Bring Jobs Back Home Act

Floor Speech

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to make some remarks about the ongoing humanitarian crisis that is occurring on our southern border in Texas. I have spoken on this subject a number of times. Before I do that, I would like to say a word about a decorated U.S. Marine Corps veteran, an award-winning journalist, and a courageous seventh-generation Texan by the name of Austin Tice.

In 2012 Austin went to Syria as a civilian. He went to report on the brutal civil war that has now claimed the lives of more than 170,000 Syrians, caused a huge refugee crisis in Turkey, Lebanon, and in other countries in that region and has destabilized that entire region. Austin was a strong believer in the freedom of the press and the importance of letting his fellow countrymen know what was happening in the Syrian civil war.

During his time in Syria his works were published in The Washington Post and the McClatchy News, among other news outlets.

On August 14, 2012, he was kidnapped and no one has heard from him since. His family is understandably concerned about his well-being and his whereabouts. It has been nearly 2 years and his family and friends still have no idea where he is, who is holding him or what they might want in exchange for his freedom.

I once again call on the Obama administration to do whatever they can, through the resources the Federal Government has, to locate and safely return Austin Tice to his family.

I say once again to Austin's family: We have not given up. We will never give up until we find your son and bring him safely home.

BORDER CRISIS

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, 1 month ago President Obama gave an interview with ABC News in which he was asked about the massive influx of unaccompanied minors--mainly from Central America--who are crossing the southwestern American border, most notably into Texas where we have seen 57,000 unaccompanied children since October.

Unless any of my colleagues think this problem will just go away, let me remind everyone some of the projections are that if we don't do anything to deal with the causes or deal with the remedy to this growing humanitarian problem, it will get worse. Indeed, some estimates are that as many as 90,000 unaccompanied minors will come this year alone, and the number could well rise to 145,000 next year. That would tend to track the historical trend we have seen--both the combination of the impression that the Obama administration is less than serious about enforcing our immigration laws, as well as this loophole in the 2008 human trafficking law that is being exploited by the cartels which is helping them make money. This is part of their business model because they charge by the head, by the child, by the person, and then they bring them through these smuggling corridors from Central America, through Mexico, into South Texas. It is a great business model for them.

The problem is it is a horrific experience for the immigrants who subject themselves to the tender mercies of the cartels that care nothing about them as human beings. They rape the women, kidnap the migrants, and then hold them for ransom. We know--because of the perils of that journey on the top of that train called The Beast--that many immigrants are severely injured, some losing limbs, and others are killed or die from exposure as a result of the process from Central America.

I say to my colleagues who think doing nothing is an option that people are losing their lives, people are being injured, and women are being assaulted. These migrants are being held for ransom and kidnapped. It is not compassionate to allow this to continue, but that is what illegal immigration looks like in 2014.

For those people who come into the country legally, they obviously don't have to turn themselves over to the cartels--these transnational criminal organizations that traffic in drugs and people. These drug cartels are despicable and they will prey on these migrants and those who want to come to the United States. As long as it happens outside of the legal system, they are going to continue to be victimized.

About 1 month ago the President said: ``The problem is that under current law, once these kids come across the border, there's a system in which we're supposed

to process them, take care of them, until we can send them back.''

That is what the President of the United States said 1 month ago. Of course he was referring to a 2008 law that I referenced earlier and has been talked about a number of times. This was a law that was passed by essentially unanimous consent and acclimation. It was a human trafficking law, but unfortunately what we didn't know at the time is that the creative minds of the cartels would learn to exploit a loophole in the law, which treats migrants, particularly unaccompanied children, from contiguous countries differently than we treat migrant children coming from Mexico.

Specifically what happens is they are released after being processed by the Border Patrol, and they are given a notice to appear at a future court date. They are then released into the custody of a family member, many of whom are not legally present in the United States themselves. What we have seen from experience is that many of them don't show up for their court hearings. We don't have sufficient resources committed to make sure people do appear, so they melt into the great American landscape and have essentially succeeded in coming to the United States--outside of our legal immigration system--and staying here. As long as this loophole continues to exist, they will keep coming.

