[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 10 (Wednesday, January 17, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S256-S264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    RAPID DNA ACT OF 2017--Continued


                 Orders for Thursday, January 18, 2018

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 11 a.m., 
Thursday, January 18; further, that following the prayer and pledge, 
morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved 
to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later 
in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following 
leader remarks, the Senate resume consideration of the motion to concur 
in the House amendment to accompany S. 139; finally, that the time 
following leader remarks until 12:15 p.m. be equally divided between 
the two leaders or their designees.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.


                         Order for Adjournment

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come 
before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned 
under the previous order, following the remarks of Senators Graham, 
Flake, and our Democratic colleagues.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from South Carolina.


                     DACA and Funding Our Military

  Mr. GRAHAM. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I appreciate the majority leader allowing us to do this.
  To the present Presiding Officer, thank you very much for trying to 
fix a difficult problem called immigration.
  I am going to start with what drives my train the most. I want to fix 
a broken immigration system. There are 700,000, 800,000 DACA recipients 
who are going to go into chaos on March 5 if we don't do something.
  As to the President, I think you were right to end this program and 
to give Congress the chance to fix it through the legislative process. 
I thought President Obama overreached through Executive action. You 
said March 5, we are going to replace DACA with legislation. The only 
way that works, Mr. President, is for you to help us and lead us to the 
right answer.
  The one thing I can tell you that drives my train the most is 
rebuilding a broken military. We have an opportunity here to fix these 
problems: help the men and women in the military who have suffered 
mightily from sequestration, to get them more money at a time when they 
need it; to provide certainty to 800,000 young people who have no other 
country to call home than America; again, to repair a broken border, 
start transforming a broken immigration system, and marching to 
comprehensive reform in phase two.
  The reason I am here tonight is I see an opportunity to do something 
we should have done years ago--increase defense spending consistent 
with the threats we face.
  Here is what Defense Secretary Mattis said on June 12, 2017: ``No 
enemy in the field has done more to harm the combat readiness of our 
military than sequestration.'' Congress has shot down more planes and 
sunk more ships by denying the military the assets they need to build 
new equipment, to replace old equipment, to keep people in the field in 
the fight, and other people trained and ready to go in the fight.
  General Milley, the Chief of Staff of the Army, said: If we return to 
sequestration, the Army will be required ``to draw down end-strength 
even further, reduce funding for readiness, and increase the risk of 
sending under-trained and poorly equipped Soldiers into harm's way.'' 
So this is the head of the Army saying: If we can't get our act 
together and increase military funding in a more permanent way, if we 
go back into sequestration, you are requiring me to increase the risk 
of sending undertrained and poorly equipped soldiers into harm's way. 
If that doesn't motivate you, what will?
  General Goldfein said: ``[P]ermanent relief from the Budget Control 
Act--with predictability funding--is absolutely critical to rebuilding 
Air Force capability, capacity, and readiness.'' We have lost a lot of 
capacity. Our readiness is at an alltime low because we are having to 
rob Peter to pay Paul to keep the planes in the air in the Air Force.
  Navy Secretary Spencer said on October 28: The ``Budget Control Act 
and cap sequestration has cost us between $4 and $5 billion dollars due 
to the starting and stopping of acquisition programs, the inability to 
start programs.''
  I could go through line by line what has happened under 
sequestration. Sixty-two percent of the F/A-18s in the Marine Corps and 
the Navy can't fly because we don't have enough spare parts. We have a 
chance here to fix that problem.
  To my Democratic colleagues, I am convinced you care about this too. 
I am convinced you will work with President Trump to increase military 
funding.
  To the majority leader, Senator McConnell, I want to thank him for 
putting a number on the table consistent with the problems we face in 
the military. It is $130 billion over 2 years.
  To my Democratic friends, I do expect you to get some nondefense 
spending increases because sequestration has hurt across the board. The 
NIH has been kept alive because of bipartisan efforts. The FBI will 
have less agents this year than they did in 2013 because of 
sequestration. The CIA, the NSA, all of these defense programs under 
the nondefense portion of the budget have suffered, and they need help 
too.
  What I would like to do is to ask the Congress to stop the s-show and 
grow up. Act consistent with the greatness of this country. Find a way 
to work together on the layup.
  If you are looking for political cover to deal with increased 
military funding, 70 percent-plus of the people believe we would need 
more military funding. If you are looking for political cover to deal 
with the DACA population, 82 percent of the public supports a pathway 
to citizenship for the DACA population. I can't find too many issues 
that poll like that.
  This is a FOX News poll, which means it is true: 79 percent of 
Americans and 63 percent of Trump voters favor granting citizenship to 
illegal immigrants under 30 who were brought here as children. Sixty-
three percent of Trump voters understand that we need border security, 
but they have no animosity toward these young people who came here at 
the age of 6, on average, and literally have lived their lives here 
with no place else to go.
  Here is the good news. We would be crazy to want them to leave. If 
you have met any of these Dream Act kids, the last thing you would want 
them to do is to leave. There are bad people in every population. There 
are 900 people in the population of Dream Act, or DACA, kids who are in 
the military, and there are 20,000 teachers. So on March 5, I don't 
want someone to have to deal with the fact that a fifth-grade teacher 
who everybody likes has to leave the country. That is insane.
  I know my Democratic colleagues will support more defense funding 
with the understanding that the Congress, through legislation, deals 
with the DACA problem. They are willing to put money into the system 
for border security. They are willing to make a down payment on 
changing our immigration system to more merit based.
  At the end of the day, there is a deal to be had. It just needs to be 
done. The

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reason this bipartisan group that I am a part of came about is because 
nobody was doing much of anything. I am not getting in anybody's way. 
We have had months to figure out what to do. Just a couple of weeks 
ago--less than a couple of weeks ago--the four whips of the House and 
the Senate began to work on this. To be honest with you, that is a bit 
late.
  As for the President, we can't do this without you. This was one of 
the centerpieces of your campaign--immigration. President Obama tried 
and failed, and I appreciate his effort. President Bush tried and 
failed, and I appreciate what he did. I worked with both of them across 
the aisle to pass bills that went through the Senate with 60-plus 
votes, to only go to the House and die. I am tired of that scenario.
  To my House colleagues, I know this is tough politics for you. But if 
President Trump can find a way to lead us to a solution, I think it 
will allow the House to finally act.
  On Tuesday, we had an unusual meeting with the President of the 
United States for about 40 Members of the House and the Senate, from 
both sides of the aisle, and we spent 55 minutes on national TV, 
watching President Trump listen, cajole, and urge us to find a 
bipartisan solution. This is what he said Tuesday:

       This should be a bill of love. Truly, it should be a bill 
     of love and we can do that. . . . But it also has to be a 
     bill where we are able to secure our border.

