Andy Biggs

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is good to be here. I am glad my friend is raising awareness. I am going to go as quickly as I possibly can because I don't know how much time I am going to take up. But let's talk about fentanyl for just one quick second. Local reporting out of Tucson was that last year 13 million fentanyl pills were seized in Arizona alone--13 million. DEA has said 40 percent of all pills seized have a lethal dose of fentanyl in them. I want you to think about that, Madam Speaker. You add that 13 million and you take it into what agents and local law enforcement has told us, and that is they only interdict 8 to 10 percent. That means you have got over 100 million fentanyl pills floating around. The cartels control all of the border between every port of entry on our border with Mexico. Let me give you an example, Madam Speaker, of the story out of southern Arizona recently just in the last couple weeks. A lady was found wandering around. Local law enforcement deputies found her and assisted her. What did she have on her possession? A bag full of pills. They wanted to know what this was, was this an illicit drug or illicit? What is going on? She said: These are morning-after pills. I knew when I would be coming across the border that I would be raped multiple times so I brought a bunch of morning-after pills. That is fact. That is what is happening. It is not humane on the border. I find myself baffled by this. So let's talk about cartels a little bit more. In a story from just early January--and I have been down to the border and talked to this team since then, a cartel, a Mexican cartel put out a hit on Cochise County sheriffs' deputies--two of them--because they are on the border team. There is a small border team down there. They are very effective. They had a hit put on them by a cartel. So what happens? What happens? Why is the Biden administration ignoring this crisis? Let's take a look at something else. In September of last year I said: How many unaccompanied children have been brought into the country? One hundred ten thousand roughly. They finally responded to a series of questions I had just this week. They said: We have lost contact with 20,000 of those children. They basically have lost 20,000 unaccompanied children. This is the border under President Biden. Now, in Cochise County, 82 miles, a remote border crossing area, between the Border Patrol and the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, about 16,000 illegal immigrants are detected every month in a huge, huge county. Two years ago the county recorded an average of 4 to 500 illegal aliens per month. Let's give it to you more starkly, Madam Speaker: under the Trump policies, we slowed down illegal immigration. Under the Biden policies, we went from 4 to 500 people a month in this massive county to now 16,000 a month. What are they paying the cartels? A minimum of $1,000, but typically more like $4,000 per person coming in. Most of these folks don't have $4,000. So what happens? They become indentured servants of cartels, and they are located in-- and I know Mr. Davidson is going to show you a map, Madam Speaker--they are in virtually every community in this country. There is a reporter named Jorge Ventura. Jorge does a lot of work on the border issues. And I want to talk to you about cartels again and how they have infiltrated not just the border but they are also beyond the border. A year ago there were illegal marijuana farms in southern California. There are about 100 in L.A. County. It is a huge county both geographically and population wise. Its neighboring county, San Bernardino County, had about 2 or 300. Today over 200 illicit marijuana farms are in L.A. County and over 1,100 in San Bernardino County. Now, why is that important? It is important for you to understand that those are coming in from cartels. The mayor of Lancaster, Rex Parris, said in July of last year that it is the cartels. They had seized more than 16 tons of marijuana worth about $1.2 billion, and the mayor said: ``We are very, very close to driving down the freeway and seeing bodies hanging from the overpasses. That is what is coming.'' Why does he say that? Because the cartels are ruthless. They have little value for human life. When you hear about children, toddlers being thrown over a border fence, that is the coyotes. Whom do they work for? The cartels. When you hear of children 2, 3, and 4 years of age wandering around in 115-degree heat in Arizona's desert without an adult present and without water, that is the cartels. They don't care about human life. This is a business enterprise, and the product is to move people and drugs into the country. So what happened just a week ago, not even a week ago? Prosecutors in Mexico in the town of San Jose de Gracia in the western State of Michoacan said that they can't determine how many people were killed because attackers cleaned up the scene and removed any bodies. Mexicans have been left wondering what happened to about one dozen men who disappeared after they were seen lined up against a wall by drug cartel gunmen in this small village. In a video filmed by a resident of the town that was later posted on social media, bursts of gunfire break out, smoke covers the scene, the camera cuts away, and all the men, perhaps as many as 17, were killed. That is what cartels do. Cartels do not care about human life. And when I have had multiple briefings, as I go down to the border virtually every month of every year, I wonder where the border czar in this