Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: The southwest border of the United States, particularly near the Rio Grande Valley, has been inundated by illegal aliens and foreign migrants in response to lenient immigration and border policies and practices. During the first 4 months of fiscal year 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded between 71,946 and 78,414 monthly encounters with migrants along the southwest border. During the first 7 full months of the Biden administration, such encounters increased to an average of 177,883 per month, resulting in a total of 1,541,651 such encounters during the first 11 months of fiscal year 2021.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounters have increased during fiscal year 2021 in each southwest Border Patrol Sector compared to fiscal year 2020, particularly in the sectors along the Rio Grande River, where, as of August 2021, there had been an increase of— 135.8 percent in the Laredo Sector; 278.7 percent in the El Paso Sector; 380.3 percent in the Big Bend Sector; 532.6 percent increase in the Del Rio Sector; and 542.4 percent increase in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
The number of encounters at the southwest border between U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and migrants comprised the vast majority of total U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounters nationwide during fiscal year 2021. During September 2021, an estimated 30,000 migrants crossed through the port of entry at the City of Del Rio, Texas, which is almost as numerous as the city’s population. All of these migrants had to be processed in accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act ( 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq. ) and section 362 of the Public Health Service Act ( 42 U.S.C. 265 ).
As many as 15,000 migrants gathered and waited to be processed at the Del Rio port of entry in mid-September, leading to inhumane conditions for the migrants temporarily housed under an underpass in makeshift shelters, and serious fears and uncertainty for the local residents. Several Federal officials have acknowledged that officials at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were aware of the potential surge of migrants from Haiti several months before the surge occurred, but failed to stop the impending crisis.
Instead of increasing deportations to discourage a surge of illegal immigration, these agencies halted all deportation flights to Haiti in the weeks leading up to the September crisis in Del Rio, Texas. Although immigration policy is directed by the Federal Government, the immediate effects of such large numbers of encounters are primarily felt by the States and local communities along the southwest border. These States and local communities bear direct and indirect costs, and are most impacted by the volume of individual encounters at the border.
State and local governments bear substantial costs to alleviate concerns for citizens and migrants as a result of inadequate Federal enforcement of existing immigration laws and border enforcement policies. These costs include health care, schooling, housing, and public safety expenses related to the resettlement of new arrivals. The Governor of Texas originally declared a disaster in 34 Texas counties based on the increase in illegal immigration at the southwest border and has since expanded the disaster declaration to a total of 47 Texas counties, including Brewster, Brooks, Crockett, Culberson, DeWitt, Dimmit, Edwards, Frio, Goliad, Gonzales, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Kimble, Kinney, La Salle, Lavaca, Live Oak, Maverick, McMullen, Midland, Pecos, Presidio, Real, Terrell, Uvalde, Val Verde, Zapata, Colorado, Crane, Galveston, Kenedy, Mason, Medina, Throckmorton, Bee, Jackson, Schleicher, Sutton, Webb, Zavala, Menard, Wharton, McCulloch, Refugio, Victoria, and Wilbarger counties.
The governor has deployed thousands of National Guard and Department of Public Safety troopers to the border over the past months in order to enforce existing Federal immigration laws. However, significant numbers of additional foreign migrants are still heading to the southwest border. The sheer volume of migrant crossings has overwhelmed the capacity of Border Patrol sectors along the southwest border. Many U.S. Border Patrol agents have been pulled from their duties patrolling the border to help process people in custody in the southwest Border Patrol sectors, leaving parts of the border insufficiently guarded.
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