HUMANE Act of 2019

Mr. President, during the last break in our schedule here in Congress in Washington, I spent 2 weeks traveling across my State-- as all of us, no doubt, did--and listening and talking to my constituents about what is on their minds, what they think we ought to be doing, and what our priorities should be.

In one city, I spoke with students and teachers about the need to improve college and career readiness for historically underrepresented populations and how a piece of legislation that we have introduced with colleagues called the GEAR UP for Success Act would better serve those students.

It was a little bit of a revelation for me, having come from a family where my parents expected me to go to college, and they themselves went to college, that if other children are growing up and don't have that experience--many times, their parents are not prepared to help counsel them on which courses they ought to begin to take as early as seventh grade in order to be prepared with the prerequisites to advance up the educational ladder and be ready for college, to get into the college of their choice. So that was an important piece of legislation. Certainly, working together with colleagues here, I hope we can reauthorize and fund those grants so that more of our young people can get the advantage that comes from that sort of counseling and tutoring and help.

I also spent a little time at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, TX, to talk about military readiness and the importance of the new strategic bomber--the B-21--mission that is coming to Texas and to the U.S. Air Force.

I also had a chance to talk to some of my educators and other advocates about the Jenna Quinn Law, which is designed to help give caregivers and teachers training so that they can actually recognize and report signs of child sexual abuse in the children for whom they are responsible.

It has been interesting to me because it actually follows on legislation that passed and has been successful in Texas to train teachers and caregivers on the signs of child sexual abuse so that they can help get those children the help they need, sometimes by asking questions they would never ask if they had not been trained to recognize those signs.

Jenna Quinn herself was an example--this bill is named for her--of somebody who was asked by her sister: Jenna, has somebody hurt you? And that opened up the story and, fortunately, a prosecution and began the path to healing from that trauma.

It is great to be able to talk about a number of topics as we all return home, and you can imagine, coming from Texas, with 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, one of the things we talked about is the humanitarian crisis along the southwestern border.

Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector encountered several large groups of people trying to enter the United States last week. This is just in 1 week. On Thursday, agents near La Joya responded to a report of a large group of migrants and found more than 220 people in that one group, mostly families and unaccompanied children from Central America. The very next day, they came across two additional large groups, one with 145 people and another with nearly 300. On Sunday, they apprehended a group of 170. That brings the total to more than 800 people from just 4 groups in 1 week.

These numbers represent a surge in the volume of people we see coming across the border historically. In fact, now almost all of them come from someplace other than Mexico. There is actually no new net migration from Mexico. But we see people being recruited and paying for the services of human smugglers to come from Central America and actually many other countries around the world where people realize that if they can get access to Central America and they can pay the fees to the human smugglers, they can make their way into the United States.

That is why even President Obama said in 2014 that this is a humanitarian and security crisis. In fact, the statement that President Obama made in June of 2014 when he said that came on the heels of 2 months of record-high apprehensions of unaccompanied children. Between May and June of 2014, more than 135,000 people were apprehended at the southern border. Those numbers were absolutely mind-boggling to us at the time, but those figures pale in comparison to the level of apprehensions we are seeing today.

In February and March of this year--again, a 2-month period--more than 180,000 people were apprehended at the southwestern border. So in 2014 when President Obama called it a humanitarian and security crisis, it was 135,000. Today, in February and March, it was 180,000. That is more than a 33-percent increase from the humanitarian crisis President Obama referred to in 2014. So if it was a crisis then, it has now turned into a full system failure, and all lights are blinking red.

Detention centers are at over capacity. The already understaffed Border Patrol is struggling to meet their needs. Officers and agents are pulling double duty, as law enforcement officials have become caregivers for children. Customs agents are being pulled off their duty to process migrants. NGOs--the nongovernmental organizations--and community organizations that usually help the migrants process the system are unable to keep pace. Cities and counties across the border are bearing the brunt of this massive wave of humanity.

But if you think the situation is bad now, and it is, it will only continue to get worse because we typically see higher apprehension rates in April and May than we do in February and

March. These rapidly depleting resources are being overwhelmed, as I said, and cannot keep pace.

We need to address the root of the problem, and we need to do it soon. Only Congress can pass the legislation that is needed in order to come to grips with this crisis. It is time for us to pass legislation that will provide our frontline officers and agents with the resources they need in terms of staffing, authorities, and infrastructure.

It is also important for us to plug some of the holes that are being exploited by the human smugglers and others that allow them to successfully place migrants into the United States 97 percent of the time as long as they are an unaccompanied minor or come with a family.

Fortunately, I found a partner and ally from the House body who happens to be a Democrat by the name of Henry Cuellar, who is willing to work with me on this issue. He has been my ally on a number of efforts to bring commonsense reform, when it comes to border security or trade, to Texas. We don't always agree, but we can agree on a number of things, and those are the things on which we like to work together.

Earlier today, Henry Cuellar and I introduced the HUMANE Act, which will make important and long-overdue reforms to our immigration system, and it includes commonsense provisions that Republicans and Democrats can and should agree on.