administration is. She got to El Paso, almost made it to the border, and didn't quite get there. It is kind of like when she went over to Ukraine, she made it to Germany but didn't make it into Ukraine. I look, and I say: What happened? Why is this happening? And my briefers tell me the border is controlled by cartels. Between every port of entry no one enters this country without a cartel knowing about it. When I was in the Tucson sector right before Christmas, I went down and you see 2 miles of fencing, and there is 8 feet of gap, then another 2 miles of fencing, and then it just stops, and then it goes for literally 60 miles with no fencing other than the Normandy barrier. I went to the gap, and I am standing there looking into Mexico. You can see, Madam Speaker, that gap is where all the pathways lead, and there is all the debris and crud that is out there. I said to my folks who were with me: Please videotape it because I am going to explain what was going on here. I didn't bother to tell CBP, because I get down a lot. Sometimes I tell them I am going to be there. An agent rolls up. He said: Who are you talking to? He didn't know who I was. I said: I am not talking to anyone. I am doing the video here for my constituents. He said: Oh. I thought you were talking to the cartel scouts. I said: What do you mean? He said: We literally chased--before we detected you, we chased four cartel scouts back up through that gap, and they sit in a hooch on this little bluff. That is where the cartel scouts are as they are sending people through. The way it works is this. They will send a group of 100 people to some place, maybe the San Miguel gate down near Sassabe, near the Tohono O'odham Reservation. That takes the four or five people that are trying to patrol that area. They will go to that gate. They have to process those individuals. It is so remote that it takes literally hours to remove those people and get them bused to a detention facility and processed. In the meantime, they will see what we call ``known got-aways,'' dozens of known got-aways rolling through other parts of that border. They are dressed in camouflage. They are wearing carpet shoes. They have got backpacks filled with fentanyl and methamphetamine on their backs. I am just telling you, I appreciate my friend from Ohio, his efforts, and this very important piece of legislation. And I call upon this administration, don't tell the American people--I am reminded of the ``Darkest Hour.'' It is a movie with Winston Churchill. The King says to Winston: Don't lie to the people. Tell them the truth. I am asking this administration: Tell the people the truth. They can take it. They understand. Because last year, over 2 million, about 2,500,000 people, entered this country illegally; another 1.2 to 1.3 million entered legally. Now, of those 2.5 million, probably about 1.5 million are wandering around this country. They are somewhere in this country today. This administration let them go. Madam Speaker, we have to get control of our border. I find it remarkable that the deputy Homeland Security director was saying that we really need to protect the borders, that you won't have a sovereign nation without a protected border. But he wasn't talking about our border, which isn't protected. He was talking about the Ukrainian border. I asked them to have the same concern and care for the U.S.-Mexico border as they profess to have for the Ukraine border.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding time to me. I am grateful that we are going to be voting today on this version of this bill. I think it is a much-improved version as opposed to the one that came out of committee. I am grateful to all those who worked hard on this to try to make this a better bill, and I am grateful for that. I think when we reflect upon this bill and the history of our Nation--this Nation we all love and cherish--we recognize that we have to cure and acknowledge some issues and problems that we have had. And this is not the least of those for sure, but it is an important thing to recognize. I appreciated the chairman of the Judiciary Committee mentioning George Henry White who was the first person to introduce an antilynching piece of legislation. George Henry White was from North Carolina. He was a Republican Representative. He was the only African American who was a Member of Congress at the time. After he left Congress in the early part of the last century, 1901, it would be 28 years before another African American came into these important Halls of law and legislation. One thing that Congressman White was very bold about was to fight and stand against disenfranchisement, to fight disenfranchisement and also to fight mob violence which took an incredible amount of courage and discipline, and I appreciate that and his history. I am hopeful that we will make this a unanimous vote. I hope that we will record that vote for our posterity and for all Americans to know and recognize that the United States House of Representatives could come together as yet we may disagree on so many things, but on this issue that we can come together unitedly. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this, and I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. BIGGS. I have several inquiries, if I might. I am not trying to press. I am trying to understand. The first one is did the Speaker and the Parliamentarian distinguish or identify by the term ``author'' of the bill, ``maker'' of the bill, or ``sponsor'' of the bill when making its ruling and determination in this case?

