human beings which is being felt not just along the border States but in southwest Washington State and across this country.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of the bill.

Mr. Speaker I think it is important to note here that we are not going to declare victory. Celebrations will be minimal should this bill pass, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``aye.'' I appreciate the support of the gentleman from New Jersey, of the chairman, and of the ranking member.

This is step one out of 100 different steps. As somebody with a military background who was charged with protecting airspace, defensive counter-air, the border is very similar. It is layered. It is not just one piece that really is the magic solution. There are many different approaches that need to be considered.

This is one, as I said, out of hundreds of steps that need to be accomplished to prevent the fentanyl that we just heard about that could kill every American multiple times, to prevent the rest of the drugs that are flowing into our country, to prevent the trafficking and the crime, and really the overwhelming of our local communities.

As I mentioned, in Odessa, Texas, recently, we uncovered the fact that in 90 days we had almost 20 overdoses from fentanyl. It is a layered defense that is required, so many more steps need to be taken. I am proud to sponsor this legislation to continue to push for that defense and that architecture to be in place.

We need strength, we need deterrence, we need resolve, and, most importantly, we need the political will in a nonpartisan way to bring America back together and the Committee on Homeland Security to secure the safety of every single American.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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