[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12177-12189]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         PROTECT WOMEN'S HEALTH FROM CORPORATE INTERFERENCE ACT

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to allow us to begin 
debate on the Protect Women's Health From Corporate Interference Act of 
2014, of which I am a cosponsor.
  One of this Nation's founding principles is respect for religious 
faith. Most all of us agree that one American should not be able to 
impose his or her religious convictions upon another. Yet the outcome 
of the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case is that 
thousands of Americans may lose the ability to make the most personal 
choices about what health care meets their religious or ethical 
standards and hand those decisions over to an employer.
  The Court's reasoning in the Hobby Lobby decision was deeply flawed. 
As I and several colleagues argued in a brief to the Court, applying 
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as the Court did seriously 
misconstrues the language of the statute and ignores the intent of 
Congress in passing it. Giving for-profit corporations the power to 
impose the religious beliefs of managers or owners upon employees is 
what violates basic religious freedom.
  It is a central feature of our health care system that millions of 
Americans receive health insurance through employer-sponsored plans and 
those employers are most often, as was the case with Hobby Lobby, 
corporations. Business owners choose to incorporate because forming a 
corporation means access to limited liability and other government-
conferred privileges.
  But corporations don't have faiths. People do. That includes the 
women who have now lost their ability to make the most important and 
personal decisions about their health care.
  If we are to say we truly value the freedom to practice any religion 
or no religion, as we see fit, surely that includes the freedom for 
American women to make choices about their own health care without the 
imposition of their employer's religious convictions. The Supreme 
Court's decision has elevated the religious faith of a business's 
owners above the values of that business's employees. That is not what 
the law envisions, and it is not what Americans believe.
  I strongly support this legislation to repair the damage the Supreme 
Court has done. We should proceed to this bill, debate it, vote on it, 
and hopefully pass it. America's women and their families deserve 
nothing less.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the 
Protect Women From Corporate Interference Act, and I praise Senator 
Murray and Senator Udall (of Colorado) for their work on this bill.
  Let me first discuss the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in Hobby Lobby 
v. Burwell--a decision that in my view is deeply disappointing. In the 
Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court found that large, closely-held, 
for-profit corporations have religious-freedom rights

[[Page 12178]]

under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA). Major 
corporations can now assert a religious objection to generally 
applicable federal law.
  It is possible such corporations will not get most exemptions they 
seek. This will be examined on a case-by-case basis. But the point is 
the Court has opened the door to granting these sorts of exemptions to 
large, for-profit corporations.
  This is a far-reaching result that Congress never intended when it 
enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
  As 18 other senators and I made clear to the Court in an amicus brief 
in the Hobby Lobby case, Congress's purpose in passing the Religious 
Freedom Restoration Act in 1993 was simple. Congress wanted to 
strengthen individuals' free-exercise protections, after a Supreme 
Court decision in Employment Division v. Smith (1990) limited those 
rights. But Congress never intended to grant new free-exercise 
protections to artificial, for-profit business corporations.
  The Court's decision in Hobby Lobby went far beyond what Congress 
intended in passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Federal 
law limited by Hobby Lobby was the Affordable Care Act's requirement 
that preventive health services including contraceptives are covered 
without cost-sharing in both individual and employer-provided health 
plans. Preventive health services include contraception because it is 
basic health care for women. This is an important benefit secured by 
federal law for all American women, 99 percent of whom have used 
contraception at some point in their lives. The medical community has 
almost unanimously recognized contraception as basic and essential 
health care. As the Guttmacher Institute explained in 2011: 
Contraceptive use ``help[s] women avoid short intervals between births, 
thereby reducing the risk of poor birth outcomes.'' ``[S]hort birth 
intervals have been linked with numerous negative perinatal outcomes,'' 
including ``low birth weight, pre-term birth and small size for 
gestational age.'' Contraceptives can also be used to treat common 
medical conditions including ``menstrual-related migraines, the 
treatment of pelvic pain that accompanies endometriosis, and of 
bleeding due to uterine fibroids.''
  The Institute of Medicine also recognized the importance of these 
benefits when it recommended that all FDA-approved contraceptives 
should be covered without cost-sharing, pursuant to the Women's Health 
Amendment to the health care law, which I strongly supported.
  Yet the Court's decision in Hobby Lobby means a woman's employer can 
for religious reasons ignore the federal requirement to include this 
important health benefit in its health plan.
  To me, that is wrong. A woman's employer-provided health plan should 
include basic preventive services required by law, without the owners 
of the corporation she works for imposing their own personal religious 
views upon her health care decisions.
  I understand some have argued that this decision doesn't impact 
women's access to contraception because it doesn't allow a corporation 
to bar a woman from buying contraception. That's ridiculous. Of course 
health insurance coverage impacts access to care. That is the whole 
point of insurance. No one would argue that if an employer decided not 
to cover antibiotics that patients would still have the same access to 
needed medication on their own. When insurance coverage is limited, 
access is limited as well, particularly for those of lower financial 
means.
  According to a 2009 study from the Guttmacher Institute, 23 percent 
of women surveyed reported having a harder time paying for birth 
control during the economic downturn, and this number rose to one out 
of three among those who were financially worse off compared to the 
year before. In fact, my Republican colleagues felt that prescription 
drug coverage was so important to ensuring patient access to medication 
that they led the creation of Medicare Part D, which was signed into 
law by President Bush. I supported that legislation and still believe 
that health insurance coverage is critical to ensuring patient access.
  It is also important to note that contraception is not the only issue 
here. The Hobby Lobby decision means that other Federal health laws--
including other benefits required by law, or even coverage itself--
could be the subject of a religious objection by a corporate employer.
  In the United States more than half of all individuals get insurance 
through their employer, and estimates suggest that more than half of 
Americans work for a closely-held corporation.
  In the Affordable Care Act Congress recognized the importance of 
preventive care. We included coverage without a copay for effective 
prevention services as determined by independent medical experts. I 
will just name some: Blood pressure and cholesterol screening, 
colonoscopies, immunizations, HIV tests, mammograms and cervical cancer 
screening, diabetes screening, autism screening for children, hearing 
tests for newborns and screening for sickle-cell anemia.
  The point is certain essential, preventive services for adults and 
children must be part of employer-provided health care under the law. 
But the Hobby Lobby decision grants for-profit corporations the ability 
to seek a religious exemption from providing them. Those exemptions may 
or may not be granted, but the Supreme Court has now opened the door to 
those claims.
  In my view this is at odds with the fundamental principle that health 
care decisions should be made by patients in consultation with their 
doctors.
  This bill is simple: it would protect elements of employer-provided 
health care plans that are already required by law against challenge on 
the basis of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
  It would not infringe any individual's constitutional right to the 
free exercise of religion, nor would it alter existing exemptions and 
accommodations for religious organizations and non-profits.
  I urge my colleagues to defend the critical health protections that 
we have created and join me in supporting this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time until 2:10 
p.m. will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or 
their designees.
  The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to reserve the 
last 3 minutes of debate for my time, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, in a few minutes we are going to vote 
to proceed to debate on the Protect Women's Health from Corporate 
Interference Act--or, as we call it, the Not My Boss's Business Act--
straightforward, simple legislation that would ensure that no CEO or 
corporation can come between you and your guaranteed access to health 
care, period.
  Women across the country are watching. Affordability of care equals 
access to care, and we know that millions of Americans lacked health 
insurance prior to the Affordable Care Act because they couldn't afford 
it, not because it wasn't available to them to purchase. Contraceptives 
should be a part of the options in women's health care because it is an 
essential part. We don't single out other benefits for employees. Why 
should we single out benefits that are so important to women in this 
country?
  Now is the time for our colleagues to answer a few basic questions. 
Who should be in charge of a woman's health care decision? Should it be 
the woman making those decisions with her partner and her doctor and 
her faith or should it be her boss making those decisions for her based 
on his

[[Page 12179]]

own religious beliefs? To me and to the vast majority of people across 
the country, the answer to that question is obvious: Women should call 
the shots when it comes to their health care decisions, not their boss, 
not the government, not anyone else, period.
  But we are here today because five men on the Supreme Court 
disagreed. Five men on the Supreme Court rolled back the clock on women 
across America. We are here today because we simply cannot allow that 
to stand.
  In the aftermath of that decision, women across America turned up 
here in Congress and demanded we fix it. That is why I worked with my 
partner, the senior Senator from Colorado, to introduce this bill, and 
we have 46 cosponsors in the Senate and over 120 organizations that 
have voiced their support now. So I sincerely hope our Republican 
colleagues will join us in allowing us to proceed to debate on this 
important bill.
  I wish to remind them that women across the country are watching. In 
fact, we have a number of them here in the Nation's Capitol today, and 
I believe they will be very interested in seeing who is on their side.
  Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor, and I ask unanimous 
consent to yield back all remaining time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back.


