[Pages S603-S605]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  On a separate matter, Mr. President, President Trump and Republicans 
were elected to secure the border. That is exactly what we are doing.
  In his first few weeks in office, President Trump declared an 
emergency at

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the southern border. He restored ``Remain in Mexico.'' He shut down the 
Biden amnesty act. President Trump signed an Executive order to defund 
sanctuary cities. He began deportation flights for criminal illegal 
immigrants. He signed the Laken Riley Act into law. He listed 
international drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. He 
pledged to send 30,000 of the worst illegal immigrant criminals to 
Guantanamo Bay.
  Here are just a few of the criminals who are now off of American 
streets:
  In Seattle, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested a Mexican 
national who was convicted--convicted--of raping a child. He is being 
deported.
  In Philadelphia, ICE arrested a Mexican national who was convicted of 
possessing child pornography. He was also a drug dealer. He is being 
deported.
  In Los Angeles, ICE arrested an MS-13 gang member who is wanted for 
murder in El Salvador. He is being deported.
  In Houston, ICE arrested another gang member who is wanted for 
aggravated assault. He is being deported.
  In Baltimore, ICE arrested a Cuban national for drug trafficking and 
weapons charges. He is being deported.
  In Buffalo, NY, ICE arrested a Jordanian national with suspected 
terrorist ties to ISIS. He is being deported.
  In San Diego, ICE arrested an Afghan national with terrorist ties. 
This individual had an existing removal order. He is now being 
deported.
  In all, there were 7,330 arrests of illegal immigrant criminals by 
the end of President Trump's first week in office, and 97 percent of 
illegal immigrants who have been deported in the last 17 days were 
actually issued removal orders under President Joe Biden, but they were 
never removed. That is right--97 percent of those deported had been 
given removal orders under Biden. These are people who should have been 
removed, who were ordered by a judge to be removed; but yet Biden and 
the Democrats defied the law of the land and allowed each one of these 
illegal immigrant criminals to stay.
  President Trump's bold actions are also discouraging future border 
crossings. On Monday, we saw the number of illegal crossings drop 
significantly once again into our Nation. This is a drastic reduction 
from the previous administration. The average number of illegal 
crossings in the final week of the Biden administration was between 
1,200 and 1,400 each and every day. All in all, President Trump is off 
to a strong start, and there is more to come.
  Congress still has important work to do. I spoke with Tom Homan at 
the White House last week, where we were for the signing of the Laken 
Riley Act. Tom, of course, is President Trump's border czar. His task 
is to secure the border and deport illegal immigrants. He previously 
ran Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He knows what it means to 
secure the border. Mr. Homan said simply to me: I need resources when 
it comes to securing the border. And I believe him. They do.
  The best way to get these resources is for Congress to pass a 
targeted bill, a bill that backs up the President's bold Executive 
actions. The Senate is already moving quickly to get President Trump's 
personnel in place. We confirmed Kristi Noem to be Secretary of 
Homeland Security. We also confirmed Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of 
Defense. Congress must now ensure that they have the resources they 
need to continue the job.

  A targeted reconciliation bill will give immigration officials the 
tools they need to secure the border. That means funding to finish the 
wall. It means more ICE and Border Patrol agents, more detention beds. 
That includes Guantanamo Bay. It means more technology--not just at the 
ports but also between the ports of entry--to stop the flood of illegal 
immigrants. It is essential that we have the manpower, the technology, 
and the wall to prevent illegal immigrants from coming into our 
country. All three are needed to fully secure the border.
  President Trump has already acted decisively. A targeted 
reconciliation bill will be the rocket fuel for safety and for 
security. This is the golden opportunity to make America safer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to 
complete my remarks before the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would like to continue along the theme 
that our majority whip has talked about, particularly the hand-wringing 
that we are seeing and fearmongering we are hearing from some of our 
Democratic colleagues over President Trump's promise to secure the 
border and the actions that he has taken already early in his 
administration to do exactly that, including enforcing our existing 
laws by repatriating, or deporting, people who have no legal right to 
be here in the first place.
