Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, 3 weeks ago, a Federal judge blocked the Biden Administration from lifting title 42 COVID restrictions. It was a welcome decision that will hopefully stave off an additional flood of illegal immigration on our southern border. But it has been pretty much the only bit of good news on this front, because the situation at our southern border is out of control.

In April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered 234,088 individuals attempting to cross our border illegally--234,088. That is the highest number ever recorded.

The Border Patrol is stretched thin. A recent article reported that ``around 60 percent of CBP agents have been assigned to process migrants, taking them away from field work.'' Sixty percent. Detention facilities are overflowing and massive numbers of illegal immigrants are being released into the country, many of whom will never report to an immigration office as ordered.

In short, our southern border is in chaos, and if title 42 is lifted, the situation is almost guaranteed to become much worse.

The Department of Homeland Security has estimated that as many as 18,000 migrants per day could attempt to cross our southern border if the policy is lifted. Eighteen thousand per day--that is more than double the number we are currently experiencing, and the administration has yet to implement any plan for dealing with such a situation.

Illegal immigration, especially the kind of out-of-control illegal immigration we are now experiencing, has serious consequences. Criminals, including human traffickers, drug smugglers, and gang members, regularly attempt to cross our southern border. The worse the situation at our border gets, the easier it is for those individuals to make their way into the United States, and that has consequences for our entire country.

South Dakota law enforcement officials tell me that they are seizing drugs that they can trace directly back to the cartels who smuggle these drugs across our border. Our country is currently in the midst of a fentanyl crisis. In fact, right now, fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 45. And where is all this fentanyl coming from? Most of it is being trafficked across our southern border; and when more and more of our Customs and Border Protection agents have been pulled off the border to process migrants, it is pretty much a guarantee that drug smugglers are having a much easier time in getting their product into the country.

I mentioned that Customs and Border Protection encountered more than 234,000 individuals who were attempting to cross our southern border illegally in the month of April, but that number only reflects individuals the CBP has actually apprehended. In April, Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas testified that, in addition to the 1.7 million apprehensions at the southern border in fiscal year 2021, there were more than 389,000 ``got-aways''--individuals the Border Patrol saw but was unable to apprehend.

The Economist recently reported:

One border expert estimates that less than 20 percent of

people trying to cross the border undetected are stopped.

The administration has attempted to suggest that the surge in illegal immigration that we have been experiencing since President Biden took office is, in large part, a function of conditions in other countries; but while these factors exist--and there are legitimate asylum claims at the border--that doesn't mean there is nothing the President can do about our out-of-control border situation. Better border security is well within the President's control. He is just not interested in putting it in place, and his Vice President has all but formally abandoned her role as border czar.

In fact, since taking office, the President has invited increased illegal immigration with the policy decisions that he has made. On his very first day in office, President Biden rescinded the declaration of a national emergency at our southern border; he halted construction of the border wall; he revoked a Trump administration order that called for the government to faithfully execute our immigration laws; and his Department of Homeland Security issued guidelines pausing deportations except under certain conditions. That was all--all--on his first day in office.

Needless to say, the effect of all of this was to declare to the world that the U.S. borders were effectively open. And, of course, the President's anti-border security efforts didn't end there.

The President has significantly limited the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce immigration laws. Deportations dropped precipitously during fiscal year 2021, as did arrests in the interior of the country. In March, the administration rescinded a 2019 rule expanding the expedited removal for individuals here illegally; and as I have mentioned, of course, the administration is attempting to remove title 42 COVID-19 restrictions with no visible plan to control the resulting surge in illegal immigration.

President Biden has made it known that he wants to create a ``fair, orderly, and humane'' immigration system. Well, he is failing on all fronts. I don't need to tell anyone that the situation at the southern border, right now, is far from orderly, but it is also not humane. The President and other members of his party tend to convey an attitude that strong border security and the enforcement of our Nation's immigration laws are somehow not compassionate or humane. Well, they are wrong. We are seeing the effects of the President's anti-border security policies at our southern border right now, and the results are neither compassionate nor humane.

