End Price Gouging for Medications Act

I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, the issue of immigration is one that is front and center in the minds of most Americans, as it should be.

For the last 2\1/2\ years, our country has been roiling with immigration controversy. This new President, now 2\1/2\ years into his term, came to office and immediately instituted a travel ban on a majority of Muslim countries. It was controversial.

In the city of Chicago, people showed up spontaneously at the airport, lawyers, to counsel travelers to try to find some volunteer effort that might respond to their worry and concern about the travel ban imposed by President Trump.

The case went to court. The court stayed this decision and, in a later adjudication, allowed it to go forward.

It was the first of many actions taken by President Trump on the issue of immigration--most of them very controversial.

I remember the repeal of DACA in September of 2017. This is a program I had worked on for years. It started with the DREAM Act, which I introduced with my fellow U.S. Senator Barack Obama as cosponsor. We tried to pass it here in the Senate but were stopped time and again by the rules of the Senate and the filibuster.

Regardless of that, time passed and President Obama became President, and I appealed to him, with the assistance of Senator Lugar, a Republican Senator of Indiana, asking if he could find some way as President to provide relief to these young people brought to the United States as children, who wanted a chance to earn their way to legal status in America.

President Obama came up with a program called DACA, and that program said that if you are one of those children, you could come forward, pay a substantial filing fee, go through a criminal background check, and if we established that you are no threat to this country, that you are moving forward with your education and had plans for a job and a career, we would allow you to stay legally in the United States and not be deported for 2 years at a time, renewable--check in and make sure that your status hasn't changed.

In the end, 790,000--790,000--young people across America took advantage of DACA. Their lives were changed overnight. With DACA, there was no longer a fear of a knock on a door. They could become students and, as students, become teachers.

They can learn skills to be nurses, engineers, entrepreneurs, even doctors. It was a liberation for these 790,000 given the chance, finally, to be part of America and its future.

As I have said so many times on the floor, and Senator Menendez was the first to ever say it, and I thought it was such an apt description of these

young people: They had spent their entire lives pledging allegiance to that flag every morning, believing it was their flag. They learned, at some point, they were not legally here in America. President Obama gave them a chance--790,000.

In September of 2017, President Donald Trump ended the DACA Program. He challenged Congress: Pass a law. Don't rely on an Executive order; pass a law. Well, we tried. We tried, on a bipartisan basis in the Senate, and President Trump rejected our effort. It was unfortunate, but it meant that these people--these 790,000 and hundreds of thousands of others who could have been eligible--were stopped in their tracks. Luckily--luckily--the courts came to their rescue and said for these people, despite President Trump's decision, the 790,000 should be protected from deportation. No new ones could apply, but it gave them temporary relief, which could end any day, any week, or any month. That, in my mind, was the second major move by President Trump to roil up this immigration situation in America, to get tough on 790,000 young men and women who simply wanted a chance to live in this country.

He then terminated temporary protected status. That was a category of immigration given to people who were in dire circumstances--victims of terrible extreme weather events or political and human disasters in their country--who were allowed to come here and live in the United States in a protected status, hundreds of thousands of them from all over the world. This President, Donald Trump, said: The end of it. We are going to put an end to it. It is over. That was the third strike as far as I was concerned, but it wasn't the end, by far.

Last June 2018, with a great deal of pride and with biblical quotes, Attorney General Jeff Sessions came forward and announced a zero- tolerance policy: Anyone presenting himself at the border would be considered suspect criminal, and if they had in their custody a young child, they would be separated. In the end, at least--at least--2,880 infants, toddlers, and children were separated from their parents. It was a dramatic move. It was an inhumane move, but it was done to create what they call a deterrence to discourage people from coming to our border. Within days, the public reaction against zero tolerance grew to a point where even this President, who does not have ``sorry'' in his vocabulary, came forward and said they were going to end that policy of zero tolerance.

What about the children, though, the ones who actually were separated? It took a Federal judge in Southern California to come forward and say there had to be an accounting of the children and their parents and a reuniting. It went on for weeks and months. Still, to this day, there are children adrift in America. Their families can't be found because zero tolerance--this inhumane policy--was such an abject failure. Even ``ending it'' didn't end the struggle that many of these young people are still going through to this day. That was the fourth thing this President did by way of getting tough on immigration policy.

Then he announced several weeks ago in one of his infamous tweets that he was going to initiate a policy of mass arrests and mass deportations. There are some 11 million--that is the best estimate-- undocumented people in this country, and the President said millions would be deported. We saw it in its earliest stages around the city of Chicago.

Betty Rendon, a grandmother who had been in the United States for more than 10 years, was deported. How dangerous was Betty Rendon to this country? Not at all. In fact, she was a seminary student at a Lutheran seminary near Chicago. She had deep family roots, children and grandchildren in the community who were American citizens, but that was not enough. ICE, the agency of enforcement of Department of Homeland Security, issued deportation orders, and she was forced to leave this country.

I have asked those in charge at the Department of Homeland Security: What threat was this woman to America? After being here 10 years and living a life that showed she was no threat to anyone, why was she a priority to deport from this country? They couldn't answer.

Now we have an unprecedented humanitarian crisis at our border. I thought long and hard about the statement I am about to make and the photo which I am about to display. Even though it has been on the front page of major newspapers like the New York Times, it is such a heartbreaking photo that I at least warn in advance anyone following this speech that if you would be troubled by the images in this photo, please look away or turn away from what I am about to show you, but I believe it has to be shown to the American people. It is a photo of a shocking and horrifying image of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria. They died in their effort to try to cross from Mexico into the United States. This is the photo which was in the newspapers. It is a shocking portrayal of the desperation this family faced.

We are told by his wife that they tried to come through the ordinary port of entry, the usual place to present yourself to seek asylum in the United States--this mother, father, and child--and they were told that the ordinary port of entry was closed to them. So they attempted to cross the Rio Grande River.

From what we were told, this father took his little daughter, less than 2 years old, and swam across the river. He put her on the bank and then went back to help his wife come across. His daughter panicked and jumped in the river behind him. He tried to rescue her. They both drowned.

This is an illustration of the crisis in real terms, a crisis we face at this border that should never be taking place.

Valeria, this 23-month-old girl, according to her mother, loved to dance, play with her stuffed animals, and brush the hair of her madre and padre. Her father Oscar had sold his motorcycle and borrowed money to flee from El Salvador to come to the United States. He and his wife, Tania Vanessa Avalos, were simply looking for safety and opportunity for their family. Vanessa's mother said: ``They wanted a better future for their girl.'' They planned to cross into the United States and seek asylum and try to find a safe place in the future.

That is the reality of what we are discussing on the floor of the Senate this evening and have been for the last several days. Unfortunately, President Trump responded to this tragedy with a political statement. He tweeted: ``The Democrats should change the Loopholes and Asylum Laws so lives will be saved at our Southern Border.''

I might remind the President that the same laws he now deals with in this border crisis were exactly the laws President Obama was faced with when he was President. Something different has happened. It isn't just the laws of this country; it is the way we are administering the laws that currently exist.

I sincerely believe we are better than this situation depicted in that photograph and what we have heard over and over. I believe America can have a secure border and respect our international obligations to provide safe haven to those fleeing persecution, as we have done as Democrats and Republicans for decades before this administration.