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 459, S. 2578, a bill to ensure that 
     employers cannot interfere in their employees' birth control 
     and other health care decisions.
         Harry Reid, Patty Murray, Mark Udall, Richard J. Durbin, 
           Jeff Merkley, Debbie Stabenow, Jack Reed, Carl Levin, 
           Christopher A. Coons, Elizabeth Warren, Jeanne Shaheen, 
           Michael F. Bennet, Jon Tester, Patrick J. Leahy, Martin 
           Heinrich, Maria Cantwell, Christopher Murphy.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
motion to proceed to Calendar No. 459, S. 2578, a bill to ensure that 
employers cannot interfere in their employees' birth control and other 
health care decisions, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz) is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 56, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 228 Leg.]

                                YEAS--56

     Baldwin
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Collins
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Johnson (SD)
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Pryor
     Reed
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Walsh
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--43

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Enzi
     Fischer
     Flake
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Paul
     Portman
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Schatz
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 56 and the nays are 
43. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I enter a motion to reconsider the vote by 
which cloture was not invoked on the motion to proceed to S. 2578.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion is entered.
  The Senator from Vermont.


                           Immigration Crisis

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, over the years I have frequently spoken 
on the Senate floor about refugees. I have asked my fellow Senators to 
support our humanitarian refugee efforts in farflung corners of the 
world. In doing so, I cite America's role as a human rights leader and 
our long history of providing refuge to those fleeing persecution and 
violence. I also remind people of a time in the past, around World War 
II, when this country unwisely closed its borders to people who were 
fleeing the Holocaust in Germany. They came here, they were turned 
back, sent back, many of them to certain death in the death camps. That 
was a sorry part of our history. Usually our history reflects what we 
see in the Statue of Liberty: a beckoning torch to refuge. But now the 
refugee crisis has come back again and to our own border.
  It is a complicated problem. I hope we will stop trying to react to 
whatever was in the latest news cycle 12\1/2\ seconds ago so we can get 
to the next sound bite 12\1/2\ seconds from now and resist the urge to 
let politics shape our response. Critics are arguing that the increase 
in unaccompanied children arriving at the southwest border is driven by 
recent changes in our immigration policy. This is a sound bite. The 
facts, of course, are a lot different. They tell a different and more 
complicated story.
  The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has found over 50 
percent of the children ages 12 to 17 arriving from Guatemala, El 
Salvador, and Honduras have been forcibly displaced and have claims to 
international protection because of the violence they have encountered. 
If changes in immigration policy were the primary factor, we would 
expect to see an across-the-board increase in children arriving from 
Mexico and Central America.
  What Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have in common is 
widespread corruption and weak governments that have failed to 
implement effective social and economic programs or to protect their 
most vulnerable citizens from record levels of violence. This reality, 
more than any change in U.S. policy, is responsible for the massive 
increase in unaccompanied minors arriving on our southwest border.
  It is true that many of these children do not have claims to 
immigration relief and they are going to be returned. For them, the 
dangers of this trip are not worth it, and we must discourage them from 
making the arduous journey alone. But others are fleeing murder or 
being forced into gangs or girls in their early teens are being raped 
and impregnated. This is what they are escaping.
  There is no doubt that simply maintaining the status quo is not an 
option. We should take up and pass the administration's emergency 
supplemental request without delay. But instead of supporting the 
supplemental, Republicans are trying to use the crisis to promote fear 
and their enforcement-only agenda. It has not worked in the past. It 
will not work now. These children coming across the border are not 
trying to flee from enforcement. If they see somebody in uniform, they 
run to them, thinking that finally they are escaping the gangs and the 
murderers and the rapists, and now they suddenly feel safe because they 
see an American in uniform. As we know from the experience of other 
countries facing far greater refugee crises, increased detention and 
other messages of deterrence do not persuade desperate people from 
taking dangerous journeys.
  Some Members of Congress are proposing that the way to solve this 
problem is by amending the Trafficking

[[Page 12180]]

Victims Protection Act to make it easier to deport these children by 
rushing them through a superficial hearing--and it would be 
superficial--without access to counsel or child welfare specialists, in 
a country strange to them and in a language different than theirs. That 
is unacceptable. We are talking about young children--6 and 7 and 8 
years old--who have experienced horrific violence and now are in a 
country where they don't even speak the language. It is unconscionable 
to push them through our complicated legal system terrified and alone, 
without a lawyer, and with the ultimate idea that they will be 
summarily deported back to the very danger they fled. I will vote 
against anything that would allow such a travesty.
  The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is not a windfall for these 
children. It hasn't been from the time President George W. Bush signed 
it into law until today. It simply provides commonsense protections 
such as requiring the children who arrive alone to be interviewed by a 
child welfare specialist and have a meaningful opportunity to tell 
their story to a judge. That is how we identify victims of trafficking 
or sexual violence or persecution. If improving the efficiency of the 
process is the goal, the administration already has the discretion to 
do that. The funding for immigration judges and legal assistance in the 
supplemental will further help. We can address this humanitarian crisis 
without watering down our law. We don't have to turn our backs on our 
own basic values as Americans--the basic values that brought my 
grandparents to Italy from Vermont and my great-great grandparents from 
Ireland to Vermont. It is our humanitarian values. Let's not turn our 
backs on them.
  The problem, in fact, we are facing now could be alleviated in part 
if the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would allow a 
vote on the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill, S. 744. We 
had hundreds of hours of hearings, of markups, of debate, sometimes 
going late into the evening, and then days of debate on the floor, and 
we passed it by a strong bipartisan majority. We passed this bill 1 
year ago, and the Republican leadership in the House will not even 
allow it to come to a vote, even though it would probably pass in the 
same form as we did. They will not let it come to a vote because 
whether people vote for or against it, there are some people who will 
disagree with the vote, so it is easier to vote maybe. No matter what 
the humanitarian crisis we have, vote maybe. Don't vote yes, don't vote 
no; vote maybe by not voting, but then blame it on the President, blame 
it on everybody else.
  The Senate stepped up and we passed a bill the President said he 
would sign. The Senate-passed bill calls for nearly 20,000 new Border 
Patrol agents, 3,500 additional Customs and Border Protection officers, 
and 700 miles of fencing. We have heard people stand and say--as though 
they suddenly found this out--we need tougher laws to fight back 
against coyotes and cartels that want an opportunity to exploit these 
vulnerable children. I have heard some of the same people refuse to 
vote on a bill and say we need this protection. Read the bill. S. 744 
does that too. It has tougher provisions to fight against human 
smuggling and enhanced penalties in situations that result in serious 
bodily injury, death, bribery or corruption.
  We have done it. We have done it in the Senate. Why isn't there a hue 
and cry? I understand it is very easy, if you are going to do a sound 
bite for the evening news or something, to stand up and say: Why 
haven't Obama and the Democrats acted? It takes a little bit more time 
to say: Why haven't you voted for a bill that does everything you say 
is needed? Why won't the Republican leadership even allow the House 
Members--Republicans and Democrats--to vote on a bill that does 
everything they say they need?
  I want to thank Senators Harkin and Feinstein and Durbin for their 
comments at the last week's Appropriations Committee hearing. It is 
clear to me that they, too, understand our Nation is at a crossroads 
with this crisis. The world is watching how we are going to respond. 
How is the greatest Nation on Earth going to respond?
  I know one person who spoke out: Pope Francis. He has urged us to 
protect these children. Well, I think the Pope is right.
  We have a choice. We can either make good on the promises we have 
already written into our law and Republicans and Democrats have voted 
for, or we can decide: Gosh, we didn't mean it. We voted for it, we 
gave great press conferences, but we did not mean it. Now, gee whiz, it 
is complicated--as though life is always easy--so let's just rewrite 
the law. If we do that, just send these children back. Send these 
children back to the murderers, the rapists, the gangs. Doesn't that 
turn our back on the very principles on which this Nation was founded--
the principles that brought my grandparents here from Italy, my great-
grandparents here from Ireland?
  Where are those principles? We forgot them at the beginning of the 
Holocaust. We look at the people who died, the number of Jews who went 
to the ovens because we had forgotten our principles.
  Well, President George W. Bush was right in signing the bill. The 
Republicans and Democrats who voted for it were right. Let's not turn 
our backs. If we want to do something beyond the sound bites, something 
realistic, pass the supplemental for the people we need to do it for 
and allow the House of Representatives to vote up or down on the bill 
that Republicans and Democrats voted for here in the Senate a whole 
year ago. But do not let the supplemental request be a political 
football. It should be passed clean, without delay. Do not try to 
remove all the protections for victims of human trafficking.
  Pass the supplemental, and then have the courage to stand up and vote 
yes or no on S. 744. We did here in the Senate. Republicans and 
Democrats came together. A large majority of us passed it in the 
Senate. Why can't the House of Representatives do the same thing? I 
will tell you why. They are afraid whichever way they vote, it might be 
unpopular. Well, that is what you expect. I have cast more votes than 
all but a half dozen Senators in the history of this country. Can 
anybody go back through all those thousands upon thousands of votes and 
find some they could attack me on? Of course. I could give them a list 
myself. Can I find some that I probably on second thought wish I had 
cast differently? Of course I can. But I had the courage to vote yes or 
no. I was criticized when I became the first Vermonter--in fact, the 
only Vermonter--to ever vote against the war in Vietnam. The 
authorization was cut off by one vote. Today it would be hard to find 
anybody who supported that war.
  My point is not whether as a Senator from Vermont I vote right or 
wrong or any one of us as a Senator from our State votes right or 
wrong--but at least vote. That is what we said we would do when we were 
elected: vote. So I am talking about what is wrong with immigration law 
when you are afraid to even vote one way or the other. But let's not 
turn our back on the principles this country stands for. Let's not say 
to 7- or 8- or 9-year-old children--trying to escape a fate that my 
children or my grandchildren would never face--sorry, we are too great 
and big and busy a country to worry about you. Go back and face your 
fate, whatever it might be, because we don't care. That is not the 
America I serve. That is not the America I love. That is not the place 
where the Senate should be if we are going to be the conscience of the 
Nation.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I want to spend a few minutes discussing 
the effect and the premise of the legislation on which we just decided 
not to move forward.

