[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 160 (Wednesday, September 16, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5634-S5637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 549
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am going to make a unanimous consent
request in a moment, but I would like to preface it by saying what it
is about so that as we explain it after the unanimous consent request
is objected to, it will be clearer.
In the nation of Venezuela, there exists today an incredible
political situation. I have been there to see it. There is a dictator
in charge, and life on the street is deadly--so deadly that millions of
Venezuelans are fleeing the country as fast as possible.
There is a limitation on food and medicine. There is so much
suffering and starvation and deprivation that these people have given
up everything, and they are just leaving. The United States knows that
this is under the leader, Maduro. It reached a point where it is
physically dangerous--so much so that we have a warning to American
travelers not to go to Venezuela, to stay away because it is too
dangerous.
Yet thousands of Venezuelans now in the United States are facing the
threat of being forced return to this deadly, dangerous situation. The
same State Department that warns Americans not to travel to Venezuela
is now trying to force those Venezuelans who are here as students and
others to go back to this deadly situation.
Senator Menendez and I and others think it just makes sense for us to
give these people a shelter until it is safe for them to return to
their home. That is what this request is about.
Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent
that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration
of H.R. 549 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration;
further, that the bill be considered read a third time passed and the
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no
intervening action or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. THUNE. Reserving the right to object. On behalf of my colleague
Senator Lee, who cannot be here to object on his own because he is
chairing an Energy subcommittee hearing, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Illinois
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I know the Senator from South Dakota is
making the objection on behalf of Senator Lee, and I have been called
to do the same thing from time to time. I won't assign any political
blame to him, but I will say this is a serious mistake and deadly
mistake for these Venezuelans.
This is an issue which in many parts of America is red hot. Those of
Venezuelan ancestry or those who are here in a temporary status cannot
understand what just happened. They want to stay here safely. They
don't want to be forced to return to this nation that is such a
dangerous place under this dictator.
A number of times in the last year, Senator Menendez, who is on the
floor with me here, has joined with me on behalf of the Venezuelan
people. President Trump boasts that he supports these people.
The idea is simple: While the country remains a dictatorial
nightmare, grant Venezuelans in the United States temporary protected
status or TPS. It is the kind of commonsense move a self-confident
nation and one that really cares about humanity would do to demonstrate
real leadership and accept.
TPS is a temporary immigration status provided to foreign nationals
if returning to their country poses a serious threat to their safety
for any variety of reasons--natural disaster, environmental disaster,
extraordinary conditions, armed conflicts. Certainly by every objective
measure, the situation in Venezuela today is deadly and dangerous. It
is not a permanent immigration status we are seeking for these
Venezuelans, just a measure of American decency and solidarity with
those who might be in the United States when a calamity occurs in their
home country. Prior administrations of both political parties have
granted it for people from countries facing these circumstances.
The situation in Venezuela is dire. Currently, the United States is
working with regional partners to foster an end to the disastrous
dictatorship clinging to power in Venezuela.
I was there before the sham 2018 election. What I saw was
heartbreaking--people starving and fainting at work from malnutrition;
hospitals without power or basic medicines. I visited a Catholic
children's hospital in Caracas. They told me they didn't have the
basics to treat these children. Antibiotics and cancer drugs were
unavailable.
Millions were fleeing this country and still are, as refugees into
neighboring countries. There is brutal political repression. If you
disagree with Maduro publicly, be prepared to go to prison. There is
staggering government corruption and dismantling of the government's
democracy. Now, the tragic impacts of coronavirus have made the
situation worse as well.
I supported this administration's efforts to work with other nations
to support the interim Presidency of Juan Guaido. I had a chance to
speak with President Guaido on the phone yesterday. I am deeply moved
by his courage and concern for the Venezuelan people amid the
suffering. Think about what he is up against. Here is a man who at any
moment could face imprisonment or worse.
It is remarkable that more than 2 years after an internationally
discredited Presidential election, Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro
is now planning another illegitimate election instead of finally
holding a fair, credible Presidential contest.
I asked President Guaido: Are there going to be any international
observers of this international election coming up this December?
Oh, yes.
I said: Who?
He said: The Russians.
I said: What a coincidence. They are observing our election too.
Venezuela has tragically fallen from President Trump's attention. One
simple step he could take is grant TPS to Venezuelans here in the
United States. He repeatedly refuses. There are travel warnings to
Americans telling people not to go close to Venezuela, but for the
Venezuelans here on visa or TPS status: You have to go home. The
President has refused, I suspect, because the depth of his anti-
immigrant cruelty really has no limits.
Despite the chest-thumping to audiences in Florida about taking on
Venezuelan dictators, President Trump has, in fact, turned his back on
the Venezuelans in the United States who truly need his protection.