First, it closes a major loophole that is often exploited by the human smugglers when they bring families into the United States across the border illegally. This is called generically the Flores Settlement Agreement. That name comes from a 1997 agreement that determined that the Department of Homeland Security can only detain unaccompanied children for 20 days before releasing them to the Department of Health and Human Services.

While this was unquestionably well-intentioned at the beginning, it has morphed into a much bigger problem because in 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals expanded the Flores holding, effectively applying the settlement not just to unaccompanied children but also to families and turning it into a pull factor for illegal immigrants hoping to game the system.

I am grateful for the support of my friend and ally Congressman Cuellar because we recognize that rather than single adults arriving at the border alone, many people are now bringing children with them so they can pose as a family. They realize they can bring a child-- anybody's child--and pose as a family unit so they can be released after 20 days. Children are literally being kidnapped to serve as a free ticket into the United States. Sadly, many are abused along the way, and many arrive at our border in very ill health. We simply cannot stand by and do nothing and let this continue to occur.

I know today I read in one of our newspapers that the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce said that because Customs agents are being redeployed to deal with children and families, handing out juice boxes and diapers, that there has been a huge slowdown in cross-border commerce and trade. Because of the unique nature of the supply chains that apply to manufacturing both in Mexico and the United States, they estimate that as much as $800 million a day is being lost because now our infrastructure and our staffing at our borders are being overwhelmed.

So the HUMANE Act would clarify that the Flores Settlement Agreement only applies to unaccompanied children and not to families, and it would provide greater time for processing and immigration proceedings to take place before the families are released from custody.

Secondly, this legislation would require that all unaccompanied children are processed the same, regardless of the country of their origin, because under current law, children from Mexico and Canada can be promptly returned home if they don't have a legitimate claim, but processes for other countries move much more slowly, if at all. Put simply, we should make every effort to safely return these children to their home countries as quickly as possible if they don't qualify for an immigration benefit, just as we do now for those from Mexico and Canada.

It would also require all children to undergo biometric and DNA screening to establish family relationships and ensure that they are, in fact, traveling with relatives rather than human smugglers.

To better protect children who are released to Health and Human Services, this bill would place prohibitions on certain individuals who could be serving as guardians. For example, no child should be released to the custody of a sex offender or a human trafficker.

Third, the HUMANE Act would enable family units to stay together-- something, I would think, that all of us should agree on--and streamline the process for those in custody.

Consistent with the recommendations from the bipartisan DHS Homeland Security Advisory Council, the bill would require DHS to establish at least four regional processing centers along the southern border to house and process families. This would literally serve as a one-stop shop, with DHS personnel from Customs and Border Protection, ICE, USCIS, and FEMA assisting migrants and working to process their claims.

Under this legislation, asylum officers and immigration judges would be forward-deployed to adjudicate claims and expedite the entire process, which we hope would begin to ease the burden on our current debilitating immigration court backlog.

In addition to those changes, the legislation also includes provisions to make commonsense improvements, like additional Customs and Border Patrol personnel, and training for our CBP and ICE employees who work with children.

While we know this will not fix all of the problems that exist in our immigration system, we believe it is an important start to change the calculation when it comes to people who say: I know I don't qualify for asylum, but I am going to try anyway, and I am going to pay a human smuggler $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, or $8,000 to try to get me from my home in Central America into the United States because right now, 97 percent of the time, it works.

This is also a huge bonanza to these cartels that are commodity agnostic. They trade in drugs. They traffic children, women, and, yes, they move migrants across the border for money. This will put a big dent in their profits, as we should want to do.

It will also send a message to those who do not have valid claims: Don't even try.

So it will have a deterrent value, which I think will begin to help us control the huge surge of humanity coming across now, which were, as I said, 76,000 in February and 103,000 in March. We are going to see those numbers continue to go up and up and up, further overwhelming our capacity to deal with this humanitarian crisis unless we do something, like this legislation that Congressman Cuellar and I have introduced.

I am grateful for the support and cooperation of my friend and colleague from the House. I am sure there are people in his party who will say he has done too much, just as there are people in my party who will say we haven't done enough. But around here, you have to start somewhere, and where you start is where you can find common cause and agreement and begin to build consensus to solve problems.

Hopefully, if we are successful in passing this legislation, this will not only address this humanitarian crisis, but it will maybe establish a downpayment of goodwill and demonstrate our ability to solve some of our other problems here in the Congress, particularly those that relate to our broken immigration system.

I hope we will soon have the opportunity to consider this text in the Judiciary Committee--I talked to Chairman Graham, who seemed willing to do that--and bring more members into the debate so we can provide relief for those struggling to manage the crisis.

Mr. President, during the last break in our schedule here in Congress in Washington, I spent 2 weeks traveling across my State-- as all of us, no doubt, did--and listening and talking to my constituents about what is on their minds, what they think we ought to be doing, and what our priorities should be.