[[Page 12181]]

  I have spent 25 years of my life caring for women. There is not a 
complication of pregnancy I have not handled. I have seen every aspect 
of it. I have delivered babies the size of my little finger and watched 
them move their little arms, not yet far enough along to survive. I 
have cared for women in the midst of lost pregnancies and the tragedy 
and trauma and the heartbreak. I have cared for women who have had 
abortions and the complications that has completed and exacerbated in 
their own lives from psychological to real physical problems. I have 
actually performed abortions to save women's lives who had severe 
congenital heart defects and would have died had their pregnancy 
continued.
  But the premise under which this bill was brought forward is an 
absolute false premise. You see, I come from Oklahoma. David Green and 
his family come from Oklahoma. They are the owners of Hobby Lobby. They 
are one of the finest groups of people I have ever met in my life. They 
are responsible corporate citizens. But everything they have done in 
their life is guided by their faith and their ethics. Therefore, they 
are not open on Sunday because they feel their employees have a right 
to a restful weekend. They pay a very livable wage. They have always 
had health insurance.
  The Supreme Court decision was about religious freedom and whether I, 
as a private businessperson, am still entitled to that as I carry on 
commerce in this country.
  What has been described--maybe not specifically but negatively--is 
that Hobby Lobby and the Green family do not appreciate women or their 
contributions or their rights or their freedoms. Nothing could be 
further from the truth. They had a very personal objection to four 
abortifacients--not birth control pills--four medicines, devices that 
actually kill a living human being. See, what we do not think about 
very often--and I think about all the time--is that when an egg and a 
sperm unite, there is created something that has never been created 
before: a unique human being. The genetic material will be no different 
at conception than it is when you are 85 years old. It is unique. It 
has never before been here; it will never again be here.
  So based on these deeply held beliefs and ethics--and what I would 
say is morals--they chose to supply their entire employee network with 
16 different methods of birth control. But the four that actually kill 
a baby that has been formed--they thought it was their religious right 
to be able to say they should not have to take money out of their 
pocket to pay for something that goes against their strongly held 
moral, ethical, and faith beliefs.
  So we have had a reaction. It is political in nature. It does not 
have much to do with the facts. It has a lot to do with darkness, of 
saying something is so that is not true, and saying it often enough so 
we can tell people that here are those terrible Republicans and they 
want to hurt women.
  I dedicated 25 years of my life to helping women in every type of 
tragedy, every type of disease, whether it is cancer or diabetes or 
hypertension or pregnancy or miscarriages or just the common cold. 
Before the Senate forced me to stop delivering babies, I was delivering 
babies that I delivered; in other words, it was the third generation. 
That is how crazy the Senate ethics rules are.
  So the very undercurrent of what we heard could not be further from 
the truth. What we heard--the implications were that the Green family 
is somehow this negative corporate monster who wants to take women's 
rights away--is absolutely untrue.
  The other falsehood we hear is that if you do not have health care, 
you do not have available birth control. We spend $400 million a year 
on title 19, most of which is in birth control pills that are given out 
to women who do not have access. It costs $7 a month to buy birth 
control pills, and most physicians, like myself, who had women who 
could not either access title 19 or who did not have $7 a month, gave 
the pills themselves out of their stocks, their samples.
  So there is a reality other than what has been painted in the Senate, 
and I could not sit by and let this hang out, this terrible untruth. I 
do not know of a family business, I do not know of a business in 
America that cares more about its employees than Hobby Lobby, and it is 
manifested through the employee loyalty and also the success of their 
brand because they really have a team. And you do not have a team if 
you do not feel as if you are being cared for--that you are not one of 
the group.
  There are a lot of problems in front of this country. But the one 
described in this last piece of legislation is not one of them. The 
Green family does
not keep anybody from buying abortifacients if they want them. They are 
not all that expensive. The morning-after pill is over the counter. But 
to force a person of faith to pay for an action against what they 
believe is morally wrong. It is far away from the religious liberties 
our Constitution guarantees.
  I know we can get hyped up on emotion, but the emotion we ought to 
get hyped on is preserving the rights our Founders guaranteed when they 
started this country. They were based on the same set of beliefs the 
Green family inculcates into everything they do with Hobby Lobby. It is 
pretty ironic to me that we have become so post-modern, so smart, so 
``for'' what the government can do and mandate that we are willing to 
destroy the very freedoms that created this country in the first place.
  This bill was a cynical attack on truth. I am glad it is not 
proceeding. It is time to quit wasting the Senate's time on political 
games and start addressing the very real problems this country has, 
such as the fact that Social Security disability will run out of money 
next month; the fact that one-third of those on disability who are not 
truly disabled are threatening the livelihood of those who truly are; 
the fact that Medicare, 17 years from now or 16 years from now, will be 
out of money; the fact that Social Security will be out of money in 18 
years; the fact that we are having corporations leave this country in a 
mass flood because we have a Tax Code that is not competitive with the 
rest of the world; the fact that we are wasting $250 billion a year on 
duplicative programs that do not accomplish the goals which the 
Congress set out for them. Yet we have no leadership that says we are 
going to address the very real problems in front of the country. It is 
not a great record to be proud of.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ISAKSON. I ask to be recognized to speak as if in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Honoring Our Armed Forces

                     Second Lieutenant Noah Harris

  Mr. ISAKSON. Madam President, I wish to share an experience I had a 
couple of weeks ago while riding the mountains of North Georgia to my 
home. I was in the pickup truck alone, driving my red Silverado from a 
place in the mountains. I spent a lot of time thinking--which I try to 
do when I get a few moments to myself--about all the difficult 
positions we are now in as a country. I thought about our border with 
Mexico and all the Central American children who are coming through, 
huddled on the border, and the crisis there. I thought about Syria and 
the tragedy of that civil war. I thought about the fact that the 
Israelis and Hamas are firing rockets back and forth from Gaza and into 
the mainland of Israel. I thought about the fact that we are now 
negotiating with Iran, our archenemy. I thought about the fact that 
Vladimir Putin decided to take advantage of the vacuum that has been 
created in world leadership and moved into Crimea, threatening Kiev and 
threatening Ukraine. I thought about all the crises we have along the 
way.

[[Page 12182]]

