End Sanctuary Cities Act of 2026

Mr. President, I want to set the stage for where we are at this moment, what just happened. Republicans voted to move forward on a bipartisan appropriations bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes, among other things, ICE funding, TSA funding, FEMA funding, and the Democrats voted no.

Now, that is not all. Right about now, there is a bus leaving. There is a bus leaving the Capitol grounds and headed for an airport. Democrats are on that bus who just voted to defund the paycheck of the TSA agent making $40,000 a year, to hop on a plane, funded by your tax dollars, to go to Munich, to go to Europe, and badmouth American foreign policy. They will be sipping wine with the global elites, telling them: Don't listen to President Trump. That is not who we are.

I have got news for you: The American people have weighed in, and they did in November of 2024, and this new direction of foreign policy is the ascendant view.

But outside of the foreign policy debate, just how offensive is it that they voted to defund DHS and are going to fly transatlantic on the taxpayer dime and trash talk America.

That won't get reported probably many places. The corrupt media covers for the Democrats day in and day out around here. That is one of the things I have learned in my 3 years in the Senate. The hypocrisy is insane. That is where they are headed.

In a broader sense, where are we? For my Republican colleagues, I hope you appreciate what this is, this moment, because this isn't some isolated incident. This is a 10-year struggle for commonsense Americans who have pushed back against a radical open borders policy that has been pushed by the Democrats.

President Trump won in 2016 on a few issues, but the electrical cord that began when he came down the escalator, that continues to this day, is taking on illegal immigration and the forgotten men and women of this country whose jobs were initially displaced when the failed policies of the politicians of this town sent their jobs overseas--the towns that I grew up in--and then when they were looking for new jobs, their wages were suppressed, and their jobs went to illegal immigrants. The Democrats have never understood that. They have never understood that Americans were upset about that.

Then for the 4 years previous to this, Joe Biden's term, Joe Biden let in 15 million--million--people. One million is a lot of people. Five million is a lot of people. Fifteen million people came into this country illegally. We don't know who most of them are. We don't even know where they are. What we do know is that literally tens of thousands of them are murderers; hundreds of thousands of them are violent criminals.

The left has tried to destroy this country through this open borders policy because we are all citizens of the world. Borders are just arbitrary lines on a map. That is where the modern Democrat Party is. They don't actually believe that America, as a sovereign country, should be able to tell people who can come and who has to leave.

So that is what this whole thing is about. It isn't about Minnesota or some recent event; this is about the Democrats failing to accept the verdict from the American people--that they sent President Trump back into the Oval Office to fix mass migration, to take on mass migration with mass deportations.

Regardless of the antics that happened here today on their ``no'' vote and flying with the globalists in Europe, it will not change that agenda. It is happening whether you like it or not.

Thank God we front-loaded in the Working Families Tax Cut money for deportations and tens of billions for detention centers. Two hundred thousand Americans have applied to be ICE agents because they love this great country, and they don't want it destroyed.

This is another hissy fit along the way by the Democrats who refuse to accept the political reality that they lost on this issue. So as far as I am concerned, we can spend the next year debating this on this floor. This is a home game for Republicans. But what you are doing to the American people, what you are doing to FEMA, what you are doing to the people who rely on their communities to be rebuilt, the TSA agents that go to work every day, the Coast Guard, is shameful.

Joe Biden opened up our border. It is literally unprecedented in American history that a President would say: We are not going to enforce our immigration laws. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama deported millions of people.

This is an effort by the Democrats--this debate--to kneecap immigration enforcement, to kneecap ICE. They lost the issue on the front end of the election. Now they want to make it so hard for ICE to do their jobs that deportations come to a halt. That is the truth, and anybody in this town who tells you otherwise is just spinning.

They don't want people deported because they are importing a voter base that they think will give them power. They are not even hiding behind this anymore. They have lost the argument with American citizens, and they think that if they flood this country with illegal immigrants--and by the way, you shouldn't have to prove you are an American citizen to vote. That is their position. You shouldn't have to show photo ID, which is broadly supported even among Democrat voters. Why? Why would they do that? Even though their voters don't want that, even though their voters want photo ID to be established when you vote, why would they be opposed to that? Because they want people who shouldn't be able to vote--illegal immigrants or fraudsters--to vote for them. That is the truth.

So we have now the most secure border in the history of our country, and we are trying to execute on the immigration laws that we have on the books that have been voted for by Republicans and Democrats alike, and Presidents of both parties have enforced those laws.

This is about the 21-point plan. If you think it is such a good idea, put that 21-point plan on the floor, and let's

vote on it. They won't do it because they will lose. They know what it does. It ties up ICE's ability--which, by the way, they already have to abide by due process. There are already warrants. They know all this. They want to confuse the issue--mostly because they believe in open borders but also because this Trump derangement syndrome is really a hard thing to kick, a really difficult thing for them to kick.

We heard people being talked about here on the Senate floor. I want to mention a few names that no Democrat will ever utter: Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, Kayla Hamilton. These are American daughters, American sisters who were murdered by illegal aliens.

By the way, Laken Riley's murderer wasn't a previously convicted violent criminal. So if that is your test of who should be deported, it didn't help Laken Riley's family.

My priority--and the reason why I have been on this floor so many times about this issue--my priority is for Americans. Our immigration laws are put in place for one reason: to benefit America and Americans.

The rhetoric that has come from the left on this and my Democrat colleagues--we talk about, why was Minnesota a flashpoint? It is the sanctuary city status, the nine sanctuary jurisdictions in this country. In them, ICE agents are 590 times more likely to be assaulted. Since January of last year, there has been a 1,347-percent increase in assaults against ICE officers, a 3,200-percent increase in vehicular attacks. And don't tell me Tim Walz doesn't have something to do with that, and don't tell me that Mayor Frey doesn't have something to do with that, with the rhetoric. Even Senators on this floor, you know, called it Trump's secret police and the gestapo and Nazis. Knock it off. I hope you know better, but some people are actually listening to you. You have created conditions where confrontations are more likely.

