Floor Statements

Mr. President, Dr. James ``Jim'' E. Auer, who passed away in Nashville, TN, on May 16, 2024, was a pillar of the U.S.-Japan Alliance. I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Auer for a number of years, as he would attend events hosted by the Japan-America Society of Tennessee.

While I would speak with Jim from time to time, he never talked about--nor even hinted at--his own truly incredible accomplishments with respect to the U.S.-Japan Alliance. That is until, one day, it leaked out that President Trump was nominating me to be U.S. Ambassador to Japan, and Jim told my longtime assistant Betsy Van Dam that he needed to meet with me in person soon. And so Jim and I met, and he began to unpack for me his accumulated knowledge amassed over the decades of his experience with Japan.

Let me summarize some of that experience: Jim began his career working with the U.S. Navy in 1963 assigned to a minesweeper based in Sasebo, Japan. He would go on to be the first U.S. Navy officer to study at the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Staff College in Tokyo. In 1973, he would be a key figure in homeporting the U.S.S. Midway, the first U.S. aircraft carrier to be permanently based in a foreign country, in Yokosuka, Japan--a distinction that Japan continues to hold to this day.

From 1979 to 1988, he served as the Special Assistant for Japan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, acting as a bridge between the Japanese Defense Agency--now Japan's Ministry of Defense--and the U.S. Department of Defense. After his retirement from the U.S. Navy, Jim would spend the next 25 years serving as a professor at Vanderbilt University. At Vanderbilt, he founded the Center for U.S.-Japan Studies and Cooperation in 1988. For his devotion to the U.S.-Japan relationship, Jim was awarded the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun in December 2008. Jim Auer was a true treasure to the U.S.-Japan Alliance, and his efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Japan relationship are profound and enduring.

On a personal note, I found him to be an invaluable resource when I had the honor of serving as the 30th U.S. Ambassador to Japan. Indeed, I deeply appreciate that the strength of the U.S.-Japan Alliance today was made possible by the earlier accomplishments of trailblazers like Dr. Jim Auer. On May 24, 2024, I was honored to attend the Japan- America Society of Tennessee's annual meeting in Nashville and to remember Jim's legacy during a panel discussion with Japanese Ambassador to the United States Shigeo Yamada that was moderated by Chairwoman Masami Tyson. Jim's children Tei, Helen, and John Ed and the rest of the Auer family should know that our Nation is eternally grateful for his contributions.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record this obituary in memory of Dr. Jim Auer that was published in the Tennessean on May 28, 2024.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for Senator Schatz and I to conclude our remarks prior to the vote.

Mr. President, last week, the House of Representatives passed the Equal Representation Act. This commonsense bill would require that only U.S. citizens are counted for the purposes of allotting congressional districts and electoral votes. This makes sense. In order for every American's vote to have equal weight, only legal voters should be counted in apportioning voting power.

On the other hand, the current method of counting illegal aliens in allocating Americans' voting power dilutes the votes of some Americans. It also serves as a perverse incentive for open borders and sanctuary cities because resettling illegal aliens increases the relative political power of the States and the voters that do so.

What was once called a conspiracy theory turned out to be an objective fact that Democrats now acknowledge. Migrants here illegally are being counted in the census, and they are counted for determining electoral college votes and congressional seats. Commerce Secretary Raimondo confirmed this yesterday when I asked her in a committee hearing.

It is impossible to dispute that this policy increases the voting power of districts and States that resettle more illegal aliens. In fact, some Democrats have taken it a step further, calling for more illegal immigration to increase their power. Just this year, video surfaced of a U.S. Representative from New York--her name is Yvette Clarke--who said, when asked about illegal immigration, ``I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.'' Yes, that is what she said. She said it quite out loud. She represents the same district where James Madison High School is located. You may recall that last fall, last winter, James Madison High School was the school where the students were told to go home and study by Zoom so their school could be used to house illegal aliens. What Congresswoman Clarke means is that Americans are fleeing blue cities and States en masse because of failing government--and congressional seats are allocated based on population--so if you are losing population, you either have to backfill it or lose congressional seats. That is where the illegal aliens come in.

This Congresswoman's statement helps explain why President Biden and Democrats are allowing recordbreaking illegal immigration. It is to preserve their political power. Since President Biden took office alone, over 10 million illegal aliens have entered our country. That could amount to more than a dozen congressional seats.

This bill is simple. It would simply require that the Census Bureau include a citizenship question to provide a basic understanding of the U.S. population, which is the purpose of the census, and it would allow for delineation between citizens and noncitizens for apportionment purposes. My bill would count only citizens for purposes of congressional and electoral college apportionment. In other words, it would count only citizens for determining citizens' voting power. That way, the power of each American's vote doesn't depend on how many illegal aliens are in their area.

The Equal Representation Act will ensure that the weight of every American's vote is equal, it will restore the one person, one vote principle, and it will certainly end the perverse incentive under which illegal immigration increases political power.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that as in legislative session, notwithstanding rule XX, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 386, H.R. 7109. I further ask 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, first, I would like to remark that the border security bill that my esteemed colleague references would simply increase the processing of illegal aliens into this country. If this language were incorporated in it, we would stop the incentive for illegal migration. That would be the fix. That was not in the bill. The bill that he referenced would not have addressed the border security at all.

My Democratic colleague is objecting to legislation that would actually restore the one-person, one-vote principle, and it would end the perverse incentive under which illegal immigration increases political power.

It is indisputable that Congress can direct that a citizenship question be included in the census. It was included in the census for most of our history up until Barack Obama's administration took it out in 2010.

And the Constitution says that the census shall be conducted ``in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct.''

Congress does, indeed, have the authority to do this; in fact, we have had the citizenship question until 2010.

Second, on the question of what population is counted for apportioning House seats and electoral votes, the Constitution says that you count the number of persons in the United States.

It doesn't mean literally everyone in the United States. We don't count people here on vacation; we don't count people here on temporary stays. Why would we count people who are here and who have broken in illegally? It means citizens who are members of the American political body--a body that votes on representation--and who have permanent allegiance to our constitutional system.

In fact, it may be unconstitutional to count illegal aliens under the 14th Amendment because that dilutes some citizens' votes and undermines the principle of one person, one vote.

The constitutional argument is simply a dodge for the indefensible position that opposition to this bill means support for the notion that more illegal aliens should mean more political power for the States and the communities that attract.

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

Mr. President, in 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 14019. This Executive order directs Federal Government Agencies to engage in voter mobilization using taxpayer resources, and it requires that they submit a plan for doing so to the White House. This includes helping with completing vote-by-mail materials and finding third-party organizations to conduct voting-related activity on Federal property.

This Executive order prompted questions and concerns. First, there is no clear authority in Federal law allowing executive branch Agencies to work with certain voters to complete mail-in ballot forms and bring in outside organizations to help. And there is no authority for spending congressionally appropriated funds on this activity, raising the question of whether it violates the Antideficiency Act.

The same act prohibits Federal Agencies from accepting voluntary services, which this Executive order blatantly violates by directing Agencies to solicit third-party organizations to provide voting-related services on Agency premises.

There is also the question of whether the Biden administration is implementing this Executive order in a manner that violates the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act limits political activity by

Federal employees. The Hatch Act is a Federal law that was enacted in the 1930s for the very purpose of preventing this sort of government activity.

It was an act enacted after the Roosevelt administration was accused of using Federal employees and the WPA to boost Democrat candidates.

Does this sound familiar?

Think about VP Harris' recent announcement that Federal funds would be used to hire college students as ``nonpartisan'' poll workers this summer. As it turns out, her example that she used was a committed partisan.

Back to Executive Order 14019 and the Biden administration's pledge to be ``the most transparent presidential administration ever,'' surely, the Biden administration is going to go above and beyond to be transparent and explain exactly how this order is being implemented, right? Wrong.