  Then I came to Ellijay, GA, a little town known for its apples and 
its population of 2,000 great Georgia citizens.
  I came to Poole's Bar-B-Q, which is a landmark along the highway in 
Ellijay, GA. I stopped, and all of a sudden all those thoughts I had of 
the wars going on, the conflicts going on, the strife and the trouble 
going on all culminated in Gilmer County, because in Gilmer County in 
2005 I attended the funeral of Noah Harris. Noah Harris was killed in 
Iraq in 2005.
  I thought about his story, and I thought about our position now, and 
I thought about some message I want to send to my country and to this 
body of the Senate.
  Let me talk about Noah Harris. Noah Harris was a cheerleader at the 
University of Georgia. On the Saturday before 9/11 in 2001, he was in 
Sanford Stadium with 92,000 fans of the Georgia Bulldogs cheering on 
the team.
  Then, like the rest of the world, he saw the terrible attack of 9/11 
in 2001--in New York City, in Shanksville, PA, and in Washington, DC.
  On the morning of the 12th, he got out of bed in the dormitory and he 
went straight to the Army ROTC building in Athens, GA, and told them he 
wanted to sign up for an ROTC commission because he wanted to go fight 
whoever it was who killed those 3,000 citizens of the world tragically 
in New York City.
  They said: Noah, you can't get a commission in just a year. You only 
have a year left.
  He said: I can double up and do it. I want to go for my country. I 
want to go for what is right. I want to go fight for America.
  He became a second lieutenant in the 3rd Infantry Division, and, sure 
enough, 3 years after that, he was in Iraq. He became known as the 
Beanie Baby soldier because he had his pockets stuffed with Beanie 
Babies. And as he would go through Ghazaliya, where he was stationed 
near Baghdad, he would hand out Beanie Babies to the Iraqi children. He 
was like a pied piper. Unfortunately, in the 11th month of his tour, a 
rocket-propelled grenade his hit humvee and he and two of his buddies 
were killed instantly in Iraq.
  I didn't know Noah Harris, but I went to the funeral that day 
because, as a Senator from Georgia, I wanted to pay my respects to a 
soldier who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror.
  So as I was riding through Gilmer County a couple weeks ago, thinking 
about the crises we have today around the world and then thinking about 
Noah Harris, I thought to myself, there is a message all of us need to 
remember: Those soldiers should never have died in vain, and we have to 
make sure they did not.
  In Iraq 4,486 American soldiers were killed in Operation Iraqi 
Freedom. In Afghanistan, to date, 2,319--a total of 6,805--most of them 
Americans, some of them immigrants seeking their citizenship in America 
and fighting for America in our Armed Forces--fought for the rights and 
freedoms that all our Founding Fathers stood for, fought for all the 
reasons we serve in this body today, fought for all the reasons that 
America is the great and noble country it is around the world.
  But right now there is an absence of leadership in the world, and 
because of it we are seeing one crisis come up after another. I worry 
that Noah Harris, who died in Iraq in 2005, might--and I underscore the 
word ``might''--have died in vain if we don't recognize our 
responsibilities and see to it that we try and prevent what has been 
happening lately from continuing to happen.
  There is a decision point coming to the United States of America--it 
is coming next year. It is one I want to encourage the President to 
think about deeply and for all of us to think about deeply.
  We have lost Iraq to ISIS. ISIS is a renegade group of terrorists who 
have basically taken over that country and partnered with some of the 
terrorists in Syria to control Iraq.
  One of the reasons they did that is we left a huge vacuum in Iraq 
when we pulled out. We pulled every American soldier out. I know it was 
our goal to leave after the surge worked--and that was the right thing 
to do. But it wasn't the right thing to pull out every single soldier, 
because we abandoned all the infrastructure that we had built. We 
abandoned the image of American strength and power. We abandoned the 
ability for us to be agile in a dangerous part of the world.
  In Afghanistan, we are supposed to pull our troops out at the 
beginning of next year. Some of them should come home but not all of 
them. We have invested billions of dollars in American hardware and 
American money to see to it we had the best support in the world for 
our soldiers in Afghanistan. If we abandon Bagram, if we abandon 
Kabul--if we abandon Afghanistan, the same thing will happen in 
Afghanistan as happened in Iraq. And those soldiers, the 2,319 who died 
in Afghanistan, will have in part died in vain because we abandoned 
what they built. We abandoned what they protected. We abandoned the 
investment they made.
  We need also to remember what happened on 9/11 of 2001, when we 
decided to go into Iraq and then later into Afghanistan. We didn't have 
enough infrastructure in that part of the world to make an invasion. We 
had to rent the Kyrgyzstan airport near Russia to be able to fly our 
troops in to begin positioning outside of the Tora Bora area in 
Afghanistan.
  We have built tremendous infrastructure, we have built tremendous 
bases, and we have tremendous assets for which the taxpayers of the 
United States have paid. We should maintain a presence there so we are 
agile; so our SEALs teams, if needed, can be positioned; so that the 
rest of the world knows that while the war may be over and America has 
come home, it hasn't left. It hasn't abandoned us. An American presence 
will remain--just as we have in Germany, just as we have in Japan, just 
as we have in South Korea. Our best friends today were our enemies 40, 
50, and 60 years ago, because America didn't leave when the fight was 
over. We need to make sure that relationship happens in Afghanistan so 
we can begin to build our presence in that part of the world and be 
that somebody who prohibits and inhibits terrorism and people like ISIS 
from taking over countries.
  Make no mistake about it. Vladimir Putin has been encouraged by an 
absence of leadership, and ISIS took advantage of an absence of 
leadership. What is going on between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip 
is an absence of leadership, in part on our part. We can't sit around 
and be bystanders. We have to recommit ourselves to the effort in that 
part of the world because in the end the peace and security of America 
from terrorism and from those who would bring us down is not our 
looking the other way and not living up to our responsibility to the 
Noah Harrises of the world who gave the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq in 
2005--all because he watched what we all watched that morning of 9/11 
in 2001, and said: This shall not stand. I want to volunteer to fight 
for my country. And he joined our Army and did so.
  God bless Noah Harris. God bless his parents, Rick and Lucy. God 
bless the United States of America. May we remember our responsibility 
not to leave what we have built and remain a beacon of peace, liberty, 
and democracy around the world.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                          Veterans Health Care

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wanted to inform the Members about an 
important hearing that was held this morning in the Senate Veterans' 
Committee. I also wish to thank the Members of the Senate who, in the 
midst of a very partisan environment last month, voted with 93 votes--
overwhelming support--to pass a very significant piece of legislation 
to help the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend our 
country--legislation that was written by Senator

[[Page 12183]]

McCain and myself, and I thank him very much for his help in this 
effort.
  One of the important provisions in that legislation was an 
understanding that the needs of our veterans are a cost of war. They 
are a cost of war just as much as guns and tanks and planes and 
missiles are a cost of war. It seems to me to be fairly obvious that if 
we spend trillions of dollars fighting the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, it is absolutely appropriate to make sure we have money 
available on an emergency basis to take care of the men and women who 
use those guns and tanks and missiles and who put their lives on the 
line and, in some cases, never come home.
  So the first point I wish to make is that if we send people to war, 
we should always understand that a cost of that war is taking care of 
our veterans.
  I recall--and I see the chairperson of the Appropriations Committee 
and she will recall this as well--that when this country went to war in 
Iraq and after in Afghanistan--and let me be clear, I voted against the 
war in Iraq--but when we went to war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the 
understanding was that this is emergency funding; that our troops, no 
matter how one voted on the war, needed the equipment to take care of 
themselves, to protect themselves, and to win the mission. That is 
exactly where we are today. We want to win this mission. The mission we 
are involved in now is making sure the men and women who served this 
country in the military get quality care in a timely manner. That is 
the mission we have to win now, and that, in my view, is a cost of war.
  I think there is not widespread awareness of what the cost of war is, 
and I hope, A, we never get into more wars in the future, but that if 
we ever do, people understand that any budget for war must include the 
needs of veterans--not 2 years after the war but 70 years after the 
war. When some veteran is sitting in some room in an apartment without 
legs, without arms, without eyesight, that is a cost of war and we 
don't desert those people--not tomorrow, not 50 years from now, not 70 
years from now. Our moral commitment is to make certain we provide for 
those who defend us.
  I think there is not sufficient understanding about what the cost of 
war truly is. I wish to mention just a few facts people should 
understand. Over 2 million men and women served this country in 
Afghanistan and in Iraq. Studies are very clear that 20 to 30 percent 
of those men and women have come home with post-traumatic stress 
disorder or traumatic brain injury. That is between 400,000 to 500,000 
men and women who are coming home with PTSD or TBI. What that 
translates into is men and women who are struggling every single day. 
It translates into outrageously high rates of suicide for younger 
veterans, substance abuse, inability to hold on to a job and earn a 
living; many of these folks have a difficult time being around people. 
It translates into divorce. It translates into emotional problems for 
kids and for other family members.
  Since fiscal year 2006, the number of veterans receiving specialized 
mental health treatment has risen from over 927,000 to more than 1.4 
million in fiscal year 2013. Today, and every day, approximately 49,000 
veterans are receiving outpatient mental health appointments. Let me 
repeat that. Today, some 49,000 veterans in 50 States in this country 
are receiving mental health appointments. That is a staggering number. 
During the last 4 years, VA outpatient mental health visits have 
increased from $14 million a year to more than $18 million a year. This 
is just one of the problems facing the veterans community. How do we 
provide the psychiatrists, the social workers, the psychologists, the 
counselors we need? It is a huge issue because PTSD and TBI are very 
tough illnesses.
  In addition, what we are looking at now--and every Member of the 
Senate is familiar with this--is outrageously high waiting periods for 
veterans to get into the VA. Time and time again I hear from veterans 
in Vermont and I hear from veterans all over the country; I hear from 
veterans organizations and I read independent surveys which tell me 
that when veterans get into the VA, the quality of the care they get is 
good. I just met 2 hours ago with a veterans organization--same thing: 
Once people get into the system, the quality of care is generally good; 
the problem is accessing the care. The problem is appointments.
  I will not read to my colleagues all of the statistics, but trust me 
the waiting lines all over this country are much too high in many parts 
of America. There are other people who never even made it to the 
waiting lines. This has to do with a whole lot of issues that we have 
discussed.
  The bottom line is we must address the waiting time issue and make 
sure that in the very near future, every veteran who is in need of 
health care gets that health care in a timely manner.
  Sloan Gibson, who is the Acting Secretary of the VA----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is informed that the 
time is under Republican control, if the Senator would suspend.
  Mr. SANDERS. Could I ask my colleague just for 3 more minutes?
  Mr. RISCH. The Senator may do so.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from Vermont is 
recognized.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, Senator 
Sanders is speaking. Senator Risch, I believe, is going to speak. The 
time now is on unaccompanied children; am I correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The unanimous consent agreement was that the 
Republicans control the time until 4:30.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. OK.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. RISCH. I ask unanimous consent that----
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I haven't yielded the floor. I reserved my right to 
object. I am just clarifying. So Senator Sanders wishes to speak, and 
as I understand it, I have time--this is not in any way to interfere 
with the Senator from Idaho, but at 4:30 I am supposed to have the time 
under the time controlled by the Democrats; is that right?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We already agreed to the unanimous consent 
request that the Republicans control the time until 4:30.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. How much time is--all I am trying to do is know when I 
am going to be able to speak.
  If I could turn to the Senator from Idaho, how long does he intend to 
speak?
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I intend to speak for about 4\1/2\ minutes.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. I withdraw my objection. I think we deserve to hear 
Senator Sanders, and I will wait patiently for my turn.
  Mr. RISCH. I thank the Senator from Maryland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. I thank very much the Senator from Idaho.
  Let me wrap it up by making the point that Acting Secretary Gibson 
made this morning which was a very simple but important one. What he 
said is we must address the immediate crisis of ending these 
outrageously long waiting periods that veterans are now experiencing in 
order to get into the VA. Right now--and I am proud of what he is 
doing--they are moving very aggressively to get veterans all over this 
country into private health care when necessary and any other form of 
health care, to make sure those waiting periods go down. I think they 
are doing a pretty good job. They have to continue to do that, but we 
should be mindful that this is going to be a very expensive process.
  The other point he made, which is equally important, is that long 
term, if the goal is to end these unacceptable waiting periods, we have 
to give the VA the staffing and the space and the facilities and the 
infrastructure they need.
  He came forward with what I recognize is a very big pricetag. His 
pricetag was $17.6 billion, so we can get the 10,000 more staff we 
need, the doctors, the psychiatrists, the primary health care 
physicians, the mental health

