Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to start out with some housekeeping.

A lot has been said over the last few days about the huge number of IRS employees that are intended to be added by the Biden administration, and I just want to clarify some numbers.

There are new employees who are going to replace retired employees, but there are still 25,000 new employees who are going to be added to the Internal Revenue Service.

I should point out that, over time, you would expect--and this apparently surprises some people--you would expect the number of IRS employees to drop.

I used to do taxes. I haven't done those for over 25 years now. Even at that time, as things became more computerized, if you got interest income or dividend income or capital gain income, the IRS would match up those numbers with what appeared on your tax return.

If you got from U.S. Bank $1,000, and you didn't put it on your return, you could expect a letter in the mail: Where is the $1,000? Please give us another $300 in taxes.

You do not need more employees to do that sort of thing. Again, when you talk about 25,000 more employees than the past, for a State the size of Wisconsin, that is really a small army of 500 new employees.

Sometimes, it is easier to bring down to the State level because we deal with such big numbers. Whether you are talking about Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, or Washington State, they all can expect about 500 new employees. While there may be some people cheating, an increase of that size is just inappropriate.

Immigration

Let's look one more time at the new numbers that were released over Christmas break as far as the immigration situation in this country.

We have a new all-time record for the number of people coming here in November, over 200,000, 210,000 people. These numbers were released, by the way, late on a Friday, Friday as always, so the mainstream press, which already does a bad job of covering this issue, does not bring them up.

A lot of the focus has been on title 42. While that didn't go into effect, it didn't stop there from becoming an all-time high.

When I talk about 210,000 in November 2022, a year before that, we were at 131,000 for November. The year before that, before President Biden took office, we were around 20,000. We have gone from 20,000 to 210,000.

I am somebody who believes in intact families. Just as scary is the callousness of the Biden administration to the degree to which the open border situation tears apart families. In November, there were over 9,000 unaccompanied minors released to sponsors apart from their parents. A year ago, instead of 9,000 people being broken away from their parents, we had about 10,000, again, the Biden administration. A year before that, the final year of another administration was 1,200. There were months in which we had under 200 unaccompanied minors enter the country. We are now over 9,000.

Please, I wish we remembered that when we have our open borders policy, we are causing so many children to be raised apart from their parents.

I also want to point out the number of got-aways, which is a particularly dangerous subgroup of people coming here illegally.

So that you folks understand, there are two big groups of people coming here illegally.

There are people who ask for asylum. They don't deserve it, but they ask for asylum and turn themselves in to the Border Patrol. At least we get to do a little medical checkup on them. We are allowed to get a little bit of information on them. If we have the right name, which we may or may not, we can do a little bit of criminal background check on whether they have committed crimes in the United States or Canada.

There is another group of people called got-aways that race across the border and take advantage of the fact that, right now, so many Border Patrol agents are just doing paperwork. We have, as far as I can see, the all-time high, 73,000 got-aways in November 2022.

So that you understand, if you are somebody who is sneaking fentanyl across the border, if you are somebody who has a criminal record, how would you come here? Would you turn yourself in to the Border Patrol? Not likely. You would rather sneak across the border.

The fact that that subset is increasing even greater than the people who turn themselves in to the Border Patrol should scare every American to death.

It is time for President Biden to do a little bit more than a perfunctory stop at the border. He has to look at 2 years ago, in November 2020, when that 210,000 figure was under 20,000. It can be done once; it can be done again.

The American people and the press corps in America ought to hold him accountable and ask him to explain why we used to--as a matter of fact, earlier in 2020, we were under 10,000 people a month--why we used to be able to hold these numbers under 10,000 a month and now we are over 200,000, and why we used to be able to keep the unaccompanied minors under 1,000 and now they are over 9,000.

When I talk about unaccompanied minors, I am not including minors that were rented by other people because they felt it would be easier to get here with a family. The Border Patrol knows that is happening, as well. Maybe you rent little Johnny to somebody who says we want to be a family. That is another thing that is not even showing in these numbers. We don't know how often it happens. We just know that it happens.

I realize that Black Lives Matter has been hostile to the traditional nuclear family. I realize that is an important group for a lot of Members on the other side of the aisle, but I will tell you, I don't like it at all when I see over 9,000 unaccompanied minors coming into this country.