In fact, in the 3 years since this order was issued, the Biden administration has done the exact opposite. The White House has stonewalled congressional requests to see the Agency plans that are required under the order, despite the fact that congressionally appropriated resources are being spent on these plans. They have gone to court to fight open records requests to see the plans.

Last May, along with several colleagues, I wrote to the White House asking for basic information on these plans. I never received a response. We wrote again in November, and, again, were ignored by the White House.

Now, I have introduced legislation that would simply require that the Agencies disclose their plans and provide an update on their implementation. That is it. They just have to explain what they are doing. Will they? I will note that I am not alone in seeking transparency regarding this Executive order. Several of my Democrat colleagues recently wrote The General Services Administration requesting its plan under the same Executive order. My legislation simply broadens this request by seeking transparency from all Agencies.

The White House's continued and deliberate secrecy begs the question: What are they hiding? What do they fear revealing? I think that we can surmise that these plans take our Nation right back to the 1930s, weaponizing government yet again, this time to recruit and to harvest Democratic voters.

The facts that have slipped out seem to confirm just as much. The Biden White House tasked a far-left organization called Demos, which describes its mission as ``pioneer[ing] bold, progressive ideas.'' This organization has been used by the White House to help implement this Executive order. Demos recommended this voter mobilization strategy to the incoming Biden administration in December of 2020.

Interestingly, Demos's former president was brought in to work in the White House, which dutifully issued this order implementing the Demos plan during President Biden's first year in office.

The Department of Health and Human Services has acknowledged that it is working with groups like the ACLU and Demos to implement this Executive order. A FOIA request also revealed that Demos is working with the Department of Agriculture.

It seems that the idea is to use Federal Agencies to provide point- of-sale voter mobilization, provide a Federal benefit, and then use that exchange of Federal benefits to mobilize the voter.

There is a reason why the Hatch Act and other laws prevent Federal employees from engaging in political activities--because Federal employees are paid to serve all American taxpayers, not use government benefits to activate voters. This sort of activity is fraught with potential partisan impact, even if it is ostensibly framed as nonpartisan.

Setting aside the clear policy and ethical concerns, all my legislation requires is transparency. The Biden administration has taken extraordinary steps to hide this information from the American people. Not only does President Biden owe taxpayers this information regarding how their hard-earned dollars are being spent on voter mobilization, but it is a basic duty of this body to oversee how congressionally appropriated funds are being spent, especially on activities for which they were never appropriated.

In just a few months, tens of millions of Americans will cast their vote for President. The American people deserve to know whether the incumbent President is attempting to tip the scales in favor of his own reelection using taxpayer dollars.

We all agree that free and fair elections are a foundational pillar of the United States. The Founders of the United States rightfully left that responsibility of carrying out Federal elections to the States, not to the incumbent Federal President. This was to help ensure the integrity of and ensure the confidence in our election system.

This Executive order is an extreme departure from the American model. The President using the vast Federal bureaucracy to carry out his secret voter mobilization operation months before the election is a dangerous precedent, and it should alarm every one of us here in Congress, and, frankly, it should alarm every American.

That is why I am requesting that the Senate pass legislation requiring that the Biden administration disclose these plans and provide the transparency that is necessary to address rightful concerns about using taxpayer dollars in an unlawful and in a deeply disturbing manner.

So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that, notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 4239, which is at the desk. I further ask 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 appreciate my colleague Senator Padilla's outreach toward each other, and I look forward to working with him on a number of issues in this regard. He has great expertise in this arena. But I have a very basic question to ask, and that is: What is this administration afraid of? Because all I am asking for is transparency. I am just asking to see the plans that are commanded by this Executive order, yet the administration stonewalls us on this. We talk about having conversations, but why not just show the plans?

I fear that this is a return back to the 1930s, a return back to the weaponization of government, delivering a point-of-sale benefit, and, at the same time, bringing along a voter registration package and an encouragement of voting for the incumbent administration.

Let's see the plans. Let's allay the concerns that I raise. This administration is not doing that. This administration is stonewalling us. In fact, my colleague Senator Padilla has also requested transparency of the GSA to find out what they are doing with respect to implementing this Executive order. Let's expand this to all Agencies. Let's let the American public see what the Biden administration is up to with this Executive order.

But the real motivation of this Executive order was the fact that the Biden administration was disappointed that they weren't able to federalize our election system. After the failure of H.R. 1 and S. 1 here in the Senate, this is the result, Executive order 14019. This is the command to weaponize the Federal system for election year activities. I think Americans deserve to see what these plans are, and I would look forward to the transparency that I am asking for.

Madam President, in our Nation's 248-year history, the House of Representatives has impeached individuals in 21 cases. Reflecting the grave, highly rare exercise of this constitutional power, the Senate has tried each such case, except where the person resigned office before the Senate trial, rendering such trial moot.

This includes two partisan Democratic impeachments of the former President--one in which the Republicans controlled the Senate and one in which it was equally divided.

Shattering norms, however, is becoming a defining theme for Democrats this year. Why are my Democratic colleagues so eager to shirk their constitutional duty and ignore an impeachment? Because they want to ignore the damning evidence of Secretary Mayorkas's willful violations of immigration law.

I can think of no better example than the Secretary's decision to willfully and knowingly exceed his parole authority set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act. That law permits the Secretary to grant parole but only

on a case-by-case basis, temporarily, and ``for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit''; for example, when a person is in need of urgent medical care or the person needs to attend a family member's funeral. He has even created a new taxpayer-funded parole program to allow aliens from numerous countries to be flown directly into the United States.

He has abused his case-by-case parole authority beyond any degree imaginable. He is now flying 30,000 illegal aliens per month directly into the United States for resettlement.

This is a blatant violation of the law, and it is abuse of the parole law in particular. Two weeks ago, every single Senate Democrat voted against my appropriations amendment to defund this very parole flight program. That vote is impossible to explain to ordinary Americans. They see the absurdity of flying in tens of thousands of illegal aliens right in the midst of an illegal immigration crisis.

So, instead, partisan so-called fact checkers have recently been quibbling over which flights or which airports are being used. This is clearly an attempt to distract from the basic problem with this taxpayer-funded program, which is that it is illegal and it is absurd.

I understand why Democrats want to cover it up though. It is the same reason they don't want to consider these impeachment articles.

Similarly, the Secretary terminated contracts for border wall construction and refused to expend funds that Congress appropriated for this specific purpose.

Secretary Mayorkas's impoundment of funds is a clear attempt to usurp the will of Congress by refusing their mandate, our mandate, to build the border wall.

The Secretary has also replaced detention mandates in law with unlawful mass catch-and-release policies that encourage illegal immigration.

The law requires that illegal aliens are detained until they are deported, unless they are clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be allowed into the United States. Instead of complying with this requirement, the Secretary has released millions of illegal aliens into American communities.

We have seen the devastating effects of the Biden administration's illegal border policies. We have heard from Americans whose lives and property are being destroyed by droves of illegal aliens who are coming into the United States every single day.

We have heard from Border Patrol agents who want nothing more than to do their jobs and secure the border, but whose hands have been tied by the Mayorkas-led Department of Homeland Security.

The American people have seen the chaotic images of the southern border under this administration. They have witnessed the ravaging effects of illegal immigration in their own communities. This includes drug overdoses, violent crime, local disorder, and the national security threat of unknown bad actors from all over the world coming across our open border.

And 249 people on the Terrorist Watchlist have been encountered at the southern border just last year alone.

Since October, a record number of Chinese nationals--22,000, in fact--have been encountered by Border Patrol; in all, over 10 million illegal aliens have crossed the border under this Secretary's watch. The collapse of our southern border and the devastating consequences and future risks it has created for our Nation is the greatest national security risk we face as a nation.

The House of Representatives took the extraordinary step of impeaching a government official for his role in this, and yet Senate Democrats want to completely ignore all of this? They don't want you to hear about it. They want to sweep it under the rug in an election year.

The Secretary's alleged violations of law warrant a trial before the Senate. It warrants basic diligence in examining the evidence. And every Senator should go on record regarding the charges.

