JUST IN: GOP Senator condemns Biden after weekend visit to border

i thank the majority leader and i thank you mr president for allowing me to speak this evening i just returned from the southern border and want to give a brief report and talk about some potential ways forward to deal with what is happening on the mexican border i went with the secretary of homeland security majorcas and also with the chair of the homeland security committee my colleague from michigan and also with my colleague from west virginia and my colleague from connecticut who are the chairs and ranking members of the house of the senate homeland security appropriations committees so we had a bipartisan group uh and those of us who were involved on the authorizing side and on the appropriation side you probably heard that the situation is bad and it is there is a record number of unaccompanied children coming to our border today being let in and ending up in border patrol detention facilities just yesterday cbs reported that there were more than 15 500 unaccompanied kids in federal custody that's a record but it's not just children more than one hundred thousand migrants were apprehended in february alone this is a fifteen year record representing a twenty eight percent increase just since january all the numbers for march look even higher we won't know the final numbers for another couple weeks but the point is it's getting worse not better these numbers by the way are worse than the previous two surges at our southern border both the 2014 surge we all remember during the obama administration and the 2019 surge during the trump administration and by the way we have yet to reach the predicted peak because that normally would happen in april and may in fact the secretary of homeland security alejandro mayorkas who was with us on this trip has said that he believes this will be the worst year in 20 years for unlawful entry into the united states however the numbers only tell part of the story this is also a humanitarian crisis migrants often face violence sickness and tough terrain on their dangerous journey north predominantly those from the northern triangle countries of guatemala honduras el salvador many are abused by the smugglers that charge them large amounts of money and bring them unfortunately this is a crisis that could have been avoided on day one the biden administration issued five executive orders to overturn trump policies and since have taken more than a half dozen additional actions to dismantle policies from the previous administration these included a 100-day pause on all deportations no longer using the covet 19 healthcare emergency under title 42 of the u.s code to turn away unaccompanied children and some families suspending the construction of the border fence and technology such as sensors and scanners used by the trump administration to help our overworked border patrol agents secure key stretches of our southern border and abandoning the migrant protection protocols also known as remain in mexico which required some asylum seekers at the southern border to wait in mexico rather than in the united states while their claim for asylum was being processed and of course proposing an amnesty bill on day one the administration has every right to do that but it creates a disincentive to push back on new migrants coming in who are trying to get in the united states before that amnesty might become law it certainly does unless you also make it clear that you don't qualify for amnesty unless you're already here and i think that's an important message that i hope will be part of any future discussions about any kind of an amnesty bill so it doesn't encourage more people to come the biden administration took these and other actions that incentivized people to head north but then said please don't come yet we're not ready for you it was no surprise that didn't work an unprecedented number of children and families came to take advantage of the new policies as i heard on the southern border over the last few days actions speak louder than words and the actions of the new administration was clear these abrupt moves to dismantle the immigration policies that were working to provide a disincentive for unlawful migrations gave the green light to a lot of people seeking a better life but it also gave the smugglers in the human trafficking groups in the northern triangle and in mexico the ability to convince more families and more children to take the dangerous trip north it gave them a narrative and of course they've used it to their full advantage that has overwhelmed border patrol and our immigration system in general unequipped to handle the surge i heard directly from border patrol agents about how the current surge of unaccompanied kids is draining resources endangering not just those vulnerable kids but also the security of our own border it was stunning to see people who unlawfully cross the border during a ride-along patrol i joined on thursday night people just kept coming the border patrol told me they were seeing an increase of about 150 to 200 percent of illegal entries in the el paso sector which many with many illegal crossers escaping into the united states because they have not apprehended them just as concerning they told me unaccompanied children and families are being used by the smugglers as a distraction so the smugglers can more easily move dangerous enlisted substances across the border into our communities while the border patrol is busy processing the kids and the families which takes a while the smugglers move in fact customs and border protection has reported an increase of 360 percent in seizures of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl which is 50 times deadlier than heroin there's no question that more of this is now coming across the border it's already resulting in a surge of overdose