[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 24, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1729-S1732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Immigration

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, Republicans are going to be on the floor 
today, taking a sudden 100-percent sincere interest in immigration 
reform. They are going to propose that the Senate take up a handful of 
bills to address what they call a crisis created by President Biden on 
our southern border.
  Forgive me for being blunt, but give me a break. Republicans suddenly 
care about the border because they don't want to talk about the real 
crisis that President Donald Trump created and that President Biden is 
fixing: the COVID crisis and our Nation's economic crisis. Republicans 
don't want to fix our broken immigration laws. They want to distract 
Americans from the real story right now, which is the implementation of 
the very popular American Rescue Plan.
  There are $1,400 checks that are arriving in people's bank accounts 
right now. School budgets finally have enough resources to catch up on 
all of the lost learning for our kids; childhood poverty is about to be 
cut in half; more production of vaccines. That is the real story.
  You know how I know the Republicans are less than sincere in this 
interest in immigration policy? First, because they controlled the 
Senate for 6 years and not once during the roughly 2,100 days that they 
were in charge did they try to honestly bring a comprehensive 
immigration reform proposal to the floor.
  I checked. Two of the bills they are going to ask unanimous consent 
for today were brought up for show votes in the middle of the 2016 
Presidential election as a means of helping Donald Trump's candidacy, 
but in neither instance was there actually any attempt to try to find 
common ground to actually pass something.
  Go back even further. In 2013, when Democrats were in the Senate, 
that is when we actually did pass a comprehensive immigration reform 
bill. But it was Republicans who opposed it--not all, but all of the 
opposition came from Republicans--and it was the House Republican 
majority that refused to even consider the bill. That is where it died. 
So spare me this sudden concern for immigration policy.

[[Page S1730]]

  But since Republicans are now newly concerned about what is happening 
on the border, it probably makes sense for us to level set the facts. 
The facts. So here are four of them.
  The first is a pretty simple one. Republicans will tell you that Joe 
Biden created this crisis, that his policies are the reason why we have 
seen an increase in migration to the border. But here is the chart, and 
I want you to zero in on the end of it. As you can see, apprehensions 
at the border, which are a pretty decent indication of the number of 
people who are crossing without documentation, started going up in the 
middle of 2020 precipitously. All that is occurring now is a 
continuation of these increases. Apprehensions and crossings at the 
border didn't start increasing on Inauguration Day; they started 
increasing back in the middle and end of 2020. So you can't say that 
this was a creation of Joe Biden's policies if what we are witnessing 
now is a continuation of a trend that began at the end of last year. In 
fact, as you can see here, the 10-year high for apprehensions at the 
border happened right in the middle of the Trump administration--a time 
during which the President was crowing that his policies at the border 
were the toughest ever.
  Here is the second fact. The border is not open, as Republicans 
falsely claim. Here is what is happening right now on our southern 
border. Since the pandemic began, the administration invoked something 
called title 42 that allows, temporarily, during a public health 
emergency, the Border Patrol to turn everyone back around and send them 
back into Mexico regardless of whether they have an asylum claim that 
is legitimate or not. Under law, that is a temporary authority that is 
only allowed to be used during a public health emergency, and President 
Trump was using that authority.
  The problem was that for these kids who were showing up at the 
border, who had legitimate asylum claims, right, whose lives were in 
danger in the places they were coming from, when we turned them around 
and sent them back to the Mexican border, we were essentially leaving 
them to die. Their parents weren't there. The smugglers who brought 
them to the United States had already left.
  This was a disastrous, inhumane, unconscionable policy, to turn these 
kids back around to the border and leave them to the smugglers, to the 
sex traffickers with no one to help. So the only change President Biden 
made was to say that these unaccompanied minors need to be protected; 
we need to process their asylum claims. But President Biden is still 
turning around, under title 42 authority, every single adult, every 
group of adults, and every family who comes to the border, under title 
42 authority.
  The border is not open. All that has changed is that the prior law 
that was applied before the pandemic began is being applied selectively 
to unaccompanied minors.
  Let's be clear. The authority to expel everybody being applied now to 
everybody except for unaccompanied minors, that is a temporary 
authority--an authority that Donald Trump didn't even invoke until the 
pandemic began.
  Third, it is not even clear that what is happening now is anything 
other than a natural increase in migration during the winter, combined 
with the buildup of demand from title 42 enforcement in 2020.
  The Washington Post data analysts took a look at the recent data on 
border crossings year to year and month to month, and here is what they 
said:

       We looked at data from [the] U.S. Customs and Border 
     Protection to see whether there's a ``crisis''--or even a 
     ``surge,'' as many news outlets have characterized it. We 
     analyzed monthly CBP data from 2012 to now and [we] found no 
     crisis or surge that can be attributed to Biden 
     administration policies. Rather, the current increase in 
     apprehensions fits a predictable pattern of seasonal changes 
     in undocumented immigration combined with a backlog of demand 
     because of 2020's coronavirus border closure.

