Broader Options for Americans Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I am here for my 197th ``Time to Wake Up'' speech. My poster board is getting a little dog-eared, but we keep moving doggedly along.

Last week, I spoke about corporate America outsourcing its lobbying to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--a determined enemy of any action on climate change. When pro-climate companies support the chamber, they support its anti-climate lobbying, its anti-climate election spending and threatening, and they enable the chamber's anti-climate stranglehold with the fossil fuel industry on Congress.

The chamber is not alone in its anti-climate advocacy on behalf of corporate America. Another big Washington trade association obstructing climate action, despite having been a pro-climate action member, is the National Association of Manufacturers, often called NAM.

Over the last two decades, NAM has spent more than $150 million lobbying the Federal Government, and each year, NAM lobbies extensively for the fossil fuel industry.

Here are some of the greatest hits of NAM's fossil fuel lobbying.

NAM lobbies to expand offshore drilling in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and Arctic. I wonder how many of its members want to be out there supporting offshore drilling in all those areas.

NAM advocates for the continued use of coal in the electric power and industrial sectors. There is not a congressional district left where a majority of voters don't want coal-plant emissions regulated. Yet there is NAM.

NAM lobbies to roll back fuel economy standards that save consumers billions of dollars at the pump. Never mind that the equipment that keeps cars cleaner is manufactured; the National Association of Manufacturers is opposed.

NAM sent what it calls a key vote letter to all Members of Congress urging repeal of a rule to protect streams from mountaintop removal coal mining pollution. More on that in a moment.

NAM urged the Trump administration to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. More on that in a moment too.

Finally, NAM opposes any efforts to put a price on carbon pollution.

Back to that key vote letter. ``The NAM's Key Vote Advisory Committee has indicated that votes on H.J. Res. 38, including procedural motions, may be considered for designation as Key Manufacturing Votes in the 115th Congress.'' This letter warns Members of Congress to vote the way the group wants or risk losing out on its endorsements and all the campaign support that goes with it. Who knows--run up a bad enough score and NAM may support your opponent.

Well, you would think protecting streams and drinking water from pollution from coal mines would be nothing but common sense. Streams fouled by coal mining waste literally run orange. This is the actual photograph; this is not a black-and-white photograph that has been color-corrected. This stream is running orange. As one West Virginia woman whose local stream was contaminated told the New York Times, ``Orange is not the color of water.'' But NAM and its fossil fuel allies opposed those clean water protections. Why? Where is the manufacturing value in streams that look like that? Follow the money. Look at the National Association of Manufacturers' major donors. A lot of the usual suspects--coal companies, oil companies, and Koch-owned oil production companies.

But here is what is strange. There are also a lot of companies that care about climate and sustainability that fund the National Association of Manufacturers. Just look at the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer, and UnitedHealth all belong to and fund NAM. If you go on their websites, you will find them urging people to live healthier, longer lives. So why are they lobbying through NAM to let coal companies make streams look like this? You will find these companies, on their websites, touting their commitments to sustainability and to reduce carbon emissions. So why are they lobbying through the National Association of Manufacturers against climate policies they actually support?

The National Association of Manufacturers rather inexplicably opposes all serious climate action. In particular, it opposes putting a price on carbon emissions. It even funded a debunked study that claimed putting an economy-wide price on carbon would cost millions of jobs. It lobbied for a legislative amendment making it more difficult to begin pricing carbon. But look at NAM's own member companies that are already pricing carbon emissions. Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Corning, Microsoft, and Stanley Black & Decker all apply a price on carbon in their own internal management and accounting. They understand that pricing carbon doesn't kill jobs. They understand that pricing carbon makes economic and environmental sense.

Here in Congress, what we see is NAM claiming to represent them but actually carrying water for the fossil fuel industry and waging full- scale war on good climate policy. Just like with the chamber's pro- climate members, we see essentially no pushback when the ostensible mouthpiece for these companies lobbies against these companies' stated position. Why would you, as a big American corporation, take a position on a very big issue and then delegate your lobbying to an entity in Washington that is opposed to your stated position? Indeed, we see virtually no corporate lobbying by anyone for good climate policy. Even companies with an internal carbon price don't lobby for a carbon price.

The American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act, which Senator Schatz and I have introduced in the last two Congresses, would create an economy- wide price on carbon emissions, using market forces to dramatically reduce

greenhouse gas emissions, protect our future, and improve public health. It would be border adjustable to protect American companies from unfair competition abroad, and it would return all of the revenue it raised to the American people. Liberal and conservative economists agree that this is the best way to tackle climate change. But the National Association of Manufacturers, on behalf of its fossil fuel allies, opposes us. It protects at all costs the massive market failure that allows the fossil fuel industry to duck the costs of its pollution. That is market failure 101.

It is not just that. NAM opposed cap and trade. NAM opposed the Paris Agreement. NAM sued to stop the Clean Power Plan. NAM supports the climate deniers of the Trump administration. They have no alternative, no better idea, no other way that they want to address the climate crisis; they are just against any serious action on climate change.

Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Corning, Microsoft, and Stanley Black & Decker are members of NAM. All of them supported the Paris Agreement, but all this time, they continue to fund the National Association of Manufacturers. It doesn't make any sense. These companies are already pricing carbon. They know it is good policy. They support the Paris Agreement. Yet they fund the trade advocacy group that is pulling out all the stops to kill the policy they support and the agreement they support. I asked last week, and I will ask again: When is the cavalry going to get here?

Lots of pro-climate companies fund the National Association of Manufacturers' anti-climate crusade. It is bizarre, but it is true.

Intel says it ``believes that global climate change is a serious environmental, economic and social challenge that warrants an equally serious response by governments and the private sector,'' but Intel funds NAM as NAM fights any response by governments.

KPMG has an entire practice area devoted to advising companies on the emerging risks and hazards of climate change, but KPMG funds NAM as NAM ignores and talks down those very hazards.

McCormick is focused on reducing its carbon emissions and, like a lot of good companies, even expects its suppliers to do the same, but McCormick also funds the National Association of Manufacturers.

Pernod Ricard is committed to reducing its carbon emissions, but Pernod Ricard funds NAM.

Procter & Gamble says:

As a global citizen, we are concerned about the negative

consequences of climate change. We believe industry,

governments, and consumers can work together to reduce

emissions to protect the environment.

That is what they believe, but they fund the National Association of Manufacturers, which tries to stop any such effort.

Verizon is so concerned about climate change that it has reduced its own emissions by over 50 percent, but Verizon still funds the National Association of Manufacturers.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Company after company claims that addressing climate change is their priority, and many do great things--truly great things--inside their fence lines and in many cases even out their supply chains, demanding sustainability compliance out their supply chains. But here, where the rubber hits the lawmaking road in Congress, the corporate support is for groups leading the war against climate action here in Washington, and virtually none of the companies show up here on the other side.

It is not as though they say: OK, I will support the National Association of Manufacturers and their efforts to obstruct any climate action, but I am going to come down and make clear on my own, in my own lobbying, that we want climate action. I am going to offset the lobbying that this group I fund does against the position I espouse.

No, they don't do that. They almost never come in on their own to support good climate policy to counterbalance what their own advocates are advocating when their own advocates are advocating against them, which explains why the fossil fuel guys keep on winning here in Congress. It is easy to win when the other side doesn't show up or, if they do, shows up wearing your jersey.

Here is how bad it is. The National Association of Manufacturers and the chamber and the fossil fuel industry hired a bunch of Washington lobbyists to create a fake consumer group called the Consumer Energy Alliance. This fake consumer group then created a fake initiative in Kentucky called--these names are always so comical--Kentuckians for Solar Fairness. What is the goal? The goal is to support Kentucky legislation making it harder for consumers to sell rooftop solar power back to the big utilities.

NAM is behind this scheme. Why? If you are Johnson & Johnson or Cargill or Corning or Microsoft or KPMG or Procter & Gamble, why do you want to be associated with a scheme like this? Remember, this is ostensibly the National Association of Manufacturers. Out in the real world, there is a lot of manufacturing going on in renewable energy.

We manufactured offshore wind turbines in Rhode Island's waters. Rhode Island boat builder Blount Marine even got the contract to manufacture the new boat to get technicians out to service the manufacturer turbines. The framing on which our offshore wind turbines stand was manufactured in Louisiana. Solar arrays are manufactured and installed all around the country, providing more American jobs than coal. In Texas alone, solar provides nearly 9,000 jobs, and more than 1.6 gigawatts of solar capacity has been manufactured and installed in Texas. Go to Iowa, where one-third of their electricity is from wind, and look how much ground-based wind turbine manufacturing and maintenance is going on--really good jobs.

Why is the National Association of Manufacturers so violently opposed to manufacturing in the renewable energy industry? Why does NAM get involved in a Kentucky utility regulatory issue with nothing apparent to do with manufacturing? Why is the National Association of Manufacturers exactly and perfectly aligned with the fossil fuel industry and not its own membership on so many issues?

In Washington, the fossil fuel lobby is relentless. They have a bad name and an obvious conflict of interest, so they like to do their political dirty work through groups like the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

I get it. Disguise is an age-old tactic. But why does corporate America put up with having its trade association used as disguise to fight climate action and to get involved in State quarrels that benefit only the fossil fuel industry?

The effect of corporate America allowing its trade groups to be captured by fossil fuel interests is that corporate America is now, for all practical purposes, collectively united against climate action in Congress. Say whatever they say on their websites; do whatever they do within their fence lines or out their supply chains; sign whatever they sign by way of letters and advertisements; that is all good, but when it comes to Congress, where the lawmaking rubber hits the road, corporate America is collectively united against climate action, either through direct antagonism like the fossil fuel industry or by letting antagonists like the National Association of Manufacturers and the chamber be their lobbying intermediaries and erase their good climate policies by the time they get to Congress and replace them with the fossil fuel industry's climate denial or by simply ducking the fight and not showing up on game day.

If we are going to meet America's responsibilities and finally pass good climate policy, we are going to need everyone, including corporate America, to do their part. Right now, fossil fuel interests from corporate America are all over the field, armed and ready for battle, and the good guys are not even showing up at the game.

I yield the floor.

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.

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 following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Madam President, I want to begin my remarks today by discussing a piece of bipartisan legislation that I have sponsored with our colleague, the senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein. In all likelihood, this bill is not something you are going to see reported on in the evening news. It is rather obscure in its origins, but it is extraordinarily important, and I will explain that in just a moment. It is called the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, and it concerns another acronym--the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS. It is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

CFIUS is a multiagency panel headed by the Treasury Department, and Secretary Mnuchin chairs that panel. Its job is to vet foreign investments to determine if they pose a threat to our national security. I am an ardent supporter of free trade, and I strongly support more foreign, direct investment in the United States. Unfortunately, some of our adversaries--most notably China--have altered the strategic landscape and are not playing by the same set of rules. China has weaponized investment in an attempt to vacuum up our advanced technologies and simultaneously undermine our defense industrial base.