In one city, I spoke with students and teachers about the need to improve college and career readiness for historically underrepresented populations and how a piece of legislation that we have introduced with colleagues called the GEAR UP for Success Act would better serve those students.

It was a little bit of a revelation for me, having come from a family where my parents expected me to go to college, and they themselves went to college, that if other children are growing up and don't have that experience--many times, their parents are not prepared to help counsel them on which courses they ought to begin to take as early as seventh grade in order to be prepared with the prerequisites to advance up the educational ladder and be ready for college, to get into the college of their choice. So that was an important piece of legislation. Certainly, working together with colleagues here, I hope we can reauthorize and fund those grants so that more of our young people can get the advantage that comes from that sort of counseling and tutoring and help.

I also spent a little time at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, TX, to talk about military readiness and the importance of the new strategic bomber--the B-21--mission that is coming to Texas and to the U.S. Air Force.

I also had a chance to talk to some of my educators and other advocates about the Jenna Quinn Law, which is designed to help give caregivers and teachers training so that they can actually recognize and report signs of child sexual abuse in the children for whom they are responsible.

It has been interesting to me because it actually follows on legislation that passed and has been successful in Texas to train teachers and caregivers on the signs of child sexual abuse so that they can help get those children the help they need, sometimes by asking questions they would never ask if they had not been trained to recognize those signs.

Jenna Quinn herself was an example--this bill is named for her--of somebody who was asked by her sister: Jenna, has somebody hurt you? And that opened up the story and, fortunately, a prosecution and began the path to healing from that trauma.

It is great to be able to talk about a number of topics as we all return home, and you can imagine, coming from Texas, with 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, one of the things we talked about is the humanitarian crisis along the southwestern border.

Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector encountered several large groups of people trying to enter the United States last week. This is just in 1 week. On Thursday, agents near La Joya responded to a report of a large group of migrants and found more than 220 people in that one group, mostly families and unaccompanied children from Central America. The very next day, they came across two additional large groups, one with 145 people and another with nearly 300. On Sunday, they apprehended a group of 170. That brings the total to more than 800 people from just 4 groups in 1 week.

These numbers represent a surge in the volume of people we see coming across the border historically. In fact, now almost all of them come from someplace other than Mexico. There is actually no new net migration from Mexico. But we see people being recruited and paying for the services of human smugglers to come from Central America and actually many other countries around the world where people realize that if they can get access to Central America and they can pay the fees to the human smugglers, they can make their way into the United States.

That is why even President Obama said in 2014 that this is a humanitarian and security crisis. In fact, the statement that President Obama made in June of 2014 when he said that came on the heels of 2 months of record-high apprehensions of unaccompanied children. Between May and June of 2014, more than 135,000 people were apprehended at the southern border. Those numbers were absolutely mind-boggling to us at the time, but those figures pale in comparison to the level of apprehensions we are seeing today.

In February and March of this year--again, a 2-month period--more than 180,000 people were apprehended at the southwestern border. So in 2014 when President Obama called it a humanitarian and security crisis, it was 135,000. Today, in February and March, it was 180,000. That is more than a 33-percent increase from the humanitarian crisis President Obama referred to in 2014. So if it was a crisis then, it has now turned into a full system failure, and all lights are blinking red.

Detention centers are at over capacity. The already understaffed Border Patrol is struggling to meet their needs. Officers and agents are pulling double duty, as law enforcement officials have become caregivers for children. Customs agents are being pulled off their duty to process migrants. NGOs--the nongovernmental organizations--and community organizations that usually help the migrants process the system are unable to keep pace. Cities and counties across the border are bearing the brunt of this massive wave of humanity.

But if you think the situation is bad now, and it is, it will only continue to get worse because we typically see higher apprehension rates in April and May than we do in February and

March. These rapidly depleting resources are being overwhelmed, as I said, and cannot keep pace.

We need to address the root of the problem, and we need to do it soon. Only Congress can pass the legislation that is needed in order to come to grips with this crisis. It is time for us to pass legislation that will provide our frontline officers and agents with the resources they need in terms of staffing, authorities, and infrastructure.

It is also important for us to plug some of the holes that are being exploited by the human smugglers and others that allow them to successfully place migrants into the United States 97 percent of the time as long as they are an unaccompanied minor or come with a family.

Fortunately, I found a partner and ally from the House body who happens to be a Democrat by the name of Henry Cuellar, who is willing to work with me on this issue. He has been my ally on a number of efforts to bring commonsense reform, when it comes to border security or trade, to Texas. We don't always agree, but we can agree on a number of things, and those are the things on which we like to work together.

Earlier today, Henry Cuellar and I introduced the HUMANE Act, which will make important and long-overdue reforms to our immigration system, and it includes commonsense provisions that Republicans and Democrats can and should agree on.

First, it closes a major loophole that is often exploited by the human smugglers when they bring families into the United States across the border illegally. This is called generically the Flores Settlement Agreement. That name comes from a 1997 agreement that determined that the Department of Homeland Security can only detain unaccompanied children for 20 days before releasing them to the Department of Health and Human Services.

