Transnational Criminal Organization Illicit Spotter Prevention and Elimination Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this foolhardy attempt to pass for a second time one of the most draconian immigration bills this Congress has ever seen. This rehashing of H.R. 2 is a joke.

They say that the definition of insanity is trying something over and over but expecting different results. Yet here we are, debating a bill once again that continues to have no chance of being enacted into law. We know that because H.R. 2 has been brought up and failed twice in the Senate, most recently garnering a mere 32 votes. This is nothing more than pure political theater. I truly don't know what it is that the Speaker wants us to suspend: The rules of the House or our disbelief.

My Republican colleagues continue to show us that they are not interested in finding real solutions to tough issues.

Let's be very clear about what this legislation would do. This bill serves as a wholesale ban on asylum and the end of parole. No one would be able to seek asylum in the United States if they cross between ports of entry or if they had, or could have had, even temporary status in a third country.

The last time we considered this bill, Democrats offered a variety of amendments to exempt the most vulnerable from some of these requirements. This included those fleeing Communist and totalitarian regimes and unaccompanied children. The majority was not willing to exempt children under a year old.

When it comes to parole, Republicans were not willing to support codifying the vital Uniting for Ukraine parole program, which has aided over 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing Putin's unlawful invasion of Ukraine. This is not serious legislation.

Given their slim margins, it is unclear that Republicans could even pass H.R. 2 in its entirety today. As such, the majority had to make some tweaks to the bill to try to convince any Republican holdouts that their marquee bill is a good idea.

For example, this version removes H.R. 2's nationwide E-Verify mandate. If passed into law, this would have decimated our economy, especially our agriculture sector. Some Republicans previously voted ``no'' because of this provision, but removing this title appears to be doing little for the bill's prospects. Other Republicans, including the chairman of the Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee, support this provision and have expressed concern over its removal.

This whole exercise is a huge waste of our time. Not only does this bill not have the votes in the Senate, it probably does not even have the votes to pass the House today.

In what appears to be an effort to gain the support of Mr. Roy, an early opponent of the Speaker's approach to the foreign aid package, the E-Verify section was replaced with a new grant program to reimburse States for enforcing immigration law. This is intended to reimburse the State of Texas for the money Governor Greg Abbott has spent defying our Federal system with Operation Lone Star, even though numerous components of this operation have been ruled unlawful by the courts.

If the hope was that this provision would earn the support of Mr. Roy, it seems to have failed, since we are only considering this bill under suspension because he and others wouldn't even support moving this bill out of the Rules Committee. Not only is this not serious legislation, this is not a serious process.

Let's remember how we got here. After passing H.R. 2 in May of last year, Republicans spent the next 7 months saying that H.R. 2 was the only way to secure the border, even though they know that it cannot become law, having been so overwhelmingly rejected by the Senate.

Then they insisted that the price of helping protect Ukraine against Russian aggression was enacting harsh border enforcement legislation. Senate Republicans even managed to convince some Democrats to agree to a border bill in the Senate, a bill that Minority Leader McConnell called the toughest border bill in 30 years, but Republicans could not take yes for an answer.

Donald Trump said that he didn't want to do anything that might help at the border in an election year because he wants immigration as a campaign issue. Other Republicans said it out loud, too, saying they don't want to do too damn much to help a Democrat.

Folding to the cult of Donald Trump, and just hours after the 370- page text of that bill was released, Speaker Johnson declared the bill dead on arrival in the House, with the rest of the Republican Conference quickly falling in line.

Republicans showed clearly what Democrats have been saying over and over again, that they don't want to do anything that would help address our broken immigration system. They just want to talk tough, without doing the hard work of actually legislating.

Now, this version of H.R. 2 is being sent to the floor to give Republicans cover to vote for necessary aid for our allies Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. If this political theater and show vote of this bill is what they need to pass vital aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, then fine, but let's not pretend we are accomplishing anything here today. This is a waste of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Mississippi.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Suozzi).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the hypocrisy in this Chamber is so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Mr. Scalise says H.R. 2 was sent to the Senate, and the Senate ignores the issue. The Senate didn't ignore the issue. The Senate negotiated, as was mentioned before, a very, very tough immigration bill--the toughest ever negotiated--by Senator Lankford, whose reputation is the second-most conservative Republican in the Senate.

