[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 52 (Saturday, March 21, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1472-S1484]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Department of Homeland Security

  Mr. President, I want to sit down and talk a little bit more 
specifically about DHS funding though.
  Again, it is important to remember that it took 18 days for Democrats 
to respond to the President's offer--18 days, crickets, nothing from 
the Democrats. That is because they are the party of ``defund the 
police.'' They don't want ICE to be working.
  And then it took over a month for Democrats to be willing to sit down 
with Republicans. It has been over a month since DHS was defunded, and 
it wasn't until later, at the very end of this week, that Democrats 
were willing to sit down with Republicans to have any type of 
conversation.
  Now, as near as I can tell, there are two issues left separating us 
from funding DHS--at least on the surface, that is what it looks like 
to me--that prevent us from funding TSA, from funding FEMA, the Coast 
Guard, or the cyber security defense team.

[[Page S1473]]

  Again, these issues don't happen in silos, right? We have this war in 
Iran. We don't have DHS funded. I am as worried and concerned about 
American citizens here at home, about their safety, as I am our 
soldiers in harm's way overseas.
  So there are two issues, at least that is what the Democrats have 
told us--the two main issues that we haven't figured out here. One is 
demasking ICE officers, and two is the issue of warrants for those who 
entered our country illegally.
  Let's quickly touch the demasking issue. That is a nonstarter. I am 
not going to put the families of my ICE agents in harm's way either. 
That is because, when the names are revealed of these ICE officers, 
their family back home, their children, their spouses, their lives are 
being threatened. So we are not going to do that.
  I am all for them being more recognizable. I think that is 
straightforward. But maybe what is not quite as straightforward is this 
warrant issue. And, again, I have to admit that I needed to try to 
understand this a little bit better myself--the difference between a 
judicial warrant versus an administrative warrant.
  Now, why is this important? Because I continue to hear arguments in 
this Chamber that don't square with the facts, and I think the American 
people deserve to hear the truth about how the immigration enforcement 
system actually works.
  Now, as you know, my Democrat colleagues want to overhaul--really, 
they want to destroy--the warrant system that ICE uses to arrest or 
remove people in this country illegally. Now, on the surface, maybe 
that sounds like a good idea, and it is certainly worth discussing. But 
when you really take a close look at the law--and, remember, I am just 
a country doctor, and I am the last one that needs to be up here 
pontificating about our legal system when it comes to immigration. But 
I think it is important that even I, as a country doctor, understand 
that their case evaporates when you look at the truth.
  Now, here is what the current court system requires. Before ICE makes 
an interior arrest, officers must have probable cause. That is an 
important fact to remember--the term ``probable cause.'' It is a legal 
standard as old as our Republic that the person in front of them is 
removable under the Federal law, that they have probable cause to 
remove this person.
  Now, they have to document that. It is reviewable. It is not a 
rubberstamp. These ICE officers would lose their jobs if they didn't 
follow this protocol. It is no different than when a highway patrolman 
pulls you over for speeding. He or she has to have probable cause. They 
can't just pull you over because you have a hat on or because you have 
sunglasses on. They need to have some type of probable cause. Maybe you 
didn't use your blinkers when you changed lanes. But they have to have 
probable cause.
  Now, some of my colleagues are blurring a very important distinction, 
and it is worth clearing up: the difference between a judicial warrant 
and an administrative warrant. A judicial warrant is issued by a 
Federal judge in a criminal proceeding. An administrative warrant is 
issued by a trained Federal officer in a civil process.
  Immigration enforcement has always been civil, not criminal. There 
are different tools for different systems, and conflating them, as my 
colleagues are across the aisle, once again--again, they are all 
lawyers. They all should know this better than I do. So they are 
purposely deceiving the public--or, at least, a deliberate attempt to 
confuse the public.
  Let me be direct about what an administrative warrant does not 
authorize. It does not allow ICE to enter a private home. It does not 
allow them to walk in the back of a business or workplace.
  Let me emphasize this: Without either the owner's consent or a 
judicial warrant signed by a Federal judge, the door stays closed. 
These limits are very real. They are enforceable, and they are already 
built into the system.
  Now, I think there are two situations that exist, for the most part, 
when ICE officers work inside the country.
  Now, one, the first bucket is for someone who has already been 
through the immigration court. They have had a full hearing before an 
immigration judge. They have made their arguments. They could appeal if 
they chose to. And a final removal order was entered. Then ICE executes 
that order. This is one way the administrative order is used. The due 
process has already happened in an immigration court with an 
immigration judge presiding.
  Demanding a second judicial signoff at that point isn't protecting 
anyone's rights. It is running out the clock, and we all know it.

  So that is the first bucket. Someone has been through this entire 
process. They have had an immigration judge make the decision, but 
instead of leaving the country like they were supposed to, they are 
still inside the country, and our ICE officers are charged with 
removing that person.
  Now, here is the second bucket. For those immigrants who haven't yet 
been through the proceedings--and, again, they are in the country 
illegally to start with, right. For those who haven't been through the 
proceedings, ICE makes an administrative arrest, but they have probable 
cause to start with. They have probable cause. They make an 
administrative arrest, and then they make a notice to appear before an 
immigration judge, typically months or years down the line, 
unfortunately.
  The person gets their day in court. They get a lawyer. They present 
evidence. They could appeal all the way to a Federal circuit court.
  Now, that is due process, right? It is quite an expense for the 
American people to pay for, and it is also a risk to the American 
public by allowing these people to stay in our Nation, many times with 
social services paid for by Americans. But it certainly is due process.
  Guess what. This system has been in place for decades. It has been 
upheld by Federal courts. It was used by administrative courts of both 
parties, including the ones my colleagues across the aisle seem to 
remember so fondly.
  The Supreme Court has affirmed the broad authority Congress delegated 
to immigration enforcement officers. It is not a gray area. This is 
settled law being relitigated for their own political purposes.
  Now, I will grant this: There are real problems out there, and they 
are worth fixing. Immigration courts are backlogged. Detention 
facilities are strained.
  If my colleagues want to fund the courts, clear the backlog, and 
strengthen the legal representation for those in proceedings, now that 
we have our border secure and we have stopped the hemorrhaging, then 
count me in. Let's make this broken system better.
  But it is not the issue at hand. It is not the warrant issue. There 
is a significant difference between saying the system needs more 
resources and saying the system is unconstitutional.
  Let me say that again, there is a big difference between saying the 
system needs more resources versus saying the system is 
unconstitutional. One is a policy debate. The other is not supported by 
facts, the law, or decades of court decisions.
  Now, back home in Kansas, we have a simple standard: If the fence is 
doing its job, you don't tear it down. If a gate is broken, you fix it. 
If the fence posts are leaning, you straighten them out. You don't have 
to come bulldoze the whole fence and call it progress.
  The warrant system is doing its job. It is grounded in probable 
cause. It provides due process. It has been tested in court, and it has 
upheld, and it keeps us safe. So let's stop pretending otherwise.
  It all makes you wonder. It really does make you wonder: What do the 
Democrats really want? Their arguments disappear when it comes to the 
two things they are talking about, when it comes to the warrant issue 
or demasking. What is it that they really want?
  We have to be concerned. Is it that they want these 30 million 
illegal aliens in this country to be given amnesty? Is that really 
their goal here? Is that really their goal? Why don't they just say it? 
Why don't they just come out and say it?
  The Democrats, what they really want, is for 30 million illegal 
aliens to be given amnesty so they can vote.
  It is time we demask the Democrats who are telling false 
misrepresentations of immigration law, and fund DHS.

[[Page S1474]]

  It is time to get the SAVE Act across the floor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, first let me commend my colleague Senator 
Whitehouse for his excellent remarks that show all the dangers of the 
SAVE Act. And like my colleague, I rise today to speak out against the 
deceptively named SAVE America Act, a bill that would create new 
barriers for American citizens to exercise their most important right: 
the right to vote.
  The success of our Nation, both as a source of opportunity for all 
Americans and as an inspiration for freedom-loving people everywhere, 
has depended upon strong civic engagement from all Americans. When more 
Americans vote, our government is more representative of the people. It 
is more responsive to their needs. It has more legitimacy, and it is a 
better steward of their tax dollars and public resources.
  I am here to support laws that make it easier for American citizens 
to vote. The SAVE America Act will not do that. In fact, it will 
suppress the right to vote.
  The SAVE Act is being portrayed as a simple voter ID bill that is 
supported by a vast majority of Americans. If the bill simply required 
every American to show an ID at the polls, then I would not be ringing 
such a loud alarm.
  I represent a State that has a sensible voter ID law and that 
regularly reviews its voter rolls. This approach has been extremely 
effective.
  The SAVE Act does not simply require everyone to prove their identity 
when they vote; instead, it requires them to prove their citizenship at 
the time of registration.
  Now, that sounds very simple and very appealing, and people might 
ask: What is the difference if you have to prove citizenship to 
register versus showing your ID at the polling place? But as I will 
explain, proving citizenship at the time of registration requires a 
total and complete overhaul of our election system and will force 
millions of American citizens to scramble to gather the right 
documentation--if they can ever do so at all--while imposing very 
costly and burdensome unfunded mandates on the States.
  That is a charitable version, which assumes that this bill is a good-
faith effort to improve election integrity and security. But make no 
mistake, this bill is a bad-faith effort to help Donald Trump and his 
potential successors stay in power no matter what the voters say in 
2026 and 2028. It is loaded up with additional measures that allow the 
Federal Government, under his control, to deter people from voting and 
then to challenge people's votes after they are cast.
  It is designed to make people fearful that our elections are not safe 
and secure. That includes every single election that my current 
colleagues won. Now, if our elections are so rife with cheating and 
fraud, as my Republican colleagues would lead you to believe, then do 
they also think their own election victories are tainted or 
illegitimate? I think this is a question that the sponsors of the SAVE 
Act need to answer before we vote.

