A joint resolution disapproving of the rule submitted by the Department of Homeland Security relating to "Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility".

Mr. President, 10 days ago, America lost a visionary public official, and I lost a friend. He was 97 years old. His name was Newt Minow.

He was 35 years old in the year 1961 when President John Kennedy tapped him to chair the Federal Communications Commission. At the time, Americans were involved in big change--moving from their radios to this new thing called television.

In his maiden speech as FCC Commissioner, Newt Minow famously described much of commercial television as a ``vast wasteland.'' He was especially concerned about the effects of endless commercials and violent cartoons and other programs on the minds of our children. He said the public airwaves should serve the public interest and that the FCC should use its power to ensure that this emerging new technology of television met that standard.

Fast-forward six decades. Social media now fills the role that broadcast TV once did in the lives of our kids. Yet Federal laws currently allow social media companies to endanger our children with near total immunity. Social media companies can and regularly do sell children's personal information for profit, allow bullies to hound children mercilessly, and allow drug dealers and sexual predators to hunt for child victims on their platforms.

Our laws, as they are currently written--as we have currently written them--make it nearly impossible for victims to hold these companies accountable. This has to change, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is taking bipartisan action to see that it does.

Virtually every parent I know is concerned about how much time their kids spend online, looking at screens, how it is affecting them, and the dangers that kids can stumble into. Parents have a right to be concerned. Look around the next time you are in a grocery store or in a mall or at a family restaurant. You will see kids who are transfixed by smartphones and tablets. I have seen this happen. I will bet the Presiding Officer has seen it. Many kids learn how to scroll before they learn how to walk.

I know two children in New York who are quite adept at navigating the online world. They are 11 years old. Their

parents have talked to them about the dangers lurking online. Both parents monitor their kids' screen time as much as they can, but they still worry that they are missing dangers. I know these children because they are my grandchildren. My wife and I visited them recently.

I sat down with my grandkids, and I asked them: What do you know about staying safe online?

Well, they both assured me they ``knew all about it, Papa.'' They knew all the danger signs to steer clear of.

But we cannot continue to place the responsibility for protecting children online entirely on these children, even their parents, and even child advocacy groups alone. No matter how concerned and vigilant they are, parents stand virtually no chance against social media companies that use powerful algorithms to hook kids and make a profit off of them but cannot be held accountable in a court of law for the harm that their products cause.

Well, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee want to change that. Over the last 2 weeks, we have voted out of committee a package of four bipartisan bills that would require Facebook, Snapchat, and other social media companies to adhere to new online safety standards for children or pay a price. The price would be anything from significant fines to civil judgments to criminal prosecutions. I say enough is enough.

STOP CSAM Act

Mr. President, last Thursday, the Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to advance a bill I am sponsoring, called the STOP CSAM Act. CSAM stands for ``Child Sexual Abuse Material.''

Before I go any further, I want to say a word about this 23-member committee.

We have some pretty strongly held political opinions among the membership of that committee, both on the Democratic side and on the Republican side. It is rare, if ever, that we agree on everything, but these four bills about social media passed with unanimous rollcalls in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Every Democrat and every Republican voted for it.

Sadly, the online spread of violent material is exploding, and it is a call to action for us. It is far beyond the ability of victims, of child safety organizations, or even of law enforcement to stop it under current law. The STOP CSAM Act, which I introduced, would protect victims and promote transparency and accountability for social media companies.

Here is how it works: Companies that fail to remove child sexual abuse material and related imagery after being notified about them would face significant fines, and companies that promote or facilitate the online sexual exploitation of children or host or store child sexual abuse material could face new civil and even criminal penalties.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children-- the recognized national experts--there are an estimated 84 million images of child sexual abuse material on the internet--84 million. That figure is increasing exponentially each year. These images are traded, sold, and shared online around the world.

I have spoken before about a young woman called Charlotte. Like many naive young people, when Charlotte was 16 years old, she shared intimate images of herself with a man she met online whom she thought was a friend. That man then posted those images of Charlotte online. They have haunted Charlotte ever since--for more than 10 years. She has attempted suicide three times. She has lost jobs when those images would appear in communities where she was trying to work. The images of Charlotte have been shared around the world. She has endured years of online harassment and abuse because of it.

She and her mom and child advocacy groups have asked social media companies in dozens of nations to take down the images, with almost no luck. Charlotte lost a teaching job she loved because of the images. She attempted suicide, as I mentioned. She says she doubts that she will ever feel safe.

Other children and teens have been bullied mercilessly online. Sadly, some have taken their own lives to escape the torment. We had a hearing at which some of the mothers came in, holding the color photographs of their kids, some who were induced to try choking exercises in their closets, ultimately taking their own lives by hanging themselves.

