Condemning the Biden Border Crisis and the Tremendous Burdens Law Enforcement Officers Face As A Result

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIGGINS of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution that I have authored and introduced and will be considered on the House floor.

I am going to calmly suggest my colleagues across the aisle reassess their position on this resolution because they are speaking of Republican majorities walking away from what they allege is a strong immigration reform and border security bill. That bill was not the border security bill that we passed through this House, H.R. 2, which was the strongest legislative measure in the history of Congress. It has been walked away from by the Democrat-controlled Senate. H.R. 2 is condemned by your President, President Biden.

You know who also did not universally like H.R. 2, Madam Speaker? The cartels. My colleagues across the aisle may want to wonder, how do you find yourselves aligned with the cartels? Oh, let us review.

Since day one of this administration, since January of 2021, the policies of our executive branch were flipped to be more receptive to illegal immigration, and in doing so, more aligned with the cartels' operations of trafficking human beings and drugs into our country.

Anyone with two brain cells that may occasionally bump into each other would realize that if you soften your existing law enforcement on illegal immigration when on the other side of the border the territory is 100 percent controlled by criminal cartels who are trafficking two things, human beings and drugs, what do you think might happen? Of course, you are going to have a drastic increase in trafficked human beings and drugs, which is exactly where we are.

Republicans took action in the first few months that we had majority control. We went through exhaustive legislative measures to battle through the language of H.R. 2. We went through an 18-hour markup in the Homeland Security Committee, my committee. We brought H.R. 2 to the floor, and it was passed with all Republicans supporting that bill. It went to the Senate, and there it remains gathering dust, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, we had countless efforts to communicate with our colleagues in the Senate, encouraging them: Take up the bill. If you disagree with H.R. 2, then, by all means, debate and change, amend and pass your version, and send it back to the House.

When we go to conference, that is the way things work, but that is not the way it happened in the Senate. The Democrat-controlled Senate killed H.R. 2 which was a legitimate and strong response to the invasion that we have faced at our southern border.

My resolution simply acknowledges and condemns the loss of our sovereign control at the southern border and the impact that this wave upon human wave of misery, drugs, and human trafficking has brought upon our country and the impact upon local and State law enforcement who has had to bear the full brunt of the Biden administration policies, Madam Speaker.

These are policies that can be flipped very quickly.

You put me in charge of our border policy, and you will find out what happens with cartel operations. They are going to have to take some of those trillions of dollars they stole from us trafficking in the misery of human beings who have been caught up in their pipeline and sold their horrible tale of coming to America and prospering. They were sold a story by the cartels, and they were caught up in that trafficking.

How is that trafficking allowed?

It is because the doors were opened, and the borders were opened. By what? By lack of money?

No. It was by change in policy from the executive branch.

Local and State law enforcement, Madam Speaker, has had to deal with that. Those men and women have suffered. Those departments have suffered. They have been forced into crisis not by their own communities where they live and serve, but by executive policies of this Federal Government.

My resolution is not meaningless, I say to my colleague across the aisle. It is quite the opposite. It acknowledges the service and sacrifice of the men and women who wear a badge at the local and State levels across our country who have been horribly impacted by the Biden administration policies at our southern border which have brought generational trauma upon our country and an era of misery we may never forget.

I thank the gentleman for allowing me to speak for this amount of time.

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