[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 31 (Tuesday, February 24, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1048-S1058]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




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

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, a number of things have been happening 
today with regard to the funding for the Department of Homeland 
Security. There has been a lot of spin that somehow the Republicans are 
blocking the funding of the Department of Homeland Security. This gives 
new meaning to the word obfuscation, I suppose, or disingenuousness.
  The truth is the House of Representatives has fully funded the 
Department of Homeland Security. It has provided the level of funding 
the President asked for. It has kept all accounts in Homeland Security 
as approved through the congressional process. It simply says: Mr. 
President, we considered your bill--this amnesty bill--that would 
provide work permits, photo IDs, Social Security numbers, Medicare 
benefits, and Social Security benefits, and you can't do that. We 
consider that and reject it. So we are not going to fund that.
  Now, the President has already told us and the staff they have across 
the river in Crystal City where they are leasing a new building, and 
this building is going to house 1,000 workers paid for by the taxpayers 
of the United States as part of Homeland Security. Are those 1,000 
workers going to be utilized to enforce the laws of the United States? 
Are they going to process applications for citizenship or visas? No, 
those 1,000 people--costing several hundred million dollars, in truth--
are going to be processing and providing these benefits to people 
unlawfully in America.
  So Congress said: Wait a minute. We didn't authorize money for that. 
You can't spend money to fund exactly the opposite of what we have 
enacted. So we are just going to put some language in the bill--the 
normal bill that funds Homeland Security--and say you can't spend the 
money to violate the law. You can only spend the money to enforce the 
law, as it was created to do.
  The bill then comes to the Senate; and what spectacle do we have? We 
have Democratic Members in lockstep unity blocking even proceeding to 
this bill, contending we are not funding Homeland Security. Can you 
imagine that?
  Now, my colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, the 
Democratic whip, came down a couple of weeks ago and said: I am trying 
to figure out what is blocking this bill. So I took the floor and I 
said: Senator Durbin, you and your filibusterers are filibustering the 
bill. That is why it is not being passed.
  Does anybody want to dispute that? The Republican Senate has 
repeatedly brought up this bill and filed cloture to move to the bill 
so we can fund Homeland Security, and the Democrats are relentlessly 
and unanimously filibustering it, blocking even moving to the bill. 
Although Senator McConnell said if we did move to the bill, he would 
allow them to have amendments. So this is the situation we are in.
  Colleagues, this goes to the core of our constitutional principles 
about who controls the money in America. Congress is a coequal branch. 
It is not subordinate to the President. If anything, the legislative 
branch, through the Constitution, provides maybe even more power to 
Congress than it does to the Executive and more than it provides the 
courts. And the most powerful power of Congress is the power of the 
purse.
  Congress is not obligated to pay for anything it believes is unwise, 
and it has an absolute duty not to fund anything that is 
unconstitutional or illegal, which is what we are dealing with here. So 
Congress--the House of Representatives--acted wisely and properly in 
funding Homeland Security and not allowing activities to be carried out 
that are unlawful and that Congress has rejected.
  This is so fundamental, so basic. How my colleagues have the gall to 
come to the floor and have a press conference this afternoon and blame 
Republicans for shutting down Homeland Security is beyond me. I don't 
believe the American people are buying it.
  Now, there are some, even on the Republican side, who say: Oh gosh, 
the President will blame us even if it is not our fault. So we might as 
well cave in and give him what he wants. But what he wants is something 
he can't be given. What he wants is for Congress to capitulate and 
erode its powers and responsibility. He wants Congress to violate its 
duty to fund something that is illegal and contrary to Congress's 
wishes. He can't demand that. He has no right to demand that.
  Congress cannot fund--cannot and must not fund--an illegal action in 
hopes that another branch of government will intervene. Now, I say that 
because some have said: Well, a court in Texas has ruled that a part of 
this action by the President is unlawful. The court was narrow in its 
decision. It fundamentally said something similar to: It looks like a 
regulation to me, and if you are going to pass a regulation, you need 
to go through a process. And the President didn't go through a process. 
It is not lawful. It is not legal. You can't enforce it. The judge 
issued an injunction barring the President from carrying out these 
plans, he announced, which is plain law, it seems to me. They didn't 
even go into some of the other ideas of the constitutionality and 
separation of powers. He just blocked it on that basis.

  So we are hearing it said that we can fully fund Homeland Security 
without any restrictions, allowing the President to do this, because 
the courts stopped it. I think that is unwise for a number of reasons. 
The first one is we don't know what the courts are going to do. This 
Congress has a duty to fund only things it believes are appropriate and 
lawful. So Congress shouldn't fund it on that basis, period. We should 
stand up for Congresses in years to come--for our children and 
grandchildren and great-grandchildren--and defend the power of the 
purse and defend the integrity of this Congress.
  We know how this country was founded. It was founded on an 
understanding of the British Parliament, and the British Parliament 
wrested from the king the power of taxes and money. That was a huge 
historical development, and it has been part of our tradition since, 
that Congress has the power of the purse. The Executive can't do it. So 
we replaced the king with the President, and we adhered in our 
Constitution to that great tradition of restraint on the Executive by 
the legislative branch--by the Congress, by the Senate.
  In the Texas court's injunction, let me go further and note the 
reasons why I think it is unwise for Congress to say that we, the 
Senate, have no duty to speak on this issue. The House has already 
spoken and said we are not going to fund this. But the Senate needs to 
ask what its position will be.
  I would point out that the Texas court's injunction addresses only a 
part of Obama's lawless actions and could be lifted at any time. So the 
injunction could be lifted at any time. It only covers a part of his 
actions. If Congress relinquishes the power of the purse, then nothing 
will be able to prevent the lawlessness or amnesty from going forward.
  As the Texas court noted in issuing its injunction, ``This genie 
would be impossible to put back in the bottle.''
  That is absolutely true. He is evaluating whether to issue an 
injunction.

[[Page S1049]]

Sometimes you don't have to issue an injunction because there is not 
anything much happening right then. But he says, correctly, that: If 
this goes forward and millions of people are given amnesty, you can't 
put that genie back in the bottle in any practical sense. It would be a 
nightmare to try to do that.
  Let me point this out:
  One, the Texas court's injunction only addresses a small part of the 
President's recent Executive actions in November.
  The Texas lawsuit challenges only the President's November 20 
unconstitutional Executive action. And of that, the injunction prevents 
the administration from implementing only deferred action for parents 
of Americans and lawful permanent residents.
  The Texas court injunction does not address the problematic 
enforcement priorities encompassed in the President's Executive 
actions.
  He set all kinds of priorities that Congress disapproves of and that 
are bad--unless you don't want the laws enforced, in which case it is 
good. And we have some who believe in open borders in this country. 
They deny it when challenged, but they vote that way every time.
  On November 20, 2014, the memo revised the administration's 
enforcement priorities which do not encompass certain criminal aliens 
nor do they encompass all aliens deemed to be subject to mandatory 
custody under the Immigration and Nationality Act. In fact, these new 
priorities effectively gut the enforcement of our immigration laws for 
all but a few select criminal aliens.
  Congress passed the law that requires the deportation of persons 
involved in criminal activities and convicted of those activities. The 
President eviscerated large portions of that in this order, and he 
should not be allowed to do so. The judge did not address it.
  Indeed, in response to the ruling, Secretary Johnson stated that the 
Texas court's order does not ``affect this Department's ability to set 
and implement enforcement priorities.''
  Well, that is a big deal. They set priorities that violate statutory 
law, and they should not be allowed to do that. We can't effectively 
eviscerate law by prosecutorial guidelines.
  According to a February 18, 2015 email from Customs and Border 
Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske regarding the injunction, he 
said:

       Officers and agents should continue to process individuals 
     consistent with the enforcement priorities announced by the 
     Secretary in his memorandum of November 20, 2014, titled 
     Policies for the Apprehension, Detention and Removal of 
     Undocumented Immigrants.

  It deals in large part with criminal activities, people convicted of 
crimes who are supposed to be deported.
  The funding bill the House passed would do much more to stop 
President Obama's unlawful Executive actions on immigration, so the 
administration does not intend to change its course as it is still 
actively preparing for its rollout of Executive amnesty.
  On February 17, just a few days ago, the President told reporters 
that the administration is still ``doing the preparatory work because 
this is a big piece of business.'' He said:

       The Department of Homeland Security will continue in the 
     planning because we want to make sure as soon as these legal 
     issues get resolved, which I anticipate they will in our 
     favor, that we are ready to go.

