[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1278-1280]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in a little more than a month the 
Department of Homeland Security in Washington, DC, will run out of 
money. It is hard to imagine that the agency responsible for combating 
terrorism in the United States has its budget in question, but that was 
the design when the people sat down to write the Omnibus appropriations 
bill last year. The Republicans in the House insisted that if we were 
going to fund the rest of government, we had to withhold regular 
funding for the Department of Homeland Security. That is why the 
deadline of February 27 is looming.
  The Department of Homeland Security more than any other single agency 
is responsible for keeping America safe from terrorism. They supervise 
and manage the TSA officers and airports. They collect weapons that 
people try to bring on airplanes. It is hard to imagine that people 
still do. They try to keep us safe at a time when we know terrorism is 
a threat not just in the United States but in countries all over the 
world.
  Yet the Republicans in the House and Senate do not want to give 
regular funding to the Department of Homeland Security. They put it on 
temporary funding. As Mr. Johnson, the Secretary of this Department, 
said, it puts them at a real disadvantage at the Department of Homeland 
Security in keeping America safe. Yet the Republicans have insisted on 
this. Why? Why would they withhold regular funding for this critical 
agency? Because they are exercised by the President's decision to issue 
Executive orders on immigration. Their anger over the President's 
action has led them to jeopardize the immediate funding of an agency of 
critical importance to the United States. So they set out in the House 
of Representatives to add five riders to this appropriations bill which

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they insist must be passed if we are going to fund this agency. When 
you look at these five riders, I think you can understand why many of 
us think this is nothing short of an outrage.
  One of the things which they have set their sights on is a program I 
have worked on for 14 years here in the Senate. I introduced a bill 14 
years ago called the DREAM Act--14 years ago. The concept behind it was 
very basic: Children brought to the United States by their parents who 
are undocumented deserve a chance--a chance to make a life in America 
if they have no serious criminal issues, if they have graduated from 
high school, if they are prepared to step forward, go to college, or 
serve in the military. The DREAM Act was introduced 14 years ago with a 
basic concept: Don't hold children responsible for bad decisions or 
wrongdoing by their parents. Give these young people a chance.
  Sadly, in the House of Representatives there is an anger against 
these young people that is almost difficult to describe. We think there 
are almost 2 million of them in America, and 600,000 have stepped 
forward to qualify for the DACA Program, an Executive order by the 
President that spares them from deportation while they are living in 
the United States. But the House of Representatives has insisted that 
we repeal the DACA Program, not issue any renewals for DACA protection, 
and not issue any new DACA protection for the 1.5 million who may still 
be eligible. That is one of their conditions before they will fund the 
agency that deals with terrorism to protect the United States from 
terrorism.
  This last weekend there were several very unusual and important 
meetings involving the American political scene. One was in California 
hosted by the Koch brothers which attracted three of our Senators on 
the other side of the aisle who were at least considering, if not 
aspiring to be President of the United States. The Koch brothers called 
them in for a presentation and questions as part of the process of 
deciding whether the Koch brothers would support them to be the next 
President of the United States. That is not the first time that has 
happened. Others representing special interest groups I am sure have 
called candidates before. This is a very overt effort by two very 
powerful men to spend almost $1 billion in the next political cycle to 
control the political future of this country.
  As troubling as that is for most Americans to hear, there was another 
forum that I think was equally disturbing in my neighboring State of 
Iowa. This was a forum called by Congressman Steve King. He called it a 
freedom forum. He attracted a large array of Republican aspirants to 
the office of President. Included in those were Governor Christie of 
New Jersey; Senator Cruz of Texas; former Senator Santorum of 
Pennsylvania; Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin; former Governor 
Palin of Alaska; Donald Trump; former Governor Perry of Texas; and 
former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. They all came to Iowa to be 
part of this freedom forum. This freedom forum was sponsored by 
Congressman Steve King.
  Without question, Congressman King has made some of the most 
outrageous statements about the DREAMers, whom I described earlier, of 
any Member of Congress. He has compared them to dogs. He has referred 
to DREAMers as the deportables--whatever that means.
  He has one oft-quoted statement:
For every valedictorian among the DREAMers, there were 100 who had 
developed cantaloupe-sized calves carrying illegal narcotics across the 
border into the United States.
  That is the kind of rhetoric which might cause David Duke to blush, 
but it didn't stop these Republican Presidential aspirants from 
trekking out to Iowa to pay homage to Congressman Steven King.
  I would suggest that the Grand Old Party, which I do respect--the 
party of Abraham Lincoln--would be a party that would be embarrassed by 
the comments of Congressman King rather than pay homage to him in the 
State of Iowa.
  I wish to tell the story of one of the DREAMers whom Congressman King 
particularly would come to dislike because this is an undocumented 
person and one of the DREAMers who would be disadvantaged by the 
Republican action in the House of Representatives which would literally 
remove the protection this young lady has from deportation.
  This is Ola Kaso. Her story is amazing. She was brought to the United 
States from Albania in 1998 at the age of 5. She grew up in Warren, MI, 
and her dream was to become a medical doctor and to treat cancer 
patients. Ola was the valedictorian of her high school class. She took 
every advanced placement class offered by her school and had 4.4 grade 
point average.
  She was treasurer of the student council and treasurer of the 
National Honor Society at her school. In 2011, I held a hearing on the 
DREAM Act. Ola Kaso had just graduated from high school and she came to 
testify at that hearing. She was the first ever undocumented immigrant 
to testify before the Senate.
  In the fall of 2011, Ola entered the honors program at the University 
of Michigan where she is a premed student. What has happened to Ola 
Kaso since DACA was established in 2012? Ola has become involved in 
public service. In 2013 she worked as an intern in the office of our 
former colleague Senator Carl Levin. She continued her studies. This 
spring Ola will graduate from the University of Michigan with a double 
major in biochemistry and women's studies.
  Keep in mind she completed this degree without any financial 
assistance from our government. Ola is not eligible for Pell grants or 
student loans because she is undocumented. She has become involved in 
nanotechnology, a cutting-edge field that holds great promise for 
future technological breakthroughs. Ola is now conducting at the 
Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences. 
Last year Ola's work was published in the Journal of Physical 
Chemistry. I want to read the name of the article which Ola Kaso 
published. I hope I will be spared, a liberal arts lawyer, if I stumble 
over some of these words. But just to give you an idea of her research, 
the article was entitled ``Atomic Force Microscopy Probing of Receptor-
Nanoparticle Interactions for Riboflavin Receptor Targeted Gold-
Dendrimer Nanocomposites.''
  Now, that is a mouthful, but it gives you a sense of how much Ola 
Kaso has to contribute. Next, Ola plans to attend medical school, but 
if the House Republicans have their way and we pass in the Senate the 
language which was included as part of the Department of Homeland 
Security appropriations bill, Ola Kaso will never have a chance. She 
will be deported back to Albania, a country she does not know at all. 
She will be forced to leave the United States.
  We will basically give up on the investment we have made as Americans 
in her education and her potential and tell her: Leave. In the words of 
Congressman Steve King, she is one of the ``deportables''--one of the 
``deportables.'' Ola sent me a letter recently. Here is what she said 
about her dreams for the future:

