The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Law Enforcement (Executive Session)” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S1434-S1435 on May 1.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Law Enforcement
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, last month, I continued my annual 95-county tour with a swing through East Tennessee. Over the past few years, this area has experienced both economic growth and a population boom. So the people who live there have seen firsthand what can happen when Tennesseans are allowed to build and nurture a community free from the heavy hand of government.
But they also know how fragile that stability can be, and they are just baffled by Joe Biden's determination to ruin what they and millions of other Americans have worked so incredibly hard to build. In just over 2 years, Joe Biden and the Democrats have sabotaged our national defense, our border security, and public safety in the name of dangerous woke agenda items that prioritize mandates and intellectual conformity over the safety and security of the American people.
Tennesseans are worried about the rise of the new ``axis of evil.'' Joe Biden is allowing Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to cross one line after another, and that is not going over very well. Neither is the Biden administration's neglect of a security risk that hits much closer to home.
So far this year, Border Patrol and other law enforcement officials have reported almost half a million encounters with migrants trying to illegally cross our border. Over the course of this fiscal year--now, the numbers I am going to give you are for this fiscal year. They have recorded 332 encounters with people who are on the Terrorist Watchlist. That is right. Three hundred thirty-two have been apprehended at the border. These are people who are terrorists. They are on the watchlist, which means, if you catch them, they cannot come into this country.
They have apprehended 330 dangerous gang members--that is MS-13 and that is other of these gangs--who are trying to get into the country, and they have seized almost 19,000 pounds of drugs.
Now, this is what we know, and we can only estimate how many other terrorists or gang members or criminals escaped into the country and how much deadly contraband did they bring with them because they are all in the category of ``got-aways.'' They are the people that you see on surveillance, but you cannot get to them. They are ``got-aways'' or they are people who, after the fact--you don't see them, but after the fact, you find things that they have left along their path as they have escaped into this country. So think about those numbers and who might be coming in.
Now, when you look at it, this is a total neglect of our most basic line of defense, and it might be easier to comprehend were it not for this administration's betrayal of local law enforcement. The President has denied that he supports the anti-police movement, but I would remind the President and my Democratic colleagues that acting on anti-
police sentiment behind the scenes is still anti-police.
Making the job of law enforcement harder to do every day is anti-
police; using the bureaucracy to undermine access to grant funding and lifesaving resources--that is anti-police; and deliberately leaving our border wide open to the drug mules, bringing fentanyl into our backyards--that is anti-police. Allowing the cartels and the human traffickers to run rampant, turning human trafficking from a $500-
million-a-year business, which it was in 2018, to a $13-billion-a-year business--that is anti-police. The damage that this administration has done in just under 2\1/2\ years will take a lot longer than that to repair.
But simply answering one sweeping policy change with another won't magically reverse the ripple effects of this complete breakdown in orderly governance. Yes, we have to reverse policy, but we must also pay attention to the problems that have left local leaders, law enforcement officials, and families begging for help.
So let's kind of work through these issues, because they are of concern to Tennesseans. Tennesseans feel like this administration is seeking to normalize lawlessness. They feel they are seeking to normalize lawlessness--
because of that open border, because of the sentiments and the actions that are anti-law enforcement. They are seeking to normalize lawlessness.
Now, at the border, the immediate solution, of course, is to eliminate incentives to illegal immigration, to fund the border patrol, and invest heavily in both a physical barrier and enhance technology.
Now, these are two things that the Border Patrol has been asking for about three decades. Give us a barrier of some type; and where you can't have a barrier, give us better technology.
Now, we also need to address the plagues of drug smuggling and human trafficking. The Biden administration's refusal to stand up to the cartels has turned every town into a border town and every State into a border State. Between August of 2021 and August of 2022, the United States lost more than 107,000 people to drug overdose. Now, 66 percent of these deaths were due to fentanyl. So 107,000 people lost their lives to drugs. They are coming primarily over that southern border. Talk to any law enforcement officer, they will tell you the majority of the drugs they apprehend are coming across that southern border. The majority of those drugs is fentanyl.