  You are right, Mr. President, security and compassion are not 
inconsistent. As a matter of fact, you cannot have one without the 
other. Let's do phase one and go to comprehensive tomorrow. He urged us 
to come up with a bipartisan product, and he wants to sign it.
  President Trump on Tuesday showed a command of issues, the right 
approach to a difficult problem, urging us to work together in a 
bipartisan fashion. He talked about security being essential, but he 
understood that compassion and love have to be part of this because 
these kids literally have no place to go. They have put their roots 
down in America. They were brought here by their parents. I don't 
believe President Trump wants to kick them out March 5.
  To my friends at the White House, on January 4, we had a meeting of 
Republicans with the President, and I went over the bipartisan proposal 
that I was working on with Senators Durbin, Gardner, Flake, Bennet, 
and, later, Senator Menendez. Nobody was surprised as to what we were 
doing. I said: This is a good position to start from. Can it be made 
better? Yes.
  Senators Tillis and Lankford have the SUCCEED Act. We met with them, 
and I think we adopted a lot of their good ideas. So at the end of the 
day, the Dream Act by Senators Graham and Durbin became more like the 
SUCCEED Act.
  On Thursday at about 10, I get a phone call from Senator Durbin: I 
just talked to the President to let him know that we have reached an 
agreement.
  On January 4, I said: We are 99 percent there.
  Senator Durbin called me and said: I had a good conversation with the 
President. He wants to hear what we have done. He is encouraged by it. 
I made a request to go to the White House.
  General Kelly came over at about 11. I went through the proposal, 
which had been shared numerous times, and he said: What about this? 
What about that?
  I said: It is all about getting the process started. General Kelly, 
we are not going to get comprehensive on our side for DACA. We are not 
going to give 11 million legal status and hope that someday we will 
deal with border security and merit-based immigration. We have to have 
a phase one that is a down payment on all four areas outlined by the 
President.
  By the time we got there, at noon, there were more people at the 
meeting, and all I can say is that what happened between Tuesday and 
Thursday, I don't know, and between 10 and 12, I don't know, but it 
took us in the wrong direction.
  The President whom I saw on Tuesday is the man who can close this 
deal and lead this country to get an answer that Obama and Bush could 
never get. We are where we are.
  To my good friend, Senator Perdue: I share your desire to replace 
chain migration with merit-based immigration. One day we will have a 
system where the nuclear family gets green cards, which will free up 
millions of green cards for a workforce we desperately need. The only 
way you will get that is to deal with the Democrats and give them what 
they are wanting out of this deal. They are not going to give us what 
we want the most--which is legal immigration, a secure border, and a 
merit-based immigration system, based on DACA--and let me tell you why. 
What leverage would they have with the 10 million illegal immigrants 
that they would like to see have a better life, too? Almost none.
  To my colleagues on the other side, from the very first day that I 
sat down and talked to you, what did I tell you? I have no animosity 
toward the 11 million. I just don't want any crooks or bad people. 
Let's get them right with the law. Let's transition to a system where 
we do not do this every 20 years. Let's secure our border, increase 
legal immigration, have an E-Verify system that works, and put people 
in jail who are illegals in the future. Let's give the 11 million who 
can come out of the shadows and are not criminals a chance to get right 
with the law, by paying a fine, passing the English proficiency exam 
over time, getting at the back of the line of the country where they 
come from, and 10 years later they can apply for a green card--a 
pathway to citizenship that I think could be earned.
  How did 11 million people get here? They did not sneak up on us. If 
you know anything about the economy in South Carolina, there is a lot 
of tourism, and it is a heavy service industry. If you go to a golf 
course in South Carolina, you will see beautiful golf courses 
maintained by good people, and you are going to see mostly Hispanics. 
If you go to a meatpacking plant in South Carolina, you are going to 
see people doing a job you wouldn't want, making a decent living, 
working really hard, and most of them are Hispanic.
  How did this happen? Most of us looked the other way as people came 
to our country trying to better their lives--some crooks, some rapists, 
some drug dealers, but mostly really good people trying to improve 
their lot in life. All that I ask is that we fix this system once and 
for all so we don't have a third wave 20 years from now but that we 
deal with the reality that these people are here, and they have been 
here for a long time. And America always needs good people--not just 
from Norway but from all over the world.
  We need a reliable partner at the White House. General Kelly I admire 
greatly. He lost his son in service to our Nation. He has been leading 
Marines in combat for decades. He is new to being chief of staff. He 
did a heck of a job creating order out of chaos. But at that meeting, 
he said something I take exception to: You have got to stop fiddling.
  General Kelly, as much as I admire you, for 10 years I and many 
others in this body have been trying to find a way forward to fix an 
immigration system that is broken, to turn it into a merit-based 
immigration system over time, to get the 11 million right with the law, 
to increase legal immigration so employers don't have to cheat, and to 
make our Nation better and stronger. So I haven't been fiddling.
  What I asked the White House is this: Find out what you are for. I 
can't read your mind.
  This proposal just picked up support from more Republicans. We didn't 
write the Bible, but we gave the President his funding for fiscal year 
2018 for the wall and security outside the wall. I don't believe we are 
going to get $10 billion or $20 billion funded in 1 year. I don't think 
that is possible.
  We begin to break chain migration within the DACA population. We 
limit green cards to nuclear families, which is a down payment on a 
merit-based immigration system. We eliminate the diversity lottery 
because it is a bad way to give out visas, and we took those 50,000 
visas and said: Why don't we do the following: Create a merit-based 
program for underserved countries, which are mostly in Africa. Here is 
what I believe: merit-based immigration all over the world, not just in 
Europe.
  What has made us special and unique is that we come from everywhere. 
We are nobodies where we came from, and we can be a somebody here.

