[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 27 (Monday, February 12, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S856-S868]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          BROADER OPTIONS FOR AMERICANS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 2579, which the 
clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 302, H.R. 2579, to amend 
     the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax 
     credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation 
     coverage.

  Mr. McCONNELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader is recognized.


                    Address at the McConnell Center

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, before I begin, I thank my friend the 
Republican leader for his gracious invitation to address the McConnell 
Center at the University of Louisville this morning. I learned today 
that you don't say, as we say in New York, ``Lewey-ville.'' It is 
pronounced ``Lou-a-ville.'' It was a great pleasure to speak to 
hundreds of bright Kentucky students who are interested in the future 
of this great country. Seeing these kids gives you faith in the future 
of America despite all the ``sturm und drang'' we witness here in this 
city.
  It was my distinct pleasure to give the Republican leader a bottle of 
Brooklyn bourbon as a thank-you for his invitation. I assured him that 
it was not a challenge to Kentucky's pride but, rather, to suggest that 
maybe Kentucky and New York were not so different at all. Our craft 
distilling industry is booming, and we have very good bourbon that is 
made in no place other than Brooklyn, NY. By the way, as long as it is 
made in America, it can be called bourbon. I am not sure if it can be 
called Kentucky bourbon, but it can be called bourbon.
  Mr. President, now on to the business of the day. On the heels of 
passing a significant, bipartisan budget deal, the Senate returns this 
week to grapple with one of the most contentious of issues--
immigration.
  Leader McConnell, to his credit, has promised a debate on a neutral 
bill with an amendment process that will be fair to both sides. 
Democrats and Republicans are working hard to find a bill to protect 
the Dreamers and provide border security that will garner 60 votes--no 
easy task. It is like threading a needle. I am sure we will have the 
opportunity to vote on a few ways to do it, but the key is to find a 
consensus bill that is largely acceptable to a significant number of 
Members in both parties. The purpose here is not to make a point, as 
the Republican leader just said. That is easy. The purpose is to get 
something done. That is hard, but it really is so important. It will 
not be easy, but it is, certainly, achievable.
  Democrats are fully committed to protecting Dreamers, and we have 
long supported effective border security. Many Republicans are in the 
same boat. The only enemy here is overreach. Now is not the time or the 
place to reform the entire legal immigration system. Rather, this is 
the moment for a narrow bill, and every ounce of our energy is going 
into finding one that can pass.
  Just like on the budget, this is an opportunity for the Senate to 
lead the Nation. Let the same spirit of bipartisanship and compromise 
that generated the budget deal carry forward this week as we debate the 
fate of the Dreamers.


               Infrastructure and the President's Budget

  Mr. President, on infrastructure, the Trump administration, today, 
released its infrastructure plan. Democrats released our own plan over 
a year ago and have waited just as long to see this plan, because 
infrastructure is an issue on which we thought we could find some 
common ground.
  Unfortunately, despite a glaring need, the President's proposal would 
do very little to make our ailing infrastructure better. Instead of 
proposing direct Federal investments to help all parts of the country, 
the Trump infrastructure plan relies on private parties or States and 
localities to put up the lion's share of the money. In turn, those 
entities would have to either charge local taxpayers new tolls or raise 
taxes and other fees to pay for the new infrastructure. So a word that 
describes so much of the President's bill--probably about 80 percent of 
it--is ``Trump tolls.''
  The Trump infrastructure plan is like a Hollywood facade. It may look 
real from afar, but, in truth, it is a flat mirage. The Trump plan has 
the skin of an infrastructure plan, but it lacks the guts. The lack of 
direct investment would leave out large parts of America, particularly 
rural America, where local governments don't have the money or the 
traffic to attract private sector investment. Small towns and cities 
throughout the heartland have waited too long for upgrades to their 
schools, roads, and water systems, as well as access to high-speed 
internet.
  Just as Franklin Roosevelt said that every rural home should have 
electricity in the 1930s, Democrats believe every rural home should 
have access to high-speed internet in the 21st century. Roosevelt 
called for the REA in the 1930s, and soon enough--it took a lot--every 
rural home had electricity.
  We Democrats are calling for the 21st century version of Roosevelt's 
vision. Every rural home should have access to high-speed internet, and 
that ought to be one of our goals in the 21st century. Very little 
could do more to revitalize rural America than that plan, which, by the 
way, we got a start on in our budget because we Democrats insisted on a 
certain amount of money being allocated for that. It was not enough to 
get the job done, but it was a start.
  The administration's infrastructure would also result in tolls--Trump 
tolls--across America. Wealthy investors and large banks will only 
invest in projects that generate a profit. How do they get the profit? 
They charge middle-class Americans hundreds of dollars a year in tolls. 
In fact, it is written into page 20 in the plan. Page 20 of the Trump 
infrastructure proposal has a section entitled ``Providing States 
Tolling Flexibility.'' So the middle class need not ask for whom this 
bill tolls; it tolls for thee.
  The middle class is already struggling with the ever-rising costs of 
healthcare, childcare, college tuition, and prescription drugs. They 
don't need higher local taxes. They don't need Trump tolls on top of 
all of that. This is the kind of plan that you would

[[Page S857]]

expect from a President who surrounds himself with bankers and 
financiers and wealthy people who don't mind paying a $20 toll every 
time they go to work. It is a plan that is designed to reward rich 
developers, large banks, and the President's political allies, not to 
rebuild the country.
  It would put unsustainable burdens on local governments, which are 
hurting right now, and it would lead to Trump tolls all over the 
country, particularly in middle-sized cities, small cities, and rural 
America. No investor is going to invest in a bridge in Springfield or 
Hannibal, MO--to pick a couple of places--because they don't have the 
revenue to repay it. So those folks will be stuck, as will be much of 
America.
  At the same time, the Trump proposal undermines important 
protections, like ``Buy American.'' We believe, if we are going to put 
some real investment into this, this stuff--the steel, the pipes, the 
concrete, and everything else--ought to be made in America and employ 
Americans. They left that out of the bill, unfortunately.
  Democrats want to work in a bipartisan way to improve our 
infrastructure, which is why we put forward a real plan that would 
expand access to high-speed internet across the country, rebuild our 
roads and bridges, and modernize our electric grid, while creating 
millions and millions of good-paying, middle-class construction jobs. 
Unfortunately, the President's plan falls short on all of these fronts.
  I would remind my Republican colleagues that the Federal Government 
has invested in infrastructure and road building for a very long time.
  Henry Clay, from the great State of Kentucky, called for internal 
improvements--I believe it was in the mid-1800s--because he wanted and 
knew the economic benefits of connecting places that were called the 
Far West in those days--Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio--with all of the 
people who lived on the eastern seaboard. Henry Clay was not a 
Republican. He was a Whig. That was the predecessor party of the 
Republicans. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican President in the 1950s, 
started the interstate highway program, which has benefited so much of 
America for so many decades. Ronald Reagan never cut back on 
infrastructure even though he cut back on lots of other programs.
  It is brand new that President Trump is about the first President, in 
a long, long line of Democrats and Republicans, who doesn't really 
believe that the Federal Government should be at the forefront of 
building our infrastructure--whether it is highways, roads, bridges, 
water, sewer, the power grid, or high-speed internet.
  I hope Democrats and Republicans can do what we did on the budget--
sort of ignore President Trump, because he is way off base on this, and 
come together ourselves, because people on both sides of the aisle have 
always believed in investing in infrastructure.
  Mr. President, I have one final word on the President's budget 
request. We have now already dealt with this year's budget request, but 
he put in a budget request for next year, which was just sent to 
Congress. We just passed a 2-year budget on Friday. So the Trump 
administration should have no illusions about its budget becoming law. 
It will not become law. Yet Presidential budgets are still important as 
a statement of an administration's priorities.
  Unfortunately, the President's priorities are so far away from what 
the American people want in terms of how he portrays his budget. The 
President's budget request, just 6 weeks after slashing taxes on the 
wealthiest and biggest corporations, after creating a massive deficit--
who does the President ask to pay for this? Middle-class and older 
Americans. He slashes education, environmental protection, and Medicare 
and Medicaid, while corporations reap billions in tax giveaways. Older 
Americans now have to worry about the Trump administration cutting 
Medicare and Medicaid in his budget. Many others, including children 
and working families, would be hurt by the budget as well.
  If Americans want a picture of whom President Trump works for, the 
combination of the tax bill and this budget he proposed today makes it 
crystal clear: He is for the rich and powerful at the expense of the 
middle class.
  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 roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. 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. DURBIN. Mr. President, this week in Washington we are going to do 
something that hasn't been seen for a long time--for over a year. If 
you are not careful, you may tune in and see an actual debate on the 
floor of the Senate--real Senators, Democrats and Republicans, coming 
to the floor actually debating an issue.
  I am not sure what is going to happen because it has been so long 
since we tried this, but it really is exciting to think about; that men 
and women elected to this body, known as the greatest deliberative body 
in America, are finally going to deliberate. It is true, and it is by 
design, not by accident. After a lot of negotiation back and forth, 
Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, agreed that this week we 
would debate immigration and DACA, the Dream Act; that it would come to 
the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  I am excited about it, although I have no idea how this debate will 
end--in most good debates we don't know because it depends on the 
strength of an argument as to whether a measure is going to pass or not 
pass, but it is certainly an issue I have been waiting for.
  In fact, I have been waiting 5 years for it. It is a long time even 
by Senate standards. It has been 5 years since we actually debated 
immigration on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It is not because the 
immigration laws of America are so perfect--far from that. It is 
because it is a tough issue, it is a delicate issue, and it is a 
volatile issue, and it always has been in America. I have this notion 
that as soon as the Mayflower landed and the passengers got off the 
boat, they looked over their shoulder and said: I hope no more people 
are coming. We are perfectly happy with this country the way we see 
it--because throughout history and up to today, there has always been a 
resistance by those already here to new people from new places with 
different languages, cultures, religions, and food.
  We have done some things in the past which are not exactly things to 
brag about. It was 1924 when we passed an immigration bill. There was a 
fear after World War I, because Europe was in shambles, that all these 
people would come flooding into America. So the Congress here and in 
this Chamber and the House of Representatives passed the Immigration 
Act of 1924. It was horrible. It was horrible. It expressly excluded 
groups we didn't want to be a part of America's future--groups like 
people of the Jewish religion, Italians, people from Eastern Europe, 
the Japanese, and many others. That immigration act said: We don't want 
any more of those people, and for 41 years that was the law of the 
land. There were slight modifications, but that was the basic standard 
for immigration in America.
  Not until 1965 did we look at immigration again with a different view 
to a broader acceptance of the world as part of are our future. Since 
then, we have continued to have problems with immigration and questions 
about change of policy.
  I will just flat out state, from 10 or 15 different perspectives, the 
current immigration system in America is broken--broken. When we have 
11 million undocumented people in the country today, it is a broken 
system. Eight of us got together 4 years ago--four Republican Senators 
and four Democratic Senators--and spent months debating a new 
immigration system for America. I might say immodestly, I think we did 
a pretty good job of it. We presented it to the Judiciary Committee, 
and it faced over 100 amendments, people who wanted to change it. At 
the end of the day, we had a bill we brought to the Senate floor, and 
it passed with a substantial, overwhelming bipartisan vote--
comprehensive immigration reform. We tackled every aspect of it, from 
ag laborers to H-1Bs, to the Dream Act, to undocumented, right on 
through. We passed it in the Senate, but, of course, with our bicameral 
system of government, we needed the House to tackle the same problem, 
and they refused. They wouldn't even consider the bill we passed. They 
wouldn't come up with an alternative. They wouldn't try to amend it. 
They just said: We are not going to talk about it, and they didn't.

