[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 19, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6130-S6137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IMMIGRATION REFORM
Mr. REID. Madam President, today marks the 510th day as so well
represented on the poster the Senator from California had on display.
That is how long it has been since we passed an immigration reform
bill--comprehensive immigration reform. The House of Representatives
simply has refused to address this issue. They have refused to address
the fact that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be
fixed. All the Speaker would have to do is bring this up for a vote and
it would pass. The bill that passed here 510 days ago would pass the
House overwhelmingly. But he refuses to bring it up.
In this bill we passed 73 weeks ago, we were able to pass
comprehensive immigration reform because Senate Democrats and
Republicans recognized that our immigration laws are failing the
American people. We sent that same bipartisan bill to the House 17
months ago. For the last 17 months, the House Republicans, led by a
small, vocal, really radical group, has forced the Speaker, I assume,
not to do anything. They have neglected to tackle the real issues
affecting our immigration system.
We have talked about 510 days, we have talked about 73 weeks, and we
have talked about 17 months. That is enough time for them to consider
the bill the Senate considered and passed in just a few weeks, but they
still refuse to do anything, even as families across the country have
been ripped apart.
I have been present at meetings, meetings--I remember one of the last
at the White House--where the Republican leaders of the House and
Senate have said: Give us some time, give us some time. We have given
them time--510 days, to be exact. And they are always saying: Let's do
something. Well, something is not enough, they need to do comprehensive
immigration reform, and they refuse to do that.
So in light of the fact that families are being ripped apart--and
there is no question they are. The first time I saw this, where I
really felt it in my heart, Bill Richardson, with whom I served in the
House--he was Secretary of Energy and Ambassador to the United
Nations--he came to Las Vegas, and he said: Let's go out to the Rafael
Rivera Center. It was, at the time, a new place, named after the first
non-Indian to see the Las Vegas valley--Rafael Rivera. I have a
painting in my office that reflects that. So we went to that center,
and I can remember so clearly these mostly women crying over the fact
that their husbands had lost their jobs, they were being deported, and
they had little American boys and girls there with them. These were
boys and girls who had been born in the United States. I thought, gee,
that is terrible. I mean the suffering and the sadness. I have never
forgotten that, and that is one of the main reasons I have worked so
hard on immigration reform.
In light of the Republicans' inaction, and our action and our
advocacy of this issue, it seems to me what the President said at his
State of the Union Address is really applicable here. Here is what he
said: If the Republicans continue to do nothing, I am going to be
forced as the President of the United States to do something by
Executive order. And I am glad. I am glad he is going, in the next
couple of days for sure, to use his constitutionally established
authority to fix as much of our broken immigration system as is
possible. He told everybody he was going to do it in his State of the
Union and he has waited and waited and nothing has happened.
Some Republicans are threatening to shut down the government. They
have done it once before, so I guess we should take their threat
seriously. They want to shut down the government because of what the
President said he is going to do and what he is going to do. But this
isn't about the Republicans and President Obama, this is about where
the Republicans stand with the immigrant community.
My father-in-law, my wife's dad, was an immigrant. He was born in
Russia. He came to the United States to escape the oppression in
Russia. So this whole issue is about how Republicans stand with the
immigrant community.
The immigrant community is what has made this country what it is.
Those who will come forward under this Executive action the President
is going to take are, with rare exception, hard-working immigrant dads
and moms who are supporting their families. They came to America for
the same reasons early immigrants came to America, just like my father-
in-law, Earl Gould, did. By the way, he changed his name when he came
to the United States. He came here as Israel Goldfarb, and he changed
his name, as many immigrants have done.
As my father-in-law did, the people who are going to come here under
this Executive order can build a better life for themselves and their
families. They have deep ties in America. They work hard. As I have
indicated, they have spouses and children. Under our broken immigration
system, there is no line for these people to get into, no process for
them to sign up for, and no way to remedy this situation. They are in
limbo. They are in the shadows. They are in darkness.
President Obama, fortunately, is going to do something to give them
just that, a line to come forward, a line that he recognizes must be
done to get the system started.
We can't give these people their green cards and put them on the path
to citizenship immediately. Only Congress can and must finish the job
in overhauling and rewriting these laws. I want to be clear that
Executive action is important, but it is not a substitute for
legislation, and the Speaker should understand that.
Yes, we passed a bill. The President will be happy to sign such a
bill. But because Republicans have refused to legislate, President
Obama is taking what steps he can to keep these families together and
enforce the laws. The President is acting within his legal authority to
use his Executive power to improve the immigration system.
Did he just dream this up one night meeting with his staff? Did
someone suddenly come to him and say, I have a great idea. Why don't we
try to do something different? He is going to do something that has
been tried 39 times since Dwight Eisenhower was President. Virtually
every President since Eisenhower was President has done Executive
actions as relates to immigration.
I would also say to my Republican friends who are always talking
about, boy, we have to do something important financially for the good
of this country, why not pass this bill? It would benefit our country
to the tune of $1 trillion.
I strongly support the steps the President is going to take. I
support him, and I hope he does it as soon as possible, because his
Executive action will help keep families together and focus law
enforcement resources on real criminals.
We have waited a long time for House Republicans. Since they won't
act, the President will, and he should act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise today to remind my colleagues that
it has been over 500 days since the Senate passed a strong bipartisan
bill to fix our broken immigration system.
There is a lot of hand-wringing going on on the other side of the
aisle about the President taking Executive action, as he has now
announced he intends to do. Republicans are saying that anything and
everything is on the table to stop the President from taking Executive
action. Well, if the bounds are anything and everything, I have a
suggestion. Pass our bill. It is a very simple suggestion.
If the House votes on our bipartisan bill, the discussion about
Executive action would be made moot. It is the other body of Congress
that has led us to the point where we are today. The only reason the
administration has to take Executive action is because the
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House has failed to address our broken immigration system. I think
everyone on our side agrees it would be far preferable to pass the
bipartisan bill that passed the Senate 68 to 32 than any Executive
action.
