Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, earlier this year, President Trump led the Federal Government to recognize our insecure southern border for what it is: a national emergency, a humanitarian and security crisis. Congress had heard plea after plea for more border security funding. We heard from senior leaders and career Border Patrol officers. We heard about all the surging illegal crossings, the unprecedented numbers of family units, and the strain on our facilities.

Yet Washington Democrats decided that giving this very real crisis the resources it required might anger the far left, which wants them to oppose President Trump at any cost. So the President tapped into a longstanding, 40-plus-year-old Presidential authority and reprogrammed a narrow set of funds to address the urgent crisis.

I have never been shy about my commitment to the institution of Congress and its unique authorities, not the least being the appropriation of taxpayer dollars. But we are talking about 40-plus- year-old Presidential authorities in current law. Unlike President Obama, who vaguely shrugged off the Federal Code when he established his DACA policy, President Trump's decision was squarely within existing law. Nevertheless, our Democratic colleagues made the Senate vote to undo the President's declaration back in March. Their resolution fell far short of earning a veto-proof majority.

Now, still unwilling to work with the President and Republicans on a long-term bipartisan solution for border security, Senate Democrats are making us repeat the same show vote again.

I would urge all colleagues to once again vote for border security and vote against the Democrats' resolution when it comes up later today.

I understand the Democratic leadership would like to invent a false choice between border security and other important military construction projects. They want to tell the American people that we can either have border security or these other important projects, but for some reason, we can't have both.

There are two problems to that argument:

Problem No. 1 is that it is a false choice of Democrats' own invention. The only reason there could be any tradeoff between border security and these other priorities is their refusal to support commonsense border security. The only reason there is any tradeoff is that Democrats have refused to work with the President.

Problem No. 2 of their argument is that Congress has the full power to ensure that all of the military construction projects are fully funded. Work is ongoing on appropriations and the NDAA. It would be easy to ensure that these projects get all of the money they need.

Later today, the Senate will vote on exactly that. We will vote on several motions to instruct our NDAA conferees. One of those motions will be a Republican proposal that we insist on fully funding these projects for our own servicemembers.

With the Kentuckians I represent, this is pretty simple. Kentuckians want our Nation to have a secure southern border. Kentuckians want full funding for the middle school at Fort Campbell--funding they have been waiting on for years, which is funding I proudly secured in the first place. Kentuckians know perfectly well that with everything the United States of America spends money on, there is no earthly reason the Democrats should force us to have one or the other. They don't want to be used as pawns in the Democrats' political games.

Even my Democratic colleagues who don't support the administration's border security agenda should not take out their frustrations on our Armed Forces. Every single Member of this body should be able to support the measure to fully fund military construction. I would urge all of my colleagues to vote yes on that motion later today.

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