  Here is how the SAVE Act bolsters the tremendous power and resources 
of the Federal Government and places them at Donald Trump's disposal.
  The bill compels the States to share their most sensitive 
information--their full voter rolls--with the Department of Homeland 
Security, a Department that has flagrantly violated the American 
people's civil liberties under the Trump administration.
  The bill requires the States to review their voter rolls and purge 
them of people who have not shown ``documentary proof of citizenship,'' 
which, based on current law, could encompass millions of law-abiding 
American citizens. That is right. Technically, millions of Americans 
could be wiped off the rolls as soon as this bill is passed and signed.
  The bill establishes a private right of action allowing anyone to 
challenge a State official for registering voters that the litigant 
believes are illegitimate, which means every American's registration is 
now at risk of being questioned or invalidated. This will open the 
floodgates to thousands, perhaps millions, of frivolous cases and 
tangle every election up in knots with never-ending litigation. Indeed, 
given the record of filing outlandish lawsuits after the 2020 election, 
it is not hard to imagine that Donald Trump will use this law to 
contest the registration of everyone he believes is opposed or at least 
in areas the election is expected to be close.
  Mr. LEE. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. REED. No, I will not yield.
  By the way, these mandates and requirements would be effective 
immediately, meaning they must be implemented for the 2026 election, 
which, I should point out, is already underway. There are primaries 
that have been completed in several States, and one could raise issues, 
if this bill passes, on the outcome of those primaries simply by 
invoking what the SAVE Act does, which is to question the validity of 
one's citizenship.
  Of course, there is no one better suited to exploit this confusion 
and chaos than Donald Trump. That is how he has operated as a 
businessman, as a candidate, and as an elected official. When the bogus 
suits on the 2020 election results that he and his surrogates filed 
failed in court after court--62 times--he fomented an insurrection on 
January 6, 2021, in an effort to cling to power illegitimately.
  On that day, 46 of my Republican colleagues had the fortitude to say 
no to Trump and voted to certify the election, which means they 
acknowledge the fact that Trump won in 2020. Today, many of these 
colleagues are prepared to hand Trump powerful new tools to subvert 
free and fair elections. They know what Trump will do with this power, 
but they are willing to hand it to him anyway.
  President Trump said that he wants the Federal Government, under his 
command, to ``take over'' elections and ``nationalize the voting.'' The 
SAVE Act is the vehicle for him to do that.
  Does anyone really believe that Donald Trump--the man who stoked that 
insurrection in which we all fled for safety off this floor, a man who 
has never accepted an electoral defeat even when the other candidate 
got more votes--all of a sudden genuinely cares about election 
integrity? Nobody should be fooled into thinking that.
  Since the Civil War until now, our history has been all about 
securing the right to vote for all Americans--women, African Americans, 
and young people who could be called upon to fight and die for their 
country.
  Now the Party of Lincoln has shed its proud legacy by advancing 
policies that would disqualify tens of millions of Americans from 
voting.
  If the SAVE Act is enacted, it will be the latest assault on voting 
rights that we have seen under the Trump administration through 
partisan gerrymandering, which he insisted upon and which was unique--
perhaps unprecedented historically--of a President asking to redistrict 
before the 10-year census window, the deadly insurrection of January 6, 
as I mentioned, and the subsequent mass pardons of those individuals 
who tried to overturn an election. Also looming in the background is 
the Supreme Court, which has gutted campaign finance laws, nullified 
key parts of the Voting Rights Act, and declined to prevent 
gerrymandering that has interfered with the bedrock principle of ``one 
person, one vote.''
  Let me now discuss the specific reasons that the SAVE Act is so 
dangerous and why I will oppose it.
  Simply put, the SAVE Act could disenfranchise tens of millions 
of Americans, and I cannot support any bill that makes it harder for 
law-abiding American citizens to vote.

  Now, I can see people saying: What is the big deal about making 
someone show ID?
  Well, like many slick sales pitches, this policy is really a bunch of 
``gotchas'' that will stand between millions of voters and the ballot 
box.
  Under current law, a vast majority of Americans vote by attesting to 
their citizenship and by showing a government-issued photo 
identification card--usually a driver's license--showing that person 
listed on the voter rolls is the person who is actually casting the 
vote. The penalties for violating these requirements are severe. This 
has made the system simple and secure. Indeed, instances of voter fraud 
are so rare that calling them minuscule would be a gross overestimate.
  But under the SAVE Act, a person will need to demonstrate their 
citizenship in order to register to vote. That

[[Page S1475]]

can be accomplished only through either a U.S. passport or through a 
government-issued photo identification card plus a birth certificate 
with a name that matches what is on the photo ID.
  According to the Brennan Center, more than 9 percent of voting-age 
Americans--those are 21 million people--don't have documents sufficient 
to prove their citizenship at this time, either a passport or a birth 
certificate that is readily available. Maybe they are at the home of 
another family member or are stored in a safety deposit box. And 4 
million Americans don't have these documents available at all for many 
different reasons. Maybe they were lost, destroyed, or stolen. These 
millions of Americans are most at risk of being prevented from voting.
  Americans can, of course, use a passport as documentary proof of 
citizenship, but more than half of Americans--an estimated 150 million 
to 200 million citizens--do not have a passport, and to get one, you 
need to find your birth certificate and a government-issued photo ID, 
submit the paperwork, pay $165, and then wait a month for it to arrive, 
which would really bother someone who suddenly, in October, decides 
that they must vote, and they are legally entitled to do so but can't 
get a passport.
  Proponents of the bill say that Americans can just use a REAL ID to 
satisfy the requirement. This is a State-issued driver's license which 
complies with Federal security standards established after 9/11 to 
limit counterfeiting; and the SAVE Act does say that a REAL ID is 
acceptable. It says we will accept the REAL ID so long as it 
``indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States,'' but that 
is a false premise.
  Fifteen secretaries of state, including Gregg Amore of Rhode Island, 
wrote:

       REAL IDs do not indicate citizenship status. Even if the 
     federal laws for REAL ID were amended, the nearly 140 million 
     REAL IDs that have been issued over the last decade could not 
     be used as proof of citizenship.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter from the 
secretary of state of Rhode Island be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         State of Rhode Island, Department of State, Office of the 
           Secretary of State,
                                                February 12, 2025.
       Senators Reed and Whitehouse and Congressmen Amo and 
     Magaziner: I write to urge you to vote against the federa1 
     legislation known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility 
     (SAVE) Act should it come to a floor vote. Passage of this 
     Act would threaten one of the most core principles of our 
     democracy--our right to make our voices heard--by making 
     access to the ballot box more difficult for millions of 
     Americans. The SAVE Act is creating mistrust in our elections 
     and solving a problem that simply doesn't exist. The Act's 
     main objective is to require election officials to verify 
     proof of American citizenship at the time of voter 
     registration, positioned as a solution to the false notion 
     that non-citizens are voting in American elections in great 
     numbers.
       This Act deviates from pro-voter and pro-democracy policies 
     that make it easier for people to cast a ballot by placing an 
     undue burden on voters. The law is already clear. The United 
     States Constitution, Rhode Island Constitution, and Rhode 
     Island General Laws all explicitly state that only eligible 
     United States citizens are permitted to vote in federal 
     elections. It is a felony for a non-US citizen to cast a 
     ballot in an American election.
       Should the Act pass, the two most common ways an individual 
     would be able to prove their citizenship would be by 
     supplying a US passport or birth certificate. USA Today 
     reports that only 51% of Americans have a US passport, and 
     the Brennan Center indicates that nine percent of adults 
     (21.3 million people) don't have proof of citizenship readily 
     available. Additionally, millions of Americans, mainly 
     spouses who have changed their name after marriage, currently 
     have a different name than what is reflected on their birth 
     certificate.
       Individuals who do not have the required documentation 
     would need to pay the associated fees to obtain those 
     documents. Currently, the cost is $165 for a Passport Book/
     $65 for a Passport card. In the city of Providence, a birth 
     certificate costs $22. This is a clear violation of the 24th 
     Amendment to the United States Constitution, effectively 
     creating a poll tax in order for eligible citizens to 
     participate in an election. In addition to placing a monetary 
     burden on voters, this Act creates an unfunded mandate on 
     election officials. The Act provides no funding for changes 
     to voter registration systems and voter registration forms, 
     or resources for a robust education campaign to ensure voters 
     understand the dangerous changes this Act makes.
       As a government by and for the people, it is imperative 
     that we work together to resist legislation that 
     disenfranchises our constituents and creates barriers for 
     voters and election officials. As Rhode Island's chief 
     elections official, I am available to provide any assistance 
     you may need in that effort. If you have any questions, 
     please contact Deputy Secretary of State Rob Rock.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Gregg M. Amore.
  Mr. REED. Now, in Texas, for example, to get a REAL ID, an applicant 
``must provide proof of lawful presence in the United States.'' That is 
according to the instructions to form DL-53, which is the document the 
Texas Department of Public Safety uses to inform noncitizens of the 
documentation that they can use to get a REAL ID. Yes, that is correct. 
You don't need to be a citizen to get a REAL ID in Texas. For example, 
individuals seeking asylum are eligible for a Texas REAL ID if they 
provide ``immigration documentation with an alien number.'' So 
noncitizens who are ineligible to vote can still get REAL IDs. By the 
way, a REAL ID issued by Texas does not indicate the holder's country 
of citizenship. So, in Texas, having a REAL ID won't allow you to 
register to vote under the SAVE Act.
  Now, some people may still think that it is easier to get acceptable 
documents and register to vote in person, but that hasn't been the 
experience of my constituent who wrote me:

       My wife is a native Rhode Islander. We just secured a 
     certified copy of her [Rhode Island] birth certificate from 
     the State Archives a few weeks ago--primarily to ensure that 
     she's able to vote in 2026 and beyond. The fact that we're 
     forced to think about obtaining certified birth certificates 
     as a precondition of voting is completely antithetical to our 
     actual right to vote.