Let me say a few things. The bill is a bipartisan bill with support
from every corner of the political map--business, labor, evangelicals,
Catholics--and it has been sitting on the shelf gathering dust for 500
days. So it is the absolute height of hypocrisy for House leadership to
say that now Congress should be in the driver's seat on immigration
reform when they refused to take the wheel.
And let me say this, Mr. President. I don't think anyone has any
faith that if they were given another 3 months or 6 months or 9 months
that they would come to any kind of real bill. They can't. They have
the tea party. Such a high percentage of their primary voters strongly
argue against doing a bill. In fact, many of those tea party types are
saying shut down the government.
The dithering and dawdling on the House side is particularly
perplexing because our bill would achieve so many goals the Republicans
claim are part of their agenda. It would secure the border, create
jobs, add economic growth, and cut the deficit.
The bipartisan bill that passed the Senate provides more than $40
billion to secure our border. This would mean more than doubling the
Border Patrol presence on our Southwest border, completing the border
fence, setting up much more surveillance technology--sensors, drones,
many of which are so good they can detect--these are the drones that
surveil, not shoot--they can detect the difference when a deer or a
person crosses the border. They are not on the border now.
Yes, the border needs help. Blocking our bill, not passing our bill,
keeps the status quo, which nobody likes. Passing our bill solves the
problem. With a Republican amendment authored by the Senator from
Tennessee, Senator Corker, and the Senator from North Dakota, Senator
Hoeven, that tightens up the border tougher than it has ever been.
The bipartisan bill also strengthens interior enforcement of our
immigration laws. So many of my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle keep saying E-Verify, E-Verify, E-Verify. Well, it is in the bill
to crack down on unscrupulous employers requiring an entry-exit
tracking system at our airports and seaports to catch people who
overstay their visas, and reforming and clarifying the list of violent
crimes that make an immigrant deportable so law enforcement officials
have the tools they need to keep us safe.
For America to remain competitive, we must have a legal immigration
system that works. Right now we have it backwards. We turn away people
who would create jobs. Our bipartisan bill will change all that for
farm workers, tech firms, entrepreneurs, and so many more, while
leveling the playing field for American workers. Because of internal
enforcement, when someone crosses the border and doesn't have a real
job available and has no family connection, they can't stay. They won't
get a job.
Many of our labor friends are for this bill. The construction trades,
which probably suffer more from illegal immigration than any other, are
strongly for our bill. The bill clears the employment and visa backlogs
so American businesses can have access to the workers they need and
their families will be united, decreases family wait times at our
bridges and ports of entry. It is great for the tourism industry,
making it easier for foreign travelers to spend their dollars here
instead of somewhere else and, finally, a tough but fair pathway to
citizenship.
The other side says it is amnesty. They are listening to Rush
Limbaugh--amnesty, amnesty, amnesty. Amnesty means you get away with it
without paying a price. Here is the price someone has to pay if they
cross the border illegally: No. 1, they have to pay all their back
taxes; No. 2, they have to keep working; No. 3, they have to admit
wrongdoing; No. 4, they have to pay a fine; No. 5, they have to learn
English; No. 6, they have to go to the back of the line, which is what
our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have always asked for.
This system was set up by none other than Marco Rubio in our Gang of
8, and it says: If somebody crossed the border illegally in 2008, but
someone else has waited patiently at the Embassy since 2007, the 2007
person gets to come into this country before the 2008 person.
Because of all this, here is what the bill does:
First, it would grow the economy by 3.3 percent over the next 10
years and 5.5 percent over 20. No Republican tax cut, no Democratic
spending program would have that effect--and without any cost to the
deficit. In fact, at the same time we are growing our economy with this
proposal--this is CBO, not Chuck Schumer--we reduce the deficit by $150
billion in the next 10 years and $900 billion over the next 20 years.
So $1 trillion in savings, as we benefit America.
The bill has unprecedented support: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the
guardian of business interests; the AFL-CIO, the protector of American
workers; the faith community, evangelicals, Protestants, Mormons. The
liberal and conservative religious sectors in America are for our bill,
America's farmers, growers, and American farmworkers, law enforcement,
the immigrant rights community.
So the historic coalition came together because again this bill
strengthens our borders and national security, provides an enormous
boost for the American economy, fairly and conclusively addresses the
status of people here illegally, and prevents future waves of illegal
immigrants.
When we got this bill passed we were almost certain the House would
pass it. It is a conservative bill, and try and try and try as they
might, they couldn't. So now we are up to the last hours of this
Congress and there is one more chance. Just put the bill on the floor,
Speaker Boehner. You don't have to twist a single arm. It has the votes
to pass. It will do America so much good.
I love America. I want to see us stay No. 1 in every way and
economically above all. This bill will do it more than anything else we
could do.
I would say to my colleagues, don't be afraid of the Tea Party. They
are afraid of the word ``amnesty,'' even though the bill is not amnesty
at all as I mentioned. But Rush Limbaugh says ``amnesty'' incessantly,
and I know my Republican colleagues--I am a political guy in some
ways--they are afraid primary voters that skew far right believe it is
amnesty. The Tea Party may be a sliver of the American public, but they
are a huge percentage of primary voters in too many Republican
districts and that is what they are afraid of. Talk about courage. Talk
about loving the country. Talk about doing the right thing. We have to
pass the bill.
The real Republican Party position on immigration is pretend to be
pro-immigration reform rhetorically but never allow immigration reform
to come to a vote. That is the bad news.
The good news is there is still time to fix it. So I urge my
colleagues, avoid this conundrum, avoid your dilemma that you will
create. Pass the bill, and we will not even have to debate Executive
action.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have come to the floor to talk about
one of the most important issues facing our Nation as we have been
hearing for the past 15 minutes; that is, our longstanding, desperate
need to finally fix our Nation's broken immigration system.
Too often in the debate about immigration it is difficult for some
people to understand that the millions of undocumented families in our
country are already an important part of our communities. Immigrants
work hard and they pay their taxes, they send their children to
American schools, and they make up a critical part of the fabric of our
society. They are Americans in all but name.
So when we talk about immigration reform, we are not talking about
some vague philosophical issue. This is an issue that impacts families,
it impacts our businesses, it impacts our national security, and it
impacts what we stand for as Americans.
