Floor Statements

Mr. President, I came down here to talk about AI. But before I give those remarks, I cannot let the comments that were just made on the floor go unrebutted point by point.

I have utter frustration. There are a few things in this bill that are worthy of trumpeting. But to be on this floor and say all of this, that this is about protecting athletes, I ask one simple question, Why isn't one athlete group in this country, not one of the groups that represents athletes, trumpeting the greatness of this bill?

They all know this bill undermines their rights, undermines their collective bargaining, undermines their health and safety, creates an unequal playing field for them relative to the other money interests in this bill, including the coaches.

I came down here to speak about AI, which I will do in a moment, but I need to get more into the specifics because it is outrageous to come down and talk about a bill being good for athletes when athletes themselves all over this country, every organization that represents them, condemn this bill. And it is not just the athletes; it is the parents of athletes that have died because of the NCAA and what they are doing.

Kids that have died of heatstroke. Kids that have been crippled by injuries. Their parents collectively have written letters to this body: Don't let this bill pass.

But let me get to specifics. One, this healthcare fund. There is in this bill this idea that even 5 years of healthcare after your playing years, and a fund set up of roughly $100 million. But you know that there are tens and tens--hundreds of thousands of college athletes, many of them have crippling injuries, a fund like that is inadequate for their healthcare needs. Put that relative to what professional sports do, and you will see that it is shortchanging athletes' well- being.

On this idea, secondly, that this bill somehow enshrines NIL rights, this body did nothing for generations while name and likeness was being stolen from players. Players were being exploited. This body did nothing.

But as soon as athletes start winning in court, their NIL rights-- suddenly Congress swoops in and is saying that we are saving their NIL rights? That is a lie.

The reality is, they don't need Congress' beneficent actions to give them NIL rights. They have earned them in the courts. What this bill actually does is, it takes away rights for them to legally challenge anything that the cartel of the NCAA does. That is why the AAJ--the trial lawyers--are against this because it undermines their ability to win more court cases in the future.

Other things that are not true being said--this outrageous claim that this is somehow protecting women's sports. Well, then why didn't they permanently enshrine protections of women's sports in Olympic sports? Why in section 125 do those protections expire, 4 or 9 years down the line? Why?

You are giving permanent antitrust exemptions to one of the most notorious monopolistic cartel organizations that has actually hurt women athletes, and you are allowing the protections for Olympic sports and the protections for women athletes to expire. Make them permanent then, if you are caring about that.

But you are giving permanent protections? Permanent antitrust exemptions? That is outrageous.

This idea that you are protecting women's sports, to me it falls flat when you read section 125 of this bill.

This bill talks about what it is doing for Black colleges. There is nothing more insulting to me, as someone who has fought for HBCUs. This bill--don't be fooled--doesn't put a dollar into HBCUs. It authorizes money. I have been in the Senate for 13 years. I have seen authorizations happen but no money go to those institutions.

If this was real, that HBCUs were going to benefit, appropriate the money. Don't dangle out millions of dollars and say ``Get on board on this bill'' and then be left in a situation where folks aren't getting those resources.

Let me say next, this transfer sensibility. That is the quote I heard. This brings transfer sensibility. Well, I will tell you this right now. If transfer sensibility is so important for players, why isn't there transfer sensibility for the coaches? How can you allow coaches to come in a year to a school, lure athletes to their teams, they have success based upon athletes' performance, and then they can go and get the next high-paying job?

This is the extraordinary problem with this bill, that it has one standard for players and another standard for coaches.

And this idea that this bill somehow prevents a race to the bottom. Well, you all know that there are about 15 coaches that have over-- almost a $250 million buyout provision. And I have heard on the floor now that somehow this is going to stop the race at the bottom. It doesn't do anything for private institutions. From Notre Dame to Stanford, it doesn't touch the race to the bottom there.

It doesn't touch the race to the bottom for facilities. I was a college athlete. It doesn't stop schools from rolling out greater facilities. Where is the equality in this bill that is so-called helping college athletes where every college athlete organization is against it?

Let me give you another example. This idea of disclosure requirements on athletes for their NIL deals and the like.

Why aren't there disclosure requirements on coaches? This bill puts redtape between athletes and their opportunities to make money, but doesn't put the same redtape between coaches. Somehow, we need transparency with athletes, but it is not with coaches. Coaches don't have disclosure requirements.

Why are you treating that elite class differently than you are treating athletes? That is not true.

I can go on and on and on, and I will. I will come back to this floor. I will do interviews. I am going to make sure people know the facts about this bill.

Because when this bill passes, and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and others get what they want, athletes are going to be out of luck. And when 4 or 9 years pass and Olympic sports are being cut and women's sports are being cut, a lot of people in here are going to forget the shortcomings of this bill, but I will not, and nor will athletes.

This bill is a threat to college sports. It is a threat to college athletes. That is why every major organization is against it. I have more details. I will come down here and read paragraphs of this bill. I will do everything possible to put on the Congressional Record why this is a betrayal of college athletes, their safety, and their well-being.

And I am not saying there are not good things in this bill. I am not saying there are not things that have been incorporated that are important. But time and time again, it comes up short. A better deal for the universities. A better deal for the wealthy. A better deal for coaches. But athletes? They get the short end of this.

And that is why folks are out here doing everything they can. Athletes' groups, civil rights groups, trial lawyers, so many are saying: This is wrong. We can do better.

Why are we rushing to this bill when the No. 1 issue in America right now is rising costs? Rushing to this bill, 47 days before an election, makes no sense to me.

Why college athletes have not been involved with this, or their organizations, makes no sense.

I would like, in the record, that my now remarks on AI be separated from these reactionary remarks to the stuff that is being said that doesn't hold true with the text of the actual bill.

Thank you.

And before I go, if there is anybody on the floor, I will pause for a question on this issue. If anyone wants to do a colloquy, I will.

Thank you. This is what the Senate should be about.

Mr. President, I just want to remind that I paused for a question, not a speech.

I did not yield the floor. I am pausing for a question.

Senator, is there a question here?

I would like to answer the Senator's question.

She is talking about enshrining in law this idea of revenue sharing. Time and time again, even to the Supreme Court, when conservative Justices joined with Justices appointed by Democrats, they have affirmed college athletes' power. They have gotten power through the courts. What this does is it heads off their legal abilities by enshrining these laws.

``Let it play out in the courts'' is what every athlete organization is saying. Why are you trying to suddenly be concerned about college athletes and enshrine things that we are winning in court case after court case. This is the hypocrisy here.

For years and years and years, I have watched my own image on Madden's video game--my own image--and never got paid for that. And now athletes bring it to the courts and win, time and time again?

And now my colleague says: Oh, we want to rush and help athletes.

That is why the colleges and wealthy donors are really excited about this bill. It is because it is going to make sure that the future lawsuits are cut off, that they have all the antitrust exemptions.

Why do you think you see that the trial lawyers organizations and others who have been representing college athletes in getting them some modicum of justice are not in favor of this bill? That is rich.

We don't need your help. Athletes groups don't need your help. They don't want it. They haven't asked for it. But yet, somehow, you think you are helping them, but who you are helping are the wealthy colleges.

Are there any other questions before I move on to my remarks about

I would respectfully say that I yielded for a question.

So if that is the question, do I recognize the court case--

A settlement agreement.

We are inserting ourselves between the parties to say that we know what is better than athletes being able to negotiate for themselves.

You see, I paused for a question because I thought my colleague was going to try to stand up and defend section 125 because she spoke very passionately, my colleague, about protecting women's sports. Well, again, the simple question is, Why do things that protect Olympic and women's sports expire? Why does that expire and not the permanent antitrust exemptions we are giving a cartel--a monopolistic organization--that is violating the rights of women consistently? That is indefensible.

I will yield for a question.

If that is the Senator's question, I am going to simply say again that I have so much respect for my colleague.

She has worked so hard on this bill, and she has worked so hard. I don't think it is done yet. I think she would admit that there are things that we can improve. She is an extraordinary legislator, and I am sure she would admit that this bill isn't perfect and that more can be done, especially on the equity and treatment of athletes over coaches. I am sure she would say that because she said it to me. This is an extraordinary legislator on the Democratic side who has been leading this. I have reverence and respect for her.

I played college football. I talk to college football players all the time. I go back and talk to college football teams. I am very involved in the space. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for being a High School All-American who got an unbelievable shot at a full scholarship at Stanford.

What doesn't seem to be understood by folks is that athletes right now all across this country and their organizations are begging for this bill not to pass.

What we are doing here in Congress is truly exemplary. We are giving a permanent antitrust exemption that, as conservative Justices have said, is not seen in other areas of enterprise in the United States of America--rarely seen--and we are giving few rights to athletes but that of ``Oh, you can sue.'' Well, as a guy who played and who was competing for a starting tight end position, am I going to sue my school?

I have seen all of these posts by athletes saying: You have got to be kidding me. My coaches tell me to play injured. I do that. I don't sue them, when they are clearly not concerned about my well-being.

Athletes have been winning in court, and now we are coming in and taking away their leverage, their bargaining power. We are settling issues that are still open. Hey, I would actually respect it if they said ``You know what, we are going to give a 10-year antitrust exemption and come back and revisit this,'' but, no, they are giving it permanently.

Nobody can justify to me--nobody can--as to why college coaches don't get the exact same treatment in this bill as people who are playing on the field; why they can transfer willy-nilly; why they don't have to disclose all of their side's endorsement deals. Why are you treating the college kids differently than you are treating the coaches if it is all about the money?

I am going to come down more and talk. I didn't intend to do that today. I would like to move to a separate place in the record and talk about why, with urgency, I came down here. But as a guy who played ball, I can't let this go without putting as much as I can on the Record. I was planning on coming down here, and I will. I will read sections of the bill and talk about why

they are so outrageous, but let me get on with my remarks, separating them in the Record.

Here we go.

Artificial Intelligence

Mr. President, article II, section 3 of the Constitution gives the President power, on ``extraordinary occasions,'' to convene both Houses of Congress. The last time a President used that power was Harry Truman in 1948--78 years ago.

We find ourselves in such an extraordinary moment. We find ourselves in a moment that demands this kind of action. The safety of artificial intelligence systems demands urgent attention. The President should immediately convene Congress to address it. This is not a moment for panic or despair; it is a moment for government to govern, to protect the American people, and to prepare soberly for risks before they become crises.

Presidents have invoked this authority at moments when the stakes were extraordinarily high--from the earliest days of the Republic through periods of war, economic crisis, and national emergency. That is the purpose of this power that is spelled out in the Constitution: to bring Congress together when circumstances demand it and to give the country the full attention of its elected government.

Congress will soon leave Washington for 2 months. Artificial intelligence will not recess. The technology will continue to advance, the risks will continue to evolve, and the consequences of getting this wrong will not wait for Congress to return. This should stand above petty partisanship. It should be about one thing--putting the safety and security of the American people first.

I want to focus on three challenges, the three challenges before us now.

First, we must protect against potentially catastrophic harms.

Serious people, including the researchers and leaders inside the companies developing the most advanced AI, are warning about dangerous biological or cyber capabilities and the emergence of systems that behave in ways humans cannot reliably predict or control.

We do not know whether the most catastrophic scenarios will ever occur, but when credible experts warn of consequences, this grave, responsible government does not panic, but it does not dismiss them either; it goes to work.

Second, we must confront the harms happening right now.

Americans are already encountering AI through increasingly sophisticated scams targeting seniors and families, mass surveillance, threats to privacy, disruption in the workplace, and systems that can affect the prices people pay. The future risks of AI demand our attention, but so do the people being harmed by it today.

Third and final, we must seize the extraordinary possibilities this technology offers.

AI could help scientists discover lifesaving drugs, detect diseases earlier, accelerate scientific breakthroughs, transform education, increase the productivity of American workers, help small businesses compete, and give millions of people access to capabilities that were once available only to those with wealth and power, but none of these positive outcomes are possible without action by the government to make sure AI is safe, trusted by people, and that its benefits are broadly shared.

AI cannot become another chapter in an old story where extraordinary new technologies create extraordinary new wealth and power for a small number of people while working Americans are asked to absorb the disruption, bear the costs, and wait patiently for the benefits to reach them.

I have been calling for safety interventions for years. In July 2023, I wrote to the White House about the future of AI and what we should do as a country to prepare for it. It was clear to me then that we were seeing the early sparks of a technology that could have profound effects on our society, our economy, and our security.

