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Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, in April, Border Patrol agents encountered an unaccompanied 2-year-old boy at the southern border of Texas. Let me read you part of what the Customs and Border Protection released:

The boy, a Honduran national, who had lost his shoe in the mud while crossing, was traveling within a group of 38 individuals. Agents questioned the group to obtain any information on the boy--however, no one claimed to know the child.

In 2022, CBP arrested at least six dozen convicted violent sex offenders--many of them child sex abusers--according to media releases. Vulnerable, unaccompanied children, as well as young women traveling alone, draw criminals like these to our country. They want to take advantage of the chaos overwhelming our border.

Our border has become a hotbed of criminal activity, especially of trafficking helpless women and children.

Last month, I came before you to address the deadly effects of drug trafficking across our border on American citizens. But the out-of- control situation at our border puts migrants in danger too. The effect of these numbers on children is just heartbreaking.

And 2022 beat the record for the number of unaccompanied migrant children encountered by Border Patrol, an overwhelming 152,057. The State Department reported this year that child sex tourism is expanding in the border cities of Mexico.

The Biden administration claims that its laissez-faire border policies stem from valuing immigrants, but the choices it has made have worsened conditions for those trying to migrate to the United States.

On his first day in office, President Biden ended the national emergency declaration at the border, halted construction on the border wall, and scaled back ICE enforcement. The very next month, the President canceled the Trump administration's asylum procedures, a move that aggravated the rush at the border. President Biden reinstated wide-scale catch-and-release practices, requiring border officials to release unprocessed migrants into our country while they await court hearings.

Since President Biden's inauguration, 4.5 million people have arrived at our border. Last week, the President of the National Border Patrol Council told me he estimates that 7 million more migrants will arrive by the time Biden's term ends.

Folks, that would mean a total of 11 million migrant encounters during the Biden administration. That number is larger than the population of 43 of the States in our Union.

Despite the damage that the President has done at the border, he dedicated a total of 1 minute out of last week's 75-minute State of the Union Address to discussing immigration--1 minute. President Biden didn't even present any substantive solutions to our border problems.

This administration is unable to manage the surges of immigrants it has welcomed to our border, so the President has cut corners left and right. Biden officials have weakened vital safety measures, including waiving certain background check requirements for the adult sponsors of unaccompanied migrant children. People entrusted with the care of unaccompanied children no longer have to undergo public record and sex offender registry checks, all in the interest of moving migrants into our country and out of Federal custody more quickly. The Department of Health and Human Services also has no way to track these children or ensure their well-being after they are placed with sponsors. The President's indifference to border safety and security means that abusers and traffickers have easy access to helpless kids.

From the very beginning, President Biden's campaign promises to loosen border security rallied waves of migrants to make that treacherous trip north. Biden promised hope, but let's be clear--the reality is that this journey is one of suffering, whether it is forced labor, sex trafficking, or death. It has encouraged more criminals to take advantage of that frenzy.

The Biden administration has yet to resecure the border, and it has yet to form a serious plan to remedy the problems it has created. It has taken 2 full years for the administration to produce what I think is a silly smartphone app, funded by your taxpayer dollars, to help migrants schedule their crossing times--schedule their crossing times. That is barely a bandaid for the massive gash that is our southern border.

But while the President ignores this humanitarian crisis, my colleagues and I want to fix it. We can address the disaster at the border by providing our dedicated Border Patrol agents with more resources and more time to process migrants, equipping them to do their jobs thoroughly. We need to put up barriers against sex trafficking and drug trafficking by ending catch-and-release and imposing penalties on those who skip out on their immigration hearings.

President Biden called on us as a nation last week to embrace civility over chaos. He should take his own advice and help us to stabilize the chaos at the border. The administration must finally open its eyes to this border crisis, and the Senate must implement real, lasting solutions for the sake of migrants, for the sake of legal immigrants, and for the sake of American citizens.

As I have said before, we are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. Failure to enforce them doesn't help anyone. Well, it doesn't help anyone except predators looking for a chance to manipulate the chaos. Security will benefit those on both sides of our border.

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