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Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Madam President, tomorrow, the Senate will consider legislation that would send critical resources to secure our borders. This legislation was forged by serious bipartisan negotiations, but when it first came to the Senate floor this past February as part of a foreign aid package, my Republican colleagues voted against it and blocked us from even having a debate on this most serious of issues.

They plan, unfortunately, to do the same tomorrow. They are, once again, refusing to even come to the table to help strengthen our border security and support lawful trade and travel that drives our economy.

This bill is not perfect. It is not comprehensive immigration reform. We must keep working toward a broader approach where we modernize immigration laws and address the immigration system as a whole. But we cannot let that hold us back from taking action right now to secure our borders. This legislation is a meaningful step in the right direction. It would address some of our most pressing challenges on the issue and tackle them head-on.

The bill would allow us to hire more than 2,000 CBP officers, addressing a critical shortage of frontline personnel who safeguard our national security at points of entry each and every day. It would provide $2 billion for advanced screening technology. This would allow CBP to expand use of these tools, helping them to identify illegal cargo and stop dangerous drugs like fentanyl from reaching and poisoning our communities. Fentanyl overwhelmingly enters this country through our ports of entry.

This bill also aims to change the asylum application process, a priority that Congress has been unable to pass for decades.

Republicans in Congress certainly like to talk about the need to secure our borders, but they use this issue to stoke fear in our communities all across the country. But when you get a commonsense bill, like the bill that we have before us, to vote on--a bill that aims to address the problems they claim that they want to solve--they simply walk away.

They talk the talk, but they refuse to walk the walk. We need to walk the walk. And that is why Republicans walked away last February. They took orders from Donald Trump, when he told them to vote against this bipartisan legislation. They made it abundantly clear that Republicans would rather campaign on this issue than actually fix it. They would rather throw rocks than solve the problems facing our country. And, unfortunately, it looks like they are going to do it all again tomorrow.

Americans deserve better. Our communities deserve better. Our frontline personnel deserve better. The victims of the fentanyl crisis deserve better. Those fleeing often horrendous conditions in their home countries and seeking asylum on our southern border, they deserve better. And it is an absolute shame that my Republican colleagues have decided not to act, because these challenges are not going to go away on their own.

As chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, I have worked hard to craft bipartisan bills and pass commonsense border security legislation in my committee. I have had the opportunity to work with key Senators on this issue, including Senators Lankford, Sinema, and Murphy, who helped broker this deal in the first place; and I am going to keep working with any Member of this Chamber who is willing to come together and find common ground and forge solutions to help our country. And I hope some Republicans join me.

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