I want to point out another number that doesn't appear on here, and I wish we would keep track of it, and that is the degree to which we separate the family. Maybe one parent comes here with the kids but not two parents.

In America, our family court system--if people get divorced, we try to keep both parents around the area for the children. It breaks the heart of Border Patrol that they see no effort being done at the border.

In other words, if one parent shows up with the kids, maybe dad, maybe mom is left home in Guatemala, El Salvador, or wherever, we don't care. It really bothers the Border Patrol because, of course, when it comes to American children, we love them enough that we try to keep both parents involved. But when it comes to the policy at the border, we don't care.

I am also told, by the way, that this policy bothers governments of the countries that these people came from because they themselves have family

courts and they would like to keep both parents involved in their children's lives. They don't like the callousness of the United States, how they don't care whether the family is apart or not.

There is another side to this story, as far as what is going on on the southern border as well, and that is the number of deportations. You know, people say, Oh, we all have such wonderful people crossing the border, blah, blah, blah. Well, they are all not that wonderful. They are people that commit crimes, people that we catch doing wrong things.

And while our immigration system is relatively weak, our deportation is weak compared to what it should be, at least some people historically have been turned back south of the border. If you look, that number was usually over 200,000 under President Trump, 250,000, 260,000. It slipped to 185,000 in President Trump's final year, in part because of the COVID. We recently got the numbers for fiscal year 2022, where it is 72,000.

The COVID crisis is not exclusively but largely over, so here we are in a situation in which we have under a third of the number of deportations which we used to have. So not only are we letting everybody come here and not only are we encouraging the breakdown of the families by having so many unaccompanied minors coming here, we are not deporting people like we have in the past.

I have talked to a Federal attorney, and it disappointed him because he knows the rules they could have operated under in which you are able to now commit more crimes, do more bad things, and apparently the U.S. Government doesn't care.

Of course, eventually, as we let more people commit crimes in this country, there is going to be an increase in the crime rate. It is going to be a less civil America.

I wish and I beg the Biden administration to find some of the officials left over from the past administration and have them show them how it is done so we don't continue to have so many people who have criminal records wind up in the United States.

Now, speaking of things that have happened since the new year, we finally have the murders in Milwaukee--the city which I was born in. I love Milwaukee so much. When I was a child, Milwaukee had the lowest murder rate of the 25 biggest cities in the country, depending on the year, it was either them or San Diego.

This year, we exploded to a new record. We went up from 197 to 224 in 1 year. That is 27 more than the previous all-time high. I can remember when Milwaukee had a much smaller population, but that number was under 40.

Well, what happened?

Part of it, of course, is the police hatred that goes on in our society. I think that really began around Ferguson, Missouri, where it was called the Ferguson effect, and police began to become afraid to enforce the law. No matter how much they were in the right--and, of course, the Justice Department did investigations in Ferguson, and they found out the policeman was in the right in that tragic death--they still were attacked by opportunistic politicians and opportunistic clergy.

We had a situation in Ferguson, they called the policemen racists. The Justice Department, even under Barack Obama, felt nothing had been done wrong. The opportunistic and offensive Al Sharpton showed up and attacked--or verbally attacked--the police in that area, rather than becoming persona non grata. Rather than being pushed aside, we see politicians still trying to ingratiate themselves to Al Sharpton, and still trying to promote his divisive world view.

So it is not surprising, as the police back off, despite the population falling, the number of murders continue to go up.

I beg the Members of this body to reject the Al Sharpton divisiveness. Stop standing up on the dais with him. Stop attending joint meetings with him and promoting that lying clergyman. It is an embarrassment to Christianity. It is an embarrassment to America. I can't believe there are Members of this body who think he is somebody to promote his view to the world.

Then we have what I think is the root cause. We have a continued break-down of the family in America. We know that Black Lives Matter, that played such a big role in the 2020 elections, hates the nuclear family. But I wish our social scientists would do a little more investigation on the role of the break-down of the family and the anger, particularly of the young men, the fact that so many men don't have a family to take care of because the government takes care of all the families. And we work our way back to what the murder rate was in the 1960s before you had the huge war on the family initiated by Lyndon Johnson.

I ask the social scientists and I ask the journalists to demand information on the background of the murderers that are caught--not enough are caught--who are committing the murders in Milwaukee, and also the family backgrounds of those unfortunate souls who have died because of the Ferguson effect and the police hatred that is fomented by Members of this body.

