Floor Statements

Madam President, I yield 30 minutes of debate time to the manager.

Madam President, for the entirety of President Biden's term of office--for the last 3 years--my Republican colleagues and I have spoken out about the crisis on our southern border. Of course you can imagine, coming from a border State like Texas--we have 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, and we are at the epicenter of this crisis.

I can't tell you how many times I have come here and tried to convince my colleagues that we needed to do something in order to stop the flow of humanity coming across the border, along with the drugs, the criminals, the people on the Terrorist Watchlist--the whole enchilada. I explained that the recordbreaking number of illegal crossings was something that is not normal. This is an extraordinary and unprecedented wave of humanity coming across the border. It is making these criminal organizations that pay by the head--or get paid by the head for smuggling people to the border from around the world and the ones who smuggle the drugs that follow on closely behind fabulously wealthy.

I have criticized the Biden administration's policies day in and day out because they send a clear signal to the migrants to keep on coming. In other words, the Border Patrol likes to talk about the push factors for immigration. Those are poverty, violence, things like that, a desire for a better life. They also talk about the pull factors and the Biden policies of releasing everybody who comes to the border illegally, either in claiming asylum or in granting them something called parole, which is 2 years in the country, plus a work permit. This is an enormous pull factor. It is like a giant magnet, telling people: Come to America. Forget illegal immigration. Forget the fact that people who come here legally have to wait in line and have to meet certain legal requirements.

I want to make clear: America was built on legal immigration. Legal immigration has been one of the greatest blessings our country has ever encountered. No other country in the world is as generous as the United States of America when it comes to welcoming people from other countries. But we expect them to follow the rules, which allows us to control the numbers, which allows for the reasonable assimilation of those individuals because we want everybody not to be a hyphenated American but to be an American, and that means assimilation into our society. It also means keeping criminals out. It means keeping terrorists out. It means keeping the drugs out that come with illegal immigration.

So the Biden policies have been a flashing green light and a welcome mat for people from around the world. There are as many as 300,000 a month now--unbelievable--and as many as 13,000 a day. Jeh Johnson, the former Secretary of Homeland Security under Barack Obama, said that 1,000 illegal border crossings a day was a real problem, and we are seeing 13,000 under President Biden.

I have tried to share the stories of my visits to the border and what I have learned. In fact, Senator Cruz, my colleague from Texas, and I have hosted numerous Senators and asked them to come to the border so they can talk to the same people we have talked to--the Border Patrol, the nongovernmental organizations, the Federal Government employees, the community leaders--who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people showing up.

It wasn't that long ago, in a little town of Del Rio, TX--population 35,000--that 15,000 migrants from Haiti showed up. Can you imagine the impact on that town of 35,000 people to have 15,000 people show up at the same time--people who needed food, shelter? They couldn't provide that sort of just simple necessity of life to these migrants. They were overwhelmed.

These migrants had actually been living in South America. They actually didn't come directly from Haiti, so they didn't have any credible fear of persecution coming from South America. But the Biden administration said: Come on in. And they do and they have and they will.

I have highlighted the link between the migration crisis and the fentanyl epidemic, which killed 71,000 Americans last year. This incredibly powerful synthetic opioid has taken too many young lives. In fact, it is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 49. If we were having car accidents that was the leading cause of death of Americans between the ages of 18 and 49, we would say something has got to change. But we have become anesthetized to these numbers. They are so huge, it is hard for us to process those. But anything that is the leading cause of death for 18- to 49-year-olds in our country, you would think would be something that we would all be concerned about and want to do something about.

I have raised concerns over the increasing number of potential terrorists. My memory is that at last count, we saw last year, roughly, 170 people on the Terrorist Watchlist detained at the border. You might think: Well, that is great. We got all of them. We stopped them. Well, there were 1.7 million ``got-aways.'' Do you think there were people on the Terrorist Watchlist among those 1.7 million ``got-aways''?

What do you think those ``got-aways'' were doing evading law enforcement? They certainly must have had concerns because anybody without a criminal record who is not engaged otherwise in a crime, they are turning themselves in, either claiming asylum or being released by the Biden administration. So the people who are actually running away from law enforcement, I think common sense would tell you they are running for a reason--either carrying drugs, they have criminal records, or worse.

I have also talked about the negative impact of this crisis on lawful trade and travel. You know, I saw an article this morning that now Mexico is America's largest trading partner. It used to be China; but now it is Mexico and, actually, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement--now the successor is the U.S.-Mexico-Canada, the USMCA, trade agreement. Legitimate trade and commerce across our border supports millions of jobs in America and represent essential supply chains for our manufacturers--something we became acutely aware of during COVID because we found out that if you are depending on Taiwan, for example, to make advanced semiconductors, well, in the event of another pandemic or a war or a natural disaster, we might not be able to get those. It made us start to think: What do we need to do to make our supply chains more reliable? Part of that is the businesses have moved to Mexico.

But many times, because the border has been overwhelmed by migrants, they have had to shut down the bridges and the ports of entry. Recently, one of the railroads that transits the U.S.-Mexico border that is essential for trade and to maintain some of these supply chains was shut down completely, costing billions of dollars in lost revenue because the Biden administration does not control the flow of migration across the border.

For me, this is not a political cudgel; it is something my constituents care deeply about. It is an issue that my State has battled every day that President Biden has been in office. We are at ground zero.

It is also sucking up taxpayer dollars, endangering children because 300,000 of them have been placed with sponsors who came--children who came unaccompanied to the border are placed with sponsors in the interior. There have been 300,000 of them placed with those sponsors since President Biden took office, and the Biden administration can't tell you what has happened to them.

The New York Times documented children in forced labor--dangerous jobs illegally forcing children to work in these jobs. But we don't know

whether these children are going to school, whether they are getting the healthcare they need, whether they are being fed properly, whether they are being trafficked for sex, or recruited into gangs. And the Biden administration can't tell you. That is what the status quo of the last 3 years has given us.

It would be an understatement of the century to say that our Democratic friends have been less concerned about what is happening at the border.

Two years ago, President Biden visited a semiconductor plant in Arizona while the border crisis was raging. The President was asked why he wasn't visiting the border since he was so close, and he said: Because I have more important things to do--more important than visiting the border and seeing for himself what damage the Biden border crisis was creating.

That month--the same month that the President refused to go to the border because he had more important things to do--250,000 migrants crossed the southern border. But the President couldn't be bothered to go to the border.

The Vice President, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the White House Press Secretary, and other administration officials have repeatedly downplayed the severity of what is happening at the border. They have lied. They have lied to the American people--some of them under oath--like Secretary Mayorkas. Time and time again he said the border is secure.

Does he think we are so gullible as to not see what is happening on TV or online with our own eyes the caravans of migrants making their way to the border and then being released into the interior, and the Secretary says the border is secure? That is outrageous. But the majority of our Senate colleagues on the other side of the aisle weren't bothered by that.

During President Biden's first year in office, the senior Senator from Montana threw cold water on the idea that Congress should act on the border. He said:

I don't know you need legislation--

This is our senior Senator from Montana. He said:

I don't know you need legislation. I think what we need is

to make sure we get the people and the technology down there

to stop it.

He said we don't need legislation. I guess in one sense he is right, because if President Biden would just enforce the law, everything could change and would change.

But now we are seeing a different tune. Our colleagues are saying: Well, because there has been disagreement on the border, border changes in the context of the current discussion on the emergency national security supplemental, they said: We care about the border, and the people who disagreed with the product that was negotiated on a bipartisan basis don't care about the border.

The American people are not stupid. The American people are smart, and they could see through that sort of fig leaf or that attempt to try to mislead them from what they have seen with their very eyes over the last 3 years.

The following year, after the senior Senator from Montana made those comments, the senior Senator from Ohio tried to minimize the impact of the security crisis on the border. He said: I don't hear a lot about immigration from voters except from people on the far right that always want to gain political advantage by talking about it.

Well, I wonder what he is hearing from his constituents these days.

This is not just conservatives or Republicans. How about he listens to the mayor of New York City--a self-styled sanctuary city--or the mayor of Chicago or any major city that has seen migrants make their way into their jurisdiction?

There is no better example of our colleagues' intransigence than the lack of action by the Senate Judiciary Committee. I have served on the Judiciary Committee my entire time here in the Senate. It is a great committee. It has jurisdiction over immigration matters. But the Senate Judiciary Committee hasn't had a single markup on an immigration bill in the last 3 years, not one.

We have asked the chairman, the senior Senator from Illinois: Please schedule a markup. We are not even saying it is my way or the highway. We are saying: Bring an immigration bill to the Judiciary Committee. Let the Senators on the Democratic side and the Republican side offer amendments, and let's let the chips fall where they may. But the very committee in the U.S. Senate that has jurisdiction over immigration and border matters has done nothing in the last 3 years, even longer than that.

We have talked about the issue. We have advanced a couple of narrow bills that touch on the edges of what is happening at the border, including bills to combat human trafficking and support law enforcement. But under the chairman's leadership, the Senate Judiciary Committee hasn't made a serious, honest attempt to tackle this issue head-on.

To be clear, it wasn't for lack of bills to vote on. Just a few months into the Biden Presidency, Senator Sinema--the Senator from Arizona--and I introduced, along with our colleagues in the House-- Henry Cuellar and Tony Gonzales--we introduced a bill we call the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act to try to address the surge in immigration.

The theory was that, here is a bipartisan, bicameral bill that maybe--just maybe--the Biden administration would be willing to work with us on. Maybe if things got so bad, they would look at this as a lifeline to begin a conversation on immigration.

That bill would have increased staffing levels for law enforcement and immigration courts. It would have expedited legal proceedings and enhanced protections for unaccompanied children.

These were commonsense measures. They were modest measures that had bipartisan and bicameral support. And it would have allowed us to at least get started to meaningfully address the problems we faced at that time before they spun completely out of control, as they have today. Still, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee won't schedule a hearing or a markup on that bill.

Now, we are not saying this has to be the final product. We are saying let's start the conversation. We have been asking over and over again for the chairman to have a hearing, have a markup, but he has refused. He has refused to engage at all. Had that bill been signed into law at the beginning of the Biden administration, it could have prevented some of the chaos we have endured over the last 3 years, but instead, the leadership on the Democratic side has buried their heads into the sand until the situation has become so dangerous and untenable that it has turned into a political liability for President Biden.

It is not lost on me that here we are--February--looking at a November election, and President Biden says: We have got to do something about my terrible poll numbers when it comes to border insecurity. You would think, if it had been serious, that he would have engaged earlier, but this is what we call an election-year conversion. Once the shift happened, the rhetoric from our Democratic colleagues has changed significantly.

Last month, the senior Senator from Montana, who once said we didn't need any new laws, wrote an entire op-ed about the need to act on the border. In it he wrote:

The lack of urgency from my colleagues on both sides of the

aisle . . . is frankly disturbing.

This is from a Senator who said you don't need new laws.

Earlier this week, the senior Senator from Ohio, who once said he didn't hear much about immigration from his constituents, advocated for a border deal, saying:

Ohioans cannot . . . wait any longer.

And, yesterday, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who for 3 years has refused to use that committee, the committee of jurisdiction, to advance any bills to deal with the crisis, stood here on the Senate floor and he blamed--you guessed it--former President Donald Trump for lack of progress on the border.

We should wish for the numbers of illegal crossings that occurred during President Trump's time in office because it was a fraction of what we have seen under President Biden. As a matter of fact, we have seen more illegal border crossings in 3 years under President Biden than we have in 12 years during the Obama administration and during the Trump Presidency.

But that is what people do here in Washington, DC. This is a city in which

the blame game is like an Olympic sport. People are vying for medals by telling the biggest whoppers. It is completely disingenuous for Senate Democrats to blame anyone but themselves and President Biden for the lack of broad progress on the border crisis.

Despite this shift in rhetoric that we have seen, President Biden's comments have once again taken the cake. Earlier this week, President Biden made the most bogus, delusional claim about the state of the border, somewhere he hasn't been in a long, long time. Now, I remember he did come to El Paso for a driveby. But he said:

The only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump

and his MAGA Republican friends.

You know, at some point, when you hold elected office, the most powerful office in the land--maybe on the planet--you ought to accept some responsibility, not just blame other people. But that is not what President Biden did. These are the words of the current President of the United States, the man who has the power, under existing law, to detain and deport illegal border crossers but has chosen not to do so.

On President Biden's watch, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has logged more than 7 million migrant encounters, and the Biden administration has released 2.3 million migrants into the country. And President Biden thinks that the American people are gullible enough to believe that we are in this situation because of former President Trump? Give me a break. For 3 years, we have been beating on the door, begging and pleading with our Democratic colleagues and the White House: Work with us. We are not asking for perfection; we are asking to do our jobs and do your job. But President Biden has refused to engage. Our colleagues across the aisle have pretended like there is no problem, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee won't even schedule a markup.

Now, because Republicans voted against a single bill that was negotiated by three Members, including many policies that Republicans have been on record opposing for years, the American people are supposed to buy this argument that our party is to blame for the border? Well, I, for one, am still ready to engage with my Democratic colleagues if they are sincere, but it is hard to believe when this rhetoric occurs in the context of upcoming elections. It really does feel like an election-year conversion.

In the past few days, our colleagues have proven that this was never about solving the border crisis; it was about giving President Biden a new talking point on the campaign trail in order to cover up the disaster of his own making. This is a manmade disaster, and the man who made that disaster was President Biden.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, after listening to the majority leader's comments, I think it is worth taking 5 minutes to recall how we got here.

You know, it is ironic to me that people give speeches here on the floor of the Senate about their support for Israel. And there is no doubt Israel is involved in an existential fight with Iran and Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels, and the Shia militias in Syria and Iraq.

But the House passed an Israel aid package on November 2. Israel was attacked October 7. The House acted on

November 2, and the majority leader, who is the only one who can schedule a vote on anything here on the Senate floor, has done nothing to help our best ally and friend in the Middle East, the State of Israel--nothing.

He has insisted that we package together aid to Ukraine, aid to the Indo-Pacific. And there have been endless discussions about a border bill, which I will come to in a moment. But this problem that we are running into is one of his own creation.

He could decide to take up these bills individually, knowing that the House has already passed an Israel aid bill, and then have the Senate take it up and pass that bill. Then we can turn to the other issues that are vitally important to our national security and deserve fulsome debate and an open amendment process.

