[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S79-S87]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STRENGTHENING AMERICA'S SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST ACT OF 2019--Motion
to Proceed
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 1, which the clerk
will now report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1) to make improvements to certain defense and
security assistance provisions and to authorize the
appropriation of funds to Israel, to reauthorize the United
States-Jordan Defense Cooperation Act of 2015, and to halt
the wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people, and for other
purposes.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Government Funding
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I think it is important that we remind
ourselves about what it takes to make a law here in Washington, DC. It
obviously takes passage of a bill by the House of Representatives,
passage by the Senate, and a Presidential signature. Obviously, we are
in the middle of sort of a, I guess you could say, fight right now
between the executive branch--the President--and Democrats in the House
and the Senate, which normally would be resolved by the two sides
sitting down and negotiating and coming to some sort of an agreement or
compromise. That, frankly, is what is going to be necessary to resolve
the current crisis we are in.
The Democrats in the Congress have the majority in the House. It
takes 60 votes, as we know, to do anything in the Senate, which means
it will take somewhere around the order of 10 Senate Democrats in order
to put a piece of legislation on the President's desk.
There has to be a negotiation. There have to be two sides at the
table. The Democrats have made it very clear in the Senate and in the
House that they have no interest in negotiating with the President.
Furthermore, they have determined that they are going to shut down
all the rest of the business that is being done in the Senate simply
because they do not want to provide funding for the border wall that
has been requested by the President. That is the standoff we are
currently in the middle of.
I will remind our colleagues that as recently as last month, my
friend the Democratic leader said that in order for us to proceed and
vote on anything in either Chamber, we need to have a piece of
legislation that the President has said he would agree to sign, which,
again, suggests the way out of this is for the Democrats to come to the
table and enter into a negotiation with the President about how to fund
the border wall, how to deal with the issue of border security, and
then to open up the government. That is the way this ultimately gets
resolved.
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It seems to me, at least from my observation so far, that there has
been no movement, zero movement--zero movement--on the part of the
Democrats when it comes to trying to resolve the current situation.
I will simply say that I agree with what the Democratic leader said
as recently as December; that is, in order for either Chamber--the
House or the Senate--to vote on a compromise piece of legislation, it
needs to be a piece of legislation that the President of the United
States has said he will sign.
Each of these elements has to come together, and, obviously, each is
very relevant in this conversation. You cannot have a law without a
Presidential signature. There are 535 Members of Congress. There is
only one President of the United States, only one person who can sign a
bill into law. Obviously, the President is a critical player in this
conversation.
Of course, the Democrats, as I said, have the majority in the House
of Representatives. It takes 60 votes to do anything in the Senate. I
think we have a majority of Senators who would vote today to provide
the funding that is necessary to secure our borders, the funding that
the President has requested, but it is going to take a number of
Democrats, perhaps as many as 7 to 10 Democrats, in order for us to
pass a bill in the Senate.
The Democrats are very relevant in this conversation. They are not
irrelevant. They have to be at the table. Normally a negotiation starts
with the two sides saying ``This is where I am, and this is where I
am'' and figuring out how to reach that common ground, how to reach
that middle and structure an agreement that could pass both the House
and the Senate and receive a Presidential signature.
That is not what is happening right now. I think we all know that. I
think it is very clear that the Democrats are very dug in; they have
not moved a single inch off of their position from the time that this
whole shutdown started. I think there is a path forward. I am hopeful
that negotiations, discussions that will continue later today at the
White House, will lead us to a conclusion, to an outcome, and to a
result that gets Federal employees back to work, making sure the
government continues to function and run but also addressing a critical
and important priority for all of us as policymakers; that is, ensuring
that we secure our border in a way to protect the American people.
I think it should go without saying that border security is a basic
national security requirement. Countries have to secure their borders.
They need to know who is coming into their country, and they need to be
able to keep people who shouldn't be entering the country, such as
criminals and drug traffickers, out. Making sure that our borders are
secure is one of our most essential responsibilities of Members of
Congress. It is a basic obligation, like making sure our military is
capable of defending our country. While border security is always a
national security imperative, it is particularly important right now
because we have not only a security but a humanitarian crisis at our
border.
Over the past year, illegal border crossing apprehensions have shot
up by more than 30 percent. An average of 60,000 individuals try to
cross our southern border illegally each month. This represents a
serious security concern. Among those trying to cross our southern
border are drug dealers, gang members, human traffickers, and other
criminals.
This flood of attempted border crossings also represents a serious
humanitarian concern. Individuals attempting the journey to come here
illegally are vulnerable to exploitation, illness, and abuse. One out
of every three women attempting the journey to the United States is
sexually assaulted. A staggering 70 percent of individuals become
victims of violence along the way. Illness and other medical issues are
serious problems. Fifty migrants a day are referred for medical care,
and Customs and Border Protection rescues 4,300 people in distress
every single year.
There is a direct way to stem this crisis, and that is to promote
legal immigration and discourage people from coming here illegally. How
do we discourage people from attempting to come here illegally? Well, I
would argue we enforce our immigration laws and prevent individuals
from illegally crossing our borders.
I have mentioned the dangerous individuals who can sneak across our
porous borders and the humanitarian crisis we face, but of course there
are even more dangers posed by the weaknesses in our border, both
around barriers and through our ports of entry, such as the illegal
drugs that are pouring into the country.
Every week in this country, 300 Americans die from heroin. Ninety
percent of the heroin supply--90 percent--flows across our southern
border. In 2017, opioids were involved in the deaths of almost 50,000
Americans. Roughly half or more of those deaths involved fentanyl, and
a lot of that fentanyl is coming across our borders illegally. Federal
agents have seen a 115-percent increase in the amount of fentanyl
seized between ports of entry. One key part of addressing the opioid
epidemic in our country is shutting down the flow of illegal drugs
across our porous borders.
Democrats used to understand the need for border security. In 2009,
the Democratic leader here in the Senate said:
Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple. Until the
American people are convinced that we will stop future flows
of illegal immigration, we will make no progress on dealing
with the millions of illegal immigrants who are here now and
on rationalizing our system of legal immigration. That's
plain and simple and unavoidable.
That is from the Democratic leader here in the Senate in 2009.
In 2006, the Democratic leader and the ranking member of the Senate
Judiciary Committee voted for legislation to authorize a border fence.