[[Page S858]]

  For 5 years, we have done nothing, and this year we have a chance to 
do something. The fact is, we need to do something. On September 5 of 
last year, President Trump announced he was eliminating what was known 
as the DACA Program. The DACA Program was created by Executive order 
under President Obama to give those who were characterized as Dreamers 
a chance to be legal in America on a 2-year renewable basis. So 780,000 
people signed up for President Obama's DACA Program all across the 
United States. These were young people brought to the United States by 
their parents at a very early age, and they were going to be given a 
chance to stay here 2 years at a time and not be deported and be able 
to legally work.

  Who are these young people? Well, 91 percent of them are currently in 
school or working. We know, as well, 20,000 of them have graduated from 
college and are teaching in our grade schools and high schools. We know 
900 of them, even though they are undocumented, volunteered to serve in 
the U.S. military and are currently in uniform willing to risk their 
lives for this country that hasn't accepted them as citizens. The list 
goes on. They are premed students, they are in first responder status, 
they are doing some pretty extraordinary things, but President Trump 
announced last September 5 that the program that allowed them to stay 
in the United States was coming to an end.
  When? In 3 weeks, March 5 of this year. What happens if Congress 
fails to do anything before March 5? If we fail to do anything to 
resolve this crisis created by President Trump, we will see 1,000 of 
these young people every single day falling out of protected status, 
and they will be in a position where they can be deported from this 
country. For many of them who were brought here as infants and 
toddlers, they would be sent back to some country they don't even 
remember to face a language they don't speak. That would be a terrible 
outcome.
  That is why we need to take up this debate and pass, on a bipartisan 
basis, a measure to correct the situation, the challenge created by 
President Trump's actions. We need to do it now because if the House of 
Representatives is to take action before March 5, we have little time 
left. Both the House and the Senate will be gone for 1 week in the 
month of February, so there is very little time left before the March 5 
deadline, and I hope we can tackle it and get it done.
  The question that needs to be asked is, what will be debated this 
week? I think a lot of things may be debated. It is an actual open 
debate on the floor to some extent. It could conceivably not only be on 
DACA and the Dream Act, it might even get into other immigration 
issues.
  There was a recent poll that was taken by Quinnipiac on some of the 
issues that may come before us this week in the U.S. Senate. The 
American people have been listening to this conversation, and it comes 
to some pretty interesting conclusions.
  This is a new Quinnipiac poll that was just released today. By a 
margin of 81 percent to 14 percent, Americans want Dreamers to gain 
citizenship. Support is overwhelmingly pro-Dreamer when respondents 
were asked if they support ``allowing undocumented immigrants who were 
brought to the United States as children to remain in the country and 
eventually apply for citizenship.''
  Support for the Dreamers is overwhelmingly across party lines--94 
percent of Democrats support it, 82 percent of those who are 
Independents, and 68 percent of Republicans support citizenship for 
these Dreamers. I have read other polls that say even 61 percent of 
Donald Trump voters support it. Republican voters support citizenship 
68 to 24; White men, 75 to 20; and voters over 65, 80 to 14. It is hard 
to find any issue in our politically divided country that brings so 
many people together, but this one does overwhelmingly, both political 
parties and Independents.
  The other side of it is that the President is proposing a border 
wall. Well, we remember that during the campaign, for sure--a big, 
beautiful wall from sea to shining sea, and the Mexicans are going to 
pay for it. How many times did we hear that speech? Many times.
  Well, where are the American people on this border wall? Interesting 
what the Quinnipiac poll tells us. By approximately a 2-to-1 margin, 
the American public opposes a border wall, and when you attach the 
pricetag to it--how much it will, $25 billion--the numbers change. When 
first asked if they support or oppose a border wall with Mexico, the 
public opposes it 59 to 37 percent. A followup question, which includes 
a reference to the $25 billion pricetag President Trump has requested 
to build the wall, generates even more opposition: 65 to 33--2 to 1 
opposed to the border wall.
  Then some on the other side say: We should slash legal immigration 
into the United States. Let's put some numbers behind this question. We 
are a nation of approximately 350 million people. Each year 1.1 million 
legal immigrants come into the United States. About 70 percent of them 
are Members of families of those already here. Some of them have waited 
for their chance to join up with their families 20 years. So 75 percent 
of the legal immigration is family reunification. As I mentioned, some 
have waited for a long time.
  Many on the other side want to limit legal immigration into the 
United States, want to limit this family reunification effort and those 
who come in with promises of jobs. So the question was asked in the 
poll as to whether we should cut legal immigration levels.
  In the Quinnipiac poll, 78 percent of Americans are opposed to 
cutting legal immigration. A majority of Americans--54 percent--support 
keeping legal immigration at the same or current level. More Americans, 
24 percent, support increasing it rather than decreasing it, 17 
percent. Even 71 percent of Republican voters want legal immigration 
levels to stay either the same, 53 percent, or increase, 18 percent.
  Additional poll questions found support for maintaining the current 
policy regarding family reunification at 49 to 43, and the diversity 
visa lottery, 48 to 49. Then we asked hot-button issues on immigration. 
Throughout our history these are the issues usually raised about 
immigrants. Immigrants, they say, take American jobs. Immigrants, they 
say, commit too many crimes. If you listened to the President's State 
of the Union Address a week or two ago, he talked about MS-13, a 
reprehensible gang engaged in criminal activities overseas and in the 
United States. I don't know of anyone in either political party who 
endorses that. The President used some graphic examples of their 
horrible, violent conduct, but when the public was asked about those 
two positions--Are these immigrants taking away American jobs? Are they 
committing more crime?--there was an interesting result. The American 
public overwhelmingly rejects the idea that undocumented immigrants 
take jobs from Americans and are prone to commit more crime.

  Despite the transparent, relentless scapegoating efforts of some, 
Americans do not believe that undocumented immigrants take jobs away 
from Americans; by 63 to 33 percent, that was rejected. That is because 
our eyes can see. Come to Central Illinois, near my hometown of 
Springfield. Go to the local meat processing plant or the chicken 
processing plant, and watch who comes out of that plant at quitting 
time. Hispanics and Africans are taking what are pretty tough, dirty, 
rough jobs because others don't want them. Take a look next time you go 
into a nice restaurant in Chicago, which is certainly my honor to 
represent, and look who just cleaned the dishes off the table, and when 
the door swings, take a look at who is in the kitchen doing the dishes. 
By and large, it is going to be immigrants who are doing those things. 
Not many of us say to our sons and daughters: I am hoping the day will 
come when you decide to go and pick fruit for a living. You hardly ever 
hear that because we know it is hard, backbreaking work, and immigrants 
do the work. So many jobs they fill are jobs that Americans aren't 
jumping to fill.
  How about the issue of crime? The majority of Americans do not 
believe that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes than American 
citizens; 72 to 17 percent rejected this idea, and that just reflects 
the reality. The incidence of crimes committed by those who are 
immigrants is lower than that of those who are native born. It is a 
fact. It is a fact that some like to ignore.