That is the question my friend from Mississippi was trying to ask the majority leader, but he decided to leave the floor without responding to that, giving me some doubt as to the sincerity of his commitment to have an open amendment process and actually restore the Senate to its previously held reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body. Nobody can call us that now with a straight face.

I understand that the majority leader is trying the best he can to help the Republican Party. He gives advice freely as to what Republicans should do. But the fact of the matter is, we have no confidence--zero confidence--that the Biden administration will enforce the law when it comes to the border. That has been the case for the last 3 years, resulting in historically high numbers--300,000 people a month--showing up at the border, only to be ushered into the interior by Biden open-border policies that either people claim asylum and are released into the interior, perhaps never to be heard from again, or they are released on parole.

Catch-and-release is the policy of the Biden administration and congressional Democrats. That has proven to be a powerful magnet for illegal immigration--people literally coming from all around the world because they know they can make it into the country because President Biden and Senate Democrats have laid out the welcome mat.

So you will have to forgive me when I note the fake outrage, the phony messaging that we hear from Democrats about this border negotiation. Yes, it is true that we hoped to come up with something credible. On our side of the aisle, Senator Lankford from Oklahoma has done a heroic and a thankless job of trying to come up with a negotiated package. But the fact of the matter is, the package includes catch-and-release still, providing additional or continued incentives for people to come to the country illegally, knowing they will be released into the interior; and it does nothing to stop the Biden administration from abusing something called parole, which means that, in order to avoid bad press, in order to avoid embarrassing TV pictures of an overwhelmed border, they simply just release people into the interior of the country for 2 years and give them a work permit.

Are you kidding me? They now claim to be the defenders of the border and for border security? What a joke. What a joke. And it is a bad joke.

We know, as a result, the Biden border policy, supported day in and day out by our Democratic colleagues for the entire time that President Biden has been in office, has resulted in roughly 7 million migrants being released into the interior of the United States, and 1.7 million ``got-aways''--what the Border Patrol calls them, people evading law enforcement, for good reason, I suspect. Either they are transporting illegal drugs into the interior of the United States or, maybe, just maybe, out of that 1.7 million, there are a few people who are on the Terrorist Watchlist.

We know the Border Patrol has detained roughly 170--I think, at last count--people on the Terrorist Watchlist. That is the people they know about. But they can't tell us how many more people on the Terrorist Watchlist are among those ``got-aways,'' endangering the safety and security of the United States.

It took 19 people to kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11. What about 1.7 million ``got-aways''? We don't know whether these are serial criminals. We don't know whether they are transporting drugs. We don't know whether they are terrorists. We don't know anything about them, and, frankly, President Biden doesn't care--and neither do our Senate colleagues who have done zero--nothing, nada--to deal with this problem. So you will have to forgive me if I find their fake outrage unconvincing.

And then there are the 108,000 Americans who died of drug overdoses last year. That is also part of the Biden open border policies. I have been wearing since April of last year a rubber bracelet given to me by a father of a young woman who lost her life because she took a pill that she thought was relatively innocuous but was laced with fentanyl. Her name was Sienna. Her father asked me to wear this rubber bracelet that says: ``One pill can kill.''

Well, 71,000 Americans died last year as a result of fentanyl poisoning, including young women like Sienna, who took something they thought was relatively innocuous, which was a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl--and not waking up the next morning.

And then perhaps the greatest untold story--we tried to tell the story, and the New York Times has written about this--is the hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied children who have been placed with sponsors in the interior of the United States who have come across the border. They have been attracted like a magnet to our border and under Biden policy have been released to sponsors, many of whom aren't even immediate relatives.

And the Biden administration has simply lost track of them. They can't tell you whether the 300,000 children are going to school, whether they are getting the healthcare they need, whether they are being trafficked for sex, whether they are being forced into involuntary labor. The New York Times has written at least two times that I recall about forced labor conditions for these migrant children--forced into illegal, dangerous labor.

And the New York Times tried to call some of these sponsors to see if they knew about what these children were doing, these children who were turned over to the care of these sponsors by the Biden administration under their current policies. In 85,000 cases--85,000 cases--there was no answer.

So the truth is, under the Biden border policies, under the policies supported by all of our Democratic colleagues--now who are demonstrating fake outrage about the failure of the current border bill--they simply don't care. They don't care about these children. They don't care about the families grieving lost loved ones as a result of the illegal drugs that stream across the border, carried by the very criminal organizations that smuggle people from around the world who show up at our border and are released into the interior of the United States.

What greater incentive can you think of for attracting illegal immigration than the open border policies which, tragically, result in the death of innocent Americans, including innocent children, losing 300,000 children placed with sponsors? The Biden administration doesn't care.

So let me just say that when the majority leader takes off his hat as the majority leader of this great institution and puts on his hat as a Democratic partisan making political attacks against the very people he is hoping will support the legislation that he is advocating for--aid to Ukraine--this is not a good day for this institution. And it strikes me as a bizarre tactic when you know who the hundred people are who are going to be voting on the legislation that he is going to put on the floor.

And the fact that the majority leader walks away from a legitimate question by our colleague the Senator from Mississippi who asked whether there will be an opportunity for debate and votes on amendments--he won't even answer the question. This is the same majority leader who put this bill on the floor that we will be voting on at 1 o'clock and said, ``OK, we released the text,'' on Sunday night and that in 72 hours Senators are going to have to vote on it.

These are detailed, complex negotiations that have been taking place for months now, and the majority leader won't even give the Senate and Senators time to digest it and understand

it. I think that tells you all you need to know about his motives. This is all about partisan political attacks and posturing leading up to the November 2024 election.

President Biden is guilty of some of the same posturing. He said-- this is rich--after Secretary Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, has said time and time again under oath, ``The border is secure''--well, we knew that was a lie because our eyes did not deceive us. We could see what was happening at the border. We could listen to Mayor Adams in New York City, the mayor of Chicago, Governors around the country, saying: We are being inundated by migrants coming across the border. And in the case of Mayor Adams, he said it is going to destroy New York City, even though they are a self-designated sanctuary city.

Well, all of that has fallen on deaf ears for the last 3 years, and the Senate majority leader and the President of the United States think that the American people are so dumb that they haven't seen what has been going on the last 3 years. They have resisted every single effort on our part to secure the border, to halt this tsunami of illegal immigration and illegal drugs. They have resisted all of it.

And now the majority leader would have you believe that he has had a conversion. This is Saul on the road to Damascus. But I don't believe it, and I don't believe the American people will believe it because their common sense, their very eyes and ears tell them something different, and that is that the Biden administration, Democrats in the Senate, and the Senate majority leader who came out here crying crocodile tears over the failure of the border negotiation--they know it is not true. The American people will not be deceived by this transparent political pitch suggesting that now they are the champions of border security.

The President of the United States has every tool he needs--every tool he needs--to secure the border. The laws that are in effect now are the same laws that were in effect when President Trump was in office, and the numbers were dramatically different. In fact, President Biden's numbers of people coming across the border have exceeded the number that came during the entire 8 years of the Obama administration and the entire 4 years of the Trump administration.

So, Mr. President, I know there are others here, including my friend the Republican leader, who are prepared to speak, so I will sit down. But I just couldn't help myself, sitting here listening to what the majority leader was trying to sell, which is so patently ahistorical, false, and is clearly just partisan political rhetoric trying to improve what is a very, very damaged reputation when it comes to dealing with our national security and the border.

Recognition of the Minority Leader

Mr. President, on Sunday night of this last weekend, three of our colleagues released the much anticipated text of what has come to be known as a bipartisan border deal. In fact, this was negotiated by three main principal Senators here in the Senate: Senator James Lankford from Oklahoma, Senator Sinema from Arizona, Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, along with the Biden administration.

I want to express my gratitude to Senator Lankford, for our part, for the time and effort he has invested in this process. I know of no one who has worked harder in good faith to try to come up with a solution to our broken border.

I know, like all of our colleagues on this side of the aisle, he is outraged by the Biden administration's failure to secure the border, and he is eager to find a way to change the policies which will provide that security.

And I think our Democratic colleagues finally realize that the status quo on the border is a huge political liability. Well, what Senator Lankford hoped to deliver through this process, unfortunately, has become increasingly clear that it has not been attainable. Notwithstanding his best efforts, this proposal is not what the country needs, wants, or deserves, and I would be happy to explain why.

Given the fact we are operating in divided government, any successful reform requires bipartisan support. As I said, Senator Lankford worked in good faith with Senator Murphy and Senator Sinema, who also worked in good faith, as well as the White House to craft this agreement.

But I am disappointed that the White House has refused to budge on policy changes that would lead to significant improvements; by that I mean reduction in the flow of migrants across the southern border.

For example, this proposal doesn't place significant limits on parole authority. Now, just by way of a footnote here, parole authority means that the Biden administration has been releasing people who come to the border even if they don't claim asylum; and it is, frankly, just a population management tool. They are released into the interior of the country, given a 2-year permit and a work permit.

So no matter what we do on the front end in terms of asylum reform or the process to deal with this exploitation of the gaps in our asylum system, the Biden administration could still parole as many people as they wanted to under this proposal.

As a matter of fact, no changes were made at all to the fact that the Biden administration is releasing up to 30,000 migrants from four countries each month, presuming or assuming that they actually should be released into the country without any claim of asylum or anything else. Just letting them come and stay and work.

This is a huge magnet--a huge magnet--to people coming from those four countries, and that is 360,000 migrants a year. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. This bill also does not end what has come to be known euphemistically as catch-and-release, and it actually creates a new system under which migrants who might express an intent to apply for asylum must be released from custody even before an initial screening interview is completed.

Just to take a look back, I think it was in 2005 when then-Secretary Michael Chertoff came and testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he noticed an uptick in the number of Brazilians that were coming across the border. What he testified to under oath is they realized that the only way you would provide the deterrence that would prevent people from coming illegally into the country is to detain them.

In other words, don't catch-and-release them; catch-and-detain them. Determine whether they have a legitimate claim, and if they did not, then return them to their country of origin. That actually provided the kind of deterrence that addressed that problem at that time, and that kind of deterrence is missing in this proposal.

And as I said, it actually creates a new system that can be exploited by the people who continue to get rich smuggling migrants to the United States from around the world, the same criminal organizations that are also involved in smuggling drugs into the United States.

And the only way you avoid catch-and-release and you provide catch- and-detain is, you need more detention space. And this proposal does not provide adequate detention space and assures that migrants will continue to be released into the interior of the country. Again, a huge magnet, or in the terminology that the Border Patrol has taught me, he calls this a pull factor. The push factors are the reasons the people want to leave their home country: violence, poverty, desire for a better life. We all understand that. But what the pull factor is, is the perception that there are no consequences to coming illegally.

Legal immigration has been one of the biggest blessings for this country that we have ever received because almost a million people a year are naturalized. They go through the system the right way. They take the citizenship test. They go through the background check, and then they become American citizens like you and I. That is an unmitigated blessing, in my opinion. Illegal immigration--or outsourcing our immigration policy to drug and criminal cartels--is a disaster.

Well, this proposal also does not make a meaningful investment in enforcement resources to actually remove people who don't have the legal authorization to stay in the United States. That is a job ordinarily performed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. So if people can come to the country, can be released either on parole or released while they are awaiting the decision on their asylum claims, and there is no mechanism to make sure that they are repatriated to their home country if they don't qualify to stay, then they are going to continue to come, which is the reason why we have seen roughly 7 million migrants come to the United States and stay over the last 3 years.

In other words, this proposal does not fix the single biggest policy failures that have contributed to this crisis. I believe this is the responsibility, again, of the Biden administration, which has done everything they can to handcuff their negotiators and to fail to meet the requirements of what a proposal would look like that would actually make things better or would actually work.

I have said from the beginning that I would only support an agreement or proposal that would make significant policy changes and change--by that, I mean reduce--the influx of humanity coming across the border, and this proposal does not meet that requirement.

But this is, while disappointing, it is not entirely surprising. After all, President Biden is the leader of an open-borders administration that has ushered in the largest border crisis our country has ever seen. The only reason I think President Biden all of a sudden took an interest in the border is because he saw the approaching election and his plummeting poll numbers.

Since President Biden took office 3 years ago, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 7 million migrants--I mentioned that a moment ago--7 million in 3 years. And that doesn't even count the 1.7 million ``got-aways.'' ``Got-aways'' are people who are seen, although not detained, on cameras and other sensors and who are intentionally evading law enforcement. You can only imagine what they are up to, and I assure you, it is no good.

But we have seen, under President Biden, nearly double the number of illegal crossings that we saw during the entire 8 years President Obama was in office.

Now, to be clear, Congress has not dramatically changed immigration laws in the interim that caused this dramatic increase in migration under President Biden. Under President Trump, the laws were essentially the same, and there was no crisis of such epic proportions. This fiasco is a direct result of the policies and the actions of the Biden administration. The President created what, in effect, is a high-

powered magnet for illegal immigration.

The problem isn't just that more migrants than ever are crossing into the United States, it is also that more migrants than ever are being released into the United States.

The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to ensure that people who cross the border illegally can stay here. It is really, if you think about it, an insult to the people who follow the law and immigrate legally. They wait patiently in line. They play by the rules. And in the meantime, the Biden administration is waving through millions of migrants who are violating those rules and who are not waiting in line. Instead of detain and deport, this administration has focused all of its energy on catch-and-release.

Last month, Secretary Mayorkas told Border Patrol Agents that more than 85 percent of migrants who were caught crossing the border were being released. Now, this is from a man whose responsibility it is to enforce our immigration laws, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and he admitted to Border Patrol Agents that 85 percent who were caught crossing the border illegally were simply released.

Again, this is not a major shift in immigration policy. The Congress hasn't tied President Biden's hands or restricted his ability to detain and deport illegal immigrants. President Biden was dealt the exact same hand as his recent predecessors when it comes to enforcement authorities, but he has simply refused to use them, which is what gets to the root of the problem here: The White House really doesn't want a solution; it wants political cover.

President's Biden mishandling of the border has landed him in red ink in the polls. He is looking at the upcoming election, and he needs to change his posture and the appearance that he looks like he is actually taking this seriously for the first time in 3 years, but I have no expectation that this will lead to any sort of meaningful shift in enforcement.