Yesterday I met with Mark Morgan. Last month, President Trump named him as Acting Director of U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement, ICE. Mr. Morgan, a former marine and former FBI agent, had been asked to carry out the mass arrests that President Trump talked about in his tweet several weeks ago and the mass deportations of millions of immigrants whom the President had threatened.

Shortly before I met with Mr. Morgan, he was named to a different position, Acting Director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. As of yesterday, he moved from being in charge of interior enforcement within the United States to be in charge of solving the humanitarian crisis we now face at our border.

If that sounds like a rash move and hard to explain, it is not the only one. In the 2\1/2\ years that President Trump has been President, we have had four different people leading the Department of Homeland Security--four--in 2\1/2\ years, and it is not the fault of the Senate or Congress for holding up nominations. They just change that often. Within the Department of Homeland Security, in every major department, we have had repeated turnovers

and changeovers in the leaders there. Even those today who are nominally in charge are in an acting capacity. They can't bring them through the regular order of vetting and background checks to be given these responsible positions. So as of yesterday, Mr. Morgan is in charge of this crisis at the border.

There is a gaping leadership vacuum in the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security. To have four different heads of the Department in 2\1/2\ years, to have every position of responsibility for immigration or border security held by a temporary appointee is unacceptable, and the White House has not submitted names to Congress for permanent nominations to these positions.

The Trump administration can shuffle the deck chairs, but we know the obvious: President Trump's immigration and border security policies are failing. Their failures are found not only in the detention of children and families in inhumane circumstances but also this tragic photograph of a desperate couple turned away at the border who tried their best to find another way to present themselves in the United States.

We have a responsibility in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to deal with this crisis that has been created by this administration.

In February, after the President finally agreed to end the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States, Congress passed a bipartisan omnibus appropriations bill that included $414 million--in February, $414 million--for humanitarian assistance at the border. I have asked what happened to this money. The explanations are hard to follow. Some said: Well, more than half of this humanitarian assistance has been invested in a building which will be ready for occupancy in about a year and a half.

Here we have kids without diapers at the border, questionable food sources, filthy clothes, separation of children from families, and they are setting out to build a building that might be open in a year and a half. It would seem to me that those who were in medical practice and triage cases would certainly start with the immediate humanitarian challenge before they start the long-term responsibility of building a building. More needs to be done at our border.

In April, I visited El Paso, TX. What I saw in the Border Patrol's overcrowded facilities was heartbreaking. I want to add here, as I do every time I bring this up, that I believe the men and women--the professional men and women at the border, the ones I met and spoke to-- are caring people. They are genuinely concerned by the humanitarian crisis they see unfolding before them every single day. Some undoubtedly have done improper things and mistreated these detainees, but the ones I spoke to understood, as human beings, the need for us to do more as a country.

Last month, I led 24 Senators in calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross and the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security to investigate these Border Patrol facilities, including the ones I visited in El Paso. The circumstances there were unacceptable by any normal American standard. To think that we were packing these people into detention cells far beyond the capacity-- ``capacity 35'' written over the door. I counted 150 standing shoulder to shoulder in that room with one toilet. It is just unacceptable and impossible to explain that this is happening in America.

For me to call on the international Red Cross to look at this circumstance is something I never thought I would do. I have done that before but only in foreign countries, asking that some of the horrible conditions in the detention of prisoners be investigated by the International Red Cross. I never thought I would be asking the same of the Red Cross, to look in America.

Earlier this month, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing the inhumane and dangerous overcrowding of migrants at the El Paso port of entry, which I had visited. The office found the overcrowding was ``an immediate risk to the health detainees and DHS employees.''

Earlier today, the Senate passed legislation with funding to alleviate some overcrowding at the CPB facilities and to provide food supplies and medical care to migrants. This bill we have passed also includes critical funding for the Office of Refugee Resettlement to care for migrant children.

The House of Representatives passed their own version of the bill last night. The House legislation, which I also support, includes critical oversight measures, particularly when it comes to these children. Now it is time for us to reach an agreement--the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans--and to do it in a timely fashion.

I am willing to work with my colleagues to find a bipartisan answer, as I did on the first version of this, which passed in the Senate. What is happening at our border is unacceptable. The President has to come to realize that just getting tough is not the answer; it takes more.

We need to commit ourselves to international assistance in these three countries that are the sources of these people: El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Overwhelmingly, those are the origins of these migrants who come to the United States.

We have to realize, as well, that people are coming here in desperate circumstances, as this photograph I showed on the floor depicts. Many times they are prepared to risk their lives and even lose their lives as they try to make it to the United States in desperation. We have to find a way, an orderly way, to accept those who truly need our protection and need to be brought to a place of safety. And we have to have a timely process so that the determination of eligibility is not 1 year or 2 years in the future. It is time for us to work together on a bipartisan basis to do that.

Mr. President, I see another Senator, my colleague from Oklahoma, on the floor. I hope he can give me 10 minutes.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Iran

Mr. President, although I may not often say it, I want to make it clear. I think President Trump made the right decision the other day in deciding not to start a war with Iran. He must accept responsibility for some of the challenges we now face.

I think the decision to walk away from the agreement that prohibited Iran from developing nuclear weapons was shortsighted. By every report that we have received, this agreement--international agreement--with international inspectors was being followed by the Iranians. Yet the President decided to walk away from it. His attempt to isolate Iran from our allies, to seek regime change, and to declare economic war on Iran, unfortunately, have all led to this moment in history where a confrontation seems imminent.

Many around the President here in Washington and abroad have been anxious for a conflict with Iran. Many of the same people were anxious for a conflict with Iraq. I remember that. I remember it well because I was one of 23 Senators who voted against the invasion of Iraq. They are still there, engaged in a war some 17 years later. Thousands of American lives have been lost, and thousands more have been injured. We are spending trillions of dollars in taxpayers' money in a war without end in Iraq.

One of the great tragedies of the Iraq war, one of the few its architects have ever admitted, is that the Iraq war actually ended up empowering Iran. Today, the Iraqi Government is actually something of an Iranian client state. Yet the same unrepentant voices are again beating the drums for regime change and another war in the Middle East.

Do the American people want a third war in the Middle East at this moment in our history? I don't think so.

Some have even had the audacity to argue the 2001 authorization for use of military force approved by this Congress to respond to those who attacked us on 9/11 somehow gives this President authority and permission to invade Iran. I don't agree with that at all.

I cannot imagine anyone here who took that vote 18 years ago thought they were voting to start a war with Iran that would still be going on 18 years later. I find that impossible to believe.

The Constitution is clear. Article I, section 8 says that the power to declare war is the explicit power of the U.S. Congress, and it should be.

No one should ever send our sons and daughters into war without the consent

of the American people through their elected representatives. Our Founding Fathers were wise in making sure this awesome power did not rest with a King-like or Queen-like figure but with the people's elected representatives.

I have made this same argument in the House and in the Senate during my career, regardless of who sat in the White House, a Republican or a Democrat.

Recently, I was pleased to join with Senator Udall and others in legislation reaffirming no war with Iran without the consent of Congress. This bill is also now an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. I sincerely hope we will have a timely vote to make sure the President understands that he cannot authorize the invasion or military force in Iran without the approval and permission of Congress.

Some of the eerie, familiar statements and distortions used to sell the Iraq war are reappearing now. Vice President Cheney repeatedly warned us in those days that Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons. He even alleged there was ``no doubt'' that they were amassing those weapons to use against the United States.

Former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle argued that Iraqis could finance the postwar rebuilding from their own oil wealth, and he had ``no doubt that they will.''