My final comment here is with regard to another year gone, another year we will wind up--we will get the numbers shortly--with over 100,000 people dying of illegal drug overdoses.

We all know two things that politicians should do immediately, because almost all these drugs come across the border, we should shut down that border and prevent any more Americans from dying.

Big numbers are kind of easy to gloss over, and it is important to remember when we are talking about 107,000 or 108,000--I am old enough to remember the Vietnam war--we are having twice as many people die of illegal drug overdoses in this country than has died in the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war went on for 12 years, there were protests, there was so much commentary on the number of people who died, and they were all heroes and we should talk about it.

But we have twice as many people dying in 1 year in this country as died in 12 years in Vietnam.

Do you think any increased effort is made to close the border?

No. Politicians don't care about that 108,000.

Remember, they all had parents, some had children, some had siblings, some had friends, but we are so callous, we don't care, another 107,000. What difference does it make?

The other thing you should do--because it is up to the police to find these drug dealers--we, one more time, should have a little more respect for the police.

I will shortly be introducing a bill to allow the Border Patrol to hire more drug-sniffing dogs. Anybody who takes the tour down there--I am sure Joe Biden didn't hang around long enough to find this out-- would find out how tremendous those dogs are. They are not cheap.

When I think of all the people who died because of the drug overdoses, I really hope in the upcoming budget we maybe find more money by getting rid of all the new lawyers we are hiring to represent the people coming here illegally. Instead of hiring more lawyers, we hire more drug-sniffing dogs. Maybe we can reduce the numbers of Americans who are dying of drug overdoses as people come across the border.

So those are a few things for the American people to digest, some more things the mainstream media ought to be taking up. A little more headlines, even if the administration releases the immigration numbers on a Friday, publicize, you know, the huge numbers of people who are coming across the border.

Do not get anesthetized and stop caring about the huge numbers of ever-increasing Americans who are dying of illegal drug overdoses. Please, take action.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 1 o'clock and 11 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, January 13, 2023, at 11 a.m.

Madam Speaker, one of the scary, ongoing stories over the last few years, more typical of an atheistic totalitarian regime than our wonderful constitutional Republic, has been a tax on pregnancy counseling centers.

They are hated because they try to persuade women to keep their babies, and they articulate how precious life is in the womb, which is considered to be dangerous speech to those who desperately want to legalize 8-month abortions.

Some of these attacks, like those in other venues by antifa and Black Lives Matter have become more physical in nature.

The lack of urgency by law enforcement to protect the speech of those who want women to keep their children is dangerous. This effort to muzzle those who express a wide variety of conservative Christian viewpoints has become more and more common and should scare anyone who does not want to live in a religiously hostile, large government State.

Please vote for H. Con. Res. 3.

Mr. Speaker, the population ought to be aware of the fact that very late in the last month the administration released the new figures on what we will call legal immigrants crossing into this country. This was before there were any changes in title 42, and a lot of the focus lately has been on title 42.

We had another all-time record in November with 210,000 people crossing the border and staying here. This is a national scandal. Just making a brief appearance at the border shouldn't get Joe Biden off the hook. 210,000. By comparison, a year ago, it was 140,000. Two years ago it was under 25,000. When you are going under 25,000 to 210,000, that should be the headline in every paper of the country, and I don't care whether you release the numbers late in the day on a Friday or not.

I hope this institution does all we can to pick up the mantle that President Biden has dropped and do something about the massive increase in illegal immigration.

Mr. Speaker, I have a very high opinion of the gentleman from Massachusetts, but what scares me in this bill are the numbers.

Right now, the IRS has about 78,000 employees, of which about 10,000 are what they describe as agents. It is not surprising that is less than you had in 1954 because, in 1954, nothing was computerized. Now, the 1099s, the W-2s, they come in and automatically the computers show whether they are on your return or not. If they are not on the return, you get a letter from the IRS saying you owe X amount of money.

Now, we are going, in one bill, from 78,000 employees, adding an additional 83,000. We have no idea how many of those are going to be agents poking around, looking at people, but you have to figure it is going to be an increase of five or six times what they already have.

Wisconsin and Massachusetts are States about the same size. You are talking about adding 1,600 employees--assuming it is the same per capita, about 1,600 new employees to Massachusetts and Wisconsin.