It is not a new issue either. It is something we have been debating
and arguing about for more than a decade, but it is something we have
never been able to tackle, and that is not for the lack of trying.
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As everyone here remembers, more than 500 days ago now the Senate did
something remarkable. Members from different backgrounds and different
States and different parties came together to reach an agreement, and
in the Senate we passed a real bipartisan coalition of 68 Republicans
and Democrats, a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would
finally start to fix our broken immigration system.
As we heard from the Senator from New York, it would improve our
security, provide businesses with the certainty they need, and provide
a real path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants
who are forced to live in the shadows.
Not only was this bill a step toward fixing our broken immigration
system, it was good for our economy. The Congressional Budget Office
estimated that the Senate bill would reduce the deficit by nearly $1
trillion over the next two decades.
So we sent the bill to the House of Representatives knowing the path
forward there might not be easy, but we heard from Members of the House
on both sides of the aisle that they also knew immigration reform had
to happen this Congress.
Back then, in June of 2013, we knew we had time on our side. Speaker
Boehner had a full year and a half to do one simple thing, bring the
bipartisan Senate bill up for a vote. We knew then what we still know
today; that if the Speaker brought that bill up for a vote, it would
pass with bipartisan support and become law.
But instead of doing that, the Speaker sided with the Tea Party and
refused to move our country forward. He has made it very clear that the
House will refuse to act this Congress and ignore the historic
opportunity we have.
For years and years millions of immigrant families who have played by
the rules--paid their taxes, raised their children in the United
States--have waited and waited for action. They have organized, they
have hoped and they have prayed and they have trusted the system would
eventually work. The system has failed. So now it is time to act.
President Obama has made it clear that because the House refuses to
act--because the House refuses to act--he will take administrative
action before the end of the year to improve our immigration system,
and I support his decision to do that.
The President's authority to take action is well established. In
fact, every President since Eisenhower, including Presidents Reagan and
George H.W. Bush, has used his authority to improve the administration
of our immigration system and to focus enforcement resources on serious
criminals rather than on hard-working immigrants with deep roots in our
communities.
When the President does act, I have encouraged him to do several
things: expand the already successful implementation of deferred action
for DREAMers to include people with strong ties to the United States
who have not committed serious crimes; to change implementation of our
laws to make immigration and border enforcement humane,
nondiscriminatory, and respectful of due process; and, finally, I have
asked the President to improve the legal immigration system to keep
immigrant families together, to protect our workers, and to provide
employers--from agricultural producers to high-tech firms--certainty in
a system that has often left them without answers.
But I also want to be very clear that administrative action is not a
long-term solution. Plain and simple, the only way for us to
permanently and effectively fix our broken immigration laws is through
comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Administrative action is
a bandaid, but it is better than nothing, and nothing is what the House
Republicans are offering.
So I also wish to say it has been deeply disappointing to hear that
some of my Republican colleagues are now threatening to shut down the
government just to keep families from getting some initial relief from
the pain our broken immigration system is causing. That is the latest
example of extreme Republicans creating uncertainty and threatening to
hurt our economy if they don't get their way, and it is the exact
opposite of the approach Congress needs to take going forward.
We all know what happens when Tea Party Republicans go down this
road. We saw it just last year when we had a 16-day government shutdown
that brought the day-to-day workings of the government and businesses
across the country to a screeching halt. That shutdown, we all know,
was bad for our economy. It hit workers' paychecks, it made families
across our country question whether their elected officials could get
anything done at all. It was all because of a failed Tea Party
political effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the umpteenth
time.
Look. Even children understand that flipping the table over doesn't
help win the game. It just means someone has to pick up the mess they
just made. When it comes to Tea Party political tactics, we have seen
more than enough of that in this Congress.
As we all remember, the budget deal I reached with Chairman Ryan
wasn't perfect--I know Chairman Ryan would say the same thing--but it
was an important step away from brinkmanship and toward bipartisanship
on the budget.
In the next week Republican leaders are going to have an important
choice to make. They can choose bipartisanship and continue to push the
Tea Party aside and work with Democrats on issues such as the budget
and fixing our broken immigration system or they can go back to Tea
Party-style governing by crisis, which hurts families and communities
and our economy and will make it much more difficult to put in place
the lasting comprehensive immigration reform we need.
I urge them to take the bipartisan path. I am ready and willing to
work with them if they do, and I know my Democratic colleagues are as
well. I know our country will be stronger for it now and for decades to
come.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Washington for
her strong statement. It makes so much sense.
We have this poster here, ``510 Days.'' That is how long ago the
Senate passed the bipartisan immigration bill that Senator Murray
talked about and Senator Schumer talked about. That is 17 months; 510
days is 17 months.
So here is the deal. The Republicans in the House refuse to take up
the Senate bill, which strengthens the border while giving a pathway of
legality to hard-working immigrants here who are undocumented.
It is pretty simple but comprehensive--common sense. Here is the
thing: They will not take up the bill. So then we say: What is your
idea? Where is your bill? They don't have one.
So then President Obama, knowing we have 11 million undocumented
immigrants living in America, realizes he can't let this matter go on.
He has waited 100 days, 200 days, 300 days, 400 days, 500 days. The
country has waited for 17 months.
So the President is going to do what Presidents are supposed to do,
which is look at a problem that is hurting the country and do his best
to fix it. The President has said to the House he would be thrilled to
sign the bipartisan immigration bill the Senate passed. Take it up and
pass it.
Oh, no. Do you know what their answer is? To verbally threaten the
President and, frankly, the American people by such comments as--this
is one that I heard the Republican leader Mitch McConnell say: If he
does this, if he takes this action, if he takes action on immigration,
it would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
No, it wouldn't be. It would be a President who understands that
action is needed. Guess what. Eleven other Presidents, Republican and
Democrat, have taken Executive action on immigration. I never in all my
years ever heard one Republican take to task any of those other
Presidents, and I will give you the list of who they are: Presidents
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George Bush,
Sr., Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and President Obama used his
authority for the DREAMers.
The charts are being held up to show you how many actions have been
taken. We have these two charts here that show a lot of Executive
actions by Presidents on immigration.
