PUTTING AMERICA FIRST BORDER SECURITY POLICIES BACK IN PLACE

On 2025-03-11, Representative Andrew S. Clyde (R-GA-9) delivered a floor speech titled "PUTTING AMERICA FIRST BORDER SECURITY POLICIES BACK IN PLACE" in the House. The speech addressed immigration and also covered healthcare, taxes.

PUTTING AMERICA FIRST BORDER SECURITY POLICIES BACK IN PLACE

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 45 (Tuesday, March 11, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 45 (Tuesday, March 11, 2025)] [House] [Pages H1136-H1139] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] PUTTING AMERICA FIRST BORDER SECURITY POLICIES BACK IN PLACE (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Biggs of Arizona was recognized for 30 minutes.) General Leave Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Moore of West Virginia). Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Arizona? There was no objection. Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to be here tonight with my colleagues who are also members of the Border Security Caucus. For 4 years, we have stood here and exposed the open-border policies of the Biden-Harris administration. For 4 years, we have seen what happens when the America First border security policies that President Trump had put in place were thrown out. In just over 1 month, we have seen what happens when those policies are put back in place. Since President Trump took office, ICE agents have arrested more than 20,000 illegal aliens. That is just in 1 month. By comparison, Joe Biden only had 33,000 at-large arrests for the entire year of 2024. When Joe Biden was in charge, over 300,000 illegal aliens crossed the border in just 1 month. In President Trump's first month, illegal crossings did not even reach 10,000. The actual number was 8,400. Whereas Biden let all those people into the country without proper vetting, some of which were known criminals and terrorists that we are now trying to find, under President Trump, people who illegally crossed the border are stopped and immediately detained or removed. Due to President Biden's catch and release policies, every State had the pathologies of a border State. Immediately after taking office, President Trump charged ICE officers with cleaning up streets across the country by detaining the illegal aliens that Joe Biden had released into the country. While they were attempting to prosecute President Trump for bogus charges in multiple jurisdictions, the Biden regime was releasing actual criminals into every city in America. Tonight, we are going to be exposing the Biden-Harris administration's open-border policies and President Trump's work to remove them. We will highlight the tireless work of ICE agents tasked with arresting some of the worst individuals who have invaded our country. Despite being demonized by the mainstream media and organized campaigns to interfere with and prevent arrests, including by exposing personal information of agents, in just 1 month, those agents have taken thousands of violent and malevolent offenders off of our streets. In just 1 month, President Trump has put an end to the endless invasion of our communities by illegal aliens. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin), my co- chairman of the Border Security Caucus. Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), my good friend and co-chair. I really appreciate him having tonight's very important Special Order. The truth is simple. The Biden administration threw open the floodgates, allowing murderers, rapists, and chaos to pour into our communities, all in pursuit of political power. They knew exactly what they were doing. Securing the border was never an impossibility, as they let the Nation and us believe. It was always a choice. For the last 4 years, the wrong choice was deliberately made. We were told that enforcement wouldn't work, that the crisis was simply too big to fix, but those were lies meant to cover up the fact that an open border was exactly what they wanted to do. They dismantled every tool that worked, inviting criminals to walk right in. We saw the consequences play out in the most destructive ways imaginable. Mr. Speaker, 15 million illegals entered under the Biden administration's watch. Tonight, you will hear about the evils that were unleashed on our neighborhoods by the Biden administration, resulting in death and destruction of innocent American lives. How many more lives must be lost? How many more families must grieve before they admit their open-border agenda is destroying this country? There are 100,000 Americans dying per year from deadly Mexican cartel and Chinese drugs that have come in over our open border. There have been hundreds of thousands of lost children from the child sex trade and human trafficking. There have been murders, rapes, and pillaging from illegal alien gangs and swamped public schools, hospitals, and public services. Here is the good news, though. The days of lawlessness are over because, on day one of the Donald Trump administration, we finally have a strong leader in the White House. Just like that, the border was shut down. All it took was that leadership and the will to enforce the law. The message was sent loud and clear: America is not open for lawbreakers anymore. Illegal crossings have plummeted. Deportations are back in full force. As co-chair of the Border Security Caucus, I am committed to keeping these dangerous criminals off of our streets. Working hand in hand with President Trump, Vice President Vance, and leaders like Tom Homan, we are making sure that child traffickers, drug smugglers, and gang members are rounded up and sent packing back to where they belong. We are kicking them out by the thousands, just like we should have been doing all along these last 4 years. This is how you put America first: You don't make excuses; you act. You don't let criminals run free; you lock them up or send them home. You don't leave the border wide open; you shut it down and take control. The American people deserve safety, not suffering. They deserve law and order, not chaos. They deserve leadership that protects them, not one that absolutely betrays them. That is what Donald Trump and Tom Homan are delivering to us right now, and they are just getting started. Mr. BIGGS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman who has seen in his own district time and time again the abuse caused by these out- of-control illegal aliens. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Tiffany), my friend who is also on the Border Security Caucus. Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I thank the gentlemen who have led the Border Security Caucus, Mr. Babin and Mr. Biggs. I thank them for their leadership on this issue. It is as a result of their efforts that they continue to deliver this message to the American people of what a disaster this was going on at our southern border that caused this to be the number one issue in the past election before the American people. In particular, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs). The first trip I did after being sworn in, in May 2020, was to go down to the southern border on a trip that he led with many of us, as he did so many times with so many Members. I don't know if there are hardly any Members on the Republican side that he didn't lead to the southern border to deliver the message. It is there that I got to meet people like Sheriff Mark Lamb from Pinal County in Arizona and Sheriff Mark Dannels down in Cochise County, who back in 2020 talked about how the border was becoming secure, that at the end of the Trump administration's first term, the border was becoming more secure. We visited them a year later, and they told us that it was all deteriorating simply because there was a change in the Presidency. I thank them for their leadership in regard to this. They have done a service to the American people. Hopefully, we can fix this for the future. We just had a hearing this morning with a sheriff from one of the counties in Texas, a border county there, as well as one of the leaders of the Border Patrol union. They told us that it is night and day since January 20. Thank God we have new leadership in the White House because the border is once again secured. I would just say, remember when the media and Democrats told us that President Biden needed a bill to fix the border? That was a lie. As President [[Page H1137]] Trump said last week in his joint address, all we really needed was a new President. If there is one thing that has been proven over the last month, it is that the Democrats' border invasion was intentional. {time} 1930 Mr. Speaker, President Trump announced illegal border crossings in February were the lowest in decades: February 2024, under Biden, nearly 190,000; 2025, under Trump, a little over 8,000. That is a 96 percent decrease without a single new law from Congress. The difference is real leadership. It is truly a shame that Democrats willingly let the killers of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray and Rachel Morin into this country. It is also a shame that they did not deport criminals like the one in my congressional district who killed Steven Nasholm, a father of three daughters. Thankfully, President Trump didn't wait for excuses. He took action by putting remain in Mexico back in place. He declared an emergency at our southern border, sent troops to help the border patrol, put a stop to illegal crossings, and signed the Laken Riley Act into law to deport dangerous criminals. Gone are the days of catch and release, which have a completely different meaning where I come from in the lakes in northern Wisconsin. President Biden had turned it into an illegal alien term where illegals who were caught at our southern border were released into the U.S. To be clear, the last administration chose to let America be invaded. President Trump chose to stop it. American strength is back and stronger than ever, but we cannot stop here. Congress must act now to ensure these gains are not undone by the next