What are they going to do with 1,600 new employees? I mean, I can't imagine. If you deal with the IRS, the way they deal with it, they do things like: ``Well, you owe $20,000.'' You have to find a lawyer to fight that.

Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago on this floor, we were admonished for not wrapping up our budget in time. That is a fair thing. We are supposed to take care of our budget.

Another thing we are not taking care of, and the American public ought to be appalled until we do, is the new news on the border. I talked to a prior expert down there and got even more terrifying information.

Now, first of all, in November, we had 73,000 what they call got- aways, people not even touched by the Border Patrol, breaking the previous all-time high by 24 percent in one month.

Isn't that something we ought to come back next week to take care of?

Not only that. I had suspected this, but apparently the Border Patrol is concerned about where the unaccompanied minors are winding up. These are minors who come here without their parents. All they have is an address. We don't confirm--or they believe we don't confirm--that parents or aunts or uncles or somebody is at that address or if they show up at a house and maybe there are 10 single males in the house, a young woman--we don't even know.

It is time this place began to do some committee hearings on where the unaccompanied children, who should be spun back around to their home country, wind up.

Mr. Speaker, I one more time plead with the press corps here to report what I thought was the most significant story to come out in the last 2 weeks. And that is, that there were 73,000 got-aways who came across the southern border in October.

So our listeners are aware, there are two large groups that have come across the southern border when we talk about illegals coming here. Some turn themselves into Border Patrol and ask for asylum and are given a court date. But there are other more dangerous ones, the type that are not subject to background checks and may be sneaking across the border with illegal drugs who we refer to as got-aways.

Until last month, the all-time high for got-aways was around 59,000. In one month, we had a 23 percent jump to 73,000. That ought to be a banner headline in every newspaper across the country. And the fact that it is not, should make the entire Washington press corps ashamed of themselves.

Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 514.

Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress

Axne (Pappas)

Baird (Bucshon)

Bass (Cicilline)

Beatty (Neguse)

Brooks (Fleischmann)

Doyle, Michael F. (Pallone)

Gibbs (Smucker)

Gonzalez (OH) (Moore (UT))

Hayes (Neguse)

Herrera Beutler (Stewart)

Huffman (Levin (CA))

Jacobs (NY) (Sempolinski)

Johnson (LA) (Graves (LA))

Johnson (OH) (Fulcher)

Johnson (TX) (Pallone)

Kahele (Correa)

Kildee (Pappas)

Kirkpatrick (Pallone)

Lawrence (Garcia (TX))

Lieu (Beyer)

Long (Fleischmann)

Meeks (Meng)

Napolitano (Correa)

Nehls (Mace)

Newman (Correa)

O'Halleran (Pappas)

Palazzo (Fleischmann)

Pascrell (Pallone)

Payne (Pallone)

Peltola (Correa)

Pressley (Neguse)

Ruppersberger (Sarbanes)

Rush (Beyer)

Simpson (Fulcher)

Sires (Pallone)

Suozzi (Cicilline)

Swalwell (Correa)

Titus (Pallone)

Welch (Pallone)

Wexton (Beyer)

Williams (GA) (McBath)

Madam Speaker, it is always difficult to follow the always interesting Congressman Schweikert.

There are a variety of issues that we haven't addressed for a while but that are in the news and demand some attention.

First of all, I noticed our President Biden was down near the Mexican border and was quoted as saying, when he was asked whether he would go a few more miles to the border, he said there are more important things to do. One of the more shocking statements in an administration of shocking statements.

It has come out recently that in November we had 73,000 got-aways at the southern border. Now, I would like to point out, there are two groups of people who are coming here who shouldn't be here. One group insists they are asking for asylum, and they turn themselves in to the Border Patrol, they get an interview, they are registered to come in here and are given a date to appear before some tribunal.

The other group--the more dangerous of the two, I think--are those people who don't want to be seen by the Border Patrol. They want to sneak across the border and are what the Border Patrol refers to as got-aways.

In November, the highest number that I can remember, the Border Patrol estimates there were 73,000 got-aways. They are more dangerous because, for example, if you are sneaking drugs across the border, you don't want to turn yourself into the Border Patrol, you want to sneak across somehow.