There are deportations happening all over this country, in red States and blue States alike. You don't see what you see in sanctuary jurisdictions because they are cooperating.

Let's be clear what sanctuary status really means to the American people, OK? Local authorities will not tell ICE agents when illegal alien rapists are being let out of prison. That is what it means practically. They hate Donald Trump so much and they believe in open borders so much or they want new voters in this country for them so much, they crave for power so much that they are willing to let an illegal immigrant rapist back out on the streets.

A murderer. A burglar. Nope, we are not telling you. And oh, by the way, we are not going to send 9-1-1 to help you if you have a problem.

This is insane.

So to my Republican colleagues, let's put all of those issues in front of the American people. I am not afraid of this debate at all. Bring it on.

What is sad is that the Democrats continue to play the Ole game here. They negotiate a deal, and then they hold it up. We saw this with the longest government shutdown in American history just a couple months ago, and now here we are again with DHS funding. Meanwhile, they are sipping wine and eating caviar in Europe. I went to Munich last year.

It is also worth pointing out, by the way, that 2 years ago almost to the day, we were here. Those of us who thought that ``bipartisan immigration plan'' was terrible--and it was, which is why it fell apart; it made illegal immigration easier--we had to hold the floor all weekend long--in a bipartisan affair, by the way--to get Ukraine funding done in time for Chuck Schumer to deliver $60 billion to Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference.

What I have learned in 3 years here is that the Munich Security Conference for Democrats is like the Super Bowl. This draw to commiserate with fellow Wilsonians is a powerful drug. I don't know why in the world Democrats get to vote no on this and fly to Munich.

If the American people had any idea what went on in this town, they would be way more upset than they are right now. They expect us to come up here and to work on their behalf, for Americans, for the American people, for Laken Riley's family, for Kayla Hamilton, who was autistic, who was raped and murdered in her apartment for the $3 that she had on her so an illegal immigrant could go to Target with his buddy and spend the 3 bucks.

Why don't we hear about those stories? Because it is not convenient to the narrative.

That is what we are fighting against and who we are fighting for-- that is who I am fighting for--and if it were up to me, we would be on this floor every single day fighting for Kayla Hamilton, fighting for Laken Riley, and for the countless other daughters of this country who have been raped and murdered by illegal immigrants.

Todd Lyons, earlier today, testified--OK, just to tell you how sick this is--that in Colorado, ICE wanted to perform an operation in Colorado to deport illegal alien Tren de Aragua gang members from an apartment complex. So they tried to work with the local authorities in that sanctuary State. Guess what happened. Protesters were there, but the illegal immigrant gang members were all gone. They had been tipped off.

I actually can't believe this is happening in my country. I can't believe somebody's instinct with this crazy, suicidal empathy would be to protect an illegal immigrant gang member who could very easily and has--there are some dangerous people--murdered a family member and terrorized a community. They would rather tip them off than to have them deported. These are the facts.

So what should we do?

Here is what I think: I think it is actually an opportunity for us to strengthen our immigration laws. The Democrats want to kneecap ICE. I have submitted the Protect America Act for debate. It would do four things:

One, it would end sanctuary city status for good.

Two, it would increase penalties for illegal entry and illegal reentry. A lot of these crimes are being committed by people who have been deported and they come back. That has happened.

By the way, if you come here illegally, I think you ought to have jail time. As a former prosecutor as the attorney general of Missouri, I can tell you that people responded to incentives. They knew when we had a partnership with Federal prosecutors in St. Louis that, if they were being busted for a Federal crime, they were going to jail. If it were a State crime and if Kim Gardner--the Soros-funded prosecutor in St. Louis at the time--were handling the case, they literally would laugh in the back seat of the cop car because they knew they would be out later that day.

No more catch and release. If we are serious about it, no more catch- and-release. It is over.

Three, if you assault an ICE officer, we are increasing those penalties too. Protest all you want--for God's sake, this is America, and we have different points of view--but you don't get to interfere in the operations of Federal law enforcement. Even if you really believe you are wearing the white hat, you don't get to do that.

Fourth, as for this NGO network that has been created and that is fomenting this vitriol and the operations that are putting ICE officers and citizens at risk, they need to lose their nonprofit status.

So, if we are serious about the problem, that is what we will do. But I will tell you what we are not going to do: We are not succumbing no matter how long it takes--if it is one day. Let's just say my Democrat friends come back from Munich and they feel really good about themselves because a bunch of European elites has told them all the things they want to hear and vice versa. We are not coming back here and going to make it harder for ICE to do their jobs. We are not doing it. I will do everything in my power--and I know a lot of other folks on my side of the aisle will do it too--to prevent that from ever happening because the American people saw what a disaster it was to have Democrats in charge of this country. We had a secure border. Joe Biden literally unsecured that border on day one, and we had 15 million people come here illegally.

We are not going back. The American people saw that. They voted for President Trump. He was very clear about it. This wasn't a footnote in his campaign. This was a central theme. You may not like it, but that is what our Republic is about.

For all the talk of saving democracy and sticking up for democracy I hear from the other side, it is all nonsense.

If they actually believed that, they would respect the fact that the American people voted for this, that they voted for deportations. I know that in the ``woke'' left world, that is a dirty word. It is not where I come from, not in Missouri. People believe in common sense. They don't think you should get to break the law like that and get away with it.

So I don't know when--you know, I guess we will be back here in a week or something, but the reality is not going to change no matter how much Chuck Schumer tries to villainize ICE agents. No matter how many times I hear my colleagues from the other side try to stir up people, it will not change this very basic reality: We have front-loaded money for deportations, and those deportations will continue, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Now, if you want to make a proposal to stop that, put it on the floor. You will lose, but I want them to know and also my colleagues that I am 100-percent committed to this. It is central to the idea of being a sovereign country. No sane country in the history of the world would do this. By the way, in speaking of heading over to Europe, ask them how mass migration is working out for them. They have done it, and it isn't working.