What is wrong with my Republican friends? Do they not know history or
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are they just blindly attacking this President because they are annoyed
that he got reelected?
Step up to the plate, smell the roses, look at the reality. The
reality is all these other Presidents have taken action. Look what the
immigration council says, the American Immigration Council said:
Past Republican presidents have not been shy to use the
White House's power to retool immigration policy. In fact,
Obama could learn a lot from Presidents Ronald Reagan's and
George H.W. Bush's Executive actions to preserve the unity of
immigrant families and move past congressional refusal to
enact immigration reform.
So, Earth to the Republicans: You refuse to take up the bipartisan
Senate bill which strengthens our border while giving a legal path to
citizenship or legality to our undocumented, making sure that those who
commit crimes are deported. We look at what is happening in our ag
community and fix that. They won't do it.
So they are stamping their foot and saying what President Obama wants
to do is unconstitutional. Excuse me, unconstitutional? Presidents
Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Eisenhower--I read the list. They never said
that before. They never said that before. Carter, Kennedy, Johnson,
Nixon, Ford, Clinton, Bush, Sr., Reagan, George W., and Obama. Now they
say to the President--and I don't have the exact quote. We heard a
comment from the Republican leader. What they are basically saying to
the President is, If you do your job, we are going to be mad. And what
the President has said to them is, Please do your job. If you do your
job, I won't have to take Executive action. I would prefer to have this
in legislation. And as Senator Murray has said, that is the preferable
road. But they either won't do it or they don't want to do it or they
want another confrontation with the President.
I think it was John Boehner, the Republican Speaker, who said if the
President takes this Executive action, which as I have shown you many
other Presidents have done, he will ``poison the well.'' He is telling
the President that if the President does his job--my words--as 11
Presidents have done, it will ``poison the well.''
And what are they going to do about it? Who knows. Are they going to
try to impeach the President or sue the President? I guess they have to
impeach 10 others.
And by the way, I wrote the President a letter and asked him to take
Executive action. In my view, it is absolutely necessary, because if
you follow the law, 11 million people could be deported--our neighbors,
our friends, families would be split up.
I thought Republicans were the party of family values. Family
values--I have been lectured on family values. Somehow if one supports
a woman's right to choose and to get health care, it is not following
family values, but one can break up families and have parents and
children separated, and that, I guess, doesn't fall under the
definition.
It has been 17 months since we passed our bill and either they are
too lazy to take it up or they don't want to take it up. They would
rather threaten this President. I just have to tell them, we have a
Congress, we have a court system, and we have a President. We don't
have President McConnell, we don't have President Boehner, we don't
have President Reid, we don't have President Boxer. We have President
Obama, and he has to do his job. If you don't like it, that is fine.
Lord knows I have served with five Presidents. I didn't agree with them
half the time, but I didn't threaten to shut down the government or
impeach them or sue them.
Now here is the deal: Why can't they find time to take up our bill?
They have voted 50 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act--50 times--
but they cannot find time to debate or pass a bill to reform our
Nation's immigration laws.
I served in the House for 10 years. The rules in the House are easy.
It is nothing like the Senate where you need unanimous consent to do
anything, to even open up the Senate. In the House, if the majority,
who are now the Republicans, wants to introduce a bill, all they have
to do is introduce a bill.
They won't do it. It has been 17 months. Then the President says, oh,
my God, we have got an issue here. Everyone agrees we have 11 million
undocumented immigrants here. We have issues at the border. We have
issues at detention facilities. We have issues in the ag industry. We
have issues of families being torn apart. The President is going to do
what he can do, just as 10 other Presidents have done previously. So
what does he get in response from our Republican friends? Nothing that
would allay our concerns. They don't say, Mr. President, we understand
your frustration. Don't worry, we will get a bill done. It may not be
the same as the Senate. We have other ideas. They do nothing. They are
do-nothing and they want our President to be do-nothing when it comes
to immigration.
Frankly, if our President did not take action, it would be a terrible
mistake. I have already established that he is within his
constitutional rights. He would be joining 10 other Presidents who, by
the way, acted on 40 occasions over the last 60 years. So here is a
group of Republicans threatening to impeach the President, sue the
President, shut down the government over something that 11 Presidents
have done over the past 60 years on 40 occasions. I never ever, ever
heard one Republican or Democrat threaten to shut down the government
when a President took action over immigration.
The Republicans won't act. So what do they think is going to happen,
status quo? The status quo doesn't work. It is not working at the
border. It is not working for our families. It is not working at the
workplace. It is not working in our communities.
I was in the House when President Reagan signed into law a major
immigration bill legalizing 3 million immigrants in 1986, and then the
Congress didn't do the next step. They didn't take the next step. So he
took Executive action to stop deportations that would interfere with
family reunification. President Reagan--I didn't hear one Republican
threaten to impeach the President, sue the President, take action, shut
down the government, make life miserable for the American people. No.
But they are doing it now.
In 1990, President George Herbert Walker Bush directed his Attorney
General to halt deportations of an estimated 190,000 Salvadorans who
were fleeing the civil war there, and he used his power to halt the
deportation of up to 1.5 million spouses and children. I did not hear
one Republican--not one--threaten to sue the President, threaten to
take him to court, threaten to impeach him, threaten to shut down the
government and make life miserable for the American people.
President Bush's family fairness policy Executive action was
sweeping. It affected more than 40 percent of the undocumented
population in the United States at the time. He thought big--George
Bush, Sr.--he thought big, and this President should think big.
I will tell you why. If you ask economic experts what are the best
measures we can do for our economy, they are clear about it. They say
one measure we should implement is to raise the minimum wage. We
Democrats are trying to do that and we will never give up trying to do
that. Reforming immigration is another measure that is one of the best
ways to stimulate our economy and create jobs, and it is all laid out
in a USC study which shows that immigration reform with a path to
citizenship would inject $8 billion into my State's economy--my State
of California--each year--$8 billion each year. Nationwide it would
increase our gross domestic product by $1.5 trillion over 10 years,
increase wages for workers, and lead to between 750,000 to 900,000 new
jobs. That is almost a million new jobs created, according to the
Center for American Progress.
