[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 94 (Wednesday, June 5, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3231-S3233]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Immigration and Customs Enforcement

  Mr. President, as a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump campaigned 
on a promise to the American people that he would ``get tough'' on 
immigrants and secure our border. We heard it loud and clear, didn't 
we. The wall was to be built by the Mexicans, accusing Mexicans coming 
into this country of being murderers and rapists. We heard it over and 
over and over again.
  Now, more than 2 years into the Trump administration, it is clear 
that the President has failed in his efforts on immigration--especially 
when it comes to families and children. It is obvious our southern 
border today is much less secure than it was when Donald Trump took 
office.
  Take a look at these numbers. They tell the story, a dramatic story. 
In fiscal year 2017, which was the end of the Obama administration and 
the beginning of the Trump administration, in 12 months, 303,000 people 
were apprehended at our border, including 75,000 families and 41,000 
unaccompanied children. Now, 2 years later, the numbers are 
dramatically higher under President Trump's watch. Only 6 months into 
this fiscal year 2019, 361,000 people have already been apprehended at 
the border. It was 303,000 over a 12-month period 2 years ago, when the 
President took office; now, 361,000 in 6 months, including 189,000 
families and 36,000 unaccompanied children. That is more total 
apprehensions in the first half of this year, in the first 6 months, 
than all 12 months of 2017.
  The Department of Homeland Security has been engulfed in Trumpian 
chaos. In less than 2\1/2\ years of the Trump administration, there 
have already been four heads of the Department of Homeland Security--
four--in 2\1/2\ years: Secretary John Kelly, Acting Secretary Elaine 
Duke, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and now Acting Secretary Kevin 
McAleenan. Within the Department of Homeland Security, there have 
already been, under this administration, in a little over 2 years, four 
Acting Directors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and three 
nominees to head this agency.
  Under President Trump, ICE has never had a Director confirmed by this 
Republican-controlled Senate, which spends all of its time approving 
nominees. The Trump administration has never had a Director of ICE 
confirmed because the proposed nominees' names keep changing. In fact, 
every major position at the Department of Homeland Security is now held 
by a temporary appointee not confirmed by the Senate--not confirmed by 
the Republican-controlled Senate.
  A major front in President Trump's war on immigrants has been his 
attack on Dreamers. Dreamers are young immigrants who came to the 
United States as infants, toddlers, and children. They have gone to 
school with our kids. They have given back to their communities as 
teachers, nurses, engineers, and even soldiers. They are American in 
every way except for their official immigration status.
  In 2010, I joined with the late Republican Senator Dick Lugar of 
Indiana, on a bipartisan basis, calling on President Obama to use his 
legal authority to try to protect these Dreamers from deportation. 
President Obama responded by creating the Deferred Action for Childhood 
Arrivals Program, known as DACA.
  DACA provided a temporary 2-year legal status to Dreamers if they 
stepped forward, paid a filing fee, went through a criminal background 
check, registered with the government, and had nothing in their 
background that would disqualify them from staying in the United 
States.
  More than 800,000 of these young people came forward. They received 
DACA protection. DACA has really given them their first chance, on a 2-
year renewable basis, to not be afraid of deportation and to be able to 
legally

[[Page S3232]]