EARN IT Act

Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, our committee passed another child online safety bill--again, unanimously. It is called the EARN IT Act. It would modify section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

Here is why we need it: Section 230 currently shields media companies, such as Facebook and Snapchat, with very rare exceptions, from being held accountable when material that is posted on their platforms results in harm to kids and others. It gives social media companies a pass and denies their victims their day in court.

Section 230 was written when Mark Zuckerberg was in the sixth grade, long before social media existed. It was passed when internet companies were small and struggling. Today, social media companies are some of the richest, most powerful companies in the history of the world. Yet they still benefit from the shield of section 230 to deny victims their day in court.

The EARN IT Act eliminates immunity and creates accountability. Its cosponsors are our colleague Senator Blumenthal, from Connecticut, and Senator Graham.

Big Tech can no longer disregard its role in online child exploitation. Many of the rest of our committee members, Democrats and Republicans, are cosponsors. I am happy to be one of them.

We also passed two additional child online safety bills in our committee, the SHIELD Act and the Project Safe Childhood Act. Senators Klobuchar and Cornyn are the lead sponsors of both bills, and both of them have bipartisan sponsorship.

We can, and we will, balance the need to protect free speech with and the need to protect our kids from harm. What we will not do is accept the status quo where some social media companies continue to destroy lives and make vast fortunes by exploiting a legal loophole that can no longer be justified.

We hope our colleagues will join us in protecting America's children and teenagers from online horror.

S.J. Res. 18

Mr. President, we are going to vote on a resolution in a few minutes that I would like to speak to. It is called the ``Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility.'' I oppose this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against it.

This resolution aims to overturn a Biden administration regulation on the public charge ground of inadmissibility. This regulation provides immigrant families--especially those with U.S. citizen children--with stability and certainty.

It does not make a single immigrant eligible for public benefits. Instead, it restores and qualifies the longstanding practice that an individual is ineligible for a green card if the individual relies on public benefits for income.

Four years ago, the Trump administration upended that definition, creating a new, vague test. For the first time, receiving supplemental public health benefits like nutritional assistance and Medicaid could be considered part of a public charge determination. Most immigrants, even those with lawful status, have been ineligible for means-tested programs since 1996. Immigrants who apply for these benefits are usually doing so to obtain central healthcare or food assistance for a U.S. American citizen child.

In 2016, 5.8 million U.S. citizen children with an immigrant parent had Medicaid or CHIP coverage, for example. The Trump administration rule forced these parents to make a choice: Deny their kids essential services or risk losing their status and being deported.

When that rule was announced, school districts reported massive drops in school lunch enrollment. Healthcare providers also reported pregnant women were afraid to receive assistance for fear of losing their status or putting at risk the immigration status of a loved one.

For example, one healthcare center reported that immigrant parents here on a student visa were afraid to obtain Medicaid for their disabled child. Although the child was a U.S. citizen and it was perfectly legal for the child to receive Medicaid, the parents worried that they could lose their status and be

separated from their child if they applied for this assistance.

A 2021 report found that even after the Trump rule was rescinded, nearly 50 percent of Americans with an immigrant family member believed that applying for assistance for any family member could cause immigration problems.

The Biden administration tried to resolve this. Their regulation makes it clear that an immigrant cannot be eligible for a green card simply for receiving healthcare or food assistance for their U.S. citizen child. That is why the American Hospital Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Illinois Department of Human Services, and countless other healthcare organizations support the Biden rule. These experts believe that the rule provides clarity and certainty to immigrants, as well as medical professionals, ensuring that kids get the basic access to food and healthcare they need.

I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this harmful resolution and protecting families and children.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) and the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, I rise in support of our CRA disapproval of the Department of Homeland Security's public charge inadmissibility rule.

Last week, I had the honor of leading a trip with several of my fellow Senators to Brownsville, TX, to see the border crisis up front and firsthand for myself--the border crisis created by Joe Biden--as title 42 was coming to an end. We met a lot of people on the trip, and I want to share some of their thoughts, some of their concerns.

We met a young former marine officer who said he felt safer in Afghanistan than he did in southern Texas right now.

Local residents were bracing for the impact, with 170,000 people just across the border waiting to come across with the end of title 42. Families are gearing up to protect their families against the cartels, very specifically.

We met a fifth-generation rancher who was leaving his family ranch and moving his family into town, and even that night, he was teaching his wife how to load a 410-gauge shotgun to protect their family.

We met officers. Many of these officers were multigenerational--their fathers, their grandparents had served on the border--and they said it was worse than they have ever seen in their lifetime.