[[Page S859]]

  When it comes down to the fundamentals of the debate that faces us in 
the Senate, the American people, by overwhelming majority numbers, have 
picked their side on this. The question is whether Democrats and 
Republicans here can find a middle ground to agree on. It remains to be 
seen.
  I have been engaged in this debate now for 17 years. That is a long 
time even by Senate standards. It was 17 years ago when I introduced 
the DREAM Act. It was 17 years ago when I said: If you were brought 
here as a kid, a baby, an infant, a toddler, even a young teenager and 
you had no voice on where your family was headed, it shouldn't be used 
against you. If you have had a good life, gone to school, are not a 
criminal, and offer some promise for a job or future in America, you 
deserve a chance to earn your way to legal status and to citizenship.
  I come to this with some prejudice. My mother came as an immigrant to 
this country. She was brought here at the age of 2. She was the first 
Dreamer in my family, and she was brought here from Lithuania, where 
she was born. Her mother brought her to this country and didn't speak 
English, but she brought her three kids here in the hope that they 
could find opportunities that they couldn't find back in Lithuania. For 
them, the land of opportunity was the city of East St. Louis, IL, which 
is where I was born and I grew up. It offered immigrants a lot of tough 
jobs but opportunities to maybe create a better life for their kids. 
When it came to this kid, my mom and her family gave me a chance to 
serve in the U.S. Senate. That is my story, that is my family's story, 
but that is America's story. Time and again, that is America's story. 
My grandfather didn't come here with any extraordinary skills. He came 
here with a strong back and a determination to work and feed his 
family, and he did it; my grandmother, the same. That is the story of 
this country.
  We are going to debate this week in the U.S. Senate whether it will 
continue to be the story of this country. Some will argue that we have 
had enough of these immigrants; we don't need any more of them. Others, 
I hope, will realize that we have an opportunity here--an opportunity 
not only to allow people to come to this country and be part of this 
country's future but to create the kind of diversity that makes us 
unique in the world, the diversity of immigration. I think we can come 
up with a reasonable answer to this. There will be differences of 
opinion, strongly held beliefs on one side or the other.
  The question is whether this body, the U.S. Senate, with 49 Democrats 
and 51 Republicans--just about as close as you can get--can reach a 
common, bipartisan agreement. Wouldn't it be a headline across America 
if this Senate actually had a debate and this Senate actually agreed on 
something--a bipartisan agreement. I see some heads nodding, and I 
won't say where, but it is somewhere in this Chamber--people who are 
following this debate. I think we can do it. I really believe we can. 
It will be a real test for us, but that is what we are sent to do, 
isn't it? It is not to debate, issue press releases, and wave our fists 
at one another, but to actually tackle a problem.
  The President has created a challenge--a challenge that involves 
hundreds of thousands of lives. Now it is our turn to meet that 
challenge as a Senate and to show we are up to the job.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The Senator from Texas.


            Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I want to begin my remarks today by 
discussing a piece of bipartisan legislation that I have sponsored with 
our colleague, the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein. In 
all likelihood, this bill is not something you are going to see 
reported on in the evening news. It is rather obscure in its origins, 
but it is extraordinarily important, and I will explain that in just a 
moment. It is called the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization 
Act, and it concerns another acronym--the Committee on Foreign 
Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS. It is the Committee on 
Foreign Investment in the United States.
  CFIUS is a multiagency panel headed by the Treasury Department, and 
Secretary Mnuchin chairs that panel. Its job is to vet foreign 
investments to determine if they pose a threat to our national 
security. I am an ardent supporter of free trade, and I strongly 
support more foreign, direct investment in the United States. 
Unfortunately, some of our adversaries--most notably China--have 
altered the strategic landscape and are not playing by the same set of 
rules. China has weaponized investment in an attempt to vacuum up our 
advanced technologies and simultaneously undermine our defense 
industrial base.
  As it acquires U.S. firms, technology, and intellectual property, as 
well as the know-how to put them to use, the risk is that the Chinese 
Government, which has its tentacles not only in state-owned Chinese 
companies but also in so-called ``private'' Chinese firms, will get its 
hands on these capabilities and use them against us. This has already 
been shown to have happened in a number of documented cases.
  Standing by and allowing our national security to be compromised 
through these continued transfers of certain dual-use technology and 
know-how to China would be highly irresponsible. That is why the 
CFIUS--the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States--
process needs to be updated and modernized. At its core, the bill I 
have introduced would expand the scope of reviewable transactions to 
more effectively address national security concerns.
  CFIUS's jurisdiction has not been updated in more than 40 years, and 
since that time, global threats like the one posed by China have grown 
in complexity and scope. China has studied our laws, and it has found 
ways to game the export control system and to evade CFIUS review.
  This bill has strong support, not just from the White House but also 
from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Ross, and the 
Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions. It has also been 
endorsed by Secretary of Defense Mattis, as well as three of his 
predecessors, two former Directors of National Intelligence, and many 
others.
  In industry, major U.S. companies are starting to recognize the risks 
here, as well, and several have stepped up and endorsed this bill. 
However, there is a very small group of other U.S. firms that are 
actively opposing CFIUS modernization, having decided their bottom line 
is more important than our Nation's security. Unfortunately, they are 
starting to release some of their false claims about this legislation 
into the press that really don't hold water on further examination. And 
their own track records, when it comes to handing over sophisticated, 
dual-use technology and know-how to China, undercut the credibility of 
their arguments. I would call this a patriotism deficit on their part.
  In order to perpetuate the status quo and prevent statutory updates 
that are both urgent and necessary, this handful of firms and their 
proxies like to point to exaggerated, doomsday scenarios. These are 
typified by the words of one detractor, who recently stated that the 
new legislation would ``literally paralyze business.''
  I urge all of our colleagues to study this legislation more and to 
resist these kinds of scare tactics and mischaracterizations. I urge 
them to consider the paralysis we would incur by not passing CFIUS 
reform. Progress would be stunted and our security jeopardized. We 
could see the erosion of our defense industrial base and that means 
jobs here in the United States going overseas because they are capable 
then of building this cutting-edge, dual-use technology in their home 
country and not having it built here in the United States.
  Despite the critics' scare tactics, the bill would not sweep up 
harmless business transactions with no ties to national security. That 
is not the point. But I do want to make that abundantly clear. Under 
the bill, there are reasonable safeguards to prevent this from 
happening.
  For example, CFIUS would be authorized to create a safe list of 
certain allied countries for which certain transactions are exempt from 
review. Under the bill, CFIUS would also be granted authority to exempt 
ordinary, routine transactions where other laws already address 
national security risks.
  The Treasury Department, as the lead agency for CFIUS, has stated an

[[Page S860]]

intent to use this authority to narrowly tailor the implementing 
regulations.
  The second thing to note is that existing alternatives, like 
multilateral export controls, are not an adequate substitute to what we 
are proposing in this bill. It is true that export controls work well 
in many cases, but they have inherent limitations and are not enough by 
themselves. We simply need a second line of defense, and that is a 
modernized CFIUS process. The CFIUS process and the export control 
system are designed to be interactive and complementary.
  In other words, this bill does not duplicate the export control 
system, and, in fact, for pure technology transfers, the export control 
system would remain the sole review mechanism. CFIUS wouldn't be 
involved in that at all.
  Finally, there is a concern that our bill could flood CFIUS with too 
much work, and they would be overwhelmed and would lack the resources 
and expertise to do the job. But our bill would help provide those 
additional resources and allow CFIUS to both charge a modest fee to 
help promote its self-sustainability and also submit a unified annual 
budget request covering all of its member agencies.
  Furthermore, the bill's own provisions guard against an unfunded 
mandate, with any expansion taking effect only after CFIUS determines 
on its own that the necessary personnel and other resources have been 
provided.
  Finally our bill exempts certain transactions that are done through 
``ordinary customer relationships,'' ensuring that harmless, day-to-day 
activities don't have to be reviewed.
  In closing, I will say this: It is certainly appropriate to consider 
the potential impacts of this bill on foreign investment, but those 
effects shouldn't be considered in a vacuum. We must also ask what the 
impacts on our long-term national security will be if we do not take 
action. For example, in 10 or 15 years, will our troops still have the 
best equipment in the world? Our military superiority is not a 
birthright, and neither is our technological advantage over our 
adversaries.

  I would urge my colleagues to advance this bill and to study it and 
to help work with us to improve it. The time to modernize CFIUS is now. 
We must not allow ourselves to be the frog in the boiling pot of water, 
so to speak. We can't be blind to the growing risks.
  Madam President, on another matter, today we will begin to deliver on 
an important promise to the American people--debating an immigration 
solution for the young adults brought to the United States by their 
parents who now find themselves in limbo.
  Several weeks ago, our Democratic colleagues recklessly shut down the 
Federal Government to placate the extreme elements in their own party. 
The majority leader disagreed with this approach. He and the rest of my 
Republican colleagues urged them to abandon this shutdown ploy before 
it was too late, but they refused to listen, ignoring the majority of 
the Americans who were against this approach. The majority leader then 
promised what had been the plan all along--that would be to continue 
bipartisan discussions that would be followed by open debate on the 
floor.
  Shortly, this evening, we will take up a vote on a vehicle through 
which Members can offer their ideas on how best to solve this problem. 
It will be a process that is fair to both sides. Once we vote to adopt 
a motion to proceed, my colleagues and I will have the opportunity to 
have our proposals considered under regular order. In other words, they 
can offer amendments, debate on the amendments, and vote on the 
amendments. Amendments, as usual, will have a 60-vote threshold before 
they can be adopted. Sixty votes is what we need.
  What I am interested in is solving the problem, and that means not 
only a proposal that can get 60 votes but one that can pass the House 
and be signed into law by President Trump. That is simply critical. 
This should not be an exercise in futility or for political 
grandstanding purposes; this should be about getting a bill signed into 
law, which means it has to pass both Houses and has to be signed by the 
President.
  Today, led by Chairman Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a 
group of Members from this side of the aisle will put forth a 
comprehensive proposal--including the Presiding Officer--that centers 
around the four pillars the President has said he would like to see 
addressed.
  I think most people have been surprised--maybe ``shocked'' is a 
better word--at the generosity of the President's offer for the DACA-
eligible recipients. Right now, there are 690,000 who have signed up, 
but the President's proposal would not only offer them legal status, it 
would offer 1.8 million eligible young people a pathway to 
citizenship--far more than President Obama ever offered.
  It provides a real opportunity for us to keep our commitments when it 
comes to border security--utilizing more boots on the ground, better 
technology, and additional infrastructure. It reallocates visas from 
the diversity lottery system in a way that is fair. It continues the 
existing family-based immigration categories until the current backlog 
is cleared and then changes to more of a merit-based system.
  I am proud to cosponsor this commonsense solution, which I think can 
pass the Senate and the House and be signed into law by President 
Trump. I know, too, that others have been working hard on their ideas, 
and I look forward to reviewing their work product.
  I urge my Democratic colleagues this week to remember their 
predecessors when it comes to immigration, which includes my fellow 
Texan Barbara Jordan. One of the great civil rights leaders of our 
time, she was the first southern Black woman to be elected to the U.S. 
House of Representatives. She also served as a chairwoman of the U.S. 
Commission on Immigration Reform. While serving in that role, she once 
said:

       For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary 
     to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and 
     those who violate it.