  So he is telling the Department of Homeland Security to spend money 
now to be ready to move forward and immediately process his Executive 
amnesty--providing Social Security numbers, photo IDs, Medicare and 
Social Security benefits for people here unlawfully. He says go ahead 
and do it.
  The Texas court injunction is only temporary and could be set aside 
at any time. The administration has already filed for a stay of the 
injunction in the district court and has announced its intention to 
appeal.
  Indeed, as I just read, the President said he expects to win. I don't 
think he will, but it is a technical part of the ruling. The judge 
still has many more that he could deal with that could overrule the 
President's action. He just chose one of them, and that one is rather 
technical. So who knows for sure what a court might rule.
  In addition, the ruling does not address the substance of the case. 
It will take many months to resolve this litigation, and during that 
time there is a reasonable chance that some court will lift the stay 
and allow the President to begin implementing the amnesty pending a 
final ruling on the merits of the case. But Congress can stop it and 
has a duty to stop it in its appropriations bill.
  In addition, Democrats refused to fund the lawful functions of the 
Department of Homeland Security. And this is important: The House-
passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill funds all of the 
lawful, statutorily authorized functions of the Department, including 
the immigration law enforcement component of the agencies that, under 
the Obama administration, has been prevented from enforcing the laws.
  Colleagues, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers--now, I 
guess, 2 years ago--filed a lawsuit against their own supervisors 
declaring that they were being forced to violate their oath to enforce 
the laws of the United States.
  I have never seen that. It is so bad that the ICE officers have filed 
a lawsuit to stop the administration from ordering them to violate 
plain law.
  Let me note that the President has already shut down the Department 
by ordering immigration officers and agents to violate the laws and 
sabotaging enforcement in a number of ways. These are direct orders of 
this administration, dismantling systemic enforcement of our laws.
  So I think the Senate Democrats and the President must answer why 
they believe funding Executive amnesty and unlawful immigration 
policies would make this country safer.
  They say: Well, you won't pass a Homeland Security bill like we want 
it. You are not making America safe.
  I say their policies eviscerating law enforcement are making America 
less safe, as the Immigration and Customs agents do, the ones who 
process the applicants.
  Ken Palinkas, the President of the National Citizenship and 
Immigration Services Council, has written that: This amnesty executed 
by the President will make us less safe.
  His amnesty makes us less safe. Passing a bill that stops his amnesty 
will make us more safe. As a matter of fact, he said that more than one 
time--a number of times. He is very concerned, as his officers are, 
that if they carry out these policies, the American people are going to 
be less safe. In fact, they have said explicitly there is no way they 
can carry out in any effective manner the unlawful orders of the 
President of the United States.
  Is anybody listening to the people who do the work every day? Does 
anybody care what they think? Apparently not.
  So they are going to come to the floor and accuse Republicans in the 
House and on this side of the aisle of not making America safe when 
their own officers say the President's policies are making America less 
safe.
  They say there is no way they can effectively process the individuals 
they are asked to process. They can't process the numbers today, much 
less what will happen under this bill when they have to process another 
5 million. It is just a very unwise thing.
  So what did the courts say? I think this is an important quote from 
the Texas court. A Federal court found that the President had 
overstepped his bounds. That is what the court fundamentally declared, 
stating:

       It is Congress, and Congress alone, who has the power under 
     the Constitution to legislate in the field of immigration.

  That is absolutely true. It is in the Constitution. As he said:

       It is Congress, and Congress alone, who has the power under 
     the Constitution to legislate in the field of immigration.

  So after the President issued his order and his Department issued 
orders of amnesty on November 20, 2014, the President, amazingly, said 
this: ``I just took an action to change the law.'' Don't we know from 
elementary school that Congress passes the law? The President doesn't 
pass the law. He said 22 times that he didn't have the power to do 
this, but now he has moved forward and admitted he is changing the law.

  Well, some of our colleagues think: Oh, if we resist this, the 
President is going to accuse us of not funding Homeland Security, not 
protecting the Republic.

[[Page S1050]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional 
minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. But I don't think that is so.
  They say: Well, the press is unfair.
  Well, not always. I think sometimes we Republicans are right to 
complain but not always.
  This is what the headlines are today. The headlines aren't saying 
Republicans are blocking the bill.
  Politico: ``Democrats filibuster Department of Homeland Security 
bill.''
  The Hill: ``Shutdown looms as Dems block DHS bill.''
  McClatchy: ``Filibuster continues as Senate Dems block DHS funding 
bill.''
  CNN: ``Senate Dems block Homeland Security funding bill again.''
  Washington Post: ``Senate Democrats block DHS spending bill targeting 
Obama's immigration actions.''
  Associated Press: ``Dems Block Action on DHS-Immigration Bill.''
  New York Times: ``Senate Democrats Block Vote on Homeland Security 
Bill.''
  Politico: ``Dems filibuster DHS bill.''
  Well, that is absolutely true. We are bringing the bill to the floor. 
We are not blocking it. We want to fully fund Homeland Security. We 
want the laws enforced. We don't want to spend money from Homeland 
Security to eviscerate the law of the United States and undermine 
immigration law in America, and we don't want to fund an unlawful 
action by the President.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.


                           Keystone Pipeline

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to applaud the President's 
veto of legislation that would have rubberstamped the construction of 
the Keystone Pipeline. This legislation allowed a circumvention of 
Federal review processes and allowed corporations not to adhere to 
various environmental safety standards that are important for the 
American people. So I am glad the President is vetoing this 
legislation.
  The rules for siting cross-border pipelines are well established, and 
time and time again TransCanada has shown that it doesn't want to play 
by the rules. So with this veto by the President of the United States, 
he is clearly saying TransCanada must play by the rules.
  The President's veto recognizes three important implications for 
Congress in the intervening and trying to pass this Keystone Pipeline 
process.
  First, this bill was premature because it authorized the construction 
of the pipeline while legal and administrative processes were still 
ongoing in Nebraska and North and South Dakota and where landowners and 
tribes are seeking review in the courts and before regulatory bodies.
  The legislation also eliminates the need for a national interest 
determination, which is associated with the process of the pipeline, 
which was a key authority for the U.S. Government to insist on safety 
and environmental regulations. It is a process that should have allowed 
the State Department and the President to insist on pipeline safety 
conditions.
  Finally, this legislation did not address the loophole for tar sands 
oil companies to avoid paying for oilspill cleanups.
  By vetoing this bill, the President refused to throw hundreds of 
conditions out the window. These are things from 59 different pipeline 
safety conditions that would have been legally binding--but not if the 
legislation had passed.
  My colleagues also remember that we talked about work--that we now 
have concerns on the existing Keystone Pipeline. So I am glad the 
President of the United States vetoed this legislation.
  I hope we will get on to working on other important energy 
opportunities. I hope my colleagues will not try to override this veto 
but instead focus on renewing the energy tax credits that help employ 
hundreds of thousands of people in various industries--anything from 
solar, to wind, to hybrid electric vehicles--and get on to the other 
issues that are so important for us in talking about a 21st-century 
energy strategy.
  Again, I am glad the President of the United States has vetoed this 
legislation that would have been a rubberstamp by Congress for a 
special interest. Instead, let's make sure all environmental and safety 
conditions are met.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the role.
  Mr. SESSIONS. 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. SESSIONS. Mr. President, one of the measures that took place in 
this Executive amnesty that has been too little commented upon since 
the President signed these orders in November is another program which 
has not been authorized by law which would add several hundred thousand 
new workers to our country.
  This is the headline from an article today: ``DHS Extends Eligibility 
for Employment Authorization to Certain H-4 Dependent Spouses of H-1B 
Nonimmigrants Seeking Employment-Based Lawful Permanent Residence.''
  The H-1B program was set up for certain individuals to come and work 
for 3 years and then extend maybe another 3 years only, to take a job 
in those industries and fields where there is a shortage of workers, 
and it does allow the spouses to come. But since its beginning it has 
barred spouses from working; otherwise we would be doubling the number 
of workers. So this bill now just up and approves spouses of H-1B 
workers to work.
  The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, USCIS, estimates that 
``the number of individuals eligible to apply for employment 
authorization under this rule could be as high as 179,600 in the first 
year and 55,000 annually in subsequent years.'' This is a very large 
addition to the workforce.
  One might say: Well, it is good that spouses can work.
  Well, what if your child wants a job? What if you want a job? What if 
your spouse wants a job and is looking for a job? Now we will have 
another 250,000 job applicants, contrary to law.
  There are many other aspects of the President's Executive order that 
have not been given attention. I think this one is worth commenting 
about.
  There has been no sense at all by President Obama, the Department of 
Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, the Democratic Members of this 
Congress--no concern about the employment prospects of lawful 
immigrants, green card holders, and native-born Americans. We have high 
unemployment and the lowest percentage of Americans in the working age 
group actually holding jobs in America that we have had since 1970. 
Wages are down. Professor Borjas at Harvard documents that excessive 
immigration pulls down wages. Since 2007 wages of median-income 
families are down $4,000.
  I would say to colleagues that the first thing we should do is focus 
on getting jobs for Americans who are unemployed. Are we going to keep 
Americans on welfare and benefits while we bring in more and more 
foreigners to take jobs when we have Americans ready and willing to 
take those jobs?
  They like to suggest these guest workers are doing farm work. They 
are not. The overwhelming majority of guest workers admitted to the 
U.S. are not farm workers, but are taking jobs throughout the economy. 
A farm worker program, with temporary labor, if properly managed, is a 
good program. I do not oppose that. People come and work for a period 
of time, and if they return home and come back the next season and make 
enough money to take care of their families maybe for the whole year, 
that can work if properly managed. But look at this. The H-1Bs are 
people with high-tech degrees, high-tech skills. They are competing 
against college graduates who have computer skills and other skills.
  This is what we get. This is how it is working in this country. A 
bunch of companies got together and they signed a letter to Speaker 
Boehner and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, asking 
for immigration reform back in September 2013. They said they needed 
more H-1B workers, and they pushed for that.

