Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I stood before this body on December 11, exactly 6 months ago, to discuss what I called then ``an escalating crisis on our southwest border.'' Well, 6 months later, I don't think this is a subject for debate anymore. Not only is this a crisis, but it is one that has escalated and continues to do so. Congress must take action or I feel it will come to deeply regret our inaction.

When I called it a crisis in December, 50,000 migrants had been apprehended crossing our southwest border during the previous month of November. It is now June, 6 months later, and we are looking at the numbers for May that approach over 133,000 apprehensions--the highest 1-month total in 13 years.

In 6 short months, the numbers of encounters on the border have increased by more than 156 percent. Over the past 12 months, the number has increased by more than 229 percent. Those are staggering figures.

To put this in context for my fellow West Virginians, in the month of May alone, the Border Patrol apprehended a population that is larger than our capital city, Charleston; Huntington, WV, our neighbor; and Morgantown, WV, combined--three of our largest cities in 1 month.

As I said standing at this desk in December, the flow of people across the border is not only larger but is also changing. Twenty years ago, the vast majority of those crossing our border illegally were adult men from Mexico. In fact, in fiscal year 2000, 98 percent of those people caught at our border were Mexicans. Under U.S. law, migrants from Mexico can be immediately returned to Mexico by the Border Patrol, but today we are seeing families and not just adults.

Last month, of the over 133,000 people, nearly 64 percent of those who crossed our borders did that as a family unit, and the vast majority of them are from other places than Mexico. They are Guatemalan, Salvadoran, and Honduran. Of the more than 84,000 members of family units apprehended by Border Patrol last month, only 547, less than 1 percent, were from Mexico.

So unlike folks from Mexico, these folks who are coming cannot be sent home immediately under U.S. law. They remain in our country often for months or years as their cases work their way through the system.

To summarize, today we have significantly more people crossing our southern border, and because of who they are, whom they are traveling with, and where they are traveling from, each of these individuals causes us to have a more significant strain on our system. Our system makes it advantageous for migrants from places other than Mexico to cross the border with children. So more people than ever are making absolutely sure they are accompanied by a child on their long and often very dangerous journey from those places through Mexico.

All of these factors I have discussed have completely overwhelmed our system. Everybody in this Chamber ought to believe that and know it is true. Conditions at Border Patrol stations that were never intended to be used as migrant shelters are stunning. These facilities are bursting at the seams, and our Border Patrol agents are spending more time caring for these migrants than they are patrolling our border, which is their core function. At any given time these days, somewhere close to 20,000 individuals are being housed in Customs and Border Protection facilities not at all conducive to extended stays. In other words, these facilities were not meant for long stays.

People are upset. It is unsettling seeing pictures of people sleeping on concrete floors under Mylar blankets. I have been to these facilities and, yes, it is heartbreaking to see, but when drug lords are dropping off busloads of migrants in secluded parts of our southwest border, where there is virtually no infrastructure, there is not much to be done to improve the situation, unless we provide the resources to deal with this crisis.

So what is happening? In the last 5\1/2\ months, more than 22,000 family units that crossed our border illegally have been released into the United States--often without any place to go--and told to come back when their case comes up, which could be years. I am encouraged by the President, and I am very supportive of the President's plan and his administration's, where they successfully negotiated an agreement with Mexico that will lead to more migrants waiting outside the United States while their asylum claims are being processed. I believe the agreement will improve the situation on the southern border when it is fully implemented.

While we have to work to improve the situation going forward, we have to address the problem we have right here today. I am the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. I must repeat to this body what I repeated here before, 6 months ago. We do not have a choice. We do not have a choice, but we must get this emergency supplemental done. It is the only choice we have from a humanitarian perspective. It is the only choice we have from a border security perspective.

If we fail, the Department of Homeland Security will be faced with even more difficult choices. It will either have to stop their efforts to improve these horrible conditions on our border or it will have to raid other agencies that are vital to our national security.

I don't want to see that happen. There was a very robust debate a few months ago about the crisis on our border. Was it real or was it manufactured? I stood here 6 months ago and said it is real and, quite frankly, I don't hear that topic up for debate much anymore. I think we all know it is real. It is tragic, but we can do something about it.

The New York Times, no less, is now deciding the situation is ``a nightmare'' and is imploring Congress to stop ignoring this crisis.

It was 103 degrees this past weekend at one of our entry points at McAllen, TX, which is the epicenter of this crisis. We know it is only June, and it is only going to get hotter. I hate to see what the situation will look like this summer if we fail to act.

I will end with this. The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security who work our border and are trying to process this influx of people are doing incredibly tremendous work. It is stressful, it is hard, and in many cases it is not the mission they signed up for when they joined the Department of Homeland Security, but they have stepped up to address a national need, and it is past time that we stepped up for them and for these children and these families in need.

Thank you.

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