Congress can pass all the laws that we want, but it is the executive branch, the President of the United States, that enforces those laws. And when they are not enforced, under our system, unfortunately, there is not much recourse. After all, if Joe Biden really wanted to fix the border breakdown, he could have done so at any point in the last 3 years. He could have used existing authorities to hold lawbreakers accountable and provide deterrence, which would have mitigated the flow of humanity across our border.

Instead, he created new incentives, new pull factors, from parole to the CBP One app. Now, President Biden has finally realized that this is such a liability that 9 months before the next election, he has decided he wants to change his position--at least publicly. But I can tell you, we are not interested in being complicit in a PR stunt. We are interested in actually securing the border and deterring illegal immigration.

So, on Wednesday, when we vote on whether to proceed to the proposal, along with aid to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific, I will vote no on the motion to proceed.

To be clear, this is not no; this is not now. In other words, when cloture ``fails,'' which is the technical procedural term, it means we need to continue to discuss this and to work it out and come up with a better solution.

But fixing this bill really requires us to go back to the drawing board and for the administration to accept some of the border enforcement proposals that we have called for, like ending catch-and- release.

Voting for this proposal, some 300 pages of technical immigration law changes, 3 days after it was released is really a bad joke. There is just no way, given the complexity of the subject matter, that Senators can do their due diligence and really understand what the impact of this proposal will be.

Now, I have spent most of my career in the Senate on the Immigration Subcommittee. And obviously coming from a border state, we are at ground zero when it comes to this crisis. But many of our colleagues have not steeped themselves in the complexities of immigration law, and we need time--all of us need time--in order to do our due diligence to understand both the intended and the potential unintended consequences.

In the 3 years since President Biden took office, the security situation at the southern border has dramatically deteriorated. I think at last count there were about 170 individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist that were detained at the border. We have no idea--and the Biden administration can't tell you--how many more individuals on the Terrorist Watchlist were among those 1.7 million ``got-aways.''

In the years I have been representing Texas in the Senate, there have been many ups and downs in migration levels at the border. There have been surges, some caused by events beyond our borders, others triggered by policies from the occupant of the White House. There have also been drops in migration levels, some caused by events like the pandemic, others a result of stricter policies that have actually deterred illegal immigration.

In the countless conversations I have had with folks along the Texas- Mexico border, everyone has shared the same sentiment: They have never ever seen it as bad as it is now. Law enforcement, local elected officials, NGOs--nongovernmental organizations--and private property owners agree: This is unprecedented and unsustainable. We need a major policy shift, not a figleaf. We need a major policy shift to address the Biden administration's many failures, and we need a change of behavior, not just in the policy but in actually enforcing the laws that Congress has passed.

Because our colleagues have--and the Biden administration in particular has--refused to budge on policy changes that would actually force his administration to apply the law to deter illegal immigration, I cannot support it as written.

But now, as I said, the majority leader, the Senator from New York, has teed up a process that would force us to vote on this massive bill totaling, I think the last count, $112 billion, including this border provision, just 3 days after the full text has been released. At this point, Senator Schumer has given our colleagues a binary choice: Take it or leave it. For me, the choice is obvious. I will not vote just no; I will vote not now.

We need to continue this process. We need to see a change in behavior. We need to see a change in real policies that will prevent and deter this fast humanitarian and public safety crisis occurring at our border under President Biden's open border policies.

Mr. President, tensions in the Middle East have escalated dramatically since Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization, launched its war on Israel on October 7 of last year, killing innocent men, women, and children and taking and still holding up to 132 hostages.

Over the last few months, another Iranian proxy--Iran-backed militias--intensified their attacks throughout the region.

There are Houthis in Yemen, there is Hezbollah in Lebanon, and, of course, as I mentioned, there are the attacks against Americans and American interests by Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria. These conflicts are playing out thousands of miles away from here, but we are not just a distant and disinterested spectator. Thousands of American troops are stationed in the region--not engaged in combat operations but in carrying out a range of security and intelligence missions and helping the residents and citizens of those nations defend themselves and

provide a stabilizing force against what is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism, which is the Iranian regime.

The presence of these American troops is vital to the stability of the region and, as I said, our own security interests. We may engage in wishful thinking, thinking that what happens over there doesn't affect us here. You would think that after 9/11--albeit it occurring some 23 years ago now--it would have awakened us to the reality that what does happen in the Middle East does not stay in the Middle East. So it is important for us to provide stability operations and assistance, train- and-assist operations, for our allies in the region in a very dangerous neighborhood.

Since mid-October, Iranian-backed militia groups have attacked U.S. troops in the region more than 165 times--165 times. In less than 4 months, U.S. troops have been targeted 165 times.

This last weekend, the situation escalated dramatically when Iranian proxies targeted a U.S. military post in Jordan known as Tower 22. Tragically, these proxies of the Iranian regime--these militias--used a drone to attack the base, killing three American heroes as they slept.

SGT William Rivers, SGT Kennedy Sanders, and SGT Breonna Moffett made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country that night.

These brave individuals were the first American servicemembers killed by enemy fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last October, but they are not the first Americans who have been targeted by the Iranian regime.

The truth is, as you look back at the changes in Iran since the revolution in 1979, the Iranian regime has been in what you might call a low-grade war against America and American interests for the last 45 years.

Last month, two Navy SEALs were killed while seizing a vessel carrying Iranian-made arms intended for the Houthi rebels in Yemen. These brave SEALs and their comrades prevented the Houthis from receiving ballistic missiles and cruise missile components that could have been used to target U.S. forces or commercial traffic in the Red Sea or the nation of Israel.

Today, I know our country mourns alongside of the families of each of those heroes, and we pray for the safety of the servicemembers who continue to serve our Nation providing these stability missions in the Middle East.

But, as I said, the violence that we are seeing and experiencing in recent days is only a tragic continuation of Iran's decades-long proxy war against the United States. I said Iran is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world. That is a fact. And the reason they operate through proxies is because they don't want to directly confront the United States because they fear American military might, as they should. But what they do is they will carry out terrorist attacks, having been equipped and trained and provided weapons by the Iranian regime, against innocent civilians and American servicemembers in the region.

Of course, relations between the United States and Iran have been extremely fraught and violent since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when the country quickly transformed from a pro-Western democracy to an anti-Western theocracy. Its Supreme Leader is driven by a radical ideology and a deep hatred of the United States and the freedoms that we enjoy. He even referred to the United States as the ``Great Satan.''

As we have witnessed over the last four-plus decades, that shift from a pro-democracy to an anti-American policy carried with it very serious consequences. Of course, many of us remember the Iranian hostage crisis. The movie ``Argo'' was written about getting some of the 52 Americans out of Iran who had been held hostage for up to a year.

Four years later, the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon bombed a Marine Corps barracks, killing 241 American servicemembers.

And then, in 1996, Iran orchestrated an attack on U.S. Air Force personnel in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. A truck bomb was detonated next to a building housing American troops, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel and a local Saudi citizen and wounding 498 others.

Then, during the war in Iraq, from 2003 to 2011, it became common knowledge that Iran was supplying the most dangerous form of munitions--explosively formed penetrators--that penetrate the armor of humvees and other up-armored vehicles that the U.S. forces were in and planted numerous IEDs, killing hundreds of American troops.

And today, as our country is mourning the troops who were killed in Jordan last weekend at the hand of Iranian proxies, we need to be absolutely clear-eyed about the fact that this is not a new innovation. This isn't something that just happened in the last 2 days. This has been going on for 45 years.

To be clear, this is not an exhaustive list of the violence Iran has unleashed against the United States and our interests. Sadly, this just scratches the surface. But it is important to look back at the history to understand the Iranian intentions toward the United States and our allies.

Tehran has consistently waged acts of war against the United States. It has gone to great lengths to export terrorism around the globe, and it has engaged in gross human rights violations against its own people.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, otherwise known as IRGC, is the loyal henchman responsible for leading these efforts. It is a branch of the Iranian Armed Forces that tries to squash democracy movements, both at home and abroad, by pushing its extreme ideology beyond Iran's borders. They provide training and equipment to terrorists which they use to kill innocent civilians--not just in Israel, not just in Syria and Iraq, not just in Lebanon, but even in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen.

The IRGC wields vast power and influence, and it uses its capabilities to spark turmoil throughout the Middle East. As I said, it provides arms, training, and foot soldiers to these terrorist groups.

As the world has seen in recent months, those attacks are quickly intensifying. It is a grave cause for concern in a very dangerous neighborhood, the sort of escalation that we are seeing by Iran via its proxies. But the only responsible answer is for the United States to take swift and decisive action to respond to these attacks, because, if we don't, we are sure to be met with more.

Sadly, I don't think the Biden administration has responded to this attack with the sort of decisiveness that it needs. As far as we know, the administration hasn't taken any action to target Iran's leaders, the IRGC, or the Quds Force--militarily, financially, or otherwise.

We are told that the President has decided what he is going to do, but he is not sharing that with us. And, I fear, as more and more time goes by, the Iranian regime will not connect the killing of three American servicemembers in Iraq by Shia militias backed by Iran with whatever the subsequent kinetic attack against Iran's forces are.

We are all watching to see what the coming days may hold, but I would like to encourage President Biden that, when it comes to Iran, there is no benefit to applying anything less than maximum pressure.

Now, we are not talking about American boots on the ground. We are not talking about another war. We are talking about deterrence.

So if there is no price to be paid for these repeated attacks against civilians and American servicemembers, they are going to continue. This is not a cost-benefit analysis made by the regime; this is pursuant to their radical ideology where they want to destroy Israel. And they call America the ``Great Satan''; so you know they don't mean us well.

Iran's leaders must learn that the attacks on U.S. servicemembers and American interests will be returned in kind. Regardless of who carries out an attack--Iran or its proxies--the Iranian regime must be brought to account. It is the head of the octopus, and the tentacles are the proxies they use to commit mayhem and terrorism around the region. The only way to achieve deterrence and to prevent this conflict from widening is to teach the Iranian regime that these sorts of unilateral terrorist attacks will not be tolerated.

Given the escalating tensions between our countries, President Biden can't continue promoting the same

weak policies that he has embraced over the last few years, trying to appease the Iranian regime because he wants to get them back in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal, negotiated under President Obama.

He has lifted sanctions, which have allowed Iran to supply China and other countries oil, which has helped bolster their economy. They have continued to enrich uranium, getting closer and closer to a breakout for a nuclear weapon. As dangerous as Iran and its proxies are now, can you imagine what it would be like if they had a functioning nuclear weapon in the region?

What would the response be of countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and other Arab countries that Iran has historically fought for control--not just geographic control but control as the leader of the Muslim world, according to their own brand of Islam.

Unfortunately, in the messages that President Biden has sent over the last few years, from the disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan without even notifying our allies--just pulling the plug and having the Taliban march in without a shot being fired--to the attempts to appease Iran in order to get back to the Iran nuclear deal, to the foolish decision to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets, the Biden administration has projected an image of weakness when it comes to foreign policy.

These missteps have sent a message to the Supreme Leader that he can continue to push until we push back. The Supreme Leader will naturally continue to test the limits of this administration to see how far he can go. We know what his ultimate aims are. We know the methods by which they act, and we don't need--we don't want--any more dead Americans because Iran continues to attack Americans and American allies in the Middle East.

The root and foundation of all of this violence and instability in the Middle East is Iran. We can talk about Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and the Shia militias, but it is Iran that finances, equips, and trains these terrorists. That is true today, and it has been true literally for the last 45 years. From the Iran hostage crisis to the regime's outright support of terrorist groups in the Middle East, to the latest attack that killed three U.S. troops, Iran has demonstrated over and over and over again its unequivocal hatred of the United States.

President Biden cannot hit Iran with kid gloves or allow the attacks on our servicemembers to go unanswered. It is a lesson that we have to learn, apparently, from history, time and time again, that appeasement is not a viable strategy when it comes to autocrats and dictators and terrorists. Appeasement doesn't work, and it is time for the President to impose crippling consequences on the Iranian regime, and I am talking about on the instruments of their terrorism, which is the IRGC and the Quds Force, which would be a good place to start.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the Biden administration, in the last few days, has made another reckless attempt to try to appease its more radical aspects of its political base--in this case, leftwing climate activists.

Last week, the administration halted new liquefied natural gas projects, effectively chilling new investments in the industry that powers the United States and many of our closest allies. Had the administration announced this decision 3 years ago, it would have been dangerous and shortsighted. But given the state of the world today, this step is almost unthinkable.

Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine is nearing the 2-year mark. Iran's terrorist proxies are unleashing chaos on the Middle East, and China is responsible for growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific. This is an extremely fraught time--I think we would all have to agree--given that the instigators of each of these conflicts are three of the world's largest natural gas producers.

This is an extremely risky time for energy security. Fortunately, the United States is in a uniquely strong position to temper those risks. We are the world's largest natural gas producer, and, last year, we became the largest LNG exporter. That means energy produced in America, creating American jobs, helping to grow our economy, is being exported to countries all around the world that don't have access to those natural resources.

Around the globe, American LNG supports the energy security of our friends and allies. If they are importing American energy, they don't have to worry about some rogue dictator cutting off the gas with a moment's notice.

Sadly, many of our friends in Europe had to learn this the hard way, after the invasion by Russia of Ukraine, because much of Europe had a single supplier of their energy needs. In 2009, Russia effectively turned off the gas to Ukraine for almost 3 weeks, using that energy supply as a weapon. This affected at least 10 countries in Europe whose natural gas traveled in a pipeline through Ukraine.

In many ways, this should have been a wake-up call for the United States and our allies about the dangers of energy dependence, the lack of diversity in the supply. Relying on anyone--any country--for basic needs like heating, electricity, and fuel creates serious vulnerability, but relying on an adversary, as Europe did, is downright dangerous.

Over the last 15 years, our friends in Europe have been working to diversify their energy supply and reduce their reliance on Russia.

I remember John McCain, our former colleague, saying: ``Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country.'' It is their principal export and what they use to fuel their economy and, unfortunately, what they use to arm themselves when they invade neighboring countries like Ukraine.

So oil and gas is how they do that, and they somehow had convinced the Europeans that they were a reliable, sole source for that energy.