  Now, if you don't have money to spare to get the proper documents, if 
you can't easily get to your town hall to fill in the gaps in your 
paperwork, if you are just too busy living your life, what are you to 
do? Faced with these barriers, you may just give up and not vote at 
all.
  Let me tick through the Americans who will be the most directly 
affected if this legislation passes.
  First, there are 69 million women who have changed their names after 
getting married. Their birth certificates do not reflect that change. 
While many of them have access to their original birth certificates, 
that alone would not be enough to register under the SAVE Act. They 
will also need to produce official documentation that their name has 
changed and matches what is on their current government-issued photo 
ID.
  Now, if you have been divorced and remarried, good luck getting all 
that together. This isn't just a barrier for recently married women who 
haven't gotten around to updating their papers. Women of all ages will 
be affected.
  Another one of my constituents reported an enormous headache with 
just proving her identity in order to get a REAL ID. And, mind you, a 
REAL ID is just a modern driver's license that doesn't even indicate 
citizenship status.

       As a divorced woman it took me 3 visits to get my Real ID. 
     The first time I did not realize I needed my marriage 
     certificate. The second time, I brought the divorce decree 
     and it was not accepted. The third time, I had to go to the 
     town hall and have my marriage certificate made. This bill is 
     so damaging to the women of this country.

  Can you imagine the hardship that many other women will have to go 
through not only to get a REAL ID but also to document their 
citizenship under the system established by the SAVE Act?
  Another one of my constituents has similar fears about her elderly 
mother being turned away from the polls:

       If the SAVE Act gets passed, my husband and I still have 
     the ability to vote. But my 85-year-old mother will not. She 
     does not have a passport and changed her name when she 
     married my father in 1964. Please do not let Trump do this to 
     our female voters.

  These barriers aren't being faced just by women in blue States. They 
are being felt in red States too. Take Brandi Halladay from Utah--
Senator Lee's home State. She wrote a letter to the editor of the Salt 
Lake Tribune on March 15:

       When my 80-year-old mother moved to Utah, she needed to get 
     a new ID and register to vote. She had to show a birth 
     certificate, her marriage license to my father, her divorce 
     papers from my father (in which she kept his last name to 
     match that of her children) and then her marriage license to 
     her second husband.

[[Page S1476]]

       This was the only way to trace the name on her birth 
     certificate to her current last name.
       This took two trips to the DMV, which was not an easy task 
     for someone of her age who uses a walker, and she was 
     fortunate to have my help in tracking down the relevant 
     documents.
       Now imagine trying to do this for a person who may have 
     moved frequently over the course of their lives and has lost 
     documents along the way. They will need to contact various 
     offices, possibly across many states and request the 
     appropriate documentation which may also require fees that 
     they may not be able to afford. And imagine someone working 
     two jobs while trying to raise a family needing to do this.

  Now, my colleague from Utah has sought to minimize these burdens. He 
has pointed to text in the bill, specifically page 14, line 15, 
purporting to say that ``if you don't have documentation, you don't 
have a problem'' and that you can register ``without a single 
additional document other than what you provide to the government in 
the form of a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury.''
  So if this is true, then what is the purpose of this bill? What the 
Senator from Utah described is basically the current system, at least 
in Rhode Island.
  Mr. LEE. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
  Mr. REED. I will not.
  But this is not the way the bill works. If you review the specific 
page and line that Senator Lee has referenced, page 14, line 15, and 
just look a few lines further in that same direction--specifically page 
15, line 6--the bill says that anyone submitting a sworn affidavit must 
also ``submit such other evidence to the appropriate State or local 
official demonstrating that the applicant is a citizen of the United 
States and such official will make a determination as to whether the 
applicant has sufficiently established United States citizenship.''
  This section further requires the State or local official to then 
file their own affidavit that ``the applicant has sufficiently 
established United States' citizenship.'' And if that official makes an 
improper determination, then he or she could be put in jail for 5 
years. All I am doing is reading the words on the page that we are 
being asked to enact into law. I am trying to take a textualist 
approach and derive the original meaning.
  So this purported exception to alleviate the gross injustice that 
this bill would inflict upon the 69 million women who have changed 
their names and the 21 million Americans without ready access to the 
papers, well, this exception wouldn't deliver them any relief at all. 
They still must show their papers--which exact ones, no one can say. It 
will be subject to the decision of the clerk who is attesting to it. 
Asking the clerk to risk 5 years in jail simply for permission to 
register to vote doesn't sound like much relief at all. It is another 
``gotcha.''
  Second, young Americans in college will face issues at the polls. The 
26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. This was a 
critical reform in the Vietnam war era that embodied a simple 
principle: If you are old enough to fight, you are old enough to vote. 
It is the height of hypocrisy to place barriers to vote in front of any 
American citizen who puts his life on the line to keep us safe.
  Well, in Rhode Island, which has a voter ID law, a college ID is 
sufficient to show at the polls when voting. But through the SAVE Act, 
that Rhode Island law would be invalidated; a college ID is not on the 
list of ``valid photo identification'' in the SAVE Act. And I will bet 
there are very few college-age students bringing their birth 
certificates with them to school. At their parents' rightful 
insistence, these documents are probably kept locked away at home. And 
very few college students go through the trouble of getting a local 
driver's license because they only are temporarily living where they 
attend school. So young Americans may disproportionately get turned 
away, maybe be denied the right to participate in civic life, even 
though they have so much riding on it.
  Concerns that many Americans will be stripped of their voting rights 
are not theoretical or hypothetical. We have seen this play out very 
recently. In 2013, Kansas implemented a State version of the SAVE Act. 
According to the Associated Press, it was ``one of the biggest 
political fiascos in the state in recent memory.'' In other words, it 
was a total failure, and we are on the verge of replicating that 
failure nationwide. It was such a failure because over 30,000 Kansans--
that is 12 percent of everyone seeking to register--saw their 
registration suspended or invalidated. Fortunately, in 2018, the court 
stepped in and invalidated the Kansas law before it could do more 
damage.
  As Trump and the Republicans are purportedly trying to do now, Kansas 
was trying to prevent noncitizens from voting. It turns out that this 
is a completely illusory problem. In Kansas, only three noncitizens 
registered to vote each year from 1999 through 2012. That is a total of 
39--or 0.002 percent--of all registered voters. The court found that 
these were nominal cases, explained by administrative error and 
confusion. And of the 39, only 11 actually voted.
  When invalidating the Kansas law, the court found the following 
fundamental and fatal flaws:

       The law had acted as a deterrent to registration and voting 
     for substantially more eligible Kansans than it has prevented 
     ineligible voters from registering to vote. At least one 
     applicant testified that he opted not to apply to register to 
     vote again, despite possessing documentary proof of 
     citizenship, because of the burdensome experience of being 
     held in suspense and prevented from voting in 2014 due to the 
     law.
       Based on this record, the magnitude of the burden on 
     unregistered eligible Kansas voters cannot be justified. The 
     evidence at trial demonstrated that the documentary proof of 
     citizenship law disproportionately impacts duly qualified 
     registration applicants, while only nominally preventing 
     noncitizen voter registration. It also may have the 
     inadvertent effect of eroding, instead of maintaining, 
     confidence in the electoral system.

  Imagine disqualifying 30,000 legitimate Kansas voters because, over a 
13-year period, a total of 39 noncitizens were mistakenly added to the 
voting rolls. This unfortunate episode in Kansas is a cautionary tale 
for us here in Congress. We should learn from their mistake. We should 
be humbled by their mistake. And, more importantly, we should not 
repeat their mistake. In Kansas, it made no sense to punish 30,000 law-
abiding American citizens who wanted to vote, just to prevent 11 
noncitizens from voting.
  The way to solve this election problem of noncitizen voting is simply 
to enforce existing Federal and State law, that only U.S. citizens are 
allowed to vote, with strong penalties for noncompliance. Under Federal 
law, it is a felony for noncitizens to vote. Section 1015 of title 
XVIII of the U.S. Code states that:

       Whoever knowingly makes any false statement or claim that 
     he is a citizen of the United States in order to register to 
     vote or to vote in any Federal, State, or local election 
     (including an initiative, recall, or referendum) shall be 
fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

  The Rhode Island Constitution states, ``Every citizen of the United 
States of the age of eighteen (18) years or over who has had residence 
and home in this state for thirty (30) days next preceding the time of 
voting, who has resided thirty (30) days in the town or city from which 
such citizen desires to vote'' is eligible to vote.
  Under current law, to register in Rhode Island, all voters must 
attest to their U.S. citizenship. They must ``swear or affirm that I am 
a U.S. citizen.'' Then check a ``yes'' or ``no'' box for whether they 
are a citizen of the United States. They are warned on the registration 
form--a simple, one-page document--that ``if you sign this form and 
know it to be false, you can be convicted and fined up to $5,000 or 
jailed for up to 10 years.'' And then to vote in Rhode Island, all 
voters must show a valid photo ID.
  These laws are enforced. They are an effective deterrent. They have 
made our elections safe and secure, and that is why noncitizen voting 
is so rare. According to Christine Stenning, the President of the 
League of Women Voters in Rhode Island, ``There is no evidence that 
noncitizen voting has ever been significant enough to impact an 
election's outcome.''
  Research from the Heritage Foundation, perhaps a preeminent Trump-
aligned conservative think tank, found only 77 instances of noncitizen 
voting from 1999 until 2023, each of which was investigated by the 
authority. That is 77 out of hundreds of millions, maybe even more than 
a billion, votes cast during this time period. During the

[[Page S1477]]

