[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 93 (Tuesday, June 2, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2491-S2492]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Department of Homeland Security

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we both know that there are people in 
Washington who like to muddy the water to make it look deep. They don't 
want the American people to know the truth because, for these people to 
which I am referring, truth is a concept that does not interest them. 
Politics does.
  Now, there has been a lot of controversy in and around the U.S. 
Senate for the last 2 weeks. If we are honest with ourselves, we have 
to admit that the Senate has been functioning like a broken arm with 
the bone sticking out. That is not anybody's fault, in my judgment, on 
my side of the aisle. It is certainly not the majority leader's fault.
  So I want to try to refocus us on the issue. I don't really want to 
talk about the ballroom or the Anti-Weaponization Fund or any of the 
myriad of issues that my Democratic friends tried to inject into our 
discussion.
  I want to talk about the issue, and the issue is this: Are we going 
to fund the Department of Homeland Security, or are we not?
  Part of DHS, as we call it, as you know, Mr. President, is funded. 
But a very important part is not: the Border Patrol and ICE. We are 
paying them as best we can out of another pool of funds that is about 
to run out of money. Why are they not funded? Because my Democratic 
colleagues have refused.
  At one point my Democratic friends agreed to fund Border Patrol and 
ICE. And then they changed their minds, and they said: No, we are not 
going to do it, which forced Republicans, if we want to see that 
portion of DHS funded, to proceed under what we call reconciliation 
where we don't need Democratic votes. I regret that that is the case, 
but we are doing what we have to do.
  Why are we having this controversy? I don't get it completely. I 
don't. Unless you are industrial-strength stupid, you know that illegal 
immigration is illegal. And that is what our Border Patrol agents and 
ICE agents do--they enforce the law. And we have a problem with respect 
to immigration.
  During the Biden administration, with the encouragement of some--not 
all, but with the encouragement of some but not all Democrats, open the 
borders. They said: Come on in. And about 8 to 12 million--some say 20 
million--people did.
  Some of them were good people and are good people. They are still 
breaking the law. Some of them who are here are not. They are rapists 
and they are murderers and they are sex traffickers and they are drug 
dealers and they are pedophiles.
  We don't know which is which. We don't know where they are. And it 
falls to the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security, in 
part through Border Patrol and ICE, to find out.

[[Page S2492]]

  Now, why did this happen? Why do we now need Border Patrol and ICE 
more than ever? You know, I have thought about that a lot. It could be 
just pure, plain vanilla incompetence. It could be that the people that 
President Biden put in charge of immigration and securing the border 
were not qualified to play dead in a western movie. It also could be, 
and could have been, intentional.
  I think some of my Democratic friends--not all of them. I am talking 
the Platner wing of the Democratic Party, the Mayor Mamdani wing of the 
Democratic Party, the Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez wing of the 
Democratic Party, the wing of the Democratic Party that is in control--
some of them believe that vetting people at the border is racist. They 
do.
  It doesn't matter that every other country in the world vets people 
at their border. These members of the--whatever you want to call it--
progressive wing, loon wing, woketopus wing--whatever you want to call 
that wing of the Democratic Party, they think that vetting people at 
the border is racist.
  There are other folks who support open borders for political reasons. 
I think they honestly think that if they admit a bunch of people into 
America in violation of the immigration laws or not, that it is a rich 
source of potential voters. We are not supposed to say that, but I 
really do believe that. Not much happens around here that doesn't have 
a political bent to it.
  But regardless, we have a problem, and that is what we have to deal 
with. And that is what we are going to be voting on, I hope, in the 
next couple of days.
  If you disagree with the law--this is America. You are entitled to 
disagree with it. I get it. Try to change it. Go change it. But you 
can't just ignore our immigration laws. They are not some second-tier 
statutes that you can ignore without consequence, that you can ignore 
when you think it is convenient. They are the law, and we have to 
enforce the law.
  And more to the point, we have to clean up the mess that President 
Biden and some of my Democratic colleagues in the Platner wing, the 
Ocasio-Cortez wing, the Mamdani wing--whatever you want to call those 
Democrats who created it.
  And more even to that point, we have to have Border Patrol and ICE 
officers to do it. We have to.
  The other point I would make: We see the pushback by this wing of my 
Democratic friends' party. We see what is going on in New Jersey. It is 
despicable.
  Look, you have the right to protest. That is as American as the NFL 
or baseball. You have the right to protest. You don't have the right to 
protest violently. And what we have seen at the Delaney Hall detention 
center: We have seen ICE officers and some Border Patrol officers; we 
have seen the protestors cursing at them and spitting at them and 
threatening their families and hitting them and scratching them and 
biting them and blocking ingress and egress in and out of the detention 
center. They are breaking the law, and they have been arrested.
  I think the Border Patrol and ICE and the State law enforcement 
officials in New Jersey have shown a lot of restraint.
  But what the protestors did--not all of them--was illegal. It was 
illegal. You can't hit a cop just because you don't like him.
  And here is a free tip. I know you know this, Mr. President. Most 
Border Patrol agents, most ICE agents, most cops, they will leave you 
alone unless you do illegal stuff. But if you do illegal stuff, they 
are going to enforce the law.
  So let me end as I began. We need to vote to fund Border Patrol and 
ICE. These men and women are running out of money. I am sorry that my 
Democratic colleagues have taken the position that they want to defund 
ICE. They have every right to believe that. I am sorry that they have 
taken the position they want to defund the Border Patrol. My Democratic 
friends have every right to believe that, but they are wrong.
  I have the right to my opinion. And if they don't want to fund them, 
they need to go change the immigration laws. Until then, we have got to 
enforce them, and we are going to have the chance here in the next 
couple days.
  And all we are going to be voting on--you are going to see all kinds 
of amendments and talking about everything in the world. All we will be 
voting on: Do we or do we not want to fund Border Patrol and ICE? Do we 
or do we not want to enforce America's immigration laws in accordance 
with due process and the rule of law? And that is the issue that is 
going to be before us.
  And I am ready to saddle up and ride. I am ready to get to it. I am 
tired of all the rhetoric and the tangential issues. I am tired of all 
that. Let's get after it. Let's do the right thing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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