  What they are essentially saying is that because of conditions on the 
ground in Central America and Mexico, you saw an increase in crossings 
and apprehensions in 2018 and 2019 that vanished only in 2020 because 
of title 42 authority that is now starting back up again.
  Again, the data backs this up. This year, from January to February, 
there was a 28-percent increase in crossings. January to February 2019, 
there was a 31-percent increase. Go back to 2018; February to March, a 
25-percent increase. For the last 3 years, outside of the pandemic 
environment, during the winter, you will see a routine 25- to 30-
percent increase in presentations at the border. This is when people 
normally cross, during the relatively colder weather months of the 
winter.
  Second, these numbers are really deceiving because these aren't 
unique individuals; this is just total number of apprehensions. So what 
is happening under title 42 is that adults are being immediately 
removed right back to Mexico, but then they are immediately attempting 
to recross. So many of these numbers look high because you have 
individuals who never got the chance to make an asylum claim who are 
crossing multiple times at the border.
  The fourth fact is that there is little evidence that American policy 
at the border has much to do with migration rates. The evidence, the 
facts show that it is conditions on the ground in the origin nations 
that are what determine whether people pack up their homes and leave 
for America
  Again, this chart is a good indication of that fact, because Donald 
Trump would tell you that his policies were tougher than anybody's, but 
the 10-year high in crossings, apprehensions happened in the middle of 
Donald Trump's inhumane border policies. Why? Because during this time, 
conditions are abysmal. Violence is spiking in many places from which 
these migrants are coming.
  Just as a matter of sort of further explanation, if we brought this 
chart back into the Bush administration, you would find that crossings 
were much higher, at a much higher rate during the Bush administration 
than at any time during the Obama administration.
  People come to the United States because they are fleeing violence, 
they are fleeing economic desperation, not because of some message they 
get from the U.S. Government.
  One study I was looking at the other day, a comprehensive study of 
rationales for crossings data on the times that people cross, says 
this:

       [T]ougher border controls have had remarkably little 
     influence on the propensity to migrate illegally.

  These are the facts. These are the facts. Republicans need to stop 
looking at immigration as a political opportunity. We need to start 
dealing with the truth.
  The number of immigrants showing up at the border today is large, but 
the winter increase isn't bigger than either of the last two winters 
prior to the pandemic with respect to percentage increase. It didn't 
start when Joe Biden became President or because of Joe Biden's 
policies. The increase started last year, when Donald Trump was 
President.
  To the extent that Republicans oppose President Biden's lifting of 
the title 42 removal proceedings for kids, what is your alternative? Do 
you support just dumping these kids, these 10- and 11-year-olds, on the 
other side of the border, scared and alone, and just leaving them to 
die or to be forced into the arms of drug cartels or traffickers in 
Northern Mexico? That is un-American, and I am glad my President chose 
to end that inhumane, temporary policy.
  But even if President Biden continued title 42 authority for kids for 
a few more months, expedited removal can't last forever. The law 
doesn't allow it. So once again, pretty soon, every migrant is going to 
be able to have the chance to apply for asylum, as they should. And 
herein lies an opportunity. Let's work together to fix what is a 
legitimately broken system.
  I will give an example. People should be able to apply for asylum in 
the United States. We built this Nation by allowing people to come here 
from very dangerous places. But the asylum process takes too long--
years between when you present yourself at the border and when you get 
a final decision on whether you can stay in the United States. Let's 
fix that. It is within our ability as Members of Congress to fix that. 
The administration can't do it. They need resources. They need new law 
and new authorities.
  Republicans and Democrats could choose to--instead of playing 
politics, instead of offering up motions today that are sure to lose, 
we could sit down and try to do something about it. But