As it acquires U.S. firms, technology, and intellectual property, as well as the know-how to put them to use, the risk is that the Chinese Government, which has its tentacles not only in state-owned Chinese companies but also in so-called ``private'' Chinese firms, will get its hands on these capabilities and use them against us. This has already been shown to have happened in a number of documented cases.

Standing by and allowing our national security to be compromised through these continued transfers of certain dual-use technology and know-how to China would be highly irresponsible. That is why the CFIUS--the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States-- process needs to be updated and modernized. At its core, the bill I have introduced would expand the scope of reviewable transactions to more effectively address national security concerns.

CFIUS's jurisdiction has not been updated in more than 40 years, and since that time, global threats like the one posed by China have grown in complexity and scope. China has studied our laws, and it has found ways to game the export control system and to evade CFIUS review.

This bill has strong support, not just from the White House but also from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Ross, and the Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions. It has also been endorsed by Secretary of Defense Mattis, as well as three of his predecessors, two former Directors of National Intelligence, and many others.

In industry, major U.S. companies are starting to recognize the risks here, as well, and several have stepped up and endorsed this bill. However, there is a very small group of other U.S. firms that are actively opposing CFIUS modernization, having decided their bottom line is more important than our Nation's security. Unfortunately, they are starting to release some of their false claims about this legislation into the press that really don't hold water on further examination. And their own track records, when it comes to handing over sophisticated, dual-use technology and know-how to China, undercut the credibility of their arguments. I would call this a patriotism deficit on their part.

In order to perpetuate the status quo and prevent statutory updates that are both urgent and necessary, this handful of firms and their proxies like to point to exaggerated, doomsday scenarios. These are typified by the words of one detractor, who recently stated that the new legislation would ``literally paralyze business.''

I urge all of our colleagues to study this legislation more and to resist these kinds of scare tactics and mischaracterizations. I urge them to consider the paralysis we would incur by not passing CFIUS reform. Progress would be stunted and our security jeopardized. We could see the erosion of our defense industrial base and that means jobs here in the United States going overseas because they are capable then of building this cutting-edge, dual-use technology in their home country and not having it built here in the United States.

Despite the critics' scare tactics, the bill would not sweep up harmless business transactions with no ties to national security. That is not the point. But I do want to make that abundantly clear. Under the bill, there are reasonable safeguards to prevent this from happening.

For example, CFIUS would be authorized to create a safe list of certain allied countries for which certain transactions are exempt from review. Under the bill, CFIUS would also be granted authority to exempt ordinary, routine transactions where other laws already address national security risks.

The Treasury Department, as the lead agency for CFIUS, has stated an

intent to use this authority to narrowly tailor the implementing regulations.

The second thing to note is that existing alternatives, like multilateral export controls, are not an adequate substitute to what we are proposing in this bill. It is true that export controls work well in many cases, but they have inherent limitations and are not enough by themselves. We simply need a second line of defense, and that is a modernized CFIUS process. The CFIUS process and the export control system are designed to be interactive and complementary.

In other words, this bill does not duplicate the export control system, and, in fact, for pure technology transfers, the export control system would remain the sole review mechanism. CFIUS wouldn't be involved in that at all.

Finally, there is a concern that our bill could flood CFIUS with too much work, and they would be overwhelmed and would lack the resources and expertise to do the job. But our bill would help provide those additional resources and allow CFIUS to both charge a modest fee to help promote its self-sustainability and also submit a unified annual budget request covering all of its member agencies.

Furthermore, the bill's own provisions guard against an unfunded mandate, with any expansion taking effect only after CFIUS determines on its own that the necessary personnel and other resources have been provided.

Finally our bill exempts certain transactions that are done through ``ordinary customer relationships,'' ensuring that harmless, day-to-day activities don't have to be reviewed.

In closing, I will say this: It is certainly appropriate to consider the potential impacts of this bill on foreign investment, but those effects shouldn't be considered in a vacuum. We must also ask what the impacts on our long-term national security will be if we do not take action. For example, in 10 or 15 years, will our troops still have the best equipment in the world? Our military superiority is not a birthright, and neither is our technological advantage over our adversaries.

I would urge my colleagues to advance this bill and to study it and to help work with us to improve it. The time to modernize CFIUS is now. We must not allow ourselves to be the frog in the boiling pot of water, so to speak. We can't be blind to the growing risks.

Madam President, on another matter, today we will begin to deliver on an important promise to the American people--debating an immigration solution for the young adults brought to the United States by their parents who now find themselves in limbo.

Several weeks ago, our Democratic colleagues recklessly shut down the Federal Government to placate the extreme elements in their own party. The majority leader disagreed with this approach. He and the rest of my Republican colleagues urged them to abandon this shutdown ploy before it was too late, but they refused to listen, ignoring the majority of the Americans who were against this approach. The majority leader then promised what had been the plan all along--that would be to continue bipartisan discussions that would be followed by open debate on the floor.

Shortly, this evening, we will take up a vote on a vehicle through which Members can offer their ideas on how best to solve this problem. It will be a process that is fair to both sides. Once we vote to adopt a motion to proceed, my colleagues and I will have the opportunity to have our proposals considered under regular order. In other words, they can offer amendments, debate on the amendments, and vote on the amendments. Amendments, as usual, will have a 60-vote threshold before they can be adopted. Sixty votes is what we need.

What I am interested in is solving the problem, and that means not only a proposal that can get 60 votes but one that can pass the House and be signed into law by President Trump. That is simply critical. This should not be an exercise in futility or for political grandstanding purposes; this should be about getting a bill signed into law, which means it has to pass both Houses and has to be signed by the President.

Today, led by Chairman Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a group of Members from this side of the aisle will put forth a comprehensive proposal--including the Presiding Officer--that centers around the four pillars the President has said he would like to see addressed.

I think most people have been surprised--maybe ``shocked'' is a better word--at the generosity of the President's offer for the DACA- eligible recipients. Right now, there are 690,000 who have signed up, but the President's proposal would not only offer them legal status, it would offer 1.8 million eligible young people a pathway to citizenship--far more than President Obama ever offered.

It provides a real opportunity for us to keep our commitments when it comes to border security--utilizing more boots on the ground, better technology, and additional infrastructure. It reallocates visas from the diversity lottery system in a way that is fair. It continues the existing family-based immigration categories until the current backlog is cleared and then changes to more of a merit-based system.

I am proud to cosponsor this commonsense solution, which I think can pass the Senate and the House and be signed into law by President Trump. I know, too, that others have been working hard on their ideas, and I look forward to reviewing their work product.

I urge my Democratic colleagues this week to remember their predecessors when it comes to immigration, which includes my fellow Texan Barbara Jordan. One of the great civil rights leaders of our time, she was the first southern Black woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She also served as a chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. While serving in that role, she once said:

For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary

to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and

those who violate it.

I think that is a great principle to keep in mind as we begin to sort out this week's challenges.

Although we all recognize the anxiety of DACA recipients who came to this country through no fault of their own and now face uncertain futures, at the same time, we must recognize that many Americans face certain plights too. They are dreamers, too, as the President has said. And we need to restore our legacy as a nation that believes in and applies the rule of law--indeed, equal justice under the law.

Here is the bottom line: I am not interested in a futile exercise of gamesmanship or political theater or ideas that can't become law. As the President said 2 weeks ago, the ultimate proposal must be ``one where nobody gets everything they want, but our country gets the critical reforms it needs.'' More than 124,000 young people in my State hope we can rise to the occasion. Indeed, all 28 million of them hope we can work together in a bipartisan fashion not only to provide relief to the DACA recipients but also to restore our border security and to craft immigration laws that serve America's best interests.

Again, one of the two pillars upon which our immigration system has been built is that we are a nation of immigrants. All of us at some point in our family came from somewhere else--almost all of us. But we are also a nation of laws, which distinguishes us from most of the rest of the world. It is those two great pillars--a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws--that need to be restored and need to be our focus.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. President, I want to share with my colleagues a concern I have about a group of people who are legally in this country and have a similar problem as the DACA registrant Dreamers who we need to pay attention to. I am strongly in support of passing legislation to protect DACA and Dreamers. I will talk a little bit about that also.

There is a group of individuals who have been in this country for a long time--similar to the Dreamers--who know no other country but the United States of America. They are legally here. They also have a date on their back as a result of the Trump administration, in some cases, not renewing what is known as temporary protected status; in other cases, it has deferred that decision making on the extension of temporary protected status.

In 1990, Congress passed legislation that authorized the creation of the TPS program. We recognized that there were times in which armed conflict or environmental disasters or other extraordinary circumstances would present itself where individuals would not be safe in their home country, and they would be permitted to legally come to the United States under this protected status. I would like to call it ``humanitarian protected status'' because these conditions have continued in many of these countries for decades.

Many of these people have been here for decades because the circumstances in their home country have not changed. Administration after administration has renewed their protected status, and they have been permitted to live here legally, to be able to work and go to school. They serve in our military. They have served our Nation very, very well.

The numbers are smaller than those of the Dreamers. The total number is approximately 437,000. The largest country by far is El Salvador, which is 195,000; Honduras, about 57,000; and Haiti, about 50,000.

I think Members of Congress are fully aware of the circumstances in Central America and recognize the fact that, for many families, it was not safe for them to stay in their countries because, if they had, their children would have either ended up in gangs or have been murdered and that the economic circumstances in these countries had not allowed for economic opportunities for their families. As a result, the United States welcomed them here in a protected status, and they have become part of our economy.

For the State of Maryland, this number is actually larger than the Dreamer category. We have 22,500 who are in the TPS status--97 percent from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti. It has been estimated that this group has contributed $1.2 billion to Maryland's GDP. They have been in our country for decades. The young people particularly know no other country than the United States of America. It would not be safe for them to return to their countries.

We have information about that, and I call it to my colleagues' attention. The process in going forward on extending the TPS status is that we first get the recommendation from our Embassy in the country itself. In this case, I had a chance to review the recommendations from the Embassy, and it is clear that our experts on the ground in the country felt that these families should be able to remain in the United States. There are many reasons for that.

One is the bilateral relationship with the country itself, in which the country has asked us not to return these individuals to the country because it cannot handle this population's returning to the country. They don't have jobs, and the infrastructure in the country will not handle that. I think we are all familiar with Haiti and how devastated it has been by storms. It literally does not have the capacity to be able to handle the return of the Haitians. It would be an incredible burden on the country of Haiti, and there are no jobs available for these individuals.

