The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Border Security (Executive Calendar)” mentioning Chuck Grassley was published in the Senate section on pages S4849-S4850 on July 13.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Border Security
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about the crisis at our southern border. We have the humanitarian crisis there. We have a healthcare crisis there. And we also have a national security crisis there.
Over the last 2 weeks, as I traveled the State of Wyoming, I heard from people all across the State about the condition of the southern border, and not surprisingly, the people of Wyoming recognize that there is actually a crisis at the southern border, and there is chaos at our border.
People across the State of Wyoming are shocked--shocked--at the way the Biden administration has been acting deliberately to weaken our national security and security at our border. We need to strengthen our southern border. Leaving the border open is like leaving the door to your home open; maybe some good friends will come through the door, but sooner or later, the wrong people will enter your home.
An open border is an open invitation, and it is an invitation to the whole world. Now, this includes drug dealers, sex traffickers, and it includes gang members, and it even includes terrorists. When President Biden took office, he flipped on the green light, and he rolled out the welcome mat. He sent a message to the world. The message was received: The border is open.
Since President Biden took office, 600,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested crossing the border. This is more than the entire population of my home State of Wyoming. Border arrests have gone up every month since President Biden has been in the White House.
Last month, a deputy Commissioner of the Border Patrol retired after 27 years in that office. His name is Robert Perez. Since leaving office, he has had a few things to say. He said: ``What [Border Patrol is] seeing since February . . . is absolutely unprecedented.'' He said,
``It's a crisis unlike anything I've ever seen. . . .''
Right now, we are on the pace to 2 million illegal immigrants. That is what we are looking at, 2 million illegal immigrants crossing the southern border into the United States this year alone. That is the most in two decades, and those are just the illegal immigrants that we know about. In addition, tens of thousands of additional illegal immigrants are coming across the border and are not being stopped.
At the same time, we are seizing more fentanyl at our border than ever before. The numbers are astonishing. This drug is so powerful that a fatal dose is the equivalent to just a pinch of salt. In the last 6 months, Border Patrol has seized enough fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child in America. Some experts will say that the amount they have captured, in terms of the synthetic drug fentanyl, is a small fraction of the amount that is actually getting across the border every day. This would mean a quarter-million pounds of fentanyl is likely to flow into the United States this year alone, and it is not just staying at our southern border. It is in every State of the Union.
Look, this just didn't happen. Six months ago, the border was nearly secure. Then Joe Biden was sworn into office, and he undid the successful policies of the previous administration. He stopped building the wall even though it has already been paid for.
Under the previous administration, asylum seekers had to remain in Mexico until their day in court. President Biden stopped that. He ended that policy, basically saying to everyone: Come in.
It does seem that anything the previous administration did that was done successfully, President Biden has chosen to do the opposite. This isn't policymaking; this is knee-jerk partisanship.
President Biden has had 6 months to fix the crisis that we are living with today. He is only making it worse, and he is doubling down on the mistakes he has already made. It wasn't enough to end the Remain in Mexico policy, which was successful and which Border Patrol agents tell me needs to be put back in place if the goal is actually to secure the border.
Now, the Biden administration seems to be actively looking for people who had to wait in Mexico under President Trump and let them into the United States. He is inviting them into our country, and he is not stopping there. He is going further.
Now, it seems like President Biden is going to open the door even wider. Last year, at the start of the pandemic, the previous administration closed our borders to people from coronavirus-impacted areas. This was a decision made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They did this under title 42 of our laws. This is a section of our laws related to public health.
Well, it is likely to have saved thousands of American lives and protected our public health. It has also helped our Border Patrol. They will tell you that. They will tell you that this has helped them to stem the flow of illegal immigration over the past year.
But now, President Biden, I understand, wants to end that policy--at least that is what the White House is telling the press. That means the crisis at the border is going to get even worse.
You don't have to take my word for it, listen to what Democratic Congressman from San Antonio, Congressman Henry Cuellar, had to say. He represents a district in Texas right on the border--lives there, goes home every weekend, talks to the people, and knows the situation on the border. He recently said ending the title 42 order is ``going to provide another incentive.'' He said, ``The drug cartels are going to start saying you can come in.'' That is Congressman Cuellar, of Texas, and I believe he is right.
President Biden has removed almost all of the policies protecting our border. Title 42 is the last one standing. Now, he is going to take this one down as well. Well, if he does, it will open the floodgates. I would expect tens of thousands more illegal immigrants coming into the country. It would create even more chaos from criminals all across the land--not just from Mexico, but from all across the world, coming across our southern border.
As a physician, I am concerned about this decision from the fentanyl standpoint and also from the standpoint of the disease, the coronavirus and the new variants we are all dealing with. We know that people are coming from all over the world.
When I was at the border this spring, at the Donna facility near McAllen, TX, the border agents said they had arrested people from more than 50 different countries coming across that southern border from Mexico into the United States.
Now, this includes lots of places where the vaccination rates are much, much lower than they are in the United States and in some places where vaccines aren't even available.
At the same time, we are seeing new variants of coronavirus rapidly spreading across the world; variants that are coming from other places; variants that are deadly; variants for which the vaccines that we have here in the United States may not be as effective as we had thought or as we would hope.
So the country's threat for all of us is real. Since the pandemic began, more than 8,000 Border Patrol agents and officers have tested positive for coronavirus, and 32 of these agents have died of coronavirus.
When I visited the border, I saw firsthand how unaccompanied children were routinely exposed to coronavirus. When I visited, roughly 1 in 10 of these young people who had tested, tested positive for coronavirus. And they were all together in these holding pens, crammed in like sardines, one exposing the other and the other after that. These holding facilities packed 7,000 young people into one facility the day we were there, and they have exposed everyone in the facility.
And, of course, after their time in the holding facility, they are released--many of them released while positive. So as new variants spread around the world, this puts our Nation in serious danger.
That is why Republican Senators are sending a letter to President Biden. Our message to President Biden is this: Leave the CDC protection under title 42 in place. The American people need it. We need it from a public health standpoint. It protects our public health. It protects our border agents. It strengthens our border security.
There is enough chaos at the border already--too many drugs, too many criminals, and they are already crossing the border. We need to stop this knee-jerk partisanship. And we need to get back to the policies that we know work; the policies that the Border Patrol tells us work; the policies that the Border Patrol advised the Biden transition team, prior to Joe Biden's getting sworn in and inaugurated as President of the United States, to keep in place.
We need to finish the wall that has already been paid for. We need to bring back the Remain in Mexico policy. We need to enforce the law. We need to close the loopholes. We need to slam the door shut on the drug cartels. It is time to secure our border once and for all.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Alerts Sign-up