They were joined in their vote by then-Senator Biden, then-Senator
Clinton, and then-Senator Obama.
In 2013, every Senate Democrat supported legislation requiring the
completion of a 700-mile fence along our southern border. This
legislation would have provided $46 billion for border security and $8
billion specifically for a physical barrier.
Nearly every Senate Democrat supported $25 billion in border security
funding just last February, and I suspect that more than one Democrat
still understands that we desperately need to improve security at our
borders. But the Democratic leadership refuses to play ball. More than
2 weeks into this shutdown, they are still not willing to negotiate a
solution that would secure our borders and reopen the government.
Democratic leaders are willing to ignore the security and humanitarian
crisis at the southern border simply because they don't like this
President and because they are afraid to oppose the far-left wing of
their party.
We need to end this partial shutdown, and we need to reopen the
government, but the only way for that to happen is for Democrats to
work with Republicans and the President to provide adequate funding for
border security. Once they negotiate in good faith toward a serious
agreement that the President will sign, the Senate will immediately
take it up so that we can end this shutdown and take needed steps to
bolster security at our borders.
Border security is not some issue Republicans have somehow dreamed
up. Securing our borders is a national security imperative, and both
parties have a responsibility to make sure our Nation's borders are
protected. I hope Democrats here in the Senate will remember their
obligation to our Nation's citizens and work with the President to
secure our borders and reopen our government. I would end where I
started, and that is to say that in order for that to happen, there has
to be an agreement. Both sides have to come to the table. The
President, the House, and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, are
all relevant in this conversation because it takes all to accomplish a
legislative result that will reopen our government, get Federal
employees back to work, and at the same time take the important steps
that are necessary to secure our border.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I just note parenthetically that virtually
every Republican and every Democrat in this body has voted for the
bills that would open the government. Every single Democrat in this
body is willing--if the Republican leader would bring
[[Page S81]]
those bills back up--to vote for them, and the government would open.
So I hope the Republican leader will allow the government to open.
There are a lot of people who need to go back to work, and I will speak
about this later today. It is going to be 10, 15 below zero in my home
State at one point this week, making it more urgent that we reopen the
government. We also have government contractors who would like to get
back to work.
Catholic Clergy Misconduct
Now let me speak about a different matter. I am going to speak as an
individual more than as a Senator. My wife Marcelle and I, as
Catholics, have shared the concern of many, whether Catholics or not,
about the continued revelation of often gross misconduct on the part of
some in the clergy and in the hierarchy of our church. We have seen
this throughout the United States, including in our own State of
Vermont.
I have rarely--rarely--spoken about religious issues in my capacity
as a Senator, because I feel one's religion is private and certainly
not political. However, I have spoken out about my concern and my
dismay with what we have heard, and Marcelle shares those concerns with
me.
I mention this because this past Sunday at mass at Holy Trinity
Parish in the District of Columbia, we heard a sermon preached by
Father Benjamin Hawley, a member of the Jesuits. When he finished his
sermon, I will freely admit I wanted to stand up and applaud him. He
spoke about what the church is finally doing in facing up to this, but
then he spoke about how he was reacting and how one hopes we might
react, what the reaction should be from the Pope straight down to every
member of the clergy and every member of the laity. Except for some
sermons preached by Marcelle's brother, Father Claude Pomerleau, I do
not remember being so touched or affected by a sermon.
I had not met Father Hawley before, but after mass, I spoke with him,
and I asked him if I could have his permission to put his sermon into
the Congressional Record. He agreed.
I ask unanimous consent that the homily by Father Benjamin Hawley,
S.J., of January 6, 2019, be printed in the Record at this time.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Homily for the Feast of the Epiphany
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, the
appearance of Jesus the Messiah to the world.
In classical Greek the word ``epiphany'' can refer to the
appearance of dawn, as Isaiah, writing 500 years before
Jesus' birth, does in our first reading: ``See, darkness
covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; but
upon you the Lord shines, and over you appears his glory . .
. Raise your eyes and look about . . .''
This appearance can intimate--Jesus' touching your heart or
mine with peace in time of difficulty. Or the appearance can
be cosmic--the Prince of Peace revealed to Herod and to the
magi--and to our world today.
Is it possible to see Jesus' latest epiphany in three
recent events?
First, about 280 American bishops are in retreat just
outside Chicago--no lay staff, no other priests. Guiding
their retreat is Raniero Cantalamessa, a Capuchin priest, who
is the Preacher to the Papal Household. I have heard him
speak, and he is excellent.
Second, a hard-hitting eight-page letter from the Pope is
guiding their prayer.
Francis asks them to reflect on ``the steps you are taking
to combat the culture of abuse and to deal with the crisis of
credibility'' (page 1).
``The church's credibility has been seriously undercut and
diminished by these sins and crimes, but even more by the
efforts made to deny or conceal them . . . (T)he mentality
that would cover things up, far from helping to resolve
conflicts, enabled them to fester and cause even greater hurt
to the network of relationships that today we are called to
heal and restore'' (p2).
``Loss of credibility calls for a specific approach, since
it cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply
creating new committees or improving flow charts, as if we
were in charge of a department of human resources'' (p3).
Then, the Pope then takes them to task on infighting:
``The loss of credibility also raises painful questions
about the way we relate to one another . . . (p3) This
requires not only a new approach to management, but also a
change in our mind-set, our way of prayer, our handling of
power and money, our exercise of authority and our way of
relating to one another and to the world around us . . .
(pp3-4).
Without (a) clear and decisive focus, everything we do
risks being tainted by self-referentiality, self-preservation
and defensiveness, and thus doomed from the start'' (p4).
``Let us try to break the vicious cycle of recrimination,
undercutting and discrediting, by avoiding gossip and slander
in the pursuit of a path of prayerful and contrite acceptance
of our limitations and sins, and the promotion of dialogue,
discussion and discernment . . .'' (pp5-6).
Finally, third, the presidents of bishops conferences
worldwide will meet in Rome in late February in a meeting
organized by four church officials:
Blase Cupich, Cardinal-Archbishop of Chicago;
Oswald Cracias, Cardinal-Archbishop of Mumbai, India, and
member of the Pope's council of cardinals;
Charles Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta and head of
investigating abuses in the Vatican's Congregation for the
Doctrine of Faith; and
Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, president of the Center for the
Protection of Minors at the Gregorian University, the Jesuit
university in Rome.
