Condemning the Biden Border Crisis and the Tremendous Burdens Law Enforcement Officers Face As A Result
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1227, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 1210) condemning the Biden border crisis and the tremendous burdens law enforcement officers face as a result, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Res. 1210.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1210 comes before us as thousands of frontline law enforcement officers come here to this Capitol to ask for our help to restore a justice system that was once the envy of the world but, in recent years, has been undermined by woke district attorneys who refuse to enforce our laws, woke city councils that insult and defund our law enforcement, and woke Federal officials who refuse to secure our border, which is becoming an increasing source of deadly drugs, terrorists, criminal gangs, and criminal cartels that illegally cross our borders daily.
Just a week ago, I noted on this floor that on the first day that Joe Biden took office, he rescinded the successful remain in Mexico policy that had slowed phony asylum claims to a trickle, completely blocked completion of the border wall, and ordered ICE to stop enforcing court- ordered deportations. Thus began the largest illegal mass migration in history.
I need to update the numbers this week that I cited last week. To date, this administration has now deliberately released a total of 4.9 million illegal aliens into our communities, and it has allowed another 1.9 million known got-aways to evade Border Patrol as the Border Patrol has been overwhelmed.
With the new numbers combined, there are nearly 6.8 million illegal aliens who have entered this country because of the Democrats' open- border policies. That is a population larger than the entire State of Indiana, our 17th largest State, with nine Congressional Districts.
Now, I expect the Democrats will complain that we are bringing up yet another measure condemning these policies. Well, I have news for them. They need to get used to it. We are going to keep bringing it up until these policies are reversed or until the people can elect an administration that can and will.
I suspect we will hear the Democrats today, as we have on so many past debates, assert that immigrants are more law-abiding than Americans. Well, listen carefully to what they say. They make no distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, and that is a supreme insult to the millions of legal immigrants who enter our country every year by obeying our laws, waiting patiently in line, and doing everything our country asks of them. Legal immigrants come here, pledge to pull their weight, not to be a burden on others, to obey our laws, and to love and defend our country.
Illegal immigrants come here under very different circumstances. Their first act is to commit a Federal crime by illegally entering our country. Their second act is to demand free food, shelter, medical care, clothing, education, transportation, and legal services.
I have watched them at the border taunting our Border Patrol as they illegally cross into our country. To equate their lawless behavior with law-abiding, hardworking, and patriotic legal immigrants is an outrage, and my colleagues who do so should be ashamed of themselves.
The number of terrorist suspects the Border Patrol has encountered has ballooned exponentially, and law enforcement officials are warning that among the 1.9 million known got-aways--mostly single military-aged men--is likely a dangerous fifth column which could soon launch devastating attacks within our borders.
Fentanyl brought in through the open border is killing hundreds of Americans every day.
Democrats' sanctuary policies hamstring attempts to deport criminal illegal aliens. Worst of all, the admission of untold thousands of the most vicious gang members on the planet are now producing a terrible butcher's bill of murders and assaults upon Americans.
Their contention that illegal immigrants are more law-abiding is simply gaslighting.
Here are the real numbers. When the Federation for American Immigration Reform looked at the actual numbers reported by State prisons in order to get reimbursement from the Federal Government, they discovered the tragic truth. Now, again, these are the requests States make to be reimbursed for the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens, and those numbers reveal that aliens are 231 percent more likely to be jailed for crimes in California, 440 percent more likely in New Jersey, and 60 percent more likely in Texas. Just to name a few.
Madam Speaker, aliens are 231 percent more likely to be jailed in California according to their own SCAAP numbers. You won't find that anywhere else because it is illegal in California to otherwise report the immigration status of criminals and criminal suspects, so by their criteria, not a single crime is ever committed by illegals in California, yet at the same time they report their jails are overflowing.
This is lunacy, and it has got to stop.
Our law enforcement officers know this because they deal with this crisis every day at the peril of their own lives. Our angel families know this all too well, as they grieve their loved ones lost to this entirely preventable tragedy.
Now, the House can and has written laws that will make it easier for future Presidents like President Trump to secure our borders and make it harder for future Presidents like Joe Biden to open them, but ultimately, this is an enforcement problem.
When I visited with the Border Patrol agents in Yuma last year, I reminded them that Congress writes laws but cannot enforce them. I asked them what laws they needed us to write, and they unanimously answered: We don't need new laws; we need to enforce our existing laws. When Republicans visited Eagle Pass in January, the sector chief there said: I am standing in front of an open fire hydrant with a bucket. I don't need more buckets. I need somebody to turn off the hydrant.
Donald Trump did that, and despite vicious opposition from the Democrats, he finally got that hydrant down to a dribble. Biden opened it full force with his first executive acts that he signed. That is a problem that can only be fixed by replacing this administration with one determined to secure our border, defend our country, protect our people, and uphold the rule of law. That can only be done by the American people at the ballot box.
Until then, Republicans in the House will keep raising this issue at every opportunity because at the moment that is all that we can do.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, I would remind my friend that the bill that he keeps boasting about would tie the hands of any future President to use existing law to secure our border as President Trump did until illegal crossings reach 4,000 a day. That is what they refer to when they praise the Senate bill as the strongest border bill in decades, a bill that would make it impossible to do what Donald Trump did with our existing laws.
Those laws didn't change on Inauguration Day. The President changed, and the new President reversed the policies of the Trump administration and introduced this terrible crisis upon our country.
Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins), the author of this resolution.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, I am ready to close if the gentleman from New York is.
Mr. Speaker, once again, I have to remind my friend that the Senate could not pass its bill. The House passed our bill, and the difference is stark. As I said, the Senate bill forbids any future President from using the powers that Donald Trump used to secure our borders until illegal crossings reached 4,000 a day.
He is not required to take any action until they reach 5,000 a day, and even then he must still allow 1,500 illegal crossings every day. That is the Democrats' idea of border security, and it is a farce.
This debate encapsulates the differences between the two parties on this issue, and they are absolutely jarring. I don't need to characterize it; it speaks for itself. The American people can clearly see the difference and will need to make the most important choice of their lifetimes in just a few months.
I would simply ask: How do we make our streets safer by making it all but impossible to deport illegal aliens as the law requires?
That is what our sanctuary cities are doing.
How do we make our families safer by flooding our communities with deadly fentanyl?
How do we make our children safer by refusing to vet every person who enters our country so that we can keep the criminals out?
How do we make our neighborhoods safer by refusing to prosecute criminal illegal aliens to the fullest extent of the law?
How do we make our highways safer by creating the conditions of deadly high-speed chases and drunk driving?
How do we protect our country as untold numbers of terrorists enter among the 1.9 million known got-aways who have entered under Joe Biden's nose?
How do we make our communities safer as criminal gangs and criminal cartels set up shop in our cities for their lethal business of child trafficking, drug trafficking, extortion, and crime?
These are the questions that have gone unanswered since this administration took office and with which our local law enforcement officials must grapple every day at the peril of their own lives in order to protect ours.
It is time we thanked them for their service and their sacrifice and put the full might and fury of our Nation behind the defense of our national borders. That is what this resolution calls for. However, one thing more will be needed that Congress cannot provide, and that is a new administration.
Let us pray it comes in time to save our country.
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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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