[[Page S1051]]

  I would just note this: Byron York from the Washington Examiner has 
written about this, and this is what the facts are. They are not hiring 
people. They don't have a shortage of workers. They are laying off 
workers in very large numbers. Hewlett-Packard had 29,000 job cuts in 
2012--29,000. They signed the letter. Cisco Systems eliminated 4,000 
jobs in August 2013 in addition to 8,000 cut in the last 2 years. They 
signed the letter asking for more H-1B workers. United Technologies cut 
3,000 jobs in 2013; American Express, 5,400 jobs in 2013; Procter & 
Gamble, 5,700 jobs in 2012; and T-Mobile, 2,250 layoffs in 2012. These 
are companies that are asking for more foreign workers.
  This is another report that was in the Los Angeles Times just a few 
days ago: ``A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of 
American jobs.''

       Since last summer, [Southern California] Edison--

  The biggest utility company in California--

     which serves nearly 14 million customers, has been firing its 
     domestic IT workers and replacing them with outsourced 
     employees from India. . . . The pay for Edison's domestic IT 
     specialists is about $80,000 to $160,000 not including 
     benefits.

  Good pay.

       The two Indian outsourcing firms providing workers to 
     Edison, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, pay their 
     recruits an average of about $65,000 to $71,000, according to 
     federal filings.

  They are laying off hundreds and requiring the California Edison 
employees to train the H-1B workers who shouldn't be coming into 
America unless there is a job need that is unfilled. How can you say we 
don't have qualified people? They are doing the job, and they are 
expected to train them. This is the kind of thing that is out of 
control. Somebody needs to defend the legitimate interests of middle 
America.

  We need to ask ourselves: Does this make sense? Should the President 
be doubling up on it with his Executive amnesty that would add 179,600 
new workers in the first year of his order and 55,000 more annually on 
top of the H-1B flow? We have legislation that has moved in this Senate 
that would more than double the number of H-1B workers coming into the 
country when the evidence indicates they are not needed. It might make 
businesses happy; they can pay half the salary of what they would 
otherwise be paying. But it would not be good for Americans who 
invested in education, trained themselves, worked themselves into a 
good job, and have it pulled out from under them.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.


                        Presidential Leadership

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I wish I could rise today to talk about 
the underlying legislation we are supposed to be talking about, which 
is a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and also address 
the President's Executive order on immigration, which went around the 
Congress but also went around the American people.
  A judge in Texas agrees with those of us on this side of the aisle 
who look at this as an illegal act. Instead, the President ought to 
work with us. The President should work with the House and the Senate 
and the elected representatives of the American people to actually pass 
a law to help fix what is broken in our immigration system.
  We are not able to get on that legislation, and it is not because we 
have differences about the bill that we could talk about. We could have 
votes on amendments and debate this issue, but there are those on the 
other side of the aisle who have decided they don't even want us to 
have the opportunity to hash out those differences so we can vote. I 
think the constituents I represent in Ohio expect us to have that 
debate, and they want us to have that debate. I hope those on the other 
side of the aisle will let us have that debate, and we could have a 
good, honest discussion about this and address both of these problems--
the need to fund the Department and also the need to address this 
Executive order. I think it is another example where Washington has let 
down the people I represent.
  In the meantime, this is no time for political games. It is a 
dangerous world. We have a real problem, not just here at home in 
protecting the homeland, but also with fires burning all around the 
world. It is time we showed some leadership both here in this Chamber 
and down the street at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is time for 
Presidential leadership.
  If you turn on the TV tonight, what you will see is those fires 
burning. You will see a world more dangerous than the one we had after 
9/11. You will see threats to the United States and our allies that 
seem to grow with every passing day. But even as these threats grow, it 
seems as though our President is increasingly hesitant to lead.
  Iran, despite the platitudes of the Obama administration, which seems 
really eager to find an agreement and make a deal, continues its march 
toward developing nuclear weapons.
  ISIS, the group the President once described as the JV team when they 
were in Iraq flying the black flag of Islam extremism over cities such 
as Fallujah and Mosul, cities where American marines gave their lives 
to liberate--the President called them the JV team.
  Russian soldiers now move freely through eastern Ukraine, and the 
separatists there are using Russian equipment, they are trained by the 
Russian military, led by Russian special forces, and they continue to 
wage war on an American ally, Ukraine. While we all hoped the recent 
cease-fire would hold, all indications are that Russia and its proxies 
are taking advantage of that cease-fire in Ukraine to continue their 
aggression.
  Across Europe--in France, Denmark, and Belgian--innocent people have 
been murdered. Some were murdered for opposing terrorists aims, and 
some for the simple fact they are Jewish. These attacks are not random, 
as has been suggested by the administration. Unfortunately, they are 
designed to incite fear and weaken our resolve to oppose Islamic 
terrorism wherever we find it.
  We must not allow them to succeed any more than we must stand silent 
in the face of Iranian threats and Russian aggression. What we must do 
is take a long, hard look at how we got here and what we must do going 
forward to change the situation.
  In my view, a lot of the chaos we are seeing across the globe stems 
from a lack of leadership. Into that void, chaos ensues. The defining 
themes in the Obama administration's approach to foreign policy have 
been a preference for disengagement and an unwillingness to shoulder 
the responsibility of global leadership the way previous Presidents--
Democrat and Republican alike--have done. As the administration itself 
has said, they prefer to lead from behind.
  The President has said that ``the trajectory of this planet overall 
is one toward less violence, more tolerance.'' I don't know about that. 
I don't think history moves inexorably toward more justice and more 
peace. These trajectories don't just happen, people make them happen. 
Leadership is the key.
  When America is strong, when we stand unequivocally for freedom and 
justice and the right of all people to choose their own destiny, when 
we do not back down in the face of threats and intimidation, that is 
when we see a world that is more stable, less dangerous, and more free.
  More wars, more conflicts, more threats to our security--these don't 
typically arise from American strength. They arise from American 
weakness. When we look around the world--whether it is in Gaza or 
Eastern Europe or Iraq or Iran or Syria, the increase in violence and 
instability has coincided with the growing perception that the United 
States of America is either unwilling or unable to take a stand against 
threats to international security and stability. Addressing these 
complex challenges--and many of them are very complex--requires a 
sustained and proactive American leadership role and American 
engagement. It requires strategies that seek to shape outcomes, not be 
shaped by them.
  There is a lot at stake. Events in Ukraine, the Middle East, and 
elsewhere are a direct challenge to the United States-led international 
order, which has led to unprecedented global prosperity and stability 
for both the United States and for the world. Confidence in America's 
willingness to use our unmatched economic, political, and military 
capabilities to uphold our system deters potential challengers and 
incentivizes other countries to

