Crisis At the Border
Floor Speech
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Mr. CISCOMANI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address something that I keep hearing from my constituents, and quite frankly, is the top issue on people's minds all across the entire country: The situation at the border.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have several Members join me for this Special Order hour to speak about this issue.
Mr. Speaker, whatever angle you look at this, this is something that is considered a crisis.
Whether you are looking at the national security implications; whether you are looking at the lack of order at the actual border; whether you are looking at what our agents in our offices are going through; whether you look at the disrespect for the rule of law and the abuse in the asylum system; whether you look also at the humanitarian crisis and what women and children are going through as they are getting trafficked--as we all know, the report of missing children within the care of the State, over 85,000--there is no upside to this crisis. There doesn't seem to be a turnaround of this situation either.
Mr. Speaker, I will be addressing my colleagues in the House today quite extensively about this issue because it is, again, something that has been top of mind for us.
It is not a new subject. It is not a new issue. It is something that we have seen continue to get worse and worse as the months and the weeks, and actually the years, have gone by. This administration has lost complete control, if at any point they had any, of the border.
This wasn't the case just 2\1/2\, 3 years ago. So when we talk about the policies that can actually work, we are not talking about in theory. We are not imagining that this could work. We actually can point to successes that we had as a country in controlling the situation at the border.
Now, I will be talking about this in a little bit as well, but I am an immigrant myself. I have gone through the process, and I will be digging a little deeper on that. I can tell you, having gone through this process, I understand how broke the system is and how much improvement it needs in a lot of areas.
However, abusing the system the way it has been abused is not good for anyone. It is not good for our country, not good for the order of our country, and not good for the migrants themselves either.
It is also not good for those that have been waiting in line to have their turn at this shot of the American Dream that I have enjoyed. I want many others to do so as well, as they follow the system that we have put in place that--I will repeat--needs fixing and improving.
However, the numbers that we are seeing at the border, the data on the crime and the crossings, are unprecedented, as the chief of the Tucson sector, which is now the busiest sector in terms of encounters in the entire country, described it not too long ago.
He said: Before I called it unprecedented. Now I don't have an adjective to describe what the situation is now.
Mr. Speaker, just about 10 days ago when the week closed, it was reported that 17,500 encounters had happened in the Tucson sector alone. Before a couple thousand a week was an alarming number, and even borderline crisis, now we are looking at 3,000 or so a day on some days.
These are unsustainable numbers, and it is not trending in the right direction.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have some of my colleagues join me in addressing this topic on today's Special Order.
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Mr. CISCOMANI. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend being here and speaking so passionately and also from experience on this, both personally and professionally, as we just heard.
This is exactly what the issue here is. It is the need for partnership and bipartisanship on this issue. This is not a partisan issue. I think that we can all see that. Some have tried to make it a partisan issue, and it is really not.
What Mr. Rutherford just explained is exactly the nature of the problem. Both sides should be equally concerned about this issue, both sides of the aisle.
I know that is for sure the case at home. At home, you don't see partisan division around this issue. I hear from mayors that are Democrats and mayors that are Republicans. I hear from county supervisors that are Republicans and county supervisors that are Democrats. They are both equally concerned with the situation because we are dealing with it on the ground.
That is exactly why, in my district in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District, we get it. We know what the solutions are. That is an enforcement of the current laws, and as was described, the measures in H.R. 2 that need to be adopted.
These are the kind of policy changes that we need. It is not just all about resources. Resources are definitely a part of the solution, but resources without the proper policy changes and the proper policy enforcement will be an incomplete solution to the problem.
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Mr. CISCOMANI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Valadao for his words.
Obviously, California is a border State as well, but we heard from Florida and Arizona. This is a top issue. As I was mentioning at the beginning of my remarks, this is the number one issue of our constituents and it should be. This is something that is impacting us every day, and it is something that has been getting worse and worse.
It is not just in my district. My district, the Sixth Congressional District, is a border district, and we know that is obviously impacted. There are other border areas, even outside of my district, where migrants are being released on a daily basis, up in the hundreds. This is something that alarms the community and is something that needs to be fixed.
Let's understand something. Arizona, like Texas and California, have clearly experienced living and breathing and existing and collaborating and prospering with our neighbors to the south. This is something that is part of our culture, part of who we are.
Although the border has never been perfect, and no one is claiming that it has been, it has never been as open as it is today and has never been described as a crisis at the level that it is now.
That is why it is concerning to all of us living there, because we have seen it deteriorate and get worse by the day. In the last 2 years, we have seen examples of records broken that we never thought would be broken in terms of apprehensions and also the amount of drugs coming in, specifically through our ports of entry.
When the Biden administration has gotten involved, like they did about 10 days ago, it was to close a port of entry. Well, the results of closing that port of entry have been nonpositive ones, given that the legal traffic has stopped while the illegal traffic continues to not only happen but increase while people are no longer able to cross for legal purposes. That is a problem, and that is another sign of the administration missing the mark on this.
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Mr. CISCOMANI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Biggs for his words and his work on this.
As we close today's session, I will reemphasize something that I said at the beginning. This crisis, as much as we talk about this, and it is absolutely true on the national security side, on the risk, and all the issues that I mentioned, I absolutely believe that the Biden administration has utterly failed. We square up the responsibility for failing at the border on the President and his team, for sure.
This is also something that is a humanitarian crisis. We have children who are being trafficked. In a lot of cases, as described, they are recycled through when they cross. They get sent back and then keep getting recycled through.
They are abusing the laws that protect adults and treat them differently when they are carrying with them children, minors, specifically tender age children, which would be 12 and under.
These issues are real. The New York Times published a story where they reported that there were over 85,000 minors missing in our country who had been smuggled into the United States. There was no way to track them. The Federal Government had lost track of them.
Mr. Speaker, I am a dad of six. I am an immigrant myself. When I look at that, it angers me. As a father, it angers me. As an immigrant, it angers me. There is no reason that our government should have lost track of these children. This crisis affects kids and women and everyone being trafficked, as well.
Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to thank our Border Patrol agents who have continually put their lives on the line--the different organizations and, obviously, the rank and file, those men and women who are on the front line, the officers and everyone involved in this job. It is a thankless job.
They are seeing the worst impact ever with the least support that they have ever had. We need to make sure that we have their backs. I want them to know that we have their backs.
One of the last things that I want to say is that this is not going to be a complaining session. This is not a session where we highlight and add light to the failures of the administration and complain about that. That is something that we need to be stronger on and to voice.
I have been offering solutions. We have been offering solutions. We have been writing letters to the Secretary, demanding answers for the closure of the port of entry, working on a bipartisan basis, and calling the National Guard to the border so they can be activated by this administration. We have also offered different bills that would address the criminal aspect of what is happening at the border.
I believe we need to secure our border now. The time is now to do that. I also agree that immigration reform is needed. Asylum process updating is needed, as well. All this can be done and should be done. This should be the number one priority that we have.
Mr. Speaker, I am committed to making that happen in my time here in Congress. In my first year, this continues to be my issue.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for listening. I thank my colleagues for participating. I thank my colleagues for a partnership to protect the border, protect our communities, and make sure that everyone has a shot at the American Dream, the way that our system has been created for people to do so.
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