I have cosponsored resolutions by several colleagues establishing impeachment procedures that are in line with past Senate impeachment trials. We are open to debate on the details of the process, but there must be a process.

This is an important point: The current debate is not even whether or not Secretary Mayorkas is guilty as charged but whether we should even examine the question or whether, instead, as the Senate majority leader reportedly plans to do, we should just hide the evidence from the American people and avoid discussing this administration's failures at all costs.

Why? Because this is an election year. If the majority leader wishes to honor and preserve the world's greatest deliberative body, I urge him not to take this unprecedented step of blocking consideration of the impeachment articles against Secretary Mayorkas.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in order to consider my very simple and reasonable amendment, it is vital that the Senate must move the Democratic leader's blocking amendment out of the way in order to move forward with mine.

Let me cut through the procedural language here. I am bringing forward a vote on a very simple question: Do you support American taxpayer dollars being used to fly illegal immigrants from countries like Venezuela and Haiti into America to be settled in cities and towns near you?

If so, then vote against it. Vote no to preserve this practice of using taxpayer dollars to charter planes that move and import thousands of illegal aliens into your States.

Make no mistake here, President Biden has been secretly flying hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from foreign countries into blue city airports. Just last year alone, in 2023, it was reported that some 320,000 illegal aliens had been flown in using this method. Americans are shocked that this is happening.

Mr. President.

I move to table Senate amendment No. 1793 for the purpose of offering my amendment No. 1808, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today as the Senate again finds itself facing a potential government shutdown due to the majority leader's political games. And again, the Senate must consider what we will do in response to the grave national security crisis that is emanating from our southern border.

It is deja vu from 2 weeks ago, when I offered a simple amendment regarding just one corrosive, anti-Democratic effect of this crisis. My amendment would have stopped illegal aliens from being counted for allotting congressional seats and, therefore, electoral college votes.

It did so by requiring the census to determine basic population statistics--like the number of citizens, noncitizens, and illegal aliens who are living in this country--and by requiring that only U.S. citizens be counted for the purposes of determining the number of House seats and the number of electoral college votes in America.

Currently, illegal aliens are counted when determining Americans' representation in government and the worth of their vote. The more illegal aliens and noncitizens in your State or district, the greater your voting power in Congress and in Presidential elections.

This means that in a State like California--or a city like New York-- millions of illegal aliens result in several more congressional seats and electoral votes for that jurisdiction.

That helps explain why the majority leader worked so fervently 2 weeks ago to avoid a vote on my amendment--until it was clear that such obstruction would lead to a government shutdown. It also explains why every single Democrat voting on my amendment opposed it. Because when it comes to the census, the majority leader believes that ``every person must be counted.'' Evidently, that means illegal aliens too.

And with respect to commonsense proposals like mine--to count citizens, not illegal aliens--for apportioning voting power in America, what does the majority leader have to say? Well, he calls it an attempt to weaponize the census.

Really? That is quite rich. Aren't Democrats weaponizing the census by counting people living in our country illegally? Do we count diplomats? Do we count people who are here on vacation? Why would we count people who are here illegally? That is the essence of weaponizing the census.

Here is what is really going on. Several weeks ago, video emerged of a Democrat House Member from the majority leader's home State in which she called for more illegal immigration to her district for redistricting purposes.

What she means is that Americans are fleeing blue cities and States en masse because of bad government, but congressional seats are allocated based on population. So if you are losing population, you either have to backfill it or lose congressional seats.

This Representative stated that, because of her population loss, she needed to fill her district with illegal aliens to keep from losing her seat. That is exactly what my amendment would have prevented.

The Representative who made these comments is not only from the same State as the majority leader but she represents the same district that the majority leader formerly represented when he served in the House of Representatives.

This is the same district which houses James Madison High School. You remember James Madison High School. That is the school that cleared out its own students to make room for illegal alien housing. It is even the high school that the majority leader

himself attended. You talk about weaponizing the census.

If you don't believe me, listen to what New York City is saying itself. Just last week, New York City announced that it is challenging the 2023 Census Bureau annual estimates, arguing that the government failed to count some 50,000 illegal aliens currently in the city. They are desperate to count these illegal aliens because 727,000 people have moved out of New York since 2020. They have got to backfill that population to preserve their Federal influence.

It is clear why the majority leader and my Democrat colleagues voted against any change to the census. It is not because they are afraid that Republicans will weaponize it; it is because Democrats already have weaponized it.

Prior to this vote, the concept was decried by Democrats in the media as a ``conspiracy theory.'' Democrats' unanimous vote against ending this practice changed it from a conspiracy theory to a conspiracy-- period.

It is why they have done nothing to secure our southern border, and it is why there is no outrage from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when confronted with the fact that the number of illegal aliens who have entered the United States since Biden took office exceeds the population of 36 States. And President Biden and Democrats aren't just sitting back and allowing the crisis at our southern border to unfold; they are actively encouraging it.

For example, President Biden has been secretly flying hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from foreign countries into blue-city airports across the United States in order to resettle them there.

Earlier this month, scarce details emerged regarding the administration's secret flights. They revealed that more than 320,000 illegal aliens were flown directly into the United States last year alone. One can't help but wonder whether the President is trying to make it even easier for blue States to backfill their declining populations and shore up their political power by delivering these illegal aliens directly to them.

Flying migrants from foreign countries into the United States in the midst of a record-shattering illegal immigration crisis is completely absurd. I plan to soon file an amendment to the appropriations bill that would prohibit the Biden administration from doing this.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this commonsense measure.

The question is simple: Are Democrats willing to allow a vote on my amendment to stop President Biden from using secret flights to import hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into the United States? Or are they so desperate to preserve this political power grab that they can't risk the possibility of losing it by allowing such a vote to occur?

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. This modification removes my amendment, and my amendment removes a very perverse incentive for illegal immigration and for sanctuary cities. It is very straightforward.

My amendment preserves the equal weight of each American citizen's vote because it prevents the use of illegal immigrants coming into sanctuary cities from diluting the votes of American citizens like those in my home State of Tennessee.

Therefore, Mr. President, the Senate should be voting on this; it is germane; and, therefore, I object.

Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to explain why the Senate should vote on my amendment to the funding bill and why the Democratic leader is wrong to hold up this process. This is a process that should already be concluded by now. It is simply because he wants to avoid voting on my amendment.

My amendment is simple. It would require that the census determine basic population statistics--like the number of citizens, noncitizens, and illegal aliens who live in this country; you know, what the census is supposed to do--and it would require that only U.S. citizens be counted in determining the number of House seats and electoral votes that go to each State. That is pretty simple. That is pretty straightforward. That is how most Americans think things should work here in America.

Unfortunately, illegal aliens are currently counted for the purposes of determining how many congressional seats and how many electoral votes a given State may obtain. The more illegal aliens, the more noncitizens in your State or your district, the greater your voting power in Congress and the greater your voting power in Presidential elections. This means that in a State like California--millions of illegal aliens result in California getting several more congressional seats, several more electoral college votes.

This not only destroys the principle of one person, one vote by making some Americans' votes more powerful than others, but it encourages illegal immigration in sanctuary cities as a way to increase political power. Think about that.

Over the past 3 years, Americans have seen the devastating consequences of this perverse incentive to bring illegal migrants into this country to leverage them, to build more congressional districts and more electoral votes on the backs of these illegal migrants.

Joe Biden has allowed nearly 10 million migrants to come into our country illegally just since he took office 3 years ago. That is significantly more than the entire population in my State. That is more than 13 congressional seats and electoral votes that are wrongly distributed.

Several weeks ago, video emerged of a Democrat House Member from New York calling for more illegal immigration to her district for redistricting purposes. Yes, you heard that. What she means is that Americans are fleeing blue cities and States en masse because of bad government. But congressional seats are allocated based on population, so if you are losing population, you either have to backfill it or lose congressional seats. This Representative stated that because of population loss, she needs to fill her district with illegal aliens. She has to do that just to keep from losing her congressional seat. She is inviting these illegal aliens to come into her district in New York just to do that. Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, if you want to know who it is.

