[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 30 (Thursday, February 15, 2018)] [Senate] [Pages S1138-S1148] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] BROADER OPTIONS FOR AMERICANS ACT--Continued The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon. Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, right now it is estimated that 700,000 Dreamers face the very real threat that they may be ripped from the only life and the only country they have ever known. These are young people who have grown up in America. They go to school here. They work hard here. Often, they work at multiple jobs. They get terrific grades. They give back to their communities. They have done everything right. I have met with them at home. My colleague Senator Merkley and I have met with many of them at joint meetings. A number of them say point blank: We like to serve America. We believe in America. That is all they have known. They serve in the military. They want to do police work. They want to be first responders. In fact, to earn their DACA status, they had to come forward, give their information to our government, and then submit to a background check. Now they are living under this cloud of [[Page S1139]] uncertainty because the President, on his own, stamped an expiration date on the DACA Program. What I wish to do for a few minutes is to talk about these terrific young people--these special young people, the Dreamers--and what they contribute to our country. I was very pleased recently to have Esli Becerra join me at this year's State of the Union speech because in my view he and his younger brother Kevin embody the very best about our country. Esli came to Oregon when he was 8 months old. He got his first job before he was 10 in order to support his family. I am going to talk a little bit about these two terrific young people because, literally, for years now, each of them would take turns working to support the other, so that between them they were always saying: We want to do it the American way. We want to do it by dint of hard work and thrift and in the spirit we have in this country, where if you work hard, there aren't any limits to what you can achieve. They are two very, very special young men. Esli wanted to get a higher education. So his younger brother put in the sweat equity to make it happen. Kevin, who is a U.S. citizen, worked more than 80 hours a week after he graduated from high school to help pay for Esli to go to Lane Community College in Eugene. Let me repeat that. Kevin, a U.S. citizen, who worked in our office, as well, worked more than 80 hours a week after he got out of high school because he said: I want to help my brother get ahead. Esli has now built a real professional career. He is a visual effects artist in Portland. So he has turned around, and he is stepping up to help pay for Kevin's college education. We have these two remarkable brothers who, year after year, were either working or going to school in order to help each other get ahead in the way that we hope young people will do by dint of hard work and discipline and supporting each other. They are brothers, and they have been in each other's corner and supportive of their families their whole lives. We need more people in America like the Becerra brothers. They are not alone. Another of Oregon's estimated 11,000 Dreamers is a young man named Daniel Kim. He immigrated legally to Beaverton, OR, from South Korea, but he learned that his immigration lawyer never filed the paperwork needed to get permanent legal status. So without this information, he found out very abruptly that he was considered undocumented. Thanks to DACA and a special military recruitment program, Daniel had the opportunity to serve our country. He seized the opportunity and joined the U.S. Army the first chance he got. I will state that I just find it painful to hear the disparaging talk about immigrants. Unfortunately, the President uses that kind of language too often. Maybe it is easy for people in Washington, DC, to forget that these debates are about real people. They are not just about acronyms and numbers. Daniel and Esli are the types of young people this debate is about--a soldier on the frontlines defending our country, a young man working hard at home in Oregon and supporting his family. These are the young people whose lives have been turned upside down by a Presidential decision, and they are just pawns in this raging political battle. Young people like Esli and Daniel signed up for DACA so they could work and give back to the country. Dreamers are integral parts of their communities. They pitch in and help those communities grow. If all DACA recipients lost their protections, it would be a massive economic hit to our country--$280 billion lost. Even going beyond the humanitarian impact of breaking up families, that is what DACA recipients mean from a dollars-and-cents standpoint. The crisis Dreamers are facing began last year when the President made the decision to terminate the program. Senators from both parties have now been working to fix it. Time after time, Senators have brought bipartisan ideas forward, and I would like to note at this point that Senator Schumer went to the President and put the border wall on the table for discussion, making it clear that this was something that he didn't support but that he would put it out there just to try to generate some goodwill and to try to find a way to get folks working together. Throughout this discussion, sometimes it seems the President just will not take yes for an answer. So Senators from both sides keep working in the best tradition of this body. On the healthcare front, we sure showed here recently what could be done when there is bipartisanship and Senators are working together. He sits right over there--Chairman Hatch of the Finance Committee. He and I worked together. I am the ranking Democrat on the committee. We now have a 10-year authorization to the Children's Health Insurance Program. Nobody would have ever imagined that a year and a half ago. We have made a transformative set of changes in Medicare to update the Medicare guarantee to cover chronic illness, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke--where most of the healthcare spending is. We got that done, as well as the biggest change in child welfare policy in the Families First Program, an approach that Democrats and Republicans had been dreaming about for 30 years. I bring it up only by way of saying that bipartisanship can break out here in the Senate. Right now, as I am on the floor, I know we still have a big group of Democrats and Republicans who are saying that this is too important to just have another political food fight. They are working on a compromise plan--Democrats and Republicans--that would bring this DACA crisis to a close, invest in border security, make some changes to our legal immigration system, and particularly do justice to the Dreamers, like young Esli Becerra. The reality is that when we are doing something like that, it is pretty obvious that nobody gets the bill they would have written. Nobody gets the bill they would have written for themselves if they were to go back to their office and take out a sheet of paper and write down from A to Z, but that is pretty much what we have to recognize if we are going to find some common ground. That is how the bipartisan process is supposed to work. Colleagues, bipartisanship is not about taking each other's dumb ideas. Anybody can do that. Bipartisanship is about taking each other's good ideas. That is where we have a big group of Senators--Democrats and Republicans--working together on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems that recent reports indicate that the President and his team are working to derail this bipartisan solution. They are insisting on some kind of approach that will make radical changes to the legal immigration system, for example. I wish to note for a second that this is very important in the Wyden household. My parents fled the Nazis in the 1930s. Not all got out. My dad basically talked his way into the Army. They weren't all that interested in my dad. He was overweight, and he had health problems. But my dad convinced them that he was a German kid, and he could write propaganda pamphlets that we could drop on the Nazis, telling them that they were going to die and they were going to freeze. My dad was the most patriotic person I ever met. We are better because of legal immigration in this country. Yet in order to get this compromise, we have now seen proposals to radically change the legal immigration system. I see my colleague, an outstanding member of the Finance Committee, who knows so much about these immigration issues on the floor, and I look forward to his remarks. The fact is, the President is demanding an approach that goes way beyond DACA and border security, which are two natural bookends for bipartisanship, and it is where this debate begins. Unfortunately, what the President is really pushing breaks up families and severely cuts back legal immigration, and I just noted that I have seen why legal immigration makes our country better and stronger. What the President is talking about would, on top of this, do enormous economic harm to this country and is certainly not going to get the votes here in the Senate to proceed with 60 votes. The bipartisan solution on which both sides have worked hard together is the best opportunity that the Chamber has to end the DACA crisis. The Senate really cannot come up with sustainable solutions when we [[Page S1140]] just play to those who take the most extreme view. We can't get a sustainable solution. By the way, that is how debates in the Senate are supposed to work--two parties, hand in hand, bringing their ideas forward and finding solutions both sides can agree on. That is why I mentioned Chairman Hatch and our finally getting the major health reforms recently that people never dreamed were possible. On this debate at hand, the question of justice for the Dreamers and reasonable border security--two bookends that I happen to think could fit and produce principled bipartisanship through this group of Senators who are working together--this is our opportunity. Millions of families across the country are following this debate, and they are hoping to get some good news on this issue where there has been gridlock for so long. Passing the bipartisan proposal is our opportunity to give it to them. This is the time for the Congress to come up with a permanent solution for Dreamers. This is not something to be deferred any longer. It is time to act now. I urge my colleagues in the strongest way possible to support the bipartisan proposal--Democrats and Republicans coming together--when there is an opportunity to vote on it, which I believe will be shortly. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey. Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I come to the floor today, fully aware that time is running out for America's Dreamers. Their fates rest in our hands. Their futures hang in the balance of our votes, and what Dr. King called ``the fierce urgency of now'' is officially upon us. If we fail to take action today, the dreams of 800,000 young people protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program, known as DACA, and thousands of others like them will turn to nightmares. It is truly a terrifying prospect that Dreamers face--the prospect that at any moment after they fall out of status, they could be snatched up by President Trump's deportation forces, torn away from their families, and sent away to countries they consider foreign lands. Well, I refuse to be complicit in that nightmare. I refuse to be complicit in the deportation of innocent children. I refuse to be complicit in the deportation of 800,000 DACA recipients and the 22,000 Dreamers living, studying, and working in my home State of New Jersey. It is only out of compassion for them and commitment to them that I am prepared to vote for the bipartisan deal reached last night, the Rounds-King version. Let me be very clear. This is not the deal I would have drafted. It is far from the deal I would want, but I know for a fact that it is the only deal with a shot at becoming law. It is the only deal with any hope of earning 60 votes, a simple majority in the House, and maybe the forced signature of Donald Trump's pen. Therefore, it is the only deal with any hope of protecting more than a million Dreamers across America from the President's mass deportation agenda. To my fellow Democrats, to my friends and fellow leaders in the Hispanic community, to those in the immigration advocacy community, and to the millions of Americans in New Jersey and across the Nation who stood by Dreamers throughout this ordeal, I will not sugarcoat things. This deal is not the fairness that we would want. It is not as fiscally responsible as it should be. To be honest, if my Republican colleagues truly wanted to protect America's Dreamers in good faith, they would have done so months ago. Instead, they refused to address this crisis for months. Republicans chose to treat Dreamers like bargaining chips, pawns that could be used to advance far-right restrictions on lawful, family- sponsored immigration to the United States and to deliver President Trump a big, fat $25 billion kiss in the form of border wall funding. The only thing more preposterous than asking Mexico to pay for a border wall is asking the American people to pay $25 billion for a border wall. That is $25 billion that could be going to repairing the walls of our crumbling public schools, outdated airports, and aging highway tunnels. That is $25 billion Americans will have to pay for Donald Trump's broken promise that Mexico would foot the bill. In case you couldn't tell by now, I am not the biggest fan of this deal. It is a bitter pill to swallow. So when I hear my Republican colleagues say that this legislation isn't tough enough, I encourage them to take a closer look. Look at the hard choices that I--and the community that I come from and others in this country--have to make to support this deal, as the most senior Hispanic-American in the Congress, as the son of immigrants whose thirst for freedom brought them to these shores, as the senior Senator from New Jersey, one of the most ethnically and racially diverse States in America. Many of the concessions Democrats agreed to were supposed to have died in the proposal that we and the Gang of 6 brought to the President weeks ago--only to have him reject it under the advice of the ethnocentric voices in his ear. For example, legal, permanent residents will no longer be able to sponsor their adult children to join them in this country, and that is not the only hard choice we had to make in order to protect Dreamers from deportation. While we grant them the opportunity to earn a 12-year pathway to citizenship, we pay a dear price by limiting the right to sponsor the parents they love so dearly, although other U.S.-citizen families will be able to do so. I take solace in the possibility that someday in the future, hopefully, in the not too distant future, Congress will return to our American values and stand proudly for the principles of family reunification--the family unit as the core of American society, communities, and our country--that have guided U.S. immigration policies for the last century. It is the very family reunification that ultimately allowed Donald Trump's grandfather to come to the United States and have his progeny come from there and ultimately rise to be the President of the United States. I am going to fight for the parents of Dreamers and the comprehensive immigration reform we need when that day comes, but for the moment, I am under no illusions. The cold, hard reality is that in 2 weeks the dreams of hundreds of thousands of innocent children and promising young people will be extinguished, and that is why we must act. To my friends in the immigration advocacy community, as well as my Democratic colleagues, I remind you that legislating is the art of the possible. We are in the minority in both Chambers of Congress. The opposing party occupies the White House. We may not enjoy this reality--I certainly don't--but it is a reality nonetheless. And in this reality, we do not have the power to make anything happen unless we get support from some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We have the power to try and stop terrible things from happening, but we can make things happen only if we have others join us in common cause. So I ask my fellow Democrats to please hold the line for the hundreds of thousands of innocent children and bright, young people who belong in this country and need our votes to stay in this country. We have to remember that compromise is the oil that keeps the wheels of Congress running, and, without it, Dreamers who have become integral to communities across the Nation may very well be forcibly removed. We know they belong here with us, strengthening the diverse threads that bind us together as one people. To my Republican colleagues, I ask you to remember the tough concessions we have had to make so that Dreamers have a chance to earn citizenship in a country they love and the only country they know. I again close by quoting the always relevant and forever wise Dr. King, who said: We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. My friends, the fierce urgency of now looms over us today. The fate of our Dreamers grows more uncertain with each passing second. I, for one, refuse to let their dreams die here on the Senate floor. Let's pass the Rounds-King amendment and pass it fast. There is no time for further delay. If we want Dreamers [[Page S1141]] to have a tomorrow here in this country, then we must act today. With that, I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa. Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I come to the floor now to offer brief remarks on the introduction of the latest so-called bipartisan proposal. There is simply no way to say it, but to say it: This proposal fails to meet the mark, will result in massive amnesty, and will result in a surge of illegal immigration, even encouraging the illegal crossing of our borders. It has absolutely no chance of becoming law because we have been reminded of what the President has said he would sign, and he has said that this bill we are talking about now would not be signed by the President of the United States. It would be vetoed. In my mind, the Department of Homeland Security, when they commented on this bill, has this one point right. This bill will absolutely destroy our ability--meaning the ability of DHS--to enforce our laws, secure our borders, and then, consequentially, not protect the American people. The American people expect our government to fulfill their No. 1 responsibility, which is to protect the American people. It is hard to decide where to start when you dissect this ill- conceived proposal, but to quote, I think, J.R.R. Tolkien, I guess the best place to begin is at the beginning. This proposal claims to have border security measures, but the simple fact is that it doesn't have border security measures. This proposal does something that Democrats and Republicans agreed last year isn't sufficient border security, and we have all agreed that simply throwing money at the border is not border security. So what does that lead you to, other than just what you do at the border? Everyone in this Chamber knows how hard Senators Cornyn and Johnson have worked on border security. Their hard work has shown all of us that real border security isn't just about