Idaho County Shooting Range Land Conveyance Act

Mr. President, for the next hour a number of us from the Democratic Caucus will be talking about the Central American refugee crisis. We are lucky to be joined by Senator Mikulski, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to get us started today. So I look forward very much to hearing what she has to say and you will be hearing from me in a little bit.

Mr. President, let me start by thanking my colleague from Maryland for her leadership on the Appropriations Committee and her leadership on this difficult issue. She said something in caucus the other day that really struck me. She said: Every Senator has an opinion on this, but not every Senator has the facts. Facts matter. They make for good policy.

Last week I had the opportunity, along with Secretary Johnson, to visit a temporary facility for refugee mothers and their children that is in my home State of New Mexico. The holding area at this facility in Artesia, NM, is one of several ways that DHS is increasing its capacity to process the increasing number of families with children from Central America who are crossing our southwest border.

On Monday, 40 individuals were repatriated back to Honduras. It is reported that more mothers and their children will be sent back to their countries of origin.

While I was at this facility, I saw firsthand the remarkable interagency effort that it took to take a Federal law enforcement training center, a campus, and turn it into a safe and humane place for families to stay while their cases are being processed.

But that is not all I saw while I was there. I watched a young boy play soccer with his little brother, both of them clearly happy to be in the kind of secure environment where they could just be kids. I saw a lot of mothers. I saw mothers whose faces were worried, who reflected the clear concern about what the future would be for them and for their children. What I did not see at that facility--I did not see cartel mules. I did not see drug runners. I did not see criminals or gang members. Those were mothers and little kids. Most of those families come from one of the most violent regions in the world today.

This current crisis is of grave concern to all of us. I know I have heard from a number of my constituents who wanted to know what they can do to help. I have to give great credit to our local chamber of commerce in Artesia, NM, as they worked hard as they received hundreds of donations from compassionate New Mexicans across the State hoping to make a difference in these people's lives. They understand that this is first a humanitarian crisis. They also understand that we are a nation of laws, that our immigration system has been broken for a long time and needs to be fixed.

The Senate worked for months to address this, but the Republican-led House of Representatives refuses to even debate immigration reform, much less allow a vote on it. Instead, Republicans claim that the President's immigration policies, including deferred action for childhood arrivals--or DACA, as it is known--caused a crisis at the border. That could not be further from the truth. The increase in unaccompanied children started before President Obama created the DACA program 2 years ago. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has documented an increased number of asylum seekers from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala since 2009--a full 5 years ago. What is more, children crossing the border would not be eligible for DACA. In fact, they would not be eligible for the Senate version of immigration reform.

These asylum seekers are not only fleeing to the United States but also to the other neighboring countries in the region. They are fleeing to Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Belize. In fact, those countries saw a 712-percent spike in asylum cases from El Salvador, from Honduras, and Guatemala from 2008 to 2013, further demonstrating that children are not coming to the United States to apply for DACA. They are coming because their lives are at risk back home.

In interviews with over 400 children, the United Nations High Commission on Refugees found that no less than 58 percent of them were forcibly displaced because they suffered or faced harm that indicated a potential or actual need for international protection--an increase of more than 400 percent from 2006.

Less than 1 percent of these kids spoke of immigration reform or some new program or policy as the basis for coming to the United States. In fact, out of the 404 children who were interviewed, there were only 4-- 4 children who expressed a reason for coming that related to some part of the U.S. immigration system.

The reality is, as we heard from Senator Mikulski, what is driving children to our borders is unimaginable violence, corruption, extreme poverty, and instability in their home countries.

This picture was taken in Tegucigalpa in Honduras. This is frankly an all-too-common sight in Honduras today. Not only is the poverty unimaginable, but the violence we have seen is like nothing in recent history. Honduras has now the world's highest murder rate, with over 90 murders per 100,000 persons annually. Last year approximately 1,000 young people under the age of 23 in Honduras were murdered--murdered in a nation of only 8 million, 1,000 young people.

In a report published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, they found that 93 percent of crimes perpetrated against youth in Honduras go unpunished--completely unpunished.

The National Observatory of Violence reported that violent deaths of women increased by 246 percent between 2005 and 2012.

This is all the more unsettling to me because I know firsthand that Honduras did not always look this way. In the 1990s I traveled to Honduras with my wife Julie. We were on our honeymoon. We flew into San Pedro Sula. The only time I felt any fear was trying to drive in a city that moves a lot faster than I do when I try to drive on country roads in New Mexico. But we never had any fear for violence when we were in Honduras. We traveled around the country. We went to many places off the beaten path.