It didn't pass. Why? Because former President Trump said: Don't pass anything. Don't pass H.R. 2. Don't pass the Senate bill. I want an issue. I don't want this issue solved. I don't want a solution. I want an issue for the campaign.

That is what the President said.

Congressman Nehls got up and said the same thing. He said: Why should we give a win to a Democrat?

So don't tell me that anyone is serious about H.R. 2. They are not.

H.R. 2 is so draconian, the Senate would not give it more than 32 votes. We know that. We know that H.R. 2 is a fiction in the Senate.

We know that the Senate negotiated a very strong bill, but that bill could not advance because former President Trump said he didn't want it. He doesn't want anything to pass on this subject.

So don't tell me that the Republicans want a strong immigration bill and that the Democrats want open borders. Nobody wants open borders.

Mr. Speaker, there is something else. The Republicans rightly decry the catch-and-release policy, where someone claims asylum and is then released into the country for years until a trial date comes up to decide whether that asylum claim is valid and should be granted or whether the person should be deported.

That really is intolerable, but President Biden proposed a solution. The solution is very simple. He proposed an appropriation--I forget the amount--but an appropriation that would be sufficient so that those trials would be held in a matter of weeks, not years.

If someone claimed asylum, he has a right to claim it. He has a right to an adjudication. The adjudication would take place in several weeks. If the person's case was valid, asylum would be granted. If the person's claim was not granted, he would be swiftly deported.

You wouldn't have what they call this invasion. It is not an invasion. This country is composed of people who came through immigration. In the 1900s, there were 10,000 a day. They created the current United States, probably the ancestors of most of the people in this country.

Immigrants are not a curse. They are a blessing. We need them for our economy, but we need a legal system. The legal system can only occur if the adjudications can occur quickly. The President proposed the means of doing that, and the Republicans rejected that.

They rejected that. They rejected the tough bill in the Senate because President Trump said: I don't want a solution. I want an issue for the campaign.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

If House Republicans were serious about addressing the situation at the

border, they would work with Democrats on bipartisan legislation that could actually become law, as they did in the Senate. Time and again, Republicans have proven that they want the issue more than they want solutions.

Here we are again taking up virtually the same draconian bill as before, knowing that if it actually passes the House, it will surely go nowhere in the Senate.

In a Congress that has broken records for its chaos, dysfunction, and lack of accomplishments, this debate is one more for the record books.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to oppose this cruel and inhumane bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3602) to prohibit the intentional hindering of immigration, border, and customs controls, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 3602.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Joe Biden took the office of President and immediately did exactly what he had promised on the campaign trail to do: He reversed the Trump administration's immigration policies.

By doing so, the new President let the world know that America's borders are open. President Biden rescinded the remain in Mexico policy, prevented the removal of illegal aliens, and blocked Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection from enforcing immigration laws.

In the weeks and months that followed, President Biden terminated the Trump-era policies aimed at preventing fraudulent asylum claims, ending catch and release, increasing criminal alien removals, and preventing illegal immigration.

We are still in the midst of the Biden administration's extended result: The biggest mass illegal immigration in the history of the United States.

More than 7.6 million illegal aliens have been encountered by CBP on the southwest border. There have been 38 straight months of more than 100,000 southwest border CBP encounters.

The Biden administration has released nearly 4.7 million illegal aliens into America's communities, in addition to at least 1.8 million known got-aways avoiding apprehension.

At least 357 illegal aliens on the terrorist watch list have been encountered by Border Patrol along the southwest border. No doubt more have evaded detection.

All of this is just on the southwest border. Our northern border is also seeing record-high numbers of illegal aliens encountered by CBP.

Early last year, House Republicans acted to secure our border. We passed H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, to end the abuse of the U.S. immigration system, whether by the administration, cartels, or the illegal aliens themselves. Had Senate Democrat leadership not refused to debate H.R. 2 on the Senate floor for more than 330 days, perhaps we would not still have mass lawlessness on our border.

In the meantime, we keep reading media reports that President Biden is looking to use his executive authority to quell the border chaos. Each time, though, the open-borders advocates tell Joe Biden not to use that authority, and each time he bends to their wishes.

