[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24626-24628]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION AND APPROPRIATIONS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would just say that we have a limited 
amount of time in this body--and we all know that--before the end of 
the fiscal year will be coming up on September 30. We have to pass some 
sort of appropriation to fund our defense and our military by that 
date. We need to pass the Defense authorization bill, which has been 
voted out of the Armed Services Committee. Senator Levin, our 
Democratic chairman, has moved that bill forward, and it had strong 
bipartisan support. It is on the floor today, and it provides quite a 
number of valuable and critically important benefits for our defense on 
which we need to vote. For example, it increases the number of persons 
in the Army, the end-strength of the Army, by 13,000, and 9,000 for the 
Marine Corps. We have a lot of people talking about the stress on the 
military, so we need to authorize the growth of the military. It is 
something we know we need to do, and I think we have a general 
agreement on that. It is in this bill. We need to move this bill. It 
authorizes numerous pay bonuses and benefits for our warfighters and 
their family members. It allows a reservist to draw retirement before 
age 60 if they volunteer under certain circumstances for active 
mobilizations. It directs studies on mental health and well-being for 
soldiers and marines. It establishes a Family Readiness Council. It 
authorizes funding for the MRAPs, which are those vehicles which are so 
much more effective against even the most powerful bombs and IED-type 
attacks.
  So this bill, this authorization bill, is not an unimportant matter. 
Our soldiers are out there now in harm's way, where we sent them, 
executing the policies we asked them to execute, and we need to support 
them by doing our job. We complain that Iraq can't pass this bill or 
that bill; we need to pass our own bill.
  Not only do we need to get this authorization bill passed, but we 
have to get on next week to the appropriations bill to actually fund 
the military because if we do not do so, the funding stops. Under 
American law, if Congress does not appropriate funds, nobody can spend 
funds. It is just that simple.
  We have to do our job, and I hope we will. I am troubled to see a lot 
of things beginning to occur that indicate there is an agenda afoot 
here, at least by some, that would make it difficult,

[[Page 24627]]

