John Cornyn: “over the years, I have spent a great deal of time on the Senate floor highlighting the evolving challenges along our…”

“over the years, I have spent a great deal of time on the Senate floor highlighting the evolving challenges along our southern border. My home State of Texas shares a 1,200-mile common border with Mexico, so any major shift in terms of who or what is arriving at the border is felt quickly by my constituents and by my State. In recent months, I have heard from the Border Patrol, local officials, nongovernmental organizations, community leaders, businesses of every size, and just average citizens alike about how the situation today is far more challenging than it has ever been before. In the past, the number of illegal border crossings have fluctuated by varying degrees, but now we have seen a complete shift not only in number but also in the ``who'' of those crossing. While we used to see single adults from Mexico, that is simply not the case anymore. There is no new net migration from Mexico, we are told. As Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost highlighted in a hearing last week, 68 percent of those apprehended are now families or unaccompanied children, and that is on purpose. The human smugglers have figured out what our laws are and how to exploit them in order to successfully place people in the United States by overwhelming our system. The 68 percent of families or unaccompanied children amounts to roughly 293,000 apprehensions so far this fiscal year--293,000.…”