[[Page S1731]]

for 6 years, Republicans had the opportunity to bring together a 
conversation around comprehensive immigration reform, and they didn't. 
Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to do that now.
  Lastly, behind every single one of these individuals coming to the 
border is a story, is a real human being. Ask yourself, if your child 
were being recruited into vicious drug gangs with a high likelihood of 
serious harm or death, would you not take steps to keep your child 
safe? Would you not bring them to a place like America that was safer 
for that child?
  I visited, on Friday, the southwest border. I was in El Paso with a 
group of bipartisan colleagues and Secretary Mayorkas, who is doing a 
good job, who is managing this emergency with skill. I met a little 
girl, about 13 years old, who was in one of these processing facilities 
waiting to be moved into the asylum process. She was truly scared. She 
was truly scared. She knew she was going to have a chance to reunite 
with her family in the United States, but these detention centers--they 
are better than they were in 2019, but they are no place for kids.
  That little girl was coming from Guatemala, a place where there are 
certain neighborhoods that are more violent than any war zone in the 
Middle East, a place where murder rates eclipse anything we can even 
imagine in the United States.
  So that little girl, she needs America to survive, but I would argue 
that America needs her more because without her and the thousands of 
other children arriving at our border, hungry for a better life, we are 
going to risk abandoning the entire original idea of this great, one-
of-a-kind Nation, a Nation that opens its arms to those who are fleeing 
violence and desperation. It is not just our tradition; it is our 
definition as a country--more reason for those of us in the U.S. Senate 
to resist the temptation to play politics with these kids' lives and 
with the very complicated, nuanced, important issue of immigration and 
instead find ways to be truthful about what is happening at the border 
as a means to come together and do something about it.
  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. CARDIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       PPP Extension Act of 2021

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to urge swift passage of the 
PPP Extension Act, which will extend the March 31 deadline for the 
Paycheck Protection Program 2 months, to May 31, and give the SBA an 
additional month, through June 30, to process any backlogged 
applications.
  This Saturday, March 27, will be the 1-year date since the CARES Act 
was enacted. In that time, SBA has approved 8.2 million PPP loans worth 
more than $715 billion.
  These loans have saved small businesses throughout our Nation. They 
would not be here today but for this program. It also saved the stress 
on our unemployment insurance system by keeping small business 
employees on the payroll. And as I am sure the Presiding Officer knows, 
for a small business, it is difficult to find a workforce and to keep a 
workforce, and the Paycheck Protection Program allowed small businesses 
to maintain their workforce so that when the pandemic is over, they are 
going to be ready for our growing economy.
  The world feels a little different today than it did a year ago. The 
American people are finally beginning to see a light at the end of the 
tunnel. More than 124 million vaccine doses have been administered, and 
public health officials nationwide are beginning to ease restrictions 
on public gatherings.
  We can see a light at the end of the tunnel, but we are not there 
yet. Small businesses are struggling, but in spite of those struggles, 
small businesses are still showing up for our communities.
  The Baltimore Sun recently published a story about a restaurant in my 
hometown of Baltimore that captured the essence of the value that small 
businesses bring to our communities.
  Steve Chu and Ephrem Abebe, co-owners of the popular restaurant in 
Baltimore named Ekiben, recently drove 6 hours from Baltimore to 
Vermont to prepare a meal for a longtime customer who was on her 
deathbed. They did this at their own cost because that is what small 
business owners do. They are part of our community. Afterward, Mr. Chu 
and Mr. Abebe called the decision a ``no-brainer'' and viewed their 
trip as a way to say thank you to a customer who had supported them for 
years.
  That is what makes small businesses special. They are more than 
places we go to buy products or enjoy a meal. They are vital pillars in 
our community. That story and countless others like it are why we 
passed the PPP program initially and why we must pass the PPP Extension 
Act--so PPP can continue to be a lifeline for small businesses in the 
coming months.
  Congress and the Biden administration have implemented significant 
improvements to the PPP in recent months that have made the program 
more equitable and useful. So we must now extend the deadline to allow 
small businesses and nonprofits to take full advantage and receive the 
help that they need.
  In December, Congress passed the bipartisan Economic Aid Act, which 
provided an additional $284 billion to PPP and made second-round PPP 
loans available to small businesses that had spent their initial PPP 
loan and can demonstrate a 25-percent loss in revenue. The bill also 
expanded eligibility of PPP to include certain local newspapers, TV 
stations and radio stations, as well as 501(c)6 nonprofits.
  I must remind my colleagues that while the SBA was beginning to 
implement the improvements we made to the PPP in the Economic Aid Act, 
the Agency was also undergoing a transition from the Trump 
administration to the Biden administration. Transitions, even under the 
best circumstances, can be disruptive to an Agency's work.
  On February 22, the Biden administration took strong action to get 
funding to small businesses that were either left out or underfunded 
during prior rounds of PPP. The administration implemented a 14-day 
exclusive window for small businesses with fewer than 20 employees. It 
updated the maximum loan calculation formula for sole proprietors, and 
it eliminated rules prohibiting small businesses owned by formerly 
incarcerated individuals and individuals with delinquent Federal 
student loans from securing a PPP loan.
  It made it possible and much more worthwhile for small businesses to 
apply for PPP loans, but it takes time. PPP is a forgivable loan, but 
you have to have a financial institution to make that loan. It has to 
be processed, it has to be approved, and it can't be done by the end of 
this month.
  During the exclusivity period, SBA approved PPP loans for more than 
400,000 small businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 20 employees, 
nearly half of which were first-time borrowers. We are reaching the 
hard to serve, the most needy of the small businesses. They finally got 
help.
  Earlier this month, we passed the historic American Rescue Plan. The 
plan expanded PPP eligibility even more, to include more nonprofits as 
well as digital news platforms. The plan provides overdu aid to the 
local chapters of large nonprofits, such as the YMCA and Goodwill, 
which had not had prior access to PPP due to having multiple locations 
totaling more than 500 employees. The plan makes these nonprofits 
eligible for PPP loans worth up to $10 million, as long as each 
location does not exceed the employee limit. That makes sense.

