[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 21 (Monday, February 9, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S843-S844]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2015--MOTION TO 
                                PROCEED

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I move to proceed to H.R. 240.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 5, H.R. 240, a bill 
     making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security 
     for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other 
     purposes.


                 measure placed on the calendar--s. 405

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk 
that is due for a second reading.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read the bill by title for 
the second time.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 405) to protect and enhance opportunities for 
     recreational hunting, fishing, and shooting, and for other 
     purposes.

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, in order to place the bill on the calendar 
under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to further proceedings.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection having been heard, the bill will 
be placed on the calendar.
  Mr. CORNYN. I yield the floor.


                   Recognition Of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Democratic leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the American people can get their news in 
various fashions, whether it is a blog, the nightly news or in a 
newspaper. They are very concerned. They are concerned about the threat 
of global terrorism. And why shouldn't they be? Look at what they see.
  We see ISIS has murdered tens of thousands of people. One need only 
to look back at those thousands of Yazidi people who are trapped in the 
mountains in Iraq. We saw it play on day after day. These people were 
fleeing for their lives and many of them didn't make it.
  We have watched not only tens of thousands murdered, but we have 
watched them behead people. Just a few days ago we watched them put a 
man in a cage, set the cage on fire, and burn him alive. They are so 
void of any respectability; they are so uncivilized. They filmed 22 
minutes of that man suffering the utmost torture until he died--22 
minutes of torture.
  We look around the world, and in Paris 20 people are dead of a 
terrorist attack. People are dead in Belgium thwarting that terrorist 
attack. In Ottawa, Canada, at the Parliament terrorists attacked. In 
Sydney, Australia, there was an attack in a restaurant.
  It seems that no matter what the day is, there is another act of 
terror that we have to be aware of. We have watched, with some dismay, 
at the terror that is coming. ISIS has bragged that they are coming our 
way.
  We have our national security agencies, including the Department of 
Homeland Security, which has protected us from attacks to this point. 
Now we are 18 days away from having no money for the Department of 
Homeland Security--18 days. But that is a false number because we are 
out of session for about 10 of those 18 days. So really, after this 
week, we are down to less than 1 week to protect our homeland.
  Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, was on national TV 
yesterday warning the American people of what we face. He went through 
what his agency does, what they do to protect our homeland. That agency 
was established during the Presidency of George W. Bush. It happened 
after 9/11. We consolidated 22 different agencies into something that 
is more workable. Jeh Johnson has done a very, very good job.
  There is border protection, the Coast Guard, and they have 
responsibilities for preventing cyber attacks. There is rarely a day 
that goes by when there isn't some cyber attack. Which one is big that 
day? We had Sony play out, and we had Anthem just a few days ago.

[[Page S844]]

  Republicans are hellbent on playing chicken with our national 
security.
  Jeh Johnson said yesterday he would have to furlough as many as 
30,000 people if the Republicans decided to do a continuing resolution, 
which would be at last year's numbers. It would prevent the Department 
of Homeland Security from funding any new grants. These are grants that 
help our country, grants for dogs sniffing out all kinds of bad things. 
These grants fund counterterrorism task force units. A very big one is 
waiting to be established in Arizona.
  In Las Vegas we have an urban area security initiative. We have 50 
million people who come to Las Vegas each year. We need help to make 
sure local agencies can respond where they have to.
  Why are we concerned about these grants? We are concerned because it 
is what helps local government be ready for these attacks when and if 
they come.
  But the Republicans have come to the conclusion that they are far 
more afraid of these people--some of whom were here last week--the 
DREAMers. They dreamed of having a country they could relate to. They 
came to America as babies. It was the only country they even knew. It 
was a country where they saluted the flag for many years, and President 
Obama gave them respectability.
  A woman who was here and I talked about last week is a young woman 
from Las Vegas. Her name is Blanca Gamez. She is a wonderful, wonderful 
woman. She has two degrees, and she is going to law school next year. 
She works, and she pays taxes. But it appears that the Republicans are 
more afraid of her than they are of ISIS--these people who behead 
people and they burn people in cages.
  We cannot allow this to go on the way it is headed. These grants help 
local firefighters. The DHS directives target criminals instead of 
families. Republicans, I guess, want us to target these families rather 
than criminals.
  Why are Republicans putting our country at risk?
  This isn't some liberal cabal that is talking about this. Let's take, 
for example, one of the most conservative publications in America, the 
Wall Street Journal. They wrote a featured opinion piece today about 
Republican Members of Congress.
  The Wall Street Journal says the Republicans' reckless strategy is 
doomed to fail. Even the very conservative editors of that newspaper 
said today that Republicans' reckless scheme is destined for--what is 
in their words--``a spectacular crack-up.'' These are a few things of 
what they say in the article.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the February 9, 
2015, opinion article from the Wall Street Journal entitled: ``Can the 
GOP Change?''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         [From the Wall Street Journal Editorial, Feb. 8, 2015]

                          Can the GOP Change?