[[Page S1052]]

play by the rules, which reduces the chances of war. If the credibility 
of this commitment is in doubt, then the stability and openness upon 
which U.S. economic prosperity and national security depend is 
jeopardized and the chance for violence, instability, and economic 
collapse increases. The world is watching. They are watching to see 
whether this American-led order can withstand these challenges or if we 
really are entering into a period of the post-American world.
  In Ukraine, the administration's response has been incomplete, 
reactionary, and ineffective. There are many political and economic 
dimensions of this conflict, and Ukraine needs Western support to 
implement crucial reforms in these areas. But there is also a military 
dimension to this crisis that we cannot continue to ignore. Sanctions 
alone have not worked. The so-called cease-fire agreements have not 
worked. As President Obama, Angela Merkel, and Francois Hollande debate 
and discuss cease-fires and timelines, Russia is deciding the outcome 
on the ground in eastern Ukraine this afternoon as we talk. Unless we 
help provide Ukraine with the tools they need to prevent that from 
happening, any future agreements will only solidify this reality. Let's 
allow them to defend themselves. Russia continues to believe that 
military force is a viable option to achieve its goals, and unless the 
United States and its European allies and NATO help the Ukrainians 
prove otherwise, this behavior is unlikely to change.
  It is well known by now that the President has refused to adopt 
policies that actually provide Ukraine with the capabilities it needs. 
A bipartisan coalition, on the other hand, has emerged here in Congress 
on the need to do more, and we will continue to advocate for a change 
in course and pursuit of a proactive, comprehensive strategy that 
actually works.
  In the Middle East, proactive American leadership requires upholding 
our commitment to stand unequivocally with Israel. No other nation in 
the world would be expected to put up with tunnels into their cities 
with rockets raining down on people's homes. The press got it wrong 
last year, and with all due respect, I believe the President got it 
wrong too. There is no moral equivalence in Gaza.
  I have made a few trips to Israel. I met with their people. I have 
walked the streets of Sderot and have seen the remains of missiles that 
were targeted against innocents with hatred and an intent to kill and 
maim. I have been out to the bomb shelters and the indoor fortified 
playgrounds built so children can have a chance to play without fear. I 
have spent time with an Iron Dome battery crew outside Ashkelon. I can 
tell you this: From what I have learned, the people of Israel want 
peace.
  Unfortunately, we know the biggest winner from this administration's 
wavering support of Israel is Iran. Iran continues to stall on 
negotiations meant to end their nuclear weapons program. They continue 
to ask for more time, and the administration continues to grant it. 
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to the United 
States next week to speak of the threat that Iran poses not only to 
Israel but to the world, and the President seems to be too busy to meet 
with him. Truly, the world has turned upside down.
  A key test of U.S. leadership is ensuring that Iran does not retain 
nuclear capability in their continued march toward weaponization. If it 
were in my power, I would put the Kirk-Menendez Iran sanctions bill--of 
which I am an original cosponsor--here on the floor on the Senate 
today, and, by the way, it would pass. I believe it would pass with 
over 60 votes because Republicans and Democrats alike recognize that 
Iran will not negotiate in good faith unless the United States is 
unequivocal in our commitment to ending the nuclear threat Iran poses.
  You will recall that this legislation does not impose new sanctions 
that would be imposed now. These sanctions would be imposed if the 
Iranians do not agree to halt their nuclear weapons program as 
required, by the way, by the United Nations. These are leveraged for 
the White House, and the White House should use that leverage.
  American leadership is needed for a more stable and peaceful world. I 
believe the future does not belong to bigotry and hate, but to freedom-
loving people of the world, and the United States of America must lead 
the way.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the funding 
for the Department of Homeland Security and the continuing need for 
immigration reform.
  We need to fund the Department of Homeland Security and we should 
pass a clean DHS funding bill. That is the only bill that can pass the 
Senate, and that is the only bill that should pass the Senate. Once 
that bill has passed the Senate and the House and becomes law, then we 
can and should move on to consider immigration legislation.
  Republican leadership in the Senate has wasted a lot of time over the 
past month politicizing immigration and mixing it up with the issue of 
funding this Federal agency that helps to protect the United States 
from terrorists and other threats, and those threats are real. Just 
this past weekend, the terrorist organization al-Shabaab issued a 
threatening video suggesting that the Mall of America in my State of 
Minnesota could be a target for a terrorist attack.
  Look, this issue is not something we should be politicizing. We 
should enact into law a clean funding bill for DHS, and we should fund 
the Department for the whole year and not make the Department run for a 
short time on a continuing resolution and just revisit the issue in the 
near future. That is not what we want. And then we should and can 
debate immigration.
  I have always believed the best way to accomplish meaningful and 
sustainable immigration reform is through congressional action. In the 
last Congress, the Senate took such action. As a member of the 
Judiciary Committee, I was very proud to play an active role in the 
comprehensive immigration bill the Senate passed with broad bipartisan 
support. For me, this was a model of how the Senate was supposed to 
work. Four Senators from each side of the aisle, known as the Gang of 
8, came together and crafted a bill which we then marked up in the 
Judiciary Committee, and I was very pleased that a number of my 
amendments were included in the bill, which then went to the Senate 
floor and passed with 68 votes. That bill would have provided a real 
and comprehensive overhaul of our broken immigration system.
  It would have significantly strengthened our border security, and it 
would have helped a lot of people--from small businesses to families in 
our legal immigration system to the many undocumented immigrants who 
would have an opportunity, through a tough but fair path, to get right 
with the law. There are millions of people in our country who want the 
same things that all of us want--a steady job, excellent education for 
our children, and a brighter future for their families. But they are 
living in limbo and often in fear. Our bill would help them come out of 
the shadows and get right with the law.
  The Senate passed our bill in June of 2013. I was very hopeful the 
House would take up and pass the Senate bill. If the House had allowed 
a vote on the Senate bill, it would have passed the House and been 
enacted into law. That would have meant real and lasting reform to our 
broken immigration system. Unfortunately, over the course of the next 
year and a half the Republican leadership in the House failed to act on 
the bipartisan immigration reform bill passed in the Senate--again, 
with 68 votes. The President took a step forward that will help a lot 
of people and will help to address fixing our broken immigration 
system.
  While I still believe Congress needs to act, I think we need to keep 
the Executive actions in place until we do. I will not support any 
legislative effort to undo President Obama's Executive actions. We are 
presented with a choice. Once we pass a bill into law to fund the 
Department of Homeland Security, we can take a step forward and help a 
lot more people by passing comprehensive immigration reform or we can 
take a step backward and harm a lot of people without getting any 
closer to the comprehensive immigration reform we need.

[[Page S1053]]

  I will vote to move forward, not backward. We need a fully funded 
Department of Homeland Security, and we need a comprehensively 
overhauled immigration system.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ayotte). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                           Childhood Poverty

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, it is a privilege to be here with my 
colleague from Colorado.
  I rise to talk about our schools and really to talk about our values 
and our morality--what we stand for as a country--and to ask whether we 
are able to look forward and create a better future for our children.
  To set the record straight, let me be clear. When it comes to our 
children, I have fallen short, you have fallen short, and this body has 
fallen short. Let me explain why.
  We have learned in the last couple of weeks that over half of the 
public school children in this country are now poor enough that they 
qualify for free or reduced lunches at school--children who, through no 
fault of their own, are reaping the whirlwind of 15 years of stagnant 
middle-class family income and the effects of the worst recession since 
the Great Depression.
  By many measures, as the Presiding Officer knows, Colorado's economy 
leads the Nation. But even in our home State, we see more children 
living in poverty. In fact, the number of children in poverty is 
growing faster in Colorado than in most of the other 50 States.
  As a country and as a State, we are making a lot of progress in a 
number of dimensions, but we are headed in the wrong direction when it 
comes to our kids. That is a bad sign for any country but particularly 
for a democracy that aspires to be the land of opportunity.
  A girl in poverty in the United States is five times more likely to 
be a young single mother than a child from a middle-class family, and a 
boy in poverty is twice as likely to be incarcerated as his middle-
class peers. Children from low-income families in this country are 
about three times less likely to graduate from high school. Someone 
from a family in poverty stands only a 9-in-100 chance of earning a 
college degree. Think about that. There are 100 seats in this Chamber. 
There are 100 desks in this Chamber. If they represented children 
living in poverty in the United States, that desk, that desk, that 
desk, those three desks, and three of those desks would represent 
college graduates. The entire rest of this Chamber would be people that 
would never earn a college degree or its equivalent and who would be 
constrained to the margins of our economy and our democracy as a result 
after that.

