[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 201 (Wednesday, December 6, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5769-S5770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Supplemental Funding

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, 36 years ago, President Ronald Reagan 
stood at the Brandenburg Gate that separated East from West Berlin. He 
said to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet 
Union:

       Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

  Only a few years after his historic speech, the Soviet Union 
collapsed,

[[Page S5770]]

bringing in decades--decades--of freedom and prosperity in Eastern 
Europe and a welcome end to the Cold War.
  Now there comes a man named ``Vladimir Putin'' who is clumsily and 
dangerously trying to regain that dystopian Soviet glory with a bloody 
war in Ukraine.
  So I can only wonder what President Reagan would be thinking now, 
with so many of his Republican Party Members refusing to support 
critical military assistance to keep Ukraine from falling to Russian 
tyranny.
  Yes, we have other legislative needs in Congress, but refusing to 
support the forces of freedom in Ukraine in a war against a resurgent 
evil empire in the name of partisanship is nothing short of reckless.
  It is not hard to understand how we got here. Putin gambled and lost 
a botched attempt to quickly overthrow Ukraine. Now he has to juggle a 
formidable Ukrainian resistance, huge losses of Russian conscript, 
isolation on the global stage, a struggling economy, domestic 
opposition, and an upcoming election in Russia that he needs to rig 
again to stay in power. Meanwhile, he has been branded a war criminal 
and has to carefully choose the nations that he visits so he isn't 
arrested on the spot.
  So, given his tenuous position, what is one of his greatest 
opportunities for clinging to power? It is hope that the partisan chaos 
in the U.S. Congress will stall or end support for Ukraine. And make no 
mistake--the President of Ukraine told us point-blank when he visited 
here several months ago, in a private meeting in the Old Senate 
Chamber, that if the United States cuts off military assistance to 
Ukraine, his country will lose the war with Vladimir Putin.
  That is what is at stake. The White House was clear. We know that 
Putin is watching this activity by Congress; so is China and so is 
Iran.
  The White House was clear in warning that the United States is ``out 
of money to support Ukraine in this fight.''
  And President Zelenskyy told us the obvious: Ukraine will lose 
without American support.
  So this is not an abstract political theater; what we do has 
consequences--global and historic consequences. As such, I implore my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, think long and hard about 
what President Reagan would say today about showing weakness to 
Vladimir Putin. Let's not flinch when it comes to standing up to such 
obvious threats to freedom.
  It is time to pass President Biden's national security supplemental 
request. It is hard to imagine that we would actually let history 
record that we walked away from Ukraine at this moment. And it isn't 
over a debate of the merits of his defense of his country; it is over 
an unrelated issue: our border security.
  It is obvious that we need to do something on our border. The number 
of people presenting themselves for refugee status is at a record high. 
The system that was designed 60 years ago to deal with refugees never 
envisioned the volume of demands that we are facing on the border every 
single day, week, and month.
  This is not unique to the United States. Refugees all around the 
world are mushrooming in size for a variety of reasons: conflicts, the 
war in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, environmental changes. All 
of these have the world in flux. And many people are looking for 
safety, safety in countries like the United States.
  I support the refugee system. I think it was designed at a time when 
we realized that turning away Jewish people in World War II was a stain 
on our reputation. We decided after World War II to enter into a pact 
with other countries around the world to accept refugees under certain 
circumstances, and we have lived by that ever since through 
Presidents--Republican and Democratic.
  Now, we are being tested. We can meet that test. We can adjust our 
refugee system to the reality of today, and we can stop the abuse of 
the system that is taking place on the border. But we don't want to 
walk away from the very fundamental values of our country. It is trying 
to find that delicate balance between those values and the disorder 
that we face on the border that leads us to the point we are today.
  I have been involved in immigration issues for as long as I have 
served in this Chamber, and I know how hard they are to negotiate. And 
to put this stark choice before the Senate of either finding a solution 
to a decades-old problem in a matter of days and hours or cutting off 
aid to Ukraine is a terrible choice.
  It is a deadly choice for the people of Ukraine, and, sadly, it is a 
deadly choice for the dominance of the United States and shaping world 
opinion. I hope we find our senses and do it soon.