The pope's letter seems to me right on target in tone and
content. A retreat for discernment is very Ignatian, and the
Vatican meeting will ensure worldwide applicability.
So, can you and I believe that Jesus' epiphany is the
motive force behind the bishops' retreat, the pope's letter
and February bishops meeting?
We are called by Jesus himself to be hopeful. But we are
also called to be thoughtful, discerning good and evil around
us. I find myself seesawing between hope and doubt, between
hope and fear, between hope and no-hope, as I reflect on the
good and evil. I want to have hope, but I have to admit that
having hope is hard, sometimes nearly impossible.
It is true that Jesus grew up and became the Messiah. But
Herod's murdering a generation of children went unpunished,
as far as I know, and the historical record on mass murderers
or mass abusers isn't promising.
I am grateful for what the bishops and Francis are now
doing. But I keep asking myself why it takes so much external
pressure to get them to do the right, decent thing that seems
so obvious and not even that hard.
Some days I feel like Candide, returning from his hero's
journey to cultivate his own garden. In my garden I can be
hopeful. But I can't live a solitary life. And when I re-
engage, I become discouraged when I find the bishops'
response so slow and so begrudging.
But then I wonder about how God's justice and mercy might
be made real in the next life, especially for bishops,
cardinals and popes, but for us too. I imagine Purgatory not
as a place of hellfire and smoke, but rather as a place where
kindly but determined angels would sit, like referees in
black and white stripped outfits, each one in comfortable
room in front of a large flat-screen TV, each with a recently
arrived soul.
In a gentle way the angel-referee would guide the deceased
not through an instant replay but a slow replay of their
lives, stopping the action and asking each bishop, cardinal
and pope--and each one of us--to reconsider individual events
in their lives, and asking questions like, What were you
thinking? How did that work out--for you and for everyone
else? If you had to do it again, how might you choose?
There would be no scoreboard, because God would want
everyone to win, and no time clock. Everyone would have time
and all eternity--with the angel-referee's prompting--to
rethink what they had said and done.
And some would have a very painful time of it, because
angels are messengers of God's justice. Their job is to
reveal justice to the minds of souls as yet living in
darkness. And the angel-referees would make the final call.
With that much time and such wise, persistent guides, most
would probably make it to die podium for their trophy. Angels
might have to guide a few of the obdurate to long-term
parking, but such souls would have had a chance and in the
end would have put themselves there.
In the meantime you and I are on the seesaw.
Jesus began his life in his mother's lap in the stable, as
the great artists have shown us, but surrounded by the blood
and death of children and the corruption of the Jewish king.
Jesus ended his life in his mother's lap, as Michaelangelo
shows us in the Pieta, still surrounded by the blood, death
and the corruption of civic and religious leaders.
My question to myself is always, Does it really have to be
this hard? And the answer seems to be, No, it doesn't have to
be. But, Yes, it is going to be this hard as long as people,
especially people in positions of power, make self-serving
choices. The blood, death and corruption are constants in
human life. And yet he is the Prince of Peace and the source
of our hope.
On this great Feast we can come to realize that, if you and
I have to live on the seesaw, then at least we can remain
anchored to hope there, because Jesus, the source of our
hope, accompanied by his Blessed Mother, has the power to
anchor us there in love.
So, in our Eucharist today let's share divine love and hope
with one another in communion and leave here, imbued with new
hope to share with our world, so the world too can find hope
and peace.
Mr. LEAHY. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Government Funding
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, from El Paso to Brownsville, TX, my State
[[Page S82]]
shares a 1,200-mile border with Mexico. If you were daring enough to
attempt to walk that entire stretch, you would trek through deserts,
cross mountains, through cities, and probably end up getting a little
wet in the Rio Grande River. You would meet folks who are proud of the
strong bonds our country has with our southern neighbor. Many, of
course, have relatives in both countries. You would talk to sheriffs,
police officers, Border Patrol agents, all who care deeply about
protecting our communities. And undoubtedly, you would end up eating
some good Tex-Mex along the way.
In my time in the Senate, I have had the opportunity to meet
countless Texans who live and work along the southern border, and I
seek their advice and counsel on what Congress ought to do, what the
Federal Government ought to do to protect them and their communities.
What they tell me is that Texans and the Nation rely on the billions of
dollars of legitimate trade that comes across the ports of entry with
Mexico. But with the growing volume of goods crossing our borders and
the persistent staff shortages for Customs and Border Protection, they
want to make sure there are no security gaps that can be exploited by
criminals or slow down the legal movement of goods. That is a concern I
share, and I continue to advocate for additional improvements in our
ports of entry to protect this vital lifeline for our economy, as well
as our security.
But just as these communities care deeply about the economic benefits
of our shared border, they care deeply, of course, about their own
safety and security. They believe that both can peacefully coexist, and
so do I.
During my visits, I have witnessed some of the horrific treatment
that migrants receive at the hands of the criminals, including those
who smuggle them. The truth is, these criminal organizations that move
people and drugs and contraband across our border exploit our porous
border and care nothing for human life. It is a commodity. It is the
way they make money. They care nothing for the people they hurt, so
they wring another dollar out of someone else's misery on a daily
basis. It is a high-volume business, too, and incredibly lucrative.
I have seen the stash houses with windows lined with tin foil, and
inside, a veritable cesspool that makes you want to gag or lose what
you had for lunch. This is where the human smugglers cram large groups
of illegal immigrants in unimaginable conditions while awaiting their
transit to the interior of the United States.
I have seen their logbooks where they record their corrupt
transactions, correlating real-life human beings with their value in
dollars and cents.
I have talked to Border Patrol agents who have discovered tractor
trailers full of people attempting to enter our country, some of whom
never complete their journey because they die from exposure or are
smothered to death in the crammed quarters.
In Brooks County, TX, where the Falfurrias checkpoint of the Border
Patrol is located, about 50 miles north of the border, I have seen
unmarked graves of the migrants who were trying to cross vast swaths of
South Texas in the August heat in order to bypass the Border Patrol
checkpoint but then were left to die by the smugglers. Their graves are
marked only with identities like ``skull case'' or ``unknown female.''