work and go to school in the United States. They used that opportunity 
well. They became soldiers of the United States, engineers, teachers, 
small business owners, and medical professionals, but on September 5, 
2017, President Donald Trump repealed this program. Hundreds of 
thousands of Dreamers faced losing their work permits and being 
deported to countries they barely knew.
  President Trump also terminated the temporary protected status 
program--known as TPS--for more than 300,000 immigrants. TPS allows 
nationals of another country who were in the United States to stay here 
legally if it is too dangerous to return to their country. The 
termination of this program by President Trump jeopardizes the safety 
of these immigrants, and many of them with American children, who 
number in the thousands.
  When he announced the repeal of DACA, President Trump called on 
Congress to ``legalize DACA,'' but then he turned around and rejected 
numerous bipartisan proposals to protect the Dreamers.
  Last year, I worked with Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican 
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to craft a bipartisan 
agreement that included the Dream Act and path to citizenship for TPS 
holders. However, President Trump profanely rejected my legislation in 
a tense meeting in the Oval Office.
  Instead, the President tried to put the entire hard-line immigration 
agenda on the backs of the Dreamers. He said he would only support 
legalization for these young people if Congress passed his plan--his 
complete plan--which would, among other things, slash legal immigration 
by more than 40 percent.
  There is a lot of debate in this country about immigration, for sure, 
but we usually agree on a couple basics: First, we are a nation of 
immigrants. Second, many immigrants come to this country and work 
extremely hard for their families, for their future, creating 
businesses and opportunities at great personal sacrifice. The notion by 
some that we would cut back on legal immigration to this country at a 
time when we desperately need increases in our workforce is so 
shortsighted.
  This plan to slash legal immigration by more than 40 percent by 
President Trump was rejected by the bipartisan Senate. It would have 
been the largest cut in legal immigration in almost a century. The 
President would have taken our Nation back to one of the darkest 
chapters, when we were closing immigration to certain groups across the 
board, discriminating against them in terms that are largely 
unacceptable to America today. Thank goodness, the Senate rejected this 
plan by a bipartisan supermajority.
  Yesterday was quite a day here on Capitol Hill. The legislative 
achievement of the U.S. Senate yesterday: a unanimous consent request 
to strike a coin to commemorate women's suffrage. I was happy to 
support that, but that is what we did yesterday.
  What happened across the Rotunda in the House of Representatives? 
Yesterday the House of Representatives responded to President Trump's 
cruel decision on DACA and TPS. The House passed the American Dream and 
Promise Act on a bipartisan vote of 237 to 187.
  I went over to stand on the floor of the House, where I served for a 
number of years, just to hear the debate and to thank my colleagues for 
their leadership. I want to call out especially the statements that 
were made and the support given by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority 
Leader Steny Hoyer, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, 
Immigration Subcommittee Chair Zoe Lofgren, and the lead sponsors of 
the bill Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, Congresswoman Nydia 
Velazquez, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, and my friend and fellow 
Illinoisan Congressman Chuy Garcia.
  This vote was especially important to me because this legislation 
that they passed yesterday in the House of Representatives includes the 
Dream Act. It was 19 years ago that I introduced the first DREAM Act, 
bipartisan legislation that would give Dreamers a chance to earn their 
way to legal status and citizenship.
  Now the eyes of hundreds of thousands of Dreamers have moved across 
the Capitol and are focused on the Senate. They are counting on us to 
solve the DACA crisis that President Trump has created. Will Majority 
Leader Senator McConnell of Kentucky give them a chance? I certainly 
hope so. The Senate should send the American Dream and Promise Act to 
the President's desk for his signature.
  The Senate also has a responsibility to address the humanitarian 
crisis at our southern border, a crisis which this administration has 
made much, much worse.
  When this President threatens to shut down the border, which he has 
on many occasions, it is like a neon sign to the smugglers to use this 
threat to encourage more desperate families to flee toward our border.
  When the President says he is going to block all assistance to the 
Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and 
shut down any avenues for legal migration, he just guarantees that more 
refugees in desperation will head to our borders.
  Earlier this year, the President forced the longest government 
shutdown in the history of the United States, 35 days--35 days, when 
men and women who serve in our government in important jobs like air 
traffic control at our airports were denied their pay. Why would the 
President do this to these men and women and to others, thousands of 
others, in our Federal workforce? It was his desperate pursuit of his 
beloved border wall so he could fulfill a campaign promise that he told 
us over and over and over again would be paid for by Mexico.
  The Trump government shutdown paralyzed our immigration courts. For 
35 days, they saw their backlogs increase. The backlog has already 
grown by close to 300,000 cases pending before those courts in the last 
two years. These courts play a critical role in processing cases of 
immigrants seeking asylum at our border.
  Within the last week, the President has said he will impose tariffs 
on all goods coming into the United States from Mexico, which will 
raise prices on American consumers, kill jobs in America, and once 
again put the burden--the political burden--on farmers in the United 
States, including in Illinois.
  The administration and its Republican allies in Congress argue that 
critical humanitarian protections for families and children are the 
real problem here. They claim with a straight face that we can better 
protect these migrants by making it easier to detain them indefinitely 
and deport them without any due process. But if people were migrating 
to the United States because of the so-called legal loopholes, which 
the administration keeps talking about, they would be coming from all 
over the region. They are not. The vast majority of families and 
children are not coming from Mexico but from the three countries in the 
Northern Triangle, as I mentioned earlier.
  In April, I visited the port of entry in El Paso, TX, and a nearby 
Border Patrol station. What I saw in those overcrowded facilities was 
heartbreaking. There are detention cells where these migrants are being 
held. Over the door of one of these cells, which has a window that you 
can look into, it says: ``Capacity: 35.'' I counted close to 150 men 
standing shoulder to shoulder in that detention cell. They are served 
their meals, and they eat them standing up. There is room for maybe 20 
or 30 to sit on benches. The rest stand all day and take turns at night 
lying on the floor. There is not room for them. I have since been told 
that this cell has increased its numbers from 150 to 200.
  Next door to that cell was a sign outside of the door that read 
``Capacity: 16.'' Inside that cell, I counted about 75 women, including 
nursing mothers with their babies. I have been told that this number 
has since dramatically increased as well.
  How long will they be in these cells? I am told anywhere from 3 days 
to 6 weeks. As I said, one of the women cells had a capacity of 16. I 
looked in there, and it was painful to catch the eyes of those who are 
being held there, and they mouthed the word ``Help.''
  It has reached a point where over 20 Senators have joined me in 
writing to the International Red Cross, which inspects prison 
facilities around the world. We asked them to inspect our detention 
facilities on America's border. It was a sad day to make the request, 
but it had to be made.