Well, they learned the hard way after Russia invaded Ukraine. Following Russia's invasion, Putin became persona non grata on the world stage. No one wanted to do business with Russia. They didn't want to purchase Russian oil and gas that would help Putin finance his barbaric war, and they certainly didn't want their energy supply to be subject to the whims of a cruel and vindictive dictator.

Our friends in Europe turned to the United States for LNG, and, fortunately, we were able to fill the gap. Liquefied natural gas exports to Europe more than doubled between 2021 and 2022. That was only possible because of America's energy producers.

You know, it wasn't that long ago I remember we were seeing terminals built for the importation of liquefied natural gas from other parts of the world to the United States. But it is a testament to the innovation and the investment in America's natural resources that allowed, as I said, America to be the No. 1 exporter. So rather than importing that energy from other countries, we are supplying that energy to friends and allies around the world.

Thanks to our energy industry and the incredible men and women behind it, we had the supply, the export terminals, and the ability to send our allies the energy they needed at a critical moment. Had this freeze been issued several years ago--the one President Biden announced last week--that may not have been the case because producers can't ramp up production and increase exports overnight. It requires a lot of preparation. It requires infrastructure. It requires deploying your assets strategically. It is not like a faucet you can turn off and on in an instant. The production of energy takes time, investment, infrastructure, and a whole lot of certainty because investors will not invest in something that does not have a reasonable chance of producing a return. Now, with the stroke of a pen, President Biden has virtually eliminated that certainty.

President Biden's pause, as he calls it, has thrown future LNG projects into limbo, and our allies are understandably spooked. They don't know if they can continue to count on the United States for the affordable energy they need to keep the lights on, to heat their homes, and to cook their food.

The Biden administration has offered some ambiguous assurances that this decision won't impact our ability to export LNG to our allies in the near term--whatever that means--but it doesn't offer much peace of mind, and it certainly doesn't offer the sort of predictability that the marketplace needs in order to incentivize investment in this energy production. So our allies now are left to question if or when American LNG will stop serving global markets. Today, they are wondering if they should ride this wave while they can or whether it is time to start looking for another seller.

The Biden administration has created unnecessary chaos and confusion on our allies, and for what? A new talking point in a political campaign ad? It just does not make sense in any other context.

It simply is disingenuous to suggest that this is a way to combat climate change, because curbing LNG exports won't change the reality of the situation we are in today. If countries can't get access to relatively clean natural gas, what are they going to use? Coal, for example? Certainly nothing as clean as American-produced liquefied natural gas. They can't just flip a switch and turn to wind, solar, and renewables. At the end of the day, they are going to need fossil fuels for a baseload to keep the lights on.

Texas, I am proud to say, is an ``all of the above'' State. We produce more electricity from wind than any other State in the Nation. I know we are thought of as exclusively an oil and gas State, but that is simply not factually true, although the Permian Basin, for example, does produce the lion's share of natural gas for not only America but that we use for export.

At the end of the day, we are going to have to transition. I know people think--again, some people in their fevered dreams think that you can automatically do away with fossil fuels and go to wind turbines and solar panels and renewables. Well, we do need to transition, but we can't transition overnight. It is going to take time.

I believe America's innovators, our job creators, will come up with other ways to generate access to energy that will allow us over time to transition. It is inevitable. We have always been in a period of transition. But it can't be forced overnight like the Biden administration seems to think it can.

Well, as I said, maybe our allies will turn to coal. Maybe they will purchase natural gas from Russia again or Saudi Arabia, which don't have nearly the same environmental standards we have in the United States. At the end of the day, one thing is certain: Restricting the supply of American liquefied natural gas isn't going to make the world's energy consumption any cleaner, and it is sure to jeopardize global energy security.

Once again, President Biden has missed the forest for the trees. He is so focused on pleasing climate activists that he has lost sight of the bigger picture. American LNG is not the enemy here. In fact, it is a vital security tool.

We have to uplift our closest allies and provide energy at an affordable cost to American families. It gives other countries the ability to source their energy from a stable democracy rather than a temperamental or volatile dictator, and it gives countries lower emissions options--something you would think the Biden administration would want to encourage. Of course, as I mentioned, it creates jobs in places like Texas, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania and lifts up the entire U.S. economy.

The Biden administration's decision to halt new export projects puts all that in jeopardy at the worst possible time. It weakens U.S. energy security, it kills American jobs, it kneecaps our energy industry, and it sends more business to Russia and Iran.

This isn't a climate victory. It isn't an economic victory. It certainly isn't a victory for our security. This is an unforced error and a pretty transparent attempt to try to please climate activists. The climate-first approach to energy policy isn't just foolish, it is extremely dangerous. It is hurting our allies and helping our adversaries.

But I want to be clear. I support efforts to diversify our energy sources and reduce emissions. As I mentioned, my State has embraced an ``all of the above'' energy strategy, which includes oil and gas, solar, wind, and nuclear. But on top of that, Texas-based companies are making enormous strides in energy innovation. Every day, they are finding new ways to make our most prevalent and affordable energy sources cleaner.

I believe we should do more to encourage innovation and diversify our energy sources, but those efforts must come second to energy security. Our top priority must be to ensure the United States and our allies have access to the energy they need to keep the lights on. It is embarrassing that even after what we have witnessed over the last few years, President Biden still hasn't learned that important lesson.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, earlier this week, the American people received the tragic news that two Navy SEALs died during a nighttime raid near Somalia.

Somalia is a world away from here, but what happens in that region has a direct impact on us here at home because one of these Navy SEALs was from the great State of Texas.

These men and their brave comrades were seizing a vessel that was carrying Iranian-made arms intended for Houthi rebels in Yemen.

I know, after 9/11, there was a famous country-western song--I think ``Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)''--and one of the lines was, `I don't know the difference between Iraq and Iran.'

Well, the truth is, the American people have had to learn a lot about world geography, unfortunately, because things that happen far away from our shores have a direct impact on us and on the potential for regional war or worse to break out.

The Houthis, as some may know, are a terrorist group. They occupy Yemen, which is south of Saudi Arabia and right next to Oman. You may have to get out your maps to place it. But this is a terrorist group that has been engaged in a civil war in Yemen for many years now and has attacked Saudi Arabia and has been subject to retaliation by Saudi Arabia and the Emirates for some time now. But, unfortunately, they have proven to be enormously resilient.

They have a disturbing ideology. They are known for their saying ``God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse on the Jews. Victory for Islam.'' That is their motto. There is no mystery about their intentions.

In the wake of the invasion by Hamas on Israel on October 7, the Houthis have escalated their attacks in the region--again, supplied by Iran with weapons that they have used not only to attack Saudi Arabia but also to try to attack Israel and American forces in the region.

They have launched dozens of drone and missile attacks on commercial ships traveling through the Red Sea and bound for the Suez Canal. This is an area of the world where international commerce is so important. Goods that flow between the Red Sea and the Suez Canal do everything from provide us with the commodities that make our lives better to provide the energy necessary for countries around the world. The U.S. Central Command described these attacks as a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security.

The Houthis only have the resources to carry out these attacks because of the support they receive from Iran. Like Hamas, another Iranian proxy, the Houthis and other terrorist groups in the region are armed, trained, and funded by Iran.

On the evening of January 11, a heroic group of Navy SEALs seized a vessel carrying ballistic missiles and cruise missile components destined for Houthi forces. They prevented the Houthis from receiving even more weapons that could be used to target U.S. forces or commercial ships in the region.

Now, you can imagine that boarding an enemy vessel is a dangerous and difficult mission, but doing so in the dead of night, in rough seas, while loaded with heavy equipment, is even more perilous.

While boarding the ship, Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram, a Texan, fell into the Arabian Sea. Following SEAL protocol, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher Chambers heroically jumped in, trying to save him. Well, unfortunately, the U.S. Navy and our allies have now conducted a thorough search and rescue operation, covering more than 21,000 square miles over 10 days, but sadly their bodies were never recovered.

These men represent the very best of our country. They exemplify the courage and selflessness that generations of American servicemembers have embodied. Our hearts go out to the families of these brave Navy SEALs who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country.

But this is a reminder of the immense risks our servicemembers face every single day. They sacrifice time away from their loved ones and place their lives on the line to keep our country safe. Given the chaos unfolding around the world, which seems to be getting worse and worse, the threats they face continue to grow.

As we all know, in recent months, the tensions in the Middle East have escalated dramatically. As I mentioned, Hamas carried out an attack on Israel on October 7. In Israel, they call this their 9/11-- like the attack on September 11, 2001, that killed 3,000 Americans. The Houthis are disrupting, as I said, global commerce and freedom of navigation. Iranian-supported proxies in Iraq and Syria are attacking U.S. forces. Hezbollah, in Lebanon, is launching constant attacks on northern Israel.

Terrorist threats are intensifying throughout the Middle East, and the common thread uniting all of these attacks is Iran. Iran is the head of the octopus, and its tentacles of terror extend throughout the region. There is Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank, and Shiite militias in Syria and Iran. Iran provides its terrorist proxies with funding, weapons, and training to enable the types of attacks we have seen in recent weeks. This chaos threatens to destabilize the Middle East even further and possibly start a much wider conflict.

Given the growing tensions in the Middle East, one of America's top priorities must be to reestablish deterrence. Iran needs to pay a price for using its proxies to attack the United States and U.S. interests.

This is absolutely vital to the future of Israel. Iran is a country driven by a dangerous ideology that calls for the destruction of Israel, and it will bleed the Iranian people dry in order to sustain that fight.

But, as we know, Iran's ambitions do not end with Israel. The Supreme Leader once labeled the United States as Iran's ``number one enemy.'' Until recently, Iran felt intense pressure from the United States. The Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and placed sanctions on hundreds of businesses and individuals who helped finance Iran's illicit activities. It also brokered the historic Abraham Accords, which served as a major blow to Iran as like-minded nations in the region normalized their relationship in order to counter their common adversary: Iran.

The maximum pressure strategy dissolved as soon as President Biden took office. It seems to be the guiding philosophy of President Biden that if President Trump did it, President Biden will undo it, and that is what happened here.

Less than a month into his Presidency, President Biden made the foolish decision to remove the government designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group. Given the brazen attacks that I have mentioned, President Biden has now reversed that decision last week but only partially. The President has only redesignated the Houthis as a ``Specially Designated Global Terrorist.'' He also failed to reclassify them as a ``Foreign Terrorist Organization,'' as they were before President Biden took office. The truth is, I doubt this will have any impact on the Houthis. Unfortunately, it is just one of many examples where President Biden's weakness toward Iran has not provided greater peace and stability but more dangerous circumstances. It actually has emboldened our adversaries.

President Biden has made no secret of his intent to revive the Iran nuclear deal while Iran continues to enrich uranium. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia won't be far behind and other countries in the region will try to figure out how they can defend themselves against the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism that now, instead of just missiles and drones, has a nuclear weapon. You can imagine what might come from that set of circumstances, and it is frightening.

Then the administration has loosened sanctions on Iran's oil sales. Iran's economy, not surprisingly, has rebounded. China--that imports about 70 percent of their energy needs--has now entered into a strategic partnership with Iran because they need the oil that Iran produces along with the oil and gas produced by the Russian Federation.

Of course, we all know President Biden carried out the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan without even consulting our friends and allies, which created a power vacuum in the region that is now being filled by--you guessed it--Iran.

The administration unfroze billions of dollars in Iranian assets, giving Tehran even more money to pour into its terrorist proxies. It failed to take quick and decisive action to respond to Iran's attacks on U.S. forces in Syria. In other words, it is not enough for us or Israel to attack proxies. We need to go after the head of the octopus, not the tentacles. President Biden has consistently projected weakness when it comes to Iran. They understand weakness, but they also understand strength. This administration has steadily loosened the pressure valve, and now we are seeing the consequences with an emboldened Iran.

Appeasement is not a viable strategy. It never has been and never will be, particularly when these countries understand nothing but strength. If they experience mush, it is, in fact, an incentive or provocation for them to keep doing what they are doing.

President Biden should have known from the beginning. He served in the Senate as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for many, many years. He is worldly wise, but he seems incredibly naive when it comes to what it takes to deter state sponsors of terrorism like Iran.

The only way to counter the growing threat is by reestablishing deterrence. That can only be achieved through strong and decisive leadership and reciprocal counterstrikes not on the proxies alone, but on the head of the octopus.

Sadly, President Biden has spent the last 3 years projecting this image of weakness and uncertainty. Given the chaos Iran has unleashed in the Middle East, it is time for a swift change in strategy. President Biden needs to work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to confront threats from Iran and reestablish a credible deterrence in the Middle East. Iran needs to understand that attacks against the United States and our allies will not be met with kid gloves. Until that happens, Iran and its proxies will continue to escalate their attacks and threaten the possibility of even a wider war.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, since President Biden took office 3 years ago, Customs and Border Protection has encountered 6.7 million--6.7 million--migrants at the southern border. Just to give you an idea of how that compares to the Obama administration and

President Trump's administration, this is more than those two administrations combined. And that was for a period of 12 years, where President Biden has been in office for 3 years.

The administration still hasn't released the number of illegal border crossings for December, but multiple news outlets have reported that more than 300,000 migrants have crossed the border last month, which would be a new record.

What I have a hard time comprehending is why President Biden thinks that is a good idea. It is his policies that are responsible, because they are like a magnet. They attract people from, literally, around the world, who show up at our border and either claim asylum, only to be put on a docket and wait 10 years before they get heard by an immigration judge--and, in the meantime, they get released into the interior--or they are simply released into the interior of the country, using something called parole.

Now, I think it is a little confusing because, most of the time, we think about parole in the context of criminal law, that if somebody is tried and convicted and goes to prison, they can then be paroled out of prison. But this simply means that, in the immigration context, people come to the border, and they are just released--just released. In other words, there is no consequences associated with people entering the country illegally.

So it should be no surprise to any of us that people still come. And that is why we are seeing higher and higher levels of people coming to the border under President Biden's policies.

The problem isn't just that more migrants than ever are crossing into the United States; it is also that more migrants than ever are being released into the United States.

The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to ensure that people who cross the border illegally can remain in the United States, regardless of whether they have a legitimate reason to be here or not.