  During a hearing examining PPP last week, the small business 
community heard testimony from John Hoey, who leads the YMCA chapter 
that serves the Baltimore region. John urged us to extend the PPP to 
give nonprofit leaders more time to understand the program. He said:

       I can tell you that colleagues of mine who run large Ys 
     around the country and large nonprofits in Baltimore are 
     still trying to understand the program and figure out if they 
     qualify. I think a 3-month extension is not only warranted 
     but owed to all of us after what we've been through this past 
     year.

  We also heard testimony from Lisa Mensah, who leads the Opportunity 
Finance Network, which is the national

[[Page S1732]]

association of CDFIs, our mission lenders. She warned us that 
``thousands of business owners will not receive access to PPP without 
an extension.''
  She told us about a CDFI in Jackson, MS, that estimates that 1,300 
loans from small businesses that applied for PPP will not receive funds 
if we do not extend the deadline. Of these 1,300 applicants, 98 percent 
are businesses with fewer than 20 employees, 95 percent are minority-
owned, and nearly 100 of them are veteran- or veteran-spouse-owned 
small businesses.
  This is only one CDFI out of hundreds nationwide. The story will be 
repeated--those that have been left out. The committee has also been 
urged to extend the deadline by the business community. On March 15, 
more than 90 chambers of commerce, trade groups, and business 
organizations sent a letter urging extension, and they said:

       Nearly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the continued 
     liquidity challenges of the small business sector are acute.

  It is clear that there is still an overwhelming need for PPP loans, 
which is why the PPP Extension Act passed the House of Representatives 
by a 415-to-3 vote. This is bipartisan. The bill that we are talking 
about is sponsored by Senator Collins. Senator Shaheen and I are also 
on that bill.
  The good news is that the resources are there. We have been informed 
by the SBA that the extension of the deadline can work within the funds 
that have already been made available by Congress. The money is there.
  This is not the first time we have done this. I must remind my 
colleagues that, last year, as PPP was approaching its deadline, I 
brought a bill to the floor of the Senate and worked with Senator Rubio 
to give small businesses more time to get their applications filed. I 
must also remind my colleagues that we passed that extension to 
preserve access to PPP while we continued negotiating on broader 
changes to the program. We need to do the same thing again.
  I know that there are other modifications to the program that we will 
have an opportunity to discuss, and I am committed to conducting those 
discussions in the same bipartisan manner that I have approached the 
development of these programs. In fact, later today, in just 45 
minutes, there will be a hearing of the Small Business Committee where 
we will be doing oversight on the programs that we made available 
during COVID-19, and we will have representatives from government 
responsible for those programs, including the SBA.
  But the bottom line: We first need to extend the program. We have got 
to make sure it doesn't expire next week. We must get this done. The 
need is there, and the funds are there.