-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mrs. MOODY. Mr. President, I, like you, I know, am incredibly frustrated at the lack of funding for one of our most important Agencies in the Nation--the Department of Homeland Security. Due to my Democratic defund disorder colleagues, the political antics they have thrown up to block funding for this incredibly important Agency is being done at the expense of protecting Americans.
We are now in week 6 of an ongoing DHS shutdown. While our country is actively fighting an adversary in the Middle East, it leaves our homeland vulnerable to attacks. Thousands of DHS employees have now missed multiple paychecks because of the show. At the same time, security efforts around the Capitol are being increased, so Democrats get to hide here in Washington, in the Capitol, safe and sound, while blocking funding to individuals around the Nation who can help protect Americans and keep our country secure.
Let's not fool ourselves. Floridians and Americans alike know that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are pushing a shutdown of DHS funding because they don't want a secure border. They don't want to remove people that are here illegally and committing crimes. They have done everything they can to work against that.
This shutdown is about way more than what they profess it to be. This is about blasting apart the security structure President Trump has rebuilt after Biden destroyed the border. For 4 long years, we watched as the previous administration disregarded the law and sowed chaos and destruction at our southern border, allowing a historic surge-- historic; some say up to 20 million people, many unvetted--to pour into this country.
The shutdown has been dragging on so long because my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle cannot stand that the border is now secure again and DHS is doing its job. They cannot stand that the border isn't wide open. They can't stand that unmitigated illegal immigration has been halted. Because of this, they are throwing a temper tantrum, disguising this shutdown as anything other than what it is, and that is a mission to defund police.
Under Biden's watch, approximately anywhere from 11 million to 20 million people flooded into this country. Narcoterrorist cartels were enabled to bring massive amounts of deadly substances like fentanyl into our neighborhoods. It killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
As the attorney general in Florida, I was among the first to call attention to the disregard of law and fought in court against the massive security breaches and shed a spotlight on how Biden and his administration disregarded their duty and put us all at risk. I took legal action to force them to simply follow the law and stop releasing dangerous people and violent offenders into our country.
That once wide-open border was closed by Trump. It is closed. On day one, he took unprecedented action to close the border and started enforcing the law again. He took action against the drug cartels and the flow of fentanyl and other dangerous drugs to keep our communities safe. Under President Trump, DHS provided the most secure border in American history.
It is such a stark difference in what the border looked like under the Biden years to what it looks like today. In fact, during the last month of the Biden administration, every single month saw more than 100,000 illegal immigrant encounters at the southwest border. At the peak of the disaster, they saw upwards of 300,000 encounters a month. And we know that approximately 85 percent of those immigrants apprehended at the border were released into our interior.
The judge who sided with Florida's lawsuit when I took Biden to court and stood up against the illegal actions of his radical administration--that judge who sided with Florida said it best: Biden ``turned the Southwest Border into . . . little more than a speed bump.''
``[L]ittle more than a speed bump.''
Then the American people fought back and elected President Donald Trump. Speed bump met the wall. On day one, Trump ended catch-and- release, and we saw 10 straight months of zero releases--zero--compared to its peak in 1 month by Biden of 300,000. Total border apprehensions under the Trump administration's first year in office were lower than a single average month under the Biden administration.
In addition to the millions of unvetted illegal immigrants Biden let into our country, according to at least 1 recent report that, shockingly, the mainstream media isn't reporting, they allowed 18,000 known or suspected terrorists into the United States. This opens up our country to dangerous attacks from within.
The current DHS shutdown is affecting President Trump's effort to get the unprecedented number of undocumented immigrants that may be a threat to this Nation and to our people out.
Now with our country engaged in fighting in the Middle East and DHS hampered by my Democratic colleagues, we face unimaginable danger, and we have already seen violent attacks within our borders. In fact, DHS recently issued a memo warning Americans to be on guard against potential cyber or other violent attacks. Those attacks are already here.
It is going to take time to clean up the disaster of the last administration, but we are well on our way. We were making great strides, and the other side of the aisle hates that. We know that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been instrumental in preventing terror threats, removing more than 1,500 known or suspected terrorists.
One of the saddest things that I think we learned after the last administration, and certainly as a mother--not just as Florida's attorney general but as a mother--we watched as hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors were trafficked across the border by cartels, and then the Biden administration took the last step--shipped them all over the country.
From a grand jury investigation, we know that some were put with people they didn't even know. One ended up at a strip club. One ended up in an empty lot. We know many went into trafficking. It is the saddest thing imaginable for a child. Too many of these children were exploited and abused before, during, and after they came across that border with cartel members. All told, it is estimated that the Biden administration lost more than 450,000 children.
Today, it is a different story. Under President Trump, DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services have located 145,000 of those unaccompanied children that the Biden Administration lost.
The American people expressed their will when they said: Trump is now our President. We want to secure our Nation.
They wanted to secure our border, and now my Democratic colleagues are obstructing the will of the American people by saying: Oh yeah? You have a President that is following the law? You have a President that is taking seriously his duty to protect this country and our communities? Well, watch what we do now. We are going to defund the police, we are going to defund those agents at the border, and we are going to defund those within that are protecting your communities and helping get those that are here right now--we saw this in Chicago last week; a murder by someone here, let in by the Biden administration-- here illegally--of a young college student again. And they want to tie the hands of the law enforcement officials charged with getting them out. That is nothing more than defunding the police that have taken oaths to protect you and your family.
Someone needs to remind my colleagues across the aisle that the American people are our bosses. They want a safe border. They want safe communities.
The shutdown of DHS has gone on long enough. We are in our 38th day. People are going without paychecks, people that are doing very important jobs, like our TSA officers, like our law enforcement officers, like our personnel at the border, thousands that are charged with keeping this country safe.
Every day the Democrats on the other side of the aisle put politics above people, they show where their allegiances lie. I, for one, know who I am for. I am for the American people. I am for the people that wear a badge and keep us safe. I will always show up on this floor and make sure that the American people know who we are fighting for. The American people are our bosses.
It is time we stand up for this country and for its people and put it first.
Put simply, I implore my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to remember why they are here, to remember the country they profess to serve and the people they profess to serve. Put them first. And let's fund DHS.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source