The Representative who made these comments represents New York's Ninth Congressional District. That is the same district in which the James Madison High School resides. That is the same district--James Madison High School recently had to clear out its rooms, recently had to clear out the school for illegal immigrant housing. The children were told to go home, to study by Zoom. Their school was now being confiscated to place illegal aliens in their school.

Interestingly, that is also the very same district that the Democratic leader formally represented when he served in the House of Representatives. Even more interesting than that, James Madison High School is the very high school that our Democratic leader attended.

The weight of every American's vote should be equal. More illegal alien resettlement shouldn't mean more political power. My amendment would ensure just that.

Currently, a sanctuary city with hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens not only gets more electoral votes and congressional seats because these illegal aliens are counted, but the weight of residents' votes are stronger because their voting power includes the population of noncitizens despite the fact that these noncitizens can't vote. These illegal aliens provide leverage to citizens in these sanctuary cities.

For instance, in a sanctuary city congressional district that contains 50 percent illegal aliens, the number of actual voters is half, and the power of their votes is double relative to a district that contains only citizens. Think about it. Your district is 50 percent illegal aliens. Those citizens who are allowed to vote have twice as much power as those congressional districts like those in my State that don't have these illegal aliens counted.

Only citizens should be counted in determining the power of citizens' votes.

If this perverse incentive and dilution of Americans' votes is allowed to continue, the surge in illegal immigration under President Biden will also continue, and it will continue because they want to increase power in sanctuary States. This destroys the one person, one vote principle.

All of this is to backfill congressional districts, just like the one in Brooklyn, NY, that Congresswoman Clarke was calling for.

That is why I am offering my amendment, Hagerty No. 1634, to preserve the one person, one vote principle and to ensure that only citizens are counted in determining the power of citizens' votes. If Democrats allowed a vote on it, we could have resolved this whole process already. Yet we are still here.

The question is pretty simple: Are Democrats willing to vote on my amendment to stop illegal aliens from being counted in determining congressional seats and electoral votes or are they so desperate to preserve this political power grab that they can't possibly risk the chance of losing it and bringing my amendment to a vote?

There is no question where the blame should lie for any delay or government shutdown that might occur from this. I am not asking my Democrat colleagues to vote for this; I am simply asking that they vote on it--although I hope they would consider the implications of putting their interests over the interests of the citizens of this country on an issue this important to the American people. Our citizens deserve to know where their representatives stand.

I thought I might take our audience back in time, back to when this began, back to when President Joe Biden took office in January of 2021.

When Joe Biden came into office, he immediately began to repeal the successful policies that President Trump had instated to ensure security at our southern border. He did this in an effort to precipitate the border crisis we currently are experiencing.

I warned back in January of 2021, and I am going to read a direct quote here, that ``these proposals inspire lawlessness, [they] enable the flow of illegal drugs and human trafficking and [they will] threaten Tennessee communities [that are] already hurting due to the ongoing pandemic.'' My warning back in January of 2021 has come true.

Then President Biden appointed Secretary Mayorkas to head up the Department of Homeland Security. I warned against appointing Secretary Mayorkas at the time. I explained to my colleagues that the DHS inspector general found that Secretary Mayorkas intervened outside the normal protocol to push through visas when he worked in the Department before, including securing a visa for an executive from Huawei, the communist Chinese technology firm that has so aggressively in a predatory manner tried to take over our own telecommunications and information systems. Can you imagine that? A person who was using their influence as a member of the Federal Government, in the Department, to push for visas for executives from Huawei. That was Secretary Mayorkas. My warnings were ignored. Secretary Mayorkas was placed into office, and we have seen what has precipitated from that.

In February of 2021, I warned against President Biden's repeal of the National Emergency Act at the southern border, the radical amnesty proposal that President Biden came up with, and his termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols that had been so effective. I warned against all of these things because it would encourage more illegal immigration, and in doing so, it would reduce opportunity for American workers and place American citizens at greater risk of losing their children and loved ones to overdose and at greater risk of crimes like we have seen perpetrated in New York and Georgia.

Just under 3 years ago, I visited Guatemala and Mexico to get to the heart of America's border security problems and to underscore the fact that this is urgent, and it clearly needs to be dealt with. When I met with President Giammattei in Guatemala, he spent an hour and a half with me. He said: I can tell you what the ``root cause'' is of this immigration crisis. It is the messages coming out of the White House. He told me that we had precipitated a national security crisis in his own country of Guatemala because now caravans were moving through his country to get to ours. He said: I don't know who is coming into my country. The danger that that places Guatemalans under is a direct consequence of the actions that are being taken by your President in America.

He told me this in the spring of 2021.

He also said something else. He said: The coyotes are smart. They take the messages and they extract those messages from your President and they market them to the most vulnerable people in my country. They persuade them to take their life savings and, generally, their most promising child and entrust those lifesavings and that child to a criminal cartel that will then move that young person on an extraordinarily dangerous journey from Guatemala all the way up to the northern border of Mexico.

I just got back from our southern border. It is a disaster like nothing I have ever seen. If you saw the risk that these young people were undertaking by following the cartels on this journey--they have given all their money to the cartels. Now these young people are trapped and ensnared by them. They are placed in unbelievable conditions and unbelievable risks.

What I saw down there would shock any of us in this room. This is the type of risk that we are creating. This was the complaint that the President of Guatemala made in no uncertain terms to me.

When I talked to the Foreign Minister of Mexico on the same trip, he explained to me that we were destabilizing the economy of his country as well. No idea where these people are coming from who are flying into Mexico who are getting there by boat or any other means of transit, but they have to deal with them as they march through his country.

The cartels are becoming so strong that the Mexican Government cannot contend with them. The cartels today are multibillion-dollar criminal organizations that are working hand in hand with the communist Chinese. They are delivering poison into America every day. The precursor chemicals from fentanyl are coming in from China to Mexico. The Chinese criminals are working hand in hand with the Mexican cartels. They set up operations to poison young people in America.

Now, the No. 1 cause of death for young people in America between the ages of 18 and 45 is drug overdose. You can thank our open borders; you can thank the cartels and the CCP; and you can thank President Biden for enabling all of this.

I introduced the Migrant Resettlement Transparency Act that would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Homeland Security to consult in advance with State and local officials of those jurisdictions that would be impacted by the movement of these migrants regarding the federally administered program of migrant resettlement.

Don't you think our communities should at least know who is coming, when they are coming, and where they are going to come? Can their schools withstand it? Can the hospitals withstand it? Can our police forces and social services withstand it?

These are very legitimate questions to bring forward, but we have had a

dearth of information coming from the Biden administration. In fact, the first discovery of their movement of these migrants into towns and States away from the border was in my home State of Tennessee. They filmed them flying in after midnight to Chattanooga, TN. These illegal migrants were brought off planes, they were deposited in Chattanooga, and then bused off to points unknown.

Our communities need to know what sort of impact they can expect from all of this illegal activity. That information resides with the Federal Government within the executive branch of this administration, an administration that is acting in such a lawless manner that they won't even tell us who is coming, what is coming, or when. It is destabilizing cities and towns and counties across America, and it is happening in my home State of Tennessee every day.

You know, back in May of 2021, when he appeared before the Appropriations Committee, I asked Attorney General Merrick Garland if he would be willing to echo Vice President Kamala Harris's message that she had given: ``Do not come.''

Think about it, Attorney General Garland, our chief law enforcement officer in America. I heard Vice President Harris say this: ``Do not come.''

Would he be willing to echo that sentiment, send that message to those who would illegally enter our country? He declined to do so. I think that should tell you all you need to know when America's chief law enforcement officer is unwilling to tell people to not enter our country illegally.