[[Page S258]]

  I have said a couple of times, and I will say it again: Norway is a 
great place. If your are from Norway, you are a Norwegian. If you are 
from America, what are you? You will not know us by the way we look. 
You will not know us by the way we talk, because Dick Durbin has an 
accent. We talk differently, we look differently, but we have a lot in 
common, and out of the many we have become one.
  In an effort to decide who comes to America in the future and to fix 
a broken immigration system, one thing I will never give in to is 
changing what it means to be an American. There are people from all 
over the globe dying to get here. We can't accept everybody, but we 
need to make sure that, as we go forward in the future, we do not 
forget our past.
  Out of every country all over the globe, we have created something 
special here. Everybody has a story. My grandfather came from Scotland, 
Lindsey Graham, and could barely read or write. Neither one of my 
parents finished high school. And I am in the Senate, thanks to the 
good people of South Carolina. Everybody has a story. I don't want 
those stories to end. I want new chapters, one after another.
  So to the President, what I saw Tuesday was a man that understood 
what America was all about, a leader who understood that bipartisanship 
must occur and understood that love and security are not mutually 
exclusive. What I find today is complete chaos.
  To think that our Democratic colleagues are going to give us 
everything we want on the fence and hope that one day we will deal with 
the DACA population is a bit unrealistic--and count me in for being on 
your side there. I don't want to put these kids through any more hell. 
I don't want to wait until March 4. I want to go ahead and get it done 
now. We should have done it years ago.
  I want to get a down payment on border security and change our 
immigration system, but we can't do it all at once, because everybody 
tells me comprehensive will not work. So let's figure out a way to chop 
it up in two parts. You have to start somewhere.
  So here we are, trying to figure out what the hell to do. Let me tell 
you what we should do. We should listen to the American people. We 
should do what they want us to do, which is to take care of the DACA 
population, rebuild the military, and start fixing the broken 
immigration system.
  If we just did what 70 percent of the American people want us to do, 
we would have figured this out. As to the 30 percent, you have your 
right to think what you want. Along with other Republicans, I have been 
called every name under the Sun, and I am still standing. There are 
people who will never let us get to yes because they have an irrational 
view of what it takes to fix this system.
  There are voices in the White House that we all know very well that 
have been telling us for years: You have too much legal immigration, 
and everything is amnesty. Don't listen to that voice or those voices 
because if you do, you are going to be right where Obama and Bush were. 
They tried, and they failed.
  We don't have the luxury of failing anymore. March 5 will be here 
before you know it. I am not going to sit on the sidelines and watch 
these young DACA recipients have their lives turned upside down, 
because we are better than that as a nation. Equally but more 
importantly, I am not going to go any longer in allowing sequestration 
to destroy the military at a time we need it the most.
  Look through the eyes of a soldier, and you will find out what to do 
on the military. Look through the eyes of a DACA recipient, and you 
will find out what to do there. Don't be blinded by loud voices and 
hateful people.
  We owe it to this great Nation to fix hard problems. We owe it to 
those who are in the fight to give them the equipment they need to win 
a war we can't afford to lose. We owe it to the families of military 
members to have more certainty, not to be deployed so much. We owe it 
to ourselves to get these DACA kids right with the law because they 
will add value to our country.
  To my Democratic colleagues, now is the time. Give us the space.
  To my Republican colleagues, this is a defining moment for our party. 
Are we going to continue to be the party that can't get to yes? Are we 
going to continue to be the party that always has a reason not to do 
DACA, or are we going to be the party that finally realizes that these 
young men and women add value to our country and we welcome them with 
open arms and that they have to work to stay and they will?
  To the defense hawks, the only way you are going to get your money is 
to deal with immigration rationally.
  Senator Durbin, we don't agree on a lot. I bet if you looked at our 
votes, we are 90 percent one way versus the other. But for 10 years, 
you have been a very good partner on comprehensive immigration reform. 
You have given. You have made people mad on your side.
  To those who think they are going to deal Senator Durbin out, you 
know zero about this issue.
  To Senator Menendez, you know the story of America better than I do 
because your family came here because they had to. America allowed you 
to leave a place that was horrible, and, boy, is that a great 
experiment in how things can turn out well. You cancel out my vote most 
of the time, but I appreciate your being here in this body trying to 
find a way forward for future immigrants. Your voice on this issue has 
meant a lot to me because I have not walked in your shoes.
  Senator Bennet, thank you for being calm when a lot of us get hot. 
Thank you for caring about the meatpackers because that is important to 
Colorado. Thank you for trying to push your party to yes.
  To the people who have worked with me in the past on the Democratic 
side, some may say you have given nothing. I think you have given a 
good bit. I think we have too.
  Senator Flake, you are from Arizona. You and Senator McCain know this 
issue better than I do. He knows what it takes to secure the border, 
but he also understands the benefit of illegal immigration being fixed 
for the good of the country.
  Senator Gardner, I didn't know you much at all. You are the NRC 
chairman trying to make sure we hold on to this body, and, God, I hope 
we do--nothing personal, but I hope we do. I am amazed at how strong 
you have been. You have been under a tremendous amount of pressure to 
get out of this dealmaking business, and you have withstood that 
pressure. The people of Colorado should be very proud of you and 
Senator Bennet. We don't agree on a lot, but on this, you have been 
champions.
  To the other people who came on board supporting the concept, the 
proposal, either in totality or the idea that we need to move forward, 
on my side of the aisle, I cannot thank you more. The well is pretty 
poisoned.
  To the White House, I want to help you, but you have to help 
yourself. There is a way to do business around here that has stood the 
test of time. There are some things that will hurt you over time. When 
people want to help you--you may not agree with them, but you know they 
want to help you--take the help. When people disagree with you, 
understand there is always tomorrow.
  To President Trump, you won the election. You beat me. Only you, 
quite frankly, Mr. President, can fix this problem because you have 
credibility others don't. Don't let this moment pass. Don't take us 
backward; take us forward.
  Thank you all for trying really hard for a long period of time to do 
the right thing.
  With that, I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first, let me thank my colleague from 
South Carolina. We have worked together for years, mainly on this 
issue. I want to tell you that he has demonstrated extraordinary 
insight and extraordinary courage time and again. I know we wouldn't 
even be standing here in this conversation without him.
  Lindsey, thank you. I know some of the challenges that I have put 
before you made life more difficult, and I hope you understand that I 
always knew you wanted to come to yes, you always wanted to fix this 
problem.
  One of the things that you said that I would like to share is the 
passion we feel on this side of the aisle for the security of America. 
This morning, I was