So help me out here, Republicans. What is your problem? You never
complained when Republican Presidents took Executive action to fix a
broken immigration system. You say you are for jobs and the economy and
business, and if you look at the support for immigration reform, it
runs right through our society from the Chambers of Commerce to labor
and everybody in between. And if we don't act, the dire situation of
undocumented immigrants will only get worse. Families will continue to
be torn apart. People will continue to live in the shadows. The reason
our economy will be thriving once people get out of the shadows is they
are not afraid to come out. They are not afraid to buy a house. They
are not afraid to spend money. They are not afraid to start new
businesses. They
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are not afraid to hire workers. It is a no-brainer. This is one of the
most important things we can do for our economy, for jobs, for
prosperity, for our communities.
In closing, because I see my friend from Connecticut is here, and I
want to yield the floor, there are two priorities that are at stake: a
healthy economy--and I have laid that out--and family values. The
American people, including the people of California, support bold and
compassionate action on immigration reform. We have already established
that the President has the legal authority to act just as other
Presidents of both parties have in the past.
I say to the President today, as I have said to him in writing, if
you act you will have my strong support and you will have the support
of so many people across this country. You will keep our families
together, you will strengthen our economy, and you will make our
country stronger.
I say to the House again, while you are still here in Washington, if
you don't want the President to fill the void for your lack of action,
then take up and pass the Senate immigration bill. Get to work. If you
don't like that bill, then make another bill, but take care of this
problem because if you continue to be a do-nothing House when it comes
to immigration, I can assure you this President will not follow your
lead and be a do-nothing President when it comes to immigration. That
would be terribly wrong. It would be wrong not only for our immigrant
community but for every single one of us.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have two articles printed
in the Record, along with an article in the National Journal that
details the number of times Presidents have used their authority to act
on immigration.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From huffingtonpost.com, Nov. 15, 2014]
Reagan, Bush Also Acted Without Congress To Shield Immigrants From
Deportation
(By Andrew Taylor)
Washington (AP).--Two presidents have acted unilaterally on
immigration--and both were Republican. Ronald Reagan and his
successor George H.W. Bush extended amnesty to family members
who were not covered by the last major overhaul of
immigration law in 1986.
Neither faced the political uproar widely anticipated if
and when President Barack Obama uses his executive authority
to protect millions of immigrants from deportation.
Reagan's and Bush's actions were conducted in the wake of a
sweeping, bipartisan immigration overhaul and at a time when
``amnesty'' was not a dirty word. Their actions were less
controversial because there was a consensus in Washington
that the 1986 law needed a few fixes and Congress was poised
to act on them. Obama is acting as the country--and
Washington--are bitterly divided over a broken immigration
system and what to do about 11 million people living in the
U.S. illegally.
Obama wants to extend protection from deportation to
millions of immigrant parents and spouses of U.S. citizens
and permanent residents, and expand his 2-year-old program
that shields immigrants brought illegally to this country as
children.
A tea party-influenced GOP is poised to erupt, if and when
Obama follows through on his promise.
``The audacity of this president to think he can completely
destroy the rule of law with the stroke of a pen is
unfathomable to me,'' said GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa, an
outspoken opponent of relaxing U.S. immigration law. ``It is
unconstitutional, it is cynical, and it violates the will of
the American people.''
Some Republicans have even raised the possibility of
impeachment.
Here's a timeline of then and now:
1986. Congress and Reagan enacted a sweeping overhaul that
gave legal status to up to 3 million immigrants without
authorization to be in the country, if they had come to the
U.S. before 1982. Spouses and children who could not meet
that test did not qualify, which incited protests that the
new law was breaking up families.
1987. Early efforts in Congress to amend the law to cover
family members failed. Reagan's Immigration and
Naturalization Service commissioner announced that minor
children of parents granted amnesty by the law would get
protection from deportation. Spouses and children of couples
in which one parent qualified for amnesty but the other did
not remained subject to deportation, leading to efforts to
amend the 1986 law.
1989. By a sweeping 81-17 vote, the Senate in July voted to
prohibit deportations of family members of immigrants covered
by the 1986 law. The House failed to act.
1990. In February, President George H.W. Bush, acting
through the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
established a ``family fairness'' in which family members
living with a legalizing immigrant and who were in the U.S.
before passage of the 1986 law were granted protection from
deportation and authorized to seek employment. The
administration estimated up to 1.5 million people would be
covered by the policy. Congress in October passed a broader
immigration law that made the protections permanent.
2012. In July, the Obama administration announces a new
policy curbing deportations for certain immigrants brought
illegally to the country as kids. The policy, Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), applies to people younger than
30 who were brought to the U.S. before they turned 16 and
meet other criteria such as graduating high school. It has
now granted two-year deportation reprieves and work permits
to nearly 600,000 people.
2013-2014 (Congress). After months of work, the Senate in
June 2013 passes, 68-32, a huge immigration overhaul bill
that includes a path to citizenship for immigrants who meet
strict criteria. The House fails to act. In a televised
interview with Telemundo, Obama says expanding the DACA
program to cover the parents of children allowed to remain in
the country under the program ``would be ignoring the law in
a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally.
So that's not an option.''
2014 Frustrated by Congress' inability to act on
immigration, Obama announces in June that he'll use executive
powers to address other elements of the flawed immigration
system. Like Bush, Obama is expected to extend deportation
protections to families of U.S. citizens or permanent
residents. Obama's anticipated action would not award legal
status, but it would offer temporary protection from
deportation to up to 5 million people, as well as the
possibility of obtaining a work permit. He delayed action
until after Election Day. On Monday, Democratic leaders sent
a letter to Obama saying they strongly support his plans to
take executive action on immigration.
____
[From the hill.com, Oct. 2, 2014]
When Reagan and GHW Bush Took Bold Executive Action on Immigration
(By Mark Noferi)
Congressional Republicans are outraged that President Obama
may take executive action on immigration reform after the
mid-term elections--perhaps by deferring deportations and
providing work authorization to millions of unauthorized
immigrants with strong family ties to the United States.
However, past Republican presidents have not been shy to use
the White House's power to retool immigration policy. In
fact, Obama could learn a lot from presidents Ronald Reagan's
and George H. W. Bush's executive actions to preserve the
unity of immigrant families, and move past Congressional
refusal to enact immigration reform.
