Speech #1140020034

Mr. Speaker. this past weekend. we witnessed the most gruesome example of a story that is becoming ever more common. Hundreds of migrants are missing and feared dead700 or morebecause the smuggling boat they were packed onto capsized in the Mediterranean Ocean off the coast of Libya. It was on the front page of every paper around the world. An estimated 3.500 people died in 2014 while making the journey from North Africa to the southern coast of Europe. Right now. along our southern border. illegal immigration is at historically low levels. but we. too. have a border that is known for smuggling. tragic losses of life. and smugglers no less brazen and no less indifferent to the lives of their human cargo than those off the Libyan coast. With few legal options and with great opportunity for work and freedom on the other side. migrants throughout the world are risking their lives in the hopes of surviving the journey to live a better life. During the peak of illegal immigration to this country a decade or so ago. one person died every single day. on average. when trying to come to the U.S. They died of dehydration in the desert or died in trucks or in boxcars in botched smuggling operations or perished as stowaways. and those are the ones we know about. Now we hear about "La Bestia." or "The Beast." which is the train carrying migrants from southern Mexico to the border of our country. Think about hundreds of people. most of them children and teenagers. clinging to the outside of a moving train while they are preyed upon by smugglers. sexual predators. and every kind of deviant. The migrants who are fleeing violence and poverty and gang- and drug lordinfested communities in Central America. like those fleeing African and Asian countries. are willing to literally risk life and limb for the slim chance of a better life on this side. Europe is responding to the migrant crisis by committing to more rescue operations. The rightwing. antiimmigration parties across Europe see the crisis as validation for their call to build a big wall around "fortress Europe." There are a few people here in this Congress. in this building. who want to build a wall just like theirs. Most people in Europe understand that building civil society and stable economies in the Southern Hemisphere is the best way to entice people to stay home. Foreign aid and international economic development are not dirty words in Europe the way they are here.