In August of 2021, I asked my colleagues for support on my amendment to ensure ICE has sufficient resources to detain and deport all illegal aliens who have been convicted of a criminal offense in the United States. Even though the Senate adopted it, Schumer and his Democratic colleagues stripped it out of the final bill. Again, the leader allowed his Members to vote for it for political purposes, but at the end of the day, they stripped away ICE's ability and ICE's resources to actually deport people who have committed criminal acts here in America. Outrageous.

In 2022, it was revealed that while the Biden DHS was not securing our border, they were actively working to censor Americans' speech. I introduced the Disclose Government Censorship Act to require the administration to disclose its coordination with social media companies and its censorship activities. Well, I guess you can imagine what that met with here in the Congress--again, an unwillingness to require our executive branch to disclose when it works with Big Tech companies to censor Americans' speech. They want the ability to do this. They want the ability to police and censor Americans. Yet they will not police our own southern border.

In August of 2022, all 50 Senate Democrats voted against my amendment to direct the Judiciary Committee to ensure that ICE has sufficient resources to detain and deport just a greater number of criminal illegal aliens. Again, the response was no from every Democrat in this body.

What are you saying when you vote no to providing the resources to ICE to deport criminal illegal aliens? You are saying that you are willing to support their criminal activity here in this country and that you are not going to send them back to their country of origin when they come here and do something like that.

They have also objected to my bill, the Stop Fentanyl Border Crossings Act. And that objection has been made on multiple occasions because I brought it to the floor on multiple occasions every time I hear of another child dying in Tennessee and I talk with a parent or grandparent who has learned from law enforcement or from healthcare providers that their son or grandson or daughter or granddaughter will not be coming home ever again because of being poisoned by fentanyl that has come illegally across our border. My bill would have allowed HHS to exercise its title 42 authority to combat this fentanyl trafficking, to combat these overdoses.

Let me put this into perspective. Just last week, I looked at data from 2021. I can tell you, the charts are moving in absolutely the wrong direction, ramping up year after year after year. The latest data the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation shared with me was 2021. I took the annual number of overdoses, and I divided that number by 365 to get to a daily count of drug overdoses in Tennessee of 86 drug overdoses a day in our State--86 a day. That is just in 2021. It is probably up to 100 by now. It gets worse. When I looked at the number of deaths from drug overdose in my home State of Tennessee, that calculated to 11 kids per day dying in my State every day from drug overdose, from fentanyl poisoning in most cases. When you extrapolate that across the Nation, we are talking about 300 kids a day dying here in America. Why are we tolerating this? Why is America tolerating this? Why would this body not pass my Stop Fentanyl Border Crossings Act? Why is the administration and my colleagues in this body, why are they willing to look the other way?

It goes back to the amendment that I am here to talk about today. It goes back to the very essence of power here in America and the way that power is distributed. When you think about it, the simplest answer is usually the right one. The simplest answer is usually the correct one. It is called Occam's razor.

In this case, the simple answer is this: Illegal immigrants are counted for the purpose of allocating congressional districts and electoral votes in America. The more illegal immigrants that you have in your State, the more congressional votes you get, and the more electoral votes you get, the more say your State and your citizens have when it comes to elections and legislation.

Look at what is happening in States like California, Illinois, and New York. People are fleeing these States. I should say citizens are fleeing these States. They are moving to States like my own in Tennessee. They are moving to Florida. They are moving to other places. They are leaving because of terrible policies. They are leaving because of rampant overspending. They are leaving these blue States en masse where the sanctuary cities are located. You won't be shocked to know that sanctuary cities are located in New York, in Illinois, and Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. These sanctuary cities act as a giant magnet to attract the illegal migrants that have come across our border. These migrants have already broken the law once coming into our country.

Where are they more likely than not to go? Would it be to those cities or States that have pledged not to enforce the immigration laws? I think you know the answer. That is the motive behind the crime that is taking place at our southern border.

I have been working to prevent the Biden administration from giving plane tickets to migrants. You all probably heard about this. Illegal migrants who come to our border are given plane tickets to fly anywhere they want to in the United States.

Let me explain how it happens. A Biden program called SSP provides, through FEMA, enormous sums of money to nonprofits that then, in turn, take those funds to transport illegal aliens into American communities. It has gotten much worse every year under President Biden. SSP and its precursor program received $800 million to do this back in fiscal year 2023. That is up from just $150 million the year before it. The recently rejected Senate border bill had an eye-popping $1.4 billion extra for this SSP program that is used to fly illegal immigrants to the cities of their choice in America. DHS's own website expressly confirms that these funds can be spent on plane tickets to the migrants' chosen destination. It says:

Onward destination transportation is defined as

transportation from a shelter and services provider to a

noncitizen migrant's--

That is a polite term--

final destination or point of contact.

It is limited in that it can't exceed 10 percent of the total funding requested by the applicant. But that is a significant sum of money when you look at numbers like this: $800 billion, $1.4 billion. These funds are going to fly illegal migrants around the country at your taxpayer expense.

The Biden administration is also giving migrants cash assistance in multiple ways. More than $517 million in Biden ARP funds went to illegal aliens in the United States, including one-time cash grants. Think about that,

America. We are handing out over half a billion dollars in cash grants to people who come to our country illegally. I am sure there are people in my home State who would like to get a cash grant; not so for the taxpayer, not so for the American citizen.

President Biden has also created massive new parole programs that are attracting hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants. If you look at USCIS's own website, it announces these migrants are eligible for cash and myriad other government benefits.

Can you imagine this? Go check out the website of USCIS and see for yourself. Migrants from Cuba and from Haiti are encouraged to come here, and they are encouraged by telling them that they are eligible for cash grants.

You know, I visited the southern border the other week. I spoke with the Border Patrol officials there. I spoke with local officials and sheriffs. I talked with ranchers there. And what the Border Patrol told me was actually quite shocking--it is probably going to be quite shocking to many Americans--that the Border Patrol has encountered over 20,000 Chinese nationals coming across our southern border just in the past year.

You think about that. That is an incredible number of people coming from China. The Chinese Communist Party knows who is leaving their country. They have an ironclad control over the citizens of their country. What are these people coming here for? Why are they here? Ask yourselves that.

When I was in Texas, I went to a place called Shelby Park, in Eagle Pass along the Del Rio sector. There, they have seen thousands of illegal immigrants come in. I think many Americans have seen this. If you recall that embarrassing image for this administration under the bridge at Eagle Pass, that is Shelby Park. That section of bridge that had thousands of migrants under it, that is Shelby Park. That is a place where control had been completely ceded to the cartels. That is Shelby Park.

But Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has now stepped in. He is enforcing Texas law. He is subjecting people who set foot in Shelby Park to criminal trespass. Guess what has happened since Texas has taken that section of the border back? Illegal trespassing has stopped. What Governor Abbott has proven is that when you enforce the law, illegal immigration will stop.

The Tennessee National Guard has now gone down to assist in another sector. Governors from across the country are stepping up and sending National Guardsmen there to demonstrate that if you can secure the border, even parts of the border, you can stop this illegal migration.

But it has got to take place across the entirety of the southern border. Think about squeezing a balloon. You can stop it at one place, but the migration just flows out to other points. But we can prove and we have proven and it is being proven that enforcing the law will curtail illegal immigration.

You know, perhaps the most striking thing that I learned two weeks ago when I was down at the border was from visiting a rancher there. And I have been to our border in California. I have been to it in Arizona. I have been to it multiple times in Texas. But this last visit was absolutely shocking to me.

Let me tell you the story of this rancher. He has 1,500 acres between the Rio Grande River and the Union Pacific rail line. That rail line is a target for what they call the ``got-aways.'' That rail line is what they use to hop on and ride into the interior of our country.

The fencing along the border of his property has been absolutely destroyed by the cartels and the illegal migrants. He told me he has tried to fix the fence every night, and it gets cut down again. He will fix it; it will be cut the next day. He cannot maintain the fence. He has stopped running cattle on his ranch.