Back then, I advocated for rigorous predeployment testing of advanced models, independent evaluations and audits, incident reporting and investigation, supply chain security, international coordination, and the need for a careful and disciplined approach to the pace of AI development.

I think, in addition, which I talked about, we should establish whistleblower protections for lab employees, strengthen requirements for securing frontier model weights, establish a National Transportation Safety Board-like entity for investigating AI incidents, prepare for the potential emergence of AI systems capable of autonomously improving themselves, preserve States' ability to protect their own people in the absence of meaningful Federal standards, reject antitrust exemptions that hurt customers and competition, and, yes, put the brakes on the development of capabilities whose risks outrun our ability to manage them.

Look, Americans feel beat down right now--forgotten--and that feeling is justified. Prices are up for rent, food, utilities. Hiring is flat. We have a government that moves too slowly to deliver what people need and corruption that moves too fast to protect the people. And now Americans are seeing multitrillion-dollar firms building technology that they say will exceed humans at all cognitive and physical tasks. Their anxiety is warranted, and it cannot be set aside. It cannot be dismissed like Donald Trump is doing in calling it a hoax. Americans are demanding that we act. They are demanding leadership. And we must deliver.

We have a rare convergence of early warning signs, practical options that are available, and a growing consensus for action, including among the American people, who understand what is at stake and are rightfully demanding that policymakers stand up.

In my letter to the White House more than 3 years ago, I closed by emphasizing the importance of human agency, our collective responsibility to decide what role this technology should play in our lives rather than letting the technology or its developers decide for us. That profound responsibility remains ours today.

I will always be a prisoner of hope. I will never let despair have the last word. I know how technology can lift people up. I have lived it. My dad came from humble beginnings and became one of IBM's top salesmen. But we will only unlock the promise of this technology if it is done in a democratic fashion wherein the people decide, not tech billionaires or trillionaires and not Donald Trump.

And it is ridiculous that the House of Representatives decided to pack up and leave town. Again, AI will not recess.

These issues demand our urgent attention. It is time for a special session of Congress. The time is now.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, I want to speak forcefully against the Protect College Sports Act. There are a handful of us--like my colleagues--who played college sports. I was a high school all-American Player of the Year for my State, on the same USA TODAY All-America team with people like Emmitt Smith, and got a full scholarship.

In so many ways, like my colleagues, I am here, afforded opportunities I probably would never have had if it weren't for college athletics.

But while a college student and a player, I saw how unjust the NCAA is. It is a serial monopolist, controlling an industry over $15 billion strong and rapidly growing.

And the NCAA has a long record of ignoring the cries for justice from exploited college athletes. The NCAA protects its members, it protects the colleges, and it has repeatedly put college athletes in horrible positions.

For generations, billions of dollars were being made that were given to coaches, ADs. Everybody was making money, but college athletes weren't. It wasn't until college athletes were able to begin to win cases in court that States, seeing the injustices, began to change the law. That started to shift the power table. And now the NCAA is coming here to the U.S. Senate, asking for sweeping powers that exempt our antitrust laws.

Well, my concerns I have grown to have over the years are not addressed in this bill. This bill does not do enough to protect college athletes' health and safety and well-being. And as a result of that, the number of groups opposed to it is almost too long to read.

I am going to submit for the Record a full list, but let me just read some of them: every College Athletes Players Association; the College Football Players Association; the United College Athletes Association; all the associations of college sports; all of our major unions, the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers; all of our major civil rights organizations, the NAACP, the Urban League; all of our major legal think tanks that protect the health, well-being, and justice like the Center for Law and Policy. I could go on and on about those people who object to this

bill because it is not protecting athletes.

And think about this: It is doing all kinds of things to stop players from earning money--putting bureaucracy between them and the possibilities--but it does nothing to affect coaches.

So, in other words, it is treating college athletes as a different class. Meanwhile, coaches' salaries--often, in most States, the highest paid people in their State governments are the basketball or the football coaches--their salaries continue to skyrocket, with close to 15 coaches right now having almost a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar buyout for their contracts.

This is an unjust bill, and I want to deal very quickly with some of the top lines.

First and foremost, we have a bill that doesn't solve the problems it claims to solve. It says it is going to fix a system that is broken. Well, the NCAA conferences and schools continue to lose major court cases.

This bill is going to take away the power of athletes to be able to sue for their rights. It says in this bill that, oh, we are preserving an individual right of action for individual athletes. Well, let me tell you right now, any lawyer worth their salt will tell you that somebody competing for the starting pitcher spot on a softball team is not going to sue their college in hopes they are going to get justice if they are facing sexual assault or if they have been forced to play through an injury or if there has been a breaking of any of the rules around the NCAA that purports to support our students. It is creating a cartel for them, a monopoly for them, and inadequate protections for college athletes and undermining their ability--should they even choose to sue, undermining their ability to have a fair day in court.

It is not protecting the spending problem. Schools increasingly claim that athlete compensation has created unprecedented financial pressure at the same time that football coaches and basketball coaches continue to see higher and higher salaries. This bill responds by placing federally imposed ceilings on athlete compensation while leaving every other major expense free to continue to increase. How much schools are spending on their facilities, paying their ADs, paying their coaches and assistant coaches--all of those prices continue to go up, but it is the college athletes that are going to be facing the caps.

We see protections for women's and Olympic sports, which I agree on. They are in this bill. But those protections expire while the antitrust protections do not. You go to section 125 of the bill. It has protections for those roster sports and grant and aid opportunities in those sports, but those protections expire after 4 or 9 years. It is a lie to say that this bill is protecting Olympic sports because it is not. It only does so for a handful of years.

Permanent antitrust exemption, temporary protection for college athletes competing in Olympic sports. Why would we do that? Why would we do that? We should give not permanent exemption if we are not doing it in other parts of the bill, and even that is questionable.

The NCAA's record over decades does not justify giving it more control. We are giving them more authority over a group of Americans, and yet we are not asking for the right things in return--protections for athletes, their health, their well-being, their safety, equality for others involved in the sport.

The bill claims to codify into law athletes' ability to benefit from NIL. Athletes already enjoy this right. They fought decades for it. The bill just puts new redtape there.

The bill includes protections for athletes' health and safety and education. Yes, but do you know what? Without a meaningful enforcement mechanism, these protections are basically suggestions.

This bill relies exclusively on that private right of action in section 119, placing the burden on young athletes and young athletes alone to enforce anything within this bill.

They claim that schools and conferences and NCAA coaches support the Protect College Sports Act. Of course they support it--they are getting all of the financial gain and putting all of the burden and compromises and givebacks to college athletes, including their ability to win in court.

Oh, and there is a cynical part of this. They say they are going to help historically Black colleges and universities. I want everyone like me who has been fighting for HBCUs, who supports HBCUs, to understand the cynicism in this bill. This bill authorizes money. It authorizes money. It does not appropriate one single dollar. What you get is a promise for future funds, but we know that time and time again, Congress authorizes funding and that funding is never delivered.

This bill includes provisions of the SAFE Act, which I supported. Well, this leaves out a critical distinction between the SAFE Act and athletes' protections with meaningful enforcement. The SAFE Act included the State attorneys general being able to enforce it; this bill does not. The SAFE Act didn't give the NCAA and conferences sweeping new antitrust shields; this bill does. So, yes, there are some provisions from my earlier work in this bill, but they are toothless because of the lack of enforcement power.

This is a growing grassroots effort, I hear, to support this bill. Well, I am seeing millions of dollars' worth of commercials being funded by all the financial interests behind this bill, but who is protecting college athletes?

I will give an example, and I will end with this because I know time is short. I want to make sure, though, that I can enter for the Record--I am going to ask the President--I would like to enter into the Record some letters.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from college athletes organizations; this letter from civil rights organizations and former attorneys general; and this letter from college athletes safety organizations, college athletes sexual abuse survivor organizations, and families of college athletes who died following athletic activities--all speaking to the urgency to stop this bill.

Mr. President, I want to end with this. I gave an example of the lies that the NCAA tells--that they are about the protection of student-athletes first. The example I gave was a change the NFL did, which all of us who are football fans know about, when they said: You know what, we are going to change the kickoff rules.

Why did they change the kickoff rules? Well, I know from my personal experience of screaming down a field trying to break UCLA's wedge; I learned this from rushing down the field to try to tackle people, playing against USC; I learned this in playing Notre Dame--that one of the most dangerous things you could do is get a full head of steam and run down on a kickoff.

Well, they changed the kickoff rules to protect NFL athletes, and it has worked. There are less injuries in this area. It is working. Is there a peep from the NCAA? Don't you think that college sports should have more protective policies than the pros? Well, no. The pros--it is a business. We all know that. They invest millions of dollars in these employees of theirs, and they are taking actions to protect their players that the NCAA isn't.

The NCAA is an economic group of actors who seek to maximize profit. Look at their decades-long history. It is not about player protection. How do I know that? There are no enforceable standards for sexual assault. There are no enforceable standards for heatstroke. We have cases right now of brain injuries. I have friends of mine still paying for the medical costs for injuries they incurred putting thousands of people into seats.

When it comes to academic graduation rates, when it comes to all the things they tell people they are concerned with, the evidence speaks that that is not their No. 1 concern. And this body wants to give them sweeping antitrust power permanently, in perpetuity, forever, with no accountability. No accountability to Congress. Limited accountability in the courts. No accountability to the girls and boys, the young student-athletes, the college players who bring this country together, who give us some of our greatest life experiences.

This is unfair. This is unjust. This is wrong. Hundreds of organizations that represent student-athletes, that represent ideals of justice, that represent ideals of economic justice--heck, you even have somebody like Brett Kavanaugh--excuse me--you have even somebody like Gorsuch saying things like: It is a business model--this is the NCAA-- that would be flatly illegal in any other industry in America.

Yet we are moving rocket-speed when most of the Members haven't even gotten the final bill yet. They literally haven't put the bill in most of the offices here, and we are rushing to move on to it right now without reading the bill, without discussing it, without having hearings that have college athletes that have justifiable experiences, survivors of sexual assault, parents whose children have died, people that have court cases against the NCAA right now.

The NCAA knows it is going to save them from millions of dollars of liability. That is why they are spending so much money to pass this bill. It is not about the safety, it is not about the well-being, it is not about the education of college athletes. This is a money play, plain and simple.

Read the bill. Talk to college athletes. If we pass this bill, it is a shame.

After years and years of trying, college athletes finally have gained some leverage over the NCAA. No, they can't win in court, so the NCAA runs here.

I ask my colleagues not to move to this bill. Definitely do not move it if you have not read it, if your staff hasn't gotten the final copy yet. I ask my colleagues to vote no.

I yield the floor.

I am grateful for your recognition, Mr. President.

And I am going to try to get this order right. This is legislative session. I am going to give some remarks and then ask for a unanimous consent on a bill.

But I really want to, first, talk about something really challenging, tragic, that happened in the State of New Jersey. Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died. He is dead, and it is a death that did not have to be.

He was detained by ICE on June 18. He was sent to Delaney Hall in my home city, in Newark, NJ--it is a detention center--and he never came out alive.

Mr. President, 20 years--20 years--Edwin lived in the United States of America, 20 years of building a life here, 20 years of being connected to people and community, 20 years of making here in America a way forward. And yet, in less than 2 months of detention, the immigration system in our country led to his death.

And in Delaney Hall, he is the third person in 9 months to die; the 23rd person to die in ICE custody this year--not the first warning sign, not the second, this is the third death at the same facility and yet nothing changes.

Let me tell you exactly how Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died because his family deserves to have his name said on the Senate floor and his story told plainly.

Edwin had diabetes. He had high blood pressure. He needed his medication to survive, and Delaney Hall denied it to him. The day before he died, he told his mother that his arm had gone numb, half his face had gone numb. And understand, this is not a minor complaint. This was a man that was having a medical emergency, telling someone exactly what was happening to his body.

Did anyone come to his aid? No. Did he get his medication? No. Less than 24 hours, he was dead.

Doctors have warned us, attorneys have warned us in New Jersey, families have warned us, a chorus of people in our communities--not politicians, not political activists--doctors, lawyers have been warning us, detainees who walked out of that building, with their testimony and the facts and the evidence, people have said over and over again that this facility is dangerous. It is not well run, and within it is a pattern of disregard for human decency.