The story begins on November 6, 1986, when Reagan signed
the last comprehensive legalization bill to pass Congress.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) gave up to 3
million unauthorized immigrants a path to legalization if
they had been ``continuously'' present in the U.S. since
January 1, 1982. But the new law excluded their spouses and
children who didn't qualify. As the Senate Judiciary
Committee stated at the time, ``the families of legalized
aliens . . . will be required to ``wait in line'.
Immediately, these split-eligibility families became the
most polarizing national immigration issue. U.S. Catholic
bishops criticized the government's ``separation of
families,'' especially given Reagan's other pro-family
stances. In early 1987, members of Congress introduced
legislation to legalize family members, but without success.
Shortly after Congress' failure, Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) commissioner Alan Nelson
announced he was ``exercising the Attorney General's
discretion'' to assure that children would ``be covered'' by
legalization. The administration granted a blanket deferral
of deportation (logistically similar to today's Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals program) for children under 18
who were living in a two-parent household with both parents
legalizing, or with a single parent who was legalizing.
Lawmakers and advocates, however, urged Reagan to go
further. Spouses and some children who had one parent able to
legalize but not the other remained unprotected. A California
immigrants' rights group called this ``contrary to the
American tradition of keeping families together.'' And as
Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) told the INS, ``If you have the
discretion to protect children, why not a family?''
In July 1989, the Senate moved to protect a bigger group--
all spouses and children of those who legalized under IRCA.
The Senate passed legislation 81-17 that prohibited the
administration from deporting family members of immigrants in
the process of legalizing and directed officials to grant
them work authorization. The House failed to act on the
Senate's bill.
George Bush Sr. then responded in February 1990 by
administratively implementing the Senate bill's provisions
himself. As Bush's INS Commissioner, Gene McNary, stated:
``It is vital that we enforce the law against illegal entry.
However, we can enforce the law humanely. To split families
encourages further violations of the law as they reunite.''
Under Bush's ``family fairness'' policy, applicants had to
meet certain criteria, and reapply to the INS every year for
extensions.
[[Page S6135]]
The Bush administration anticipated its family fairness
program could help enormous numbers of immigrants--up to 1.5
million family members, which amounted to over 40 percent of
the 3.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. at the
time.
After the Bush administration moved, the House followed. In
March 1990, 33 House members introduced legislation with
similar provisions to stay deportation of family members. In
October, Congress then passed a combined Immigration Act of
1990, with a permanent ``Family Unity'' provision. The Act
broadened Bush's family fairness policy to include children
under 21 and increased family immigration visas, ultimately
providing more families a path to citizenship.
If voters thought Bush overstepped his authority, the
midterm elections didn't show it. In 1990, the Republicans
lost a scant nine House seats and one Senate seat (out of 33
up for election)--far lower than average midterm losses by a
president's party. Bush then signed the Act in November,
hailing it as continuing ``support for the family as the
essential unit of society'' and ``our tradition of family
reunification.'' (Bush did issue a signing statement
reserving the ``authority of the executive branch to exercise
prosecutorial discretion in suitable immigration cases.'')
The success of the Reagan-Bush family fairness policy
serves as a strikingly similar historical precedent for
Obama. Bush Sr. ``went big'' to treat families fairly--
deferring deportations for over 40 percent of unauthorized
immigrants. Reportedly, Obama's actions could be similarly
broad and help up to 5 million immigrants--over 40 percent of
today's unauthorized population. Bush Sr.'s actions gave
immigrants a safe haven and spurred the House to act without
negative impacts in the subsequent midterms. And the Reagan-
Bush fairness policy deferred deportations to protect
families, compared to previous uses of presidential authority
to protect war refugees or immigrants stranded by a foreign
policy crisis.
We don't know what executive action Obama will take. But we
can say with certainty that presidents Ronald Reagan and
George H. W. Bush led the way.
____
Critics Say Executive Action on Immigration Would Be Unprecedented.
They Forget Their History
Presidents have almost always acted first to permit immigration or
prevent deportation--with Congress ratifying those actions later on.
(By Charles Kamasaki)
The president's announcement that he would soon take
executive action to ``to do what he could'' to fix a broken
immigration system in the absence of legislation has prompted
critics to assert that this would be unprecedented unless
first authorized by Congress. In fact, the record
demonstrates the opposite. For at least the last 70 years,
presidents have routinely acted first to permit the entry of
people outside normal channels or to protect large numbers of
people from deportation, with legislation ratifying the
executive action coming later.
During World War II, the Roosevelt administration
negotiated a temporary worker arrangement with the Mexican
government, later known as the Bracero program, an action
Congress ratified a year later. When the authorization
expired in 1947, the Truman administration continued the
program until it was reauthorized in 1951. Before it ended in
1964, millions of workers entered the United States under the
auspices of the Bracero program, hundreds of thousands under
executive--not legislative--authority. The program was
rightly criticized for numerous labor and human-rights
violations, but few questioned the executive authority it
operated under.
After the war ended, President Truman used his executive
authority to permit 250,000 people from Europe to enter or
stay in the U.S. outside normal immigration channels. It was
only three years after this exercise of discretion that
Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act, permitting some
400,000 additional entries.
In April 1975, at the end of the Vietnam War, President
Ford used parole authority to authorize the evacuation of
200,000 South Vietnamese to this country; it was not until a
month later that the Indochina Migration and Refugee Act of
1975 was enacted, providing resettlement funding for 130,000
of those parolees. Full legislative authorization to resettle
those fleeing Indochina did not come until 1980, when
Congress passed the Refugee Act, resulting in permanent
resettlement of 1.4 million Indochinese in the U.S.. Although
most entered as bona fide refugees, hundreds of thousands
were paroled into the country when statutorily authorized
numbers proved inadequate.
But these broad exercises of discretion were limited to
refugees fleeing wars a long time ago, right? Wrong.