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invited for a breakfast with Secretary Mattis at the Department of 
Defense. I was happy to vote for his confirmation. He is another 
patriot, a man who served as a four-star general in the Marine Corps. I 
respect him very much, and I want to help him.
  As the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, I 
know what these dollar figures mean. It isn't just numbers on a page. 
We are talking about what Secretary Mattis told us this morning. A 
delay, another CR--the fourth CR this year--costs the Pentagon millions 
of dollars--millions of dollars to maintain the same spending level 
they had last year. That is wasteful.
  How many families across America say: I am going to write exactly the 
same checks in January 2018 that I wrote in January 2017. That is 
mindless, and that is where you are with a CR. We just keep repeating 
the same things over and over at great expense.
  We owe it to the Department of Defense, we owe it to the men and 
women of the military, and we owe it to the people we represent to keep 
this Nation safe.
  I agree with Senator Graham. We cannot ignore that there are other 
things that are priorities and have importance. In the nondefense area, 
to think that we would shortchange the Department of State--an agency 
of government which you have responsibility for in the Appropriations 
Committee--is a shortsighted effort that even Secretary Mattis would be 
quick to say makes no sense at all. We should be giving our Department 
of State the resources and people they need to make sure we are dealing 
at the area of diplomacy as opposed to war. That is just one example. 
Add the FBI. Add the Department of Homeland Security. They all need to 
be properly funded.
  We cannot run the Government of the United States of America--the 
strongest and biggest economy in the world, one of the most powerful 
nations in the world--lurching from week to week and month to month 
without a budget. For goodness' sake, I plead with the Republican 
leadership in the House and the Senate, give us something we can work 
on together. A good place to start this--look for bipartisanship. There 
are Democrats willing to sit down and work with you to solve the 
problems. But when we are given a ``take it or leave it'' budget 
proposal for 4 weeks at a time, it is a terrible way to run a country. 
I hope the leaders come to that same conclusion.
  Let me zero in on the issue that brings most of us to the floor 
tonight, which was addressed by Senator Graham. I have been at this for 
a while, a long while. My goal is to make sure that those who were 
brought to this country as children, who grew up in this country and, 
as Bob Menendez has said so forcefully and effectively, pledged 
allegiance to that flag every morning in the classrooms across 
America--I have been fighting for years to give them a chance to be 
part of America, the only country many of them have ever known. It has 
been a struggle.
  When I couldn't pass the Dream Act or get 60 votes in the Senate, I 
went to President Obama and begged him to help, and he did. He created 
DACA. By Presidential Executive order, he created an opportunity for 
ultimately 780,000 young people to step up and get protection from 
deportation and the right to legally work in America. It has been an 
amazing experience.
  As Senator Graham said, it is hard to pick any large population in 
this country and not end up with some people who would embarrass you or 
some bad apples, but I will tell you consistently, over and over again, 
these young people, these Dreamers, these young people protected by 
DACA, have shown us over and over again why they have earned our 
confidence and trust. They worked so hard to be part of this country.
  Those of us who were lucky enough to be born here never went through 
what they have gone through--learning that you are undocumented, 
realizing the doors are closed automatically no matter how good you are 
and how hard you work--and they kept at it. I want to tell you, we 
should be proud of them, and we should embrace them as the future of 
America because they bring so many talents, skills, and good values to 
our country.
  With the DACA Program in place and all the people protected, the new 
President came in and said: I am going to end it. On September 5 of 
last year, he announced that it would end as of March 5 this year, and 
as of October 1, they would stop renewing the DACA protection.
  What has happened is that 16,000 of these DACA-protected young people 
have fallen out of protected status. Luckily, a California court last 
week said: Keep protecting them until we resolve some of the issues. So 
they have a temporary, momentary protective order that they can turn to 
when it comes to this California decision, but there is no certainty of 
what happens next.
  When I hear Senator McConnell and others come to the floor and say 
there is no hurry, I invite them to meet some of these young people. I 
met a group in New York. There were about 12 of them in college, DACA-
protected. They are working to get through college because they don't 
qualify for any program assistance because they are undocumented. As 
they went around the room, they said: Senator, we want to each tell you 
something.
  Five hundred days.
  Four hundred and twenty days.
  Each one of them was telling me how many days they have left of DACA 
protection before they were subject to deportation and could no longer 
legally work in America. To say there is no hurry is to overlook the 
obvious. These young people are torn apart. Their families are torn 
apart because of our lack of action.
  Senator Graham and I decided to do something about it, and we invited 
some good friends to join us. On the Democratic side, Michael Bennet of 
Colorado and Robert Menendez of New Jersey--we have been through this 
war before when we worked on comprehensive immigration reform. On the 
Republican side, Senator Gardner of Colorado; Senator Flake of Arizona, 
who is on the floor; and Senator Graham. And we worked at it for a 
long, long time. We had moments that looked like we were going to fall 
apart and never reach a conclusion, and we finally came together.
  Last Tuesday, a week ago, when the President invited 26 of us to the 
White House and made his plea that we do something, we decided to sit 
down and do it, and we did. In a matter of 24 to 48 hours, we reached a 
final agreement on this bipartisan approach to deal with this issue of 
DACA. That is what we presented to the President when we went to the 
White House last Thursday.
  I couldn't agree with Senator Graham more that the President of last 
Tuesday is the one we need again--that President who said to us that 
what we are doing is an act of love; that President who said to us: 
Send me a bill. I will sign it, and I will take the political heat; 
that President who agreed with us that you couldn't do everything in 
immigration reform in one bill but you had to divide it. He agreed with 
that. I agree with him. That is the way we should move forward.
  I hope the President listens to Senator Graham and others in his own 
party and steps up and helps us finish this responsibility.
  Let me say a word or two about another effort underway. At that 
meeting 8 days ago, Tuesday of last week in the White House, there was 
a suggestion that the leaders in the Senate and the House, both 
parties, should sit down and see if they can come up with an 
alternative. That was headed up by Kevin McCarthy of California. I like 
him. I don't know him well. I have not worked with him on many things. 
But I will tell you he is a positive person. He is trying to come to a 
conclusion on something that might work, and we met today in his office 
to talk about it. At the meeting was Senator Cornyn of Texas, who is 
the whip of the Republican Senators; myself; and Steny Hoyer, the 
Democratic whip of the House of Representatives. With us were Gen. John 
Kelly and Secretary Nielsen of the Department of Homeland Security. We 
met for about an hour and a half. It was the first attempt at a 
substantive meeting that we had had since this group started meeting 5 
days ago. In the meantime, our staff had met four or five times, but 
this was the first time that Senators and Congressmen had sat down 
across the table. Needless to say--and no surprise to all of us because 
we have been through

[[Page S260]]

this so many times--we really couldn't agree on the basics of how we 
were to get started here.