President George W. Bush, who claimed war was actually his last choice, provocatively tried to link al-Qaida with Saddam Hussein--a dubious claim echoed by his then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and one some are even trying to brazenly use today.

Secretary Rumsfeld even tried to claim war in Iraq would last ``Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that.'' That is what our Secretary of Defense said.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney said we would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators. Wolfowitz argued that ``hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark.''

Five days or 5 weeks, welcomed by the Iraqis? Well, the war started, and it has never ended. There are 150,000 American soldiers deployed in Iraq. The war continues into its second decade. Incidentally, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, no nuclear weapons, and we certainly weren't greeted as liberators. Iraqi oil did not pay the $2 trillion that American taxpayers were forced to pay for that war in Iraq.

More than 4,500 Americans have been killed and 32,000 wounded, including my brave and amazing colleague in the Senate, Senator Tammy Duckworth.

How do some of the current occupants of the White House driving Iran policy feel about that Iraq war disaster? Well, National Security Advisor John Bolton said in 2015: ``I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct.'' He made that statement 1 month after writing a New York Times op-ed piece entitled: ``To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran.''

Sadly, what I find most stunning about the administration's march to war in Iran is that its actions have, in fact, contributed to the current mess and Iran's threat to restart its nuclear program.

President Trump has been pursuing a policy impossible to follow: calling for a regime change, trying to flatter and meet with the Iranian President Rouhani, trying to negotiate a better deal, threatening Iran militarily, tightening sanctions. Who knows what the policy is going to be from day to day.

The President impulsively withdrew from the nuclear agreement without first designing a credible way to get a better agreement. He went on to designate Iran's military as a terrorist organization, even against the advice of our military. And he tried to starve Iran of the agreed benefits it was to receive from the original deal.

Let me be clear. There is no doubt that Iran is responsible for dangerous destabilizing actions in that region and beyond. Its proxies attack our servicemembers in Iraq and threaten our allies in the region. But why not push back against Iran without withdrawing from the nuclear agreement? Why give them the pretext for belligerence and undermine our credibility with the global powers party to our own nuclear deal?

The tragic end result of this dangerous incoherence is that our allies are united against us, and Iran may we start nuclear activities, which had been frozen for the last 4 years.

This Congress, already a rubberstamp for too many of President Trump's instincts, must not do so in a march to another war in the Middle East as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I rise this evening to speak about the horrific humanitarian crisis at our southern border--the inhumane and truly despicable conditions under which migrants, including children, are being held by the U.S. Government. Children are being held for prolonged periods of time in facilities that are woefully inadequate, and that is an understatement.

On my left is a chart with some pictures. I want to walk through each of these pictures to talk about these children by name. Since September of 2018, these children have died while in United States Government custody.

I will start at the lower right-hand corner of the chart as you are facing the chart: Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, 16 years old; up here on the left top of the chart, Wilmer Josue Ramirez Vasquez, 2 years old; Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle, age 10; Juan de Leon Gutierrez, right here on the other side of the chart, just 16 years old; Jakelin Caal Maquin--many know her name from the time when she passed away--just 7 years old; and finally, Felipe Gomez Alonzo, just 8 years old.

These six deaths occurred in the span of less than 1 year and are the first deaths in at least a decade. Mourning their deaths is not enough. I think we can at least agree on that. As much as anyone can mourn their deaths, that is not enough. We must act in light of this terrible darkness that these children experienced and that their families are living with and that our country is experiencing as well.

In recent weeks we have heard some of the reporting. There have been reports of children held without adequate medical attention, without food or water or sanitation.

Just by way of one searing example, Warren Binford, a law professor at Willamette University, who spoke with children at the Texas facility, said:

Basically, what we saw are dirty children who are

malnourished, who are severely neglected. They are being kept

in inhumane conditions. They are essentially being

warehoused, as many as 300 children in a cell, with almost no

adult supervision.

This is a lawyer who is trained to understand and to explain these kinds of conditions. This isn't some casual observer. This is an expert in her field who is telling us this. She is not a Member of Congress. She is not an employee of the U.S. Government. She is a lawyer who saw this with her own

eyes--children who are malnourished, neglected, living in inhumane conditions, warehoused, with 300 children in a cell with no adult supervision.

This same law professor reported witnessing a 14-year-old--a 14-year- old--caring for a 2-year-old without a diaper, lack of medical care, with flu outbreaks and lice infestation.

Law Professor Binford said:

It's the worst conditions I have ever witnessed in several

years of doing these inspections.

That is what a trained professional is telling us about what is happening in these conditions.

A Senate colleague of mine talked about going into a facility where children were housed. This is a Senator with a lot of experience in the Senate. He said, usually when you walk through any kind of facility or any kind of environment in the United States of America where children are, you can hear them laughing and playing and having fun--that beautiful noise of children playing. He said you couldn't hear any of it. He talked about the eerie and disturbing quiet in that place. There was no noise, no laughing, no happiness, I guess, is probably the best way he described it.

Then this one Senator talked about making eye contact with a child. As soon as he or she made eye contact, the child would turn away.

I am sure we have other examples from colleagues here and in the House and within our government, but when a law professor who has been in a lot of these circumstances tells us this, we should listen, and we should act.

Another lawyer reported speaking with young mothers and children--all of whom were claiming asylum at a Texas facility. The mother reported a lack of proper medical care, or clean clothes, or sufficient cups or baby bottles, forcing reuse and sharing of those same cups and bottles, as well as mothers wiping their children's runny noses or vomit with their own clothes because they have nothing else--not even a paper towel--to clean with when they are experiencing these conditions. This particular lawyer was quoted in the Texas Tribune, just in case anyone wants a source.

These reports of overcrowding and lack of medical care, sanitation problems, and lack of food or water are an abomination. This is not America. It is not the America we grew up with. It is not the America we tell the world we are. We have told the world for generations that we care about each other; that we welcome people to our shores and try to treat them fairly. We can't say that when we have these kinds of insults.

Just imagine the fear a child experiences in these circumstances--the fear that comes from being alone, the fear of not having their mother or their father or some loved one nearby, in many circumstances. Some, I guess, might have an older sibling with them, but just imagine how frightened they are. Then, to compound that, they don't have basic necessities. I can't even imagine the fear.

There is a great hymn in my faith that talks about being a servant. I will not go through all the lyrics. The song is named ``The Servant Song.'' I will take the sacredness out of it for purposes of where we are speaking today. One of the lines of ``The Servant Song'' says: ``I will hold the . . . light for you in the night time of your fear.''

I can't imagine any other circumstance that anyone here could describe to better fit that description--in the night time of the fear of children who may have survived, but others, as this chart depicts, lost their lives because of failures of our government. A 2-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 7-year-old, a 16-year-old, an 8-year-old, and another 16-year-old who were in government custody of the United States of America lost their lives. I can't even begin to imagine that fear.

We all have to ask ourselves a lot of questions, but one question we have to ask ourselves in both Houses of Congress and the administration is, Will this government be there in the night time of the fear experienced by these children or not? It is readily apparent, from all the reporting month after month, that we are in no way meeting that test for too many children. Maybe some are in better conditions, but there are a lot of children--I don't even know the number. I hope it is only in the hundreds, but many people believe it is a lot more than that. There may be thousands or more who are in the night time of their fear.

Our government is not only part of creating the fear, we are doing next to nothing to alleviate it. We should ask ourselves, will we be there for them in the night time of their fear?

