[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 16 (Wednesday, January 27, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S161-S162]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              IMMIGRATION

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, as we move through what is appearing 
to be a choppy start to the 117th Congress, I think it is worth 
reminding ourselves of the standards that guide our work here. The 
mandate that we have does not come from the 24-hour news cycle or from 
lobbyists or advocacy groups, but it comes, very simply, from the 
Constitution. It is the foundation of the rule of law, our Nation's 
Constitution, and it really serves as a pretty good policymaking 
guideline.
  The American people are looking at what is going on here, and they 
see the cracks that Washington has made in the foundation of this 
Constitution. These realizations have eroded their confidence in our 
ability as a body to perform the basic functions of government without 
devolving into partisan chaos when faced with disagreements.
  Many times I will hear Tennesseans say: What happened to robust 
political debate? What happened to being able to agreeably disagree and 
have a discussion? Are those days totally lost, or can we return to 
them? They are asking themselves how many shortcuts--like Executive 
orders--Washington is going to take before the shortcut becomes the 
rule or the norm and how many times can Washington chip away at the 
standards that govern our country before those standards start to 
crumble or are not relevant.
  Restoring the trust of the American people will not be easy because 
this fundamental lack of faith in our institutions has caused Americans 
to question their very safety and security in the physical space and 
also in the virtual world that they have been forced into by the COVID-
19 pandemic.
  I like to say we have a lot of security moms who are out there--moms 
and grandmoms like me--and, quite frankly, they are out in full force, 
alongside millions of other Americans who now have cause to wonder if 
their own government will bother making their security a priority. What 
about their communities? What about their neighborhoods? What about the 
universities where their children go to school? What is going to be 
done about riots? What about the virtual space? As they have seen their 
children move to online school, more of their daily functional life and 
their transactional life has moved online. How do they keep their 
families safe? How do they protect their rights to privacy?
  In the physical space, yesterday we got the good news that a Federal 
judge has granted a temporary restraining order barring the Department 
of Homeland Security from implementing a nationwide pause on most 
deportations. That pause was mandated by a DHS memo signed by the 
Acting Secretary on day one of the Biden administration--not such a 
great start for the administration's immigration policy team, but the 
American people will benefit from having the time that has come to them 
to ask questions about proposed shifts in existing policy. People want 
to be safe.
  I would like to just stipulate for the record that immigration law is 
very complex. While most Americans aren't experts in the finer points 
of immigration law, they do have and most of us have a very common 
touchstone that we relate to; that is, having a secure border.
  This should be a basic concept--let's secure the border; let's secure 
our country--but somehow we have managed to politicize that point that 
advocates at the highest levels of the Federal Government--for what? A 
weakened border. Just imagine that. You have individuals at the highest 
level of the Federal Government who are saying: Let's weaken our 
border. That is stunning, absolutely stunning to Tennesseans.

  Why would you not protect your border? Why would you not want to know 
who is coming into your country? Why should I be forced to accept a lax 
border? Why should I be accepting of allowing drug cartels to run those 
drugs into the country? Why should I be told I should accept human 
trafficking; I should accept gangs; I should accept sex traffickers 
coming in across the border?
  When we have a weak border, this is what you get. Every town--every 
town--becomes a border town. Every State becomes a border State because 
of the impacts--the negative impacts--of drug trafficking, sex 
trafficking, human trafficking, and the toll that that takes on our 
communities.
  Last week, I introduced two key pieces of legislation that attack 
specific vulnerabilities in our body of immigration law that thousands 
of bad actors use to game the system every year.
  The first is the Stop Greenlighting Driver Licenses for Illegal 
Immigrants

[[Page S162]]

Act. It does exactly what it sounds like. It blocks certain Federal 
funds from reaching the coffers of sanctuary States. This includes 
States that defy Federal immigration law or that allow individuals to 
obtain a driver license without providing proof that they are here 
legally or without providing proof that they are who they claim to be. 
This is no small penalty, and here is why.
  In 2020, our Nation had 15 States plus the District of Columbia that 
have decided to give illegal immigrants a valid State-issued ID, a 
driver license. These 15 States and DC got $53 million in JAG grants 
from the Department of Justice. These are funds--these are Justice 
Assistance Grants that are given to local law enforcement and criminal 
justice projects to do what? Enforce the law. So if you are not going 
to enforce the law, why should you get the money? Those funds should go 
to entities that have said: We will abide by the rule of law. That is 
where those funds should go.
  Now, the second bill is the Ban Birth Tourism Act. This would amend 
the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit pregnant foreigners 
from obtaining a temporary visitor visa they could use to enter the 
United States specifically for the purpose of giving birth here. Yes, 
you heard me right. There is a loophole in the law, in the Immigration 
and Nationality Act. Because of this, we have some pregnant foreigners, 
primarily from Russia and China, who circumvent the law, and they get a 
temporary visitor visa, and they come here working with some of this 
multimillion-dollar-a-year birth tourism industry. They get coached. 
They come here. They go to a facility. They give birth. The child 
becomes a citizen, and then they return. As I said, primarily these are 
wealthy Russians and wealthy Chinese.
  Our citizenship is not for sale. No, indeed. It is hard-fought. It is 
hard-won. It is hard-kept. The American people are right to expect 
better than this. Tennesseans want to see something done about this. 
That is why I, once again, have filed this legislation.
  The American people are not unreasonable. They do not lack 
compassion. They just don't understand why officials who are charged 
with upholding the law would act in their official capacity to 
undermine something as basic as border security, as basic as national 
security.
  We have a lot of security moms out there who understand that it is no 
small task keeping things secure at home. All of these security moms 
out there know that there are plenty of threats online--threats that 
they cannot see, but they know that there are a lot of these threats 
that come into their homes and onto their computer screens and onto the 
devices of their children because of a lack of privacy online.
  How we curate and protect our virtual use, as I call it, is 
critically important because it defines who we are to the people who we 
do not see in person. And as I mentioned earlier, more of our 
functional and transactional life is now online. So tomorrow, to mark 
National Data Privacy Day, I will once again reintroduce the BROWSER 
Act.
  Mr. President, as you and I served in the House together, I know you 
remember how I would introduce this bill, the BROWSER Act, to secure 
online privacy for millions of Americans. Now, at its heart, this is an 
effort to inject awareness, transparency, and accountability into the 
relationship between technology platforms and their users.
  This legislation sets up a very basic Federal compliance framework 
that tech companies can use as a guide to update their privacy policies 
online, make it something that is going to give you the ability to say: 
This is information that I want to share.
  It would require companies to secure an opt-in from consumers before 
collecting their sensitive data. And for less sensitive information, 
you, the consumer, would have the ability to opt out and not share that 
browsing history with that company.
  Companies would not be able to deny you service if you want to 
practice your right to privacy. That makes common sense. It happens in 
the physical space every single day, and it should also be a right 
reserved to the individual in the virtual space.
  This also would put the Federal Trade Commission, our online privacy 
regulator, in charge of watching what is happening in the virtual 
space, applying these rules equally across the entire internet 
ecosystem. A right to privacy, being secure in our communities and our 
homes, is something that not only Tennesseans but millions of Americans 
are wanting to see.

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