[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 20 (Thursday, February 5, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S812-S813]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I come today to support legislation 
to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, without any 
extraneous or politically controversial policy riders.
  Let me be clear. The immigration provisions that are approved in the 
House are bill killers. We have now had three votes on cloture. The 
votes have held steady. It is clear the votes are not here to pass a 
bill out of the Senate with the riders attached to it.
  I just want to speak of the importance of the Department of Homeland 
Security because I was in the Senate when the Department was developed. 
It is a combination of 22 agencies. It has over 200,000 employees. Over 
the years it has become more and more vital to efforts to prevent 
terrorist attacks on this country.
  So how, you might ask? TSA, a member of that Department, funded by 
that Department, screens airline passengers within the United States, 
while Customs and Border Protection screens passenger data of travelers 
entering the country. So it is irresponsible to endanger these missions 
in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris, Ottawa, Sydney, and 
elsewhere.
  Secondly, DHS plays a critical role in responding to natural 
disasters. Resources and personnel from FEMA, which is funded through 
DHS, are vital in times of flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes, 
wildfires, and other disasters.
  Third, DHS also guards against cyber warfare through network 
security, electronic crimes investigations, and State and local 
cybercrime training. So it is hard to fathom delaying $861 million for 
cyber security the same day we learn about the massive cyber attack 
against Anthem Blue Cross.
  A number of key national security programs unrelated to immigration 
would also be in danger. These include the Federal Air Marshal Service, 
the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, and DHS 
intelligence activities.
  Ironically, blocking this bill over immigration riders would also 
delay increased funding for border patrols and more manpower to combat 
human smuggling and trafficking, which so many Members of this Congress 
want.
  Holding up this bill will also delay and reduce more than $2.5 
billion in grants for State and local law enforcement agencies and 
emergency responders. This puts our country in jeopardy. These grants 
help with transit and port security, firefighter assistance, and State 
homeland security.
  Make no mistake, the Department of Homeland Security is very active 
in securing our borders and deporting dangerous individuals.
  It has a wonderful Secretary. I think every Member of this body 
appreciates Jeh Johnson and knows the role he played with managing the 
sudden influx of children into our country on the southern border. We 
know of his effectiveness in bringing together what has been a very 
ungainly combination of 22 agencies into a smoothly run entity. This 
must be very disappointing to him.
  In fiscal year 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 
315,943 people, focusing its efforts on removing criminals, and the 
agency was successful in that goal. Fifty-six percent of those removed 
last year had been convicted of crimes. That is 177,960 fewer criminals 
on our streets. I would say good job.
  Rather than holding DHS and our national security hostage, I urge my 
colleagues to support the bill introduced by Senators Mikulski and 
Shaheen to provide full funding for DHS at levels necessary to do its 
job. We can't keep funding this agency with short-term continuing 
resolutions. It doesn't make sense. We certainly can't keep threatening 
to shut it down.
  Yesterday in our joint meeting I had an opportunity to say what this 
body was like when I came to it. I think I can say with certainty this 
wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. We would have recognized the 
importance of the agency and told people to come back with another bill 
at another time.
  The importance of getting some regular order in our appropriations 
bills is important because we are not getting regular appropriations 
bills passed. This is so important that I think everyone thought it 
wouldn't be disturbed. Instead, these policy riders are stuck on it, 
and the people who put them on know they are offensive to just about 
half of this body and it is going to present a major challenge to get a 
bill passed.
  Let me talk a little bit about the issue; that is, the five riders 
that Republicans want to add to the bill. The goal of the riders, I 
think--and I think everyone would agree with this--is to unravel 
temporary actions President Obama has taken in an effort to make sense 
of what is, we all admit, a broken immigration system.
  These actions, I would note, wouldn't have been necessary if the 
House had voted on the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill that 
passed in 2013 by a vote of 68 to 32--68 to 32. It was the product of 
months of intense negotiations and hearings.
  I remember it well. There were eight bipartisan Members who 
negotiated a bill to put before the Judiciary Committee. I am a member 
of the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee debated the bill 
for weeks. A total of some 300 amendments were filed, with 212 
amendments in committee that were considered, half of which were 
Republican, and 136 amendments were adopted.
  The House refused to even debate this bill, which in my view--and I 
have been here a long time--has been the result of one of the most 
profound bipartisan efforts on a big bill in the last 20 years. The 
House even refused to recognize it by a debate, let alone a vote, let 
alone passing something, some part of the bill, so there could be a 
conference and differences reconciled.
  Now the House comes to us by putting what they know are going to be 
highly problematic riders on what is an absolutely crucial 
appropriations bill. This is the kind of thing I tried to say 
yesterday. It just doesn't make sense to me.