Nobody should be surprised, as former National Security Advisor John
Bolton wrote in his book, that the President praised Maduro as
``smart'' and ``tough'' and waffled on any kind of coherent policy in
the region and told Bolton not to get too deeply involved. President
Trump can't have it both ways.
I have met many Venezuelans in my home State of Illinois. I can tell
you that they are desperately worried about being forced to return to
the chaos, violence, and hopelessness of the current Venezuela
The Trump administration's travel advisory says it all:
Do not travel due to COVID-19, crime, civil unrest, poor
health infrastructure, kidnapping, arbitrary arrest and
detention of U.S. citizens . . . . Violent crime, such as
homicide, armed robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking, is
common.
Yet the Republicans come to the floor and object to our efforts to
protect the Venezuelans who are doing
[[Page S5635]]
their best to avoid what I just read as a warning to American
travelers.
Just today, U.N. investigators released findings saying that under
Maduro, Venezuela has ``committed egregious violations'' amounting to
crimes against humanity. How can this President and the State
Department possibly force people to return to Venezuela under these
conditions? And now, with Maduro detaining returning refugees and
calling them ``bioterrorists,'' the idea of going back is even more
dangerous.
Since the White House wouldn't act more than a year ago, the House,
under Democratic control, passed a bipartisan bill granting TPS to
Venezuelans by a margin of 272 to 158. Senator Menendez, Senator Rubio,
and I introduced a similar Senate bill, but the majority leader, Mitch
McConnell, still refuses to bring up any bill that just might not
please President Trump--even ones that supposedly he is publicly
supporting.
Senator Menendez and I have tried to call up the House bill for
passage, only to face objections, just as we did today, from Senate
Republicans who refuse to stand up to this President's failure on this
and so many other foreign policies.
When we brought this up last July, Senate Republicans objected
because they said they wanted to debate it in the Judiciary Committee.
Well, 12 months passed with plenty of opportunities. Our Venezuelan TPS
bill was referred to the committee in February of 2019. Yet there has
been no action, no hearing, no markup. The Immigration Subcommittee is
not overloaded with work. Under Chairman Cornyn, we have had exactly
one subcommittee meeting in the past 1\1/2\ years. It hasn't held a
single hearing this year, and the Senate Judiciary Committee hasn't
considered a single immigration bill.
This administration could grant TPS without congressional action, but
it refuses. Senate Republicans could pass the bipartisan House bill to
grant Venezuelans TPS, but they refuse as well. Let it be clear that
the real failure to help Venezuelans in the United States rests on
their shoulders--the President and the Republican majority in the
Senate.
The Venezuelan policy, like so many others with this administration
and the Senate, is only there to serve President Trump and no one else.
I made my offer in the hope that we could bring this matter to the
floor. I am sorry it met an objection. I thank my colleagues for
joining me on this effort.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there may
be portions where I may say a few words in Spanish, and I will provide
a translation for the clerk.
I ask unanimous consent to be able to do that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, we are here today once again to join
Senator Durbin, who has been on the floor with me or I with him I don't
know how many times now as it relates to this issue. We are here to
urge the Senate to immediately approve legislation that would designate
Venezuelans for temporary protected status.
There are some 200,000 Venezuelans who are currently living in the
United States. They are unable to return home safely, and they would
benefit from TPS.
We should be doing the right thing. We should be upholding American
values and offering them protection, but once again, our Republican
colleagues have blocked our efforts.
We know what is at stake. Venezuela continues to experience the worst
humanitarian crisis in our hemisphere. Its people continue to suffer
food and medicine shortages, levels of criminal violence akin to a
conflict zone, and grave human rights abuses under the Maduro regime.
As if that were not enough, Venezuelans face the alarming spread of
COVID-19 with a public health system in ruins.
For 7 years, Maduro's devastating abuses of the Venezuelan people
have left them with little choice but to stay and suffer or flee and
have a chance at survival--flee the political persecution, flee the
oppression.
In Maduro's Venezuela, families struggle to feed themselves and
children tragically die of treatable diseases. More than half of all
Venezuelan doctors have fled the country, and 40 percent of hospitals
lack electricity and 70 percent lack regular access to water. Senate
Republicans want to leave the Venezuelans who are in the United States
at risk of deportation back to Maduro's nightmare rather than take
action. Meanwhile, the Maduro regime is using the spread of COVID-19 to
further tighten its control.
Last month, Human Rights Watch reported that dozens of journalists,
healthcare workers, human rights lawyers, and political opponents have
been detained or prosecuted for merely criticizing or questioning the
regime's official statistics on the pandemic.
