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Floor Speech
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, for all of its flaws, the supplemental request the Biden administration submitted to Congress did correctly identify four especially urgent national security priorities: defeating Russian invasion in Europe, countering Iran-backed terror in the Middle East, deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, and securing America's southern border.
Late last week, President Biden said he was willing to make ``significant compromises'' on Republican policy changes designed to restore real border security.
And across the country, elected Democrats are emphasizing just how urgent this progress is. The Governor of Arizona reported over the weekend that her State is ``at a breaking point'' and that it needs Washington to ``step up, do its job, and bring security and order to our border.'' She is a Democrat.
At the frontlines of the crisis that has unfolded on President Biden's watch, the mayor of Nogales, AZ, put it this way:
I think it's time to say enough is enough. . . . I'm a Democrat, a registered Democrat, but I run this city as a human being.
I know many of my colleagues here in the Senate share that frustration. Many of them recognize the urgency of the situation. Just over the weekend, in the time since Senator Lankford presented Senate Democrats with this latest opportunity to help fix America's broken asylum and parole system, the crisis at the southern border has actually gotten worse.
With average daily border crossings near 10,000--10,000--CBP is now saying it is releasing 6,600 illegal aliens into the interior every single day. The backlog of asylum cases sits at 3 million--3 million-- and counting. And officials have reported arrivals from more than 150 countries just since October 1.
This is what a crisis looks like. This is what the Democratic leader spent last week insisting was ``extraneous'' to America's national security.
Well, when it comes to keeping America safe, border security is not a side show; it is ground zero.
Senate Republicans have no more spare time to explain this basic reality. We cannot convince anyone who doesn't want to acknowledge the glaring facts on the ground. The Senate has to act.
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