So, if you have got any advice coming back from that side of the Atlantic, I am not really interested on this topic or on censorship. Maybe you can deliver the message that they ought to step up for their own defense of their own continent in a more meaningful way. Now, that might not make you popular over there, but that is the message that I delivered when I went over last year.

But as it relates to illegal immigration, the deportations will continue, and I hope the American people understand that the people who just voted to defund ICE are sipping champagne in Europe, bad-mouthing the United States of America's foreign policy. That is who they are. That is the reality.

This debate will continue. But as far as I am concerned, Republicans, we should be playing offense here. Let's strengthen our immigration laws. Let's treat this as seriously of a problem for our country as it really is.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, last month, I came to the floor after the tragic killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and talked about what had happened in my State.

Renee Good left behind three kids, including a 6-year-old. When she was shot and killed by an ICE agent, her final words to the officer who shot her were, ``I am not mad at you.''

Alex Pretti was a VA intensive care nurse and guardian angel who did one of the most selfless jobs one could think of, caring for our veterans, often in their final hours.

Last Saturday, I met with the workers who were on the shift that, only 2 weeks before, was that same shift of workers that were on when they found out that their coworker Alex had been killed.

His last words were to a woman who had been pushed down by Border Patrol, and his last words were, ``Are you OK?''

His fellow workers at the VA recounted to me what a kindhearted person he was, how every patient felt like they were the only patient. Other family members of patients had remarked about that too.

The coworkers told me how he was the kind of guy who would fill in on the shifts when someone had a family emergency or just needed time off, and he would fill in for them on their shift, including that Saturday morning shift.

Both Renee and Alex should be alive today, and as we honor their memories, I am on the floor again today following the administration's announcement of its plan to finally end Operation Metro Surge and drawn down the thousands of federalized agents that aren't just in Minneapolis or St. Paul--that, actually, I don't think people quite understand. They are all over our State. They are in the suburbs. They are in small towns.

The number of calls that we get--my office is handling hundreds and hundreds of cases right now, but the cases of just someone who is in the store and gets stopped because they are someone of color or the videos of two White friends with one Latino friend, and it is the Latino they would go up to and say, ``Are you legal?'' And the Latino says, ``Yes, I am,'' and they still throw them in the car, maybe because they could get a bounty. The number of people that were stopped multiple times, the Somali police officers who are off duty that were taken out of their car.

The stories go on and on. You can't have 3,000 ICE agents in a metro area. And, again, they also went rural in a big, big way, but in a metro area, where they outnumber the number of sworn police officers in our 10 biggest police departments, which includes Minneapolis and St. Paul, they were triple the number of sworn police officers in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

But for more than 2 months, Minnesotans stood together. They stared down ICE, and they never blinked. They marched--and I was there, 50,000 strong in 10 below zero weather--peacefully. And what I will never forget is 50,000 people marching peacefully, filling up the entire streets of Minneapolis peacefully, and then less than 12 hours, 24 hours later, 6 Border Patrol guys shot a guy with a cell phone in his hand in the back. They couldn't handle that.

So ICE is withdrawing from Minnesota. It is good. We are glad they are leaving our State, let me be clear. And when I talked to Director Homan about 10 days ago, he said this was the timetable, and they must follow through. He said they would first push out the Border Patrol agents and send them home. And they did that in the number of a couple hundred. And now they are bringing home the remaining Metro Surge ICE agents to get to the original footprint.

But ICE withdrawing from Minnesota is just the beginning. We need accountability for the lives lost and the extraordinary abuse of power in the hands of these agents.

And we, of course, must see a complete overhaul of the Agency. And I do not know how anyone can justify $75 billion extra dollars for this Agency, making them bigger than the FBI,

when that money could still--the remaining money--go to local law enforcement. It could go to help people pay for their healthcare premiums.

For months, ICE has made my State less safe. It is not just a horrific shooting; we have also seen repeated violations of the constitutional rights of the people of Minnesota. I do say to our colleagues, if you believe in the First Amendment, in the right to assemble, then show it. If you believe in the Second Amendment and that Alex Pretti had a right to be a lawful gun owner--and it was the Border Patrol agents that took his gun out of his holster, all he was holding was a cell phone--then show it.

If you believe in the Fourth Amendment and the right against search and seizure and that you can't have armed agents ramming through an elder Hmong man's door, pulling him out in his underwear and throwing him in a car, only to find out, after they drove him around for an hour, that they had the wrong guy and that, in fact, the guy they were going after had been in prison for years and that this Hmong man had done nothing wrong and was the son of a beloved nurse that treated American soldiers in Vietnam.

Those are the stories that people are never going to forget in my State: a fourth grader from Columbia Heights and her mom detained by ICE on the way to school; the little 5-year-old, little Liam, standing there scared in his blue hat with floppy ears and his Spider-Man backpack.

Those two kids, the fourth grader and Liam sent to Texas, and the judge--they sent him to Texas without even waiting to see what the court said. And then the court said: No, can't do that. And then they had to bring him back from Texas in his little blue hat with the little floppy ears.

This administration also sent a 2-year-old to Texas. My staff and many other local lawmakers worked through the night on that case--came back from Texas.

It should never have come to this. A court case was pending, and they put a 2-year-old on a plane when her mom was waiting for her in Minnesota.

These are just a few of the stories. As our local police have repeatedly made clear in the cities and in the suburbs and in the rural areas, ICE's actions have not made us safer. They have made us so much less safe. They have taken taxpayer money--at some estimates, $18 million a week--and spent it on hotel rooms that should have been used for families visiting from Wisconsin and Iowa and Canada that like to go to the Mall of America in the middle of the winter.