2016 election, an exhaustive study by the Brennan Center found that at 
least 30 cases of noncitizen voting were referred for investigation.
  And in Trump's first term, 2017 through 2021, only 19 people were 
indicted for voting without U.S. citizenship. In 2024, the numbers 
looked very similar. The top election official in Utah reviewed all 2.1 
million registered voters and found just one ``confirmed noncitizen'' 
registered to vote, and that person never voted. In Idaho, officials 
found 36 ``very likely'' registered noncitizens, and not all of them 
voted. The secretary of state of Idaho said that ``out of the million-
plus registered voters we started with, we're down to 10 thousandths of 
a percent'' of the overall count--``10 thousandths of a percent.''
  In Louisiana, investigators found 390 noncitizen registrants out of 
2.9 million. Only 79 had voted in an election over the last several 
decades; in Montana, only 23 possible noncitizen registrants out of 
approximately 785,000; in Georgia, only 20 out of 8.2 million; in 
Maricopa County, AZ, only 2 out of 2.5 million.
  Now, none of these people should have registered or voted, and they 
should be punished for breaking the law, but we are talking about a 
handful of votes. We do not need a complete overhaul of our election 
system and to potentially strip millions of American citizens' voting 
rights when the evidence demonstrates that this purported issue is 
already addressed by current law.
  According to an op-ed by Stephen Richer of the Cato Institute, a 
famously conservative and Republican-leaning think tank, the results of 
these State investigations, in his words, ``affirm what is simply 
common sense. People largely aren't willing to risk their status in the 
United States--the land of economic opportunity--for the ability to 
cast one more vote out of hundreds of thousands or millions in a state 
and hundreds of millions in the country.''
  The Wall Street Journal editorial page, a loudspeaker for 
conservative views, similarly said about the SAVE Act:

       Although Mr. Trump insists that voter fraud is endemic, his 
     big claims aren't backed by hard evidence. The President 
     recently said illegal aliens are voting in such huge numbers 
     that he won Minnesota three times.
       Audits in a variety of places--Georgia, Michigan, Texas, 
     Utah, Idaho--have found noncitizen voting and registration to 
     be rare. Other states might be worse, but consider 
     incentives: Illegal immigrants who want to stay are trying to 
     be avoid being noticed by the authorities. Green card holders 
     have much to lose if they commit a crime. Prosecuting 
     violations is good for deterrence, and vigilance is 
     important.

  Now, you might be thinking that you are a law-abiding citizen or have 
lived in the same neighborhood for decades and, therefore, you have 
nothing to worry about if the SAVE Act were enacted--not so. Even if 
you have been registered for decades and voted without issue, you still 
should be worried about what the SAVE Act means for you. States would 
be required to report their full voter rolls to the Department of 
Homeland Security and certify that there are no noncitizens on their 
list. And the Federal Government can require then States to purge their 
voter rolls of any suspected noncitizens.
  Think about it this way: The Department that maintains the ``no fly'' 
list, which often misidentifies people, will be now maintaining a no 
vote list. What could go wrong?

  There is not a single State that commonly requires documentary proof 
of citizenship on par with the SAVE Act. So how will the States be able 
to meet this new mandate and avoid voter purges? The short answer is: 
They can't--at least not easily. So there is a real risk that States 
will take a conservative approach to compliance and require all their 
voters to reregister with documentary proof of citizenship.
  In addition, the SAVE Act does not contain any express language 
protecting voters who have already registered under the current system, 
so there is also a risk that Trump's DOJ could use authority under the 
SAVE Act to find a State's entire voter rollout of compliance with the 
``documentary proof'' of citizenship requirement.
  If that happens, someone who has voted for decades, and lived in the 
same home, could be forced to reregister.
  Consider those 30,000 U.S. citizens in Kansas who were in the exact 
same boat and were denied the ability to register to vote. If you can't 
furnish the required documentation or you are busy and miss the window 
to reregister, well, you simply won't be able to vote in the 2026 
election and maybe beyond that.
  The SAVE Act will centralize all States' voter rolls in a Federal 
Government database. According to the Campaign Legal Center, ``this is 
a plain attempt to bully states into sharing voters' sensitive personal 
information with the Federal Government. Making matters worse, the SAVE 
America Act places no restrictions on what the Federal government can 
do with the sensitive data once DHS receives it.''
  That is sensitive personal information for around 75 percent of the 
Nation's adults. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights 
has said that ``DHS's desire to turn the SAVE program into a de facto 
national citizen registry raises significant civil liberties 
concerns.''
  My Republican colleagues should tell the American people whether this 
invasion of privacy is worth it. I do not personally believe that it 
is.
  Such a database is an irresistible one-stop shop for hackers and 
foreign governments to steal America's most sensitive personal 
information.
  Again, this is not a theoretical concern. A whistleblower report from 
last week alleged that a former DOGE representative with ``God-level 
access'' to Social Security Administration servers copied data onto a 
thumb drive and planned to share it with a private employer.
  The data allegedly included the ``Numident'' and the ``Master Death 
File'' containing more than 500 million living and dead Americans, 
including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, 
citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents' names.
  We have seen the current administration be incredibly sloppy and 
careless with classified information, from then-former President Trump 
taking documents with security classification markings to Mar-a-Lago 
and storing them in his bathroom to the current Secretary of Defense 
sharing military strike plans via Signal with a journalist.
  In 2015, the Office of Personnel Management announced that it had 
been a target of a data breach targeting over 22 million records 
involving security clearances in which Social Security numbers, names, 
dates and places of birth, and addresses were exfiltrated by hackers 
working on behalf of the Chinese Government.
  Now, ask yourself if you would trust Secretary Noem and Attorney 
General Bondi to keep the personal information of the 200 million 
registered voters safe. Would you trust them with your name, address, 
date of birth, driver's license number, and biometric information like 
height, weight, hair color, and eye color? The SAVE Act asks you to 
place that trust in them. I personally would not.
  So the SAVE Act centralizes election administration with the Federal 
Government. It reveals another fatal flaw in the bill which, again, 
replicates mistakes and the problems with the Kansas law. It is this 
centralization that makes the SAVE Act, in my view, unconstitutional.
  Article I, section 4 of the Constitution reads:

       The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for 
     Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each 
     State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any 
     time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the 
     Places of choosing Senators.

  So the Constitution says that the States play a role in election 
administration. It says the Congress place a role in election 
administration. It does not say anything about the Executive branch 
playing a role in election administration. And yet that is exactly what 
the SAVE Act would do. It gives DOJ and DHS, which are part of the 
Executive branch, immense power to determine the sufficiency of State 
voter registration laws and then to mess around with State procedures 
to actually conduct elections.
  The Wall Street Journal editorial page said March 18 that:

       The decentralized nature of American elections is a source 
     of resilience, and Republicans rightly opposed President 
     Biden's attempt to federalize voting rules on the lax

[[Page S1478]]

     California model. Have they given up federalist principles?