The President was referring to this human trafficking statute that has become an effective magnet for illegal immigration, and it is not just children who are taking advantage of it. I talked to the Secretary of Homeland Security yesterday morning. We have seen a huge surge in parents with young children as well. They are exploiting the same loophole because we don't have adequate detention facilities to keep them safe pending any court hearing and pending repatriation back to their country of origin unless they have a valid claim for asylum or some other claim for immigration relief.

The loophole that is in the 2008 law is effectively part of the cartel business model. We have colleagues who believe the compassionate response is to do nothing to close that loophole, and I hope they will come to understand it is the opposite of compassion to allow this loophole to exist and allow the cartels to continue to use these children and other migrants as a commodity by smuggling them into the United States.

This situation has also overloaded the capacity of many of our local communities that have big hearts and want to treat these migrants, particularly the children, with compassion, but they have become overwhelmed. We have seen, as these children have been warehoused in other parts of the country, many communities are starting to feel the backlash. While people have big hearts and believe we ought to try to help people in need, particularly children, they realize that ultimately they are the ones who will have to pick up the tab for health care, education, and the like.

They are also concerned about whether they will actually be able to assimilate these immigrants, which has always been the American way, and the way we have done that is through legal immigration and an orderly immigration process which complies with the rule of law.

We are a nation of immigrants and we should be proud of that, but we should not be proud of this uncontrolled flow of people coming into the country, exploiting this gap in the 2008 law, making money for the cartels, and exposing these migrants to horrific treatment, some of whom don't even make it here. We should not consider that compassion; it is not. It is the opposite of compassion. We ought to try to do something to fix it, and we have it within our capacity to do so.

Earlier this week the White House Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Munoz said the administration was ``absolutely interested'' in reforming this law to create an efficient repatriation process for the unaccompanied minors. Good for them. I hope that is the case, but unfortunately I get the sense that the people who understand this gap in this 2008 law--this flaw or this loophole--have not been able to win the argument with the political folks at the White House who don't want to be seen repatriating these children back to their home country because they are worried about the upcoming election.

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson has repeatedly emphasized to me in private as well as publicly the need to change this law and to establish a more efficient system of removal to one's home country.

To be sure, there are going to be valid claims for asylum. If someone is a victim of human trafficking, they can get a T visa, they call it, so they can cooperate with law enforcement in the United States. If you are like the young boy whom I saw in McAllen, TX, 2 weeks ago--I asked him where his parents were. He said they were dead. That young boy could qualify for a special immigrant visa as a minor child having been abandoned or who is an orphan. So there are ways valid claims for relief can be processed, but right now these claims are not being made because people are just melting into the great American landscape, and they keep coming.

So Jeh Johnson understands this, Cecilia Munoz said she understands this, and the President has said he understands it, and it has also had bipartisan support. The senior Senator from Missouri Mrs. McCaskill has acknowledged this issue, the senior Senator from Delaware, who happens to be chairman of the Homeland Security Committee Senator Carper, and the junior Senator from West Virginia Mr. Manchin have all publicly acknowledged it, as well as Democratic representatives in the border district in Arizona, and the No. 3 Member of the House Democratic leadership. All of them have acknowledged what the problem is and what we need to do to fix it.

Let's review: President Obama described the border situation as a crisis, and I agree with that; it is. He described the 2008 law, which I have talked about, as a problem, which it is. Some leading Republicans and leading Democrats and senior members of the administration believe that reforming this 2008 law is part of the solution and would help resolve the crisis, which it would. They called upon Congress to make the necessary changes, which we should.

At a time of intense political gridlock in Washington, we actually do have some bipartisan agreement on what we need to do to help address the problem. Yet none of these critical reforms can happen in the Senate unless the majority leader allows a vote on the bill I anticipate will come over from the House which will contain a solution to this problem. We have seen a bipartisan group of political leaders contend it is necessary, if we are actually going to address it, but so far my impression is the majority leader is not going to allow us to have that vote.

Indeed, the majority leader, the majority whip, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee have all said they reject the need for changing this 2008 law that I have described. The majority leader has gone so far as to say the border is secure. It may look secure from Nevada, where he is from, but it is not secure in Texas, where I live, and it just defies reality.

I wish the majority leader and the President would actually come visit the border. I wish they would visit these processing centers, meet these children, and congratulate the Border Patrol for doing a great job under very difficult circumstances, but so far they have declined. I hope they will reconsider.