DHS has known that Delaney Hall is nothing short of a travesty since they reopened it over a year ago. So who runs what is, for so many, a house of horrors? Who runs the institution that I saw myself when I went there and met people? This is not for serious criminals. This is not a place for folks who have done serious crimes in our country. This is a detention facility for people, many of them have been in our country for decades, many of them have American spouses, American children.

And when I went there, I saw mothers who were recently postpartum who were not getting the support. I saw a woman who lost her child while in that detention facility, had a miscarriage there, did not get the support that she needed. Story after story, people told me what is going on there, the horrors that are going on there.

And who runs it? The U.S. Government does not run that center. It is a private group called the GEO Group, a private for-profit prison that has high-level Republican officials among its former employees. This group won a billion-dollar contract: no competition, no bidding, lots of campaign contributions, a phone call, a signature, and they have a billion dollars of taxpayer money.

New Jersey had to sue this company just to get health inspectors through the front door of a facility operating on American soil, funded by American taxpayers, and our State couldn't even do basic health inspections.

They did not get--they did not get--the permits to open that place. They did not have inspections before they did so. This is a private company taking a billion dollars of American taxpayer money. The less they provide sanitary services, the less they provide doctors and medical professionals, the more profit they make off of taxpayers. At whose expense? At the decency of American people and at the expense of the lives of the people who are there.

We give them hundreds of millions of dollars. And what are the reports out of Delaney Hall? Spoiled food, contaminated water, staff who retaliate against people brave enough to speak up about the conditions. A billion dollars in inadequate accountability. A billion dollars in inadequate healthcare. A billion dollars and a man whose face is numb, whose arm is numb, who is asking for help--does not get treatment, does not get healthcare.

So, here is the truth. It is clear for the GEO Group that part of their business model is this cruelty: cut medical staff, skimp on food, let the air-conditioning go out during the hottest days in New Jersey, let the roof leak, cram more bodies into less space. Every corner cut is a dollar of their profit. Every dollar of their profit is a dollar that the GEO Group's executives get to celebrate on their next earnings call.

GEO Group's stock has more than doubled since February of 2026--more than doubled. You know why? Well, follow the money.

Three million dollars from the GEO Group and its executives went into Donald Trump's campaign, into his PAC, into his inauguration. It is a pay-to-play that is worse than that. A pay-to-play and people get hurt. Lives are lost.

Over $2 billion in Federal contracts to run facilities like Delaney Hall in our country. This is not immigration policy. This is not what we stand for. No one loses their humanity because they are incarcerated. No one should lose their basic rights because they are behind bars.

Look, I am all for what this administration promised it would do. They said they would go after the ``worst of the worst.'' They said they would go after

the people threatening our communities, menacing our families. We should all be supportive of that.

I believe we should have strong borders. I believe we should get criminals off of our streets. But the people actually locked up in that building in Delaney Hall? We know that more than 70 percent of the people have never been convicted of a single crime.

I met a high school student who had more of a Jersey accent than I do, who just wanted to walk with his class--rounded up. I have had the Catholic church reach out to me because of the sweeps they are doing around schools and churches. I have had family members beg me to get folks out in order to see their American children hit milestones like birthdays and graduations. I have been appealed to by everyone from priests to Republicans in our community. Many are following our laws.

But we in the U.S. Senate, Congress, hold the purse strings the administration depends on. We should be a check and a balance. We should demand that our taxpayer dollars are being used.

And when we see a body count climbing that is not normal, when we see more and more deaths, when we see a mother's son whose face went numb the night before, we should be asking for action and accountability.

Edwin Lopez-Cornejo's death was not a tragedy. A tragedy is something that no one could have prevented. This is a choice. Every single day the DHS keeps Delaney Hall open is another choice to let this happen, three times already. We should not make this choice.

Mr. President, I am now asking for a unanimous consent to pass the Delaney Hall Closure Act, which would close Delaney Hall within 90 days. They are out of excuses. We are out of time. How many more people should die?

So as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of my bill at the desk; that the bill be considered read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I appreciate the good-faith words of my colleague, and I will take it to heart that he is against unnecessary deaths and that the GEO Group should be investigated thoroughly and be held accountable. I do want to make followup points.

First of all, I live in North New Jersey. I used to run the police department as its mayor. There is nobody who feels more urgency for public safety in my city than I do. I hired many law enforcement officers and worked well with ICE, worked well with the FBI and with the DOJ--with all of the Federal law enforcement officers--in a coordinated effort to protect my community.

This idea that Democrats want to defund ICE is wrong. I actually believe we need law enforcement in our communities to keep us safe. But I want to make sure we do it in a way that comports with our values and our decency.

Let's be clear. There is no law enforcement agency in America that has more money than ICE has right now. As to this idea that the Democrats have done anything to defund it right

now, ICE has more than the FBI, more than the ATF, and more than the Coast Guard combined. It is the most well-funded Agency there is. So the idea that they cannot provide for the basic needs of people who are in their facilities is a lie. This is not a money problem. ICE has all the money they need, and they are showing an inability to keep their inmates alive.

Now, I like my colleague's metaphor that if a bridge is broken, you close the bridge. I know this because, again, I was a mayor. If people are falling through holes on a bridge, we close the bridge. Do the inspections, but don't leave people in a hellscape where people continue to die in that facility. Keeping that open is irresponsible. ICE has enough money to transfer to other facilities the people who are a real threat. ICE has enough money to run around my State and overspend for real estate, as they have done in one of my towns. They are throwing cash around in a way that should offend Republicans and anybody who is fiscally prudent, but we are not holding the people accountable.

Yes, if something is broken, you stop using it. If people are dying because of a defect in a car, you don't use it. If people are falling through holes on a bridge, you close it. We have a responsibility to taxpayers' money, and we have shoveled this Agency more money than any law enforcement agency there is, and then we are not doing what is necessary to hold these people, like the GEO Group, accountable.

I will continue to stand for law enforcement. One of the reasons I got elected by my State is that we drove crime down in the city of Newark. Everybody saw it. Investment came back, and the population came back. I believe in creating safety in my community. This is not about the accusations that somehow, Democrats don't believe we should have strong law enforcement. If anybody believes in that, I know my record here in the Senate speaks to that.

How can we stand here and allow this from a facility in which multiple people have died in the most gruesome ways? How can we allow this from an organization that is supposed to be providing healthcare but is denying it? How can we allow this in accordance with our own values? Enough is enough.

Delaney Hall is a nightmare. I did not come to the floor to talk about closing facilities all over the country; I am talking about one facility with a record of people dying unnecessarily, with a record of people being denied medical care, with a record of people being denied healthy food--one facility that is failing. For this body to keep it open while waiting for something to change while more people are suffering and may die is irresponsible beyond compare.

I believe there is common ground on both sides of the aisle where we can achieve the highest levels of safety and also ensure that within our incarcerating facilities, people are treated with dignity. I have worked across the aisle with Senator Lindsey Graham, with Senator Chuck Grassley, and with Senator Mike Lee to improve conditions in the Bureau of Prisons. I hope that when it comes to ICE facilities and this private, for-profit company where people are dying that we can find some common ground to stop this nightmare from happening.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, look, my esteemed colleague from Wisconsin--I don't mean to use any onomatopoeia here, but he is howling about the gray wolves and seeking to pass legislation to remove Federal protections under the Endangered Species Act for gray wolves across the entire United States.

A hallmark of the Endangered Species Act is the requirement that decisions be made solely on the basis of scientific data. Congress is supposed to rely on that data.

This act was brought to bear in 1973 under a Republican President with a very important mission: to protect species at risk of extinction and to promote the conservation of ecosystems and habitats necessary for the survival of those species.

For a species to be considered recovered, science must show that it has returned to suitable habitats with durable populations that can persist safely and endurably into the foreseeable future. That is the law. Today, wolves have returned to only 10 percent of their historic range and do not meet the Endangered Species Act requirements for delisting. That is the law.

Gray wolves once numbered in the millions across North America, from forests and plains to deserts and mountains. But wolves, with insatiable, rapacious cruelty, were hunted, trapped, and poisoned--and other actions to kill and eradicate them--to near extinction by the mid-20th century in all of the lower 48 States.

There is this growing sympathy and empathy in the American public for a species that has endured such cruelty and ruthlessness at human hands over the centuries--a species that is the forbear of the dogs we love and cherish in our lives.

As apex predators, gray wolves, we now know, play a vital role in keeping

the entire natural ecosystem in America healthy. When wolves were brought back to places like Yellowstone National Park, it transformed the park. More birds, beavers, and fish returned.

Research from Wisconsin, my colleague's home State, reveals the overwhelming net benefits of healthy, wild wolf packs to our landscapes.

My colleague cites that there are problems in Wisconsin. There are so many Wisconsinites that speak out, especially the scientists, and some of those scientists are actually economists. Wisconsin economists proved that wolves are protecting human safety. One of the big ways they protect human safety--and they enumerated this--is by reducing vehicle collisions with the deer population, with deer. Other independent research in Wisconsin suggests that chronic wasting disease is suppressed where wolf packs hunt. And there are so many other benefits.

But it is not just his State that this would affect; it would be so many other States.

Look, we have a crisis in our country. We are living through a biodiversity crash. Some people call it the sixth mass extinction. This mass extinction is unique because it is being driven not by natural disasters but primarily by human activity and decision making. Current extinction rates are estimated to be hundreds to thousands of times higher than the normal background rate.

We need to do better for what wildlife remains in our Nation, including the gray wolf. We need to stand up for the role of science in influencing our decisions, for expertise influencing the outcomes, and not harmful legislation like this. That is why I will not allow it to move forward, Mr. President. I object.

Madam President, before I begin my formal remarks, I just want to stand here and give a formal apology to John Merlino. I have for years maligned him. I have disrespected, disregarded him. You know how I operate sometimes. And I just want to say he is a man of honor. I have taken him off my list, and now he is on the good list.

So just for anyone who wants to know, the U.S. senior Senator from New Jersey has praised John Merlino--perhaps for his first time because he is not a man that really generates a lot of praise usually.

So I just want you to know, before I go into my formal remarks for the day, that John Merlino--you the man.

Now, I would like for the record to separate a little bit so I can start some of my formal remarks after I have tried to redeem the soul of a friend and colleague.

Madam President, I really believe there is a reason why some of my Republican colleagues themselves have delayed the Blanche nomination, because this is actually no ordinary nomination. We haven't had a moment like this under Donald Trump where Republicans themselves have stopped the vote. Because this is not simply a vote about one man; it is a vote about whether the Department of Justice will remain independent of the President of the United States.

The Attorney General of the United States of America has one client-- not a political party, not a President, not a wealthy donor, not a political movement. The Attorney General's client is the Constitution of the United States and the American people. That is the sacred obligation of that office. When they are sworn in, they do not swear an oath to the President, to Donald Trump; they swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

Unfortunately, Todd Blanche has spent months in office demonstrating his allegiance not to our Constitution but to the President. Time and time again, he has shown that he is only capable of serving the interests of one client--Donald Trump. That is why this nomination should not simply be delayed; it should be rejected. The evidence is overwhelming.

Congress came together in a bipartisan way to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act because survivors deserved answers, they deserved justice, and the American people deserved transparency. Todd Blanche was responsible for carrying out that law. Instead, he delayed and delayed. He was stalling. And there was a release after the date and deadline prescribed by Congress that was so careless that sensitive information belonging to Epstein's survivors was exposed by the very Department that was supposed to protect them--their phone numbers, addresses, images, personal details.

Think about that. The survivors entrusted the Department of Justice with some of the most painful chapters of their lives. They deserved care. They deserved competence. They deserved honesty. They deserved an adherence to the law. Instead, they received delays, excuses, and a terrible, tragic breach of their privacy.

Then came the request of meeting with the survivors. For weeks, Mr. Blanche insisted he could not meet with them unless their attorneys were present. This was not true. A first-year law student knows that this is not true. His own Department's policies and Federal law make that clear.

When he finally did meet with them--the survivors--because a Republican Senator demanded that he do it, the survivors described the meeting as disappointing. They said they felt gaslit. They said they were skipped over. They said Mr. Blanche was condescending to the survivors of sexual assault.

Even then, when the survivors pleaded for continued investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein coconspirators, Mr. Blanche once again hid behind claims that the law prevented him from answering.

