[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 76 (Thursday, April 30, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2149-S2150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 4371

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to seek 
unanimous consent that the Senate pass H.R. 4371, the House companion 
to my Kayla Hamilton Act, which passed the House with bipartisan 
support.
  This bill is named in honor of Kayla Hamilton, a young woman who was 
viciously murdered by an MS-13 gang member. This criminal entered the 
United States as an unaccompanied minor and was released into the 
custody of an unvetted sponsor.
  Kayla's death is a tragedy. I had the honor of meeting her mother 
Tammy Nobles--one of the Angel Moms who came and testified at a hearing 
I held last summer.
  Kayla's murder highlights how irresponsible the Biden administration 
was in handling unaccompanied minors entering the United States during 
President Biden's 4 years in office. By some accounts, there were as 
many as a half a million unaccompanied minors who came into the United 
States during the Biden administration's open border policy and then 
were placed with sponsors, many of whom were unvetted. Many of these 
so-called unaccompanied children were 17-year-old boys--almost fully 
grown men.
  Unfortunately, many of the children--the more vulnerable children--
were released to unvetted sponsors, and that should be illegal. If we 
are going to care about our children who are the most vulnerable among 
us, which is really how a society is judged--how we treat the most 
vulnerable people in our society--then releasing children to unvetted 
sponsors should be a crime. While Health and Human Services has 
reformed its policies under President Trump, the careless and, I would 
say, reckless way that unaccompanied minors were handled by the Biden 
administration was shameful.
  My bill requires HHS, Health and Human Services, to obtain 
information about potential sponsors and any person who lives in the 
sponsor's household before a child is placed with them.
  It was common practice for the Biden administration to so call vet 
the named sponsor but yet not everybody else living in that household 
who could be a sexual predator or could have another criminal record or 
could be a threat--an immediate and real threat--to that child.
  But this bill requires HHS to obtain information about potential 
sponsors and any person--all persons--who live in that sponsor's 
household before a child is placed with them, and it bars criminal 
alien sponsors from being allowed to assume custody of these children.
  This bill also requires Health and Human Services to conduct 
mandatory checks on all unaccompanied children, including considering 
whether an unaccompanied child poses a danger to themselves or the 
community--contacting the consulate or embassy or their home country 
and vetting them for ties to criminal organizations. As I said, some of 
these children were very vulnerable, but others were almost grown men 
in many instances. And without proper vetting of these unaccompanied 
children--a child, of course, is anybody under the age of 18--that, in 
and of itself, is a danger that should stop.
  It is only common sense that we should not place our children in the 
custody of criminals, and we should also vet the unaccompanied minors 
themselves, including for ties to gangs and existing criminal 
histories.
  I urge the adoption of this legislation.
  Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed 
to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4371, which was received from 
the House; and, further, I ask that the bill be considered read a third 
time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made 
and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection?
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I think 
Senator Cornyn and I share a goal--actually, multiple goals--one is to 
adequately protect children who are crossing the border by themselves 
to make sure that they are in adequate, humane, and appropriate 
placements; but also to vet individuals, including young unaccompanied 
minors who are crossing the border to make sure that they are not a 
danger to themselves or to others.
  I am going to object to this bill today. It is a pretty comprehensive 
rewrite of a lot of the laws relative to the detention of minors. And 
while I think we can probably come to some common ground here, as I 
read this bill in preparation for the Senator's unanimous consent 
request, it looks as if it has a number of measures that would actually 
be seriously detrimental to vulnerable kids, kids who pose no threat to 
themselves or to others.
  Let me just give you one example, and it is a pretty significant 
problem with this bill that maybe we could clear up. This bill does not 
allow for unaccompanied minors to be immediately reunited with their 
biological parent if their parent is a TPS holder, if their parent is 
applying for asylum, if their parent is a refugee, if their parent is 
here on a student visa. And so there are going to be a whole bunch of 
kids who are not going to be reunited with their parent--which I think 
we have always agreed is the proper course, if possible--because of 
some of the underlying provisions in this bill. So I just think that 
this has to go through another round of edits and work before it is 
ready to come to the floor.
  I will also note that this administration sold us on their new 
immigration policy based on the fact that they were going to be going 
after ``the worst of the worst.'' They are going to be going after 
immigrants who pose a danger to the community. I think that is what 
Senator Cornyn's goal is here, to make sure that we aren't bringing 
into the country young people that might present a danger to others.
  But, of course, the facts do not back up the administration's claim. 
What we have learned after a year and a half is that this 
administration is not going after ``the worst of the worst.'' Eighty-
five percent of the people they are detaining have no criminal history 
at all; 95 percent of the people they are detaining have no history of 
violence at all. They are roaming American streets just looking for 
anybody with an accent.
  So I am all for an immigration policy that tries to target the very, 
very small number of people entering this country who may pose a danger 
to Americans. The reality still is that immigrants commit crimes at 
rates lower than natural-born citizens.
  But we are in league on the underlying goal. I just think this bill 
doesn't get there; and, in fact, this bill may do a lot of harm to kids 
who pose absolutely no threat to themselves or to others. And for that 
reason, I would object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Texas.

[[Page S2150]]

  

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as I listen to our colleague, he basically 
says: The perfect is the enemy of the good.
  So the good thing about this legislation is it would protect a lot of 
innocent, vulnerable children, something the Biden administration 
turned a blind eye to during 4 years of its open border policies.
  There is untold misery and hardship for these children who came here 
to the United States because the Biden administration said: If you come 
by yourself, we are going to turn you loose and let you into the 
country. So desperate parents sent their children from faraway places 
to come to the United States, only to be placed with individuals who 
were not properly vetted and certainly households that could have 
involved sexual offenders and other predators--and crimes. We don't 
know how many of them were recruited into gangs, trafficked for sex or 
involuntary labor. This is a catastrophe that I think we have only 
begun to understand.
  Now, thank goodness, Tom Homan and the Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement have rescued many of these children, but nowhere near the 
number that have been released into the country by the Biden 
administration.
  I don't know how much longer we can continue to turn a blind eye to 
the harm being caused to these children under the pretense of open 
borders and generous immigration policies. It is hardly generous to 
condemn a child to a life of sex trafficking or to be an object of harm 
from a person who wants to take advantage of them for labor or sexual 
favors or you name it.
  So I think it is beyond disappointing that we have an objection to 
this, and I find the excuses given by our colleague from Connecticut to 
be just insufficient.
  By not vetting the sponsors who received these unaccompanied 
children, the Biden administration encouraged and incentivized the 
irresponsible treatment of these kids. We don't know if they went to 
school. We don't know if they got the healthcare that they need in 
order to stay healthy. We don't know. And the Biden administration took 
the outrageous position that it is not their responsibility. Once the 
kids came to the United States and were placed with the sponsor, the 
Biden administration went: Our job is done.
  And now it is up to the child protective services in the various 
States to look after these kids. Well, we know child protective 
services in the States are generally overwhelmed anyway. And to say 
that we have to wait for a child to be killed, raped, murdered, denied 
access to basic healthcare and education services before we can help 
them out is outrageous.

  The only way to prevent this from happening in the future is to 
enforce our laws and to know who the adults are who are claiming these 
children and make sure they aren't a threat to their health, safety, 
and welfare.
  Our children should not have to continue to pay the price for adults 
who break the law. And releasing minors into the custody of criminals 
is certainly not the answer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.

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