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Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, during my time in the Senate, I have spent a lot of time learning from folks who live and work along our 1,200- mile border with Mexico about the challenges that region and that border present. I have worked with local leaders who know the advantages and the challenges of living along an international border better than anyone else in the country. Of course, I have spoken with a number of Border Patrol agents--these, of course, are frontline law enforcement officers--as well as our local sheriffs and others, who have come face-to-face with human tragedy, exploitation, and many other forms of heartbreak and hardship. I have learned a great deal from the nongovernmental organizations--the so-called NGOs--that go above and beyond the call of duty to care for the migrants who often arrive sick, abused, and malnourished. When it comes to border security and commonsense immigration policies, the input of these experts is invaluable. It is irreplaceable.

Later this week, I will be traveling back home to the Rio Grande Valley along with a number of my Republican colleagues so that they, too, can learn from the true experts about the border crisis. Senator Cruz and I are leading a visit to the Rio Grande Valley to receive an update on the current state of circumstances at the border.

I know, with everything happening here in Washington, DC, and around the country, it is easy to lose sight of what is happening on the border, the humanitarian crisis that is occurring at the border, so I want to remind anybody who is listening about what we have seen over the last 2 years during--well, actually, it is the first year and a half of the Biden administration. For a year and a half now, border communities have been overwhelmed by the sheer number, the volume, of migrants crossing the border. Since President Biden took office, the Border Patrol has encountered nearly 3 million--3 million--people along the southwest border. That is almost an incomprehensible figure, and it is far from the normal situation.

Let me provide a little historical context. At this point during the Obama administration, an average of about 46,000 migrants were apprehended each month along the border--46,000 during the Obama administration. During the Trump administration, that number was cut in half to 24,000 migrants every month. But during the Biden administration, so far, that figure has skyrocketed. On average, more than 185,000 migrants cross our southern border every month. That is 7\1/2\ times more than we were seeing just a few years ago.

And there is no question--certainly in my mind--and I don't think any rational review of the facts would lead to another conclusion other than that President Biden's policies are the driving force for this crisis. The President ran on the promise of policies that would lead to this exact result, and we have heard stories from migrants who explicitly came to the United States because of the signals the Federal Government is sending that if you can make it to the border, you are going to be able to make it into the interior of the United States.

But even though the President's policies have encouraged many people to make this dangerous trip from their homes across the border-- particularly in temperatures like we are encountering in Texas now, where for the last 33 days we have seen 100-degree-plus temperatures-- these migrants are coming from their home, traversing huge expanses of land, and showing up at the border--if they do show up--as I said, sick, dehydrated, suffering from assault.

The fact is, if you visit Brooks County, TX, where Falfurrias is located, they have a Border Patrol checkpoint. What the coyotes do-- that is the name given to the human smugglers--is they will transport people from the stash houses on this side of the border, up the highway, but then, before they get to the border checkpoint where the Border Patrol is, they will tell all the migrants to get out of the vehicle and here is a jug of water and maybe a power bar, and we will see you on the north side. They will have to walk around the checkpoint and then reconnect with the coyote, with the smuggler, on the north side. But the fact is that a number of these individuals don't make it; they die in Brooks County from exposure. Certainly, the coyotes care nothing about humanity but only about money. If someone is sick or lame or can't keep up, they get left behind to die.

Well, it is clear, too, that this administration has failed to prepare for what I think most people could have predicted given the green light that the Biden administration has posted at the border welcoming anybody and everybody who wants to come to the United States from anywhere in the world without complying with our immigration laws. When thousands of people are crossing the border every day, it overwhelms the Border Patrol's capabilities. That is part of the plan, because when thousands of people overwhelm the Border Patrol at the border, many of them have to go away from the border for paperwork, to process unaccompanied children and perform other tasks. So they are not there when--guess what--here come the drugs.

Last year alone, 108,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. Virtually all of those came across the southern border. The one that we are most concerned about now--but we are concerned about all of them--is opioids, synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which are enormously powerful and have resulted in the death of far too many Americans. Part of that is because of the border crisis.

Now, the drug cartels make a lot of money doing this. The human smugglers charge $5-, $10-, $15,000 a head to bring people across the border. This is a huge moneymaking criminal enterprise. But, in response, the Biden administration has failed to prepare and failed to embrace policies that would deter people from making this dangerous trip in the first place.