  So, instead of the fearmongering of mass deportations, you might just 
call this enforcing the law--something that is long overdue and that 
the Biden administration did not do--because the fearmongering is not 
based on reality. Our Democratic colleagues would have the American 
people believe that an elderly grandma down the street--a peaceful 
neighbor who would never hurt a fly and who poses no threat to anyone--
will have ICE banging on her door tomorrow morning. Well, that is the 
picture that the left wants the American people to imagine when they 
hear the words ``mass deportation.''
  Last December, in a Judiciary Committee hearing, then-Chairman 
Durbin, the Senator from Illinois, went so far as to say the 
President's repatriation program would ``weaken our Armed Forces'' and 
``devastate our economy.'' That is a lot of hyperbole there. If that is 
what enforcing our law means, it certainly sounds disturbing.
  But the American people can see right through what our Democratic 
colleagues are trying to do here. They are trying to sow fear into the 
hearts of the American people that this President, whom a majority of 
the voters elected, is going to tear their communities and their 
families apart. But the image could not be farther from the truth. We 
know that the Biden administration's own policies and failure to 
enforce the law have been doing just that--tearing families and 
communities apart.
  Start with the fentanyl epidemic in our country, which is among the 
leading causes of death--the leading cause of death--for young people 
between the ages of 18 and 45 and which took the lives of more than 
70,000 people last year alone in this country. Then there are the 
400,000 or more unaccompanied children who have been trafficked across 
our open borders, and tens of thousands of these children have simply 
been lost because of the Biden administration's carelessness.
  The New York Times ran a couple of investigative stories, saying they 
tried to contact the sponsors for 85,000 of these unaccompanied 
children who had been placed with sponsors during the Biden 
administration. There was no answer and no follow-up because the Biden 
administration took the responsibility that it was no longer their job; 
it was the job of the child welfare agencies in the various States.
  These tragedies are the result of the policies of the Biden 
administration, not the Trump administration, and it is one reason 
President Trump was elected decisively on November 5, but there is more 
to the story.
  Untold misery and heartache have been caused by criminals who have 
entered our country illegally. By our best estimate, roughly 1.7 
million ``got-aways'' came across the open borders during the Biden 
administration. These were people who, if they were here for, let's 
say, benign reasons, could have just turned themselves in to the Border 
Patrol and claimed asylum, knowing they would be released or would have 
been paroled by the Biden administration and given a work permit; but 
at least 1.7 million ``got-aways'' were evading law enforcement, 
frankly, because they were up to no good.
  We have now learned what the toll of this invasion of criminality has 
caused. Last summer in Houston, TX, a 12-year-old girl named Jocelyn 
Nungaray disappeared on her way to the grocery store. She was found 
dead in a creek, having been strangled and killed by two men from 
Venezuela who had entered the country illegally. Both of these men had 
been apprehended by Customs and Border Protection months earlier, but 
they had been given a court date and then were released.

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  Last month, an illegal migrant from Mexico was caught with a 
blowtorch near the side of the Kenneth fire--one of the deadly fires 
that was ravaging Los Angeles. This is a man who was already on 
probation and had violated that probation.
  If it is proven that he had started the fire, this would be a slap in 
the face to everyone whose world has been rocked by the devastation we 
have seen from these terrible fires out in California. If it turns out 
that he was one of the ones who started the fire, that would be another 
indictment of the policies of the Biden administration for the last 4 
years.
  Then 2 weeks ago, Boston ICE officials arrested multiple MS-13 gang 
members and criminals on a worldwide law enforcement ``wanted'' list 
for serious crimes. They arrested murder and rape suspects, including a 
member of the Haitian gang who had 18 convictions. These were the types 
of people that the Biden administration allowed loose in our country.
  We know that ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement--has now 
arrested criminals who have committed sexual assault, domestic 
violence, and drug- and weapon-related crimes, but these are just a few 
examples of the hundreds of criminal arrests made just in the few short 
weeks since President Trump took office.
