[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 20 (Wednesday, January 28, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S301-S307]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
______
CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2026--Motion to Proceed--Resumed
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate resumed consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 7148,
which the clerk will report.
The senior assistant executive clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 302, H.R. 7148, a bill
making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes.
Recognition of the Majority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader is recognized.
Working Families Tax Cuts
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, this past Monday was the start of tax
filing season. Now, I know most Americans aren't usually excited about
the start of tax season, but this year, there is less reason for dread
because thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts, most Americans are
going to see a lower tax bill. That means bigger tax refunds for a lot
of Americans, as much as $1,000 more than last year, according to some
analysts.
The Working Families Tax Cuts is literally putting more money in
Americans' pockets. As the American people file their tax returns this
year, they will see the numerous ways the Working Families Tax Cuts
benefit them.
Thanks to this legislation, Americans can count on more money in
their pockets for the long term. For most Americans, tax relief starts
with their tax rate and the standard deduction, which over 90 percent
of taxpayers in this country claim.
In 2017, Republicans lowered tax rates across the board and just
about doubled the standard deduction. In our landmark bill last year,
Republicans made that relief permanent, and then we raised the standard
deduction even further.
On top of that, we created a bonus deduction for seniors, an
additional
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$6,000 deduction to reduce the tax burden of more than 30 million
Americans over the age of 65.
Then there is the significant tax relief we delivered for families.
In 2017, Republicans doubled--doubled--the child tax credit. Last year,
we raised it even further to $2,200 per child. And then, we linked the
child tax credit to inflation, which means its value will keep pace
with families' actual costs, and again that is also permanent.
Parents will also have the opportunity to open new investment
accounts for their newborns when they file their taxes this season.
Those accounts provide another tax advantage option for parents to
invest in their children's future. The money can be used after kids
turn 18 for their education, to start a business, to buy their first
home; in short, to take advantage of opportunities available to them
and get a head start on their American dream.
Those are retroactive to 2025. So parents who had a baby last year
can apply for one of these accounts when they file their taxes this
season. Hard-working Americans are the ones who benefit from
Republicans' landmark tax relief bill.
Perhaps the biggest boost goes to those Americans who earn tips and
overtime pay. Waiters, busboys, hairstylists and barbers, Uber, Lyft,
and taxi drivers are among the hard-working Americans who will be able
to deduct their tips on their taxes this year. That will reduce their
tax bills and let them keep a lot more of the money they earn.
The same is true of workers who put in overtime throughout the year.
Police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and nurses work important
jobs, and that often means they have to work extra hours during the
week or come in on holidays. Well, thanks to the Working Families Tax
Cuts, they will be able to keep more of the overtime pay they earn for
that extra time away from their loved ones.
I don't have to remind anybody about the inflation crisis started by
Democrats 5 years ago. Higher prices have affected everybody. But
relief is on the way. Affordability starts with more money in your
pocket, and that is exactly what the Working Families Tax Cuts
delivers.
Whether you are just getting started or you are raising a family or
you are trying to enjoy your golden years, the Working Families Tax
Cuts has something for you. Republicans wrote this bill with hard-
working Americans in mind, and that is who is going to see the benefits
this tax season and in the years to come.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant executive clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The Democratic leader is recognized.
Department of Homeland Security
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it has been 4 days since Alex Pretti was
murdered in broad daylight by Federal agents in Minneapolis, and there
has been zero accountability from Donald Trump for this horrendous act.
Donald Trump said yesterday he wants to deescalate things in
Minneapolis. But as of today, the Trump administration has taken zero
meaningful action to make that happen--zero.
As of this morning, ICE is still roaming the streets in Minneapolis
with little restraint. Operation Metro Surge, which is what ICE and
Border Patrol call their surge in the city, is not slowing down at all.
In fact, let me read a statement that came out yesterday from Acting
Assistant Chief of the Border Patrol. Here is what the Acting Assistant
Chief of the Border Patrol said:
As of this report, Metro Surge is steady-state and expected
to continue as planned.
Translation: ``Stand back and stand by.''
Trump is not deescalating things in Minneapolis as he claims. On the
contrary, his administration is telling ICE and Border Patrol to
``stand back and stand by.'' That is dangerous. ICE needs to leave
Minneapolis at once before another tragedy happens. It is the right
thing to do, both for the residents of Minneapolis and for law
enforcement. But that is just one step of many.
Donald Trump has likewise failed to call out the vicious lies that
his own administration told in the aftermath of Alex Pretti's murder.
Yesterday on FOX News, a DHS spokesperson refused to deny the
characterizations that Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist--refused to
deny those characterizations. It is absurd. A simple answer for the DHS
spokesman would have been: No, he is not a domestic terrorist. We were
wrong, and it won't happen again.