  Interestingly enough, the equivalent number for children in the top 
quarter of income earners is almost 80 out of 100. So 80 of these desks 
from a more affluent family--80 of these desks would represent a person 
who graduated with a college degree or its equivalent, and 20 would 
represent people that had fallen short, but nine poor children would 
have a college degree. In other words, in a way that is profoundly at 
war with our founding ideals, poverty breeds deeper poverty, lack of 
educational achievement reaps deeper academic failure, and broken 
families are the surest predictor of more broken families in the next 
generation and the generations beyond that. This is a sentence of 
unequal opportunity for all poor Americans, no matter the color of 
their skin. It is a generational sentence for 7 out of 10 children who 
will remain at the bottom of the income scale their entire lives.
  Are there people who defy these odds? Of course there are. As 
superintendent of the Denver public schools and in this job, I have met 
scores of children who have overcome the odds--sometimes alone--but 
often also with the help of a parent who wouldn't quit, a teacher who 
wouldn't take ``no'' for an answer, a former gang member whose sworn 
duty is to keep young people out of gangs, a philanthropist who 
insisted that Denver's kids would go to college. In these exceptional 
children I have seen the indomitable nature of the human spirit 
persevere against all odds and have recognized how little I and most of 
us have achieved by comparison.
  I have met kids who take three buses both ways to school leaving as 
early as 5:30 in the morning just to have the benefit of a better 
school all the way on the other side of town, kids who can't get up in 
the morning because they have to work until 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at 
night in a fast food restaurant to help pay the rent, kids who pour 
their heart and soul out into their studies and communities only to 
learn that college is not for them because of an immigration status 
they did not even know that they had.
  I met kids who were the primary caregivers of younger brothers and 
sisters who are taking care of ailing parents and grandparents, who 
have made it to college for the first time in their family's history 
who are that 9 in 100, who represent the best of our human spirit. They 
are our heroes.
  As one of our Denver public school students, Chaunsea Dyson from 
South High School, recently told a radio reporter, ``When you are 
growing up in poverty, when you are 15 or 16 that means you are 
grown.''
  That means you are grown.
  As the father of three girls who are 15, 14, and 10, I would say that 
is an awful lot to expect of a 16-year-old, especially one coming from 
circumstances few in this Chamber could overcome. My point is that 
while there are many heroic people in our schools--kids, teachers, 
principals--succeeding in our school system today, heroism is not a 
standard we tend to count on for the success of human enterprise. We 
simply can't scale heroism. I wish we could--but we can't--to address 
the scope of our achievement gap. It is too much to ask, and it is not 
fair to our kids who have no control over the circumstances of their 
birth.
  I don't think there is one Member in this Chamber who could come and 
say that is not true, that a child could control somehow the 
circumstances of his or her birth, because one of the enduring truths 
of being a human being is that we don't get to choose our parents. We 
don't choose to be born into a home of wealth or poverty, a home that 
values books or learning or a home which for whatever reason does not. 
That is a matter of good and bad luck. Yet those circumstances beyond 
our children's control--absolutely beyond their control--today almost 
always determine educational outcomes in the United States of America.
  So the question is, What is our obligation? What is our obligation as 
a nation to remedy the burden of bad luck for millions of American 
children?
  I believe at a minimum it means we have a moral duty to assure that 
our less lucky children have educational opportunities that let them 
make the most of their God-given potential. That is certainly what I 
would want for my own daughters. If we are honest, then by any 
reckoning we are failing to meet this moral duty and I would say 
failing very badly. If we ask ourselves why we are failing to do our 
duty--how can this be--in my mind it comes down to a sad and simple 
reality: We are treating America's children as if they were someone 
else's children rather than our own.
  To demonstrate this let's consider what conditions we have allowed to 
exist for a child born, through no fault of her own, into poverty in 
the United States of America in the year 2015. We know that by the age 
of 4 she will have heard 30 million fewer words than her more affluent 
peers--30 million. Ask any elementary schoolteacher in the country 
whether that will make a difference in how prepared she is for 
kindergarten. Fewer than half of poor children start school with the 
skills they need to be ready to succeed in kindergarten. Every 
elementary schoolteacher in America knows that. What are the odds her 
neighborhood school will meet her needs? How about a school 1 mile 
away? How about a school 5 miles away? It is not likely in many 
American cities and rural communities.
  When she reaches the fourth grade her odds are no better. She is 9 
years old and there are 30 children in her classroom. On average, 24 of 
her classmates cannot read at grade level--24 out of 30. Her chances of 
being a proficient reader--20 percent--one in five.

[[Page S1054]]

One in five poor children cannot read at grade level in the fourth 
grade in the United States of America this week, today, this year. 
Would any of us accept those odds or outcomes for our own children? 
Would any one person in this Chamber accept that? Would any of us still 
be in Washington engaged in the Potemkin debates we are having if our 
child couldn't read by the fourth grade? Of course not--of course we 
wouldn't. But we act as if it is not our children who are the 
casualties, and so we smile and we stroke our chins on the cable TV and 
pretend this is all somehow out of our hands, too hard to solve, 
someone else's problem.
  Here is where it ends. In this knowledge-based global economy, this 
unforgiving global economy, only 9 out of 100 kids, as I said in 
poverty, will graduate with a college degree or its equivalent and 91 
will not. These are the results we have produced for our children in 
this unforgiving global economy.
  But for once let's put aside the finger-pointing and the blame--
although we should take our fair share of responsibility--and let's ask 
the questions our children might reasonably ask to judge their Nation's 
leaders.
  For example, they might ask: Why do we trail behind 35 other 
developed countries in our math scores? Why does the United States rank 
20th in increasing educational attainment from one generation to the 
next--20th; the least likely country to produce more educated people 
coming after us than there were before us.
  Why are American children much more likely to be stuck in the 
economic class into which they are born than children in at least 12 
other countries, including Canada, Japan, Germany, Australia, and 
Denmark?
  These seem like reasonable questions. You wouldn't know they were on 
anybody's mind around here with what concerns us on this floor, but I 
can tell you it is of concern to people at home.
  Why are we consigning, they might ask, our children and ourselves to 
a social economic framework that is increasing, not decreasing, 
inequality in this country, when other countries in the world are 
headed in the opposite direction?
  Why are we putting up with a set of circumstances in which income and 
equality in America has grown significantly much faster than other 
industrialized countries in the world? If I were a child living in 
poverty in this country, those are the questions I would want to know, 
in addition to the fact that I can't find a school, not just down the 
street, not just in my neighborhood but in my city or even in the 
region of my State to go to. To put it another way, I can't find a 
school in my community that any Member of the Senate would be proud to 
send their child to.
  Why can't I find that school?
  I didn't pick my parents. That was a question of good luck or bad 
luck. In my case it was bad luck.
  I know there are profound disagreements about whether the Federal, 
State or local government should serve our kids and how. I am even 
sympathetic, believe me, as a former school superintendent, to many 
arguments about how poorly Washington is often situated to help. But 
surely as a nation, one way or another, we have a moral obligation. 
That is our legacy as Americans ``in Order to form a more perfect 
Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the 
common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings 
of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. . . . ''
  Imagine how less powerful the Preamble to the Constitution would have 
been if it stopped with ourselves, period--but it didn't. It resolves 
the question in favor of our posterity--our posterity, not someone 
else's--our children, not someone else's. What would this debate sound 
like if we were serious about this moral obligation?
  Without deciding today who would deliver and pay for these important 
social goods, something we should debate and understand, consult with 
our States and our school districts, our parents and our communities; 
but, without making those decisions today, if we just were treating the 
country's children as our own children, what would this debate sound 
like? What would we do?
  We surely would provide every parent and her child with the choice to 
access early childhood education from birth to age 5 in order to attack 
that 30 million word deficit. Surely we would do that.
  I am not saying we should do it. I don't think we should do that from 
here, but as a nation we should do that. Surely we would ensure that 
every child, without exception and regardless of where they live, has 
the choice to attend a high-performing school from kindergarten to 12th 
grade. Surely we would do that.
  We would enable every young person, consistent with most of our 
postwar history, the chance to attain a college degree or other 
advanced technical training without bankrupting their family. I saw 
some data this weekend about this that showed that in 1975--and 
admittedly it was the high-water mark--the Pell grants covered roughly 
76 percent of what it cost to go to college, the average cost of 
college. Do you know what that number is now? It is 22 percent, mostly 
because the cost of college has increased so much.
  Bankruptcy is a real issue. These goals--early childhood education, a 
great K-12 school, affordable college--might seem obvious and even 
unimaginative to many of us in this Chamber, but that might be because 
we take them for granted for our own children. Of course we want high-
quality early childhood education, of course we want a high-quality K-
12 school, of course we want our young people to have access to college 
without bankrupting our family, and that is the experience of a lot of 
people in this Chamber. The terrible reality for most poor children in 
America in 2015 is that these simple goals are as out of reach as 
flying to the Moon, all over this country.

