[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 24 (Thursday, February 12, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S956-S958]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                Department of Homeland Security Funding

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I always try to be accurate in what I 
say on the floor. Having been trained before Federal judges for almost 
15 years, practicing law, if you said something out of line, you got 
hammered for it.
  My friend, very good friend and colleague, the Democratic whip, 
Senator Durbin, earlier today came to the floor and said: Mr. 
President, I have been trying to understand what is holding up the 
funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
  I would ask my colleague Senator Durbin: Have you ever heard of a 
filibuster? What about the filibuster you are leading to block the bill 
that funds Homeland Security? I mean how much more obvious can the 
answer be to what is holding up funding for the Department of Homeland 
Security, the House-passed legislation?
  It is good legislation, to my knowledge. There is very little dispute 
about the agencies and the departments in Homeland Security in terms of 
what they would get in terms of funding. They simply said that the 
extra-lawful actions of President Obama would not be funded.
  The Los Angeles Times now says that this executive amnesty could cost 
up to $484 million. I think it will be much more. The Los Angeles Times 
isn't counting the cost to State and local governments, welfare costs, 
tax costs. This is just their idea of what it will cost to give lawful 
status to 5 million people. It is going to cost more than that. But 
$484 million is still a lot of money.
  Congress, the House of Representatives, said: Mr. President, we don't 
agree with this policy and your policy is unlawful. You said 20 times 
yourself you don't have the power to do this. Constitutional scholars 
say that. It is an erosion of our power and, based on the fact that we 
don't like the policy and we think it is unlawful policy, we are going 
to fund Homeland Security, we are just not going to allow you to take 
money from enforcement of homeland security laws to reward people who 
violated the laws.
  Isn't that a responsible thing for Congress to do? Isn't it an 
absolute fact that Congress has the power to fund what it desires to 
fund and not fund what it does not desire to fund? That is the power of 
the purse, vested in the coequal branch of Congress. It is Congress's 
fundamental power.
  Senator Durbin is now leading the filibuster. We have had a series of 
votes. He has been able to get every single Democrat to vote with him 
to block even going to the bill, even allowing a bill to come up on the 
floor of the Senate for debate and amendment.
  If he wants to offer language that says we want to ratify what the 
President did and allow all this to happen, he is free to offer that 
amendment on the floor of the Senate. But he is not even attempting to 
do that. He is basically saying we are not going to allow the bill to 
come up for a vote, and we are going to blame the Republicans for 
blocking the bill.
  What kind of world are we living in? I have suggested that is 
``through the looking glass.'' We have the people leading the 
filibuster accusing the House and Republicans in the Senate for 
blocking the bill when they, indeed, are the ones doing it.
  He also quoted our fine colleague Senator Flake to say: To attempt to 
use the spending bill to try to poke a finger in the President's eye is 
not a good move, in my mind.
  I agree with that, we shouldn't be using a spending bill to poke the 
President in the eye. But I suggest to my colleagues that the President 
is the one who has poked the American people in the eye, he has poked 
the rights and powers of Congress in the eye by taking money that was 
assigned and given to Homeland Security to enforce the laws of the 
United States. He is taking out money and spending it at this very 
moment to undermine and to violate the laws of the United States.
  Colleagues, the law of the United States--we have a lot of laws--says 
that an employer, for example, cannot hire somebody unlawfully in the 
country.
  So the President's proposal: Well, I am going to make 5 million 
people who are unlawful today lawful. I am going to give them a photo 
ID, I am going to give them a right to work, a Social Security number, 
and the right to participate in Social Security and Medicare, because I 
am angry that Congress wouldn't pass it.
  Senator Durbin says this--and our colleagues who have been leading 
the filibuster have been saying this--repeatedly.
  It is impossible to explain the situation, quoting Senator Durbin, 
where the agency ``with the premier responsibility to keep America safe 
is not being adequately funded.''
  He goes on to say that again about placing America at risk.
  I would ask a couple of questions. How does taking funding from the 
lawful, authorized policies of Homeland Security that are supposed to 
identify people unlawfully here, to identify terrorists, and do other 
things to make America safe--how does taking the money from them, to 
give legal status to 5 million illegal aliens make us safer?
  Does that make us safer? How absurd is that?
  Ken Palinkas, who is head of the union of CIS workers, the National 
Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, said:

       Unfortunately--and perilously overlooked in Washington--our 
     caseworkers are denied the urgent professional resources, 
     enforcement tools, and mission support we need to keep out 
     those who are bent on doing us harm.

