End the Border Catastrophe Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Alabama for yielding. The gentlewoman is right, in part, in that we are here for two reasons. Yes, this bill will not become law--there is no question about that-- and it will not become law for two reasons.

The first reason is that our Democratic colleagues refuse to address the crisis at the border, and in fact, want to perpetuate it, encourage it, and cause more of it. The second reason it is not going to become law is because Republicans continue to campaign on securing the border and then refuse to use any leverage to actually secure the border. That is the reason; those two reasons right there.

That is why this will not become law. Let's be very clear with what we are dealing with here right now. We know the numbers. We can talk about the numbers, the 7 million that have been released into the country, the 2 million plus got-aways, the extent to which we have had a thousand pounds of fentanyl pouring across our border every month for the last 6 months, the 24,000 Chinese nationals, the 85 percent of whom are adult single individuals that have come across this border since October 1, which is more than the entirety of fiscal year 2023, and certainly more than the 381 in the last year when the policies of President Trump were in place

The reality is that we are being put in danger. The American people are getting killed. Laken Riley is dead because of policies of the Biden administration, specifically the parole policies that release people into our country to kill Americans.

That is what has been happening. Yet, we are going to do nothing about it. We have legislation right now that would fix the problem in significant part. H.R. 2, we passed it a year ago. It is a great bill. I support the bill. I support what is in it. It changes the policies, frankly policies that President Obama and Jeh Johnson asked us to change, like TVPRA and Flores. It changes the policies of abuse of parole and asylum by this administration.

We should get it signed into law. The only way to force Democrats to do it is to use leverage, and we are not going to. Despite the fact that the Speaker of the House repeatedly has said in January at the border, a trip I didn't take because I knew full well what would happen, it would be a show trip. That is exactly the truth. If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin with defending America's national security.

We wanted to get the border closed and secured first. He said in a letter in December, supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our Nation's border security laws. Well, here we are today with a sham vote. Let me be very clear, the people saying that we stopped H.R. 2 in the Rules Committee and didn't allow it to get connected to or allowed to be attached to the Ukraine bill, they are lying. That is not true. It was a separate rule, a separate vote designed as cover, cover for Republicans to try to vote for a Ukraine funding bill without securing the border of the United States. Yes, I do agree with that point, that is the truth.

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