Mr. BIGGS. Yes, I do. Thank you.

Mr. BIGGS. My question is regarding the determination that these words were nonparliamentary. What is the extent of the protection of the debate and speech clause, vis-a-vis, for instance, when we have had a resolution to strip a Member of committee, another resolution to strip a different Member of committee this year. And during the debate of that we had all kinds of aspersions and comments, and if these allegations, which were put forward by the gentleman from Pennsylvania are accurate and can be defended, was that taken into account in both the context and his terms, this taking into account, when you made the determination that his speech was nonparliamentary.

Mr. BIGGS. I am not asking for an advisory opinion. I am asking what you took into account with the Parliamentarian to determine that his words were nonparliamentary. That is what I am asking. And I have given you context and relationship of previous actions, and I have asked for specifically how you limited the speech and debate clause here, and whether the fact that he has documentation to prove his assertions or not or whether they are relevant.

Mr. BIGGS. Thank you.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, in spite of the protestations of the gentleman from Maryland that we heard earlier that this bogus, fraudulently organized committee has a legislative purpose that is legitimate, and he said it was self-preservation, but everything every Democrat has said today is meant to attack one person, and that is Donald Trump. And so I am reminded of the case that gave us the long progeny of all these cases that deal with legislative purpose in committees and subpoenas, the Kilbourn case. In that case, the Court ruled the congressional investigation unconstitutional because its real purpose was not to consider legislative reforms, as the House has claimed, but rather to investigate possible crimes by this citizen, a power only the executive and judicial branches have the right to exercise. That is what we see happening here today. This committee is illegitimate. It has violated its own rules of creation. It has violated its own rules of creation and it says they want to find out this massive truth here about what happened on January 6. You can't have a committee to find out what happened because you are interested. You can't do that. And that is what they are doing today.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, let's take a look at what Democrats are ignoring so they can censure a conservative Republican because he posted a cartoon they found offensive and which he took down himself: More than two million illegal aliens crossing our border this calendar year; Attorney General Garland deploying Federal agents to spy on parents; Inflation driving gas prices up; Everybody's Thanksgiving dinner is going up; A vax mandate that is clearly unconstitutional; A bankruptcy-inducing, bureaucracy-bloating spending bill by Democrats; Supply chain in shambles; Democrats consistently ignoring calls to violence and anti-Semitic statements of their own; Foreign policy embarrassments; Americans languishing behind in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan; China, Iran, North Korea on the move. Yeah, we have been ignoring those things. But we are here today. I lived in Japan for several years. I speak Japanese. I read and write Japanese. This is an anime. It is ``Shingeki no Kyojin'', highly popular, stylized, intended to demonstrate the alienation people feel, particularly young people in their cultures. Now, does anime have violence? Yes. It is highly stylized violence. It is not meant to induce people to violence.

Mr. BIGGS. It was not Mr. Gosar's intention, I believe, and he has made that clear, to induce anyone to violence. Like he, I also condemn violence, but I would ask you to reconsider further usurping and taking control of this body for political purposes because that is what is happening here today.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, while the border is porous and 200,000 people are being apprehended every month, another 100,000 are illegally entering who we don't know where they are coming from. They are not caught; they are gotaways this administration is going to offer $450,000. What is interesting about that is the President himself said he didn't know about it. He has had to walk that back, hasn't he? So there will be $450,000 offered to a certain segment of illegal migrants. Not only that, we will continue to see opioids, fentanyl. We will see additional drugs and human trafficking continue across our border until we secure our border. I am hoping this administration will make that a priority rather than ignoring it and encouraging people to come across our border.

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. That is what you are seeing, Mr. Speaker. I just got a tweet just 20 minutes ago, 30 minutes ago. We are seeing one of our big companies, one of my big defense contractors in Arizona had an employee walkout today. They don't want this. Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? If you want a vaccine, go ahead and get the vaccine.

Mr. BIGGS. It was organized. It was organized. Down in southern Mexico right now, you have a group of 95,000-plus forming up, mostly Haitians forming up, waiting. They have announced that this Sunday is their departure date. We think a good share is going to go to Yuma this time because we have a 7-mile gap in our fencing down there.