Americans are outraged that our own Federal Government turns a blind eye to the chaos that has been created. Americans are tired of seeing mobs of illegal aliens beating up New York police officers, watching endless numbers of illegal aliens stream across the southwest border, and hearing the heart-wrenching details of the deaths of innocent young men and women, including a U.S. Senate staffer, caused by illegal aliens who should not have been here in the first place.

Today, House Republicans are trying again to make our Democrat colleagues and President Biden take this border crisis seriously. H.R. 3602 will restore successful Trump-era policies and remove the rewards and incentives

the Democrats have used to entice people to violate our own Nation's sovereignty.

Division A includes provisions in the Homeland Security Committee's jurisdiction that help secure our border. For instance, it includes provisions to require border wall construction, to increase the number of Border Patrol agents, and provide them with bonus pay and to deploy additional technology to that border.

Division B includes provisions in the jurisdiction of the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees.

Title I reforms the asylum process to deter fraudulent asylum claims from aliens, including economic migrants, and assures that aliens granted asylum are truly being persecuted by their existing government.

Title II ends the Biden administration's catch and release policies by clarifying that the DHS Secretary must remove or detain illegal aliens who arrive at the border or place them into remain in Mexico- type programs. There are no other options. The aliens cannot be paroled or otherwise released into the U.S. unless an immigration judge grants that alien asylum or some other immigration benefit.

Title III directs the Secretary of State to renegotiate successful Trump policies--asylum cooperative agreements and the remain in Mexico program--with his diplomatic counterparts.

Title IV fixes the disastrous Flores settlement that rewards illegal aliens who rent or buy children to pose as family units to avoid detention. Instead, it keeps legitimate families together as they await adjudication of their asylum claims.

Title V requires that unaccompanied alien children be immediately and safely returned to their home country--as we already do for unaccompanied children from Mexico and Canada--rather than trafficked, abandoned, and then exploited in our country. It helps end our government's role in child smuggling and trafficking, a role that is morally reprehensible.

Title VI applies the same penalties for visa overstays as we currently do for illegal border crossings. Under current law, it is a misdemeanor to cross the border illegally, a felony to cross it repeatedly, and yet only a civil infraction to overstay your visa.

Title VII ends the Biden administration's abuse of parole authority, abuses which circumvent immigration law. Parole is inherently a case- by-case review based on individual circumstances in which the rigors of the law are inappropriate. Parole by category isn't parole. It is a new law by fiat. Instead, such changes must be considered and passed by Congress in a Nation that respects the rule of law.

Finally, Title VIII creates two grant programs. The first provides funding for States to construct or improve border barriers and border technology. The second reimburses States for money spent on law enforcement activities related to the border.

H.R. 3602 will help end the border chaos and ensure respect for U.S. immigration laws.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Ciscomani).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), my good friend and chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy), my friend from another border State.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

We had Sheriff Daniels in the Judiciary Committee a few months ago now, and he said he had never seen the border as secure as it was in 2018 and never as broken as it is today. Our colleagues across the aisle often want to set the building on fire and then fund the fire department.

We have solutions to the problem on the southern border. We are not trying to make this a political issue. It is an issue of our time. The American people see it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of H.R. 3602, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, for years now, this House Republican majority--and before we were a majority--has been calling on President Biden to secure America's border. We have been trying to engage President Biden in a negotiation to fix the problem.

We put together legislation, and H.R. 2 has been mentioned by many, many people, the strongest border security bill that has passed Congress. It has been over in the Senate since last year, and they continue to ignore it because they have chosen to ignore the problem.

You saw it play out just days ago in the Senate when we sent over Articles of Impeachment for Secretary Mayorkas, who has failed miserably in his job of protecting America's homeland. That is his job. He is the Homeland Security Secretary, and you have seen him here on Capitol Hill testifying that our border is secure. It would be laughable if it wasn't so insulting to millions of Americans who know that is a lie.

Our border is not secure. In fact, since Joe Biden took office and took actions to open up our border, we have seen millions come across. Is it 8 million? Is it 10 million? The number we know is at least that high, if not higher.

We know people on the terrorist watch list have come into our country because we have caught some of them, but we haven't caught all of them.