While this was unquestionably well-intentioned at the beginning, it has morphed into a much bigger problem because in 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals expanded the Flores holding, effectively applying the settlement not just to unaccompanied children but also to families and turning it into a pull factor for illegal immigrants hoping to game the system.

I am grateful for the support of my friend and ally Congressman Cuellar because we recognize that rather than single adults arriving at the border alone, many people are now bringing children with them so they can pose as a family. They realize they can bring a child-- anybody's child--and pose as a family unit so they can be released after 20 days. Children are literally being kidnapped to serve as a free ticket into the United States. Sadly, many are abused along the way, and many arrive at our border in very ill health. We simply cannot stand by and do nothing and let this continue to occur.

I know today I read in one of our newspapers that the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce said that because Customs agents are being redeployed to deal with children and families, handing out juice boxes and diapers, that there has been a huge slowdown in cross-border commerce and trade. Because of the unique nature of the supply chains that apply to manufacturing both in Mexico and the United States, they estimate that as much as $800 million a day is being lost because now our infrastructure and our staffing at our borders are being overwhelmed.

So the HUMANE Act would clarify that the Flores Settlement Agreement only applies to unaccompanied children and not to families, and it would provide greater time for processing and immigration proceedings to take place before the families are released from custody.

Secondly, this legislation would require that all unaccompanied children are processed the same, regardless of the country of their origin, because under current law, children from Mexico and Canada can be promptly returned home if they don't have a legitimate claim, but processes for other countries move much more slowly, if at all. Put simply, we should make every effort to safely return these children to their home countries as quickly as possible if they don't qualify for an immigration benefit, just as we do now for those from Mexico and Canada.

It would also require all children to undergo biometric and DNA screening to establish family relationships and ensure that they are, in fact, traveling with relatives rather than human smugglers.

To better protect children who are released to Health and Human Services, this bill would place prohibitions on certain individuals who could be serving as guardians. For example, no child should be released to the custody of a sex offender or a human trafficker.

Third, the HUMANE Act would enable family units to stay together-- something, I would think, that all of us should agree on--and streamline the process for those in custody.

Consistent with the recommendations from the bipartisan DHS Homeland Security Advisory Council, the bill would require DHS to establish at least four regional processing centers along the southern border to house and process families. This would literally serve as a one-stop shop, with DHS personnel from Customs and Border Protection, ICE, USCIS, and FEMA assisting migrants and working to process their claims.

Under this legislation, asylum officers and immigration judges would be forward-deployed to adjudicate claims and expedite the entire process, which we hope would begin to ease the burden on our current debilitating immigration court backlog.

In addition to those changes, the legislation also includes provisions to make commonsense improvements, like additional Customs and Border Patrol personnel, and training for our CBP and ICE employees who work with children.

While we know this will not fix all of the problems that exist in our immigration system, we believe it is an important start to change the calculation when it comes to people who say: I know I don't qualify for asylum, but I am going to try anyway, and I am going to pay a human smuggler $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, or $8,000 to try to get me from my home in Central America into the United States because right now, 97 percent of the time, it works.

This is also a huge bonanza to these cartels that are commodity agnostic. They trade in drugs. They traffic children, women, and, yes, they move migrants across the border for money. This will put a big dent in their profits, as we should want to do.

It will also send a message to those who do not have valid claims: Don't even try.

So it will have a deterrent value, which I think will begin to help us control the huge surge of humanity coming across now, which were, as I said, 76,000 in February and 103,000 in March. We are going to see those numbers continue to go up and up and up, further overwhelming our capacity to deal with this humanitarian crisis unless we do something, like this legislation that Congressman Cuellar and I have introduced.

I am grateful for the support and cooperation of my friend and colleague from the House. I am sure there are people in his party who will say he has done too much, just as there are people in my party who will say we haven't done enough. But around here, you have to start somewhere, and where you start is where you can find common cause and agreement and begin to build consensus to solve problems.

Hopefully, if we are successful in passing this legislation, this will not only address this humanitarian crisis, but it will maybe establish a downpayment of goodwill and demonstrate our ability to solve some of our other problems here in the Congress, particularly those that relate to our broken immigration system.

I hope we will soon have the opportunity to consider this text in the Judiciary Committee--I talked to Chairman Graham, who seemed willing to do that--and bring more members into the debate so we can provide relief for those struggling to manage the crisis.

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

Madam President, over the past few months, the Members of this body and the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives resoundingly have voted in favor of S.J. Res. 7, which would remove U.S. Armed Forces from Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen. This unconstitutional, unjustified, and ultimately immoral war has repeatedly come up over the last year, and thankfully America's elected lawmakers in Washington have taken a stand against it.