The administration's response to all of the reporting of this horror has been an insult to the United States of America. It is an insult to the taxpayers who send money to the government and say: Make sure that when a child comes to our borders, we treat them humanely; make sure the system works. It is an insult to our values, of course.

It is an insult to the proclamations we make as Americans to the world that we are a beacon of light for the world in so many ways. Thank goodness we are in some other facets of our government and of course the lives of our people. On this issue, we are bringing darkness not only to the lives of those children, but we are bringing darkness to the world.

We are less safe as a country when this happens. We empower people around the world--very bad actors around the world--who have been perpetuating this narrative for generations that America allows this to happen. When you do that, you empower the bad guys to recruit and to marshal their forces against you. When you treat children this way, who then lose their lives in government custody, we are less safe. It hurts our national security. It doesn't just undermine our values. It is not just immoral. It makes us less safe. It is a national security threat as much as it is an insult to our values or at least the values we claim to have as a government in the executive and legislative branches.

This administration has sought to increase family detention. They sought to relax the standards under which children are held. The administration recently canceled English classes, recreational programs, and legal aid for unaccompanied minors at shelters across the country.

Recently, an attorney for the Department of Justice argued that the government should not be required to give a detained migrant child--or in this case children--toothbrushes, or soap, or towels, or showers, and probably goes on from there. It is hard to comprehend how insulting that is to our values; how cruel and inhumane that is. If our government can't provide that to a child, how can we call ourselves a government? How can we say we have the values that we claim to have as a government? This person was a lawyer for the U.S. Government from the U.S. Department of Justice. A lawyer said that, not some low-level employee of some department in the Federal Government. A lawyer in a courtroom said our government shouldn't have to provide toothbrushes or soap or towels.

We should not be relaxing standards when, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Department of Homeland Security facilities already don't meet the basic standards for care of children in residential settings. Moreover, the Academy of Pediatrics stated that detention itself, even for short periods of time, can cause psychological trauma and induce long-term mental health risks for children.

I made this point to the administration months ago; that when you are setting up your protocols about how to deal with a child, please consult with the American Academy of Pediatrics--which is probably the leading organization in the whole country--about how best to care for a child and what not to do. I think we should listen to them, and I hope the administration would not only be listening to the American Academy of Pediatrics but would be incorporating their expertise and protocols.

Conditions for migrant adults are also completely unacceptable and an insult to our values. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General issued a report. This isn't just a routine report. I will read the headline: ``Management Alert--DHS Needs to Address Dangerous Overcrowding Among Single Adults at El Paso Del Norte Processing Center.'' This is a management alert sent by one part of the government--not just the executive branch but one department to the other--the inspector

general to the management of the Department of Homeland Security. That is how bad it is.

I will read just one line on page 9 of the report:

Recommendations.

We recommend the Acting Secretary of DHS:

1. Take immediate steps to alleviate the overcrowding at

the El Paso Del Norte Bridge Processing Center.

They didn't say work on it for a couple of months and try to get something done. Their own inspector general is saying take immediate steps.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have at least the body of this report, if not the attachment, printed in the Record.

This report details dangerous overcrowding for a prolonged basis at this detention center and the dangers it creates. According to the report, a facility with maximum capacity of 125 detainees is holding approximately 900. Some migrants were held in standing-room- only-conditions for days or weeks with limited access to showers or clean clothing. Migrants, many of whom are asylum seekers, were observed standing on toilets themselves to make room and gain breathing space. These conditions not only violate Custom and Border Patrol's transport, escort, detention, and search standards but are an affront to our values as a nation. Asylum seekers who have fled violence and suffered through an arduous journey should not be subjected to unhealthy, unsanitary, unsafe conditions under any circumstances.

Asylum seekers are coming to our shores because of violence in their home countries. Everyone knows this. This isn't a theory; it is fact. Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador rank in the top 10 countries in the world for homicide. Why do we think they are coming? Would any one of us journey hundreds or thousands of miles? I don't think so.

According to a report issued from Doctors Without Borders in 2017, Northern Triangle countries--the countries I just mentioned--are experiencing ``violent displacement, persecution, sexual violence, and forced repatriation akin to the conditions found in the deadliest armed conflicts in the world today.'' That is not some Member of Congress just talking.

For asylum seekers, the decision to move is not a choice; it is a necessity. The journey can further subject them to violence, danger, and other abuses along the way.

Once they arrive at our shores, it is critical that they are treated with compassion and human dignity and receive a fair opportunity to present their claims.

That is the America that we believe in. That is the America we were taught to believe that we are--a nation that respects human life, human values, and gives people a fair chance when they present themselves for asylum.

The only good news that we can report tonight is that the Senate passed a bill to provide nearly $4.6 billion in humanitarian aid, including $2.88 billion to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to care for migrant children and to help minimize the time they are held in Federal facilities, in Federal custody. The House also passed a bill, which I support. We must quickly conference these bills to provide the needed resources while we also ensure there are protections for migrants and greater accountability and transparency from DHS to ensure the funds are appropriately spent.

The faster we get this done, the better, and maybe we can reduce the likelihood that six more children will die in the next couple of months in the custody of the U.S. Government.

I end with this note: I talked about what we are as a nation and what we believe that we should be and the standard we are not meeting now. We must be a nation that respects people who come to our shores and treats them with a measure of human dignity and compassion and fairness.

What we must not be is a nation that refuses asylum seekers who flee persecution and violence from the murder capitals of the world. We must not be a nation that separates children from their families. We must not be a nation that gives migrants, including children, who are in squalid and inhumane conditions, no hope of getting out of that circumstance.

We are, indeed, when we are at our best, a nation of opportunity, a nation of immigrants, and, of course, a nation of laws. It is imperative that we fix our broken immigration system more broadly so that it, once again, reflects these American values.

As we work on a broad response to a broken immigration system, let us at least be there for those children in the nighttime of their fear-- No. 1, not to create that fear and, No. 2, not to perpetuate it for these children. At a minimum, we should make a pledge in our government to never have six deaths of children who are in the custody of the U.S. Government.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, on July 9, the Trump administration will be in court defending the Texas v. United States lawsuit. Let me rephrase that. They will not be defending the lawsuit. They will be arguing on the side of the plaintiff in that lawsuit.

This is a virtually unprecedented move. Administrations traditionally defend the statutes of the United States, no matter what they feel about the politics of the underlying statute. But the Trump administration has made the decision to join with 22 Republican attorneys general to argue that the entirety of the Affordable Care Act should be dismantled, with nothing to replace it.

There are those of us who believe that it would not be wise policy to kick 20 million people off of insurance and get rid of all of the insurance protections in the Affordable Care Act, with no idea as to what comes next. We have begged our Republican colleagues to join us in telling the Trump administration--demanding that the Trump

administration argue against the attorneys general in this case.

I have listened to my Republican friends, and I have listened to the President himself over and over again say that they don't like the Affordable Care Act. They want to replace it with something else, something that insures more people, and something that continues to protect people with preexisting conditions. If that is your position, it stands to reason that you would oppose a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act with nothing to replace it.

The bewitching hour is upon us. The oral arguments are the week after next. This lawsuit was successful at the district court level, so there is no reason not to believe there is a substantial possibility that it could be successful at the appellate court level as well.

