WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke on the Senate floor to advocate that the constrcution of the border wall is the infrasturcture needed by Americans an highlight irregularities with Biden's so-called infrastructure bill. 

To watch Senator Blackburn’s speech, click below or here.

You can read the transcript recorded in the Congressional Records below or click here.

MRS. BLACKBURN: President, over the past few weeks, my

Republican colleagues and I have spent quite a bit of time making sure

the American people know just how little of President Biden's 2-plus

trillion dollar infrastructure plan will fund actual infrastructure

plans to fix roads and bridges that are so in need of repair.

  These are things that the Tennesseans have repeatedly told me they

want to see in a bill: Fix the roads. Fix the bridges.

  What do they want to be taken out of that bill? They want to get rid

of some of these provisions that have nothing to do with

infrastructure--nothing.

  So imagine their disappointment--people who are ready for a highway

bill, who are ready for a transportation bill, who are ready for an

infrastructure bill--imagine their disappointment when they discovered

that all the funding that they had hoped was going to go to potholes

and expanding lanes on the interstate and fixing flooded back roads

would instead be spent on electric cars, union advocates, and climate

change ambassadors.

  I know pothole repair isn't flashy, but it is what Tennesseans need.

An electric car does not do you one bit of good when you are going to

have to have a four-by-four to go pull it out of the mud every single

time it rains.

  We are pretty practical people, and my wish would be that my

colleagues across the aisle would join us in reviewing the needs of the

American people--the needs of the American people--and in being

practical.

  The lack of practicality has been a recurring problem in the months

since President Biden took office. It seems that the Democrats here in

Washington, DC, can't resist the urge to throw money at social-media

friendly causes that not even the most talented communicators have been

able to tie to the pressing needs of the American people. They did it

with COVID relief, and now they are doing it with this infrastructure

boondoggle.

  The wish list just doesn't match the PR campaign, and that is a shame

because this country has its own wish list of urgently needed items

that we really can no longer afford to ignore.

  Just a few weeks ago, I took my own trip down to the southern border

to get a sense of the situation on the ground, and it is a dire

situation. We are facing an environmental crisis, a national security

crisis, and a humanitarian crisis that is massive in scope. If we want

to talk about infrastructure projects that matter, let's talk about all

the infrastructure that President Biden abandoned back in January when

he halted construction on the wall.

  To paraphrase a famous saying, a 450-mile-long stretch of border wall

serves the purpose right up until you hit mile 451, and here you can

see that is the situation that ranchers and law enforcement officials

in southern Arizona are dealing with. The construction just stopped.

  President Biden's proclamation ordered contractors to stop work and

abandon their progress--immediate, stop. So they walked away because

they had to.

  What did they leave? They left behind an unfinished wall, piles of

supplies, and roads and other infrastructure built to support

construction crews. Everything is sitting there--sitting there at the

border. The equipment, the border wall--it is all there wasting away--

tax dollars right there.

  All of that is now vulnerable to exploitation by the cartels and the

traffickers because it is sitting there on the border. This is an

absolute shame--an absolute shame. And what we know is that the cartels

and the traffickers--whether they are drug traffickers or sex

traffickers, or whether they are moving gangs--they are taking full

advantage of this situation.

  I got the chance to see where the coyotes and the drug smugglers are

coming across, now that there is no activity on the border to deter

them from using access points built into the wall for their own

purposes.

  In Cochise County alone, officials have seen a 200-percent increase

in migrants this year--200 percent.

  The holes in the wall have turned into walking paths for the Sinaloa

cartel's drug runners. Law enforcement officials have set up an

extensive network of cameras, but there are only so many leads that

they can chase when the Border Patrol agents, who should be supporting

these efforts, are busy implementing useless--useless and detrimental--

catch-and-release programs.

  And see, you see where there is a gap in the wall. Why do you have

these gaps? Because the doors that were to go into these gaps are

sitting, not in place. Why do you have these gaps? You have them

because the wall components are there in the dirt.

  But what did President Biden say? As of today, no more. No more. Stop

immediately. Halt. Do not build this wall.

  And what is it that our Border Patrol tell us that they need? They

need a wall, they need more technology, and they need more agents and

officers on the ground. This has been their request for years--for

years.

  On private property along the border, you can see where migrants have

ditched their old clothes in exchange for actual uniforms that identify

them to a cartel because they are given them by the cartel. It is their

cartel-issued clothing, much like a work uniform.

  There are piles of discarded backpacks, water bottles, and medicine

at regular intervals. There is no telling

if the people who abandoned these items made it out alive, because we

know many do not make it out alive.

  Many of them are left to die in the desert by their handlers, the

coyotes, and the cartels. It is vital to note that you do not cross

that border unless you are working with the cartel, which means you

have paid the cartel a fee to come across that border or you have

agreed to go into modern-day slavery and work out your fee. Whether it

is with a labor gang, an MS-13 gang, sex trafficking gang, you have to

work that fee out once you come across.

  Now the ranchers who own these long stretches of property have seen

evidence of this evil disregard for human life. They will tell you

their lands are no longer safe, they do not feel free, and they are

constantly on their guard for the safety of themselves and their

property.

  I understand that immigration enforcement is controversial--so much

so that during his campaign, President Biden promised to avoid the

issue entirely by halting construction of the border wall forever. But

we are living in the real world now, and in the real world, the globe's

most powerful and free Republic is being taken advantage of by the

West's most terrifying drug lords and human rights abusers, and the

Biden administration is letting it happen. Congressional Democrats are

letting it happen. Even though they don't want to admit it, it is

happening. Look at the reports. Look at the footage. Talk to Customs

and Border Patrol, and talk to the sheriffs in these counties.

  So I say to my Democratic colleagues: Do something. Do something.

Work with us to find common ground and get this situation under control

before it is too late. And realize that every town is a border town and

every State is a border State until that border is secure.

  If you care about human rights, if you care about infrastructure,

please care about this issue--care about this issue--the environmental

crisis, the humanitarian crisis, and the national security crisis.

  You can spend the next 4 years sitting on your hands and blaming

President Trump or Leader McConnell or me or any of my Republican

colleagues and blame us and say: Well, there is death. There is

destruction. There are drugs. And all of that is happening along this

border. But that is the thing about winning elections--they do have

consequences. And the consequence that is facing our Democratic

colleagues right now is leading and leading on this issue. You own this

crisis. You own this crisis. It is from President Biden's failed

immigration and border strategy. If you fail to act, you will forever

own the tragedy--the absolute tragedy that is unfolding along our

southern border.

  I yield the floor.