  This is processing the 1 million or so per year who are given lawful 
status in America. He is not referring to the future when they are 
going to be expected to process--immediately, apparently--5 million 
more. They don't have money to process the people today. These are his 
words, not mine, in a letter dated September of last year. He said:

       The 9/11 hijackers got into the U.S. on visas and now, 13 
     years later, we have around 5 million immigrants in the 
     United States who overstayed their visas--many from high-risk 
     regions in the Middle East. Making matters more dangerous, 
     the Obama Administration's executive amnesty, like S. 744 
     that he unsuccessfully lobbied for, would legalize visa 
     overstays and cause millions additionally to overstay--
     raising the threat level to America even higher.

  That is what the people who enforce the law every day are saying.
  In January of this year, a few weeks ago, January 22, Mr. Palinkas 
said:

       The President's executive amnesty--

  And that is what they are objecting to. That is what the people who 
are filibustering this bill today are doing. They are protecting, 
advancing, supporting, and attempting to fund the President's unlawful 
amnesty.
  Mr. Palinkas, whose duty it is to enforce these laws, said:

       The President's executive amnesty order for 5 million 
     illegal immigrants places the mission of USCIS [that is the 
     immigration service] in grave peril. Instead of meeting our 
     lawful function to protect the Homeland and keep out those 
     who pose a threat to U.S. security, health, or finances, our 
     officers will be assigned to process amnesty for individuals 
     residing illegally inside our nation's borders. This 
     compromises national security and public safety, while 
     undermining officer morale.

  That is exactly right. You don't have to be a real expert to 
understand he is exactly right about this.
  He continues:

       The Administration's skewed priorities means that the 
     Crystal City amnesty processing center will likely have 
     superior worksite conditions for personnel relative to our 
     normal processing centers. Additionally, the security 
     protocols at place in this facility will be insufficient to 
     engage in any basic screening precautions, ensuring and 
     rewarding massive amounts of fraud. For the administration to 
     continue down this course after the Paris attacks is beyond 
     belief.

  This is what we are dealing with. In October of last year, Mr. 
Palinkas, when the President was proposing this amnesty before it 
happened, issued a statement on behalf of his workers and his 
colleagues in the immigration service. He concludes in his statement:

       That is why this statement is intended for the public. If 
     you care about your immigration security and your 
     neighborhood security, you must act now to ensure that 
     Congress stops this unilateral amnesty. Let your voice be 
     heard and spread the word to your neighbors. We who serve in 
     our nation's immigration agencies are pleading for your 
     help--don't let it happen. Express your concern to your 
     Senators and Congressmen before it is too late.


[[Page S957]]