Encouraging individuals to make the oftentimes dangerous journey to our southern border in the hopes they will be able to slip across illegally is not humane. Encouraging families and, at times, unaccompanied children to expose themselves to the dangers of heat and the elements and human trafficking is not compassionate. At least 557 migrants died while attempting to cross the southern border during fiscal year 2021. That, too, was a record number. How many of them were encouraged to make the journey by the President's lax border policies?

And I haven't even mentioned the lack of compassion and humanity the President displays for Americans affected by the illegal immigration crisis. Straining the resources of U.S. border communities by smoothing the way for illegal immigration and cross-border criminal activity is not compassionate. Making it easier for cartels to flood our Nation with fentanyl is not humane.

The President of the United States--any President--has a special responsibility for our Nation's security, and that includes securing our Nation's border. So far, President Biden has spectacularly failed to meet that responsibility. This week, a caravan of thousands has reportedly started working its way north, through Mexico, aligning with the Summits of the Americas.

It is long past time for the President to get serious about the border crisis that he has created, and this summit could be an opportunity for him to finally take action. I hope that he will reverse his current course before his administration's signature accomplishment ends up being a legacy of chaos at our southern border.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Utah (Mr. Romney).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, the White House has apparently decided to spend June focusing on the economy.

President Biden kicked things off with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled ``My Plan for Fighting Inflation.''

Before he gets to the actual ``plan,'' though, the President spends the first half of the op-ed touting his supposed economic successes. As usual, he takes credit for the economy's recovery from COVID-related woes, even though the recovery was well underway before he became President and was a natural result of the economy reopening after COVID shutdowns.

He touts job creation figures without mentioning the fact that businesses are struggling to find workers to fill jobs. He touts the number of new small business applications in 2021 without mentioning that small business optimism is at its lowest level since April 2020 at the height of the pandemic shutdowns. And he mentions ``millions of Americans getting jobs with better pay,'' while leaving out the fact that inflation continues to outstrip wage growth, meaning that, on average, Americans are experiencing a de facto pay cut.

In all, he spends multiple paragraphs attempting to convince Americans that the economy is thriving, which I have to think feels pretty meaningless to the millions of Americans struggling with massive increases in the cost of gas, groceries, and other everyday goods.

In fact, a poll released yesterday found that just 27 percent of Americans believe they have a good chance of improving their standard of living, and it is no wonder. The President can talk about his supposed economic achievements all he wants, but that means little to Americans who have seen their disposable income eaten up by price hikes or whose raise failed to keep even pace with the increase in the cost of living.

And, of course, the President completely omits the fact that it was his economic plans that helped create our current inflation crisis in the first place. When President Biden took office, inflation was at 1.4 percent, well within the Federal Reserve's target inflation rate of 2 percent. Today, it is at 8.3 percent, near a 40-year high.

And how did we get from there to here? In substantial part, via the President's so-called American Rescue Plan. Democrats' massive partisan spending spree flooded the economy with unnecessary government money, and the

economy overheated as a result. But that is not something the President mentions when he talks about fighting inflation.

So what is the President's so-called plan to fight inflation?

Well, after spending half the op-ed touting his supposed economic successes, the President finally gets to the plan part, and the first part of his three-part plan involves having someone else address inflation. Controlling inflation, the President says, is primarily the job of the Federal Reserve, and he is going to leave them alone to do that job.

The next part of the President's plan involves things like fixing broken supply chains and boosting the productive capacity of our economy over time.

Now, I am a big supporter of improving our supply chains, which is why I have introduced the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which, hopefully, will pass the House of Representatives and head to the President's desk soon. But given that the President has so far demonstrated little progress in addressing supply chain challenges, I am not holding my breath waiting for the White House to take action.

I am also a big fan of boosting the productive capacity of our economy. My concern is that the President fails to give any examples of how he might actually do that. He mentions high gas prices, but instead of talking about ways to address high energy prices by unleashing American energy production, he pivots to touting his release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a highly temporary band aid that did next to nothing to address the cause of high gas prices, except for briefly causing their rise to what are record highs.

He also claims Congress can help by passing his clean-energy tax credits and investments--which he says would result in a $500 decrease in utility bills for American families. First, nothing about the President's clean-energy tax credits is likely to drive down energy prices, especially in the near term, and Americans can't afford to wait.