Presidents have exercised their discretion more than 20 times
since the mid-1970s to permit people already in the U.S. from
being deported. Some sought to avoid return to a Soviet bloc
country. Iranians in the 1980s sought protection from the
regime that overthrew the shah and occupied the American
Embassy there. Afghans in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s
were protected first from the Soviet puppet state and later
from the Taliban. Others would have been returned to face
civil war or natural disasters abroad. Not until 2003,
several decades after the practice of country-specific relief
from deportation was first deployed, did Congress codify the
practice known as ``temporary protected status.''
The record also shows that Congress made many executive
orders of temporary relief permanent, often years after the
fact. As Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959, more than
900,000 Cubans fled to the United States, the vast majority
paroled into the country by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy,
and Johnson. Not until 1966, some seven years after the
influx began, was the Cuban Adjustment Act passed.
In 1980, 130,000 Mariel Cubans and nearly 40,000 Haitians
arrived in South Florida. Most, but not all, of the Cubans
were paroled into the U.S. by President Carter. Haitians
initially were protected from deportation by litigation
challenging the denials of their asylum claims; most of these
Haitians, and some Cubans whose entry had been challenged,
eventually received discretionary ``Cuban-Haitian entrant
status'' in the Reagan administration. Six years later, the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provided lawful
permanent resident status for Cuban-Haitian entrants.
In 1987, Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese
directed the Immigration and Naturalization Service not to
deport an estimated 200,000 Nicaraguans in the United States
without authorization, including those whose asylum claims
had been denied. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush
instructed his attorney general to provide ``deferred
enforced departure'' status to an estimated 190,000
Salvadorans fleeing civil war. In 1997, a decade after
Meese's initial action, Congress passed legislation
permitting these groups' adjustment to permanent residence.
In 1989, the Bush administration provided DED status to
80,000 Chinese students in the U.S. who feared returning to
the strife that eventually led to the Tiananmen Square
massacre and later issued an executive order extending their
status. Congress then passed the Chinese Student Protection
Act in 1992, three years following the initial executive
action, making the students eligible for green cards.
OK, but major exercises of prosecutorial discretion have
been used only for foreign policy reasons, right? Wrong
again. Executive actions have been used by every modern
administration on more than a dozen occasions to further
purely domestic policy objectives. After domestic
emergencies--the San Francisco earthquake, the 9/11 attack,
Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, and others--immigration officials
relaxed enforcement efforts to advance public health and
safety. Beginning with President Carter in 1980, every
administration has instructed immigration officials to reduce
enforcement efforts during the census.
Other exercises of discretion went beyond specific
emergencies or events. In 1977, Carter administration
Attorney General Griffin Bell suspended deportation of about
250,000 people unfairly denied visas by a quirk in the
allocation process. It was not until nearly a decade later,
via IRCA in 1986, that all of these cases were resolved.
In 1990, INS Commissioner Gene McNary issued a ``Family
Fairness'' policy deferring the deportation of 1.5 million
immediate family members of people receiving legalization
under IRCA, building on a more-limited exercise of discretion
in 1987 by Edwin Meese. Three years after Meese's original
executive action, Congress codified the action in the
Immigration Act of 1990.
In 1997, President Clinton provided DED status to some
40,000 Haitians previously paroled into the U.S. At the end
of the 105th Congress a year later, legislation passed
allowing these Haitians to permanently adjust their status.
The record is clear: Presidents of both parties have used
discretionary powers on multiple occasions to protect various
groups from deportation for an enormously wide variety of
reasons. Except for temporary conditions, Congress acted
later--often years later--to ratify the president's
decisions.
Looking back now, would we reverse any of these executive
actions? Should we have returned Eastern Europeans to behind
the Iron Curtain, Cambodians to the killing fields,
Ethiopians to a brutal civil war, Iranians to the arms of the
ayatollah, or Chinese students to face the tanks in Tiananmen
Square? Would we be better off without the Cubans and
Haitians who revitalized South Florida over the past 40
years? Were we wrong to prevent the separation of 1.5 million
people from family members getting right with the law under
IRCA's legalization?
Many of these actions were controversial when first
announced. But Congress later affirmed virtually all of
them--without explicitly reversing any of them--suggesting
that eventually they were widely accepted. Decades from now,
people looking back on President Obama's imminent
announcement of broad-scale executive action will see that he
prevented the separation of families, began fixing a badly
broken immigration system, and improved wages, housing, and
education for those receiving legal status, thus immeasurably
enriching the economy. They'll likely see that Congress later
ratified his actions, as happened so often before.
And, they'll wonder: what was all the fuss about?
Mrs. BOXER. I say to my colleagues who have come to the floor this
afternoon and are still to come to the floor, thank you.
Republicans have threatened to close down this government. They are
having a temper tantrum and refuse to act
[[Page S6136]]
on immigration and want to paralyze the Presidency.
It is time to get behind this President. It is time to get behind the
American people. It is time to take a stand for this economy and for
family values.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am grateful for the strong and
eloquent words that were said by my colleague Senator Boxer. I am
grateful to so many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle for
supporting the President as he considers Executive action that would
essentially enforce the law on immigration more rationally and
effectively, which is what prosecutorial discretion means.
As a former U.S. attorney as well as the State attorney general in my
own State for 20 years, I know about prosecutorial discretion. I know
that in exercising his discretion, the President is aware that there is
simply no way every undocumented person in the United States of America
can be deported tomorrow, let alone this year--probably ever.
There are 11.5 million undocumented people who live in the shadows,
and the question is, How do we use the resources of the Federal
Government most rationally and effectively to serve the public interest
and uphold the rule of law?
The question is, essentially, How should law enforcement use its
resources? That question arises every day in the United States when
there is a Federal or State prosecution. It arises every day on our
borders when the agents of our Federal administrative law enforcement
apparatus make decisions about law enforcement. As I have learned from
my experience in law enforcement, it best serves citizens when it uses
those resources efficiently, effectively, and humanely in a concerted
effort to address a direct threat to public safety. Law enforcement has
a job to do, and it can't do everything all the time everywhere.
Decisions are necessary in the real world in practical circumstances
to preserve public order and protect public safety, and that is what
the President is doing by issuing an Executive order which, in effect,
directs Federal resources to deport undocumented immigrants who
represent a threat to this country by virtue of their criminal activity
or criminal background or other circumstances that justify that
rational and selective approach to law enforcement.