To do that, the President and his administration have abused an authority known as parole to facilitate catch-and-release at an unprecedented rate. Parole, in the immigration context, was designed to grant temporary entry to foreign nationals in a rare and dire circumstance such as someone donating a kidney or being a witness in a trial. It was never meant to be categorical or a large-scale immigration authority. It was meant to be used on a case-by-case basis.

The Biden administration has completely abused the parole authority, and it is not just at the southern border. The President's administration has stood up a program that allows individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter or remain in the United States--all under the guise of parole. In other words, these are not individual case-by-case determinations; this is categorical. In other words, you come from a country; we are going to release you into the United States--to the number of 30,000 a month. That is 360,000 a year.

When the administration does so for these four countries, it provides a 2-year legal status and a work authorization. And so, again, it is no surprise people continue to come.

This is also big business for criminal organizations that smuggle people into the United States. And it is as a result of overwhelming the capacity of the Border Patrol and Federal officials on the border that the opportunity to smuggle drugs into the United States becomes so relatively easy--thus, again, enriching the cartels that deal in the poison that took the lives of 108,000 Americans last year alone.

The administration is using--or I should say ``abusing''--parole authority to try to legalize illegal immigration. And they do that so they can cook the books; so they don't have to include these numbers in a total tally of illegal border crossings each month. In other words, that is not even on the list of the 300,000 because they are exempted from that because they are released using--or abusing--this other authority.

This policy allows the administration to roll out the welcome mat for tens of thousands of migrants while making it seem like the numbers have gone down. It is really a shell game.

Thanks to the leadership of my friend Senator Graham, from South Carolina, the American people now have a much better idea about the degree to which parole is being abused by the Biden administration, both at the southern border and beyond.

To provide some comparison, during the two previous administrations-- that was 12 years--an average of 5,600 migrants were paroled into the country each year--5,600 each year. When President Biden took office, that number skyrocketed.

For fiscal year 2022 alone, the Biden administration paroled almost 800,000 migrants. In other words, an average of 5,600 became 800,000 under President Biden.

We still don't have full data for fiscal year 2023, but it is already clear that the administration has passed the previous year's total. The Biden administration has paroled more than 802,000 migrants into the United States in only 9 months. In other words, it is going to set a new record.

In total, the administration granted parole to nearly 1.6 million migrants in only 21 months. Is it any wonder that people continue to come to the border outside the legal process if they know they are going to be released, while the human smugglers continue to get richer and richer and the drug cartels continue to get richer each day?

Well, these numbers are hard to get your head around because they are so large as to be incomprehensible. But 1.6 million migrants released into the country in 21 months?

When this many migrants are being released into the country, it creates serious challenges. Migrants arrived at our border with no money and no place to go. They need to be fed. They need clothing. They need a safe place to sleep. They need medical care. And none of these things are cheap or easy to provide. But they are a feature of illegal immigration.

For more than 3 years, communities along Texas's southern border have carried the weight of the President's border crisis. Local governments and nongovernmental organizations provide migrants with basic needs like shelter, food, and clothing. They deliver lifesaving medical care. They provide transportation. In short, they prevent this humanitarian crisis from becoming a humanitarian catastrophe.

It is expensive; it is burdensome; it is extremely time-consuming; and these men and women don't receive nearly enough recognition or gratitude for the work they do each day.

The border crisis continues to have a major impact on border communities in my State. But the scale of the crisis means the burden is now shared by communities across the country.

Given the unprecedented number of migrants released, every State in America is now a border State in terms of the direct impact of the Biden border crisis.

As this crisis has grown and expanded, it has prompted an interesting shift in rhetoric among leaders in blue States and cities.

Liberal enclaves like New York and Chicago are long-time supporters of open border policies. They proudly identify themselves as sanctuary cities and have criticized commonsense measures to enforce our immigration laws.

Until President Biden took office, these and other liberal cities across America could say what they wanted because they didn't have to bear any of the burden. With the U.S.-Mexico border a thousand miles or more away, immigration levels didn't impact their daily lives.

Residents did not see hundreds of migrants sleeping on city sidewalks. Their children's schools weren't used as emergency shelters. Their local ambulances weren't delayed because of a high influx of migrants who needed medical care. So it is easy to weigh in on an issue that has absolutely zero impact on your daily life.

But as more and more migrants have poured into blue States and blue cities in the past few years, the story has changed. One example is Phil Murphy, the Democratic Governor of New Jersey. He campaigned on the promise of making his State a safe place for illegal immigrants and once vowed to turn New Jersey into a sanctuary State.

When it became clear that more States needed to help carry the weight of this national crisis, he quickly changed his tune. When given the opportunity to take care of migrants

with nowhere to go, Governor Murphy said the State didn't have any room for these migrants.

We have seen a similar shift--you might even call it a flip-flop-- from leaders in Chicago, which has been a self-proclaimed sanctuary city for decades. The city's mayor, Brandon Johnson, was just sworn in last May and ran on the promise of embracing migrants who arrived in the city. Last spring, he said: Sanctuary means that everyone is welcome here--everyone--whether you come legally or illegally.

When you make that kind of declaration, it is tough to be mad when people take you up on it and show up. But that is exactly what he has done.

As migrants have arrived in Chicago via bus and plane, he has lashed out at Texas Governor Greg Abbott for providing migrants with the transportation to actually take him up on his offer.

At one point, he even accused the Texas Governor of attacking Chicago and other cities that received migrants. Pretty unhinged, if you ask me.

This would be like sending an invitation out to a party that says: Everybody is welcome, and then berating the person who actually shows up with a carload of people.

I think there is a lesson there: Don't say everybody is welcome unless you mean it.

President Biden's border crisis has grown to such a magnitude that even the sanctuary cities and States are turning off or flipping over the welcome sign. The crisis just keeps growing and growing, and the pressure on President Biden is mounting.

And, oh, by the way, he is going to be a candidate for reelection in November 2024. That may have something to do with his newfound attention and concern about the problem. He didn't care about the border crisis when it was just hurting Texas or the communities along the border. He didn't flinch when frontline law enforcement pleaded for more support. He didn't bat an eye when we broke the record for the most border crossings in a single day, month, and year. But now that Democratic voters--voters he is going to need to get reelected in places like New York and Chicago--are sounding the alarm over the border crisis, so it looks like President Biden is finally starting to pay attention.

When asked by a reporter last week if the border was secure, President Biden said: No, it is not.

It is welcome candor.

But given the magnitude of the crisis, it is sad that that statement was actually newsworthy because it marked a much needed change from the President to recognize we have a problem on our hand.

The fact is--and we all know the answer--that the status quo was unsustainable. We have reached a breaking point. And the only way to restore some sense or order is by addressing the current failed policies of the Biden administration--particularly this abuse of parole, which is just simply releasing people, giving them a work permit, even to those who aren't claiming a credible fear of persecution or grounds for asylum.

Now, we all know several of our colleagues are trying to negotiate an agreement on legislation that would create meaningful policy changes to address the crisis. And I appreciate their efforts. I sincerely do. But so far, all we have seen are statements about what is being negotiated. None of us have seen the text of the actual negotiated product. And I, for one, am anxious to see that so we can have a real discussion and maybe a debate and, hopefully, make some significant progress on what has come to be known as the Biden border crisis.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, President Biden, last Friday, garnered a lot of attention for his comments on the border crisis.

When asked by a reporter if the border was secure, the President didn't hesitate; he didn't equivocate. He said, ``No, it's not.''

``No, it's not.''

On its own, that statement is not particularly shocking because it is actually true. What is shocking is that it represents a 180-degree flip from the position taken over and over and over by the Biden administration, from the President to the Vice President to the Secretary of Homeland Security, on down.

The fact of the matter is that under President Biden's leadership, the Federal Government has shattered virtually every record on the books when it comes to illegal border crossings. In the last 3 years, Customs and Border Protection has logged more than 6.7 million--6.7 million--border crossings. At the same time, the cartels have trafficked record amounts of fentanyl across the southern border, fueling the overdose epidemic.

Gang members, dangerous criminals, and potential terrorists--people on the Terrorist Watchlist--have used the chaos on the border to attempt to sneak into the United States. And 1.7 million of them, the so-called ``got-aways,'' that were detected on cameras and other various sensors simply have evaded law enforcement, and the Biden administration can't tell you who these people are, what they are doing, and what their intentions are while they are here.

Communities across the country, not just in my State--in Texas--but across the country have been forced to carry the burden of caring for thousands of immigrants who cross our border every day.

No, the border is not secure, not in the least. Anyone who has been paying attention for the last 3 years could have told you that.

But it took the President 3 years to finally be willing to speak the truth, because for President Biden, this is a shocking reversal. After all, as I said, the senior most leaders of the administration have spent the last 3 years trying to convince the American people that there is no such thing as the Biden border crisis.

The White House press secretary has said, ``The border is secure.'' Secretary Mayorkas, the Secretary tasked with the border security responsibilities, the Department of Homeland Security, he said, ``The border is secure.''

Vice President Harris, the anointed border czar for President Biden, said, ``The border is secure.''

This is the same line that has been parroted over and over and over by leaders throughout the Biden administration. And it is not true. It is not true.

On Friday, President Biden not only admitted that the border is not secure, he went on to say he believes it hasn't been secure for the last 10 years. That means every single attempt by his administration to assure the American people that the Biden administration was performing its responsibilities by enforcing the laws to secure the border has been untrue.

I don't know how to say this charitably. I don't easily accuse a President of the United States for intentionally telling an untruth, but it appears that that is absolutely the case. By his own account, President Biden has known all along the border was not secure, but he chose to gaslight the American people with untrue assurances that everything was just fine.

Sort of like the story goes: ``Don't believe your lying eyes,'' when the American people see caravans of migrants coming up to the border, because they know that President Biden has laid out the welcome mat and will release them into the interior of the United States. That is a huge magnet, not only for people coming from Mexico, but around the world.

That is what has changed under the Biden administration is that this is not a regional, this is not even an economic issue. This is a matter of the human smuggling networks making billions of dollars smuggling people from around the world and, unfortunately, overwhelming the Border Patrol to the point that the Border Patrol is processing paperwork, providing transportation and care for unaccompanied children, who were likewise incentivized to come to the United States, and here come the drugs that took the lives of 108,000 Americans last year alone.

Finally, when the President was asked if he believed his own policies had enabled this crisis, he offered another shocking statement: ``No.''

So he said the border is not secure. He admitted that, finally. He said it hadn't been for 10 years. And he was asked whether his own policies had enabled that, and he said no.

I don't think you can have it both ways. There is a huge difference between the number of border crossings that we saw during the previous administration, during the Trump administration and compared to the Biden administration.

None of the laws have changed. It is simply the willingness or, in the case of the Biden administration, the unwillingness to actually enforce the law.

Since President Biden took office, the United States has logged, as I said, more than 6.7 million illegal border encounters. That is higher than the 8 years under President Obama and the 4 years under President Trump. So in 3 years, he has managed to accomplish something that took 12 years in the previous two administrations.

The fact that President Biden believes his policies have nothing to do with this sea change is absolutely unbelievable. It is not credible--that is what I mean. It is unbelievable. You can't believe it. This administration's refusal to take its responsibility for this crisis is pathetic, and it should be embarrassing. But, sadly, it is nothing new. We have seen this song and dance many times over.

The Supreme Court of the United States, I am told from published reports, just said that the State of Texas, which was trying to fill the breach left by the failure of the Federal Government and the Biden administration to do its job couldn't put razor wire or impediments to illegal immigration on the border.

I haven't read the opinion, but, presumably, they say it is the Federal Government's exclusive authority, and the States can't enforce that. But if the Federal Government is not going to do its job, why can't the State do it? It doesn't affect people here in Washington, DC, directly, although we have heard the mayor of Washington, DC, complaining about the fact that migrants have come to the District of Columbia. But it does affect my State.

We have 1,200 miles of common border. The huge tsunami of humanity coming across the border has affected my State disproportionately because we are at ground zero. And now, because Mayor Adams in New York or Mayer Bowser in Washington, DC, or Governor Pritzker in Illinois, it is impacting them in a rather minor way compared to the way it has affected my State over the recent years.

The Biden administration has finally realized this is a huge political liability. President Biden is going to be on the ballot in 2024, and he realizes that this is a huge problem for him and everybody up and down the ticket because the American people really never believed the statement that the border was secure, because they could watch on television and watch on social media the huge numbers of people coming across. They knew it was not true. But now, after 3 years, the President has finally come around to admit it. You know we talked about the drugs. We have talked about the people. What we haven't talked about enough, in my view, is the fact that the Biden administration has simply lost track of unaccompanied children who have been placed with sponsors in the interior of the United States. The New York Times ran several investigative pieces pointing out that 85,000 calls were made to these sponsors to see, How are these kids doing? And the calls were never answered, and they were never followed up on. The Biden administration takes the position--I think it is an irresponsible position--that once they place these children with sponsors, they have washed their hands of any further responsibility--no followup, no wellness check if there is no response to the phone call. And the Biden administration, apparently, just does not care.

And then, most recently, we have seen a new low as they falsely blamed the State of Texas for three tragic drownings at the border at Eagle Pass, TX. A little over a week ago, a woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande River attempting to get across the river. It was near a park that is currently the subject of a standoff between Federal and State officials.

Now, migrant deaths are a tragedy. There is no two ways about it. And, sadly, it is a too common tale along the border. Migrants frequently drown crossing the Rio Grande. In the summer, they may die due to the intense heat and from lack of water across remote stretches of desert or ranch land. It is an inhospitable place in the heat of summer. Some are killed in car accidents in high-speed chases, while others are killed while being smuggled into the United States in the back of a semitractor trailer.

Given the skyrocketing number of border crossings on President Biden's watch, these sorts of tragedies now seem to happen routinely. According to the National Border Patrol Council, roughly 2,300 migrants have died at the southern border since President Biden was sworn into office. It is an average of more than 2 deaths each day since his open border policies have been in place.

As I said, these deaths are tragic, and they are tragically common. But this pace is not. In fact, the pace of migrant deaths has more than doubled compared to previous administrations. More and more migrants are losing their lives because of the failed open border policies of the Biden administration. Yet the Biden administration refuses to take responsibility for the dangers their policies have actually created.