  Well, it appears they have.
  Now, one could argue that if the Congress intervenes, then the 
constitutional requirement is met, but we have seen daily this 
administration ignore Congress, ignore the law, and ignore the 
Constitution. This will be a pass for President Trump to exploit the 
elections that are before us.
  And you can bet that there will be lawsuits initiated as soon as the 
ink is dry with President Trump's signature. And before the Supreme 
Court ultimately weighs in, there will be litigation in district courts 
and the appellate courts across the country.
  There will be conflicting rulings, and the constitutionality of the 
SAVE Act will almost certainly not be resolved before the 2026 
election--possibly not even until the 2028 election. In the meantime, 
there will be mass confusion about the rules that govern those 
elections.
  And the 2026 elections, as I said, are already underway. At least six 
States have already had their primary elections. If the rules suddenly 
change or there are mass purges of the voter rolls between the primary 
elections and the general elections, then that will undermine the 
integrity of the election far more than the illusory problem of 
noncitizen voting.
  In addition to these constitutional infirmities, there are tremendous 
unfunded mandates and burdens that will be placed on the States if this 
law is enacted.
  According to Rhode Island secretary of state Gregg Amore, the State 
government would need to change its voter systems and forms. It may 
need to purchase new voting machines and equipment, and it would need 
to pursue a significant public outreach campaign to educate voters 
about changes in the law. But the SAVE Act provides zero dollars to 
cover these costs. States and localities will need to cover this 
unfunded mandate, and that means higher taxes or more debt.
  With regard to Rhode Island, first, Rhode Island would be required 
under the SAVE Act to essentially eliminate registration by mail and 
online. Under current law, any Rhode Islander can print and then fill 
out a voter registration form, get their signature notarized, and mail 
it to their town hall or they can complete the process entirely 
online--they can do it entirely online. The SAVE Act requires anyone 
who registers by mail to also present documentary proof of citizenship 
in person at the election office by the registration deadline. While 
the election is silent about online registration, I am assuming the 
same rule applies.
  So Rhode Islanders will need to spend precious time and inconvenience 
to go in person to show their proof of citizenship, which means that 
this process of mail-in registration will be practically eliminated.
  As I said at the beginning of these remarks, what I would like to see 
is to make voting easier for American citizens, not to give my 
constituents yet another headache, place additional demands on their 
time, and impose, frankly, ridiculous government mandates--especially 
when it comes to exercising their fundamental rights to vote.
  Second, Rhode Island would need to narrow its list of acceptable 
photo ID to present at the polls when voting. Rhode Island law permits 
voters at the polls to verify their registration and identity through 
ID cards that are issued by educational institutions and government-
issued medical cards. The SAVE Act would not permit these cards.
  Rhode Island currently permits voting without photo identification if 
accompanied by a birth certificate, Social Security card, or 
government-issued medical card. The SAVE Act does not permit nonphoto 
IDs to vote under any circumstances.
  This example alone should shred any notion that the SAVE Act is a 
simple voter ID law. If it were, then the very sensible procedures 
currently used in Rhode Island would be acceptable. They have been in 
operation since 2012 without any issues. And yet, my Republican 
colleagues would meddle in them for no discernible and compelling 
reason.
  Third, Rhode Island would need to submit its own voter rolls to DHS 
and purge anyone suspected of being a noncitizen within 30 days of 
enactment and then on an ongoing basis. The State must submit its voter 
rolls to the DHS ``SAVE'' system to identify noncitizens and then purge 
them from its rolls. Anyone identified as a noncitizen who believes 
that is a mistake must meet the new documentary proof of citizenship 
requirement and reregister.
  Rhode Island and many other States--red States and blue States 
alike--are actively litigating with DOJ to rebuff the Federal 
Government's attempts to obtain its voter rolls. DOJ hasn't even said 
why it wants this information. Nobody should believe it is for any 
legitimate purpose.
  DOJ has been losing in court, and this legislation would essentially 
end this litigation against the States' interests. DOJ should be 
defending what it is doing in court, not coming to Congress for a 
bailout, nor should we give them a bailout.
  This meddling by the Federal Government is completely unnecessary. 
Rhode Island already undergoes regular voter maintenance efforts. A 
statewide voter mailing in 2020 ultimately resulted in 60,619 inactive 
voter registrations being removed from the State's voter list. Since 
2023, election officials in Rhode Island have removed 107,738 voters 
from the voter lists through maintenance and processes.
  In November 2025, the Rhode Island secretary of state launched the 
latest effort to ensure the State's rolls are accurate. The government 
mailed every single registered voter in the State asking them to review 
the information in their voter record and update any inaccurate or 
outdated information.
  Rhode Island is already a participant in information-sharing 
agreements to identify potential instances of election fraud through 
the Electronic Registration Information Center or ERIC, which 25 States 
use for voter list maintenance and identification of potential 
instances of election fraud. Our States are constantly and actively 
determining that their rolls do not contain people ineligible to vote.
  Fourth, Rhode Islanders will need to pay to comply with the new 
Federal mandates. The State, as I indicated, must conduct a marketing 
campaign to ensure that Rhode Islanders are aware of the requirement to 
provide documentary proof of citizenship to register. The State must 
notify every person who registers by mail of the requirement to provide 
documentary proof of citizenship prior to voting. The State must change 
its registration forms and its signage at the polls. As noted above, 
the State must review its entire voter rolls for citizen status.
  So the SAVE Act says that Rhode Island--a State where noncitizen 
voting is punishable by 10 years in prison and where everyone must show 
ID at the polls--would need to radically overhaul its voting system and 
pass those costs on to the taxpayers in order to meet new Federal 
mandates.
  The proposal on the table is to throw out State rules about voter ID 
and require what is effectively a national ID, while ignoring current 
law that already makes it a serious crime for noncitizens to vote. That 
is a raw deal to fix a nonexistent problem.
  This is so dangerous because it will break a system that successfully 
prevents fraud and replace it with one that makes it harder for 
American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote.
  So why are they doing this? The real reason, in my view, is to 
support Trump's Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, even though 
he lost by 7 million votes and even though 46 of my Republican 
colleagues voted to certify the election.
  They are doing this in service of President Trump's ego and his 
insatiable desire for power--power that he is using to take revenge on 
his political enemies and reward his political allies; power that he is 
using to personally enrich himself and his cronies through corrupt 
business deals, while he leaves the American people holding the bag 
through his tariffs; power that he is using to no longer provide 
Medicaid to children and seniors, while funding yet another ``forever 
war'' in the Middle East; and power that he is using to remain above 
the law, immune from prosecution, based on a sweeping Supreme Court 
ruling that he is protected so long as he is President.
  Let's examine the record of how Trump is executing this power grab. 
It is systemic. It began on day one, and this is a component of that 
effort.

[[Page S1479]]

  He has gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, 
or CISA, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security that 
defends our Nation's infrastructure from cyber attacks. This includes 
all kinds of election components, including voter registration 
databases, voting machines, and related IT systems.
  Congress created CISA during Trump's first term to avoid a repeat of 
the 2016 election, in which the Russian Government sowed misinformation 
to aid the Trump campaign. CISA provides election offices nationwide 
with intelligence briefings and cyber security systems. In 2023 and 
2024, it conducted 700 cyber security assessments for local election 
jurisdictions across the country.
  But upon returning to office, Trump immediately froze all CISA 
election security work. DOGE cut 130 employees from CISA, including its 
election security advisers. Trump dismissed the head of the National 
Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command, which provide crucial 
intelligence to CISA regarding foreign cyber threats to election 
infrastructure. Trump terminated or cut funding for the public-private 
and State-Federal partnerships that CISA uses as conduits for the 
Federal Government to help the States.
  At CISA, Trump installed one of his cronies to be his eyes and ears: 
the 2020 election denier Marci McCarthy, who was the chair of the 
DeKalb County, GA, Republican Party and has amplified false claims of 
voter fraud in Georgia and spread disinformation about voting machines. 
She obviously has zero cyber security expertise.
  (Mr. LEE assumed the Chair.)
  Democrats want free and fair elections that have integrity. The 
biggest threat to achieving that is not the illusory problem of 
noncitizen voting but, rather, outside threats from foreign actors, 
like the Russian Government, who have actually tried to manipulate 
election outcomes and who have sophisticated capabilities in cyber 
space.
  According to the 2025 ``Annual Threat Assessment'' prepared by the 
Director of National Intelligence--that is, Tulsi Gabbard, by the way, 
who is not exactly known as a Russia hawk--``Moscow probably believes 
information operations efforts to influence U.S. elections are 
advantageous, regardless of whether they affect election outcomes, 
because reinforcing doubt in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system 
achieves one of its core objectives.''
  Defunding and gutting CISA is entirely consistent with the core 
Russian objective to sow doubt in our democratic process. The ``Annual 
Threat Assessment'' goes on to forecast that ``Moscow's malign 
influence activities will continue for the foreseeable future and will 
almost certainly increase in sophistication and volume.''
  If Trump were actually committed to election integrity, he would not 
have gutted the Federal Agency responsible for securing our election 
infrastructure against this threat. But that is exactly what he has 
done.
  As if to remove any doubt that Trump's primary objective is 
perpetrating his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen and create 
the circumstances to perhaps do the same thing in 2026 and 2028, he 
issued an Executive order directing the Department of Justice to 
investigate the former leader of CISA, Chris Krebs, after he had the 
temerity to say that ``the 2020 election was the most secure in 
American history. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted 
or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.'' By the 
way, at the same time, Trump canceled Mr. Krebs' security clearance.
  Over 40 cyber security experts have condemned the ``political 
persecution'' of Krebs. They wrote in an open letter that ``by placing 
Krebs in the crosshairs, the President is signaling that cybersecurity 
professionals whose findings do not align with his narrative risk 
having their businesses and livelihoods subjected to spurious and 
retaliatory targeting.''
  Here we have a prime example of Donald Trump using the machinery of 
the Federal Government to intimidate into silence those who refute his 
Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen and plagued by widespread 
fraud, and he is gearing up to do the same thing in 2026 and 2028. 
Trump has stacked DOJ, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland 
Security, and other parts of his administration with cronies, 
sycophants, and loyalists who perpetrated the Big Lie in 2020 and 
organized the Stop the Steal movement that culminated in the deadly 
insurrection on January 6.
  Notable examples include the following individuals: Harmeet Dhillon, 
the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, who 
represented President Trump and his campaign in the past and continues 
to amplify Trump's debunked claims of widespread voter fraud in the 
2020 election; Maureen Riordan, the recently departed Acting Chief of 
the Voting Section at DOJ, who is another election skeptic and defender 
of voter suppression tactics, who has reiterated unfounded claims of 
widespread voting by noncitizens; Eric Neff, the current Chief of the 
Voting Section at DOJ, who has been leading this dangerous effort to 
compel the States--including Rhode Island--to turn over their voter 
rolls.

  Mr. Neff has been reprimanded for his past work in the Los Angeles 
County District Attorney's Office, where he pursued a case against an 
election software company based on evidence provided by a conspiracy-
driven election denier group called True the Vote. The charges were 
ultimately dropped, Neff was put on leave, and the L.A. taxpayers were 
stuck paying a $5 million settlement.
  Ed Martin, the Pardon Attorney at DOJ, represented January 6 rioters 
in court and has defended Trump's claims of voter fraud in the 2020 
election.
  Kurt Olsen, the White House Director of Election Security: Mr. Olsen 
was a Trump campaign lawyer who worked on the efforts to overturn the 
2020 election results, including being part of the Texas attorney 
general's attempt to get the Supreme Court to stop four swing States 
from certifying Biden's 2020 victory over Trump.
  Heather Honey, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Election Integrity 
at DHS: Ms. Honey worked closely with Cleta Mitchell, who participated 
in Trump's infamous call with the Georgia secretary of state, 
pressuring him to ``find'' sufficient votes for Trump to win the State, 
which I think most casual observers would cite as one of the most 
egregious attempts to influence votes illegally that we have seen--
certainly, from a President.
  Honey was on the ground in Maricopa County, AZ, for a Republican-
backed audit seeking proof of fraud in the 2020 election. Honey pushed 
a conspiracy that there were more votes counted than were cast in 
Pennsylvania.
  And Gregg Phillips, the Director of the Office of Response and 
Recovery at FEMA: Mr. Phillips was a board member of True the Vote, the 
organization that traffics in conspiracy theories that Mr. Neff used to 
pursue a faulty case against an election software company. Phillips 
made the outrageous claim that he reviewed voter rolls with over 3 
million noncitizens on the rolls in 2016--absolutely preposterous.
  The machinery of the Federal Government has already been deployed, 
through these individuals and others, to relitigate the 2020 election 
and intimidate election officials into doing Trump's bidding in 2026 
and 2028.
  On January 28, the FBI raided the election office in Fulton County, 
GA, and actually seized ballots. Fulton County contains the State's 
biggest metropolitan area--Atlanta--where half a million votes were 
cast in 2020. According to court documents, the reasons for this raid 
were the same claims and conspiracy theories that underpinned Trump's 
Big Lie about the 2020 election. It was based on a referral from Kurt 
Olsen, whom I discussed above. He was a key person who tried to steal 
the 2020 election and is currently working in the White House, which 
historically and for good reason, has not directed law enforcement, 
which is supposed to be nonpartisan and based on facts and evidence and 
the law, not the whim of the President.
  The FBI's affidavit claimed a discrepancy in votes cast and votes 
counted of 3 percent, but, in reality, those numbers were off by less 
than 0.2 percent. That the FBI would mislead the court to justify this 
raid about 2020 should give everyone tremendous concern about what 
kinds of falsehoods will underpin efforts to subvert results in 2026 
and 2028.
  A similar ``investigation'' about the 2020 election is underway by 
the FBI in