[[Page 12184]]

counselors we need, get the space we need, because in many facilities 
around the country the staff can't operate because they don't have 
adequate space.
  So what I would say to my colleagues, if we are serious about 
addressing this very important problem, we will go forward in two ways. 
No. 1, immediate crisis, let's end those waiting lists. Let's contract 
out when necessary to private physicians.
  Long term, it is absolutely imperative that the VA have the 
infrastructure it needs so we don't have this crisis again 2 years from 
today.
  The last point, I reiterate. If we send people off to war--if we make 
that enormously difficult, painful decision--I hope every Member in 
this body understands that taking care of veterans is a cost of that 
war and that we have a moral responsibility to do everything we can 
with them and for them and their families.
  Before I yield the floor, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in 
the Record a memorandum submitted by Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson at 
our committee hearing earlier today.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                    Washington, DC, July 16, 2014.

                    Memorandum for Chairman Sanders

     From: Sloan D. Gibson, Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
     Regarding: Testimony at July 16, 2014 Senate Committee on 
         Veterans' Affairs Hearing.

       Per your request, attached for your information is a 
     summary of additional resource needs through FY2017 that I 
     outlined in my testimony today before the Senate Committee on 
     Veterans' Affairs.
       In developing the resource requirements, the overarching 
     goals were to:
       Support the work of the Senate-House conference committee 
     to improve Veterans' access to medical care and services.
       Ensure that VA has the resources necessary to deliver 
     timely, high quality care and benefits to Veterans enrolled 
     in the VA system.
       Schedule all Veteran appointments within standards of 
     acceptable care.
       Enhance and reform infrastructure that enables VA medical 
     care (i.e. facilities construction/IT improvements) to 
     modernize VA's operations and provide access to care when and 
     where Veterans want it.
       Further, the resource requirements were shaped by 
     principles that the Administration believes should be key to 
     any discussion of VA resource needs. These principles 
     include:
       Leverage contract care where necessary, but focus efforts 
     on incentivizing improvements in the VA system itself--
     Consider referrals to non-VA care to address burgeoning 
     workload as a temporary stop-gap to immediately address the 
     current problem, but concurrently look to strengthen the VA 
     system by including incentives and resources for VA to 
     deliver care in-house.
       Require cost-effective, coordinated care--Make efficient 
     use of taxpayer dollars by ensuring quality care is delivered 
     in a cost-effective way. Require VA to actively coordinate a 
     Veteran's care across all care environments.
       Modernize VA infrastructure and processes--Ensure that VA 
     facilities and IT infrastructure are modernized and equipped 
     to meet increasing demand for services; reform VA IT delivery 
     and procurement to make it more effective in delivering 
     services to Veterans.
       Support VA system without undercutting other national 
     priorities--Given that VA is required to provide quality care 
     to Veterans--and faces serious resources needs not 
     contemplated when budget caps were negotiated--funding to 
     support the ramp-up of VA medical care contemplated below 
     must be provided outside of current base discretionary 
     resources.
       If you need any additional information, please do not 
     hesitate to contact me.

                                       VA RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS FACT SHEET
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
               Investments to Address VA Access to Care and Modernize Infrastructure and Processes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  Resource                     Cost ($Billions)              Summary of Use of Funds
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Increasing Veterans' System-wide Access to                $10.0   Access: $8.2B for approximately 10,000
 Care.                                                            primary care and specialty care physicians,
                                                                  and other clinical/medical staff including
                                                                  physicians, nurses, social workers, mental
                                                                  health professionals, and others--and funds
                                                                  other associated expenses such as equipment,
                                                                  supplies, and other overhead costs
                                                                  Hepatitis-C Drugs: $1.3B for critical
                                                                  new therapies over the next 2 years for higher
                                                                  than expected costs for two new Hepatitis C
                                                                  drug therapies that are significantly more
                                                                  effective and carry fewer side effects
                                                                  Caregivers Program: $186M is estimated
                                                                  to support higher-than-expected demand for the
                                                                  Caregivers program (over approximately 22,000
                                                                  Caregivers in total)
IT Enhancements.............................               $1.2   IT Infrastructure: Additional funding
                                                                  is needed to provide IT support in new space
                                                                  generated by major and minor construction and
                                                                  Non-Recurring Maintenance (NRM).
                                                                  Project Development: Additional
                                                                  funding is needed for the development of OIT
                                                                  programs. These include Interoperable
                                                                  Purchased Care, Mobile App Scheduling, and
                                                                  additional Veterans Benefits Management System
                                                                  & VBA IT development.
                                                                  Other IT Support: Additional funding
                                                                  for IT staff to support operational
                                                                  requirements and for hardware, bandwidth,
                                                                  security, etc.
Improve and Invest in VA Physical                          $6.0  Funding for approximately:
 Infrastructure.                                                    700 Minor and NRM projects to
                                                                    include safer inpatient care to eradicate
                                                                    legionella and other threats
                                                                    8 major construction projects that
                                                                    address safety or access issues
Veterans Benefits Administration............               $0.4   Funding for approximately 1,700 staff
                                                                  to speed appeals, non-rating benefits
                                                                  workload, and other benefits programs
                                             --------------------
      Total.................................             $17.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These resources are needed to ensure that VA is able to deliver high quality, timely health care to
  Veterans enrolled in the VA.

  With that, I yield the floor, and again I wish to thank my friend 
Senator Risch for the courtesy of giving me some extra time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I thank the Senator.
  (The remarks of Mr. Risch pertaining to the introduction of S. 2616 
are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. RISCH. I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the time between now 
and 5:30 p.m. will be controlled by the majority party.
  The Senator from New Mexico is recognized.


                             Refugee Crisis

  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, for the next hour a number of us from 
the Democratic Caucus will be talking about the Central American 
refugee crisis. We are lucky to be joined by Senator Mikulski, the 
chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to get us started 
today. So I look forward very much to hearing what she has to say and 
you will be hearing from me in a little bit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland is recognized.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an urgent 
crisis at our border in which over 250 children a week are coming from 
Central America, fleeing horrific gang violence--horrific gang 
violence--to seek refuge and asylum in the United States of America.
  This is being called a crisis at the border. Well, it is a border 
crisis, but the crisis actually begins in Central America, where 
brutal, violent gangs, based on organized crime, are either trying to 
recruit the boys into organized crime, drug smuggling, human 
trafficking, or to recruit the girls into human trafficking in other 
just dangerous and repugnant circumstances.
  But when you go to the border the way I have, you will see that the 
situation is dire. It is dire because, as these children come to the 
border, crossing the Rio Grande--probably within really almost a 50-
mile stretch of the Grande; it is not over the 1,900 miles of the 
Grande--they come and, actually, they do not try to sneak in, they come 
right up to where the border control is and they have pieces of paper 
with their name on it. They are then taken into custody by border 
control. They are placed into holding cells that are designed for adult 
males. They were designed to hold drug smugglers, narcotraffickers, and 
now they hold as many as 20 or 30 or 40 children, while under the law 
they are to be placed in the hands of the Health and Human Services 
Agency while their legal and asylum status is being verified.
  Well, I am telling you, the entire infrastructure for dealing with 
these children--from the way the border control is trying to take care 
of them, the overrunning of the capacity of these