The day after the most recent tragedy in Eagle Pass, the Department of Homeland Security put out an outrageous, outrageously false statement pinning the blame on the State of Texas and its attempts to do what the Biden administration has refused to do, which is to secure the border. The statement actually claimed that ``Border Patrol agents were physically barred by Texas officials from entering the area.'' It went on to describe the efforts by State officials to help manage the chaos at the border. They called that ``cruel, dangerous, and inhumane.'' In other words, when the Federal Government does nothing and the State officials try to step in, the Biden administration calls that ``cruel, dangerous, and inhumane.''

And the White House press machine has been quick to repeat the claims, saying:

Texas officials blocked U.S. Border Patrol from attempting

to provide emergency assistance.

These statements were designed to paint a very specific picture. The White House and the Department of Homeland Security tried to portray Texas as heartless and cruel for refusing to let Border Patrol agents rescue these three migrants in distress.

The problem with this carefully crafted story line is it is absolutely false, but the story spread like wildfire. The Associated Press published a story with the headline saying: ``US says Texas blocked border agents from entering park to save 3 migrants who drowned.'' Countless other news outlets ran similar stories. Social media, pundits, and even Members of Congress spread the story and criticized the actions by Texas officials.

Again, the problem is this entire narrative is demonstrably false. It is a lie.

In a new Supreme Court filing, the Biden administration has now admitted that the three migrants died before Border Patrol even attempted to enter Shelby Park on Friday night. Sadly, they were part of the 2,300 migrants who died on President Biden's watch, but it didn't have anything to do with what Texas officials were doing. The Justice Department now admits that the women and two children died around 8 p.m., and the Border Patrol didn't even request access to the area until roughly an hour later.

But by the time this correct and accurate information became public, the

damage had already been done. News stories had circulated far and wide blaming Texas officials for blocking potentially lifesaving care for a woman and two children who drowned.

Well, did the Biden administration apologize for its false accusation? Did it admit that it had perpetrated a false narrative? Absolutely not. Then, again, why would you really expect them to? This is just another example of the Biden administration that cannot be trusted to tell the truth, another example of spreading lies about what is happening at the southern border--no remorse, no shame, no accountability. The lies, dishonesty, and mischaracterizations have become commonplace, and the American people are fed up with them.

Leaders in the Biden administration have repeatedly intentionally misrepresented what is happening. They dissemble; they shift the facts; they deflect; they distort the truth; and then they try to pin their own failures on somebody else.

Well, as sad as it is now 3 years into the Biden administration, I am glad that the President has finally admitted that the border is not secure, and I am really shocked that, 3 years in, he is finally come around to admit it.

But the fact he won't accept the reality that it is his administration's policies that created the crisis is a serious problem because the status quo at the border is absolutely unsustainable and has been for a long time now, and something has got to change.

As we speak, several of our colleagues are trying to secure an agreement on legislation that will address the border crisis. I am sure it will fall short of what I would like to see happen, but Senator Lankford and Senator Sinema, Senator Murphy, and others are working to try to come up with some changes in the law that will force the Biden administration to put an end to some of the most egregious practices. And I, for one, am eager to see if they can come up with something that will force the administration to change its disastrous southern border policy, and I will be watching closely with interest as the negotiations progress.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I and Senator Brown, the Senator from Ohio, be allowed to finish our remarks before the planned recess.

Mr. President, for the third time--third time--since late September, Congress is rushing to avert a government shutdown.

We have an annual appropriations process for the fiscal year, which ends at the end of September each year. But, for some reason, we find ourselves in a position where, frankly, we reflect embarrassingly the dysfunction here in Washington, DC, because of the way we deal with keeping the lights on and keeping the government up and running.

The Senate and the House both have failed to send a single regular appropriations bill to the President's desk. Just before the start of this fiscal year, we passed a stopgap bill to fund the government through mid-November. When that deadline rolled around, we punted again and set two separate deadlines. The first is this Friday, and the second is just 2 weeks after that.

Today, Congress is on track to kick the can down the road once again. The Senate is preparing to vote on a continuing resolution that will push these deadlines even further. The first will arrive on March 1, and the second will come on March 8. We can only wonder what is going to happen between now and March 1 and March 8 that will prevent us from another can kicked down the road.

None of this is inevitable. This is a result of planned dysfunction. It is embarrassing to find ourselves in this situation once again. This is not complicated. It is not physics. We are talking about the most basic duty of funding the government for a full year. This is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress, but obviously it is not a priority for the majority leader, whose job it is to schedule votes in the Senate. In other words, none of us--not the Presiding Officer, not me, none of the 99 Senators--other than the majority leader can actually schedule something for a vote on the floor.

I know I must sound a little bit like a broken record, but it is important for everybody to remember that this roller coaster of last- minute stopgap funding bills is not inevitable. Congress has all year to plan and prepare for the end of the fiscal year. It is not a deadline that comes out of nowhere; it arrives like clockwork on September 30.

Despite the long runway, the Senate has failed to pass a single funding bill before the deadline. That wasn't because the individual bills were not available, it wasn't because they were divisive or ultrapartisan, and it certainly wasn't because of lack of time. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed all 12 regular appropriations bills in June and July--last June and last July. Each bill passed the committee with strong bipartisan support, and more than half of them passed unanimously. I think that would shock a lot of people who think Congress is polarized and irretrievably broken, that actually the Appropriations Committee could pass bipartisan appropriations bills and more than half of them unanimously.

So what is the deal? Well, the deal is the majority leader could have put the bills on the floor immediately. We could have been voting on funding bills last June. Instead, days, weeks, and months crept by without even an inch of progress. It was mid-September before Senator Schumer even attempted to put the first appropriations bill on the floor. We are now 3\1/2\ months into the fiscal year, and none of the 12 appropriations bills have been signed into law--not one.

Congress has developed a dangerous, dangerous habit of circumventing the normal processes for funding the government, and it is not without cost or consequences. It has been common to blow through the deadlines and rely on short-term funding bills to keep the lights on. I know of no business, large

or small, in the United States that could operate like this because you can't plan. All of your time is absorbed and energy absorbed in these efforts to keep the government from shutting down, and all of it is avoidable.

Now, there is no doubt that stopgap bills are better than government shutdowns, but it is not a good solution, especially for critical missions like national defense.

Here is the price the Nation pays for the failure to do our business on time. Short-term funding bills do avoid the most immediate consequences of a shutdown. They ensure that our troops are paid on time and that short-term operations can continue. But they have a decidedly negative impact on a full range of long-term projects, from recruitment to modernization.

During a continuing resolution, the Department of Defense can't even start some of the programs we authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act, which we passed in December. Our Nation's top military leaders have repeatedly emphasized the importance of full-year government funding bills. They have told us over and over again that reliable funding is a key to planning and preparing for the future.

I remember maybe about a year ago now having lunch--a bipartisan group of Senators--in the Senate Dining Room with Secretary Bob Gates.

Secretary Gates, a former Secretary of Defense, served, I want to say, under eight Presidents, and he is wise in the ways of Washington, DC, although he hadn't been back to Capitol Hill for some time before we had lunch.

I asked him for his suggestions and recommendations for how we can ensure the safety and security of the United States by making sure that our military was second to none and making sure that we maintain maximum deterrence so that wars wouldn't break out because people experienced or sensed a lack of will or preparation. He said the single most important thing--piece of advice he could give us is no more continuing resolutions. No more continuing resolutions--the single most important thing. What we have been doing time and time and time again is continuing resolutions--exactly the wrong thing when it comes to our national security and our standing in the world and our ability to deter aggressors in a very, very dangerous environment.

In short, timely, full-year appropriations support our long-term goals. You can't plan for a few weeks at a time. Long, full-year appropriations bills support our troops, boost our military readiness, restore credible deterrence, and maintain our ability to compete with our most formidable adversaries.

By continuing to move from one stopgap bill to another, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We are weakening our own defense as China's military strength continues to grow and as we see more and more aggression on the part of Iran in the Middle East through various proxies like Hamas. We see Kim Jong Un in North Korea say he wants nothing to do with South Korea and has basically declared a state of war against South Korea. In Asia proper, China continues to threaten to attack Taiwan, creating a potentially catastrophic set of circumstances.

We need credible deterrence, and that credible deterrence comes with a first-class military, second to none, and an understanding that America is absolutely committed first and foremost to our national security.

Given the threats we face in the world today, from the Middle East to Europe and the Indo-Pacific, it is absolutely critical that Congress take defense funding seriously. It cannot be the last item on our to-do list; it should be priority No. 1. There are a lot of things Congress does that are not priorities, but national defense is our No. 1 priority--should be. Reliable funding for our defense is vital to our security. It should come before votes on nominees and virtually every other task on the Senate's agenda.

Well, watching this play out once again is like watching another bad movie. The characters miss the obvious warning signs, make bad decisions, and repeatedly stumble into danger. Throughout this movie, you can't help but think that no one is foolish enough to land in this situation or certainly to do so voluntarily, but, sadly, that is how I feel, looking at the majority leader's decisionmaking when it comes to funding the government and particularly national security.

At the end of September, Congress kicked the can to November. In November, we punted to January and February. Now Congress is on track to push the deadline once again, teeing us up for another fiscal cliff--actually, not just one but two of them--in March.

With each stopgap bill, we are sending the message that we are really not serious about our national security because we are weakening our defense, crippling our readiness, and hurting our long-term security.

Here in the Senate, the stakes are much higher than in this bad movie. We don't have the freedom to make poor decisions just to put on a show. So the bottom line is this: Congress has a duty to pass full- year, on-time appropriations bills. This is the absolute bare minimum when it comes to governing. It is time to get serious about debating, amending, and passing those regular appropriations bills.

I don't know what it is going to take to convince the majority leader that this is important, which is the reason I keep coming to the floor and talking about it. Hopefully somebody, somewhere, will be paying attention.

Congress failed to get the job done before the first deadline. We failed to get it done before the second deadline. We failed to get it done before the third deadline. We simply cannot, in good conscience, delay this process any further. There is far too much at stake.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are all returning to a snowy Washington, DC, but it never ceases to amaze me, when I come back to the Nation's Capital from home, back in Texas, the disconnect between what people are focused on back home--namely, their jobs, their family, and, well, football. That didn't turn out so well for us this weekend. But the mainstream media and, of course, social media, which amplifies what people are talking about or the message that they want to convey-- the so-called influencers, which are, really, in some instances, no more than propagandists--and even our foreign adversaries are engaging in a nonstop battle to control the narrative here in Washington, DC, on a variety of issues, including the terrorist attack that occurred in Israel on October 7 of last year.

Yesterday marked 100 days since Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 Israelis and took about 240 hostages. I traveled to Israel with several of my Senate colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, and we witnessed the grief and the fear that has gripped the Israeli people over the last few months. It was a familiar feeling because it seemed very much like where the American people were 3 months after the attacks of 9/11/2001, when al-Qaida killed 3,000 Americans.

In Tel Aviv, photos of the hostages who were still being held captive by Hamas lined the walkway. The photo of a 9-month-old baby held hostage literally stopped me in my tracks, wondering who would it be, what kind of person would take a 9-month-old baby and hold it hostage.

In the face of every person I spoke with, from families of hostages to senior government officials, there was, understandably, a deep sense of shock, mourning, and anger. Again, it reminded me of how we felt after 9/11. We were grieving, we were shocked, we were angry, and we were absolutely committed to holding those responsible accountable.

Our shared sense of purpose extended far beyond the borders of the United States. Our friends and allies around the world said: We have America's back. And they have supported our mission to destroy the al- Qaida threat.

That is exactly the kind of response you would expect when a terrorist group viciously attacks a friend--solidarity. Sadly, Israel has not received the overwhelming support that our country did in the wake of 9/11. In the more than 100 days since this war began, Israel has been criticized for defending itself. It has been villainized for going after the terrorist group that murdered, raped, and kidnapped its people.

This is not a view just held by a few people. Anti-Israeli rhetoric has spread like wildfire across social media. It has taken root at elite college campuses and even here in the Halls of Congress.

This past weekend, we saw the latest chapter in blaming the victim, as thousands of protesters gathered in downtown Washington, DC, to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. I would say a ceasefire would be great, but there is no guarantee Hamas won't continue to kill innocent men, women, and children. So it is just not feasible.

Protesters chanted: ``Ceasefire now.'' ``End the war in Gaza.'' They carried

signs that said ``Free Palestine'' and ``Let Gaza live.'' They accused Israel of being an apartheid government and outrageously said the United States was supporting genocide.

Again, this was not a small protest. Thousands of people lined the streets of our Nation's Capital, and countless others protested around the world as part of a ``Global Day of Resistance,'' as it was called.

I find it deeply disturbing to see this view shared by so many because it is completely divorced from reality. These protesters have the entire problem completely backward. Hamas is not a victim; Hamas is the aggressor in every possible sense, along with its state sponsor, Iran.

While we were in Israel, my colleagues and I were shown footage of the October 7 attack, which was captured by Hamas terrorists. In other words, they were taking video of themselves killing innocent men, women, and children. They intentionally filmed all of these atrocities they committed so the entire world could see. But what we saw affirms that these are not victims in any sense--Hamas, that is. They are murderers. They are rapists. They are kidnappers, and they are terrorists.

Hamas carried out the most gruesome atrocities I have ever seen, and I hope to never see those again. But we cannot, under any set of circumstances, allow them to be viewed as the victim in this war.

This is not only Israeli blood on the hands of Hamas. Hamas is also responsible for immense suffering by civilians living in Gaza. Hamas raises vast amounts of money from the Palestinian people and outside donors, but that money does next to nothing to support a better quality of life for Palestinians. It isn't invested in schools, hospitals, or housing. Instead, it is used to arm Hamas's wartime operations.

This terrorist group spends vast amounts of money building tunnels beneath the streets of Gaza--some 500 kilometers. It is a virtual city under a city. It allows it to hoard weapons. We literally saw manufacturing facilities for weapons and ammunitions in the tunnels. And, of course, it is used to keep food and fuel and to shield themselves from the violence above ground. Unfortunately, these tunnels are also used to hide the hostages, more than 100 of whom are still in Hamas captivity.

Hamas builds these tunnels beneath hospitals and schools and other vulnerable locations in order to give credence to Hamas's lie that it is the victim, not the aggressor.