I think all are familiar with what happened with the returning of certain individuals to Central America. If we force deportation, make no mistake about it, the individuals who have been law-abiding here in the United States, who have been adding to our economy, who are part of our social fabric, and who believe that they are Americans will be returned to an environment in which they are going to be vulnerable to the intimidation of gangs, and they will be without employment. Many will have no choice but to choose to either join a gang or be subjected to the type of intimidation and violence that one's standing up to the gang brings not only to oneself but to the members of one's family. That is something that we should not be allowing.

There are also economic reasons for which there have been recommendations to continue this program. The challenge is that they now have dates on their backs because of the decision in some of these countries not to extend the TPS status by the Trump administration.

These are very similar circumstances to those of the Dreamers, but it doesn't quite have the same amount of attention around the Nation. These individuals are legally in this country. They came here legally, but they have been here for the same length of time, and they are part of our fabric, which is the same as the Dreamers. It is for that reason that the right result is to protect their legal status here in the United States and to give them a pathway to citizenship so that they can become legal citizens of the country they know as home.

S. 2144, the SECURE Act, was introduced by me, Senator Van Hollen, Senator Feinstein, and others in order to accomplish that. I hope that, during the debate that we are having here, we will find a way to incorporate protection for these 437,000 people who are legally here so that they know their futures are here and that they are protected in the workforce.

As I said, it is very similar to the Dreamer issue. We know that the Dreamer issue--the crisis, the March date that we are facing--was created by the President of the United States. The DACA Program was created by President Obama on June 15, 2012. Since that day, we have had about 800,000 people who have been registered under the DACA Program. They are now legally working, attending schools, and are able to operate motor vehicles. They are, clearly, our future teachers, our doctors, our engineers, and our entrepreneurs. They are very much a part of our economy. In Maryland we have 10,000 who have registered under the DACA Program. They have contributed $500 million to Maryland's GDP.

For so many reasons, it would just be common sense for us--I would think without too much controversy--to pass a bill that would say to, I believe it is, a total of 1.8 million: We know that you know of no other home but America. We welcome you. We are going to pass legislation that protects your status and gives you a pathway to citizenship.

We do that because America doesn't tear families apart. We don't say to people who know no other home but America that we don't want them to stay here. That is what we stand for as a nation. These are the values that make America the strong nation that it is. By the way, these individuals are contributing to the growth of our economy, and all of us benefit.

Over the last several months--over a longer period than that--I have been in the company of many of the Dreamers and many of the people holding TPS status. I have been at roundtable discussions during which we have had opportunities to listen to their stories about how they view America as their home.

One said that the best birthday present she ever received was when President Obama passed the DACA Executive order--when she knew that she had a future in America. Others have told us stories: Without the protection under the DACA Program, one never could have gotten a driver's license and, therefore, never would have had an opportunity to advance in our economy. Others have attended our colleges.

The interesting thing is that I have been in many meetings on college campuses in which, for the first time, students have recognized that their fellow student had been a Dreamer. They hadn't known that. They had just known him as one of their classmates in school. I have been in businesses when, for the first time, employees had discovered that one of their colleagues happened to be a Dreamer. They hadn't known that. They had just known him as a fellow employee.

This is widely supported. It is important for our economy and important for our values to keep the families together, and the American people support us on this. Poll after poll shows that Americans believe that those Dreamers should be protected here in the United States.

I include statements that I have received from Prince George's, Anne Arundel, Howard, and Montgomery Counties and Baltimore City school superintendents.

They wrote:

Maryland is a national leader in providing students with a

world-class education. Essential to our success is our

commitment to providing children in our schools with a safe

and welcoming environment to learn. Termination of DACA will

have direct and damaging effects on the Maryland students who

are current beneficiaries.

It is a direct threat to Maryland's economic stability and

safety, as it will strip students of their ability to work

and drive legally, pay taxes, and pursue post-secondary

opportunities. Parents who lose work authorizations will face

deportation or be moved into a dangerous underground economy,

causing financial uncertainty for their families and harmful

stress on their children--our students. In addition the DACA

decision could impact our ability to motivate our youth to

remain committed to their education and pursuing college or

careers, and will lead to worsening economic hardships of our

DACA community.

I have seen many letters of support and many testimonies from both-- those with TPS and the Dreamers--but I emphasize the one letter that I received from the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force, which is cochaired by the Montgomery County police chief, Tom Manger. What he said, I think, is very important. There are a lot of reasons we should be protecting TPS recipients and DACA recipients, but he wrote:

We are concerned that, absent action by Congress, the

Dreamer population will be driven back into the shadows and

be hesitant to report crimes or cooperate with

investigations. Such an outcome would risk undermining

community safety.

We are not safe by people going into the shadows. This is the United States of America. Why would we want people to try to hide from us? That is not the country we are. We do not create fear in the hearts of law-abiding citizens. These are law-abiding citizens. They have sisters and brothers who are U.S. citizens. They have other family members, some of whom are TPS recipients, some of whom are Dreamers, and some of whom are U.S. citizens. We don't tell families that we are going to tear them apart. That is not what America believes in. These are all individuals who have gone through security checks. These are people who have been law-abiding--complying with our laws--working, serving in our military, building this country.

I know that the first order of business is to make sure that the Dreamers are protected. I strongly support that and would vote for a bill on the floor right now, tonight, which has been introduced by some of our colleagues, that protects the Dreamers, in and of itself, with nothing else connected to it. We should do it, and it shouldn't be controversial. I also urge us to make sure that we take care of those who are in TPS status. It is a smaller group, and it doesn't have the same degree of national attention, but this is about the same values and the same economic concerns, the same families and the same issues.

I hope we can find a way in which we can include both the Dreamers and TPS recipients in protecting their status here in America and giving them

pathways to citizenship because it is the right thing for them, the right thing for their families, the right thing for our Nation, and the right thing for our economy.

I know that my colleague from Maryland is on the floor. He has been one of the great leaders on this issue. I know he has met with many from the community who are in both the Dreamer and the TPS status. I have joined him at meetings around Maryland in which we have talked to the families. Through the Presiding Officer, I personally thank my colleague for all of the work he has done in order to bring this issue to the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, before the Senator from Texas leaves the floor, I think he needs to be complimented because one of the four things in the bill which I am talking about our introducing and which he is going to be one of the cosponsors of is border security. He has worked for years on border security. He needs to be complimented on it. He is chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee of our Judiciary Committee. And I think Senator Johnson of Homeland Security has some aspects of border security as well. I think he and Senator Johnson ought to be complimented for being in the lead of 100 Senators to make sure we don't make the same mistakes we made in 1986 when we gave amnesty because we thought we had border security. Quite obviously, the numbers

show we didn't do a very good job on border security in 1986. The Senator from Texas and the Senator from Wisconsin are going to make sure we don't make that same mistake again, so I thank them very much.

Madam President, I rise today to announce the formal introduction of an amendment to H.R. 2579. H.R. 2579 is the vehicle for immigration. This amendment is cosponsored by Senators Cornyn, Tillis, Lankford, Perdue, Cotton, and Ernst. It is a product of several months of hard work between these Senators and including the White House.

Since this past September, I have held more than two dozen meetings with interested Senators in an attempt to craft a fair and permanent solution to DACA. I have also met with the President on four separate occasions to figure out exactly what he needs to see in a legislative package so that it can be signed into law, because what is the point of our working hard if we are not going to get something that is going to be finalized by a signature from the President of the United States?

I just said I have met with the President on four separate occasions. I should have said that this group of introducers of this legislation met with the President on those four occasions. But most importantly, I have been continuously listening to what my colleagues have said they need in any immigration consensus. As a result of our meetings and conversations with our colleagues, the Senators sponsoring this amendment have attempted to develop a simple, commonsense framework that can address everyone's concerns while also providing necessary and critical changes to our Nation's immigration laws.

What does our amendment do? Working off the broad bipartisan, bicameral framework agreed to on January 9 at the White House, our amendment has four key pillars. I said bipartisan, bicameral. Members of Congress met with the President for an hour and a half to boil down all the issues that can be brought up, and we ended up with these four key pillars.

First and most importantly, our amendment fully funds the President's border security request. Other plans that we have heard about claim that they fund the President's border security request by--I want to put this word in quotes--``authorizing'' money. But anyone who knows Washington knows that just an authorization turns out to be a gimmick sometimes. It turns out to be a promise sometimes or an IOU to maybe fund something at some later date. Every Member of the Senate knows that in this town, Washington, DC, promises are quite cheap.

We went down the road in 2006 when Congress authorized money for border fencing, much of which Congress never actually funded. Our amendment rejects that approach. Instead, we actually appropriate $25 billion into a border security trust fund. This trust fund will allow Homeland Security to use between $2.5 billion and $3 billion a year for infrastructure, technology, and personnel recruitment and retention.

By setting up a border security trust fund, we ensure that the Department of Homeland Security will actually have the money that it needs every single year to secure our borders, while also retaining Congress's ability to exercise oversight.

Unlike other plans, we also recognize that real border security is more than just throwing money at the border. This group of Senators realized that real border security means that we have to close the legal loopholes in the current law that allow dangerous criminals to enter and remain at large within our country. Our amendment ends these dangerous loopholes and makes it easier for our law enforcement to apprehend, detain, and speedily remove sex offenders, drug smugglers, human traffickers, international terrorists, criminal gang members, repeat border crossers, drunk drivers, and other dangerous people.

Second, our amendment provides a generous and permanent solution for DACA and DACA-eligible recipients. Our plan contains an earned path to citizenship for these young people. Provided these young men and women have no criminal record and either serve in the military, attain a college or vocational degree, or maintain full-time employment, they can eventually gain citizenship. This represents a major concession for many Republicans, including this Senator, but this concession is necessary to provide a permanent and fair solution to this issue.

The third pillar of our proposal reforms family-based immigration to place greater emphasis on the nuclear family. Moving forward, we limit family-based immigration to the nuclear family, meaning the spouses and minor children of citizens and lawful, permanent residents.

This change doesn't end family-based immigration. It simply recognizes that extended-family immigration doesn't serve the American people or our country's economic interest. It is important for all of my colleagues to recognize that these family-based changes are prospective. This means that all 4 million immigrants who are waiting in line for a family-based petition will continue to have their petitions processed under the old rules.

This group of Senators understands that we can't penalize the millions of people who actually followed the law and, by following the law, did the right thing.

In addition to rewarding those who did the right thing by grandfathering all pending petitions in the pipeline, it will take years--by some estimates, more than a decade--for Congress to debate and enact merit-based immigration reform.

Finally, our plan reallocates the 55,000 visas and the diversity visa lottery to clearing backlogs in the family-based and employment-based backlogs. By reallocating these visas, we not only promote faster family reunification but also speed up the immigration of skilled workers in the EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3 categories.

As you can see, this is an eminently fair plan that closely mirrors the President's framework. This plan is a true compromise, and supporting it will require concessions from all Senators-- conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, and everyone in between.