That is very different today. Today San Pedro Sula is a city synonymous with murder.

To understand just how bad it is, you can look at pictures like this one of literally body bags getting ready to go to mass graves from murders happening in these neighborhoods in San Pedro Sula. You can read a recent article in the New York Times by Frances Robles that tells the chilling story of Cristian, an 11-year-old sixth grader from Honduras who lost his father in March after he was robbed and murdered by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. It is kind of hard to imagine needing a security guard to protect a pastry truck. Three people he knows were murdered this year alone, and four others were gunned down on a nearby corner in the span of 2 weeks at the beginning of the year. A girl his age resisted being robbed of the sum of $5. She was clubbed over the head, dragged off by two men who cut a hole in her throat and stuffed her underwear in it and left her body in a ravine across the street from Cristian's house.

Then there is Anthony, a 13-year-old from Honduras, who disappeared from his gang-ridden neighborhood. His younger brother Kenneth hopped on his green bike to search for him, starting his hunt at a notorious gang hangout in the neighborhood. They were found within days of each other, both dead. Anthony, 13, and a friend had been shot in the head.

Kenneth, age 7, had been tortured and beaten with sticks and rocks. They were among seven children murdered in the La Pradera neighborhood of San Pedro Sula in April alone--in 1 month.

El Salvador and Guatemala are the world's fourth and fifth highest in murders. The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies found that in 2011, El Salvador had the highest rate of gender-motivated killings of women in the entire world. In Guatemala, the Department of State reports widespread human rights problems, including institutional corruption, particularly in the police, in judicial sectors, kidnapping, drug trafficking, execution, and often lethal violence against women.

We have a human crisis at our southern border that requires an immediate but compassionate response. Yet instead of supporting the supplemental which seeks to address the root causes of the crisis and protect these vulnerable children, Republicans are trying to use the crisis to promote fear and their border-enforcement-only agenda.

Recently, a Republican Governor suggested that the President send the National Guard to ``secure the border once and for all'' and that ``the border between the U.S. and Mexico is less secure today than at any time in the recent past.'' As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, facts are stubborn. This is simply not the case. In fact, the notion that lax border policies are somehow responsible for this latest crisis is not just a myth; it is a, well, full misrepresentation driven by politicians who would rather create a political issue than to solve a very real problem.

The border today is more secure than it has ever been. There are more Border Patrol agents on the ground. There are more resources. There is more technology deployed on the border than at any time in our Nation's history--at any time. In fiscal year 2012, the Federal Government spent almost $18 billion--$17.9 billion--on immigration enforcement. That is $3.5 billion more than the budgets of all the other Federal law enforcement agencies combined--$3.5 billion more than the FBI's budget, plus the DEA's budget, the ATF budget, plus the Secret Service, plus the U.S. Marshals Service. These resources have made a difference. From fiscal year 2009 to 2012, the Department of Homeland Security seized 71 percent more currency, 39 percent more narcotics, 189 percent more weapons along the southwest border as compared to the last 4 years of the Bush administration.

It is important to remember that this crisis from refugees in Central America is not about children and families sneaking across our border like criminals. As we heard from the Senator from Maryland, many of these refugees seek out the first Border Patrol agent they can find in order to turn themselves in. Many of these children have walked across the border or across the Rio Grande with identification literally safety-pinned to their shirts. But that image does not serve the political interests of those who prefer a border crisis to a refugee crisis.

Let's step back and remember that the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill more than a year ago now--a bill that included incredibly important provisions to further strengthen our border but that would also protect refugee children and crack down on the smugglers and the transnational criminal organizations that are at the root of the current crisis.

Notably, this bill was widely supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Chamber.

Public support and good economics have not been enough to convince the House leaders to hold a vote on immigration reform, but they cannot turn a blind eye to the current humanitarian crisis along our Nation's southern border.

Instead of attacking the President, Senate Republicans should work with them to address the issue, and they should demand that their colleagues in the House act to fix our broken immigration system.

Additionally, passing the $3.7 billion supplemental sends a clear signal that we are aggressively stemming the flow of children and families from Central America while continuing to treat these refugee children humanely and as required under the law. This situation is an emergency and we need emergency funding.

Our immigrant communities have helped to write the economic, social, and cultural history of America. I know this firsthand. My own father is an immigrant who came to this country as a boy from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

As a nation we value the twin promises of both freedom and opportunity. Those ideals are important no matter where you are born.

The fact is, our immigration system is broken. Those of us who represent border communities understand the challenge we face, but there are solutions--solutions before us that are pragmatic, bipartisan, and uphold our American values.

