Secure the Border Act of 2023
Floor Speech
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Mr. SELF. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023, because it does just that. It secures the border.
I find the comments from across the aisle rich from the very Members of the party who caused the situation that our citizens are seeing on the border today.
The year before the Biden administration took control of the border, CBP reported roughly 400,000 illegal border crossings. During President Biden's first year in office, that number skyrocketed to 1.7 million. Last year, it rose to 2.8 million. I am not sure whether that is arithmetic or logarithmic, but it is huge.
Unlike many in this Chamber, I have visited multiple locations across the Texas border with Mexico. I saw four unaccompanied boys 8 to 10 years old.
What was going to happen to them?
I saw rafts making multiple trips underneath the very vision of a Border Patrol location. People were helping the illegal immigrants out of the rafts and up the little cliff that we had there to include a 1- month-old baby who had been born in Mexico.
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, from being on the ground in south Texas that there is no coordinated effort to stop the flow of illegal opioids like fentanyl that kills nearly 300 Americans every day. There is no coordinated effort to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, many of whom are being trafficked as sex slaves or cheap labor.
Human trafficking has now surpassed drug trafficking as the profit center for the cartels. We have indentured servanthood in this Nation today--slavery by any other name.
Earlier this year, I introduced the EL CHAPO Act which allows us to use the billions of dollars' worth of assets seized from cartel members like El Chapo to build the wall. Our southern border is an unmitigated disaster, and without this bill, the ensuing chaos is going to get worse.
Mr. Speaker, I implore Members to support H.R. 2.
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