This Senator is ready and willing to make a major concession and, once again, vote for a path to citizenship. Other Senators need to be willing to do the same, to make sacrifices when it comes to border security and to chain migration.

But at the end of the day, in spite of everything else, the simple fact remains that this amendment is the only plan that the President supports. This plan is the only Senate plan that has any possibility of passing the House of Representatives and becoming law.

So I have asked my colleagues who oppose this proposal: Are you interested in actually getting something done, in actually providing a path to citizenship for these DACA kids, or are you interested in a political issue for the 2018 elections? If you are actually interested in getting something done, in getting a bill signed into law, and fixing the DACA issue, the choice is obvious: You will vote to support this plan.

But if my colleagues are more interested in grandstanding, in passing a bill that will never become law and that will not actually protect DACA kids, well, that choice is pretty clear as well.

To all my colleagues, I urge your support for this amendment. Let's fix this issue. Let's demonstrate that we can find solutions to the challenging problems that Americans are calling on us to solve.

This is a compassionate compromise. As for the people who have been advocating for this for years--longer than I have been, because I have been at it just a short period of time--let them accept a compassionate compromise. Let them do what they have called on to be done for a long period of time--settling the DACA issue once and for all. Then, let's show the world that we are serious about finding a long-term solution, instead of kicking the problem to a future date.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we have had a chance today to listen to my colleagues discuss what we think is the only piece of legislation that can get through the Senate, through the House of Representatives, and, most importantly, be signed by the President of the United States. All are cosponsors of this bill, except Senator Hatch, who spoke on another issue that he is very interested in, but it is a very important immigration issue as well.

We heard from Senator Cornyn. Then I spoke. Senator Cotton spoke and Senator Ernst, Senator Tillis, and Senator Lankford. Senator Perdue is one of those who is a cosponsor of the bill and would have liked to have been here to speak, but he is just now returning from his constituency.

We have tried to lay out a path to giving DACA kids certainty, doing it from a standpoint of being humanitarian for people who were brought to this country by their parents. Their parents may have broken the law--and they did break the law--by coming over our borders without documentation, but we never should hold children responsible for what their parents did. This legislation takes a compassionate and reasonable approach to reforms, including a pathway to citizenship for a broad population. It grandfathers people waiting in line for family- based visas, and it expedites clearing that backlog. It helps to keep young people out of the same legal limbo in the future.

This legislation is a product of compromise. The President and many conservatives have come a long way to offer this plan and especially the part of the plan that offers citizenship to this group of people. For one example of compromise, as chairman of this committee, there are a lot of things I would have liked to have seen in this legislation that can't be in there, as a way of getting a broad base of compromise. I am a strong supporter of mandatory E-Verify, but that is not in this document. I think the other side needs to be willing to compromise as well. We need to pass something that can become law. Several times my colleagues have been told that this is the only plan the President supports, and you have heard him say that on television many times since he put out the four-pillars program, as we call it, that came from his White House. The House isn't going to bring up anything that the President will not sign. I think we need to stop political posturing and pass something that can fix a real problem by providing border security and certainty for DACA kids.

This legislation is a reasonable approach to shielding children illegally brought to our country through no fault of their own while also taking meaningful steps to ensure that nobody finds themselves in the same situation in the future. This is a rare opportunity to fix a real problem and protect the country in a thoughtful and compassionate way. We simply have to correct the loopholes in current law that allow dangerous criminals to enter and remain at large in our country.

Our proposal is supported by the President, who has come a long way to reach a compromise. Just think of the long way from the positions he took during his campaign for President. This President can be very correct in stating that a platform he once ran on he wants to serve on.

In this particular case, I think he has come to the same conclusion as a lot of us have: These young people are here through no fault of their own. They may be technically violators of the law, but as a practical matter, humanitarianism calls for us to make a legalization. This is the only Senate proposal that has any chance of passing the House and being signed into law. If my colleagues are serious about actually finding a real and permanent solution to the DACA crisis, they should be ready and willing to support this compromise.

I yield the floor.

I thank the distinguished chair.

Mr. President, first of all, let me thank my good friend, the Senator Indiana, for his great work on this and actually getting rid of half of my speech. I think he started to go through, in very good detail, a number of the new consumer protections that are put into this legislation, and a lot of that is due to his good work.

The truth is, in a few days, we may actually do something that hasn't been seen in a really long time--the Senate producing a meaningful piece of legislation with a strong bipartisan coalition.

Now, neither side got everything they wanted. I compliment the chairman for his good work, but as my friend from Indiana--you should have seen the original list of wants of the Senator from Idaho. The truth is, we are only here because, at the end of the day, we all went back and recognized the people we work for--our constituents in our respective States and, for that matter, Americans at large--one, they want to see the Senate work; and, two, they want to see it work in a meaningful way to protect people's lives. What this legislation will do is, bottom line, make sure there is more access to capital on Main Street by cutting some of the excessive regulations on community banks and credit unions, as well as a number of the consumer protection items and others that have been put forward. It also provides some relief for regional banks and, as mentioned, major expansion of consumer protections.

Let me also step back. As somebody who got to the Senate right after the financial crisis, we all know the system needed stronger financial reform a decade ago, and I am very proud of the role I played, in some small way, on drafting Dodd-Frank. Title I and title II were areas that then-Chairman Dodd gave me a great deal of responsibility.

Let me be clear that I will do nothing and support no legislation that seriously undermines or cuts back on the provisions and the systemic protections that were put in place by title I and title II and, for that matter, for all of Dodd-Frank, but 8 years later--2 years it took us to do the bill--there is widespread agreement that some of the standards we set in Dodd-Frank needed time for review.

One of those was the standard we put in place at the $50 billion threshold for enhanced prudential standards. We know, 8 years later, that number is just too low. There is a legitimate debate about where that standard should be reset, but recognizing that this standard was set 8 years ago at $50 billion, if you just take inflation and growth in the economy, it would be dramatically different. That is a view shared by Federal Reserve Gov. Dan Tarullo, who is the architect of much of the legislation implementing Dodd-Frank. It is also the view of former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and current Reserve Chair Jay Powell.

The fact is, there is an awful lot of difference even between some of these regional banks and some of the largest six banks in our country. At this point, they still control about 60 percent of all total assets.

If we don't do this legislation, what we will see--and this is where, again, I have to disagree with some of my Democratic colleagues--is there will be more pressure on consolidation, not only for community banks and credit unions but, for that matter, more consolidation among regional banks, which will place more and more power in those largest of institutions, where I think we have pretty good protections and protections that we don't want back at all in this legislation, but I don't think we ought to encourage that greater consolidation. So, again, we focus not only on community banks and credit unions but also on some of these regional banks.

I want to make clear, what we have done is make no changes to the applicability of enhanced prudential standards for the big banks with assets above $250 billion. These are both the largest and, in many ways, because of some of their products, the riskiest financial institutions, and the full set of postcrisis regulations should apply to

them, but we have required the Fed to tailor those standards appropriately for banks with total assets between $100 billion and $250 billion. I want to highlight that the bill actually sets a very low bar for the Fed to apply enhanced standards to regional banks.

Under the bill, the Fed can apply enhanced prudential standards to a bank with assets larger than $100 billion for financial stability reasons or to promote the safety and soundness of the bank--part of their traditional prudential regulations as they stand, but I don't think every enhanced prudential standard should apply to every bank with assets larger than $100 billion. There is a broad agreement that standards should be tailored for this group.

Again, let me cite someone whom most of the folks on this side of the aisle, myself included, have a great deal of respect for: former Fed Chair Janet Yellen. She called this bill ``a move in a direction that we think would be good.''

More recently, Chairman Powell testified that the Fed will implement standards over the next 18 months for banks with assets between $100 billion and $250 billion. Chairman Powell also testified that the regional banks will continue to be subject to the most important enhanced prudential standard: meaningful, strong, and frequent stress tests. Those are his words, not mine. He called himself a strong believer in stress testing. Again, let me say, so am I.

Critically, again, this bill does not change the existing requirement that the Fed conduct annual stress tests on banks with assets larger than $250 billion. I know I am getting into a lot of details, but details in banking regulations are important. Again, unfortunately, I don't think some of my colleagues who are in opposition to the bill are setting out what this bill truly does or doesn't do.

Again, let me point out another thing on stress tests. The bill also does not alter the comprehensive capital analysis and review or what banking regulators call the CCAR process. The Fed capital planning process is actually not part of Dodd-Frank, but it is another core pillar of the Fed's supervisory regime. We believe it should continue to apply as much as it does today.

So for banks within this $100 billion to $250 billion range, you have not only CCAR, but you have the chairman himself saying he will put in place--somewhat similar to the existing DFAST stress test--meaningful, strong, and frequent stress tests. As has been mentioned as well, banks with assets above $250 billion should expect to have the annual stress test.

Let me touch on another subject, foreign banks. Another thing this bill does not do is change the enhanced prudential standards applied to the largest foreign banks' U.S. operations. This gets pretty technical, but I think for the record it is important that it is reflected.

All foreign G-SIBs that have total consolidated assets greater than $250 billion have enhanced prudential standards, and those enhanced prudential standards will continue to apply to these largest and systemic important foreign banks, and the Fed will continue to have the authority to apply these enhanced prudential standards on foreign banks with total consolidated assets of more than $100 billion.

So a large foreign bank--let's say Deutsche Bank, for example, that had problems recently--that may have only $100 billion or less than $250 billion of American assets, but the fact that their consolidated balance sheet has greater than $250 billion will mean that the Fed will continue to enhance the full G-SIB regulation.

Again, let's move to Chairman Powell. He was approved by 84 Senators to this post--40 Democrats. He made clear in his Banking Committee testimony that the Fed requires establishment of intermediate holding companies by certain foreign banking organizations independently of Dodd-Frank. Chair Powell made clear that nothing in this bill requires any change to the IHC requirement. This is by design, as we believe the IHC requirement is an important innovation that greatly helps international holding companies. For those keeping track of these comments, it is an important innovation that greatly helps the Federal Reserve supervise and apply enhanced prudential standards to the U.S. operations of foreign banks.

As explained by the Federal Reserve in its final rule, in applying enhanced prudential standards to foreign banking organizations, there were unique financial stability issues associated with some of the large foreign banks' operations in the United States during the crisis.

We remember that it was some of the foreign banks and operations in the United States that were part of causing the crisis back in 2008, and those enhanced standards need to stay in place.

In that final rule and in other rules implementing prudential requirements for the intermediate holding companies of foreign banks, the Federal Reserve has distinguished between which standards should apply to U.S. banks and the IHCs of foreign banks and how they should apply it.

The Federal Reserve remains fully capable of assessing the unique risks associated with large foreign banks' U.S. operations and applying appropriate enhanced prudential standards on these institutions and their IHCs, giving due regard to the principle of competitive equality, while remaining focused on the mandate under this bill and under section 165 of Dodd-Frank to protect financial stability and safety and soundness.

