WASHINGTON, DC—U.S. Representative John Rose (TN-06) took to the House Floor Wednesday to highlight the ongoing southern border crisis and to encourage the Senate majority to give House Republicans’ Secure the Border Act of 2023 serious consideration.
The full remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
Mister Speaker, it’s been 279 days since House Republicans passed H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act of 2023. Since then, there have been more than 1.4 million additional illegal immigrant encounters at our southern border. That number doesn’t include encounters from January 1st through today, but we have every reason to believe those numbers will be more of the same, more of what we’ve come to expect month after month.
In fact, December marked 33 straight months in which the total number of illegal immigrant encounters surpassed even the highest month under President Trump. And just a few days ago, we learned encounters for Fiscal Year 2024 have already surpassed one million, which as everyone in this chamber knows, began October 1st. That’s about 100,000 more than Border Patrol experienced the same time last year.
Both House Republicans and House Democrats know the White House could act today to curb the unprecedented flow of illegal immigrants crossing our nation’s borders. President Biden knows there are multiple executive actions at his disposal to tackle this issue. He knows because he signed more than 90 executive orders in his first 100 days, largely just to reverse the Trump policies that were working, simply because they were the President Trump’s policies.
We have laws on the books right now that the administration continues to usurp or refuse to enforce. H.R. 2 would put a stop to that.
It would force the administration to end its unconstitutional, large-scale, catch-and release operation. It would require construction on the border wall to restart and increase the number of Border Patrol agents and provide bonus pay. H.R. 2 would also strengthen and streamline our existing asylum process. And – this one is critical – it would finally put a stop to the flagrant abuse of executive immigration authority taking place under the Biden Administration.
There have been more than 8.3 illegal crossings nationwide and more than seven million crossings of our southern border alone since President Biden took office. We know of at least 1.7 million gotaways. And we know there are tens of thousands of people on parole with no way of tracking their locations.
The Secure the Border Act of 2023 is the strongest border security bill we’ve seen in a very long time, and yet it has been sitting on Leader Schumer’s desk for almost nine months. It deserves serious consideration so that we may begin to slow the flow of illegal immigration.
You can watch the speech here.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://johnrose.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-rose-makes-case-house-republicans-secure-border-act