I am familiar with the promise America represents for families. I know how hard immigrants work, how much they believe in this country, and how much they are willing to give back to this country.

A small group of faith leaders from New Mexico penned an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal over the weekend. In sharing their thoughts on this humanitarian crisis they wrote:

While the current situation raises the issues in powerful

ways, expressing hatred toward, fear of, or anger with women

and children serves nothing to resolve national debate.

Rather, it engenders a destructive spirit of mistrust. Let us

seek to understand the immigrant's reasons for coming and to

work collaboratively for just and reasonable immigration

reform.

I could not agree more with these faith leaders.

It is time to fix our broken immigration system once and for all. Our short-term solution is to approve the President's emergency supplemental request now, and as part of our long-term solution we need House Republicans to put the Senate's immigration reform bill on the floor for a vote.

Our Nation will be the better for it.

Madam President, over the years I have frequently spoken on the Senate floor about refugees. I have asked my fellow Senators to support our humanitarian refugee efforts in farflung corners of the world. In doing so, I cite America's role as a human rights leader and our long history of providing refuge to those fleeing persecution and violence. I also remind people of a time in the past, around World War II, when this country unwisely closed its borders to people who were fleeing the Holocaust in Germany. They came here, they were turned back, sent back, many of them to certain death in the death camps. That was a sorry part of our history. Usually our history reflects what we see in the Statue of Liberty: a beckoning torch to refuge. But now the refugee crisis has come back again and to our own border.

It is a complicated problem. I hope we will stop trying to react to whatever was in the latest news cycle 12\1/2\ seconds ago so we can get to the next sound bite 12\1/2\ seconds from now and resist the urge to let politics shape our response. Critics are arguing that the increase in unaccompanied children arriving at the southwest border is driven by recent changes in our immigration policy. This is a sound bite. The facts, of course, are a lot different. They tell a different and more complicated story.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has found over 50 percent of the children ages 12 to 17 arriving from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have been forcibly displaced and have claims to international protection because of the violence they have encountered. If changes in immigration policy were the primary factor, we would expect to see an across-the-board increase in children arriving from Mexico and Central America.

What Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras have in common is widespread corruption and weak governments that have failed to implement effective social and economic programs or to protect their most vulnerable citizens from record levels of violence. This reality, more than any change in U.S. policy, is responsible for the massive increase in unaccompanied minors arriving on our southwest border.

It is true that many of these children do not have claims to immigration relief and they are going to be returned. For them, the dangers of this trip are not worth it, and we must discourage them from making the arduous journey alone. But others are fleeing murder or being forced into gangs or girls in their early teens are being raped and impregnated. This is what they are escaping.

There is no doubt that simply maintaining the status quo is not an option. We should take up and pass the administration's emergency supplemental request without delay. But instead of supporting the supplemental, Republicans are trying to use the crisis to promote fear and their enforcement-only agenda. It has not worked in the past. It will not work now. These children coming across the border are not trying to flee from enforcement. If they see somebody in uniform, they run to them, thinking that finally they are escaping the gangs and the murderers and the rapists, and now they suddenly feel safe because they see an American in uniform. As we know from the experience of other countries facing far greater refugee crises, increased detention and other messages of deterrence do not persuade desperate people from taking dangerous journeys.

Some Members of Congress are proposing that the way to solve this problem is by amending the Trafficking Victims Protection Act to make it easier to deport these children by rushing them through a superficial hearing--and it would be superficial--without access to counsel or child welfare specialists, in a country strange to them and in a language different than theirs. That is unacceptable. We are talking about young children--6 and 7 and 8 years old--who have experienced horrific violence and now are in a country where they don't even speak the language. It is unconscionable to push them through our complicated legal system terrified and alone, without a lawyer, and with the ultimate idea that they will be summarily deported back to the very danger they fled. I will vote against anything that would allow such a travesty.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act is not a windfall for these children. It hasn't been from the time President George W. Bush signed it into law until today. It simply provides commonsense protections such as requiring the children who arrive alone to be interviewed by a child welfare specialist and have a meaningful opportunity to tell their story to a judge. That is how we identify victims of trafficking or sexual violence or persecution. If improving the efficiency of the process is the goal, the administration already has the discretion to do that. The funding for immigration judges and legal assistance in the supplemental will further help. We can address this humanitarian crisis without watering down our law. We don't have to turn our backs on our own basic values as Americans--the basic values that brought my grandparents to Italy from Vermont and my great-great grandparents from Ireland to Vermont. It is our humanitarian values. Let's not turn our backs on them.