Here in the United States, we are thousands of miles away from this war. Hamas didn't invade our neighborhoods. They didn't murder and kidnap our family or friends. And they aren't launching rockets that threaten us each night. But just because we aren't living with the daily realities of this war doesn't mean that we can be divorced from it. War is not just a battle of brute force; it is also a contest for public opinion.

Hamas goes to great lengths to shift the narrative and build sympathy. It is not a new strategy, but it is deeply disappointing to see how many Hamas sympathizers are found on American soil. It is disheartening that scores of Americans are lapping up Hamas's lies. By claiming that Israel is the aggressor, they are playing directly into these terrorists' hands.

We know war is ugly. It is tragic. It hurts innocent people and punishes the most vulnerable. William Tecumseh Sherman, a Civil War general said:

War is hell. You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I

will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.

The realities of this war are nothing short of devastating. I understand the desire for the violence to end, and I hope and pray that it will soon. But we must remember this can only happen when the Hamas threat is defeated.

The ultimate goal of Hamas, along with its state sponsor Iran, is to end the Jewish State, to wipe Israel off the map. That is the only risk of genocide in this war.

We have a responsibility to call out and correct the falsehoods and mischaracterizations that are spreading in our own country. We have a responsibility to do our best to inform the American people about the facts and to make sure they understand who is the aggressor and who is the victim. And, in the end, I believe we have a duty to stand with our ally Israel as it does what is needed to root out the terrorist threats in its own country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, well, just like a bad movie, Congress finds itself within days of a government shutdown threat. Of course, this isn't an accident. This is a choice made by the majority leader in particular because, rather than take up the appropriations bills, which is the most basic responsibility of the government--to try to keep the lights on and keep the functions of government operating--the majority leader has decided not to process bipartisan appropriations bills across the Senate floor.

And so here we are--portions of the Federal Government scheduled for a shutdown a week from tomorrow. This is not the first nor the second time we have found ourselves scrambling to avoid a shutdown in the past few months.

You know, I wonder what the American people, when they watch this, must be thinking. They must be thinking: These folks can't run a two- car funeral. This is the very picture of incompetence.

But the truth is, like I said, this is a choice. This marks the third time since the end of September that we have just been days away from the funding deadline without a plan in place. I personally find this embarrassing. And it is unnecessary drama because funding the government, as I said, is one of the most basic functions of the Congress. Congress has all year to prepare for the end of the fiscal year, which was the end of September. But here we are, 3\1/2\ months past the funding deadline, and not a single regular appropriations bill has been signed into law.

This is a sad state of affairs, but it is not a reflection on the work of our Senate Appropriations Committee. Under the leadership of Senator Murray and Senator Collins, the committee has passed all 12 bipartisan appropriations bills in June and July. That was last summer. Each bill received strong bipartisan support, and more than half of them passed unanimously.

Well, you might wonder, if the leading Democrat, the leading Republican, and the Appropriations Committee--composed of Republicans and Democrats--passed bipartisan bills last summer, why do we find ourselves days away from a potential government shutdown? The Appropriations Committee handed the majority leader, who manages the floor--he is the only one who can schedule bills for a vote--12 bipartisan funding bills on a silver platter. They put the Senate in the strongest possible position to return to regular order and pass, on time, bipartisan appropriations bills, but that is not what happened.

And you might wonder why--why in the world would the majority leader ignore the bipartisan work of the Appropriations Committee and put us in this posture? Well, there is an answer for that, and that is because this is about power. The majority leader wants the power to be able to shape these appropriations bills to deny rank-and-file Members an opportunity to participate in the process on the Appropriations Committee and on the floor and then present us with a fait accompli, saying: Vote for this; it is up or down. Either you shut down the government or you vote for this ominous appropriations bill--not an omnibus but an ominous appropriations bill.

Well, by the end of September, it was clear that there wasn't enough time to pass all 12 appropriations bills before the deadline. So we had to go to a stopgap bill. That set a new deadline of November 17. When that deadline came and went, Congress had to punt one more time, this time setting up two funding deadlines: one January 19, just about a week from today; and February 2, which is, perhaps ironically, Groundhog Day. That brings us to today, 8 days from the first deadline, and no closer to passing regular appropriations bills.

Well, more than 100 days have passed since the start of the new fiscal year, and the Senate has been in session 39 days. Let me say that again. Over 100 days have passed since the start of the current fiscal year, and, out of 100 days, the Senate has been in session 39 days. That amounts to working an average of 2\1/2\ days a week.

Again, the majority leader, Senator Schumer, the Senator from New York, is the only one who can schedule the Senate. Rank-and-file Members have no power to do that.

But, frankly, I don't know any business in America where people can work roughly a third of the time and expect to receive a paycheck. And it is no surprise that, if you are only working a third of the time, you are not going to be able to get your work done.

How have we spent that time? Well, we know that the world is on fire, between Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific, the border. The President has requested more than $100 billion in an emergency supplemental appropriation bill in order to fund those causes, those issues--it is very important--but the Senate hasn't even acted on that Presidential request, even though the House passed an Israel aid bill on November 2. It hasn't moved in the Senate. The majority leader hasn't made it a priority. As a matter of fact, he is waiting to bundle that, making our job a lot more complicated, to be honest. And so that remains undone.

We haven't passed a long-term reauthorization of a very important law called section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I think this is probably the most important law that nobody has heard of because it authorizes our intelligence community to collect necessary intelligence in order to keep our country safe.

We haven't reauthorized the Federal Aviation Administration. The news today is full of news of near misses and accidents occurring on airlines, and we haven't even taken up to debate or

vote on the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization.

And, as I said, we haven't taken action to address the border crisis, the fentanyl epidemic that killed 71,000 Americans last year alone, or other issues that are urgent issues.

Instead, the majority leader has focused almost all of the Senate's time, such as it is, on nominations. Well, to be clear, considering nominees is important work, but there is no world in which nominees should take priority over funding the government.

This entire saga could have been avoided if the majority leader had prioritized the appropriations process. It could have allowed this Chamber to start voting on individual funding bills over the summer as soon as they were approved by the Appropriations Committee. Instead, here we are, a week away from a partial government shutdown and 3 weeks away from a potential full government shutdown.

As he said, I can't imagine any line of work in any business, large or small, across America where you work 2\1/2\ days a week, you blow through your deadlines, and you ignore your most important work. This is insanity and no way to run a railroad, much less the U.S. Senate.

The majority leader had ample time and countless opportunities to move funding bills through regular order. Our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee, on a bipartisan basis, gave him a long runway to land thoughtful and on-time appropriations. But, regrettably, he has prioritized virtually everything but that most basic responsibility, putting us in the embarrassing and unenviable position we find ourselves in today. I should say that I find this embarrassing, and I bet other colleagues do as well. I guess the majority leader doesn't find it embarrassing.

Again, this is purposeful because it maximizes his power to force through an end-of-the-year appropriations bill on an emergency basis that he basically gets to write. And, of course, it turns the rest of the Members of the Senate into virtual potted plants--spectators in the process rather than full participants.

Well, it looks like another continuing resolution is in the future. We have run out of time because of this intentional planning by the majority leader. And so we don't really have much alternative but a government shutdown, other than to pass another continuing resolution-- basically, kicking the can down the road.

Of course, the Senate is only half of the equation here. Our colleagues in the House are still weighing various options, and I am eager to see the route they choose.

The House has its own challenges, to be sure, but we ought to be leading by example. We ought to be passing bipartisan appropriations bills and sending them to the House. Then we can work out in a conference committee a compromise and send them to the President to keep the lights on, to keep the Border Patrol paid, to keep our commitments to our veterans, to pay our Active-Duty military and their families. That is what is at risk here, and it is completely avoidable.

Stopgap funding bills should not be the norm. They fail to provide government Agencies with the certainty they need to plan for the future. The Pentagon--the Defense Department--is the single largest discretionary appropriation that Congress passes every year. They can't plan for how to deal with the crisis in the Middle East or in the Indo- Pacific or in Ukraine or even at the border. If you are on a continuing resolution, they can't plan because they don't know what the future holds.

Well, the consequences of a continuing resolution or these stopgap, kick-the-can pieces of legislation are especially dire when it comes to our national defense and military readiness.

Despite the drawbacks of a stopgap funding bill, though, it is obviously better than a shutdown. I am not a fan of shutdowns. Nobody wins in a government shutdown because when you reopen the government, you are still staring in the face the same problems that caused you to shut down the government in the first place. Shutdowns penalize innocent people and hurt our economy. When the government shuts down, critical programs are paralyzed. Government services are put on hold, and millions of Federal workers are left without pay. Given the challenges we face, a shutdown would be a terrible mistake.

Mr. President, as is probably painfully obvious, I am extremely disappointed we find ourselves where we are today. Again, this is not an accident. This is not even negligent. This is intentional on the part of the majority leader. I think he bears responsibility for where we are today. I hope we can make some progress in the near future. But this is no way to run a railroad, much less the U.S. Congress or the business of the American people.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it is common knowledge that America's southern border has been in crisis since President Biden took office 3 years ago. Since then, 6.7 million--6.7 million--migrants have shown up at the border, only to be released by the Biden administration into the interior of the United States.

That 6.7 million people is higher than the Obama and the Trump administration combined, and that was over a period of 12 years. In just 3 years, we have experienced more illegal immigration than we did in the preceding 12 years.

Well, despite the eye-popping statistics, leaders in the Biden administration have repeatedly tried to mislead the American people into believing everything at the border is just hunky-dory. In other words, they are saying: Don't believe your lying eyes.

President Biden has consistently attempted to downplay concerns about the border crisis. Of course, my State, the State of Texas, which has 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, we are a ground-zero. But the President has even refused to visit the border until last January, nearly 2 years into his presidency, and then he did sort of a drive-by in El Paso after much of the evidence related to the crisis had been cleaned up.

At one point, the President defended his decision not to go to the border by saying: Well, there are more important things to do. What an abdication of responsibility.

Other leaders in the administration have offered weak and unconvincing claims that there is no reason to be concerned. Some have just lied. That sounds harsh, but there is simply no other reasonable conclusion.

In the fall of 2022, Vice President Kamala Harris, the appointed border czar by President Biden, said: We have a secure border.

I don't know how she reached that conclusion, other than maybe being just wishful thinking. She certainly has traveled to the border. She certainly hasn't studied the phenomenon associated with this mass migration of humanity across our border into the United States.

And then the Biden official principally responsible for border security, Alejandro Mayorkas, made a nearly identical proclamation, saying--this is under oath, penalties of perjury--he said: The border is secure.

Well, it is easy to see that these statements are demonstrably false. After all, the American people can turn their TV set on and watch news footage of migrants streaming across the border, caravans making their way to the border mostly to just turn themselves in because they know the Biden administration will release them into the countryside. We see photos of migrants lining the streets and sidewalks of our major cities like New York and Chicago, which are more than 1,000 miles away from the United States-Mexico border.

We watch as people in communities die from fentanyl poisoning and know that the vast majority of that fentanyl comes across the border from Mexico.

Evidence of the humanitarian and security crisis at the border is all around us, but the administration refuses to be honest, refuses to be honest with the American people about the scope of this crisis as well as their response.

Here is just one of many shocking examples. Last May, the chief spokesman for President Biden, the White House Press Secretary, tried to address the concerns over the administration's catch-and-release policies. She said:

The claims that [Customs and Border Protection] is allowing

or encouraging mass release of migrants . . . is just

categorically false.

That was in May of 2023. What was false was her statement. Migrants were being released in the United States with no immigration court date and no way of keeping tabs on their whereabouts. When one of the catch- and-release policies was vacated by a Federal court, the court's final order likened the administration's actions to posting a flashing sign on the border. That sign says ``Come in. We are open.'' That is what one court likened the Biden administration's border policies to--a welcome sign.

In the months since the White House Press Secretary made these obviously false comments, the Biden administration is taking catch-and- release to a new level. They have made that ``Come in. We are open'' sign even brighter and even bigger, and they have laid out a welcome mat in addition.

Well, surprisingly, after falsely stating that the border is secure time and time again, Secretary Mayorkas, who traveled to Eagle Pass this last week, met with frontline law enforcement officials. He told the Border Patrol agents that the current release rate of migrants caught crossing the border illegally was 85 percent--85 percent. There is no way to reconcile these two statements.

You know, some people say: Well, we need to build a wall.

Well, border infrastructure is important, but people can turn themselves in and be released, and the wall doesn't make much difference.

Yes, we need technology. Yes, we need more Border Patrol. But unfortunately the Border Patrol are being

overwhelmed now, and the Biden administration has made it their policy simply just to release people coming to the border. This, of course, is a huge magnet or what the Border Patrol calls a pull factor encouraging more and more people to come. That is why you are seeing unprecedented levels of illegal immigration during the Biden administration, because people realize: Here is my opportunity, and no one is going to stop me.

Well, the main people benefiting from this, of course, are the transnational criminal organizations and the drug cartels who get paid by the head or by the pound. It is part of a really ingenious business model by the cartels because they know that if you flood the zone with people and you make $5,000, $10,000 a head for each person you smuggle into the United States, then you can overwhelm the Border Patrol so that they get offline in order to process the migrants, and then here come the drugs--the drugs that took the lives of 108,000 Americans last year alone.

The statement of Secretary Mayorkas in January 2024 that over 85 percent of illegal border crossers are released--this was not made in a press release or made in a speech; this was overheard as part of a private conversation and only after these Border Patrol agents, who are putting their lives on the line to enforce the laws that Congress has written--when they pressed him on the comments he made earlier last week.

In that interview, interestingly, the Secretary was asked about reports that as many as 70 percent were released into the United States, and he said, ``[That] would not surprise me at all.'' He said, ``I know the data.''

``I know the data.''

Well, this is the guy who said the border is secure time and time again under oath--lying to Members of Congress in official proceedings before congressional committees.

He didn't say: Well, the rate is actually higher than 70 percent. Instead, he said: I know. He said: I know what the numbers are, and it is not 70 percent; it is 85 percent.

Well, Secretary Mayorkas may be able to dissemble and prevaricate here in Washington, but our frontline personnel--our Border Patrol, our Department of Public Safety personnel who are working at the order of Governor Abbott, as well as the National Guard, who are trying to do the job that the Federal Government and the Biden administration have refused to do--they know the truth.

The fact is, the American people know the truth. They know that President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, the White House Press Secretary, the Vice President--all of them have tried to mislead the American people about the truth.