Now, I want you to think about this. We all know about World War I, the lives that were lost--precious lives; World War II, the lives that were lost; the Vietnam War; the Gulf War. Here are some stats for you.
In World War I, you had 116,516 U.S. citizens who lost their lives. In World War II, it was 420,200; in Vietnam, 58,220; the Gulf War, 383. So think about that and what we did to protect those lives. And think about what is happening with these drugs coming over that border and this administration not willing to close that border. And in 1 year--1 year--1--107,000 lives. Think about that. Why will this administration not step up, man up, and work to secure that border?
Maintaining the title 42 order will help us keep what little control we have over the cross-border drug trade. Tens of thousands of migrants are waiting for May 11 to roll around so they can flood the border. And we are watching that footage right now. I would encourage any of my colleagues who are not watching this footage, you need to log on and look at how people are coming up. El Paso, I think they have had 15,000 people over the weekend that have come to that border. The numbers are staggering. We are not ready for this.
Last week, my Tennessee colleague Senator Hagerty and I reintroduced the Stop Fentanyl Border Crossing Act, which would preserve the continued use of title 42 authority to remove illegal border-crossers and interrupt drug smuggling operations along the border.
The SAVE Girls Act, which is a bipartisan bill I introduced with Senator Klobuchar last month, has a similar goal of thwarting human trafficking operations.
Here is another stat for you. These are not my numbers; these are the administration's numbers. The State Department estimates that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States every year. Most of these people that are trafficked across that southern border--that is what we are talking about here, that is the universe--
and they are looking at between 14,500 and 17,500. Most of them are women. And it is upsetting to realize that 90 percent--90 percent--of these women and girls become the victims of sexual exploitation.
The SAVE Girls Act would authorize an additional $50 million in grant funding to prevent the trafficking of women and girls and protect children who have been smuggled across this border. Why are we doing this? Because it is our local law enforcement--they are the ones who are on the front lines in this. They are the ones who are conducting rescues and pulling these women and girls away from these traffickers, away from these pimps, that are rescuing them and getting them to safety.
We all know that no bill, no matter how effective, can stop these criminal enterprises entirely, just as no amount of policing or community support can eliminate local crime.
Still, our police departments are in trouble. Tennessee is no exception. In April of last year, the Knoxville Police Department was 10 percent understaffed.
As of last December, the Nashville Police Department was 193 officers short. Morale is a problem, but so is a lack of funding and resources.
So in March, Senator Ossoff and I introduced the bipartisan Filling Public Safety Vacancies Act, to provide a one-time emergency boost in funding to help departments hire officers and sheriff's deputies.
The bill conditions this funding on the implementation of new vetting procedures not currently required by Federal law. I have also introduced a series of bills that would protect schools from becoming key targets for criminals.
The SAFE Schools Act would establish a $900 million grant program to train and hire safety officers and to increase physical security at our schools.
The bipartisan Enhancing K-12 Cybersecurity Act would provide resources and information to schools that will help prevent cyber attacks and establish a better system for tracking cyber attacks nationally.
I want to emphasize again that many of these bills are bipartisan. We could pass them this week, and they would each make a difference right away in places like the State of Tennessee. There are things that our citizens want to see done.
There is no good reason to delay these bills. They would help to make our communities safer. It would be another tool in the toolbox for our local elected officials and citizens who want to see our schools and our community safer, who want our law enforcement agencies to be able to hire and train more police. They would be pro-law enforcement, pro-
safety, pro-security principals.
This administration's refusal to govern and their neglect of our most basic institutions has left Tennesseans really unsettled. They worked so hard to build what they have, and they cannot believe that they are looking at an administration that would seek to tear it down. They are frightened of how quickly things have become so out of control.
They deserve better than an uncertain future controlled by a President who is asleep at the wheel and a Congress that refuses to put politics aside and work in the best interest of the American people.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.