Border security is not immoral, as Speaker Pelosi has shamefully
claimed, but refusing to act in the face of evil is immoral. It is
clear that there is a crisis, as it is clear that it is our
responsibility to restore safety and security and order. In my wildest
dreams, I never would have imagined we would be debating whether we
should secure our borders, as we apparently are now. That is something
on which we should all agree. Instead, we should be focused on how to
secure our borders and how to do it in a smart, responsible way.
In my experience, learning from the experts, they tell me there is no
one-size-fits-all solution. You can imagine that with a 1,200-mile
border with just Texas and Mexico, with the variety of topography and
geography, one-size-fits-all does not work. What works best in the Rio
Grande Valley doesn't necessarily work in an urban environment like El
Paso, with Juarez right across the international bridge.
We need to customize solutions that meet the specific need rather
than trying to dictate from here in Washington--thousands of miles
away--a solution that solves nothing. We need to look at border
security as a combination of three things: physical infrastructure--
yes, that includes barriers, walls, fences, vehicle barriers in
appropriate locations, but it also includes technology--radar, ground
sensors, drones, aerostats. This is a layered approach that provides
flexibility for the experts on the ground to determine what is best for
each sector, what is best for each part of our immense border, and
implement the changes necessary to achieve desired results. As I said,
in many areas, the landscape and location mean physical barriers may
not be needed and may not be practical. In rural areas, technology--
censor technology or cameras--may be sufficient, but we know we need
additional boots on the ground, too, because it is not enough to put a
barrier in place or have a radar or ground censor in place if you don't
have the Border Patrol to show up and detain people they discover
trying to make their way illegally into the United States or bringing
drugs into the United States. So some combination of these three
elements I think is always going to be needed, no matter where you are
talking about.
I am proud of the work we have done in the Senate, generally
speaking, and I know when we work together we can do a lot of good, but
logic and experience should tell us we shouldn't be the ones deciding
how every inch of our southern border is secure. I don't claim to be an
expert, although I have gone to school on the topic and spent a lot of
time talking to those people who are experts and learning from them. I
believe we need to let those experts drive the decision-making process
on the right combination of resources needed to achieve operational
control of the border. Unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues'
refusal to invest in real border security has landed us in a partial
government shutdown resulting in 800,000 Federal workers who on Friday
will not get a paycheck. That is unnecessary. Unfortunately, they are
collateral damage to a political game which we should not be playing. I
know many of these 800,000 Federal workers are already anxious about
how they will make a car payment or how they will pay their mortgage or
their rent or how they will put food on the table. It is completely
unnecessary, this shutdown.
I am afraid this debate on border security of course is not really a
debate about border security at all; it is a way for congressional
Democrats to take a stand against a President they oppose while putting
border communities at risk and sending the men and women who protect
them to work without pay. This battle has gone on too long, and I can
only hope Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer show some
leadership rather than continue to take the low road. This shouldn't be
about winning a partisan fight; it should be about protecting our
citizens and stemming the tide of illegal immigration, drugs, and
contraband entering our country. If there were ever a time, now is the
time for common sense to prevail and end this senseless shutdown.
Remembering Richard Arvin Overton
Mr. President, on another matter, I want to share a few words about
an American hero I had the pleasure to get to know, Mr. Richard Arvin
Overton. Richard's story began more than a century ago on May 11, 1906,
in Bastrop County, TX. Throughout his young life, he held a variety of
jobs--landscaping, picking cotton, working at a furniture store, and
building homes.
In 1940, Richard enlisted in the U.S. Army and began his military
service at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Serving with the 1887th
Engineer Battalion, an all-Black unit, one of his first stops was Pearl
Harbor, the day after what we now know as the West Loch Disaster.
In an interview in 2016, Richard recalled that day, seeing the water
turn red from the blood of his brothers, saying: ``I didn't look the
same, but I got out all right.'' This was only the first stop on
Richard's tour that led him to the Pacific theater. His service
included stops in Guam, Palau, and Iwo
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Jima, where he witnessed firsthand some of the darkest days in our
country's modern history.
When the war ended, Richard returned to Texas and built a home on
Hamilton Avenue. He originally reentered the furniture business and
then began working for the State treasury department. At the sprite age
of 85, Richard Overton decided to retire.
In 2013, the 107-year-old Richard Overton made his first trip to
Washington, DC, with an Honor Flight. He was able to witness the
memorial built to honor his service and his comrades who died in
battle, a sight that brought him to tears.
While his military service alone deserves our praise, that is not the
only thing that brought Richard to national attention. His comments
about the keys to his longevity and long life and particularly his
daily routine made Richard an internet sensation. His penchant for
enjoying coffee with whiskey and 12 cigars a day won hearts and caused
all of us to question the secret to his long life. Richard also enjoyed
a bowl of ice cream every night--always butter pecan. He called this
the Overton diet and welcomed anyone interested to give it a shot.
Richard used his newfound fame to continue life as he always had but
with more fans eager to stop by and say hello while he was sitting on
the front porch. He continued to live in the same house he built after
the war, although the street name has now been changed to carry his
name--Richard Overton Avenue.
I first met Richard in 2013, and I remember the day my wife Sandy and
I met him in his home in Austin. I was taken aback to learn he had just
gotten through mowing his lawn that morning--107 years old and still
mowing his lawn.
Sadly, on December 27, 2018, the story of this American hero came to
an end. At the ripe old age of 112 years, Richard passed away, leaving
a host of cousins and extended family members.
Yesterday, I introduced a resolution, with my colleague Senator Cruz,
to honor this great man, his military service, and his enduring legacy.
Our country has lost a true patriot, our State has lost a legend, and
our community has lost a dear friend.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Welcoming New Senators
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, a new year begins, and it brings us new
challenges, new opportunities, and new faces in the 116th Congress.
I welcome the nine freshman Senators: Mrs. Blackburn of Tennessee,
Mr. Braun of Indiana, Mr. Cramer of North Dakota, Josh Hawley of
Missouri, Martha McSally of Arizona, Mitt Romney of Utah, Jacky Rosen
of Nevada, Rick Scott of Florida, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Their
talent and hard work brought them here, and now we have an expanded
Senate Republican majority--a majority we built on in the 115th
Congress. Albeit, we are still short of the 60 votes needed to pass
most pieces of legislation, we have a group of people committed to the
values of our party and our country and working together to find
solutions for the Nation.