That is what normal people with normal discourse--Democrat,
Republican, liberal, conservative--would do. But in this
administration, where lying is their trademark and it spreads from the
top down, lying is OK. It is too much to ask of this administration to
reject and retract this vicious lie about the late Mr. Pretti. It is a
disgrace.
And as for President Trump, it is not enough for Donald Trump to
meekly suggest he disagrees with the words of Stephen Miller calling
Pretti an assassin. Donald Trump is the President, and he needs to act
like it. He needs to send a message and make an example of his deputies
who deliberately lie to the country in moments of crisis.
But you can see, again, Donald Trump lies all the time. We see it
every night on the news, and so all the people below him believe it is
OK to lie, too, even vicious lies like the one cast at Mr. Pretti.
Instead of holding his own administration accountable for lying about
Alex Pretti, Donald Trump continues to blame Alex Pretti for his own
death. He said yesterday Pretti should not have been carrying a gun.
The President seems to have forgotten the words of the Second
Amendment, ``the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not
be infringed.'' Apparently for Donald Trump, if you are a Trump
supporter, it is OK to be a lawful gun owner, but if you are against
Donald Trump, it is not. You don't have that right.
Finally, it is outrageous that Kristi Noem still has a job in the
administration after Federal officers murdered two American citizens in
just 2 weeks. And it is even more disgusting that on each occasion,
Kristi Noem lied about what took place.
For the good of the country, Donald Trump needs to fire Kristi Noem
at once. Noem is a liar. Noem is incompetent at her job, and she must
go.
Many Republicans here in Congress agree that Kristi Noem has lost the
trust of the American people. Donald Trump needs to recognize that the
tide has turned against her and that her presence does far more harm
than good at this point. Donald Trump needs to show Kristi Noem the
door and send her packing.
Government Funding
Mr. President, now let's turn to the Senate. Tomorrow, the Senate is
scheduled to take the first procedural vote on a six-bill funding
package. The right way forward is simple: Five of these bills are ready
to go, and the Senate should pass them as soon as possible. If Leader
Thune agrees to split these bills, just as Johnson did in the House,
Senate Democrats are ready to join Republicans in passing them and
funding 96 percent of the Federal Government.
But the DHS bill, the sixth bill, needs more work in the aftermath of
Pretti's death, Good's death, and the awful abuses we have seen from
ICE across the country.
Until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled, the DHS funding bill
doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate. Let me say that again so the
White House hears it. Until ICE is properly reined in and overhauled,
legislatively, the DHS funding bill doesn't have the votes to pass the
Senate.
Now, Leader Thune knows that, and so I urge Leader Thune not to put
all six bills, including DHS, on the floor but rather split them so we
can focus on what we can pass right now. Time is short. We shouldn't
waste time on failed votes right now or else the government will shut
down.
I know both sides recognize we need to act in response to the awful
tragedies that have taken place in Minneapolis, and Senators--Democrat
and Republican--are talking and sharing ideas.
But given how little time we have left before the funding deadline,
the first right step for the Senate is for
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Leader Thune to split the funding bills and put the five bills on the
floor--96 percent of Federal funding--that can pass. It is the right
and expedient thing to do to ensure that most of the government is
funded in time. And if Thune doesn't do it, the shutdown of the
government is on his back. If he does it, if he puts those five bills
on the floor and leaves DHS out, then we can have the necessary
negotiation to rework the DHS bill and add commonsense safeguards to
rein in ICE's very real and very dangerous abuses.
The bottom line is simple: The American people support law
enforcement. They support border security, but they did not support ICE
terrorizing our streets and killing American citizens.
ICE needs to be held to the same basic standards that any law
enforcement agency is asked to follow.
Republicans must work with Democrats on legislative fixes to ensure
ICE is reined in and overhauled to protect public safety.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.
Working Families Tax Cut Act
Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, all across the country, people are
starting to fill out their tax returns. Usually, this is a time of the
year that the American people dread but not this year. This year, it is
different. It is different because of legislation that we passed and
that was signed into law on the Fourth of July.
The reason it is different this year is the American people will be
getting bigger and bigger tax refunds than they have in the past. This
financial relief is the direct result of the Republicans' Working
Families Tax Cuts law. The tax cuts are dramatic. Republicans pledged
to cut taxes. We did it for middle-class families. These are people
that need a much needed boost in the money in their pockets. We
delivered.
The Tax Foundation estimates that the average refund this year will
be about $1,000 higher than it was last year--$1,000 for each one of
these refunds. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent believes that the
refunds will be even larger than that. In total, American families will
receive this year in refunds about $100 billion more than last year.
This is money going directly into the pockets of American families.
Working families know best how to use that money. Families know what
money they want to spend, they want to save, they want to invest. Let's
let the American people make that decision, not the government.