[[Page S1480]]

Maricopa County, AZ, which is the State's largest metropolitan area.
  So why is the FBI investigating an election that occurred 6 years 
ago, and why is the FBI focusing on the biggest cities in the two 
States that swung the election against Trump? Again, it is to 
perpetrate the Big Lie and to lay the groundwork for interference in 
the 2026 and 2028 elections.
  It is not just the Federal Government that has been stacked with 
election deniers who are dedicated to making sure Trump remains in 
power. Trump has also installed allies at every level of State and 
local election offices. These allies stand ready to do his bidding and 
disenfranchise large numbers of voters who oppose him. These efforts by 
Trump's enablers have already disenfranchised American citizens. In 
North Carolina, Republicans sought to cancel 65,000 votes in a judicial 
election last year. An estimated 2,000 to 8,000 of the votes were 
military and overseas voters.
  Speaking of the military, Trump may be preparing to use the National 
Guard in order to deter Americans from exercising their constitutional 
right to vote. He signed an Executive order requiring each State to be 
ready to deploy a ``National Guard Response Force'' with a total of 
23,750 members nationwide that can be ordered into States without the 
consent of local Governors. And under existing law, the President has 
command of a ``Quick Reaction Force'' of 2,000 National Guard members. 
He can deploy them nationwide to any State within 8 hours of notice.
  Trump may try to abuse his authority as Commander in Chief to place 
these forces in polling places--perhaps in Fulton County or Maricopa 
County--under the guise of ``protecting'' them. They could be used to 
quell protests if Trump tries to steal another election.
  Trump famously did not deploy the Guard to defend the Capitol on 
January 6. But now the pendulum may well swing in the other direction. 
He could preemptively deploy the Guard to deter people from voting.
  Steve Bannon last month on a podcast stated:

       [W]e're going to have ICE surround the polls come November. 
     President Trump has to nationalize the election. You've got 
     to put--not just, I think, ICE--you've got to call up the 
     82nd and 101st Airborne on the Insurrection Act. You've got 
     to get around every poll and make sure only people with IDs, 
     people . . . actually registered to vote and people that are 
     United States citizens vote in this election.

  So here you have Steve Bannon--someone who is very close to Trump and 
who essentially served as his consigliere in the first administration--
openly saying that the military and ICE should be enforcing the SAVE 
Act.
  Steve Bannon said he wants the 82nd Airborne to do voter 
intimidation. I served in the 82nd Airborne. I was a platoon leader and 
a company commander. It is so offensive to our values and so 
denigrating for the men and women in uniform for Steve Bannon to 
suggest that they should be turned against their own neighbors, to be 
conscripted to help President Trump cling to power. This is not what 
happens in functioning democracies; this is what happens under 
authoritarian regimes and in dictatorships.
  Lest anyone believe Mr. Bannon's attempt to cultivate himself as a 
deeply read intellectual, I would note that it is a criminal offense 
for military officers to do what he has proposed. Section 592 of title 
18 of the U.S. Code says that if a commander sends troops under his 
command into a polling place, he can go to jail for up to 5 years:

       Whoever, being an officer of the Army or Navy, or other 
     person in the civil military, or naval service of the United 
     States, orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or 
     control any troops or armed men at any place where a general 
     or special election is held, unless such force shall be 
     necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall 
     be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five 
     years or both; and be disqualified from holding any office of 
     honor, profit, or trust under the United States.

  That is the military forces.
  This notion of ICE being at the polls is just as concerning. Agents 
have detained law-abiding American citizens who have gotten caught up 
in Trump's mass deportation campaign. So there are some citizens who 
would be justified in thinking that it is still risky to go to the 
polls, lest you inadvertently get picked up.
  What is the criteria for ICE to stop, detain, and harass people? It 
seems to be how they look, not what is in their hearts, not that they 
are dedicated Americans, not that they may be police officers in 
civilian uniforms, not that they may be former veterans.
  If ICE will be asking people to ``show their papers'' before they 
even enter the polling place, then that adds more time, more process, 
and more complexity to something that should be quick, easy, and 
simple.
  Finally, even if you do not cast a vote, the bill contains a 
dangerous private right of action allowing anyone to challenge another 
voter's registration status. That provision can be used with great 
effect to challenge large numbers of votes in States and localities 
that elect non-Trumpers.
  Even if those claims are meritless and ultimately dismissed, they 
will tangle the courts with so much litigation that we will not know 
the actual election results for months on end. That sows additional 
mistrust in the process and, depending on the judges who hear these 
cases, could result in mass disenfranchisement of U.S. citizens who 
vote.
  Given the data I have recited about the paltry numbers of noncitizen 
voters, reviews of the voter rolls after the fact and strong 
enforcement of existing criminal penalties are more than sufficient to 
achieve the purpose of allowing American citizens to vote and 
encouraging them to do so.
  So this is not about election integrity or protecting the will of 
voters. This is about voter suppression and voter intimidation. This is 
about keeping Trump and his gang in power. This about Trump knowing 
that he is deeply unpopular, that he could be on a path to lose fair 
and square and trying to bend the rules and create the machinery for 
the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security and 
even the military to do his personal bidding to cling to power. If that 
happens, if he is successful, then we will no longer be a democracy.
  Lest anyone still think that this bill is about ``election 
integrity'' and not 100 percent about Donald Trump's power grab, my 
Republican colleagues have added two provisions covering ``culture 
war'' provisions that denigrate trans rights--Donald Trump's favorite 
boogeyman and his personal pet issuing having precisely nothing to do 
with the alleged scourge of noncitizen voting.
  I am proud tonight to join my Democratic colleagues in sounding the 
alarm. We want to help our fellow citizens participate in our elections 
because only their participation will ensure that the government is 
truly accountable to the people it represents.
  My secretary of state Gregg Amore has said:

       The SAVE Act deviates from pro-voter and pro-democracy 
     policies that make it easier for people to cast a ballot by 
     placing an undue burden on American citizens. It is already 
     illegal for non-citizens to vote, and requiring documentation 
     proving citizenship effectively creates a poll tax for 
     voters. President Trump is disregarding our country's 
     separation of powers as the SAVE Act makes its way through 
     Congress.

  This isn't or should not be a partisan endeavor. Democrats and 
Republicans shouldn't be afraid to face the voters--all the voters--and 
compete on the basis of our ideas and aspirations. The SAVE Act shows 
that Trump has a different agenda--consolidating power for himself 
while subjugating the American people.
  I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will understand that 
and oppose these efforts.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, I rise today for the hard-
working American families who are struggling to make ends meet. These 
are hard-working American families who are struggling to make ends meet 
because they are victims of Democrats' political theater.
  I grew up in public housing and watched my parents struggle to make 
ends meet. I saw my adopted dad lose his job. I remember when my dad 
had his car repossessed.
  When these things happened, I felt the panic my parents dealt with in 
trying to keep food on the table for me and my siblings when the next 
paycheck wasn't guaranteed. I don't wish

[[Page S1481]]

what my family went through on anyone. I actually ran for Governor of 
Florida and the U.S. Senate because I wanted to change this country so 
fewer families grow up with the struggle that mine did.
  So it makes me furious to see what Democrats are doing right now with 
this political stunt of shutting down the Department of Homeland 
Security. It has been more than a month since this shutdown began. This 
is the third time in the last 6 months that the hard-working Americans 
who work to keep us safe each and every day had to worry about how they 
are going to pay mortgages, pay the rent, buy gas, bring home groceries 
to feed their kids.
  It is unfair, and it is un-American.
  I think every American has probably felt the squeeze from this 
shutdown when they go to the airport. TSA's staffing shortages have 
gone through the roof, and that has meant longer screening times at 
airports across the country.
  Lines are stretching out the door and wait times are skyrocketing 
into hours. People in Atlanta are missing 6 a.m. flights when they 
showed up to the airport at 3 a.m. in the morning.
  But the Federal employees--the ones who show up to work every day to 
keep the rest of us safe--are the ones going through the worst of all 
this shutdown.
  A union official who represents workers at TSA said:

       A lot of employees that I've talked to don't have any money 
     in their bank account. They've already missed half a check, 
     so they don't know what bill to pay.

  This week in my State of Florida, the good folks over at Feeding 
South Florida distributed food to Federal workers who aren't being paid 
because of this reckless shutdown.
  Think about the situation that Democrats in the Senate have put DHS 
workers in. What if your boss called you tonight and said: Listen, I 
need you to come in tomorrow. Your job is absolutely essential to the 
security of our Nation. We need you to help us keep people safe. 
Millions of people around America rely on you to show up so they can be 
safe.
  But management decided not to pay you, and we don't know when 
management will decide to pay you.
  What would you do? Who would you call? What would you do when your 
rent was due? How would you feed your family? What would you do about 
that car payment coming up? What would you tell your child when you 
couldn't afford their upcoming field trip or sports lessons or were 
forced to cancel the thing that your little boy or girl was really 
looking forward to?
  These aren't hypothetical questions for the more than 50,000 TSA 
agents Democrats are forcing to work without pay right now. But don't 
just think of them as a number. These are Americans, and here are some 
of their stories.
  Alondra Galvan is a single mom and a TSA officer currently working 
without pay because of the partial government shutdown. She has been 
working for TSA for 2 years. Here is what she said:

       It's very frustrating for everything, from financial 
     restraints to mental instability. There's times at night I'm 
     like what am I going to do, how am I going to do it.