The President has vetoed our resolution, but today we have the opportunity--and I believe we have the absolute constitutional duty--to once again take a stand on this important matter. Today, we have the opportunity to override the veto in pursuit of justice, prudence, and upholding the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. This is one of the most important, fundamental features of our constitutional system. Congress and Congress alone may declare war. This is in direct contrast to the way our old national government--the one in London-- worked. Under that system, the chief executive could take the country to war, but not in America, not under our system, not in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it is one of the distinguishing characteristics pointed out in Federalist 69.

As we have already heard, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is dire, and estimates show that the crisis is even worse than we had previously thought. The Yemen war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, including a whole lot of innocent civilians in attacks that can only be described as horrific. It is believed that from 2016 to 2018, over 60,000 combatants and civilians were killed in direct violence attached to this war, but the full scale of suffering from starvation, poverty, and disease is even more staggering than the stark numbers that I have just quoted involving direct combat or direct violence.

Over half of the population of Yemen is considered currently to be in the crisis stage of famine. An estimated 3.3 million children are malnourished, and over 84,000 children have died just between the start of the war in 2015 and October of 2018. Poor water and sanitation conditions have also led to the largest cholera outbreak in history, with more than 1.3 million suspected cases and over 2,600 related deaths since the April 2017 outbreak.

Contrary to the claims of some of our critics, the United States has, in fact, been aiding and abetting the horrors of this war. Indeed, these critics claim that we have somehow not been involved in a war in Yemen. But in March of 2015, shortly after Saudi Arabia launched its war against the Houthi rebels, the Obama administration authorized U.S. military forces to provide ``logistical and intelligence support'' to the Saudi coalition. The

Obama administration provided this authorization without any kind of approval from Congress. Since then, we have helped the Saudis with surveillance, reconnaissance and information, target selection assistance, and, until quite recently, with midair refueling, including midair refueling involving combat missions. In other words, we have been materially assisting a foreign power in its efforts to bomb its adversaries and sometimes helping that foreign power to bomb innocent civilians on the ground in the process. Other opponents of our resolution claim that our involvement in this undeclared, unconstitutional, immoral civil war half a world away in Yemen is somehow constitutional, is somehow statutorily authorized under the War Powers Act of 1973, which authorizes the executive branch to use Armed Forces in cases of emergencies and under certain limited time constraints.

The conflict in Yemen--a conflict between a regional rebel group on the one hand and the Saudi-backed government on the other hand--by no means constitutes or in any way presents a threat to the safety of American citizens in the United States, and our involvement has far surpassed the allotment of any emergency time constraint contemplated under the war powers resolution. Still others say that we are not engaged in ``hostilities'' that constitute a conflict of war under the War Powers Act. But these critics, of course, are relying on an overly narrow and outdated definition from a 1976 memorandum--a memorandum, I would add, internal to the executive branch. In that respect, it is self-serving and one that does not include the indisputably high-tech activities of war today.

The way we fight wars today often ends up involving cyber activity, reconnaissance, surveillance, and target selection--the precise activities we are engaged in in this war in Yemen. Even aside from that, under the War Powers Act, we ourselves do not have to be involved in hostilities. We don't have to establish that in order to trigger the War Powers Act--that we are involved in hostilities. The War Powers Act is triggered so long as we are sufficiently involved with the armed forces of another nation, when they--those armed forces of another nation--are themselves involved in hostilities. There can be no doubt in our minds--not in my mind, in your mind, not in the mind of any American--that the Saudis are engaged in hostilities in Yemen, and we are helping them. So it is immaterial; it is completely inconsequential if you accept this crab, self-serving, narrow, outdated definition of the word ``hostilities'' found in this 1976 Department of Defense memorandum.

Finally, some opponents of this effort, of this resolution to call for our withdrawal from this undeclared, unconstitutional, immoral war in Yemen, are saying that removing U.S. forces would somehow hurt our efforts to combat terrorism in the region, specifically against al- Qaida and ISIS, and would endanger the lives of American citizens and soldiers. In the first place, these critics are dangerously conflating different geopolitical conflicts. The conflict in Yemen is a regional, civil war. It is not about al-Qaida. It is not about ISIS. Even if it were, our resolution, S.J. Res. 7, the one we are talking about today in the context of a veto override debate--that resolution explicitly states that it would not impede the military's ability to fight these terror groups. Furthermore, there is evidence that our involvement in Yemen might well have--in fact, probably has--further destabilized the region and that it has actually undermined the effort against al- Qaida's affiliates. A 2016 State Department report found that the conflict between the Saudi-led forces and the Houthi insurgents has actually helped al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, and ISIS's Yemen branch to ``deepen their inroads across much of the country.''

So, no, involvement in Yemen is far from being in the best interest of the United States--not in the slightest, not even by a shred. Every day it only becomes clearer and clearer that Saudi Arabia is not an ally that deserves our unwavering, unflinching, unquestioning support and military intervention, especially when our own security--the security of the American people on U.S. soil--is not on the line.

