Secure the Southwest Border Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Speaker, it is a proven fact that lawlessness breeds lawlessness, and, sadly, I believe this assertion sums up the issue that is confronting us today.

Thanks in large part to the President's political decision not to enforce our immigration laws, a chaotic situation has erupted into a national security crisis and a law enforcement nightmare along the border.

We all know the facts:

An estimated 90,000 unaccompanied alien children will cross into south Texas' Rio Grande Valley by the end of this fiscal year. Another 145,000 children are estimated to flood the border in fiscal year 2015. And these staggering figures do not include the tens of thousands of families who will also surge across our border over the same period of time.

As a result of this influx, our brave Border Patrol agents, CBP officers, and ICE agents are spending

countless hours in caring for children rather than focusing on their primary enforcement missions. This would be tragic if it weren't so preventable.

Madam Speaker, we do not have an open border policy in this country, and as we tragically learned on 9/11, border security and the integrity of our immigration system truly matter to our Nation's security and the rule of law. So, today, we offer a strong but initial step to provide both the right tools and the right authorities to address and deter this seemingly unending influx of illegal aliens.

Included in this package is $405 million, completely offset by recovered funds, for the Department of Homeland Security, funds that will enable the CBP and ICE to enforce our laws and apprehend, detain, and deport illegal aliens. Perhaps most importantly, this bill fully funds the administration's realization that detention is, in fact, a necessary deterrent to illegal immigration.

The President requested funds to fully support the long-mandated annual bed capacity--a complete reversal from his budget request in which he proposed, instead, to reduce detention beds by nearly 10 percent. The President has also retracted his policy on the detention of families who illegally cross the border. This bill provides funding through the end of the fiscal year to support 34,800 detention beds and an additional 6,320 family detention beds--a total of over 41,100 detention beds--to enable the necessary consequence management for breaking the law.

Lastly, this bill includes policy changes to bring reform and parity to the adjudication and reparation of these children and to prevent these children from being placed with criminals.

Madam Speaker, we must act and we must act now. Lawlessness has bred lawlessness, and we must act to stop it and to secure our borders. I urge my colleagues to support this strong bill.

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