That 73,000 was a 23 percent increase in the estimate compared to the prior month. A huge increase. Like I said, for people who have a criminal background--because our Border Patrol is able to check as to whether you have a prior criminal background in the United States or a prior criminal background in Canada. But again, if you molested somebody or committed harm, you would try to sneak across the border.

Why are more people sneaking across the border?

I assume it is because it is getting easier and easier. We have a shortage of members of the Border Patrol there. They are busy doing the administrative work. Because they are doing more administrative work, they don't have time to guard the border, and as a result, we have an all-time high.

Not only more people probably who are the type of people who would commit crimes, we have more of the type of people who bring drugs across the border. If we do have anybody from foreign countries who wanted to cause harm to the United States, they would be got-aways. That is the way to come here.

I think it is entirely scandalous that President Biden would be so breezy as to say: I have more important things to do than see what is going on at the border. It was very disappointing.

I could argue maybe some poorly run campaigns, that President Biden was only mildly struck down by the results on November 8.

I hope the American public wakes up--I don't think they were educated on these numbers enough--wakes up to the huge number of people coming across our border.

I also hope the American public remembers that the 188,000 people who die every year of illegal drug overdoses in this country it doesn't just happen; it happens because we are neglecting the border where so much of the fentanyl comes across.

I would also like to point out that America is not anti-immigrant. I think it is so slanderous when he says that.

Last month, I attended a ceremony in West Allis, Wisconsin, where they swore in, they estimated, over 100 people to be new American citizens. We were told by the representative there that last year was the first year, in her memory, in which we swore in 1 million new, all- legal citizens.

So don't let anyone tell you that America is not being kind to people from other countries who want to come here. Last year, 1 million people managed to legally be sworn in as citizens. That is quite enough.

I don't think we are being at all nice, we are being cruel to our own country to allow so many other people to come across here--73,000 got- aways, and approximately 100,000 other people, I believe, when the figures are released, coming across in October.

The next issue to talk about that has been in the news is in my home city of Milwaukee, or the city of my birth: there were 211 murders that took place. Milwaukee, when I was growing up, depending on the year, was either the safest or second safest city next to San Diego, among the 25 biggest cities in the country.

We now have--and the population has fallen since that time--we have now hit today 211 murders, which is an all-time record for Milwaukee; they never before even hit 200, now we just blew by that number. Probably by the time we are done we will be up around 220. There is going to be all sorts of analyses as to what causes it.

Some people are going to say it is caused by lack of good schools, but I want to point out that in the future when we analyze this number--and there should be an analysis done on the number--we should look a little bit at the family situation of the murderers, insofar as what type of family were they brought up in and what type of family do they live in now.

I do believe there has been significant breakdown of the traditional family in this country over the last 50 years, and I personally think that is the primary reason why we are blowing by the 200 figure in Milwaukee right now.

In any event, as this horrific year in Milwaukee is analyzed, I hope, given all the money we spend on studies, that some work is done studying the people who are caught for these murders, the background they have, and they realize that, in the future, as we try to avoid more murders in Milwaukee, we don't do silly things like look at the guns; we look at the background of these people; look at the war on the family that has been going on in this country for over 50 years and try to work our way back to where we were in the 1970s and the 1960s and, even more, the 1950s, when the murder rate in this country was a fraction of what it is today.

I will point out, even when you look at the 211 murders, we have top- of-the-line medical care now. The number of murders has skyrocketed over what it was, say, 40 years ago or 50 years, skyrocketed over what it was 55, 60 years ago, despite the fact that medical care was nowhere near as great at that time.

So I hope people look at the family and analyzing what we can do to get that murder rate back down a little bit toward where it should be.

The next issue I want to address today concerns the efforts being made, which I believe will be successful, to remove the vaccine mandate for our brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women who operate in our Armed Forces.

Earlier today, I talked to Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Long, who is from Fort Rucker, Alabama, and is a whistleblower, as to what is going on with the vaccines for our servicemembers today. I would hope that all members of the press would be crowding on a chance to talk to her on her observations at Fort Rucker and throughout reports made to the military on what is happening after our soldiers get vaccines.

Right now, a lot of the focus, understandably, is on the fact that the effort to require vaccines is reducing the number of recruits. It is causing people to leave the military at a time when we need more people in the military, and that is a big problem.