We have seen thousands of Chinese nationals of military age coming into our country. Do you think they are coming in here to help be a part of the American Dream or coming to undermine it?

We know the answer to that question, too, which is why we continue to press our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, our colleagues in the Senate, and of course Joe Biden in the White House to get serious about this issue, but they refuse to.

We are not going to let this go. We are going to continue to bring this up. Mr. Ciscomani brought this bill forward, and we will continue this debate.

If President Biden wants to ignore it, he knows, and the American people know, that President Biden has the legal authority today through executive action to secure the border because they watched him use that same executive action to open the border.

He ended remain in Mexico, which we restore in this bill. He mandated catch and release on our Border Patrol agents, who want to secure our border.

We talked to them. We have embedded with them. Many of us have gone down to the border and embedded with our Border Patrol agents. Mr. Speaker, they will tell you what is wrong.

The things that are needed to fix and secure the border are in this bill, but President Biden doesn't want to fix it. He knows he can fix it with a pen today. He has chosen not to because the far-left elements, the radical elements of his party, want an open border, and they are clear about it.

The President tries to act like he wants to secure the border, but then

when it comes time to actually negotiate, he is nowhere to be found.

Ultimately, the voters of this country are going to have a say in November. Do they want a secure border or not? They have a clear choice.

When Donald Trump was President, we had a secure border. He took those steps. Mexico didn't want remain in Mexico to be the policy at the time. That was asylum, by the way, which is what we are really talking about. It was President Trump who went back to Mexico and said: Either you are going to agree to this policy--it is a negotiation between two countries--or there are going to be consequences.

He laid out those consequences. Lo and behold, Mexico saw the light. Mexico recognized it made a lot more sense to agree to that policy with President Trump than to suffer the consequences, so we got remain in Mexico. It started to solve the problem, and then he ended catch and release.

He was building the wall. We funded this when we were a Republican majority working with President Trump. We funded construction of the wall, and hundreds of miles of wall were being built.

Joe Biden comes into office, and on day one, he mandated the end, the halt, of that construction of that wall. The wall was working, and Joe Biden knows it. He ended it because he wanted the border open.

Step by step, action by action, Joe Biden has opened the border. He refuses to negotiate with us on fixing the problem, but we are not going to walk away from this. We are going to continue to force this issue, to bring votes to the floor, to press the Senate to take this up.

At the end of the day, if Joe Biden still wants to continue to block this, still wants to continue to keep the border open, the voters are going to have the ultimate say in November, and I don't think he is going to like the answer.

He could do something about it right now. He refuses to. Ultimately, the people of this country will have a say if Joe Biden won't work with us, but we are going to continue to push it.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this piece of legislation that is so important to our national security.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Alabama for yielding me time. I am glad to see this body taking up my border security legislation today alongside these other important packages as well.

Now, the gentleman from New York calls this a joke. Well, I don't know what he finds funny, but nothing about this situation is funny. It is not funny to our Border Patrol agents; it is not funny to my border communities; and it is certainly not funny to the hundreds of thousands of women and children being trafficked by the Mexican cartels at our southern border. There is nothing funny about this situation.

Let's be clear: Our border is broken and has been for a long time. At a time where our world is more dangerous than ever and our adversaries are emboldened, protecting our homeland is our most critical priority. Attacks by our adversaries have spurred the urgent need to support our allies. Congress should be able and must do both, and it all starts with a secure border, Mr. Speaker.

This bill takes major strides in addressing our porous border. It would immediately restart construction of the border wall, end the disastrous catch and release policies, and streamline the asylum process. We have seen policies that work, including remain in Mexico and Asylum Cooperative Agreements in the Northern Triangle. This bill would start the process of going back to those policies and, in turn, stem the flow we are seeing.

The United States Congress is the most powerful body in the world. We must be able to support our allies while we protect our homeland as well.

The world is looking to America for strength, and our country is looking to Washington for leadership. The administration is nowhere to be found, has been nowhere to be found. We must step up and fill the gaps the White House has left by their weakened foreign and domestic policy stances.