This is a rancher that is in the fifth generation of living and working out their livelihood on this ranch. His livelihood has been destroyed because of what is happening at our southern border and because we have turned over control of our southern border to these drug cartels that are moving the ``got-aways'' through his property.

He told me that he found 15 Syrians on his property the other day--15 Syrian males. What were they doing there? Well, they didn't come and present themselves for asylum. They could have done that down at Eagle Pass. They could have done that someplace else. No, they were on his property as ``got-aways.'' They did not want to be caught. They didn't want the white-glove treatment that I just described before where you get a plane ticket and where you get cash. They are there for a different reason. This is deeply concerning.

And many of you might have seen FBI Director Christopher Wray talk about this. The national security alerts here in the United States and across the world are at levels he hasn't seen since 9/11.

We should be deeply concerned about the national security crisis that is unfolding at our southern border. Just this past year, over 170 different nationalities have been apprehended at our southern border. Think about that. Over 170 different nationalities have been apprehended at our southern border. That doesn't include those who got away. Where are these people coming from? Why are they here?

I will tell you something else that was shocking that the rancher told me. It was getting to be about dusk. He said, look over on the horizon there. You are about to see some blinking blue lights. Sure enough, in a few minutes, the lights started going off. He said: That is your taxpayer dollars at work. Those are comfort stations, comfort stations for those who have come across the border illegally. These are comfort stations for the ``got-aways.'' He said: Here is what you will find at the comfort station. First, and most important, at the comfort station is a charging bar for your cell phone. A cell phone charging bar is at the comfort station.

I asked: Why is that? Why do you need a cell phone charger there? And he said: Because the people that come across illegally here use GPS pin drops that are provided to them by the cartels and their coyotes to help them find their way illegally into our country. That is the path, he said, for them to find rides that have been arranged over WeChat or some other overseas application that the cartels can use with impunity to direct their illegal trafficking of humans and, I presume, drugs into our country undetected.

They are marching right across this property, and we are providing comfort stations for them to recharge their cell phones so they can continue that process of coming into our country illegally. Also, you will find water and food at these comfort stations. That is our taxpayer dollars at work.

This is the Biden administration encouraging illegal immigration at every level into our Nation. And if you think about the people that are coming across that border that don't want to be caught, I can certainly tell you there is quite a contrast between what they are going through and what they are willing to go through versus the white-glove treatment they would receive if they simply come to America and claim asylum.

This is extraordinarily dangerous, my friends. Extraordinarily dangerous. And it is wrong.

Speaking of being wrong, why should Americans have to live like this? The rancher told me that his wife heard something in the middle of the night. She said: I hear something out in the kitchen.

He said he grabbed his pistol, he went into the kitchen, there were 20--and he said--adult, military-aged males in his kitchen, eating from his refrigerator and drinking everything in it.

He told them to leave. He used a different term with me, but he told them to leave his home. Their response to him, he said, was: You are out of beer. Go get me some more. He said he cocked his pistol. He said these invaders slowly backed out. They went to his barn.

He said he thought for a minute about going to the barn, then he realized he only had six bullets and there are 20 of them.

He has been advised by law enforcement not to allow his 18- and 12- year-old children to go on the property unless they are armed or with someone who is.

This is how we are treating Americans? This is how we are treating a farmer, a Texas farmer at our southern

border? He and his family have to be subjected to this sort of treatment, this sort of violence, this sort of horror.

Let me tell you what else he told me. He said, one day--he pointed over to a bridge on his property near the railroad lines. He said there were two men there with their arms zip-tied behind their backs and bullets through their heads. Evidently, a cartel deal gone wrong. This is organized crime taking place on his property in the United States, and we are doing nothing about it.

He said, one day, his child found a woman whose leg had been severed because she tried to jump on that Union Pacific rail line and missed it, and the train ran over it. She crawled over to his property. She was up in the bed of their pickup truck. His child found this woman, and they came in and life-flighted her out.

He doesn't know whether she lived or not. But this is the carnage that is taking place at our southern border because we are creating these incentives to draw people in, to risk their very lives, and come here illegally.

Americans should not have to live with this. American grandmothers and mothers shouldn't have to take those calls from the sheriff or the police chief saying that your son or daughter or your grandson and granddaughter are not coming home because they have touched or somehow encountered fentanyl that, again, has entered our country illegally across that border.

This is a crisis of proportions that we have never seen before. And I will reiterate the national security crisis, because it is getting worse by the day. The Biden administration is now using their CBP app to allow people to fly in directly to the United States from other countries.

So it is not just at the border; it is at our airports. We tried to get information about what airports are being used, where this is taking place. Again, the Biden administration will reveal no information. It is extraordinary; it is dangerous; and it is placing American lives at risk every day.

If you think about that, if you think about the kind of crisis that we are encountering every day, you have got to go back to the most fundamental of questions, and that is: Why? What is the incentive for putting Americans' lives at risk? What is the incentive for attracting young people from throughout Latin America and other places to undertake such a dangerous journey and to be entrapped by drug cartels and criminal organizations?

What is the incentive to exposing our own children to the risks of death by fentanyl? What is the incentive to overwhelm our schools--to even kick kids out of the school that our Senate majority leader attended as a child--so that illegal migrants can be moved into it?

What is the incentive for overweighting our system and creating disaster across the cities in America? The incentive is simple: That incentive is power. Power is what this is all about because power is what is delivered when illegal migrants are allowed to be counted for the purposes of allocating congressional districts and electoral votes. They are allowed to be counted for allocating power in the Congress and in the Presidential election.

And they are allowed to be leveraged by citizens in these sanctuary cities to gain even more power than they deserve, taking away legislative power and electoral power from States like mine, because these illegal migrants magnify the votes of those people and those districts.

They are getting greater representation because they are allowed to count illegal migrants. Greater representation than they otherwise would desire. And, again, look no further than the statements of Congresswoman Yvette Clarke in Brooklyn when she says the quiet part out loud, when she says she needs those illegal migrants for the purposes of redistricting; she needs those illegal migrants to maintain her district--because people are fleeing New York. She doesn't want to lose her congressional seat. The simplest way to do that is create a sanctuary city, a magnet, and bring those people in, stick them into the high school there in Brooklyn, and allow them to be counted for the purposes of allocating her Congressional district and, therefore, adding another electoral vote to New York State. This is wrong. This is the incentive, and my bill would correct that.

My bill would get right at this incentive, and it would stop this perverse incentive to bring people here illegally just for the purpose of being counted to expand power. That is what we need to do today. We can step up and vote on this bill. We need to address this problem now.

I think when Americans find out the shocking news that this means of counting electoral votes and congressional seats is being so abused that it is standing as the incentive to subject our Nation to incredible pain and misery, and it is standing as an incentive to incite incredible misery for those people who undertake these journeys that they should not.

I go back to what President Giammattei told me in Guatemala. He said: Not only are you creating a national security risk with all of the people who are moving through my country to get to yours, but, he said, you are destabilizing families in my country. You are taking the most promising young people in my country and creating a brain drain right here because these families are handing their life savings to these coyotes and these cartels, and they are sending their most promising child on this dangerous, dangerous journey.

That should not be happening. We should not be destabilizing other nations throughout Latin America, but that is precisely what is the result of this perverse incentive back here in America. That is precisely the result of the policies that have collapsed the protection of our southern border and is precisely the reason you have people showing up at the southern border now with ``Vote Biden'' T-shirts on wanting entry into America because they see this. They see this opportunity as a way to change their lives.

What it is, is a way to endanger their lives, and it is also allowing these cartels to enrich themselves every day to a point that we can't contend.

The Border Patrol tell me that they are outmanned and outresourced at the southern border; that the cartels have better technology. They use drones. They use technology, again, as I described, to put GPS pinpoints along the way that they have mapped out to illegally enter our country.

When I stopped by to visit with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation after I got back from the southern border 2 weeks ago, I explained to them what I saw. And then I asked them what they were seeing.