The problem, in fact, we are facing now could be alleviated in part if the Republican-controlled House of Representatives would allow a vote on the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill, S. 744. We had hundreds of hours of hearings, of markups, of debate, sometimes going late into the evening, and then days of debate on the floor, and we passed it by a strong bipartisan majority. We passed this bill 1 year ago, and the Republican leadership in the House will not even allow it to come to a vote, even though it would probably pass in the same form as we did. They will not let it come to a vote because whether people vote for or against it, there are some people who will disagree with the vote, so it is easier to vote maybe. No matter what the humanitarian crisis we have, vote maybe. Don't vote yes, don't vote no; vote maybe by not voting, but then blame it on the President, blame it on everybody else.

The Senate stepped up and we passed a bill the President said he would sign. The Senate-passed bill calls for nearly 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, 3,500 additional Customs and Border Protection officers, and 700 miles of fencing. We have heard people stand and say--as though they suddenly found this out--we need tougher laws to fight back against coyotes and cartels that want an opportunity to exploit these vulnerable children. I have heard some of the same people refuse to vote on a bill and say we need this protection. Read the bill. S. 744 does that too. It has tougher provisions to fight against human smuggling and enhanced penalties in situations that result in serious bodily injury, death, bribery or corruption.

We have done it. We have done it in the Senate. Why isn't there a hue and cry? I understand it is very easy, if you are going to do a sound bite for the evening news or something, to stand up and say: Why haven't Obama and the Democrats acted? It takes a little bit more time to say: Why haven't you voted for a bill that does everything you say is needed? Why won't the Republican leadership even allow the House Members--Republicans and Democrats--to vote on a bill that does everything they say they need?

I want to thank Senators Harkin and Feinstein and Durbin for their comments at the last week's Appropriations Committee hearing. It is clear to me that they, too, understand our Nation is at a crossroads with this crisis. The world is watching how we are going to respond. How is the greatest Nation on Earth going to respond?

I know one person who spoke out: Pope Francis. He has urged us to protect these children. Well, I think the Pope is right.

We have a choice. We can either make good on the promises we have already written into our law and Republicans and Democrats have voted for, or we can decide: Gosh, we didn't mean it. We voted for it, we gave great press conferences, but we did not mean it. Now, gee whiz, it is complicated--as though life is always easy--so let's just rewrite the law. If we do that, just send these children back. Send these children back to the murderers, the rapists, the gangs. Doesn't that turn our back on the very principles on which this Nation was founded-- the principles that brought my grandparents here from Italy, my great- grandparents here from Ireland?

Where are those principles? We forgot them at the beginning of the Holocaust. We look at the people who died, the number of Jews who went to the ovens because we had forgotten our principles.

Well, President George W. Bush was right in signing the bill. The Republicans and Democrats who voted for it were right. Let's not turn our backs. If we want to do something beyond the sound bites, something realistic, pass the supplemental for the people we need to do it for and allow the House of Representatives to vote up or down on the bill that Republicans and Democrats voted for here in the Senate a whole year ago. But do not let the supplemental request be a political football. It should be passed clean, without delay. Do not try to remove all the protections for victims of human trafficking.

Pass the supplemental, and then have the courage to stand up and vote yes or no on S. 744. We did here in the Senate. Republicans and Democrats came together. A large majority of us passed it in the Senate. Why can't the House of Representatives do the same thing? I will tell you why. They are afraid whichever way they vote, it might be unpopular. Well, that is what you expect. I have cast more votes than all but a half dozen Senators in the history of this country. Can anybody go back through all those thousands upon thousands of votes and find some they could attack me on? Of course. I could give them a list myself. Can I find some that I probably on second thought wish I had cast differently? Of course I can. But I had the courage to vote yes or no. I was criticized when I became the first Vermonter--in fact, the only Vermonter--to ever vote against the war in Vietnam. The authorization was cut off by one vote. Today it would be hard to find anybody who supported that war.

My point is not whether as a Senator from Vermont I vote right or wrong or any one of us as a Senator from our State votes right or wrong--but at least vote. That is what we said we would do when we were elected: vote. So I am talking about what is wrong with immigration law when you are afraid to even vote one way or the other. But let's not turn our back on the principles this country stands for. Let's not say to 7- or 8- or 9-year-old children--trying to escape a fate that my children or my grandchildren would never face--sorry, we are too great and big and busy a country to worry about you. Go back and face your fate, whatever it might be, because we don't care. That is not the America I serve. That is not the America I love. That is not the place where the Senate should be if we are going to be the conscience of the Nation.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, Senator Sanders is speaking. Senator Risch, I believe, is going to speak. The time now is on unaccompanied children; am I correct?