But I think we have not spent enough time looking on the fact that the military members who do not want to get these vaccines may very well be right.

If you look at the number of soldiers and sailors aged 19 to 40 who are getting cancer, who are getting pulmonary embolisms, who are getting heart problems, myocardial heart problems, are all increasing significantly over what it was 3 years ago.

Indeed, she has seen things at Fort Rucker she has never seen before. And one has to wonder whether it is the huge number of military members who are getting these vaccines. She feels that this has been really a fraud on our servicemembers telling them that these vaccines are all safe, when we have the most in-shape group of people in this country, people in the military, aged 19 to 39 and, despite being in such good shape, particularly males 19 to 39, we see a significant increases in deaths from sudden cardiac arrest.

We see, among the women, an increase in miscarriages, perhaps an increase in infertility.

We have big problems here. I think before we advise these healthy people in their 20s and 30s to get the vaccine, they ought to sit down with Lieutenant Colonel Long and look at the figures which she has been talking about, a whistleblower trying to save the troops under her from getting any more life-threatening events.

So I hope that Congress weighs in here. I hope the Biden administration shows a little bit of sympathy with the soldiers and removes even the request that people under 40 get the vaccine. I hope that Congress weighs in in that regard, requiring that the medical personnel in the military be a little bit more forthcoming on the results that they see, the health problems that have become apparent in our troops today, compared to 2 years ago, and compared to 4 years ago.

You are going to find more bad things going on, and it seems to me common sense that, given the great increase in vaccines on these young people, you have to kind of assume that the vaccines are causing these additional problems.

So I hope that Congress wakes up. I hope even more that our slumbering media wakes up, who should be looking out for the poor and defenseless--I don't like to call our military poor and defenseless, but when they try to kick them out of the military, they kind of are-- and see whether the government is, in their policies here, are they looking out for the good of the pharmaceutical industry or are they looking out for the good of our troops?

In any event, there are three issues that we deal with tonight: The bad outcomes of the vaccines on our troops; the new, all-time high in murders in the city of Milwaukee; and the record-high number of people, number of got-aways crossing the border that apparently President Biden does not think is a serious problem.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the problems in China, the protests in China, and the degree to which perhaps the largest American corporation, Apple corporation, out of sheer greed, is weighing in and preventing protesters from communicating with each other.

Their CEO, Tim Cook, who is making over $90 million a year, is right now preventing AirDrops from being made between different protesters. Without communicating with each other, those protests will not succeed.

China right now has one of the most repressive regimes in the world, atheistic totalitarianism. It has been the greatest threat to freedom in this country for the last 100 years.

It is disappointing, though perhaps not surprising, that American corporations, the wealthiest country in the world, cannot resist shutting down free speech in China to make a few more dollars.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Congress to act and do something with these large corporations that, in America as well, have a monopoly on free speech, a monopoly on communication, and are using it to support atheistic totalitarianism.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Lamborn for organizing this little group of speeches.

As has been mentioned, the first National Bible Week was less than 2 weeks before Pearl Harbor in 1941. Why do we have a National Bible Week? Because the Bible was the preeminent text of our forefathers when they wrote our Constitution.

To leave you with a couple quotes, George Washington said: ``It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are indispensable supporters.''

John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: ``The Bible is best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and regulate your life by its precepts.''

Clearly, if you want to understand the Constitution, you have to understand the Bible. That is why John Adams said that the Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people and totally unfit for any other kind.

The most read book or most cited book, by our forefathers, in the Old Testament was Deuteronomy. I have always felt the reason they quoted Deuteronomy so much is they wanted America to be the type of country that God had wanted Israel to be.

Deuteronomy ends with the death of Moses. As has been mentioned, in the relief up here, the wisest man, or the man with the most important position in this room, is Moses, which shows that Congress, even at the time we built this Capitol, talked about the importance of the Bible in understanding what behavior should be and in understanding what our Constitution has made a reference to.

In any event, I thank Congressman Lamborn one more time for putting together this ceremony and encourage, particularly all of the young people out there, to read the Bible so you understand the basis of our country.

Mr. Speaker, for those folks back home and the members of the news media, when we talk about the number of illegal immigrants coming here, they basically come in here two ways.

Either they check in with the Border Patrol, say that they are going to show up for a hearing, eventually, to see whether they are an appropriate subject for asylum, and then they disappear into America. At least we know a little bit about them because they check in with the Border Patrol.