So we simply have to ask the question: Who is Todd Blanche serving here? Is he serving the survivors? No. Is he serving the interests of the Department of Justice? No. Is he serving the American people? No. But we know that he rushed to the Situation Room for high-level members of the Trump administration to strategize on how to protect the President.

It is another clear example that the person he is there to protect is Donald Trump.

(Mr. BUDD assumed the Chair.)

Last week, my Democratic colleagues held a Spotlight Forum to examine Mr. Blanche's record. We heard from a courageous Epstein survivor. We heard from ethics experts. We heard from one of Mr. Blanche's own former colleagues from the Southern District of New York. We heard from a former Justice official appointed under a Republican President--who served a Republican Senator, Senator Hatch, here in this body--who was then fired simply because he had done his job on investigations involving Robert Mueller and Jack Smith.

Different witnesses, different backgrounds, still one conclusion from every one of them: that Todd Blanche is unfit to lead the Department of Justice. And if there were any doubt, the events of recent days erased those doubts.

Mr. Blanche, in his tenure, helped negotiate a corrupt, extraordinary settlement between Donald Trump's Department of Justice and Donald Trump. We have heard from the Federal bench already that there was no controversy. Donald Trump can't be on both sides of a negotiation. That corrupt structure was exploiting the judiciary to create an environment in which there would be a settlement, and out of that settlement, we saw an unjust and untoward creation that outraged Americans all across the political spectrum. They created a slush fund.

Think about what this means: The lawyer who represented Donald Trump now oversees the Department of Justice and negotiates an agreement between Donald Trump and Donald Trump that is not merely an appearance of conflict, that is the definition of a conflict. It is precisely why the Department of Justice must be independent.

If you look at this slush fund agreement, within it, there are immunity provisions that, according to that agreement, are, to the former senior Federal prosecutor--he said that this agreement and the immunity provisions are ``mind-boggling in scope.'' Donald Trump got a tax liability immunity that is extraordinary--mind-boggling in scope. The immunity provisions alone cover broad categories with no meaningful legal definition.

When asked about those undefined terms during his confirmation hearing, Mr. Blanche effectively acknowledged that they could encompass almost anything--anything. According to Blanche, he negotiated a deal that gave Donald Trump immunity that could cover almost any kind of tax fraud that

Donald Trump or his family committed.

For Donald Trump, with his former lawyer at the head of the Justice Department, it seems like, for the President, justice has no rules, justice has no standards, justice has no limits.

When one man receives special rules unavailable to every other American, this is not justice; it is privilege. It is unjust privilege.

During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Blanche repeatedly promised that he would act independently. But independence is not something you promise; it is something you demonstrate. He has been in this position for months and has had the chance to show us not promises but actions, and at every important decision he has made, the same story comes out. Who was he serving? The Constitution or Donald Trump? The answer is unmistakable.

This vote we have in the Senate on this nominee--every Senator is going to have to eventually cast a vote, but history is going to record something much larger. It will record whether in this moment, the U.S. Senate defended the independence of American justice, the independence of the Justice Department, or did we surrender it.

Long after today's headlines are forgotten, long after today's politics have faded, one question will remain: When the independence of the Department of Justice was tested, where did we stand?

I know where I stand. I stand for a Department of Justice whose only client is the American people; a Department that follows the evidence, not politics; a Department that defends the Constitution, not a President.

No one--not even the President of the United States--is above the law. That principle has guided this great Republic for nearly 250 years. It is our responsibility to preserve it today. It is the oath that we took, the commitment that we made that we will serve the people and the ideals.

To vote for Blanche is to surrender those ideals upon the altar of someone who wants to be a false god, where his interests are superior over everyone else's. That is wrong.

History is watching. We should reject this nominee.

Immigration

Mr. President, somewhere in America today, a father kissed his children goodbye before leaving to work, a mother boarded an airplane to attend her father's funeral, a husband drove to his construction job, a woman walked into an airport believing that they were following the law of our land. None of them expected to disappear into our immigration detention system. Yet this is happening all over our country.

Over the last several months, immigration enforcement has accelerated dramatically. In June alone, ICE arrested more than 43,000 people--the highest monthly total in years. People are being arrested outside of their homes, at airports, at workplaces, near schools, near our churches, across communities throughout our Nation. And many of them-- most of them--are nonviolent, with no criminal record. Many of them have lived here for years--many, for decades. Many of them are raising American children. Some have American grandchildren, American spouses, and are an integral part of the community. Many of these folks are working jobs, paying taxes, following the legal process toward citizenship.

A woman traveling home to Texas for her father's funeral was detained at an airport while she was pursuing her asylum claim. Two other women, despite being married to American citizens and already in the legal process of obtaining permanent residency, were detained.

These are not people that are hiding from the law; these are people trying to follow it. Yet, instead of helping them complete that process, our government took them, locked them away from their families, from the Americans that love them, the communities that cherish them, the businesses and jobs that sustained those families.

Right now, today in America, roughly 70 percent of the people in immigration detention--often for-profit private companies--have never been convicted of a criminal offense--70 percent. This is not what Donald Trump promised--that he would go after the ``worst of the worst.'' This is a dragnet.

These, unfortunately, are indiscriminate arrests, not the result of focused law enforcement. They are the consequence of arbitrary arrest quotas and no guiding principles of decency and support of a legal immigration system. It is taking people who are seeking to abide by our laws and throwing them in prisons for the profits of private companies, which also are big supporters and contributors to this President.

When numbers become more important than justice, innocent people become collateral damage. And this doesn't just harm immigrants in our country or violate our values of decency; it harms all Americans.

Too often, this debate is framed as though immigrants are taking from our country, that they are takers. Well, the facts tell a different story. According to the conservative Cato Institute, for more than two decades, immigrants have contributed more in taxes--way more in taxes-- than they have received in any kind of government benefit, many of which they are ineligible for. Together, immigrants have generated a fiscal surplus measured in the trillions of dollars. Undocumented immigrants alone paid nearly $100 billion in Federal, State, and local taxes in a single year. They work. They build. They start businesses. They strengthen our economy. They contribute to Social Security and Medicare. They help build prosperity for all of America.

Yet this administration wants to punish many of the very people that are helping to strengthen it, violating the commitment to go after the dangerous people, to focus our taxpayer resources on getting criminals off of our street. But no, they are using our taxpayer money to go after people that have been in our country for years and decades, who are contributing to it and are working hard to abide by our immigration laws.

Nowhere is this contradiction more painful than what we are seeing right now with Haitian immigrants in our country. Earlier this year, the United Nations described Haiti as ``one of the most complex crises in . . . recent history.'' Armed gangs control large sections of the country. Kidnappings are widespread. Sexual violence is used as a weapon. Thousands upon thousands have been killed. Natural disasters continue to deepen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

Trump's own State Department gives Haiti its highest travel warning, level 4; in other words, do not travel to Haiti. Think about that. We tell American citizens ``It is far too dangerous for you to go to Haiti,'' and then we tell Haitian families ``We are sending you there.'' How can both possibly be true? How could a nation of decency take people with temporary protected status and send them to the very country our Nation warns us not to go to because of the violence and destitution? Have we no decency in our policies? If a country is far too dangerous for an American to step into, how can it be safe enough for families that are now being forced to go back there?

Temporary protected status exists for precisely this kind of moment. Congress created it. A Republican President signed it into law. It recognizes a simple yet profound moral truth: When extraordinary danger exists, Americans should not force human beings into it.

The values of our country, the values of our collective faiths, the values of the best of humanity are being violated here. We are a moral nation, but forcing people here on temporary protected status back into countries where there is such violence and destitution violates our morals, our values. It cheapens us all. It is wrong. Yet this administration has canceled temporary protected status for more than 330,000 Haitians.

Many have lived here for years and years. Many of them already have had American children in our country. Many of them have married Americans themselves. They have worked here. They have paid billions in taxes here. They built businesses here, served communities in some of the most humble jobs in our hospitals as assistants, helping the ill and the elderly.

There are thousands that I have come to know are in New Jersey, many whom I know personally. They are woven into the fabric of our communities, but now from a callous President they face deportation into one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

I ask my colleagues: Can we look these families in the eye and honestly

say this reflects the best of who we are, this reflects the values of our faiths?

Most of us here in this body are Christians. Would Jesus send someone from our Nation into danger, rip them away from their communities? Is that what our faiths dictate? Is that what our ideals dictate?

Even some Republicans have been raising alarms. Members of the House voted to extend protections. The Republican Governor of Ohio called those deportations ``a mistake'' because this is not simply an immigration debate; it is a moral test.

America has always been strongest when our laws reflected both security and humanity. These are not conflicting ideals. In fact, they are interwoven.

When we violate our humanity, we violate our security. We can secure our borders, and we should. We can enforce our laws, and we must. But we can also distinguish between those who threaten America and those who have spent years here in our country strengthening it.

This is not weakness. The Haitians in our community--keeping them here amidst the crisis in Haiti--it is not weakness; it is wisdom. It is justice. It is morally right.

It is long past time that we, in Congress, modernize an immigration system that virtually everyone agrees is broken. I can't tell you the conversations I have had with Republican colleagues of mine.

The late Lindsey Graham is a great example about how our immigration laws are so broken, it makes it hard for anyone who wants to follow the rules to be able to, in any timely way, become a citizen of our country.

The Cato Institute calls it more likely to win the lottery than it is to come into our country. This is one of the reasons why our population is declining.

We need laws that reflect our values, laws that are orderly, laws that keep us safe and secure, laws that protect the border, laws that affirm our values.

We can have all of that. Do not listen to the false choice of a President, who wants to send people back to a human version of hell, rip people from our communities all in the name of safety and security. That is a lie.

We must create laws that offer a realistic pathway for people who have lived, worked, contributed, paid taxes, invested their lives in this country for decades, especially those with American families and American children.

The question before us is so much larger than immigration; it is about whom we are becoming as a society when we turn our back on our neighbors being thrown in private detention facilities that are profiting off of their pain, who we are as a nation when we want to rip people away from their families and their children and send them to modern-day's hell, who we are as a nation when we take those people that are good enough to work in our hospitals to take care of our elderly, but then we want to turn our back on them and let them be dragged out of our country even though they have been here for years, followed our laws, and are working toward a pathway to citizenship.

Who are we if we continue down this road that creates false fears, that spreads lies about immigrants, that turns its very back on the fundamental precept to love your neighbor?

Well, I still believe in America. I still believe we are strong enough to create safety and security and to embrace those who love our Nation and serve her faithfully even though they are not citizens. I still believe in an America that is big enough and bold enough to protect its borders and love the stranger.

I still believe in a nation whose immigration laws can affirm our dignity and decency and not be an assault on it. I still believe in a nation that honors its faith traditions and knows that we have to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger, especially when they are fleeing persecution and hate and violence.

I believe in the highest ideals of our Nation. That is why we have laws like temporary protected status in the first place. It reflected the best of us. But I fear this administration is showing the worst of who we are. I honor Republican think tanks, the Republican Governors who all have the courage to stand up and say: This is wrong.

We need that kind of chorus of conviction here in the U.S. Senate. I ask my colleagues to not let this President so violate our collective values. This is not a right or left issue; it is a right or wrong issue.

I pray for our Nation. I pray that we live our ideals and don't just talk about them. I pray that we teach our children whom we are not by what we say but by what we do.

I pray that in this crisis, we do not allow a President to undermine decency and grace and send innocent people back to environments where they will face nightmares and violence.

We can be the America we say we are, but this Chamber must stand up.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, 3 years. For 3 years, the people of Sudan have lived through an unimaginable nightmare and hell: 3 years of the worst raging war on our planet, 3 years of displacement, 3 years of starvation, 3 years of children growing up surrounded by violence instead of possibility.

Perhaps what is most shocking is not only the horror that is unfolding in Sudan, it is how little of the world seems to be paying attention. Twenty years ago, the horrors of Darfur captured the conscience of the international community. The world declared: Never again. Yet, today, another generation of Sudanese civilians is being terrorized while the world looks away.

Since April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces have waged an unimaginably brutal war for power. But it is not those fighting for power who have paid the ultimate price; it is ordinary people--mothers, fathers, children, families.

This war has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, period. Entire communities have been cut off from food and medicine and lifesaving humanitarian assistance. Large parts of the country are experiencing severe food insecurity, with some areas facing outright famine and famine-like conditions. Women, children, families, journalists, aid workers--civilians of every kind have endured horrific violations of human rights and human dignity.