OK.

I haven't yielded the floor. I reserved my right to object. I am just clarifying. So Senator Sanders wishes to speak, and as I understand it, I have time--this is not in any way to interfere with the Senator from Idaho, but at 4:30 I am supposed to have the time under the time controlled by the Democrats; is that right?

How much time is--all I am trying to do is know when I am going to be able to speak.

If I could turn to the Senator from Idaho, how long does he intend to speak?

I withdraw my objection. I think we deserve to hear Senator Sanders, and I will wait patiently for my turn.

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an urgent crisis at our border in which over 250 children a week are coming from Central America, fleeing horrific gang violence--horrific gang violence--to seek refuge and asylum in the United States of America.

This is being called a crisis at the border. Well, it is a border crisis, but the crisis actually begins in Central America, where brutal, violent gangs, based on organized crime, are either trying to recruit the boys into organized crime, drug smuggling, human trafficking, or to recruit the girls into human trafficking in other just dangerous and repugnant circumstances.

But when you go to the border the way I have, you will see that the situation is dire. It is dire because, as these children come to the border, crossing the Rio Grande--probably within really almost a 50- mile stretch of the Grande; it is not over the 1,900 miles of the Grande--they come and, actually, they do not try to sneak in, they come right up to where the border control is and they have pieces of paper with their name on it. They are then taken into custody by border control. They are placed into holding cells that are designed for adult males. They were designed to hold drug smugglers, narcotraffickers, and now they hold as many as 20 or 30 or 40 children, while under the law they are to be placed in the hands of the Health and Human Services Agency while their legal and asylum status is being verified.

Well, I am telling you, the entire infrastructure for dealing with these children--from the way the border control is trying to take care of them, the overrunning of the capacity of these holding cells, to the backlog on processing their legal and asylum determination, to really trying to place them in facilities under the care of Health and Human Services--the situation is dire.

The President of the United States has asked for emergency funding to deal with it. I hope we consider this emergency funding. The amount of money the President is seeking is $3.7 billion. This is to care for the humanitarian needs of the children, the enforcement at the border, the identifying of their legal status under a law passed under the administration of President Bush to deal with the trafficking of children, both boys and girls, and also for robust deterrence in the home countries where these children are coming from. But the deterrence comes from breaking down and prosecuting organized crime syndicates of the smugglers and the traffickers.

We are also asking for money to conduct a massive educational campaign advising Central American families against the dangers and false hopes of this journey. The journey is, indeed, dangerous. They come on foot. They come by car. They ride the tops of a train that is referred to as The Beast. There was one little girl who I spoke to with Secretary Johnson. She had stayed awake for 2 days on the rooftop of a train, terrified that she would fall off and be mutilated, just to be able to make it into the United States of America. And why did she make such a perilous, dangerous journey? It was because they were trying to recruit her into these violent and vile ways.

We need to make sure Central America, with our help, goes after the seven organized crime units that we know are sparking this, that are trying to recruit these kids; giving them false promises too, that if they come to this country, they will be able to get a free pass somehow for getting into this country. We need to be able to stop this and be able to deal with it in the most effective way.

The President's program actually does outline the money to be able to do that. When the children do come, as I said, while they are awaiting their legal status to be determined, they are placed in the hands of HHS. Now, HHS does not run group homes. HHS does not run foster care. HHS funds it, and they need to be able to turn to local communities to be able to have these children be able to stay.

I saw fantastic work being done while the children were being placed at Lackland Air Force Base and the social services were being run by-- under contract of a faith-based organization--the Baptist church. I know the distinguished Presiding Officer knows a lot about human services. I myself am a social worker, and I will tell you that faith- based organization is really running a good program for these kids.

But we are running out of money. We need money for food and shelter for the children. We need money for the border agents. We need money for transportation to shelters and also transportation, when we can, returning these children home. We need money for immigration judges and legal services for the children to determine their asylum status, and, as I said, we need the muscular deterrence in the home country breaking up the organized gangs that then create the violence that then sets these children on this journey.

The best way to make sure the surge of children is stopped is not by harsher immigration laws. It is by making it hard on the drug dealers and the human traffickers, the smugglers, the coyotes. Because they are the ones who are the reason they are coming.

Looking at the data--looking at data--we see that these children are coming not only where there is high poverty, but that children are coming where there is a high level of crime, particularly homicide, murder, and other recruitment of children. These children are almost being recruited by child soldiers in their own country to engage in violent criminal activity.