Last October, there was of course the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. In February, a report came out suggesting that the United Arab Emirates have actually transferred American-made weapons to al-Qaida-linked fighters and other military groups. In other words, the Saudi-led coalition is possibly giving our own weapons, in violation of our own end user agreements with them, to the very terrorist groups we are trying to fight, the very terrorist groups that opponents of this resolution incorrectly suggest would benefit from the passage of this resolution.

Just this past week, news surfaced that the Saudis ruthlessly beheaded 37 men who were mainly minority Shia Muslims, 5 of them gay men who were suspected to have been tortured into a confession. Perhaps we ought not be supporting that regime at all. Perhaps we ought not give unflinching, unwavering, unquestioning devotion to a regime that treats its own people that way and that has harmed others in its own region in the way that it has. At a bare minimum, we should not be fighting an unjust civil war on their behalf, half a world away, without congressional authorization.

Article I, section 8 of the Constitution unequivocally states that Congress shall have the power to declare war--Congress, not the President, not the Pentagon, not someone else in the executive branch, not some expert anywhere in the executive branch of government, but Congress. They did so. They made it this way because they understood that the decision about whether to go to war is a decision fraught with immense moral peril. There is nothing pretty about war. It always, when we face such a decision, involves a decision to put American treasure and American blood on the line. Even if you think that with modern-day weaponry and/or the modern way in which we fight wars--if you think that American blood and treasure is not being put on the line, that simply isn't true. That is exactly why the Founding Fathers placed this power in the legislative branch where it can be exercised squarely in front of the American people by their elected Representatives. This power was always intended to be exercised only by the branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals because of the moral peril necessarily involved in any decision to go to war--moral peril involving the use of U.S. resources, the putting on the line of American blood, and also the moral peril that it creates wherever we are going to war.

If you truly believe that our involvement in Yemen is crucial to the safety of American citizens and America's best interests generally, that is all the more reason to debate it and discuss it right here, right now. In fact, the Constitution demands it. It already is the law. We have to do this. If you are so confident that we should be involved in this war, let's debate it. Let's vote on it. Let's let the American people see what we are about. Let's let the American people have some say in the extent to which we put America's good name, its treasure, and its blood on the line.

Today, we still have an opportunity to have a say, to take a stand over this most grave matter. I urge my colleagues to take it.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, let me thank Senator Lee and Senator Chris Murphy for their outstanding and consistent leadership on this issue. At a time when the country bemoans the fact that there is not a lot of bipartisanship, this effort indicates that people with very different political philosophies can come together on an issue of enormous magnitude. I do want to thank Mike Lee for his great work on this.

I rise today to speak in support of overriding the President's veto of S.J. Res. 7. On April 16, despite telling us that he is opposed to ``endless wars,'' President Trump used the second veto of his Presidency to reject S.J. Res. 7, which directs the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from the Saudi-led intervention in the Republic of Yemen, a war that began 4 years ago. The vote on that resolution that was passed here in the Senate was 54 to 46--all Democrats voting for it and 7 Republicans

voting for it. The resolution passed the House on April 4 by a bipartisan vote of 247 to 175.

The current situation in Yemen is the worst humanitarian disaster on Earth. In March of 2015, under the leadership of Muhammad bin Salman-- then Saudi Arabian Defense Minister and now the Crown Prince--a Saudi- led intervention in Yemen's ongoing civil war took place.

According to the United Nations, Yemen is at risk of the most severe famine in more than 100 years, with some 14 million people--this is a small, poor country--some 14 million people now face starvation as a result of this war, this Saudi-led intervention we are supporting.

According to the Save the Children organization, some 85,000 children have already starved to death, and millions more face death if the war continues.

It gets much worse than that. A new United Nations-commissioned report, just published by the University of Denver, states that the impact of this war on civilians--particularly children--is actually far more serious than previously thought. If this war continues, the report estimates that by the end of 2019, it will have taken the lives of some 219,000 people in Yemen, including 140,000 children under the age of 5. According to this report, every 12 minutes, a Yemeni child is dying as a result of this war.

The magnitude of the suffering in that country is literally unimaginable. We are talking about the possibility of millions of people starving to death and of hundreds of thousands of people dying by the end of this year.

The fact is that the United States, with relatively little media attention, has been Saudi Arabia's partner in this horrific war. We have been providing the bombs the Saudi-led coalition is using. We have been refueling their planes before they drop those bombs. We have been assisting with intelligence. In many cases, our weapons are being used to kill women and children.

Late last year, I met with several brave Yemeni human rights activists. They had come to urge Congress to put a stop to this war, and they told me clearly that when Yemenis see ``Made in the U.S.A.'' on the bombs that are killing them, it tells them that the U.S.A. is responsible for this war, and that is a sad and tragic truth.

The bottom line is that the United States should not be supporting a catastrophic war led by a despotic regime with a dangerous and irresponsible foreign policy.

Issue No. 1 is the horrific tragedy we are contributing to in Yemen.

Issue No. 2 is equally important, and that is that the involvement of the United States in this war is clearly unconstitutional.

