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Floor Speech

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Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I cannot be the only Member of this body to notice that several words and phrases are used a lot less on the Senate floor these days. Among those words and phrases are ``open borders,'' ``illegal crossings,'' ``catch-and-release,'' and ``migration surges.''

You see, these terms have been dropped from our debates and are no longer in the news because President Trump and Republicans in Congress helped largely close the border--close the border to illegal immigrants.

With support from this President and this Republican Congress, our law enforcement personnel ceased catch-and-release and stopped the record migration surges.

This--this--is what the American people elected us to do: to end the chaos at the southern border and block the flow of illegal immigrants into our communities. And we did these things so effectively, it has almost gone unnoticed.

Of course, there were some Members who denied there was a crisis in the first place. There were all sorts of commentators who decided to look the other way. The numbers from one administration to the next tell a different story, though. Let's revisit those numbers.

From 2021 to 2024, over 10 million illegal immigrants crossed the southern border, and this was by design. You see, President Joe Biden paused deportations. He laxed requirements for asylum seekers. He ended construction of a border wall. If you go down there today, you see remnants of it. He suspended ``Remain in Mexico.''

The previous administration created an influx of illegal immigrants and, in the process, endangered public safety and taxed resources in communities along and far from the border.

These policies also undermined Americans' faith in legal immigration. They undermined faith in legal immigration. Yes, my constituents understand we are a nation of immigrants, but our faith was shaken because the previous administration prioritized lawbreakers over those who wished to come to America legally and embrace our values.

As soon as he was inaugurated, President Trump increased the number of troops along the southern border. He began deporting illegal immigrants, and he reinstated ``Remain in Mexico.''

And Republicans in Congress, we did our part too. In the Big Beautiful Bill passed by this Congress and signed into law by President Trump a year ago, we increased resources to secure the border and to combat drug smuggling and human trafficking across the Nation.

The bill contained funding for additional Border Patrol agents. As a result, the screening and vetting of illegal immigrants increased markedly. And we increased funding for the Department of Justice, and that enabled the hiring of additional immigration judges to clear out the backlog of asylum cases.

Now, today, the results speak for themselves. These numbers are compelling. They are breathtaking. In November 2024, there were 106,333 reported border encounters. In January 2025, the number dropped to 61,465. Think about that. From November 2024 to January 2025, the number dropped from over 106,000 to 61,000. It was down to 8,000--8,326 to be exact--by the next month.

And a year later, in April 2026, apprehensions on the southern border were 94 percent lower than the monthly average during the Biden administration presidency. Imagine that: 94 percent lower.

What about the seizure of drugs? The seizure of drugs--cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, and marijuana--has increased, by weight, 60 percent--60 percent--since just April of 2024. And we just marked an entire year of zero releases at the southern border.

Now, a nation that does not control its borders--that cannot enforce its laws--is a nation that willingly surrenders its sovereignty or, as Ronald Reagan once put it:

A nation that cannot control its borders is not truly a nation.

Abandoning our right to determine who participates in that process-- indiscriminately allowing all comers to enter our country--it endangers our citizens, it burdens our taxpayers, and it makes a mockery of the rule of law.

It is also dangerous to the immigrants themselves, many of whom perish on their way to our southern border. Americans realized this, even if some of their leaders did not. And this is why President Trump and congressional Republicans acted with a bias for action so that we might end the border crisis.

And how can you tell? The relative silence in the mainstream media and on this floor from many of our Democratic colleagues tells you all you need to know.

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