  I said to Congressman McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House: 
This is hard work. This is heavy lifting. This takes time. People have 
to be convinced and have a chance to state their points of view. We 
don't have that much time. We are dealing with a deadline of January 
19, and that happens to be just around the corner, 2 days away. We are 
also dealing with a deadline of March 5, which, sadly, could be a 
deadline, if we fail to meet it, that could see many people's lives 
changed.
  I have continued to meet with this group, but I tell them over and 
over: We already have a bill here in the Senate. We have a bipartisan 
bill.
  We addressed all of the issues that the President raised when we had 
our meeting in the White House on Tuesday of last week. This is a 
starting point. In fact, I think it is a good end point for us to point 
at.
  Let me thank Senator Graham for expanding the number of Republican 
sponsors. I do the math in the Senate. I have said that, as the whip of 
the Senate, I learned all of the skills I needed for this job in the 
first grade--how to count to 60. That is what it takes, many times in 
the Senate, to move controversial issues forward.
  We have 49 Democratic Senators. I believe they are all prepared to 
vote for this compromise that we have before us, this bipartisan 
compromise. As of today, we have seven Republicans who have joined us 
in this effort. The math is simple. We have 56 Senators who are ready 
to move forward on this issue. It will only take four more, and I 
believe they are there. I have spoken to Republican Senators who have 
said: Maybe I cannot sponsor it, but I sure want to see it pass.
  I think, ultimately, if we are given a chance to vote on this measure 
and move it forward, we can do it on a bipartisan basis. It will be one 
of the few times--rare times--that it will happen around this Chamber. 
In doing that, we are going to solve the problem that the President 
challenged us with--to replace DACA. It is a good approach, the one 
that we put together. I don't like all of it, but that is what 
compromise is all about.
  I hope that my colleagues will join me in a bipartisan effort to make 
sure that before we go home this week, we move forward on this DACA 
issue so that we can say to these young people: We hear you; we 
literally feel your pain; and we want to be there to make sure you have 
a future in America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I appreciate this colloquy. I appreciate my 
colleagues who have been through a lot on this proposal. Many of us 
have worked in prior years on immigration reform measures, and I think 
we have built up a level of trust between us that helps on these 
issues.
  Senator Durbin is right. There were a couple of times when you would 
just throw your hands up and say: I don't know if we can get there. Yet 
our staffs worked hard and well, and I do believe that we have a 
proposal that can get 60 votes. We have worked so long under rules of 
reconciliation that sometimes we forget that we have to get 60 votes 
around here. That is what this bill is designed to do. In the end, that 
is what it is going to take--60 votes.
  I come from Arizona. We have a lot of Dreamers there, obviously, some 
50,000. I have met so many of them over the years, and to say that they 
deserve this is an understatement. They have waited so long, some of 
them delaying their educations because of not knowing what is on the 
other side and some not being able to get the kinds of jobs that they 
need because of the uncertainty in their moving ahead. These are the 
people whom Senator Graham said we want here. We ought to roll out the 
red carpet and say: Please stay here and help build your country. This 
is the only country they know. They have everything but the papers. So 
I hope we can move forward on this.
  Let me talk about a few aspects of the proposal.
  There are some who have said that the Democrats are unwilling to give 
on this. I hear that on my side of the aisle. I can tell you, on any 
compromise proposal--anything that is a bipartisan proposal--both sides 
are going to give, all sides are going to give. Yet this one, the Dream 
Act, of which I am a sponsor, would have a faster path to citizenship 
for kids. This is a slower path here, which is a big give on the 
Democratic side, from some 5 years to 12. That is not easy. It is not 
easy to tell people: You have to wait a little longer than you 
expected. It is part of the legislative process.
  I know a lot of people aren't keen on some of the structure that will 
go along the border, whether it is called a wall or whatever, but those 
of us in border States realize that we need better infrastructure, that 
we need better security, that we need better technology, that we need 
more manpower, and it is all a compromise. That is what it is about, 
and that is why I appreciate this process.
  I know that if we allow this to come to the floor and are able to 
present this proposal to our colleagues, we will have a lot more 
support than we have already on the Republican side.
  It was said by some on our side today that the only way we can move 
forward is if we get an OK from the White House--if we know what they 
want and what the President will sign. I am not sure that we will ever 
get there unless we actually put a proposal on the floor of the Senate 
and debate it and vote on it. At that point, we will know. Then the 
White House will come and say: Yes, I can support that, or, we can 
support that with this change or that change. If we are waiting for the 
White House to come to us with a proposal that it can support, we will 
likely be waiting a long time.
  Many of us met with the White House, starting 6 weeks ago, in our 
asking for proposals on the border. We said: Tell us what the White 
House can live with. What is needed? What is a must have?
  We waited and waited and waited for weeks and then got a big proposal 
with just about everything thrown in.
  I would submit that we have to put something on the floor, and this 
proposal is ready. I think we ought to continue over the next couple of 
days to build support and add Republican and Democratic cosponsors. 
Then I would ask our leadership to put this on the floor. Let's see 
where the votes are. We have a short period of time. We don't have much 
runway. The last thing we want to do is to come right up against the 
deadline, right up against March 5.
  The administration has asked the High Court to rule on whether or not 
there can be any further extensions or if March 5 is the ``deadline'' 
deadline. It is my opinion that the Court will come back and say: Yes, 
that is it. We have to be ready for that. We cannot afford to wait 
anymore. It is time with this proposal to put it on the floor.
  Again, I thank my colleagues for their work on this. I thank the 
White House--those who have sat down and the President's comments the 
other day in that this needs to be a bill of love. I think that it is. 
It is also, as Senator Durbin said, a bill that is tough, that has 
border security elements, as we want to make sure we are not in this 
situation a few years from now.
  We have to have a bill, first and foremost, that has the support to 
pass the House and the Senate. That is what this is. Make no mistake in 
that this is the bipartisan approach. This is the only game in town. As 
much as others want to say that they are going to reach an agreement, 
they are basically where we were a few months ago. They have a long way 
to go. We have a proposal here that can garner enough support to pass 
the Senate, so let's move on with it.
  I yield to Senator Menendez.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, let me start off by thanking my 
colleague from Colorado, who got here earlier than I and is giving me 
the opportunity to move ahead. My daughter is in town. I would like to 
see her, but this is important, and I appreciate his courtesy.
  I am thankful for Senator Durbin. As someone who has been involved in 
immigration reform for the better part of the 26 years that I have been 
in the House and the Senate, his passion on this singular issue within 
the overall immigration question is unquestionable in how we take care 
of these young people--young people who, in every respect except for 
birth, are Americans. It has been extraordinary. It couldn't have a 
better champion, and I appreciate that.

[[Page S261]]

