[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1727-S1729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Vote on the Turk Nomination

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of David Turk, of Maryland, to be Deputy Secretary of 
Energy, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 98, nays 2, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 133 Ex.]

                                YEAS--98

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Booker
     Boozman
     Braun
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Ernst
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagerty
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hickenlooper
     Hirono

[[Page S1728]]


     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kelly
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Lujan
     Lummis
     Manchin
     Markey
     Marshall
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Ossoff
     Padilla
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Tuberville
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warnock
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--2

     Hawley
     Pau
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 98, the nays are 2.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.


                 Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 132

  Mr. INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. President.
  It is obvious to just about everyone outside of Washington that the 
situation on our southern border is a crisis. I can't believe that 
anyone wouldn't believe that it is a crisis, but there are some who 
would answer that it isn't a crisis.
  President Biden and the DHS Secretary refused to call it a crisis. It 
is not just a challenge. They called it a challenge. This isn't a 
challenge. This is a crisis. Ask anyone you see on the street if it is 
a crisis--people lined up, coming in illegally.
  You don't have to take my word for it. Look at the facts. We have had 
a 173-percent increase in border apprehensions compared with 1 year 
ago--173-percent increase. This past February, apprehensions were at 
the highest total for February in 14 years.
  DHS admits that we are on track for the most illegal migrants in more 
than 20 years. This is on the border. This is today. This is what is 
happening.
  Last week, mainstream media news reports found that the 
administration is restricting information Border Patrol agents are 
allowed to share with the media about the crisis. The border agents 
claim that they are under an unofficial gag order. These are the border 
agents. These are the ones who do this for a living. They are down 
there. They are protecting our laws, stopping illegals from coming in. 
That is what their job description is, and yet they are under a gag 
order.
  They don't want the media to find out. And they are being told to 
deny media requests for ride-alongs at the border. Now, that is so the 
media can tell the people of America what is going on down there, and 
they are being denied that opportunity.
  The DHS Secretary claims that he is committed to openness and 
transparency, but this is not openness and transparency. This is hiding 
from the people what is going on.
  Maybe this administration is doing this and refusing to call it a 
crisis because their policies have invited this surge. This surge is 
coming as a result.
  President Biden has frozen funds from Congress directed for the 
building of the wall. He ended the ``Remain in Mexico'' asylum policy 
that was put there by the previous administration. It is a crisis.
  Illegal aliens know Biden is opening our borders up, and they intend 
to take advantage of that. And the illegals are wearing the Biden T-
shirts. Do you see this photograph over here? There they are. Biden, we 
are coming in.
  I know a lot about the southern border because I have been there 
countless times, seeing firsthand the problems on both the Mexican side 
and the American side of the border. I was a builder and developer for 
30 years down there. I know that border. I was there for 30 years, all 
the way from Brownsville to McAllen, TX, on both sides. I know the 
individuals that are down there who are the career people protecting 
our borders.
  I am disappointed that the administration is reversing the progress 
we have made over the past 4 years and shocked that they simply won't 
acknowledge it is a crisis.
  The border security should not be a partisan issue, and I am glad 
there are a few Senate Democrats who share my concern about this 
crisis. I applaud them for speaking out. It took guts to do it.
  Well, I have got a resolution, and I am going to introduce this 
resolution. I introduced it, actually, already. I think every Senator 
will agree with it. It is a simple resolution.
  We haven't checked this out yet, but I think this might be the 
shortest resolution in the history of the U.S. Senate. I am going to 
read it to you.
  It simply states:

       It is the sense of the Senate that the current influx of 
     migrants at the Southern land border of the United States 
     constitutes a crisis.

  That is it. Nothing more.
  So, with that, Mr. President, as in legislative session--this is a 
unanimous consent request, Mr. President. I am making it right now.
  As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 132, submitted earlier today. I 
further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to and that 
the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table 
with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from California.
  Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  Colleagues, what is happening at the border right now is not just 
another policy matter to me; it is personal.
  When I see the young Latino children, alone in an unfamiliar setting, 
being spoken to by law enforcement and other authorities in a language 
that they don't understand, I actually can't help but think of my three 
boys. My boys are the same ages as many of the kids presenting 
themselves at the border seeking asylum.
  They look just like those kids. I see the fear and desperation in the 
eyes of the children at the border, and I don't have to imagine how my 
boys would look and feel under such circumstances. I have tasted that 
already.
  In 2018, we were on a family trip in Arizona--June of 2018. It was 
the height of Trump's cruel family separation. We took a detour to 
Tornillo, TX, to demand humane treatment of the children who were being 
intentionally separated from their parents by the previous 
administration.
  On the way there, I tried to prepare my boys, mentally and 
emotionally, for what they were about to see. And it was my youngest 
son, Diego, who was 3 years old at the time, who turned to me and said: 
Dad, Donald Trump is putting kids in cages. We got to go help them.
  My heart broke. Imagine how the children on the border today are 
feeling. Imagine how scared they must be. Consider how traumatic their 
young lives have already been and how anxious they are for the basic 
safety and comfort that so many people take for granted.
  Let's think of their parents' anguish, to be so desperate to protect 
their children, to be so afraid for their safety, let alone their 
future, that they make the heartbreaking decision of sending them on a 
dangerous 2,000-mile journey to the U.S. border all alone, knowing that 
as risky and as dangerous as that journey is, it is safer than to stay 
in their own community.
  Let's be clear. These are children. These are families, not that are 
well-off, trying to game the system. These are families who are 
desperate. Their communities have been ravaged by hurricanes, the 
COVID-19 pandemic, and in so many cases, decades of violence. Their 
families are threatened by gangs with torture and murder if they stay 
home. Asylum seekers aren't just seeking a better life. Many are simply 
just trying to stay alive.
  Too many policymakers act like asylum seekers are just choosing to 
come here, when there is really no choice at all.
  So I am deeply disappointed to see so many Members of Congress, both 
in the House and in the Senate, depicting desperate, young children at 
the border as some sort of threat to our Nation. As though 15,000 
practically orphaned children trying to assimilate into our country of 
330 million is some sort of existential crisis for our Nation.
  The real crisis is the immigration laws that are so broken that 
children have to make a treacherous 2,000-mile journey to seek asylum 
here. The real crisis is that this situation distracts us from the more 
than 11 million undocumented immigrants who have been living in the 
United States for years, working and paying taxes in communities all 
across America while living

