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Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today along with Senators Murphy and Blumenthal and so many others in support of bipartisan legislation to improve our immigration system.

As we face global and domestic threats, securing our borders and points of entry must be a top priority. As we have discussed, we had an opportunity in February to move forward in a bipartisan manner on broad and important reforms and security measures that Senators Murphy, Lankford, and Sinema spent months negotiating.

I will note that this legislation, as Senator Blumenthal noted, included my bipartisan bill to keep our covenant with the thousands of Afghans living in the United States who fought shoulder to shoulder with our troops. It is a top priority of the VFW and top priority of the American Legion, a top priority of those who have served in Afghanistan. These were their interpreters. These were the ones that gathered their intelligence. And now 80,000 of them are in our country, living with a trapdoor under them, not knowing if they will be sent back to the Taliban. They are working, yes, but what they need is permanent status.

And that is what this bill that I have with Senator Graham, with support, on the Afghan Adjustment Act. As cosponsors, there are Senators like Senator Mullin and Senator Wicker, the ranking member of Armed Services, and Senator Risch, the ranking on Foreign Relations. They are all on this bill.

When it comes to our borders, though, as we are talking about today, this comprehensive legislation would have invested in hiring more Border Patrol agents and immigration judges while giving law enforcement the tools and technologies they need to make a safe border--order at the border. It would have fixed our broken asylum system, providing 250,000 new employment and family visas.

Yes, Madam President, we have another opportunity to actually right this wrong and get this bipartisan bill done. Border security demands that we invest in both our southern and northern borders, which is something I like about this legislation, having lived in a State that borders Canada--the longest border in the world, America and Canada. A strong, secure northern border is critical for maintaining our trade relations, for maintaining the terror screening database.

And we have witnessed terrible instances of drug smuggling and human trafficking. Last year, Border Patrol agents and sheriff deputies in Kittson County, MN, stopped a human smuggling attempt. That is why this legislation is so important.

And of key importance to me and I know you, Madam President, and the State of Wisconsin is fentanyl and the work that can be done if this bill passes. It not only gives the President emergency powers to shut down the border but also ensures that we take on fentanyl trafficking.

These pills are getting in the hands of schoolchildren. These pills are getting in the hands of people who have no idea that the pills they have are laced with fentanyl.

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl kill more than 150 people a day, and a dose of just 2 milligrams--small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil-- can be lethal.

These aren't just numbers. It is 22-year-old Alex Davis of West St. Paul, who died of a fentanyl overdose while he was a student at the University of North Dakota; 32-year-old Katie Flick from Erskine, MN, who was killed by a fake pill laced with fentanyl; Devin Norring from Hastings, who bought a Percocet over Snapchat that wasn't really a Percocet, laced with fentanyl. It killed him. He was only 19.

That is why we call on our colleagues to join us in support of the Border Act. This legislation, supported by Border Patrol agents, gives law enforcement officers significant funding and support to hire more officers and intercept fentanyl coming into our country.

I thank Senators Lankford, Murphy, and Sinema for their work on this bill. I thank Senator Schumer and Senator McConnell for their leadership.

There is not controversy about this bill except on the political side. If you look at this from the viewpoint of Americans and what makes people safer and what will stop kids from dying because they take one pill and they don't know there is fentanyl in it, the answer is simple: Vote for this bill.

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