deaths by the way over the past year during the covet 19 pandemic in my home state of ohio and around the country it looks like sadly we're in for a record year of overdose in overdose deaths primarily from fentanyl and fentanyl being mixed with other drugs fentanyl used to come from china directly mostly through our mail system now increasingly it's coming from mexico since we've passed legislation here to stop it coming through our mail system down at the border i also had the opportunity to visit with the facility to visit the facilities where they're currently holding unaccompanied kids these children are being kept in tightly packed facilities supervised by overworked border patrol agents law enforcement who should be out on the field due to a lack of space for children in the department of health and human services facilities border patrol is having to detain unaccompanied kids for an average of about 137 hours nearly double the 72 hour limit required by law i'm concerned about the well-being of these kids as we all are because when the system gets overwhelmed people and especially the kids suffer and the processing system right now is overwhelmed it's overcrowded it's irresponsible it's a situation you would never want your own children to be in not only are these children crammed into facilities that are by their own rules and regulations overcrowded there's no testing for covet 19 in these facilities current policy is going to result in tens of thousands more children being released to our communities waiting for their immigration court cases during previous surges at the border that overwhelmed our immigration system hhs stopped doing background checks on sponsors for unaccompanied kids and many fell into the custody of abusive human traffickers in 2014 for example hhs placed guatemalan children with criminals who put the children into forced labor on an egg farm in my home state of ohio where they were forced to live and work in squalid conditions it's an issue i've worked a long time on between 2015 and 2020 as chair of the permanent subcommittee investigations i led three bipartisan reports and hearings across two administrations that found repeated failures by the federal government to ensure the well-being of these vulnerable children once they were handed off to sponsors as well as a fundamental refusal by hhs to accept that they were responsible for the welfare of these kids they place with adults who are not their legal parent or guardian obviously we're going to see a lot more pressure to get these kids out to as many sponsors as quickly as possible and again i believe we're going to have some of these problems last week i introduced bipartisan legislation called the responsibility for unaccompanied minors act that will direct the federal government to meet the stringent requirements necessary to ensure children are not abused or exploited by their sponsors that they show up for their asylum hearings to determine their eligibility to stay in the united states these are necessary steps to address the current crisis at our border and safeguard these children by the way on the debate as to whether to call the chaos at the border a crisis or not when i was on the border talking to border patrol agents one of them told me although he believes it is a crisis that he's fine not calling it a crisis now because he knows it's going to get much worse and he wants to have something to call it then he wants to see like all americans concrete actions and a change of course at the border much more than having a debate about words by the way we should all sympathize with those migrants who want a better life for their family i sympathize with them i'm sure we all do there are millions of people around the world who would like to come to our country we have a legal immigration system that accepts about a million people a year in addition to that we accept refugees and those who apply for asylum but at the end of the day these individuals who are coming to our southern border now are making a rational choice to come to the border based on policy decisions by the biden administration what we need is a legal orderly and proper system to be sure that people follow the rules the bottom line is that what i saw at the border is unsustainable and unfortunately it's going to get worse we're working against the clock to try to find a way forward when the biden administration changed the rules and dismantled the existing provisions which were keeping people from coming across the border they could have put their own policies in place to try to deal with what everybody predicted was a surge that was coming they didn't more to the point even if they weren't going to put their own policies in place they should surely have waited until they had the facilities ready to handle a surge they didn't and that's why you see this terrible overcrowding at the border patrol detention facilities that are holding these kids much longer than they should and why you see hhs not having the beds prepared that they should have by the way some have said the trump administration dismantled the asylum system well because of the rules they have in place there were very few people coming to apply for asylum but the facility that i saw which was a modern facility built just last year with 48 million dollars of our taxpayer money was built to try to deal with the next surge unfortunately it's not big enough and again it's overcrowded so you have kids sleeping on the floor on thin foam mattresses with only a space blanket none have been checked for covet they're living not six feet apart as we're required to do here with social distancing but inches apart and together so it's one thing to say we're going to change all these policies it's another thing to say we're not going to put anything in his place or because that's okay we want we're okay to have a