I wanted to come to the floor, as we head into this week while we will be back in our districts, just to make sure that everybody understands what the stakes are on July 9 when the Trump administration will argue in court to get rid of insurance for 20 to 30 million Americans and what the stakes are for this Senate--in particular, Senate Republicans refusing to stand up to the President in his perpetuation of this lawsuit.

If the Affordable Care Act is struck down, there are 130 million Americans with preexisting conditions who could see insurance rates increase by up to 50 to 60 percent. Others will have their insurance withdrawn when they go through open enrollment next because no insurer will cover someone with serious, very expensive preexisting conditions. That was the way things worked before the Affordable Care Act was passed.

Gone is Medicaid expansion, which today covers 17 million people across the country--and I have been happy to see more and more States with Republican Governors or Republican State legislators adopt the Medicaid expansions and become a source of bipartisan agreement that more people should have access to Medicaid--but those 17 million people will lose their coverage.

There are 12 million seniors who will immediately pay more for prescription drugs because the Affordable Care Act gets rid of, over time, essentially the entirety of the Medicare part D doughnut hole.

There are 2.3 million adult children who are on their parents' insurance until they become 26, who would potentially lose access to that insurance. The Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to cover those kids. Many insurers, without that requirement, would no longer cover those children.

Then many of the other protections in the marketplace, like bans on lifetime caps or annual caps, can be lost. Insurers would once again be back in the practice of saying to a very sick child, a patient with cancer: You only get x amount of insurance coverage from us, and once you go beyond that number, then it is on your dime.

Again, remember, before the Affordable Care Act was passed, there were 1.5 million families every single year in this country who declared bankruptcy. Today, there are half as many families who declare bankruptcy in this country. It is not coincidence that studies have shown us that of those 1.5 million, half of them were declaring bankruptcy because of medical costs. When you don't go bankrupt any longer because of medical costs because you have access to affordable insurance and your insurance company can't kick you off because you get sick, you don't face the kind of destitution that families faced before.

So I think it does make sense to run through the lineup of who has weighed in in favor of this court case to invalidate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act and knock 20 to 30 million people off of insurance to jack up rates for millions more and who has weighed in against it.

Well, the President wants this lawsuit to succeed. Attorneys general want this lawsuit to succeed. And by the silence of my Republican colleagues, you would infer that many Republicans may want this lawsuit to succeed.

But here is who hates this lawsuit. I am not going to run through the whole list here, but this is essentially anybody who knows anything about healthcare. This is essentially every organization that represents people who have serious diseases, every association that represents doctors, and every association that represents hospitals. You don't really find all of those groups aligned on much at all because when you are moving around pieces in the healthcare system, often you will do something that benefits patients that insurers will not like or you benefit something at hospitals that single-practice offices will not like. This is pretty much everybody who says: If you kick 20 million people off insurance like that and you have no plan to replace it, that is a humanitarian catastrophe.

Here is what the AARP says in their filing opposing this lawsuit:

If this Court finds that the ACA is invalid, millions of

older adults will lose the healthcare coverage and consumer

protections they have relied on for years. They will also

throw the Medicare and Medicaid programs into fiscal and

administrative chaos, which will disrupt the nation's

healthcare system and economy. It will plunge the more than

100 million people with preexisting conditions into an abyss

of uncertainty about whether they can obtain coverage.

That is the AARP.

Here is what the American Medical Association says: ``The decision below, if affirmed, would have devastating effects on the quality, cost, and availability of such care.''

Families USA says: ``Among those whose coverage rates increased due to Medicaid expansion are young adults, people with HIV, veterans, rural residents, and racial and ethnic minorities.''

For many of our most vulnerable citizens who are covered by Medicaid, eliminating the expansion would leave them without healthcare.

I mentioned the insurance companies are against this lawsuit. They say this: ``Invalidation of the ACA--irrespective of the continued operation of the so-called individual mandate--would wreak havoc on the healthcare system.''

Finally, Americans with disabilities say:

The result is a cruel irony: the population that needs

healthcare the most has the hardest time obtaining it. For

the last nine years, the ACA has helped change that.

Stripping away its protections now will reverse the positive

gains that people with disabilities have realized and will

return this community to the same grim reality as before the

ACA, if not place people with disabilities in an even worse

position.

So let's not forget where we were before the Affordable Care Act was passed. I am not saying that it is perfect. I am not saying that we shouldn't work together to try to improve it. We just finished a debate in the Health Committee in which we passed a whole bunch of reforms to our healthcare system that Republicans and Democrats agree on.

But the American Cancer Society, in their filing, reminds the court: ``A 2009 Harvard Medical School study found approximately 45,000 deaths annually could be attributed to lack of health insurance among working- age Americans.''

The Heart Association said this: ``Even during a heart attack, uninsured patients were more likely to delay seeking medical care because of the financial implications.''

I could go on and on, reading from these filings or reading from the testimony that all of these groups have submitted. Again, that is not to say that these groups don't want changes in our healthcare system. Nobody on this list, as far as I know, is arguing for the status quo, just as no one in this body is arguing for the status quo. But to rip away Medicaid expansion, to rip out from the roots of the healthcare system the exchanges and the tax credits, to get rid of all of the insurance protections, to reverse the gains we have made on lowering prescription drug costs for seniors--to do all of that with nothing to replace it is to invite misery, destitution, and chaos.

Let's just be honest. We are not ready to ride to the rescue. I offered an amendment in the Health Committee today just asking for the Department of Health and Human Services to provide us with a report about what the landscape would look like in the healthcare system if Texas v. United States were successful. I didn't get a single Republican vote for that one. All I was asking was that we just get a report on how bad it is going to be so

that we can start doing a little bit of advance planning, and not a single Republican was willing to vote for that in committee today.

So we are deliberately boxing our eyes and ears about what the effects on our constituents could be if this lawsuit is successful. We are not in a position to ride to the rescue. There is no chance that this Congress is going to pass a new healthcare reform proposal that will restore healthcare to everybody who lost it. That is not happening, and I know that is not a surprise to anyone here.

You also shouldn't delude yourself into thinking this lawsuit will not be successful. There are lots of very smart legal scholars who suggest that this argument that the plaintiffs are making, which the Trump administration has endorsed, is nonsense. I tend to agree with them. The argument is that because you got rid of one section of the Affordable Care Act, then the court needs to invalidate the rest.

Well, Congress made its intent pretty clear. Republicans decided to get rid of the individual mandate for the penalty that is assessed if you don't have insurance and deliberately did not choose to get rid of the rest of it. I think that is not a smart decision, but the intent of Congress is pretty clear.

It is my belief that this argument doesn't hold water, and that is the belief of many smart legal scholars, but the district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. So you already have a Federal judge who invalidated the entire Affordable Care Act.

Since then, the Trump administration has upped the ante. The district court finding in favor of the plaintiffs, which invalidates the entire Affordable Care Act, didn't convince the President to say: Let's pull back the reins a little bit here. Let's maybe change our position. This feels too real. Let's hedge our bets. No; after the district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the administration changed their position to go all in on the plaintiffs' side. Their initial lawsuit only backed up some of the plaintiffs' claims.

So the district court ruled that the Affordable Care Act has to disappear overnight. The Trump administration has changed their position to weigh in and to support the entirety of the lawsuit, and we are not having a serious conversation about what happens if the fate that all of these groups are deeply fearful of comes to pass.