       I aspire to ultimately become a surgical oncologist, but 
     more importantly, I intend to work for patients that cannot 
     afford the astronomical fees accompanying life-saving 
     surgeries, patients are denied the medical treatment they 
     deserve. My goal is not to increase my bank account; my goal 
     is to decrease preventable deaths. I wish to remain in this 
     country to make a difference.

  Ola is not alone. There are so many DREAMers across this country just 
like her who want to be part of our future. It is clear this DACA 
Program works for America. That is why I am asking DREAMers around the 
country to join me, post their stories about what they have done with 
DACA on Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag ``DACA Works.''
  I want the American people to understand the human cost of the bill 
that was passed by the Republicans in the House of Representatives and 
is now pending before the Senate. If this bill becomes law, DACA will 
end. Hundreds of thousands of DREAMers will risk deportation to 
countries they can barely

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remember. Will America be stronger if we deport Ola Kaso and others 
like her, young people who want to use their talents to give back to 
America, deporting them to countries they have some loose connection to 
by family ties?
  Of course not. It is shameless--shameless to play politics with the 
lives of these young people. They grew up in this country, attended 
school in this country, put their hand over their hearts in their 
classrooms every day to pledge allegiance to the only flag they have 
ever known. It is shameless for the House Republicans to put homeland 
security funding at risk in pursuit of punishing these young people. 
The House Republicans feel so strongly about deporting DREAMers, they 
are willing to hold our homeland security funding hostage.
  The House Republicans are telling the Senate and the President: 
Deport the DREAMers or we will shut down the Department of Homeland 
Security. I hope the Senate majority leader will reject this blackmail 
and bring a clean homeland security appropriations bill to the floor of 
the Senate as soon as possible.
  For our part, the Senate Democrats will insist that the Department of 
Homeland Security be funded and that the President have the authority, 
which every President has, to establish America's immigration policies. 
The Presiding Officer was part of an effort, as I was several years, to 
try to resolve this issue in a thoughtful, balanced, comprehensive way.
  The ultimate bill that was considered before the Senate was not 
perfect. Parts of it I did not like at all, but we reached a 
compromise. Over a year and a half ago, we sent that bipartisan bill to 
the House of Representatives asking them to call it for consideration 
and amendment. They refused, refused for more than a year and a half to 
call that bill. Instead, what they have done is launch these attacks on 
young people such as Ola Kaso.
  Is that what America is all about? Is that the best we can do? For 
the dozen or more Republican Presidential aspirants who made that 
journey out to Iowa to pay homage to Congressman Steve King and his 
views about immigration, I would ask them to, when they return home: 
Look around you. There are young people just like this young woman who 
are only asking for a chance to be part of America's future.
  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. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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