  I think that is a great principle to keep in mind as we begin to sort 
out this week's challenges.
  Although we all recognize the anxiety of DACA recipients who came to 
this country through no fault of their own and now face uncertain 
futures, at the same time, we must recognize that many Americans face 
certain plights too. They are dreamers, too, as the President has said. 
And we need to restore our legacy as a nation that believes in and 
applies the rule of law--indeed, equal justice under the law.
  Here is the bottom line: I am not interested in a futile exercise of 
gamesmanship or political theater or ideas that can't become law. As 
the President said 2 weeks ago, the ultimate proposal must be ``one 
where nobody gets everything they want, but our country gets the 
critical reforms it needs.'' More than 124,000 young people in my State 
hope we can rise to the occasion. Indeed, all 28 million of them hope 
we can work together in a bipartisan fashion not only to provide relief 
to the DACA recipients but also to restore our border security and to 
craft immigration laws that serve America's best interests.
  Again, one of the two pillars upon which our immigration system has 
been built is that we are a nation of immigrants. All of us at some 
point in our family came from somewhere else--almost all of us. But we 
are also a nation of laws, which distinguishes us from most of the rest 
of the world. It is those two great pillars--a nation of immigrants and 
a nation of laws--that need to be restored and need to be our focus.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, before the Senator from Texas leaves 
the floor, I think he needs to be complimented because one of the four 
things in the bill which I am talking about our introducing and which 
he is going to be one of the cosponsors of is border security. He has 
worked for years on border security. He needs to be complimented on it. 
He is chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee of our Judiciary 
Committee. And I think Senator Johnson of Homeland Security has some 
aspects of border security as well. I think he and Senator Johnson 
ought to be complimented for being in the lead of 100 Senators to make 
sure we don't make the same mistakes we made in 1986 when we gave 
amnesty because we thought we had border security. Quite obviously, the 
numbers

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show we didn't do a very good job on border security in 1986. The 
Senator from Texas and the Senator from Wisconsin are going to make 
sure we don't make that same mistake again, so I thank them very much.
  Madam President, I rise today to announce the formal introduction of 
an amendment to H.R. 2579. H.R. 2579 is the vehicle for immigration. 
This amendment is cosponsored by Senators Cornyn, Tillis, Lankford, 
Perdue, Cotton, and Ernst. It is a product of several months of hard 
work between these Senators and including the White House.
  Since this past September, I have held more than two dozen meetings 
with interested Senators in an attempt to craft a fair and permanent 
solution to DACA. I have also met with the President on four separate 
occasions to figure out exactly what he needs to see in a legislative 
package so that it can be signed into law, because what is the point of 
our working hard if we are not going to get something that is going to 
be finalized by a signature from the President of the United States?
  I just said I have met with the President on four separate occasions. 
I should have said that this group of introducers of this legislation 
met with the President on those four occasions. But most importantly, I 
have been continuously listening to what my colleagues have said they 
need in any immigration consensus. As a result of our meetings and 
conversations with our colleagues, the Senators sponsoring this 
amendment have attempted to develop a simple, commonsense framework 
that can address everyone's concerns while also providing necessary and 
critical changes to our Nation's immigration laws.
  What does our amendment do? Working off the broad bipartisan, 
bicameral framework agreed to on January 9 at the White House, our 
amendment has four key pillars. I said bipartisan, bicameral. Members 
of Congress met with the President for an hour and a half to boil down 
all the issues that can be brought up, and we ended up with these four 
key pillars.
  First and most importantly, our amendment fully funds the President's 
border security request. Other plans that we have heard about claim 
that they fund the President's border security request by--I want to 
put this word in quotes--``authorizing'' money. But anyone who knows 
Washington knows that just an authorization turns out to be a gimmick 
sometimes. It turns out to be a promise sometimes or an IOU to maybe 
fund something at some later date. Every Member of the Senate knows 
that in this town, Washington, DC, promises are quite cheap.
  We went down the road in 2006 when Congress authorized money for 
border fencing, much of which Congress never actually funded. Our 
amendment rejects that approach. Instead, we actually appropriate $25 
billion into a border security trust fund. This trust fund will allow 
Homeland Security to use between $2.5 billion and $3 billion a year for 
infrastructure, technology, and personnel recruitment and retention.
  By setting up a border security trust fund, we ensure that the 
Department of Homeland Security will actually have the money that it 
needs every single year to secure our borders, while also retaining 
Congress's ability to exercise oversight.
  Unlike other plans, we also recognize that real border security is 
more than just throwing money at the border. This group of Senators 
realized that real border security means that we have to close the 
legal loopholes in the current law that allow dangerous criminals to 
enter and remain at large within our country. Our amendment ends these 
dangerous loopholes and makes it easier for our law enforcement to 
apprehend, detain, and speedily remove sex offenders, drug smugglers, 
human traffickers, international terrorists, criminal gang members, 
repeat border crossers, drunk drivers, and other dangerous people.
  Second, our amendment provides a generous and permanent solution for 
DACA and DACA-eligible recipients. Our plan contains an earned path to 
citizenship for these young people. Provided these young men and women 
have no criminal record and either serve in the military, attain a 
college or vocational degree, or maintain full-time employment, they 
can eventually gain citizenship. This represents a major concession for 
many Republicans, including this Senator, but this concession is 
necessary to provide a permanent and fair solution to this issue.
  The third pillar of our proposal reforms family-based immigration to 
place greater emphasis on the nuclear family. Moving forward, we limit 
family-based immigration to the nuclear family, meaning the spouses and 
minor children of citizens and lawful, permanent residents.
  This change doesn't end family-based immigration. It simply 
recognizes that extended-family immigration doesn't serve the American 
people or our country's economic interest. It is important for all of 
my colleagues to recognize that these family-based changes are 
prospective. This means that all 4 million immigrants who are waiting 
in line for a family-based petition will continue to have their 
petitions processed under the old rules.
  This group of Senators understands that we can't penalize the 
millions of people who actually followed the law and, by following the 
law, did the right thing.
  In addition to rewarding those who did the right thing by 
grandfathering all pending petitions in the pipeline, it will take 
years--by some estimates, more than a decade--for Congress to debate 
and enact merit-based immigration reform.
  Finally, our plan reallocates the 55,000 visas and the diversity visa 
lottery to clearing backlogs in the family-based and employment-based 
backlogs. By reallocating these visas, we not only promote faster 
family reunification but also speed up the immigration of skilled 
workers in the EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 categories.
  As you can see, this is an eminently fair plan that closely mirrors 
the President's framework. This plan is a true compromise, and 
supporting it will require concessions from all Senators--
conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, and everyone in 
between.
  This Senator is ready and willing to make a major concession and, 
once again, vote for a path to citizenship. Other Senators need to be 
willing to do the same, to make sacrifices when it comes to border 
security and to chain migration.
  But at the end of the day, in spite of everything else, the simple 
fact remains that this amendment is the only plan that the President 
supports. This plan is the only Senate plan that has any possibility of 
passing the House of Representatives and becoming law.
  So I have asked my colleagues who oppose this proposal: Are you 
interested in actually getting something done, in actually providing a 
path to citizenship for these DACA kids, or are you interested in a 
political issue for the 2018 elections? If you are actually interested 
in getting something done, in getting a bill signed into law, and 
fixing the DACA issue, the choice is obvious: You will vote to support 
this plan.
  But if my colleagues are more interested in grandstanding, in passing 
a bill that will never become law and that will not actually protect 
DACA kids, well, that choice is pretty clear as well.
  To all my colleagues, I urge your support for this amendment. Let's 
fix this issue. Let's demonstrate that we can find solutions to the 
challenging problems that Americans are calling on us to solve.
  This is a compassionate compromise. As for the people who have been 
advocating for this for years--longer than I have been, because I have 
been at it just a short period of time--let them accept a compassionate 
compromise. Let them do what they have called on to be done for a long 
period of time--settling the DACA issue once and for all. Then, let's 
show the world that we are serious about finding a long-term solution, 
instead of kicking the problem to a future date.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. COTTON. Madam President, I wish to thank my colleague Chairman 
Grassley for the excellent work on this issue, on which he has helped 
to lead us all. We have a working group. The Presiding Officer herself 
belongs to