Republicans' policies mean Americans keep more of the money they
earned. That is what they have been telling us for years. And all of
these policies were signed into law as part of the Working Families Tax
Cuts law: a permanent lower tax rate on Americans; a permanent increase
in the standard deduction; a permanent increase in the child tax
credit--$2,200 for each child each year; no taxes on tips for waiters
or barbers or bartenders or other tip workers; no tax on overtime for
nurses and firefighters, police officers, coal miners, linemen; higher
payments for millions of seniors living on Social Security.
Importantly, all the tax changes that I just mentioned apply
retroactively. It is on last year's earnings, so the benefits are going
to be realized in this year's tax returns. That means that Americans
are paying lower taxes not just in the future but right now, today, and
just about every single taxpayer in America is going to benefit.
Republicans' Working Families Tax Cuts law breaks Americans free of
the punishing taxes of Joe Biden's unaffordable economy. That was an
administration of high prices and high taxes. America hasn't
experienced such a dramatic turnaround since Ronald Reagan reversed the
failures of Jimmy Carter.
Moreover, last year, Republicans blocked the Democrats' goal to raise
taxes by $4 trillion. Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate--every
single Democrat in this Chamber--voted to increase taxes by $4
trillion. Had Democrats succeeded, our Nation wouldn't see this largest
tax cut; they would have seen the largest tax increase in American
history--a $4 trillion tax increase. Not a single American would say
that a $4 trillion tax increase was something they could afford, but
the Democrats wanted to force-feed it down the American people's
throats.
Democrats are proven to be the party of high taxes. It is getting
worse. Last week in Virginia, they swore in a Democrat Governor. In the
State of Virginia, Democrats now control the house, the senate, and the
Governor's mansion, and they are determined to steer it hard to the
left. Virginia is a roadmap to the radical policies that Democrats want
to pursue nationwide.
So what do they want to do? They want taxpayers to fund instate
tuition for illegal immigrants. There they go again. The Democrats--the
people that wanted to defund the police, the people that shut down the
government to support illegal immigrants--now want to send instate
tuition to illegal immigrants.
Democrats want to raise taxes anywhere they can think of it. They are
going to do it in barbershops, nail salons, drycleaners, and gyms.
Mr. President, in your home State of Montana, how do you think this
would fly there?
Democrats want to raise sales tax by 11 percent on all firearms and
ammunition. That is what the Democrats are doing now in their effort in
Virginia. That is their model. That is where they are heading. They
even want to introduce a backdoor carbon tax--a tax that would increase
families' electric bills by over $1,000 a year. That is going to wipe
out the refund increases families are going to get. The State of
Virginia wants it taken away from the benefits people are receiving.
It is astonishing. You can't believe this. They want to ban gas-
powered leaf blowers because they don't want to use the gasoline. Don't
use gasoline. At the same time, they want to tax the battery-powered
lawn equipment. So you can't use gas, and you have to pay more taxes
when using batteries.
These are far-left policies, and these things just prove the Democrat
Party remains radical, extreme, dangerous, and scary. That is where
they want to take the country. This is what their record reveals,
whether they are the radicals now that have taken over the government
in the State of Virginia, whether they are in New York City, whether
they are in California, or the Democrats right here in this Congress.
Fortunately, for the pockets and purses and paychecks of Americans,
Republicans are focused on making our country more prosperous. We
promised to deliver prosperity for all Americans. That is exactly what
we are doing. And the bigger refunds that Americans are going to see
this year prove it.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon.
Trump Administration
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, for the Trump administration to stomp to
death the 1st, the 2nd, the 4th, the 5th, and the 10th Amendments to
the Constitution is not immigration enforcement. It is a totally
lawless abuse of Federal power.
The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to make their
voices heard and to document lawlessness by the Federal Government. It
guarantees the right to peacefully assemble and protest against those
abuses.
The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms. Regardless of
what you think about current gun law, there is no justification for
murdering a man who was lawfully carrying a firearm.
The Fourth Amendment protects the American people against illegal
search and seizure of their property. That includes private data and
information. I will touch more on that in a minute.
The Fifth Amendment guarantees the right to due process. Instead,
Trump's masked agents are now stopping people across the country and
saying: Papers, please.
Then they get thrown into unmarked vehicles, herded into detention
centers, and deported to dangerous conditions without due process.
The 10th Amendment limits Federal Government overreach, and it
protects States' rights. The recent events in Minneapolis--the murders
of Renee Good and Alex Pretti--demonstrate exactly how the Trump
administration is breaking the law and trashing the Constitution.
Mr. Pretti was exercising his First Amendment rights to peaceably
observe and record abuses--abuses by ICE agents. He was exercising his
Second Amendment right to lawfully carry a
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firearm, and he had a permit. He was murdered by the CBP agents.
