On the recordJune 12, 2019
I want to talk a little bit about the border--not the important need to secure the border, which I am for, but I want to talk about the humanitarian crisis we have seen occurring at the border. Frankly, the Senate and the House--the Congress--have been watching that occur for too long. It has been several weeks now since the administration notified Congress that the money that was allocated for what would have been a traditional set of challenges at the border is about to be spent and that there is no money left for some of these issues we have to deal with at the border in a particular way. We have seen the flood of people approaching the border to be not only incredibly different in numbers but incredibly different in context. Probably 20 years ago, 90 percent of the people who came across the border were coming directly from Mexico. By the way, when that happened, the law was changed so that if they came across from Mexico, you could send them right back to Mexico. Hopefully, our neighbors in Mexico are working with us to still have some potential to do that with people who come across the border and come through Mexico--not necessarily Mexican in their nationality but come through Mexico to the border--to go back and wait for what needs to happen for their case to be heard in Mexico rather than here. Most of the people coming today are coming from Central America-- Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.…