Consider what this war has done. More than 15 million people have been driven from their homes. More than 4 million have fled Sudan altogether. More than 30 million people now depend on humanitarian assistance simply to survive. Nearly 19 million children--roughly 90 percent of Sudan's school-age children--have lost access to formal education. Think about that. An entire generation is being robbed not only of their safety but of their future.

The United States has determined that the Rapid Support Forces have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. The Sudanese Armed Forces have also committed horrific war crimes. The Trump administration has maintained that the genocide determination against the RSF is correct. Two administrations. Two declarations of an ongoing genocide.

None of this, though, is inevitable. None of this war is inevitable. The war is continuing because outside actors continue to arm it, continue to finance it, and continue to sustain it. Every weapon that enters Sudan prolongs this crisis and the suffering of the Sudanese people.

Yet, despite the staggering scale of this crisis, the Trump administration terminated bilateral humanitarian assistance to Sudan. And despite the need for sustained American leadership, the Trump administration has still not appointed a Special Envoy for Sudan.

The people of Sudan deserve more than divided attention. They deserve more than the American public looking the other way. They deserve focused American leadership in this time of crisis.

Today, the warning lights are flashing all over the city of El Obeid. We have seen the crisis already when it comes to El Fasher and the horrors that existed there. But now we see the pattern starting again in another major community. We know this pattern. First, roads are cut. Then humanitarian aid is blocked. Then electricity disappears. Then water disappears. Communications are shut down and disappear. Civilians are trapped. And then the killing begins.

Strategically located between Darfur and Khartoum, El Obeid has become the RSF's next major target. It is home to nearly 1 million people. They are at risk again. Most roads into and out of El Obeid have already been cut off. Only one major route remains, and it has already come under repeated drone attacks. Those attacks are growing more frequent and more destructive. Water systems, powerplants, telecommunications infrastructure, health facilities--the very infrastructure civilians depend on to survive is under assault.

We know this story, and we know how it ends. It is a call to the conscience of all of humanity and the conscience of this country. The only question now is, Will we act before history repeats itself in this city of 1 million people?

The head of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan warned:

The patterns we documented in El Fasher--including

encirclement, attacks on civilian infrastructure,

restrictions on humanitarian access, and widespread abuses

against civilians--serve as a stark warning. The

international community must heed these lessons and act to

prevent further catastrophes.

The warning has been issued. The question is whether we will listen-- because we know what happened in El Fasher. Families were hunted down house by house. Civilians were massacred at an unimaginable rate. Women were subjected to horrific sexual abuse. Children were caught between the shelling and the starvation. Thousands and thousands were killed. People who stayed were killed. People who tried to flee were killed.

And the tragedy is this: None of it came without a warning. The warning signs were there. The intelligence was there. The risk was known, but the urgency was not.

We cannot allow history to repeat itself in El Obeid, nor can we allow the violence consuming Sudan to continue simply because it has fallen from the world's headlines--fallen or never been in the U.S. headlines.

I traveled to the Chad-Sudan border. As this crisis raged, I went there to witness with my own eyes. I met humanitarian workers forced to make impossible choices because they simply did not have enough food, medicine, or resources for the overwhelming need before them. I met mothers carrying children who were obviously malnourished. I met families who had watched their loved ones be murdered. I met survivors of horrific sexual violence. I met people surviving on grass because there was simply nothing left to eat.

I saw what seemed like an ocean of humanity in desperation. Those images

will stay with me for a lifetime. The conversations are seared into my memory, the cries for help--not just from those who were suffering as victims but from the aid workers themselves, from Americans themselves--for all of us to do more, to pay attention.

Even when the United States increased humanitarian assistance under the last administration during the first 2 years of the war, the need still exceeded the resources available. Yet, as the crisis deepened, the new Trump administration chose to terminate or allow bilateral humanitarian programs in Sudan to expire.

While the administration's contributions of $200 million to the U.N.- managed humanitarian fund is important--it is not nothing--but it is nowhere near enough to meet the scale of this catastrophe.

The reality on the ground demands far more from our Nation than expressions of concern; it demands action. That is why I call on the Trump administration to restore and increase lifesaving humanitarian assistance to the people of Sudan. That is why the United States and our partners must increase pressure on the outside actors who continue to fuel this conflict. That is why I introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on the United Nations Security Council to fully enforce the existing Darfur arms embargo and expand it to cover all of Sudan and hold accountable anyone who breaks that embargo.

I urge my colleagues in this body to join me in supporting this effort; to not turn away from this crisis; to stand, as America has stood in past generations, and call out the crisis and answer the call of humanity; to lead to end it. It is too long overdue.

This administration--I demand that Donald Trump appoint a Special Envoy to Sudan. It is required by the law of this body for him to do so, and the people of Sudan deserve an American diplomat whose full attention is dedicated to ending this war, not one whose focus is divided upon multiple crises. The biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet Earth demands that we have a Special Envoy. If not this, then what? If not now, then when?

If the staggering human suffering is not enough to compel action, then the growing threat to regional stability should be. But I hope we don't act because instability threatens our interest alone, even though it does; I hope we act because humanity demands it.

History has a way of asking really difficult questions: Where were you, what did you know, and what did you do?

No one will be able to say that we did not know about this crisis, that we did not know children are starving by the thousands upon thousands, that we did not know civilians are being massacred at rates and levels seen nowhere else on the planet Earth.

The genocide wasn't declared by the United Nations simply or some outside Agency, our own government has declared it a genocide. And now another city of a million people stands at the edge of a catastrophe. The call of humanity now is who will act. Indifference has never saved a single life but has condemned millions. Silence has never stopped a genocide, but it has allowed them to continue. Sympathy without action is impotency and failure.

The people of Sudan deserve more. They deserve our action. They deserve our focus. They deserve our urgency. They deserve a nation of people in solidarity to say: This should never exist amongst humanity. It should never exist in our world.

This is not just a call for the full weight of the international community, it is a call for who has led the international community since World War II. We have been the Nation that has answered the call on so many occasions. We have been the Nation united in our conviction that such horrors and atrocities should not exist. It has been American compassion that has led other nations to move. It has been American urgency that has led other nations to move. It has been American leadership that has helped to end crises across the world. It has risen to meet the AIDS crisis. It has risen to help people in natural disasters.

We are the United States of America. The test of our values is not how much we preach them but how much we live them.

The core of the faith of our Nation is to love thy neighbor, and who is your neighbor? The people of Sudan are our neighbors. They are part of our human family. There are children and families now calling to God, but it is not up to some deity to answer that call, it is up to His children to do so.

Another city is in peril. The horrors that might emerge in these coming days will rage again and thousands upon thousands could die or we could act. Let's not wait until another massacre to discover our conscience. Let our Nation rise to its truth. Let our Nation rise to this crisis.

In this dark time, let our Nation be a light to the world. Let us act now.

May we act now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I know I share this with 99 colleagues; that there is grief yet again hanging over the U.S. Senate and hanging over America because soldiers who have sworn an oath to our Constitution--who have sworn to serve and defend this Nation--have fallen.

Several weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone who had been my colleague who is now the Secretary of State. I asked about this war, and Secretary Rubio looked me in the eyes, under oath, and told me that the war was over. Several weeks before that, the President and his administration stood before the American people and told them we had won the war.

I want to tell you right now that the soldiers who died this past week died in the war, and we are mourning the loss.

This is not a left or a right thing. This is a time when we come together beyond anything partisan and understand that soldiers have fallen--three soldiers and possibly a fourth. They were killed in action in a war that we have been told is over and a war that I believe firmly should end. Their names deserve to be spoken on this floor and in the Congress of the United States. I want to speak their names: 1LT Tyler James Feehan of Hawaii; he was 25 years old. Private Isabella Gonzales of Texas; she was 19 years old. SGT Michael Emmanuel Swinton of North Carolina, killed at Erbil Airbase in northern Iraq--30 years old--19, 25, and 30. My prayers are with their families. I can't even begin to imagine the grief.

As it stands today, 17 American servicemembers have paid the ultimate price for this war. There are 17 Americans and 17 families who won't sit for a meal with their loved ones--17 lives that a nation cannot get back. No matter how many times we say it, the pain still lasts. These are 17 reasons I believe the American people and the men and women who wear this country's uniform are owed more from us.

We know, in this body, that every single day we are privy to information; that every single day we go into classified settings and hear about the fact that every single day there are Americans standing up for our country in dangerous places who are doing dangerous things. It is one of the more sobering parts of this job to know that I bear a responsibility, along with my 99 colleagues, for those men and women who step forward, swear their oath, put on their uniforms, and go all over the globe for us under the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States.

Now, the idea behind our democracy is that they don't go at the orders of their commanders, but they go to represent a country that has a form of government, a Republic, that is a nation of laws. They swear an oath to the Constitution, and we, too, swear that same oath. We stand right there in the well of the Senate. We raise our hands, and we swear an oath. There is no measure of courage to do this job. Rarely, have I seen Senators face real imminent danger. The truth of the matter is that the courage evidenced by men and women in uniform should serve as an inspiration to us in that maybe we are not putting ourselves to the physical tests that they are but that we, too, have to make a decision to honor their courage with our moral courage.

This week, we learned--to my surprise and, frankly, inciting my anger--that the Pentagon severely undercounted the number of servicemembers who have been injured. We were told that over 400 servicemembers have been injured since February 28. Now we are learning that, in the last 2 weeks alone, more than 100 more American servicemembers have been injured in spiraling strikes between the United States and Iran. Some have been seriously injured, and some have already been back at work--many of them back in harm's way.

I fear that we are seeing a pattern. The administration has not told Congress or the American people the truth about the cost of this war, nor the cost to our men and women who put on the

uniform; not the cost to the military families who have family members in harm's way, nor the 17 families who will not have family members coming home. Now we are listening to the Congress of the United States in both Chambers. We have seen votes in majorities in both Chambers to end this war, but instead of listening to that will, instead of listening to the American people as to a war that is immensely unpopular, we seem to be repeating over and over again what I believe is an unjust continuation of a war that is not upheld or supported by the law of our land or by the Constitution we swore an oath to.

This brings to me the urgency of this moment, and the death of more American soldiers highlights what we are doing here. History is looking at us in this moment. Right now, as we speak, there are people in harm's way. History is looking at us in this moment. How will our moral courage stand alongside those courageous people who are representing our country?

My heart is heavy; my spirit grieves. And I know I am not alone. When deaths like this happen, we shouldn't just go on like this is normal. When people die in service of our country, in combat, we shouldn't treat it like another day here in America. It is not.

So how do we express our commitment to country? How can it lie in congruency with theirs? How can we honor them in this body beyond condolences, thoughts, and prayers?

I believe what the call of this body is in this moment, in the shadow of their immense brilliance, that we have an obligation to honor them, not with words, but in how we give the best measure of our devotion to the laws of our land.

I find it unconscionable that the stakes are so high in this country where we are spending tens of billions of dollars--that factually could be going to our schools, tens of billions of dollars could be going to our healthcare, tens of billions of dollars that could be paying down our national debt, tens of billions of dollars that don't just come out of nowhere, but they come from hard-working taxpayers who pay their taxes into a system that they put faith and trust in. And what is happening with this money that we are expending for bombs and missiles and planes and personnel?

What is happening is we expend this money. Well, what is apparent to me is what is not happening. You see, our Founders understood the nature of war, and they understood--in light of Kings and Queens and Monarchs who so easily pushed their country into war with no consequence, how easily they put lives on the line, sent men and women into battles--it was such a significant understanding that they had that they said: No individual should be able to unilaterally send our men and women, our children, into war; that we should put appropriate checks and balances on those decisions. Our Founders knew the consequence of war, the burden of war. They knew the hell of war, the tragic consequence to families, the pain and agony of death, and they knew that those decisions should not be made by an individual who might be overcome with some kind of ill-conceived notions and draw our country into war where we give the best of who we are.

The best of America is not our wealth; it is the young men and women who hold the hope of America.

And so the Constitution is clear: Do not let one person drag our Nation into war. They took that power and placed it not with an Executive. They placed that power with this body, with Congress so that there would be debate and discussion; so that there would be arguments into the night; and so that people would understand with the gravity of such a commitment that we would make sure that the will of the people would be the first decisionmakers for a war.

