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Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, as this body continues to discuss the need for a national security supplemental, I rise today to discuss the important elements that need to be included in this supplemental and to, once again, emphasize the growing demands for increased border security in our country.

For a nation as powerful and as impactful as ours, there are obligations that we inherently have to meet, both to ourselves and our allies. At the center of these obligations rests defending our homeland. This security is imperative to the sovereignty of our Nation, with our other obligation being to support our allies abroad as they face hostilities. We must realize that these two priorities are deeply woven together. We cannot achieve national security as a whole without securing our own borders. In fact, President Biden's own national defense strategy reflects this very sentiment, citing protection of the homeland as the No. 1 defense priority.

It is essential that border security remains one of our four pillars that need to be included in any national security supplemental that is approved by this Congress. In order to properly secure and defend our allies, we must properly secure and defend our own Nation at the same time.

As I have said on the floor many times, Madam President, with you presiding--I have said many times that there is no doubt that we currently live in a time of heightened national security concern. Not only is this concern felt around the globe but in almost every State and community in our own country because of this crisis at the border.

Because of this crisis at the border, we see chaos. We see it on our news channels every evening. We see the monthly records of illegal crossings--as a matter of fact, I think several days ago, the highest daily number. We see how those who are truly seeking asylum are being disadvantaged by the cartels and smugglers who are playing the system.

It is obvious that the policies which have led to this crisis need to be addressed, and they need to be changed and reformed.

I often talk about American leadership and our historic ability to respond with strength in times of crisis. Well, this is a time of crisis, and our porous southern border is something we desperately need to act upon.

It is not lost on me or on my Republican colleagues, the urgency to address the four central national security emergencies of our time. Ukraine is facing an unjust and unprovoked ground war perpetrated by Russia. Our ally and friend Israel is under attack by terrorists who are holding women and children hostage. The recounting that we have heard of the sexual violence against the women in Israel on October 7 is appalling. Our allies in the Indo-Pacific face heightened concern as rival nations increase their aggression. Right here in the United States, we are facing the worst border crisis in our Nation's history.

These four areas are directly tied together. Ukraine's ability to defend itself and stave off Russian aggression relates directly to the security of Taiwan and the increased posture of China. The terrorist attacks perpetrated on Israel have led to attacks on our own U.S. military bases and ships, as well as the alarming rise--alarming rise-- of anti-Semitism that we are seeing in our own country.

Nations directly opposed to the United States--they are opposed to our values, our way of life--are building an uneasy level of camaraderie between one another. You can guarantee that these nations are watching our self-created security crisis at our border and waiting to see when we will finally wake up and react. Our country must take notice of this.

The supplemental text before us does not make any policy changes but instead just throws more money--more money--at a broken system. That is not a solution. It doesn't address the actual policies that are fueling this situation.

The changes in border policy that my party seeks are not ``partisan and extreme measures,'' as the Democrat leader would lead you to assume, but, rather, they are substantive solutions that address the national security threats that we are now facing.

We encountered a sixfold increase of individuals on our Terror Watchlist just in the past year coming to the southern border. Half of the illegal encounters now on our border are not from Mexico or the Northern Triangle of Central America. Drugs that are made on the other side of the world are smuggled into our country daily, with the goal of sowing destruction and sorrow. Unfortunately, that is having success. We do not know who or what is entering our borders, and that cannot be a risk we are willing to take.

The truth of the matter is, this doesn't need to be a partisan issue, and I know we have colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are trying to work through this. We are not just talking about funding but, rather, changes that ensure that those who enter our country are coming through legal channels and that they are properly vetted. It sounds pretty simple to me--both things that we should all agree are necessary aspects of a working immigration system. But, instead, this administration, the Biden administration, has incentivized abuses of our asylum laws that have led to the greatest border crisis in our Nation's history. It is an open border. It is catch-and-release. This, in turn, has put our national security at risk.

This is not an issue that the Republicans have brought up in the eleventh hour of a negotiation but, rather, something that we have continued to highlight the entire time President Biden has been in the White House.

Members of Congress cannot continue to ignore the deep ties between the sovereignty of the United States and the sovereignty of our allies abroad. The supplemental we have been discussing for weeks is about helping our allies, but also, why is that important? Because we have to advance our own interests at the same time, and the border is a big part of our own interests. This is not a time to play games; instead, it is time to meet the challenges of the moment. While others refuse to accept the reality of the landscape we face, Republicans remain at the table.

For too long--for too long--we have been on the floor voting on radical nominations to advance the Biden administration's agenda instead of on legislation needed to help solve many of the problems I have described, including border security and our weakened defense industrial base and, I would add as a member of the Appropriations Committee, our appropriations bills, which have been teed up since July, and the leader has refused to put them on the floor. All that serves to do is waste time we simply do not have.

We must seek agreements that address our concerns, that provide necessary relief, that strengthen our security, and that will move the interests of the United States forward. I ask my colleagues in this Chamber to recognize that.

The time to invest in the national security of the United States and our allies abroad is now.

I see my fellow Senator from Nebraska here to talk about similar subjects.

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