Take the case of Ivan Virguez, a 65-year-old human rights attorney
who had expressed concern on Facebook about ``quarantine centers'' that
had been set up by the regime. In response, police officers handcuffed
him to a metal tube in a prison yard, under the Sun for 2 hours, and
left him without access to a bathroom for over a day, causing him to
become sick with bladder pain. Ivan remains under house arrest and
without access to his criminal file and no due process.
(English translation of the statement made in Spanish is as follows:)
As Senator Durbin said, ``just today, the United Nations released a
report finding that Maduro's yearslong campaign of extrajudicial
killings and torture amounts to crimes against humanity.'' Yet
President Trump and Senate Republicans refuse to provide humanitarian
protection to Venezuelans in the United States.
The extraordinary conditions in Venezuela have forced more than 5
million Venezuelans to flee their country in search of protection. Last
year, I traveled to Cucuta, which is the border city between Colombia
and Venezuela, and I saw for myself the thousands of refugees and
migrants who cross every day. I will never forget their stories--
stories of heartbreak and suffering from people leaving everything they
have ever known behind--their homes, their loved ones--in an attempt to
survive.
We have applauded Venezuela's neighbors, including Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, and Brazil, for welcoming Venezuelan refugees and migrants
despite their having far fewer resources than the United States. Yet
the Trump administration has failed to ensure that America lives up to
its history as a beacon of freedom and hope around the world.
Many Venezuelans in the United States today who would be eligible for
TPS are stuck in immigration detention. The Trump administration and
the Republican-led Senate have failed to grant them TPS, which leaves
them facing uncertainty and the fear of deportation. Many others who
have come from Venezuela to seek political asylum have been turned back
and deported--back to countries like Mexico and with all of the risks
that those border cities present. They have not even been given a
chance to make their political asylum claims.
So make no mistake: The Trump administration has all of the authority
it needs to designate Venezuela immediately--it doesn't need this
legislation--but the President has chosen not to. That is why we
introduced legislation that would grant TPS to our Venezuelan brothers
and sisters. The House has already passed a similar bill.
Now, I have had other issues here in the Senate for which I have had
to do this before, and I will do it again. I am not going to relent in
our effort to grant Venezuelans the protections they deserve. Every
time my Republican colleagues have wanted to stop our Nation from
ultimately making progress, we have had to shame them into submission,
and this is no different. I am not going to stop until the United
States truly stands in solidarity with the Venezuelan people.
If you don't want to give them TPS, let them make their claims for
political asylum, but then you take them and turn them away before they
can make cases for political asylum when we know--God--that there is a
good case for political asylum coming out of Venezuela.
Then we have had colleagues in the past, one being Senator Scott, of
Florida, who came and objected to our TPS proposal for Venezuelans. He
suggested
[[Page S5636]]
that we have to change all of TPS because, in fact, it had become more
than a temporary protected status.
Well, guess what. The Ninth Circuit Court actually made a decision
which I disagree with, but we call attention to the action that comes
on the heels of a disappointing Ninth Circuit decision issued on Monday
that says that the Trump administration's cruel efforts to strip
protections of over 300,000 current TPS holders is permissible. So
there goes the argument that, oh, well, TPS is permanent. No. The
President could have granted it, and he can end it when he feels the
conditions in Venezuela no longer should give the opportunity for
Venezuelans to continue to have temporary protected status. So that
argument is out of the way.
As for debating this in the Committee on the Judiciary, well, you
have had over a year to debate it since we started this. You are in the
majority. You control the committee, and you control the subcommittee.
You could have had the debates. We don't come to the floor lightly to
seek unanimous consent. We do it after having waited a considerable
time for the debates to have taken place--the debates you said you
wanted--but they haven't come.
There are people living, working, and raising families legally in the
United States who have Venezuelan backgrounds. Yet the President is
doing everything he can to line them up for deportation. Of those at
risk, 130,000 essential workers are among them, who have sacrificed
their health during this pandemic to ensure that all Americans have
access to healthcare, food, and basic necessities.
The administration's efforts are also endangering over 273,000 U.S.
citizen children who call a TPS holder ``Mom'' or ``Dad.'' That is
right. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, this administration wants to
deport the parents of hundreds of thousands of American children or
force these families to relocate their children to unstable, wholly
unfamiliar countries.
This callous disregard for TPS holders and the greater immigrant
community has to stop. We shouldn't wait for the Ninth Circuit's
decision to be appealed. We have to create a permanent solution for TPS
holders who have become integral to our communities and deserve a
pathway. The Senate should not only take up TPS but pass the American
Dream and Promise Act, H.R. 6, which passed the House with bipartisan
support more than a year ago.
What are we waiting for?
(English translation of the statement made in Spanish is as follows:)
Venezuelans deserve TPS right now. We cannot wait
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues
Senator Menendez and Senator Durbin in urging the U.S. Senate to do the
right thing and grant protected status to Venezuelans in this country.