  She says:

       I'm a single mom right now. My son usually goes to spring 
     break camps, and I can't afford that right now because 
     there's no money coming in, and I just don't know what to do 
     anymore. There's no babysitter. I don't have money to pay a 
     babysitter, so it's all around bad.

  She is not alone.
  There are food banks for DHS employees springing up all over the 
country--in San Diego, Pittsburgh, Chattanooga. Demands have been so 
great in Las Vegas that supplies are now limited, and they are looking 
for more donations according to one report.
  ``Most people have drained through their emergency funds'' said TSA 
agent Johnny Jones.
  ``The majority of TSA agents live paycheck to paycheck'' he said.
  ``A lot of them still have loans or debts from the previous 
shutdown'' he said.
  In Omaha, NE, one man started a GoFundMe page to raise donations so 
he can buy meals to deliver to TSA employees at Eppley Airfield.
  Airports across the country are asking for gift card donations so the 
people who keep our economy going, the people who make it safe and 
possible for other Americans to visit their families, do business, or 
go on vacation can keep scraping by while Democrat politicians in this 
Chamber can put on a show for the news cameras and fight for illegal 
aliens.
  In Nashville, one TSA supervisor noted people are ``starting to get 
eviction notices.''
  She summed the entire situation up when she told the same newspaper 
``We are forgotten.''
  I want to tell you another story I read about in the Christian 
Science Monitor. In an article published 2 days ago, they wrote about a 
woman named Susan. That is not her real name. She asked to remain 
anonymous for fear of retribution at work. Her story is real, and it is 
fully verifiable.
  Susan is a single mother. She has a teenage son. Next month, she will 
mark her 10th anniversary as a TSA employee. That is 10 years of 
showing up, 10 years of being the one who checks the bags, scans the 
boarding passes, and stands between the traveling public and whatever 
threats might be lurking.
  Before the longest government shutdown in American history last fall, 
the 43-day shutdown--Susan had finally paid off all of her debts--all 
of them.
  For a single working mother, that is pretty amazing.
  Susan went through years of sacrifice, years of careful budgeting, 
years of telling her son ``no'' or ``not yet.'' And she got there. She 
was debt-free.
  Then the fall shutdown came and the one after that and now this one. 
Today, two of Susan's credit cards are maxed out. She has three-
quarters of a tank of gas left and enough food in the house to make it 
until yesterday.
  She has $1.15 in her bank account. Still, when talking to a reporter 
for the Christian Science Monitor, she said she was one of the more 
fortunate ones.
  She said ``We just dig in and hope that we get paid before we get 
evicted and our cars get repossessed.''
  Susan is still going to work every day. She is still showing up to 
protect the traveling public. She is doing it on empty pockets, maxed-
out cards, and on borrowed time. She considers herself one of the lucky 
ones. Think about what that says about the people who are less 
fortunate than Susan.
  Democrat Members of the U.S. Senate: These are our fellow citizens. 
These are patriotic people who made the decision to serve our Federal 
Government, and you are torturing them.
  Meanwhile, every Democrat Senator who voted to start this shutdown is 
getting paid. The average salary of a TSA agent is around $50,000. U.S. 
Senators make $174,000. While the folks at TSA are working-class 
Americans fighting every day to live their dreams, the average net 
worth for a Democrat in the Senate is nearly $3 million.
  I am not here to shame those who worked hard and have been successful 
in life. I worked my butt off during my life, and I have been very 
successful, and I don't apologize for it for a second. But in addition 
to donating my entire Senate salary every year, I am also not the one 
sitting here today denying a paycheck to more than 260,000 hard-working 
Americans at DHS.
  The last time the Democrats shut down the government and hurt our 
Federal workers, one of my colleagues on the left said that he couldn't 
go without his Senate paycheck because he has a mortgage to pay. What 
the hell do you think the hard-working people at DHS have to do? They 
have bills to pay. They have mortgages. They have to pay the rent. They 
have to buy groceries.
  It makes you sick. It makes you sick to hear a Member of the U.S. 
Senate who voted to not pay people say something so insulting. Imagine 
how it makes someone at TSA feel to hear that. A U.S. Senator needs to 
get his paycheck to pay his mortgage, but if you are at DHS, good luck. 
I think that is disgusting.
  If Congress shuts down the government, Members shouldn't get paid. I 
have a bill to make sure that is how it works. My No Budget, No Pay Act 
would keep everyone in this Chamber from getting a paycheck if we can't 
provide them to the hard-working men and women who work in our Federal 
Government. There needs to be serious personal consequences for 
politicians that want to play games with people's lives and cut off 
their paychecks. We need to pass my No Budget, No Pay Act.

[[Page S1482]]

  After hearing about the suffering Democrats have caused for the TSA 
agents that I talked about earlier, how can anyone here oppose this? 
Sadly, the answer to that question is the same as the answer to the 
question of how we got here in the first place.
  I don't get it, but Democrats want to defund the police and shut down 
ICE and CBP. Why? Because the brave officers in these Agencies were 
simply doing their jobs and enforcing existing U.S. law.
  Here is what happened: During the Biden administration, Democrats 
allowed the office and power of a mentally incapacitated President to 
be hijacked by unelected radical staffers. Once these staffers seized 
the levers of power without President Biden even realizing it, they 
opened our southern border and actually allowed or encouraged millions 
upon millions of illegal aliens to flood into the United States. They 
let criminals in, rapists, murderers, child abusers, drug dealers. They 
all flooded in. They let drugs pour over the border and poison the 
American people. And my Democrat colleagues did nothing to stop it.
  It was a national disaster, and the American people saw that it was 
intentional and would ruin our Nation, so they elected President Trump. 
They elected President Trump to take the White House and Republicans to 
take control of Congress because the American people knew we would 
clean up Biden's mess and secure the border.
  The agenda wasn't a surprise. President Trump ran on securing the 
border and getting criminal illegal aliens out of our country. It was 
probably the biggest reason they elected President Trump.
  Now that he is executing on that agenda, I don't get it, but 
Democrats can't stand it. He is undoing all of their work to let 
illegal aliens flood across the border, and he is doing it without 
passing any new laws. He is simply allowing ICE and CBP to do their 
jobs and enforce the laws that are already on the books. It is 
incredible what simply letting people do their jobs can accomplish.
  Now, because radical Democrat mayors and Governors won't work with 
ICE and in some cases are actively encouraging resistance against our 
Federal law enforcement, there has been conflict.
  Two Americans, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, lost their lives in 
incidents with Federal agents. It is horrible. I wish it never happened 
in this country. My heart goes out to their families.
  If we didn't have illegal sanctuary cities in the States, ICE would 
be able to peacefully detain individuals at jails. That is how we do it 
in Florida. We don't have issues with ICE. But there are liberal mayors 
and Governors who want to put the concerns of illegal aliens over 
American citizens and American law enforcement. It doesn't make any 
sense to me.
  President Trump has made offer after offer to Democrats to address 
the concerns they have with ICE actions that they have forced to 
happen. President Trump is trying to meet this moment with reasonable 
reforms to how ICE operates. He has even said he will bring ICE agents 
to help our TSA agents. But Democrats aren't engaging.
  There are violent illegal aliens in our country. We have to remove 
them. If you don't believe me, here are three names: Rachel Morin, 
Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken Riley. Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, Laken 
Riley--a mother and a child and a college student--all murdered. Three 
lives that were shattered. Three families that were devastated. Why? 
Because of the horrific violence caused by an illegal alien.
  These are the people that ICE is targeting, and in my mind, it is 
worth it. If ICE can save one person, if ICE can prevent another woman 
from facing the same fate as Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Laken 
Riley, it is worth it.

  I don't get it, but Democrats insist on protecting illegal aliens 
with sanctuary policies while they spit in the faces of American law 
enforcement officers who risk their lives every day, every single day, 
to keep us safe.
  It is happening here just outside Washington. Last month, a 40-year-
old mother from Fredericksburg, VA, was stabbed to death. She was 
stabbed to death while standing at a bus stop in Fairfax County, VA. 
Her name was Stephanie Minter.
  On a Monday morning, a mother was ripped from her children by an 
illegal alien that officials in Virginia refused--they refused--to let 
ICE deport.
  Stephanie's alleged killer had a long criminal record. He was a known 
violent criminal who Fairfax County described as being ``a danger to 
the community.'' But not only was he never handed over to ICE, he was 
let off the hook again and again. He had more than 30 arrests to his 
name--charges of malicious wounding, assault, drug possession, identity 
theft, firing a weapon, contributing to delinquency of a minor. Over 
and over, the charges were dropped, and he was released.
  But this injustice in Fairfax County wasn't limited to the alleged 
killer who murdered Stephanie Minter. The Center for Immigration 
Studies found that from October 2022 through February 2025, the Fairfax 
County Adult Detention Center freed more than 1,000 deportable 
individuals in direct defiance of over 1,150 ICE detainers.
  Fairfax County ranked third in the entire Nation for refusing to 
honor ICE detainer requests, and soon, all of Virginia could follow 
suit, because the same week that Stephanie Minter was murdered at that 
bus stop, new Governor Spanberger ordered the termination of all 287(g) 
agreements between State agencies and ICE.
  Think about that for a second and ask yourself, how could this happen 
in America?
  Sadly, this is the reality facing Americans in Democrat cities, 
counties, and States. According to DHS, sanctuary jurisdictions across 
the country declined to honor 17,864 ICE detainer requests in 2025 
alone--nearly 18,000 in 1 year.
  In California alone, over 4,500 criminal individuals have been 
released since January 2025 despite active ICE detainers. The crimes 
those individuals were associated with include homicides, assaults, 
burglaries, and sexual offenses.
  In New York, ICE has documented cases where individuals with records 
including rape, strangulation, and burglary were repeatedly released by 
sanctuary policies.
  First, Democrats pass sanctuary laws to protect violent illegals that 
they know their Soros-funded prosecutors won't go after. Now Democrats 
are trying to destroy ICE completely so that the very system of brave 
law enforcement officers, which was established to save the lives of 
individuals like Stephanie, Laken, Rachel, and Jocelyn, could no longer 
protect our families.
  I don't know why the Democrats want to defund our law enforcement. I 
don't understand why they want to watch as TSA agents suffer without 
pay. I don't know why Democrats are fine seeing Americans wait hours in 
line for a flight. The thing I struggle with most is, I don't know why 
the left is so hell-bent on protecting illegal aliens while letting a 
mother like Stephanie Minter be stabbed to death at a bus stop. It 
doesn't make sense to me.
  I think it is time for Democrats to come to their senses and fund 
DHS.
  To the hard-working individuals at DHS: I am sorry this is happening 
to you. You absolutely deserve to be paid and respected. You deserve a 
shot at the American dream. My heart goes out to you and your family.
  These individuals chose to take a job where every second of their 
professional lives is spent protecting their fellow Americans and 
keeping their homeland safe. They didn't sign up to not get paid. When 
they agreed to take these jobs, the Federal Government made a deal with 
them that they would be provided for, and we are failing on our end of 
that agreement.
  Now these people who are working full time, dealing with long lines, 
very frustrated travelers, and long brutal days, dead on their feet, 
many probably working overtime to protect us, are going home to empty 
refrigerators, overdue bills, and eviction notices because of my 
Democrat colleagues' political theater for illegal aliens.
  If you look at some of the half-measures Democrats have put forward 
to get themselves out of this situation, it is obvious: They do not 
care about whether TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard are paid, and they 
want to absolutely shut down ICE and CBP.
  That is just another way of saying they want to defund the police so 
they