Those hotel rooms should have been used by people in Greater Minnesota that want to come in and go ice fishing or enjoy skiing in our State. But instead we had 3,000 ICE agents in Bloomington, MN, alone, our biggest suburb--1,000 ICE agents in their hotel rooms. Think of how much money that is and all the overtime for the police officers that could have been following up on child cases and could have been helping on burglary cases and could have been helping citizens with the trust that they have built over the years.

And that trust, so much on the line now, but kept intact because of how those local police officers throughout our State and local sheriff deputies have handled this travesty. This goes way beyond welcoming help for violent offenders, which we would, or a fraud investigation-- way beyond all of that.

In fact, the opposite has happened because some highly experienced prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota, who have been there through Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys and Democratic- appointed U.S. attorneys, who lead and have led the cases on fraud, the important cases to go after the stealing of taxpayer money, and brought 80-some cases already and won major convictions in court, those prosecutors who are so well-respected in our State were asked to investigate Renee Good's wife after she was gunned down. And they said: No, we will not do that, and they stepped down.

It reminded me of the decorated war veteran in New York in their U.S. Attorney's Office when asked to dismiss a case that had been rightfully brought against then-Mayor Eric Adams. That prosecutor, who had clerked for conservative Justices, a member of the Federalist Society, he said in a letter to the Justice Department:

You may find a fool or a coward to file your motion, but it

will never be me.

That is what those assistant U.S. attorneys, including the former acting head of the U.S. Attorney's Office that had been installed by the Trump administration on my recommendation who did an incredible job through the horrific assassination of former Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and also was there at the side for the families when those little children were gunned down through stained glass windows at Annunciation Church--those are the people that they messed with and asked them to do something they felt were unethical, and as a result, all of the prosecutors that were heading up the righteous fraud investigations and prosecutions are no longer in that office.

So you tell me how these actions have made our State more safe. It is the opposite: School attendance down; families living in fear; people staying home; restaurants and businesses feeling the impact; Operation Metro Surge costing our Minnesota economy an estimated $80 million per week, all for the shock and awe, where such a small percentage of the people that they apprehended were involved in violent crime.

At its peak, one study showed that the surge cost Federal, State, and local governments at least $18 million every single week. The fact is, Operation Metro Surge put our State at the center of America's heartbreak, but it also put us at the center of America's courage and America's hope.

Every day across our State, people did extraordinary things. Ordinary people did extraordinary things. They drove other kids to school. They brought food to their neighbors. They showed up for small businesses. Teachers and other school leaders stood up and protected their students, organized food drives and computer drives.

Attorneys across our State at private law firms took ICE to court to enforce people's constitutional rights. And judges appointed by Presidents of both parties, including our conservative chief judge of the Federal District Court of Minnesota issued opinions, and strongly worded opinions, demanding that people come into court unless their orders were followed.

Today, the administration's top border official Tom Homan announced the end of Operation Surge and the drawdown of the 3,000 ICE agents-- again, triple the amount of sworn police officers in the combined cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul--leaving only what he has called ``a small footprint.''

He has been straightforward with me since he arrived on the ground in Minnesota, straightforward with our chiefs, and we appreciate that. But we must be vigilant in making sure there is a real and thorough drawdown. We need transparent, objective investigations and justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti and the many others who had their rights violated by this administration.

There must--must--be new leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, and Kristi Noem must resign. That is what you do with $75 billion? You put bounties on legal citizens? You break out windows of people with disabilities who are born in this country and drag them to a detention center? That is what you do with $75 billion of taxpayer money?

You take Hmong elders and throw them out of their house in their underwear with their Crocs on their feet in below-zero weather and throw them into a car? You stop off-duty police officers just because they are not White? That is what you do with $75 billion? So that is why she must step down.

And there must be major reforms to immigration enforcement, including a complete overhaul of this Agency. Americans want Federal agents to abide by the same code of conduct as local law enforcement and be held accountable when they don't. Americans want transparency. Federal agents shouldn't be masked. They should be required to use body cameras. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

We must end roving patrols. Federal agents should not enter private property without a judicial warrant. We must end the bounty system that incentivizes arrest without cause and has taken down numerous people, multiple people, hundreds of people in our

State that were legal, born in our State, have passports. They wouldn't even listen to them when they told them as they threw them into a car. We must protect sensitive locations, and the racial profiling must end.

Today, a number of our colleagues, including myself, voted against continuing to fund ICE. Budget shows our values. That extra $75 billion, as I explained, triples the Agency's funding, giving it more money than the FBI. That was wrong.

That money could have gone to local enforcement, Affordable Care Act tax credits for 3 years, and $75 billion would have paid for everyone in the country to get their tax credit extended to help them pay for their premiums under the Affordable Care Act.

An occupying force was in our State. They tried to sow chaos and fear, but Minnesota didn't take the bait. As Bruce Springsteen sings in his new song ``The Streets of Minneapolis'':

Against smoke and rubber bullets

In the dawn's early light

Citizens stood for justice

Their voices ringin' through the night.

We have shown the world how to protect democracy and take care of our neighbors, and we are going to continue to stand up for accountability, for justice, for change.

And when people ask me: What can we do? Well, you do that. You continue to stand up.

When people outside our State say: What can we do to help Minnesota? Well, now, with ICE agents leaving--maybe you want to wait until the weather warms up just a little--you can come and visit our great State. You can fill up those hotel rooms that were taken over by ICE agents and go visit incredible places in our State, where Prince got his start.

You can go to First Avenue. You can go to the Mall of America. You can go up north or down south in Minnesota and see the incredible bike trails and beautiful places and Lake Superior, the most superior lake of them all.

So that is what we want you to do. We want you to come to our State and visit. We want you to invest in our State. We want you to start businesses in our State. We want you to send your kids to school in our State. We want people to come and work in our State because we have shown the country and the world what we are all about.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, so DHS apparently is going to shut down. Hopefully, we can get it back open. What is this all about? Obey the law?

