[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 63 (Monday, April 17, 2023)] [Senate] [Pages S1126-S1128] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-17
Chamber: SENATE
Mrs. BLACKBURN: just before Easter, the Biden administration released a report that they claim vindicates their role in our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, but rather than laying out the facts and embracing accountability, the Biden administration returned to its default setting of blaming Donald Trump for their problems. They claim that because Trump did not provide them with a plan for every contingency, the Biden White House should be allowed to wash its hands of the mess they have made. Now, you would think that anyone who witnessed mothers throwing their children over barbed wire fences and into the arms of our soldiers would at least hesitate before making excuses for the terrible decision making that led to those images. Biden and his team are kidding themselves if they think we have forgotten what happened. But the American people are not fooled. They remember that it was Joe Biden who chose to close Bagram Airfield; that it was Joe Biden who set an arbitrary evacuation deadline even though his military generals begged him not to do this; and that it was Joe Biden who surrendered control of Karzai International Airport and handed over the names of American citizens, green card holders, and our Afghan partners--handed this information over to the Taliban. We saw the catastrophe unfold at the airfields and in the cities, and we see what the Biden administration has done. They have ignored it ever since. Afghanistan fell back into the Dark Ages. Twenty-three million people are going hungry. Twenty million Afghan women are subjugated under the Taliban's medieval boot. On the day the evacuation officially ended, there were at least 4,000 Americans left behind--that is right, left behind--in Afghanistan. Today, our best guess is that there are around 175 still stranded there. Some of them are being held captive by the Taliban. Seventy- eight thousand of our Afghan partners remain in hiding, many being hunted by the Taliban. Yes, that is the mess that this administration and Joe Biden made.  And on his way out the door, Biden also left behind at least $7.2 billion of American weaponry, including aircraft, vehicles, and guns, some of which have cropped up in the hands of militants in other countries. That is $7.2 billion ofequipment, part of the $80 billion investment there at Bagram Airfield. And what did Joe Biden do? Here you go, Bagram--the investment in training, the investment in the troops, the investment in infrastructure, and all of that equipment. Just imagine for a moment that you are one of our allies watching all of this unfold. It would cause you to be worried--and rightfully so. Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan damaged America's image on the world stage and sent once-strong alliances into a tailspin. Some of our most important allies now believe that the United States is weak, that we are unreliable, and that we are undependable. This is what has emboldened what I term the new axis of evil--China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. They think they have got running room because of the way the Afghan withdrawal was conducted. Beijing wasted no time normalizing relations with the Taliban by offering multimillion-dollar investments through the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The CCP knows what it is doing here. Afghanistan has $1 trillion in untapped resources that communist China has already signed a deal to extract. Since then, they have increased their aggression against Taiwan and elsewhere around the globe, and the Biden administration has had very little to say about it--an emboldened China going after the $1 trillion in lithium in Afghanistan--rare-earth minerals, Afghanistan. That is why the Chinese Communist Party has inked that deal. Oh, what did they do with it? Let's make chips. Let's make batteries. Oh, what are we making those batteries for? Electric vehicles. How about that? How about that? This is what has emboldened the CCP. Afghanistan was a disaster. It was based on the decision making of this administration. So the CCP is encouraging Russia, Iran, and North Korea to join them in that axis of evil and push to global dominance. The CCP even let a spy balloon sashay all the way across this country. We know it pulled intelligence. We know it went across much of our critical infrastructure. What did my colleagues across the aisle have to say? Not much. Not much. They don't want to challenge the CCP and communist China, and Russia and Iran and North Korea. It makes you wonder. Meanwhile, North Korea has leaned into their ballistic missile program, and Iran has openly celebrated a dangerous milestone: They are now technically capable of building multiple nuclear weapons. That is right. They are pushing their nuclear development program. Not to be outdone, just 6 months after Biden surrendered to the Taliban, Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine and launched the biggest land war in Europe since World War II. This is not a coincidence. Biden knows he has no one to blame but himself and his officials for this. This is the mess they have made because of the decisions that they have made. But there has been no accountability. There has been no justice for the 13 servicemembers murdered by terrorists during those final chaotic days in Kabul. I think it is clear that, if things keep going the way they are, there won't be accountability because this administration will not admit they