This is the final point I want to make. I also want to make clear that my support for section 402 in this bill--again, which deals with a technical issue but a very important issue, the supplemental leverage issue, which excludes deposits from the calculation of supplemental leverage ratio for custody banks--this exclusion for custody banks, those assets deposited within a central bank, such as the Fed, while we are carving out this one exclusion, it does not mean that I support removing other assets from the calculation of that leverage ratio.

Again, there is widespread agreement from former Governor Tarullo to current Chair Powell that the leverage ratio should not be the binding capital constraint on custody banks because of a unique business model that relies on less risky business.

When the leverage ratio is the binding constraint on a business, it encourages actually riskier activity and rewards making bets that tend to decrease, rather than increase, safety and soundness. That gives the wrong incentive. This bill will fix the narrow problem that exists for custody banks and goes no further.

I personally say that I would have no support for any movement further than what is narrowly carved out in this bill.

I know my friend the Senator from Vermont is here, and he will have a different opinion on some of these issues, but I want to again thank Senator Crapo. As well, I do hope we will have a chance to enter into further colloquy on this debate and to further make clear for the record both his and my support for strong capital, that our system is stronger and, particularly for the largest institutions, that nothing we are doing will reverse keeping American banks the strongest in the world.

I know there are strong opinions on the other side. I look forward to the continued debate. I look forward to a managers' package that I believe will actually continue to expand certain areas around consumer protections and other areas where there is broad-based general agreement. I look forward to the conclusion of this debate and an amendment process that again allows other issues to be vetted.

With that, I thank the chairman, and I look forward to further discussions.

Mr. President, if I could ask the Senator a question--we

may come back for a more formal colloquy at some point. We are working on some additional language to further reinforce this point.

I thank the chairman for his good work on this bill. I am thankful for the fact that the legislative Record will reflect at least this short conversation and other speeches and conversations which recognize that a consolidated balance sheet of foreign banks, if they only have $100 billion in assets in the United States but $1 trillion in total assets, will still be subject to the enhanced prudential standards.

Again, I thank the chairman and look forward to continued debate.

Mr. President, I am pleased to come and talk today.

This is a week where we had all anticipated a return to the Senate, where ideas are widely debated. I was standing by the majority leader last week when he was talking about this, and he said that we will let a thousand flowers bloom. It didn't sound like something Senator McConnell would normally use as a reference, but he did, and I am thinking, well, that would be a good thing, to see a thousand different ideas widely debated on the Senate floor.

So far this week, there has not been any debate because we can't seem to agree on who votes on what first. I think that is a particular level of dysfunction that we should all be concerned about. For the Senate to do its work, we have to be willing to vote and we have to be willing to take some hard votes. My sense of politics today is, whether you have taken the vote or not, someone is going to accuse you of taking that vote. So you might as well not worry about the vote you take; just worry about the work we get done and whatever votes are necessary to be taken to get that done.

On this topic, it does seem to me that we have two issues here that should be solved, two issues on which there is broad agreement. I have said for a long time that there are really three questions in the immigration debate that need to be answered: No. 1, how do we secure the border; No. 2, what are the legitimate workforce needs of the country; and No. 3, what do we do with people who came and stayed illegally?

As we think about securing the border, by the way, half the people who are in the country illegally came legally and just stayed. So it is not all a border issue, but it clearly is partly and significantly a border issue.

One of the things that people expect a government to be able to do is to secure its own borders. Often, when we hear a story of a country somewhere in the world in which the government has disintegrated and is no longer in control of the country, one of the first things that are mentioned by people talking about that dysfunctional government is that they don't control their own borders. It truly is a legitimate expectation of a functioning government that you control your own borders. It is also a legitimate expectation of government that you look at

your economy and you look at what workforce needs you have that aren't being met and figure out the best way to meet those workforce needs.

In this debate, because we haven't controlled our borders and because we haven't kept track of people who legally crossed our borders and as a result, we have some number of people--usually the estimate is about 11 million people in the country--who are not here legally, what do we do with those people?

My view has always been that if the government met its primary responsibility, which is an immigration system that works, the American people would be very forward-leaning about those other two issues, because nobody really argues that if we don't have people here to do the work that needs to be done, whether it is highly skilled or not highly skilled, we ought to be thinking about what we need to do to get people here who can do that work. Also, what do we need to do to keep people here who came here to get training to do highly skilled jobs and graduated from colleges and universities or other skill-enhancing things that happened while they were here. If they want to stay, my view is that if they didn't do anything that got them in trouble while they were here, we should almost always want them to stay. If we don't have that skill set in our economy, why wouldn't we come up with ways to reach out and get it?

Those who are not here legally, generally, I think if people thought the problem was solved, if they thought that the government had truly met its responsibility to operationally control the borders and that the government had met its responsibility to keep track of who comes in legally and know if they have left or not--I mean, there is no retail store in America that doesn't have a better sense of its inventory than we do of whether people who have legally come into the country and checked in with a Customs officer--we don't know if they have left. We couldn't tell you in weeks, perhaps, whether somebody is still here, even if they did everything exactly the way they were supposed to do it.

This debate is largely driven by the most sympathetic of all of those groups: that group of people who came here and were brought here by someone else who entered the country illegally--often by their own parents--but have grown up in America.

My first response, and I think the response of most Americans when they think about that, is that kids who grew up here, kids who went to school here, kids who haven't gotten in bad trouble while they were here, kids who have no real memory or connection with the country they were brought from--of course we want them to stay; of course we want them to be part of our economy. Because they are an even younger society than we would be without them, why wouldn't we want that to happen?

In some respects, we have two separate issues here. People who were raised here, who have done everything that anybody else would do to acclimate as an American in all ways, who went to school here, who did everything else here--70 or 80 percent of the American people, and I occasionally see a number even higher than that, believe they should be allowed to stay.

More and more, as people think about that, they also believe that after they have been here, like any other immigrant who came to the country legally, they would eventually be able to take the test and go through the process to become a citizen. That is a widely accepted premise that this debate should be built on.

Another widely accepted premise that this debate should be built on is that 70 percent or so of the American people--and it would be a higher percentage if people really knew the facts--believe the government has not met its responsibility to secure our own borders.

Let's assume that number is 70. We have two 70 percent issues. We would assume that a working Congress could take two 70 percent issues and come up with a solution that makes its way to the President's desk and solves both of these problems.

We are not going to solve these problems by saying: OK, we are going to solve the problem for people who are already here, but we are not going to do anything to make it harder for others to be brought here illegally by someone who has control of them. We are not going to solve that? Of course that is not going to work.

I don't think whether you signed up for DACA should be a determiner, and apparently the President agrees. If you are here and in the category of those who were brought here and grew up here, whether you signed up as a DACA kid, you could still be part of that overall discussion of how to stay, and you still get to stay if we can come up with a solution for you to do that.

But we are not going to solve that problem and say: We will have a study of the other problem to see what is wrong. If by now we largely don't know what is wrong with the other problem, we are never going to figure out what is wrong with the other problem.

In 1986, long before the Presiding Officer or I came to Congress and maybe long before some of us graduated from high school, we were going to solve this problem. Everybody who was here illegally could stay if they wanted to, and the borders would be made secure. Here we are, over three decades later, still debating the same thing.

We need to solve both of these problems. If we can solve other problems while we are doing it, that is fine, too, but we need to come up with a solution. There are a number of ideas out there as to how the Senate should move forward.

On the DACA issue, it is important to remember that President Trump said: I am going to give the Congress 6 more months to solve this problem--until March 5. It is also important to know that the courts have allowed people to continue to sign up, so really the deadline is somewhere beyond March 5. But the President said: I am going to give Congress 6 more months.

President Obama didn't do anything about this for years--not because he didn't want to, I believe, but because he said he didn't have the ability to. President Obama repeatedly said: The President cannot solve this problem; Congress has to solve the problem. In spite of 6 or 7 years of saying that he couldn't solve this problem on his own, he ultimately decided to try to do it with an Executive order.

The truth is, that Executive order was never going to do the job. I think President Obama knew that. When President Trump did his own order, he probably also knew he didn't have the ability to do that any more than President Obama had to do what he did. But both of these Presidents in their own way have tried to drive the Congress toward making a decision that comes up with a plan that works--a plan that works for kids who were brought here with no choice in the matter and a plan for seeing to it that kids can't still be easily brought here with no choice. We need to let young people come here because we need them here as part of our workforce, as part of our country.

Legal immigration is what made America great. The rule of law is also what makes our country what it is. We can't continue to let immigration be an area where we have decided there are laws that we will not enforce.

The challenge for the Congress right now is to come up with a solution so that this problem is not going to continue to be the same problem it is today, but as far as the problem today, we are going to solve it. We are going to solve it in a way that lets kids who grew up here become part of the solution.

I continue to be committed to strengthening our borders. I continue to be committed to stemming the tide of illegal immigration. Frankly, I continue to be committed to the idea of legal immigration as part of continually reinforcing and re-enthusing who we are. But I am also committed to finding a permanent solution for young people in that category who were brought here, grew up here, haven't gotten in trouble while here, and have every reason to want to be part of the American dream and part of the American people whom they have been part of up until now.

I hope we can find common ground on a bill that does that. I hope we can pass a bill from the Senate that the House will also pass. If Senators think they have done their job by passing a bill that can't possibly pass the House, that is just kicking the can down the road. We need to find a solution that really resolves this problem, and we solve this problem by putting a bill on the President's desk. To do that, we are going to

have to vote. We can't do that by just having a quorum call or a vacancy here on the Senate floor. We have to be willing to vote.

There are some things that I will enthusiastically vote for and some things I will reluctantly not be able to vote for. But that doesn't mean that I should say: If I can't be for whatever is brought to the Senate floor, then I don't want to vote on it or debate it.

We can't continue to tune in to a vacant screen of the Senate floor. This is the week that we have all committed to having a real debate about solving as many problems as we can that relate to kids who were brought here and grew up here and solving that problem so other kids in these numbers are not likely to face that problem in the future.

As I yield, I hope the floor is filled over the next couple of days with a vigorous debate about the best way to solve the problem before us in a way that the people we work for will feel good about it and the people who are most impacted by our decision will feel equally the concern, the warmth, and the desire of our country to have a vibrant economy that has people who want to be part of it, able to be part of it, and particularly people who grew up in the United States of America to be part of it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, if we go back over the past 20 years, it is hard to find an immigration debate that occurred that ended with making law. Immigration issues have been contentious over the years-- unnecessarily so. They have been emotional over the years-- unnecessarily so. It is connected to families, to people, to real lives, and to real stories. I get that. But now we are at a point again where we will be debating immigration on this floor all of this week.

