Border Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Missouri for yielding and for putting this on tonight.

Mr. Speaker, if you have listened to this debate tonight, the colleagues that I serve with are explaining that there truly is a crisis. Unfortunately, there are those who claim that it is a manufactured crisis. Despite what the colleagues from the other side of the aisle say, it is not a manufactured crisis. It is not a new crisis, but it is an ever-growing crisis.

Let me tell you that I have had experience and understand the border from many years ago. While stationed in the United States Marine Corps in Yuma, Arizona, I actually worked at a site called P111 that was 3 miles off the Mexican border in Arizona. Every night, people would come across. Thinking they were seeing a border fence, they would climb into the compound. Every night, we would have to call border security, and they would pick them up and take them back.

We talked about the crisis of drugs coming across. Let me tell you about the crisis that occurred at that time. Some very evil people would watch the desert, and they would kill these people trying to come across the border, who would then just be left because there was no ID for them.

But we can secure our border. It is an argument that has been going on in this House and in this Nation for some time.

Many of you who are older will remember that Ronald Reagan actually argued and put forth the idea with Tip O'Neill, the idea that they would do immigration reform, which Tip wanted, as long as they could secure the border, which the President wanted. Tip O'Neill got what he wanted. The President didn't get what he wanted, because the House didn't pass the funding.

Mr. Speaker, it is time we passed the funding. We have to end this shutdown, and we have to secure our border. But it takes a good-faith effort on both sides to negotiate. When Speaker Pelosi says she offered $1 toward the physical barrier, she is not negotiating in good faith.

It is very sad, because I am concerned about those people who work for us in this government who are not receiving a paycheck. Everybody who is speaking on this floor tonight is. But they are also concerned about the pictures that we see here and the problems that we see.

In this House last year, we worked on legislation dealing with the opioid crisis, but our largest supplier of opioids is at that southern border. Over 90 percent of the opioids and heroin that comes in and that kills the people of the United States is coming across because we don't have the ability to secure that border with a physical barrier.

There is one difference right now between when Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer supported a barrier along that border. The only difference is who is sitting in the White House. You can like him; you can hate him; but the reality is this issue is not about him. It is about the citizens of this United States. It is about what is doing right by the citizens that send us here. To watch political football being played in this House and watch what occurs is simply mind-boggling.

I had a town hall meeting the other night, and we let both those for and those against speak and ask questions. By the time it was said and done, over 66 percent of the people I was talking to believed that we must secure this border with a physical barrier.

Plain and simple, let's stop playing politics, and let's fund the government and our border. We can do both. The people of America need to know and understand that, because I know my colleagues who are speaking here tonight do understand it.

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