At this moment, I thank them for their continued leadership on this
issue and for making sure we have immigration policies that live up to
what this country has always stood for.
As my colleagues have pointed out, Venezuela is suffering a dire
humanitarian crisis under the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro. Its
economy has collapsed, and its medical system is in free fall. They are
governing through a reign of terror.
Even before COVID-19 struck, Venezuelans were facing shortages of
food, of water, of gasoline, and other lifesaving items. The pandemic
has taken a very bad situation and made it much worse--in fact,
desperate. An estimated two-thirds of physicians in Venezuela lack
access to basic sanitary equipment, like gloves, masks, soap, or
goggles, and only 25 percent of the doctors have reliable running water
in their hospitals and clinics.
On top of this desperate economic situation, you have the political
tyranny and terror that has been imposed by the Maduro regime. In fact,
as my colleagues pointed out just this morning, U.N. investigators
found that Venezuelan security forces and allied groups have committed
systemic human rights violations, including killings and torture,
amounting to crimes against humanity. Reasonable grounds exist to
believe that President Maduro and his Interior and Defense Ministers
ordered or contributed to these crimes against humanity, which are
documented in the U.N. report. The U.N. factfinding mission has said
that other national jurisdictions and the International Criminal Court
should consider prosecutions. So you have a desperate situation.
President Trump claims to support the people of Venezuela who are
facing this tyranny and this desperation. In fact, as Senator Durbin
said, he has on numerous occasions said he was sympathetic and that he
wanted to help.
Here is what he said last year: ``To the Venezuelans trapped in this
nightmare, please know that all of America is behind you.''
That is what President Trump said. Yet he has refused to use his
authority to take action to grant Venezuelans here in the United States
that temporary protected status. He wants to send them back to what he
describes as a nightmare--a nightmare that is getting worse by the day
as documented by the U.N. report. He wants to send them back to a place
where the U.N. has just implicated the government in crimes against
humanity.
Because the President refuses to do what he says--refuses to actually
take action to help--the House has passed legislation to grant
Venezuelans TPS. My colleagues Senator Menendez and Senator Durbin have
introduced that legislation here in the Senate, and I am proud to
cosponsor it. Yet, as we are saying here today, the fastest thing to do
is to just take up the House bill and pass it. So it is incredibly
disturbing that our Republican colleagues would get up and block a vote
on that action on the very day when the government in question, the
Government of Venezuela, has been found to have committed crimes
against humanity.
The majority in this Senate says: Well, don't worry about that. If
you are here in the United States, we are going to insist that you go
back home. We are going to insist that you put yourself and your family
back this danger.
That is what our Senate Republican colleagues are saying by blocking
the vote on this House TPS measure. They are forcing innocent people to
go home to what the President himself described as a nightmare.
As my colleagues have said and as we know, this is part of an
inhumane, anti-immigration agenda from this administration--from the
Muslim ban, to ending DACA, to the termination of TPS for many other
populations. This President has separated families and instilled fear
in our communities.
Senator Menendez referenced the Ninth Circuit Court's decision from
earlier this week, the decision of its upholding, on a 2-to-1 vote, the
President's decision to rescind TPS protections for over 400,000
individuals who are here, working in our communities, living here
legally with their families. Many of them have been here for over 20
years. As he said, 130,000 of them are on our frontlines as essential
workers. More than 10,000 of them are medical professionals who put
themselves at risk to help others throughout our communities and our
country. These are individuals who are our neighbors and small business
men and women, and they are contributing to our communities and to our
country. The President has said he wants to deport them--400,000
people--despite this hour of peril both here and even more so in the
countries to which they would be required to return.
That is why we have to pass the SECURE Act--to provide stability and
security to those who are on TPS. That is why we have to pass the
American Dream and Promise Act that the House passed last year.
That is why we need to grant TPS to Venezuela, so, as my colleagues
say, this country can do what Presidents from both political parties
have done in the past and Members of the House and Senate from both
political parties have done in the past, which is to live up to the
idea that we are a place of refuge for those who are facing political
persecution at home.
I don't know how you can more clearly define ``political
persecution'' on this day than a finding by the United Nations that the
Government of Venezuela is committing crimes against humanity, against
the people of Venezuela. Yet, that is the day that, once again, we saw
our Republican colleagues block this legislation that would allow our
country to live up to our tradition of doing the right thing.
[[Page S5637]]
As Senator Menendez said, I look forward to joining him as we
continue to press this issue. I guess the only good news is that it
seems to be getting a little harder for the other side--our Republican
colleagues--to find somebody who wants to come here in the light of day
and object to it. I hope that in the coming days, that number will be
zero and we can actually pass this important piece of legislation.
I yield the floor.
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