[[Page 12185]]

holding cells, to the backlog on processing their legal and asylum 
determination, to really trying to place them in facilities under the 
care of Health and Human Services--the situation is dire.
  The President of the United States has asked for emergency funding to 
deal with it. I hope we consider this emergency funding. The amount of 
money the President is seeking is $3.7 billion. This is to care for the 
humanitarian needs of the children, the enforcement at the border, the 
identifying of their legal status under a law passed under the 
administration of President Bush to deal with the trafficking of 
children, both boys and girls, and also for robust deterrence in the 
home countries where these children are coming from. But the deterrence 
comes from breaking down and prosecuting organized crime syndicates of 
the smugglers and the traffickers.
  We are also asking for money to conduct a massive educational 
campaign advising Central American families against the dangers and 
false hopes of this journey. The journey is, indeed, dangerous. They 
come on foot. They come by car. They ride the tops of a train that is 
referred to as The Beast. There was one little girl who I spoke to with 
Secretary Johnson. She had stayed awake for 2 days on the rooftop of a 
train, terrified that she would fall off and be mutilated, just to be 
able to make it into the United States of America. And why did she make 
such a perilous, dangerous journey? It was because they were trying to 
recruit her into these violent and vile ways.
  We need to make sure Central America, with our help, goes after the 
seven organized crime units that we know are sparking this, that are 
trying to recruit these kids; giving them false promises too, that if 
they come to this country, they will be able to get a free pass somehow 
for getting into this country. We need to be able to stop this and be 
able to deal with it in the most effective way.
  The President's program actually does outline the money to be able to 
do that. When the children do come, as I said, while they are awaiting 
their legal status to be determined, they are placed in the hands of 
HHS. Now, HHS does not run group homes. HHS does not run foster care. 
HHS funds it, and they need to be able to turn to local communities to 
be able to have these children be able to stay.
  I saw fantastic work being done while the children were being placed 
at Lackland Air Force Base and the social services were being run by--
under contract of a faith-based organization--the Baptist church. I 
know the distinguished Presiding Officer knows a lot about human 
services. I myself am a social worker, and I will tell you that faith-
based organization is really running a good program for these kids.
  But we are running out of money. We need money for food and shelter 
for the children. We need money for the border agents. We need money 
for transportation to shelters and also transportation, when we can, 
returning these children home. We need money for immigration judges and 
legal services for the children to determine their asylum status, and, 
as I said, we need the muscular deterrence in the home country breaking 
up the organized gangs that then create the violence that then sets 
these children on this journey.
  The best way to make sure the surge of children is stopped is not by 
harsher immigration laws. It is by making it hard on the drug dealers 
and the human traffickers, the smugglers, the coyotes. Because they are 
the ones who are the reason they are coming.
  Looking at the data--looking at data--we see that these children are 
coming not only where there is high poverty, but that children are 
coming where there is a high level of crime, particularly homicide, 
murder, and other recruitment of children. These children are almost 
being recruited by child soldiers in their own country to engage in 
violent criminal activity.
  So we need to be able to look at this emergency supplemental and be 
able to meet the human needs while the children are here, make sure we 
fund the judges, the immigration judges and the legal services, to 
determine their asylum status, and be able to take care of them.
  Already, 60,000 unaccompanied children have come into our country 
during this last year. In the 2 weeks I toured the border, I saw young 
children as young as 5 with one instruction: Cross the border, turn 
yourself in, and try to get as safe as you can. Border agents find 
these children often dehydrated, malnourished, and usually a victim of 
some type of trauma. Also, they have heard false promises from the 
smugglers about what it will be when they come here.
  These smugglers--as part of these dangerous gangs and cartels--see 
women and children as a commodity to be bought, sold, transported, as 
if they were cargo. Children leave these homes based on lies. They 
think they are coming to an area where they will never have to go home 
or that they will be safe. I hope we then pass this appropriations. I 
hope in passing the appropriations we will be able to protect the 
safety of the children, we determine their legal and asylum status, and 
we have this muscular deterrent strategy in the home country.
  There are those who want to have a new immigration policy or want to 
repeal the George Bush law. I would caution that because, remember, our 
problem is not the children; our problem is what causes the children to 
come. We have to go after what causes the children to come; and that is 
the drug dealers, the smugglers, the coyotes, those who are engaging in 
such violent crime.
  The host countries, along with Mexico, need to help deal with this, 
and we need to marshal our law enforcement resources to be able to help 
them do this. Now they say: Let's bring in the National Guard at the 
border. What is our National Guard going to do? When these little kids 
cross the Rio Grande, they are going to go right up to that soldier, 
put their arms around his or her leg, and say: I need to be safe. Can 
you help me? What is the National Guard going to do? It is not a border 
enforcement problem; it is a criminal gang problem in Central America.
  So we need to be able to be sure we are targeting the right areas in 
order to solve this problem. The children are not the threats. They are 
coming here because they are threatened themselves. We need to meet 
these urgent humanitarian needs, and we need to focus on our hemisphere 
to break up the gangs and crime.
  Later on today we are going to have a briefing for every single 
Senator so they can ask the questions about this situation. Who are the 
children? Why are they coming? What are their legal rights under the 
law? But how can we effectively deal with this children's march, where 
the children are in danger in their host country and on the long 
journey to this one?
  We are also asking that this $3.7 billion be designated as an 
emergency.
  There are those who will want to take from other domestic programs. I 
would caution that. In fact, I would object to the very idea. The 
President has said this is an emergency because under the Budget 
Control Act of 2011 it meets the criteria that it is sudden, urgent, 
unforeseen, and temporary, deals with the loss of life, property, or 
our national security interests. I think it meets that test. I do not 
want to take offsets from existing programs to do this. It is 
unexpected. It is significant. We can deal with it, but let's not do it 
at the expense of other programs designed to help the American family 
and the American middle class.
  I know there are others who want to speak on this issue. I will have 
more to say later, but for now let's examine the urgent supplemental 
and let's really solve the problem at the border and what causes it to 
be a problem for us.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Blumenthal). The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, let me start by thanking my colleague 
from Maryland for her leadership on the Appropriations Committee and 
her leadership on this difficult issue. She said something in caucus 
the other day that really struck me. She said: Every Senator has an 
opinion on this, but not every Senator has the facts. Facts matter. 
They make for good policy.

[[Page 12186]]