The DREAM Act was proposed 15 years ago. Three different times it has come up before the House or the Senate or both. All three times in 15 years, it has failed--just dealing alone with those Dreamers. Then a very, very large package was tried in 2013. That included not just the Dreamers but their parents and every other person illegally present in the United States--wholesale reform of every part of the immigration system. That was tried in 2013; it also failed. Now it is time to find that middle ground. Where can we find the basic issues here?

In September, the President of the United States challenged the House and the Senate to get a legislative solution for the recipients of DACA and those who are DACA-eligible. At the time, the President was decried as throwing people out of the country, but he was very clear at that point: He did not feel President Obama had the authority to give a wholesale Executive answer for those individuals on what they called deferred action for childhood arrivals. But President Trump said: I want a legislative solution. I want certainty. I don't want these individuals to sign up every 2 years and be at the whim of some future Executive and go through the process. Let's get a permanent answer to all of this, but with that, we have to pick up the issues around it at the same time.

The President actually gave the nation a great gift at that time: a deadline. For two decades, immigration has been well known to be a problem, but there has been no deadline. The President set the deadline of March 5 to have this resolved. We are nearing that now. It is time to move from just debating it in the hallways and in our offices to debating it on the floor of this Chamber and trying to get this resolved.

Here is what I have proposed, along with Chairman Grassley, John Cornyn, David Perdue, Thom Tillis, Tom Cotton, and Joni Ernst: to lay out a commonsense solution, to say, let's stick to four items--four items that the White House has also identified. Those things are all connected.

Those four items begin, obviously, with DACA and those who are DACA- eligible, about 1.8 million individuals who are currently living in the country, who grew up literally speaking English, pledging allegiance to our flag, going to our schools, and engaging in our commerce. In every way, they have lived and functioned as Americans, except they are not. They were brought into the country illegally.

So now what do we do about that? President Obama set a time period. He set a 2007 time period. You had to have been in the country by 2007, be under a certain age, and then you were eligible. We actually advanced that since it has been so long now and said: From the time President Obama announced that--which was June 2012--if you were in the country at that time or before and you are under that time period and that certain age, you are eligible for it. Apply. Go through the process.

We think that is not only entirely fair, it is also entirely compassionate. But it also sends out a warning to those who are going to rush at our border and say: The easiest way to illegally cross into the United States is to bring a child with you. We do not want that to occur. That is a dangerous crossing in many places, many children have died, and individuals have had horrible things happen to them on the way. We want to discourage that. So we set the June 2012 date--that is when President Obama first announced the program--and said that is a reasonable time period. But with that, we said it would take 10 years for those individuals to be able to cross into naturalization. That is in line with other individuals around the world who are currently getting in the line right now. There is no one jumping ahead of anyone else but holding those individuals harmless who are already here and saying: Let's start you through the process, and 10 years from now, you will get naturalization.

At the same time we put them in line, we also put in a process for border security. The reason we currently have 11-plus million individuals in the country with no legal status is because our border security process has been so bad. This is no great shock to anyone. So what we are doing is taking those individuals in DACA and saying: Let's take 10 years to move you into naturalization. During that 10-year time period, we also want to set up the basics of border security. That gives us time to get security first and naturalization second for those individuals but both with great certainty.

It is not just a wall, although there should be sections of wall. In areas where it is highly populated on both sides of the border, we need a wall as a demarkation. But in most areas of the border, it is not highly populated on both sides; it is open desert or mountains. We need cameras. We need technology. We need interaction with our National Guard, who can bring resources to the battle as we try to interdict drugs. We need increased ability in our laws dealing with terrorism, drug smuggling, human smuggling. We need consistency in how we handle immigration. Right now, there is one policy if you come from Cuba, another policy if you come from Honduras, and another policy if you come from Mexico. Why don't we be consistent with our immigration policy?

We need additional Customs and Border Patrol agents. We need additional ICE agents. My colleagues immediately recoil from that and say that is interior enforcement. Actually, it is not. If you have additional Customs and Border Patrol agents and they pick up someone at the border, they are immediately transitioned into ICE custody, where they are detained as they go through the process. But you can't just detain people. You also have to have judges and attorneys. You have to have advocates for those individuals. So we need to increase the number of judges, attorneys, and advocates to be able to help. We need to increase the number of translators to make sure that we get good response from those individuals and that they understand what is going on.

Right now, there are 600,000 people in a backlog waiting for their day in court, for due process--600,000. That is absurd. One of the reasons we have such an open, porous border is that individuals know that if they get across the border, they will only be detained a couple of weeks and then they will be released into the United States with what is called a notice to appear. Some people appear at their court date sometimes 2, 3, 4 years later, and some people do not, but they have been released into the United States in the meantime. We need to accelerate that process.

We have individuals who come across the border and they claim asylum, but they don't get an asylum hearing for a couple of years. We should have that as a rapid process. They should get due process, and they should be able to make that claim. As we have said over and over again, justice delayed is justice denied.

We have some interesting things that we put out in this dealing with the cost to the taxpayers. We put a cap on the amount that we can spend per person, per day in housing individuals, and we set the cap at $500 per day, per person to actually do detaining. We think it is a reasonable amount, and, honestly, it is one of the things I think should be universally accepted, both by the taxpayers and by this body. We put in additional penalties for those who are doing human smuggling and human trafficking and trafficking drugs across our border. We deal with some nation-states that will not accept criminal aliens.

Many people in this body, and certainly across the United States, may be surprised to know that for countries such as Cuba, if there is an individual picked up in the United States who was convicted of armed robbery and is illegally present in the United States, even though they have committed a violent offense, typically in other

countries, they would have to suffer the consequences of being in prison here for their offense, and then they would be deported back to their country, but Cuba does not accept them. Even though they are illegally present in the United States and they commit a violent offense, they do their time period here, and then they are released back into the United States.

Why would we do that? We need to establish a process to resolve this. That is basic with border security and also dealing with naturalization for DACA. We have had individuals who have said: Where does the diversity lottery and the issue of family unification come into this?

Let me tell you how it connects--and they absolutely do connect. Right now we have 4 million people waiting through the process to legally come to the United States. That is a 20-year backlog--20 years. That is irrational. What we would like to be able to do is to fix the process. Before we add another 2 million people into this and take a 20-year process to maybe a 25-year or 30-year process, once we get to that backlog time period, let's fix what is obvious.

Quite frankly, this issue of family reunification is not a new issue. In 1995, Democratic House Member Barbara Jordan led a study on what to do on immigration and made a major proposal on what to do on what they called--at that time, in 1995, in this Democratic-led group--chain migration. It said that adult siblings and adult children should come in under their own merit, not under their family and that we should target skills for individuals who are coming in, not just ``It is my brother-in-law; so he gets a chance to come as well.''

This would allow us to empty out that backlog--the 20-year backlog-- to come into the United States at a faster pace. The diversity lottery is not a challenge with diversity--far from it. We have people from all over the world who come into the United States, and we continue to welcome people from all over the world.

I am fascinated watching the Olympics. I watch people march in from many countries. Everyone looks the same under their flag until you get to the United States. When the United States marches in, you can't pick out which one looks American. We are American. In many countries around the world, they all look the same because you are not welcome if you don't look like them. That is not so with us. We welcome people freely from around the world, but we also want them to bring a set of skills. We believe that we can use those same numbers to encourage people from around the world and bring their skills into the United States, to repurpose the diversity lottery and say: Yes, come. Come from everywhere around the world, but come bringing your skills because we need it as a nation. You are always welcome to come.

It is far from making the Statue of Liberty cry or polishing up her torch. It is saying: We are open to the world. Come and bring your talents and abilities. We will need it in the days ahead.

If we want to prevent a 20-year backlog from getting even worse, we have to fix the family migration issue. If we want to deal with border security and deal with the very real threats that we face, as well as just individuals who want to come to work, we have to deal with the basics of border security, and we should address the issue of DACA recipients. We can do this. We will walk through this journey together. Over the course of this week, I hope we can keep this civil and open and fact-based, rather than charged with emotion and accusations. We all want to help the country. Let's work on helping the country together this week.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, today a group led by Chairman Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee formally introduced a bill to address the DACA issue--the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals issue--that we have heard so much about, as well as border security. I think it is a good starting point, and I am proud to be a cosponsor of the legislation, which is called the Secure and Succeed Act.

Perhaps the most important thing about this bill is that it actually has a good chance of becoming law. That is because the President supports it. It encompasses the four pillars the President has laid out for us in any solution to the DACA challenge.

The Secure and Succeed Act provides legal status and a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million people who meet the specific criteria of DACA. This is a far larger number than the number of individuals covered by President Obama's Executive order. The fact is, this President has not only said to the 690,000 DACA recipients ``You are going to have a better, brighter future and a pathway to American citizenship''; this President has also offered all of the young people eligible but who might not have previously signed up that same opportunity. What an extraordinarily generous offer.

This bill also provides for a real plan to strengthen border security, utilizing the three things that Border Patrol has always told me are essential: more boots on the ground, better technology, and, yes, some infrastructure in hard-to-control locations, along with enhanced ports of entry.

I know there has been some confusion about that. The President likes to talk about the wall. It is true that back in roughly 2006 or 2007, Congress called for something called the Secure Fence Act, which got the support of then-Senator Obama, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and, of course, current Senator Chuck Schumer. They supported the Secure Fence Act, as did an overwhelming majority of Senators from both parties.

When the President has talked about the wall, he has made pretty clear what he is really talking about is a barrier similar to what was supported on a bipartisan basis. He said that the Border Patrol is going to have to be able to see through it. Indeed, as he has conceded, in many places it doesn't make any sense at all to have a physical barrier. That is why technology and boots on the ground are so important.

This legislation also reallocates visas from the diversity lottery system in a way that is fair and continues the existing, family-based categories until the current backlog is cleared, which would take, probably, about 10 years. I am proud to cosponsor this commonsense solution. But I know other colleagues have been working hard on their ideas, which I look forward to reviewing as the debate continues.

One group I haven't heard from much, though, is our Democratic colleagues, who literally shut down the government to force this debate to occur on their terms and at a time they chose. We are still trying to figure out--OK, you won, in a sense. I think the American people lost when you shut down the government, but you made your point. You wanted a time certain and you wanted a fair process by which to present your ideas, and we have been waiting--here it is Wednesday, with the clock ticking, still waiting--for that Democratic proposal. What is their plan? What is their proposal? Do they even have one? And if they do, why are they leaving the rest of us, as well as the Nation, in the dark?

As the majority leader said yesterday, we need to stop trying to score political points and start making law. The way to get this done is to take a proposal like the President's and get started; people can offer amendments to that. Whatever gets 60 votes in the Senate passes the Senate, and then it is up to the House to pass it, and then it is up to the President to decide whether to sign it. He has pretty much given us the outline of what he would find acceptable. Again, insofar as it grants a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people, that is extraordinary in and of itself.