Since January of 2021, there have been more than 7.6 million migrant encounters at our southwestern border. In addition to this staggering 7.6 million, estimates suggest upwards of 1.8 million additional illegal immigrants that evaded Border Patrol and entered our country. Most notably, 169 individuals on the terrorist watch list were apprehended at the border in FY23.

These are no longer just families coming to America in search of a better life. In FY24 so far, we have witnessed over 20,000 Chinese nationals at the southwest border. Encounters of Chinese nationals have already surpassed all of last fiscal year.

I recently went to Israel and personally walked through the devastation of October 7. Make no mistake, Hamas wishes the same fate on Americans.

This bill does not just address a major national security weakness, it solves a crisis that millions of Americans already live with. In my district alone, we have seen close to 1,000 migrants per day enter our communities. Arizonans have seen a spike in high-speed car chases and illicit activity by Mexican cartels.

In FY 2023, fentanyl overdoses in the U.S. rose above 112,000. Fentanyl overdose death is becoming the number one cause of death among young people in my home county of Pima County.

My colleagues from New York to Oregon have seen the effects of our border crisis in their own communities. We must send the signal that the U.S. southern border is not open. Our adversaries, whether it is the Mexican cartels or the CCP, will seize any moment to take advantage of American weakness.

Each of these packages take a firm stance to stand with our allies in Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine. In turn, my bill takes a firm stance on America's strength in our homeland. Mr. Speaker, this is personal to me. Not only is it the number one issue in my district, it is the number one issue for Republicans and Democrats in my district as well.

I am a third-generation American. I immigrated here with my family when I was a young boy. Today, the open-border policies of the Biden administration are not the way of the American dream. It dilutes and diminishes the efforts and sacrifice of so many immigrants that came before us to open the way, invest in this country, and became Americans.

It is fueling human trafficking and enabling the cartels and flooding our country with fentanyl and other deadly drugs. America is the land of opportunity. I believe that. I am a proud product of the American dream, living it every single day, Mr. Speaker. But the crisis at our southern border is not the American Dream. It is a nightmare. We must take steps to secure our southern border immediately. This legislation is a start. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Alabama for yielding. The gentlewoman is right, in part, in that we are here for two reasons. Yes, this bill will not become law--there is no question about that-- and it will not become law for two reasons.

The first reason is that our Democratic colleagues refuse to address the crisis at the border, and in fact, want to perpetuate it, encourage it, and cause more of it. The second reason it is not going to become law is because Republicans continue to campaign on securing the border and then refuse to use any leverage to actually secure the border. That is the reason; those two reasons right there.

That is why this will not become law. Let's be very clear with what we are dealing with here right now. We know the numbers. We can talk about the numbers, the 7 million that have been released into the country, the 2 million plus got-aways, the extent to which we have had a thousand pounds of fentanyl pouring across our border every month for the last 6 months, the 24,000 Chinese nationals, the 85 percent of whom are adult single individuals that have come across this border since October 1, which is more than the entirety of fiscal year 2023, and certainly more than the 381 in the last year when the policies of President Trump were in place

The reality is that we are being put in danger. The American people are getting killed. Laken Riley is dead because of policies of the Biden administration, specifically the parole policies that release people into our country to kill Americans.

That is what has been happening. Yet, we are going to do nothing about it. We have legislation right now that would fix the problem in significant part. H.R. 2, we passed it a year ago. It is a great bill. I support the bill. I support what is in it. It changes the policies, frankly policies that President Obama and Jeh Johnson asked us to change, like TVPRA and Flores. It changes the policies of abuse of parole and asylum by this administration.

We should get it signed into law. The only way to force Democrats to do it is to use leverage, and we are not going to. Despite the fact that the Speaker of the House repeatedly has said in January at the border, a trip I didn't take because I knew full well what would happen, it would be a show trip. That is exactly the truth. If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin with defending America's national security.

We wanted to get the border closed and secured first. He said in a letter in December, supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our Nation's border security laws. Well, here we are today with a sham vote. Let me be very clear, the people saying that we stopped H.R. 2 in the Rules Committee and didn't allow it to get connected to or allowed to be attached to the Ukraine bill, they are lying. That is not true. It was a separate rule, a separate vote designed as cover, cover for Republicans to try to vote for a Ukraine funding bill without securing the border of the United States. Yes, I do agree with that point, that is the truth.