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I was standing next to many piles--I couldn't even fit them into the camera shot--of bollard fencing panels taller than me, $2 million worth of those bollard fences right there. A little further down from where we were, there is another set of bollard fencing, but they aren't welded together yet. They are not panels yet. They are getting stolen, by the way. Where we were was by the temporary headquarters of the contractors who were there to put up the fence. You know what? They keep going to work every day. You know why they keep going to work every day? They got a contract, and they are getting paid to go there. But they can't put the fence up because President Biden says you can't put the fence up.

Mr. BIGGS. That is exactly right. Think about this, too. It is inhumane, right, because we entice people to come here, and we know that the cartels, they control. I can't emphasize this enough. I was startled when I heard this. The cartels control every person coming across the border. Let me tell you what that fellow from Cuba, the Cuban national, said to me. He said: Look, I will wait here for the Border Patrol to come pick me up. Will I be molested while I wait? Think of that. What kind of country are we that we entice people to come here, and they put themselves in the hands of some of the most ruthless criminal gangsters ever. There are two internecine wars going on between the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel right now. The brutality is phenomenal. It helps you to know that they are not humane. These people that are coming over are paying $700 in the Haitian group, most $4,000 to $7,000. They are putting their lives in the hands of these very violent criminals.

Mr. BIGGS. That is correct. We have seen it all along the border, whether it is Arizona, Texas, the New Mexico boot, California. The heat is so great, except for right there at San Diego, but it is even hot there. When it gets 120 degrees in the desert and they are coming across, they got one gallon of water that they got somewhere along the pike, and that is it. It is unrelenting, unremitting heat. We see this. Here is another question. You got it in Del Rio?

Mr. BIGGS

Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman (Mr. Babin), my colleague on the House Border Security Caucus. Mr. Speaker, you have heard a lot about numbers today. I want to just tell you a little bit about some of the faces and individuals. I have been from the Rio Grande Valley to San Diego, and back again, this year. I get down to the border incredibly often; just down again last week, down two weeks before that, down a few weeks before that. And that is kind of way I live, because I live in Arizona and it is affected and it is impacted. I was down in RGV, the Rio Grande Valley, and you can go there in the area of La Jolla. And you sit at the river, the Rio Grande River runs, and you can go and you wait--this little fork in the road. We parked the car. I had a CBP agent with me, had a couple Members of Congress. It is nighttime. We are looking out and we see about 40 people literally emerging from the river. They are dressed great. But you know what? Most of them are kids under age 14, I would guess. A little girl 7 years old, she is with her brother, 5. There is no mom. There is no dad. There is no aunt or uncle. There is no one there to take care of them. The coyote brought them across the river and deposited them. Do you know what would happen in the United States for us who are citizens, who are legally here, if we had a 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-year-old child and we put that child in the hands of a criminally-violent person? That is what a coyote is; they are working for the cartels. And we sewed into their britches a name and a phone number, or a city. We put that child there; and then we were up in Detroit, or LA, or Phoenix. And that coyote, the person we gave that child to, then turned the child over to the Border Patrol to reunite with us. Upon reunification, we would be charged with child abuse. But our government is the logistics arm of the cartel, and we don't do that. We reunite that child and we allow that mom and that child to remain in the United States of America and we don't bring criminal charges. And we don't remove from this country. Instead, we release with all the benefits of our social welfare safety net, our education system, our healthcare, the free phones, the housing--all of that. That is what we do. And down in Yuma, just recently, how about this, I am standing there with some of my friends. We are standing literally next to the fence. But the fence ends, and there is a space of several hundred yards. And literally, we are getting pictures of us standing in front of this hole in the fence. Here comes a fellow. He is walking up, and so we stop and talk to him. Where are you from? Cuba. Where were you before that? I came from Russia. I went from Cuba to Russian and then I went to Spain and then to France and then to Mexico City, and then I got myself to Mexicali. I took a bus from Mexicali to Yuma--actually, Los Algodones, which is right across the border, and he walks dry across the dregs of that point of the Colorado River. I say: What are you doing here? I want to be in America. He wanted to be an American. We say: Well, why don't you sit right here? There is water. There is a station where you can clean yourself up a little bit. Border Patrol is going to be along in just a second. That person is not an economic refugee. There is no credible fear. He is traveling and wants to come to the United States of America. Do you know what is going to happen to him if they don't title 42 him, which they are not doing many title 42s anymore? He is probably already in the country somewhere. That is where that fellow is. He was an engaging fellow, but, nonetheless, illegally in this country.