  Well, that is what it is all about. The President 20 times said he 
did not have the power to do such a thing, but he--under political 
pressure, I suppose, or just an overreach on his part--decided to do it 
anyway. He said he didn't have the power to do this. Now he has acted 
on it, even though the officers pleaded for him to not do it, even 
though an overwhelming majority of the American people said don't do 
it, even though at least nine Democratic colleagues who were supporting 
this filibuster said the President didn't have the power or shouldn't 
do it this way, that these kinds of decisions are part of Congress's 
power.
  Mr. President, don't do it, is what they said. Yet all nine of them 
are now standing in lockstep to block the funding of homeland security 
that funds every part of homeland security--it just doesn't fund this 
building they have leased across the river in Crystal City that is 
supposed to process up to 5 million people.
  Colleagues, I want you to know it is absolutely true they will not 
even have face-to-face interviews with these applicants. This is going 
to be coming in by mail and computer. They will eventually be sent 
someplace to get a photo ID, they will be given a work permit to take 
any job in America, and the right to participate in Social Security and 
Medicare, weakening both of those programs over the long term, without 
any doubt.
  That is what is occurring without congressional approval. This is 
going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars just in the process.
  But what I want Senator Durbin to know is this is going to weaken 
national security. Because if someone is here to do harm to America--
perhaps they are a drug dealer or they are a terrorist and they want to 
do criminal acts in America, and they have a record--they are not going 
to ask for the amnesty. They are going to stay and continue to work 
their wicked will. That is what they are going to do. Nobody is going 
to go look for them. Nobody is looking for them now, and nobody will be 
looking for them then. It will be business as usual.
  But if you came here with a bad purpose--terrorism, drug dealing, 
other criminal activity--and you don't have a criminal record, you will 
just call in, send an email in, get your identity, and be allowed to 
permanently operate in the United States.
  And colleagues, the American people, I think, understand this. Nobody 
is going to investigate anything, other than maybe to run a computer 
background check--a computer check to see if there is a criminal record 
out there. There is no way anybody is going to go back and try to 
verify whether someone has actually been in the country a number of 
years, verify family relations. They are not going to go back to some 
school to see if they actually graduated. There are no people to do 
that. This is just a blanket approval for people who apply, basically. 
You send in a few documents, and you are in. There is no capability of 
doing anything other than that.
  So the President has just made a big mistake--a big mistake--and 
Congress needs to push back. Congress has the power to consider what 
kind of policies we want to set with regard to immigration. Those have 
been set. It is unlawful for people unlawfully in America to work in 
America and to participate in Social Security and all of those 
programs. It is just unlawful to do that. The President is violating 
that law in issuing directives through these departments and agencies 
to Federal employees, and those employees are protesting dramatically, 
but nobody seems to care.
  Congress is the one body that is supposed to stand up to that, and 
the House of Representatives has done so. They passed a bill that would 
stop this activity, that says: we will not authorize the expenditure of 
any money to carry out this plan that Congress has not approved, that 
undermines the laws we have in place, and that--as Palinkas and other 
officers have told us--will encourage more people to come to America 
unlawfully, further decimating any integrity the system has.
  We issued a 49-page document of 200 different actions taken since 
President Obama has been in office that undermine the moral integrity 
of the immigration system, making it more and more difficult to 
maintain even a modicum of legality in the system. His actions are 
continuing to erode that--the most dramatic, of course, being this 
Executive Amnesty. So we are just supposed to accept this.
  This isn't a personal issue to attack President Obama or any of our 
colleagues. It is a big American policy issue. It is a huge issue for 
this country, and we need to understand it. It is a constitutional 
question as well as a policy question.
  The constitutional question, which the House of Representatives 
understands, is that Congress appropriates money. Congress has no duty 
to placate the President of the United States when he wants to carry on 
an activity that Congress chooses not to fund. Congress has a duty to 
history and to generations yet unborn to defend and protect its power 
of the purse. Congress has to do that.
  I plead with and say to my colleagues that those who know the 
President overreached on this, this is the time, this is the bill when 
we should fix this. Passage of this bill without the language of the 
House would basically fund all of the Executive Amnesty. It would not 
block funding of this activity. To take out the House language and to 
pass what our colleagues want to pass--a bill that makes no reference 
to the Executive Amnesty--takes no action to stop that activity; that 
is, it ratifies it. It is in effect a financial ratification of an 
unconstitutional overreach by the executive branch that will have 
ramifications in the future that we can't even imagine today.
  Somebody asked the question--and I think it is a valid analogy--what 
if the President wanted to reduce the tax rate from 39 percent to 25 
percent and Congress wouldn't pass it. So he tells all of his IRS 
agents--they work for him--don't collect any money over 25 percent. He 
says to the people: Don't send in money more than 25 percent. I told 
the agents not to collect more than 25 percent.
  Is that so far-fetched, if this were to pass?
  What the President is saying is, I know the law says you can't work 
here. I know the law says you are supposed to be removed if you are 
here illegally. I know all of these things, but we are just not going 
to do it. Not only am I not going to enforce the law with regard to 
immigration, but what I am going to do is I am going declare you as 
lawful. I am going to give you Social Security numbers and work 
permits.
  A recent report from a liberal group, the Economic Policy Institute, 
announced on February 10 that the unemployed exceed job openings in 
almost every industry in America.
  We know unemployment is exceedingly high, and we know that we have 
high job unemployment in the country. Remember, the unemployment rate 
we see today does not include people who drop out of the workforce, it 
only reflects those people who are underemployed and looking for more 
work or people who are actually seeking employment aggressively and 
have signed up on the unemployment rolls in efforts to get a job.
  This indicates that in the big industry we used to hear a lot from--
the construction industry--there are six times as many construction 
workers as there are job openings. Even for professional and business 
services they are higher. In retail trade there are far more applicants 
than jobs. It goes on and on, sector after sector.
  So remember, at a time of this high unemployment, we are also going 
to be legalizing 5 million people to take jobs. We know we have to get 
over 200,000 jobs created in a month--that it takes 180,000 or 
200,000--just to stay level with the growth in the population of 
America. We have been slightly above that recently, and there has been 
a lot of positive spin about that. But we still have the lowest 
percentage of Americans in their working years actually working that we 
have had in this country in 40 years.
  Income is down $4,000 since 2007 for middle-class working families. 
The median income is down $4,000 since 2007. So how is this good for 
lawful immigrants, permanent residents, American citizens? How is it 
good to bring in even more workers at a time when we have the smallest 
percentage of Americans in the workforce in 40 years? I point to 40 
years ago because we began to see a lot more women working in