Last fall, I visited the Del Rio Sector with a group of about 30 Border Patrol agents at their muster. That is their meeting right before they are deployed out into the field. When they were asked to raise their hand if they would be working out in the field that day patrolling, not a single hand was raised. These men and women who would normally be out on the frontlines stopping dangerous people and drugs from sneaking across the border--they are filling out paperwork, they are watching unaccompanied children, and they are transporting migrants.

This is part of the cartel's plan. It looks like, to coin a phrase, we are playing checkers when they are playing three-dimensional chess. The cartels have simply adapted their policies to exploit what they see as weakness at the border. This is a dangerous situation. If Border Patrol agents are caring for unaccompanied children, obviously they can't patrol the frontlines. If they are knee-deep in paperwork, they can't stop criminals and drugs from coming across the border.

The chaos at the border provides an excellent camouflage and disguise for dangerous people coming across. Gangs, cartels, criminal organizations are paying close attention. They see the gaps, some of which they create themselves, and they are taking full advantage. Every day, criminals attempt to sneak across our border. The dedicated men and women of the Border Patrol arrest a number of them if they can locate them. Many of them get away. Since October, agents have apprehended more than 450 gang members. But, as we know, they are outnumbered and overwhelmed, meaning that countless others slip through the cracks.

According to some reports, more than 300,000 migrants evaded Border Patrol between October and the end of March. That is 300,000 on top of the 3 million whom I mentioned a moment ago who have been encountered during the Biden administration. So that is 300,000 additional who have evaded Border Patrol in just 6 months. These are known as ``got- aways,'' the ones Border Patrol sees on surveillance cameras. But the number could well be significantly higher.

The cartels and the human smugglers who help people illegally enter our country are not fools. They pay close attention to the rhetoric of the President and politicians here in Washington, and they watch television from their home country and see that people who show up at the border can by and large enter the country without any consequences. They know our immigration laws better than the average American, better than the average Member of Congress, and they know how to exploit them to their advantage. They will flood the system in one area to distract the Border Patrol and take advantage of the security gaps.

This is an important point. These cartels and criminal organizations are what one Border Patrol agent called commodity agnostic; in other words, they are in it for the money. If they can make money by smuggling--by trafficking in young girls or in economic migrants or drugs, they will do it because that is why they exist: because of the money they derive from their crimes.

As I suggested, one of the biggest moneymakers is drug trafficking. Since October, Customs and Border Protection has seized more than 7,700 pounds of fentanyl and more than 120,000 pounds of methamphetamine. Add the other drugs--cocaine, heroin, and other dangerous drugs--that have been seized, you have 440,000 pounds of drugs that came into our country in only 8 months, and that is just the drugs we were able to locate and confiscate.

These criminal groups also profit off the backs of migrants. Again, to them, a migrant is not a human being. It is a commodity; it is a moneymaker, a way to wring a dollar out of somebody else's misery.

And a couple of weeks ago, we received a tragic reminder of how ruthless these criminals are. Smugglers abandoned a tractor-trailer packed with migrants in San Antonio, my hometown, leaving the truck to bake in the Texas heat. Fifty-three migrants died in what has been described as the deadliest human smuggling incident in U.S. history. It is a devastating reminder that this isn't about politics. Lives are actually on the line.

President Biden has talked about the need to treat immigrants humanely. I agree. This isn't about treating them inhumanely, but 53 migrants dying in the back of a tractor-trailer rig in 100-degree Texas temperature is not humane either.

Migrants are dying. Drugs are pouring into our country. And all the while, these criminal organizations are getting richer and richer.

I don't know how President Biden and Vice President Harris look in the mirror knowing that this is happening on their watch. I do know that President Biden and Vice President Harris have not been down to the border and talked to the same experts that I have learned from over the years. I think they would learn a lot. I would welcome them if they decided to come.

Instead, the President has sent a signal to the cartels and human smugglers that they can continue to abuse, rape, and get rich off of vulnerable migrants. We have even seen some in the administration villainize the dedicated law enforcement officers who are trying to keep our communities and our countries safe. And despite the recordbreaking levels of migration, we know the President still refuses to visit the border.

He is in the Middle East. He is visiting Muhammad bin Salman and other officials in Israel and elsewhere, but he won't go to the border where this crisis is happening, in large part because of his failed policies.

As I have said, throughout my time in the Senate, I have learned a lot from these dedicated leaders in border communities who deal with this crisis firsthand. Their input has been invaluable to my work in the Senate. And I look forward to seeing some of these folks later this week and introducing them to a number of our Senate colleagues.

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