Renee Good was sitting in her car, exercising her First Amendment
right to peaceably observe the actions of Federal agents. She was shot
and killed in broad daylight.
In both instances, there is ample video evidence to disprove the
Trump administration's idea that these Americans were domestic
terrorists who were covering up lawful killings.
I warned, when Trump began deploying Federal agents to our cities,
that lives would be at risk. That is now the reality. So our country
needs appropriate Federal law enforcement to identify and remove those
who committed violent crimes. What is not needed is an American Gestapo
rousting tourists, immigrants, and naturalized and native-born
Americans, alike, with guns to their head.
Shooting unarmed Americans on the street is not immigration
enforcement. It is intimidation. It is a blatant attempt to suppress
free speech and anybody who tries to stand up to Trump's abuse of
Federal power.
Trump's ICE and CBP agents have clearly been trained in fear tactics,
instead of in legitimate law enforcement.
I have said it before, and I want to say it again before the Senate:
Kristi Noem and the political appointees at DHS have got to go.
So I am calling on ICE and CBP agents in our streets to get out of
our communities. I am pushing for legislation to get them out of
schools and hospitals, places of worship, childcare centers,
courthouses, and additional public spaces.
I am also calling for the end of ICE locking people up who don't need
to be, including the end of family detention and privately run
immigration detention centers. And I call on the Border Patrol to go
back to ports of entry and get out of the business of terrorizing our
communities miles away from duty stations.
If an individual has committed a local crime, then local law
enforcement can step up.
It is far past time that these armed agents who have now murdered two
American citizens and shot more under disturbing circumstances are
sidelined.
ICE and CBP agents certainly have proven they can't be trusted in our
communities with weapons and firearms, as we have seen. If you listen
to Trump and his crowd, they seem to think it is the American people
who ought to be disarmed.
I think most people around our country understand we need to overhaul
immigration to continue the rich history of welcoming immigrants and
refugees as we secure our border and enforce immigration laws, but that
is not what Trump's lawless activities are about. Right now, ICE is
destroying the rule of law, not protecting it.
I have made it clear that I cannot and will not support more Federal
funding for Trump's ICE unless there is an end to these killings and
abuses and accountability for everybody involved. In its current form,
ICE is no longer an immigration enforcement Agency; it is Trump and the
administration's personal Gestapo. There can be no more funding for ICE
when it kills people on the streets, incites violence, and defies the
law.
When Democrats have the opportunity, we will investigate and publicly
prosecute anybody complicit in these murders, from Kristi Noem to Mr.
Bovino, all the way down to the ICE and CBP agents who pulled the
trigger on Renee Good and Alex Pretti. It is also important to
investigate the agents who have subjected immigrants, including
children, to extraordinary cruelty.
Before wrapping up, I want to touch on something else that has been
missed with regard to the abuses, and that is data privacy.
For years, I have come to this floor to sound the alarm on the
growing appetite of ICE to exploit legal loopholes that allow the
Federal Government to buy up troves of Americans' most private
information, including geolocation data. We now see exactly how the
Trump administration is abusing that information. ICE is using Palantir
apps to collect biometric data and run protesters through facial
recognition systems. This amounts to labeling people as domestic
terrorists just for exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably
protest and report on Federal agents. It is a clear threat to the
constitutional rights of Americans, and I am working with Senator
Markey and others to stop these abuses.
Second, ICE is buying Americans' private location data from sleazy
data brokers through a legal loophole that allows the government to get
around the Fourth Amendment. This isn't a red issue or a blue issue; it
is a constitutional issue. The American Government has no business in
purchasing the location data of American citizens. So I have proposed
the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act. That would put a stop to the
government being able to buy up troves of Americans' personal data from
anybody who has got a credit card. We ought to be pushing to get it
passed into black-letter law as soon as possible so that Agencies like
ICE don't have access to the personal information of millions of
Americans.
Finally, my investigators exposed that ICE is using government data
from State motor vehicle departments and other Federal Agencies. It has
refused to answer questions as to how that data is being used. So we
are leading a fight here in the Senate to rein them in.
I have warned States that care about their residents: They had better
stop sharing DMV data and enabling ICE abuses. ICE is using this
information to target Americans on our streets.
My view is that it is important for the Senate to recognize that data
privacy is now a life-and-death issue in America. As long as Trump's
agents are shooting American citizens dead on the street, this
administration having access to our private location data and other
information is a threat to everybody's safety.
I will close with this. My parents fled the Nazis during the very
real threat of growing authoritarianism in Germany. What the Trump
administration is offering us is, indeed, the authoritarian playbook:
Attack the weakest in order to cow the rest of us.
My family knows a thing or two about watching a democracy slide
toward authoritarian rule. I know a little bit about what comes next.