  It would not have happened some time ago. People would not have tried 
to force their will through on an important bill when they knew they 
didn't have the votes. If three votes on cloture don't show that, I 
don't know what really will.
  The Presiding Officer knows this as well as I do. But the root of the 
problem is that we have more than 11 million unauthorized immigrants in 
our country, and Congress only provides enough funding to deport around 
400,000 people a year. Clearly we can't deport everybody. So choices 
have to be made.
  So do we focus limited enforcement resources on real threats, such as 
criminals and terrorists? I say yes. Or, do we spread our resources 
thin, treating murderers the same way we treat school children who have 
been in the country for years? I say no. I stand firmly with the 
President in the belief that we must focus on actual threats and we 
must prioritize.
  One of the temporary programs that the other side seeks to eliminate 
is known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. I hate 
acronyms, but the acronym is DACA.
  This program allows law-abiding individuals brought to the United 
States as children to remain here without fear of being deported from 
the only home they have ever known. They can stay for 3-year increments 
as long as they don't break the law. Republicans want to scrap this 
program and place these individuals into the same category as dangerous 
criminals.
  In California, my State, that would mean 450,000 young people who 
were brought to the United States as children, who have lived nowhere 
else, would immediately be eligible for deportation.
  The House riders also seek to remove protections for parents of 
United States citizens and permanent residents, including 1.1 million 
parents in California. That would have the effect of breaking up many 
families that have lived here for years.
  I personally know of it happening in San Diego, when, in the middle 
of the night, immigration officers came into a home, picked up the 
parents and deported them, leaving the three children in the home. The 
parents had been here, they were working, they had paid their taxes, 
and now the children were left. Fortunately, as I understand that 
incident, relatives were able to come because the children were born 
here, and they helped to take care of them. But we can imagine the 
cases where there was no one to help. So this clearly has an effect of 
breaking up many

[[Page S813]]

families that may have lived here for years.
  So let me be clear. The political--I really believe they are 
political--riders weighing down this appropriations bill are not 
designed to fix our immigration system but rather to weaken it--and 
with the goal of embarrassing the President. We should not do that on 
any bill--let alone a bill as important as this one.
  It is not just Senate Democrats who think these riders are bad 
policy. Sixty-two percent of Americans in last month's January poll 
supported ``an Executive Order that would allow some illegal immigrants 
already in the United States to stay here temporarily and apply for a 
work permit if certain requirements are met.'' So 62 percent of the 
people said yes to that question. That is precisely what the President 
has done.
  A combined 69 percent of Americans supported an immigration policy 
that lets unauthorized immigrants remain in the United States, 54 
percent supported a path to citizenship, and another 15 percent 
supported legal status but no path to citizenship.
  So to the extent we get our guidance from the American people rather 
than from this or that political party, we can see what the view of 
Americans are on this. I think it is because we have had this issue 
debated in this forum several times. This isn't the first big 
immigration bill. It is the second in about the last 6 or 8 years that 
has come out of committee, come to the floor with an agreement, and 
fallen apart. And it had been negotiated in a bipartisan manner.
  So then to have this bill that we passed go to the House, and the 
House would have a legitimate chance to make any amendments they might 
want to make--rather than put this rider on this bill--and pass over to 
us a bill which could then go to conference and we could work on around 
a table--the way business should be done--to come together to present 
what we can agree upon in both Houses to pass into law.
  That is the process here, and that is one of the really big changes 
in this body over recent history. We always tried to follow regular 
order. Appropriations bills in regular order now are really 
nonexistent. It is really too bad because it weakens the committee 
structure, it weakens the institution as a whole, it makes us beholden 
to a few, and it doesn't do the people's business. And, as I said 
yesterday, it is one of the reasons why our favorability rating as a 
Congress is something near 16 percent favorable.
  So I say, please, let's take these policy riders off. Let's learn 
from the experience. Let's pass this bill. It is a new Congress. I 
recognize the bill has to be reintroduced, but the immigration bill 
certainly can be reintroduced. We have had a lot of experience in 
working it, and we can do it once again. Then perhaps the House would 
be willing to look at it, to debate it, and maybe even then to give us 
the respect of voting on it.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Fischer, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Risch, and Mr. 
Manchin pertaining to the introduction of S. 405 are printed in today's 
Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the 
Senate for up to 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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