surge come at least to be prepared for that surge and that's not what's happened i believe there is a path forward for the biden administration and the congress to address this crisis in the short term then work on medium and long-term solutions to lower the risk of future surges here's what i would propose first and foremost the biden administration should recommit to enforcing our immigration laws by providing overwhelmed border patrol agents and our immigration and customs the help they need to be able to ensure that they can get what they need to be able to enforce the law that means better pay for our border patrol it also means better overtime provisions we've got legislation to do that it also means ensuring that they have the tools they need to be able to protect our country that means not stopping construction of the fence which by the way is almost done in the el paso sector i think there's a 150 miles of fence totally uh in total 124 miles is already done the part that's not done unfortunately is some of the gates so you have gaps border patrol are very frustrated by this because they literally have to have people there at the gaps they can't monitor it as they can with defense because with the fence it takes people a while to get over the fence and with the monitoring devices which are to me more important even than the fence itself they're able to do their job they're also being told they can't continue the technology so although there's 124 miles of fences there is much less technology than that and yet they've been stopped from doing that as well so let's give them what they need to be able to do their job they're in an impossible situation i'm not talking about new fence or a new wall but at least for the part that's already been appropriated by congress let's complete it let's not leave these gaps i literally saw the supplies the construction material on the ground and the border patrol agents told me these are rank-and-file border patrol agents this is bad for morale we see this stuff right there if that could be put up to take the place of the temporary fencing that migrants are able simply to push over or to walk through that would make our jobs much easier number two the asylum system needs to be changed immediately now with a backlog of 1.2 million asylum seekers they're waiting several years before their court hearings to find out if they qualify and during that time they're living in the united states and often vanishing into the united states we know from the data we have and by the way the data data's not very good on this that only about half of them maybe more or maybe less are even showing up for their court cases we know this because for about 48 percent of those who are seeking asylum there are now removal orders out for them for not showing up for their hearings so about half of them have removal orders to be removed from the country because they haven't shown up for their hearings now remember 1.2 million person backlogs so it may be three four five six years before they get to the court case is there any wonder that some of these people aren't showing up finally at the very end of the process after you go through all the adjudication guess what the percentage success would be for someone to achieve an asylum status only fifteen percent fifteen percent one five percent have a successful claim so people are being told go into the country and await your court case 1.2 million people are doing that it takes several years for that to happen at the end of the day only 15 percent are getting asylum and yet again many are not being removed even though there's a removal order out on them because the immigration system is overwhelmed so they're focusing on those who have a criminal record which i understand but this means that if you don't have a criminal record and you're in the united states you know that it's unlikely you'll actually be removed even if there's a removal order for you so one policy change would be to simply resume a practice that was started in the last administration as a pilot and ended in november of 2020 it's called the prompt asylum claim review process an efficient and timely determination of who is eligible for asylum and who is not would really help it would enable us to start reducing the number of migrants being held in custody and it would also deter migrants who do not have a valid claim now you might say well why not start with the 1.2 million backlog that would be great and we should do that as well we need more immigration judges we need more lawyers who involved in the process on both sides representing those who have the claim and representing the government that would be good but in the meantime these rapid adjudications on the border with due process would have the effect of deterring the next migrant think about it if you're just dealing with the last person on the list the person that comes in most recently it's more of a deterrent than if you're dealing with the person who came in four or five years ago because you think well if i get up there and make my claim and i come into the united states and go out to one of our communities represented in this body then it's going to be four or five years before my court case comes up perhaps there'll be an amnesty during that period or something else or perhaps i'll just stay but if you say if you come to the border and seek amnesty and you seek asylum you your claim will be adjudicated immediately and and you you may receive asylum or you may not again 15 is the number now that's the best number we have that's from 2019. we don't have the numbers for 2020 yet but most think that's about what it'll be so i think this is a good system i don't know why it was ended in the trump administration back in november it shouldn't have been and i hope the new administration will take it up as part of this my colleagues