You know what. I have an idea for you if you want people to obey the law in this country: Do away with sanctuary cities.

Senator Murphy is from Connecticut. It is 1 of 12 sanctuary States. What does that mean? Local officials, State officials, refuse to work with the Federal Government to turn people over to the Federal Government as required by Federal law. So you want to obey the law in Connecticut? Stop being a sanctuary State.

You want to fix immigration? Have policies that make sense.

You all act like, for 4 years, Biden wasn't President. Every Democratic Senator aided and abetted the Biden administration with a massive invasion of this country. You turned the other way. You never said a word. You let Biden obliterate our border. You let him send people into the interior on planes, trains, and automobiles. Only God knows what happened, who is here. You sat by, and you did nothing.

And here is what I have learned about my friends on the Democratic side: They are never going to agree to deport anybody because all their proposals make it pretty much impossible to deport anybody.

Body cameras, that makes sense. If you want to find out how to make ICE more professional, count me in.

But your proposal is to require a judicial warrant to deport somebody. Can you imagine how many judges you would need if you got 15 million illegal people here, to go get a warrant from a judge? This is not a criminal proceeding. This is an administrative proceeding. The President, as the Commander in Chief, has the ability to detain and deport people administratively. You don't need a Federal judge.

You are trying to create a mechanism so we will fail cleaning up your mess. We got elected to clean up your mess.

We are going to hold ICE agents accountable if they went too far. Tom Homan went to Minnesota to turn the heat down. Great.

Democratic politicians all over this country have been turning the heat up. You are wedded to lousy, dangerous policies.

Senator Murphy, why don't you get Connecticut right with Federal law?

Here is what has happened: We got 12 sanctuary States, 200-plus sanctuary communities, 25,000 people--ICE has requested a detainer, ignored for 2 years. States have refused to work with ICE for 25,000 people that have a detainer at the Federal level.

Sanctuary city law is a magnet for future illegal immigration. Sanctuary city policies are full of fraud like in Minneapolis. They bring out the worst in the system, not the best, and it breaks down law and order.

We have been talking for weeks about you wanting to fix things. You are blocking a debate. I can't believe I am here. I thought we were going to work together to try to find out how to reform ICE and also address the bottom-line problem, which is sanctuary city law abuse. That is the problem--not ICE, not Miller, not me, not Noem--policies that have been in place that entice more illegal immigration.

Every Democratic Senator turned the other way during the 4 years of Biden. You didn't do anything to bring reason to chaos.

How many of you spoke about Laken Riley? Talking about children being abused, how many thousands of people have been raped and abused, stolen and mistreated because of this invasion of illegal immigrants from virtually all over the world with people from gangs, you name it. So you never talk about the victims.

Just want to talk about TV in Minnesota. I am all for these ICE agents being reviewed. I am all for making them more professional. But I am not all for stopping the mandate that President Trump was given, which is to deal with illegal immigration and the criminal elements therein.

So I have legislation, S. 3805, and it says: If a State or local official does not turn over to the Federal Government an illegal immigrant who is facing criminal charges, been convicted or facing criminal charges, then that State or local official can go to jail.

You have an obligation under Federal law to turn these people over. Sanctuary States and cities--25,000 ICE detainers denied. Twenty-five thousand people that should be deported have not been turned over to the Federal Government because of these 12 States and these 200 sanctuary cities. Let's get to the root cause of the problem.

I am going to ask unanimous consent that we vote on S. 3805. That would make it a crime for a State or local official not to turn over to Federal authorities a criminal illegal immigrant, somebody who is charged with a crime or convicted with a crime. And if you don't turn them over, you would face punishment. That will stop illegal sanctuary city policy. If people knew they would go to jail for breaking Federal law, I think they would stop.

You have had weeks, and we are not even debating. You are never going to change. If you want to have immigration policed, our Democratic friends will never be there for you. They turned their back on you and your family and allowed this Nation to be invaded by 10, 15, 20 million people--who the hell knows.

We are trying to fix it. We are trying to fix it, and we are not going to give up. And until you change the policies, you never stop illegal immigration.

If there are 12 States that have sanctuary status, they will keep coming. All they have to do is get to one of these States. It is magnets for future illegal immigration. It breaks down law and order, and it needs to stop.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 318, S. 3805; further, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I thank my good friend Senator Padilla.

No. 1, we are going to have an election in November. Senator Padilla says that sanctuary policies are not part of the problem. I think they are. I think the American people believe that, when 12 States refuse to cooperate with the Federal Government when it comes to enforcing Federal law, they become sanctuary States and cities, and it entices more illegal immigration.

Do you know why we are not voting on my amendment? It is because most people don't agree with him, and they are afraid to vote. The only reason we are not voting on my amendment is that you would have to go back and tell the country why you voted against stopping sanctuary city policy, which is one of the biggest magnets of illegal immigration that leads to massive fraud and the breakdown of law and order.

The parties are in two different places. Democrats and Senator Padilla believe that sanctuary policies are no problem. The Republicans, including me and President Trump, believe we will never have orderly immigration until you get to the root cause of the problem. You have got 12 very liberal States and 200 cities that refuse to work with the Federal Government to turn over people who are subject to deportation.

I have an amendment that is being blocked that would make it a crime for a State or a Federal official who has custody of an illegal immigrant who is facing criminal charges or who has been convicted of criminal charges not to turn him over to the Federal Government to be handled and deported. They don't want that vote. You are never going to stop sanctuary cities until you make the people in charge of the State and the city pay a price for ignoring Federal law.

To the American people, you are not wrong to believe sanctuary city policy is bad for your country. Democrats are wrong to support it and want to continue it.

So what do we hear on the floor today? Not only is it that they don't believe it is a problem but that they wish to continue it.