And that any President that was conducting the war would not conduct it above accountability but would have checks and balance. That is the Constitution of the United States. Those imperfect geniuses understood that in moments like this when our Nation is at war, where men and women are coming home not alive but in body bags, that we should honor them by making sure that the will of our Nation was behind that war.

And here we are, since the end of February, month after month. Soldiers injured by the hundreds. Lives lost. And the question is: What are we doing in this body?

Have we granted the authority to the Executive to go to war? No, we haven't.

Have we exercised our constitutional authority? No, we haven't.

Have we debated this war and had to make a decision by voting yes or no to allow the President to conduct this war? We have not.

We have men and women who are fighting to defend our Nation's laws and Constitution, and here we are not living up to it. To me, that is a living shame, that men and women are risking their lives for the Constitution we serve, and we can't even live up to the roles that we are to play within that constitutional Republic.

What does it say that men and women are dying for this country and we are not even living up to its laws? That men and women are paying the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation and we can't even stand up and do the specific duty spelled out by our country?

All hundred of us grieve these losses. No one should say any different. I know my colleagues. There is not a person here that doesn't anguish over the loss, but that is not enough in this moment. That is inadequate when it comes to honoring these men and women.

What this moment calls for is more than thoughts and prayers, more than the hurt and the grief. It calls for us to do our job. We owe it to them. We owe them truth. We owe them accountability. We owe them checks and balances. We owe them transparency. We owe them a government that lives up to its obligations.

They gave the best measure of their devotion to the Nation they loved, and their love was not mere words or symbols or salutes. Their words alone did not show their sacrifice. They understood to love your Nation is to stand up and work for her, sacrifice for her, risk for her.

It is time for this body, the U.S. Senate, to honor those men and women by giving our best measure of devotion to our Constitution. This body must end this unconstitutional and unjust war. And if they are unwilling to do so, they should hold the vote whether we authorize this war. It has not been done yet.

How many more men and women will die before we do our job, rein in this Executive, hold him accountable, and bring an end to a war that our Nation does not want to be in?

Today, my thoughts and prayers are with their families. But I stand here as 1 out of 100 Senators offering more than thoughts and prayers. I yet again demand this body to fulfill its constitutional obligations and do its job.

Mr. President, I think there are profound moments in the course of our 250 years when our Nation was at an inflection point, and I believe this is one of those inflection points where, as we look at the events in our Nation, we don't just ask the question ``What is happening?'' we have to ask the question ``Who are we becoming?''

There are moments where this question of ``Who are we as a nation?'' has to come with the understanding that every generation of Americans has to define themselves. This is a question right now, with the events of recent days, where we must ask that question--who are we as a nation? What do we stand for?

This is a question that is larger than politics, larger than left or right, larger than immigration policy, larger than any one party. It is a question that really asks about the immense power that we entrust to our government and is that still constrained. Do we still live under a Constitution where, by our very definition as a nation, we should have accountability and transparency; that when we do things like pledge allegiance to a flag, it is not simply the banner, but it is also the values, this idea that every single life has worth.

Think about these conceptions of humanity that we put forth 250 years ago--that we are all created equal. I believe this is an inflection point in our Nation that should not be normalized but should really force us to ask this question as American citizens and ask this question as Members of this body.

Every life--every life--was created equally, has equal dignity, equal worth. And when government, our government, takes a life, there must be accountability; that is something precious in this Nation, the value of life and the responsibility of those who wield power.

It is not just confidence in government that I am talking about. It is not just faith in how our laws are enforced. It really is the very idea of our Nation. That is how I want to set my remarks here because this is an inflection point in America.

We are a nation that stands for something. Our Nation was founded on the belief that all are created equal, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, and among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But today, I am rising because of my growing concern that we are not living up to those ideals, and the consequences of that are that we are normalizing something so utterly tragic.

Two more people have fallen in our Nation. Two more families are grieving in our Nation. And I refuse to believe that this is simply the cost of doing business in the United States of America.

Last Tuesday morning, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo climbed into his work van like millions of Americans do all over our country every single workday. He wasn't headed to a protest or a political rally. He wasn't headed into conflict. He was headed to work. He was 52 years old. He was a husband, a father of American children, a man who spent decades in this country building a life, supporting his family, contributing to his community, paying taxes.

On his way to work, Federal agents in unmarked vehicles began following his van. Moments later, an officer fired through the passenger side window, and Lorenzo stumbled from that vehicle. Agents forced him to the ground, and he died right there on the pavement.

Yesterday morning, it happened again. Joan Sebastian Guerrero. He was 26 years old and also a father. He was authorized to work in our country, has a Social Security number. On his way to work, another shooting. Another grieving family. Another life, precious life, gone.

I stand here today because I am deeply worried about something so fundamental to our country that is now in crisis. I worry that we are becoming accustomed to things that should horrify us, that we are becoming so exhausted, so polarized, so overwhelmed that another death just becomes another headline, another investigation, another news cycle, another family left to grieve.

The greatest danger to democracy is not simply injustice; it is when injustice no longer shocks us, no longer moves us, no longer compels us to meet that injustice. It is a poverty--a poverty of empathy, a poverty of concern. It is a tragedy that in the midst of tragedy, our hearts stop breaking, when outrage gives way to indifference, because indifference is where accountability goes to die.

And this is not the first time. Earlier this year, Renee Good was killed, and Alex Pretti was killed. American citizens. Families forever changed. Lives forever interrupted. And what happened? Investigations were literally shut down by our Justice Department. Think about that. The highest law enforcement officers in the land shut down an investigation into those murders. Those investigations were not completed. They did not follow where the evidence led. They were simply stopped, halted. Justice denied.

Every police officer--and I have worked closely with many of them-- every police officer knows that when deadly force is used, there must be scrutiny, not because we assume any guilt but because accountability protects everyone in our democracy.

It protects the public; it protects the officers; it protects the confidence in the very idea of the rule of law upon which our country and our Constitution is built.

No badge and no police officer I know fear transparency. So many of the honorable officers that I dealt with every day as a mayor, they want the truth. In fact, those incredible officers demand it because accountability is not the enemy of law enforcement. It is what gives law enforcement its strength and its true moral authority. It is what gives the laws of this land and those who conduct them their very legitimacy. To not investigate, scrutinize, have transparency and accountability when tragedy strikes, erodes the very foundation of our democracy. Amidst the tragedy of those depths, we see our very constitutional principles at stake, and this is where Congress has an obligation.

Right now, we are seeing with ICE in America, this Congress appropriated billions upon billions of dollars, handing this Agency unprecedented sums of taxpayer money but also in that process allowing oversight to be stripped away, less accountability.

Think about this: We have appropriated to this one law enforcement Agency over $200 billion, more than the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, the Marshals Service, the Bureau of Prisons, Secret Service, TSA, and the Coast Guard combined. ICE in America has a bigger budget than those eight law enforcement organizations, billions upon billions of dollars, over $200 billion.

And yet what do we get? Greater accountability? Greater oversight? No. We get lowering of hiring standards. We get reduced oversight. We get internal watchdogs removed or weakened. We get body cameras still absent, as we saw in these last two murders, as if we can't afford them.

More money, more power, less accountability, less scrutiny, less oversight--this is not conservative government. The fiscal conservatives on both sides understand that you don't shovel money toward an organization, outstripping most law enforcement Agencies in the entire United States of America, whether those that are investigating drug trafficking or insurance fraud or illegal arms smuggling. No, $200 billion--the most spent for ICE--and you get less accountability for those taxpayer dollars and then when tragedy strikes, less accountability for actions of horror.

This is dangerous, not just to families that are being pulled over and detained and thrown onto pavement. It is not just dangerous to the horrible deaths of the names that I have mentioned. But it is dangerous to our democracy.

But perhaps those who have passed under these circumstances, we should listen to them. Perhaps we should listen to their last words.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, his last words:

They are killing me.

Joan Sebastian Guerrero, his last words:

I tried to stop.

Nicole Renee Good, her last words:

I'm not mad at you.

Alex Pretti, perhaps words that should penetrate us now, his last words:

Are you OK?

Now, I thought about those words:

Are you OK?

``Are you OK?''

And that is the question. Are we OK? Are we OK? Are we OK when fathers are killed on their way to work? Are we OK when systems of oversight have virtually disappeared? Are we OK when we entrust the extraordinary power, when we entrust that power and yet the people in power face less accountability to the people that put them in power?

Are we, as a nation, becoming so numb that the death of law-abiding people by agents does not motivate us to ask: Why is this happening in America, under what justification? Are we shrinking from our duty as Americans to value every life and understand that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?

I don't think we are becoming numb, but I worry that the Senate is consciously looking away; that we are not doing our sworn constitutional duty. Our Founders, in their genius, decided to set up a government with checks and balances.

What happens to that government when the article I branch of the government here in the Senate does not ask questions like Alex Pretti did, does not look for answers like people are demanding, does not ask for oversight, not just over the $200 billion being spent but doesn't ask for oversight when the most horrific imaginable thing can happen, when law-abiding people are killed? Are we not asking for answers?

This Senate swore an oath to the Constitution. We have an obligation to provide checks and balances, to conduct oversight, to demand transparency, to hold the executive branch accountable when power is abused. Today, we are failing in our constitutional duty. Today, we are failing our democracy. Today, we are failing families that are mourning and grieving.

Look, this is not an immigration speech. It is not a speech about whether we support strong borders. I do, unequivocally and firmly. America must have secure borders. It must enforce its immigration laws. America must protect all of its communities from any threats.

The first words of our founding document talked about forming a government of common defense and the safety and security of our communities. But we can never ever abandon the fundamental precept that this is a democracy, and therefore we must have accountability.

We are not an autocracy. We are not an authoritarian government. We are not a monarchy where we have Kings and Queens above question, above accountability, and above the law.

We are a democracy, and the very mission of this body is to hold the Executive accountable when they are taking Executive action, especially when they are using the greatest power that could be entrusted into a government that is to take lives, to kill people. To minimize that, to watch people die in our streets without accountability or transparency is a direct assault on the foundational ideals of who we are as a people.

``Are we OK,'' he asks. Are we OK? This is the revolutionary idea of America. No person, not a President, not Senators, not judges, no person is above the law--not a Federal agent in an unmarked car and undistinguished uniform with a gun in their hands firing through a window and killing someone.

Power without accountability is not strength. It is the beginning of tyranny. Every government is asked whether it will preserve the principles it inherited. This is our moment. This is why the Constitution envisioned this body. And yet we are failing in that duty to provide oversight, accountability, checks and balances.

And the consequence is the repeated tragedy within this Agency of seeing people killed on our streets. We owe these families, we owe our democracy an independent investigation. I demand that from my colleagues. I call upon an independent investigation, and I should be joined by a chorus of my colleagues with the conviction that this is not right or left. This is why we were elected in the first place and why we put our hands on our Bible and swore an oath to that Constitution.

I am anguished. I am angry. This is an inflection point in our democracy, another one that seems to be coming with increasing speed and rapidity. We make this presumption that this Nation sits upon a bedrock that will never crumble.

Well, I am telling you, I am not afraid of any nation outside of our own. What I am afraid of is the corrosive, cancerous corruption of a nation who swears an oath to ideals but does not fulfill them in their duty.

I don't know what to say when we have another dead person, when we are seeing people in our streets, law-abiding, loving their families, and they are asking those questions: Who are we in this Nation?

I pray that this Senate changes course, and instead of silence they answer with a commanding conviction that we are the United States of America. We are a nation of laws; that no one, be they the President, be they a Senator, be they an officer in the street, no one is above the law.

Mr. President, I don't have written remarks for this, but I have been stunned that we here in this Nation are at war. We are unequivocally at war.

And I did write down what I have heard from leaders. Let me quote, on March 9, the President of the United States said:

[T]he war is very complete, pretty much.

On April 7, the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, our former colleague here in the Senate, said:

[V]ery shortly, this war is going to conclude.

On April 8, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary, said we had ``achieved every single objective on plan, on schedule, exactly as laid out from day one.''

In June, Secretary Rubio came to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, upon which I sit, and testified under oath declaring that ``the war is over.''

Yet that same day, we had kinetic exchanges with Iran. June 18, Donald Trump said the United States had ``defeated'' Iran ``totally militarily'' and that the memorandum of understanding ``probably is unconditional surrender.''