The majority leader made a commitment to hold this debate and to hold it this week. He has lived up to his promise, and now we can't let it all go to waste. As each minute and each hour clicks off the clock, it looks as if it is more and more likely to happen--that all of this will go to waste.

The country is watching. The DACA recipients in my home State--all 124,000 of them--are watching and worrying, understandably anxious about what their status is going to be when this program ends on March 5.

One of those DACA recipients is Julio Ramos, a biology teacher who is getting his master's degree in biomedical informatics. He is from Brownsville, TX, right along the U.S.-Mexico border, and he is a DACA recipient. After his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, he decided he wanted to be a doctor. He has even been accepted to Texas medical schools, but he wasn't sure whether he would be allowed to attend. He is waiting and watching, worried about his future.

Then there is Miriam Santamaria from Houston, TX. She graduated from high school in Houston with honors. She paid her way through community college, and she works as a manager at a construction company and owns her own photography business. She sounds like quite an entrepreneur to me. Miriam said: ``I am not looking for any kind of recognition or sympathy, [I'm just] looking to make a difference and inspire others.'' She is also looking to live in peace in the only country that she has ever known and calls home. She came to the United States when she was 4 years old.

Finally, there is a man whom I will just call by the first name of Daniel. He, too, lives in Texas. He graduated from the University of North Texas with a degree in advertising and contributes productively to society. Daniel came from Mexico at the age of 2, and he said: ``All the choices I make, I made as an American, because that's what I am.''

We need to listen to these stories as we consider this legislation and as people are perhaps tempted into the political grandstanding and gamesmanship that, unfortunately, sometimes overwhelms our best intentions. These are real human lives hanging in the balance. They are important, and they teach us about the real people behind the policy.

But their stories are not the only ones we need to listen to. We need to listen to the stories of the men and women who have been waiting patiently for years to come here in a legal way through visas and green cards, waiting patiently to join their families here in the United States, doing it the old-fashioned, legal way. They have had to wait, some for years, some for decades.

We should listen to the stories of the border communities, which I am proud to represent in Texas, from men and women, many of whom are of Hispanic origin, who have suffered property damage from illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration is a pretty ugly business when you consider that it is in the hands of drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations. Recently, one of the military leaders who is responsible for Southern Command, which is Central America south, said that these transnational criminal organizations or cartels are ``commodity agnostic.'' That is the phrase he used. He said that they don't care whether it is people, drugs, or other contraband. What they are in it for is the money, and they are willing to do

anything for the money. Unfortunately, victims of human trafficking know exactly what I am talking about.

Despite these hardships, businesses in many of the communities, like those along the border, are thriving. But we need to do everything we can to make sure that continues to be the case.

Sympathy for DACA recipients is right and good because, in America, we do not punish children for the mistakes of their parents, and we are not going to punish these young people who are now adults and have become part of our communities. But Americans who live along the border in my State realize that illegal immigration has caused real, tangible harm in terms of public safety, property damage, and their way of life.

When I talk to people like Manny Padilla, the Border Patrol's sector chief for the Rio Grande Valley, it is hard not to realize just how much is required and how many more resources we need to maintain situational awareness and operational control along the border.

I will say this: The Federal Government has failed over the years to live up to its responsibility to maintain the security of our border, so taxpayers in my State have to step up and fill the gap left by the failure of leadership of the Federal Government. But we have an opportunity to fix that in this legislation, following the parameters the President has laid out for us. That is why, during this week's debate, ensuring additional resources for border security is an essential piece of the puzzle. That includes areas other than between our ports of entry. Mexico is one of our largest trading partners. We have legitimate trade and commerce that flows back and forth across the border with Mexico and supports 5 million American jobs. Unfortunately, the cartels have figured out how to exploit that as well. So, because of antiquated infrastructure and technology at our ports of entry, many of them are vulnerable through the importation of poison--literally, drugs like methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and the like--that has taken the lives of so many Americans. We need to do more and better when it comes to maintaining those ports of entry--upgrading the infrastructure, improving the technology--so we can interdict more of that.

Again, the border is as varied as anyplace in the world, with areas that are flat and open, areas that have mountains and rolling hills, rivers, obviously. Technology, as we have come to see, has transformed our way of life, and technology can increasingly be the answer to supplement the boots on the ground and the infrastructure that the Border Patrol thinks are necessary.

There is a big difference between detecting illegal immigration in rural areas and urban ones. In urban areas, the Border Patrol tells us that you might have just a few seconds before someone can cross the border and enter into the United States. In large, open areas, there is more of a lag time, so perhaps a fence or some infrastructure is not as important; technology might be more important, along with the Border Patrol agents themselves.

My basic point is that border security is complex. For those who think it is as easy as one, two, three, I encourage you to do as some of my colleagues have done; that is, travel to the border--we will host you--to see firsthand why it is crucial that we strengthen our personnel, technology, and infrastructure. That has to be one of our priorities, and I am grateful to the President for making this one of his requirements as well.

We have an opportunity to address not only the anxiety and plight of DACA recipients but also to make our country safer and more secure; to reform our legal immigration system in a way that will help us accelerate the reunification of families out of the backlog of people waiting patiently and legally outside of the country to come into the country through legal immigration; and to address the President's concern about the roll of the dice in the diversity lottery that makes little sense, given our need for people with job-based skills, graduate degrees, and other merit-based criteria that would make them valuable to the United States, in addition to winning the lottery.

I hope we will take advantage of this opportunity this week. Time is wasting. It is Wednesday, and we don't have any time to waste at all.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, last night the Senate took up a neutral bill on immigration to begin debate on legislation to protect the Dreamers and provide additional border security. It is a debate upon which the lives of the Dreamers depend. They were brought into this country as kids through no fault of their own. For many of them, America is the only country they remember. They learn in our schools, they work at our companies, they serve in our military, and they are stitched into the very fabric of our Nation.

This week we have the opportunity to offer these Dreamers protection and the chance to finally become Americans, and this is supported in every State throughout the Nation. Eighty percent of Americans--a majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all support allowing the Dreamers to stay here and become American citizens. We have an opportunity to improve border security, as well, which is something that also has broad support.

Both Democrats and Republicans, in large numbers, have supported both helping the Dreamers become Americans and protecting our borders. That should be the focus of all our energies--finding a bipartisan compromise that would achieve those things and pass the Senate.

We can put together a bipartisan plan here in the Senate and sell it to the Nation. I know that there are other forces swirling around. That was true of the budget deal, but Leader McConnell and I put together an agreement. The Senate voted for it in large numbers, the House passed it with significant support from both parties, and the President signed it. We can do the same thing on immigration. The Senate can take the lead once again in a bipartisan way that can get 60 votes and move the Nation forward.

We all know Americans in every State--your State, Mr. President, my State, and every State--who ask: Why can't you work together and get something done? Well, this is a very difficult issue and we are all aware of that, but we can get something done. We are on the verge, but it is still hard. We are not there yet, but we can get something done. Let's work toward that.

Infrastructure and the President's Budget

Mr. President, on another matter entirely, the White House released its long-awaited infrastructure plan. After promising a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan to build ``gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land,'' President Trump's plan turned out to be less than half a loaf. Instead of a trillion dollars or more of investment, the Trump infrastructure plan includes only $200 billion in Federal investment, relying on State and local governments and private entities to pony up the rest of the cash.

There is a great irony that on the same day the President put out the $200 billion infrastructure plan, the administration's budget slashed well over $200 billion in existing infrastructure investments that we do make every year. While the Trump infrastructure plan gives with one hand, the Trump budget takes more away than is given. That doesn't show much of a commitment to do infrastructure. That shows sort of a schizophrenic administration.

Even on the side where they try to give, the Trump infrastructure plan has a lot of flaws. Already cash-strapped State and local governments would likely have to raise taxes on their constituents to fund new investments. Meanwhile, private entities will seek projects with the quickest return on investment. If you have a big, large resort with a lot of wealthy people going there, yes, a private person might build a road, but if you have a bridge in Shreveport or in Rochester, a middle-sized city or anywhere else in the country, no private investor is going to invest in that. There won't be any money for it. Large parts of the country will be left out. And who will be left out most? Rural America, which lacks the population or traffic to attract investment, would get shut out. They have a set-aside for rural America, but it is not close to enough--not close to enough.

Worse, the Trump infrastructure plan would mean a slew of tolls-- Trump tolls--from one end of America to the other. Large developers are going to want to make a quick buck on new investment, and who is going to pay for

it? The average, middle-class, working-class American who drives and pays the tolls.

These companies--let's face it; everyone knows this--are not going to lend money to build a road and not get any return. When the Federal Government puts money into roads, they don't ask for a return, other than jobs created building the roads and jobs created because new companies, new housing, and other new things will locate alongside the road. It does pay for itself through what the economists would call external costs--externalities. But the companies that invest, the big financiers who invest will want an immediate return, and that means tolls--tolls, tolls, and more tolls. More tolls may not sound like a big deal to the bankers and financiers who put together Trump's plan, but they sure mean a lot to working Americans who commute on these roads every day.

I would remind people that the Federal Government has invested in roads and infrastructure for centuries, not decades. Henry Clay, a Whig--the predecessor party of the Republican Party--first proposed it in the 1820s and 1830s. Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican President, expanded our Federal highway system dramatically with huge positive effect in large parts of America. Ronald Reagan never cut infrastructure. He cut a lot of other things, but not infrastructure. He knew it was important. So why are we making this 180-degree, hairpin turn right now? It doesn't make sense.

There are other problems with the Trump plan. What about ``Buy American''? Everyone says they are for ``Buy American.'' The Trump infrastructure plan unwinds ``Buy American'' provisions. If we are going to rebuild American infrastructure, let's do it with American steel, American concrete, and American labor.

This is the kind of plan you would expect from a President who surrounds himself with industry insiders, financiers, people in Wall Street who look at infrastructure as an investment to be made by corporations. But infrastructure has always been something the government invests in because the benefits aren't immediately apparent to business. A road might not generate short-term profits unless it is dotted with tolls, but a factory might locate nearby and bring new jobs to the area. The private sector might not build high-speed internet all the way out to the house at the end of the road if there isn't a profit, but that family is just as deserving as every other family in America to be part of the internet, which is a necessity these days, just as electricity was in the thirties when Franklin Roosevelt proposed connecting all rural homes to the electric grid. The private sector then and the private sector now should not pick and choose. It will leave large parts of America out. That is why the Trump infrastructure plan falls short.

For almost our entire history, the consensus in Congress and the White House was that the government should lead the way on infrastructure. As I have mentioned, Republicans Henry Clay, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan believed that we need investment in infrastructure. Democrats still believe it.

