Pregnancy Centers

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today are two of my colleagues from my office: DJ Sandoval, who is to my right; and Mr. Wesley Davis, who is in the back. They do an extraordinary job for the people of Louisiana and the American people.

You can cut the irony--the cynical might say ``the hypocrisy''; I would rather say ``the irony''--you can cut the irony with a knife. After years of presenting themselves as ``sanctuary cities,'' officials--many of them well-intentioned--throughout our country learned in 2023 that the crisis at our southern border is not just a crisis for Southern States like Texas and Arizona and even my State; it is an American crisis.

Today, President Biden's failed border policies have wreaked havoc in every single corner of the United States, including my State, Louisiana. According to one estimate--and it is not the only estimate, but I think this is a very telling estimate--Louisianans pay an additional $4,613 a migrant. That is about $604 million a year in State taxes because of illegal immigration.

People in Louisiana support legal immigration, just like they support the rule of law, but they do not support illegal immigration. It is not just the money. It is a moral issue for them. It is a constitutional issue--as I said, the rule of law--but it is a money issue as well. My people pay 4,613 bucks per illegal migrant. My people have to come out of pocket $604 million a year to deal with President Biden's illegal immigration. That is happening at a time when Louisiana families are also having to come out of pocket an extra $800 a month to deal with inflation--$840 a month just to deal with inflation. So that $604 million that we spend to deal with illegal immigration--not legal but illegal immigration--could provide a lot of relief to the families in my State who have to sell blood plasma in order to go to the grocery store.

Sanctuary cities, to their credit, are finally starting to understand what Louisianans have figured out for a long time.

In New York City, for example--and I love New York City. I think it is one of the most extraordinary cities in the world, maybe the most extraordinary. I love it. It breaks my heart to see what is happening there. In New York City, elected officials just recently had to force thousands of students to stay home--they couldn't go to school--so that thousands of migrants, illegal migrants the Biden administration allowed into the country, could have a place to stay. I mean, what have we come to? We are having to send kids home--so they can't learn--so that folks who have come to our country illegally can have a place to stay.

In Massachusetts, Governor Healey asked residents to ``consider hosting'' migrant families in their homes because many shelters have reached capacity.

Several suburban cities--Chicago recently voted to restrict buses from unloading illegal migrants in their cities. These suburban areas are outside of Chicago.

Because the American people are compassionate people, we don't want people to starve to death or to die in the snow from hyperthermia, but at the same time, you don't get a free lunch. There is no free lunch, and you don't get one now. All of this costs money.

We have, as you know, Mr. President, as many as 12,000 migrants arriving at the southern border each day. Secretary Mayorkas confirmed that the Biden administration admits more than 85 percent of these migrants into our country. Since President Biden has been President, we have had 8.6 million people that we know of come into our country illegally. That is four Nebraskas--four Nebraskas.

No city in America--I don't care how well run or how mismanaged--can handle the massive influx of illegal migrants the Biden administration continues to release into America. That is just a fact. Taxpayers, students, shelter providers, hotel customers, and law enforcement officials in America are suffering because of these bad policies. They have to deal it. The White House doesn't have to deal with it; the people on our frontlines do.

As you can tell, I am very concerned about the burden President Biden's policies have placed on cities throughout the country, but I want to focus today on a subset of that really terrible problem, and that is the national security threat--the national security threat-- that this problem poses to every American, including my people in Louisiana.

President Biden's border policies are not just a human rights disaster, although they certainly are, but his policies have also provided the perfect cover--the perfect cover--for terrorist sympathizers, for child sex offenders, and for cartel associates to enter the country illegally. All you have to do is mix in because nobody is checking anybody.

The numbers that I am about to give you will make you throw up. Border Patrol apprehended 169 members on the FBI's Terrorist Watchlist attempting to cross the southern border illegally in 2023 alone--169. It only takes one terrorist. That is more than 10 times the number of potential terrorists Border Patrol detained in the 4 years before President Biden took office. That is just a fact.

The men and women who earn their spot on the FBI's Terror List do so by associating with groups that hate America. They hate our values. They hate our country. They hate our people. Many of them want to kill us and drink our blood out of a boot. Yet they are coming across the southern border.

These terrorist sympathizers--in some cases, terrorists--they may be evil, but they are not stupid. They know they can blend into the masses at the border and come in unnoticed.