[[Page S1729]]

in constant fear of deportation. They are our neighbors, our teachers, 
our nurses, our grocery store workers, our childcare providers. They 
are the essential workers whom we have all thanked each and every day 
throughout this pandemic who live in constant fear that their lives 
will be upended and their families ripped apart at any moment, 
depending on the politics of the day in Washington.
  The real crisis is that we have strayed so far from our founding 
principles as a Nation of immigrants and that we have strayed so far 
from the creed emblazoned on the very statue that we erected to welcome 
immigrants into New York Harbor saying:

       Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning 
     to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
     Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my 
     lamp beside the golden door!

  So I am disappointed but, sadly, not surprised that this resolution 
is nothing more than a cynical attempt to perpetuate the semantic 
nonsense of the day. Our constituents didn't send us to the Senate or 
to Congress to identify problems. They sent us here to develop and 
enact solutions.
  I am more than willing to sit down with my colleague here to try to 
come up with some solutions to address what is happening at the 
border--solutions that address the lack of resources and the broken 
processes left by the previous administration, solutions that recognize 
the fundamental humanity of these desperate children and families who 
simply want to live to see their next birthday, and solutions that stay 
true to the values of this Nation.
  I have an amendment to the resolution at the desk to strike the text 
of the Inhofe resolution and to insert the following:

       Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that our 
     outdated immigration laws and the lack of a pathway to 
     citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who 
     form the backbone of communities across the United States 
     constitutes a crisis and that the United States Senate must 
     take up immigration reform this year.

  I ask that Senator Inhofe's request be modified as follows: that the 
Padilla substitute amendment at the desk to the resolution be 
considered and agreed to; that the resolution, as amended, be agreed 
to; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification?
  Mr. INHOFE. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Is there objection to the original request?
  Mr. PADILLA. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I hope everyone heard this. I haven't met 
the Senator from California real well yet. I look forward to it. I look 
forward to serving with him, but I hope that everyone heard what is 
going on now: Just open the borders.
  You know, people in other countries--I won't mention some of them 
because I don't want them to be put in an awkward position--they say: 
Why in the world don't we have stronger borders in the United States of 
America? And we don't.
  Our previous President, I talked to him this morning. I talked to 
former President Trump this morning, and I talked about what is going 
on down there at the border. And the reason I am familiar with this--
much more familiar than the Senator from California or anyone else--is 
that I worked down there for 30 years on that border, all the way from 
Brownsville, TX, to McAllen. I know the border people down there. I 
know the agents down there. And for them to tell me that they have been 
told not to talk to the media about what is going on--I hope everyone 
knows what is going on right now, today. This is going on.
  You know, President Trump is all for people coming into America the 
legal way. He has made that very clear over and over again. He has 
spent time down on the border, both borders, making sure that we can 
have a legal--one of the most gratifying things in my job as a U.S. 
Senator, and I have been in these Chambers now since 1994--one of the 
most enjoyable things is to go to naturalization ceremonies. And you 
talk to these people who have come and worked to come across legally to 
our country. I defy you to find any one of these individuals who 
ha come here legally and gone through this naturalization process--they 
know more about the history of this country than people on the street, 
than people who were born here and people who are serving here in the 
U.S. Senate. They know the language. They learn the language. They did 
it the hard way. How do you tell them: You have gone through all this 
in the process of becoming legal, but you didn't have to do that. You 
just march right in. They are inviting you in. They want you in.

  Put it back up. Yes, that is what is going on right now. That is what 
is going on at the border. So I want everyone to know what is happening 
now.
  We can be sympathetic to a lot of people, but the idea of saying that 
we had a President who was putting kids in cages, come on. Let's get 
real. We don't want to do that. We don't have to do that. We just want 
to make it very clear to the American people that we have borders, and 
we ought to be protecting these borders.
  A lot of the people who come in, they aren't necessarily from Central 
America or from Mexico. These are--a lot of them are terrorists coming 
over. They are coming from the Middle East, coming from all over the 
world, coming into our porous borders.
  Now, is that what people want? No, it is not. Overwhelmingly, they 
have rejected the idea of open borders, letting everyone come in.
  Well, we are to going stay with this, and I am going to resubmit this 
very simple resolution, as follows:

       It is the sense of the Senate that the current influx of 
     migrants at the southern land border of the United States 
     constitutes a crisis.

  It is a crisis.
  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.