More dangerous is what they call the got-aways who just run through the many holes of our southern border. We have no idea who they are. They are more dangerous because we know nothing about them.

It recently came out that there were 73,000 got-aways who entered the country in November. That is the all-time high. As far as the last 2 years are concerned, it blew by the old all-time high by 22 percent.

I would hope that our slumbering news media would wake up and do a story about this so the American citizens know what a rapid increase we have of people coming into this country who don't even get the cursory examination that people who come here seeking asylum do. So please, news media, wake up.

Madam Speaker, I use this opportunity to try to wake up our slumbering press corps on another very relevant story related to the southern border.

In the last week, it became apparent that, in the last month, 73,000 illegal immigrants snuck across the border without touching the Border Patrol.

So you understand, when you hear these numbers, 150,000, 180,000 people crossing every month, most of those people are people that are at least touched by the Border Patrol before they are given an appearance date at which they have to appear before some judicial forum. But there are also people who sneak across the border without being touched by the Border Patrol.

We had 70,000 gotaways in November. That is the all-time high-- without any perfunctory analysis at all, 73,000.

The border crisis is the greatest it has ever been. I beg the press corps in this country to wake up. That 73,000 figure ought to be the banner story in every newspaper across the country. We know that most of those papers won't even cover it. They are off covering some Hollywood floozy.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about some issues that I feel the mainstream media is ignoring. If anybody is listening here today, please put them on page one where they ought to be.

The first issue I am going to talk about is Ukraine.

I have felt all along that this is a disaster. It is obviously a disaster for all the family members of both the military and the civilians who have died during this conflict. It has the potential to become a huge disaster for the other countries in Europe and the United States of America, given the potential of what Russia is able to do.

Nevertheless, until apparently very recently maybe, the Biden administration has not been looking for an end to this war. Now, maybe the United States cannot broker an end, but maybe France or Turkey or Israel can. They should be encouraged to go down that path.

Every day the war continues, more people die. Every day the war continues, it is more of an economic catastrophe to Russia, an economic catastrophe even more to Ukraine.

In the relatively recent background, we had huge numbers of a much closer relationship with Russia, and I thought Russia was moving slowly toward being a more westernized country, having McDonald's and what have you.

But in any event, the sooner this war wraps up, the better. Above all, the sooner the war wraps up, the less likely it will become a war in which there are huge catastrophes as things get worse. I think there are some of my fellow Members who would not mind getting American troops involved in Ukraine. I do not want to have that happen.

I hope we get a little more pressure out of the press corps to say let's look for off-ramps for both of these countries and see what we can do about beginning a peace, as well.

The next topic that I think hasn't been reported on enough is the border. Just because the border is a mess does not mean we ought to not be reporting the new numbers of people who are coming here every month. They are released every month.

We recently got the totals for October 2022. When I am talking about the numbers here, I am talking about the people who come into the country. My colleagues sometimes refer to the number of people who are met by the Border Patrol. Many of these people are still turned around and sent back. I am not talking about encounters. I am talking about people who really come here.

I think since last Congress came in, we have had two new numbers come out. First of all, we had September 2022. I am going to be talking about the numbers for this year, a year ago, and 2 years ago.

Two years ago in September 2020, 15,000 people came across the border who we really didn't appropriately vet. Last year in September, 116,000 people came across the border that we really didn't vet. This year, 178,000 people in September came across the border. That should be a banner headline in every newspaper in the country. It hasn't been. It should be covered.

Now, let's look at October, the numbers that just came out. Two years ago, in October 2020, a little under 20,000 people entered the country. In October 2021, it was about 99,000, so jumping from 20,000 to 99,000. This year, miraculously, just like September--actually, a couple hundred less--178,000 came across the border.

Again, we go from 19,000 to 99,000 to 178,000. The situation keeps getting worse. I don't think, if there is such a thing as a responsible media, they are doing a good enough job of explaining the degree to which this number is growing. Just because it was a horrible situation and we were at 140,000 in August doesn't mean we ought not talk about the fact that there were 178,000 in the most recent month.

