Southern Border Invasion

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, I think one more time today it is important to update the Chamber as far as what is going on with the biggest crisis in America today. That is, of course, the virtual invasion across our southern border.

We recently had published an estimate of the number of people who have crossed the southern border in April, the most recent month available. That number is about 204,000. April is usually a low month, but per usual, it appears as though we hit the all-time record number of people coming here in April.

A year ago, it was about 178,000, and a year before that, about 160,000. If you go back to the final year that President Trump was President, it was about 6,000. We have gone from about 6,000 people, which is apparently doable, to about 205,000.

During that time, President Biden, through executive orders, has changed the policy and is also allowing about 30,000 people here as parolees from countries such as Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba. So, that number of 204,000 is really probably understated by about 30,000.

Our country continues to struggle with this. It is very expensive, though that is not the biggest problem, be it schools, be it medical care. Even in my district when I talk to people who try to put together free clinics used to get Medicaid payments, that sort of thing, one of them told me even a majority of people they are having to take care of--in essence, charity--are people who some would describe as illegal immigrants.

I assume that the number of illegal immigrants who are unaccompanied minors continues to be a concern. We have about 6,000 of the 205,000 unaccompanied minors.

We heard testimony about this recently, but we still do not know exactly where all these folks are. We don't know if they are living with a so-called relative, whether we are consistently giving DNA tests to see whether it really is a relative. We know The New York Times published articles that guessed that there are tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors not accounted for.

It would be very easy to solve this problem. You reinstitute the stay in Mexico policy. You get parole. By the way, with parole, you automatically get what we refer to as welfare benefits as soon as you come here. You get rid of these programs and this drive to change America would change almost overnight.

We can never forget that Barack Obama, living in the greatest country in the world, the United States, during his term felt that one of his goals would be to fundamentally change America. When you change the people in America, how they are brought up, how they think about things, you will fundamentally change America, the greatest country in the history of the world.

The only reason you continue to let, as far as I can see, about a quarter million people coming here every month is because you do want to change it and want it to be different. So, I call upon President Biden to return to the stay in Mexico policy.

I think primarily by doing that, you could get that quarter of million figure back down around 20,000 or 10,000 almost overnight.

Again, the takeaway for this body and the American public should be, and we should never get bored of saying it, it appears, one more time in April, we hit the all-time high for an April of the number of people crossing into our Nation.

What I thought was the biggest crisis in the country when I became a Congressman--now I guess I have to say it is second to the border--is the continued assault on marriage and the breakdown of the family. When I talk to people in my district, they know something is wrong.

In some ways, America is different than the America they knew in the 1990s, the 1970s, the 1960s. You ask them what the change is, and they frequently say the number one change is the breakdown of the American family, the end of the old-fashioned mother and father and children at home as we slowly increase the number of children who are born without a father in the household.

Of course, this is a problem in two ways. It is a problem for the children by every metric. They would be better off if they had mom and dad at home. It is also a problem for the men in society, as usually men get their self-worth out of supporting their family.

We have more and more families in which, as an immigrant in my district tells me, in America, or some communities, the woman marries the government. Because we have a situation in which we are encouraging the woman to marry the government, we have a situation in which we no longer have what is for most men their most important function in life, and that is supporting their wife and supporting their children.

I want to point out, by the way, that this is not a coincidence. When I talk to people around my district and say: Why do you think the family is breaking down? Maybe they shrug their shoulders and say: America is less religious or something. They have to realize there are people all along who want the breakdown of the family. That is their goal.

In 1848, Karl Marx, who is still read and still respected in some circles, wrote about the need to abolish the family in ``The Communist Manifesto.'' He did not want children to be raised by parents. He wanted the government to assume that role.

I think it is not a coincidence that in the 1960s at the time of great subsidy of fatherless homes was also a high tide for feminism. Kate Millett, a very important feminist, that I think some young people don't know, said that destroying the American family was necessary to bring about the leftwing cultural revolution.

I think today our children are sometimes taught that the feminist movement was a positive. We can't forget during their power of the sixties their goal was to destroy the American family.

Remember a few years ago, at a time when so many Congressmen in this institution would show up at places where Black Lives Matter was having a rally or carrying signs, that at that time, before it was taken down out of embarrassment, they said that they were calling upon the end of the Western prescribed nuclear family.

Let's not forget that--despite the fact that on their website Black Lives Matter was calling for the end of the nuclear family--dozens, perhaps hundreds of people in this body, showed up at places showing support for Black Lives Matter, as well as the chief executives of our largest corporations frequently giving money to Black Lives Matter because, apparently, they thought it was the trendy thing the way America was going.

Last month, in another bit of evidence that the hard left likes to believe the nuclear family is outdated, there was a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision dealing with adoption laws. This wasn't the reason for the decision; the decision wound up being unanimous. Justice Jill Karofsky of the Wisconsin Supreme Court--and in Wisconsin our supreme court justices are not partisan elections, but everybody knows who the Democrat is and who the Republican is. The relatively new Democrat Justice Jill Karofsky writes: ``The notion that marriage serves as the foundation of society is at best outdated, and at worst misogynistic.''

