[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3342-S3344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I want to talk a little bit about the 
border--not the important need to secure the border, which I am for, 
but I want to talk about the humanitarian crisis we have seen occurring 
at the border. Frankly, the Senate and the House--the Congress--have 
been watching that occur for too long.
  It has been several weeks now since the administration notified 
Congress that the money that was allocated for what would have been a 
traditional set of challenges at the border is about to be spent and 
that there is no money left for some of these issues we have to deal 
with at the border in a particular way.
  We have seen the flood of people approaching the border to be not 
only incredibly different in numbers but incredibly different in 
context. Probably 20 years ago, 90 percent of the people who came 
across the border were coming directly from Mexico.
  By the way, when that happened, the law was changed so that if they 
came across from Mexico, you could send them right back to Mexico. 
Hopefully, our neighbors in Mexico are working with us to still have 
some potential to do that with people who come across the border and 
come through Mexico--not necessarily Mexican in their nationality but 
come through Mexico to the border--to go back and wait for what needs 
to happen for their case to be heard in Mexico rather than here.
  Most of the people coming today are coming from Central America--
Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. In the last year, I think the 
principal place that has people coming to our southern border--over 1 
percent of the population of all three of those countries has come from 
those countries collectively.
  Clearly it is a problem, but it is especially troubling to look at 
the numbers of children who are coming to the border unaccompanied. 
Just last month, about 130,000 people came to the border. You can 
multiply that by 12 pretty quickly and see 1 million people or more 
coming to our border to come in without the right kinds of documents. 
Another million, by the way, come into

[[Page S3343]]

our country through the normal process. We have about 1 million 
immigrants a year who legally immigrate to the United States. We are 
not a country that does not want people from other countries to come 
here; we just want them to come here based on the law and the 
requirements for everybody else who would like to come to the United 
States.
  Of that 130,000 people who came in May, 11,507 of them were children 
without families. It is really important for us to understand as we 
discuss this that we are not talking about children who came with their 
families and were separated from their families once they got here. 
There are plenty of those children coming right now with families 
because it is pretty clear that saying you want asylum and saying you 
have children with you and your family is one of the things that check 
a couple of boxes that more likely will have you in the United States 
waiting for your case to be heard sooner rather than later. But these 
are 11,507 children who came by themselves. About 30 percent of them 
are under 12, and about 70 percent of them are between 12 and 18.
  You have 11,000 children coming a month. We think in the calendar 
year, that will be about 88,000 children--not in the calendar year but 
in the fiscal year, the spending year, the year that started October 1. 
We already believe that number is going to approach 88,000.
  Usually, within 72 hours of those children showing up at the border 
by themselves, the Department of Homeland Security transfers them to 
the Department of Health and Human Services, which is much better 
positioned to take care of them than they otherwise would be. The 
Department of Health and Human Services enters into agreements with 
Lutheran charities, Catholic charities, and other groups--almost always 
not-for-profit--that would provide shelter on a clearly understood 
basis. This is something where HHS knows the kinds of housing these 
children are going into, provides shelter, provides medical care, and 
provides other services, such as education, that are provided by these 
groups that contract with us. As part of their goal, they also make an 
effort to find a safe and appropriate place as soon as possible for 
these kids to be with relatives who are already in the country or an 
alternative that would be appropriate.
  Of the 14,000 or so spaces that we have--beds is one way to look at 
this, places to sleep--people are going into and out of those as soon 
as we can find somewhere safe for them to go. So, ideally, children 
would stay a very short time in one of these facilities while the 
Department of Health and Human Services, working with that security 
provider--security for the children--finds a sponsor. Again, it is 
usually a family member. But other people stay a long time.
  The older teenagers tend to be harder to place, frankly. For some of 
the Central American countries, they don't have the family connections 
that immigrants at the border have had in the past, so there is no 
family to put them with. Some of these older teenagers wind up staying 
longer than they would want to or that we would hope that they would 
have to, but it is just the way it is.
  Of those 11,507 kids who came to the border in the month of May, a 
few of them may have been in the facility for less than a day. Some of 
them may still be in the facility they went to because there is nowhere 
safer than that for them to go right now.
  The problem is that Health and Human Services is running out of 
space, and they are also running out of money. In April, Secretary 
Azar, the head of Health and Human Services, came to Congress and said: 
I just want to give you a warning. We are going to be out of money on 
this current pace by sometime in June.
  By the way, we are now in June, and Congress has not stepped up and 
done what is necessary to take care of these kids.
  Let's think about all the alternatives that can happen. One of the 
alternatives is you just provide less assistance. Maybe the education 
goes first and the recreation time goes second, and you wait longer to 
get into the transitional space that we would want you to be in, and 
you are waiting more than 72 hours.
  The other alternative is totally unacceptable, which would be what 
you would do with people who are over 18. You say: OK, if you are 18 or 
28 or 38, we will hear your case at some future time. We are going to 
release you into the United States, and you come back at a future time, 
and we will hear whether there is merit. We will decide your case at 
that time.
  Well, you can't release a 12-, 13-, or 14-year-old boy or girl into 
the United States and hope that is going to be a good thing for them to 
have happen to them. With the inadequate funding, they stay in 
facilities with the Border Patrol longer than anybody would want them 
to.
  As I said, the administration estimates that by the end of 
September--that would be the end of our spending year, the one we have 
allocated money for--there will be about 88,000 kids who have come 
across the border by themselves, and the American people would want you 
to take care of them until you can find a safe place for them to be. No 
thinking American would say: Well, just let them go back across the 
border by themselves. Let them out in the United States and see what 
happens to them. Nobody would think that.
  That is 88,000. The previous high was 59,000 in 2016. It looks like 
already we are probably just about to get to that number right now. 
With the time between now and September 30 left in the spending year, 
we have already had more kids come than we had in the previous high 
year.
  Congress, which appropriated money for what we thought would probably 
be no more than 59,000 kids during the course of the year, didn't 
appropriate enough money. So we knew we might not appropriate enough 
money, so we had a transfer authority, where you could take some 
money--up to a certain amount--from other accounts, and you could 
transfer that into the account to take care of more kids than we would 
have thought. That money is gone too.
  The Department is being forced to cut back on some of the things they 
have tried to provide for children who have come into our care through 
certainly no fault of ours and maybe not much fault of theirs--
redirecting money from programs like refugee programs that are designed 
to help people who come truly as refugees. That money is now being used 
for unaccompanied children.
  Remember, Health and Human Services is legally required to take care 
of these children but is also legally required not to spend money they 
don't have. If Congress doesn't act quickly--and we intend to act on 
this bill within a week--HHS, the Department of Health and Human 
Services, will have to tell the grantees--these normally not-for-profit 
organizations--well, if you just keep taking care of these kids, at 
some point we will give you the money we had agreed to give you to take 
care of these kids. But between now and then, you spend the money and 
hope you will be reimbursed. It is kind of like a government shutdown, 
except just for this one group of people--unaccompanied children. It is 
a government shutdown. There is going to be no money available. These 
critical services--you go to the outside groups that have been willing 
to step forward and provide shelter, and you say: Just keep providing 
the shelter, and we will pay you if we can. Some of these groups may 
have all kinds of money and be able to afford to do that. My guess is, 
not so much so, and not many of them will have.
  So we need to step up. We need to adapt to this change in 
circumstances that we didn't anticipate. We anticipate that as many 
people might come as has ever came before, but we didn't anticipate 
that maybe 30 percent more people would come in this category than ever 
came before.
  In the disaster bill we just passed--by the way, this is a shameful 
thing to have to say--it took over 8 months for Congress to cover the 
disasters that Congress has normally covered right away. Health and 
Human Services has asked for money in an emergency funding situation to 
take care of this. Congress should take this request seriously and pass 
this funding before there is no money from any source to take care of 
even the basic needs that these unaccompanied kids in our country need 
to have taken care of.