  Last week I had the opportunity, along with Secretary Johnson, to 
visit a temporary facility for refugee mothers and their children that 
is in my home State of New Mexico. The holding area at this facility in 
Artesia, NM, is one of several ways that DHS is increasing its capacity 
to process the increasing number of families with children from Central 
America who are crossing our southwest border.
  On Monday, 40 individuals were repatriated back to Honduras. It is 
reported that more mothers and their children will be sent back to 
their countries of origin.
  While I was at this facility, I saw firsthand the remarkable 
interagency effort that it took to take a Federal law enforcement 
training center, a campus, and turn it into a safe and humane place for 
families to stay while their cases are being processed.
  But that is not all I saw while I was there. I watched a young boy 
play soccer with his little brother, both of them clearly happy to be 
in the kind of secure environment where they could just be kids. I saw 
a lot of mothers. I saw mothers whose faces were worried, who reflected 
the clear concern about what the future would be for them and for their 
children. What I did not see at that facility--I did not see cartel 
mules. I did not see drug runners. I did not see criminals or gang 
members. Those were mothers and little kids. Most of those families 
come from one of the most violent regions in the world today.
  This current crisis is of grave concern to all of us. I know I have 
heard from a number of my constituents who wanted to know what they can 
do to help. I have to give great credit to our local chamber of 
commerce in Artesia, NM, as they worked hard as they received hundreds 
of donations from compassionate New Mexicans across the State hoping to 
make a difference in these people's lives. They understand that this is 
first a humanitarian crisis. They also understand that we are a nation 
of laws, that our immigration system has been broken for a long time 
and needs to be fixed.
  The Senate worked for months to address this, but the Republican-led 
House of Representatives refuses to even debate immigration reform, 
much less allow a vote on it. Instead, Republicans claim that the 
President's immigration policies, including deferred action for 
childhood arrivals--or DACA, as it is known--caused a crisis at the 
border. That could not be further from the truth. The increase in 
unaccompanied children started before President Obama created the DACA 
program 2 years ago. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has 
documented an increased number of asylum seekers from El Salvador, 
Honduras, and Guatemala since 2009--a full 5 years ago. What is more, 
children crossing the border would not be eligible for DACA. In fact, 
they would not be eligible for the Senate version of immigration 
reform.
  These asylum seekers are not only fleeing to the United States but 
also to the other neighboring countries in the region. They are fleeing 
to Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize. In fact, those countries 
saw a 712-percent spike in asylum cases from El Salvador, from 
Honduras, and Guatemala from 2008 to 2013, further demonstrating that 
children are not coming to the United States to apply for DACA. They 
are coming because their lives are at risk back home.
  In interviews with over 400 children, the United Nations High 
Commission on Refugees found that no less than 58 percent of them were 
forcibly displaced because they suffered or faced harm that indicated a 
potential or actual need for international protection--an increase of 
more than 400 percent from 2006.
  Less than 1 percent of these kids spoke of immigration reform or some 
new program or policy as the basis for coming to the United States. In 
fact, out of the 404 children who were interviewed, there were only 4--
4 children who expressed a reason for coming that related to some part 
of the U.S. immigration system.
  The reality is, as we heard from Senator Mikulski, what is driving 
children to our borders is unimaginable violence, corruption, extreme 
poverty, and instability in their home countries.
  This picture was taken in Tegucigalpa in Honduras. This is frankly an 
all-too-common sight in Honduras today. Not only is the poverty 
unimaginable, but the violence we have seen is like nothing in recent 
history. Honduras has now the world's highest murder rate, with over 90 
murders per 100,000 persons annually. Last year approximately 1,000 
young people under the age of 23 in Honduras were murdered--murdered in 
a nation of only 8 million, 1,000 young people.
  In a report published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 
they found that 93 percent of crimes perpetrated against youth in 
Honduras go unpunished--completely unpunished.
  The National Observatory of Violence reported that violent deaths of 
women increased by 246 percent between 2005 and 2012.
  This is all the more unsettling to me because I know firsthand that 
Honduras did not always look this way. In the 1990s I traveled to 
Honduras with my wife Julie. We were on our honeymoon. We flew into San 
Pedro Sula. The only time I felt any fear was trying to drive in a city 
that moves a lot faster than I do when I try to drive on country roads 
in New Mexico. But we never had any fear for violence when we were in 
Honduras. We traveled around the country. We went to many places off 
the beaten path.
  That is very different today. Today San Pedro Sula is a city 
synonymous with murder.
  To understand just how bad it is, you can look at pictures like this 
one of literally body bags getting ready to go to mass graves from 
murders happening in these neighborhoods in San Pedro Sula. You can 
read a recent article in the New York Times by Frances Robles that 
tells the chilling story of Cristian, an 11-year-old sixth grader from 
Honduras who lost his father in March after he was robbed and murdered 
by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. 
It is kind of hard to imagine needing a security guard to protect a 
pastry truck. Three people he knows were murdered this year alone, and 
four others were gunned down on a nearby corner in the span of 2 weeks 
at the beginning of the year. A girl his age resisted being robbed of 
the sum of $5. She was clubbed over the head, dragged off by two men 
who cut a hole in her throat and stuffed her underwear in it and left 
her body in a ravine across the street from Cristian's house.
  Then there is Anthony, a 13-year-old from Honduras, who disappeared 
from his gang-ridden neighborhood. His younger brother Kenneth hopped 
on his green bike to search for him, starting his hunt at a notorious 
gang hangout in the neighborhood. They were found within days of each 
other, both dead. Anthony, 13, and a friend had been shot in the head.
  Kenneth, age 7, had been tortured and beaten with sticks and rocks. 
They were among seven children murdered in the La Pradera neighborhood 
of San Pedro Sula in April alone--in 1 month.
  El Salvador and Guatemala are the world's fourth and fifth highest in 
murders. The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies found that in 2011, 
El Salvador had the highest rate of gender-motivated killings of women 
in the entire world. In Guatemala, the Department of State reports 
widespread human rights problems, including institutional corruption, 
particularly in the police, in judicial sectors, kidnapping, drug 
trafficking, execution, and often lethal violence against women.
  We have a human crisis at our southern border that requires an 
immediate but compassionate response. Yet instead of supporting the 
supplemental which seeks to address the root causes of the crisis and 
protect these vulnerable children, Republicans are trying to use the 
crisis to promote fear and their border-enforcement-only agenda.
  Recently, a Republican Governor suggested that the President send the 
National Guard to ``secure the border once and for all'' and that ``the 
border between the U.S. and Mexico is less secure today than at any 
time in the recent past.'' As I mentioned at the beginning of my 
remarks, facts are stubborn. This is simply not the case. In

[[Page 12187]]

fact, the notion that lax border policies are somehow responsible for 
this latest crisis is not just a myth; it is a, well, full 
misrepresentation driven by politicians who would rather create a 
political issue than to solve a very real problem.
  The border today is more secure than it has ever been. There are more 
Border Patrol agents on the ground. There are more resources. There is 
more technology deployed on the border than at any time in our Nation's 
history--at any time. In fiscal year 2012, the Federal Government spent 
almost $18 billion--$17.9 billion--on immigration enforcement. That is 
$3.5 billion more than the budgets of all the other Federal law 
enforcement agencies combined--$3.5 billion more than the FBI's budget, 
plus the DEA's budget, the ATF budget, plus the Secret Service, plus 
the U.S. Marshals Service. These resources have made a difference. From 
fiscal year 2009 to 2012, the Department of Homeland Security seized 71 
percent more currency, 39 percent more narcotics, 189 percent more 
weapons along the southwest border as compared to the last 4 years of 
the Bush administration.
  It is important to remember that this crisis from refugees in Central 
America is not about children and families sneaking across our border 
like criminals. As we heard from the Senator from Maryland, many of 
these refugees seek out the first Border Patrol agent they can find in 
order to turn themselves in. Many of these children have walked across 
the border or across the Rio Grande with identification literally 
safety-pinned to their shirts. But that image does not serve the 
political interests of those who prefer a border crisis to a refugee 
crisis.
  Let's step back and remember that the Senate passed a comprehensive 
immigration bill more than a year ago now--a bill that included 
incredibly important provisions to further strengthen our border but 
that would also protect refugee children and crack down on the 
smugglers and the transnational criminal organizations that are at the 
root of the current crisis.
  Notably, this bill was widely supported by both Democrats and 
Republicans in the Senate Chamber.
  Public support and good economics have not been enough to convince 
the House leaders to hold a vote on immigration reform, but they cannot 
turn a blind eye to the current humanitarian crisis along our Nation's 
southern border.
  Instead of attacking the President, Senate Republicans should work 
with them to address the issue, and they should demand that their 
colleagues in the House act to fix our broken immigration system.
  Additionally, passing the $3.7 billion supplemental sends a clear 
signal that we are aggressively stemming the flow of children and 
families from Central America while continuing to treat these refugee 
children humanely and as required under the law. This situation is an 
emergency and we need emergency funding.
  Our immigrant communities have helped to write the economic, social, 
and cultural history of America. I know this firsthand. My own father 
is an immigrant who came to this country as a boy from Nazi Germany in 
the 1930s.
  As a nation we value the twin promises of both freedom and 
opportunity. Those ideals are important no matter where you are born.
  The fact is, our immigration system is broken. Those of us who 
represent border communities understand the challenge we face, but 
there are solutions--solutions before us that are pragmatic, 
bipartisan, and uphold our American values.
  I am familiar with the promise America represents for families. I 
know how hard immigrants work, how much they believe in this country, 
and how much they are willing to give back to this country.
  A small group of faith leaders from New Mexico penned an op-ed in the 
Albuquerque Journal over the weekend. In sharing their thoughts on this 
humanitarian crisis they wrote:

       While the current situation raises the issues in powerful 
     ways, expressing hatred toward, fear of, or anger with women 
     and children serves nothing to resolve national debate. 
     Rather, it engenders a destructive spirit of mistrust. Let us 
     seek to understand the immigrant's reasons for coming and to 
     work collaboratively for just and reasonable immigration 
     reform.