  Some say we can't afford to change, and I say we can't afford not to 
change. The costs of failure, as we know, are simply too high. Since 
the Industrial Revolution, we have had the greatest economy the world 
has ever known, and if we are to remain so in the 21st century, we must 
educate our people. We have no other choice. They are our greatest 
asset. We can do it.
  I am not proposing today a new Federal program of any kind. However, 
I will say if it were left up to me, we would have a standing committee 
in the Senate focused exclusively on our children and their future. 
Such a committee would, for example, examine every funding stream in 
the Federal budget related to kids and ask what is working and what is 
not working. What redundancies exist? How are we going to align every 
single taxpayer dollar or tax credit to help support the health, 
education, and well-being of our children?
  I suspect that in addition to increasing efficiency, we would decide 
to spend more of our resources in and around schools. That is where our 
kids are, after all, and that is where the people who have served them 
in our communities need to be instead of tied up in the redtape of 
compliance and outdated and unimaginative Federal rules and 
regulations.
  In addition to that, we need to explore more efficient ways to 
finance social welfare programs, promote more creative ways to weave 
our social safety net in this country, and reform our criminal justice 
system. A good start would be to graduate children from high school, 
since around 80 percent of our prison inmates are high-school dropouts. 
That would help a lot. We need to better engage with the private and 
nonprofit sectors when the government isn't working well enough. This 
is all part of a broader but essential conversation, one this body 
continues to avoid while it wanders from one phony conflict to the 
next, and one that becomes more difficult and more expensive the longer 
we wait.
  Our kids are waiting for us to have this conversation. We are wasting 
their time. It is one thing for us to waste our own time--although the 
capacity for doing that around here is beyond belief--but we ought to 
stop wasting our kids' time. As I said, it is only going to become more 
difficult and more expensive the longer we wait.
  In the meantime, we have before us the potential to rewrite the 
Elementary and Secondary School Act. Fixing so-called No Child Left 
Behind is only one piece of the puzzle. Given where we are, this is all 
pretty modest stuff. There are some very encouraging signs, although 
the law has plenty of flaws. In fact, I said many times that if we had 
a rally out in front of the Capitol to keep No Child Left Behind the

[[Page S1055]]

same--if that is what the rally was for--not a single person in America 
would show up for that rally.
  Incidentally, while we have this reauthorization in front of us, it 
is a reauthorization that should have happened 7 years ago. It expired 
7 years ago. We are running education policy in this country by waivers 
from the Department of Education because this Congress cannot do its 
job. Almost 40 of 50 States have waivers from the law as it exists 
today. Let's change the law. Let's write it properly. Let's do our work 
around here instead of spending our time on things the American people 
don't want us to spend our time on.
  Although everybody loves to hate No Child Left Behind, and I put 
myself in that category, it has some good things. It required us to 
face the facts about how our kids in poverty are doing in our schools. 
It shed light for the first time on the achievement gap--the brutal 
achievement gap--we have in this country, and some school districts 
stepped up. Denver Public Schools is one such district.
  Over the last decade, Denver Public Schools has implemented a number 
of changes and has seen real results. My schoolboard and my principals 
and my teachers and our kids and I would be the first to say we have 
not yet gotten to a place where you can say the ZIP Code you were born 
into doesn't determine the education you are going to get, but we are a 
lot closer in Denver. We are a lot closer there than we are in a lot of 
other cities in this country. We have seen some real results.
  Almost 30 percent more students graduated and went to college last 
year than in 2005. That is not enough. We are not satisfied with that. 
But if you could say that about every single city in this country, that 
we were graduating and sending 30 percent more students to college than 
we were in 2005, that might give us some hope for the future. That 
might suggest that some outcomes other than the ones we have been 
seeing with the result of 9 out of 100 poor kids getting a college 
degree is not where we have to end up, is not where we have to land.
  I am here to tell you, not as a U.S. Senator, but as someone who was 
a superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, this is possible. It is 
possible to change these outcomes in urban districts and in rural 
districts for children who are unlucky enough to be born into poverty 
in the greatest Nation on the planet--unlucky enough to be born poor 
and not born rich.
  Denver has recognized the importance of providing access to high-
quality, early childhood education, and now an estimated 70 percent of 
Denver's 4-year-olds are enrolled in preschool. That was not true in 
2005.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, we live in a State that doesn't 
require or pay for 5-year-olds to go to kindergarten. That is a shame. 
But because of the changes we made in Denver, our 5-year-olds go to 
kindergarten--a full day if they want it, which most of them do--and 70 
percent of the fourth graders in Denver have early childhood education, 
and it is not only delivered by the Denver Public Schools, but by other 
providers as well and the Denver public schools.

  This seems to be having an effect as kids who attend the Denver 
preschool program track higher in school readiness. They know more 
about the alphabet, words, and books. They have a higher vocabulary and 
are able to comprehend basic math. And in kindergarten, first, and 
second grade, they showed better literacy and math skills than their 
peers.
  The dropout rate in Denver has decreased since 2005 by 60 percent. 
Incidentally, the teen pregnancy rate has also fallen by 60 percent. 
Denver Public Schools has gone from being the district with the lowest 
rate of academic growth among major districts in the State to the 
highest for 3 straight years. I am not taking responsibility for that. 
I am here, not there.
  Last year DPS students from low-income families had stronger growth 
in math and writing than nonfree- and reduced-lunch students Statewide. 
And Denver's nonfree- and reduced-lunch students showed more growth 
than their State counterparts in math by nine points.
  This was once labeled the failing school district in our State, but 
because of the data that we have as a result of No Child Left Behind, 
we can actually see what is happening--which kids are growing and which 
kids are not, which schools are driving growth among kids and which 
schools are not.
  You can look at a map of our city and find a school that looks just 
like your low-performing school with the same percentage of free- and 
reduced-lunch kids where kids are succeeding beyond their wildest 
dreams. Then what parents can do is say: I want that school, not this 
school, for my kid. Because we have a robust system of choice in 
Denver, parents are able to take advantage of that data, and we simply 
would not have had the proliferation of high-performing charter schools 
if it had not been for No Child Left Behind. In addition, Denver has 
gone beyond that.
  We have 33 innovation schools where teachers and administrators have 
the flexibility to modernize their teaching practices and have more 
autonomy to make decisions at the school level to better meet the needs 
of individual students. And it is not just Denver. We have seen 
progress all across the country--not remotely enough, but we have seen 
progress, and we cannot go backward.
  In the 3 decades prior to No Child Left Behind being passed--30 
years--the average 9-year-old's reading score on the National 
Assessment of Educational Progress increased only 4 points--4 points in 
30 years. Is that acceptable? Contrast that to the gains from 1990 to 
2012, which is roughly the life of No Child Left Behind. During that 
span, 9-year-olds gained 9 points in reading, about 7 times as much 
annual progress. We have seen similar progress in math--9-year-olds 
only increased 2 points from 1990 to 1999, but from 1999 to 2012, they 
gained 12 points. In that same span, African-American students improved 
by 15 points and Latino students improved by 21 points.
  The achievement gap shrunk as well. In reading, the gap between White 
and African-American 9-year-old students dropped from 35 to 23 points. 
It is still too big, but it is moving in the right direction. This 
represents progress, but as I have said, in the face of stiff 
competition worldwide, it is nowhere near enough.
  Since the year 2000, we have dropped from second to twelfth in the 
world in the production of college graduates. We need to write a bill 
that builds on our successes and turns us away from the failed 
practices of the past, and we cannot do it if we are constrained by the 
typical politics--the small politics of Washington. We cannot afford to 
have the same tired fights. We won't always agree on everything, but I 
know we can find a way to pass a bill that helps our schools and school 
districts to make the decisions they think are best for the kids they 
are educating.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  We are under a 10-minute time limitation.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 7 more 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNET. I appreciate the indulgence of my colleague from 
Louisiana.
  In a significant demonstration of leadership around here, Chairman 
Alexander and Senator Murray have told us they intend to write a 
bipartisan bill. Their process has the potential to be a rare exception 
to the gridlock that has gripped this Senate, along with our bipartisan 
work on the farm bill and immigration.
  Senators Alexander and Murray have both expressed a willingness to 
work together because they appreciate the importance of this task. They 
understand the consequences of failure. They know enough about this 
issue, and they care enough about it.
  In January of 1941, during one of the Nation's most difficult times--
the height of the Great Depression and on the eve of our entry into the 
Second World War, Franklin Roosevelt declared that there were four 
universal freedoms that all persons possessed--freedom of speech, 
freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
  Today, in the 21st century, some of these freedoms may be obtainable, 
but an honest assessment tells us it would be impossible to achieve all 
of them without something additional, and that is freedom from 
ignorance. In the end, freedom from ignorance is the surest relief from 
the shackles of poverty.