They told me that Venezuelan gangs are rampantly operating in our State. They told me about the sex trafficking that is going on. They told me about the so-called Detroit Boys and Operation 313. That is the area code for Detroit, and this is their effort to try to get these criminal elements here in America who are partnering with the criminals in Mexico to spread drugs and human trafficking across America.

They said that these Venezuelan gangs are moving young people in sex trafficking from Nashville to New York to Houston and back. These young people may never get out of their servitude to the Venezuelan cartels.

They told me how violent they are. This criminal activity is happening on our soil. It is expanding because we are allowing it to happen, and their supply chains--their supply lines are moving right across that southern border into America. So not only are they operating on the northern border of Mexico, but now they are freely operating here in our country.

I will take you back to the remarks of our FBI Director, Christopher Wray, who recently said the threat level that he has seen here in America is greater than since 9/11.

We need to be deeply, deeply concerned about what is happening, what has been happening, and, frankly, what may yet come from this national security crisis that we are creating.

The dangers are very, very real, and the opportunity is before us today to address these dangers by stopping this perverse incentive. I hope we will undertake that opportunity. I hope we will have an opportunity to vote on this today and bring it to an end.

I assure you we should have voted on this already. We should have voted on it a long time ago but delay after delay after delay because evidently our leader doesn't want to vote on it. Again, I

am not asking my colleagues to vote with me, but I am asking my colleagues for the opportunity to vote on this.

And I appreciate all of you who are here today to listen to the story about what is happening to America and to allow me to peel back to the very core of the incentive that is causing all of this.

Let's address this. Let's stop this illegal trafficking. Let's stop the drugs coming into our country. Let's stop the crisis at our southern border. Let's allow our Texas ranchers and Arizona ranchers and California ranchers to get back to business. Let's bring safety back to our cities again.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Madam President, I move to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 4366 with my amendment number 1634.

Madam President, my amendment is simple. It would require that the census determine basic population statistics like the number of citizens, noncitizens, and illegal aliens that live in this country, and it would require that only U.S. citizens be counted in determining the number of House seats and electoral votes that each State gets.

Currently, illegal aliens are counted for determining how many congressional seats and electoral college votes each State gets. The more illegal aliens and noncitizens in your State or district, the greater your voting power in Congress and Presidential elections.

This not only destroys the principle of one person-one vote by making some American's votes more powerful than others, but it encourages illegal immigration in sanctuary cities as a way to increase political power.

In fact, a Democrat House Member from New York recently called for more illegal immigration to her district for redistricting purposes.

The weight of every American's vote should be equal. More illegal alien resettlement shouldn't mean more political power in America.

My amendment would ensure this, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, on behalf of myself and Senator Blackburn, I ask unanimous consent that the following remarks be printed in the Congressional Record in recognition of David Dill, the chairman and chief executive office of LifePoint Health.

Since 2017, David Dill has led LifePoint Health, a diversified healthcare delivery network consisting of 62 community-based acute hospitals, more than 60 rehabilitation and behavioral health hospitals, and more than 250 additional sites of care.

Under his leadership, LifePoint Health has become a leader in rural healthcare, serving as an influential voice for healthcare in communities across the Nation and helping to educate the industry on shaping policies that ensure that the needs of patients are met timely and effectively.

David grew up in a small community in Kentucky, giving him a unique understanding of healthcare providers in non-urban areas. Throughout his time at LifePoint, the company has invested significant capital into the communities it serves, including $1.1 billion in charitable donations and $5.5 billion in total economic impact during the year 2022 alone.

In addition to his success at LifePoint Health, Mr. Dill has served as the chairman of the board for the Federation of American Hospitals, the immediate past chair of the board of directors for the Nashville Health Care Council, and a member of the American Hospital Association's Health Systems Committee. Most recently, Mr. Dill was appointed to serve on the Tennessee Rural Health Care Task Force, which was formed by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to advance his administration's efforts to better serve rural communities across the State.

On November 30, 2023, Mr. Dill received the 2023 B'nai B'rith Charles S. Lauer National Healthcare Award, which was established in 1983 to highlight the standard bearers within the healthcare industry throughout the country.

This award further recognizes his dedication to community service, excellence in leadership, and outstanding philanthropic commitment to the healthcare community and beyond.

I congratulate David Dill on his achievements, and I hope the rest of my colleagues join us in recognizing his tremendous contributions to rural healthcare across this country.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my colleague from Virginia, Senator Kaine.

Mr. President, I am here today to discuss worrying developments in Mexico, one of the United States' most important international partners and our neighbor to the south.

The nearly 2,000-mile border that our nations share both binds us together and presents a series of challenges, including illegal migration, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. As we work through those difficult issues, our robust economic relationship has provided a firm foundation to strengthen and stabilize our efforts with an eye toward the future. The innovative United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, deepened the connections between our economies such that Mexico is now one of our largest and most strategic trading partners.

However, actions over the past 2 years by the government of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have weakened that bond and are threatening the economic and diplomatic ties between our nations. Through increasingly arbitrary and aggressive moves against companies based here in the United States and their lawfully owned assets in Mexico, the Mexican Government has abused its permitting and regulatory powers in ways that violate the letter and the spirit of our trade agreements, not to mention the special relationship historically enjoyed between our two countries. These decisions directly impact critical sectors of the U.S. economy from agriculture to energy and mining and from transportation to tourism.

These capricious actions, which are falsely labeled as ``reforms,'' risk substantially undermining confidence in the commercial rule of law in Mexico. They also jeopardize the essential economic relations between North American partners. Further, these actions likely violate our trade agreements by abrogating contracts, stripping investors of value, and eliminating private competition and oversight, thereby sending a clear message to U.S. capital markets that Mexico is no longer safe or profitable for investing.

I want to highlight the specific case of Vulcan Materials. For almost 2 years now, President Lopez Obrador has personally harassed, interfered with, and obstructed Vulcan's lawful operations in Mexico.

Vulcan is a U.S.-based construction aggregates company with a strong Tennessee and, I might add, a strong Virginia presence that has more than a 30-year track record of responsibly operating in Mexico and investing in the community that surrounds its Mexican facility.

In May of 2022, President Lopez Obrador ordered the illegal shutdown of Vulcan's operations, which had an immediate and detrimental impact on the supply of construction aggregates to the United States.

Then, in March of 2023, President Lopez Obrador ordered a military invasion of Vulcan's property and occupied the company's quarry and port for 2 weeks. As shocking as this sounds, video footage of this invasion is available online.

President Lopez Obrador has initiated a process to illegally take the company's property by declaring it a supposed naturally protected area.

The President of Mexico is abusing a process designed to protect regionwide ecosystems in order to illegally expropriate land that, coincidentally, exactly matches Vulcan's property lines. This is an egregious abuse of the law that undermines the very trust that should be foundational to the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

By illegally closing Vulcan's business and now attempting to steal their property, the Mexican President is signaling to other American companies that Mexico cannot be trusted when it comes to foreign investment.

If not quickly corrected, actions like these risk choking off the economic relationship between our two nations.

Many important supply chains stretch across the U.S.-Mexico border, supplying millions of good jobs and making both countries more attractive for capital investment.

This is certainly true for my home State of Tennessee. Because of the successes that I witnessed between my home State of Tennessee and Mexico, I have been a strong advocate for reshoring integrated supply chains from Communist China to North America.

Building upon the successes of USMCA as a foundational component of North American competitiveness supports both American and Mexican economic prosperity and both nations' national security.

But without a basic respect for private property and the rule of law, the prospects for expanding our shared economic and national security via commerce and investment are greatly diminished.

In fact, failing to protect private property and the rule of law will inevitably lead to the disintegration of our economic ties. Therefore, I again urge President Lopez Obrador to reverse course before more damage is done.

Instead, we should be looking for opportunities to work together to attract investment and unlock the economic opportunity that is being presented to both of our nations as supply chains are rebalanced away from communist China.