Ms. Collins, the Senator from Maine, is getting a bipartisan codel to go down to McAllen on Friday, and I look forward to accompanying her on that trip.

But if people can make that one trip--at least one trip--they would learn for themselves that the border is not secure.

This isn't a trick. Sometimes I get the feeling that some of my friends in the Senate think we are going to always claim the border is insecure, so we are never going to do the other parts of immigration reform that they want to do or that need to be done. As a matter of fact, in 2011 the President notably said: Well, people won't be satisfied until we create a moat and fill it full of alligators. He ridiculed those who said the border is not secure. Yet last year alone 414,000 people were detained on the southwestern border, 414,000 from 100 different countries--100 different countries--most of them admittedly from Mexico and Central America and South America.

But people should come visit in Falfurrias, TX. They have a Border Patrol stop there where many migrants are let out of the vehicle by their coyote, which is a human smuggler, and forced to walk around this checkpoint in 100-degree-plus weather. Colleagues will find that some of them die from exposure. People can imagine coming from Central America or South America and coming in that hot weather under those conditions. Some of them literally die. So the Border Patrol has established rescue beacons, they call them, where if the immigrant says ``I have to get some help,'' they can actually hit the button on this rescue beacon, and the Border Patrol will come and find them and make sure they get some medical care. Those rescue beacons are in English, they are in Spanish, and they are in Chinese. I assure my colleagues there are not many native Chinese speakers in Brooks County, TX.

The point is, to anybody who will listen, the border is not secure. It is a national security challenge in addition to our other issues.

I ask people to talk to GEN John Kelly, who is head of Southern Command, who says right now 75 percent of the illegal drug traffic coming from Central and South America into the United States--they have to sit and watch because they don't have the adequate resources to stop it. It is the same cartels that are smuggling those drugs that are the criminal organizations that are smuggling the people. They are trafficking in human beings, and they will transport any commodity, any weapon, any person, anything into the United States as long as they can make money off of it. It is just the way they do business.

It is enormously frustrating to hear the majority leader declare the border is secure in spite of the facts and in spite of the bipartisan acknowledgment that we need to fix this 2008 loophole in order to help solve this problem. But there are people who have shown some courage, people such as Secretary Johnson and others, other Democrats who have said, despite the majority leader's pronouncement that we should actually do something, we should actually solve the problem, and we have it within our ability to do that.

I wish to particularly acknowledge the courage of my friend and colleague Henry Cuellar from Texas. He is a proud blue dog Democrat, as he reminds me almost every time I see him, and he has partnered with me in bipartisan bicameral legislation that would actually fix this flaw in the 2008 law. If we could just get a vote on it here in the Senate, maybe we would have a chance to fix the problem and do what the President acknowledged was the problem in the first place.

I am hopeful we can achieve a breakthrough, but we have about 2 more days that we will be in session before the August recess. My constituents back home don't understand why in the world we would leave without fixing this problem, without addressing this humanitarian crisis, because they see the numbers as we see the numbers. They are going to continue to grow and the crisis will get worse unless we act in a sensible way.

The only way we are going to get that breakthrough is if we get some leadership here in the Senate and the majority leader allows a vote on either what the House is going to send us on Thursday or allow an amendment, which I am proud to offer, which has broad support here in the Senate.

But leadership requires more than just giving a speech or an interview and then heading off to the next fundraiser. It requires thoughtful, persistent engagement and a willingness to spend political capital.

We know all of this is controversial. We get that. But it strikes me that when you are getting attacked from the right and the left, that means you are probably doing something that could at least have the potential for being a bipartisan consensus, which, as we know, is the only way anything gets done here because none of us get everything we want. I would love it if I could get everything I want, but that is not democracy. That is not our system. That is not our constitutional form of government.

I hope the President would tell the majority leader that he believes this 2008 law is a problem, as he said a month ago on ABC News, and I hope he will offer support for his own Secretary of Homeland Security, who I know understands the nature of the problem, but unfortunately I fear he is being outvoted by the political advisers at the White House, not the people making public policy.

The folks in my State and particularly in the region of South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley are watching and waiting and hoping that Washington will act to resolve this ongoing crisis. But we can't act unless the majority leader allows us to act. That is the nature of this institution. He won't allow a vote unless President Obama steps up and leads in order to do what he has acknowledged is the right thing to do and what we must do in order to address this problem.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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