[[Page S1483]]

can hamstring our ability to enforce immigration laws--again, not for 
the benefit of American citizens but for the benefit of illegal aliens.
  I think we have had enough of this political theater. We have had 
enough of the hypocrisy. We need to make sure these individuals get 
paid. It is unfair to deny paychecks to our TSA agents and more than 
200,000 other DHS workers. And we can't allow more heartbreaking 
stories like Alondra, Susan, Rachel, Jocelyn, Laken, and Stephanie.
  America is better than this, and I am not going to stop fighting 
until these radical attempts end to put illegal aliens before American 
citizens.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Mr. President, I am somewhat perplexed by the comments of 
my colleague because six times in the last week and a half, measures 
have been put forth on this floor that would have paid TSA, would have 
paid the Coast Guard, would have paid FEMA, would pay CISA, and his 
party blocked every one of them. There was a vote just today that would 
have led to the funding of TSA, and I don't know how the gentleman 
voted, but I suspect he voted no. So this idea that somehow this side 
of the aisle is defunding and not voting for these other Agencies--it 
is just not true. There have been six--at least in the last week and a 
half--motions to move forward with the funding of the non-ICE Agencies, 
and each time, a representative of the party across the aisle has risen 
to object.

  So let's be clear who is blocking funding for the TSA. It is not over 
here. We are ready to fund it tonight. We had a vote a few hours ago 
that would have funded it. So let's be clear about who is blocking 
funding for the TSA. It is right over here.
  The second piece is, Why are we talking about ICE? If ICE, as the 
Senator suggested, were talking about criminal aliens, we wouldn't be 
here having this debate. The problem is that that is not what is 
happening.
  In my State of Maine--in Portland--we had an ICE surge back in 
January and February that was similar to what happened in Minneapolis. 
It wasn't as large, and it wasn't as violent, but it was, nonetheless, 
a similar kind of surge, wherein a lot of agents came in, and a lot of 
arrests were made.
  We have had a hard time in getting the actual data, but here is what 
we do know: Over 200 people were arrested or detained, many of whom 
were sent far away to Louisiana or to Texas or somewhere else.
  But the website--I just looked it up. The DHS actually has a website 
called the Worst of the Worst, wherein they give you the picture and 
the name and the crime of the people whom they have arrested to 
demonstrate that, in fact, this is what they are doing.
  Here is the problem: What we know is they arrested or detained over 
200 people, and the DHS' Worst of the Worst website lists 21. That is 
10 percent. Who are the other 90 percent?
  I can tell you, from knowing my constituents, a lot of them are 
people who were asylum seekers, who were paying taxes, who were working 
people, who were refugees. One guy was approved to be a prison guard in 
our local county jail.
  So, if it were the worst of the worst--the Senator kept using terms 
like ``criminal illegal aliens,'' and he gave these horrible cases. If 
that is what ICE was doing, we wouldn't have had a problem. The problem 
is the untargeted mass searching and picking up of people because of 
their accents or their color. That is what we are talking about here, 
and that is what we should be focused on. Indeed, there are discussions 
going on right now to try to find some resolution.
  By the way, nobody is talking about defunding ICE. Nobody I have 
heard of is talking about defunding DHS or defunding the police. We are 
talking about guardrails being applied to ICE that are similar to the 
guardrails and the codes of conduct that apply to every police force in 
America.
  I would suspect the city of Miami has a code of conduct that talks 
about how you respond to use of force and when warrants are required. 
They may also have something about identification. Those are the kinds 
of things that we are talking about. We are talking about guardrails. 
We are not talking about defunding anybody.
  So let's be honest with the American people about what this debate is 
about.
  I believe deeply--listen, I understand about the TSA and the Coast 
Guard, which is very important to my State. They should be getting 
paid, and that is why, starting several weeks ago, this side of the 
aisle has been bringing forward unanimous consent agreements that would 
fund those Agencies--only for them to be objected to. If we could have 
one of those unanimous consent agreements tonight or tomorrow, we could 
get those Agencies funded right away and then focus on what the issue 
is that divides us. And there are discussions going on with your 
colleagues and with the White House to try to resolve some of those 
issues.
  I am an Independent, although I caucus with these guys, but let's not 
talk about the Democrats shutting down the TSA. The Democrats are 
moving to fund the TSA and are being blocked by the other side. Let's 
be clear about what is going on here. If we could solve this and if we 
could fund those other Agencies, which we should--I agree--then we 
could talk about guardrails for ICE and putting them under the same 
kind of reasonable constraints as every other law enforcement agencies 
in the country.
  In my whole life, I have never seen a law enforcement agency that 
wears masks. Why do they wear masks? Because it is intimidating. It 
puts people in fear--citizens in fear. It also gives a license to the 
person with the mask on to act not in the public interest. It emboldens 
somebody to use the force that they have.
  I understand about doxing, and we can have a law--we can pass a 
statute--making the doxing of these agents illegal and a crime--a 
serious crime. I understand that. I have got a draft of that here--of 
that law--and I think that should be part of that discussion.
  But I think we really should be talking about what it is that we are 
trying to resolve here with regard to the guardrails on ICE. The 
original communication from the minority leader and the minority leader 
in the House said nothing about defunding. They talked about what the 
restrictions are that we need to talk about. Warrants--this is 
Constitution 101. You don't break down somebody's door without a 
warrant unless there are certain exigent circumstances. The Presiding 
Officer is a constitutional scholar; he understands the Fourth 
Amendment. But those are the kinds of things that we need to be talking 
about, not ``Should we be paying TSA officers?'' Of course, we should.

  So let's vote on it. Let's do it. Let's put it on the floor and get 
that done tonight or tomorrow, and then we can focus on the issue that 
is before us. I just believe that this body ought to be coming together 
and talking about the real issues and trying to resolve them and not 
having the collateral damage of these other Agencies.
  For myself, given what happened in Maine and what happened in 
Minnesota, I cannot vote for a budget that leaves ICE rampant and 
without the guardrails that apply to every other police force in the 
United States. I can't, in good conscience, do that. That is why I am 
voting to move forward with the funding of the other Agencies but then 
will focus on ICE to try to get some reasonable guardrails, and we are 
negotiating and working toward those.
  In the meantime, let's pay the TSA people. Let's pay the Coast Guard. 
Let's pay CISA. Let's pay FEMA. I get that. But let's be clear about 
who is blocking that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Mr. President, let's remember who shut down 
Homeland Security. The Democrats shut down Homeland Security. They 
voted to shut down Homeland Security. They wouldn't fund it, and they 
wouldn't fund it because they don't want ICE to be able to do their 
job. It is a problem the Democrats caused because the border was 
completely open for 4 years. So, if we do one part and don't do the 
rest, we know what is going to happen: ICE will never get funded.
  With regard to masks, law enforcement does use masks because they 
have to protect their privacy sometimes. There is doxing going on. 
Think about it. All of us have security, probably. I have been swatted, 
and maybe

[[Page S1484]]

my colleagues have been swatted. Think about these agents. They don't 
have security at home when their families are at home. There are 
websites out there that, when they find a picture of an ICE agent, they 
are putting it up on these websites to try to intimidate their families 
and intimidate their kids.
  Sure, I think we ought to always have reasonable restrictions on how 
law enforcement works. But ICE is busting their butt to solve a problem 
that was caused by having 4 years of completely open borders, and 
nobody on the Democrat side wanted to talk about it. Now ICE is trying 
to do this job and clean up the mess, and, all of a sudden, Democrats 
want to put all of these rules on them so that they can't even do their 
job. That doesn't make any sense.
  I want to tell my colleague--I mean, the White House proposed things, 
and for so many weeks, Democrats didn't come back with any proposal. So 
I am glad there are conversations going on now, but, in the meantime, 
all of these TSA agents haven't gotten paid, and some ICE agents are 
not getting paid. This is completely unfair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Mr. President, let the record show that a real debate broke 
out for a few minutes on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). The majority whip.

                          ____________________