  To the Democrats who would decry these arrests, would you want these 
criminals to be your neighbor? I am going to guess the answer is no.
  With criminal illegal migrants running rampant throughout the 
country, it is no surprise that Americans voted overwhelmingly for a 
President who pledged to reverse the course from the reckless open 
border policies of the Biden administration.
  We know last week President Trump signed the Laken Riley Act. I was 
honored to be present at the White House with our friend and colleague 
Senator Katie Britt to watch him sign this legislation into law.
  Laken Riley, for whom this law was named, was a 22-year-old woman who 
went missing after going on a run. She was killed by a Venezuelan 
national who was also a gang member. He should have never been running 
loose in our country in the first place. It was President Biden's open 
border policies that led to this horrific murder of Laken Riley.
  The Laken Riley Act will now, having been signed into law, require 
the Department of Homeland Security to detain noncitizens charged with 
or convicted of theft-related crimes or any crime that results in death 
or serious bodily injury. I introduced an amendment during the 
deliberations on the bill that would add assaulting a law enforcement 
officer to that list.
  As we know here in the Senate, there is a 60-vote threshold to be 
able to close off debate and to actually move on to pass legislation. 
It ensures that we have bipartisan consensus. I am glad to say that the 
Laken Riley Act passed the Senate with bipartisan support. I appreciate 
the recognition that the status quo during the previous administration 
could no longer exist.
  The Laken Riley Act is not an example of some extremism, but it is an 
issue that affects the day-to-day safety and livelihoods of regular 
Americans.
  I think it is perfectly fair to say that the deportations or 
repatriations that the Trump administration has already begun are very 
much in the spirit of the Laken Riley Act.
  Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made clear over 
the weekend that the Trump administration's first priority will be to 
detain and deport what she called the ``worst of the worst''; that is, 
bad actors with warrants out for arrest for murder, rape, assault, and 
drug trafficking.
  After the criminal aliens are deported, she said the next priority 
will be individuals under final orders of deportation; in other words, 
those who have exhausted all possible legal recourse to be able to stay 
in the United States, having lost their claim for asylum.
  There are more than 1\1/2\ million--1\1/2\ million--immigrants who 
have exhausted their legal remedies in a court of law and are under 
final orders of deportation, but the Biden administration simply did 
nothing about it. So removing these individuals who have no legal right 
to remain in the United States and who have been given due process and 
have lost their case--deporting them is a commonsense next step and one 
that is long overdue.
  So when the mainstream media and our Democratic colleagues engage in 
fearmongering about these so-called mass deportations, I hope people 
remember we are talking primarily about criminals, and we are talking 
about people who have no legal right to remain in the United States, 
having exhausted all of their legal remedies in order to do so. I hope 
we can all agree that these are not people who deserve to remain in 
America.
  America naturalizes about 1 million people a year. I personally 
believe and I think Americans generally agree that legal immigration 
has been the secret sauce for America. It is what helped make us the 
great country we are today, prosperous and strong. But it is illegal 
immigration that has been a scourge and has created much heartache and 
misery and, frankly, makes us a laughing stock when we talk about the 
rule of law.
  Removing and deporting en masse the criminals and gangs who have 
entered our country illegally over the last 4 years and faced no 
consequences means that Americans will have less to fear, and they will 
be safer in their communities and in their homes. They will no longer 
have to fear that one of their children will accidentally take a 
fentanyl-laced pill--make it less likely. We still have work to do 
there, obviously. They no longer will have to fear that their daughter 
will go on a run around her college campus or walk to the grocery store 
and never return home because she has been abducted and murdered by 
somebody who had no legal right to be here in the first place.
  By ending President Biden's open border policies and deporting 
criminals and gang members and people under final orders of 
deportation, President Trump is making our Nation safe again. That is 
not something we should fear; it is something we should welcome.
  I yield the floor.