During the swearing-in last week, as I was sworn in to the Senate, my
96-year-old mother joined us. She attended, enjoyed it, watches the
opening every day for the Pledge of Allegiance and for the prayer from
Reverend Black, and looks to that as a sign of our Nation moving
forward.
From the time I was a little boy, she would always say: ``This is the
most important year of your life.'' She started when I was very young,
and I think her lesson remains today. For me and for all of us, this is
the most important year of our lives, for ourselves, for our Nation,
and for the world. She would say: What you do this year makes a big
difference for the future, so make sure you do it right. Well, we are
now at a point of divided government--Democrats control the House and
Republicans the Senate. We need to work together and do it right on
behalf of the American people.
Government Funding
Mr. President, I think we have some immediate tasks; one is to secure
the southern border and the other is to fund the government. These
goals are not mutually exclusive. We can and we must do both, and the
key to breaking the current impasse is for both parties to work
together.
President Trump, I believe, is absolutely right to insist on border
wall funding. I think he is right to insist on it before agreeing to
sign spending legislation to end the shutdown, and he spoke
passionately and I think spoke convincingly about it last evening. If
the southern border were a patient--and I practiced medicine for 24
years in Wyoming--if the southern border were a patient admitted to the
hospital, it would be listed in critical condition.
All Americans want an immigration system that secures the border,
enforces the law, and that keeps families together. The problem of
course is the rise in illegal entry, terrorists, drug smugglers, human
traffickers, the Mexican drug cartels, all exploiting our porous border
with Mexico. The Customs and Border Protection Commissioner has called
the situation a ``border security and humanitarian crisis.'' That is
what we are dealing with, a border security and humanitarian crisis.
Here are the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security.
Currently, 16,000 Border Patrol agents and 8,100 military troops guard
the southern border. The National Guard has been deployed there
continuously since 2006. Still, illegal border crossings increased
dramatically from 2017 to 2018.
In this past year, the year just ended, 396,000 people were stopped
at the border, including 3,700 suspected terrorists and 800 gang
members. Of the border's 1,950 miles, a physical barrier today protects
about 650 miles. Border Patrol areas with enhanced or expanded barriers
have been successful. They have seen a 90-percent decrease in illegal
traffic. That is why the President wants to continue with additional
physical barriers to protect the border.
There is a huge improvement due to the wall. Clearly, walls work,
barriers work. So I ask: Why is Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker,
prolonging the shutdown by denying critical funding? She has called the
wall immoral. I would say what is immoral is refusing to provide for
the safety and security of the American people by providing border
security.
Border security policymaking has always been bipartisan but not now,
it seems. The Pelosi plan to end the partial shutdown isn't serious
policy; it is political posturing. I say there is a partial government
shutdown because 75 percent of the government continues to be funded.
The Speaker's proposal includes billions in wasteful spending while
ignoring the crisis at the border. The President has promised to veto
what she is proposing, but instead of negotiating, the Speaker is
basically playacting.
What is needed is an agreement between the President and the
Democratic leaders in the House and Senate that can pass the House and
secure at least 60 votes in the Senate and then be signed into law.
As President Trump said in a January 4 letter to Congress, a nation
that fails to control its borders cannot fulfill its basic obligations
to its citizens, physical safety, economic safety, essential public
services, and the uniform protection of our laws.
We cannot afford to play politics with the border. I think we should
listen to the advice my mother continues to give me; that this is the
most important year of your life. It is important for this body, for
this institution, and for this Nation. Let's start 2019 and do it in
the right way by passing commonsense legislation that does secure the
border, that does reopen the government, and that protects the American
people.
Let's work together to make this the most important year, the start
of a better future for all Americans.
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. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
[[Page S84]]
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I want to share with the body today my
very short New Year's wish list. It is very short because Nos. 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, and 6 are all the same. We need to open the government. We need
to reopen the one-quarter of the Federal Government that is shut down
today. We need to start acting like adults. We need to start doing the
job that we were sent here to do because our Nation's security is at
stake, kids' health is at stake, and families' economic security is at
stake.
Hundreds of thousands of Federal workers all across the country are
furloughed as we speak, including over a thousand in Connecticut. But
that is not the extent of the damage. When you start having folks at
airport security not be able to show up for their jobs because they
have to work somewhere else in order to put food on the table, when you
start creating questions about whether food stamps are going to go out
or Section 8 vouchers are going to get paid, when you can't have the
Department of Agriculture functioning to help our farmers, you are
starting to affect a whole lot of people. You are starting to drag down
the entire economy.
My hope--my wish--is that we will reopen the Federal Government. The
fact of the matter is that this happens every now and again.
Occasionally, somebody makes a demand, something that they can't get
through the normal political process, and they say if they don't get
that demand, they are going to shut down the government. Every time I
have been through one of these, it is the party making the demand that
eventually relents because we tend to all agree that is not the proper
way in order to try to get what you want in the U.S. Government.
Senator Cruz and others shut down the government for 2 weeks because
they wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Eventually, they
relented. This time, President Trump couldn't get Congress to approve
$5 billion for his wall in the budget so he decided to shut down the
government. This is not how we should conduct a debate about legitimate
public policy issues.
The future of the American healthcare system was a legitimate public
policy issue, as is the security of our borders, but we shouldn't be
having the discussion amidst a government shutdown--trying to use our
Nation's security and all of these Federal workers and the work they do
as hostages to try to achieve a political result.
Of course, we were all on the same page just a few weeks ago. This
body voted unanimously to open the Federal Government, and now Senator
McConnell says that piece of legislation that all of us voted for in
December can't pass.
What changed? What changed in each one of your States that causes so
many Members of this body to now say that they cannot vote for a
continuing resolution that you all voted for back in December?
We know what has changed. The only thing that has changed is that the
President has decided that he will not sign it. That is not how the
Constitution works.
The Constitution doesn't make the Senate subservient to the
President. The Constitution certainly doesn't make the President's
party subservient to him. No one here has to follow the orders of
President Trump, especially when he is doing something that is bad for
the Nation. We could bring up that same bill that reopens the
government at least temporarily. We could all vote the same way that we
did back in December. We could send that bill to the House of
Representatives and admit that the President shouldn't dictate our
votes. Just because his position changed doesn't mean Senate
Republicans' position should have changed.