[[Page S1056]]

  Where does this leave us as we begin this important but long overdue 
national conversation on the reauthorization of the Elementary and 
Secondary School Act?
  First, for all the reasons I have mentioned, America's children would 
benefit if we treated our work less as legislators than as parents and 
grandparents with a real stake in the outcome of what we decide.
  Second, we must be clear-eyed about the Federal Government's proper 
role in American education and what is not. As a superintendent, I 
learned there are many things the Federal Government cannot and should 
not do when it comes to educating our children. And above all else, 
Washington cannot and should not micromanage our schools or our school 
districts or cultivate systems driven by compliance rather than 
creativity.
  I believe the evidence of our failures and our successes over the 
last 15 years suggest three primary Federal responsibilities: equity, 
accountability, and innovation. After all, the deep and intractable 
inequities that persisted along lines of race and class and geography 
in America of the 1960s drove Lyndon Johnson to pass the first 
Elementary and Secondary Schools Act. They drove the creation of title 
I, specific funds targeted to the kids who needed the greatest support.
  Sadly, for all the reasons I said, half a century later the data 
reveals these profound inequities persist and our students need our 
help now more than ever. But there is also reason for hope in this 
data, and maybe that is the most important message I can bring. We now 
have evidence that sustains support to make the difference in closing 
the pernicious gaps that remain for low-income kids around the country. 
Our deep commitment to equity, therefore, is as important today as it 
was in 1963.
  This means not just committing title I resources, but continuing to 
expand efforts to open the best schools and attract the best teachers 
and principals to our communities in the greatest need. In particular, 
we must help teachers who are saying they want better preparation, they 
want an excellent principal in their school, they want a better 
compensation system and opportunities for leadership that allow them to 
continue working with students.
  At DPS we have made some strides. We created the Denver Teacher 
Residency Program and introduced differentiated pay. We used Federal 
innovation dollars to help us improve and expand early on. We are 
creating leadership roles for teachers who demonstrate results with 
their students. We survey our teachers every year, and their 
satisfaction rates are higher than the national average. But there is 
still much more for us to do.
  Second, those of us working in the field know we must have a clear, 
shared system of accountability, a system that allows us to monitor, 
understand, and improve outcomes for students. This requires annual 
assessments that monitor progress and growth across all our cities and 
States. It requires breaking down data to show how and if we are 
closing the gaps for all students in our school districts. It means 
requiring States to take courageous action to turn around those schools 
that consistently fail our children.
  That is not just about paying attention to how we are serving our 
low-income students in Detroit or Denver. It means examining how well 
we serve our historically disadvantaged students even when they live in 
some of the most advantaged neighborhoods. As we do this, we need to 
work to reduce the amount of testing in our schools. As the father of 
three daughters in the Denver public schools, I am concerned about how 
much they are tested. But as their father, I also want to know every 
year how they are doing against a set of rigorous standards and 
compared to kids in Denver, across Colorado, and around the world. Will 
they be ready for college? Do they have the skills they need to succeed 
in this global economy?
  Third, we have learned over the last decade there is a vital Federal 
role when it comes to innovation in our schools. We can help provide 
the preconditions for success by providing incentives for educators on 
the ground to apply their own creative thinking to address our most 
persistent education problems.
  I say to my colleague from Louisiana, through the Chair, I am coming 
to the end. I owe him 10 minutes whenever he would like it. I thank him 
for his indulgence.
  We will never solve the challenges our teachers and students face in 
Washington, period. We will not do it from here. We can help local 
leaders break free from a status quo that will never succeed for enough 
of America's children.
  We should help identify the challenges, provide resources to local 
educators to overcome them in the context that works best for their 
communities and their students, and we should continue to be the 
clearinghouse that gathers these stories of successful innovation and 
provide the resources to invest in scaling what works and sharing these 
practices across communities and States.
  Equity, accountability, innovation--that is our charge and the 
commitment we must keep if we are to build an America where we treat 
every child as if she were our own.
  As a parent myself, I am well aware the first responsibility any 
parent has is the education of her child. I am also aware that many 
people believe a bad education is just one more outcome produced by 
corrosive poverty in this country. Fix poverty, and you will fix 
education. Maybe so, but that is cold comfort for millions of children 
in our schools today.
  In the end, we have a duty as a nation to ensure that education 
liberates our children, rather than reinforces the circumstances into 
which they were born. In that sense, America's children are our 
children, our responsibility, not someone else's. Can you really accept 
an America in which your little girl has just a 1-in-5 chance of being 
able to read well or a 9-in-100 chance to graduate from college? Can 
you really demand heroism as a precondition for success? If this were 
your child, would you still be in the Senate, or would you go home and 
solve the problem?
  It has been said the future has no lobby in Washington, DC. Are we 
really content to have that depressing observation be the ultimate 
verdict on our leadership? I doubt we are. I would raise this as a 
bipartisan challenge as I close.
  I know the Senator from Louisiana knows a lot about what I came to 
talk about today, and I look forward to working with him on the health 
committee.
  Here is my bipartisan challenge. Let's forge a lobby for the future. 
Let's agree that the obligation we owe the Founders is to create more 
opportunity, not less, for the children coming after us. Let's pledge 
that every child in America is our child, and our future rests with 
her, as it most assuredly does.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the House-
passed Homeland Security appropriations bill. This bill is not just 
about whether we should fund the Department of Homeland Security to 
carry out the very important work of protecting our Nation, but also 
whether we will provide amnesty to those here illegally.
  First, let's establish that the Constitution says Congress has 
authority over our immigration and naturalization laws. The President 
does not have the authority to waive legal requirements. The Supreme 
Court has upheld this on numerous occasions. The President has admitted 
more than 20 times he does not have this authority. That said, now his 
administration is attempting to block the ruling the judge recently 
made to protect his amnesty plan. As has been reported in the papers, 
Judge Hanen in Texas has put an injunction against proceeding with the 
President's amnesty bill. It is reported the Department of Homeland 
Security, at the President's direction, is moving forward with plans to 
seal large contracts with companies to process deferred-action 
applications for millions of illegal immigrants as soon as possible.
  American families have seen President Obama rewrite the laws many 
times, and the outcomes of the recent elections show they do not 
support President Obama's Executive overreach. The President intends to 
grant amnesty to 5 million people. This will

[[Page S1057]]

not be done on a case-by-case basis as the law suggests it should be. 
It is going to be a rubberstamp, a rubberstamp at the expense of those 
who are legally attempting to come to our country. It will take longer 
for those who are attempting to come legally to gain admittance under 
the law. I support the efforts of those coming to the United States to 
make a better life for themselves and their family. We all believe in 
immigration. We just think immigration should be legal.
  The President has rewritten the law to allow illegal immigrants the 
ability to receive work permits and drivers licenses which also 
includes receiving a Social Security number. After a certain period of 
time they will be eligible for Social Security. This goes far beyond 
his legal authority. By the way, many of my Democratic colleagues have 
expressed concerns about the President's action and whether he had the 
constitutional authority to take the action he has taken. Clearly he 
does not. While the President says this legal status is temporary, the 
reality is once work permits have been issued and Social Security cards 
are given, folks will be allowed to stay. They would not be deemed a 
priority for removal. On top of that, the temporary status may be 
renewed.
  In 2011, the President took Executive action for the Department of 
Homeland Security to start prioritizing illegal immigrants for removal. 
In April 2014, several months before he took his most recent action, 
the Los Angeles Times quoted former ICE Director John Sandweg in an 
article where he said, If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here 
illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.
  The Associated Press reported in September 2014 the Department of 
Homeland Security admitted to a group of immigrant advocates during a 
confidential meeting that about 70 percent of illegal immigrants 
traveling as families failed to report back to ICE as ordered after 
they were released at the border.
  A few weeks ago Louisiana school administrators and I met, and they 
expressed concern about how the President's immigration policies have 
stressed our school systems. Classroom sizes have grown. Their 
associated costs to hire more teachers, buy textbooks, and the required 
resources to educate these students all have grown. President Obama is 
giving Executive amnesty to suit his agenda but is stretching limited 
local and State resources. By stretching them, it is making it tougher 
on Americans who are born here.
  The administration says only 5 million people will be impacted by the 
President's Executive order. The reality is with numerous options for 
illegal immigrants to remain in this country, people are going to hear 
about it. They will attempt to come. This will be a magnet for others 
to come here illegally. Illegal behavior is being rewarded.
  If the President's supporters feel compelled to continue blocking the 
funding bill, it must be clear they feel that Executive amnesty is 
legal regardless of how the courts have ruled. It is clear they believe 
that protecting the President's illegal action is more important than 
providing our men and women with the resources to protect our border.
  We must fund the Department of Homeland Security. As I have said, 
many of my colleagues who expressed serious concerns with the 
President's Executive actions in November are now voting to protect 
these actions. It is unfortunate they voted four times to prevent this 
bill--the Homeland Security funding bill--from coming up for debate. 
They won't even allow debate. Folks say they want funding for the 
Homeland Security Department, but they won't allow debate. This is 
unconscionable.
  I believe it is important we move forward to avoid a shutdown of the 
Department of Homeland Security. I urge my colleagues to please stop 
blocking this important legislation we must pass to protect our country 
and give the men and women of Homeland Security the resources they need 
and, most importantly, to protect the Constitution.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the role.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, in 3\1/2\ days, the Department of Homeland 
Security may well shut down. I speak as the senior Democrat on the 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for the last 2 
years and, along with Dr. Tom Coburn, our former colleague from 
Oklahoma, chaired that committee that he and I led.
  But in 3\1/2\ days, if Congress fails to act responsibly--78 hours, I 
think, from right now--the Department of Homeland Security may shut 
down. I have spoken on the floor a number of times in recent weeks 
about the complex, consistent, and very real threats that our country 
faces. We are familiar with a lot of them--maybe not all.
  But over the past several months we have seen horrific images of 
beheadings, of mass murders, brutal executions at the hands of the 
Islamic State. Some of our Nation's largest companies and Federal 
agencies have been victims of massive cyber attacks. They continue to 
this day.
  This weekend another terrorist group, the Al Qaeda-linked terrorist 
group in Somalia called al-Shabaab, vowed they would seek revenge 
against the United States. They cited the Mall of America in Minnesota 
as a potential target. It is not just these groups or the lone wolf 
terrorists they inspire that we need to worry about.
  Last fall, Ebola ravaged several nations in western Africa and even 
came to our shores as well. Threats from Mother Nature persist too. 
Communities and cities in some parts of our country are trying to get 
through a winter that has already broken snowfall records, and more 
records are likely to fall. Yet today, here in the Congress, there are 
some who are questioning whether even to fund the very agencies charged 
with keeping us safe from these and other evolving threats. That goes 
beyond being irresponsible. Department of Homeland Security Secretary 
Jeh Johnson nailed it recently when he said what it was. Here is what 
he said: ``It is bizarre and absurd that we are even having this 
discussion.'' I could not agree more. Is this really the message we 
want to be sending to all those folks across the world who wish us 
harm? God, I hope not.
  Here we are, days before this key agency could be forced to shut down 
preparing for the worst. Some of our colleagues have said that it is 
not a big deal if the Department shuts down. I could not disagree more 
strongly, and here is why. If we continue this behavior and fail to 
pass a clean Department of Homeland Security funding bill by midnight 
on Friday, this is what will happen at the Department of Homeland 
Security: Much of the Department's workforce, up to 200,000 people, 
will be expected to show up for work but work without pay.
  That includes Border Patrol agents who protect our borders. That 
includes Coast Guard crews who patrol our waters. That includes the TSA 
employees who keep our skies safe and make it safe to fly on airplanes 
and get in and out of our airports. Many of these courageous men and 
women put their lives in harm's way every day. We expect them to 
continue doing that. We just are not going to pay them.
  That is right. We want you to keep doing your job of protecting our 
Nation. Eventually, those in Congress will get around to doing our job. 
When we do, you will get paid. Let me ask: How would we like to be 
treated that way? How would we like to be treated that way? Well, we 
would not. I think it is shameful that we would even contemplate 
treating some of our bravest fellow employees like that.
  It is shameful. Even worse, treating our people like this does not 
make America any safer. In fact, it makes us less safe in the end. Even 
if we did avoid a shutdown, we would keep the Department running on a 
stopgap continuing resolution. We would prevent the men and women who 
work there from doing their jobs as efficiently and as effectively as 
they could be, should be, and would like to be.
  Secretary Johnson described that putting the Department on another 
continuing resolution--these are his words--``is a little like trying 
to drive

