SEN ROGER MARSHALL: Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill will keep our border the most secure it's been in history

Our country stands at a crossroads. Thanks to President Donald Trump’s and Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s leadership, our border is secure. We can either capitalize on this success and give law enforcement the resources it needs to keep it secure by passing the One Big, Beautiful Bill, or we can let the sacrifice of our men and women on the ground be in vain. 

Considering the sheer size and prior dismantling of our southern border, what Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Coast Guard, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have managed to accomplish is remarkable. They cut daily encounters with illegal aliens by 95%, seized billions of dollars worth of cocaine and over 3,000 pounds of illicit fentanyl, and deported hundreds of gang members and terrorists.  

On day one of President Trump’s second term, he deployed the U.S. military to help secure our border and protect our homeland. This includes Kansas’ own 1st Infantry Division, or "The Big Red One," stationed at Fort Riley, which has been deployed to Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, Arizona. 

Recently, I traveled to the southern border alongside law enforcement officers from Kansas – to personally thank these soldiers and all CBP officers for their service.

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What I saw was encouraging – morale is high and there is a clear hop in their step. However, resources are stretched thin, and their work is far from over. 

A full one-third of the cameras used by CBP to monitor the border are not working. While the administration has built nearly 80 miles of border wall, the CBP relies on these cameras to cover the areas that lack a wall. We need those cameras and a completed wall to ensure that no future president can throw open our border to the entire world ever again.  

CBP also patrols nearly 2,000 miles along the southern border – much of it in hostile and difficult terrain. Yet, its vehicle fleet is simply not up to the task.  

Cartels are now trying to circumvent our closed land borders by smuggling drugs over the high seas. At the same time, the Coast Guard – charged with securing our maritime border – is facing its greatest readiness crisis since World War II. 

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Its fleet of cutters is aging, a lack of manpower and funding caused six stations to be shut down, and under Biden, it missed its recruitment goals for four straight years. Secretary Noem has stopped the bleeding, and new recruits are flooding in, but only Congress can give the service what it needs to shut the cartels down once and for all.   

Under Biden, over 1.7 million illegal immigrants evaded Border Patrol. These are the worst of the worst: dangerous gang members, terrorists and violent criminals. ICE is quite literally so successful at arresting these criminals that they are running out of space to house them as they prepare them for removal. And, without sufficient ICE officers on the ground, we will never be able to fulfill President Trump’s mandate to deport 1 million illegal aliens per year.  

Our brave men and women in law enforcement and the military need more funding, they need more materials and they need more personnel. Now that the House has passed the One Big, Beautiful Bill, we must step up and get it to President Trump’s desk.  

Passing this bill is the only way we can ensure that our border stays secure. It will provide more than $46 billion to finish building the border wall and fix those broken cameras. It also appropriates $1 billion for CBP to replace its inadequate vehicle fleet.  

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The Coast Guard will receive $21 billion to help it acquire new cutters, airframes and 15,000 new coasties. Every dollar spent will help them break up smuggling networks and keep fentanyl – the deadly drug that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans – out of our communities.  

The bill will also provide ICE with the funding it needs to hire and train 10,000 new agents – reinforcements that are much needed. ICE officers are facing down some of the worst criminals in our country every day, and they are facing a 412% increase in assaults. Just the other week, an ICE officer was injured while arresting a criminal alien. ICE needs backup, and it needed it yesterday.  

Super Bowl-winning teams know that in the offseason, the work doesn’t stop. New players must be drafted, trained and prepped for another championship run.  

We have bought ourselves a hard-earned reprieve, but the invasion may resume if we fail to capitalize on our success.

The men and women out there, on the ground, are fighting the good fight. They have our backs every day. Now, we need to return the favor. It is the very least the Senate can do to give them the tools they need to win that fight. Pass the One Big, Beautiful Bill.

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