The American people have a right to feel and be safe. No one should
be forced to live in a country where they are terrified that Federal
agents might bust their door open in the middle of the night. I hope
that all Americans who have a chance to follow this discussion and
learn about it, in the days ahead, will speak out and that all
Americans will never, never, never yield their liberties.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it has certainly been an eventful several
days. Of course, across the country, people are still shoveling out
roads and sidewalks from the dramatic snowfall we had, and, of course,
many of us have struggled to get back to work because of disrupted
flights. Some parts of Texas, believe it or not, had as much as 10
inches of snow. I know that is not a big deal in the great State of
Nebraska, but it is a big deal in Texas because Texans cannot drive on
the snow and ice. Anybody who has seen some of the videos of people
trying to drive on the ice in Texas knows we are not used to that.
But a severe snowstorm was not the only thing to hit our country over
the last weekend. As we all know too well, an ICU nurse for the VA
named Alex Pretti was killed in an interaction with Border Patrol
agents in Minneapolis. We are still learning more about what transpired
that day, but, unfortunately, what we see too often when tragic events
like this occur is that people jump to conclusions early without
knowing all the facts.
Regardless of what we don't yet know, what we do know is that it is
always a tragedy when a human life has ended.
I applaud President Trump for taking the steps to review this and for
sending Tom Homan to Minneapolis to try to deescalate and restore law
and order in that State. The President has also indicated that he has
talked to Governor Walz and that they are working toward a productive
solution to what has become an untenable state of affairs in
Minneapolis.
One thing is absolutely clear: We need better collaboration and
cooperation--maybe a little more cooperation
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than collaboration--between Federal and local law enforcement in order
to ensure that our laws are being followed while preventing further
loss of life in our country.
When State and local officials, like the Governor of Minnesota and
the mayor of Minneapolis, use their positions of authority to vilify
Federal law enforcement officials, bad things can happen. The Governor
of Minnesota has compared Federal agents to a modern-day Gestapo. How
reprehensible and irresponsible is that, particularly coming from a guy
who wanted to be the Vice President of the United States. Obviously,
Governor Newsom in California has used similar language. Governor Walz
has described his State as fighting a war against the Federal
Government, and he called the Trump administration's enforcement
operations ``dangerous'' and ``sensationalized.''
I will tell you what makes situations like those that happened in
Minneapolis two times now where American citizens have lost their
lives--what makes that more likely to happen is when Governors and
mayors, people who are supposedly in positions of responsibility,
actually encourage people to interfere with law enforcement operations.
And we know that now, on at least two occasions, they can end with
tragic results. This is completely unacceptable conduct by a Governor
and a mayor. What they should do is stop their sanctuary policies. We
don't see the same sort of law enforcement operations in Texas or in
Nebraska; we see it in sanctuary States and sanctuary cities, where
local and State law enforcement are denied the chance to collaborate
and cooperate with Federal law enforcement authorities. What happens in
States like Texas, which does cooperate with law enforcement, is when
somebody is detained, let's say, by the police in the local jail and if
they find out they are wanted by ICE, they will simply transfer them
from the local jurisdiction to the custody of ICE so that ICE doesn't
have to go out on the street and conduct raids in order to detain
people who are not lawfully here in the United States.
All this may seem like fun and games to blue State Governors and
sanctuary city mayors until somebody gets hurt, but now, as I said, two
people have tragically lost their lives. We have the Governor and the
mayor cheering people on to do more of the same.
This has to deescalate, and I am optimistic that Tom Homan, given his
long career as a professional law enforcement officer, somebody
applauded by President Obama for his work but obviously who also has
the confidence of President Trump--I am glad he is there in
Minneapolis, talking to the mayor, talking to the Governor, and
hopefully trying to get them to tone down their rhetoric and not
encourage more actions which could also result in tragedy.
While we are waiting to learn more details--yes, still waiting to
learn more details--about what exactly happened, I believe State and
local officials have an obligation to tone down their rhetoric because
what they are doing is they are vilifying the brave men and women who
actually are enforcing the laws that Congress has passed. They are
calling them Nazis or the Gestapo.
Of course, maybe you should expect this from the same crowd that
called for defunding the police--how did that work out?--or for
abolishing ICE. Abolish ICE? Are these people who want no enforcement
of our immigration laws? Well, apparently so.
ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement--and Customs and Border
Protection officers whom I know personally and know well by reputation
have an incredibly difficult and dangerous job to do, especially in the
face of well-organized and paid-off leftwing agitators.
But again, underlying all of this, are the sanctuary city policies
implemented by Governor Walz and others that have prevented law
enforcement officials from conducting their work in a safe and orderly
fashion.
We have seen what happens when the local police are instructed not to
protect ICE officers and Border Patrol agents doing their job as
happened in Chicago. Ordinary citizens have been encouraged to
interfere with law enforcement operations. The incendiary rhetoric from
the Governor encouraged ordinary citizens to put themselves into harm's
way.
