[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 1510-1512]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY FUNDING

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, of all things, the Department of Homeland 
Security, created to protect America from terrorism, is a Department 
that is underfunded by Republican design. The Republicans refuse to 
give the regular

[[Page 1511]]

budget appropriation to the Department of Homeland Security to protest 
President Obama's Executive order on immigration. The House of 
Representatives went so far as to add five riders--conditions--to the 
budget for the Department of Homeland Security and send them here. They 
have said they will not fund this Department unless we join them in 
what has become an extremely negative and, I believe, hate-filled 
attack on people across America.
  Saturday we had a rally in Chicago, and at that rally was Secretary 
Jeh Johnson of the Department of Homeland Security. Joining us were 
Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Chicago, the mayor of Chicago, and 
literally hundreds of people, many of them DREAMers--young people who 
are now, because of President Obama's Executive order, allowed to go to 
school and work in America.
  Remember, these were children--toddlers, infants--brought to America 
by their families, who are undocumented through no fault of their own. 
They have lived in America, they have been educated in America, they 
have pledged allegiance to our flag in their classrooms, and they have 
no future because we have not changed the immigration law to give them 
a chance. But President Obama has given them a chance. DACA is a 
program where, when these young people sign up for it, they can be 
protected to live in America without fear of deportation--to work here, 
to go to school here, and to start to realize their dreams. They even 
want to volunteer for our military. Many of them do. They are trying 
their best to be part of America's future, and the President gave them 
that chance.
  The House of Representatives--the Republican majority--said: We will 
not fund the Department of Homeland Security to protect America against 
terrorism unless the Senate will vote to literally deport the DREAMers.
  At a time, as Senator Reid said, when we are threatened with ISIS, 
when we are sickened by the images on television of innocent people--
including Americans--being beheaded, at that same time the Republicans 
on Capitol Hill are telling us: We are not going to properly fund the 
Department of Homeland Security to protect America unless we can 
protest what President Obama has done for 600,000 young people 
protected by DACA.
  Senator Reid quoted Senator McCaskill, who spoke up at one of our 
meetings the other day, who said: Apparently the Republicans fear the 
DREAMers more than they fear the terrorists, more than they fear ISIS.
  That is wrong. I do not know who cooked up this political strategy. 
They were not thinking clearly. If they were thinking clearly, we would 
fund that Department with a clean appropriation--one that is now 
sitting on the calendar of the Senate that was offered by Senators 
Jeanne Shaheen and Barbara Mikulski. It is sitting here. By unanimous 
consent, with the approval of the majority leader, we could pass it 
today, fund this agency.
  I asked Secretary Johnson: Well, what difference does it make if you 
get a temporary funding bill or a regular budget bill?
  He said: I can't properly run this Department. I am wasting time and 
money. I am not investing in things that make us safer because of the 
way Congress--in this case, the House Republicans--insists that they 
will not properly fund this agency.
  It funded every other agency of government except for the Department 
of Homeland Security. What are they thinking? Why would they want to 
make an object lesson out of this critical Department?
  I said to Secretary Johnson: So what types of things can't you do?
  He gave one example. He said: We give grants for research to find 
ways to make America safer when we are attacked. We can't give those 
grants now because we are under a continuing resolution.
  Research to make America safe has stopped. Is that a wise thing for 
the new Republican majority in the House and Senate to do? Clearly, 
that is their plan. But we are going to give them an alternative and 
very quickly. Tomorrow we are going to consider a procedural motion 
about whether we go to this House bill, which has the five riders on 
immigration. I believe the Democrats will say: No, we want a clean 
bill, and we want to move to that bill quickly.
  And we need to do it not just because we need to keep America safe--
isn't that our first obligation?--but secondly because I do not believe 
our caucus--and I hope not a majority of the other caucus--has the same 
hate-filled feelings toward DREAMers that we have seen in the House of 
Representatives.
  Mr. President, 600,000 of them have stepped forward. I have come to 
the floor day after day to tell their stories. They are the most 
amazing stories of young people who, with no help from the government, 
finished college and pursued professional degrees, without a penny of 
assistance from our government, whose only dream is to be part of the 
future of America. They are our future. They will help our economy. 
They will reduce our deficit. They will once again reestablish and 
reaffirm the American dream that people can risk everything to come to 
this country to make sure their children have a better life. These 
DREAMers deserve that chance. America deserves the chance to be 
properly secure in this age of terrorism. This Republican strategy is 
not going to achieve that.
  I thank my colleague.
  Mr. REID. Will my friend yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I will be happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. REID. My friend is modest, my friend the senior Senator from 
Illinois. But tell those within the sound of our voices how long you 
have worked on the DREAM Act--you.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Nevada, our minority leader. 
Fourteen years ago I introduced the DREAM Act, and I got into a spat 
with a Republican Senator, Mr. Hatch, who said: That is my idea.
  I said: Fine. Then it will be the Hatch-Durbin DREAM Act.
  And we introduced it 14 years ago, and it has not been enacted into 
law. Senator Hatch now has some misgivings over this issue, but I have 
stuck with it for 14 years. And the majority leader joined me in 
sending a letter to President Obama asking that he create this 
Executive order of protection.
  I would like to say a word about Executive orders. Republicans come 
to the floor and suggest that when a President of the United States 
issues an Executive order, it is an unconstitutional exercise of power. 
You hear it over and over again.
  If you step out of this Chamber and take just a few steps toward the 
staircase, you will see this magnificent, historic painting of Abraham 
Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. It is historic because, 
with the signature of President Lincoln, 3 million American slaves were 
freed--an Executive order. And it was an order which had the force of 
law. It was signed by President Lincoln--an Executive order.
  It was not the only one. You think back in history to the historic 
Executive orders, and you have to think of Harry Truman. After World 
War II Harry Truman stepped up and said: We are going to integrate the 
Armed Forces of the United States of America, and I will not wait for 
Congress. Give me the pen and paper to sign the Executive order to 
achieve it.
  So if President Lincoln can liberate 3 million American slaves, if 
President Truman can sign an Executive order integrating the Armed 
Forces, how can the Republicans come to the floor, one after the other, 
and say the use of an Executive order by the President is 
unconstitutional and want to hold President Obama accountable for their 
misguided thinking? It does not make sense.
  I might just say--and I thought perhaps the Senator from Nevada was 
going to say it as well--if none of the Republicans like what President 
Obama has done on immigration, can I remind them they are now in 
majority control of the House and the Senate? If they think it is 
better to have a law enacted--despite the fact that for 2

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years the House of Representatives refused to even call the bipartisan 
comprehensive immigration reform--if they think it is proper and right 
for a law to be enacted on immigration, the American people have given 
them the majorities in both Houses to do it.
  So instead of cursing the darkness and failing to fund the Department 
of Homeland Security, why don't they roll up their sleeves and go to 
work as Members of the House and Senate and pass immigration reform? I 
think that is worthy of this great body and the one across the rotunda. 
But to underfund the Department of Homeland Security that protects us 
from terrorism? What are they thinking?
  I thank the Senator from Nevada for returning. It feels great to have 
you back in your capacity here as our leader on the Democratic side and 
as my friend.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Georgia.

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