This approach is hardly novel, and it is highly unoriginal. In fact,
President Obama's authority to direct how Federal immigration resources
will be marshaled in the service of protecting public safety is very
much in the tradition and history of this office. Every President since
Dwight Eisenhower, whether Democratic or Republican, has done exactly
what President Obama is doing in this Executive order.
In 1990 President George H.W. Bush took Executive action to defer
removal and grant work permits to roughly 1.5 million undocumented
individuals--nearly half the undocumented population at the time. Think
about that for a moment. Out of 3 million people, President Bush
decided that 1.5 million of them should, in effect, not be prosecuted.
He set law enforcement priorities. That was his job, and that is
President Obama's job.
Many of us--and I am very much in this camp--would prefer to address
this situation through legislation. I worked hard, along with the
distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Members on both
sides of the aisle of the Judiciary Committee and of this body, to
approve legislation. It was resolved and written up after several days
of detailed and painstaking markup. I was told that is the way
legislation used to be routinely done in this body--Members trading
ideas, exchanging views and perspectives, drilling down on facts, and
arriving at a bipartisan solution that eventually was approved by 68
Members of this body from both sides of the aisle. That is a matter of
history.
My hope was and still is that we have legislation along the lines of
what was approved by the Senate. That legislation was far from perfect.
In my view, it was way short of the ideal immigration reform I would
favor, but the good cannot be the enemy of the perfect and the perfect
cannot be the enemy of the good. What we need now is a practical
approach to this problem through legislation. The House refused to take
up the Senate bill. It didn't even consider it and never voted on it.
The President has a responsibility, and his job is to take actions
that are within his legal authority to address a system that is broken
and takes a toll on human lives that is intolerable. It threatens to
divide families, to put people out of work--not just undocumented
immigrants out of work but citizens of this country because they work
for businesses that are owned and operated by those immigrants who
might be deported. I have seen that firsthand in Connecticut, and I
know it is true around the country.
This measure is not only good for human lives, it is good for our
economy. It is essential to make sure our immigration system--a broken,
failed system--is at least prepared in the short term while we work
toward legislation that is absolutely necessary to comprehensively
revise and reform that system.
Every day that the Federal Government fails to act on immigration
reform, people in this country are forced to live in fear and the
anxiety and apprehension that children suffer when they are afraid they
will lose their parents and siblings. Connecticut citizens live in fear
of losing their neighbors and their employers, their congregates in
church, and members of their immediate and extended families. Millions
of immigrants who have lived in this country for years--5 or 10 years
or longer--and are working hard, paying taxes, abiding by the law, and
contributing and giving back to their communities are forced to live in
fear that they will have to leave everything they have worked so hard
to build and everything that means so much to them--their families,
their homes, and the country they have come to love. They appreciate
the freedoms of this country and the opportunities it offers in ways we
routinely take for granted. For them, this country is a beacon of hope
and opportunity which they appreciate so deeply and fervently that they
are willing to lay down their lives for it and, in fact, sometimes do
as members of our armed services.
The lack of action on immigration reform hurts everyone. When
businesses employ workers under the table, our economy and our Nation
are deprived of their taxes. They are often ducking regulations and
taxes, which in turn drives down wages for every working American.
Immigrants should be able to come out of the shadows not just for
their sake but for the Nation's sake. They are a resource that can be
used so much more fully to the benefit of our Nation. When they come
out of the shadows, they should be forced to undergo background checks,
obtain work permits and proof that they are abiding by the law. That is
necessary to show they are not a threat to public safety.
When immigrants live in fear, law enforcement can't know who lives in
the communities they police. Immigrants who live in fear are simply not
going to be as willing to report individuals living near them and
represent a real threat to public safety because they feel
uncomfortable reporting crimes and cooperating with authority when they
feel they may then be the object of enforcement. Getting more people
who are already living in this country into the system will allow law
enforcement to go after the truly bad actors--serious criminals,
serious national security threats, and people who seriously should not
be in this country.
As the American people wait for legislative action and wait for the
House to act on the Senate bill and perhaps wait on the Senate to act
again, President Obama has both the authority and the moral
responsibility to institute these reforms. These reforms are crucial.
He has the authority under law to exercise his discretion. He has the
moral responsibility to fix this broken system as long and as well as
he can using that responsibility.
I am encouraged to hear that the President intends to focus his
authority on serious criminals, not law-abiding individuals. At a
minimum, my hope is that he will ease the minds of children and put to
rest the anxiety children feel when they fear they may lose their
parents. Whether they are DREAMers or U.S. citizens, they should be
spared that apprehension and
[[Page S6137]]
anxiety that interferes with everything they do in school or work.
My hope is that he will exercise that authority on behalf of the
parents of those children--U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and
DREAMers.
My hope is that he will ease some of the arbitrary restrictions that
prevent the DOCA program from achieving its full purpose--restrictions
like the cutoff age.
As he acts to exercise his prosecutorial discretion with respect to
deportation, he should also consider his administration's policies with
respect to detention. As I wrote to the President earlier this year,
along with my colleague and friend Chairman Leahy, I believe the
administration's decision to dramatically expand the detention of whole
families, many of whom have shown a credible fear of being returned to
dangerous situations in their home countries, is counterproductive and
harmful. Migrants must be given an adequate opportunity to show they
have a valid claim as refugees.
The policy of indiscriminately holding families in enormous,
privately run facilities leads to inhumane living conditions. Violence
against women and children and simply inefficient use of resources are
more the rule than the exception. Warehousing young children in
complexes that are little more than jails is deeply incompatible with
our national values and it serves none of the goals of an effective
immigration system.
Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of the U.N. Convention on the
Rights of the Child. Faith leaders and community members from around
the country will be doing vigils and telling the stories of children
and mothers who are spending this holiday season behind bars. Yes, in
the greatest country in the history of the world, children and their
moms will be spending Thanksgiving behind bars.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. These families are not flight risks and they are not
dangerous. We owe it to them to do better. I am proud of standing with
my colleagues on calling on the President to keep families together,
target resources effectively, and run an immigration system that
reflects America's values and builds a stronger future.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
____________________