So we need to be able to look at this emergency supplemental and be able to meet the human needs while the children are here, make sure we fund the judges, the immigration judges and the legal services, to determine their asylum status, and be able to take care of them.

Already, 60,000 unaccompanied children have come into our country during this last year. In the 2 weeks I toured the border, I saw young children as young as 5 with one instruction: Cross the border, turn yourself in, and try to get as safe as you can. Border agents find these children often dehydrated, malnourished, and usually a victim of some type of trauma. Also, they have heard false promises from the smugglers about what it will be when they come here.

These smugglers--as part of these dangerous gangs and cartels--see women and children as a commodity to be bought, sold, transported, as if they were cargo. Children leave these homes based on lies. They think they are coming to an area where they will never have to go home or that they will be safe. I hope we then pass this appropriations. I hope in passing the appropriations we will be able to protect the safety of the children, we determine their legal and asylum status, and we have this muscular deterrent strategy in the home country.

There are those who want to have a new immigration policy or want to repeal the George Bush law. I would caution that because, remember, our problem is not the children; our problem is what causes the children to come. We have to go after what causes the children to come; and that is the drug dealers, the smugglers, the coyotes, those who are engaging in such violent crime.

The host countries, along with Mexico, need to help deal with this, and we need to marshal our law enforcement resources to be able to help them do this. Now they say: Let's bring in the National Guard at the border. What is our National Guard going to do? When these little kids cross the Rio Grande, they are going to go right up to that soldier, put their arms around his or her leg, and say: I need to be safe. Can you help me? What is the National Guard going to do? It is not a border enforcement problem; it is a criminal gang problem in Central America.

So we need to be able to be sure we are targeting the right areas in order to solve this problem. The children are not the threats. They are coming here because they are threatened themselves. We need to meet these urgent humanitarian needs, and we need to focus on our hemisphere to break up the gangs and crime.

Later on today we are going to have a briefing for every single Senator so they can ask the questions about this situation. Who are the children? Why are they coming? What are their legal rights under the law? But how can we effectively deal with this children's march, where the children are in danger in their host country and on the long journey to this one?

We are also asking that this $3.7 billion be designated as an emergency.

There are those who will want to take from other domestic programs. I would caution that. In fact, I would object to the very idea. The President has said this is an emergency because under the Budget Control Act of 2011 it meets the criteria that it is sudden, urgent, unforeseen, and temporary, deals with the loss of life, property, or our national security interests. I think it meets that test. I do not want to take offsets from existing programs to do this. It is unexpected. It is significant. We can deal with it, but let's not do it at the expense of other programs designed to help the American family and the American middle class.

I know there are others who want to speak on this issue. I will have more to

say later, but for now let's examine the urgent supplemental and let's really solve the problem at the border and what causes it to be a problem for us.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask to be recognized to speak as if in morning business.

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

Then I came to Ellijay, GA, a little town known for its apples and its population of 2,000 great Georgia citizens.

I came to Poole's Bar-B-Q, which is a landmark along the highway in Ellijay, GA. I stopped, and all of a sudden all those thoughts I had of the wars going on, the conflicts going on, the strife and the trouble going on all culminated in Gilmer County, because in Gilmer County in 2005 I attended the funeral of Noah Harris. Noah Harris was killed in Iraq in 2005.

I thought about his story, and I thought about our position now, and I thought about some message I want to send to my country and to this body of the Senate.

Let me talk about Noah Harris. Noah Harris was a cheerleader at the University of Georgia. On the Saturday before 9/11 in 2001, he was in Sanford Stadium with 92,000 fans of the Georgia Bulldogs cheering on the team.

Then, like the rest of the world, he saw the terrible attack of 9/11 in 2001--in New York City, in Shanksville, PA, and in Washington, DC.

On the morning of the 12th, he got out of bed in the dormitory and he went straight to the Army ROTC building in Athens, GA, and told them he wanted to sign up for an ROTC commission because he wanted to go fight whoever it was who killed those 3,000 citizens of the world tragically in New York City.

They said: Noah, you can't get a commission in just a year. You only have a year left.

He said: I can double up and do it. I want to go for my country. I want to go for what is right. I want to go fight for America.

He became a second lieutenant in the 3rd Infantry Division, and, sure enough, 3 years after that, he was in Iraq. He became known as the Beanie Baby soldier because he had his pockets stuffed with Beanie Babies. And as he would go through Ghazaliya, where he was stationed near Baghdad, he would hand out Beanie Babies to the Iraqi children. He was like a pied piper. Unfortunately, in the 11th month of his tour, a rocket-propelled grenade his hit humvee and he and two of his buddies were killed instantly in Iraq.