No area along Texas's southern border has been spared by the chaos of the Biden border crisis, but Eagle Pass--Eagle Pass, TX--has been dealt an especially tough hand. Over the past few months, migrants have flooded this section of the border, and it is not uncommon for agents to see thousands of migrants in a single day.

This is not a major city with a lot of resources. Eagle Pass is a small border town with a population of roughly 28,000 people. It simply doesn't have the capacity to house, feed, or transport this many individuals.

At various points, migration levels have been so high that Customs and Border Protection did not have the resources to manage both lawful crossings and unlawful migrations. As a result, the administration shut down vehicle and rail processing so officers could help process migrants.

Well, it is not surprising to say that frontline officers and agents in Eagle Pass know the impact of the crisis better than just about anyone. According to reports, they pushed Secretary Mayorkas on his comments, and the Secretary finally acknowledged the truth. It was a remarkable event of candor amidst a fog of lies, prevarication, dissembling, and misleading.

This is just the latest example of the Biden administration misleading, downplaying, and outright lying about the border crisis. They don't want the American people to see the widespread catch-and- release policies in action because they know the backlash would be severe.

Here we are, about 11 months from the next election, and President Biden has finally realized this is a huge liability for him politically. Our Democratic colleagues are recognizing that this could be the difference between winning and losing the Senate.

When 85 percent of illegal border crossers are released, it serves as a magnet for even more migration. This is another thing that is lost on the Biden administration. When you lay out the welcome mat, when you say ``If you come to the border, we will just release you into the interior,'' it is just an incentive for more people to come.

There is no grand mystery on how to stop this trend. While the immigration policy can be complicated, the solution is not. We need consequences--consequences. We need to make clear that anyone who illegally crosses the border will be detained and removed. That is the key to establishing deterrence, and we have seen it used successfully in the past.

Let me just interject here that legal immigration has been one of the biggest blessings this country has ever experienced. We among all the nations in the world are the most open to people who want to come here for a better life, but we ask them to do it through legal, humane, and orderly channels. And we naturalize about 1 million people a year. But President Biden has outsourced our immigration policy to the drug cartels and criminal organizations, and it is a disaster.

Well, we know how to address this problem. In 2005, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and spoke about the Department's response to a surge of migrants from Brazil in that case. The Department launched what they called Operation Texas Hold 'Em, which involved detaining and then removing the illegal Brazilians they apprehended. As Secretary Chertoff noted, word spread fast. Word spread fast. After 30 days, the number of Brazilians dropped by 50 percent, and in 60 days, it dropped by more than 90 percent.

This is evidence--clear and convincing evidence--that consequences work, and the only way to address this crisis is through deterrence that comes with imposing consequences for people coming illegally rather than legally to the United States. We need to make it absolutely crystal clear that anyone who does not have a legal basis to remain in the United States will be detained and removed.

The Biden administration is ultimately responsible for enforcing our laws and delivering consequences, so without their buy-in, it will be nearly impossible to address this crisis in a significant way. But that does not mean we shouldn't try. I have very little confidence that the Biden administration will experience an epiphany and all of a sudden decide to enforce the law when they have refused to do so over the last 3 years, but we have to do the best we can.

Frontline border communities and law enforcement are buckling under the weight of this crisis. Fentanyl, which took the lives of 71,000 Americans last year alone, and other deadly drugs are pouring across the border and killing American citizens. Migrant children are being exploited and abused. All the while, the cartels and criminal organizations that get rich based on these policies are leaving a trail of death and destruction that the Biden administration has enabled.

The U.S. Senate has a responsibility to address this crisis head-on as part of the security supplemental that President Biden has requested, and I hope and pray we can make some progress.

I want to express my gratitude to the Senator from Oklahoma, Senator Lankford, for leading the effort on the part of the Republican conference. I know others, like Senator Sinema, Senator Murphy, and others, are working in good faith to try to reach a reasonable conclusion. But I know all of us want to see an end to this current crisis, and any even incremental progress we might make as a result of our debate and vote on the national security supplemental will represent progress.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this is a new year, and we are now halfway through the 118th Congress.

For those who are not familiar with the way Congress operates, we call a Congress, really, a 2-year period; and so far, we have completed the first half of that 118th Congress. But the sad news is we have embarrassingly little to show for what Congress has done so far in the 118th Congress.

Under Democratic leadership, we have drifted from one crisis to the next, doing just enough to avoid catastrophe without addressing the biggest problems that our country faces. Those failures are evidenced by the fact that the Senate is set to spend the first 4 months of this year working on the backlog of things we should have done last year.

First is funding the government, keeping the lights on, paying the Border Patrol, paying our military, making sure that government services are available to all citizens.

We are a quarter of the way through the current fiscal year, and Congress has not passed a single funding bill. Not one.

Now we have until January 19--that is our first deadline--to advance 4 of the 12 annual spending bills; otherwise, we will find ourselves in a partial government shutdown or, what is more likely, a continuing resolution of some uncertain duration. It seems inevitable, given the timing.

Then we will only have 2 weeks until the next funding bill deadline arrives on February 2, when the remaining Departments and Agencies will run out of money.

Several weeks later, the third deadline will arrive. The Federal Aviation Administration must be reauthorized by March 8. Failure to do so would result in complete chaos for air travelers.

The next deadline is April 19. That is when the authorities of our intelligence community under the Foreign

Intelligence Surveillance Act section 702 expire. This is what I have called the most important law that the American people have never heard of. This literally allows the intelligence community to identify and track threats to our national security. It doesn't involve the American citizens or anybody here on U.S. soil, but it will expire on April 19 unless we act.

Of course, these are just the most obvious tasks ahead in the weeks to come that have hard-and-fast deadlines.

There are countless other items we can and should be doing and that deserve the Senate's attention. Chief among those are the national security supplemental that has been requested by the Biden administration.

Around the world, conflicts are raging that have a major impact or will have a major impact on our own national security. There is a war in the Middle East; there is a war in Europe; and growing threats by the Chinese Communist Party in China against its neighbors, most notably Taiwan.

Despite the fact that these conflicts are thousands of miles away, the outcome of each of these is, in some measure or other, important to our national security.

For example, if Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, emerges from the war against Israel with nothing more than a black eye, it will send a message to Iran--its principal sponsor--as well as to its other terrorist proxies like Hezbollah, like the Houthis in Yemen, like the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. It will send a message that their war has been successful, has been a resounding success, and they can not only continue but accelerate their attacks against Israel and the West, including American interests.

Then there is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If Russia wins its war against Ukraine, President Putin will be emboldened to continue his quest to rebuild the Soviet Empire. He has called the failure of the Soviet empire back in the early 1990s as the single biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

If Russia is successful in Ukraine, it will not stop there. It could well continue on into the rest of Europe, involving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. If that happens, then the United States and our allies will no longer be able to stand on the sidelines of this conflict; we will be on the field by virtue of our treaty obligations under article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization treaty.

In the Indo-Pacific, if China's aggression goes unchecked, it will threaten, intimidate, and, ultimately, invade its neighbors. It has threatened to do so; we just don't know what the timing is going to be. But the Chinese Communist Party will escalate its economic war against the United States by blackballing us from the biggest market in the world and starving our country of critical technology like advanced semiconductors that operate everything from your cell phone to the avionics on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Our adversaries are watching very closely. Our friends are watching very closely. They ask: Can we still rely on America's help? Can we still rely on America's leadership?

We might wish it were so, but there is no country in the world that can do what the United States of America can do because of our leadership, because of our values, because of our strength. We might wish somebody would take our place so we didn't have to do it, but that is just wishful thinking.

Our adversaries are seeing how far they can push the boundaries of international norms before members of the rules-based international order react. That is us and our fellow democracies that actually believe in a rules-based international order. Our adversaries do not. They believe in raw power and dominion.

America cannot stand on the sidelines in the face of attacks on freedom-loving people, whether those attacks occur in Israel, in Ukraine, or the Indo-Pacific. And this is not just for them. We are not doing this as a favor for these countries; we are doing it for us because invariably the threat will continue to spread.

I know that for years before the tragedy of 9/11, we thought we were protected by the two oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic, but we learned a sad lesson on September 11, 2001: The terrorist attacks occurring overseas came home to America, and 3,000 Americans were killed as a result of those attacks.

We might wish this did not involve us--this is their problem, not our problem--but it simply is not borne out by the facts or by our hard experience.

So the United States must continue to defend democracy against growing attempts to tear it down, and I hope we can do our duty through a security supplemental appropriation in the coming weeks.

Of course, our support for our friends and allies around the world can't come at the expense of the threats we are facing here at home. The southern border--the Presiding Officer represents a border State. I represent a border State. We have a 2,000-mile southern border, and 1,200 miles of it happens to be in Texas. It has been on fire for the last 3 years during the Biden administration.

The United States has logged more than 6.7 million illegal border encounters during the Biden administration. That doesn't count the 1.7 million ``got-aways''--people who are evading law enforcement. And you can imagine why. It doesn't take much imagination. In 3 years, we have experienced more illegal migration than we did throughout the entire Obama and Trump administrations combined. In 3 years, we have seen more than we saw in 12 years.

Given the stress this places on our people and on our resources--the refusal to simply enforce the law by the Biden administration has created this welcome mat or this green light--pick the metaphor you like--saying that if you come to the border, you are going to be released into the United States. That has been a magnet for more and more and more people to come.

According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration has released more than 2.3 million migrants into the country in the last 3 years--2.3 million. That is higher than the total number of border crossings at this point in the previous administration.

When the numbers are this high, it creates serious security and humanitarian risks. If law enforcement and detention facilities are overwhelmed, it creates an opening for dangerous people and drugs to slip through the cracks, and there are plenty of people out there who want to exploit these vulnerabilities, not the least of whom are the organized crime organizations. Sometimes they are called transnational criminal organizations. Sometimes they are called the cartels. But these are criminals who get rich and are getting richer by the day because of the open-border policies of the Biden administration. They care nothing about anything or anyone; all they care about is the money. They are getting richer by the day as a result of the Biden open-border policies.

It is dangerous to our national security. Last year, the Border Patrol encountered 169 people who matched entries on the Terror Watchlist. Nineteen people participated in a terrorist attack against Americans on September 11, 2001, killed 3,000 Americans. So far, 169 people on the Terror Watchlist were encountered just last year--169. That doesn't count the number of people on the watchlist whom we don't know about because they were part of the 1.7 million ``got-aways.'' That 169 people on the Terrorist Watchlist this last fiscal year is more than the previous 6 years combined.

On top of that, the Border Patrol has arrested 600 known gang members. Customs and Border Protection personnel have seized roughly 550,000 pounds of illegal drugs, including more than 27,000 pounds of fentanyl--one of the most potent and dangerous drugs on the planet.

Strangely enough, sometimes I hear people say: Well, good; they got it all.

They didn't get it all. We lost 108,000 Americans to drug overdoses last year, including 71,000 from fentanyl.

A father of a young woman at the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District gave me this rubber bracelet in the memory of his daughter, Sienna, who took what she thought was an innocuous drug, like Percocet--relatively innocuous--or Xanax, but it was actually a counterfeit pill made to look like a pharmaceutical, like something you would buy at a drugstore. In fact, it was a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl, and it killed her. That happened 71,000 times

last year in America as a result of drugs coming across the southern border.

President Biden has simply opened the border for anyone and everyone, creating a massive security gap at our doorstep.

It is absolutely critical that the United States invest in our preferred outcome in each of these situations: the border; Israel, where Hamas and Iran want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth; Ukraine against this invasion of this sovereign country by Russia, by Vladimir Putin; and the Indo-Pacific. All are vital to our security in one way or another.

In October, President Biden asked Congress to provide funding for each of these priorities, but it is up to us to go through this request and to prioritize the funding and make sure that the tax dollars we will be spending are spent efficiently and with a purpose.

In some places, the President's request was bloated; in others, it was wholly insufficient. Large portions of the bill--especially those related to the border--would actually make the problem worse. So the Senate cannot and will not rubberstamp the President's supplemental funding request. There is no chance. Instead, we need to be in the process of working through a bill that can deliver real, actionable results.

As we know, the biggest sticking point in the negotiations on the border bill is the biggest remaining challenge. Immigration and border security are among the thorniest issues that we face here on Capitol Hill. But it is absolutely essential that we get this piece of the bill done correctly so that it makes a difference.

I appreciate our colleague Senator Lankford, the Senator from Oklahoma, who is leading the charge on our side of the aisle in those negotiations. The good news is, he understands these policies in and out, and I appreciate his willingness to lead throughout this process. I hope that he and our Democratic colleagues and the White House are able to reach a deal that will actually have an impact on the flow of illegal immigration across our border and finally restore a sense of lawfulness on the southern border.

I believe that legal immigration has been one of the great strengths of our country during our country's history--legal immigration; safe, orderly, lawful immigration. We naturalize about a million people a year, who become American citizens, who want what we have by virtue of the fact we were lucky enough to be born here. But illegal immigration has been an unmitigated disaster, and President Biden's outsourcing our immigration policies to the cartels has been the main reason for that unmitigated disaster.

Well, as we know, there is a lot on the line here, which is why it is important that any security supplemental be done right. We can't pass something and simply check the box and move on.

I hope we can reach an agreement on a strong security supplemental that addresses the range of security issues we are facing both abroad and here at home on our border. I know that negotiations are ongoing, but at some point, you have to vote. I hope we get a chance to see what those negotiations produce, give the Members of the House and the Senate an opportunity to debate and hopefully improve those negotiated products by virtue of the amendment process on the floor but ultimately do what nobody else in the country can do--only the 435 Members of the House and the 100 Members of the Senate. Those 535 people are the only ones in the Nation who can actually change the law by passing a bill and sending it to the President for his signature. So there is no one else who is going to fill the gap, no one else we can turn to and say: This is too hard for us. Will you please do it for us?

There is no one else to do it. That is why we were elected. That is why we serve. That is why we take an oath to uphold and defend the laws of the United States.

So it is important that we do our job. Unfortunately, we are going to be bogged down by playing catchup and handling the backlog of last year. But the world continues to spin on its axis. We have challenges that emerge on a daily basis. And this is not going to get any easier. So we need to act and to act as expeditiously as we can to do our duty, as difficult as it is.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.