This is why I want a vote. We are going to have a vote on this. You want to continue these policies. You don't think they are a problem. I want to end them. Let's have a vote, a debate and a vote. You bring up any amendment you want to bring up about making ICE better, defund it. Whatever you want to bring up I will vote on, but you are denying me a vote today on the root cause of the problem because you have absolutely no interest in recognizing it to be the root cause of the problem.

As a matter of fact, the Senator said I am wrong to believe that sanctuary policy is bad for our country.

No. You are wrong. You are wrong to have turned your back on the 15 million, 10 million, 20 million coming into our country for 4 years. You are wrong to sit by and watch these States obliterate the law. There are 25,000 people that local governments and State governments refuse to turn over to ICE who are eligible to be turned over, and there are 8 million people in these illegal sanctuary States and cities.

This is a debate worthy of the U.S. Senate and of a great nation.

Is Senator Padilla right that sanctuary policies are not bad for the country and that they should continue or am I right that we should reform ICE but that we also should end the biggest magnet to illegal immigration out there, I think, which are 12 States that violate, routinely, Federal law?

There are 12 States wherein, if an illegal believes you can get there, you are never going to leave the country. If we don't fix this problem, we will never fix illegal immigration. In the Gang of 8 bill, we actually fixed this problem.

So what have I learned?

I have learned that I can't get a vote on an amendment that would require State and local officials to obey the law or go to jail themselves when it comes to criminal illegal aliens.

My amendment says, if you have got a criminal in your custody and you don't turn the criminal over to the Federal Government, as you are supposed to, you could go to jail. They should go to jail. We can't have that vote. We can't have that debate.

This is a phenomenal day for the U.S. Senate. We have got the Senator from California overtly saying: We have no desire to change sanctuary policy. We think it is OK. Then we have got me and all of us on this side saying that you need to end this; that this will continue.

I am sad and disappointed we didn't have a bunch of votes today. Why aren't we voting? Because they blocked it. Why aren't we defunding DHS? Because they don't want to talk and fix the problem.

So here is the deal: No matter what--no matter how this ends--I am going to stay on this until I can't stay on it anymore. I want a simple vote as a U.S. Senator to have a debate as to whether or not sanctuary city policy, State policy, is bad for America or good for America. I think it is terrible for America.

For those engaging in sanctuary city practices, you are hurting the other 38 States. You are creating chaos for your country, and you should be held accountable.

One last thought: There was a clerk of the court in Kentucky who was a very religious woman. She did not want to recognize a gay marriage in Kentucky. She issued marriage licenses. The Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was the law of the land. She refused. I said she needed to do her job. She went to jail for 5 days, and she should have because you can't let your personal opinion take over your government function. You can't just obey the laws you like.

It is the same thing here--and every liberal clapped when I did that. It is the same thing here. If you have got a Governor or a mayor who will not turn over a criminal illegal immigrant, as required by Federal law, they should go to jail.

I want a vote. I want a debate. I am not going to let this go. The battle lines have been drawn.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I understand that this is a very important subject for my passionate colleague from South Carolina, but I also think there is a very fundamental misunderstanding, at a minimum, about what sanctuary policies are and what sanctuary policies are not.

Now, as I was listening to my colleague, he has tried to paint a picture of sanctuary States or sanctuary cities as nothing but lawless, and I get that it is maybe a favorite sound bite for rightwing media, but the fact of the matter is it is not true.

Sanctuary policies do not mean that there are no laws or that the Federal Government can no longer enforce Federal law in those jurisdictions. What sanctuary policies are is simply an affirmation that immigration enforcement is the job of the Federal Government and that State and local authorities cannot be co-opted or forced into performing inherently Federal responsibilities. It means that while Federal Agencies carry out immigration enforcement, State and local law enforcement will choose to focus their time, their energy, their resources on public safety in the local communities.

So let me say that again as clearly as I can: Sanctuary policies do not prevent ICE from going into any State or any city to arrest the violent criminals that the administration says they are after when they are being released from prison.

And, by the way, it is not like ICE does not know when someone is arrested. In fact, the Federal Government is notified every single time an individual is booked into a jail or prison. This means nothing is preventing ICE from picking up individuals when they are released from custody.

But instead of prioritizing picking up the dangerous, violent criminals they talk so much about, what is ICE doing instead? They are out roving streets in communities across the country and arresting people based on the color of their skin or the language that they speak or their perceived occupation.

There is a term for this, by the way. These are now known as the Kavanaugh stops because of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh--and, by extension, the majority of the Supreme Court--sanctioning this practice. It is wrong.

Now, I know my colleagues disagree with sanctuary policies as they are--official, technical. He describes sanctuary policies as ``killing this country.'' I have heard that a few times. And that by enacting sanctuary policies, leaders in these States are somehow ``openly defying federal law.''

Again, wrong. You can have your own opinion, but you can't own the facts. Far from defying Federal law, courts have actually upheld sanctuary laws and policies. I will reference just one. In a 1997 ruling in Printz v. United States, Justice Scalia wrote:

The Federal Government may neither issue directives

requiring the States to address particular problems, nor

command the States' officers, or those of their political

subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory

program . . . such commands are fundamentally incompatible

with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.

That sure doesn't sound like anyone is defying any Federal law to me. And nobody is accusing Justice Scalia as having been a leftwing radical.

And, yes, we do have more recent examples of courts rejecting the Trump administration's attempts to strong-arm cities and States into acting as Federal immigration agents.

Let me just say this: These policies that my Republican colleagues are determined to attack are not the reason for the chaos that the American people have been watching in horror unfold in the cities of Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Minneapolis, and so many others. Sanctuary policies aren't the reason why American cities and citizens are being pepper-sprayed or tear-gassed, beaten, unlawfully detained, or even shot in broad daylight like Renee Good and Alex Pretti. What is endangering the American people's safety and security is an out-of- control administration that has empowered a mass paramilitary force of ICE and CBP agents to act with impunity, without accountability, without oversight, and without consequences.

If we truly want to talk about public safety, then we need to be talking about reining in an out-of-control Department of Homeland Security, not scapegoating States and cities that choose to prioritize their local resources for their local public safety.