Ultimately, the confrontations between citizens and law enforcement
culminated in last week's incident that ended in tragedy, and I
sincerely hope--I know we all do--that this does not happen again. None
of us want to see lives lost, whether at the hands of law enforcement
or at the hands of criminals.
What happened to Alex Pretti was tragic, but we also need to remind
people what happened to Laken Riley, Kayla Hamilton, and Jocelyn
Nungaray, that what happened to them was also tragic and could have
been prevented. Their deaths could have been prevented if the
immigration laws currently on the books had simply been enforced. Each
of them were killed by people who had no business being in this country
illegally and committed these murders because of the Biden
administration's open border policies that just opened the door to
anybody and everybody who wanted to come to the United States.
That is what sensible enforcement of our immigration laws is designed
to prevent, to allow people into the country who play by the books,
play by the rules, and follow the law whom we welcome into this
country.
The United States still is the most generous country in the world
when it comes to welcoming immigrants. We naturalize roughly 1 million
people a year who raise their hand and pledge allegiance to the United
States and their willingness to support the Constitution and laws of
this great country.
Legal immigration is a great boon and great advantage the United
States has, but illegal immigration has been an unmitigated disaster.
As I think back on the Biden era of open borders, what breaks my
heart is the fact that 500,000 children were welcomed into the United
States, so-called unaccompanied minors, placed with sponsors,
frequently unvetted and without adequate supervision or followup, and
were simply lost. We don't know whether they were recruited into gangs,
used for sex trafficking, or forced into involuntary labor.
Those half-a-million children were victims of this open border,
lawless immigration policy of the Biden administration. President Trump
was elected based on a promise to secure the border, which he has done,
but we also need to make sure that people who have exhausted all of
their legal remedies or have criminal records need to be prioritized
and removed from the country.
Right now, there are roughly 280,000 people who are in that category.
But to have the Governor and the mayor encourage people to interfere in
a lawful enforcement operation can result in tragedy, as we have seen.
We now know that these two tragedies are being exploited by Democrats
in the Senate who refuse to pass the normal appropriations bills that
have now passed the House and have come here in order to pay the bills,
keep the lights on, and keep the government operational. They are using
these incidents to threaten another closure, another shutdown of the
Federal Government like they did a short time ago--the longest shutdown
in American history.
Democrats are using this tragedy as a scapegoat to try to force
changes to government funding that they know cannot be done in the time
we have left before the current continuing resolution expires.
This is nothing but an excuse--a lame excuse--by Senate Democrats to
delay and disrupt the work that the American people elected us to do.
We know that Senate Democrats have used this playbook recently, and the
American people have seen how it ends.
It solves nothing. When the government reopens, you have the same
problems you had beforehand that you just are ignoring or kicking the
can down the road, and it imposes an unnecessary burden on so many
Americans who don't get paid, who get furloughed.
It created not only financial hardship for millions of Americans, but
this was all for what? To simply make a political statement. But I hope
for the sake of the Texans I represent, the 32 million Texans, that
Democrats have learned something from their recent lesson. We are using
their livelihoods--holding their livelihoods as a hostage for political
purposes. This is not the
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time for another government shutdown.
In order for President Trump to continue the work he started to
restore trust between local and Federal officials in Minnesota, the
Department of Homeland Security--and, yes, that includes ICE and Border
Patrol--must be funded.
We can have conversations about what additional oversight is
required, what additional laws we should consider, but not at the
expense of shutting down the government.
Again, what happened over the weekend was a tragedy, but it is not a
reason to punish 330 million Americans by shutting down the government
as a political stunt.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following
Senators be permitted to speak prior to the scheduled recess; myself
for up to 10 minutes, Senator Kelly for up to 5 minutes, Senator Murray
for up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. President, I rise today to remind us of what we
commemorated yesterday: Holocaust Remembrance Day.
During the Holocaust, the Nazi regime and its collaborators
systematically murdered 6 million Jewish men, women, and children. Two-
thirds of Europe's Jewish population was killed in concentration camps,
death camps, ghettos, and mass shootings. Entire communities were wiped
out, centuries of Jewish life and culture erased.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember not just the numbers but
the individuals. Each one represents a world of possibilities that were
destroyed. And yet, we are living in a day and age where Holocaust
deniers are growing in number, and anti-Semitism is on the rise.
In 2024, the FBI recorded its highest number ever of anti-Jewish
crimes, nearly 2,000 crimes accounting for nearly 70 percent all
religiously motivated hate crimes.
This is unthinkable and totally unacceptable. Jews make up only 2
percent of our U.S. population. Yet they bear the brunt of religiously
motivated violence.
The United States-Israel relationship serves vital American
interests. Israel is our most reliable democratic ally in the Middle
East and shares intelligence that has prevented terrorist attacks on
Americans here on our soil and against American interests worldwide.