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a small working group. We have introduced legislation this week that 
transforms the President's four-pillar framework into an actual bill, 
and it is the one bill that can become a law.
  We have a plan not to pass a bill but to pass a law, because twice in 
the last 12 years, the Senate has passed a bill that hasn't become a 
law because the House of Representatives couldn't pass it and, 
therefore, ultimately, the President couldn't sign it.
  I urge my colleagues: Let's not simply signal our virtue to our 
counterparts in the House or to the President by passing a bill. Let's 
solve this problem by passing a law.
  This bill is the one bill that can become a law because it is the one 
bill that translates the President's framework into actual legislation. 
It provides legal status and ultimately citizenship for people who were 
brought here through no fault of their own as minors, before the age of 
accountability. It provides more money and legal authorities to secure 
our southern border and to help our brave immigration agents. It 
eliminates the useless diversity visa lottery and reallocates those 
green cards for more productive and worthwhile purposes, and it puts an 
end to the practice of extended-family chain migration, allowing 
immigrants to bring not just his or her spouse and minor children but 
parents, siblings, and, ultimately, grandparents, aunts, uncles, 
cousins, and on down their extended family tree.
  That doesn't solve every problem under the sun we have with 
immigration. It doesn't, for instance, include mandatory nationwide E-
Verify, which I would support. It doesn't resolve the many problems we 
have with numerous temporary guest worker visas. But it is consistent 
with the President's framework, and it solves the problem in front of 
us of young people who were brought here through no fault of their own, 
but also it has the side effect of giving those people legal status.
  I know there are a lot of half measures floating around the Senate 
right now, saying that we should give legal status to these 1.8 million 
people in return for a small pittance at the southern border, but that 
simply will not do. It is not responsible because if we give those 
people legal status, we will have two negative side effects. First, we 
will create more incentives--perverse incentives--to encourage illegal 
immigration with minor children to this country. That is dangerous. It 
is immoral, not to mention unwise from our national interests.
  Second, if we give legal status to these 1.8 million people, we will 
create a whole new pool of legal permanent residents and, ultimately, 
citizens who can naturalize their extended family, including their 
parents--the very people who created the problem to begin with--
undermining the rationale for the program to begin with. Remember, that 
rationale was that children ought not pay for the sins of their 
parents. But, surely, parents can pay for their own sins.
  If we do those things--provide legal status for the 1.8 million 
people who find themselves in this situation through no fault of their 
own, but control those negative side effects by securing our border, 
and ending the practice of extended-family chain migration--we will 
have a bill that can become a law.
  At the same time, we will also grandfather in every person who is 
currently in the backlog waiting to come to this country, who has 
applied to get a green card because they have a parent or child or 
sibling in this country. Some of them have been waiting up to 20 years. 
So no one will be cut out of that waiting line.
  Furthermore, we will continue to allow American citizens to get a 
renewable, nonworker visa for their elderly parents who live overseas. 
So if you immigrated to this country and still have parents back in the 
home country who need your care, who need to live at home with you or 
maybe live down the street in a nursing home, this law will allow you 
to have a visa to bring them here.
  That is a generous, humane solution, but it also is one that handles 
the problem responsibly and starts to build the kind of immigration 
system that this country needs--a system that focuses on the skills 
that our economy needs, not one that is just based on family ties or 
country of origin.
  For that reason, it is immensely popular. A recent poll showed that 
65 percent of Americans support this proposal. Two out of every three 
Americans support it, and they should, since, after all, every part of 
this proposal is popular.
  Most of us have seen polls that suggest that fewer than 20 percent of 
Americans want to see these people return to their country, which in 
many cases they don't remember. At the same time, 72 percent want to 
end the practice of extended-family chain migration, and securing our 
southern border is equally as popular.
  Oftentimes in Congress, we have to make a tough choice between 
something that is popular and necessary and something that is 
unpopular, but in this legislation, we are simply asking our colleagues 
to do the right thing--to take the responsible step--which happens to 
be popular with the American people as well. It should be popular 
because it is both generous and humane on the one hand but responsible 
on the other hand. It is the only approach that will begin to change 
our immigration system from one that treats people based on where they 
come from and to whom they are related to a system that treats them for 
who they are. There is nothing that could be more American than that.
  I urge my colleagues to recognize that this is the one bill that the 
House of Representatives can pass, can earn the President's signature, 
and can become a law. So I will simply say again, as we go through this 
exercise, let's have a plan that is going to pass a law, not pass a 
bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Iowa.
  Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I would like to start by thanking my 
colleagues and especially my friend from Iowa, our senior Senator, 
Chuck Grassley, for his tremendous work on this project and all of 
those who participated in the discussions on the Secure and Succeed 
Act.
  This legislation puts us on the best path forward to provide a 
permanent solution for our DACA recipients, all while strengthening our 
borders and entry security. Our legislation addresses the unique 
challenges faced by the DACA population, many of whom were brought to 
America by their parents through no fault of their own when they were 
just children.
  In Iowa and across our Nation, DACA recipients are an integral part 
of our community. They are our neighbors, they are our classmates, and 
they are our fellow churchgoers.
  This last summer, while I was at the Clay County Fair in Iowa, I was 
approached by a young lady. She came up to me and said: Senator Ernst, 
I would like to know where you stand on DACA.
  So I explained my position to her.
  Meanwhile, she is pulling out her billfold. Out of the billfold, she 
pulled out a small card. She showed it to me, and she said: I am a DACA 
recipient.
  I said: Well, thank you for taking the time to come up to me and 
sharing your story with me.
  She was there with her younger siblings at the county fair, just 
enjoying the day, and she explained her situation to me. She had been 
brought into the country by her parents. They came illegally into the 
country from Mexico. Then she pointed at her younger siblings, and she 
said: They were born here. They are citizens, but I am not. I am not.
  As we were standing there at the Clay County Fair, right by the Iowa 
Army National Guard recruiting booth--I was a member of the Iowa Army 
National Guard--she went on to explain to me that a while back she had 
actually met with one of the recruiters, and they had told her: We 
can't accept you. We can't accept you because you are a DACA recipient.
  She expressed to me how disappointed she was. She wanted to join our 
military. She wanted to serve this country--the only country she had 
known to be her home, the country she loved. Her story and her 
determination and her desire to serve this country and to defend our 
freedoms were absolutely clear to me. This bill would allow DACA-
eligible recipients to defend the only country they have ever known--
the country they love.

  That said, I cannot overstate the importance of addressing the legal, 
economic, and security concerns that are

[[Page S863]]

ever present in this debate. A huge priority of mine has been, and 
remains, to provide border security. Our homeland and our borders must 
be secure, period. Tragically, human, drug, and sex trafficking are 
still viable markets in the darkest corners around this world. 
Unfortunately, we have those corners of the world right here in our own 
Nation. Ensuring the integrity of our immigration system is essential 
in working to prevent these bad actors from infiltrating our very own 
borders.
  This legislation would direct funds toward bolstering our border 
control and various degrees of security along the border, such as 
physical and virtual fencing, radar, and other technologies. It also 
cuts immigration loopholes and ensures that dangerous criminals are 
denied entry.
  This legislation addresses the current debate in a humane and 
thoughtful manner, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support 
this commonsense pathway forward.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I wish to personally thank the Presiding 
Officer for all the work he has done to come up with what I believe is 
the right framework for fulfilling the promise to solve and create a 
viable solution for the DACA population and to deal with the other 
things that are critically important as we take this first major step 
in immigration reform after decades of failure.
  Last year, I and Senator Lankford, who will be speaking after I do, 
decided we really wanted to get a discussion around a legal path to 
citizenship for a significant portion of the population of the 
illegally present. The deferred action program that was implemented by 
President Obama is what we used as kind of a baseline for determining 
how we could actually define that population and set terms so we could 
ultimately accept them into this country, and they could ultimately get 
citizenship.
  The proposal we have outlined today--and I should also thank Chairman 
Grassley for his leadership. I have served on the Judiciary Committee 
for 3 years during my first term in the Senate and for 3 years on the 
Immigration Subcommittee. Under his leadership, we have crafted a 
framework that is consistent with what the President has proposed.
  It is also consistent with what virtually anybody who has been around 
here for any amount of time has voted for in one form or another. It is 
a four-pillar framework that first begins with a path to citizenship 
for some 1.8 million DACA-eligible persons in the United States today. 
They were young when they came into this country. Some are adults now, 
but they came to this country through the decision of their parents. I, 
for one--and I believe many of my colleagues who support this bill--
believe they should be given an opportunity to be U.S. citizens.
  After the bill is ratified, they will have an opportunity, based on a 
10-year or 12-year timeline, to have the certainty of having legal 
status and then a path to citizenship that could be 10 to 12 years. It 
is fairly straightforward, in terms of the requirements to come into 
the program. Some 1.8 million will qualify, once we ratify this bill 
and send it to the President's desk.
  Coupled with this, it is critically important to not make the 
mistakes of the past. First off, let's not just come in and assume we 
are going to pass a standalone Dream Act. The reason for that is, it 
has failed every single time it has been attempted. It has failed under 
a Republican administration. It has failed under a Democratic 
administration. It even failed at a time when President Obama was in 
the White House, and there were supermajorities of Democrats in the 
Senate and a majority in the House. So even when not a single 
Republican vote would be necessary, they were unable to produce a 
solution.
  Now, this week, we have an opportunity to debate one that I think 
works. No. 1, there is broad consensus. Even among people who have 
never supported a path to citizenship before, there is broad consensus 
that this is a workable, viable, compassionate framework. So 1.8 
million DACA-eligible persons qualify for a path to citizenship.
  Then we get into border security. Senator Ernst talked about border 
security. It is critically important to think about border security. It 
is not the wall. The President has said he does not see in his vision a 
wall going from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. There are 
certainly places where we need structures, but we also need so many 
other things layered on top of it so we actually know who is coming to 
this country, what is coming to this country, and if they should try to 
cross the border illegally, we know where they are for no other reason 
than for humanitarian reasons. Thousands of people have died crossing 
the border--over the last 20 years, over 10,000 people and about 1,000 
of them, young children.
  By putting into place a wall structure where it makes sense, better 
technology and resources at the border, we are going to know who is 
coming into this country. We are going to know what drugs are coming 
into this country. We are going to be able to do a much better job of 
finding and protecting people who may be trafficked to this country for 
the purposes of the sex trade--human trafficking.
  It comes through a commonsense, 10-year implementation that was 
developed by Homeland Security and Border Patrol. This wasn't something 
that started in the White House; it is something that has taken a year 
or two to get into place, which is a rational, multiphased, 
multifaceted solution for border security.
  Then what we have to take a look at is the reality of our broken 
immigration system. We have millions of people waiting to come into 
this country, some of them as long as 20 years. This proposal--the 
proposal we will introduce this week and hopefully gain the support of 
the Senate, that we know the President supports, and we believe the 
House would support--draws down a queue that has been out there for 
almost 20 years. So 3.9 million people who are in the process right now 
have been petitioned for because of a family relationship with some 
other U.S. citizen. We are proposing actually trying to figure out a 
way to accelerate that, to have them move through the naturalization 
process far sooner than they will if we fail to produce a solution this 
week. Then, over time, we can find other possible opportunities for 
immigration.
  Today why don't we at least look at how we fix the broken immigration 
system to make sure those who are in the system know we are not turning 
our backs on them. Then, over time, we can get on to possibly--in my 
case, I think, at some point, we could actually build a case for even 
more legal immigration than we have today, but, for now, let's at least 
make sure we have an immigration system people can rely on and can 
actually become U.S. citizens.
  The real sticking point--and I think what we are going to see this 
week--is we are beginning to see more and more consensus on the three 
pillars I just discussed: the DACA population, border security, and the 
visa lottery being used in a way that rewards merit and also uses green 
cards to bring more people into the country sooner rather than the two 
decades they have been waiting.
  The last thing we have to look at is chain migration--family 
unification or reunification. We are out of step with most other 
countries in terms of how we allow immigration into this country. I, 
for one, think it is reasonable to continue to have a component to 
allow families to be reunified--people who come over on work visas or 
people who are coming through whichever immigration process they may 
choose, but at the end of the day, to have such a small number of our 
immigrant population--some 1 million every year--come in without regard 
to merit is irresponsible. In fact, I think if we continue to do it, we 
do it at the expense of maybe future immigration. We want more and more 
skilled people--people who can come to this country and contribute 
immediately, satisfy the needs of our society, and we can do that 
through a reasonable, rational discussion about what our immigration 
policy should look like over time.
  I will leave my colleagues with this: In a country like Canada, 63 
percent of their legal immigration has a skill requirement associated 
with it. In a country like Australia, it is the same thing, but almost 
three-quarters of all