So, for the sake of the American people's safety and well-being, I object.

Mr. President, elections are the bedrock of our American

democracy, and despite what the President and his big circle of election-denying, conspiracy theorists would have Americans believe, the truth is that our elections are, indeed, free; that our elections are, indeed, fair; and that our elections are, indeed, secure.

That is why the revamped, new-and-made-worse SAVE Act, which was passed by the House last night and is designed to compel States to give over to Donald Trump their voter rolls, is not just a solution in search of a problem; it is also a very bad solution at that.

This bill is built on a myth that is rooted in the Big Lie of election denial that has poisoned our democracy for years, which is that supposed noncitizen voter fraud occurs with any meaningful frequency. It is the same Big Lie that is still being perpetrated by Kurt Olsen, who is the President's ``Stop the Steal'' lawyer now working in the White House and on President Trump's decision to send the Director of National Intelligence to Fulton County, GA, last month, to seize paper ballots from the 2020 election--ballots that have already been counted at least three times in three different ways and that have all reached the same election outcome.

The fact of the matter is that audit after audit and investigation after investigation in red States and in blue States have all reached the same conclusion, which is that voting by noncitizens--which, by the way, is already a felony--is so exceedingly rare that it is statistically almost nonexistent, which tells us something very important, though. It means our current laws are working; so we don't need new documentation requirements like passports and birth certificates.

By the way, 21 million Americans cannot readily access these documents. We shouldn't be risking the disenfranchisement of 69 million American women who have changed their names from what is printed on their birth certificates, most of whom made that change when they got married, and we don't need to force approximately 60 million Americans who live in rural communities to drive up to hundreds of miles to prove their eligibility in person. That is not election security. That is actually voter suppression.

It is important for the American people to understand that this Republican effort to jam the SAVE Act through--as they call it--isn't happening in isolation. There is a bigger picture here. This bill is part of a broader effort by Trump and his Republican enablers to lay the groundwork for the rigging of upcoming elections, including the midterms this November. Now, November might seem like a long way off, but the midterms have already begun. Primary ballots have been mailed out in many jurisdictions, and the first round of early voting begins today in some jurisdictions.

It is pretty clear which way the political winds are blowing. The American people are rightly frustrated by Donald Trump's failed economic policies that are raising costs for working families, and the American people are increasingly outraged by the cruel, violent mass deportation campaign unfolding in communities across the country, which has already cost two innocent American citizens their lives.

It seems to me that the SAVE Act is really only intended to save Republicans and Trump from facing the consequences of their failed policies, but rather than change their policies, Republicans would rather change the election rules.

How many times have we heard the President openly question our election system and why the Federal Government shouldn't run elections?

At one point, he said:

[I]f you think about it, the state is an agent for the

federal government in elections. I don't know why the federal

government doesn't do `em anyway.

Well, let me answer that question for the President. It is really simple.

It is because the Constitution says otherwise. The Constitution clearly entrusts elections to the States and to Congress, not to the President.

But those efforts to interfere are underway and ongoing. We have seen the Department of Justice sue 24 States that happen to be led by Democrats. They are targeting their voter rolls in addition to the intimidation and strong-arm tactics.

We also know that Donald Trump says he regrets not issuing an Executive order in his first term that directs the military to illegally seize voting machines. He is not shy about this, folks. He thinks he has the Department of Homeland Security now more willing to carry out such illegal actions this time around. So, yes, the threat is real.

Or consider his former White House adviser who has called on the President to deploy ICE to intimidate U.S. citizens who will be trying to vote this November. So let's be absolutely clear: That is already illegal. Armed Federal agents at polling locations is voter intimidation and has no place in our democracy. Think about that. Think about that. Using Federal force to intimidate voters at the polls? It is hard to imagine anything more un-American.

So that is why, today, colleagues, I am announcing a new amendment to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill that is still being negotiated and deliberated. It is an amendment to explicitly bar any Federal funds from being used to deploy Federal law enforcement or military personnel to polling places or election offices for the purpose of voter intimidation or election interference.

It is amazing we would have to say that. It is amazing that we would have to think about addressing that, but that is what the President wants. Now don't put it past him to try. It is time to send the administration a clear message that the United States of America's elections will be decided by the voters, not by force.

Colleagues, we as a Congress have a responsibility to act to protect the elections entrusted by the Constitution to us and to the States before it is too late.

We have a responsibility to reject this SAVE Act, to keep Federal law enforcement away from polling locations, and to make clear once and for all that elections and our sacred right to the ballot box belongs to the people.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I actually want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for bringing up what I think is a very important subject. I am proud, as you are, coming from a State that had voter ID.

Senator McCormick, you wouldn't necessarily know this, but we passed the first voter ID when I was speaker. I heard all of these arguments, and they fall on deaf ears.

As a matter of fact, if you take a look at the Help America Vote Act and other things, we can make it easy to vote. But we have to make it hard to cheat.

Most people in America don't realize that we estimate about 20 to 25 million people are illegally present in this country. And you should keep in mind that in each of the five last Presidential elections, the margin of victory

at the height was 9 million and at the low point was 2 million.

So when we say that illegally present people who are able to vote can actually change the outcome of elections, it is not theoretical. It is proven by the math.

So I appreciate your comments.

Federal Reserve

Mr. President, I am here to talk about a different subject. It sort of relates to the commentary that Senator Blackburn spoke about but only with a little bit different twist.

You see, I think that prosecuting--vindictive prosecution--is wrong, period. Whether the administration is a Democrat or a Republican, vindictive prosecution is wrong, period.

What we are on the brink of with respect to the Chair of the Federal Reserve is the pot calling the kettle black. We can't come here and talk appropriately about the Arctic Frost investigation, we can't talk about the various prosecutions under the Obama era and the Biden era as being bad if we actually condone what I believe, in many cases, are the same sorts of behavior today.