Let's reopen the government so that, then, we can have a discussion
about the question of immigration law and border security, because I am
more than willing to have it.
OK, I didn't exactly tell the truth. I do have two other wishes
beyond reopening the government, but they are connected to my primary
wish. My second wish is that the President would stop making up things
as he proceeds through this debate. The worst of his lies was the idea
that there were 4,000 known or suspected terrorists who came across our
southern border. That was a number proffered by the Press Secretary at
the White House. It has been repeated in various ways, shapes, and
forms by the President's allies.
Of course, we now know there have not been 4,000 suspected terrorists
that have come across the southern border. There have been six since
the beginning of this year. That is six people on a terrorist watch
list who were not U.S. citizens. Do you know how many people who fit
that description came across the northern border in the first 6 months
of this year? Forty-one. If you really care about the security of
this country--if your primary reason for getting up every morning is to
make sure terrorists don't get into this country, then we should be
putting up a wall with Canada, not a wall with Mexico.
The second fiction is that all of these drugs coming into the United
States are crossing the U.S.-Mexican border at places where there isn't
a wall. That is not true either. The vast majority of illegal products
that come into this country come through ports of entry. We should all
talk about why that is and what we can do to beef up protections, but
putting up a wall along the treacherous portions of the Rio Grande are
not going to stop smugglers who right now can find lots of other ways
to get their goods into the United States.
I want to make sure that when we have this debate, we are having a
fact-based debate.
My second wish in this new year is that the President and his allies
would just start telling the truth, and the truth is that there is not
a new security crisis at the southern border. Illegal crossings have
been coming down since 2000. The people who are on the terrorist watch
list who occasionally do try to come into this country are
predominantly trying to get in through Canada, not through Mexico.
I want to talk about facts.
Here is my last wish. Again, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are to reopen the
government. If I had No. 6 and 7, it would be that the President start
talking about the real facts, and the other would be this: Let's not
get into this very dangerous conversation about trying to do an end-
around on the political process with a national emergency. I guess I am
talking to my Republican colleagues here.
I get it that I often have some of the sharpest words for this
President, but I hope that we can come together on the idea that
declaring a national emergency because you can't get what you want
through the political process is a really bad precedent to set. It is
true that there are a whole bunch of national emergencies that have
been declared, but none of the circumstances of those national
emergencies and none of the powers that were utilized in those national
emergencies compare to what the President is reportedly considering.
If the President is really talking about declaring a national
emergency on our border, despite the fact that there is no set of facts
that suggests that what is happening on our border is fundamentally
different today than what was happening a year ago or 10 years ago, and
if the President is really contemplating, by Executive order,
reprogramming billions of dollars this Congress set aside for military
construction projects to a border wall, that is a Pandora's box that,
once opened, cannot be shut again. This is a genie escaping out of a
bottle that will not be put back.
I said in jest last night that if President Trump can use a national
emergency declaration to build a border wall, what would stop a
Democratic President from declaring a healthcare emergency and passing
and declaring a national emergency to create a single-payer healthcare
system in this country? I wouldn't advise a Democratic President to do
that, but I am not sure what the precedent would be if President Trump,
having not been able to get Congress and the American public to get
behind a border wall with Mexico that nobody really wants, declares a
national emergency and builds it anyway. What would then stop any
future President from doing the same thing on a host of other policy
areas? Really, what would stop a President from declaring a healthcare
national emergency because he or she can't get their legislation passed
through the Senate and reordering our insurance markets and our
Medicare and Medicaid programs to cure that national emergency, simply
shifting money around from place to place?
[[Page S85]]
I don't think this is an avenue that the Federal Government should go
down because there will be a Democratic President someday, and if you
can just declare a national emergency and move billions of dollars
around because you can't get your way in Congress, that is a horse
that, once out of the barn, is not coming back.
That is my wish list: Open the government, open the government, open
the government, open the government; pass the bills that we passed back
in December. Don't let the President dictate your votes. Let your
constituents dictate your votes.
I hope the President and the White House start telling the truth
about what is really happening with border security, and I hope this
nonsense about declaring a national emergency goes away. I hope it goes
away in part because Republicans in this body recognize the really
dangerous precedent that sets for this country, and they recommend
publicly and privately to the President that he shutter that idea.
We could reopen the government today. If Senator McConnell came down
here and decided to put a continuing resolution before this body and
said that it is the right thing to do for the country, it would pass
with flying colors. If Senator McConnell exercised that kind of
leadership that he has shown in previous shutdowns, it would pass with
flying colors. We all know it would. I am sure there would be a handful
of Republicans who just got elected with President Trump's support who
might not support it, but it would pass just like it passed 3 weeks
ago, and it would likely pass the House of Representatives by a veto-
proof margin, as well, once the signal was given by Senate Republicans
that the adults need to step up and reopen the government.
So this whole crisis can be over tonight. It can be over tonight if
there is some leadership shown by Senate Republicans. Why spend all of
this time trying to control this body? Why spend millions of dollars
trying to run for office to become the majority party in the U.S.
Senate if you are not willing to step up in a moment of crisis and lead
the country through it? It is still possible, and I hope, as my new
year's wish, that it gets done sooner rather than later.
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.
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
National Defense
Ms. ERNST. Mr. President, I rise to speak on U.S. national defense.
In the last couple of years, we have made tremendous progress in
strengthening our military and have effectively realigned our global
posture and strategy.
Under the new national defense strategy, the United States has
rightfully recognized the return to great power competition, where our
priorities have shifted from low-intensity conflict to posturing
against peer and near-peer adversaries.
Over the last 17 years of combat in the Middle East, U.S. dominance
and deterrence against great power competitors have diminished.
Meanwhile, nations like China and Russia have undertaken extraordinary
military modernization efforts while engaging in unprecedented and
destabilizing aggression.
We have seen Russian intrusions in cyberspace, the illegal annexation
of Crimea, information attacks on Western democratic institutions, and
the spread of lies, half-truths, and slander in order to sow division
and chaos between the United States and other partners.
These gray-zone activities, which are actions below the level that
would provoke an armed conflict, have gone mainly unchecked by the
United States, which has set a troubling precedent and only serve to
encourage further provocation.
From China, we see these gray-zone techniques manifested in their
land reclamation in the South China Sea, the construction of their
first foreign military installations in Djibouti, and the continuing
theft of intellectual property and trade secrets in critical security
areas.
