Speech #CREC-2017-03-02-pt1-PgS1548-3_t7

So they will leave stragglers behind. Many of the ranchers said they found as many as 100 different dead bodies on their property over an unspecified period of time. But there is a rescue beacon that the Border Patrol has down there that is in three languages. It is in English, Spanish, and Chinese. You might ask, why in the world would you need Chinese written on a rescue beacon where somebody thinks ``OK, I am not going to make it; I need help'' and goes and presses the button on the rescue beacon--that you need English, Spanish, and Chinese. Well, because they have had Chinese immigrants come through that border region, as well, like the young man from India whom I mentioned earlier. And we have had people from Cuba and from literally all around the world, including some nations that are hosts to terrorist organizations. This is not only an economic situation. This is not only a law enforcement problem when it comes to drug interdiction. It is a humanitarian crisis, as well. But it is also a national security issue, I think all the leaders of the intelligence community will concede, given the fact that people from 60 different countries have been detained coming across the southwestern border just in the last year by the McAllen sector of the Border Patrol. We have a lot of work to do. I hope we will be able to work with the President and this administration and in a bipartisan way to come up with the tools we need in order to secure our border. We need to enforce our immigration laws. Of course, 40 percent of illegal immigration in this country occurs not from people entering the country illegally, it is from people entering legally and overstaying their visa. We may not catch up with them until they commit a serious crime and they are arrested by local law enforcement. I think this is what causes so many people to be angry at the Federal Government for not enforcing our laws. And many of our colleagues, me included, would like to do more to fix our broken immigration system generally, but until we regain the public's confidence that we are actually serious about securing our border and enforcing our laws, I don't believe we can have that conversation. I don't believe we are going to be successful, which I would like to see us be. I think the first thing we need to do is to work with the administration in order to accomplish the goal of securing the border. Again, in the matter of political will, we know how to do it. We just need to have the desire to get it done. And then once we have regained the public's confidence that the Federal Government is once again living up to its responsibilities, then I think we can have that more expansive conversation about what our immigration system should look like. I yield the floor.