In fact, for Americans to take advantage of some of these credits, they would need to spend more money--on an electric car, for example-- which is how the administration suggests Americans deal with these historic gas prices.

And the President's claim that his energy tax credits and investments would decrease utility bills for American families by $500 is 100 percent false.

And you don't have to take my word for it. The Washington Post Fact Checker column gave the President's claim four--four Pinocchios--a rating that the Post reserves for, and I quote, ``whoppers.''

And if the President has the idea that his tax credits can somehow magically move the United States to a place that we can abandon gas and oil overnight, well, he has another thing coming. No matter how much Democrats might wish it were otherwise, the fact of the matter is that clean energy technology has simply not advanced to the point where we can replace all traditional energy resources with renewables. And pretending--pretending that we don't need gas and oil--or discouraging American oil and gas production will only result in higher energy prices for American consumers.

If the President really wanted to reduce gas prices and ``boost the productive capacity of our economy over time,'' as he said in his op- ed, he would embrace American energy production, including conventional energy production.

Instead, he is doing the opposite. He continues to discourage domestic production of conventional energy sources that Americans rely on. And the result is likely to be continued high energy prices well into the future.

Finally, the President turns to the third part of his plan to fight inflation, and that is reducing the deficit. Unfortunately, it is a little hard to take the President seriously on this issue. The President touts a Congressional Budget Office prediction that the deficit will fall by $1.7 trillion this year.

What the President doesn't mention is that the reason this year's projected deficit drop looks so substantial is because Democrats inflated the deficit last year with their American Rescue Plan spending spree. Of course, the deficit will look lower this year without a massive $1.9 trillion piece of legislation financed entirely with deficit spending.

And I am not getting my hopes up about future deficit drops, since many Democrats still want to use reconciliation rules to force through another big, party-line Democrat spending bill. This one is $5 trillion. If they come up with a proposal that is anything like their original Build Back Better proposal, we will undoubtedly be looking at more deficit spending.

One news outlet had this to say about President Biden's op-ed and his plan to reduce the deficit:

Is it really a `plan' when the President points fingers?

While the president's op-ed purports to lay out a plan for

addressing inflation, a close read shows that he actually

seems to be pushing the burden off on others . . .

That is a fair assessment. Unfortunately, it is pretty par for the course for President Biden. He is happy to take credit for positive economic numbers even when he had nothing to do with them, but when it comes to taking responsibility for a situation, he is frequently nowhere to be found.

He won't acknowledge that his own economic proposal, the American Rescue Plan, helped create our inflation crisis in the first place. Indeed, he largely ignored the inflation crisis until it started to become absolutely necessary for him to address it, if he wanted to survive politically.

And he has displayed a similar lack of ownership of crises on his watch. The actions he has taken to weaken border security and immigration enforcement have helped create an unprecedented immigration crisis on the southern border.

But from the President's attitude you barely even know that there is a problem, much less one that he has a particular responsibility to address.

His hostile attitude toward American energy production helped drive up gas prices and left families struggling--struggling--to fill their cars. Yet the President is ready to push off responsibility for conventional energy production to other nations, leaving our Nation less secure and even more vulnerable to price spikes.

The President closes his op-ed by noting:

The economic policy choices we make today will determine

whether a sustained recovery that benefits all Americans is

possible.

Well, the President is right about that. Unfortunately, it is pretty clear that the economic policy choices that he is making are wrong.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan), the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), and the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Young).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven) would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Young) would have voted ``yea.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

Mr. President, before I begin, I want to express my sorrow at the terrible shooting in Texas on Tuesday that claimed the lives of 2 teachers and 19 schoolchildren.

Like a lot of Americans, I cannot imagine the anguish these children's parents are facing right now as they grieve for sons and daughters whom they will never again drive to school or welcome home at the end of the day.

I pray that the Lord will be with them in their suffering and that they will receive the comfort and strength that they need.

My prayers are with the entire Uvalde community--the families of those killed, the injured, the teachers, and students who suffered such terror, the medical and law enforcement personnel who responded, and all those reeling from this terrible attack.