They have also greatly undermined our supply chain through the Made
in China 2025 initiative, which seeks to ensure that the United States
and others remain reliant on the Chinese industrial base.
Above all, the United States is threatened by Russia's and China's
advances in emerging technology. This includes hypersonic weapons,
artificial intelligence, space capabilities, quantum computing, and
directed energy.
Without significant resources and focus, we will lose our
technological superiority in these very areas, and both U.S. national
security and the global order will be in serious jeopardy.
Building off of our successes from the last 2 years, Congress and the
executive branch must remain committed to investing in research,
development, rapid acquisition, and the deployment of capabilities that
provide for deterrence in line with the threats of the 21st century.
Just as we rose to the challenge in the two World Wars, the Cold War,
and following the attacks on September 11, 2001, we must, once again,
evaluate our current posture and chart a course that best protects our
national security and our interests.
While the national defense strategy correctly prioritizes a return to
great power competition, we still have great national security threats
in the low-intensity domain, particularly in the Middle East and in
North Africa.
The success of our missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Africa
are important. They can be seen in our ability to prevent extremist
groups from projecting attacks into the U.S. homeland.
Through the heroic and dedicated service of our men and women in
uniform, we have put unyielding pressure on foreign terrorists and, in
turn, we have prevented another massive attack like we saw on 9/11.
While we have seen tremendous battlefield success against groups like
the Islamic State, counterterrorism and stability operations require a
sustained commitment of presence and resources in order to consolidate
gains and promote good governance and the rule of law. In the absence
of the latter, ungoverned spaces quickly transform into breeding
grounds for terror groups, and that is why we are in Iraq. That is why
we are in Afghanistan, and that is why we should remain in Syria. We
must do that until our objectives are met.
Balancing our approach toward both low- and high-intensity threats
will require us to rely on our allies and our partners more than we
have had to rely on them in the past decades, as we have a limited
supply of resources for our national defense. However, if we are able
to leverage the resources of our friends, we will assume less risk as
we move to more resources toward countering great power threats.
Likewise, as we seek to bolster our defense posture toward peer
competitors, we will greatly benefit from increased contributions and
commitments from our allies and our partners. That means insisting that
our treaty allies contribute their fair share to the international
security burden and also ensuring that our allies and partners are
investing in weapons systems and military platforms that interoperate
with ours while effectively deterring our common adversaries.
We cannot and should not abandon those who share our values of
democracy and freedom but, rather, work with them to increase defense
contributions and build necessary capabilities and capacities. Unlike
Russia and China, our network of allies and friends, who have stood
shoulder to shoulder with us in the defense of freedom and democratic
values, are a source of great strength, as well as an integral part of
promoting global security.
I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to once again
acknowledge the most detrimental adversary of our national defense;
that is, poor fiscal policy. As then-Secretary Mattis stated when he
announced the National Defense Strategy, continuing resolutions and
sequestration have hindered our security more than any foe. These
wasteful applications of taxpayer dollars prevent long-term planning,
stymie research and development, delay critical procurement, and
prevent necessary training and readiness investments.
[[Page S86]]
What we do in this Chamber has consequences that reverberate far
beyond Washington. When we fail to do our job, we put our warfighters
at higher risk and cripple our strategic posture, ultimately
endangering our national security. That is why I have come to the floor
today to urge bipartisanship and collaboration amongst both Houses of
Congress on defense spending policy. The political climate of today
will assuredly prevent progress in some areas of Congress's work, but I
encourage my colleagues to set those differences aside when we consider
policies and appropriations for our national defense.
We have a lot of work ahead in order to protect our security and
interests, but I am confident we can come together to solve these
issues of critical importance.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
Border Security
Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, as our colleague from Iowa just pointed
out, these problems not only need to be solved, but they are solvable.
At the core of the debate we are having right now is obviously border
security. Everybody says they are for border security, but they have
different views of what that means.
I want to start by saying that I fully support the President's call
for a more secure border, and, frankly, I think physical barriers are
part of that. We have thought that for a long time. They work. People
who now are opposed to them generally have often been for them.
In fact, a generation ago, we began improving and expanding barriers
in a few areas along the southern border, and in every instance, they
have made a difference.
In 1992, the U.S. Government built a wall in the San Diego sector of
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the number of people caught
crossing that border decreased by 95 percent when the barrier was
erected.
The border is not exactly like a bank. You don't have to have a level
of security that nobody can ever get through at any time, under any
circumstances, but if you have a solution that solves 95 percent of the
problem, that may be about all we can afford to do in terms of solving
the problem that way. That barrier, that wall, that fence south of San
Diego did exactly that.
The next year, we built a wall in El Paso, TX, at that part of the
border, and there was a decrease of 95 percent there as well.
In 2000, we built a wall at the Tucson, AZ, sector, and apprehensions
there dropped 90 percent.
We have a 90-percent solution or a 95-percent solution. That is
reasonable to the American people who think that the job of the Federal
Government--and they are right in this--that one of the jobs of the
Federal Government is to secure its border.
You wouldn't have to look very far in troubled parts of the world to
find a story about Lebanon or some other country--to read that sentence
that says: This government is not truly functional because they don't
have control over their own borders. It is a reasonable expectation of
government.
In 2000, as I said, we built a wall in Tucson.
You can call this whatever you want to. If you are offended when I
say ``wall'' or ``fence,'' you say whatever you want to say--it has the
same impact.
I have been to the border a number of times. I have walked along the
barriers there. I have been on one side of the fence--the two sides of
a fence with a patrolled roadway in between. It looked pretty effective
to me, and the numbers indicate it was effective.
In 2005, when we added a wall in the Yuma part of the Arizona sector,
apprehensions went down another 95 percent.
We have President Clinton and Presidents Bush--Bush 43 and Bush 41--
all were part of thinking barriers worked, and the Congress was too.
There was not an issue as to whether a wall works, where a wall works,
until President Trump as a candidate began to talk about building a
wall. They have made a big difference in the areas where we have tried
them in the past.
The President has often said in recent days that the wall doesn't
necessarily work everywhere, and I fully agree with that. We couldn't
afford to have the wall everywhere, and if we did have the wall
everywhere, you would have to monitor it with some remote monitoring
device anyway because there are large sections of the border where
there aren't people and where there is no access. It doesn't mean you
can't monitor that. It doesn't mean you can't have that kind of a wall
erected. We need to do that.