I am a Republican. I voted for President Trump. I support the vast majority of what President Trump is doing. But I think we have a trend here that makes us no better than the people that some of my colleagues are coming down to the floor and criticizing.

At some point, one of the two parties has to stand on principle and end this cycle or it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse.

Let me give you an example of where I think it is getting bad.

On a Sunday night, about a month or so ago, I saw a report that the Chair of the Fed Board Jerome Powell was being investigated by the DOJ. We all know the President's frustration with Chair Powell. I have got some frustration with him too. I am an armchair quarterback. There are certain things I didn't like him doing, but I never thought of him as a criminal.

But I find out, on a Sunday night, that we have somebody in the bowels of the DC District of the U.S. attorney--an assistant U.S. attorney--who has decided to pursue an investigation and seek an indictment of prosecution against 2 minutes of testimony in the Banking hearing that I attended. I not only attended that Banking hearing, but several of my colleagues did too.

Mr. President, as a matter of fact, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the comments from seven of my colleagues on the Banking Committee.

Mr. President, what this document does, and the reason I thought it was important to put it in the Record, is we have got--let's see--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, including me, who have said that we don't think a crime was committed. We are on the Banking Committee. We are the majority of the Republicans on the Banking Committee.

I am an old man. So I like watching ``Forensic Files.'' I don't know if young people watch it, but I have been watching it for like 20 or 30 years. I can imagine this being the opening of a ``Forensic File.''

Normally, it is about a perpetrator, and something bad happened. The prosecutor is going after them because they have the eyewitnesses.

Well, this ``Forensic File'' opens like this: All of the witnesses at the scene of the crime said no crime was committed, right down the line. In fact, they have even submitted printed evidence. Yet the prosecutor thinks otherwise.

I don't think that would be a very interesting ``Forensic Files'' because what it says is no crime got committed.

Now, can we talk about whether or not there was an overrun in the building? There may have been. But I don't know if everybody is paying attention, but that happens a lot in government. If we are going to actually accuse someone of criminal behavior because of a project overrun in Federal Government, we had better start budgeting a lot more for prisons because that is the norm here.

I hate it because I came from a world where you lost your job if you went over budget and over time. But that is just a part of the way this place works.

Two minutes of testimony, seven members in the Banking Committee, present on that day, saying that they do not believe there was criminal intent sends a very clear message to a young U.S. attorney with a dream in the DC District: Why don't you come talk to people who were at the alleged scene of the crime?

We said we do not believe there was any criminal intent--2 minutes.

Mr. President, as a matter of fact, the other thing, if I could ask unanimous consent to have another two pages printed in the Record, which are some of the allegations that were being quoted from a press report that are patently wrong.

Mr. President, this is a case where we had members on the committee responding to news reports that were proven wrong.

Folks, I thought this was probably going to end this way, and it is one of the reasons why I decided to invite myself to a tour when the President went to this building to take a look at it.

I was there with the President. He was very kind, shook my hand, and welcomed me to participate in this tour.

I saw nothing there. I saw a few things--frustration. You know, you have got the historic commission and everybody else controlling the state of the project. But I certainly didn't see any criminal activity. I certainly didn't see any of these alleged rooftop garden terraces, water features, VIP elevators, special marble. They had to take it down and put it back up. Building in DC is complicated.

So almost all of the allegations were disproven. And yet we still have a prosecutor that is trying to pursue a criminal prosecution of the Chair of the Federal Reserve.

The night that it was announced, I made the statement that I will take this allegation seriously. But I am concerned that it comes from someone without consultation with Big DOJ. I don't think Pam Bondi or any of the senior people in the DOJ knew anything about it. Without consultation with the White House, they decided to pursue this investigation.

So they put me in an untenable position. If I am quiet on that Sunday night and don't say something, Monday morning, we may wake up to a very different market. If, all of a sudden, the Federal Reserve, that since its creation has been considered independent and separate from many Presidents who have been angry with them--Democrats and Republicans alike--I felt like, if I didn't put my foot down and say, ``No one is going to fill that seat until this investigation is done,'' that we could have literally had headlines across all financial markets that the United States no longer has an independent Federal Reserve.

Unless you track it as closely as I have, in my current role as Senator and in my past role as a partner at Pricewaterhouse, tracking financial or banking institutions, you may not be able to appreciate this. But, folks, this is real. The Federal Reserve is the gold standard for central banks, and its independence is critically important. It is critically important for us continuing to have the gold standard for the economy, the gold standard for the rule of law.

We cannot allow some junior U.S. attorney--assistant U.S. attorney-- in some jurisdiction here, all of a sudden, to play with fire. They didn't know what they were doing. They didn't look through the second- and third-order effects, and, quite honestly, they exposed the President in the process.

I find myself in a position where I want to reaffirm what I said very directly on that Sunday night before the markets opened on Monday morning: I will not allow any Board member for the Federal Reserve to go through the Banking Committee for a Chair or for replacement of expired terms until this matter is settled. I have no problem with us having an investigation, like we should with so many other areas of the government.

I would like to have oversight of the East Wing construction to make sure that that stays on target and doesn't go over budget. I would like to have oversight into the Qatari 747 as the new Air Force One--kind of ``Air Force lite'' because you can't take it out of the United States. All of those are taxpayer dollars being spent, and we should have visibility into that.

So count me in for doing an investigation for the comments on that day. The 2 minutes of testimony, that is the only reason I am on the floor today and refusing to allow a Fed Board member to be confirmed, because I feel that strongly. As a matter of fact, it may take us to a new low in terms of a vindictive prosecution. And if you think Arctic Frost was bad, if you think some of the other investigations in the Obama era were bad, ladies and gentlemen, we are setting a new low that could make that look like child's play.

For that reason, until the investigation is resolved, I cannot and I will not vote to support anyone on the Federal Reserve in my remaining tenure in the U.S. Senate.