       The immigration defeat reveals a larger problem in 
     Congress.
       Republicans in Congress are off to a less than flying start 
     after a month in power, dividing their own conference more 
     than Democrats. Take the response to President Obama's 
     immigration order, which seems headed for failure if not a 
     more spectacular crack-up.
       That decree last November awarded work permits and de facto 
     legal status to millions of undocumented aliens and dismayed 
     members of both parties, whatever their immigration views. A 
     Congressional resolution to vindicate the rule of law and the 
     Constitution's limits on executive power was defensible, and 
     even necessary, but this message has long ago been lost in 
     translation.
       The Republican leadership funded the rest of the government 
     in December's budget deal but isolated the Department of 
     Homeland Security that enforces immigration law. DHS funding 
     runs out this month, and the GOP has now marched itself into 
     another box canyon.
       The specific White House abuse was claiming prosecutorial 
     discretion to exempt whole classes of aliens from 
     deportation, dumping the historical norm of case-by-case 
     scrutiny. A GOP sniper shot at this legal overreach would 
     have forced Democrats to go on record, picked up a few 
     supporters, and perhaps even imposed some accountability on 
     Mr. Obama.
       But that wasn't enough for immigration restrictionists, who 
     wanted a larger brawl, and they browbeat GOP leaders into 
     adding needless policy amendments. The House reached back to 
     rescind Mr. Obama's enforcement memos from 2011 that 
     instructed Homeland Security to prioritize deportations of 
     illegals with criminal backgrounds. That is legitimate 
     prosecutorial discretion, and in opposing it Republicans are 
     undermining their crime-fighting credentials.
       The House even adopted a provision to roll back Mr. Obama's 
     2012 order deferring deportation for young adults brought to 
     the U.S. illegally as children by their parents--the so-
     called dreamers. The GOP lost 26 of its own Members on that 
     one, passing it with only 218 votes.
       The overall $40 billion DHS spending bill passed with these 
     riders, 236-191, but with 10 Republicans joining all but two 
     Democrats in opposition. This lack of GOP unity reduced the 
     chances that Senate Democrats would feel any political 
     pressure to go along.
       And, lo, on Thursday the House bill failed for the third 
     time to gain the 60 votes needed to overcome the third 
     Democratic filibuster in three days. Swing-state Democrats 
     like Indiana's Joe Donnelly and North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp 
     aren't worried because they have more than enough material to 
     portray Republicans as the immigration extremists.
       Whatever their view of Mr. Obama's order, why would 
     Democrats vote to deport people who were brought here as kids 
     through no fault of their own? Mr. Obama issued a veto threat 
     to legislation that will never get to his desk, and he must 
     be delighted that Republicans are fighting with each other 
     rather than with him.
       Restrictionists like Sens. Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions are 
     offering their familiar advice to fight harder and hold firm 
     against ``executive amnesty,'' but as usual their strategy 
     for victory is nowhere to be found. So Republicans are now 
     heading toward the same cul de sac that they did on the 
     ObamaCare government shutdown.
       If Homeland Security funding lapses on Feb. 27, the agency 
     will be pushed into a partial shutdown even as the terrorist 
     threat is at the forefront of public attention with the 
     Charlie Hebdo and Islamic State murders. Imagine if the 
     Transportation Security Administration, a unit of DHS, fails 
     to intercept an Islamic State agent en route to Detroit.
       So Republicans are facing what is likely to be another 
     embarrassing political retreat and more intra-party 
     recriminations. The GOP's restrictionist wing will blame the 
     leadership for a failure they share responsibility for, and 
     the rest of America will wonder anew about the gang that 
     couldn't shoot straight.
       The restrictionist caucus can protest all it wants, but it 
     can't change 54 Senate votes into 60 without persuading some 
     Democrats. It's time to find another strategy. Our advice on 
     immigration is to promote discrete bills that solve specific 
     problems such as green cards for math-science-tech graduates, 
     more H-1B visas, a guest-worker program for agriculture, 
     targeted enforcement and legal status for the dreamers. 
     Democrats would be hard-pressed to oppose them and it would 
     put the onus back on Mr. Obama. But if that's too much for 
     the GOP, then move on from immigration to something else.
       It's not too soon to say that the fate of the GOP majority 
     is on the line. Precious weeks are wasting, and the 
     combination of weak House leadership and a rump minority 
     unwilling to compromise is playing into Democratic hands. 
     This is no way to run a Congressional majority, and the only 
     winners of GOP dysfunction will be Mr. Obama, Nancy Pelosi 
     and Hillary Clinton.
  Mr. REID. I will read parts of the article:

       If Homeland Security funding lapses on Feb. 27, the agency 
     will be pushed into a partial shutdown even as the terrorist 
     threat is at the forefront of public attention with the 
     Charlie Hebdo and Islamic State murders. Imagine if the 
     Transportation Security Administration, a unit of DHS, fails 
     to intercept an Islamic State agent en route to Detroit.
       So Republicans are facing what is likely to be another 
     embarrassing political retreat and more intra-party 
     recriminations. The GOP's restrictionist wing will blame the 
     leadership for a failure they share responsibility for, and 
     the rest of America will wonder anew about the gang that 
     couldn't shoot straight.

  This is about as serious as anything could be. We need to fund this 
agency which is so vitally important to our country. We need to pass a 
clean bill--the bipartisan bill that Speaker Boehner and the majority 
leader agreed to in November--and give the American people the 
protection they deserve. Anything less is not good, is a disaster for 
our country, and really is very, very bad to protect our homeland.


                       Reservation Of Leader Time

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.

                          ____________________