I hear many of my Republican friends claim they are strict constitutionalists. If you are a strict constitutionalist, voting to override Trump's veto should be a no-brainer because this war has not been authorized by Congress. It is unconstitutional.

Let me remind my colleagues who may have forgotten what is in the U.S. Constitution. Article I, section 8 states clearly that ``Congress shall have power to . . . declare war.'' While the President has the authority over the conduct of war once it has been declared, the Founding Fathers gave the power to authorize military conflicts to Congress--the branch most accountable to the people. Under the War Powers Act of 1973, the assignment of a member of the U.S. Armed Forces to ``command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany'' another country's military during a war constitutes the introduction of the United States into a conflict. Our military involvement in the war in Yemen, which has included logistical and intelligence support, as well as aerial refueling of Saudi war planes, clearly meets this definition.

For far too long, the Congress, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has abdicated its constitutional role with regard to the authorization of war. The historic passage of this resolution--the first time since the 1973 War Powers Resolution was passed that it has been successfully used to withdraw the United States from an unauthorized war--was a long-overdue step by Congress to reassert its constitutional authority.

Finally, after years of abdicating that responsibility, Congress stood up, in the Senate and in the House, and said: Mr. President, you do not have the power to get U.S. troops involved in a war that we did not vote upon. And that is a big deal. Congress is finally doing what the Constitution of the United States mandates that it do. Within a half hour or so, the Senate must act to protect that constitutional responsibility by overriding the President's veto.

I respect that there are Members of this body who voted against the initial resolution and that you support U.S. intervention in Yemen for one of a number of reasons, and I respect your point of view, but if you think the United States should be involved in the Saudi-led war in Yemen, bring that resolution to the floor of the Senate. Let's have that debate. You explain to the American people why we should be spending significant amounts of money and putting American military lives in danger and why you think it is a good idea. Come to the floor--that is what the Constitution says you should do--and let us vote that issue up or down. Maybe you win. Maybe you won't win. I think you won't win, but maybe you will. But let's have that debate. What is absolutely clear is that is the responsibility of the Senate and the House, and the President alone cannot decide when he wants to send American troops into conflict.

The last point I want to make is that this vote this afternoon must make clear to Saudi Arabia that we will not continue to follow their lead into disastrous military interventions. Let us be very clear. Saudi Arabia is a despotic dictatorship that works overtime to prevent any movement in that country toward democracy. That is a country run by an incredibly wealthy family. I think Muhammad bin Salman has the distinction of owning both the largest yacht and the largest house in the world. They have endless wealth, and now they are using their wealth and power in a dangerous and irresponsible military intervention.

Saudi Arabia is a nation that treats women not as second-class citizens but as third-class citizens. It is a nation that 7 months ago murdered a journalist in cold blood in its own consulate in Turkey and then dismembered his body. That was the signal to any dissident in Saudi Arabia that if you dare speak out against the royal family, that is what you have to look forward to--getting killed in cold blood and having your body dismembered. Dozens of people were recently executed in Saudi Arabia because of their opposition to government policy.

The word has to get out to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia that, no, we will not be following their lead and their interventions in wars that are only causing horrific pain in that region.

In my view, what we should be doing in Yemen now is ending the bombing, supporting a diplomatic solution to the civil war there that finally brings peace to that region, providing immediate humanitarian aid, and helping the people, along with the international community, to rebuild their shattered economy, which is dysfunctional today.

This is an important vote. It is an important vote that says the people of Yemen need humanitarian aid, not more bombs. It is a vote that says the Senate believes in the Constitution of this country, which says that it is Congress, not the President, that determines whether and when we go to war. It is a vote that tells Saudi Arabia we will not follow their lead in irresponsible intervention.

I hope very much that the Members of this body summon up their courage and vote to override Trump's veto.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, let me thank my colleague from Maryland for outlining one of the cases for why the override of the President's veto is so important.

There is no question that Saudi Arabia has in no way moderated their human rights behavior since the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi. In fact, as Senator Van Hollen has rightly pointed out, the stick in America's eye from Riyadh has just gotten sharper. The number of executions has increased. More American citizens are being detained. I didn't catch it as to whether Senator Van Hollen specifically referenced the case of Dr. Fitaihi, a Harvard-trained physician who has allegedly been tortured, including stripped to his underwear and shocked with electricity. He has been in detention without charges or a trial for 1\1/2\ years after his arrest.

The Saudis' behavior has gotten more outrageous, has crossed more human rights lines, has compromised the safety of more American citizens, and yet no response from the U.S. Congress and not a single piece of legislation moving through the U.S. Senate that would hold the Saudis accountable for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and now the detention of multiple U.S. residents. We almost shut down our relationship with Turkey over the detainment of an American pastor, but there is no similar response from this body when it comes to the continued detention of Americans in Saudi Arabia, with no trial, with no charges, and with evidence of torture. How is that? How is that?

