FAILED BORDER POLICIES

On 2024-09-18, Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-2) delivered a floor speech titled "FAILED BORDER POLICIES" in the House. The speech addressed immigration and also covered healthcare, taxes. It referenced legislation including HR2, HR7109.

FAILED BORDER POLICIES

Congressional Record, Volume 170 Issue 145 (Wednesday, September 18, 2024) [Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 145 (Wednesday, September 18, 2024)] [House] [Pages H5438-H5443] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] FAILED BORDER POLICIES The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. General Leave Mr. ROSENDALE. 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. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Montana? There was no objection. Mr. ROSENDALE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, tonight we are going to speak about the border, the failed policies, and the false security that has been created under the Biden-Harris administration. It is a target-rich environment, I will tell you. We have many examples of the problems that have been created and the policies that created those problems before us. Keep in mind we have examples of what is also to do right, not theories, but we have hard examples of what to do to secure our border that were implemented under the Trump administration. Yes, now we have examples of what not to do as we look at the current wide-open border and the massive problems that were created under the Biden-Harris administration. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rose) my distinguished colleague, to kick this off. Mr. ROSE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding tonight. Mr. Speaker, Vice President Kamala Harris' tenure as border czar has been a complete and absolute failure. For [[Page H5439]] the folks who claim she was never in charge of the border, I will read President Biden's own words from March of 2021. He specifically assigned Vice President Harris with the task of ``stemming the migration to our southern border.'' I understand the White House would like to rewrite that bit of history, but a simple Google search will show that it isn't just House Republicans calling her the border czar. She was widely referred to as such by the mainstream media at the time. Since her appointment, Harris has gone to the border only once. Even worse, she never spoke to either of the past two chiefs of Border Patrol. While the Vice President was failing to meet her new responsibility, our Commander in Chief was busy undoing the successful border policies of President Trump. Here is where that has gotten us. More than 10 million people have tried to cross into the United States illegally in less than 4 years. More than 52,000 illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds have tried to enter our Nation illegally. Those are just the ones we know about. Keep in mind more than 2 million people managed to evade Border Patrol under this administration. That is more got-aways under Biden- Harris than in the previous decade combined. This is a direct result of open-border policies and a refusal to uphold the immigration laws already on the books. In July alone, there was a daily average of 3,300 encounters at the border. Former President Obama's DHS Secretary noted a few years ago that any more than 1,000 encounters per day overwhelms the system. Mr. Speaker, the border crisis is far from over, and it continues to threaten our national security. In the last 2 years, Border Patrol officials have seized an average of 2,000 pounds of fentanyl every month coming across the border, enough to kill 458 million people. The real question is: How much fentanyl did they fail to seize that is currently killing our citizens? More than 350 people who are on the terror watch list have been stopped trying to cross the southern border. A recent report revealed that 99 of them were released into the country after being stopped at the border. It was also widely reported this summer that more than 50 illegal immigrants with ties to ISIS were on the loose after being released from custody, all of this on Vice President Kamala Harris' watch. This week, House Republicans will bring to the floor two pieces of critical legislation. The first is a bill to ensure that any illegal immigrant who is convicted of a sex offense or crimes involving stalking, child abuse, and neglect are deported. The second is a piece of legislation that claims to end the free hotels, healthcare, and cash given to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants being housed in our Nation's major cities. It is well past time to stop incentivizing illegal immigration. It is time to support what the American people overwhelmingly support, immigration done the legal way. Mr. ROSENDALE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Mr. Speaker, you can see there is a long list of problems, and we have many speakers here who want to speak to those problems this evening. It is critically important for the American people to hear that not only do we identify what these problems are, but the Republicans have been bringing solutions forward to address these problems. We have been bringing solutions that we know will work. They are not, again, theories. These are issues that have been addressed, and we know that the solutions that we are recommending have been utilized by the Trump administration and are extremely effective. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards). Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of my constituents in western North Carolina to highlight the dire situation at our southern border and to advocate for the enforcement of our Nation's immigration laws. During his time in office, the Biden administration continues to break records but not in a good way. Last month, Customs and Border Protection seized close to 1,700 pounds of fentanyl at the border, a 30 percent increase from just July. Over 200,000 Americans have now died from illegal drugs being smuggled across the southern border, and this number only continues to increase. This also comes after 3 years of broken border records and overwhelmed Border Patrol agents. Some of the first executive actions taken by President Biden undid the Trump administration's attempts to get the situation under control. Biden threw open the border. Whether he did it for political reasons or through sheer incompetence, it is costing Americans half a trillion dollars every year. Now, we have fentanyl flowing across the border, courtesy of the Mexican cartels, tearing apart families and the very fabric of our communities in the North Carolina mountains. Our border is being overrun with lawbreaking migrants, overpowered by drugs, and overwhelmed by what this is costing our Nation. By conservative estimates, more than 2 million illegal immigrants have been turned loose and are now unaccounted for in America, and that doesn't include those who managed to give Border Patrol agents the slip or the millions who have been living here illegally for years. These are not small numbers, Mr. Speaker. This is mass migration into our country, facilitated by our very own President. What is the Biden-Harris solution? How does President Biden and his appointed border czar plan to solve a problem that they manufactured? Last month, a DHS report found nearly 530,000 individuals were flown in and paroled by the Biden administration under the error-plagued mass parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, a program that was previously paused due to mass fraud and abuse. You can't make this up, folks. During my time in Congress, I have written, cosponsored, and helped pass legislation in the House to secure the southern border and end this administration's radical and dangerous border policies. I was proud to have cosponsored and voted for H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which is the strongest border security package passed by the House in American history. {time} 2000 Senate Democrats and President Biden could take real, concrete steps to solve this migration crisis, and address everything from court backlogs to the trafficking of unaccompanied children if they would just get behind H.R. 2. Why are the Democrats so adamantly opposed to commonsense legislation to protect Americans and close the southern border, you might ask? One of my Democratic colleagues apparently said the quiet part out loud. In no uncertain terms, she said that she wanted more illegal immigrants to come into our country to give liberal sanctuary cities a higher population for congressional districting and the electoral college. She said: ``I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes,'' in reference to illegal immigrants coming in droves to New York. To solve the problem once and for all, I introduced H.R. 7109, the Equal Representation Act, which allows a very basic question to be asked in the U.S. Census: Are you a U.S. citizen? Given all the other information the government collects during a census, this is a very reasonable thing that we should know, especially as the census count determines congressional apportionment, and only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote. My bill prohibits anyone who is not a United States citizen from counting toward population totals that determine the number of seats each State has in the U.S. House of Representatives. This would go an incredibly long way to helping us determine who is actually in our country, which is not an unreasonable thing to want to know. Knowing who is in our Nation and keeping out those who are trying to break our laws and brazenly waltz across our borders is basic national security. Our own President is failing at [[Page H5440]] the task of keeping this Nation safe and secure. I ask my colleagues from across the ais

Referenced legislation: HR2, HR7109