I hope that our mutual desire to fix the Nation's crumbling infrastructure without shifting the burden onto taxpayers and local governments motivates us to put the President's proposal to the side, as we did with the budget, and come up with one ourselves.

Mr. President, yesterday, the Trump administration delivered a budget to Congress that will drastically slash funding for education, environmental protection, transportation, Medicare, and Medicaid. Yes, folks, despite the President's promise that he would never cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, he is cutting two out of the three in this budget--or so he proposes.

Even with all those cuts, though, the Trump budget actually increases the deficit. Even in the realm of budgetary magic, the Trump budget pulls a trick so absurd that it would even make Houdini blush: Cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, and yet increase the deficit. How the heck did that happen? Only in the world of President Trump and his budgeteers.

Just weeks after jamming through a partisan tax bill that would greatly benefit big corporations and the wealthy while adding $1.5 trillion to the deficit, the Trump administration is now proposing a massive curtailment of the programs that help almost everyone else in America and, at the same time, increasing the deficit--a bad magic trick, very bad.

After an entire campaign's worth of promises to protect Medicaid and Medicare, President Trump proposes to cut deeply into both of them. After calling education the civil rights issue of our time in his first address to the Congress, President Trump proposes a 10-percent cut in education funding. Ask your school boards throughout America how they feel about that. Alongside his long-delayed infrastructure plan, President Trump proposes to cut transportation funding by nearly one- fifth--a decrease so large it would result in a net cut in infrastructure funding even if you add in the President's new infrastructure bill.

On the heels of a massive corporate tax cut, this budget is the very inverse of economic populism. It cuts back from nearly every program that helps the middle class and those struggling to reach it. The Trump budget is the encapsulation of an administration that promises populism but delivers plutocracy where the rich and powerful get the tax cuts, but everyone else just gets cut out.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I appreciate the process the majority leader agreed to this week, but the proposal he just offered does not address the underlying issues of this debate and why we are here. It does not address Dreamers, nor does it address border security.

As I said this morning, the Senate must focus on finding a bipartisan solution that addresses those two issues--Dreamers and border security. Rather than the partisan proposal offered by the Republican leader, I suggest we consider two proposals inside the scope of the debate, one for each side. Let the Republicans offer the President's plan, in the form of legislation carried by the Senators from Iowa and Arkansas, which the leader supports, and the Democrats will offer the bipartisan Coons-McCain bill--narrow legislation that protects the Dreamers, boosts border security, and adds resources for immigration courts.

Each is the opening foray--one for Democrats, one for Republicans-- and can start the process and let us know where we stand. Our legislation is ready to go, and we would be happy to vote as soon as the Republicans have their proposal drafted and ready for an amendment vote.

To begin this debate as the Republican leader suggests would be getting off on the wrong foot--unrelated to DACA and very partisan. Respectfully, I suggest we move to the bills offered by Senator Grassley and Senator Coons instead. Let's get this debate started on the right foot.

So I object to the leader's request.

Mr. President, I will be joined by a series of my colleagues who are coming to the floor this afternoon to talk about the November 2018 elections coming up and the steps we need to take to make sure that the Russian influence effort that bedeviled our 2016 election is not replicated in the 2018 election.

I guess the first question to answer is, Is this a realistic prospect? Is this something we should concern ourselves with--that the Russians would come back again in 2018 and try to meddle in our elections?

Everyone in the Trump administration who has been asked about this, perhaps outside of the Oval Office itself, has said: Yes, absolutely. They are coming. The Director of the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence, the head of the FBI, the Attorney General, the Department of Justice--there is no contest. There is no disagreement. There is no doubt, even among the President's senior national security and law enforcement team that they are coming back, that they are going to do this again. That leads us to the question of what we are doing about it.

It seems that the silence from the Oval Office on this subject is deafening. The White House doesn't ever want to talk about doing anything about this. To the extent that we get signals from tweets and things like that, they are usually nonfactual and highly politicized challenges to the basic facts that all of the President's senior Cabinet staff seem to agree with.

I don't know why they haven't sorted out why the President says one thing and all of his Cabinet officials say something else, but that is for them. What is for us is to review this in Congress, to do oversight, and to do what legislation might be necessary to raise our defenses to make sure that we can effectively counter what we have been warned is coming at us.

We have no proposal from the administration. One would think with something like this, where we have an election that has been attacked by a hostile foreign country--one would think that would be the kind of thing that would bring our country together and would get the President's attention. He swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and last I heard, the elections are a part of our Constitution. Yet there is nothing--crickets.

Where is the proposal? Where are the congressional hearings on our proposals? Where are the markups? Where are the bills? We are seeing an extraordinary lack of interest and initiative in something about which we have been very forcefully warned.

The failure at the White House is very profound. Over and over again, we have heard senior Trump officials say that they have not been instructed by the President to take this seriously. My senior colleague, Senator Jack Reed, asked Director Chris Wray of the FBI about whether the FBI had taken specific actions to confront and blunt Russian influence and disinformation activities. On February 13, in the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said, ``not as specifically directed by the President, no.''

To read the transcript more completely, Senator Reed asked:

So let me begin with Mr. Wray and say, has the President

directed you and your agency to take specific actions to

confront and blunt Russian influence activities that are

ongoing?

Wray: We're taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt

Russian . . .

Reed: . . . directed by the President?

Wray: Not--not as specifically directed by the President,

no.

Similarly, 2 weeks later, February 27, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the NSA's Director, ADM Mike Rogers, said that he had not been granted the authority nor directed specifically by the President to take action to disrupt Russian election hacking operations.

Again, Senator Reed asked:

So, you would need, basically, to be directed by the

President, through the Secretary of Defense, to get--

Rogers interrupts:

Yes, sir, as I--I mentioned that in my statement.

Reed: Have you been directed to do so, given the strategic

threat that faces the United States and the significant

consequences you recognize already?

Rogers: No, I have not.

There is a lot of room for improvement here. You can also add to this list the failures of activity at the State Department, which was allocated $120 million to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections to sow distrust in democracy. According to the March 4 story in the New York Times:

Not one of the 23 analysts working in the department's

Global Engagement Center--which has been tasked with

countering Moscow's disinformation campaign--speaks Russian,

and a department hiring freeze has hindered efforts to

recruit the computer experts needed to track the Russian

efforts.

So when Congress provides $120 million to the State Department to take steps to protect against Russian election interference, what we get back is that none of that money gets spent, and a hiring freeze prevents the people with the necessary qualifications from even coming in to do the job. That is not taking the problem seriously--not at the FBI, not at the NSA, and not at the State Department.

As far as I can tell, there actually is no formal executive branch interagency process that is designed to examine what the Russians did and put together legislative recommendations for Congress to follow up on. In national security matters, that is the President's role; that is the executive branch's role. We have the authority to make the laws, but because they are doing the day-to-day work, we count on the executive branch to put the proposals together for us. And again, there is nothing.

There is one thing that we did do. We wanted to send a strong signal to Vladimir Putin that there was a price to be paid for this kind of misbehavior--manipulating our elections. We voted, virtually unanimously, in this Chamber, 98 to 2. I don't know the numbers on the House side, but it was equally virtually unanimous on the House side.

It was 98 to 2 here in the Senate. We passed tough sanctions to hit Vladimir Putin where it hurts, which is right in the oligarchs. That is what he cares about, the oligarchs who support him, the oligarchs whose corrupt enterprises he has corruptly engaged with. That whole racketeering enterprise that runs the Russian Government is what the sanctions would go after.

Well, the administration has refused to implement them. The State Department has said that they are not needed. Not needed? We are hearing from all of the Trump administration's own senior executive agencies that they are going to come and do this again in 2018. How are they not needed if this is no deterrence for what they did in 2016? It would be one thing to say they are not needed if the evidence was: OK, they got the message. They are not going to do this again. We are fine in 2018.

But that is not what Trump's own Cabinet officials and national intelligence leaders are telling us. They are telling us that they are needed because they are coming at us again. So this added bit of deterrence would be very important.

When it came to something as simple as putting together the list of targeted oligarchs to put maximum pressure on President Putin, they didn't even put a list together on their own; they went to Forbes magazine and took the list out of a public magazine. That doesn't look like a serious or conscientious effort.

So right up and down the administration, you see failure to take this seriously traceable directly to the White House, and that is very, very regrettable.

The other thing that we don't know is what the White House has been up to with respect to Congress. There was a lot of talk early on about how we needed to have an independent committee to take a look at this, to be independent, to put together a package of reforms, observations, and recommendations, and we have had no

support for doing that. What we were told was: Don't worry. Work through the committees.

Well, the committees aren't doing much, to tell you the truth. It is like the gavels are made out of foam rubber around here. We could do a lot better, and there is no independent commission.

It raises the question, what was the role of the White House? What was the role of the President in stopping an independent commission? How active were they in doing that? Those are questions that need answers, but obviously, if there aren't serious investigative processes going on in our committees, it is hard to get those answers.

Here is another question: What was the role of the White House in coordinating or colluding with the House Intelligence Committee--with Representative Nunez and/or his staff--in preparation for the so-called Nunez memo?

We have learned a lot about that memo since it came out. We have learned that it was essentially phony. It had a couple of basic accusations. One was that the FBI had misled the FISA Court. They were misled that one of the sources that supported the affidavit that got the FISA warrant for the surveillance of Carter Page--that one of those sources had been in touch with or had been funded by a political campaign; that this was a phony effort cooked up on behalf of the Clinton campaign and run before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Well, as it turns out, the FISA application stated specifically the FBI's speculation that the source, Steele, had been hired to ``find information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign''-- Trump's campaign. As somebody who has pursued affidavits for search warrants and for surveillance warrants before, I can tell you that it is common and standard FBI and Department of Justice practice to leave out unnecessary names. So the fact that Mrs. Clinton wasn't mentioned is perfectly consistent with longstanding Department practice.

The other thing that it omitted was that the Steele information was actually corroborating information for a lot of other information that had begun this investigation beforehand. So the theory that this all depended on this particular source and that this source had an undisclosed relationship with a political opponent was simply baloney. The fact is that that was disclosed in the warrant, and there were additional sources.

That leaves me with the question of why. Why would a legislative committee apparently deliberately put together a report that contained misleading or false statements but tried to create an erroneous or false impression about something that had taken place? Well, did the White House have any connections in that process? That is the question we are entitled answers to. If this was just a botched job by a partisan crew in a legislative committee, that is one set of problems. If this is the Congress of the United States taking its oversight authority and handing it over to the executive branch of government, handing it over to White House operatives when the White House itself is the subject of the inquiry, that is a very different problem. And we are owed an answer as to what the communications were between the White House, the Trump legal team, and the staff of the House Intelligence Committee that prepared the Nunez report.

I have been joined by the distinguished Senator from Connecticut, so I will leave my remarks there.

I yield the floor