Our military cooperation advances technology that protects American
servicemembers. Israel's Iron Dome and other defensive innovations were
developed with U.S. partnership and now inform our own defense systems.
A strong Israel helps counter Iranian influence and terrorism that
threatens not just the region but American citizens at home and abroad.
This relationship is built on shared values, democracy, the rule of
law, and human rights in a region where these principles are rare.
Supporting Israel's security is supporting American security.
You can visit Civil War cemeteries, Revolutionary War cemeteries,
World War I and II cemeteries in Europe, Vietnam war cemeteries clear
up until today and see the Star of David on some of those gravestones.
You can see them out at our famous cemetery here in Washington, DC,
where people who served our Nation and gave their last measure of
devotion--and there are Stars of David among all of them.
This is an important American value that we must acknowledge and make
sure never happens again.
Finally, I want to say a few words about responsibility. ``Never
again'' must be more than words. It must be a commitment backed by
action. We must speak up when anti-Semitism rears its head on our
campuses, our streets, and online.
We must distinguish between legitimate political discourse and hate
disguised as activism. And we must protect Jewish students who should
feel safe pursuing their education. We must stand with the Jewish
people--both here and in their ancient homeland--when they face
existential threats.
History will judge us not by our words today but by our actions
tomorrow.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Department of Homeland Security
Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, like every American, over the past few
weeks, I have watched the videos of Americans being shoved and beaten
and pepper-sprayed and shot and killed by Federal immigration agents.
Over the weekend, Americans watched what happened to Alex Pretti in
Minneapolis, a U.S. citizen, an ICU nurse at the VA who took care of
veterans. He was shot and killed by Federal agents for no good reason.
His family lost someone they loved, and it all happened in the blink of
an eye.
Before that, it was Renee Good. Renee was a mother and a wife. She
was shot and killed in her car, and her family will never see her
again.
Two Americans are dead at the hands of their government. That should
demand the highest levels of accountability. It is that simple.
Instead, this administration has lied to the American people. They have
slandered these Americans as terrorists. They have told us not to
believe what we see with our own eyes.
They blamed Alex Pretti because he was in lawful possession of a
firearm. They have tried to block the investigations into what
happened. We also know that these are not isolated incidents.
Just the other day, ICE conducted a series of workplace raids at a
sports bar in Phoenix, places where families go to just have some wings
and watch a game.
The agents wore masks and tactical gear, and I watched a video of ICE
officers doing a driveby, spraying a woman in the face who was just
standing on the sidewalk.
They sprayed her with mace. She was not doing anything wrong. They
violated her constitutional rights. These are the actions of a rogue
Agency that is storming cities, violating the constitutional rights of
Americans, and creating volatile situations where tragedies happen.
This is not making Americans safer. It is clearly doing the opposite
thing, and it has to stop. I am the son of two police officers. From a
very young age, I learned that law enforcement should exist to serve
and protect people.
We can enforce our laws without this chaos. We can enforce our laws
without Federal agents killing people--killing people in the streets of
American cities.
We should demand that, as Senators, as Republicans and Democrats, as
Americans. We should all demand better. And we should use our power to
make that happen. That is why I will not vote for the Department of
Homeland Security budget this week, because that Agency needs an
overhaul from the top down and the bottom up.
That is why the head of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and the guy
who everybody knows is actually making the decisions and calling the
shots and running the show, Stephen Miller--both of them should be out
of jobs because they have lost the trust of the American people.
And that is why I introduced the Stop Excessive Force in Immigration
Act to rein in and stop this abuse of power. This bill sets limits on
the use of force and the use of firearms by immigration agents.
It restricts the use of tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and pepper
balls. It requires body cameras to be used, and it restricts the use of
face masks. It requires accountability and transparency so that when
somebody is hurt or killed, the American people will get some answers.
This is pretty basic stuff. It should be what all Americans expect from
law enforcement, and it should be something that both Republicans and
Democrats alike can support, because I believe that we are better than
this. I believe we can keep communities safe without this chaos. But
that depends on all of us stepping up right now, at this moment, before
another American ends up dead in the streets.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, there are two simple truths here: One,
there is absolutely no reason for a shutdown. Five of the bills before
us, covering 95 percent of the remaining budget, everyone agrees we can
pass. And, two, after
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the horrific killing of Alex Pretti last weekend, after so many vile,
shameless lies from Trump officials, and after the flagrant abuses we
are seeing from ICE and CBP agents, it is painfully and brutally clear
this out-of-control Department must be reined in, and Congress must
take action to make that happen.
What we have seen happening in Minnesota and all across the country
is simply un-American. Trump and Noem sent ICE and Border Patrol into
Minneapolis, not on a targeted mission to retrieve actual criminals but
to go door to door terrorizing communities and asking to see the papers
of anyone who doesn't fit their idea of what an American looks like.