[[Page S864]]

of our immigration has no tie whatsoever to the needs of this Nation--
our economy, our educational institutions, our communities.
  All we are saying is, let's take a look at this and maybe change the 
proportions so we can actually have a program that is modernized, that 
is also focused on the needs we have for our great country.
  This week, we are going to hear a lot of things. I told a group today 
at lunch to be ready for me to vote against something they would expect 
me to vote for. I am going to do that. I fully expect to have some of 
my Republican colleagues and some of my Democratic colleagues offer an 
amendment that I don't have a problem with the underlying policy, but I 
have a huge problem with producing a result in the Senate which has 
virtually no chance of going to the President's desk and becoming law. 
Then, we will ultimately get on the Secure and the Succeed Act. It is a 
well-structured, four-pillar solution that has been very much 
instructed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that I know 
the President will support, and I believe the President could convince 
our colleagues in the House to get it to his desk.
  So, again, I thank my colleagues Senator Lankford and Senator 
Grassley, Senator Perdue, Senator Cotton, all of those who have weighed 
in--Senator Cornyn--to try and craft a solution that is responsive to 
the President's framework, responsive to some of the concerns our 
friends on the other side of the aisle have, and now it is time for us 
to act.
  Let's do something different. Let's produce a result. Let's not get 
up here and talk about it and say: Well, I tried. Let's produce a 
result. Let's provide certainty to these people waiting for us to act, 
to those DACA recipients. Let's secure our border, and let's modernize 
our broken immigration system. If we do that, we have done a great 
thing.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Ernst). The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, today we begin our immigration debate in 
earnest. Senator McConnell has kept his promise to bring an immigration 
vehicle to the floor. This week, we will be taking a series of votes on 
DACA, border security, and other related subjects.
  I wish to take a few minutes now to outline where I am on these 
issues and where I see this week's debate heading.
  I have made very clear that I believe we need a legislative fix for 
DACA. We cannot continue to keep people in our country and grant them 
work authorization by Executive fiat. DACA recipients deserve 
certainty. So, too, do other immigrants who enter our country legally 
and have done their best to follow the rules.
  We also need better border security and interior enforcement. Thirty 
years ago, we granted amnesty to nearly 3 million illegal immigrants, 
and the result over the next two decades was a surge in illegal 
immigration. We need to prevent that from happening again.
  I think it is fair and equitable to give DACA recipients a pathway to 
lawful status because they came to our country through no fault of 
their own, but I also believe we need to pair DACA legislation with 
strict border security and interior enforcement measures so we don't 
find ourselves right back here again in another 20 or 30 years or even 
sooner.
  I also think legal immigration needs to be a part of the discussion; 
in particular, high-skilled immigration. I have spoken several times on 
the Senate floor about how high-skilled immigration is merit-based 
immigration. It is immigration targeted at the best, the brightest, and 
the most highly educated. It is immigration targeted at individuals who 
have the skills employers need.
  I believe we can find a path forward on our current immigration 
controversies, and I am committed to doing everything I can to bring 
both sides together. But I also want to be clear right here at the 
outset: High-skilled or merit-based immigration needs to be part of the 
discussion, especially if we start talking about reforms to family-
based immigration.

  Getting to 60 votes is going to take a lot of negotiation. I know 
that as well as anyone. I have passed more bills into law than any 
other Member of Congress alive today. I know how this process works.
  So I say to my colleagues, as you think about how to advance your 
priorities this week, keep in mind the priorities I have outlined 
recently. Take a look at my I-Squared bill and the amendments I will be 
filing. These are indications of what I am hoping to accomplish.
  I believe we can get something across the finish line. I really do. I 
think we can have a bill we can all be proud of, but in order for that 
to happen, we have to be reasonable. We have to consider a broad range 
of views. It can't just be ``my way or the highway.'' We need a bill 
that can also pass the House and then be signed into law by the 
President.
  I am ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work, and I am ready to 
work with my colleagues to find areas of compromise and to accommodate 
competing priorities. I have made my priorities clear. Let's work 
together to get something done.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I am looking forward to this debate. As 
Senator Hatch has indicated, it is going to be a robust debate, and it 
could produce the best of what the Senate can produce: a bipartisan 
agreement, which it will have to be in order to get to 60 votes.
  I am glad to come here to the floor to support the Dreamers. Six 
months ago, the President said he was eliminating protections for 
Dreamers, and some of them have already lost that status. These young 
people, of course, were brought here sometimes as infants, they grew up 
here, and they only know America as their country. We owe it to them to 
enact permanent protection and a path to citizenship. It is long past 
time for Congress to act and to make sure this becomes law. This week 
presents a very good opportunity to do that after we have been waiting 
for almost two decades. This Senator is a sponsor of the Dream Act, and 
I have supported Senator Durbin in his efforts ever since I came to the 
Senate. Now, this is the third term.
  I have always been inspired by the story of Elisha Dawkins. I found 
out about him because I read a news clip that he was in jail. Here was 
a fellow who grew up in America, only knowing that he was American 
because he was brought to America from the Bahamas at age 6 months. He 
served two tours in Iraq. He came back and joined the Navy Reserves. He 
had a top secret clearance. His Reserve duty was in Guantanamo, with 
that top secret clearance. Then, because of an application for a 
passport, he was suddenly swept up and put in jail.
  Fortunately, we found out about it and started raising a stink about 
it. It was brought to the attention, in one of the court hearings, of a 
Federal judge, and the Federal judge said to the assistant U.S. 
attorney: What in the world are you doing putting a fellow like this in 
jail?
  Of course, after that tongue-lashing from a Federal judge, we got 
involved with Elisha. I am happy to report that today Elisha is a U.S. 
citizen. Elisha is a productive member of the Jacksonville community, 
he is educated, and he is contributing to his community.
  Our country is so much better off having the Dreamers. They are our 
people. They are among the best and the brightest.
  The Senate has voted overwhelmingly to pass a bipartisan bill that 
includes victories and concessions from both sides. That was the 
comprehensive immigration reform in the past, about 5 or 6 years ago, 
but of course the House wouldn't take that up. So the only way to 
achieve a solution to the DACA crisis is to keep it simple: on one 
side, a path to citizenship for Dreamers, and on the other side, what 
is required by the White House--a path for funding for border security.
  I have been working with the next Senator who is going to speak in 
what we call a bipartisan group that has been carefully trying to put 
together a balanced approach to find a solution. Neither side is going 
to get everything they want, but that is why it is called a 
negotiation.
  I urge my colleagues in the Senate to come together to achieve a 
reasonable and bipartisan agreement as soon as possible--I hope by the 
end of this week. The Dreamers need to know we