[[Page S1058]]

cross-country with no more than five gallons of gas [in the tank] at a 
time and you don't know when the next gas station is. You can't plan 
except days and weeks at a time.''
  For example, if we pass another stopgap continuing resolution, the 
Department will not be able to replace obsolete surveillance technology 
along high-risk areas of our border. We need to replace that. In 
addition, our Nation will have significantly fewer resources to respond 
to any future surges of unaccompanied minors along our southwest 
border. Moreover, we will put construction of a badly needed national 
security cutter for the Coast Guard on hold. Why does that matter? It 
matters because our Coast Guard fleet is aging and needs to be 
modernized. These ships are essential to stopping illegal trafficking 
off our coasts, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and 
illegal immigration--some of it in vessels that travel at speeds of 
greater than 50 knots.
  If that is not enough, try this: It is widely known that employee 
morale at the Department of Homeland Security is the lowest of all 
major Federal agencies. Passing yet another continuing resolution I 
promise you will not make it any better--quite the opposite. Morale 
will only get worse, and in doing so threaten to degrade the 
performance of the people we rely on, perhaps more than any other, to 
keep Americans safe.
  So let me say it again. This is not the way we should be treating the 
public servants who in many cases risk their lives to keep our Nation 
and all Americans safe. This is no way to run a key national agency. 
Furthermore, as we have learned over the years, this kind of crisis 
budgeting costs taxpayers millions of dollars in lost productivity, in 
hiring freezes, in contracts that will have to be renegotiated--not at 
a lower cost to taxpayers--at higher costs.
  Now, I understand why some of our colleagues are concerned about the 
policies and procedures set forth in the President's Executive action 
on immigration. I get it. They have every right to express those 
concerns. But the budget of the Department of Homeland Security is not 
the place to have that debate. A Federal district court in South Texas 
recently examined what the President put forward and blocked its 
implementation. Why cannot we just let the judicial process play out 
and meanwhile do our job by funding the Department of Homeland Security 
for the balance of this fiscal year?
  Some of our Republican colleagues agree with this approach. One of 
our colleagues, Lindsey Graham, said earlier this week: ``I hope 
Republicans will come together and back the court case, file a friend 
of the court brief with the court and fund DHS.''
  He added:

       I am willing and ready to pass a DHS funding bill and let 
     this play out in court. The worst possible outcome for this 
     nation is to defund the Department of Homeland Security given 
     the multiple threats we face to our homeland.

  Our friend, Lindsey's friend, John McCain, also said recently--these 
are his words, not mine:

       It's not a good idea to shut down the Department of 
     Homeland Security. . . . Now we have the perfect reason to 
     not shut it down because the courts have decided, at least 
     initially, in our favor.

  ``Our favor'' is that of the Republican Governors who filed the 
lawsuit in the South Texas district court. I want to urge my Republican 
colleagues to go ahead and pursue this potential judicial remedy to 
address the concerns they have. But while they are doing that, for 
God's sake, let's bring a clean, fiscal year 2015 appropriations bill 
for the Department of Homeland Security--the same bill that both 
Democrats and Republicans agreed to last December--let's bring it to 
the floor so we can give the Department the funding and the certainty 
that it desperately needs.
  Regardless of what happens in the courts, at the end of the day 
comprehensive immigration reform is the only way we can fix our broken 
immigration system for the long term. It is the only way we can address 
the issues the President was trying to resolve in his Executive action 
in a straightforward way, as we did in the last Congress when we passed 
by a big bipartisan vote right on this floor--by a 2-to-1 margin--
comprehensive immigration reform.
  We owe the American people an honest and thorough debate on 
immigration reform. But let's do it the right way. We have shown that 
we can do that. We did it a year and a half ago. Let's do it 
again. Let's do it this year after approving a clean, full-year funding 
bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

  I might just add this. The comprehensive immigration reform that we 
passed here by a 2-to-1 margin a year and a half ago was priced out by 
the Congressional Budget Office, which is not Democratic or Republican. 
They looked at it and did all the numbers and everything. They 
concluded that rather than increasing the budget deficit, that 
comprehensive immigration reform bill reduced the budget deficit for 
the next 10 years by $200 billion. Further, for the second 10 years, it 
reduced our budget deficit by $700 billion.
  A different study further suggested that the impact on our Nation's 
economy and on our gross domestic product by the implementation of that 
same comprehensive immigration reform was that it would not diminish 
the growth to our economy. It would actually increase it by 5 percent--
5-percent GDP growth over a two-decade period of time.
  Those of us who are privileged to serve in the Senate were sent here 
by our constituents with a critical responsibility: to work together 
and pass laws that help our Nation and help our economy to grow and to 
thrive.
  This debate--or any debate, for that matter--should not be about one 
political party winning or losing, because the only people who are 
losing are the constituents we are supposed to serve. As long as we 
continue to spend our time debating these manufactured funding crises, 
our constituents--American taxpayers from coast to coast--are going to 
continue to lose. We as a Congress, I think, lose as well.
  I believe American voters made it clear in last fall's election. They 
are tired of all of this kind of behavior. I do not blame them either. 
But it is simple. They want us to do our job. They want us to work 
together across these aisles. They want us to get things done that need 
to get done. They want us to find ways to strengthen the----
  I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARPER. In closing, let me just note that I am encouraged to hear 
that Senate Majority Leader McConnell now seems to be moving toward 
allowing a vote on a clean bill. I hope this change of course is the 
beginning of the end of this crisis for the Department of Homeland 
Security and for our country. Whatever we do, it is critical that we 
consider and pass a clean Department of Homeland Security funding bill 
first. At this point, every hour that goes by without one creates more 
uncertainty and more waste.
  After we do that, let's roll up our sleeves and let's get back to 
work on a thoughtful, 21st century immigration reform policy for our 
country, a policy that is fair, a policy that will significantly reduce 
our Nation's budget deficit, and a policy that will strengthen the 
economic recovery now underway.
  I want to thank my friend from Iowa for the kindness in allowing me 
to proceed for an extra few minutes.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________