Secretary Noem and her masked agents are haphazardly dragging off
people with no criminal record, people who are here legally, people who
are citizens. And, of course, they are even dragging off children.
No one has to take my word for it. We all saw them march a man--a
citizen--out of his house in the freezing cold in nothing but his
underwear. We all saw them cart away a 5-year-old with his Spiderman
backpack and a bunny hat on. And when people protested peacefully, the
Trump administration cracked down with a level of force as brutal as it
was unjustified.
Again, no one needs to take my word for it. We all heard about the
family who had their car tear-gassed on their way back from a
basketball game, and their baby stopped breathing and needed emergency
care. We all watched the woman who was dragged out of her car on the
way to a doctor's appointment. We all saw that unforgettable photo of
an unarmed man pinned on the ground with one of Trump's Federal
officers pepper-spraying him directly in the face.
We all bore witness to the murder of Renee Good, and then, last
weekend, we all saw the horrific killing of Alex Pretti, a lawful
observer, exercising his rights, murdered in cold blood by Federal
agents.
And how did Trump's team respond? They lied about what we all saw
with our own eyes. They slandered Alex as a domestic terrorist. This
man was a VA nurse. He was beloved by his patients.
They falsely claimed that he wanted to massacre law enforcement when
he was simply exercising his constitutional First Amendment rights.
They said he attacked law enforcement when he was only helping a
woman who law enforcement had assaulted. They said he brandished a gun
when he never touched it. In fact, he was already disarmed when they
shot him in the back.
And yet, right now, the only Department they will let investigate
this tragedy is the Department that was responsible for it.
That cannot be how things work in this country, not if we are going
to keep the democracy that we all cherish. We need real, independent
investigation. We need real accountability, and we need real reforms.
And until that happens, until we begin reining in this out-of-control
Department, we cannot pass the DHS bill as it stands.
The DHS bill needs to be split off from this larger package, and that
needs to happen so we can prevent other parts of the government from
shutting down while we work to reform the DHS bill.
Now, I want to be straight with everyone: Not passing the Homeland
bill will not stop ICE right now. Why? Because Republicans already gave
ICE tens of billions of dollars without a single Democratic vote when
they passed their ``Big Ugly Bill.''
As the junior Senator from Kentucky has pointed out, even without the
DHS bill, ICE will have many times its annual budget because of the
bill the Republicans passed last summer.
But splitting off the Homeland bill does ensure that Congress is
forced to reckon with this issue. It does give us the opportunity to
take much needed action to protect Americans from this out-of-control
Department. And to be clear, this is not just what Democrats are
demanding; it is what the vast majority of Americans are demanding.
People in this country are absolutely horrified. They are outraged
that our government is gunning down U.S. citizens on the street with
impunity. And this just cannot continue.
With each hour that goes by, we are seeing more and more Republicans
agree that the status quo is unacceptable, that there must be change,
and that Congress must do something. We, Congress, must do something,
and there is a very reasonable and straightforward path here now.
There is a legislative package of six funding bills at the desk right
now, right up here. Five of the funding bills in this package we all
overwhelmingly agree on. We all agree on cancer research. We all
agree on childcare funding. We all agree on funding roads and bridges
and housing. We agree on paying our troops and supporting small
businesses and so much else that is in those bills. And, by the way,
the House, in fact, passed those five bills overwhelmingly.
So let's just remove Homeland Security and pass the remaining five
bills without delay. There is no reason to wait, and we can get to work
right away to negotiate a Homeland bill that includes the reforms and
the accountability everyone knows is needed.
I am here. I am ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work with
Chair Collins and our colleagues to craft a bill with serious oversight
and accountability so we can simply rein in the abuses that we are
seeing.
But if the Republicans refuse to work with us on DHS and refuse to
put up the remaining five bills for a vote in the meantime, they will
be choosing to shut down the government across all of the Agencies
impacted, cutting off funding for lifesaving clinical trials; paychecks
for troops, air traffic controllers, and so much more.
We should not let that happen. So let's pass the five bills ahead of
the Friday deadline. Let's focus separately on DHS, where it is clear
that accountability and reform cannot wait.
We do this all the time--move forward on the areas where we have an
agreement and keep negotiating on the other. That is what needs to
happen here and now.
And, look, if the House has to come back to prevent a shutdown, so be
it. That is part of the job they have.
Back in 2018, after the Senate cleared a spending bill and we went
home for the holidays, President Trump did a 180 and had the House
change the bill and send it back to us.
Do you know what we did? We came back, and we voted.
That is it. That is our job. That is what the House can do. So there
is no need for a shutdown. There is no need for a delay. And there is
every need for serious reforms.
Let's get it done.
I yield the floor.
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