Finally, this is not about numbers. This isn't about statistics. This is about real people. Michael from New Fairfield, CT, says:

This is . . . personal to me, the ACA literally saved my

life in 2016. I have pre-existing, recurrent skull base

disease for most of my adult life. I underwent an 11-hour

skull base neurosurgery to remove a benign tumor that

involved my brain arteries, nasal passages, jaw and a total

reconstruction of my middle and outer ear canals. My surgeon

said I was a month away from a much more debilitating

surgical outcome. As it is, my recovery and rehabilitation

period has been a full two years with resulting partial

physical impairment.

My spouse and I both run our own businesses and the ACA is

still our family's only option for healthcare. Without the

operations and the ACA coverage, the disease would have

continued to progress--I would have eventually died and my

family would have had to sell the house and/or go bankrupt to

manage the medical expenses.

David from Southport said:

In July of 2011 I was diagnosed with Colon Cancer. At the

time, I was covered under an individual policy with Blue

Cross Blue Shield. It was a very comprehensive policy and,

after my deductible was satisfied, it covered all my doctor

and hospital expenses, surgeries, chemotherapy, medications,

etc.

However, a couple of years later I was advised that due to

my preexisting condition I would not be able to renew my

policy. . . .

At that time I enrolled in [the Affordable Care Act] Access

Health CT and without this policy . . . [through Access

Health CT] I would not be able to be insured and would face

prohibitive costs for even basic care.

David's story can be told thousands of times over: a diagnosis followed by denial of coverage from an insurance company because of a preexisting condition.

There is no free market response when it comes to very sick people who want insurance. The free market tells the insurance company: Do not insure somebody who is going to cost you a lot of money. The free market would tell the insurance company to keep that person on the outside of insurance. So there has to be a public sector response. We provided that response with the Affordable Care Act and now, in a matter of weeks or months, it could all be gone.

So I come down to the floor this afternoon to once again engage my colleagues and ask them to work together. Let's try to find a common ground here, at least behind the premise that you shouldn't rip out the foundation of the modern healthcare system without a plan for what comes next.

I assume we will continue to offer unanimous consent requests to try to withhold funding for the Trump administration's perpetuation of this lawsuit. I would hope we can get Republican support for that motion, not because Republicans support the Affordable Care Act--I get it; I am not going to get Republicans to support the Affordable Care Act--but because my Republican friends need to make good on what they have said for years; that they want the Affordable Care Act to go, but they really want something else to replace it that will insure the same number of people and protect folks who are sick. That cannot happen if this lawsuit succeeds.

As we head back to our districts for this recess period, I wanted to make sure everybody knows how many groups that know something or anything about healthcare are standing against Texas v. The United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last week, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee came together and we approved by a vote of 30 to 1 an emergency supplemental to address the most urgent humanitarian needs at our southern border. Some would say that the way the Senate has been led lately, you couldn't get a 30-to-1 vote to say the Sun rises in the east.

The bill reflects weeks of good-faith negotiations between Republicans and Democrats to forge a bipartisan agreement to mitigate what has been an escalating humanitarian crisis--one where infants and toddlers are sleeping on cold cement floors in wire cages and under bridges. Inaction is simply not an option for those who care about alleviating the suffering of desperate children and families seeking refuge in the United States.

Action in the Senate requires compromise. That is the reality in a body where 60 votes are required to move a bill forward. No one, Republican or Democrat, is going to get everything they want--including me, and I am the vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee--but that is the nature of compromise. One thing I am not willing to compromise on is our American values, and this bill reflects that.

The Senate supplemental protects unaccompanied children, some of our most vulnerable migrants, by securing funds for their safety and their well-being in HHS custody. It includes $109 million to ensure the safety and well-being of those children through post-release wraparound services, legal services, and case management to get children out of cages and put them in loving homes. It puts restrictions on the use of influx facilities. It establishes standards of care to ensure that children are kept in safe, sanitary facilities where they are properly cared for--not cages.

Our bill will mitigate inhumane conditions faced by migrant families in DHS custody by providing funds to improve conditions in grossly overcrowded facilities and buy food, clothing, and medical services for the people in our care. It provides money to ensure that we have diapers, formula, baby wipes, and other essential supplies for infants and toddlers.

Like the rest of the country, I read in horror the reports from a border facility in Clint, TX, where the children were unbathed, where sickness was spreading, and where infants were being cared for by other young children in custody barely old enough to care for themselves. No child, no matter where they are from, deserves to live in such conditions.

Our bill improves due process for migrants by expanding access to legal services and our immigration courts. It provides grants to nonprofit organizations and local jurisdictions that provide critical services in shelters to migrants released from DHS custody. Bolstering border security and treating migrants with humanity are not mutually exclusive goals. Indeed, accomplishing both together is the American way. We are America. We can do two things at once.

Apparently, President Trump never got the memo about our American values. Since the day he took office, he has demonized and vilified immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees at every opportunity. Through false and inflammatory tweets and cruel policies, he has worked to instill widespread fear among immigrant communities, targeting asylum seekers as if they were hardened violent criminals.

In just this past week, he threatened widespread arrests of thousands of immigrant families, seemingly without concern for the many families that would be torn apart and the separated children who happen to be American citizens who would be left behind. Now he has backed away from that threat temporarily, but he has promised to revisit it.

Just last week, the Trump administration went to Federal court to argue that it should not be required to give detained migrant children toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, towels, showers, or proper sleeping conditions when in U.S. custody--that such amenities are not part of the definition of ``safe and sanitary'' conditions.

What would we say if another country were holding Americans like that?

It has become painfully obvious: President Trump views immigrant families, asylum seekers, and refugees not as human beings but as political ammunition intended solely to rile his base. When asked about the horrendous conditions at DHS and ORR facilities

and the separation of families, he said it is not true and he repeated his threat of mass deportations--even though many of us here in the Congress in both parties have seen it. He is either willfully ignorant about what has been widely documented or he has no qualms about lying about it.

Not a single one of the President's anti-immigrant, fearmongering tactics would address the very real humanitarian crisis overwhelming our southern border. This is exactly why the bipartisan Senate supplemental does not provide a single dollar for President Trump's request for hundreds of millions in additional dollars for the incarceration of immigrants in ICE facilities.

It is why we did not provide any of his requested funds to pursue misguided policies like ``Remain in Mexico,'' which law enforcement officials have stated actually encourages, not discourages, illegal crossings. It is why, in a bipartisan way, we included a strict prohibition on the transfer of supplemental funds for any purposes other than addressing the humanitarian crisis at the border. And finally, it is why we refused to include any of the deeply harmful, unprecedented changes to our immigration and asylum laws that the President has advocated for.

I am under no illusion that this supplemental bill will address all of the problems with our immigration system--far from it. It is a temporary solution to address some of the most urgent issues. We need to have a broader debate about comprehensively addressing those problems, just as we did years ago.

Years ago, a bipartisan group of Senators put forward a thoughtful, bipartisan immigration bill. As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I held three hearings on the bill. We had five days of markups. We considered 212 amendments, 141 of which were adopted, including nearly 50 from Republicans. And then 68 Senators supported the legislation on the floor.

Unfortunately, the Republican Speaker of the House would not bring up the bill, even though it would have passed overwhelmingly, because he thought it might violate the Dennis Hastert rule. I think, if we were to have that same process here again today, I would bet we would also have 68 Senators--Republicans and Democrats--vote for it.