[[Page S958]]

those years, so this is a reversal of that trend.
  What do the American people think about it? Here is some Paragon Poll 
data that says by a more than 2-to-1 margin Americans strongly oppose 
rather than strongly support the President's Executive actions. Blue 
collar and middle class workers strongly oppose the President's action 
by more than a 3-to-1 majority. By a 50-point margin, voters want 
Congress to pass legislation making it harder for companies to hire 
workers now illegally in the country--71 to 21.
  The American people want to make it harder. Their children, their 
husbands, their wives are looking for work and not finding any. They 
want to have a decent wage, a rising wage, and a chance to get a job. 
So this is a 50-point margin. Remember, the President's action--far 
from making it harder for people to get a job--is going to provide a 
photo ID, work authorizations, and Social Security numbers to 5 million 
people unlawfully here. Almost all of those are adults, frankly.
  Just to show how people feel about this and how strongly they feel 
about it, Kellyanne Conway's polling data shows that by a 75-to-8 
margin Americans say companies should raise wages instead of allowing 
more immigrant workers to fill jobs.
  People would like to see a pay raise around here for a change. 
Salaries dropped 5 cents in December. We are not doing nearly as well 
as some would like to say. That is a Department of Labor statistic--a 
government statistic--that says that.
  How about this? What about people who have the hardest time finding 
work right now. African Americans, according to the Conway poll, by an 
86-to-3 margin say companies should raise wages instead of allowing 
more immigrant workers to take jobs. For Hispanics that is true by a 
margin of 71 to 11. So by a 71-to-11 margin, Hispanics in America say 
companies should raise wages instead of bringing in more workers to 
take jobs, pulling wages down. That is what the market says.
  So let's go back to the morality of all of this, which is 
fundamental. We as members of Congress represent the people of the 
United States. That includes immigrants, recent immigrants--naturalized 
citizens--living here today. It includes native-born citizens. That is 
who our obligation is to. So we need to ask ourselves, how are we 
helping them at a time of difficult wage conditions, difficult job 
conditions, while allowing a surge of workers to come to compete for 
the few jobs there are? Is that fulfilling our duty to the voters, to 
the electors who sent us here? I think not.
  I think it is time for somebody to focus on the needs of people who 
go to work every day, who have had their hours reduced, who have had 
their wages decline, who have had their spouses and children having a 
hard time finding work. That is what is happening.
  To repeat for my good friend Senator Durbin, who says he has been 
trying to understand what is holding up the funding for the Department 
of Homeland Security, let me answer that question. The House has passed 
a bill. They have sent it to the Senate. More than a majority of the 
Senators have voted to pass a bill and fund the Department of Homeland 
Security. And you, as the Democratic whip, are leading the filibuster 
to block it from even coming up on the floor so amendments can be 
offered.
  That is the answer to your question. So I don't think you should 
continue blaming Republicans for not attempting to fund Homeland 
Security. The whole world knows who is blocking the bill that funds 
Homeland Security: You and your team of filibusterers.

  That is what it is. There is no doubt about that, and we need to get 
this straight. I don't believe the American people are going to be 
misled by that argument. I believe they are going to know what is 
happening in this Senate and why we have this difficulty.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senate will vote later today on the 
confirmation of Dr. Ashton Carter to fill a critically important 
Cabinet position, that of Secretary of Defense. I think we all know Dr. 
Carter is a dedicated and distinguished public servant. He has actually 
been confirmed twice, unanimously, to two senior positions at the 
Pentagon. He has been recognized as a four-time recipient of the 
Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal, and he has been 
awarded the Defense Intelligence Medal. I have no doubt the vote today 
in support of Dr. Carter will be overwhelmingly favorable.
  The Defense Department faces important, timely, and difficult 
decisions in the coming months and years. They have to learn how best 
to balance what we know are our fiscal constraints with not only 
existing but emerging international challenges. Dr. Carter served as 
the day-to-day financial officer of the Pentagon, so he is one of the 
few people who understand the complexities of the Pentagon's budget. I 
believe that Dr. Carter will build upon the fine work of Secretary 
Hagel to chart a path toward fiscal accountability while maintaining 
the kind of military capabilities we need to face current global 
threats.
  Dr. Carter is receiving his confirmation vote just over a week after 
he testified before the Armed Services Committee and two days after his 
nomination was reported to the full Senate, and that swift action is 
commendable. But I want to contrast how his nomination was handled as 
compared to Loretta Lynch's for Attorney General.