Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment No. 29 to H.R. 8752, the fiscal year 2025 Homeland Security appropriations bill.

My amendment would add language to section 212 of the bill to make sure that no Federal funds can be used to dismantle, demolish, remove, or damage barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border that are placed there by State governments.

The crisis at our southern border has never been worse. Since President Biden took office, there have been easily over 9 million encounters nationwide and over 7.5 million at the southwest border specifically. There have been around 2 million known got-aways and over 350 encounters with those on terrorist watch lists, massive numbers of aliens who are considered inadmissible by law entering our country, with about 400,000 from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela mass paroled into our country.

We are willfully and knowingly allowing murderers, rapists, and spies into our country as a byproduct of the Biden administration's attempt to skew future elections. They do not care about the carnage and would literally be happy to be king of the ashes.

The border crisis has also created a public health crisis. This fiscal year, there has been over 13,000 pounds of fentanyl seized. That is enough to kill billions of people. We have seen 110,000 people who have died from opioid overdoses. That is just what we stop, though, 13,000 pounds.

In the meantime, the President and his allies in Congress have said time and time again that nothing can be fixed without congressional action. I am all for congressional action. This body passed H.R. 2 over a year ago, a bill that would fix issues in the code by doing things like raising the standard for credible fear determinations and requiring most migrants to arrive at official ports of entry to have their asylum cases processed. Sadly, it is not surprising that this bill hasn't seen the light of day in the do-nothing Senate.

Here is the other reality. Immigration law hasn't changed significantly in years. The border crisis was never this bad before. Under President Trump, and even under Presidents Clinton and Obama--as a matter of fact, Obama ran on border security, let that sink in--we didn't see the same absolute humanitarian crisis that is going on today. This is the fault of the current administration.

In response to the negligence of this administration, Texas, under the leadership of Governor Abbott, started Operation Lone Star to secure the border. His plan included the placement of more than 100 miles of razor wire along the border. What was the administration's response? To oppose Texas every step of the way and even go so far as to cut razor wire installed by Texans. This is completely unacceptable. It is an example of the administration starting a problem and then preventing anyone else from fixing it as Biden has done nothing to secure our sovereign border.

My amendment would prevent this and guard the ability of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and other border States to protect their citizens and their border.

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Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. Chair, I will quote the ``protects our national interests.'' That is the justification of removing barriers to illegal invaders; it protects Americans' interests. These are the same people who would do harm to our American citizens through fentanyl overdoses, rapes, murders, crime, and then consuming American resources at a time when we cannot afford it.

President Biden's executive order is too little too late. It won't fix the border crisis and would still give tacit legal permission to about 1 million illegal immigrants to enter every year. That is if he didn't tell agents to ignore his own guidance. Further Biden's latest legal action, amnesty for 500,000 illegal immigrants based on their marital status will encourage more immigrants to break the law and cross the border to do something else.

This policy of the administration has shown that they aren't seriously attempting to secure the border and to solve this problem.

In closing, Mr. Chair, my amendment would simply protect the State governments and allow them to secure their borders while the President refuses to do that.

This is an 80 percent issue among the American public. This is an issue of We the People protecting our house.

With the policies of this current administration, we, at the very least, must make sure we allow State governments to protect their citizens and protect their borders.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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