made a mistake. If there is any truth to be gleaned from the administration's report, it is that Joe Biden hasn't learned any lessons from what will certainly be remembered as one of the worst foreign policy disasters in our Nation's history. The Biden administration will go down in history for failing our allies and our partners. They are questioning--they are questioning--if they should be our ally and partner. The Biden administration will be remembered for destroying what was a robust economy, kowtowing to social justice warriors, and, of course, committing to outrageous policy proposals that insult the intelligence of the American people. The Department of Homeland Security's recent budget request is no exception to the rule. This year, instead of asking for more money to equip law enforcement and secure our southern border, Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas decided to undercut that mission by $600 million. That is right. The border is wide open. We have a Secretary of Homeland Security who does not believe in securing the homeland. So what does the Secretary and the President do? They cut the budget for securing the border by $600 million. This is something that is so unfair to our Border Patrol. We are only halfway through the fiscal year, and already Customs and Border Protection has recorded more than 1 million migrant encounters at the southern border. That is right--1 million that they have encountered. That is not counting the ``got-aways''--the ones they can see but can't get to, or the ones that later they find where they have been but they could not get to them, didn't know about them. This is 1 million encounters on that border. They have also seized 105,000 pounds of drugs, including enough fentanyl to kill several cities--almost 11,000 pounds of fentanyl in 5 short months. And get this: They caught 268 gang members, more than 11,000 criminal noncitizens, and almost 300 terrorists trying to sneak into this country. Those are not my numbers. Those are not some pundit's numbers. Those are the stats that are coming from the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol. Those are their numbers. They are telling us this. Do people agree with this? Do they think this is secure border policy? Listen to these numbers again: 105,000 pounds of drugs, 11,000 pounds of fentanyl, 268 gang members, and 11,000 criminal noncitizens. Those are people who have been convicted of crimes. These are the people who are being turned out of the jails in countries. Last year, 176 different countries had people present at that southern border. This year, so far, you have got 11,000 criminal noncitizens and almost 300 terrorists trying to come into this country. Ask yourself a question: What in heaven's name do you think they are coming here for? Why are they sneaking into the country? Do you think it is because they know they wouldn't be able to come in? Do you think they are coming for a job, or are they coming to do us harm? We should be outraged--outraged--and concerned. Alarms should be blaring at the Department of Homeland Security. Right now, the Biden administration is just rolling out the red carpet. They are issuing an open invitation. Indeed, they said: We have got an app to make it easy for you to come. Go on your iPhone. Sign in on the app. We will be waiting for you when you get here. Does that sound like securing the country? Criminal noncitizens, terrorists, gang members--these are the people who are coming in, cartel smugglers who are taking this administration up on their invitation: Come on in. Every year, in Tennessee, I visit with each one of our 95 counties. I am on the ground in every county in the State. And this year, without exception, there are mayors and sheriffs and other officials who I am speaking with, talking with principals, talking with citizens. And do you know what? Border security comes up in every single one of these meetings, and the reason it comes up is because of this administration's policies turning every town into a border town and every State into a border State. And now it is the local officials and local law enforcement officers who are left to deal with the broken policies of this administration. If you ask them what the biggest problem is, they are going to tell you: Well, Marsha, it connects back to the border because the drugs we are apprehending are coming across the southern border, and 95 percent of those drugs, they are fentanyl, and that drives crime in our communities. There are gang members coming into these communities.  Now, here is a great example of this: Hamilton County, TN. That is Chattanooga, a great city. And their district attorney, Coty Wamp, and Sheriff Garrett there in Hamilton County were showing me some pictures from one of their drug busts. Well, these are rainbow fentanyl pills that were specifically manufactured to look like OxyContin--rainbow fentanyl. Now, officers there in Chattanooga found more than 1,000 of these pills in a single search. That is enough to takeout the entire city of Chattanooga, TN. They weren't expecting to find fentanyl when they were executing that warrant, but that doesn't mean they were surprised. This is a persistent problem in Chattanooga. Thank goodness, a great sheriff and a great DA working together-- great officers--they conducted this bust, and this is what they found. And we have great local law enforcement all across the State of Tennessee. And they will tell you that fentanyl overdose deaths are occurring at such a rate that law enforcement does not have all the resources they need to investigate all the cases. Now, this is just one story from one