from texas and arizona senator cornyn and senator cinema have suggested we stand up multiple regional processing centers to rapidly and fairly conduct asylum cases in one location i support that i think this idea is consistent with what i'm talking about to discourage illegal immigration and to ensure that we have a quick decision with regard to asylum have all the federal agencies together border patrol customs and border protection uh ice uh the justice department um everybody together in one place hhs and quickly make these decisions so that people aren't held for a long period of time and so they can have the decision made i think it's worth the funding because it'll be expensive it'll be expensive to hire the new immigration judges to have the system set up but it's well worth it in my view third to deal with the asylum process the biden administration should look at the new migrant protection protocol or remain in mexico policy remain in mexico allowed us to keep our detention center populations down in the united states and asylum seekers close to the immigration courts while officials sorted out the claims getting rid of the policy only served to overcrowd our temporary housing and sent a lot more people into the interior awaiting a hearing by an immigration judge there are concerns about remaining mexico in terms of the conditions at some of the camps in mexico and although non-governmental organizations play a substantial role there already perhaps for those who are still in that process and there are probably 45 000 people who are still in that process there are initially or maybe maybe less but initially there were about 75 000 people a lot of people just gone home because they don't want to remain in mexico for their asylum claim they'd rather go back to their home in northern triangle countries guatemala honduras el salvador but for those who are there perhaps there should be more oversight of those camps and more federal funding provided through the un high commissioner for refugees unhcr and others to ensure that those conditions are better but what the biden administration doing now is saying we're going to stop the program and they're bringing people over the border i saw this at the processing center about 350 or 400 people a day are leaving the remain of mexico the migrant protection protocol programming coming into the united states those people are given the ability to come into the interior so they're coming into communities in the united states one thing you would hope that they would get would be a notice as they go through the processing that says here's your court date you have to show up at this court date what we've learned in the last several days and what i learned down in the border is they're not being given those court dates they're given a piece of paper that has 24 ice offices in the major metropolitan areas of america and they're told we don't know where you're going to end up we don't know where you're going you're welcome the united states but wherever you're going please check into the ice office in your region so my hope is that we can at least get a system together where we don't again dismantle a program until we have something in its place and to ensure people are going to their to their courts their court dates to be able to have the asylum claim dealt with so on my trip to the border i asked a reporter to come with me to the border wall because i believe it's important that the public know what's going on i was surprised to learn that was the first time this reporter or other reporters had been able to kind of see what was going on for quite a while they haven't been able to come into any of the detention facilities including the processing center i talked about earlier where the kids are crammed into 100 kids crammed into one room i think the press should be able to see that because i think that will provide more transparency for all of us my constituents don't know what's going on in the border in part because the media haven't had that level of access so i know we have to protect the confidentiality of individual migrants and i i get that i think that that should be done but i think it can be done but also by letting the media have that access to be able to have more transparency about the realities of what's going on along the border so fourth i think the biden administration should invest in finishing the work on the fence as i said but they should also work to enact something that's even more important than offense and that is to relieve the magnet this is going to involve congress we did pass an immigration bill in this body with a strong provision called e-verify several years ago it basically says that for employers there will be a sanction if you hire somebody who is not legal and the difference with e-verify and some of the earlier programs that attempted to do that unsuccessfully is that e-verify lets us use the new technologies we now have to ensure that the fraudulent documents that are often used can be determined to be fraudulent in other words you can use technology facial recognition and so on to ensure that the employer knows for sure whether the person is legal or not again this requires some federal funding because some of that software for small businesses in particular may be expensive but to have an e-verify program that says you mandatorily by the way it's not mandatory right now either so it doesn't have the technology it's not mandatory you got to make it mandatory and to say if you want to hire somebody you got to run them through the system make it as easy as possible use the technology you know in talking to the migrants i met and my colleagues have spoken to many people who've come to this country and i'm sure they have the same experience when i asked them why they were coming here they all had the same answer basically with slight