Think about that. In a State like Wisconsin where frequently Republicans win statewide, we have U.S. Senator Ron Johnson here, but a woman got elected to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court and here she declares that: ``The notion that marriage serves as the foundation of society is at best outdated, and at worst misogynistic'' letting the cat out of the bag that the goal of the left is to destroy the American family.

Now, how is President Biden responding to this in his proposed budget? There are many programs out there which are made available, as long as there is not a breadwinner in the family, particularly as long as there is not a man in the family, which I think they are really aiming at, then those programs kick in. Some of these programs, it appears to me, are increased in this budget, which, in other words, further pushes for financial reasons for getting the men out of the household.

President Biden tries to increase more low-income housing frequently available to one-parent families, not to married couples. The earned income tax credit is a horrible program which was begun or actually pushed by a Republican Jack Kemp and is another program which discourages marriage. SNAP increases discourage marriage. Things like Pell grants are a program that is much easier to take advantage of, college scholarships, if you don't have a two-parent family at home.

It is very disappointing that President Biden has decided to put all this money into programs designed to assist primarily fatherless homes, but we have to stand up as a Congress and say, no, we are no longer going to push one lifestyle over another.

It would be a good thing if we went back to a time when the government was not putting their thumb on the scale as to what type of family you have. I hope that my Republican colleagues in the Appropriations Committee, when they see the increase in these programs, make sure that they don't come about, but, in fact, do the opposite, that they turn around and begin to work our way back to the eighties, the seventies, the sixties, the fifties where we did not punish parents for getting married.

On the Pell grant thing I want to recount an anecdote I have talked about before. I have spoken about this topic for over 20 years now, and I was once speaking to a group of primarily senior citizens. It was during the Tea Party thing. They were older people, and I went through all the programs that you lost if you married a guy with an income.

There was a young gal working at that time. Most of the people who are most familiar with the Tea Party movement know a lot of people there were older, but there was a young gal. I asked her what she thought about my speech and all the benefits out there to discourage people from getting married. She said that, you know, me and my husband, we got married before I had a child, but none of my friends got married, and they get free college.

I realized even then that the 24-, 25-year-olds, they had it figured out. Sadly, they already realized that the goal of the American Government was to discourage marriage and do what they can to give programs based upon the idea of not having a man in the family.

My hope is we begin to work our way back to a time where the two- parent family--there are wonderful parents raising children in all sorts of circumstances, but the government should no longer create situations in which there are incentives to keep the man out of the household.

We had some votes recently with regard to American aid to Ukraine, and I believe that once we have gone down the path we have gone down, we cannot allow Ukraine to collapse.

That being said, it bothers me that to this day the Biden administration does not talk about trying to end this war. We have two countries that are actually very closely related. In my district, when you run across someone that is Russian, they very frequently have a spouse from Ukraine or the other way around.

It seems to me a real tragedy that a huge number of people, tens of thousands of people of both countries are dying because of that war. Ukraine has the second lowest birth rate in the world. It is always a tragedy when people die, but to have a country in which so many young people are dying is truly a tragedy. They have the same problem in Russia, a birth rate that is too low. Not only is the birth rate too low, but they also have a huge immigration problem.

I know in this country having been down at the southern border, it is not unusual to have Russians come in there. I know a few people in my district, including a young couple with children that I am sure Russia would love to have, but they left Russia to come here. That was before the war started.

The goal of both Mr. Zelenskyy and Mr. Putin ought to be to try to get more young people to populate their rather large countries, not to have this war going on. I think they both must realize this if they really want what is best for the future of their countries. I would hope that President Biden, in addition to asking for more munitions for the war would find some country, be it Israel, be it Turkiye, whatever country, to try to negotiate an end to this war. It is such a tragedy to see tens of thousands of young people dying on both sides when from what I can see the biggest problem that both countries have is a lack of young people in the first place.

I would ask President Biden to spend a little time on that. When I have met in the past with his advisers or his Cabinet on this issue, they really just seem dumbfounded when I ask them about when the war is going to end. It is like they haven't even considered it. It is something we should consider. It is also bad geopolitically for the United States.

We saw earlier this week meetings between Red China and Russia. I know going back to President Nixon we did not want close ties between Russia and China, and we have been very careful to make sure that hasn't happened. However, you leave it to President Biden, and those countries have closer ties, as well as closer ties with Iran, another country that we don't like to necessarily see prosper or become part of an alliance against the United States.

My third request for this body is that we try to prod the Biden administration in looking for an end to this war, so these two great historical countries do not continue to lose their younger population.

To go over one more time, we have to have Americans still be aware that we are hitting records of people coming across the southern border.

We have to remind people at home that this breakdown of the family did not just happen; it happened because this Congress continues to dole out money, virtually conditioned upon not having an old-fashioned, nuclear family, and the Biden administration is trying to throw gas on the fire with this budget.

Finally, we hope Members of this body will prod the Biden administration towards looking for peace in Eastern Europe.

Madam Speaker, as I wrap up, I hope the body proceeds as I would wish, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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