infrastructure and money; it is about legal authority policy changes, as well, which may be more important. Like it or not, the simple fact is that our current laws contain numerous loopholes that actually prevent our law enforcement officers from apprehending, detaining, and speedily deporting dangerous criminal aliens. Professional staffers at the Department of Homeland Security--and I emphasize the words ``professional staffers,'' not political employees--all agree we need these authority changes. I ask my colleagues: What is the point of throwing money at the border if sex offenders, terrorists, gang members, child molesters, and war criminals can continue getting into our country? What is the point if we can't actually remove people who are entering illegally? What is the point if Americans continue to be victimized by crimes committed by undocumented immigrants? This bipartisan plan falls miserably short of providing real border security and doesn't do anything to make Americans safer. Worse than the border security problems, this bipartisan plan massively expands the number of individuals who are eligible for citizenship. The way this plan is written, more than 3 million individuals could become eligible for citizenship, and many of these people wouldn't be the very same people we have been trying to deal with all week--DACA and Dreamers. The way this bill is written, people as old as 43 could benefit. I thought when we began this debate we were talking about protecting young people, not middle-aged adults. This is clearly beyond the pale and is just another example of moving the amnesty yardstick. But the worst thing in this plan, the most egregious thing, is that it effectively suspends immigration enforcement until June 2018. Think about that. Why would you effectively suspend immigration enforcement at any time? If my colleagues look at the last page of this amendment, it clearly says that any person who illegally enters our country before the end of June 2018 will never be a priority for deportation. Think of the invitation that comes for people between now and June 30 to get to this country because they won't be a priority for deportation. Isn't that quite an invitation to violate our laws, to violate our sovereignty? I can't imagine that people in the States of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota--any State, for that matter, but particularly in some of these really conservative States--that they would be thinking about voting for something that would actually be inviting people to this country because they won't be a priority for deportation. Let that point sink in. The authors of this plan are telling everyone in the world--not just south of our border--no matter who they are, what they have done, that if they get here before June, they will never be an enforcement priority. Isn't that immigration madness? I can't, for the life of me, understand why my colleagues would want to end immigration enforcement. What justification do they have? I would urge them that if they have justification, please come to the floor and please explain to the American people why you want people who aren't already here to come illegally. What could be the reason for that? I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. It just isn't serious and will totally undermine our Nation's border security and immigration laws. This should not pass. I hope it doesn't pass. The President has proposed a veto. For the people who introduced it, it is a good bill, but are you interested in a good bill or are you interested in getting a law passed? That takes 60 in the Senate, takes a majority in the House, and takes a Presidential signature. I hope you are serious about working for things that can actually become law. That is what we have promised the Dreamers. That is what we can deliver if we get those 60 votes. We can do it in a way that is sound immigration policy, not something that is going to encourage more people to cross our borders without documentation. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Colorado. Honoring Sheriff's Deputy Micah Flick Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, yesterday America witnessed another great tragedy in the State of Florida, and of course our souls ache with what must be unimaginable grief. As we turn to comfort those who lost so much in Florida, I come to the floor of the Senate again, for the third time in a little more than a month, to share the grief of Colorado, as well as to honor the life and legacy of a fallen Colorado sheriff's deputy. El Paso County Sheriff's Deputy Micah Flick was shot and killed last week while investigating a stolen car when he threw himself in front of his fellow officers to shield them from gunfire. Sheriff's Deputy Scott Stone, Sheriff's Sergeant Jacob Abendschan, and Colorado Springs Police Officer Marcus Yanez, along with a bystander, were also wounded in the attack. A total of 10 law enforcement officers in Colorado have been wounded or killed since December 31. On January 24, Adams County Sheriff's Deputy Gumm was fatally wounded. Another assault on law enforcement officers on New Year's Eve in Douglas County resulted in the death of Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Parrish and wounded four other law enforcement officers. These three attacks left four children without fathers and countless loved ones with a loss they will never forget. Micah Flick was killed on his 11th anniversary with the El Paso County Sheriff's Department and leaves behind a wife and 7-year-old twins. Micah was a hero who, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette, was remembered by his brother-in-law as someone who ``never wanted to do anything else but protect this community.'' His fellow sheriff's deputies would always tease him that he was ``the poster boy of the sheriff's office.'' Micah's wife Rachel captured her husband's heroism perfectly when she explained how she would always tell him to just do his job and not be a hero but understands that was not in his DNA. ``Micah was a hero, and he couldn't help it,'' she said. Micah's fellow deputy who was wounded in the attack confirmed Micah's heroism. Deputy Stone told Sheriff Bill Elder: ``Micah saved my life, and I will be forever grateful.'' Micah was a hero that day, and no one will ever forget that. Unfortunately, I have come to this Chamber far too many times just this year to honor a fallen Colorado law enforcement officer and repeat the words [[Page S1142]] for the third time of LTC Dave Grossman, who wrote that American law enforcement is the loyal and brave sheep dog, always standing watch for the wolf that lurks in the dark. We owe so much to Micah and his brothers and sisters in blue who protect our communities each and every day. I know that all of our families together sleep better at night knowing these heroes are out protecting every single one of us. Thank you, Micah, for answering the call. You protected your community. You saved your fellow officers. You are a hero. And I, along with Coloradans across the State, am forever grateful. Like your fellow officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice, we will remember your heroism for eternity and honor you and your family for your sacrifice. Mr. President, I yield the floor. 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. COTTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I wish to speak today about the so-called Schumer amendment. Now, that is not the name that some people give it, but I will give it that name. Abraham Lincoln said: If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, it has four, because calling something doesn't make it that. In the same way, you can call a bill bipartisan because there are some Republicans on that bill, but if the Republicans have simply acquiesced to the Democrats' position, it is a Democratic bill. Calling it bipartisan doesn't make it so. Let's just walk through a few of the weaknesses of this bill. No. 1 is the enforcement holiday for illegal immigration. You might call it the ``olly olly oxen free'' position. That is because it declares to anyone, worldwide, if you get to the United States in the next four months, or before June 30, 2018, olly olly oxen free, the Department of Homeland Security will not enforce our laws against you. Don't take my word for it. Look at it right here. In fact, it was done in handwriting last night. I suspect some of my Republican colleagues on this bill didn't even know that this change was made. It used to be January 1, 2018, and you had to be present for at least 5\1/ 2\ years. That is not great, but it is better than a prospective enforcement holiday that says that if you get to this country illegally in the next 4 months, we will not make you an enforcement priority. So come on in, everyone. If you get here by June 30, under this amendment, the Department of Homeland Security will not make it a priority to enforce our laws against you. No. 2, let's look at the amnesty that it provides. The President has been extraordinarily generous in his offer to our Democratic colleagues. He didn't say a legal status for 690,000 people who are enrolled in the Obama-era DACA Program. He said citizenship. He said a full opportunity for citizenship for 1.8 million people--1.8 million people--who were not just enrolled in the program but would have been eligible for the program had they enrolled. This amendment would expand that to almost 3 million to 4 million people by lifting the age limits and by lifting the age caps--a vast amnesty, just among those younger people, of a quarter of the people who are here in this country illegally. It gets even worse than that. No. 3, the entire rationale of the DACA Program is that children ought not pay for the sins of their parents. How about the parents pay for the sins of the