[[Page S3233]]

  I also asked the DHS Acting Inspector General to investigate these 
Border Patrol facilities. Last week, the Inspector General's Office at 
DHS released a report detailing the inhumane and dangerous overflow of 
migrants at the El Paso port of entry. The Inspector General's Office 
found that overcrowding was ``an immediate risk to the health and 
safety of detainees and DHS employees.''
  While we fail to even debate this issue here in Washington, we cannot 
overlook the inhumane conduct that is occurring at the border. We are 
better than that.
  This notion of zero tolerance, where we separated 2,880 infants and 
toddlers from their parents, some of whom it took months to bring back 
together--to me, that does not speak well of who we are as a nation.
  Look at this picture that was taken by the IG at one of the cells. 
Their faces are blanked out, but it gives an idea of the mass of 
humanity I counted--the IG found 76 women were in a cell for 12 people.
  The Inspector General's report said that the Department of Homeland 
Security has been aware of the situation in El Paso for months but has 
not identified a process to alleviate overcrowding. Meanwhile, weeks 
ago, months ago, Congress passed an emergency appropriation of hundreds 
of millions of dollars for humanitarian care of these people at the 
border. It isn't as if we haven't given the administration resources to 
deal with at least the immediate crisis on their hands. The IG report 
said that DHS has been aware of this situation for months, but they 
haven't taken measures to deal with it. This report called on them to 
take immediate steps.
  The Department of Homeland Security gave a target completion date of 
November 30, 2020--a year and a half from now--for the completion of a 
centralized processing center in El Paso. The Inspector General found 
this response completely inadequate, and so do I.
  Democrats are serious about addressing this situation. There are some 
bottom-line standards that I think we all should look to.
  First, we need border security, there is no doubt in my mind. In an 
age of terrorism, with the worst drug epidemic in the history of the 
United States, I want to know who is crossing our border and what they 
are bringing. Every American should want to know.
  Secondly, there is no excuse for allowing a dangerous person to come 
into this country. If we know they are dangerous, they are not welcome. 
And if they are here in any questionable status and a danger to 
America, they have to go.
  Third--and it pains me to say this as the son of an immigrant woman, 
but it is a fact--we cannot absorb all of the people in the world who 
want to come to the United States. It is not economically or even 
physically possible for that to happen. We have to have standards when 
it comes to immigration.
  Once we have established those three standards, shouldn't we come 
together, Democrats and Republicans, and rewrite our immigration laws, 
this broken system that has led to this point? It will not be solved by 
threats of walls, by threats of closing the borders, by threats of 
cutting off foreign aid. That makes the situation even worse, and, 
sadly, President Trump has proven that point in the 2-plus years he has 
been in office.
  I am serious about addressing this, deadly serious about what it 
means to Dreamers and people here in temporary protected status. In 
February, after the President finally ended his government shutdown, I 
helped write an omnibus appropriations bill. We put $564 million in the 
bill for inspection equipment so we could scan and x ray every car and 
truck coming into the United States and grab the narcotics at the 
border before they make it to my hometown and yours. I hope we all 
agree on that. There was $414 million in that bill for humanitarian 
assistance. I can't tell you how that is being spent.
  We could do more to make sure that even in the midst of political 
controversy, our border is secure and our treatment of these desperate 
people is humane and that we will be able to answer to history for how 
we are conducting ourselves.
  Democrats have introduced the Central America Reform and Enhancement 
Act as a comprehensive response to this problem.
  We need to address the root causes in the Northern Triangle countries 
that are driving these migrants here.
  We need to crack down on the cartels and traffickers who are 
exploiting these migrants.
  We need to provide for in-country processing, which the Obama 
administration provided for and the Trump administration eliminated. 
What it meant was that residents in those three countries did not have 
to make a dangerous and expensive trip across Mexico to our border to 
find out if they were eligible for asylum; they could do it in their 
home country. The Obama administration had that program. The Trump 
administration eliminated it, and people started making that trip 
across Mexico to test whether they were legally eligible to stay in 
this country.
  In that Democratic bill, we eliminate immigration court backlogs so 
that asylum claims could be processed more quickly.
  We stand ready to work on smart, effective, and humane border 
security policies. But the President needs to be part of the solution. 
If this is about his reelection, appealing to his base, and being 
tougher and tougher, I could tell him: It is not working, Mr. 
President. It is not working for the good of this country. Perhaps your 
political base finds it appealing, but I think the American people are 
now looking for solutions. They want us to work on a bipartisan basis. 
We have a chance and an opportunity.
  The House of Representatives' action yesterday, I hope, is the 
beginning of a meaningful dialogue to deal with this crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from South Dakota.