variations which is as one guy told me from guatemala he can make 10 times as much money here he cares about his family and their future the economy is much better here that's because he knows he can get a job probably with a document either a driver's license or a social security card that will be fraudulent but you can buy for 25 bucks so we need a system here to stop the magnet right don't put the border patrol and all those involved immigration system in such an impossible position that we have a wide open system here where anybody can come and work let's do e-verify that's more important to me than any other enforcement tool that we have federal reserve economists found that states that mandate the use of verify reduce the number of likely unauthorized immigrants who stay in that state of course it does sixth and this is the final one the biden administration should work with our central american partners including the governments of mexico guatemala honduras and el salvador to discourage unlawful migration they can do that by incentivizing migrants to apply for asylum in their countries of origin some have said this should be mandatory to me that seems to make sense but maybe there's a reason it shouldn't be mandatory but it certainly should be encouraged and these countries should certainly offer this we should provide more aid to the countries of central america because there is a push factor everything i've talked about so far is the pull factors bringing them in but if we do that that aid ought to be conditioned on them helping us to provide people the ability to seek asylum in their own country and where they have such a fear of persecution that they can't do in their own country they should be able to do it in a third country there is a program started in the trump administration never really got off the ground it was called safe third country and the program with guatemala was was starting to to work honduras and el salvador had signed up but it hasn't started to work yet uh mexico didn't provide it but what it says basically is if you cross through a third country you have to seek asylum in that third country and specifically with guatemala as you know you've got to go through guatemala coming from honduras or el salvador or ecuador or elsewhere why not have the asylum claims done there again due process yes but don't make people take this long and treacherous journey up to the southern border of the united states don't make them go through this process of the detention facilities and so on have them seek asylum in their own countries or in other countries that to me seems like it makes a lot of sense the biden administration suspended the safe third country program on february 6 shortly after the inauguration one program that they would like to restart that i think makes sense is called the central american minor program they're going to restart that program now starting in march this is a program where during the obama administration if you had a family member a parent had to be a parent or a guardian in the united states legally then you could come through this program called cam central american minors program i'm glad they've restarted that program that makes sense i will tell you over five years only 3 500 kids were processed in that program because again your parent has to be in the united states legally 3 500 kids are coming across our border every nine days right now so the program is not going to solve all our problems but it will help and that's a good idea we need to take a hard look at all of this at all these pull factors we talked about certainly at the push factors i will say that the biden administration has proposed four billion dollars to go to these three countries guatemala el salvador honduras as a congress we have appropriated and 3.6 billion dollars has been spent in the last five years in these three countries so we've done almost that much in the last five years and yet because of the corruption because of the lack of transparency because of the lack of rule of law the money has not been as effectively spent as it should be so we've got to be sure that the money is conditioned upon reforms to actually improve the lives of the individuals in this country despite the corruption we need to cut through that and say if you take this money you've gotta you've got to commit to the reforms and second again it should be contingent upon helping with our asylum system to be sure that we can deal with the surge that we're now facing if the biden administration takes these six recommended actions i'd laid out today i believe we would move towards bringing a quicker end to this crisis on the border and we'd be able to secure our southern border with regard to the drugs that are coming over another contraband and be able to say that we together worked on this i know this is a time where everybody's in their corners you know republicans and democrats and and it's impossible it seems like to make progress but i think these are pretty sensible ideas and the alternative is a bad one that this is going to get worse you'll have more and more kids in detention centers you'll have more and more families released released to communities the united states where they don't come forward for their hearings and it's something that discourages people about our immigration system it doesn't seem to work certainly not working on the border today so my hope is that these ideas or others maybe others in this chamber have better ideas but hopefully they can be bipartisan we can get some of this stuff done and actually deal with the crisis we all know exists and we have a responsibility to face i yield back my time

Channel: Forbes Breaking News

Views: 903,080

Keywords: Sen. Rob Portman, President Biden, border

Id: EyTpsiW5vK4

Length: 30min 54sec (1854 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021