parents? This bill would allow the effective legalization of the very parents who created this problem in the first place. The sponsors of this amendment will say: No, no, we prohibit the parents from getting legal status. Let's look at how they do that. They say that no person can receive legal status if the Department of Homeland Security can show they knowingly assisted the entry of a minor into this country. Tell me how the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to make that showing. How are they supposed to go back 10, 15, 20, 25 years and show that this illegal immigrant knowingly brought that person into this country? It is preposterous. It is the exact reason why so many immigration bills have failed for so many years in this body--the Democrats write bills they claim do one thing; in reality, they do the exact opposite. No. 4, they say that it reforms chain migration or at least makes a downpayment on it. Here is what it actually does. It briefly delays a tiny, tiny class of persons from being sponsored by newly legalized immigrants--only about 25,000 per year of the adult children of green card holders. It takes those and applies them to the other adult children, and when those immigrants become citizens--guess what--they get to sponsor their adult children again. So it does not make a single change to the practice of extended family chain migration, which is responsible for so much of the unskilled and low-skilled immigration we have had in this country over the last 40 years. It makes no changes whatsoever to the diversity lottery, not a single one, even though every other provision under serious consideration has at least eliminated that lottery and reallocated those green cards toward other purposes, such as clearing out the family-based backlog and clearing out the high-skilled backlog. Some people say that it appropriates $25 billion--$2.5 billion a year for 10 years--for the border wall. It does no such thing. Again, it says one thing and does another. It gives $2.5 billion for the first year. It can't be spent on physical barriers. Then, every year after that, it makes that money contingent on a report and a certification by the Department of Homeland Security that is purposefully onerous, difficult to achieve, and therefore means the money likely will not be available in future years. And, of course, if a Democratic President comes into office during the 10 years of this bill, we know that his Department of Homeland Security will never submit that report certification, and that money will never be spent. Finally, No. 5, this amendment has no chance of becoming law--zero chance. It shouldn't pass this Chamber to begin with, but even if that were to happen, President Trump issued a veto threat just minutes ago. The House of Representatives is not going to pass this bill. They probably will not even take it up, as they didn't take it up the last time the Senate passed a terrible immigration bill. My friends, this Democratic bill deserves to be roundly defeated. There is one bill that has a chance to pass the House of Representatives and get the President's signature; that is, the President's framework proposal, which, in a very generous and humane fashion, gives citizenship--not just legal status but citizenship--to 1.8 million young people who were brought here or came here before the age of accountability. On the other hand, it mitigates the negative consequences of that decision, which we all know will happen. First, to control the increased incentives for illegal immigration, it provides the money and closes the loopholes necessary to secure our southern border. Second, to prevent that newly legalized class of citizens from sponsoring the very parents who created this problem in the first place and their siblings and ultimately their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, cousins, and their nieces and nephews, it ends the practice of extended family chain migration and says that American citizens can always sponsor their spouses and their minor kids, but anyone else, any other adult, should stand on their own two feet if they want to immigrate to this country. That is what the President said he will sign. That is, therefore, what the House of Representatives can pass. That is the bill that should pass today--the bill that is sponsored by Chairman Grassley of the Judiciary Committee. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. [[Page S1143]] Mrs. ERNST. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to emphasize why the Secure and Succeed Act is the right bill for the Senate to pass this week. I chose to join my colleagues, who have worked hard on this bill for months, for a few important reasons. First, this bill provides a way forward for our DACA recipients. I have said time and again that I appreciate the contributions our DACA recipients are making in our communities. They are our friends, our neighbors, and our churchgoers. I support finding them a way forward. Our bill does this. It does it in a fair and humane way. But importantly, it also adds strong eligibility requirements to ensure the safety and security of the program and stops future illegal immigration. For instance, it does not reward the parents who came here illegally by giving them any type of lawful status and sets reasonable time limits and restrictions on who can apply. Second, it provides immediate and significant investments in our border. We cannot allow this problem to happen again. We have a duty and an obligation to keep our borders secure and our citizens safe. Our bill recognizes that spending money on the border without giving law enforcement strong authorities is like buying a boat without an engine. We need both to keep our borders and our communities secure. Third, our bill recognizes that you cannot view immigration in a silo--it is a bulky issue that represents many legal, economic, and security concerns. Many of these issues are deeply interconnected. Addressing DACA and addressing the border without addressing some of the other issues plaguing our system is a half solution. We must have the President's four principles to make this work. Finally, this is the President's plan. The White House has endorsed this proposal. The President's pen is ready to sign it. I urge my colleagues, let's pass the bill that addresses the right issues in this debate and can actually become law. Let's pass the Secure and Succeed Act. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motions filed during yesterday's session of the Senate ripen at 2:30 p.m. today. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. The majority whip. South Florida School Shooting Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, today we mourn the loss of life of at least 17 people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School near Fort Lauderdale, FL. We are reminded that when we are asked to do something, there are things we can do to help lessen the likelihood of such terrible tragedies, recognizing that each of these circumstances is unique, and we don't yet know everything that there is to know or that we should know about this particular shooter. Suffice it to say, he telegraphed on social media, according to reports, his intention to do what he ultimately did. We in Congress, the policymakers, need to come up with tools to be available to law enforcement and the social media platforms to be able to monitor these sort of terroristic threats much in the same way we monitor social media for al-Qaida and ISIS and other terrorists abroad who try to recruit people in the United States in order to kill our fellow citizens in place. We need to not only think about and pray for the families and teachers and support staff who have been affected by this terrible act but conduct hearings and talk to the experts and find out what kind of tools might be available to us. I will mention another example of something we could do that would, I am confident, save lives. In my home State of Texas only a few months ago, we saw a mass shooting in a small town called Sutherland Springs, which is near San Antonio. The gunman there killed 26 people and wounded 20 more. He was a convicted felon. Under existing law, he could not legally purchase or possess firearms, but that didn't stop him from getting the weapons he used to murder those 26 people and shoot 20 more. Part of the reason was, his criminal history had not been uploaded to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is maintained by the FBI. So the gun retailer, when he had gone in and lied on the background check document, hadn't known he had been legally disqualified from purchasing a firearm. I have introduced legislation to try to fix that specific problem. It is called the Fix NICS Act. The House has already passed it, but it is awaiting action in the Senate. Our churches and schools should be refuges--places where parents and children, especially, feel safe and secure. Many of these shootings can be prevented, perhaps not all, but we need to do everything we can. Part of the way we can ensure that our children are protected is to enforce current law--and not just our children but adults as well, as we saw in Sutherland Springs. We can fix our broken background check system and prohibit dangerous individuals who have been convicted of serious crimes from acquiring firearms legally. As I said, we don't know all of the facts of the Florida shooting, and the circumstances, as is almost always the case, appear to be a little cloudy right now. It may be we will find out there are some clues that this shooter had been sending well in advance of this terrible tragedy that might have prevented it from occurring. There is no reason we cannot advance this bipartisan legislation, the Fix NICS legislation, which has already passed in the House. I, personally, am