I didn't know Noah Harris, but I went to the funeral that day because, as a Senator from Georgia, I wanted to pay my respects to a soldier who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror.

So as I was riding through Gilmer County a couple weeks ago, thinking about the crises we have today around the world and then thinking about Noah Harris, I thought to myself, there is a message all of us need to remember: Those soldiers should never have died in vain, and we have to make sure they did not.

In Iraq 4,486 American soldiers were killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In Afghanistan, to date, 2,319--a total of 6,805--most of them Americans, some of them immigrants seeking their citizenship in America and fighting for America in our Armed Forces--fought for the rights and freedoms that all our Founding Fathers stood for, fought for all the reasons we serve in this body today, fought for all the reasons that America is the great and noble country it is around the world.

But right now there is an absence of leadership in the world, and because of it we are seeing one crisis come up after another. I worry that Noah Harris, who died in Iraq in 2005, might--and I underscore the word ``might''--have died in vain if we don't recognize our responsibilities and see to it that we try and prevent what has been happening lately from continuing to happen.

There is a decision point coming to the United States of America--it is coming next year. It is one I want to encourage the President to think about deeply and for all of us to think about deeply.

We have lost Iraq to ISIS. ISIS is a renegade group of terrorists who have basically taken over that country and partnered with some of the terrorists in Syria to control Iraq.

One of the reasons they did that is we left a huge vacuum in Iraq when we pulled out. We pulled every American soldier out. I know it was our goal to leave after the surge worked--and that was the right thing to do. But it wasn't the right thing to pull out every single soldier, because we abandoned all the infrastructure that we had built. We abandoned the image of American strength and power. We abandoned the ability for us to be agile in a dangerous part of the world.

In Afghanistan, we are supposed to pull our troops out at the beginning of next year. Some of them should come home but not all of them. We have invested billions of dollars in American hardware and American money to see to it we had the best support in the world for our soldiers in Afghanistan. If we abandon Bagram, if we abandon Kabul--if we abandon Afghanistan, the same thing will happen in Afghanistan as happened in Iraq. And those soldiers, the 2,319 who died in Afghanistan, will have in part died in vain because we abandoned what they built. We abandoned what they protected. We abandoned the investment they made.

We need also to remember what happened on 9/11 of 2001, when we decided to go into Iraq and then later into Afghanistan. We didn't have enough infrastructure in that part of the world to make an invasion. We had to rent the Kyrgyzstan airport near Russia to be able to fly our troops in to begin positioning outside of the Tora Bora area in Afghanistan.

We have built tremendous infrastructure, we have built tremendous bases, and we have tremendous assets for which the taxpayers of the United States have paid. We should maintain a presence there so we are agile; so our SEALs teams, if needed, can be positioned; so that the rest of the world knows that while the war may be over and America has come home, it hasn't left. It hasn't abandoned us. An American presence will remain--just as we have in Germany, just as we have in Japan, just as we have in South Korea. Our best friends today were our enemies 40, 50, and 60 years ago, because America didn't leave when the fight was over. We need to make sure that relationship happens in Afghanistan so we can begin to build our presence in that part of the world and be that somebody who prohibits and inhibits terrorism and people like ISIS from taking over countries.

Make no mistake about it. Vladimir Putin has been encouraged by an absence of leadership, and ISIS took advantage of an absence of leadership. What is going on between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip is an absence of leadership, in part on our part. We can't sit around and be bystanders. We have to recommit ourselves to the effort in that part of the world because

in the end the peace and security of America from terrorism and from those who would bring us down is not our looking the other way and not living up to our responsibility to the Noah Harrises of the world who gave the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq in 2005--all because he watched what we all watched that morning of 9/11 in 2001, and said: This shall not stand. I want to volunteer to fight for my country. And he joined our Army and did so.

God bless Noah Harris. God bless his parents, Rick and Lucy. God bless the United States of America. May we remember our responsibility not to leave what we have built and remain a beacon of peace, liberty, and democracy around the world.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

One of the important provisions in that legislation was an understanding that the needs of our veterans are a cost of war. They are a cost of war just as much as guns and tanks and planes and missiles are a cost of war. It seems to me to be fairly obvious that if we spend trillions of dollars fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is absolutely appropriate to make sure we have money available on an emergency basis to take care of the men and women who use those guns and tanks and missiles and who put their lives on the line and, in some cases, never come home.

So the first point I wish to make is that if we send people to war, we should always understand that a cost of that war is taking care of our veterans.