  I could not agree more with these faith leaders.
  It is time to fix our broken immigration system once and for all. Our 
short-term solution is to approve the President's emergency 
supplemental request now, and as part of our long-term solution we need 
House Republicans to put the Senate's immigration reform bill on the 
floor for a vote.
  Our Nation will be the better for it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. I rise today to speak about the ongoing humanitarian 
crisis on our southern border. I thank my colleagues, Senator Heinrich 
and Senator Mikulski, for their eloquent words in speaking to this 
issue.
  As a woman and as an immigrant, my heart breaks for these children. 
My mother fled Japan, where I was born. She fled out of desperation to 
escape a terrible marriage. I came with her to this country as a young 
girl, and I remember how uncertain I was about what was in store for 
me.
  Although we came by boat in steerage, at least we traveled safely and 
together. We did not face the kind of danger as did these children who 
are risking everything to be here. Their journeys to our border are 
lined with smugglers and traffickers. Children are arriving injured and 
malnourished. Yet they continue to come, not only to the United States 
but to other nearby countries, fleeing their countries out of 
desperation.
  These children don't care about the DREAM Act or the Senate 
immigration reform bill. They are terrified of the violence, abuse, and 
death in their home countries. Young girls, who represent about 40 
percent of the children who arrived this year, often face sexual 
assault and rape.
  Let me share some recent stories from young girls who are fleeing. 
One girl fled an area of El Salvador controlled by gangs. Her brother 
was killed for refusing to join a gang that tried to forcibly recruit 
him. She was raped by two men and became pregnant as a result. She fled 
El Salvador and was attacked on her journey to the United States.
  Another girl was kidnapped by a gang in Honduras that attempted to 
traffic her into prostitution. She escaped and reported the kidnapping 
to the police. The gang then abducted her again, raped her, and burned 
her with cigarettes. She fled to the United States and is seeking 
asylum.
  Yet another girl fled El Salvador when she was 8 years old. Gang 
members had kidnapped her two older sisters. The girl's mother did not 
want her 8-year-old daughter to suffer the same fate, so she arranged 
for her daughter to be brought to the United States.
  These are horrific stories. It is clear that something needs to be 
done.
  I have worked with my colleague Senator Menendez to introduce a 
comprehensive plan to address this issue. The plan aims to curtail 
trafficking and smuggling, contain the violence and discord in Central 
America, and ensure that these children have access to legal assistance 
and are in safe and humane conditions when they arrive.
  This Friday I will also take some of my colleagues to McAllen and San 
Antonio, TX, to view facilities housing these children during the 
processing and removal process. We will see for ourselves the 
conditions that these children are in and meet with officials and 
leaders on the ground.
  This crisis clearly demonstrates that inaction is not an option with 
regard to these children.
  I urge my colleagues to support the supplemental funding needed for 
our country to meet their humanitarian needs. We have a responsibility 
to ensure that those in our custody are treated according to our values 
as a nation, and the President's request will allow our government to 
keep these commitments.
  I would also urge my colleagues to reject the idea that the solution 
is to

[[Page 12188]]

speed up the deportation of these children back to the dangerous 
conditions they fled. Stripping away basic legal protections for 
children in these terrible situations will not solve this problem. As 
Senator Heinrich so eloquently showed us, the conditions in their home 
countries are truly horrific.
  To really address this situation, we need to do more work with our 
partners in the region to reduce violence and improve opportunities in 
their home countries. We must provide resources so that we can safely, 
fairly, and timely process these children, including asylum 
determination, as provided by law.
  We should all look to our conscience in seeking a path forward. 
Surely we can do better than sending these children back to the 
horrific conditions that they are escaping. Out of sight is not out of 
mind. That is not what our country stands for.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to support the President's supplemental 
request, and I urge my colleagues to work together toward resolving the 
underlying process of this crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am very honored to follow my 
colleague from Hawaii and her eloquent and powerful remarks, as well as 
the Presiding Officer from New Mexico, who knows much firsthand about 
this issue and has really been a leader in this body for me and others. 
I thank the Presiding Officer for that leadership.
  My view of this issue concerning the tens of thousands of young 
children making the difficult and dangerous journey to the United 
States from lands where they face violence and oppression is shaped by 
my meeting with some of them in my home State of Connecticut.
  I had the opportunity to do so recently on a number of occasions, and 
it has deeply affected my own approach because what I have seen in them 
really inspires me. It inspires me because I understand better the 
reasons they have come here. The reasons they have come relate to the 
violence, the threat of torture, and the oppression they see in the 
lands they are leaving. They are coming here, many of them, for family 
reunification.
  What struck me in speaking with these young children is they are 
coming here to reunify with relatives: their moms and dads, their aunts 
and uncles. They have come to be with members of their family and, of 
course, to seek education. They desperately want to go to school, and 
they want the opportunity simply for the freedom they see this country 
as epitomizing and embodying, the beacon of opportunity that drew so 
many of our forebears to this country, the lamp that is lit above the 
harbor of New York symbolically for all Americans, and the ideals this 
country embodies for the world. That is the reason people come and why 
our relatives, our own families came--one generation ago for me and 
perhaps more generations ago for others here.
  So what we face is, in fact, a humanitarian crisis. It is a refugee 
crisis of children seeking asylum, family reunification, and escape 
from oppression, torture, and death in intolerable conditions in their 
home countries.
  There is gang warfare that is a result of drug trading, pushed from 
Colombia to Central America to service better their customers in the 
United States. Their markets are here. This country provides the demand 
that fuels the trade--not only this country, of course, but all around 
the world.
  But these children are the innocent victims of the warfare--gang 
warfare, market warfare that is fueled by a drug trade they have 
nothing to do with inciting or spurring. They are truly innocent 
victims.
  The values this country embodies that drew them and drew our 
ancestors and our forebears to come are the values we must now remain 
true to serving. Among them is the ideal of due process and fairness to 
justice.
  To say simply that we will deport all of them en masse, ask no 
questions, and put them on a bus really is a disservice to those values 
and ideals that this Nation embodies for the world--a source of our 
power in dealing with the world. Our power is not the result only of 
our air superiority, our great naval fleet, our brave warriors on the 
ground. It is truly the ideal that our military service and our 
military might serves to safeguard around the world.
  Speaking of security, safety, and safeguarding our Nation, our border 
is secure, more secure than ever before--perhaps not perfectly secure--
and more has to be done for border security, which immigration reform 
would help to accomplish.
  The President has utilized an unprecedented level of resources in 
terms of both boots on the ground and advanced technology. There is no 
evidence to indicate any breakdown in border security.
  What we have on our border is not a situation involving huge numbers 
of immigrants slipping into this country surreptitiously; they are 
coming here openly, surrendering themselves to authorities or being 
immediately apprehended by law enforcement.
  This situation is entirely consistent with a fully effective border 
security apparatus.
  If the current situation were caused by lack of policies in the 
United States, we would expect to see a large number of immigrant 
children only in this country. After all, the United States' policies 
apply only to the United States' borders but, in fact, that is not what 
we see. There are children seeking asylum and refugee status in many 
other Western Hemisphere countries--including some of the poorest in 
the world--a documented 712 percent increase in asylum seekers from El 
Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala since 2009.
  We have seen no increase in illegal immigration from Mexico, which 
also would be happening if it were simply lax border security. Any way 
you look at the situation, the facts simply do not support the theory 
that America's border is in crisis. It is Central America that is in 
crisis--El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras are the sources of this 
humanitarian crisis.
  Rolling back the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act 
will not solve a border problem and it will not uphold the values and 
ideals of this Nation. The protections of this law in fact are central 
to ensuring the United States of America does not send innocent 
children into situations where they would be harmed and killed.
  So I would oppose a wholesale rollback of this law. We have to make 
sure that we do what is right and get this situation right, because the 
stakes are so very high. No one in this Chamber wants to be responsible 
for sending one child to their death because we failed to consider the 
complexity and provide the humanity this situation demands.
  Not only would rolling back the Trafficking Victim Protection 
Reauthorization Act do harm--and we must first do no harm--but it would 
also hurt law enforcement. This act helps enforcement and our law 
enforcement authorities to gain crucial actionable intelligence about 
trafficking. This law reflects the fact that I learned during my law 
enforcement career, one of the keys to putting criminals behind bars is 
working closely with victims. In fact, victims are essential, their 
cooperation is vital to making the law enforceable and making sure it 
is enforced.
  The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act encourages 
victims of trafficking to turn themselves in and cooperate with Border 
Patrol agents, and provide U.S. law enforcement with the information 
they need. They are not interested in arresting children. They want to 
arrest the traffickers, the drug lords, the top of the chain. That is 
so very important for our colleagues to understand.
  The surge in drug trafficking and drug-related violence that has 
turned so many communities into war zones is driven by those gangs in 
Central America that are in turn driving also the flood of young 
children to this country. We have this crisis in common with them. It 
is a humanitarian crisis and a law enforcement challenge. Let us move 
toward immigration reform which will help to address that crisis

[[Page 12189]]

by increasing border security, by enabling millions of people now in 
the shadows to have a path to earned citizenship, to make sure our 
values and ideals are upheld by the greatest Nation in the history of 
the world.
  I thank all my colleagues who spoke today, and most especially thank 
Senator Leahy and Senator Feinstein for their decades of committed work 
on this issue. I look forward to working with them, the Presiding 
Officer, and the majority leader, who has led this Chamber and this 
Nation so well on this issue.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                  Unanimous Consent Agreement--S. 2244

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following 
leader remarks tomorrow, Thursday, July 17, 2014, the Senate proceed to 
consideration of S. 2244, as provided under the previous order; that 
the debate time with respect to the bill and consideration of 
amendments in order to the bill be modified as follows: Coburn No. 
3549, 30 minutes equally divided; Vitter No. 3550, 20 minutes equally 
divided; Flake No. 3551, 10 minutes equally divided; and Tester No. 
3552, 30 minutes equally divided; further, that any remaining time 
until 12 noon be equally divided between the two leaders or their 
designees; that at noon the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the 
amendments as provided under the previous order; that upon disposition 
of the Tester amendment, the bill be read a third time and the Senate 
proceed to vote on passage of the bill, as amended; further, that there 
be 2 minutes equally divided prior to each vote and all after the first 
vote be 10 minutes, with all other provisions of the previous order 
remaining in effect.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________