In November, there were nearly 52,000 people who were caught trying
to sneak across the border. Now, you can act like that is not a very
big problem--unless you have ever lived in a community of, say, 52,000
people, and then you realize that is a lot of people. And in 1 month
alone, they were coming across the southwest border.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, nearly 17,000
criminals were apprehended trying to get into the country last year.
That is about half of the population of the capital city of Missouri.
Seventeen thousand people trying to get in with a criminal record just
last year.
We have seen a 50-percent increase in gang members being caught
trying to come into the country illegally and a 73-percent increase in
the seizures of fentanyl.
One of the things we do in the health and human services area that I
work in and appropriate for and work for an appropriate opioid response
is try to figure out how we can get fentanyl out of this system, how we
can get something out of this system that is deadly for a significant
number of the people who turn to that as they get addicted to
painkillers. If the fentanyl seizures are up 73 percent over where they
were the year before, something needs to be done. We clearly need to
secure our borders.
I support the immigration system. I am a proponent of legal
immigration. I think how we meet the workforce needs of the country,
how we deal with the fact that we have people who are here who aren't
legal, who have otherwise not gotten in trouble in the country--about
half of them came across the border, and about half of them came in
some other way and decided, this is a pretty doggone good place, and I
want to stay here and am afraid to go home because I may not get back--
how do we deal with that? How do we deal with this in a way that we
meet our workforce needs, that the skill needs of the country are met?
And skill needs can be unskilled people--we don't have people willing
to do some unskilled jobs--and highly skilled people. We don't have
enough people doing their jobs in an economy that is growing faster
than the economy has grown in a long time. The economic numbers in some
cases are better than they have been in 50 years and in most cases have
been better than they have been in at least a decade.
Every part of the border doesn't need to be secured the same way, but
the border needs to be secured. Our friends on the other side, in what
has been a pretty impressive show of party unity, have just decided
that they want to reject the options of how we secure the border.
People who have voted to build and maintain almost 700 miles of border
fencing have suddenly decided that another 50 miles or another 2 miles
is immoral. Talk about selective immorality. That it is OK to have 700
miles of fence but it is not OK to have 702 miles of fence is a very
interesting place, it seems to me, to draw the line.
Our friends on the other side have rejected attempts to fix the way
we deal with children who are brought across the border or come across
on their own. There are 48,000 children right now that the U.S.
Government is doing their best to take care of--I hope and insist that
we do that--who came across the border on their own. Another 2,600 or
so came across the border with an adult. More often than not, that
adult was their parent, but not always. We have 50,000 children who
came across the border, and there is no response to any ideas that the
administration brings up, no positive response from the other side as
to how to deal with that.
They have rejected adding beds at detention centers for people who
are caught crossing the border illegally. Why would you do that? Why
would you not want to have additional space for people who are in
custody for illegal behavior? I suppose because it becomes so
critically important that people just be released on their own
recognizance, to come back at a later time.
Some of our friends on the other side, in fact, have called for the
complete
[[Page S87]]
abolition of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement efforts. At the
very time when these are some of the most stressed people working on
behalf of the country for the Federal Government, we have people on the
other side saying we should eliminate border enforcement.
We had a bill introduced in this Chamber last year that every Member
of the minority supported. When you read it closely--I am not at all
sure they all did because I don't believe this is the position they all
had, but when you read it closely, it was a clear open borders bill.
There was no way anybody was likely to be apprehended crossing the
border except just to tell them ``You know you are here legally now.
Come back sometime, and we will see if we can figure out what to do.''
We are for protecting people who are uniquely at risk in the country
that they come from.
Asylum is an important thing. No country in the history of the world
has been any more open than we have been to allowing people to come
here legally, to have people who legally seek asylum come here. But the
truth is, there is no asylum granted just because you are from a poor
country or from a dangerous country, so most of the people who come
saying that they are seeking asylum don't get it. Maybe that is why
most of them don't show up in court. They know that their argument--
they would rather be here than where they are from, but their argument
will never work in court for most of them, and that is clearly
understood.
We are going to have a lot better opportunity to solve the problems
we need to solve regarding the border if people have confidence that
the government has done a reasonable job of securing the border. I
don't think anybody expects the border in a big country like ours to be
so impenetrable that nobody could ever get in under any circumstances.
I think they do expect that when you have found the 90- or 95-percent
solution, appearing until now to be affordable and widely supported--
when you have found the 90-percent solution, people do expect that at
the very least that you would apply the 90-percent standard to the
responsibility of the government to secure its borders.
So whether it is trying to figure out what we need in our workforce
to have a continued growing and vibrant economy or it is trying to
figure out what we do about people who have come here and decided to
stay, whether they came here across the border or in some other way but
stayed beyond the time they were supposed to be here or got here
without going through the normal process--those are going to be much
easier to come to a conclusion on if people know that the government
has done its job to get the border under an acceptable and anticipated
level of security, which we would expect to have in a country as strong
and vibrant as ours.
Particularly for people who were brought here and grew up here, this
is an 80-percent issue in the Congress and in the country. Virtually
nobody thinks kids who grew up here and didn't get in significant
trouble shouldn't be allowed to live in the country they grew up in.
Frankly, we need them. We need young people entering the workforce. We
need people who are, in almost all cases, highly motivated.
I talked to a university president just this week who said that these
kids are the kids who, over and over again, set the standard. They are
the kids who, over and over again, prove why we want them to be in our
country.
These problems will be much more solvable if we will just deal with
the one fundamental problem of controlling our borders, of having
immigration laws that work.
I hope, as was mentioned earlier today, that we can get to this
conclusion and get to this conclusion quickly. This is obviously a
place where we need to come together. Not only does the government need
to function, but this is an issue we need to solve, and I guarantee
that all of these related issues will be more easily solved if we
secure the border.
No President has ever had the credibility that this President will
have if he says to the American people: I have met my commitment. The
border is secure. We are now continuing to work to be sure that the
court systems work, that we have protected those people who protect us
on the border. There is great credibility here if the President is
willing to get to a place that he can say that.
I think his efforts to secure the border are significant steps toward
allowing us to solve the other problems we need to solve, and we need
to solve them sooner rather than later.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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