Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, today I rise to voice my support for the brave men and women of America's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. Unfortunately, a resolution that would have shown this body's unanimous support for these courageous individuals was blocked.

While the Border Patrol has the important mission of maintaining security at our borders, ICE agents have the critical mission of enforcing immigration laws inside the United States. These two work hand in hand. Our Nation cannot have border security without enforcing our laws inside communities, and we cannot have secure communities without enforcing our laws at our borders.

The critical mission of ICE goes far beyond just immigration enforcement. These folks are on the frontlines of our homeland security.

Here is just a short list of the types of activities ICE is involved in: one, investigating and combating drug smuggling, pretty important; stopping human trafficking; preventing gang-related crimes; and working with other law enforcement entities to stop criminal and terrorist networks from operating.

Iowa, along with the rest of the country, has been gripped by an opioid crisis that puts our people and our safety at risk. Additionally, we continue to have a very grave methamphetamine issue that threatens the core of many of our already struggling rural communities.

We need ICE to help stop the flow of these drugs into Iowa's communities, our schools, our workplaces, and to our children and our families. In 2017 alone, ICE enforcement and removal operations seized nearly 1 million pounds of narcotics--1 million pounds of narcotics seized by ICE. Abolishing ICE would turn the flow of illegal drugs across the border from a stream into a monsoon.

I also implore anyone challenging the need for ICE to look at the horrendous toll of human trafficking: young and innocent women and men, boys and girls used as human pawns, smuggled across the border with hopes of a better life, forced into prostitution or worse--raped, beaten, subjected to sexual diseases and stripped of all innocence and dignity.

Sadly, human trafficking is a major issue in Iowa. In 2016, for instance, Des Moines was identified as one of the country's top 100 human trafficking locations. That information came to us from our good friends at Polaris, which is an anti-trafficking organization.

Human traffickers often exploit our immigration laws to transport their victims, and our ICE agents are the ones who help to stop them and to stop their illicit activities.

Every day, 24/7, 365 days a year, ICE agents are on the frontlines. They are working to dismantle human trafficking networks and protect our most vulnerable.

I urge my colleagues to reconsider their objections and to support not only the resolution but to support those officers and personnel who carry out the vital mission of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in order to ensure the safety and security of all Americans.

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