unwilling to face another family member who has lost a loved one as a result of one of these mass shootings that could have been prevented by making sure the background check system had worked as Congress had intended. Mr. President, on a separate note, this week, a group led by Chairman Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee formally introduced a bill to address the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals issue and border security. It is a good starting point because it could actually be signed into law and solve the challenge we have promised to address in providing these young people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a box. Because they cannot become American citizens due to the fact that their parents brought them into the country illegally, it would provide them a predictable and productive future. I am glad to be a cosponsor of this legislation, which is called the Secure and Succeed Act. As the President has promised, it does provide a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million people who are DACA-eligible. That is an extraordinary offer by the President of the United States. Who would have ever thought this President would say to these young people, ``We are going to give you a chance to become American citizens''? That number is far more than those who were covered by the Executive order that was signed by President Obama because, right now, there are only about 690,000--I say ``only''--DACA recipients. President Trump would make it 1.8 million. Just as importantly, this bill provides a real plan to strengthen border security by utilizing more boots on the ground, better technology, and additional infrastructure, and it enhances and modernizes our ports of entry through which many of the illegal drugs come that flow into this country from the south. This bill reallocates visas from the diversity lottery system, which is just sort of like a roll of the dice, but it will do it in a way that is fair, and it continues the family-based immigration categories until the current backlog is cleared. I know other colleagues have been working hard on their own ideas, some of which were introduced yesterday and earlier this morning, but one group I haven't heard much from so far is that of our colleagues across the aisle who shut down the government over the weekend a couple of weeks ago because they insisted we provide a time to address this issue. [[Page S1144]] Indeed, in response, once they agreed to reopen the government, the majority leader offered them that time and that opportunity, and that is this week. Yet, so far, none of our Democratic colleagues have even produced a bill. Rather, the bill has been produced by Senator Grassley and his working group I mentioned. There is another bill by Senator Collins and Senator Rounds, which we will be voting on here shortly. Then, I believe, Senator Gardner and Senator Bennet have another proposal. The very folks who shut down the government over this issue have failed to produce a plan in response to this demand that we have a debate and that we have a vote to try to address the problem. On Tuesday, the majority leader tried twice to open the debate and start voting, but, both times, there were objections heard by our Democratic colleagues--this despite their repeated promises over the years to address the DACA issue once and for all. Now the clock has run so we can finally get started, and we will start voting, as I understand the majority leader's unanimous consent request, at about 2:30 today. We are just getting started in our voting due to the stalling and the lack of, really, much debate. Certainly, there have been no substantive offers up until this point from our colleagues across the aisle. I believe sincerely that Republicans and Democrats alike want to provide certainty to these DACA recipients, but we have to address the underlying problems with our border security and our flawed immigration system as well. I know our colleague from Pennsylvania has introduced an amendment to end dangerous sanctuary city policies. It is simply unacceptable for local jurisdictions to decide they are not going to cooperate with Federal law enforcement agencies. We are a nation, and we are a nation of laws, so the idea that some local group could decide not to cooperate with Federal law enforcement authorities ought to worry all of us. Even though this amendment has been endorsed by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and the National Association of Police Organizations, many of our colleagues across the aisle will probably vote against it. That is especially odd since some of them voted to advance a similar sanctuary city measure themselves in 2015. Even more of our Democratic colleagues voted to advance what is known as Kate's Law in 2016. It is named for Kate Steinle, the young woman who was murdered in San Francisco by an illegal immigrant who had been released from custody. Kate's Law would stiffen penalties for illegal immigrants who have been caught entering the country repeatedly, as her killer had done. What is controversial about that? If you break the law repeatedly and we find you, there should be very serious consequences. Perhaps Kate Steinle would be alive today had that been the case before her untimely death. I don't know why our Democratic colleagues refuse to vote for these and other related proposals. I really don't get it. Yet I do know one thing that is worth highlighting: Their unwillingness to support reforms represents a stark departure from what they have said in the past. For example, in 2006, the senior Senator from California said: ``Democrats are solidly behind controlling the border, and we support the border fence. . . . We've got to get tough on the border.'' She was then joined by then-Senator Harry Reid, who had made similar statements. The senior Senator from Colorado has said the Democrats still believe in border security. That is good to hear. I wish their actions reflected that. In recent years, the junior Senator from New Mexico has said: ``It is critical we have the personnel, equipment, and policies in place that focus enforcement on the most significant public safety threats along the border.'' I could not have said that better myself, but when it comes time to vote, strangely, almost uniformly, our colleagues vote no. I agree with our colleague from Indiana as well, who went down to the border a while back and said he had seen for himself just how bad the situation was in certain areas. That is why he voted to hire more border agents, penalize businesses that hire illegal immigrants, and deport those who commit felonies. My point is, we should all remember we are not as far apart as the press would seem to make it. Now it is time to advance the bill to that effect--not next time, not next month, not next year. We know the clock is ticking. The President has given us until March 5 to get this done, but if this week is any indication, our colleagues on the other side don't seem to be in any particular hurry. As the majority leader said earlier this week, we need to stop making political points and start making a law. That means passing it out of the Senate, passing it out of the House, and getting the President to sign it into law. That is how you make law. Several weeks ago, as I said, the majority leader made a commitment to hold this debate and to hold it this week. He has lived up to that commitment, and now we can't let it all just go to waste and squander this opportunity. I am really shocked by that after the President made this offer of a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million young adults who were brought into this country as children illegally by their parents. I have always said we don't hold children responsible for their parents' mistakes. That is why we should embrace this proposal by the President. I don't know how you tell these young people we had the opportunity to address their anxiety and the uncertainty in their futures by passing a bill that encompasses the President's proposal and gives them a pathway to citizenship. How do you look them in their faces and say we squandered this golden opportunity, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? That is what this week is about. There are about 124,000 DACA recipients in my State of Texas, and I will proudly cast a vote soon to ensure that they stay here and contribute to our schools, our churches, and our communities. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws, and you cannot have one without the other. What this week is about is finding a bipartisan permanent solution for these young adults but doing more than just that. I, certainly, respect that some of our colleagues have introduced thoughtful ideas, but we have to remember that, ultimately, we need to move a bill through the Senate that can pass not only this body but the House and be signed into law by the President. This is not about grandstanding or making a political point. The idea is to produce a result, one that we have all said we want. So let's not waste any more time. Let's send the House and then the President something that can become law and provide certainty to these young people who are worried about their future and regain our legacy as a nation that believes in the rule of law and security for all. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas. Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, in the late 1980s, Congress debated and adopted amnesty legislation for 3 million people who were here illegally. It did so promising the American people that in exchange for amnesty, the Federal Government would finally, finally, finally secure the border. We all know what happened. That amnesty occurred, and the border never got secured. At the time, there were 3 million people living here illegally. Today, estimates are that there are in excess of 12 million people living here illegally. Five years ago, in 2013, this body again debated amnesty. The so- called Gang of 8 again failed to secure the border but once again made the same promise of amnesty for millions here illegally in exchange for an ephemeral, never-to-come promise to secure the border. The Senate ultimately passed the Gang of 8 bill. As it was being voted on, Senate Democrats bragged on television that they believed they had north of 70 votes--that now was the time, again, to pass amnesty. Yet the American people rose up and said: Amnesty is not what we want. It is inconsistent with the rule of law. We saw Senators at the last minute jumping ship. At the end of the day, it passed this body by 68 votes and then went nowhere in the House of Representatives. So again, today, we are here having the same debate. I feel like Bill Murray [[Page S1145]] in ``Groundhog Day,'' waking up and reliving the same day over and over and over, and the result is the same. Listen, I don't know how these votes will occur this afternoon. It may be that nothing gets 60 votes. That is possible. But it may also be that the Senate embraces one of the various amnesty plans that is put on the table. If that is the case, it will be every bit as big a mistake as the Gang of 8 was a mistake and as the amnesty in the 1980s was a mistake. I must say that I find myself flabbergasted at where my own party is in this debate, because every proposal that has Republican support that has been submitted begins from a place markedly to the left of that of President Obama. President Obama, as we all know, issued DACA, which was otherwise known as Executive amnesty. Executive amnesty was illegal and unconstitutional. The President has no authority to refuse to enforce the law. Yet President Obama decreed that he would not enforce Federal immigration laws, and that is exactly what he did. At the time, virtually every Republican denounced Executive amnesty as unconstitutional, as lawless, as wrong. Yet today, far too many Senate Republicans are staking out a place well to the left of President Obama on DACA on numerous axes. No. 1, DACA itself covered 690,000 people. Yet what is the proposal being considered by this body? Under the mildest of the proposals, we are considering a path to citizenship for 1.8 million people. Why on Earth would we more than double--nearly triple--the DACA population? If there are 690,000 people who received illegal and unconstitutional Executive amnesty, then, it seems to me that, at the very most, the population we should consider is those 690,000. The argument is made that they have relied on this promise, even though the promise was illegal and even though it was unconstitutional. The people who relied on this promise are the 690,000, not the 1.1 million who never even applied. So I would ask why Republicans--and, indeed, why Democrats--are nearly tripling what President Obama did in DACA. But that is not the only regard. DACA never included citizenship. Nothing in President Obama's DACA allowed citizenship. Nothing in it allowed a path to citizenship. DACA was a work permit, nothing more than a work permit-- an illegal work permit, mind you--but it did not allow citizenship. Yet today far too many Republicans are eager to embrace the Democrats' demands that 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 million people here illegally should be granted a path to citizenship. That is wrong. That is plain and simple wrong. It is unfair to the millions of working men and women. It is unfair to the steelworkers, the truckdrivers, and the mechanics. It is unfair to millions of American citizens, working men and women, who faced stagnant wages under President Obama. It is unfair to millions of legal immigrants whose wages are driven down by those here illegally. It is inconsistent with the promises made by virtually every Republican in this body. Every Republican who went out and campaigned against Executive amnesty said: We will not have amnesty. Well, now is the time to choose. If this body chooses to grant citizenship to 2, 3, 4 million people here illegally, those promises will have been directly broken. That is a mistake. It is wrong. Not only that, but the legislation this body is preparing to consider not only would grant citizenship, but it would make those here illegally eligible for Federal welfare--Federal welfare benefits. Not only do people come here illegally, but it drives up the cost. Every one of us has been asked by American citizens: Why are we spending vast sums of money providing welfare benefits? Why would we want to do that to those here illegally? We are a nation of immigrants. My father came as an immigrant in 1957 with nothing--$100 in his underwear and not speaking English--but he came legally. We should be embracing legal immigrants rather than excusing and condoning illegal immigration. I do not believe we should be granting citizenship to anyone here illegally, nor should we be providing Federal welfare benefits to anyone here illegally, nor should we be expanding the pool of DACA recipients beyond that in the Obama program. Yet Republicans seem eager to do so. It is possible that our Democratic friends will save us from this foolishness--that even though Republicans are proposing a profoundly foolhardy immigration proposal, the Democrats will decide they want even more. There is not enough amnesty that the Democrats could take. If they do that, that will save the day for now. But if not, if this body gets 60 votes for one of these amnesty proposals, then it is incumbent on the House to stop it, much like with the Gang of 8. In the Gang of 8, the Senate couldn't stop it. The Senate has always, unfortunately, been very liberal on immigration. It has been very willing to make promises to the voters and promptly come down here and vote very differently from those promises. But the House of Representatives--the People's House--is designed to be responsive to the people. So it is my hope that House conservatives, facing the people and listening to the people, will recognize that we had an election in 2014 in response to the Gang of 8. The American people said: We don't want the Gang of 8. They elected the largest House majority of Republicans in 70 years. They elected 9 new Republicans in the Senate and retired Harry Reid as majority leader. Yet, somehow, Republicans in this body didn't hear the voters in 2014. We had an election in 2016 that the media was ready to call for Hillary Clinton. Yet, front and center in the 2016 election, was the American people saying: We don't want amnesty. My call to our colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, is listen to the people. There are many things we can and should be doing. We should be passing Kate's Law. I authored and introduced Kate's Law in this body. Kate's Law provides that for an aggravated felon who has been repeatedly entering this country illegally and who has been deported repeatedly, that that aggravated felon have a mandatory minimum prison sentence. Kate's Law is known for Kate Steinle, that beautiful woman in California murdered on a pier by an illegal alien deported over and over with multiple felony convictions. Had Kate's Law been on the books, I believe it is very likely that Kate Steinle would still be alive. That is the sort of commonsense legislation on which we ought to be coming together and passing. Yet there is the old adage: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This body made a grievous mistake in passing the Gang of 8 bill. Thankfully, the House saved us from our error. We may be on the verge of making the same grievous mistake. It is almost as if elections don't penetrate. We need to be listening to the voters. I do not know a single Republican--not one in this body, not one in the House of Representatives--who was elected on a promise: I will go to the left of Barack Obama on immigration. If one of us campaigned promising that, knock yourself out. Vote for this. But if you didn't say that Obama's Executive amnesty didn't go far enough, that we need to double or triple the pool, that we need to grant citizenship because Obama was too much of a conservative on immigration--if you didn't say that--then the only vote consistent with what we told the voters is to vote no today. We can come together and find commonsense solutions on immigration. We can secure the border. We can triple the Border Patrol. We can end catch and release. We can implement a strong E-verify. We can use strong tools and technology. We can continue to embrace and celebrate legal immigrants, and we can do all of that while respecting the rule of law. What I would urge my colleagues to do is very simple. Ask yourself what you told the voters before election, and let your conduct after election day match what you told the voters. As for the Democrats, the Democrats campaigned as the party of amnesty. They are at least being true to their promises. They promised amnesty. That is their priority. They are being true. But for Republicans, we promised something different. We promised to stand with the working men and women, the union members, the steelworkers, the men and women with calluses on their hands. I urge every one of us to listen to the working men and women, to respect the rule of law, and to vote against these misguided proposals. [[Page S1146]] I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware. Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes before we proceed to the cloture vote scheduled at 2:30 p.m. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Amendment No. 1955 Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I was honored when my good friend Senator John McCain reached out to me 2 weeks ago to suggest that we introduce bipartisan legislation here in the Senate that would attempt to solve two of our most pressing immigration issues and keep our country and Congress moving forward. The bill we have introduced--and which the Senate will soon proceed to vote on--doesn't solve every immigration issue we face, and it doesn't try to. What our bill does is focus on the issues on which we can agree. It is an attempt to break through the messy political debates and substantive disagreements here and find compromise. Our bill would do two simple things: Move to secure our border, and finally give Dreamers the path to citizenship they deserve. First, to address border security, our bipartisan bill would ensure that we gain operational control of the border by 2020 with new investments, new technology, new resources for Federal, State, and local law enforcement. It would also reduce current immigration court backlogs by funding new judges and attorneys, while addressing one of the root causes of immigration from Central America. Second, our bill would give legal certainty to 1.8 million Dreamers who are American in every way but the paperwork--young Americans who have known no other country but this one. Dreamers who continue to play by the rules by going to school, serving in our military, and maintaining consistent employment can become lawful permanent residents and, 5 years later, U.S. citizens. Senator McCain and I aren't the only ones who think this bipartisan solution makes sense; 54 Members of the House--an even split of 27 Republicans and 27 Democrats--have cosponsored and led this effort. It has been championed by Republican Congressman Will Hurd of Texas, whose district has 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, and Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar of California. Our bill is more than just a set of policies. It is a way for us to agree when we can agree and not let our disagreements get in the way of making progress. There have been misrepresentations and half-truths said in attacking this bill, and I will simply say this: Would a true American hero and patriot like Senator McCain have lent his name to this bill if all these attacks were true? I think not. Our message is simple. We may not fix every immigration issue right now, but we can take a historic step forward, and with new technology, new manpower, a new pathway to citizenship, address Dreamers and allow them to succeed in American schools and in the American military and to enrich American communities without fear of deportation. These are tough issues, but the solution is simple. I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the McCain-Coons bill. I yield the floor. 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 senior assistant legislative 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, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on amendment No. 1955 to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage. Angus S. King, Jr., Christopher A. Coons, Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, Tim Kaine, Mark R. Warner, Sheldon Whitehouse, Debbie Stabenow, Margaret Wood Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, Jack Reed, Tammy Baldwin, Patty Murray, Edward J. Markey, Amy Klobuchar, Richard J. Durbin, Brian Schatz, Charles E. Schumer. 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 amendment No. 1955, offered by the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, for the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Coons, to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage, 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. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 52, nays 47, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 33 Leg.] YEAS--52 Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Booker Brown Cantwell Cardin Carper Casey Coons Cortez Masto Donnelly Duckworth Durbin Feinstein Flake Gardner Gillibrand Graham Harris Hassan Heinrich Heitkamp Hirono Jones Kaine King Klobuchar Leahy Markey McCaskill Menendez Merkley Murkowski Murphy Murray Nelson Peters Reed Sanders Schatz Schumer Shaheen Smith Stabenow Tester Udall Van Hollen Warner Warren Whitehouse Wyden NAYS--47 Alexander Barrasso Blunt Boozman Burr Capito Cassidy Cochran Collins Corker Cornyn Cotton Crapo Cruz Daines Enzi Ernst Fischer Grassley Hatch Heller Hoeven Inhofe Isakson Johnson Kennedy Lankford Lee Manchin McConnell Moran Paul Perdue Portman Risch Roberts Rounds Rubio Sasse Scott Shelby Sullivan Thune Tillis Toomey Wicker Young NOT VOTING--1 McCai The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). On this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 47. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. The majority leader. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to each remaining vote in this series; finally, that any further vote in the series be 10 minutes in length. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is so ordered. Cloture Motion Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state. The senior assistant legislative 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, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment No. 1948 to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage. Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis, Chuck Grassley, John Cornyn, David Perdue, John Thune, Cory Gardner, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, James Lankford, John Hoeven, Rob Portman, Lamar Alexander, Steve Daines, Shelley Moore Capito, Dan Sullivan. 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 amendment No. 1948, offered by the Senator from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, for the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Toomey, to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage, shall be brought to a close? There is 2 minutes of debate. Who yields time? The Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, Kate Steinle didn't have to be shot and killed on a pier in San Francisco. A 13-year-old child didn't have to be raped in the city of Philadelphia by Ramon Ochoa. Both of those crimes were committed by people who were in this country illegally after previously committing multiple crimes and after having been deported. In both cases, the [[Page S1147]] cities in which these crimes occurred--the police departments--had these criminals in custody shortly prior to the commission of these crimes. But in both cases, when the Department of Homeland Security asked for a temporary detention until they could take these people into custody and deport them, that was not allowed because these were sanctuary cities. These sanctuary cities systematically forbid the local police from even sharing information or cooperating with Federal immigration officials, even in the case of criminals. My amendment is a bipartisan amendment. I want to thank the Senator from West Virginia for cosponsoring it. This is an amendment that will ensure that any legal liability for wrongful detention is held by the Federal Government, and nonsecurity funds--CDBG grants and some other categories--will be withheld from sanctuary cities. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Toomey amendment will withhold critical funding from cities, counties, and States whose police departments refuse to deploy their police officers as immigration agents for the Federal Government. Listen to what the two chiefs of police in Storm Lake and Marshalltown, IA, wrote last week to the Des Moines Register: Most significant, the proposed bill would diminish the trust that keeps our cities safe in the first place. We depend on residents, including immigrants, to come to us when they see something suspicious or potentially criminal. If they hear of a looming ``crackdown'' that could affect their families and friends, they are less likely to come [forward] to report and prevent actual crimes. This is from Iowa chiefs of police in the Midwest. It is common sense. My superintendent in Chicago, Eddie Johnson, said: I've said it before and I'll say it again. Undocumented immigrants are not driving violence in Chicago. That's why I want our officers focused on community policing and not trying to be immigration police. Vote for our men and women in uniform. Vote against the Toomey amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. The assistant bill clerk called the roll. Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 54, nays 45, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 34 Leg.] YEAS--54 Alexander Barrasso Blunt Boozman Burr Capito Cassidy Cochran Collins Corker Cornyn Cotton Crapo Cruz Daines Donnelly Enzi Ernst Fischer Flake Gardner Graham Grassley Hatch Heller Hoeven Inhofe Isakson Johnson Kennedy Lankford Lee Manchin McCaskill McConnell Moran Murkowski Paul Perdue Portman Risch Roberts Rounds Rubio Sasse Scott Shelby Stabenow Sullivan Thune Tillis Toomey Wicker Young NAYS--45 Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Booker Brown Cantwell Cardin Carper Casey Coons Cortez Masto Duckworth Durbin Feinstein Gillibrand Harris Hassan Heinrich Heitkamp Hirono Jones Kaine King Klobuchar Leahy Markey Menendez Merkley Murphy Murray Nelson Peters Reed Sanders Schatz Schumer Shaheen Smith Tester Udall Van Hollen Warner Warren Whitehouse Wyden NOT VOTING--1 McCain The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 54, the nays are 45. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. Cloture Motion Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state. The assistant 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, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment No. 1958, as modified, to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage. Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis, Chuck Grassley, John Cornyn, David Perdue, John Thune, Cory Gardner, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, James Lankford, Lisa Murkowski, John Hoeven, Rob Portman, Lamar Alexander, Steve Daines, Shelley Moore Capito. 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 amendment No. 1958, as modified, offered by the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage, shall be brought to a close? There will now be 2 minutes of debate equally divided. Who yields time? The Senator from Arkansas. Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I know there is some dispute about the name of this amendment, so let's just call it the ``olly olly oxen free'' amendment because it says to the entire world: If you can get to our country in the next 4 months, olly olly oxen free--you can stay forever. That is right. This bill directs the Department of Homeland Security not to prioritize enforcement action not only against illegal immigrants here today but anyone who gets here over the next 4 months. Second, it is an amnesty that is far broader than the DACA Program-- not 700,000, not 1.8 million, but over 3 million people. Third, it is even worse than that because it includes their parents as well. The bill purports to prohibit parents from being legalized, but it requires the Federal Government to show that the parents did not knowingly assist the entry of a minor into this country. How can the government show that 15, 20, 25 years later? And to say nothing of the fact that it puts onerous conditions on the spending of any money for security. It does virtually nothing for chain migration and nothing at all to the diversity lottery. That is why President Trump has issued a veto threat, and that is why every one of my colleagues should vote no. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota. Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, while I enjoy the humor that my colleague from Arkansas has expressed, this is an important bill. What we have done is what the President has asked for. No. 1, this provides $25 billion for a border security system. No. 2, it addresses the issue of DACA. It takes care of 1.8 million young people who want to be citizens of the United States 10 to 12 years from now. It does not provide a citizenship opportunity for their parents. I yield at this time to my colleague, the Senator from Maine. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine. Mr. KING. Mr. President, on January 9 of this year, the President of the United States said: We are going to come up with DACA. We are going to do DACA, and then we can start immediately on phase two, which will be comprehensive. I think we have to do DACA first. Later that evening, he tweeted and said that in addition to DACA, we need to do the border. This is that bill. Much of the criticism are for things not in this bill. They weren't intended to be. This is a narrow bill dealing with DACA and border security. This is what the American people want us to do, and they are going to be puzzled if anyone in this body votes against a bill that will deal with DACA and border security. Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues, Senator Rounds and Senator King, in clarifying the intent of a provision from the Immigration Security and Opportunity Act, which has been offered as an amendment. What this provision seeks to do is send a strong message to people who come to the country after the bill is enacted that they are going to be a priority for deportation just like a person [[Page S1148]] who has committed a felony is prioritized for deportation. I commit to changing this date from June 30, 2018, back to the beginning of the calendar year, January 1, 2018, in conference should the amendment be adopted by the Senate. Mr. KING. Mr. President, I agree with the senior Senator from Maine on the intent of this provision and support working with her and our colleagues to move this date to January 1, 2018. I would also offer that to prioritize some actions does not mean to do so at the exclusion of others, nor does it mean that DHS is prohibited in any way from enforcing the law. Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, I, too, would like to echo the comments by Senator Collins and Senator King on the intent of the provision and our commitment to move this date back to the beginning of the year. This provision is needed to ensure that we are providing a deterrent. Individuals who come to the U.S. after a particular date must know that we are going to focus resources on their deportation just like we will focus on felons and other criminals and those who pose a threat to our Nation's security or public safety. Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues, and I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll. Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 54, nays 45, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 35 Leg.] YEAS--54 Alexander Baldwin Bennet Blumenthal Booker Brown Cantwell Cardin Carper Casey Collins Coons Cortez Masto Donnelly Duckworth Durbin Feinstein Flake Gardner Gillibrand Graham Hassan Heitkamp Hirono Isakson Jones Kaine King Klobuchar Leahy Manchin Markey McCaskill Menendez Merkley Murkowski Murphy Murray Nelson Peters Reed Rounds Sanders Schatz Schumer Shaheen Smith Stabenow Tester Van Hollen Warner Warren Whitehouse Wyden NAYS--45 Barrasso Blunt Boozman Burr Capito Cassidy Cochran Corker Cornyn Cotton Crapo Cruz Daines Enzi Ernst Fischer Grassley Harris Hatch Heinrich Heller Hoeven Inhofe Johnson Kennedy Lankford Lee McConnell Moran Paul Perdue Portman Risch Roberts Rubio Sasse Scott Shelby Sullivan Thune Tillis Toomey Udall Wicker Young NOT VOTING--1 McCain The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 54, the nays are 45. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. Cloture Motion Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state. The legislative 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, do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment No. 1959 to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage. Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis, Chuck Grassley, John Cornyn, David Perdue, John Thune, Cory Gardner, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, James Lankford, John Hoeven, Rob Portman, Lamar Alexander, Steve Daines, Shelley Moore Capito, Dan Sullivan. 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 amendment No. 1959, offered by the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, to H.R. 2579, an act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow the premium tax credit with respect to unsubsidized COBRA continuation coverage, shall be brought to a close? There will now be 2 minutes of debate equally divided. Who yields time? The Senator from Iowa. Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we offer you commonsense reforms. More than half of the Senators on that side just voted for a massive amount of funding that we need for border security. We offer that as well, but we also make it easier for authorities to remove criminals. We end chain migration. We end the diversity visa. We also have a path to citizenship for 1.8 million DACA recipients and Dreamers. In a sense, this is it. It is the only plan that can become law because the President has said he would sign it. This is it. This is one's last chance to vote for a path to citizenship for all of the people we have been talking about giving justice to and being compassionate about and bringing out of the dark. So here we are with an opportunity to do it. I hope you will vote yes and support it. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader. Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we have waited a long time and worked very hard for the chance to vote on a bill to protect Dreamers. I regret that the only bipartisan effort of the group of moderate Senators to come up with a bipartisan compromise couldn't get the necessary 60 votes, and I expect the Grassley proposal will not get 60 either. I salute the eight brave Republicans who voted for the bipartisan compromise. There is only one reason the Senate will be unable to reach a bipartisan solution to DACA--President Trump. President Trump created this problem by terminating the DACA Program last August. Since that decision, President Trump has stood in the way of every single proposal that could have become law. In conclusion, immigration is always a contentious issue. There are intense feelings on both sides of the aisle. If there were ever a time for Presidential leadership, this was it. President Trump has failed his test of leadership--spectacularly. I urge a ``no'' vote. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll. Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote? The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 39, nays 60, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 36 Leg.] YEAS--39 Alexander Blunt Boozman Burr Capito Cassidy Cochran Corker Cornyn Cotton Crapo Donnelly Ernst Fischer Gardner Graham Grassley Hatch Heitkamp Heller Hoeven Isakson Johnson Lankford Manchin McConnell Perdue Portman Risch Roberts Rounds Rubio Scott Shelby Sullivan Tillis Toomey Wicker Young NAYS--60 Baldwin Barrasso Bennet Blumenthal Booker Brown Cantwell Cardin Carper Casey Collins Coons Cortez Masto Cruz Daines Duckworth Durbin Enzi Feinstein Flake Gillibrand Harris Hassan Heinrich Hirono Inhofe Jones Kaine Kennedy King Klobuchar Leahy Lee Markey McCaskill Menendez Merkley Moran Murkowski Murphy Murray Nelson Paul Peters Reed Sanders Sasse Schatz Schumer Shaheen Smith Stabenow Tester Thune Udall Van Hollen Warner Warren Whitehouse Wyden NOT VOTING--1 McCain The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 39, the nays are 60. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected. The Senator from North Carolina. ____________________