if not impossible, for us to get this work done.
  For example, the first amendment brought up on the Defense bill--not 
a part of the committee bill but on the floor here--is to provide to 
enemy terrorists habeas corpus rights they have never been provided by 
any nation in history during a time of war and certainly not our own 
Nation. It is frustrating for me to hear people say we want to restore 
habeas rights to captive enemy combatants. If we did it, we should at 
least perhaps give priority to lawful enemy combatants. Most of these 
are unlawful enemy combatants who have not in any way followed the 
rules of war and therefore are not provided, in normal circumstances, 
the full protections of the Geneva Convention. So I am worried about 
that.
  The President has said if that amendment passes, he will veto the 
bill. So what will we have done then? Are people in here going to have 
a good feeling about that--they made the President veto the bill--that 
we provide unprecedented rights to captives who are setting about to 
attack and kill Americans? We are releasing people from Guantanamo and 
have released quite a number of them. Quite a number of them have been 
recaptured on the battlefield trying to kill our sons and our daughters 
who are out there because this Congress sent them out there. So I think 
we need to get our heads straight.
  Now, in addition to that, we have Senator Durbin offering the DREAM 
Act amendment, an immigration bill, to this bill.
  Senator Kennedy says he intends to offer hate crimes legislation. 
These are controversial pieces of legislation, unrelated, really, to 
the Defense Department. They ought not be passed. They have been 
rejected before. Certainly the DREAM Act was.
  Let me talk about this DREAM Act. It is something Senator Durbin 
points out that I have objected to before. I have objected to it before 
when it came up in the Judiciary Committee, not in the Armed Services 
Committee.
  The Durbin amendment, as filed as of the end of July, would do a 
number of things. It will, indeed, provide amnesty, the full panoply of 
rights we give to any citizen who comes here lawfully. It provides a 
full citizenship track and full rights for quite a number of illegal 
aliens, putting them on a direct path to citizenship. A conservative 
estimate done by the Migration Policy Institute suggests that at least 
1.3 million will be eligible for amnesty. It will also allow current 
illegal aliens, those who would be provided amnesty under this bill, 
and future illegal aliens who come here after this day, illegally--
hopefully, I thought we decided when the comprehensive bill was voted 
down, the American people were saying let's end illegal immigration--it 
would provide for them to be eligible for in-State tuition at public 
universities, even when the university denies in-State tuition to U.S. 
citizens and legally present aliens.
  It would reverse 1996 law that quite rationally said let's not reward 
people who are here illegally by giving them a discounted rate of 
tuition. How much more simple is it than that?
  It would provide Federal financial aid in the form of student loans 
and work/study programs, subsidized by Federal money. It is unclear, it 
appears, whether Pell grants, direct Federal grants, are going to be 
provided to people in our country illegally, with which to go to 
college, whereas hard-working Americans, many of them, don't qualify 
for Pell grants--and we need to expand Pell grants. Why would we then 
be providing them to persons who would come into our country illegally?
  They say they may have come when they were younger. Maybe they did. 
But if you have a limited number of persons to whom you can provide 
Pell grants or subsidized loans, I suggest they should be given to 
those who are lawfully here, not those who are unlawfully here.
  There is an old slogan: If you are in a hole, the first thing you 
should do is stop digging. I suggest if you have a problem with people 
coming into the country illegally, the first thing you should do is 
stop subsidizing that illegal behavior by giving them discounted 
tuition.
  The DREAM Act establishes a seamless process to take illegal aliens 
directly from illegal status to conditional permanent resident status, 
then to legal permanent resident status, and then the next step, of 
course, is citizenship. First, illegal aliens who came here before age 
16 and have been here illegally for the past 5 years will be given 
``conditional'' permanent residence, or green cards, if they have been 
admitted to an institution of higher education or have a GED, or have a 
high school diploma. The ``conditional'' green card, which is good for 
6 years, will be converted to a full green card. A green card means you 
have a legal permanent residence status in America. In this case it 
would be a direct result of an illegal entry into the United States, or 
an illegal overstay. It will be converted to a full green card if the 
alien completes 2 years of a bachelor's degree or serves 2 years in the 
uniformed services. This is broader than the term ``military service,'' 
as people have said. ``Uniformed services,'' as defined by title 10, 
includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
Commissioned Corps and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned 
Corps, in addition to the military. Or they would qualify if they can't 
do those because of hardship.
  After 5 years of ``conditional,'' or full green card permanent 
status, the aliens amnestied under the DREAM Act will be eligible for 
citizenship.
  We are also expanding, through this amendment, if it is to be 
adopted, immigration into the country based on an illegal action in a 
number of ways. There is nothing in the DREAM Act that limits the 
ability of the illegal aliens who are being provided permanent status 
and citizenship here to bring in their family members. Once an illegal 
alien becomes a legal resident under the act, they can immigrate their 
spouses and their children. As soon as the illegal alien becomes a 
citizen, he or she will be able to bring in, to immigrate their parents 
to the country as a matter of right. So there is no numerical limit to 
the number of parents a citizen can immigrate into the United States. I 
think that is one of the flaws in our current law.
  The reason that is important is because we are generous in 
immigration. We allow a million or more a year to come legally into our 
country. We do provide quite a number of generous provisions that allow 
people to come. But if you are allowing those limited number of slots--
in effect, we have only so many that the country does allow and would 
desire to allow to come--we are providing parents of those who have 
been illegal to be able to come as a guaranteed right, whereas another 
who may have a master's degree, may have a high skill, may have learned 
English in Honduras and is valedictorian of their school or college--
they can't get in. But they have an automatic right for a parent, who 
may have done far less in the scheme of things to justify taking one of 
those limited slots the country has to offer. That is why I am 
concerned about that.
  We don't think about it in correct terms. We have to understand we 
cannot accept everybody in the world. We should create a generous 
system of immigration that allows people to come to America, but we 
ought to set up a legal system that we are proud of and that sets good 
standards, that allows a person to have the greatest opportunity to be 
successful here, to have more precedence in entry--which is exactly 
what Canada does, and Canada is quite proud of it.
  In 1996, Congress passed this law:

       Not withstanding any other provision of law, an alien who 
     is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be 
     eligible on the basis of residence within a State . . . for 
     any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or 
     national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit 
     (in no less an amount, duration and scope) without regard to 
     whether the citizen or national is such a resident.

  The DREAM Act eliminates this provision that has been offered on the 
Defense bill. It would reverse this current Federal law. The result is 
that States will be able to offer in-State tuition to illegal aliens.

[[Page 24628]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator from Alabama he 
has consumed his 10 minutes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and ask unanimous consent for 1 
additional minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will conclude by saying there are a 
host of reasons why we need not, ought not pass the DREAM Act itself. 
But that is a matter of debate that we have had several different times 
now. What we need to be doing now is providing support for the 
soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardsmen we sent in harm's way 
by passing the Defense authorization bill and the Defense 
appropriations bill. We don't need to be talking about the DREAM Act. 
We don't need to be talking about hate crimes. We don't need to be 
offering the first amendment out of the chute, an amendment that 
provides habeas benefits to unlawful combatants, legal rights that have 
never been given by the United States in the history of the Republic, 
nor any other nation in the history of the world.
  We need to get serious and get some work done here that is important 
and not be distracted with amendments that are going to be politically 
controversial and can only make it more difficult for us to do our duty 
as a Congress.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.

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