Yet this is a conversation and a debate we will have to have on another day. I will be happy to work with those Republican and Democratic Senators who worked together to get an immigration bill before, but we are not going to do it in the context of an emergency supplemental, which is meant to address the most urgent humanitarian needs at the border. It is why Senator Shelby and I and others-- Republicans and Democrats--have worked for weeks, quietly behind the scenes, in order to put this together and get our 31 votes. It is because we know we have to first act to provide safe, humane care for the migrant children and families who seek mercy and safety.

It was yesterday that the House passed its own version of an emergency supplemental for the southern border. It is also a very good bill, and it goes further in offering protections to immigrants in our care than we are able to do in this Chamber, because there have been objections from the Republican side of the aisle. It provides important additional protections for children who are under the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and for those being held at CBP processing facilities, and I support that. We should be taking care of the children in our custody as if they were our own. Taking care of children is not a partisan issue. We should all agree on that.

I am also pleased that the House bill includes a provision to protect the funding that Republicans and Democrats have already appropriated to address the causes of migration in Central America. I am upset the President has threatened to take that money and reprogram it elsewhere.

We were not able to reach agreement on that issue in the Senate, but in a few moments, we will have an opportunity to vote on the House bill. I hope Members on both sides of the aisle will be able to support it.

Neither the House nor the Senate bill has any funding for additional ICE detention beds. This is no mistake. The President's predisposition to turn to mass detention above all else is cruel, irresponsible, and also a horrible waste of taxpayers' money. There are alternatives to detention that exist that are safe and less expensive.

The administration needs to use the resources it has for ICE detention services to house those people who truly present a danger to our communities and not lock up every man, woman, and child simply for being here. Lock up those who really do present a danger. Most 5-year- old children do not. It makes no sense to lump them all in together. We carefully negotiated ICE's bed levels in the fiscal year 2019 Homeland Security Appropriations bill just a few months ago, which was passed by both Republicans and Democrats, and there is no reason to revisit it now.

We have heard that the administration plans to set up a request to fund more ICE detention beds through reprogramming the money that we need. I urge my Republican colleagues to join me in opposing any such request. The administration should not do administratively what both Republicans and Democrats have rejected.

Unfortunately, this is a pattern with this administration. It just wants to ignore bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate. It ignores the will of Congress. It uses loopholes and ignores traditional norms in the appropriations process. It uses suspect readings of the law to accomplish its agenda. When Congress rejected the administration's request, it acted as though it was above the law, above the Constitution. Nobody is above the law in this country. None of us in the Senate are, and neither is the President of the United States.

Let's not forget the President's declaration of a national emergency to fund his wall when Congress debated it and refused to provide him the money he had requested. We have to stand up for ourselves as an institution. I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join me--not as Democrats or Republicans but as U.S. Senators--in saying no to this President when he blatantly ignores the will of the Congress.

I thank Chairman Shelby for working with me on this bipartisan humanitarian assistance bill.

We need to work quickly to resolve the differences between the House and the Senate bills so we can get a bill to the President's desk. I hope President Trump will have the good sense to sign the supplemental bill into law. Then let's turn to the much needed debate on comprehensive immigration reform. We showed we could do it when I was the chairman of the Judiciary. We showed we could get a 2-to-1 vote in this body. Let's do it again.

Of course, I urge Members to oppose the Paul amendment.

Four months ago, Republicans and Democrats came together and appropriated funds in the State and Foreign Operations Act that would help counter terrorism and human trafficking, promote democracy, combat poverty, provide humanitarian aid, and support global health programs. A bipartisan majority of Congress supported this funding and the President signed it into law. The Paul amendment proposes to rescind $4.6 billion, clawing back programs with a wide range of consequences.

Counterterrorism programs would be cut. These funds support programs that target vulnerable youth to prevent radicalization. These programs provide governments with the tools to counter the influence of violent extremist organizations, including by countering terrorism financing.

Programs to combat human trafficking would be cut by the Paul amendment. These programs support nongovernmental organizations that promote stronger government policies and programs to combat human slavery and trafficking. They help hold perpetrators accountable and support governments that are combatting human trafficking, and they help to protect victims of trafficking.

Programs that strengthen civil society, independent media, and promote democracy in Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Hungary, Egypt, and many other countries would be cut. These funds support efforts to hold governments accountable for repression, promote freedom of expression and religious freedom, and provide services to victims of persecution.

The Paul amendment would claw back humanitarian aid. There are more people forcibly displaced in the world today than at any time since World War II. It is a global humanitarian crisis that is contributing to instability and insecurity, including in our own hemisphere. The amendment would rescind funding for U.S. refugee aid and aid to victims of famine, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.

And funding for PEPFAR, programs to combat malaria and TB, and other global health programs would be cut by the Paul Amendment. This includes programs to respond to deadly pandemics like Ebola.

There are countless other examples, since the Paul amendment uses a meat cleaver approach to demolish most of our international development and humanitarian programs that reduce poverty, respond to crises, build free markets, and strengthen democratic institutions.

Why are there unobligated balances in these programs? These funds were appropriated only 4 months ago and are available for obligation through the next fiscal year for multiyear projects. That is how foreign assistance works.

In the last two foreign aid appropriations laws, Senator Graham and I included targeted rescissions of funds that could no longer be spent effectively, or that were about to expire. That is the responsible approach, and one that preserves the integrity of the appropriations process. That is not the approach in this amendment.

I urge members to vote no on this amendment and pass the bipartisan bill reported by the committee 30 to 1 so that we can sit down with the House tonight to work out the differences with the House bill.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I would like to speak about the legislation that is before us right now on the floor. It is the annual National Defense Authorization Act, incredibly important legislation that the Senate, pretty much every year, is able to pass on a bipartisan basis.

It is really an exception. There is so much else that we are locked up on here with partisan gridlock. With regard to our troops, we tend to come together, Republicans and Democrats, and make commitments to them that we are going to give our men and women serving in the Armed Forces the resources and support they need to carry out their critical mission.

We have now proceeded to that legislation. I want to talk a little about it. It has a lot of incredibly important things in it. It is really important to Ohio.

In my State of Ohio, we have a lot of defense installations. They are very important to our national security because they do important work. They are also important to our Ohio economy. Ohio's defense spending now accounts for more than 66,000 direct jobs, more than $4 billion in salaries, and more than a $14 billion economic impact. Forty-three of our 88 counties in Ohio are impacted by these facilities. So they are critical to our State, to our economy, to our soldiers and their families, and to tens of thousands of civilian employees as well.

Again, because of the good work being done in Ohio, including at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which is our largest single employer in Ohio, it is really important to our military readiness and to our national security. This bill has proceeded through the Armed Services Committee in the bipartisan manner in which it usually is done. I love seeing that. It is legislation that every Member of this body, I hope, will be able to support at the end.

It has a lot of important initiatives and some much needed reforms-- including, by the way, this year, a 3.1-percent pay raise for our troops. I think that is necessary. They are in harm's way around the world. They are ensuring our safety, and we should ensure that they are fairly compensated for their hard work and their sacrifices.

One of the bill's other important initiatives that has a big impact on my State is authorizing $1.7 billion to increase the rate of production for both our M1 Abrams tanks and also for upgrades to 165 tanks that are already in service. That is an increase from last year's figure. It also authorizes about $249 million to upgrade the Stryker armored fighting vehicles.

