Managing the Crisis on the Southern Border

Floor Speech

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Mr. HERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from Texas for yielding. I appreciate him leading this Special Order on such an important issue in our great country.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to shed light on a situation that is getting worse by the minute. The longer Joe Biden and his White House ignore the crisis on our border, the more challenging it becomes to get it under control.

But one would have to wonder: Is that what he wants by allowing this to continue on?

Under President Trump, border security was a top priority. He was ridiculed for that top priority of securing our Nation, the sovereignty of our Nation. Illegal entries plummeted under President Trump, and over 450 miles of border wall were built at the fighting and scratching every single way against our Democrat colleagues' desires.

Mr. Speaker, Biden's trend has been to reverse and dismantle anything and everything that President Trump touched over the last 4 years, no matter who it may hurt. On day one of his Presidency, he unconstitutionally halted congressionally appropriated funds meant to secure and strengthen our southern border. He indicated a complete reversal on border policies, refusing to condemn Democrats who call for open borders. This led to thousands of immigrants to believe our borders were open and they could enter with no consequences. They even had shirts promoting the idea that Biden should let them in.

Mr. Speaker, it has been less than 2 months since Biden took office and already the situation at our southern border has reached unprecedented levels, levels like we haven't seen in 20 years. Border agents are reporting the number of illegal entries, especially children, is higher than we have seen in decades.

Detainment facilities--what the Democrats have now called reception centers and concentration camps; that is what they called them under President Trump--are over capacity. Children are being sent to Dallas, hundreds of miles away from the border, to be held at the convention center.

Americans returning from abroad are required to take COVID tests before reentering our own country, but Biden is allowing thousands of migrants into the country without even testing them for COVID, packing facilities way over capacity.

Hypocrisy is nothing new to this administration. In spite of everything I have already said, Biden refuses to call it a crisis. CNN is even calling it a crisis, but Biden doesn't want to label it. He doesn't want to own it, calling it an inherited mess from the Trump administration. Every single person in America knows that is not true. To make it worse, House Democrats rejected any amendments on their partisan immigration bills this week.

My amendments asked that known gang members not be eligible for amnesty.

How could you not allow that to be added to this bill?

That we create a tax credit for employers who want to do the right thing and implement E-Verify in their companies to make sure they are hiring legal American workers, and that illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in our country not be eligible for amnesty. Now, everywhere--except for in Congress--any good American would want those in the bill. But not here, not my Democrat colleagues.

These are all commonsense ideas that a vast majority of Americans support, but Democrats would rather have open borders with no consequences for those who break the laws in our country.

Just this week, four people on the terrorist watch list were caught attempting to illegally entered our country. If we lower the standards and restrictions on our border, we know we never would have caught them. We wouldn't have even known that they were here. That should scare us all to death.

Mr. Speaker, I and many of my Republican colleagues have been to the border to see this terrible situation firsthand. I would encourage every Member of Congress to go see it. And for that, I thank my colleagues for standing up here tonight at this hour, for speaking up on this crisis. It is so important to the American people and the sovereignty of our Nation.

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