Failed Border Policies

Floor Speech

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Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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

During his time in office, the Biden administration continues to break records but not in a good way. Last month, Customs and Border Protection seized close to 1,700 pounds of fentanyl at the border, a 30 percent increase from just July.

Over 200,000 Americans have now died from illegal drugs being smuggled across the southern border, and this number only continues to increase. This also comes after 3 years of broken border records and overwhelmed Border Patrol agents.

Some of the first executive actions taken by President Biden undid the Trump administration's attempts to get the situation under control.

Biden threw open the border. Whether he did it for political reasons or through sheer incompetence, it is costing Americans half a trillion dollars every year.

Now, we have fentanyl flowing across the border, courtesy of the Mexican cartels, tearing apart families and the very fabric of our communities in the North Carolina mountains.

Our border is being overrun with lawbreaking migrants, overpowered by drugs, and overwhelmed by what this is costing our Nation.

By conservative estimates, more than 2 million illegal immigrants have been turned loose and are now unaccounted for in America, and that doesn't include those who managed to give Border Patrol agents the slip or the millions who have been living here illegally for years.

These are not small numbers, Mr. Speaker. This is mass migration into our country, facilitated by our very own President.

What is the Biden-Harris solution? How does President Biden and his appointed border czar plan to solve a problem that they manufactured?

Last month, a DHS report found nearly 530,000 individuals were flown in and paroled by the Biden administration under the error-plagued mass parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, a program that was previously paused due to mass fraud and abuse. You can't make this up, folks.

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 have cosponsored and voted for H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which is the strongest border security package passed by the House in American history.

Senate Democrats and President Biden could take real, concrete steps to solve this migration crisis, and address everything from court backlogs to the trafficking of unaccompanied children if they would just get behind H.R. 2.

Why are the Democrats so adamantly opposed to commonsense legislation to protect Americans and close the southern border, you might ask?

One of my Democratic colleagues apparently said the quiet part out loud. In no uncertain terms, she said that she wanted more illegal immigrants to come into our country to give liberal sanctuary cities a higher population for congressional districting and the electoral college.

She said: ``I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes,'' in reference to illegal immigrants coming in droves to New York.

To solve the problem once and for all, I introduced H.R. 7109, the Equal Representation Act, which allows a very basic question to be asked in the U.S. Census: Are you a U.S. citizen?

Given all the other information the government collects during a census, this is a very reasonable thing that we should know, especially as the census count determines congressional apportionment, and only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote.

My bill prohibits anyone who is not a United States citizen from counting toward population totals that determine the number of seats each State has in the U.S. House of Representatives. This would go an incredibly long way to helping us determine who is actually in our country, which is not an unreasonable thing to want to know.

Knowing who is in our Nation and keeping out those who are trying to break our laws and brazenly waltz across our borders is basic national security. Our own President is failing at the task of keeping this Nation safe and secure.

I ask my colleagues from across the aisle, and this administration, to work with Republicans to pass this commonsense legislation that actually goes to fix the problem.

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