  To my friend and colleague Lindsey Graham, I appreciate his courage 
because it is not one of those things he really has to tackle. I 
appreciate his understanding of the institution as to how to get there 
and his knowledge in bringing people together. I don't always like what 
I hear from him, but by the same token, he doesn't always like what he 
hears from me, particularly on this issue. Nonetheless, he is an 
extraordinary American.
  To the rest of my colleagues and certainly Senator Bennet, who was 
part of the Gang of 8, when we went through this a couple of years ago, 
it passed in this very same body with 68 votes--comprehensive 
immigration reform. Unfortunately, it just languished in the House of 
Representatives or we wouldn't be talking about any of this, largely, 
today. We would be well on our path to border security, well on our 
path to future flows, well on our path to what immigration would look 
like in the future, and, of course, a pathway for all of those who have 
worked hard in this country and obeyed the law in every other respect.
  To Senator Flake, who was part of that group, I really appreciate 
him. We don't always agree on everything. On foreign policy, we have a 
disagreement or two, but on this, we have been locked in laser-like. I 
appreciate his willingness, especially in the final year he has decided 
to serve here, to take on this challenge.
  Look, we are about working on finding common ground on some of the 
most pressing immigration issues that really go to so many things--
national security, the national economy. I cannot secure America if I 
don't know who is here to pursue the American dream versus who is here 
to do it harm. For that, one has to bring people out of the shadows and 
into the light and have them go through criminal background checks to 
know. I cannot thrust that economy even beyond--into warp drive unless 
we have everybody fully participating in an open, above-the-ground 
economy. One of the most urgent of these issues is the uncertainty 
faced by 800,000 Dreamers across America who qualify for protective 
status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, which 
we call DACA.
  It is no secret that I deeply disagree with the President's decision 
to end DACA. In my view, nothing good could come out of a decision that 
jeopardizes the lives of 800,000 DACA recipients, including 22,000 in 
my home State of New Jersey who are living lawfully under DACA and 
working and studying across our country. This is a program for which I 
advocated with the previous administration, with President Obama. 
Congressman Gutierrez and I and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus were 
there and actually gave him legal memos written by attorneys from 
across the country--experts in this field--as to why we thought he had 
the power to do what he did. I still think that is true. Regardless of 
that point, we are beyond that.
  DACA was never a perfect program, nor was it a replacement for truly 
comprehensive immigration reform--an effort to which I remain committed 
today, as I was in 2013 when we passed those historic reforms to our 
immigration system--the greatest pass in the Senate since the days of 
President Ronald Reagan.
  DACA still did tremendous good for this country. It allowed 800,000 
upstanding, undocumented, bright young people who came to this country 
as children, through no decision of their own, to come out of the 
shadows, step into the light, and pursue their dreams without fear of 
deportation, without fear that the knock at the door was not a member 
of their family coming back home from work or their neighbor but an 
immigration agent.
  When we talk about Dreamers, we are talking about young men and women 
who have grown up in America in every sense of the word. The only 
country they know as home is the United States of America. The only 
flag they pledge allegiance to is that red, white, and blue with the 
stars, the flag of the United States. The only national anthem they 
know and want to sing is ``The Star-Spangled Banner.'' The only country 
they know is America. They are not undocumented immigrants, they are 
undocumented Americans who have proven themselves to be a great asset 
to this Nation.
  Dreamers are studying in our colleges, they are playing on our sports 
teams, they are teaching in our schools, and they are wearing, as 
Senator Graham talked about our military and the need to respond to the 
economics of our military needs--many of these young people are wearing 
the uniform of the United States, putting themselves at risk to defend 
the only country they know. They are innovating in our economy, 
enriching our communities, and otherwise obeying our laws, and most of 
all loving this country because it is their country too.
  Yet the administration has slapped an arbitrary expiration date on 
their dream. In doing so, the President created a national emergency 
and one that only Congress can solve. So this is what I and the Gang of 
6 set out to do. Is this proposal ideal to me, the son of immigrants 
representing one of the most diverse States in the Nation? I can tell 
you, absolutely not. Is it ideal for my friend Lindsey or Senator 
Flake? I would expect they would say no, but that is the reality of 
compromise. That is what governing is all about. It is about making 
tough decisions in order to advance the greater good. This deal is not 
ideal to any of us, but it is acceptable to all of us. If more of our 
colleagues join us, I believe it will be ultimately acceptable to the 
President as well.
  Despite the mixed messages sent by the administration, I have to 
believe, in order to keep on going, the President meant what he said 
when he called our Dreamers remarkable kids. I have to believe the many 
times I heard him speak about the Dreamers with compassion, about 
treating these bright young people with heart, I have to believe that 
when I sat around that conference table with my colleagues at the White 
House, the President meant what he said when he spoke of an immigration 
system that encourages people to do a good job and to have a resolution 
that is one of love. Well, I will tell all of my colleagues what I told 
President Trump that day, once the cameras turned off and we had the 
room to ourselves. I told him he had the political capital to spend; 
that President Nixon was the ultimate anti-Communist, yet he was the 
one who opened up China; that President Reagan was the most antitax 
Republican ever elected, yet he ultimately saw the need to increase 
rates. No one questions this President's harsh views on immigration, 
which is precisely why he has the opportunity to do something big.
  During last week's bipartisan summit, the President said that if 
Democrats and Republicans reached a deal, he would sign it. He told us 
to develop a proposal, one that resolved the DACA challenge and 
protected America's Dreamers and addressed tough issues like border 
security, family reunification, and diversity visas. He gave us that 
charge, and we came together and ran with it. A lot of hours were 
spent--many more by our staff--hashing out the issues in search of 
common ground, and finally we arrived at an agreement that I believe 
Congress can and must send to the President's desk before it is too 
late.
  Now, let me be clear. Striking this deal was no picnic. To my 
Republican colleagues who say this bill isn't tough enough, I encourage 
you to take a closer look. Look at the hard choices I had to make as 
the most senior Hispanic American in the U.S. Congress, as the son of 
immigrants whose parents' thirst for freedom brought them to these 
shores, as the senior Senator for New Jersey, one of the most racially 
and ethnically diverse States in the Nation.
  Never could I have imagined, for instance, accepting fundamental 
changes to the Diversity Visa Program because diversity, in my view, is 
one of America's great strengths, and New Jersey is living proof. In my 
State, it is hard to find any community that hasn't been touched in a 
positive way by the Diversity Visa Program. I remind my colleagues, 
every night in the darkest corners of the world, there are people who 
pray with all of their might for the opportunity to win a diversity 
visa--which, by the way, you have to pass all of the background checks, 
criminal and otherwise, in order to still come to this country. It 
isn't a grab bag. You still have to go through a series of background 
checks. They aren't even looking to win $1 million, but they want to 
win a one-in-a-million chance to come to America.

