Secure the Border Act of 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. IVEY. Mr. Speaker, I will support legislation that fairly and appropriately addresses the serious shortcomings in our country's immigration laws, but, unfortunately, H.R. 2 is not that bill.

H.R. 2 is a false promise to the extreme Republican base. The Senate has already made it clear that this bill is dead on arrival. But even if the bill somehow passed, it does not provide funding to build a wall, nor hire more Border Patrol officers, nor retain those we already have.

A cornerstone of H.R. 2, and its first major provision, is a return to Donald Trump's quest to build a wall along our southern border. But the Republican bill doesn't even provide the money to pay for it.

The bill calls for a wall that is at least 900 miles long, but it would not stop the flow of fentanyl. The Sinaloa cartel in Mexico routinely drives by the wall that is already there, flies over the wall, and tunnels underneath it, as we learned during the DOJ takedown of the Sinaloa cartel a few weeks ago.

The wall would also be a financial disaster. H.R. 2 presumes that the wall would be funded with unspent money that has been allocated for the wall. But former President Trump siphoned away much of the unspent funds for the wall from other departments and the programs for those funds were eventually returned to them.

According to the CBO's analysis, another 160 miles of the wall would have to be built to reach the 900-mile mandate that is in the bill. In estimating these costs, CBO wrote: ``CBO estimates an average cost per mile of $25 million. . . . CBO expects that previously appropriated amounts could cover the cost of 80 miles of construction; thus, CBP would need an additional $2 billion to complete the other 80 miles.''

On top of that, the Republicans just announced that they proposed a 22 percent cut across the board for much of the government, including DHS.

In March, I joined my colleagues on a visit to the southern border. We met with Customs and Border Patrol officers. The border officers were unanimous in the need for more resources, more agents, and more technology. We took their comments to heart.

During the markup, Democrats sought to provide more immigration judges, more processing centers that combined Federal, State, and local resources, but those amendments were also voted down by Republicans.

Democrats also sought to ensure that Border Patrol officers were paid according to the established civil pay scale; expand technology to x- ray trucks at the border, where over 90 percent of the fentanyl enters the United States; boost the quantity and quality of drones used by our officers to cut the cartel's 17-1 advantage in drones they now use to traffic drugs and other contraband; and add 1,700 Border Patrol officers to manage the border and intercept the flow of illegal drugs, such as fentanyl.

But all of these amendments were rejected by our Republican colleagues.

Worse still, the Republican bill prohibits NGOs, like the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army, from providing essential goods and services to migrants who desperately need them.

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Mr. IVEY. Mr. Speaker, this is why many groups have written letters of opposition to H.R. 2, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the AFL-CIO, Catholic Charities, and 136 humanitarian aid organizations who signed a joint letter of opposition.

For example, the bishop of El Paso and the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration wrote: ``As drafted, these provisions could even be interpreted to prevent schools, houses of worship, and other organizations from qualifying for the Nonprofit Security Grant program amid a rise in violent attacks on those places.''

The bishop also noted that DHS's ability to rescue persons encountered in the desert in life-threatening circumstances and process unaccompanied children, victims of trafficking, victims of torture, and others, who even under this bill's terms would warrant such processing, could be precluded.

Mr. Speaker, for these and many other reasons, I thoroughly oppose H.R. 2.

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