End the Border Catastrophe Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, for years now, this House Republican majority--and before we were a majority--has been calling on President Biden to secure America's border. We have been trying to engage President Biden in a negotiation to fix the problem.

We put together legislation, and H.R. 2 has been mentioned by many, many people, the strongest border security bill that has passed Congress. It has been over in the Senate since last year, and they continue to ignore it because they have chosen to ignore the problem.

You saw it play out just days ago in the Senate when we sent over Articles of Impeachment for Secretary Mayorkas, who has failed miserably in his job of protecting America's homeland. That is his job. He is the Homeland Security Secretary, and you have seen him here on Capitol Hill testifying that our border is secure. It would be laughable if it wasn't so insulting to millions of Americans who know that is a lie.

Our border is not secure. In fact, since Joe Biden took office and took actions to open up our border, we have seen millions come across. Is it 8 million? Is it 10 million? The number we know is at least that high, if not higher.

We know people on the terrorist watch list have come into our country because we have caught some of them, but we haven't caught all of them.

We have seen thousands of Chinese nationals of military age coming into our country. Do you think they are coming in here to help be a part of the American Dream or coming to undermine it?

We know the answer to that question, too, which is why we continue to press our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, our colleagues in the Senate, and of course Joe Biden in the White House to get serious about this issue, but they refuse to.

We are not going to let this go. We are going to continue to bring this up. Mr. Ciscomani brought this bill forward, and we will continue this debate.

If President Biden wants to ignore it, he knows, and the American people know, that President Biden has the legal authority today through executive action to secure the border because they watched him use that same executive action to open the border.

He ended remain in Mexico, which we restore in this bill. He mandated catch and release on our Border Patrol agents, who want to secure our border.

We talked to them. We have embedded with them. Many of us have gone down to the border and embedded with our Border Patrol agents. Mr. Speaker, they will tell you what is wrong.

The things that are needed to fix and secure the border are in this bill, but President Biden doesn't want to fix it. He knows he can fix it with a pen today. He has chosen not to because the far-left elements, the radical elements of his party, want an open border, and they are clear about it.

The President tries to act like he wants to secure the border, but then when it comes time to actually negotiate, he is nowhere to be found.

Ultimately, the voters of this country are going to have a say in November. Do they want a secure border or not? They have a clear choice.

When Donald Trump was President, we had a secure border. He took those steps. Mexico didn't want remain in Mexico to be the policy at the time. That was asylum, by the way, which is what we are really talking about. It was President Trump who went back to Mexico and said: Either you are going to agree to this policy--it is a negotiation between two countries--or there are going to be consequences.

He laid out those consequences. Lo and behold, Mexico saw the light. Mexico recognized it made a lot more sense to agree to that policy with President Trump than to suffer the consequences, so we got remain in Mexico. It started to solve the problem, and then he ended catch and release.

He was building the wall. We funded this when we were a Republican majority working with President Trump. We funded construction of the wall, and hundreds of miles of wall were being built.

Joe Biden comes into office, and on day one, he mandated the end, the halt, of that construction of that wall. The wall was working, and Joe Biden knows it. He ended it because he wanted the border open.

Step by step, action by action, Joe Biden has opened the border. He refuses to negotiate with us on fixing the problem, but we are not going to walk away from this. We are going to continue to force this issue, to bring votes to the floor, to press the Senate to take this up.

At the end of the day, if Joe Biden still wants to continue to block this, still wants to continue to keep the border open, the voters are going to have the ultimate say in November, and I don't think he is going to like the answer.

He could do something about it right now. He refuses to. Ultimately, the people of this country will have a say if Joe Biden won't work with us, but we are going to continue to push it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this piece of legislation that is so important to our national security.

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