[[Page S3344]]

  Over the weekend and 2 weeks before, the New York Times--which is no 
advocate, by the way, for the Trump administration--basically said: 
Give the administration the money. This is a legitimate crisis, and it 
needs to be treated like that.
  In their last editorial, they said: ``Unequipped to deal with the 
crush, border facilities and migrant shelters are dangerously 
overcrowded, and the staff is overburdened.'' They went on to say: 
``Dysfunction, disease, and even death are a growing reality.'' The 
Washington Post said the same thing.
  Let's deal with this immediate humanitarian crisis. Let's deal with 
it like the people whom we work for expect us to deal with this. Let's 
get this humanitarian crisis taken care of before we see a human 
catastrophe occur. I hope we can do it, and I hope we can do it 
quickly.
  With that, I yield the floor.


                       nomination of rodney smith

  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, Judge Rodney Smith has an 
impressive record of honorably serving the State of Florida, and I am 
proud to support his confirmation as a district judge for the Southern 
District of Florida. After receiving a bachelor's degree from Florida 
Agricultural and Mechanical University and a law degree from Michigan 
State University, Judge Smith worked as a personal injury attorney. He 
then pursued a career in public service as a senior assistant city 
attorney for the city of Miami Beach, before his appointment to the 
Miami-Dade County Court in 2008. In my role as Governor of Florida, I 
had the honor of appointing Judge Smith to the Eleventh Judicial 
Circuit Court in 2012. Judge Smith will continue to serve our State and 
Nation well on the Federal bench.


                     nomination of thomas p. barber

  Madam President, I am honored to support Judge Thomas Barber to serve 
as a district judge in the Middle District of Florida. Judge Barber 
graduated from the University of Florida in 1985 and received a law 
degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1992. Since 
then, Judge Barber has served as an Assistant State Attorney, an 
assistant Statewide prosecutor, and a circuit judge for the Thirteenth 
Judicial Circuit of Florida. Our citizens deserves judges like Judge 
Barber that are committed to enforcing our law, not legislating from 
the bench. With his long and distinguished history of public service, I 
have no doubt Judge Barber will serve Americans honorably as a Federal 
judge.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes 
following the first vote in this series be 10 minutes in length.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Barker 
nomination?
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) and the Senator from Montana (Mr. 
Daines).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker) 
and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 91, nays 5, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 155 Ex.]

                                YEAS--91

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     McSally
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--5

     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Klobuchar
     Markey
     Warren

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Alexander
     Booker
     Daines
     Sanders
  The nomination was confirmed.

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