This is great news for the men and women who are out in the field in our Armed Forces. They love these vehicles, and they need them. The Abrams

and the Stryker are the most advanced and lethal tanks and armored vehicles on the battlefield today. One of our priorities in Congress should be to ensure that we are providing our troops with what they need to be able to do their duty and to protect themselves. We want to be sure they have the highest quality equipment to be able to do that. Only by ensuring that these funds are allocated to such key vehicles like this can we be sure our Armed Forces are able to maintain their advantage--their qualitative advantage on the battlefield.

This isn't just a big win for our military, however. It is also a big win for a plant called the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, or JSMC, which is the tank plant in Lima, OH. The best tanks and armored vehicles in the world are made at this plant. It has the best workforce in the world to do it. I have seen them in action many times. It is the only facility in the United States that has the capacity to produce tanks like the Abrams tank and the Stryker armored vehicle. It is a really important strategic asset for our country in Lima, OH.

Having been out there a lot, visiting with the workers, watching them work, seeing what they can make, and having talked to the soldiers in the field who use these products, I can tell you how important they are. Most recently, I was at the Lima tank plant in March where I was able to speak directly with the workers there about the long-term health of the Lima plant, which the Obama administration, about 8 years ago, attempted to shutter.

The President sent a budget to Congress--President Obama--saying we would like to close down the tank plant because in the future we won't need these tanks, at least not immediately, and some day we will have a new generation of tanks, and meanwhile, let's just shut down this plant. Some of us stood up, and I fought against that. We were able to convince the U.S. Congress to overturn what the President wanted to do and instead to provide funding for the tank plant to keep it open. Even though production was down at that time, we were able to keep the plant open and not have it be mothballed, as the administration wanted to do. Thank goodness we did that because now we know--particularly with the Russian influence in Europe and what our allies are telling us they need--that we have to have these armored vehicles and these tanks, and we need to continually upgrade them.

If we had shut down that plant, we would have lost this incredible workforce that is there building something that is unique. There is nothing quite like the welding, as an example, and the cutting that goes into our tanks. We also would have lost the supply chain. That would have been detrimental. It would have cost taxpayers so much more to try to take that plant out of mothballs and recreate it again than to keep it open as we did.

Now, frankly, we kept it open mostly through foreign sales. Other countries around the world, including our allies, were still buying Abrams tanks and Stryker vehicles. And Israel was buying the Nemera vehicle, which is an armored vehicle that is much like our Abrams tank without the turret. That kept us going, plus a little bit of upgrade to our tanks.

Now, today, again, and since 8 years ago, when there was a proposal to shutter this plant, we have been able to increase production slowly but surely to the point that today we have the ability to really have that plant humming. We have a lot of people who are working. It is on its way up, and that is really exciting.

The funding allocated under this legislation we talked about today is really important because it will allow this JSMC--the Lima tank plant-- to hire, train, and retain more workers dedicated to making the best equipment possible to protect our troops.

I will tell you that the workers at the tank plant are very proud of what they do. A lot of them are veterans. They know that what they are doing every day by providing these armored vehicles has the potential to save the lives of the American men and women in uniform across the world who are relying on these vehicles to keep them safe and to be able to have that qualitative advantage on the battlefield by having the best equipment possible.

Last year, I had the opportunity to be the first Member of Congress to see the latest models of the Stryker Dragoon vehicles, up-armored at Lima. This was a real fight also. The Army came to us and said: We need to have some additional capability with regard to our Stryker vehicles to be able to push back against potential threats on the European continent. At that time we had no tanks in Europe, and we needed to upgrade what the Strykers could do by providing for additional lethality, particularly to provide a turret on top of the Stryker vehicle. We did that.

Now, as I saw with the 2nd Calvary Regiment in Germany, they are using these vehicles, and those drivers of those vehicles, those other troops who are using those vehicles, love them. It feels like, again, it gives them the ability to be effective on the battlefield. They are also training with a coalition of our allies, including Poland, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. The work our men and women in uniform are doing with our allies in Europe is vitally important because it forms a framework of defense to protect our NATO allies from aggression.

The importance of an American military presence in Europe has never been in doubt, but perhaps now, more than at any time since the end of the Cold War, the security of Europe is uncertain. We have seen repeatedly, these past few years, instances of military aggression, electoral interference, and diplomatic provocation by Russia toward its western neighbors.

Nowhere is Russia's continued maligned behavior on display more than in the country of Ukraine. For the past 5 years, we have seen Ukraine work to break free of Russia's orbit and seek greater integration with the democratic framework of the West, with the EU, with the United States, and with our NATO allies. Most vividly during the 2014 Maidan protest in Kiev, Russia responded to these appeals for democracy by illegally invading and annexing Crimea, which remains occupied in violation of international law to this day.

In the eastern region of Donbass, more than 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed fighting Russian-backed separatists. I have been to the frontlines, the so-called line of contact in the Donbass, and let me tell you that it is very much a hot war. Just last November, the Russian Navy attacked three Ukrainian naval vessels and captured two dozen Ukrainian sailors in international waters near the Kerch Strait. These individuals remain unlawfully detained by the Russian Government to this day. I urge my Senate colleagues and the entire international community to join me in calling for the release of those sailors.

I know here, on this side of the Atlantic, what is happening in Ukraine can sometimes seem like it is half a world away, but it is not. It is very relevant. In a sense, it is where the modern battle is taking place between two different ideologies--between whether a country wants to go toward freedom and democracy in the West or whether, again, to stay under the orbit of the Russian influence.

Here, in Ohio, we have a large and vibrant Ukrainian-American community, particularly in Northeast Ohio, who have a vested interest in seeing that their ancestral homeland can defend itself from Russian aggression as it works to align itself more with NATO and the West while promoting a platform of democracy, freedom, transparency, and free markets.

Frankly, we should all be supportive of Ukraine's efforts to reshape itself as a beacon of liberty in the region. As cochair of the Senate Ukraine Caucus, which I cofounded with my colleague Dick Durbin, I have been an advocate of the Ukraine as it works to break free from Russia's influence. I traveled to Kyiv to meet with their newly elected President, Volodymyr Zelensky. I am encouraged from my meetings that they will stay on the right path toward reform, but to properly do so, they also have to defend themselves from Russian aggression.

For the past 3 years, I have successfully introduced and passed amendments to the legislation before us today, the National Defense Authorization Act, to expand U.S. military aid to the Ukraine. These provisions built and expanded the primary statutory framework for U.S. security assistance to Ukraine, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

This year, I was pleased to see a further $300 million authorized in lethal

and nonlethal aid to Ukraine in the NDAA. This security assistance package is good news and sends a strong signal that America stands with the Ukrainian people, and we will make sure their military has the capabilities it needs to defend its sovereign territory on land and in the sea and air.

But our commitment to Ukraine security should extend to other forms of support as well. I have offered an amendment that I hope will be included in the final bill to pressure Russia to release the Ukrainian sailors kidnapped in the Kerch Strait. It would do so by adding the release of the 24 Ukrainian sailors as a condition for any U.S. military cooperation with Russia. We need to take a firm stance against Russia's blatant disregard for international law in this matter, and passing this amendment will help us do so.

I am glad to see that the National Defense Authorization Act will keep the lines of production running, from the factory floors in Lima to the frontlines all around the world. I am glad we will be continuing to help Ukraine defend itself from unlawful Russian aggression. I hope we can also push for the release of the Ukrainian sailors who have been detained illegally in the Kerch Strait.

I look forward to voting on the bill's final passage in the Senate in the next week so the men and women who give so much of themselves to keep us safe have the resources they need to fulfill their important mission.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.