Local Impact of the National Border Crisis

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROSE. Madam Speaker, about 20 miles outside my district, in Franklin, Tennessee, a 63-year-old is facing some of the worst charges on the books, including assault and rape. It breaks my heart to say these crimes involved children as young as 9 years old. Investigators have identified several victims, but they are asking more to come forward as some of these crimes go back more than a decade. Police say the accused predator targeted playgrounds and lured young boys under the guise that he was a soccer coach recruiting for his team.

Days after this news broke, families learned the man accused of violating their community, their children, had lived there for 20 years but had no business being there. The accused man is an illegal immigrant.

I signed a letter, joined by Members of the Tennessee delegation, led by Senator Marsha Blackburn, asking the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas several questions, including why this man was able to go under the radar for so long.

This is a very grim example of the very real consequences open border policies are having on State after State, county after county, community after community.

Nearly 20,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized at the border since this fiscal year started last October. That is already more than last fiscal year's total, and we still have more than 2 months left in this one. Furthermore, since October 1, Customs and Border Protection officials have caught more than 125 people trying to cross the southern border who are on the terrorist watch list.

No one in this body should glaze over a number like that. Let me repeat: 125 possible terrorists have tried to enter our country since last October. That is just the number we know about. That is more than fiscal years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 combined. How many, we might ask, have managed to cross that we don't know about?

We know, for example, that 1.5 million illegal immigrants have successfully evaded law enforcement since this administration took over the border. How many of that 1.5 million were, in fact, terrorists? How many were smuggling drugs that will kill our young people? How many are sexual offenders who will abuse our children?

Yet, in May, the Biden administration announced it would be releasing a flood of immigrants into the United States with no way of keeping track of them. Instead of getting a grip on this humanitarian and national security crisis, this President and his administration have been busy fighting title 42 and the Trump-era remain in Mexico policy. To be fair, the President did make his first-ever trip to the border, in his 50-year political career, in January.

As we continue to see records being broken, crime soaring, fentanyl popping up in all corners of our country and taking the lives of an entire generation of young people, overdose deaths rising, Madam Speaker, I rise today to once again implore President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas to do their constitutional duty and secure our southern border.

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