[[Page S262]]

  I have never supported building a wall at our southern border--any 
type--even when the President told us that Mexico was going to pay for 
it, but the President must know this proposal includes billions of 
dollars for his border security priorities, from barrier construction 
and development to southwest border technology acquisition.
  Then, of course, there are the restrictions on family reunification. 
I don't believe in this chain migration. When you want to dehumanize 
people, you talk about chain migration, family reunification, but 
whatever you call it, the restrictions of family reunification are what 
our Republican counterparts insisted upon--new limits on what some 
divisively call chain migration.
  For example, legal permanent residents in the United States will no 
longer be able to sponsor their adult children to join them in America. 
That is a big deal. For me, this was a tough decision as it imposes a 
limitation on our legal system of family immigration, one I only 
accepted after we secured other measures to streamline reunification 
for spouses and young children.
  That is not the only hard choice we had to make when it came to 
family. Yes, this legislation gives Dreamers the opportunity to earn a 
12-year path to citizenship, but the price we pay for that earned 
pathway to citizenship is that we provide no such path for the parents 
who brought the Dreamers here illegally. As a result, Dreamers will not 
be able to petition for their parents, but their parents will be 
eligible for temporary legal status and work permits. That is an 
incredibly difficult choice for me, but we did it. Ultimately, I 
accepted it because it keeps families together, which I have always 
thought both parties were always about--family values, the family unit, 
the family as the center of American life. So this proposal protects 
parents from deportation. It leaves open the possibility to fight 
another day to provide a pathway for parents to earn citizenship.
  The President spoke of taking heat for a compromise on Dreamers. Let 
me tell you this, as the most senior Hispanic American in Congress, I 
will get a whole lot--and have already--of heat on these concessions, 
but I will gladly take that heat in order to protect Dreamers who 
deserve to stay in the only home--the only home--and the only country 
they have ever known.
  Look, we all know there will be voices on the far left and voices on 
the far right that say this deal makes too many compromises. To my 
friends in the immigration advocacy community as well as my Democratic 
colleagues, I remind you that legislating is the art of the possible--
something I know we don't necessarily always get into our psyche, and 
hopefully it will not be for much longer, but we are in the minority in 
both Chambers of Congress. The opposing party occupies the White House. 
We may not enjoy that reality--I certainly don't--but it is the reality 
nonetheless. In this reality, sometimes stopping something bad from 
happening is our best shot at making something good happen. The best we 
can do is to stop something bad from happening in order to try to make 
something happen, but, eventually, to make that something happen, we 
are going to have to have a compromise that brings others to this 
effort as well as we have here tonight. Without it, we fail the 800,000 
Dreamers counting on us to reach the finish line.
  To my Republican colleagues, I ask you to remember the tough 
concessions we had to make so Dreamers have a chance to earn 
citizenship in the countries they know and love. In short, this deal 
was negotiated in good faith, with both sides making tough decisions in 
service of the greater good. What good could be greater than keeping 
American families together?
  Consider the fact that 25 percent of DACA recipients are the parents 
of a U.S.-born child. I refuse to believe we are a country that tears 
young mothers and fathers away from American children to send them back 
to countries they don't even know.
  Let me close by reminding us that we all, I am sure, held 
celebrations on Monday for remembering the life of Dr. Martin Luther 
King. It was he who said:

       We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We 
     are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this 
     unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a 
     thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief 
     of time.

  My friends, the fierce urgency of now, as my colleagues have talked 
about, is confronting us yet again. We cannot let the clock run out on 
the American dream, we cannot keep tearing families apart, and we 
cannot pass up this opportunity to make history right. Let's honor Dr. 
King's legacy by treating this crisis with the urgency it deserves.
  Join us, and together we can send this legislation to the President's 
desk without delay. There is no time left to spare. If we want 
America's Dreamers to have a future in this country, we must act as if 
tomorrow were today.
  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank my colleagues.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, in my typically classy fashion, I dropped 
the microphone before I began to speak.
  I was glad to yield to my friend from New Jersey when he told me the 
reason why because I have three daughters at home, and if one of them--
if I were fortunate enough to have one of them here in Washington, I 
would want to be having dinner with her, too, instead of being here, 
but I am here tonight for them and for families just like the other 
Senators have talked about.
  My family has an interesting immigration history that people are 
surprised by sometimes when I talk about it. My mom and her parents 
were Polish Jews when World War II broke out. Miraculously, they 
survived the Holocaust. They and one other member of the family 
survived, and they actually lived for 2 years behind the Iron Curtain, 
in Eastern Europe. They were finally able to get to Sweden where they 
lived for 1 year, and they came to Mexico--of all places, Mexico City--
where they lived for 1 year. Then they finally made it to America, a 
country they believed was the only place on the planet where they could 
rebuild their shattered lives, and that is what they did. They 
contributed mightily to this country. They contributed mightily to me, 
to my brother, and to my sister.
  When I hear the stories that I hear from my colleagues tonight, what 
it makes me realize is that my family's story is not unique, but it is 
what makes America unique because you can't tell my family's story in 
almost any other country but this country.
  I had the chance, when I was first in this job, to go to Fort Carson 
in Colorado to a naturalization ceremony there. There were 30 people 
from every corner of the globe in our uniform because they were 
fighting for America, but they weren't yet citizens. They took the oath 
to that flag, and I used to carry around the list of the countries they 
came from because out of 30, only 2 came from the same country. Twenty 
eight came from places all over the Earth, and I sat there thinking to 
myself how lucky we are to live in a place where that could be true. It 
is not true in any other country on the planet.

  I want my children to grow up in the country I grew up in--a country 
that is a nation of immigrants committed to the rule of law. That is 
why I was grateful to have the chance to be part of the Gang of 8 that 
negotiated the comprehensive immigration bill. I was sorry when that 
didn't ever get a vote in the House, because I think it would have 
passed had it been voted on in the House. That bill, which contained 
$40 billion for border security, would be well on its way to 
implementation today, and I think our political debate as a country 
would be very different than the political debate we have been having 
now, which would be good for our country and remind us of the values 
that we share. Unfortunately, we are not in that position today, and we 
are left with a problem, trying to deal with the fact that the 
Executive order that President Obama wrote for the DACA population has 
been set aside by this President, who then said: Congress needs to 
figure out what to do about it. That is why we are here tonight.
  We have had a negotiation now for more than 4 months with what has 
evolved into the Gang of 6, and I am very pleased that in that effort 
we were joined by the Presiding Officer, who is my colleague from 
Colorado. We are the only State that has two Senators on this Gang of 
6--one is a Democrat,

[[Page S263]]