For example, CNN reported a few months ago that someone who had worked as an ``independent contractor'' for ISIS helped smuggle more than a dozen people from Uzbekistan to our border. Overwhelmed officials at our border process each migrant's asylum claim without triggering a single red flag, not a single red flag, and then they release the whole group--every one of them--into the United States to live among innocent American citizens while they wait for their immigration court dates, which takes 4 years. Do you think even after 4 years they are going to show up for their court date?

The FBI finally uncovered the problem. They finally uncovered the ties to ISIS after border officials released the group into the country. Thank the Lord that the FBI caught the mistake and caught what happened. It set off a mad search, of course, trying to track down all these individuals.

The men and women of ISIS, I don't need to tell you, Mr. President, are some of the most dangerous people on Earth. I am not sure they are human. They have bloodstains under their fingernails. Americans, unfortunately, will remember that ISIS gleefully--gleefully--beheaded our citizens.

The terrorist sympathizers on the FBI Watchlist certainly pose a threat to innocent Americans in Louisiana and other States, but at least we know a little bit about them. We know they hope to bring Americans harm, and we have some tools to track them. Thank goodness for that. My stomach turns, though, when I consider the thousands of migrants we know nothing about--we don't even know they have come in-- who hail from countries with millions of people who hate us. Customs and Border Protection calls these people ``special interest aliens.'' That is not my term; that is the term that CPB uses.

In the past 2 years, Border Patrol has encountered 6,386 Afghans, 659 Iranians, and 538 Syrians, all trying to enter the country illegally. Border Patrol also apprehended more than 24,000 Chinese nationals in fiscal year 2023 alone. That is more Chinese immigrants than they caught in the past 10 years combined.

(Mr. MARKEY assumed the Chair.)

I am not saying these are all bad people. I am not saying that. I don't doubt that some of these ``special interest aliens,'' as the authorities call them, may have good intentions, may want to live the American dream. But you would be a fool--you would be a fool--to think that men like President Xi Jinping of China and the Ayatollah of Iran wouldn't exploit--happily, enthusiastically--President Biden's catch- and-release playbook to bring pain and terror to the American people.

I mean, after all, we know what Mexico's cartels have done. They have been exploiting our open border to terrorize Americans for years. Their weapon of choice is fentanyl. The cartels kill tens of thousands of U.S. citizens per year by working with China to flood our communities with fentanyl. That fentanyl comes from China, and it comes from Mexico.

Louisiana lost more than 1,300 people--1,300 loved ones--to fentanyl poisoning in 2022 alone. The narco-terrorists flood our communities with poison and fill their coffers with as much as $1 billion a year. And that fentanyl comes--the precursor chemicals come from China, and the fentanyl comes from Mexico.

And the Mexican politicians know it is going on, and they let it happen. If you took Mexico's cartels and turned them upside down and shook them, hundreds of Mexican politicians would fall out of their pockets. And President Biden does nothing--zero, zilch, nada.

In addition to fentanyl, the cartels make billions running--they run human trafficking rings. They steer the unvetted migrants to America, including many of the caravans we have seen in recent months, right into the United States.

And don't think these cartels are social workers. Don't think these cartels are small businesspeople who want to make sure people get a good service for their money. These cartels--these members--they put the migrants through hell as they march them across the southern border.

Predators sexually assault an estimated four out of five women. It is unsurprising, then, that many of the male migrants the cartels usher to the border are also known sex offenders. In just 2 months--just 2 months--Border Patrol agents in Texas caught 21 known child predators. In 2 months, in one State, Border Patrol caught 21 known child predators attempting to enter this country illegally. Imagine how many we don't know about. And Border Patrol apprehended 284 sex offenders in fiscal year 2023 alone.

The southern border is an open, bleeding wound. Everyone suffers except the cartels. They make billions. And that is why I helped introduce the NARCOS Act earlier this year. Our bill, the NARCOS Act, would designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and allow U.S. prosecutors to arrest those in charge.

President Biden's border policies have already contributed to the deaths of too many Americans and too many Louisianans. It gives me no joy to say that. There are some things beyond politics. We can do better. We deserve better. The American people ask for better, but they keep getting worse.

In March, for example, a cartel smuggler struck and killed a 71-year- old American grandmother and her 7-year-old granddaughter after he crashed his vehicle while trying to evade law enforcement in Texas. This illegal migrant also killed 2 of the 11 migrants he was smuggling in the back of his truck.