[[Page S865]]

appreciate them, and now we are going to turn that appreciation into 
law.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Madam President, if we go back over the past 20 years, 
it is hard to find an immigration debate that occurred that ended with 
making law. Immigration issues have been contentious over the years--
unnecessarily so. They have been emotional over the years--
unnecessarily so. It is connected to families, to people, to real 
lives, and to real stories. I get that. But now we are at a point again 
where we will be debating immigration on this floor all of this week.
  The DREAM Act was proposed 15 years ago. Three different times it has 
come up before the House or the Senate or both. All three times in 15 
years, it has failed--just dealing alone with those Dreamers. Then a 
very, very large package was tried in 2013. That included not just the 
Dreamers but their parents and every other person illegally present in 
the United States--wholesale reform of every part of the immigration 
system. That was tried in 2013; it also failed. Now it is time to find 
that middle ground. Where can we find the basic issues here?
  In September, the President of the United States challenged the House 
and the Senate to get a legislative solution for the recipients of DACA 
and those who are DACA-eligible. At the time, the President was decried 
as throwing people out of the country, but he was very clear at that 
point: He did not feel President Obama had the authority to give a 
wholesale Executive answer for those individuals on what they called 
deferred action for childhood arrivals. But President Trump said: I 
want a legislative solution. I want certainty. I don't want these 
individuals to sign up every 2 years and be at the whim of some future 
Executive and go through the process. Let's get a permanent answer to 
all of this, but with that, we have to pick up the issues around it at 
the same time.
  The President actually gave the nation a great gift at that time: a 
deadline. For two decades, immigration has been well known to be a 
problem, but there has been no deadline. The President set the deadline 
of March 5 to have this resolved. We are nearing that now. It is time 
to move from just debating it in the hallways and in our offices to 
debating it on the floor of this Chamber and trying to get this 
resolved.
  Here is what I have proposed, along with Chairman Grassley, John 
Cornyn, David Perdue, Thom Tillis, Tom Cotton, and Joni Ernst: to lay 
out a commonsense solution, to say, let's stick to four items--four 
items that the White House has also identified. Those things are all 
connected.
  Those four items begin, obviously, with DACA and those who are DACA-
eligible, about 1.8 million individuals who are currently living in the 
country, who grew up literally speaking English, pledging allegiance to 
our flag, going to our schools, and engaging in our commerce. In every 
way, they have lived and functioned as Americans, except they are not. 
They were brought into the country illegally.
  So now what do we do about that? President Obama set a time period. 
He set a 2007 time period. You had to have been in the country by 2007, 
be under a certain age, and then you were eligible. We actually 
advanced that since it has been so long now and said: From the time 
President Obama announced that--which was June 2012--if you were in the 
country at that time or before and you are under that time period and 
that certain age, you are eligible for it. Apply. Go through the 
process.
  We think that is not only entirely fair, it is also entirely 
compassionate. But it also sends out a warning to those who are going 
to rush at our border and say: The easiest way to illegally cross into 
the United States is to bring a child with you. We do not want that to 
occur. That is a dangerous crossing in many places, many children have 
died, and individuals have had horrible things happen to them on the 
way. We want to discourage that. So we set the June 2012 date--that is 
when President Obama first announced the program--and said that is a 
reasonable time period. But with that, we said it would take 10 years 
for those individuals to be able to cross into naturalization. That is 
in line with other individuals around the world who are currently 
getting in the line right now. There is no one jumping ahead of anyone 
else but holding those individuals harmless who are already here and 
saying: Let's start you through the process, and 10 years from now, you 
will get naturalization.
  At the same time we put them in line, we also put in a process for 
border security. The reason we currently have 11-plus million 
individuals in the country with no legal status is because our border 
security process has been so bad. This is no great shock to anyone. So 
what we are doing is taking those individuals in DACA and saying: Let's 
take 10 years to move you into naturalization. During that 10-year time 
period, we also want to set up the basics of border security. That 
gives us time to get security first and naturalization second for those 
individuals but both with great certainty.
  It is not just a wall, although there should be sections of wall. In 
areas where it is highly populated on both sides of the border, we need 
a wall as a demarkation. But in most areas of the border, it is not 
highly populated on both sides; it is open desert or mountains. We need 
cameras. We need technology. We need interaction with our National 
Guard, who can bring resources to the battle as we try to interdict 
drugs. We need increased ability in our laws dealing with terrorism, 
drug smuggling, human smuggling. We need consistency in how we handle 
immigration. Right now, there is one policy if you come from Cuba, 
another policy if you come from Honduras, and another policy if you 
come from Mexico. Why don't we be consistent with our immigration 
policy?
  We need additional Customs and Border Patrol agents. We need 
additional ICE agents. My colleagues immediately recoil from that and 
say that is interior enforcement. Actually, it is not. If you have 
additional Customs and Border Patrol agents and they pick up someone at 
the border, they are immediately transitioned into ICE custody, where 
they are detained as they go through the process. But you can't just 
detain people. You also have to have judges and attorneys. You have to 
have advocates for those individuals. So we need to increase the number 
of judges, attorneys, and advocates to be able to help. We need to 
increase the number of translators to make sure that we get good 
response from those individuals and that they understand what is going 
on.
  Right now, there are 600,000 people in a backlog waiting for their 
day in court, for due process--600,000. That is absurd. One of the 
reasons we have such an open, porous border is that individuals know 
that if they get across the border, they will only be detained a couple 
of weeks and then they will be released into the United States with 
what is called a notice to appear. Some people appear at their court 
date sometimes 2, 3, 4 years later, and some people do not, but they 
have been released into the United States in the meantime. We need to 
accelerate that process.
  We have individuals who come across the border and they claim asylum, 
but they don't get an asylum hearing for a couple of years. We should 
have that as a rapid process. They should get due process, and they 
should be able to make that claim. As we have said over and over again, 
justice delayed is justice denied.
  We have some interesting things that we put out in this dealing with 
the cost to the taxpayers. We put a cap on the amount that we can spend 
per person, per day in housing individuals, and we set the cap at $500 
per day, per person to actually do detaining. We think it is a 
reasonable amount, and, honestly, it is one of the things I think 
should be universally accepted, both by the taxpayers and by this body. 
We put in additional penalties for those who are doing human smuggling 
and human trafficking and trafficking drugs across our border. We deal 
with some nation-states that will not accept criminal aliens.

  Many people in this body, and certainly across the United States, may 
be surprised to know that for countries such as Cuba, if there is an 
individual picked up in the United States who was convicted of armed 
robbery and is illegally present in the United States, even though they 
have committed a violent offense, typically in other

[[Page S866]]

