Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss an important topic to our Nation's homeland security, the crisis at our southern border. And it is, indeed, a crisis.

In its most simple form, it is paramount that we know who is coming in and out of our country in order to keep our families and our fellow citizens safe. However, it is impossible to do so when individuals are traversing across our border avoiding checkpoints and bypassing our immigration laws.

Mr. Speaker, I have been to our border. I served on the Homeland Security Committee my first session here. We took a trip to the border. We went to California. It was the first time I had ever been to California. We went to San Diego. In San Diego you need a barrier, you need a wall, and you need a fence. You have got 3 million people in San Diego County, 3 million people in Tijuana separated by a highway. It makes perfect sense to have a barrier there, a fence.

Then we went to Arizona, rugged terrain, mountainous terrain. There you need technology, you need boots on the ground, you need blimps, and you need drones, all of those things. When we were in Arizona, we visited a farmer, a rancher there, who showed us an area where they had a fence. In that area where they had that fence, they had cut it off. It was a 10-foot fence, and they cut it off at 5 foot, put ramps on it, and they had driven a truck over it.

You have to have a fence, and you have to have technology.

We went to McAllen, Texas. It was the first time I had ever been to that part of Texas. We went to the Rio Grande River. Now, I grew up in south Georgia; to me the Rio Grande River was this giant river that you saw in a John Wayne movie. It is anything but. It is a narrow, winding river that in some areas is knee deep. People walk across it. You are going to have to have barriers in some of those areas. You are going to have to have boots on the ground. You are going to have to have technology, blimps and drones, all of those things.

What we are talking about is securing our borders. Everybody wants to say: oh, he wants to build a wall.

Yes, you need a wall in certain areas, and you need a barrier. But you need technology. But most importantly you need security.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to deny the President the ability to deliver on a campaign promise. That is not what this is about. This is about securing our borders. We need to focus. We need to focus about what we are talking about here. This is real. This is serious.

Let me tell you how serious it is. I have seen examples of it. I have seen examples that it creates in my own district, my own congressional district in coastal Georgia.

Just over a month ago, three illegal immigrants were charged with conspiracy to murder a legal, naturalized citizen who threatened to turn them in.

Now, folks, if you want to know how people feel about illegal immigration, ask someone who has become a citizen, who has gone through the process. Don't ask me; ask them. Ask them what they think.

I guarantee you, they are going to be opposed to it. They did it the right way. And we invite them here. We need them here. We want them here. But they did it the right way. They are as much opposed to it, they are as much offended by it as anyone.

It is stories like these that inspired me to introduce H.R. 6333, the Tax Identity Protection Act, in the 115th Congress. The Treasury Department's inspector general noted that up to 1.4 million illegal immigrants could be fraudulently using legal citizens' Social Security numbers, but the IRS refuses to do anything about this, stating that they can't accurately determine which numbers are mistakes and which are fraud.

So I introduced the Tax Identity Protection Act. It would require the IRS to find ways to better determine illegal immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers. I will be reintroducing that bill shortly in the 116th Congress, and I hope that my colleagues will support this legislation that strengthens our national security and protects our personal identities.

Immigration is important. It is important to the history, the culture, and the progress of our country, but it is past time for us to fix our broken immigration system and ensure that people seeking a better life in America are coming through the lawful channels.

I want to thank my colleagues for holding this important and timely Special Order today.

Folks, this is serious. This is important. We need to focus, keep our eye on the ball here.

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