Something new on this trip: We were told that 90 Chinese military-age nationalists are entering illegally every day in South Texas.

As we all know, over 6 million people have entered the country illegally since President Biden took office--6 million people. That is twice the size of my home State of Kansas. Another 1.5 million people have evaded apprehension and entered the country--``got-aways,'' as they call them on the border.

Thousands upon thousands more continue to overwhelm the borders. I think we all realize our immigration system is broken, but rather than fix the problem, this administration continues to point fingers and find ways to ignore or abuse our laws to provide pathways for illegal immigrants to come here.

Many of the people crossing our border will get to roam freely throughout our country. They leave our intake facilities with a cell phone and a court date, a court date that is 4 to 5 years from the date they entered. I think we are all kidding ourselves if we think these folks will ever show up for those dates in 5 years. Despite breaking our laws, they will be long gone, settled into communities across the country. In fact, on our trip, law enforcement officers told me 90 percent of the migrants are not showing up for these court dates so far.

Sure, they are going to seek citizenship down the road. There is no doubt about that. And open border colleagues across the aisle will no doubt call for amnesty for all of them. We expect President Biden will support that. He has said that as much himself, broadcasting across the globe that you can take advantage of the benefits we provide, despite breaking our laws.

I think it is fair to say Americans have the most generous legal immigration standards in the world, but we have to draw the line somewhere.

Since the 1800s, our Nation has required foreign nationals seeking admission to the United States to show that they can care for themselves without becoming a public charge or burdening the taxpayers.

Most nations require you to have a job before you come into their country. We just don't want you to become a public charge if you want to become a permanent citizen. Being a public charge is a ground of inadmissibility under our immigration laws.

Let me say that again. Being a public charge is a ground of inadmissibility under our immigration laws.

Congress specifically directed the executive branch to consider various factors when allowing people into this great Nation. These factors include: age, health, family status, assets, resources, and financial status, along with education and skills.

Indeed, as recently as 1996, Congress clearly declared in a policy statement included in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 that self-sufficiency is a basic principle of U.S. immigration law and should continue to be a governing principle in the United States.

Specifically, the Immigration and Nationality Act makes an alien who is an applicant for a visa, admission, or adjustment of status inadmissible if he or she is likely at any time to become a public charge. The public charge ground of inadmissibility, therefore, applies to aliens applying for a visa to come to the United States temporarily or permanently for admission or adjust their status to that of a lawful permanent resident, with some limited exceptions.

We need an immigration system that welcomes the best and the brightest, but we need to limit the cycle of chain migration. Again, we need some type of guardrails. While we open our hearts to asylum seekers, we must also build a merit-based immigration system that considers that immigrants' potential contributions to our economy, to our communities, and our future. We don't want a system that rewards idleness and reliance on taxpayer-funded benefits.

Under the previous administration, the Department of Homeland Security issued a rule that would have required immigrants seeking to remain in the country to be self-sufficient. But under President Biden, the regulations have changed.

Now, my hope is to override the Biden public charge rule today with a vote here in the Senate. The Biden administration's public charge rule makes a mockery of the law and the intent of Congress to ensure that immigrants are self-sufficient.

According to an estimate by the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform, at the start of 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration for the United States at the Federal, State, and local levels was at least $150 billion.

Again, since the start of 2023, the cost to taxpayers, $150 billion.

Now, this number is going to increase drastically if this rule stands. Our resolution of disapproval would rescind the Biden public charge rule and, hopefully, spur this administration to come to the table and craft a solution that will ensure the self-sufficiency of immigrants and protect American taxpayers.

I encourage my colleagues to vote to support this CRA of disapproval, to introduce some sanity into our immigration system.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 17; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the

time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that following the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Daniel nomination; further, that the cloture motions filed during yesterday's session ripen at 11:30 a.m. and that if cloture is invoked on the Daniel nomination, all time be considered expired at 2:15 p.m.; further, if cloture is invoked on the Papillion nomination, the confirmation vote be at a time to be determined by the majority leader following consultation with the Republican leader; that following the cloture vote on the Papillion nomination, notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate resume legislative session to consider Calendar No. 77, S.J. Res. 18; and that at 5 p.m., the joint resolution be considered read a third time and the Senate vote on passage of the joint resolution; further, that upon disposition of the joint resolution, the Senate resume executive session and that if any nominations are confirmed during Wednesday's session, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; finally, that there be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to each rollcall vote.

For the information of the Senate, there will be one vote at 11:30 a.m., two votes at 2:30 p.m., and two votes at 5 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the scheduled vote start immediately.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: The Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Mullin).