countries, they would have to suffer the consequences of being in 
prison here for their offense, and then they would be deported back to 
their country, but Cuba does not accept them. Even though they are 
illegally present in the United States and they commit a violent 
offense, they do their time period here, and then they are released 
back into the United States.
  Why would we do that? We need to establish a process to resolve this. 
That is basic with border security and also dealing with naturalization 
for DACA. We have had individuals who have said: Where does the 
diversity lottery and the issue of family unification come into this?
  Let me tell you how it connects--and they absolutely do connect. 
Right now we have 4 million people waiting through the process to 
legally come to the United States. That is a 20-year backlog--20 years. 
That is irrational. What we would like to be able to do is to fix the 
process. Before we add another 2 million people into this and take a 
20-year process to maybe a 25-year or 30-year process, once we get to 
that backlog time period, let's fix what is obvious.
  Quite frankly, this issue of family reunification is not a new issue. 
In 1995, Democratic House Member Barbara Jordan led a study on what to 
do on immigration and made a major proposal on what to do on what they 
called--at that time, in 1995, in this Democratic-led group--chain 
migration. It said that adult siblings and adult children should come 
in under their own merit, not under their family and that we should 
target skills for individuals who are coming in, not just ``It is my 
brother-in-law; so he gets a chance to come as well.''
  This would allow us to empty out that backlog--the 20-year backlog--
to come into the United States at a faster pace. The diversity lottery 
is not a challenge with diversity--far from it. We have people from all 
over the world who come into the United States, and we continue to 
welcome people from all over the world.
  I am fascinated watching the Olympics. I watch people march in from 
many countries. Everyone looks the same under their flag until you get 
to the United States. When the United States marches in, you can't pick 
out which one looks American. We are American. In many countries around 
the world, they all look the same because you are not welcome if you 
don't look like them. That is not so with us. We welcome people freely 
from around the world, but we also want them to bring a set of skills. 
We believe that we can use those same numbers to encourage people from 
around the world and bring their skills into the United States, to 
repurpose the diversity lottery and say: Yes, come. Come from 
everywhere around the world, but come bringing your skills because we 
need it as a nation. You are always welcome to come.
  It is far from making the Statue of Liberty cry or polishing up her 
torch. It is saying: We are open to the world. Come and bring your 
talents and abilities. We will need it in the days ahead.
  If we want to prevent a 20-year backlog from getting even worse, we 
have to fix the family migration issue. If we want to deal with border 
security and deal with the very real threats that we face, as well as 
just individuals who want to come to work, we have to deal with the 
basics of border security, and we should address the issue of DACA 
recipients. We can do this. We will walk through this journey together. 
Over the course of this week, I hope we can keep this civil and open 
and fact-based, rather than charged with emotion and accusations. We 
all want to help the country. Let's work on helping the country 
together this week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moran). The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we have had a chance today to listen to 
my colleagues discuss what we think is the only piece of legislation 
that can get through the Senate, through the House of Representatives, 
and, most importantly, be signed by the President of the United States. 
All are cosponsors of this bill, except Senator Hatch, who spoke on 
another issue that he is very interested in, but it is a very important 
immigration issue as well.
  We heard from Senator Cornyn. Then I spoke. Senator Cotton spoke and 
Senator Ernst, Senator Tillis, and Senator Lankford. Senator Perdue is 
one of those who is a cosponsor of the bill and would have liked to 
have been here to speak, but he is just now returning from his 
constituency.
  We have tried to lay out a path to giving DACA kids certainty, doing 
it from a standpoint of being humanitarian for people who were brought 
to this country by their parents. Their parents may have broken the 
law--and they did break the law--by coming over our borders without 
documentation, but we never should hold children responsible for what 
their parents did. This legislation takes a compassionate and 
reasonable approach to reforms, including a pathway to citizenship for 
a broad population. It grandfathers people waiting in line for family-
based visas, and it expedites clearing that backlog. It helps to keep 
young people out of the same legal limbo in the future.
  This legislation is a product of compromise. The President and many 
conservatives have come a long way to offer this plan and especially 
the part of the plan that offers citizenship to this group of people. 
For one example of compromise, as chairman of this committee, there are 
a lot of things I would have liked to have seen in this legislation 
that can't be in there, as a way of getting a broad base of compromise. 
I am a strong supporter of mandatory E-Verify, but that is not in this 
document. I think the other side needs to be willing to compromise as 
well. We need to pass something that can become law. Several times my 
colleagues have been told that this is the only plan the President 
supports, and you have heard him say that on television many times 
since he put out the four-pillars program, as we call it, that came 
from his White House. The House isn't going to bring up anything that 
the President will not sign. I think we need to stop political 
posturing and pass something that can fix a real problem by providing 
border security and certainty for DACA kids.
  This legislation is a reasonable approach to shielding children 
illegally brought to our country through no fault of their own while 
also taking meaningful steps to ensure that nobody finds themselves in 
the same situation in the future. This is a rare opportunity to fix a 
real problem and protect the country in a thoughtful and compassionate 
way. We simply have to correct the loopholes in current law that allow 
dangerous criminals to enter and remain at large in our country.
  Our proposal is supported by the President, who has come a long way 
to reach a compromise. Just think of the long way from the positions he 
took during his campaign for President. This President can be very 
correct in stating that a platform he once ran on he wants to serve on.
  In this particular case, I think he has come to the same conclusion 
as a lot of us have: These young people are here through no fault of 
their own. They may be technically violators of the law, but as a 
practical matter, humanitarianism calls for us to make a legalization. 
This is the only Senate proposal that has any chance of passing the 
House and being signed into law. If my colleagues are serious about 
actually finding a real and permanent solution to the DACA crisis, they 
should be ready and willing to support this compromise.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. CORTEZ MASTO. Mr. President, last September President Trump 
rescinded the DACA Program. Since that time, nearly 20,000 DACA 
recipients have lost their status. That number continues to grow. I 
have posted this sign outside my office so my colleagues can see that 
122 Dreamers are losing their status every single day. This chart 
cannot begin to tell the story of the impact this arbitrary decision 
has had on Dreamers' lives.
  Over the past year, I have held roundtables with Dreamers throughout 
Nevada. I wanted to hear their concerns, listen to their stories, and 
make sure they know their rights. Dreamers

[[Page S867]]

are not charts or numbers. They are people. They are amazing. They are 
putting themselves through school, studying hard, serving in our 
communities, our churches, and our military--all while working multiple 
jobs to support their families.
  In meeting with them, I have learned that they are their own best 
advocates. Dreamers deserve the chance to speak for themselves. They 
deserve better than to be used as pawns in a cynical game. They should 
not be forced to choose between achieving protection in the only 
country they have ever known and seeing their families attacked with 
arbitrary and cruel cuts to our family reunification and diversity visa 
programs. I am tired of seeing the White House pit people against one 
another.
  Tonight and this week, Congress is about to determine the future of 
these patriotic young men and women. Before we begin this debate, we 
need to take a few moments to understand who they are, what they are 
doing for our country, and what the consequences will be if we fail 
them. I wish to read a few letters they sent me.
  Listen to this letter from Jevi. He is a freshman at Nevada State 
College. Jevi said:

       I was born in Mexico in March 1998 and was brought to the 
     United States when I was six months old. I recently started 
     my freshman year at Nevada State College. I am majoring in 
     Business Administration in the hope that I can open a small 
     family restaurant someday. I have grown up in Las Vegas my 
     entire life. It's the city I know, the city that raised me. 
     It is my home, my only home.

  Listen to this letter from Maggie. She wrote:

       I came to the United States when I was ten years old. I 
     faced language barriers when I started elementary school, but 
     I quickly learned English and excelled as a student. I 
     graduated from High School in 2007 with $20,000 in academic 
     scholarships, but couldn't use them because I was 
     undocumented. After receiving Deferred Action for Childhood 
     Arrivals in June of 2013, I was able to begin working as a 
     health care enrollment counselor for Nevada Health Link. In 
     January 2014, I was accepted to the University of Nevada 
     Reno, where I continued working to help people access 
     affordable health care while going to school full time.

  That was Maggie. That was her letter to me.
  Listen to Francisco. This is his letter to me.

       My story is very much like others in this country. I am one 
     of the 1.5 million undocumented children that were brought to 
     the United States as minors by their parents. On September 
     17th, 2012, I applied for Deferred Action, hoping to be 
     granted a work permit. Around that same time, I learned that 
     I had been admitted to the University of Nevada, Las 
     Vegas. On November 5 my work permit arrived. My family and 
     I all came to tears upon learning the news. I quickly 
     looked for a job so that I would be able to enroll and 
     start paying for my school.

  That was from Francisco.
  Now hear from Anna, who wrote:

       I came to the United States with my family, from the 
     Philippines, at the age of 7. My father left our family in 
     2001, and our visas expired soon after. I graduated from 
     Centennial High School in 2008 and started nursing school at 
     the College of Southern Nevada. I graduated in 2012 and 
     received my DACA acceptance a year later. I am currently 
     going on my third year working at University Medical Center . 
     . . as a pediatric ICU nurse.

  These are only four of the stories that I have heard from Dreamers, 
and there are hundreds of thousands more just like them.
  I want to point out that just recently, I received a batch of 32 
letters from seventh graders at Bailey Middle School in Las Vegas. To a 
T, the concern for every single one of these seventh graders was the 
same thing.
  Clarisa, one of these seventh graders, wrote:

       I would like to change Trump's decision and let the DACA 
     program stay so immigrants get to have the life they had 
     before. My family and friends are all I have in my life. I 
     don't want to see them go because they cannot go to school or 
     get a job. Thank you.

  That was from Clarisa.
  We also have a letter from Andrea G.:

       President Trump's decision affects my family, the people I 
     know, and the community. It affects my family because my two 
     older siblings were brought here when they were just babies. 
     It affects people I know because some of my other family 
     members were brought here as babies. I hope President Trump 
     does not end DACA. Thank you.

  To a T, with regard to all of these letters, all of the information, 
all of the people with whom I have met both here in the Capitol and in 
Nevada, these Dreamers are incredible people. They are incredible 
individuals who are contributing to our communities.
  When you hear these stories, you see that this fight is not about 
charts and numbers or political leverage. This fight is not even about 
individuals. It is about entire communities. It is not just about what 
will happen to Jevi and Maggie and Francisco and Anna and all of those 
families who are connected somehow to those kids at Bailey Middle 
School. It is about what will happen to their customers, their 
students, their patients, their employers, their parents, their 
families, and their friends.
  You see, Dreamers are our first responders. They serve in our 
military. They drive our ambulances. They pray with us in church. They 
are on the frontlines, teaching our kids and defending our country. 
What happens when they are not here anymore?
  The debate over immigration in this country has focused for too long 
on misconceptions and stereotypes. Immigrants are not taking our jobs; 
they are creating them. They are not causing crime; they are putting 
their lives on the line to fight it. What do we gain by deporting them?
  What do we gain when Maggie and Francisco are forced to drop out of 
school? How do we gain when Anna cannot go back to work in the 
pediatric ICU?
  Jevi has no memory of the country in which he was born. He spent only 
the first 6 months of his life there. What do we gain when we send him 
back?
  Living in a community means depending on the people around you. It 
means having neighbors you can turn to in times of need. Dreamers are 
our neighbors. This is their time of need.
  I urge my colleagues to understand who Dreamers really are. Don't pit 
kids against parents or neighbors against neighbors. This is bigger 
than partisan politics. It is about human lives. It is time to fight 
for these families and for keeping these families together, who are an 
integral part of our communities.
  I know many of my colleagues support the Dream Act and reasonable 
border security measures. Let's get through to the finish line. The 
American people are watching us, and 80 percent of them want us to help 
Dreamers. Dreamers belong here, and Dreamers are American. This is our 
chance to do what is right.
  I yield the floor.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 302, H.R. 2579, an act to amend the 
     Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit 
     with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage.
         Mitch McConnell, Mike Crapo, Johnny Isakson, Thom Tillis, 
           Cory Gardner, James Lankford, Bill Cassidy, Marco 
           Rubio, Roy Blunt, Lindsey Graham, Mike Rounds, Richard 
           Burr, Tim Scott, Jeff Flake, Pat Roberts, John Thune, 
           John Hoeven.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue 
Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to 
unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Arizona (Mr. McCain).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Daines). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 97, nays 1, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 32 Leg.]

                                YEAS--97

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Brown

[[Page S868]]


     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--1

       
     Cruz
       

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Leahy
     McCain
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 97, the nays are 1.
  Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having voted in 
the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The majority leader is recognized.

                          ____________________