Just last week, an illegal migrant with four prior deportations--that is right, four. Four times he came in, he got caught, he was sent back. He came in, got caught, and was sent back four times, and somehow reentered the United States only to drive drunk and kill a mother and her son in Colorado. This man had a very lengthy criminal record of not just deportations but also alcohol abuse and reckless driving.

An official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said this man had ``no regard for immigration law''--none. Yet he was able to get back into our country, drive drunk, and kill two innocent people. I am not surprised he has no regard for immigration law. ``Legal immigration and legal immigration laws are for suckers'' is the attitude of the people coming across the border. Why be vetted? Why wait? Why fill out the paperwork when President Biden and Vice President Harris will just let you walk across?

I mean, how is this possible? Why can't this administration see the threat that the southern border--an open, bleeding wound--poses to the American people?

I sure don't blame our overworked Border Patrol agents. I have been down there to the southern border. I have talked to them. I know that our agents are doing the very best they possibly can. But their work goes to waste, folks, when President Biden refuses to address the failed policies that have created this mess.

The southern border is a cesspool of human suffering. That is just the fact. It is a national embarrassment. It is the biggest national security threat our country faces, and that is saying something. People in my State do not understand the President's commitment to keeping the border open to criminals, to sex traffickers, to drug dealers; but they do suffer because of his decisions.

Now, I want to end this way, Mr. President. I think I have made my point. The American people support legal immigration. I do. I know the Presiding Officer does. I don't know this year's numbers, but last year we admitted about a million people into our country legally, our world's neighbors. This is the greatest country in all of human history, and the whole world knows it.

When is the last time you heard of somebody trying to sneak into China? They want to come to America because we are the land of opportunity and we care about our fellow human beings, whether they are born in the United States or not.

Sometimes people say: Oh, the American people are selfish. I get a little angry when they say that. In other countries, they will let their neighbors die in a ditch--not in America. In our country, when you are homeless, we will house you. When you are hungry, we will feed you. When you are too poor to be sick, we will pay for your doctor.

And we do welcome our world's neighbors to come in legally, and I get upset when some of my colleagues--not all of them, but some people-- say: Well, Kennedy, you are racist because vetting people at the border is racist.

No, it is not, Mr. President. It is prudent.

I read this somewhere once--and I will end on this point--and it made great sense to me: The American people are not racist, and they are not xenophobic, and they are proud that people want to come to their country. But they want to know who is coming in and going out.

The American people see the southern border like they see the front door of their home. Most Americans lock their front door at night. They don't do that because they hate everybody on the outside. Most Americans lock their front door at night because they love the people on the inside, and they just want to know who is coming in and out of their home.

And that is all the American people want in terms of immigration. They support legal immigration, but they want people to be properly vetted, and they want to know who is coming in and out of their country.

And, for the life of me, I don't--I don't hate anybody, Mr. President. I don't. I certainly don't hate the President, but I do not understand his policy on the border. I just don't. I hear him talk to us a lot about democracy and the rule of law. And, boy, that is important. There is not a single person in this body who doesn't believe in democracy and have respect for the rule of law. But the legal immigration laws don't just have an asterisk by them.

Now, we could secure this border. We could secure it, I think, in 6 weeks. Here is what we need to do. I am not even sure it would take legislation. There are laws on the books right now; it is a fact. If you try to sneak into our country illegally and you get caught, you are supposed to be immediately deported. We need to enforce the law.

No. 2, if you claim asylum under the 1951 U.N. resolution that we agreed to, you are entitled to have your asylum claim heard. But 70 percent of asylum claims fail. Once your asylum claim fails, you are supposed to be immediately deported. President Biden is deporting none of those people.

No. 3, we need the ``Remain in Mexico'' program. It doesn't mean that people claiming asylum won't get their day in court. They just need to remain at home or remain in Mexico until their day in court comes.

No. 4, the whole purpose of our asylum policy is to keep people from being persecuted politically. That means, if you feel unsafe in your country, you can go to another country. But the law says--the U.N. resolution and treaty to which we agreed says--if you feel like you will be prosecuted illegally in your own country, then you have to seek safety in the first safe country that you go into. That is not, for about 90 percent of our migrants, the United States.

If we had a safe third country policy, which President Biden can do like that--he could do it; he could do it by 6 o'clock--that would solve about 70 to 90 percent of our problem. And for the life of me, Mr. President, I don't understand why.

But I know this: We don't have the slightest idea who these millions and millions of people are, and it only takes one. It only takes one terrorist.

I appreciate your patience.

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