and one is a Republican. I thank my colleague for his courage and for 
his leadership at a moment when there are a lot of reasons why this 
isn't a comfortable place to occupy. But I think it says something 
about Colorado that at a moment when we have all this craziness going 
on in Washington and at a moment when the country can't see any sign of 
a bipartisan pulse here, when our approval ratings hover somewhere 
between 9 and 15 percent, there is a reason there is a Democrat and 
there is a Republican from Colorado who actually tried to solve a 
problem on the floor of this Senate with our colleagues, and that is 
because Colorado is an excellent place to live and an excellent place 
to be from.
  The citizens of Colorado have watched the train wreck over the last 
10 years in this Congress from a State that is one-third Democratic, 
one-third Republican, and one-third Independent. They have to work 
together to get anything done. Nobody gets their way all the time in 
the State of Colorado, and they expect this place to work like that as 
well, and it doesn't work like that enough.
  So I want to thank again my colleague from Colorado. I want to thank 
Senator Durbin, who is here, Senator Menendez, and I also want to say 
to Senator Flake and Senator Graham: Thank you for your courage. When 
you put together a compromise like this, which I think is a good 
compromise--it is not the bill I would have written if it were my 
decision. I would have had a 5-year path for the Dreamers, not a 12-
year path or a 10-year path in some cases. I would have had a 5-year 
path. If I were writing this bill, I wouldn't have insisted that 
Dreamers not be able to sponsor their parents. The hour is late. It is 
actually not that late. We should be working, but I understand why the 
Republicans who negotiated this in good faith needed those concessions. 
I understand it.
  I am not thrilled with the President's idea that we need to build a 
wall to secure the southern border. I do believe strongly that we do 
need to secure our southern border, just as I know the Republicans that 
have been in this negotiation believe, as I believe, that there should 
be a pathway for citizenship for a population of people in our country 
who know no other country but the United States of America, any more 
than my own children know any other country besides the United States 
of America.
  There isn't, unfortunately, anybody else to do this work except for 
the 100 Members in the Senate and our friends in the House of 
Representatives. So our tendency has been to just avoid it and to put 
it off, and we don't have that luxury anymore because they are no 
longer protected. Every day in my State there is another family broken 
up because of the deportation that is going on, and I don't think there 
is virtually anybody who is a Member of this body who believes the 
answer for the Dreamers is that they should be deported or that 
families should be split up. We may have disagreements about how to get 
there, but that is what the last 4 months of negotiation have been 
meant to sort out--to find a middle spot where we could land and where 
we would get not every vote in the Senate but more than 60 votes in the 
Senate and where we would get a bill passed in the House of 
Representatives. I think we found it, and one of the things we have 
done is to meet the four requirements that the President said he wanted 
when he had us over to the White House: One was DACA. That is the 
modified Dream Act. One was border security. We have got $2.7 billion 
of border security in this bill. One was ending what he calls chain 
migration, which for the DACA population we do by saying that no parent 
can be sponsored by any child. And he said that he wanted to get rid of 
the diversity lottery, which we do. He may not love every part of it. I 
don't expect anybody to, but I do think this is the way we can move 
this forward, and I think we should move it forward.
  Bob Menendez talked about the fierce urgency that now we treat the 
lives that are affected by the decisions we make or, in most cases, the 
decisions we don't make as collateral damage that somehow we shouldn't 
concern ourselves with. I don't think we should go home until we 
address this. I don't think we should leave Washington until we address 
this.
  Actually, I will say that I agree with something Senator Graham said. 
Because of these crazy continuing resolutions--let me just say, in case 
there is the unlikely event that there is anybody actually watching 
this on television right now, that a continuing resolution is no 
different than a temporary budget, and that is all it is--now we have 
gotten to the place where we were running the government on continuing 
resolutions for the last 10 years or so. We have passed 30 continuing 
resolutions. We didn't get our work done at the end of the year for 
some reason. So now we are going to do the work we should have done at 
the end of the year with a continuing resolution. They are now talking 
about another 2-week continuing resolution. Every time you hear the 
words ``continuing resolution'' you should think of it as a temporary 
budget. That is what it is. It might be hard to understand it because 
not a single school district in our State or a single municipality in 
our State and not a single State among the 50 States would ever run 
their affairs this way, but for the last 10 years, that is the way we 
have run the government in a game of chicken, of fiscal cliffs, 
government shutdowns, and continuing resolutions. So we are now 
enacting laws that reflect the priorities of whoever was in the Senate 
10 years ago, because that is the last time we actually had a real 
appropriations process around here and a real budgeting process around 
here. So Senator Graham is right when he said what he said about the 
defense of this country. Because of continuing resolutions, we have 
aircraft that are grounded for lack of parts because the budgets make 
it impossible for them to plan, and that means that we can't train 
folks to fly those aircraft, to defend us if we have to do something on 
the Korean Peninsula or something else.

  On the other hand, on the domestic side of things, since 1980 we have 
cut domestic discretionary spending in this country by 35 percent as a 
percentage of our GDP. The Presiding Officer knows as well as I do that 
if you were in rural Colorado 10 years ago, you didn't hear much about 
opioids, but now when you have a townhall meeting in rural Colorado or 
when you live there, as the Presiding Officer does, you know that 
people actually have less access to treatment today than they did 10 
years ago, and I think that is a consequence of our inability to budget 
properly around here and the inability to deal responsibly with our 
fiscal matters. It is like we have a perpetual head cold around here 
that robs us of our ambition to actually do anything or energy to 
actually do anything, and I am afraid that has infected this discussion 
about DACA as well.
  So I want to close by saying that this is the moment when we need to 
do this. There is not going to be another alternative that can be 
supported by 60 Senators here, potentially by the President, and by the 
Dreamers. We are not going to succeed at passing a piece of legislation 
if the Dreamers feel like we are doing something to their parents that 
we would never accept for our own families. That is their bottom line.
  I have been amazed by the young people who I have met over the years 
and most recently in this debate, who are saying to me: Don't sacrifice 
my parents for me. I would rather deal with the uncertainty of my 
position than to know that a trade was made that I can't live with for 
the rest of my life. That is at the heart of this compromise here, and 
I think it is entirely consistent with our traditions and values as 
Americans--entirely consistent with that.
  So my hope is that all of us hear the voices of these Dreamers, who 
are contributing at their universities and in our workplaces all over 
the country, just like our own sons and daughters, and that we actually 
do something around here for once that is not predictable and that the 
American people will cheer for, just as the people in Colorado are 
glad. It is not every single one, but by and large, the people in 
Colorado are glad that the Presiding Officer and I are working on this. 
The only way that is going to happen is if we find a way to come 
together over the next couple of days and do something, other than what 
people say we are fated to do, which is have another interruption in 
the activities of our government over a political disagreement when the 
parties are actually

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much closer than they have been for a long time. We have a good 
compromise. We have a good piece of legislation. We have a piece of 
legislation that if it were put on the floor could get 60 votes.
  I want to close by again thanking my colleagues. There is a lot 
around this place that I feel embarrassed about, but I think that if 
the American people could have seen the negotiation that went on for 4 
months, they would have been proud of what they saw because they would 
have seen Republicans and Democrats coming together not to have one 
more political fight but to actually solve a real challenge that is 
facing our country and to do it in a way that is consistent with our 
traditions as Americans.
  So I hope in the next couple of days we have the chance to pass this 
bill. I thank my Republican colleagues who signed onto the bill today 
for giving us the momentum we need to move into the next day or two, 
and I look forward to succeeding around here for once.
  Once again, I want to thank my colleague from Colorado, the Presiding 
Officer, for his partnership on this legislation. I think it has meant 
a great deal to the people he and I represent, and I, as a Coloradan 
and as a constituent of his, want to thank him for the position that he 
has taken.
  With that, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________