Let's seize this opportunity together rather than damage our shared interests for short-term political gains.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Kaine for lending his expertise as a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and, most importantly, as chair of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. I thank the Senator from Virginia for bringing his respected voice to this matter of serious diplomatic concern. As former Governor of his home State of Virginia, he has an acute appreciation of the economic opportunity that exists that is in danger of being destroyed by the illegal actions of the Mexican President. So thank you very much for joining me in this.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to address my colleagues in the U.S. Senate and to posthumously honor the life and achievements of Mr. Shoichiro Toyoda of Japan.

Mr. Shoichiro Toyoda built upon the strong foundation established by both his grandfather, Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of the successful Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, and his father, Kiichiro Toyoda, who transitioned the company to automobiles by establishing Toyota Motors. Shoichiro, while never intending to join the family business, stepped in at the age of 27 to help following the unexpected death of his father. Determined to ``develop a high-quality passenger car that would perform well anywhere in the world,'' Shoichiro Toyoda's efforts eventually established Toyota as a world leader in quality and introduced one of the bestselling cars of all time.

Both a talented engineer and businessman, Shoichiro expanded Toyota's production globally and deployed manufacturing facilities in 22 countries, specifically investing billions in Toyota's U.S. operations and creating an untold number of jobs for American workers. He was inducted into the U.S. Automotive Hall of Fame in 2007 and served on the board of Denso, a valued corporate citizen of my home State of Tennessee, for 58 years. On a very personal level, I would also like to acknowledge the tremendous accomplishments of his son and my friend, Akio Toyoda, who continues his father's legacy, ably leading Toyota Motor Corporation as chairman of the company's board of directors.

I applaud Shoichiro Toyoda's contributions in making Toyota a shining example of the Japanese commitment to excellence, and I appreciate the great legacy that he left in support of U.S.-Japan relations.

In the aftermath of the barbaric massacre committed by Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas, there has been significant attention given in the U.S. Senate to the $6 billion the Biden administration unfroze as part of a ransom deal with Iran. This is understandable. Because money is fungible, the combination of waivers and nonenforcement of sanctions has enabled Iran to spend billions of dollars bankrolling terrorists, including Hamas.

The $6 billion was just the latest installment of an enormous windfall the Iranian regime has enjoyed ever since Joe Biden took office. But not enough attention has been paid to the way Congress has willingly abdicated its responsibility and allowed the executive branch to get away with a reckless policy of appeasement toward Iran.

According to many recent news reports this year, the Biden administration was negotiating an unwritten agreement with Iran in which the United States would relieve billions of dollars of sanctions on Iran in return for a number of Iranian promises.

One of the architects of this strategy of pursuing an informal and unwritten agreement with Iran as part of a broader strategy of appeasing the Iranians was none other than Rob Malley. Rob Malley was placed on unpaid leave by the State Department in June. He has had his security clearance suspended amid a probe into the possibility that he mishandled classified material. The results have been catastrophic. Iran has received tens of billions of dollars in revenue it would not have received had sanctions been properly enforced.

Iran has continued to obstruct nuclear inspection efforts, and its proxies have continued engaging in terrorism across the region, most recently and most tragically in Israel.

Furthermore, rewarding hostage-taking by paying $6 billion for the potential release of five American hostages, as the Biden administration recently did, is just one element of this unwritten agreement. It only incentivizes more hostage-taking of U.S. citizens abroad, both by Iran and by other adversaries.

To that point, as of now, it appears that Iran-backed Hamas is holding 13 American citizens hostage in Gaza. Let me be clear. I believe the Biden administration's Iran policies are deeply misguided and threaten the security of Americans and of our partners and allies in the Middle East.

But I am not here today to debate the pros and cons of resurrecting the Iran deal or any specific agreement the Biden administration has made with Iran. The massacre in Israel last week should have settled that debate; though I suspect we will likely continue to have that debate in the months ahead. Rather, I am here today to argue for preserving the role of Congress amid concern that the Biden administration has continuously refused to enforce sanctions as part of a gradually unfolding agreement with Iran and is doing so in such a manner that is designed to circumvent its legal obligation to submit an agreement to revive the Iran nuclear deal to Congress for review and for an up-or-down vote.

When President Obama pursued the original Iran nuclear deal, his administration blatantly disregarded its constitutional duty to submit the agreement as a treaty requiring the advice and consent of two- thirds of the Senate. In response, Congress passed a law known as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA, by a vote of 99 to 1. In brief, the INARA law says that if the United States and Iran make any agreement related to Iran's nuclear program, the White House must submit it for congressional review and potential up-or-down votes in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The nearly unanimous bipartisan passage of INARA by the Senate reflected the Senators' bipartisan frustration that the executive branch was ignoring the Constitution and trying to circumvent Congress on such an important matter. And yet since taking office, the Biden administration has disregarded its legal obligations under INARA, and the U.S. Congress has allowed this administration to get away with it.

If the multitude of reports are accurate, the Biden administration was intentionally avoiding calling its unfolding agreement with Iran an official agreement. That was an effort to, again, sidestep congressional approval that is required under INARA. In early 2021, I was concerned that this might happen, so I introduced the Iran Sanctions Relief Act, or ISRRA, in the 117th Congress and reintroduced it in the 118th Congress.

As a backup to INARA, my bill requires congressional review and an up-or-down vote on any Presidential waiver of Iran sanctions, whether that is labeled as an agreement or not.

My vote borrows a provision from the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, that overwhelmingly passed Congress back in 2017. The CAATSA provision allows for congressional review and an up-or-down vote on any Presidential waiver of Russian sanctions. My bill takes, word for word, that same provision and applies it to any Presidential waiver of Iran sanctions.

This is important because any new agreement to revive the Iran deal will require, once again, the executive branch to waive Iran sanctions.

Additionally, in light of reports that the $6 billion the Biden administration unfroze was part of the larger unwritten and informal agreement with Iran, Congress would have had the opportunity to object before the money was unfrozen had my bill had the force of law.

In other words, my bill protects the role of Congress as the executive branch continues to ignore its legal obligations and refuses to submit a new agreement to the Senate and to the House. So far, 41 Senators have cosponsored the Iran Sanctions Relief Review Act. This number is significant because 41 Senators would be more than enough to deny the Senate's advice and consent if the executive branch actually followed the Constitution and presented a new Iran agreement to the Senate as a treaty.

The House companion to this bill has passed through the House Foreign Affairs Committee with bipartisan support. We must protect the first branch of government from an executive branch that seeks to encroach it or to ignore it.

As in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged of further consideration of S. 2210 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask 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 would welcome the opportunity to work with my colleague Senator Murphy on sanctions policy, sanctions policies that make sense, but I would say this. If this policy is good enough for CAATSA in Russia, why wouldn't it be good enough for Iran?

The Senate has already passed CAATSA. I have used the exact language. I would also like to say this. If it is true that this administration is not waiving sanctions and is not entering an agreement, they should have no difficulty with this level of review. I don't believe that is the case.

And I also would like to address the accusations, I should say, leveled against the policy in the last administration after the withdrawal of the JCPOA. Iran never stopped their nuclear program. Israel, in a very brave and courageous raid, proved that they were continuing on that path.

As part of my prior job as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, it was my responsibility to get Japan to stop buying Iranian crude. I was successful at that after many rounds of negotiation. We cut Iran's fund flows down to a trickle. That starved Iran's ability to fund its proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah. In fact, it was widely reported in the media that Hamas and Hezbollah were going broke.

That all changed when the policy of appeasement came back in 2021. By avoiding sanctions, by not enforcing sanctions, the estimates are as high as $80 billion of fresh illicit oil revenues that have entered Iran's coffers. We know about the payment that was allowed by Iraq to Iran by this administration. Senator Cotton just addressed this and the $6 billion that has received so much scrutiny in the media just recently.

All of this has enriched Iran. All of this has put Iran in a better position to fund its proxies and fuel them, and I think all of this is part of a very misguided policy of appeasement.

I yield the floor.

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