I recall--and I see the chairperson of the Appropriations Committee and she will recall this as well--that when this country went to war in Iraq and after in Afghanistan--and let me be clear, I voted against the war in Iraq--but when we went to war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the understanding was that this is emergency funding; that our troops, no matter how one voted on the war, needed the equipment to take care of themselves, to protect themselves, and to win the mission. That is exactly where we are today. We want to win this mission. The mission we are involved in now is making sure the men and women who served this country in the military get quality care in a timely manner. That is the mission we have to win now, and that, in my view, is a cost of war.

I think there is not widespread awareness of what the cost of war is, and I hope, A, we never get into more wars in the future, but that if we ever do, people understand that any budget for war must include the needs of veterans--not 2 years after the war but 70 years after the war. When some veteran is sitting in some room in an apartment without legs, without arms, without eyesight, that is a cost of war and we don't desert those people--not tomorrow, not 50 years from now, not 70 years from now. Our moral commitment is to make certain we provide for those who defend us.

I think there is not sufficient understanding about what the cost of war truly is. I wish to mention just a few facts people should understand. Over 2 million men and women served this country in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Studies are very clear that 20 to 30 percent of those men and women have come home with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. That is between 400,000 to 500,000 men and women who are coming home with PTSD or TBI. What that translates into is men and women who are struggling every single day. It translates into outrageously high rates of suicide for younger veterans, substance abuse, inability to hold on to a job and earn a living; many of these folks have a difficult time being around people. It translates into divorce. It translates into emotional problems for kids and for other family members.

Since fiscal year 2006, the number of veterans receiving specialized mental health treatment has risen from over 927,000 to more than 1.4 million in fiscal year 2013. Today, and every day, approximately 49,000 veterans are receiving outpatient mental health appointments. Let me repeat that. Today, some 49,000 veterans in 50 States in this country are receiving mental health appointments. That is a staggering number. During the last 4 years, VA outpatient mental health visits have increased from $14 million a year to more than $18 million a year. This is just one of the problems facing the veterans community. How do we provide the psychiatrists, the social workers, the psychologists, the counselors we need? It is a huge issue because PTSD and TBI are very tough illnesses.

In addition, what we are looking at now--and every Member of the Senate is familiar with this--is outrageously high waiting periods for veterans to get into the VA. Time and time again I hear from veterans in Vermont and I hear from veterans all over the country; I hear from veterans organizations and I read independent surveys which tell me that when veterans get into the VA, the quality of the care they get is good. I just met 2 hours ago with a veterans organization--same thing: Once people get into the system, the quality of care is generally good; the problem is accessing the care. The problem is appointments.

I will not read to my colleagues all of the statistics, but trust me the waiting lines all over this country are much too high in many parts of America. There are other people who never even made it to the waiting lines. This has to do with a whole lot of issues that we have discussed.

The bottom line is we must address the waiting time issue and make sure that in the very near future, every veteran who is in need of health care gets that health care in a timely manner.

Sloan Gibson, who is the Acting Secretary of the VA----

Could I ask my colleague just for 3 more minutes?

I thank very much the Senator from Idaho.

Let me wrap it up by making the point that Acting Secretary Gibson made this morning which was a very simple but important one. What he said is we must address the immediate crisis of ending these outrageously long waiting periods that veterans are now experiencing in order to get into the VA. Right now--and I am proud of what he is doing--they are moving very aggressively to get veterans all over this country into private health care when necessary and any other form of health care, to make sure those waiting periods go down. I think they are doing a pretty good job. They have to continue to do that, but we should be mindful that this is going to be a very expensive process.

The other point he made, which is equally important, is that long term, if the goal is to end these unacceptable waiting periods, we have to give the VA the staffing and the space and the facilities and the infrastructure they need.

He came forward with what I recognize is a very big pricetag. His pricetag was $17.6 billion, so we can get the 10,000 more staff we need, the doctors, the psychiatrists, the primary health care physicians, the mental health counselors we need, get the space we need, because in many facilities around the country the staff can't operate because they don't have adequate space.

So what I would say to my colleagues, if we are serious about addressing this very important problem, we will go forward in two ways. No. 1, immediate crisis, let's end those waiting lists. Let's contract out when necessary to private physicians.

Long term, it is absolutely imperative that the VA have the infrastructure it needs so we don't have this crisis again 2 years from today.

The last point, I reiterate. If we send people off to war--if we make that enormously difficult, painful decision--I hope every Member in this body understands that taking care of veterans is a cost of that war and that we have a moral responsibility to do everything we can with them and for them and their families.

Before I yield the floor, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a memorandum submitted by Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson at our committee hearing earlier today.