On the recordMarch 30, 2023
Mr. President, earlier this week, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under Secretary Mayorkas's leadership over these last 2 years, we have seen more than 4.8 million migrants encountered at the southern border. We have seen deadly drugs pouring into our country, killing more than 108,000 Americans in a single year. There is no question but that the transnational criminal organizations, known as the cartels, are fueling the chaos and the destruction. When Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the Judiciary Committee just a few weeks earlier, I brought up the role that the cartels were playing in this ongoing crisis. I asked the Attorney General if he was familiar with the business model of the cartels: Flood the border with migrants, overwhelm law enforcement, and then allow the movement of the illegal drugs across the border and into the interior of the United States. Attorney General Garland said, yes, he was aware--not only that, he highlighted actions that he had taken at the Department of Justice to crack down on these operations. Earlier this week, when I posed the same question to Secretary Mayorkas--I asked if he was familiar with this tried-and-true strategy of the cartels, and he was clueless. He said: I am not aware of any such strategy. I don't know how that could possibly be true. This is a well-known tactic that has been used throughout Secretary Mayorkas's tenure.…