Today we specifically litigate the case of the disastrous war that continues to rage inside Yemen today. I want to read a very short excerpt written by a hardened U.S. diplomat. Jeffrey Feltman is not a Democrat or Republican. He was a career Foreign Service officer. He did some of the toughest duty in the Middle East, including a stint as our Ambassador to Lebanon. Many people know him, and I know he commands just as much respect from Republicans as he does from Democrats. Here is what he wrote. He said:

The war in Yemen has been a disaster for U.S. interests,

for Saudi interests, and above all for the Yemeni people. It

has sparked the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe:

tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, and 14

million are at risk of starvation. It has been a strategic

blunder as well, producing the exact results the Saudi-led

military campaign was designed to prevent. The Houthis are

more militarily sophisticated and better able to strike

beyond Yemen's borders than they were at the start of the

war; Iranian influence has expanded; and the relationship

between the Houthis and Lebanon's Hezbollah has only

deepened. Although the United Arab Emirates has waged an

effective battle against al Qaeda in Yemen, terrorism remains

a grave threat.

Now, I could read you similar pronouncements from all sorts of other Middle Eastern experts. There is a hegemony of opinion that this war has been a disaster not just from a humanitarian standpoint.

I had to select a picture that, frankly, wouldn't induce sickness from my colleagues. I chose a picture in which this young, starving boy's back is turned to the camera, but there are plenty others in which you would have a hard time holding down your lunch.

It is not just the humanitarian nightmare; it is the strategic nightmare that is Yemen. Every single day that we stay involved in this war, the battle lines do not change, and yet Iran and Hezbollah get more and more involved inside the military fight.

There is a political deal to be had here. If the United States chose to lead diplomatically instead of follow militarily, there is a political deal that can be had, but for reasons I do not understand, the United States does not lead the diplomatic negotiations. We outsource that to the U.N. I am a big fan of the U.N., but there is not going to be a peace settlement in Yemen without the United States as the lead. Instead, we simply choose to follow the military campaign of the Saudis by helping them engage in a bombing campaign that has murdered thousands of civilians, either on purpose or by accident. It has destroyed the civilian infrastructure of the country, and it does not relent.

Every single time you meet with somebody from the administration, they tell you: Well, it is getting better. It is getting better. There is really no evidence of that. On March 26, airstrikes reportedly hit a hospital supported by Save the Children in northwest Yemen, killing at least seven, including four children. There is no excuse for that because every single hospital is on the list of targets that the Saudis can't hit, and yet they continue to do so.

Senator Romney and I just came back from the region, and here is what we heard. All of the relief agencies that do the big heavy lifting in Yemen flew into Amman, Jordan, to talk to our delegation. I thought it was exceptional that they were making this trip, but then when they delivered the news that they had, I understood why they were making the trip into Jordan to meet with us. The report they gave us was absolutely bone-chilling.

I want you to listen to this. Today, in Yemen, there are 250,000 Yemenis who are so malnourished and so sick that they are beyond saving. They will die. One-quarter million Yemenis are so sick, are so malnourished that they cannot be saved, and another 10 million are on the cusp of entering that category. The only way to stop this humanitarian disaster, of a scope and scale that we see nowhere else in the world, is to end this civil war.

So long as the United States participates in the military campaign with the Saudis, while not offering any meaningful pressure to get to a political settlement, we are complicit in those deaths. One-quarter million people are going to die in the next several months inside Yemen from starvation and disease and malnutrition due to a military campaign that we are a part of. Don't get me wrong. The Houthis bear a great degree of responsibility for those who are starving inside territories they control. There is still 15 to 20 percent of the relief supplies that the Houthis steal and take for themselves, but hundreds of thousands of those who are dying or who are subject to disease and famine are in the parts of the country that are controlled by our coalition. This isn't just a matter of the Houthis refusing to let supplies get to people who need them. There are people dying in parts of the country that the coalition, of which the United States is a part of, controls, and we are standing by, largely idly, as this devastation continues.

I hope my colleagues will consider voting to overturn the President's veto. I hope you will do it because it is the only means by which we force a political settlement. I hope you will do it because even if you don't think that a political settlement is coming, the United States should never willingly be a part of a bombing campaign that results in this kind of starvation. I hope you will also do it because even if you believe Iran is the No. 1 objective of U.S. interest in the region or even if you believe that al-Qaida and ISIS are the No. 1 target of U.S. interest in the region, they are getting stronger every single day that the status quo continues.

The military campaign has been a massive failure. The battle lines don't move, and al-Qaida and ISIS remain uniquely strong inside that country because of the chaos, and Iran, every single day, becomes more and more influential. Get out of the military campaign, take the lead on the diplomatic effort rather than simply follow others, and we will end that misery. It is within our power to send that message.

I agree with Senator Van Hollen. This is also about sending a message to Saudi Arabia about the continued murder and detainment of American citizens and residents. This is about standing up for human rights in the face of 37 people convicted and beheaded inside Saudi Arabia, several of them minors. But this is also about squaring U.S. policy with national security interests and getting the blood off our hands as 250,000 Yemenis face certain death if we don't do something different very soon.

I yield the floor.