Let's fast-forward to July 14: Missiles and drones are still flying. The war is still raging. The President has achieved none of the goals.

I know what has happened though is that we lifted sanctions on Iran. They got billions of dollars of oil sales done. We have seen the greatest energy crisis in my lifetime upending global oil markets, but more important to me, seeing people's gas prices go up but not only their gas prices, what have we seen? We have seen that everything that touches that fuel source, the transportation of goods and services, has made prices go up for families all across our country.

I have seen the suffering, not just of the American people with higher costs but American military who are being held over and over and over, put in harm's way, hundreds injured, 14 dead, and what have we achieved? The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. The President said that he wanted to deal with the highly enriched material. It is still in country. The President said he wanted regime change. We have a more extreme regime. The President said he was going to get unconditional surrender. They have not unconditionally surrendered. They are firing at our soldiers right now.

Every goal he laid out for a war that he did not come to Congress, as the Constitution says--everything he laid out has not been achieved.

And even the memorandum of understanding that he said was so great had so many holes of Swiss cheese that it fell apart, and here we are back at war.

And what is the President's plan? Can one Senator here say, tell us, what the President of the United States is trying to achieve as we spend billions and billions of dollars a day, a week, in this conflict?

What is he trying to achieve right now? Nobody knows the plan. This is ``deja vu all over again,'' as the great New Jerseyan, Yogi Berra said. This is yet another quagmire in the Middle East with no plan, with no strategy, with no clear objectives, with Americans putting their lives on the line.

And what are we doing here in this body? Nothing. We are going on this week as if this is business as usual. A bunch of us are trying to force more oversight votes or--excuse me--war powers votes.

But this body is doing nothing as a President is spending billions of taxpayer dollars, upending our national economy, putting lives at risk in a war that has achieved nothing but made things worse with the Strait of Hormuz closed.

And what are we doing, Congress? Nothing to check a President that is clearly out of control, who is clearly out of his depth, who is clearly not the great dealmaker because he failed in making deals with Iran before this deal and--even though he claimed to have one--it clearly fell apart.

We have war powers. The Constitution is clear. Yet, you are letting him for month after month after month--since February--conduct a war that is depleting our military reserves, coming at a great cost and sacrifice to military members and their families, and every American is paying the price for it in their everyday costs.

This is outrageous. This is unacceptable. And this body is trying to normalize this: Oh, just another day in America. Well, no, we are at war right now, and we have an obligation to either stand up and vote in favor of that war or stop it.

This is one of the most unimaginable, dystopic realities we are in right now, where the very body that has the power to declare war is not doing anything and letting this President continue to get us into a quagmire. And now he can't even tell us why we are in it, what he is trying to achieve. He is desperately scrambling to get the Strait

of Hormuz open, which was open before he started this war.

This would be funny if it wasn't so tragic, if it wasn't costing so many lives, if it wasn't costing so much of our taxpayers moneys, and if so many Americans weren't hurting as a result of it. Come on, now.

How could we be complicit in this unjust war that has no clear objectives and that nobody could articulate a strategy to achieve any objective or get us out, conducted by a President who has lost all authority as our Commander in Chief because of his blunder and mistake and lack of strategy and lack of forethought?

And the very body that was put in place to provide checks and balances, to provide oversight, to hold on jealously, as our Founders said, to the powers assigned to this body, we are doing nothing but surrendering.

And I am not going to surrender on this. I am not going to let this be normalized. This is wrong, what we are doing. This is wrong in every way you look at it. It is a folly. It is a disaster. It is a failure.

And all we need is the majority of this body to say enough, that we are going to hold hearings, that we are going to do investigations, that we are going to bring the leadership of the executive branch here to sit before the American public and explain these months--this 6 months of this war--what it has truly cost us, what we have lost, and how we are going to exit. It just makes sense, but I am seeing none of that.

I am going to yield the floor, but I am going to, again, ask this body to do its job, to create a democracy people can rely on, to end the suffering of the American people, to stop this heinous cost of a war with no strategy, no clear objectives, no reason, that is unconstitutional.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I want to talk about a real crisis in America that we are not talking enough about. We have a farm crisis going on in the United States of America. It is facing our entire country. It is facing our rural areas, and it is facing some of the most noble Americans in our country who are part of a great tradition and a great heritage that is vital to all Americans.

We are in the midst of a farm crisis, and we are in the midst of a nutrition crisis. And despite the need for Congress to step up to this moment, to meet this crisis, and pass a bold farm bill, it is not happening right now.

Since we passed our last farm bill in 2018, we have lost over 150,000 farms--most of them small farms. That is an average of 51 farms we have lost every single day for the past 8 years. And the farmers who have managed to hang on are telling me that the economics of farming simply do not work for them anymore, and they fear that we are on the brink of another 1980s-type of farm crisis.

I am hearing more and more now from farmers about the reality that most of them have to seek off-farm employment just to be able to keep their families afloat.

Now, this trend has been going on for years. It is a trend that we saw under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents. It demands a bipartisan response. I know the policies of this administration, though, are making the situation worse for farmers--not better. They are acting as an incendiary to this horrible fire.

We see this President's reckless tariff policies have driven up costs for farmers; President Trump's reckless war in Iran, which closed the Strait of Hormuz, drove up costs for our farmers; USDA's decision to cancel critical programs that farmers were relying upon such as local food purchasing programs for schools and food banks--these are all things that have severely hurt our farmers. USDA's staffing cuts and field office closures have further injured our farmers, and I could go on with that list.

But the heart of this problem that our farmers are facing, the heart of the problem is the massive amount of corporate concentration that has taken place in our food system over many decades as both Republican and Democratic administrations stopped enforcing our Federal anti-trust laws.

Farmers are now being squeezed by monopolies on all sides. A handful of companies now control the inputs that farmers need like seeds and fertilizers and drive up those prices. And at the same time, farmers now have very few buyers for their products, and so they are not being paid a fair price for their crops and for their animals.

Back in 2018, as I worked on my first farm bill here in the Senate, I went on a tour to meet with farmers--not just in New Jersey but also in Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas. Some of the farmers I met with were Democrats and some Republicans, but what I heard consistently from all of them was that our current farm system was not working for farmers.

Farmers and ranchers told me about how decades ago they would have many buyers competing and bidding up the price for their livestock, but now, today, they often only had one buyer who was able to dictate a low purchase price undercutting them as they made more profit.

I heard heart-wrenching stories about farmers whose land has been in their families for many generations but were now on the verge of losing their farm.

Farmers told me about how the current system was created to keep farmers growing commodity crops like corn and soy for animal feed rather than healthy foods to feed their communities they cared about because nearly all of our farm bill subsidies and safety net programs are designed to benefit big farmers growing a handful of commodity crops but not to support the farmers that grow the food that people eat like fruits and vegetables.

And these farmers were right. While our Federal dietary guidelines tell us that 50 percent of our diet should consist of fruits and vegetables, less than 10 percent of our farm bill agricultural subsidies actually go to farmers that grow fruits and vegetables.

And that has led us to the second crisis I mentioned: The nutrition crisis in the United States of America.

Diet-related chronic disease is now the No. 1 killer of Americans. Every single day in America, 2,700 people die from diet-related diseases. That is nearly a million Americans dead every year from what we eat.

Half of adults are now prediabetic or diabetic--one in four of our teenagers are. Half the children alive in this country today are projected to be obese by the time they are 35. Cancer rates in young people are climbing. Dementia rates across our country are climbing. And a chorus of doctors and researchers are now tying this explosion of diet-related diseases directly to the ultraprocessed foods Americans are eating every single day.

And so what our farmers need right now--and what all Americans need-- is for Democrats and Republicans to come together and pass a much bolder bipartisan farm bill that provides immediate assistance to our farmers--the assistance that they desperately need.

We are losing farmers every day, and this body and the House and the President are not rising to meet this crisis.

Farmers are wondering: Who is fighting for us? We need to show them that we are--in concrete policies that address their issues, that address this farm crisis, and for the millions of Americans suffering from preventable diseases that affects the nutrition crisis too.

Farmers in America--our fellow Americans that farm--need a farm bill that provides substantial emergency financial assistance to all of our struggling farmers--and especially our specialty crop farmers who have so far been shortchanged in this administration.

Farmers need a farm bill that puts more money into conservation programs and begins to reform those programs to better serve farmers and help them diversify their farms.

And farmers need a farm bill that makes other policy changes to help our farmers and ranchers--policy changes like restoring mandatory country-of-origin labeling, reforming our Federal checkoff programs that are so broken, strengthening the Packers and Stockyards Act to protect our farmers and ranchers from abuses by big meatpacking companies creating a real farm safety net for specialty crop farmers in America.

Farmers need a bold farm bill that reinstates funding for healthy food purchases from our local farmers for schools and food banks.

Farmers need a bold farm bill that scales up programs like SNAP Double Bucks that purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from small farmers and gets those healthy foods to families that are participating in the SNAP program.

Not only would a bold farm bill like that be a lifeline to our farmers, but it would be an example of using food as medicine and provide healing--healing--to Americans suffering from diabetes and other diet-related diseases.

But unfortunately, how did the House of Representatives--the Republican-led House respond in this moment? Well, they passed a farm bill that fails to meet this crisis, that fails to lead when

people are looking for help, that fails to meet the needs of our farmers and our families. They passed a farm bill that would hurt our farmers by preempting State laws such as Prop 12 that create new markets for our farmers.

The Senate now has to do better. Democrats and Republicans in this Chamber must come together. We must put aside poison pills such as Prop 12 preemption and pesticide preemption and negotiate a bold farm bill that helps our farmers and families and meets this crisis that has been growing and growing and growing.

And at a time when we are seeing President Trump's policies causing food crisis to increase at an alarming rate, that bold farm bill must reverse the destructive Republican SNAP cuts that already left nearly 1 million of our children today going to bed hungry.

I hope that we rise to this occasion in the Senate. I hope that we are a nation that knows our fundamental health and well-being rely on American farmers. They protect our heritage. They are stewards of our land. They are the hope for a better, healthier future.

Let's stand together, join together, and be bold, be strong, and bring about a better deal--a new deal--for our farmers.

Mr. President, this week, not many hours from now, we are going to celebrate Juneteenth.

We all know the story of Juneteenth, that there were slaves in Texas that had not gotten the word that they were free. A civil war that cost so much blood and treasure to this country--no other war has seen so many Americans dead--and yet, at the end of that war, many, many people had not heard the Emancipation Proclamation, did not know they were free.

It wasn't until that fateful day on Juneteenth that slaves--now free people--in Texas heard about their freedom. There was jubilation. There was celebration. And the tradition of Juneteenth started.

I am very familiar. It is hard for me to walk on this Senate floor, this sacred civic space--it is hard for me to walk here and not recognize the history.

Right after Reconstruction, we saw the first Black person ever to walk on this floor. We saw a Black Senator and a Black Senator elected to this body--not popularly elected--but back then we put our legislators in the Senate by votes of State legislatures.

We saw House Members come from Southern States, as well, being elected in free, fair elections in that Reconstruction period--because freedom in America is not just defined by not having chains. Freedom in America means being able to participate in this democracy. And in that brief period of the Reconstruction era, we saw free and open elections. African Americans rushed to the polls and voted at 70 and 80 percent and began to elect people in fair elections. We saw multicultural legislators. We saw Blacks and Whites in States sharing power. It was extraordinary, this brief window of time.

But then the Reconstruction period ended, and a reign of terror fell throughout the South. We saw Black elected officials, Black judges, Black mayors being dragged out of their offices, beat, and some of them lynched. We saw laws being passed by State legislatures to bar Black people from voting, to put on poll taxes and other extraordinary hurdles to stop African-American participation and African-American voting. That very idea of being free was now undermined and undercut by a set of unfair laws.

And what happened to Blacks in the Senate? What happened to Blacks in the House of Representatives? Well, they disappeared.

I know the last speech--I have read it before--by George Henry White. The last Black person, in 1901, gave the final speech, and he predicted that one day African Americans would return to our Federal legislature, would return to the House of Representatives, would return to the States. It is called the ``Phoenix Speech'' because he predicted that one day Blacks would return to these bodies, one day elections would be free, one day we would reclaim our democracy of one person and one vote. It was 1901, and he was from North Carolina. And it wouldn't be until the 1990s that another Black person would come to be elected from North Carolina.

