Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARMSTRONG. Madam Chair, it is pretty hard to get farther away from the southern border than Grand Forks, North Dakota, but in Grand Forks, just like many communities across North Dakota, somebody is dying from fentanyl poisoning, and 100 percent of those pills are made by cartels in Mexico.

I rise today in support of my amendment No. 1 to the fiscal year 2025 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations.

If passed, this amendment will defund the implementation of COVID-19- era guidance that reduces the hours of operation for Customs and Border Protection at certain northern border points of entry. Bringing these ports of entry hours back to their pre-pandemic schedule will help our Border Patrol agents respond to a massive increase in border encounters and non-marijuana-related drug seizures in places like North Dakota, Idaho, Minnesota, and western New York.

According to CBP data, both land encounters and drug smuggling have skyrocketed in the past few years.

Specifically, in January of 2021, there were only 997 northern land border encounters. Contrast that with January of 2024 when there were 15,800 encounters. That is a 1,484 percent increase.

Excluding marijuana, drug smuggling has also increased by 1,153 percent along the borders between fiscal year 2021 and 2023.

Due to the Biden administration's failure to secure our southwest border, our Border Patrol agents at the northern border have had to revert resources and personnel to the southwest border. Because of that, the northern border is now suffering.

While we wholly support CBP and its efforts, we must ensure that full staffing and scheduling are enforced so we can be fully prepared to secure our northern border.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, CBP reduced the hours of many of the ports of entry to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Though the pandemic has long been over, those shortened hours have stayed in place.

This amendment would return those ports of entry to schedules they operated under before the pandemic. While CBP has extended hours for some of the ports, others have been forgotten.

Along with several Northern Border Security Caucus members here in Congress, I have had lots of back and forth with the CBP regarding these hours. Expanding these hours will not only allow more staffing to apprehend and seize any illegal activity attempting to cross the border, but it will also greatly help the needs of Americans at the northern border.

These ports of entry serve a vital role in connecting our States' economies with our neighbor, Canada. Our constituents heavily rely on them for tourism, church, trade, travel, healthcare, Tribal connections, and more.

Since these hours remain shortened, we have heard from countless constituents about how they no longer can do many of the activities that I just mentioned, activities that they could do before with expanded hours.

The ports of entry listed in this amendment used to serve as robust and active points of movement where our constituents could freely travel back and forth from the U.S. and Canada, and that needs to happen again.

While we understand the CBP believes these ports of entry should solely be based on vehicular and pedestrian traffic, we know, because we have heard from our constituents, that the travelers are much less likely to use the ports given the shortened hours.

In my State specifically, the Antler and Carbury stations were both open from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. However, since the pandemic, their hours have remained from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. That is a 40 percent reduction.

Requiring these ports to close early forces travelers to reroute to other ports of entry with longer hours. Take Ms. Rebecca Davis from Walhalla, North Dakota. During our northern border hearing that the House Judiciary Committee hosted in Grand Forks, she mentioned that what should be a quick trip takes several hours. She highlighted that our small towns--and when I say small towns, I mean really small towns--often get wrapped in the red tape of legal commerce on the border at the same time when we allow the open flow of illegal commerce on the southern border.

This truly affects everyone in the ag community, the small towns, and every small sheriff's department on the northern border that has to divert resources to do a job that the Federal Government is supposed to do. Detours are particularly costly to commercial vehicles and ag vehicle operators due to rising inflation and high fuel costs.

It is long past time that we change those hours back to pre-pandemic levels for good. We need all the hours and resources we can to ensure our borders are fully secure. This will also bring back our high traveler activity along the northern border that results in more travel, tourism, and more. I strongly support this amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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