Dire Situation At the Southern Border

Floor Speech

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Mr. EDWARDS. Madam Speaker, today I rise on behalf of my constituents in western North Carolina to highlight the dire situation at the southern border and to advocate for the enforcement of our Nation's immigration laws.

The Biden administration continues to break records and not in a good way.

The number of individuals on the terrorist watch list that were apprehended illegally crossing the southwest border increased 2,500 percent from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2023, and a record- breaking 301,000 migrants were caught trying to illegally enter our country in the month of December alone.

Our country's border control agents are overwhelmed, and they are underfunded.

What has President Biden done? He has done nothing but open our southern border up to more illegal immigrants and chaos.

I went to the Tucson sector of the southern border last year to witness the crisis for myself. I saw millions of taxpayer dollars in the form of unused border wall materials rusting away in the hot Arizona sun.

Local law enforcement pointed out to me where the border wall ends at the top of a hill and shared how cartel members sit on the Mexico side of the mountain peak to serve as a lookout. These cartel members are able to see for miles and signal to illegal immigrants when the coast is clear so that migrants can then flood our open border.

Many of the illegal immigrants trying to cross our border are military-aged men. They are not families and children. They are cartel members trying to smuggle fentanyl into our borders and cause harm to our communities. Local law enforcement shared how difficult it has been to step up when executives in the Federal Government refuse to prioritize our national security.

I sympathize with Cochise County law enforcement, and I think every law enforcement officer across this country can sympathize, too.

Sheriffs across this country have told me that they have asked to meet with Joe Biden to tell him firsthand of the problems that they are having and their request, for some reason, has not been granted. Why won't the President not meet with them? Is he afraid of the truth?

Since 2021, America has seen an unprecedented surge at our southern border. Customs and Border Patrol reports over 7.6 million encounters, and the Secretary of Homeland Security has affirmed more than 85 percent of the migrants caught illegally crossing our southern border are ultimately released back into the country. That is nearly 6.5 million migrants released into the interior of the United States by the Department of Homeland Security since January 2021.

Now, we have record levels of fentanyl flowing across our borders, courtesy of the Mexican cartels. Over 27,000 pounds were seized last year, and it is destroying the very fabric of our communities.

In 2022 alone, illicit opioids claimed the lives of 313 members of my district. That is 313 sets of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, and loved ones gone due to drug trafficking promoted at our southern border and ignored by our country's President.

During my time in Congress, I have written, cosponsored, and helped pass legislation in the House to secure the southern border and end this administration's radical and dangerous border policies. I was proud to cosponsor and vote for H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act over a year ago, last May.

Senate Democrats and President Biden could take real concrete steps to solve this migration crisis and to address everything from court backlogs to the trafficking of unaccompanied children if they would just get behind H.R. 2, but they haven't.

Why are Democrats so adamantly opposed to commonsense legislation to protect Americans and close our southern border once and for all? Instead of supporting the strongest border security package in American history, the Senate has proposed a do-nothing border bill that enriches criminal networks, uses taxpayer dollars to fund organizations that facilitate mass illegal immigration, and codifies Biden's open-border policies like catch and release.

As terrorists, drugs, and weapons flow freely into our country, I believe that we should be putting the American people first, not playing political patty-cake.

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