law enforcement entity in one city; but the danger is, this is occurring in every city, in every county, in each of our States. And it is happening because President Biden and my Democratic colleagues have refused to support securing the border, and they refuse to hold themselves accountable for the humanitarian crisis that this has created. When Secretary Becerra testified before the Finance Committee about the Department of Health and Human Services budget request, he betrayed the same disregard for basic human decency as Secretary Mayorkas had. He used the opportunity to push his woke agenda items rather than focusing on poor operations of the Agency. Frankly, it is sad that there is even a question about whether a Senate-confirmed secretary is familiar with his own job description, especially when he can't answer basic questions about what is happening at the Agency he, supposedly, controls. At the end of February, the New York Times reported that over the course of Joe Biden's Presidency, his administration has lost--that is right, lost--more than 85,000 children who were under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. You heard me right. This administration has lost 85,000 children who were under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. To be clear, this is the office within the Department of Health and Human Services that is directly responsible for unaccompanied children who come across the border. And now we know that this Agency has lost immediate contact with one third of the children they are responsible for. The Times also reported that the Office of Refugee Resettlement may have approved sponsors who were under investigation for labor abuses and that case management officers may have been aware of children in dangerous situations but chose to do nothing. During his hearing, I asked Secretary Becerra about this, frankly, horrifying revelation, and he did exactly what his compatriots have done when confronted with their failures: He feigned ignorance. He claimed he had never heard of those 85,000 missing children. Joe Biden and the Democrats might be happy to pretend that we don't have a problem down on the border, but the American people are not pretending that this is not a problem. They watched President Biden throw away border security policies that were working in favor of an open-borders agenda that benefits no one except the drug cartels; the sex trafficking rings that are abusing women and girls; the human traffickers that are smuggling people, preying on people, and physically, mentally, emotionally, drugging and sexually abusing them as they make their journey. It is time to put politics aside and get serious about securing this border, and I encourage my colleagues: Please, join us in securing this border. Join us in saying let's enforce the laws we have on the books. Join us in saying let's eliminate the policies that incentivize breaking the law. Let's stand for the rule of law.  Earlier this year, I introduced the Stop Taxpayer Funding of Traffickers Act, which would prohibit anyone charged with drug or human trafficking from receiving Federal government benefits while they await trial. We could pass this bill today, and we should pass it because it would make a difference. When I talked to local law enforcement, when I said, ``What would be a way to help?'' this is the idea they gave me. It is a problem that they have because many of these traffickers are getting government benefits, and we need to stop that today. We should also return to the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy. We should end catch-and-release. And last but not least, let's get back to building that barrier. Border Patrol has told us for 30 years they need a physical barrier where they can have a barrier, and where they can't, they need better technology, they need more officers, more agents, more manpower and resources so that they can do their job, so they can protect this Nation's sovereignty, so they can protect our citizens. That is it. These are the things that would be a solution to helping rid this country of this fentanyl crisis, to helping rid this country of the gangs, the terrorists that are flooding into our country, the criminals coming into this country. This is something that should have bipartisan agreement. We should do this. Now, the Biden administration has touted its various White House staff and Cabinet nominees as being the most diverse in our Nation's history, but they all have one thing in common: Their priorities are at odds with what the American people are saying they want. Secretary Mayorkas refuses to do his job and secure the border, even though local law enforcement officials are begging him for help. Secretary Becerra can't be bothered to offer so much as a talking point on behalf of 85,000 missing children. Attorney General Garland has weaponized the law against conservatives and created two tiers of justice: one for the liberal elites and one for everybody else. Biden's nominee to lead the FAA withdrew in disgrace. His most recent nominee to the FCC has dedicated her career to violating the First Amendment. His Transportation Secretary is perpetually missing in action. And the Pentagon has yet to hold anyone accountable for one of the worst foreign policy disasters in American history. And, yes, that would be Afghanistan. The mainstream media loves to complain that the American people have lost all faith in institutions, but I would ask that media to just stop, look at what Joe Biden's government has done to the country, and ask themselves: Are we safer and more secure than we were 4 years ago? I yield the floor.