We know, of course, this huge increase in the number of people coming here almost certainly means that there is an increase of fentanyl streaming across our border. We are at 108,000 deaths a year from illegal drugs in this country. When I think of all the parents, siblings, and children who are without sons or daughters or mothers or brothers or sisters, it just breaks my heart.

That also ought to be a banner headline, and I am sure that this huge increase of evil coming across the border means probably more fentanyl and probably more deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.

We are going to be working on appropriations bills soon, and I sure hope the 108,000 deaths of people every year from illegal drug overdoses in this country--twice the number of people who died in 12 years in Vietnam--is something that Congress takes into consideration when we put together that budget.

The next thing I would like to look at is sad news from the city of my birth adjacent to my district. Earlier this week, Milwaukee had its 197th murder. That is tied for their all-time high. Obviously, we have about 5 weeks to go, so barring a miracle, Milwaukee, like so many other big cities in this country, just has a horrific crime problem-- 197 deaths.

There will be analysis about it, but I have a feeling that one more time they will not get to the real root cause. To me, the real root cause here in Milwaukee, as in so many other big cities, is a breakdown in the family.

It is true we could use more police. It is true we should not constantly be attacking those police as racists so that they are afraid to do their jobs. But I hope in some of the analysis of the pundits, analysis of the talking heads out there, we talk about the decline of the role of husbands and fathers in families as one of the problems out there.

When I was a child, Milwaukee, depending on the year, had the lowest murder rate of the 25 biggest cities in the country. We were right down there with San Diego. Now, we are hitting records at 197. Given that we have about 6 weeks to go in this year, you are almost certainly going to clear 200 murders for the first time ever.

Please, journalists, pundits, talking heads, when you analyze what went wrong in Milwaukee, how come we are so much worse than we used to be, please look at the broken family, look at the role of fathers in their families, and also look at the role of families and their fathers.

One of the problems we have--and George Gilder talked about this at length--it is very important for men to become part of a family. A 25- year-old guy who is married with two kids at home is much less likely to engage in criminal behavior, much less likely to take illegal drugs, than a 25-year-old guy who is out there on his own without those responsibilities. It is sometimes not talked about. This breakdown in the family not only hurts the kids, but it hurts the men, as well.

If you will notice, the vast majority of people who are committing these murders are men. We always talk about what we can do about the children, what we can do about the single moms. Let's spend a little bit of time saying what we are going to do about these guys who don't have a family that they are connected with.

In any event, I hope a little bit more thought is given when, later this week, everybody in the Milwaukee area is expected to weigh in on those currently 197 deaths.

My final comment for the press to look into a little bit for today is, earlier this year, there were reports from people who like to pay attention to military matters. Given what I would argue is the recklessness of the Biden administration, we have more danger of war in the future than we have had in a long period of time. There have been articles about aircraft carriers. There were articles regarding training exercises with France.

The aircraft carrier, I think it was the Theodore Roosevelt, one of our big aircraft carriers, which costs huge amounts of money. There was a French submarine involved in training exercises with the United States. That French submarine was able to sink that aircraft carrier. I think that should cause concern for people.

I mean, we build these aircraft carriers--first of all, we have about 5,000 people on the aircraft carrier, so if an aircraft carrier ever sinks, you have about 5,000 people dying right there, which by itself is a huge tragedy. Secondly, I think we have to begin to stop and look at: Are we spending a lot of money on fighting past wars?

Aircraft carriers were very important during World War II. They had a use still in the Vietnam war, which is hard to believe was about 40 years ago. They have a use in places around the world. I really believe antimissile defense, cybersecurity, building more submarines of our own would perhaps be a wiser use of our military dollars than having 11 or 12 aircraft carriers. I think they may be more useful in future wars. Hopefully, we will not have another war, but I think if we did, they would be more useful.

I encourage the press that follows this sort of thing to pay a little bit of attention to what we found out when we had training exercises with France, read a little bit about what would happen with the hypersonic missiles that are out there today, and wonder if maybe it is more important to deal with hypersonic missile defenses than aircraft carriers, which I think in major battles with, I will say, first-class military enemies could be sunk relatively quickly, together with all the people aboard the ship, and focus a little bit more on high-tech things.

In other words, look at what war will look like in 2025 or 2024 rather than what war looked like in 1944 and 1943.

So, there are some issues for you all, both the people who like to watch C-SPAN and some issues that should be taken up by our press corps.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained.

Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 478.