From those days in the 1870s and 1880s, with that reign of terror and the denial of vote, it wasn't until the 1960s that laws were secured, passed through the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House, that gave the right to vote a more fair and equal chance. It was called the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this extraordinary piece of legislation that secured the right to vote for African Americans.

And, finally, African Americans start returning to our legislature. We saw Edward Brooke get elected to the U.S. Senate. We saw Carol Moseley Braun be elected to the U.S. Senate. The third person was Barack Obama, elected to the U.S. Senate. And I was No. 4--the fourth Black person in history to be elected to this body.

After this history of horror and struggle and pain, after girls were killed in a bombing, the Edmund Pettus Bridge marchers beaten on Bloody Sunday, Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner being killed in Mississippi, the stories of horror of those folks who tried to stand up for the right to vote, tried to fight to advance the cause of equal voting--finally, in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed--equality at the polling place, justice returned. And this body and the Chamber across the Capitol began to see, as was predicted by George Henry White, Blacks come back to Congress--justice, fairness, equality secured by this Chamber, secured by Congress, signed by a President.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 held strong and allowed that fairness to be seen and allowed voters to have a fair say.

But here, as we get ready to celebrate Juneteenth and those ideals of freedom, I have to stand here on this Senate floor, recount this history, and say that we are at another crisis point in our democracy because the Supreme Court now has gutted the Voting Rights Act, eviscerated section 2.

And what has happened as a result? Before the ink was dry, we saw Southern States--those same States that, a century before, used the legislative power at the State level to eviscerate Black voting fairness, they raced really quickly to draw congressional lines on their maps with the express purpose of diluting African-American voting power, literally eliminating districts where African Americans had fair representation, in order to stop them from having a voice in Congress.

Here we are celebrating Juneteenth, but there is an irony--a painful, bittersweet truth--that is being told that, right now, we are seeing legislature after legislature in the very States that made up the former Confederacy moving with all deliberate speed to try to stop African Americans from having a fair say, a fair voice, equal rights in voting. And the consequence of that is already being seen.

Just like George Henry White, who knew he would not last one more election cycle, I see colleagues now who know that their districts have been diced up with intentionality in order to stop their voters from having a representative in Congress.

What did our ancestors struggle for? What did generations who swore an oath to this flag that this would be a nation of liberty and justice for all, what do those people who died in the movement, what do those folks who struggled and sacrificed, what do those folks who literally watched, finally, fairness and equality coming to maps in the South, what are they to say now?

I can't stand on this floor as one of the few and still only a handful of African Americans ever to serve in this body without knowing upon whose shoulders I stand, the debt that I owe, the price that they paid so that we should have a Federal Government that is truly of the people, for the people, and by the people.

We know our history is full of dirty tricks and unfair games that were played to stop some people from voting, so that even though those folks made up majorities in their communities, they would have no say in Congress. It is a bitter, ugly, wretched history that we have overcome. It speaks to the greatness of our Nation that we have overcome. It speaks to the mightiness of a rainbow coalition of Americans--Black folks and White folks, people from all backgrounds-- who joined arms and sang songs and marched toward freedom that helped

this country to evolve and to grow into a more perfect Union.

And here we are, on the eve of Juneteenth, and we see not a stride forward but a stride back, but a step back, but our democracy being knocked down again by people who do not believe in the ideals of a democracy, of fair voting, fair maps, fair representation.

But I am here to tell you right now that progress is not always linear, that we are not in a nation that always, always marches forward. We have seen setbacks before. We have seen challenges, pains, and sorrows. What I am here to tell you is that this most recent dark chapter that is ongoing right now will come to an end. I am here to tell you that weeping may endure through the night, but joy cometh in the morning. I am here to tell you that we may have a setback and we may have a falling down, but this is not a failure. This is not final. We will fight.

I am not talking about a physical contest. I am talking about what makes democracies thrive, which is when we stand up and organize, we stand up and mobilize, we stand up and make sure that our voices are heard.

On this Juneteenth, we need to recommit ourselves, like our ancestors did, to the highest ideals of our democracy, which are freedom and liberty. And how are these rights secured upon our Nation? It is by people in this country standing up and securing those rights through action.

We are not a nation whose story is powerful people preying upon the powerless. We are a nation that has shown that the people hold the power and that the power of the people is greater than the people in power.

Six people in black robes, they were wrong in Plessy v. Ferguson; they were wrong in Korematsu. We overcame them then, and we can overcome them now.

The people united for the cause of freedom is the great story of America, and it is time that our generation--benefiting from the fruits of liberty, from the toiling hands of those in the past--it is time for our generation to earn the right of democracy by sweating for it and struggling for it now.

This Juneteenth, let us cry ``freedom'' again but not with our mouths. Let's do it with our sleeves rolled up and ready to organize and mobilize in the days to come--because this next election is not right or left; it is right or wrong--so that we can elect people to this body and the other that will restore voting rights, that will restore voting freedom, that will restore the ideals of fairness. That is the end, that is the aim, and that is how we overcome again. That is how we, as a people, secure liberty and justice for all.

Mr. President, I stand here with joy and sadness. I stand here with humble gratitude that I cannot express.

Today, I want to recognize one of the more extraordinary people I have worked with in my life and one of the more extraordinary members of my staff, whose today is her last day. That person is my dear, dear friend Sarah Rojas.

It is very difficult to put into words the role that Sarah has played in my life and on my team. For 13 years--for my entire time as a U.S. Senator--she has done almost every job in a Senate office.

She is our utility player. She has been a special assistant to the director of special projects, acting communications director twice, to legislative director, to deputy chief of staff, to one of my most trusted counsels. She has played every position imaginable.

To her colleagues on my staff, she is that leader everyone looks up to and someone that everyone genuinely considers, like I do, that she is a friend, someone you can lean on.

To the people of the great State of New Jersey, gosh, I wish you all knew how incredible of a public servant she is and has been to New Jersey's interests. She is one of those people who, for millions of people in my State--her labor, her work, her counsel have made things better for New Jersey.

To me, I don't call her Sarah; I call her, usually, Rojas.

I am in public. I am in the light. I get jeers and applause. I get recognition and calls to do better. But I stand strong through it all because of the people around me, the people who encourage me, who keep my feet on the ground, the people who don't let my positive press get to my head or my negative press get to my heart. Sarah has been one of those great ballasts in my life--keeping me balanced, keeping me grounded, keeping me inspired and encouraged.

She has superpowers, to be honest with you. One of them is her empathy. One of them is her capacity to care. One of them is her ability to make everybody around her feel her love.

I am devastated, actually, really sad that Sarah is leaving DC, although a consolation I get is that she is going to be in Jersey. I love the fact that she is going home.

Watching Sarah for 13 years of her life--I have seen her get better every day. Sarah has grown as a person, and she has grown as a leader. Thirteen years being witness to her blossoming is a privilege.

I want to thank not just her today on the floor, but I want to thank her incredible family. I want to thank her husband Nick--not just for rescuing her from those days when she was a single woman; I want to thank her husband Nick for being the rock in her life that has made her stronger for us all.

I want to celebrate her parents Joy--such an appropriate name--and Chris, whom I want to wish a very happy Father's Day to.

Chris and Joy, thank you for raising such an extraordinary child.

I love what James Baldwin said. He said that children are never good at listening to their elders, but they never fail to imitate them. Sarah is who she is because of her parents.

Her sister Emily, I am grateful for as well. I have a sibling--two siblings, actually, and they are also part of that circle of support. I want to thank her for that.

I thank them all, all of her family, for support, for encouragement, for the latitude when she has had to work late hours, for showing up when I have had to take her away from perhaps the center of her life, which is Sadie.

Sadie, I hope one day years from now, somebody will show you this video. I don't know if you will understand it in the present moment, but I hope you are going to look back and hear what I say to you, Sadie.

Sadie, you should be proud of your mom. You should be in awe of her. Sadie, your mother is one of the more phenomenal people I know, and that makes me confident you are going to be phenomenal, too, Sadie. You have a rock star mom--maybe not known by millions, but to all who know her, she is a star that illuminates not just your life but all of our lives.

Four years ago, Sarah lost a very important person in her life, and I want to honor them as well: her grandmother Gloria Rojas. Again, these names like ``Joy'' and ``Gloria'' say so much about the people.

Gloria was this extraordinary trailblazer. It is another reason why I know how she got to be so great--how Sarah did. Gloria was the first Latina broadcast journalist in New York. She was a big deal. But she once said that the big news stories are not always the most satisfying; it is the little stories where you can really make a difference.

It is this idea that is such a human thing. It is this idea in life that is just so true, that the smallest things we do often matter the most. Every interaction, every conversation, every person you encounter, making them feel seen, making them feel valued, making them feel worthy, that is the legacy we can leave.

Indeed, to Gloria, her granddaughter Sarah, that is the legacy she is carrying forward, this understanding that in most days of our lives, the biggest thing we can do will most often be a small act of kindness, decency, and love. If you live every day of your life with that kindness, with that decency, with that love, you will make a change in this world that you cannot even fully appreciate or understand.

That is the last 13 years of Sarah Rojas--showing up every day, showing up fully herself, with unapologetic empathy, with courageous compassion, with remarkable consistency. Every day that I have known Sarah Rojas, as we tried our best to serve the State of New Jersey, every day, she illuminated our lives.

So I am excited, Sarah--I am excited, Rojas--to know that you will continue to serve, continue to make change, and continue to make a difference. But on this day, your last day serving in the

U.S. Senate, I want you to know that you are loved; I want you to know that your grandmother in Heaven, that your daughter as she grows, that your parents and all of us who love you, we recognize you, we celebrate you, and we thank you for showing a level of patriotism that is the core of what we have talked about for years--that patriotism is love of country and you cannot love your country unless you love--truly love-- all your country men and women.

Thank you, Sarah, for 13 years of service. Thank you for loving and living so large. Thank you for making an indelible difference in your service to the U.S. Senate.

Yes.

I yield the floor.

I call up my amendment No. 5803 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, I rise to offer an amendment that would fund the independent Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. I trust independent offices to provide oversight.

The Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman would conduct random inspections of detention facilities, receive and investigate complaints from detainees, and make recommendations for improvement.

The office was funded by us in a bipartisan appropriations bill each year since 2019, but it was unilaterally shut down by Donald Trump. My amendment would reopen the office, giving it full funding, and give it teeth to provide oversight of private corporations like the GEO Group which taxpayers are giving over a billion dollars to run our immigration system.

I believe it needs oversight and accountability; that is the job of Congress. In Newark, NJ, right now what is happening at Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center owned by GEO Group, is a moral stain on our Nation. They are providing inadequate access to medical care, substandard food, no ability to communicate with their families. There should be independent eyes looking at that and investigating it.

Thank you very much. I urge my colleagues to vote for independence, oversight, and accountability.

Mr. President, it might surprise you, despite the words of my colleague, that pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act and all budget resolution discipline, everything that applies, I move to waive all my good colleague's points of order for the purposes of the pending measure.

And I ask for the yeas and nays.

Vote on Motion

Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 398, S.J. Res. 154.

Mr. President, in 1974, Congress passed a landmark piece of legislation, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The ECOA was put in place to protect people from what was widespread discrimination in getting and using credit. Congress knew how vital credit is to Americans, and they worked to expand that not just to women but also to minorities.

In the five decades since, the ECOA has always protected people not only when they get a loan but from unfair treatment once they have it-- whether they can renew the loan, whether the terms change during the loan, and more.

Now, look, as recently as 2022, a study found that women in America paid an extra $40.3 million annually in higher premiums for auto loans they received at car dealers compared to men. This is wrong. We have a nation on the principle that all are created equal and deserve equality.

And so, despite these problems, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, our Nation's consumer watchdog, saw that banks and lenders were closing more accounts and doing more unequal things, and they acted-- again, because credit discrimination is not just about getting the credit you need; it is about making sure you have fair treatment.

These decisions to deny credit, to revoke credit, to charge unfair prices are wrong, and we all know that. We know that when people have challenges, we should be there to make sure there is equality.

In 2022, the CFPB took action to make sure the laws and the practices that are at the heart of fairness in our country were put into place. Unfortunately, the Trump administration scrapped the ruling that helped to make sure we get to equality.

I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the restoration of fairness and equality in our country with this.

I yield the floor.

Vote on Motion to Proceed